Today is Halloween and the end of our fears of writing series. To celebrate, we’re going to relax and have some fun with a nice original horror story written by yours truly. I hope you enjoy the chilling tale of The Shadow Man and have a happy and safe holiday!
The Shadow Man
The sweet smell of pancakes wafted across the kitchen accompanied by the soft happy sound of batter cooking in the hot butter that greased the pan.
“Those smell amazing dear!” Steve said from the kitchen table.
It was one of the few times he wasn’t buried in his phone or staring off into space. His daydreams, if that’s what you wanted to call them, were a recent development. Sometimes he would sit and stare at nothing in particular for twenty or thirty minutes before coming back to reality. Alice had found him sitting on the couch staring at the TV the other day, which wasn’t on. She had said his name and he came to immediately with no recollection of how long he’d been out.
“Thank you sweetheart,” she replied lovingly from the stove.
Their marriage was a happy one; he was a kind and caring husband. The only strain on their marriage was her concern for his health. Late last year he had started having terrible nightmares. They would wake him up in a panic several times a night and leave him dead on his feet during the day. Before long he was barely able to function at work and she finally convinced him to see a doctor about it.
“It’s a shame you can’t make these when we go camping next weekend,” he said from the table.
“I’m not sure what the smoke from a campfire would do to the batter,” she said with a laugh.
“I don’t know, it might be good,” he joked back.
She shot him a quick look and a wry smile over her shoulder. As she turned back to the hot pan, the grin quickly faded.
“Are you sure a camping trip is such a good idea?” she asked as nonchalantly as she could.
“It will be fine,” came his reply, unconcerned like the last time she had brought it up. “We can always leash me to a tree at night if we need to.”
She chuckled, hoping the amusement sounded real. She didn’t want to waste a good morning arguing. He wasn’t as tired this morning as he was after an episode. The doctor had prescribed him sleeping pills that took care of the nightmares, but they caused him to walk in his sleep. Nights with an episode made him sluggish and groggy in the morning, but not nearly as bad as the nightmares had been.
“I guess we will be sure to pack some rope then,” she said as she carried a plate of pancakes to him.
She set the plate down in front of him and they gave each other a quick good morning kiss. Her concerns about his sleepwalking while they were camping began to fade in the presence of his charming smile. They would figure out some sort of solution, hopefully one that didn’t involve tying him to a tree. Before she could say anything else, chaos blew into the room like a rushing thunderstorm.
“PANCAKES!” yelled the tiny voice of their daughter as she ran into the room, nearly crashing into the table.
“Whoa! Slow down there Suzy!” Steve said as he unsuccessfully tried to wrangle the energetic six year old.
“PANCAKES! PANCAKES! PANCAKES!” she loudly chanted, avoiding her father’s grasp.
“Suzy! Inside voice please!” Alice said sternly.
Suzy quickly stopped in her tracks and locked eyes with her mother.
“Pancakes!” She whispered intensely.
“You’re so silly,” Steve said, tussling her hair. “Are you excited about the camping trip next weekend?”
Suzy nodded so violently it gave Alice a headache watching her. Before the yelling resumed, she returned to the stove and plated up a second stack of pancakes for the tiny terror.
“The Shadow Man can’t come with us though,” Suzy said as her mom placed the plate full of pancakes in front of her.
Without hesitation, she began devouring the pancakes as fast as she could. She tended to be a picky eater, but when it came to mom ‘s pancakes, all bets were off.
“Why do you say that?” Alice asked. “Please slow down honey, you’re going to choke.”
“He told me last night it was time for him to leave and he would miss us,” Suzy said around a mouthful of half chewed pancake.
“Ah, I see,” Alice said, giving her husband a smile when Suzy wasn’t looking.
“All done!” Suzie exclaimed triumphantly. “Can I go play outside?”
“Sure sweetie,” Alice said, a tight smile on her lips.
With her mother’s permission, Suzy shot out of her chair nearly knocking it over in the process. In a whirlwind of activity, she ran out of the back door, slamming it behind her.
“It is terrifying how fast that child eats,” Alice said, staring at the back door.
“Is it bad that I still find it creepy when she refers to me as the Shadow Man?” Steve asked.
“No, it creeps me out too,” Alice said giving him a comforting smile.
Soon after he had started sleepwalking, their daughter woke her up screaming one night claiming a “Shadow Man” was wondering around the house. Sure enough, Alice had found Steve rummaging through the refrigerator downstairs, the glassy eyes and blank expression a telltale sign he was sleepwalking. They had a long conversation the next day with their traumatized daughter about her father’s sleepwalking.
To both of their discomfort, Steve began to occasionally wander into their daughter’s room at night and have lengthy conversations during his episodes. Suzy didn’t seem afraid or bothered by this though, so they didn’t worry about it. Alice had also found her husband sitting in the dark at the kitchen table, deep in conversation with himself. She knew it was a normal (if rare) side effect to his pills, but the way he would hold both sides of the conversation gave her the creeps.
