by Unknown
She sobbed into Kya’s slim shoulder. “I am so sorry. So sorry.”
Kya panted and struggled to straighten. With a gentle push, she stepped away.
“Really, Rylie, let’s go. I don’t walk fast, and he is going to wake up soon enough. Besides, Mom must be worried about us.”
Shadow Man
Michael Noe
Kyle had heard the noises off and on all week; the sound of faint scratching coming from behind the basement door. But at the ripe old age of seventeen, he was far beyond the age where monsters existed in the dark, just waiting to snatch you away to a place beyond the shadows. At some point in the past he had put away the childish fear of the dark and grown up just like every other kid. He didn’t believe in ghosts, and the only monsters that truly existed wore human faces. They were paraded out nightly on the evening news; and as far as Kyle could tell it was just the natural order of the world. People were either born good or they were born bad. There were no toe monsters, and the shadow at the foot of your bed was just a pile of laundry you had forgotten to put away.
He didn’t know why the scratching noises reminded him of the Shadow Man, but they did. The more he listened to the scratching on the basement door the more frightened he became. It wasn’t just the scratching that scared him. He could have sworn there was an ominous giggle that carried through the heating vents. Of course his rational mind told him it was just the sound of air pushing through the heating ducts, but what if it were the Shadow Man waiting for him to open up the basement door so he could grab him? The Shadow Man isn’t real, he would try and reason with himself, but in those moments he was no longer the grown up Kyle who was seventeen. He was the eight-year-old Kyle who hated the dark and knew there was something in the basement waiting to grab him.
Billy Anderson was a local legend in their neighborhood. A normal kid with bright red hair, and freckles that looked as if they had exploded onto his pale white skin. None of them knew him of course, but they had heard of him. The eight-year-old Kyle had been enraptured by the story of Billy walking down the steps in the cold dark evening. Had he been scared at all?
“He just walked as if he were in a trance. Right to the basement door.” Taylor Pagget had held all of their attention with the story. He was the one who had told them all about the Shadow Man, and how the monster had found his way to Billy’s house and just waited for someone to open the door.
"Where did he come from?” Kyle had asked. Unlike his friends, he felt a great deal of disbelief in all of the stories. None of the kids who had been murdered were ever someone they knew; they were always kids that no one had even heard of, who lived on streets they were unfamiliar with. Taylor was the so-called expert, but it was obvious he was only trying to scare them.
Taylor shrugged. “No one knows. Some say he was a witch, but most people say he just hated kids. Hated them so much that when he died he came back as a ghost just to kill kids.”
“I thought he killed adults too,” Kyle replied. It was at that moment he had decided to prove to them all that there was no Shadow Man. He would visit his own basement that night. There would be nothing down there, and it would put an end to all talk of the Shadow Man.
“I don’t know, but I won’t go into the basement at night,” Taylor said. Kyle frowned, his sense of disbelief growing. It was just a story, but everyone seemed to believe it.
He had asked his dad about the Shadow Man and his father had laughed. “The Shadow Man? What have you been reading Kyle? I knew those comics weren’t good for you.”
“It’s not the comics dad. The kids at school were talking about him. Have you ever heard of him?”
“No, but I was kid once too. When I was your age, it was the Hook Man. It’s just an urban legend. There’s no Shadow Man. Have you ever heard anything in our basement?”
Kyle shook his head and knew that his father was right; and that night he would prove that there was no Shadow Man. He’d stayed awake long after his parents went to bed. The familiar creaking sounds of the house soothed him and reminded him how safe he was. The silence made him sleepy, but he was determined to stay awake. His curiosity filled him with a nervous energy that combated the oncoming exhaustion.
Finally the moment had arrived. He kicked away the covers and opened up his bedroom door. He listened for his parents, but their door was shut, so he crept as slowly as he could, avoiding the spot on the floor that creaked every time you put weight on it.
