Shadow

A short story about living darkness.

I wrote this off of a prompt from 501 Daily Writing Prompts: 501 Prompts to Unleash Creativity and Spark Inspiration by Tarn Wilson. I took a perfectly innocent prompt for a whimsical fantasy story and made something twisted. My wife, who graciously helps out as my primary editor, was not amused that I went from a story about a ‘possum having peppermint tea with a new friend to…this.

Eve always woke up between two and three in the morning. She got up and went to the bathroom, stumbled to the kitchen for a glass of water, and settled back into bed to sleep until her alarm went off at six. She had terrible depth perception, and thus had to turn on her light whenever she got out of bed. Tonight, when she turned her light on and started walking toward the bathroom, she noticed her shadow cast on the wall.

It waved at her.

Eve paused, noticing the oddity but thinking only it was a trick of the light or her sleep-fogged brain producing an image that hadn’t really happened. When it waved again, however, she pinched herself to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. The pinch hurt. She was wide awake.

Eve went to the bathroom, cleaned up, and walked back out into her bedroom. She was met by her shadow once more, which again waved at her.

“What the Hell?” she whispered. She felt her pulse quicken and her breathing grew sharp and short. She couldn’t perceive how a shadow could hurt her, but this was all still very alarming.

Then her shadow ran out of the room.

Eve followed the shadow out into the hallway, where she saw it on the wall near the steps. The shadow moved toward the stairs and then disappeared, completely independent of Eve herself. She turned on the hallway light, went to the edge of the stairs, and looked down onto the floor below. Her shadow was there, but it seemed to be standing upright, as if it was now three-dimensional, a living creature with no discernible features: merely a shape coming out of the floor.

The shadow appeared to lift a finger up to where its face would be if it had one. Eve cocked her head to the side and whispered “Do you want me to be quiet?” The shadow appeared to nod, then beckoned for her to come down the steps.

Eve did as requested. The shadow led her through the dining room and into the kitchen. It walked right up to the knife block and took out the knife with the longest, sharpest blade.

Eve’s jaw dropped. “What are you doing?” She realized that she was not engaging in the activities of a sane woman. Not only was she witnessing her shadow come to life and pick up a cutting implement, she was also talking to it. However, anyone—or anything—reaching for a knife in her presence was enough to make her nervous.

The shadow shook its head and waved its hand as if trying to calm Eve. It walked by her; Eve followed it with her eyes as it did so. It beckoned her to follow and led her to the living room.

Buck was stretched out on the couch, dead asleep. His tie was loose and his shirt unbuttoned. He had undone his belt and slipped off his shoes. The shadow stood over him and pointed at him.

Eve shrugged. “He said he was going out with the guys and he would be late.”

The shadow shook its head. It picked up Buck’s phone from the coffee table and slid its finger across the screen. She handed it to Eve. The phone was unlocked.

“What do you want me to do with his phone?” Eve asked, struggling to be heard over Buck’s snoring while not being loud enough to wake him.

The shadow walked up to Eve and pointed at the icon for Buck’s text messages. Eve clicked on it. A list of the text messages Buck had sent and received appeared. The shadow reached down and scrolled down the list, stopping when one from a woman named Sheila was at the top. The shadow pointed to it.

“Sheila’s his boss.”

The shadow shook its head and pointed at the message again, more emphatically this time.

Even huffed and clicked on the message. She started reading the last few messages.

“You’re coming over after work, right?” read a message from Sheila.

“Absolutely. Been looking forward to it all day long,” was the reply Buck had sent.

“Are you sure your wife doesn’t know anything?”

“Please. She’s so oblivious. We could fuck in my living room and she wouldn’t notice.”

“That sounds like an idea.”

“Maybe we can do that next Friday. Pretend we’re high school kids trying not to get caught by our parents.”

“Sounds fun. See you tonight, lover.”

Eve’s hands were shaking. Her chest felt tight. Tears ran down her face. She felt feverish and sweaty. She looked at the shadow. It walked back to Buck and held the knife over his throat.

Eve nodded.

The shadow slit Buck’s carotid artery. An arc of blood erupted from the open wound. Buck suddenly awoke, choking and screaming and clutching at his neck. The shadow plunged the knife into his chest and stomach over and over again with furious rapidity. Eve watched as the shadow butchered her husband. She didn’t say anything. She merely stared at the carnage unfolding before her.

As quickly as he started, Buck stopped screaming and his body went still. He was covered in blood and his shirt was torn to shreds. His eyes stared, open and blank, at the ceiling. His breathing had slowed and he gasped, gurgling with each intake of shallow breath. Soon, after a deep rattle and a final exhalation, he stopped breathing all together.

The shadow dropped the knife on the floor and walked toward the edge of the room. It pressed itself against the wall and went flat again. Eve stared at it, waiting for it to wave and motion to her again. It did not. It merely stayed there, an imperfect reflection of Even’s shape.

Eve looked back down at the phone. She re-read the messages again. They were no less shocking the second time around, or the third, or the fourth. She finally dropped the phone on the floor and sank to her knees. Eve cried, sobbing at first but then wailing. She looked at her husband’s dead body and screamed “Why?” over and over again, wanting an answer even though she knew that none would come.

She finally stood and crept back to her bedroom, shutting off lights as she did so. Eve crawled back into bed and settled into a troubled sleep. Her final thought before drifting off was that there was a dead body in her living room and there was no story she could tell that wouldn’t frame her as the prime suspect in the murder. This didn’t bother her as much as she thought it should. Her husband had been unfaithful. Eve felt confident she could find a way out of this predicament. All that mattered to her in the moment was that her husband had gotten what he deserved, and she didn’t even have to lift a finger to do anything.