Stone's Shadow

by Martin McConnell

  “Keep going.”

  “It said she would feed the pups, and told me that my priest was worthless against it.”

  “Pups?”

  “That’s what it said.”

  “I’m sorry I can’t give you a quick solution. Most of the time, I get called after victims are already possessed, and the situation is immediate. This is a little different.”

  “So you are an exorcist?”

  “I’ve been called worse. I was an exorcist anyway. Seeing that kind of thing on TV is one thing, living it is something different. I’m pretty much done with that line of work.”

  “But you’re helping me?”

  “What can I say? I’m a sucker for people in need, especially young people. I got a call from an old friend, a call about a kid that needed my help. I can retire after this one. Just one more. Been telling myself that for years. The second your demon is gone, I’ll probably get another phone call. It happens. It’s a trap you fall into when you have a special skill.”

  “So how do we kill it?”

  “I know you won’t approve, but I need to do some more research. The key to exorcising it properly, especially such a unique entity, is knowledge. I need to find the best way to dispatch it before I make a move, or I’ll end up like your girlfriend.”

  Scott paused, his vision turned sharply toward the cup, which was no longer steaming. “Girlfriend?”

  “Sorry, I just figured—never mind.”

  Girlfriend? He may have known a lot about the supernatural, but Paul was a dope when it came to observing humans. A brief reflection started his mind down the path of what could have come if Serena had been successful. Maybe Paul considered that he looked like a kid chasing female companionship, and extrapolated his girlfriend theory based on that. Or maybe he understood teenage mating rituals better than he let on. The fleeting thoughts were interrupted as something raced past in the corner of his vision.

  “What is it?” asked Paul.

  “Thought I saw something.”

  Paul's eyes darted toward the building, above the awning of the shop. He didn’t hear it, but Scott did, “That's right, just a bit longer.”

  “No,” Scott shouted, suddenly propelled by a rush of adrenaline. “Shut your eyes.”

  Paul glanced back with a raised eyebrow. His movements were nonchalant and relaxed. It was obvious that he didn’t realize the danger. “What?”

  “Don't follow them. Don't look. That's how you see them. Once you see them you can't unsee. It'll kill you.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Let him look,” whispered the voice, as if it were standing beside him. Tears welled up in Scott's eyes.

  “Please, just trust me. Shut your eyes and try not to look at anything.” Something wet touched his neck.

  “All right,” said Paul. He leaned back in a meditative pose as his eyes closed softly. “How long do I have to keep them closed?”

  Scott blinked, and the air blackened before him. The red circles appeared inches from his face.

  “Foolish human,” it roared. The sound waves shook him. His balance failed, and he spilled onto the concrete. His arms and legs flailed, pushing him back onto his feet while kicking the chair away. A symphony of demonic laughter raced off into the night.

  “What the hell was that?” asked Paul, his eyes now wide open.

  “I think I pissed it off.”

  “All right. That's enough of this. I need to get you out of here.”

  Paul took him by the arm and pulled him toward a silver Mercedes. “Get in.”

  22

  The drive was short, but the lack of conversation gave Scott time to digest the events of the night as he watched the urban planted trees drift by the passenger window. Even with all that had happened, he managed to endure the creature again. It wasn’t confined to his apartment, and as long as both of them existed, the shadow would stalk him. There was no escaping it. There was no hope that it would get bored. His life was no longer his own. It belonged to the creature. In a way, it had become a part of him.

  The car rolled to a stop, and everything passed as in a dream. His memory left a gap between leaving the vehicle and walking behind Paul toward the rectory. Then he was in the library, curled on a leather chair by the fire, while Paul searched through books for an answer.

  Scott’s eyes blinked open from time to time, prompted by the shuffling of books and papers. The exorcist would be standing with an open book, or flipping through pages. Every so often, he let out a quiet “ah ha” before ripping another volume from the wall.

  All the while, Scott’s desire to combat the beast, that fire which had been brewing in his belly, was quenched by cold reason. He was only a mortal. Without the monster, he might live seventy years. Any attempt to destroy something one hundred times older was a foolish thought, cemented into the brains of fools by B-list movies.

  The only visible change between short rests was Paul. The shelves, the lighting, and even the warmth of the fire against cold skin remained constant. Was it all a dream? Was the whole incident a nightmare? Would he wake up, and shake it off as he had thousands in the past, forgetting instantly everything that happened? Would he wake as a butterfly?

  Father Kendall entered from another room, wearing white boxers and a sleeveless shirt, with a beaded rosary hanging around his neck. “Everything okay?”

  “Probably not,” said Paul. “But for the moment we're safe. Go back to bed, Father.”

  Father Kendall stared at Scott for a moment. “You all right, my son?”

  Not knowing what else to do, he nodded. He watched the priest disappear through the doorway, and turned his attention to the warm glow of the fire. The shadows cast in this room were only half shadows: thin veils obliterated by the mixture of overhead fixtures, lamps, and flame. If the creature was truly made of shadow, maybe it wouldn’t appear with his eyes fixed on the brightest source of light.

  Paul shuffled more paper, scanning through another dusty old book. Scott shifted in the chair to face him. “What are you looking for?”