Creeping quietly he walked toward the basement with a growing sense of dread. He knew there was nothing there, but what if there was? He swung open the door as quickly as he could, the usual smells of lavender dryer sheets and the bleach his mother used when she washed clothes wafting up to him. But there was something else. Something that didn’t belong. It was the smell of rotten meat, and garbage left out too long in the sun. Among the soft clicks of the furnace was something else, a slight shuffling sound. Something was down there! His feet were frozen on the top step, the darkness was thicker than he remembered. His eyes scanned the entire basement, and in the corner he saw the shape of something. A long coat, long straggly hair. The figure had turned and giggled at him.
Kyle had run as fast as he could to his bedroom and crawled into bed. Throwing the covers over his head, he tried to rationalize what he’d just seen, but it was impossible. There was something down there. Just as quickly as he lay his head down he had fallen asleep, forgetting all about about his trip to the basement. He wouldn’t remember what he had seen, but the stories themselves remained intact. He would grow up, and like most kids he would forget about the Shadow Man.
After that night, Kyle had been afraid of the basement. In the daylight, he had no problem pulling clothes out of the dryer, but after dark he wouldn’t go near it. Every time his mom or dad went down there he would go into hyper alert and wait for them to come back up. The talk of the Shadow Man eventually stopped, and as he got older he was less afraid of the basement, knowing that he was just being silly.
“I’m not afraid of you!” A year later, Kyle had stood in the very same spot he’d been when he’d seen the shadow in the corner. The words were filled with bravado, and to prove he wasn’t afraid, he walked down the stairs with confidence and taunted what he had once been so afraid of. “You’re not real! You’re just a dumb story!” He waited for something to happen, but of course nothing did, and he walked back up the stairs into his bedroom. That had been the end of it. His fears were quickly forgotten.
Until now of course.
Now the Shadow Man was back. Kyle didn’t know why or how, but he was. He hadn’t been afraid for a very long time. The Shadow Man had been forgotten, but his stupid brain was remembering all those stories and the fear he had felt as a kid returned with it. He started looking at the basement door with dread, and a belief that something was down there just waiting for him to open the door. Once he did, he knew he would see exactly what those other kids had seen. The teeth and the smell of death would greet him as the Shadow Man embraced him in a death hug.
It was just a stupid kids’ tale. Kyle knew this…but the scratching had been real. He had heard it. He tried to rationalize it, but deep down he knew it wasn’t rats, or just air pushing at the door. He was acting like a baby; there was nothing to be afraid of…but that didn’t stop him from waking up each night convinced that the Shadow Man was waiting for him in his basement. He was old enough to know that the boogey man wasn’t real, but the noises said otherwise. Kyle would fall asleep convinced the Shadow Man had gotten one of his parents, then the next morning he’d see them both at the kitchen table laughing and talking, and feel like the world’s biggest idiot for believing that somehow the Shadow Man was real.
It was just a harmless story kids told to scare each other. That’s what kids did. It was kind of their job. Kyle had been afraid of his basement for years, but just like all of his friends, they had grown up and forgotten all about the Shadow Man. It was just how those stories were supposed to work. You gre
w up, forgot about them and became involved in other things.
So if he were real what had brought him back? On the street where Kyle lived, all the kids were the same age and no longer feared the dark. No one had moved in recently, and as far as he knew no one had talked about the Shadow Man in years. It was as if he’d never even existed. He was like a toy you’d become bored with; at some point it would end up in a box of stuff that no one used anymore.
The more Kyle thought about it, the more he was convinced that the Shadow Man had returned because no one remembered him. Kids feared other, newer and scarier monsters these days.
Guys like Freddy Krueger who had knives for fingers, or Jason Vorhees who hunted dim witted teens in a place called Camp Crystal Lake. Horror films had replaced the childish fears, and made the stuff of his childhood just urban legends.
Kylie decided that the Shadow Man had been waiting and plotting his revenge. He wanted people to remember him. It didn’t matter if the stories weren’t real; he would make them real. Did it sound a little crazy? No, it sounded totally crazy, but the sounds had been real. Kyle knew he hadn’t imagined them.
