THE SHADOW KILLER MARY C. MOORE Copyright 2011 by Mary C. Moore Smashwords Edition The girl who is almost a woman sits on the edge of society. The cement is cold there, cold and hard. It stinks like booze-filled urine. She sits there and watches the crowds of housies walk by in their clean, warm clothes. Her face is covered with months of unwashed pimples. Her hair is filled with dreads made from snarls and dirt. When you pass by her, she looks up at you with a dull, trembling expression. The cardboard sign in front of her is a plea, yet she looks as if she would disdain your help. You walk by quickly, averting your eyes. You can’t figure out why you avoid her. You don’t think too much about it, and you soon forget her. Forgotten, she will sit there long after you have returned to the warmth and comfort of your home. She will sit there while the shadows of the tall buildings elongate, and then disappear. She will sit there until night falls—a night that is not silent or dark, but is filled with orange streetlamps and leering men and screeching sirens and shadowed alleys. Then, as the nocturnal city life crowds around her, she will finger any coins in the paper cup and know if she can eat from the McDonald’s down the block. The girl is tired. She is more than tired; she is bone weary exhausted. The only sleep she has had in the past few months is what she could catch while the sun was high in the sky. Only then could she risk curling in a ball on the unforgiving cement to sleep. She cannot try to find a place at night, she cannot go to a shelter, she cannot sleep without the sun because… Because, every night the goblins come for her. The goblins are hunting, and she is their prey. She doesn’t know how or why, but she does know when. A black mass that seems to be nothing but nails and teeth follows her. Gibbering, drooling, hissing, they hunt her when the shadows become long. She cannot sleep without the sun. Stomach grumbling she picks herself up. Her paper cup did not make enough today to put some nourishment in her aching belly. Not that it would make a difference to the skin that stretches and clings to her bones. She wishes she had some clean socks, as she hoists her ratty oversized pack onto her shoulders. Her feet are permanent wrinkles inside damp cotton. But wet socks are at least better than no socks. She will be down to no socks soon. She begins the walk, the walk she does every night. Her knees tremble, and she braces herself for what is coming. Months of little sleep has made her weak. She walks much slower than she used to. The shadows are already condensing around her, her weakness attracting them quicker. There are glimpses of scrawny wee creatures with six bony limbs and green glowing eyes that fade into the gloom of the urban night. She keeps her head down and trudges away from them, her matted hair covering her glum face. She knows the goblins will follow her. They always do. The goblins will follow her deep into the abandoned bus stations and garbage-filled alleyways. They will harass her, pinching and jabbing at her then skittering away when she futilely slaps after them making hissing noises between their sharp goblin teeth. They will follow her into dark gardens and through dim parking lots. They will follow her wherever she goes. She is always tired, but she cannot lie down. To lie down means to die. She has seen the others, toothless Harry, skinny Marlene, even gangster Johnny, and many more who finally succumbed, who finally lay down, who finally went to sleep at night. She has seen them, or what was left of them, their bones and flesh and blood splayed across the cement in an explosion of sinew and organs. Toothless Harry’s toothless jawbone had been lying in the middle of the street. Skinny Marlene was only identifiable by the broken plastic bracelet she always wore, hanging off of a gnawed bone. Gangster Johnny, well his whole hand had been left, clutched around his semi-automatic. Not that the gun had made a difference, not if he fell asleep. The girl knows she must stay awake. She must keep walking. She keeps walking, and walking, and walking, trudging through sickly-fluorescent tunnels and over graffiti-eaten bridges. If you look really carefully you can see a stream of dark little creatures following her, swelling and ebbing behind her in a black cloud. If you are really quiet you can hear them chittering and spitting. And if the wind blows the right way you can smell their rancid buttery body odor. Do not linger too long, you might catch their attention. She stops. This night is different for the girl. She is so tired. She cannot go on. She is so tired of everything. Her body is sad, it is breaking down. Human endurance can be broken. Anything is better than this life. Time to let the goblins have her. She turns to look at the dark mass behind her, but it scatters. The goblins are craven, spineless creatures. They are not looking for a physical fight. Wavering on her bony legs she falls to her hands and knees. Her gaunt, pale limbs tremble under the pressure of keeping her own body up. The goblins surround