  “Not looking for,” said Paul. “Found.” He pulled from the shelf an old tattered book wrapped in leather and took a seat by the fire. He flipped the volume open and paged through it.

  “What is that?”

  “Maybe the answer. Maybe some answer, or idea.” He looked up from the pages at Scott. “You should probably lie down and get some rest. You look like you haven't slept in days.”

  “What’s that book?”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Paul’s head turned toward the foyer. “Go in there and get some sleep. You’re going to need your strength tomorrow.”

  Scott nodded and found his way to the uncomfortable couch. He plopped on it and pried off his shoes. He rubbed the stinging sensations that pricked at his arm, which must have been pinned against the chair for hours. The scratches and scrapes he’d been collecting went sore. A bruise on his hip announced itself as he lay down. Even his ears shouted in pain as the glasses pinched between cartilage and bone. He pulled them free and dropped them on the coffee table. His eyes closed, but his mind refused to rest. The flipping of pages from the next room echoed in his thoughts. A daydream about Paul finding a solution turned into a fantasy about crawling through tunnels, searching for something, only to emerge in a burning city.

  Paul's voice came from the other room. “All right, thanks for your help.”

  Scott rolled to the edge of the couch and pushed himself upright. He could not have been out for too long because it was still dark. He pulled his phone free to see the flashing green alert light flickering. He tossed it on the coffee table, grabbed his glasses, and fitted them over his nose while stomping toward the fireplace. It was the first real sleep he could remember having. “Did you find something?”

  Paul glanced up, looking startled. “You said something about not looking and closing my eyes. What were you trying to prevent me from seeing, exactly?”

  Scott dragged his fe
et to the open chair across from Paul and fell into it. He stared into the fire, trying to form the right words.

  “It looks like a shadow when you first see it. In the corner of your vision. You look, and there's nothing there. It keeps still while it coaxes you to keep staring. ‘Just a bit longer,’ it says. I don't know if everyone can hear it, or just me. But once you see those eyes, they're the last thing you see, unless you're hopped up on sleeping pills, or meth.”

  “Interesting.”

  “At least, that’s how I think it works. Maybe they don’t like being noticed, and when they are, they attack. Serena was different. It went straight after her. It didn’t give her a choice. It jumped in front of her eyes and stayed there until.” He bit his lip, tasting a dangling strip of chapped flesh, which his teeth closed around and ripped free. “It’s more aggressive now than it was with me, like it gets a thrill from watching me react to dead bodies.”

  Paul slid a small corner table toward him, with an open book resting on top. He pointed to a passage. “Read that and tell me what you think.”

  Scott stared at the line of text by Paul’s finger, written in the most peculiar fashion.

  The text from the church speaks of whirlwinds, lightning, and fiery dragons, followed by famine, and finally the attack on the church at Lindisfarne.

  “What is this?”

  “Keep reading.”

  Another scroll found in the ruins, lays claim to a demon invading the church before it fell in the Year of our Lord seven hundred and Ninety three. It claimed that shadows came alive, and took the souls of those foolish enough to stare for too long.

  The fatigue wore off, and his eyes widened. “What did they do about it?”

  “They burned. The church was looted. Most of the records left behind were vague and at best the stuff of myths and folklore. If this is the same creature, they couldn't stop it. And just like the other cases, it happened right before a disaster where a lot of people died. A Viking raid on the church, before anyone even called them Vikings. This book references the account centuries later, some time in the sixteen hundreds, even though the actual church account from Lindisfarne doesn’t mention the sighting.”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  “Please don't do that.”

  Scott's eyebrows twisted for a moment until he realized that Paul was referring to his use of Christ's name. Apparently, that was a no-no, even for an ex-exorcist.

  “These pages,” said Paul, “they don't refer to any of the typical demons, but cases of sudden affliction. Plagues. The fall of Rome is in here too, with references. Unfortunately, almost all of the documents this text refers to no longer exist. It’s a bread trail of quotes, notes, hearsay, and dead ends, but somehow it makes sense. The UFO's, the ghost sightings, and your monster.”

  “Does it say how to stop it?”

  “There isn't a single case of it ever being stopped, or the evil disappearing until after a disaster. The sightings stop, and whatever it is just, vanishes.”

  “So we're screwed?”

  Paul looked at his phone. “It’s late. I’m going to get some rest. I urge you to do the same.” He stood and patted Scott on the shoulder as he walked by.

  Returning to the couch, Scott checked a message waiting on his phone. It was from Maria, asking about the cops in front of the building. She was already too close to this. The only way to protect her was to stop the conversation altogether. Richard was right. He should simply leave her alone.

  He dropped the phone on the coffee table, and his glasses on top of it. His body was so tired that falling asleep would be easy. Those tingles that signaled imminent bodily shutdown covered him the moment his eyes closed. It could have been minutes or hours before he heard the voice again.

  “You thought you'd be safe here? You thought they would be safe?”

  Scott sat up. This wasn't a dream. It couldn't be. The creature stood in front of him, about four or five feet tall, its red eyes burning into his own.

