Shadows in the Mist: A Paranormal Anthology

by Kristine Cayne

  I gripped my umbrella with both hands, prepared to use the pointed end as a weapon if necessary, hoping a quick jab to the chest would startle an attacker long enough to give me a minor advantage in a sprint. An SUV swung around the corner, spilling light across the two figures: a young couple holding hands and sprouting dreadlocks, oblivious to the world around them. They ambled down the sidewalk and turned the corner. I sighed to release tension.

  The trick to walking alone at night was to keep strangers at arm’s length, so if a pervert grabbed at you, there was room to maneuver out of his reach. A Construction Work Ahead sign dominated the center of the sidewalk. I debated whether to risk nearing the darkened doorways of the closed shops to my left or step out into the street, when a wet, sucking sound caught my attention, as if thick saliva was choking off someone’s breathing just behind my back.

  I wished the love-addled couple were still within sight.

  Spinning around toward the gurgling, I expected to find a homeless man wrapped up in a dirty sleeping bag like a cloth taco, bedded down in the nearest doorway. But found only a broken glass door laced with duct tape. Tingles crawled up my spine, like long-legged spiders forcing their way upward beneath my sweater—I sensed somebody hiding in the darkness nearby. I scanned the grey stone art deco building, but the windows were shut against the winter air: No glowing eyes, filled with malice, peered back at me.

  I turned to face downhill once again. Out of the corner of my eye I glimpsed an arm swinging down toward my upper body. Before I could consider how to react, what felt like the blunt end of an elbow rammed between my shoulder blades, knocking me forward. Fortunately, my heavy winter clothing lessened the pain of the impact. But before I could recover my balance, another blow caught me lengthwise across the lower black. A hit meant to cause pain.

  “Oh God!” I cried out, unable to do anything with my arms to protect myself but slam, palms first, into the sidewalk in an attempt to break my fall. Like a metal file, the concrete tore at my skin. My umbrella clattered to the concrete and rolled down toward First Avenue. The strangled gurgling approached my left ear.

  This can’t be happening!

  Many times I had rehearsed in my mind how to respond to an attack when walking the streets of Seattle. But never really believed it would happen.

  At least not in a public street where anyone could drive by and take note.

  Yet it was happening.

  And I wasn’t kicking butt as I had imagined I would. My attacker was much stronger than the amorphous stranger I’d overcome in my daydreams.

  Jack! It’s Jack again!

  Be rational Kim!

  It was not a twenty-year old college memory attacking me. This was real.

  A spasm of pain gripped my back. I rolled onto my left side in an attempt to pull my knees inward and kick out against my attacker.

  Yet, for some reason I could not see him.

  Strong, icy fingers slid around my throat. Sharp fingernails dug into my flesh. The muscles of my neck tensed in an attempt to protect my windpipe. With both hands I grabbed blindly at the cruel, unyielding fingers. Probably a knee forced me down onto my stomach and pinned me to the sidewalk. My cry of pain when my elbows slammed into the pavement was choked off by the increasing pressure around my throat.

  Dust filled my nostrils. I bit my tongue. The dust and grit of the concrete mingled with the taste of blood. Wet musty wool filled my nostrils.

  Laughter identified my attacker as a male. He was enjoying himself. Apparently I was still alive because he enjoyed the sensation of slowly choking me to death.

  I choked out a strangled scream, hoping it was loud enough, hoping someone who heard would care.

  But it wasn’t loud enough. No one came running to my rescue. My voice trailed off as the hand gripped tighter. An increasing lack of oxygen clouded my mind. Flashes of light in my eyes gave way to redness.

  At the edge of my awareness a truck sounded its horn. Someone far off shouted. A train whistle blew and steel wheels tumbled along metal tracks.

  Then the grip loosened and soothing, cool air brushed across my throat. Gasping, I reached protectively to my throat, expecting at any moment for the strong hand to resume its squeezing.

  Then someone grabbed my forearm. My heart stalled. My throat no longer constricted, I shrieked with reckless abandon and kicked blindly, hoping to injure my attacker, make him pay for hurting me. I may not survive, but I was going to do some damage before going down for the count.