her. They push at her, taunting, but they wait. They are cowards and will wait for her to sleep. Only their fingertips are brave and they poke at her. She shudders away from their slimy touch. They have won. The goblins have beat her. She believes them, these things that push people out of society. She believes their jeers and taunts. They laugh at what is joyful and sneer at what is meaningful. Love drives them mad. They feed on despair. They whisper to you in the night. You do not fit in you do not deserve what others deserve run away from life you are a freak run away from us we will follow you keep running we will find you you will see this life is not worth it we will have you. Something wakes inside her. Anger. YOU WILL NOT HAVE ME. Anger. Thick boiling waves of anger. Anger at the goblins. How dare they try to pester her into death? Anger at the world. How dare it try to push her down? The rage inside her grows, it consumes. Look around you, all you see is fear. Fear to walk, fear to talk, fear to see. Fear in the name of what is normal. Fear in the guise of security. Fear makes us vulnerable to the goblins. She collapses to the ground and curls her knees to her chest, a fetus in the little circle of street light, curled tight as the goblins begin drooling with hunger. What brought her here? How did she end up in this place? The goblins press in. Her body trembles with anger. YOU WILL NOT HAVE ME. Her limbs explode outward. The outburst sends a couple of the dark creatures flying into the street. They snap open on the cement. Their bodies melt into the ground, blackness oozing into the cracks. The rest of the goblins gabble and back away, uncertain of their prey. Blood races through her veins, forcing its way through her body, blue swollen veins pop under her skin. Muscles inflate, rippling over her shoulder blades, expanding like balloons. She cries in despair and pain. The goblins inch closer, licking their dark purple lips. I AM MORE THAN THIS. She hisses back at them. Her face splits open, the skin tearing, flapping off of the skull. Strands of hair snake over her shoulder blades, burrowing into the flesh of her back, and coming out her ass. Whole fingernails sprinkle onto the floor. Her skin bubbles and pops. Fissures of fluid explode and burst all over her body. HOW DARE YOU. Snarling and gibbering and drooling she raises her face the heavens. Her eye sockets are empty bones. A scream shoots upward from her mouth and turns into a howl. The flesh continues its rippling metamorphosis. The goblins scatter. Her short panted inhales of breath are raspy. Her bulbous knees scrap the floor. The long sharp knives of her toenails squeal and leave gashes in the sidewalk underneath. Hair continues to break out of her skin in tufts. Blood fills her mouth and drips down her chin. Her teeth grow sharp and long. YESSSSS. The heart pumps and the bones snap as she stands, new lungs heaving and pumping new air and life through her massive torso of engorged muscles laced together. Whimpering, her clawed hands drag over what is left of her face, shredding the flesh. Frenzied she scrabbles at her empty eye-sockets. The last bits of old skin drop to the floor, in pale chunks. The goblins start to bunch together again. They’ve worked long and hard on this victim, the smell of her flesh driving them wild for months. I WILL KILL YOU FOR THIS. Crimson eyeballs with depthless black pupils fill the empty eye sockets, and her arms fall to her sides. She can see. Her head swings to face her pursuers. Fur glistening in the new light, she takes a heavy step forward. Her hands hang limply her arms bent at the elbow. The curve of her new back forces her neck to dip down. Grunts push past the pain. The new body gains confidence, and she moves faster. Now the shadows are shrinking away. She drops to all fours, her knuckles on her hands as strong as her feet. She growls low and bunches her muscles. A scream rips from her feral mouth. The goblins scramble and fall over each other trying to run away from the beast who is looking at them like they look at others. She grins a terrible grin and leaps forward. She is off in pursuit of her former shadows. With claws and sharp teeth and engorged muscles she is the fear. No more goblins will follow her. The prey has become the predator. She will kill some shadows tonight. On this night you heard a sound close outside your walls, and you wonder what hunts out there, beyond your warm and comfortable home. A shadow skitters across your windowsill, and you pull the curtains tight. For some reason you cannot sleep tonight, and you wonder how safe your house really is. Perhaps you should remain awake. Perhaps your home is not as secure as you thought it was. Perhaps you are not as normal as you believed you were. Perhaps the shadows are coming for you. Something hisses in the night. Perhaps you should start walking. PRAY FOR THE SHADOW KILLER. *** This urban fairy tale is from a compilation of short stories entitled Beastly Tales. To purchase the entire collection please visit Smashwords or the author’s website. Thank you. