by S. A. Hunter
"That's excellent, Mary. One last time. The Shadowman called you again. Do you remember?”
She grimaced. “At school. It tapped into the PA system. It freaked me out. I ran home. Vicky and Kyle came to see me. Well, Vicky wanted to interrogate me. Kyle just wanted to know if I was okay.” She had enough presence of mind to not mention her little make-out session with Kyle.
“And then that night?” Dr. Trudeau gently prompted.
She did as before. She remembered getting ready for bed and going to sleep. “I get up and go downstairs. I go outside and retrieve the Hand of Glory. I take it back upstairs and put a candle from my room in its grasp. I light it and feel a stillness wash over the house. The flame is a dark blue. The light is so minimal that is does not affect me. I need not hide behind anything. It’s safe now to begin my search. I go into Gran’s room. I know she won’t wake up while I search for the box. I go through all of her dresser drawers and look under her bed before I find the box in the top shelf of her closet. I take it down and excitement courses through me. It won’t be long now before I am free once again. I go back into my bedroom and pick up the Hand of Glory. Carefully so as not to extinguish the flame, I press the hand to the box. It springs open without any effort. I set the hand down. Inside the box, nestled in a satin case is the knife. A blade that can cut my bindings and set me free. I lift out the blade reverently. The blade glints in the blue flame.
“I can hear crashing noises downstairs. Someone is trying to enter the house. I have to act quickly if I’m not to be thwarted. I unfold from the body, stretching out to make the cut as clean as possible. The intruder is inside. I can hear his steps on the stair. I place the blade at the seam and begin to slice, but I have barely begun before there is bright light everywhere, and I need to hide. The intruder extinguishes the Hand of Glory. He is yelling the girl’s name. I can feel her begin to rouse. The boy takes the knife from me. I retreat knowing I can’t win this struggle. There will be other opportunities. I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know where the knife came from and don’t initially notice the Hand of Glory. Everything’s confused. I’m going to get in trouble with Gran. She said no boys were allowed in my room.”
“Okay, Mary. I think that’s enough. You’ve done very well. I’m going to start counting down from ten and I want you to slowly wake up. Start at your feet and work your way up like you did when you were relaxing. All right? Ten, nine, …”
Mary began to rouse as Dr. Trudeau counted. She remembered everything she’d told him and could actually access the memories she’d been describing, though she would’ve happily not had access to any of the ones involving Mr. White’s hand.
She opened her eyes and sat up. “Well, there’s that,” she said.
“It is all rather fascinating,” Dr. Trudeau said.
Mary gave him a scornful look. Maybe fascinating to him, but he didn’t have to live it.
He held up his hands. “It’s absolutely awful for you, but this creature is fascinating. It is not a simple creature. It has displayed quite a bit of high function.”
Mary was getting upset by Dr. Trudeau’s praise of the Shadowman. It was evil. Not remarkable. “So what do we do?” she asked.
“I’m not sure. I had not heard of the Shadowman until Helena called me. From what I have learned so far, I believe that if we prevent it from speaking to you again, it will not be able to take control of you at the least.”
“Fine, but how do I get rid of it?”
He didn’t have an answer to that.
“We’ll figure something out, Mary,” Gran said.
Mary clenched her jaw. She wanted to snap and yell at Dr. Trudeau and Gran. Saying they would figure it out was not the same as figuring it out. The longer this took, the longer she had this thing on her. Knowing she’d been unknowingly controlled by the Shadowman multiple times did not help her. It made her feel sick. And having the memory now of removing Mr. White’s hand would not stop replaying in her mind. It was disgusting and horrifying and would not stop repeating. She rose from the sofa and went upstairs. She turned on every light in her room and lay down. She didn’t know what to do or what not to do. She was scared to try anything. So she did nothing.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Unexpected Offers
Mary sat outside on a lawn chair in the sun. She had her chemistry textbook in her lap. Ostensibly, she was trying to keep up with her readings, though she had trouble focusing on the text. Her eyes would wander off the page and stare into the middle distance as her mind turned over again and again the problem of the Shadowman. When she’d become frustrated with her lack of ideas, her eyes would go back to the text, and she would begin reading again. Gran had gone out to run a few errands. She’d urged Mary to go with her, but Mary had begged off. She’d wanted to just sit quietly and contemplate stuff. Not meditate. She wasn’t going to let herself zone out and end up someone’s puppet again.