  He froze. The creature surged close, until the red dots became clear in his hazy vision. He felt the tentacles wrap him, and a cold sensation on his neck sent tingles down his spine and across his face.

  “What the hell do you want with me?” he whispered.

  “You think you can understand us with your feeble mind? We've been here since you had tails.”

  “Why don't you just kill me then? Because you can't? Because the drugs?”

  The creature recoiled in what could only be described as laughter, but it reminded him of yipping coyotes he remembered from camping as a child. “You think your drugs will save you? You have a gift for us. Food for the pups. You’re soaked in the sweets.”

  “You can't kill me. You have a weakness. And I'm going to figure it out and—”

  The creature's tentacles closed around his neck, choking his words. “Foolish human. You think you can win this?” The yipping laugh continued. He couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. He could only stare into the red lights until they were all he could see.

  “I'd squeeze the life out of you now if it pleased me. You remind me of someone. An old soul that thought it could fight us. It now resides with the rest of them, as will you.” Scott’s ears rang in pain.

  It tasted his nape, and the cool, damp saliva drained into his blood, coursing through his veins like iced coffee. He floated upward, leaving his body. In an instant, the monster vanished, his body remained below, and he fell back inside.

  23

  He woke with a sense of falling on the sofa from high above. The sensation was so powerful that he bounced off the couch and onto his feet, bathing in the warm sunlight pouring through the windows. Voices came from the next room. Was it a dream?

  “We'll be in touch.”

  A uniformed officer strolled through the foyer, casting an angry glance Scott’s way as he turned to the door. At least, it looked angry through his blurry vision at a distance. A blaze of sunshine beamed in through the entrance, stinging his eyes.

  Once the officer was outside, the voices continued.

  “Something else you needed?”

  “Paul, how long have we known each other?”

  “About twelve years I guess.”

  “You wanna tell me what's really going on here? Between you and that kid, this makes three heart attacks in three days, and he is always in the vicinity. Should I be expecting more of these?”

  Scott rubbed his eyes while he dragged his shoes toward him with his toes and squeezed into the still laced sneakers. He grabbed his glasses, and planted them on his face.

  “To be honest. I wouldn't be surprised if I was next.”

  “Then maybe you should dump the kid.”

  “I can't do that. You know me.”

  “Maybe make an exception this time. He’s nothing but trouble, and this is getting way too real.”

  “I can’t. He’s just a boy, and I have an obligation. Plus, I can’t help but feel that there’s something about this kid. Helping him might end up helping a bunch of people indirectly. Something big is on the horizon.”

  “Well, that’s it for me for the night. I think I’m going home to try to forget this whole week.”

  “Something else happen last night?”

  “This morning. Some crazy dude out in the hills. Went out last night in his boxers and a wife-beater. Wife said he was chasing some sound he heard, or a voice, or some nonsense. He didn’t come back, so she called emergency services. When we arrived on scene, the dude was frozen solid, laid out under an old sycamore tree.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I wish. When I saw those blue lips—so many years on the force and you think you’ve seen it all. He just decided to take a nap out in freezing weather.”

  “Heart attack?”

  “Coroner called it exposure. We sent the body over to the M-E for examination. Crazy things happening around here lately. Spent the whole week taking notes on frickin’ UFO sightings. I’m gonna go home and wash this shift off. Be ca
reful, Paul.”

  “I will.”

  Paul led the officer through the foyer and out the door. He closed it and turned toward Scott.

  “What happened?”

  “Father Kendall passed away last night in his sleep,” said Paul. Today he was wearing a white shirt with fancy embroidery on the sleeves, combined with the usual black slacks and shoes, and a black tie. “I didn't want to wake you. It's the first time I've seen you sleep since we met. The officers didn't need a statement. The coroner called it natural causes, but I suspect it was another attack from the creature.”

  “The creature came to me last night. Before I fell asleep.”

  “Before or after it killed Father Kendall?”

  “I don't know. It said the drugs weren't helping me stay alive. Now I'm even more lost. Why doesn't it just kill me?”

  “Don't try to understand a supernatural creature. They don't live on our plane, and they don't think like us.”

  Scott felt a hole rip open in his heart, leaving an empty space in his chest filled with gnawing pain. The thought of a dead priest was too much. He didn't say another word. He collapsed on the couch, eyes squeezed shut, hoping that at any moment he would wake up from this craziness. He would wake up in his bed, and the whole thing would only be another nightmare. He missed his normal life, as torturous as it was. At that point, he’d have given anything to return to it, to return to being a nobody, to return to being the leper outcast of his former life.

  The rough texture of the sofa scraped at his face. He wasn't built for this. He spent years being the wimp, the anti-social, the boy that belonged in a bubble. Suddenly, he had more attention than he could handle, and wanted none of it.

  A slight pressure stroked up and down his back.

  “We'll figure something out,” said Paul. “I promise.”

  Promises that can't be kept aren't worth the air waves that carry them. Scott was hatching his own plan. He had more than enough pain killers, sleeping pills, and other medication to put him to sleep for good. He'd collect them from the apartment. After that, a quick trip to the bathroom would solve his problem, and hopefully save everyone else, too.