The Curse and the Flicker of the Shadow

Author's Preamble: About a year ago, "Why Do You Trust Your Shadow?" which I feel serves as a nice intro to my story. (please check it out at the link, but I've included it below also)

Do you trust your shadow?

If you do...why?

From the cradle

To the Grave

It follows you

Doesn't help you

When you need help

Your shadow

Stands there

Looming over you

Watching

Listening

It's with you all your life

Until the day you die

You just accept

It's there

You just accept

It does nothing

But you let it

Into your life

Into your home

Into your family

You share with it

Everything

Your hopes and dreams

Your deepest, darkest secrets

Whether you want to or not

It knows when you mess up

It knows when you lie

Why do you trust it?

***

"I need...want to tell you something, Dr Adams...it's not easy for me...and I'm not sure you'll believe me...but it's the only truth I know"

Dr Adams never questioned a patient, especially one as highly strung out as David. However, his many years spent in the profession told him that as honest and believable as David's story was likely to be, it was probably just another figment of his deeply troubled imagination.

"I think...know I’m cursed"

The flickers, occasional drops in footage quality and white noise made the unfolding interview look like an old VHS movie.

Despite it playing out like a piece of carefully crafted and scripted cinema, it had an unnerving authenticity to it. As if it were an actual blow-by-blow account of action events. Dr Adams and David didn't feel like actors reading a script. There was a realism to their conversation.

How could it be anything other than some strange film student movie?

How I came into ownership of the footage. Let's just say, "I know a man who knows a man", and leave it at that.

During the interview, David goes into detail. Horrific detail about his "curse".

He’s been wrongly accused and arrested for the abduction and apparent murder of three women he was involved with over the previous three years.

This is where things get a little weird. He maintains his innocence and that he has a monster living under his bed. Claims it has been with him...as long as he can remember. He likens it at several points during the grainy interview as his "shadow".

He was first aware, he tells Dr Adams, of his "shadow", when he was a boy and couldn't sleep at night. Then tragedy struck, and his mother disappeared. As time moved on, suspicions grew about David's father. They had a very up-and-down relationship, and David's mother had been angry with David and his father the last time they saw her. His father was wrongly convicted, on very flimsy grounds, of killing his mother.

"He didn't do it, Dr Adams...my "shadow" did", he says with all the certainty and conviction he could clearly muster.

There’s a graveness to his voice - even if he has psychological problems, he certainly believes his story. Dr Adams considered himself a shrewd operator who could detect BS a mile off, and, perplexingly, there was no whiff of it in David's story.

The footage flickers and white noise appears on the screen, before another drop in the quality of the video and the interview continues.

"...that’s what we wanted them to believe", David appears to say, but it doesn't exactly sound like David's voice from the rest of the footage.

"What do you mean?" asks Dr Adams with a slight uneasiness.

"I don't know...I didn't say anything else," David replied a little blankly.

The footage cuts out while the audio continues, but it seems to be an earlier point in the interview. David again mentions the curse and his shadow. As if it was edited to repeat that section again, but David's voice changes again when he mentions the shadow and his mother. "The bitch had it coming," David remarks before looking blankly at Dr Adam's concerned face as the colour filters out of it just a little.

*

Beware beware, the monsters lie there

Beware beware, as you bedrest they stare

Beware beware, the evil that they wish

Beware beware, your soul has to perish

I remember reading those words somewhere, but where?

Searching through my notes in the file that was left on my doorstep two mornings ago, I find the scrap of paper with the "poem" written on it.

*

From the notes of Dr Adams.

“I’ve always had trouble believing in anything intangible. Perhaps it’s the scientist in me. Despite the things I’ve seen in the many years I’ve been practising as a clinical psychologist. Many people blame other beings and unseen powers for their actions. I was always so sceptical until I met David. Now I’m not so sure of anything, really”

*

I want to tell you a story, and you're not going to believe me, but hear me out, okay?

The candle flickers in the dark, a beacon of the promise of another day, another chance. I find myself in an unforgiving abyss, a dark and forbidding space, with just the candle flickering in the corner of my abode. My short-term memory is not being my friend right now as I struggle to sit up in my empty residency. If I could tell you how long I had been here, I would, but alas, that has been lost with the candle, which once stood tall and is now merely a small stump.

Still there? Good. If you’ve chosen to keep reading then I warn you, you're going to hear some things...unsavoury things about me...about us even, as a people, a race. A lot of it is going to sound far-fetched. Though, I believe if you’ve found this and are reading it, you have an open mind for a reason. Maybe you’ve noticed something that didn't really feel...right. Maybe something happened that you can't explain. I hold onto the fact that if you are reading this with an open mind and find any truth in what I say, I’ll have done my duty.

