The Shadow Box: Paranormal Suspense and Dark Fantasy Thriller Novels

by Travis Luedke

  “You have to be strong for me. I need your help.” Her words worked a spell to calm my anxiety and nausea, and gave me the resolve to go on. Not trusting myself to speak, I nodded and took deep calming breaths.

  She began to pull up the cuff of her hoodie sweatshirt with her one good hand, looking to me for help. I really tried to be careful, but it hurt her. A lot. She whimpered and grunted as I lifted her arms up while pulling the ruined hoodie inside out. Since she wore nothing underneath, her nudity revealed the rest of her injuries. Her left arm had already turned black and blue, and her elbow had a deep bloody gash. She must have landed on it coming down on the roadside.

  “Is it broken?” I asked while looking closely at her arm.

  “No!” She snapped. “But it hurts like hell!”

  “Oh god, I’m so sorry.”

  I found the courage to look her directly in those unnerving amber eyes. For a moment her face held the accusation, but it quickly morphed to acceptance. I kept staring in her eyes, purposely avoiding looking at all her girl parts. It felt wrong to look at her, and there was nothing remotely sexy about this naked, bloodied girl with eyes full of pain.

  I was at a loss as to what to do next. My only thought was to get a very big Band-Aid, the sum total of my medical knowledge. She had robbed me of any common sense.

  “So what now?”

  She held out her left hand, she could barely move it. Her entire arm was at a weird set of angles. It was wrong … out of socket. I could actually see the freakish displacement of her shoulder.

  “You’ve got to help me put it back in place.” She hissed through thin lips and gritted teeth, “There’s no way I can do it alone.”

  Wishing I could do anything but what she asked of me, I grabbed ahold of her arm.

  “Tell me what to do.” I spoke much more boldly than I felt. This was gonna hurt. I did not have the stomach to hurt her anymore.

  “Pull my arm out straight!”

  She snapped, and I just did it. She cried out as I yanked on her arm. With a single look, I knew to keep pulling. Teeth clamped tight and eyes scrunched in agony, she reached around with her right hand to feel the joint of her left shoulder.

  It finally occurred to me how truly weird this was. She should be bawling her head off, crying for mommy or daddy, something characteristic of a girl who’d just been hit by a car. This was all wrong. A spike of fear slowly worked its way into my gut. All sorts of strange thoughts and possibilities began to materialize.

  She jolted me out of my imaginings with a command, “Pull harder!”

  I pulled until I lifted her right off the bed. Hanging in the air, she shoved down hard on her left shoulder with her right hand. She gasped in agony as her arm visibly popped into place with a wet crunch. I panicked and let go, and dropped her back onto the bed. Little mewling, whining noises accompanied her agonized shudders. She hyperventilated, her face squished into a mask of pain. I knew she was hurt, bad, but I didn’t have a clue what to do. Tylenol and Advil weren’t gonna cut it. Could use some of those pills Justin swiped from his mom right about now.

  When she caught her breath she ordered, “Bandages!”

  Is this really happening? There’s a naked, bloody girl on my bed, barking orders at me.

  Despite the overwhelming strangeness, I rushed to my father’s bathroom and dug through dirty laundry to reach the first aid kit under the sink. As I returned to my room, she was pulling on the index finger of her mangled left hand. It hurt to watch.

  We both cried out as she straightened her jammed finger. She looked at me sharply and snapped, “Hurry up.”

  I stepped up with the hydrogen peroxide and paper towels and began meticulously cleaning each wound as she indicated, starting with the disgusting mess of her left thigh. I worked slowly and methodically to clean out the gravel and dirt from her flesh, being oh-so-careful to cleanse the wounds thoroughly before applying the bandages. That’s what she told me to do, so that’s what I did.

  Eventually, she pulled the blanket over her. I struggled not to look at her. I don’t know if it’s possible for a boy to avoid looking at a naked girl on his bed, but I tried.

  She ended up across my lap, gritting her teeth, moaning, occasionally whimpering, but mostly quiet. This girl had courage I had never seen before.

  She twitched and hissed if I was too rough.

  “Sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m really trying to be careful.”