  “Hey, hey, cool it!” a male voice exclaimed and let go of me. “I’m not trying to hurt you!”

  The voice was clear without any hint of phlegm. The attack was over.

  I lay still on the ground, my mind racing to comprehend my circumstances. The hard sidewalk suddenly felt reassuring, sturdy and immoveable. I shuddered as a wave of nausea rolled through my torso.

  “Maybe she’s on drugs.” A female voice. “We should leave her alone.”

  “I think she’s just frightened.” A red-haired imitation of a Rastafarian offered me his hand. This time I noted the tips were cut off his black, woolen glove, permitting his naked fingers to poke through unguarded.

  A friendly hand. Unconcealed, not hiding.

  I grasped his hand and he pulled me to my feet.

  My knees nearly buckled out from under me. I grabbed his forearm for support, expecting him to pull away. He didn’t. I closed my eyes, willing my balance to return, to breathe through my nose and slow down the pace of my breaths. Demanding my stomach stop knotting up.

  “Thanks,” I said, letting go. I felt wobbly but could stand on my own.

  “You gave me quite a shock when you screamed,” he said, addressing me.

  Fortunately my outcry had been loud enough to capture the attention of the dreadlocked lovers. The man reeked of pot mixed with unfamiliar musk cologne, a very unpleasant combination and not too dissimilar to the homeless man I’d passed a few blocks back. However, at that moment he could have smelled like overflowing sewage. He’d likely scared off my attacker.

  His female twin giggled and pulled her black leather coat shut with one hand. “Didn’t see what you tripped over. Sorry.” Her eyes roamed about, searching for the illusory foot trap.

  “I didn’t trip. Someone pushed me. Then dug his knee into my back and tried to strangle me.” My blood pounded in my ears. I felt woozy, lightheaded, my shoulders tense with the strain of struggling to breathe. My fingers explored my tender throat.

  Even in the dim light I observed the female rolling her eyes toward her mate, expressing, “I told you she’s on drugs.”

  Did it really matter what she thought?

  I was still alive. No one had violated me.

  I leaned over, bracing my forearms on my knees, attempting to regain my sense of balance, at the same time wondering if I would be late meeting Helene. My back throbbed but, oddly, the pain had dulled.

  “You didn’t see anyone straddling my back or run off?” I brushed the grit off my dress pants and my coat sleeves. Fear had given way to anger tinged with acute embarrassment at the realization that, in front of two strangers, I’d thrashed about wildly on the concrete like a netted salmon on a boat deck.

  For emphasis, the female twirled her index finger like a whirligig then pointed toward my face. “Honey, just you and your inner demons.” Her fingernails were painted purple and, overly long, were beginning to curl under.

  “You might want to head on home and call it a night,” the male added.

  Translation: Find a safe place to come down off your high.

  Mr. Rastafarian turned his attention away from me toward his lady, a signal I was becoming boring, an intrusion into his personal space.

  I looked about the ground for my umbrella, pretending nonchalance, like nothing extraordinary had just occurred and I really wasn’t a marble shy of a full sack.

  Could it be possible an overactive imagination had gripped my throat and not a human hand? Overly concerned about w
alking alone in the dark, had a monstrous memory from my past clutched at my throat?

  My neck ached.

  No. I refused to believe it.

  Tomorrow the mirror would show the story in bruises, my skin tattooed with a patchwork of violence.

  Yet there was no one else visible but the young couple. And no weird sucking sounds, nor gurgling, nor footsteps running away down the sidewalk.

  “Thank you for your help.” I didn’t know what else to say.

  They didn’t’ respond. With backs toward me, their interest and arms interwoven, the young lovers strode away around the corner and out of sight.

  It wasn’t worth quizzing two kids who were probably high anyway. Unnerved, I resumed walking toward the waterfront. I’d probably be the subject of a hilarious blog post or snarky tweet later that evening.

  But why hadn’t they seen my attacker?

  I massaged my throat and the back of my neck, my muscles relaxing reluctantly.

