Geoff Cooper: Shades

He stared into the darkness, and the darkness stared back.

Dana Wheeler knew how to use her looks. Her biggest problem was a lack of ambition. She could have gone on to bigger and better things on her own, but she preferred being with the right guys who might take her to bigger and better things themselves.

Currently, the right guy was Tony Amiratti Junior. As far as the public knew, his dad owned a roofing company, an electronics store, and invested heavily in the right stocks. In reality, Tony Amiratti Senior was part of the Marano Family crime syndicate. So was Tony Junior. Like father like son. As a result, Tony had money to spend on Dana. They lived the good life. All she had to do was make sure he stayed satisfied—and she was very good at keeping Tony happy. Much better than the other women he slept with.

Sweat glistened on her naked body. Her nipples hardened as the ceiling fan gently blew air across them. Tony snored softly. Dana was restless and wide-awake. Tony never had that problem after sex. He needed a full night to recover. She didn’t really mind, but now and then it would have been nice to talk afterwards. She glanced at the alarm clock on the dresser. Nine PM. Not late. Sleep would be a long time coming.

The bathroom light was on. Its rays spilled out from the open door and into the bedroom, casting shadows. Movement in the corner of the room caught her attention, and she looked to her right. There was nothing to see, but the fine hairs on her arm rose. One of the shadows seemed darker than the others.

“Tony? Baby?”

Tony mumbled in his sleep.

Dana had always been afraid of the dark. Bad things waited in the shadows. That’s what her older brother Pete used to say when they were kids. He’d told her that shadows had minds of their own. Growing up, she’d believed him. As an adult, the notion was easy to dismiss.

It wasn’t so easy now.

Tony rolled over and smacked his lips. “Tell Vince to ugh wump,” he mumbled. Then he was silent again.

Dana was about to dismiss her nervousness when, in the darkness, something moved again. She sat up. A shadow slipped across the wall and glided slowly along the carpet. The bathroom light did not keep the shadow at bay. She tried to cry out, but couldn’t. As she watched, the shadow slipped up over the foot of the bed. It was human in size and shape, but there was no one else in the room with them. Dana blinked her eyes. Her stomach knotted with old childhood fears. Her brother’s voice taunted her.

She moaned.

The shadow hovered over Tony, settling on him, covering the length of his body. Gasping, he awoke suddenly, jolting upright. His eyes were wide. His mouth opened and closed like a fish.

Terrified, Dana slipped off the side of the bed and landed on the thick carpet. “Tony? Oh God…”

Tony reached for her, his eyes growing wider. Dana jumped to her feet, reaching for the light switch. Tony began shaking. The bedsprings squeaked. And then Dana screamed.

The shadow pushed Tony down onto the bed again and wrapped its hands around his neck. Dana saw finger-shaped indentations on the flesh of Tony’s neck as the shadow squeezed, even though the attacker’s fingers were indeterminable. The shadow shoved Tony’s face into the mattress. Tony’s hands clenched the sheets and beat against the bed. Dana moved closer, grabbing at the shadow. Her fingers slid through the darkness, feeling nothing but a sudden wave of cold.

One of the shadow’s hands released Tony’s neck and sought her instead. Its cold grasp brushed her face and hair while Tony desperately sucked in a breath of air and gagged. Dana screamed again. The shadow took advantage. Its hand slid into her open mouth. The darkness slipped past her lips, her teeth, and pushed into her throat. It pushed into Tony’s mouth as well. Dana had one advantage over her lover—she was still on her feet. She staggered backwards. The shadow stretched like taffy for a moment before losing its hold on her. The frigid, inky substance left her mouth and air rushed in to fill the void. Dana retched. Tony made a small, choking sound.

Without looking back, Dana ran, taking the hallway in four strides, bouncing off the wall as she dashed into the living room. The house was dark, filled with more shadows, more places where bad things could hide. Dana froze, uncertain if she wanted to go further. But she couldn’t go back into the bedroom. The house was silent now, but she had no doubt what was happening back the way she’d come. She slapped her hand against the wall, feeling for the light switch. A framed picture of Tony’s grandmother fell to the floor. Glass shattered at her bare feet. Even though she couldn’t see, she knew the location of the picture. It was the only one in the room. She had to go at least six more feet before she’d reach the front door. Dana stepped forward, forgetting about the broken glass. A shard punched through the bottom of her foot.

“Fuck!” Her voice cracked. She tottered on one foot. Again, her fingers sought the light switch.

She found something else instead.

A hand closed over hers. It was warm, not cold, and flesh, not shadow. Dana tried to pull back, but the hand squeezed harder until she thought her fingers would break.

“Your brother was right, Dana,” a male voice whispered in her ear. “Bad things do wait in the shadows.”

The speaker wasn’t familiar. How could he know about her brother, she wondered?

“Tony…”

“He’ll be fine. Don’t worry about him. Worry about yourself. Now sleep.”

Another hand closed over her mouth and the speaker whispered a word Dana didn’t understand. She slipped from consciousness.

789

In Gethsemane Cemetery, the dead cried out, but there was no one around to hear them.

789

Michael Bedrik received word of his brother’s death at a quarter till ten. He’d barely made it home before the police arrived. He hurried up from the basement, wiping his hands on a dishtowel before answering the door. The chief of police, Ed Winters, stood on his porch. Bedrik made sure to look appropriately mournful as the man gave him the news.

“Will you need me to identify the body, Chief Winters?”

“Well, it’s really only a formality these days, but in this case, no. He was in the water for a long time, Mr. Bedrik. We were able to identify him through prison dental records, so you don’t need to go through that.”

Bedrik sighed. “Well, that is a blessing, at least. I don’t know how I’d…”

He broke off and wiped his eyes, suppressing the urge to laugh.

Winters looked uncomfortable. “I’m so very sorry for your loss, Mr. Bedrik.”

“I appreciate that. Thanks for coming and telling me yourself, Chief. I know it’s not the easiest part of your job.” He put on the proper expression of grief, not quite getting to tears, but broken up inside, as he shook the man’s hand. “I’m afraid it might take me a few hours to make arrangements regarding Martin’s”— he made himself choke—“Martin’s burial. Is that all right? I don’t want to be a nuisance.”

“No, really, it’s fine. You take all the time you need.”

Bedrik knew that Chief Winters hated thinking about the dead. He saw it in his mind. Talking about them was one of the best ways around to drive the man away. Winters had dealt with too many deaths in his own family. Too many loved ones buried before their times were due. It was a side effect of a history of serving the community: One uncle and a father who were both police officers and a brother who chose to be a firefighter. None of them had lived past fifty and the police chief was closing in fast on his forty-ninth birthday. Fear was his constant companion. Bedrik tasted it in the man’s aura.