The phone had rang a few times already, and she had let it ring. If it was a non-Shadowman call, the voice mail could get it. She was not going near a phone until the Shadowman was gone. She would’ve liked to maybe hang out with Rachel, but with her self-imposed banishment from all things phone-related, she couldn’t call to bug her friend. She also couldn’t call Kyle, but that was a bit of relief. After the disastrous make-out session, she was nervous to be alone with him.
Mary looked up from her textbook when a familiar car pulled into the driveway. Vicky. Mary sighed and got up. Vicky had already spotted her. There was no chance of running and hiding. She walked over to the car and waited for her to get out. The cheerleader had a determined look on her face. Maybe she had been the one calling earlier.
“What are you doing here again, Vicky?”
“Have you killed that thing yet?”
Mary rolled her eyes. “No, but you have absolutely nothing to worry about.”
“How are you so sure?”
Mary pointed at her shadow on the sidewalk. It jittered like a TV with poor reception. “Because it’s right there.”
Vicky walked over and stood beside her to look at Mary’s shadow. “What are you talking about?”
As they looked down, Mary’s shadow jittered more. Mary wondered what it would do if she raised her arm and overlapped it with Vicky’s. Could it hurt someone? Had it hurt anyone? She remembered hovering her hand over Gran’s face. The shadow of her hand had been cast over her, and nothing had happened. She hoped that she would notice if her shadow had been doing anything sinister to anyone.
Vicky gasped and stepped away from her. “How the hell did you do that?”
Mary shook her head. “It’s not me. It’s the Shadowman. It’s latched onto my shadow.”
“And you’re keeping it?” Vicky sounded horrified.
Mary sighed. Vicky was such a pain to talk to. It was all presumptions and demands with her. “No, I’m trying to figure out a way to get rid of it.”
“And what have you figured out?”
Mary was about to shrug her shoulders, but stopped short, knowing Vicky wouldn’t accept that answer. And they had figured stuff out, hadn’t they? “It can’t suck life force or whatever out of anyone while attached to me. It can’t move around freely.” She left off the bit about the Shadowman being able to move her around when she was asleep though. “I’m probably the worst person it could’ve attached to. I mean I know what it is. I know its phone calls aren’t just bad connections. And I will figure out how to get rid of it.”
“So why did it attache to you?” Vicky asked.
“I think it had to. I was there by Mr. White when he died. It may have had to jump to me to survive.”
“Oh.” Vicky looked unhappy. Mary wasn’t sure why. She’d reassured her the best she could.
“Really, Vicky. There’s nothing for you to worry about. You’re not in any danger.”
“But what about you?”
The question floored Mary. She would never had expected the Queen Bee to worry about her. “W
e’ll figure something out. I’m sleeping with a night light again.”
Vicky continued to stare at Mary’s shadow. She could tell the cheerleader was really unnerved by it. Maybe more than unnerved, but she couldn’t seem to take her eyes off it. “Okay, but if there’s anything I can do, let me know. Do you have my number?”
Vicky was continuing to floor Mary. “N-no, I don’t.”
“Got a piece of paper?”
Mary picked up her Chemistry textbook and tore a corner off the title page. Vicky had a pen and scribbled down her number. She handed the paper back. Seven digits were written in pink ink on it. “Thanks,” Mary said.
“Well, I should probably go. Be safe, Mary.”
