Demon Shadows

by Mike Sirota

  He stepped out into the main central hall, empty for the moment, and stopped in front of Nancy Thorburn’s painting. The tormented eyes of the snowbound pioneers cried out to him, pleading for help he could not give them. So real, this work; so real that he could almost hear the whistling of the wind as it piled snow before their wagons and froze their spent bodies.

  So real…

  Two residents emerged laughing from the day room, and the feeling passed. Paul retrieved his coat and hurried outside.

  The path to Sherri’s cabin looked the same as his. No. 16 was the second one. Despite the cold, the door was open. Paul went in, closed it behind him.

  Sherri sat on the bed. Paul knew that—again—she had dropped the façade. She began talking at once, as if afraid that if she waited any longer, it might come harder, or not at all. He sat in a chair across from her.

  “Home was once Pennsylvania.” She spoke in another woman’s voice too. “I ran away when I was fourteen. My mother was horrible; my father, when he was around, was worse. A year before I split, my older sister committed suicide. If I had stayed any longer I would’ve done the same thing.”

  “Jesus, I’m sorry,” Paul said.

  “I wound up in L.A. Where else, right? Five years on the Strip. It could’ve been worse. Pimp was okay to me, as pimps went. Plenty of action, drugs.” She tucked her knees up to her chin and reflected for a moment.

  “It was the drugs that really screwed me up. There are a couple of years I can hardly remember. I don’t know how I lived through them; I’m not sure I gave a shit. Probably wouldn’t have made it if it wasn’t for that.” She pointed across the room.

  Paul had been so intent on Sherri since coming in that he hadn’t looked around her cabin. Behind him, against the wall, stood an old but serviceable electric kiln with a front-loading door. Next to it was a long narrow workbench. Three of her pieces sat there: a snowshoe hare, an osprey with a fish held in its claws, and a ring-tailed cat. Had he seen them out of place, he would have sworn they were alive. The cat’s eyes gleamed; the fish hawk waxed triumphant over the capture of its prey. Sherri had painted the hare’s winter coat with uncanny detail.

  “Those are fantastic!” he said. “Walter was right.”

  “I always liked animals, from when I was a girl,” Sherri continued. “At one of those drug rehab places I got to molding things out of clay, you know, to have something to do. Christ, you’d think it was nursery school! But I liked it, and somebody told me I was good. So I took art classes and got better at it, and that’s that. I couldn’t change a lot else about me, but at least I’ve laid off the drugs for a long time.”

  Paul had become absorbed by the pieces and didn’t realize Sherri had stopped talking. When he looked at her again she was standing, arms crossed, staring blindly at one corner of the room.

  “Did you ever try to sell your work in Laguna Beach?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “Not yet. Maybe someday.”

  “I know some people; I could introduce you. If you came down after the first of the year, I’d be back for sure. We could go to dinner or something.”

  She looked at him; light reflected from the moistness in her eyes. Her expression appeared hard. When she spoke he could hear the confusion in her voice.

  “Why, Paul? Why would you do it? You’re a class act, and in case you didn’t notice, I ain’t. You gonna want this parading around on your arm? Come on, get real! What’s the motivation, be kind to a fellow artist or something?”

  “In the first place,” he said patiently, “your work is fabulous. I think it would benefit both you and the galleries that represented you. Second, I wouldn’t have asked you if I didn’t want to, okay?”

  She sat down again. Staring at him, she ran her long fingers through the blond-red shock of hair. Then she turned away.

  “I…gotta be alone right now,” she said, her voice husky. “Can’t remember when that happened last. Please. We’ll talk at breakfast.”

  He nodded reluctantly and went to the door. “I know how hard it was to share that,” he told her, “but I’m glad you did.”

  He’d opened the door when she said, “Paul?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thanks.”

  She stretched out on the bed and buried her face in the pillow. Paul closed the door gently and went out into the night.