  “It’s okay. Just … be more careful.” Her words were muffled as her face buried in my pillow.

  At some point, with her whimpering and biting the pillow, she actually fell asleep on my lap. After what seemed like hours, I had cleaned up what I could and taped it all up with gauze and bandages to the best of my ability. She would probably need stitches and who knows what else, but she might actually be okay, if she made it to a doctor, like immediately.

  I didn’t know for sure how long I’d been going at it, but by the time I cleaned up the pile of bloody paper towels and gauze, it was already midnight. I slid out from under her as careful as can be, and washed my hands in the bathroom sink. Probably never get the blood stains out of my mattress, but I could at least get it off my hands. I looked like hell. Shaggy hair needed cut bad. My plain dark eyes were streaked with red, bloodshot. I had grown like two inches this past summer, and I looked too lanky, too skinny, almost gaunt. I could look my Dad eye-to-eye now.

  I looked as tired as I felt. “What the hell am I doing?” How stupid. Why take all this on my own shoulders? My phone probably had a charge by now. Why didn’t I call 911? Why didn’t I go get help?

  She murmured something again. Sounded like, “don’t leave me.”

  I checked on her. Still face-down on my pillow, covered in my blanket. I just wanted to sleep more than anything, but I needed to make that phone call.

  She looked up and caught me with her eyes. It was that I-know-you-were-thinking-of-leaving-me kind of look. “Come here.”

  No escaping this girl.

  I sat beside her on the bed, wishing I could do something more. I really needed to call for help. “Don’t go. I need you here.” She mumbled quietly, but she wasn’t taking any chances. She wrapped her good arm around my leg and burrowed in, using me as part of her pillow.

  “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”

  I didn’t even know this girl’s name, but I knew that we had something special. An intimate connection. We shared a strange and grisly connection. I’d never forget this night as long as I lived.

  “I gotta call 911. You need more help than I can give.”

  Her grip on my leg squeezed tighter and she mumbled. “Later.”

  The adrenaline peaks and crashes of this insane night had drained me. I could barely keep my eyes open. I snoozed right there, next to a girl covered in the patchwork of my amateur bandages. My first night with a naked girl in my bed – not the way I imagined – not at all.

  In my sleep I dreamt. Slim pale limbs slipped and slid all over my body, snaking around to ensnare me in an inescapable embrace. I dreamt of whispered words, intimate things spoken in a foreign tongue. The Hoodie Girl called out to me in anguish by that other name, Mikhail.

  I woke later as Richard came hurtling through the trailer, a drunken train wreck barreling past my room to the master bedroom. Instant paranoia hit me. My father would open the bedroom door and see me there, a girl curled around me in bed. All hell would surely break loose.

  Right.

  The moments my father cared enough to talk to me were few and far between. And Richard had probably camped out at The Ripple until closing, blasted drunk. He’d be passed out in minutes.

  With the noise, she stirred a little. Her uninjured hand slid up under my shirt to rest on my chest. This girl was friendly. I had a sense I wasn’t the first guy to share a bed with her. But I was so damn tired I didn’t care. I accepted her embrace and fell back asleep, dead to the world.

  * * * *

  I woke to daylight warming
my face. I propped up on my elbows cautiously. I didn’t want to jar Hoodie Girl.

  She was gone.

  I lurched up and scanned the empty room in disbelief.

  How could she be gone? She couldn’t even walk! I’d been planning to take the day off school to get her to the hospital.

  I must be losing my mind.

  The bloody bandages on the floor proved I didn’t dream the entire crazy ordeal. It all seemed so unreal by the light of day. Where did she go? Did she live in the trailer park? What a bummer. All that stress and anxiety and the little brat just up and disappeared without a word.

  Left me with her blood stains on my sheets and mattress and her bloody bandages – but why take off the bandages?

  Her absence gave me a sense of relief and loss. The weight of responsibility had been taken off my hands. I wasn’t doing so good carrying that weight. But it hurt that she just took off. I wanted to see it through, see her recover. I wanted to know she was okay.

  Wouldn’t make up for what happened, but at least I’d know.