She nodded and watched Vicky get back in her car. She went back to the lounger and sat. Well, that just happened, she told herself. She looked again at the bit of paper with Vicky’s number on it and put it into her pocket. She’d been so amazed by the offer that she hadn’t had the heart to tell her that she wasn’t using the phone again until this was over. She opened her book again, but couldn’t focus on it. The phone started ringing in the house again. The sound put her on edge. She snapped her book shut and got up. She wanted a soda and rather than going inside to her own fridge where she’d have to pass the phone, she was going to the store. She wanted to stretch her legs anyway.
She walked to the neighborhood corner store and went inside. The cashier nodded to her in greeting. She gave him a small wave and grabbed a cold soda. She paid for it and went back outside. She opened her soda and took a sip. Well, that had killed fifteen minutes. She sipped her soda and wondered what else she could do. She needed distraction. She couldn’t sit in her front yard all day. As if on cue, the old pay phone that sported an “Out of Order” sign started ringing. There was no doubting who that was. She stared at it and wondered just how the Shadowman did it. How could it call her? At home, the movie theater, at school. How did it manage to reach her everywhere? As she stared at the ringing phone, she noticed her shadow fell on it. She took a step to the side, and her shadow slipped off the phone. It stopped ringing. Her eyes narrowed, and she took a contemplative sip of soda. She stepped back, and the phone started ringing again. Huh. That made sense. It could reach things if her shadow fell on them. She hadn’t noticed because she hadn’t known to look. In the movie theater, the lights going down must have let it reach everywhere, and at school, her shadow must have crept up to the speaker system. It also meant she’d missed a lot of phone calls at home.
She stepped aside again to make the pay phone stop. Dr. Trudeau thought the Shadowman could control her with these phone calls. Well, if she didn’t pick up, what then Mr. Shadowman? She leaned to the side and let the phone ring for a second. She leaned back to make it stop. She swayed back and forth, making the phone ring in quick, loud bursts. If she had to apply an emotion to the ringing pay phone, she’d say it was angry. Pissed even. She did this a couple of times just to amuse herself. If the Shadowman wasn’t pissed before, it had to be now. The idea that she was pissing it off made her happy. After all it had done to her, a little pettiness on her part was only fair. She stepped back again and let her shadow fall fully over the phone. It began ringing, and she watched it. How was she supposed to get rid the Shadowman? The receiver vibrated in the cradle.
The cashier stuck his head out and looked at her and the pay phone. “You going to get that?”
Mary finished her soda and tossed it in the trashcan. “Nope.” She turned and started walking home. She heard the cashier pick up the phone, but her shadow had already fallen off it. There was no one on the line.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
When Mary reached the house, she saw Gran was back and that she was in with a customer. That was one of the problems with running a business out of your home. It meant any weirdo could know where you live and show up, and when one ran a fortunetelling business, the weirdos were weirder than usual, and possibly bad news, like Ms. Smith, whose car was the one parked outside. Without thinking, Mary broke into a run and dashed up the steps of the house. She did not like the idea of Gran meeting with that woman alone. Sure, they’d established it was Mary who was behind everything, but Ms. Smith still set off all of Mary’s internal alarms.
If Gran had been meeting with anyone else, Mary wouldn’t have dreamed of barging into her office. She would have done everything she could not to disturb her, but she wanted Ms. Smith to know she was there. If she tried to do anything, she would have to deal with Mary. She charged through the beaded curtains and stopped short to stare at the scene that greeted her. Gran was sitting straight in her seat with her arms crossed, shaking her head while Ms. Smith held up some long piece of paper, pointing at some section of it. The table was covered with photos and other papers. What Ms. Smith held, looked like a contract.
Mary had been ready to be belligerent and ballsy, but she was so thrown by what she saw that instead she could only ask, “What’s going on?”
