Stone's Shadow

by Martin McConnell

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “You'd be surprised.”

  Scott’s face grew warm, and it wasn’t from the fake fire. “So if I'm not happy like everyone else, then it means I'm imagining things?”

  The priest smiled and turned to Maria. “Is he always like this?”

  “You should have seen him when we met,” she said. “He’s kind of clammed up by nature. One of those quiet types.”

  “Hey.”

  “Oh c’mon, Scott. You won’t even join us at the bar.”

  “Shut up.”

  Father Kendall interrupted, “Did you see it?”

  “No.” She shook her head. The light in the room enhanced the sharp lines of her smooth legs. Scott caught himself staring, and his head twitched, returning his gaze to the priest.

  “So,” said Father Kendall, “You think you have a demon living in your apartment?”

  “A demon, or ghost, or something. I don't know what it is, but I know I'm not imagining it.”

  “You got some sleep last night, though?”

  “Yeah, I mean. It woke me up when it was still dark out. I’m not sure what time it was. I didn’t bother to check. After that, I went in the coffee shop, looking like a crazy person. The guy that works graveyard sat me in the kitchen and let me sleep.”

  “Any sightings today?”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “I got in and out of my apartment with what I needed and tried not to look at anything. I don't see it during the day.”

  “Well, it's interesting. If you want, I'll call my friend. He might be able to meet with you tomorrow sometime.”

  “Tomorrow?” Scott sighed and turned to Maria. “Can I crash at your place?”

  “I don't think my boyfriend would be okay with last minute plans like that. Sorry.”

  “You can stay here if you want,” said the priest. “I can't promise the most comfortable accommodations, but there's a couch in the other room. You don't want to go back to your apartment, I assume?”

  “I'm not going back there until the sun comes up.”

  “It's up to you. The couch is in there if you want to use it. Maybe I can arrange a meeting in the morning.”

  “I need to be at work by six.”

  “Afternoon then?”

  “Sure.”

  “Okay,” said Maria. “If you're all settled up, I'm going home.” Her phone pinged, and she pulled it from her purse. Her fingers tapped away at the screen while she talked. “If you have any problems, call me.” She looked up. “Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Father Kendall stood and led the two of them to the entrance. Maria left without saying another word, and as the door closed, Scott realized that he was out of his element. He was in a strange building with a new person. He didn’t like sleeping in the same place with other people, even when he was a kid. His arms began to shake.

  “You want some coffee, or a soda or something?”

  “No,” said Scott. “I'm kind of tired. I just want to get some rest.”

  “All right then. There's a couch right behind you. I can grab a sheet and a blanket out of the closet. Maybe I can find an extra pillow or something.”

  “The couch is fine. I’m already being a bother.”

  “Anything else?”

  Scott shook his head.

  “All right.”

  Father Kendall disappeared into the study, while Scott examined the uncomfortable looking couch. He ran his fingers across the rough texturing, thinking that he'd almost certainly wake up with a rash, but it was better than trying to sleep in the apartment. As he sat, a beep from his pocket prompted him to check the phone. Low battery.

  Father Kendall returned with a mass of linens.

  “I don't suppose you have a phone charger.”

  Kendall dropped the blankets beside him on the couch. “What kind is it?”

  The priest examined the device at the end of Scott's outstretched hand, and then disappeared again. He returned a moment later, and handed a black cord to Scott. “That should work. Anything else?”

  Scott shook his head. A moment later he was alone in the entrance hall of the building. Near the door, the wall glowed with light from the adjoining room. He laid down, and pulled the covers over himself, rolling and tossing to find a comfortable spot to prop his head against the arm rest, but there was no such place, even using his jacket as a pillow. The zipper and leather folds were more of a distraction than he anticipated. Tiny fibers from his beard tickled his face.

  He pulled one of the sheets around and under his head, using it as a buffer, but if he woke paralyzed again, then he might think it was trying to choke him. He stood up, and rearranged the linens so that they folded into a a kind of sleeping bag, and crawled back on the couch. Some of the really stiff fibers poked right through like tiny sticks, but after a couple minutes he acclimated to the sensations. His eyes closed, and he drifted off into a nightmare.

  10

  The city shook with a force that caused his old apartment building to crumble. Bricks rained from the heavens in clusters of black shards that occulted the raging fires in the distance. This was the aftermath of . . . something he couldn't remember. He felt scared and trapped, not by the carnage, but by a sense that someone else controlled his thoughts and actions.

  Dogs ran through the streets, matted and filthy, and standing over four feet tall. They seemed to obey his thoughts, or the thoughts tunneling through him from another source, and attacked anything and everything that stirred. Funnels of golden sparkles poured out of screaming victims, the kind of sparkles that aren’t detectable by human eyes. They were the sparks of fear from those passing on. Moist and sweet.

  Maria lay trapped under a boulder cut from the ancient facade that used to be her café. Blood spurted from her chest as if pumped out with every pulse of her fading heart. His belly filled with laughter. How could it be that he would laugh at her? Why? Why was he doing this? Why did they all have to die?

