James Swain - Shadow People

“Ghosts are friendly. That thing wasn’t. It’s called a shadow person.”

“That’s heavy. I’m glad I got it on tape. Wait until I post it on YouTube.”

“You taped the show?”

“You betcha.”

Peter sometimes filmed his shows so he could later critique himself. The Saturday matinee hadn’t been filmed in a while, and it was a stroke of luck that Snoop had chosen to film today. Ghosts and spirits did not like to be captured on film. When watched frame by frame, their true identities often revealed themselves. Perhaps Snoop’s film of the shadow person would reveal its true identity, and lead them to Dr. Death.

“You’re a genius,” Peter told him.

“Glad you finally noticed,” his assistant replied.

Garrison arrived at the theater after the evening show let out, and gathered with Peter, Liza, and Snoop in Peter’s dressing room. Peter kept a TV in the room, and it was on this that they watched the video Snoop had shot of the shadow person during the matinee.

The video’s resolution along with the bright stage lighting gave remarkable clarity to a presence that was normally viewed in a fleeting glance before disappearing. About five feet tall, it was shaped like a woman, but could have easily been a man. They watched Peter stuff it into the Dollhouse illusion, and make the lovely Liza reappear, her body falling into his arms. It was here that the video ended.

“Let me make sure I’ve got this straight,” Garrison said to Liza. “While that thing was on stage, you were hidden in a secret compartment in the bottom of the illusion, but your spirit was whisked away to the future, where you encountered Dr. Death.”

Liza had changed into a pair of gray sweats. The strain of two shows and her nerve-racking trip had taken its toll, and she looked exhausted. “That’s right.”

“What do you remember about him? Think hard.”

“He tried to run over a little dog in the road. He has to be the most rotten person I’ve ever met. I mean, who runs over little dogs?”

“That’s a very helpful piece of information,” Garrison said.

She brightened. “It is? Why?”

“People who are really angry with the world run over dogs and cats, and leave them in the road for other motorists to see. The FBI has seen this before in serial killers. I can think of three off the top of my head.”

“Will it help you catch him?” Liza asked.

“It just might. The three serial killers I’m thinking of all shared something else in common. They’d all gone berserk in public, and been arrested. They all had records which detailed what they’d done. If we’re lucky, our serial killer in Westchester will have a record, and that will make it easier to find him.”

Liza smiled. She was a person who searched for meaning in just about every situation. She’d been searching for the meaning of her harrowing trip, and Garrison had just served it to her. The FBI was one step closer to catching Dr. Death. “Thank you for sharing that. I’m going to think about what happened some more. If anything else pops up, I’d like to call you.”

Garrison handed her a business card. “Call me anytime.”

She slipped the card into her pocket. Her world was back on keel. It occurred to Peter that this was an important moment in their relationship. She had not run. His other girlfriends had all done that at some point. His psychic gifts had scared them, and they’d gone from being lovers to Facebook friends in a New York minute. Not Liza. She was in it for the long haul. No girlfriend had ever done that for him before. Somehow, he would find a way to thank her.

“Let’s see the video again,” Garrison said.

Snoop punched the remote, and the shadow person danced across the screen. The FBI agent brought his face close to study the unearthly presence.

“You’ll go blind doing that,” Snoop said. “My mother told me that, so I thought it was worth passing along.”

“Shut up,” Garrison said.

Snoop and Garrison were not friends. One of the agents in Garrison’s team had arrested Snoop in college for hacking government computers, and Garrison had made it clear that he thought the public would be well served if Snoop was locked up in prison. Snoop knew of these feelings, and made it a point to needle the FBI agent whenever they were together.

The video ended, and Garrison twirled his finger. “Play it again.”

“Only if you say please.”

“Don’t push your luck, son.”

The tape played again, and Garrison went back into his pose. He resembled a baseball umpire crouching behind home plate, his face scrunched up in anticipation of a hundred-mile-per-hour fastball ready to fly into the catcher’s mitt. His eyes squinted, and then he smiled.

“Isn’t that something,” he said.

Peter assumed a similar pose beside him. Whatever Garrison was seeing was invisible to his untrained eye. “What did you see?”

“Your spook is dancing in front of those kids,” Garrison said. “Look how it sways back and forth while shrugging its shoulders. That’s modern dance.”

Liza made it a threesome, also staring. “Oh, my God, you’re right. You can see how it moves across the stage in rhythm to the music. How weird is that.”

This was not how evil spirits acted. Usually, they did scary things around kids, whom they liked to torture. It was a part of being evil that Peter had never quite understood. Hurting adults was something he could vaguely understand, but how could someone hurt a child?

Certainly not the shadow person. It seemed more intent on entertaining the crowd of kids than scaring the daylights out of them. But Peter was letting his imagination run away with him. This was an evil spirit they were looking at. Perhaps the dance was a preamble of what was about to come, and the shadow person was preparing to enter the audience, and kidnap the spirits of several kids in the front row.

It could happen. Peter had heard stories about evil spirits abducting children. They’d always ended badly. The poor kids had come back traumatized, and were never the same.

He’d been justified in hurting this thing, and stuffing it back in the box. In hindsight, he should have hurt it more when he’d had the chance. Only he hadn’t wanted the kids to see the full force of his rage. It would have scared them as badly, so he’d held back.

“I need to take this tape, and have the forensic boys analyze it,” Garrison said.

“It’s yours,” Peter told him. “Make sure they study the face. Ghosts and evil spirits are ashamed to have been left behind, so they hide their faces, and avoid the light.”

“Sounds like some girls I’ve dated,” Snoop said.

“Skip the commentary, and get me the tape,” Garrison said.

Snoop produced the video. He’d burned it onto a CD, which he dutifully handed over. He started to raise his arm, and give the infamous middle finger salute. Peter caught his assistant’s attention eye, and shook his head. Snoop lowered his arm dejectedly.

“We’ve got until Friday to catch this madman,” Garrison said. “We’re off to a good start because of your efforts. Call me if you remember anything else.”

“Will do,” Peter said.

Peter and Liza walked Garrison to the back alley where the agent’s SUV was parked. The temperature had dropped, with the promise of another bitterly cold night. Garrison produced his keys and hit a button that unlocked the doors and killed the security system.

“I heard her voice,” Liza said.

“Whose voice?” Garrison asked.

“Rachael, his next victim. It was over the phone. Dr. Death was setting the trap.”

“What can you tell me about her?”

“I didn’t see her-I just heard her voice.”