Ms. Smith turned to her, and she looked relieved to see her which really confused Mary. “Good, your granddaughter is here. She’ll tell you. This is a golden opportunity. Mary, right? Tell your grandmother that being on television is awesome, and she should jump at the chance to do this.”
“What?” She looked to Gran.
Gran sighed and unfolded her arms. She began gathering all the photos and papers together. “I thank you, Ms. Smith for this generous offer, but I have no desire whatsoever to become—How did you put it?— the next paranormal reality show superstar. I didn’t know there were such a thing, but I have no desire to become one.”
“But you’ve got such an authentic look, and there’s a charm about you that can’t be manufactured. The viewers would eat you up. They’d be willing to buy that you talk to ghosts and get premonitions.”
Gran gave her a dirty look. “I don’t care what these supposed viewers would buy. I have no desire to be on television.”
“Mary, please talk to your grandmother. She’d be perfect as the medium for our show.”
Mary still felt like she was playing catch up. “What show?”
“The title for now is Reaching the Otherside, but that may change after some audience testing. Helena would be the medium for our group of paranormal investigators. They would do the hard science stuff while your grandmother would cover the spiritual.”
“Hard science?” Mary said. She’d seen a few ghost shows. Science rarely came into play. It just got in the way of the show, the same way a lack of ghosts did.
“Yes, the guys would record the EVPs and video everything while your grandmother would describe any ghostly sensations she had and communicate with the spirits.”
Mary looked at Gran and raised her eyebrows. This was Ms. Smith’s hidden agenda? Geez, she could’ve just told them from the beginning. They would’ve been a little more polite to her.
“We would pay your grandmother and remember, she’d be on TV!”
Deciding to play along, Mary asked. “How much would it pay?”
Gran’s lips thinned. “Mary, I don’t care how much they’d pay. I’m not doing it.”
“One thousand per episode.”
“That’s not much.”
“Well, if the show took off, we’d be willing to pay more.”
“What about travel?”
Gran rose from the table. “Enough. I’m not doing this, so there’s no need to ask anymore questions. Ms. Smith, I’m sorry you wasted your time, but I have no interest in your project.”
“Fine, I think we could swing two thousand an episode.”
“How many episodes?” Mary asked.
Gran glared at Mary. “That’s enough. I’ve made my decision. Good day, Ms. Smith.”
“Wait, look at this. It’s a promo video we made.” Ms. Smith wrestled a tablet PC out of her bag. She turned it toward them and looked over the top of it to touch the icon to bring up a video. Mary moved over to Gran’s side to see the screen. “I think this will help you see just how awesome this s
how will be.”
The video filled the screen. The title card slowly emerged out of smoke on the screen with a shriek. Gran huffed. She crossed her legs and arms and looked away. The screen’s image broke up and became static. Mary had to roll her eyes. This was all very clichéd. They waited for the static to clear, but it seemed this wasn’t part of the video. Ms. Smith frowned and peered over the top. “Don’t tell me the video got messed up,” she muttered.
But her video hadn’t gotten messed up. It had been preempted. The static shifted to crickets and grinding gears. A pair of red glowing eyes appeared out of the static. Gran and Mary gasped. Ms. Smith didn’t see this. She huffed in frustration and turned the tablet toward her.
“Give me a minute. I’ll get it working.”
Mary lunged out of the way. Her damn shadow had fallen onto Ms. Smith’s device. When her shadow slid off the tablet, the screen cleared, and the video appeared in-progress. “Oh, there it goes. Let me start it from the beginning.”
Gran rose. “No, I’m sorry, Ms. Smith—”
“Regina, please.”
Gran didn’t miss a beat. “Regina, I have absolutely no interest in being on television.”
Ms. Smith looked disappointed and put her tablet back in her bag. She rose from the table. She reached out and took Gran’s hand. “I suppose I have to accept that. If you do change your mind, please do not hesitate to call me.” Her eyes switched to Mary. “It’d be initially thirteen episodes. If picked up, we’d do another thirteen.”