  A clinging fog had crept across the Thorburn colony. From the edge of the outbuildings Paul could barely see the nearest cars. For a moment he thought about returning to Big House and joining the other residents. Then he found his path and started for the cabin.

  It was colder than it had been that morning. As he passed No. 12 the fog closed more tightly, smothering him. A few times he swatted at it, momentarily freeing individual vaporous wraiths, which always re-formed to adhere again to their unwilling captive.

  As he neared the cabin, he felt it again.

  That same disturbing chill as before. Maybe stronger. He shivered inside his heavy down jacket.

  “Fleming, you’re losing it,” he muttered to himself. “Hyperactive imagination, a cross writers have to bear. It’s cold out. Damn cold for your wimpy southern California blood. But that’s it! Nothing mysterious, supernatural, or metaphysical. Move your ass, get it in front of a fire—and stop this shit!”

  He ran then, even though the fog was so thick he could hardly see the path. No. 11 was close; he knew that. The ice spirits wove a web inside him, encircling his bones, dragging him toward what he knew to be the core of this…

  The clearing.

  Turn around, something in his head screamed. Go and see McClain, ask him for a room in Big House. Or another cabin, away from here. Now.

  He reached the porch. Fog swirled thickly between himself and the door. He shook uncontrollably. It took him a few moments to find the key, longer to fit it into the hole.

  The warmth inside took him.

  He left his jacket on until three good-sized logs blazed in the fireplace. Even then he removed it slowly. The furnace, turned up high, worked hard. To others, No. 11 would have felt like a baker’s oven.

  He had planned on working. After a while, when he was warm enough, he sat down at the desk and added the evening’s notes to the others. He immersed himself in the pages, and for the moment nothing existed beyond the four walls of his spartan accommodations.

  An hour later he got up, stretched, and looked out the front window. The fog had rolled back and the footpath was visible. Snow fell. The small flakes floated down gently, not diverted by wind. Watching the snow, Paul felt curiously at ease.

  Now the cabin was too warm. He lowered the thermostat and gathered up his notes. When it was cooler, he took the notes into bed, working until his mind began digressing into realms that had nothing to do with reality—always a sign the time to quit had arrived. He read John Thorburn’s diary for a couple of minutes but never made it past the preface.

  Monday, December 2

  He was the Cloudwalker but now soared with the wind. Although long past sunset, he could see everything clearly on the ground far below. Snow carpeted the meadows and the forest. No snow fell now; the untouched surface offered the moon’s light back to him.

  Never had he felt freer.

  Closer to the ground now, just over the treetops, which sped by so quickly they were almost a blur. He saw the lake and dipped low so he could skim its surface then soared again, high above the clouds. Even the eagle himself would be envious, he thought.

  Then, from somewhere, a sound reached him. Vague, but he listened then nodded when he knew it to be the crying of a baby. No, it was…a cat, that was it! The sound a cat made that people often mistook for a child.

  A cat, but not quite…

  It disturbed Cloudwalker, and he fled faster, until he was away from it. Mostly away. He should have soared higher but instead found himself close to the ground, where the trees were dense and he could not go as quickly. Even darker here, the moon’s glow denied by the snow-l
aden branches.

  Then he was following a light.

  At first he thought it came from the direction of the sound. But the sound neither grew nor diminished, whichever way he ran. The light appeared far off through the trees, an uncertain flickering that nonetheless indicated where he had to go.

  He rose again. Not to earlier heights, but more than halfway to the tops of the pines. Closer to the light now, he knew it was a blaze that burned, not by accident. Focused on it, he was unaware that the distant sound had faded into silence.

  A big fire burned in a clearing. Small dark figures stood around it. The fire looked real. So did the trees, a nearby creek, everything else. There was, however, something about those figures that made them look out of place, as if the forest floor wasn’t what it seemed but instead an artist’s unfinished canvas. Against that background someone had painted a company of matchstick people, their “heads” the right size, but the faces featureless.