Kylie was still half-asleep when he had heard the noise. He sat up quickly with a scream locked in his throat. Disoriented he crept to the stairs and waited for the noises to start again.
You were dreaming, it was a logical explanation, but he hadn’t even really been asleep.
Sometimes all you have to do is close your eyes and you start dreaming. Okay maybe that was true, but it didn’t help ease his fears. Kyle quickly crept down the stairs as quietly as he could. Warning bells were exploding inside his head, but he shoved them aside. Sweat dripped from his forehead as he reached the bottom stair.
The living room was bathed in shadows. The sound of the grandfather clock in the dining room was like a beating heart. The only light he could see were the streetlights that shone weakly through the parted curtains. He took a deep breath and counted to ten. The basement seemed a mile away, despite the fact that it was just beyond the dining room.
The noises didn’t come from there. There is no Shadow Man. Then a noise from the kitchen grabbed his attention. He strained to hear it, but there was nothing. It was as if the noise had stopped as soon as he had noticed it.
Why are you down here? You know you’re not going to find anything. Maybe not, but he had to be sure. Moving into the dining room he heard the noise again. The handle to the basement door was jiggling. It was slow at first but the closer Kyle got to the basement the more frantic it became. The jiggling stopped…and then there was a new sound; a scratching that started out soft and grew steadily louder. It reminded him of a puppy that was outside and wanted in.
The light above the kitchen sink was on, but the shadows where he was seemed thicker; and the closer he got to the door, the more frantic the sounds became. It was as if something knew he was down here. Kyle was at least thankful that the door was locked. It had become a habit since he’d started hearing the noises, and it gave him a bit of comfort to know that he was protected.
A sudden loud thud startled him. Something was pounding on the door so hard it appeared to buckle in the gloom. The dull thuds echoed loudly in the empty kitchen. Kyle’s mind fractured as the door exploded outward, the splinters flying towards him and puncturing his exposed arms.
Kyle tried to move, but a shadow emerged from the darkened basement and grabbed him. There was nothing he could do. His legs refused to work as he felt hot breath caress his cheeks. All he could see was the vague outline of a person, but he could smell the horrible stench of rotting meat and blood. He could see the shiny outline of a mouth and teeth. So many teeth that dripped saliva onto his pajama top. A strong hand grabbed the back of his neck pulling him closer to its mouth. As the teeth closed around his throat, Kyle knew once and for all that the Shadow Man was real…and had finally found him.
Believe Me Now?
Roy C. Booth and Chad Michaels
“So, believers, I ask you: Have any of you Pennsylvanians seen this Night Stalker? If you have a story to share, the phone lines are open. The sun has set, the moon is out, and I hope you’re all safe inside your homes.”
The lights on the switchboard lit up like a Christmas tree.
Bill smiled.
Bill Burton had moved from Dayton, Ohio to the small town of Pennville, Pennsylvania after his locally aired radio talk show, Believe, received over one hundred phone calls in one night from listeners seeing, and allegedly being attacked by, a seven to eight-foot tall shadow with glowing orange-red eyes. Bill never took the stories seriously, but he knew there had been numerous other sightings of the mysterious creature in Pennsylvania.
So, that is where he relocated, along with his hopes of building his show of the bizarre and unbelievable up to be a national contender. All he needed was a solid, continuous hook that was unique to always fall back on, like how other shows did the same schtick with Bigfoot or UFOs.
He was banking on this Night Stalker to be it. He took some time to research the being and its legend, and Pennville was, in his opinion, the current hot spot. The stories were larger than life, and although it was a pretty hard pill to swallow, basically harmless.
Until the first death.
Bill had read a copy of the young woman’s autopsy report from Dr. Alan Wise of the Pennville city morgue, and was amazed at the graphic detail involved.