  He turned a corner, and the fires vanished. The brief disorientation of leaving one dream for another quickly faded, and he was seated calmly in an open cove in the forest, picking at the gravel. He examined a shattered piece of limestone between his fingers, somehow knowing that he would die any moment. He tossed it toward the tree line, and those eyes appeared.

  “Just a bit longer.”

  His fist filled with gravel, and he chucked it toward the demon as it raced toward him. A sharp pain in the side of his neck was followed by the sensation of hovering above his own dead corpse.

  Scott shuddered as his body came to life. He fought against the linens, stripping himself of the mass as quickly as possible. He tossed them to the ground, knocking his phone off the coffee table at the same time. It hit the wooden floor with a thud. Once the bout with the blankets and sheets concluded, he sat up straight on the couch, and covered his face, still breathing heavily and sweating.

  He finally remembered a dream in living color, and he was glad to wake from it. The sky through the big windows had begun to lighten, and his phone rang with its usual alarm. He pushed the pile of blankets to the side, uncovering his shoes, his specs, and the lit phone, flashing and chiming.

  “Paul,” said a voice nearby. “I have something for you. Young man believes his apartment is being haunted. . .”

  It took a few seconds to realize where he was. This was the church building, and the priest was likely the one speaking. He listened to a few more muffled phrases, and then fixed his attention on the table. He planted the glasses on his face and scanned the top bar on the phone to ensure it had charged in the night.

  “I'm not sure. He can tell you better than me. He called it a shadow with red eyes. Okay. Yeah, this afternoon. Okay, thanks Paul.”

  The priest appeared in the room a couple minutes later. “You're awake. What’s all this?”

  “Just a bad dream. It happens. I’ve been a little edgy lately. I’m sorry for the noise.”

&
nbsp; “No worries. My friend said he could meet your around three. Will that work?”

  “Sure.”

  “You all right, son?”

  “It’s just.” He wiped a thin layer of sweat from his forehead. The scab burned as his hand swiped over it. “Nothing, just a bad dream.”

  “Was it about the shadow thing?”

  “No. Something else. It’s normal for me. I usually don’t remember my dreams, so I can’t tell you anything about it.” He contemplated telling the truth, but it wasn't worth it. He knew that admission of one dream would be enough to call his real experiences into question.

  “You going to try to get some more rest?”

  “Nope,” he said, as he eyed the cell phone screen. “Time to go to work.”

  As he said it, the backup alarm chimed. He thumbed the phone to shut it up. He always set two, a few minutes apart, as he had a bad habit of turning one off in his sleep.

  “All right. I guess I'll see you this afternoon.”

  Scott stood, stretched, and walked straight for the door. He didn't know how to end the conversation, and figured it best to just leave and avoid any awkwardness.

  Customers. They were like normal people, but underwent a magical transformation once they entered the sliding doors, becoming self-important monkeys. To them, he was just a vending machine behind the counter. He wasn't even human, or at least not on the same level of the evolutionary chain. He was a subordinate slave human, there to provide a service with no back talk. Some of the clerks he worked with deserved the treatment. They were just as self absorbed as the customers, often playing scrabble on their phone instead of cleaning the place between waves from the parking lot.

  Today was Scott's turn to be self-absorbed. He couldn't resist getting sucked into daydreams about the monster. He wondered what it could possibly want with him, to the point of forgetting to turn gas pumps on until he heard swearing.

  He wasn't anyone important. He was no fighter of demons. Maybe the antidepressants and antihistamines broke some kind of unwritten law of the universe. Maybe the creature functioned like a shark does in the ocean, killing off the weakest and slowest creatures. All wimps deserved to die before they could procreate. He didn’t need the monster for that. He doubted his ability to ever find a date, much less breed. He popped a pill around noon to quell the growing frustration.

  Two o'clock took forever to arrive, but after it did, he found himself walking back to the big church. People passed in and out through the large doors freely. The sidewalk was crowded with them, though they mostly ignored him. A couple of them shot a look of horror at his forehead, but said nothing as he passed. At the door of the rectory, he met Father Kendall, and followed him inside. The priest was wearing his white collar today. The rest of his clothes looked identical to his dress the night before.

  Another man dressed in all black sat in a chair by the fire. He stood as they entered the library. He was skinnier than the priest, and pale, he wore a neatly groomed beard, and his hair was short, jet-black, and gelled up into little spikes. The only adornment was a gold chain with a drop pendant ending in a gleaming cross.

  “You're Scott, I assume.”

  “That's me.”

  “I'm Paul.”

  They shook hands, and the three men sat around the fireplace. Scott pondered why Paul would introduce himself without some kind of title. Not Reverend Paul, or Father Paul, or Paul the exorcist. Just Paul.

  The man stared at him while clutching the gold crucifix between his fingers. As the questions poured out, he flicked and fiddled with it. Maybe this was some sort of special prayer. Or maybe the guy just had a fixation with twirling random objects in his fingers.

  The same old dribble, told again for the umpteenth time. Tiny red lights as eyes. A mass of shadow in the middle of the room. Tentacles. He couldn’t even be sure that the story wasn’t changing a little each time he told it.

  Paul rubbed the golden cross as he probed with more questions. “What kind of medications are you taking? How much sleep do you get? How long has your father been dead? When was the last time you saw your mother?” This felt less like help and more like a government interrogation.