  Then I noticed the money on the dresser, six fifty-dollar bills. What the hell? Why would she leave $300? Where do girls walking down the side of the highway come up with cash like that?

  No way in hell Dad would ever leave money laying around, not for me to find, definitely not on my dresser. It had to have been her. She left all that money, either by accident or on purpose.

  I didn’t like the idea of her leaving money. What was she paying me for? What did she expect?

  The weight of responsibility settled firmly back on my shoulders.

  I picked up the money and shoved it in my drawer, and that’s when it hit me.

  “Not again.”

  I hate that feeling, the sense of vertigo that always accompanies one of my dreams. They weren't really dreams, not exactly, more like waking nightmares. I was loathe to admit what they actually were – visions. To me it seemed a curse. The curse I'd inherited from my mother, rearing its ugly head yet again, slamming all my senses and awareness to another time and place.

  It was not exactly pleasant.

  Suddenly, I stood somewhere else. I saw the Hoodie Girl standing out in the cold night, at the edge of the tree line at the trailer court, staring intently at my bedroom window. She blended into the shadows, watching, waiting. The whole scene had a super-creepy stalker vibe. I sensed a series of emotions accompanying the vision; her loneliness mixed with a desire to be included, to be inside my room, a need to be with me. There was a movement at the window of the trailer, a shadow eclipsed the lighted window. With this signal she moved forward, almost floating, gliding up into my opened window. She moved graceful, like one of those ballroom dancers whose feet never seem to move as they slide across the floor. A new pileup of her emotions swept over me; joy, she was very happy to be included in my life, accepted.

  Without warning a second vision flashed, replacing the scene outside my trailer like a roller coaster switching direction, leaving me breathless, guts twisted in vertigo. I was now standing inside the Moses Lake High School gymnasium, music blaring, lights flashing and twirling off a disco ball in the center of the dance floor. There were students everywhere decked out in formal tuxedos and shiny, iridescent dresses. My attention was magnetically drawn to the center of the dance floor. Something important there, something I was meant to see. This had to be the strangest thing I’d ever witnessed, me … dancing … not just dancing … getting down. I was having a grand ‘ole time.

  What the hell?

  I was dancing, at a formal dance, in a tuxedo. How weird is that? I’d never gone to a single junior high or high school dance, and I’d definitely never worn a tuxedo before. Life must be throwing me some real curve balls if this was my future.

  My gaze was pulled away from this bizarre sight to another person standing at the sidelines of the dance floor. Rachelle Werner, alone, dazzling in a shimmery blue strapless dress. The vicious scorn on her face ruined the effect of her stunning blonde hair, ice blue eyes and elegant dress. She stared directly at me. Not the here and now me, but the one cutting footloose on the dance floor in this future moment. I was having a blast, but Rachelle stabbed venomous daggers of hatred into my back with her eyes. It occurred to me then to take a closer look at who I danced with. Before I could focus on the blur of gyrating bodies and shimmery dresses, another vision slammed me into elsewhere.

  The roller coaster vertigo rocked me again as the scene jump-flashed to the skate park. I’d never had more than one vision at a time, and it was really messing with my equilibrium. Felt like I was gonna hurl. I stood on the sidewalk just outside the waist-high fence surrounding the skatepark. My attention zoomed into the parking lot, to the tinted windows of a particular car and passengers. It was Hoodie Girl, with an older, much larger boy who was all over her.

  Literally, all over her.

  The guy was kissing, groping, cavorting, basically dry humping the Hoodie Girl. Instant revulsion and hatred curled my hands into fists. I went straight for the car.

  I wanted to smash the sick bastard taking advantage of my Hoodie Girl. This dude who was twice her size completely smothered her.

  A furious indignation rose in my craw. I reached to yank open the car door and POOF! The vision ended. Just like that. I really wanted to know who the hell that was, but I hadn’t seen shit. The dark window tint obscured my view.

  “Fuck!” Back in my bedroom, I staggered and panted hard, trying to reign in my anger.

  She may be gone, but I knew I’d see her again. My visions were straight up, never wrong. Even when they showed me someone’s death.