  I glanced about at the darkened doorways of the nearest building and the street. No one. Quickly, I needed to find the company of others in case my assailant decided to resume his assault.

  I spotted Helene a block down, approaching the corner from the north side of the street, her waist-length hair fanning out into the breeze. She wasn’t looking in my direction, preoccupied with adjusting the right ear bud from her iPod.

  “Helene!” I shouted. Relieved to see her, I hurried toward my sister to capture her attention. Yet also frightened, because I didn’t know which direction my attacker had disappeared to and Helene, immersed in her music, was inattentive to her surroundings. I waved my arms above my head, shouting out her name once again.

  “Kim!” she shouted back. With a smile brightening her lovely face, she returned my wave with equal enthusiasm, promising a welcoming hug.

  Party traffic buzzed by toward the Pioneer Square clubs. I waited for the light to change in my favor.

  The lamplight on the street corner flickered as if bulky wings soared across it over Helene’s head. Odd, as only pigeons and sparrows were typically pecking about downtown, not birds of prey. I remembered my umbrella had rolled down the street and searched the gutter. After a red Toyota pickup darted past, I bent down to retrieve my umbrella, slightly muddied, where it had rolled off the curb. A young blonde bimbo leaned out the side window of the truck, yelling, “Eat me!” as a white Subaru sped by in the oncoming lane, two guys bobbing their heads to rap music about women’s big butts, the bass buckling the windows.

  When I stood back up to cross the street…

  Helene was gone.

  Neglecting to watch for traffic, I ran, waving my umbrella like a crazed magician, and nearly slipped and lost my balance on the decorative iron grate in the intersection. I ran past the closed restaurant on the corner.

  Laughter spilled out of the first club on party row, Nefarious, its patrons oblivious to my rising panic. Hoping I had misinterpreted Helene’s wave as a greeting when it was actually a “come into this club next door” signal, I popped into the club’s doorway. The bouncer promptly jerked me backward by my elbow out of the din of hard rock and onto the sidewalk. Two snickering guys with crew cuts slipped in around behind his back as the gorilla maneuvered me to the right of the doorway in front of the brick building.

  “I didn’t see you,” I protested as I looked up into the craggy face atop six-and-a-half feet of testosterone-laced muscle.

  “Not likely.”

  “Did a pretty woman with long black hair—?”

  “Where’s your hand stamp? I’m tired of you babes thinking you can just wink your way into this place for free.”

  But I ignored his rant. I heard Helene screaming. To my right. From around the corner leading to the waterfront.

  Gulping back the panic threatening to overwhelm me and, ignoring the protests of my ankles, I ran in my spiked boots toward the gloomy side street. Only fifteen seconds to run the thirty yards and dash around the corner.

  But I was already too late.

  Helene lay crumpled in the filth of the alley, her back oddly angled, her legs thrown apart. It appeared she’d been pulled upward by her breastbone and then dropped. My heart sank down to my feet, banging against my ribs on the way down. A lean man kneeled near her lovely face, retching violently, spewing red and black foam. His head sprouted a spiked patchwork of vegetable dyes: magenta, crimson, emerald green and sunshine yellow. His black and yellow checked wool shirt and tattered blue jeans were splattered with blood—my sister’s blood.

  Love can access untapped resources. Fury propelled me with an unaccustomed strength and speed. I aimed the pointed end of my umbrella squarely at the center of the puker’s chest and raced forward, intending to skewer him. I came up with curses, which surprised even myself.

  My attack was checked from behind. Muscular arms encircled my waist and yanked me backward. Two beefy African American men raced by me. Screaming in anger, I twisted around and discovered the bouncer from Nefarious was the one preventing me stabbing my sister’s assailant with several satisfying jabs.

  When I saw the astonished look on his face, I fell silent.

  He released me.

  I spun around. Helene’s two, would-be rescuers were sprawled near my sister, one on his back, bent and broken; the other, on all fours, was groaning and clutching at his throat.

  The fight was over.

  The dappled ghoul was gone.