  Cloudwalker continued to soar with the wind, but only across the clearing and back, then around its perimeter. The matchstick people clustered together, all except one, who stood taller than the rest.

  They began to move strangely, their stick bodies twisting grotesquely in a mockery of a dance as they surrounded the tall one. Against his will Cloudwalker swooped down, passing over their heads. Even that close he could only distinguish the vaguest of features on their narrow faces. But the tall one’s mouth was clearly different from the others.

  It seemed to be crying out.

  Cloudwalker was aloft again when the holes in the snow opened. Three of them, small but growing. The movements of the matchstick people grew more animated. Even the tall one gyrated wildly, though unlike the others it never moved from its place. Cloudwalker felt uneasy hovering there, looking down at the black spots, but found himself too curious about what was going to happen to leave.

  The holes widened, and as they did he was flung through the air. He tumbled out of control, certain he would crash. Still, he tried to see what went on below yet saw nothing he could understand. The snow had darkened, even though the moon hung above him with nothing in its way. There! He saw the edge of a shadow as it fell over the clearing. No, more than one. But how, from where?

  The sound of wind came from below, deafening. But not the wind that blew Cloudwalker from one end of the clearing to the other, buffeting his rag-doll body. It was like a hand he couldn’t see but knew existed, toying with him, flicking him like a mote of dust, maybe preparing to squeeze out his life when it tired of the game. Yet in his terror he could think of only one thing: deny the roaring wind, make it stop, and this won’t be happening. So even falling earthward he covered his ears.

  It didn’t help.

  The matchstick figures had been touched by the shadows and now twirled furiously. He saw the dancing circle tighten around the tall one, then he heard…

  A scream.

  He should not have heard a scream, or anything, above the windsound. It came from the tall one; he knew that. The tormentors were closer, their twig-arms reaching, undulating as the snow darkened…

  The scream was stilled as the tall one exploded.

  Matchstick shards rained on the dancing figures then something liquid spotted the snow all around where the tall one had been. The dancers reveled in what was happening to them.

  The explosion thrust Cloudwalker far up, but not high enough. While the stick-pieces fell to the snow, the dark droplets reached higher, staining his rabbit skins, searing his flesh. In pain, he realized that whatever cast the shadow was above him. Don’t look up. Don’t look.

  But the dark liquid continued to fly up at him, threatening to burn out his eyes. He couldn’t look down anymore. Turn away. Turn to the clouds.

  Slowly he willed himself to roll over…

  “Jesus!”

  Paul’s head throbbed. He sat in the swivel chair, which had been pulled out from the desk and turned around. Baby Ben’s luminous face read four-thirty. He had no clue why he sat in the chair, or how long he had been there. His blankets were half off the bed. Maybe it had been a dream, but he couldn’t remember a thing.

  A few last embers glowed in the fireplace. He was awake enough to be aware of the cold. He put on another log, prodded it mechanically with the poker. Somehow it blazed up a minute later.

  “Back to sleep,” he mumbled, but instead walked to the front window. It had stopped snowing; the forest seemed tranquil. He stared up and down the footpath, nodded, and climbed back into bed.

  He slept until the alarm called him at six o’clock.

  The first thing Paul thought about was Sherri Jordan. He wrote down his phone number and address to give her at breakfast. The second thing he thought about was snow. He looked out the front window, wondering, didn’t I just do this? Another inch or two covered the path.

  He walked out the front door a few minutes before six-thirty. Remembering the previous night, he stepped off the porch warily. But he already knew that whatever had been there was gone—if anything had been there. It was cold, no denying that, but likely just the normal chill of a Sierra dawn in early December, nothing more.

  The plow had already cleared the way to No. 11 then turned around. That made sense; no one used the rest of the path, which went nowhere and ended abruptly. But Paul chose to go that way, not sure why. It felt uncomfortable sinking into the snow in his Adidas. In some places, where the wind had piled the snow into drifts, he sank down above his ankles.