Before I go any further, I want to ask you a serious question. It will sound very trivial, but trust me, in the larger scheme of things, it’s the difference between understanding and walking around oblivious to what's really happening.

Have you ever done something or been somewhere...it doesn't have to be anything particularly big or important...and when you've done it or been to that specific place, wondered why you went there?

You've probably chalked that experience up to the fact that sometimes our minds slip. We have busy lives after all, and it can be hard sometimes to keep a grasp of the insignificant things.

That's what we tell ourselves. We don't want to address these issues directly. Well, most of us don't. The human race would rather pretend it was fine and act oblivious to the fact that things aren't all they seem. It's how they keep us from learning the truth.

I’m not sure how long I have left to record. I have been tracking my "shadow" for a while now. Using the notes in the file you've received and some insider knowledge from my past and recently unearthed memories, I've been able to temporarily separate from my shadow for periods of time.

Just short periods.

I can hear a lot of screaming. Dammit. Another victim. Listen, I’m passing this information on to you in the hope it can help you. The candle starts to dim a little, as I recall…

Once, when I was around 10, I found myself wandering to the side of town I had no business being at, not least of all at my age but in general. I don’t remember how I got there or why a group of people stood around me. Then my mother took me home. We never spoke about it again. It was like it was forgotten.

Each day, I wake to find things rearranged. Books are all in the wrong order, and coasters are scattered across the table as if I’ve had guests, though it’s been ages since I’ve had anyone over. Even in my bedroom, the photographs have been swapped for images of unfamiliar faces smiling back at me like strangers in my own life. It takes me a good half hour to an hour to navigate this twisted maze of misplaced belongings. Putting everything right—just the way I like it.

But why? Who would do this? The thought lingers like a shadow, feeding my growing paranoia. That’s when I noticed things and was delivered a file, with the same footage I've sent you.

You may be wondering why the candle. Trust me, though. The candle has helped me stay ahead of the shadow. One of my trigger systems. As it dims again, I recall…

Another time, when I was 18 and driving home from a dinner and movie date with my girlfriend, everything was fine until we stopped at a junction. Then everything went black and when I came to, she was gone. All that was ever said between us was a message that read simply, “We’re done. Please don’t contact me again.”

I wonder what may happen when the fateful day comes and the candle no longer flickers. By all accounts, that day should have come and gone many times over by now. Yet, time, my understanding of it and reality have been skewed since I came to this lonely shell. Saying "since I came to this lonely shell" would make one think I knew when that time was.

However, I don’t.

My short-term memory is more of an unfriendly combatant, seemingly intent on finishing me, done and dusted—dusted like the thin layer that covers everything. I can see the dust in the air as it floats past the flicker of the candle.

I sometimes hear, with no discernible pattern or reason, banging from underneath me. I’ve tried calling out but to no avail. I wonder if they know I’m here—surely, they do? Perhaps they’re doing it to taunt me? Perhaps they’re planning for my demise? It’s hard to tell. The candle is the only thing I have in the spacious but blank canvas of the dark and intimidating cell I find myself in.

From what I have discovered researching the case, David never had a cell as such. When his voice changed, though. There was a strong familiarity with what happened. I’ve never seen someone bleed so much without collapsing. Dr Adams, as astute and sensible as he was, had left the room by that time.

"Hello?" shouting at the top of my voice. The banging doesn’t stop. Then it does. Again, no rhyme or reason, no pattern or schedule. I sometimes hear the banging at night when I can’t sleep. That is a strange thing in this situation I find myself in. Within the never-ending void of my cemented prison, I can never tell when the day starts and when it ends. I have definitely slept but found that I have enough of a nightmare while I’m awake that I don’t dream anymore.

Is that what the point of all this is? How did they finally get us? Use us. We’re all just living a waking nightmare and doing the bidding for unseen forces that we never remember.

There’s always a strange smell. David mentioned a strange smell, and others have mentioned a strange smell. Just before, things happen. The strong smell of rancid fruit and then darkness.

"Hello? Is there anybody there? Can someone, anyone, please respond, reply, or anything?"

Nothing.

“Don’t worry anymore, Dr Adams. We will make sure you no longer have to worry about anything.”

Still, the candle flickers.

Just the smell of rancid fruit, then…darkness.

*****

Thanks for reading!

Author's Notes: So, had the parts of this story sitting in my "Not Just Now - Vocal - Writing Stuff" folder for a very long time. No idea what my original intention was for it, but I decided to mess around with it, tinker with it with the view to put it forward for Kenny Penn's Frighten Me! Please? challenge. Alas, it is far too long. So, didn't want it to go to waste. So hope it was worth publishing!

The subtitle is inspired by recent pieces by Dana Crandell and JBaz:

If you have any time or inclination, here are some other things: