In the shadows

I was just a boy in the shadows, but the shadows were in me long before I had met them on that fateful night. Squeaky floor boards in the bedraggled manor we’d holed up in with the cobwebs and dust that looked like some cheesy B-movie horror flick were child’s play though thinking back now they didn’t play so well upon my child-like consciousness and wonder.

All throughout our stay I’d fancied the house was simply haunted. In our game of hide-and-seek, I was the seeker after a count of 27 and though I’d tried so hard to hazard guesses as to which of the many manor rooms my companions could have stolen in within the span of seconds, I found myself at times frozen upon thresholds as I’d sought to shut one door or open another. Like an invisible hand, a gaping maw, or otherworldly current held me affixed in time or rooted between worlds, I’d feel a tugging sensation in the depths of my spine upon trying to close a door to enter a hallway. Or other times if I tried to force my entrance into a new space suddenly, I’d very stupidly like slow motion figures moving through plastic wrap, begin my torpid descent, face-first into the thick, gaudy rugs.

When it first happened, I’d yelped in surprise, but after realizing my inevitable languid fate, all crumpled up upon the ground in a befuddled mess, I began to consider more intently my movements overall. I hadn’t told a soul, but I’d begun to experiment when away from the others with different positions and rates of movement and found if I moved fast enough I’d launch straight past the door frame and into the next room sans tugs, or fits, and markedly unscathed save for the occasional rug burn.

Although very puzzled at my somewhat staccato condition, I was not necessarily alarmed at my sudden mysterious shift in salient motions. But that was until one night when I began to grow fearful.

In my dream I was under an auspicious moon as a dog of some kind. The cool loam under my feet released a thousand smells both ancient and distant in a melange that only further ignited my insatiable hunger for more scents. And the breeze agreed, running along side me against my coat of fur, I felt the hands of time and lives of the woodland creatures, the slugs, the snails, and distant snoring of families in far off houses. In this moment, I was the mud, I was the air, and the sacred warmth of blood from a rabbit’s body as it trickled down my snout. I relished the feeling of life in all forms.

Despite my dreamlike dalliance, my romance with the earth was soon shattered. In the morning I awoke with a deep, murky sludge covering me head to toe with the imprint of a body next to me on the other side of the bed. It was as if someone, some companion had perhaps joined me in the night--perhaps they just needed a bath? I fancied. But judging by the dark maroon saturated sheets, I feared for the worse. My muddied friend, if alive, was certainly grievously wounded if not removed from this world entirely all together resting in pieces for the stains only covered half a body’s length.

After taking in the grisly art of blood and dirt before me, I realized the blood was equally upon me and I shuffled to the restroom to get a better look in the mirror. Caked in the soft sewer-scented clay I looked not of this world. Although initially frightened, the flakes and stains of blood seemed not of my own and I could find no wounds or marks to suggest I’d been injured. Turning around once to inspect my back, I noticed my right hand was darkened along the wrist in a spiral pattern that looked like a burn, but felt no pain upon touch. The markings indeed began to fade in the dimly lit overhead light.

As I turned back to the bedroom, the air felt still in my lungs: the blood, the mud, the stains of whatever ghastly occurrence that happened in the midnight hours were gone! I rushed over to the bed stand and felt along the rumpled, beige sheets that while slightly dusty were no where near in the state I had just seen with my own eyes. Staring long across the room at my own befuddled appearance in the bathroom mirror, I realized I too was free of the dirt and debris--not a speck of blood or mud remained.  

Feeling light-headed and slightly sweaty, I sat down in the twin bed next to mine as I tried to make sense of what I had seen...or thought I’d saw, no smelled, and felt as surely as you and I are real.
But it wasn’t real, at least I couldn’t prove it with the state of affairs before me. Raising my right hand I glanced once more to see if the burn remained, and I thankfully released a sigh of relief as I noticed the symmetrical circles remained. I only later realized how misguided that relief was as the haunting only progressed to deeper mires of the psyche as the nights went on in that place.

Although my family had commented on the burn markings that now began to look like strange tattoos, they were quickly drawn into more mundane matters and asked how each of I and my siblings enjoyed our stay at the manor remarking the grounds were part of our family inheritance and belonged to some late uncle. I didn’t listen much to the table prattle, as prone to brooding, I was entranced in thoughts of my bizarre experiences of late.