  The clearing. How uneasy it had made him feel yesterday. Now he crossed Leanna Creek on stones and walked slowly along the other bank, not really certain why he had come or what he looked for. The virgin snow stretched all the way to the surrounding pines.

  He stopped, gazed around, listened. Overhead a few clouds drifted lazily by. Below them an eagle sailed on wind currents. Somewhere nearby a squirrel scolded.

  Shaking his head, Paul hurried back to the path and followed it to Big House.

  Sherri’s purple Volkswagen was not in the parking area. When he didn’t see it in its usual isolated spot, Paul looked through the cluster of vehicles parked closer to the mansion. He saw no beetles at all, not under the tarps or the blankets of snow.

  He wondered about that as he started his Cutlass. The car also had thin southern California blood and uttered a few groans of protest before its engine turned over. He let it run, thinking he should do this at least every other day. Better still, put in some antifreeze.

  A rap on his window startled him. Michael Whitney, dressed in so many layers of clothing that he looked like a bear, smiled and waved a gloved hand. Paul rolled down the window, cracking a thin layer of ice.

  “Are you driving to town?” the cellist asked.

  “No way,” Paul said. “Just trying to revive it. Have you been inside yet?”

  “In and out. The muse is strong this morning. I’m on my way back to the cabin to start working. It’s out toward the fence, about ninety miles from here. That’s where they put us noisemakers.” He winked. “O’ maybe it’s jes’ dat dey puts us darkies in de back of de colony!”

  Paul grinned. “Right. Listen, you didn’t see Sherri Jordan around, did you?”

  “The wild lady? Not since last night.”

  “What about Walter?”

  “Not at breakfast, but he’s usually here. Try his office.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Two doors past the library. Hey, it’s cold! I’ll see you tonight.”

  Michael left. Paul turned off the engine and went inside. At six-fifty most of Thorburn’s artists-in-residence were already there. He took a quick look inside the dining room then crossed the central hall.

  Walter McClain’s office, a modest cubicle, seemed hardly befitting his thirty-year tenure as associate director. It was cluttered, but in a comfortable way. There were many small sculptures around. One of them stood next to a stack of papers on an old metal desk, where McClain worked: an incredibly lifelike snowshoe hare. Sherri Jordan’s
work, probably the same one Paul had seen in her cabin.

  “Good morning!” the older man exclaimed, standing. “What can I do for you?”

  “I was looking for Sherri. Do you know if she went into town or something?”

  “A couple of people asked about her this morning.” McClain chuckled. “A purple car can be conspicuous by its absence! She’s on her way back to San Francisco.”

  “She left?”

  McClain nodded. “Her four weeks were up.”

  “When did she leave?”

  “Real early. She stopped over to see me; knows I’m here before the roosters get up. The reason she stopped was to give this to the colony.” He raised the sculpture. “Isn’t it exquisite? I have to say, she was an exasperating person, but her talent is wonderful. To be honest, I hope she’ll do another residency here someday. I told her so.”

  “I wonder why she left so early,” Paul said.

  “Asked her the same thing. She said she couldn’t sleep, was anxious to get going.” He put the piece down and looked at Paul. “Why did you want to know?”

  “Thought I might see her at breakfast. She was a…unique person.”

  “Indeed. But with over thirty artists-in-residence here, I’d say we had quite a few unique people, yourself included!”

  Paul laughed. “Thanks. I’ll see you later.”

  McClain sat down with his pile of papers. Paul went back to the dining room, filled his plate with pancakes and bacon, left his coffee black, and chose a place away from anyone else.

  It bothered him that Sherri had left without saying good-bye. He was glad she’d opened up to him. But in the end, apparently, she couldn’t handle it and had run off, something that, by her own admission, she often did.

  Paul looked at the piece of paper with his address and phone number, crumpled it, and left it in an ashtray.