  Chapter 2

  Every time I walked down the hallway toward Helene’s room at the rehab center in Northgate and returned later to my PT Cruiser in the adjacent lot, I relived that horrific night in my mind. In fact, anytime I didn’t deliberately focus my thoughts elsewhere.

  When I entered the room, our only brother Justin sat on a metal chair near the bed, holding Helene’s limp hand in his right. Whether he was weary or sorrowful or both, I couldn’t tell. Although I had entered this room every evening for a week now, I could never grow accustomed to the acrid smell of bleach that scarcely concealed the mildew clinging tenaciously to every corner and crevice in the room. And the bitter odor of the potty chair stationed near Helene’s bed. This was a scene you expected to walk into to visit your grandmother, recovering from hip surgery after a fall, not your twenty-six-year-old younger sister.

  I observed my brother for a few moments, marveling at the rare display of affection. I remember mockery and scorn and anger as his primary emotional states during our childhood, never tenderness. He grew up practicing his military face—he wore authoritarianism well and was at the top of his ROTC class at the University of Washington. And, the truth was, I stood silently because I had run out of things to say to my sister who could only respond with a variety of facial expressions. That monster had nearly ripped out her throat, leaving her without the ability to speak. Since her spine was damaged, Helene also had limited mobility.

  Justin turned toward me. I acknowledged his look with a nod and stepped to the foot of the bed.

  “Helene?”

  My sister did not respond. She continued staring up at the ceiling. I couldn’t blame her for being depressed because in moments her sultry voice, her delicate step, and her lovely hair was torn away from her. Being the lesser beauty, I was accustomed to relying upon more than my physical appearance to captivate others, but not Helene. Even her name was lovelier than mine.

  When the bandages were removed, her throat would be a spider web of scars; a good turtleneck sweater would cover them from the public, but she’d always see them in the mirror. Someone had cut away her delicate tresses till only a shag carpet imitation remained, in an attempt to conceal where the hair had been torn away from her scalp. I had consented to donate her hair to a charity creating wigs for cancer victims, but it angered me to do it.

  “Justin, I want you to teach me how to shoot,” I announced.

  My brother placed Helene’s hand upon the bed and looked at me. “A gun?” His acorn-brown eyes squinted suspiciously.

  “No
. I want to shake and spray Pepsi bottles at squirrels. Of course a pistol. Gun ownership’s still legal in this city, isn’t it?”

  He turned his back to Helene, shielding her from our conversation.

  “With your past, I can understand why you’d feel the need—”

  My face grew hot with exasperation. “Don’t patronize me. I could slap you five days past Tuesday if I wanted to.”

  Apparently not intimidated by my threat, he responded, “You’re not going vigilante on me are you, Sis?”

  His question swerving too close to the truth, I feared he caught my hesitation before responding. “I want to learn to defend myself. Obviously I cannot always depend on someone else to be around to keep me safe.”

  Justin’s face twisted into a sneer. “Obviously your policeman boyfriend wasn’t much help.”

  My stomach knotted up. It was unfair of him to blame Alex, who didn’t even know Helene and I had been out that particular night. Anger turned me nasty.

  “Neither were you, little brother.”

  Justin leapt from the chair. “You’re not blaming me for what happened!”

  “What good is all of your army training if you can’t protect your own sister!” I yelled back, momentarily forgetting I was in a medical environment.

  Justin crumpled in on himself, my words deflating him like a soccer ball kicked too hard. My arrow of anger had hit the bull’s-eye: He felt a macho responsibility for protecting his sisters and had failed.

  Helene sighed during my stunned silence, acknowledging she’d heard, yet continued staring at the ceiling. A small gesture, but enough to get me to pause and reconsider my rude behavior. I made a mental note to tape a picture of some sort up there for her to look at, something pleasant but complex enough it would take time to study.

  I lowered my voice, drawing near to my brother. “Sorry. I didn’t really mean it. I’m frustrated and I don’t have an outlet to vent.” I rubbed a hand across my mouth, but I couldn’t wipe away my angry, inconsiderate words. “Of course, I’m not blaming you. But I don’t feel safe anymore, not even in the daytime.”