  * * * *

  Chapter 4

  Monday, September 16th

  Apart from worrying about Hoodie Girl, who had disappeared for an entire week, I now had a big fat problem with Justin. He was not happy about the video I posted to my Facebook. Though I had called him every day, left voicemails and text messages asking how he was doing, he ignored me.

  And then a few days ago the text war began.

  Justin: WTF? (What The Fuck) I cant believe U sent that video 2 every 1!

  Mike: Sorry dude, it was pretty cool. You screamed like a girl. Did U see all the comments it got on my FB?

  Justin: PBIAB! (Pay Back Is A Bitch) Im gonna stomp UR ass when I see U!

  Mike: Come on! U got 2 admit that was some funny shit! ROTFLMAO (Rolling On The Floor Laughing My Ass Off)

  Justin: U better run the next time I see U!

  Mike: Sorry Jus, Im only playing around. U posted that pic of me pissing on the roadside and that video when I railed my nuts at the skatepark. What’s the big deal? I’ll take it down.

  Justin: Im not playin bitch! Im gonna beat you like the white trash U R!

  I tried calling Justin several more times to apologize. He ignored me, the wicked silent treatment.

  Silent indifference is pure evil. It means they don’t even care enough to rise to the bait. Silence takes away all your power. I had always enjoyed getting a rise out of Justin. He handled it so poorly. Made for great entertainment.

  So, I had stopped by Justin’s house on Northshore drive. I’d never seen him so mad before. I had hoped to calm the situation down. Justin answered the door in a t-shirt and boxer shorts, a scowl painted on his face. “What the hell do you want.”

  “I just wanted to say I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to be cruel or anything. I thought it was funny. I guess it wasn’t very funny to you.”

  “Ha, ha, ha. Really fuckin’ funny. See how I’m laughing? You know what else is gonna be funny? Me and Tommy and the whole friggin’ wrestling team are gonna beat the shit out of you in front of everyone. I’ll be laughing really hard then.”

  “Dude, I’m sorry, I deleted the video. I was just playin’ around. Look, you can check my Facebook page. It’s gone.” I held out my cell phone to prove it.

  “Gimme that.” He snatched my cell out of my hand and threw it across the yard. “You’re not sorry, but you will be.”


  I chased that phone like a dog after a Frisbee. I had saved up for two months to buy that phone. Luckily it landed in the grass, nothing broken. “Asshole!” I had a mind to put a foot up his sore ass.

  “Get the hell off my property!” He stood there pointing his finger out to the street, Mr. Righteous.

  “You wanna be an ass? Fine! Send your gay wrestler buddies after me. See if I give a shit!” I stomped off.

  “Better watch your back Mikey! Moses Lake is a small world!”

  “Did they test you for drugs at the hospital? I bet they’d like to know how much of your mom’s Xanax you were on. Butt plug.”

  “Go fuck yourself, Mikey. Post that on Facebook.”

  He used to be my best friend. We used to tease each other all day long, joking. Nothing was ever really serious. So why was he being so serious?

  After stewing on the situation for a day, I decided I didn’t owe Justin anything. And if he was really planning to jump me, why should I be apologizing? And what made him so special that he could treat me this way? So what if he had money, and a nice house on the waterfront. So what if my Dad doesn’t have a dime, and we live in a white trash trailer park.

  What gives him the right to treat me like trash when he’s climbing up the side of the damn playcenter high on drugs?

  I don’t have very many friends. I can count them on one hand. I was so angry with Justin. I couldn’t leave it alone. They say you shouldn’t text when you’re angry, but I was too pissed off to care.

  The text war resumed.

  Mike: What up Jus? R U still walkin funny? Maybe U should stock up on the hemorrhoid cream.

  Justin ignored me.

  Mike: Hey ramrod, what up? A couple extra inches in the pooter? Have U been able to take a crap yet?

  Justin ignored that one too.

  Mike: I hope this has been an enlightening experience. Im sorry U had to fall on a fence post 2 finally realize U R gay J. R U planning on coming out of the closet now?

  He couldn’t let that one slide.

  Justin: Stop calling me! Im never talking 2 U again!