“Why do you think you would have told her you were leaving?” Alice asked.
Steve shrugged his shoulders, puzzled. “I have been thinking about the camping trip a lot I guess.”
Alice nodded. While that made sense, she wondered if it was the only reason.
“Well, since you want us all to go camping you get to find our camping gear,” she said happily, patting him on the shoulder. “You do that and I’ll start the dishes.”
“Now that’s a deal!” Steve said brightly. “The camping stuff is probably under the stairs, right?”
“Don’t ask me,” she said as she began rinsing off the plates. “I haven’t seen that stuff since we moved in.”
Steve sat for a moment, thinking, and then made his way to the hallway where the stairs were. Before long she could hear the sounds of shifting boxes and the occasional muffled swear word. They had shoved several boxes full of stuff they didn’t use often into the small storage room when they moved in. The boxes had sat there, largely untouched, since then.
Alice stopped washing the plate in her hands for a moment as she did the math. It had been a little over a year and they still hadn’t finished unpacking all of their stuff. Steve and her would need to sit down and figure out when to through the stuff. Steve’s nightmares had started not long after they had finished unpacking and got settled in. In the months before, he also seemed to slowly become moody and restless.
Alice shook her head and laughed at her paranoia as she resumed cleaning the plate. They had just moved across the country and Steve had started a new job. The stress of those first few months had been unreal for him, especially with Suzy in the middle of everything. As if to demonstrate this very point, Suzy ran by the window, her hands waving in the air, chasing God only knew what. As Suzy ran out of her mother’s view from the window, Alice noticed a small folded piece of white paper tucked in between the apples in the hanging fruit basket by the window. A warm smile crossed her face as she dried her hands and removed it.
“I found one of your notes,” she called to Steve.
“Oh, that’s embarrassing,” came his reply from the hallway.
“I think they’re sweet,” She said, teasing him.
In addition to his late night conversations, he occasionally left little notes squirreled away around the house for her. Every time she found one, it amazed her how creative he could be hiding them. There was no telling how long they had been there, waiting for her to discover it. She unfolded the paper and began to read. This one was much shorter than usual.
“My Dearest Alice,” it began. “I leave this note for you to make sure you know just how much I have enjoyed spending time with you, you’re lovely daughter, and your charming husband.”
The first time she had read one of his quirky notes, the 3rd person perspective and unfamiliar handwriting horrified her. Her cheeks flushed at the memory of the conversation with the police. It took Steve’s psychiatrist a full session to explain to her that when he was sleepwalking his subconscious was in complete control. In his sleeping state, he might view himself as the “Shadow Man” and not Steve. This was also the reason he would hold both sides of a conversation with himself at the kitchen table. Just as his voice and speaking style would change when he talked to himself, his handwriting was different when he was the “Shadow Man.” After the first handful of notes, they became a sweet surprise whenever she would discover one.
“While our time together has become some of the best memories I have, I’m afraid that the time for me to leave has come,” the note in her hands read.
“Your note says you’re leaving too,” she said to her husband.
“That’s really strange,” he called back. “I must have been thinking about this camping trip more than I-Oh crap!” he said, followed by the sound of boxes falling.
“You okay?” she asked, looking down the hallway, the note momentarily forgotten.
“I’m fine,” he replied sounding distracted. “That’s weird. Did you know there is a door to the crawl space in here?”
“There is?” she asked.
“Yeah. It’s a panel that matches the wall. Not surprising we never noticed it before.”
“That makes sense,” she replied, turning back to the note.
“I will miss the three of you more than you know,” the note read. “These last few months have made me wish I could feel like other people can, to know first hand the love you and your family share. I wish my parents had been as kind and loving as you two are.”
Alice’s brows furrowed in confusion. She knew Steve wasn’t close with his parents and that he didn’t talk about his childhood, but she hadn’t thought there was any sort of abuse.
“That’s strange,” Steve said to himself from the storage room. “I found the camping gear,” he called out.
Alice heard him, but wasn’t listening as her eyes scanned the final lines of the note in her hands.
“Nobody should be looking for me anymore, so I’ll slip away while I can. By the time you find this, I’ll be gone. Please give your husband my apologies for not saying goodbye in person.”
Alice’s hands began to shake and a cold hard lump rapidly grew in her stomach.
“It almost looks like someone has been living down here,” Steve said from the hallway.
Alice felt the scream forming in her throat as she read the signature. It was signed “Thanks for the Memories, The Shadow Man.”
I hope you enjoyed this story as much as I did writing it. If this is your first time here, I invite you to poke around the site and see if anything strikes your interest. If you would like to get regular updates about the Merchants of the Void and the progress on my novel, consider subscribing to the newsletter.