  Scott popped a pill from the bottle in his pocket, and of course Paul wanted to see the prescription on the white-capped orange tube. Through the course of the discussion, his expression never changed. Not a smirk or a frown, just a pale, stone face. Was that a serious look, or a signal that he was captivated by the story? Or was it boredom? The discussion continued for more than half an hour.

  “So, do you think you can help me?”

  “I could do a blessing on your apartment, but it'll do no good if we have the wrong prescription, and I'd hate to mislead you into thinking that'll fix the problem.”

  “What do I do then?”

  “You keep saying over and over again that as long as your eyes are shut, it doesn't harm you. That's a defense. I would say use it. I'm not convinced that you aren't dreaming this whole thing up. You're on a lot of medications. You might be experiencing side effects.”

  “Then why did this just start out of nowhere? I haven't had these—these side effects before. I haven't had any. I didn't come down with insomnia. I gave myself an oddball sleeping pattern, and it's been working for me. Okay?”

  “I'm not a doctor, and I can't comment on drug effects. I can't endorse them, nor can I tell you to drop your treatment. What I can tell you, is that if this isn't a hallucination, I don't think a house blessing is going to do you much good. I've heard of spirits similar to what you’re describing. Not sure how I feel about these shadow people. Most cases are isolated, and the ones that aren't, well.” He paused for a moment. “Let's just say the reports aren't always from the most credible people.”

  “Like an insomniac pill popper?”

  “Exactly.” Without missing a beat. Not a single flash of compassion or a flicker of understanding. “I'll talk to the bishop. If anything else happens, let Father Kendall know, and he can relay it to me. In the meantime, I'd suggest that you go home, and if the thing shows up, keep your eyes shut. Don't panic, and try your best not to worry about it. Anxiety and fear have a way of attracting negative energy. I'll see what I can dig up on the wire. Is there a number I can reach you at?”

  “So you think I'm crazy?”

  “I didn't say that.”

  Scott's eyes rolled to the corner of the room, then to the archway leading to the exit. This was all a waste of time. How he ever let Maria talk him into coming here, he didn't know. And people wondered why he didn't take their advice.

  “Yeah, but if you aren't going to call.”

  “I'm just going to check into some things. I'll call you.”

  As Scott's stare returned to Paul, he noticed a slight change around the eyebrows. His face had softened. Barely enough to notice, but after almost an hour of back and forth, any tiny change from the unmoving image of Paul’s expression became obvious. The corners of his brow chamfered slightly. Somewhere, buried in this guy’s stone stature, rested a caring individual, but it wasn’t something he advertised. Then again, it could just as easily have been a trick of light. The guy was impossible to read.

  “All right,” said Scott. He called out the number as Paul entered it into his phone. Then he stood up for a much needed stretch.

  “Got it,” said Paul. “In the meantime, try to stay calm. Maybe you could find a book on meditation, or something positive to think about.”

  “Stay calm?” Scott turned for the door.

  “Are you in a hurry?” Father Kendell asked.

  “I'm late for class.”

  Outside he went. He wondered for a moment if he hurt their feelings by leaving so abruptly, before remembering that he didn't care. They weren't helping him, and he didn’t know either of them two days ago. To them, he was a crazy pill-popping college kid that probably fell into a batch of bad drugs. To him, they were a couple superstitious bats that took their position way too seriously.


  Scott stood on the steps of the church, staring at the buildings across the street. He figured his case would soon be filed with the local church organization under crazy people. He needed to get home and grab a couple books before class started. He wasn't lying about that part. He started down the walk, watching the concrete pass beneath his feet, but occasionally glancing up at a passing car. As he crossed the street onto a familiar stretch of pavement, he looked ahead toward the café. She wasn't there. Maybe she caught wind of the rumors about him and found a safer refuge. He passed the first entrance, then the second. Something caught his arm with force and spun him around.

  Laptop guy. Unshaven and angry. His volume was set at a whisper despite the harshness of his voice screaming from inside.

  “Why are you still alive?”

  “What?”

  “Stay away from Maria. Stay away from all of us. Crawl back in your hole and die.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Listen, runt.” Laptop guy yanked him forward by his jacket lapel. “She told me what you saw. If you care about anyone, you'll stay away from her. Stay away from all of us.”

  He shoved Scott to the side, and stormed into the café.

  Standing in amazement, staring through the glass door, he watched laptop guy grab a coffee off the counter and set up at the same table as always. The computer opened, and his grouchy attitude plopped into a seat behind it. He went straight to typing without looking up.

  For someone accustomed to a lack of friends, loneliness was a constant, or so he thought. As his cheeks relaxed, a chill poured from his forehead to his shoulders. His heart splintered, and the broken shards fell upon lungs that found themselves overworked under a heavy chest, bleeding into the void that used to be his belly. He was alone like he’d never been. Despite the self-inflicted jokes about being an outcast, something gripped him in that moment and wouldn’t let go, a thought that normally passed like water was now dammed up behind a closed valve near his heart, and it struck him like a hawk strikes a rabbit. Nobody wants me around.