Deep, penetrating lacerations, reported as animal-like in nature, her stomach split open, throat torn out, two inches shy of decapitation. There were no internal organs missing, which was usually the case in animal attacks. The coroner had discovered a black, inch long piece of organic material in one of the gashes. It emanated a black, wispy smoke. Before he was able to view it under a microscope, the piece had faded away as if it had never existed.
That part of the report had sounded a little far-fetched.
But, all in all, Bill knew he could spin every last bit of it into ratings gold.
“First caller, you're on the air.”
“Wooo! First! Thanks, Bill from Hanover, great to be on the show! Glad you're on the air!”
“Thanks, caller. So, what is your opinion on the Night Stalker? Is it real or just some kind of elaborate hoax?”
“Ummm...I dunno, it's all weird and all, y'know, and I've got a cousin in Spring Cove who claims he saw something like that along the roadside while driving outside of Gettysburg, but he's kind of, you know, out there. Believes in UFOs and stuff like that. Thinks we're going to have the Rapture soon. Not somebody playing with a full deck, y'know what I mean?”
“I hear you, caller. It'd be really nice if someone could get a picture or videotape of this thing, and I'm not talking about any of that extra grainy, out of focus stuff, either. I mean, it always seems that the people who encounter these things have some of the worst equipment ever. Okay, time for another call.” Bill took the next call blind, pushing one of the switchboard buttons at random. “Caller, you're on the air...”
“Hi, Cory Stevens from McSherrystown here.”
“Hi, Cory, what's your opinion on the topic?”
“I think it's complete garbage, if you ask me.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah, some kind of failed publicity stunt to get more tourists in the area, like what they try to do with the Jersey Devil or with that Lake Champlain monster. And it's not going to work anywhere
near as well here, I can tell you: The whole set up is just too far out there.”
“I hear you, Cory, but isn't that part of the appeal of the Night Stalker? The absolute lunacy of it all? I mean, it's all so fantastic and unbelievable. And you're right, if it is some kind of publicity stunt, it sure needs to be localized better, if I catch your meaning...”
“Hey, Bill, you have to take this call,” Alex Sanders, the show's engineer, said, waving to get Bill's attention. “It’s Dr. Alan Wise, the coroner. He sounds freaked out.”
Bill nodded and pressed the switchboard button.
>
“Hello. You’re on the air. What’s your name and where are you from?”
“M-my name is Dr. Wise,” the man replied, winded. “W-we spoke before about t-the incident here in Pennville.”
“I remember, Dr. Wise. Do you have an update for those listening?”
“I-it’s here. Damn thing looks like a living shadow,” Dr. Wise said, his voice trembling. “I didn’t have time to call the police.”
“How are you talking to me right now, Dr. Wise?” Bill asked, looking at Alex and shrugging his shoulders. “Are you on a cell phone?
“I saw its eyes, my God, it’s not human,” Dr. Wise whimpered. “It’s searching the room for me. I’m going to die, it’s going to kill me!”
“Hang up and call the police, Doctor. Are you still there, Doctor?”
Alex and Bill heard a faint beeping on the doctor’s end.
“No… No…my phone is losing power,” Dr. Wise whispered. “You’ve got to help me. Call the police…you have…call—” The phone reception hissed with loud static.
“Should we call the police?” Alex asked.
“The guy could be pulling a prank? What do you think listeners?”
Bill pressed another button on the switchboard.
“Hello, you’re on the air. Your name and location?”
“Nikki, Pennville, you should call the police. That man needs your help.”
Bill cut off the caller and pressed another button.
“One concerned caller thinks we should contact the police. Who are you and what’s your opinion?”
“My name is Max, from Hanover. I think he’s some jerk trying to get attention. Forget about it.”
Bill cut the call.
“Okay, and maybe you’re right, Max.”
Alex shook his head in disbelief, mimed a phone and placed it to his right ear. Bill read his lips and the man told him to get back to work. Bill scowled and took the next call/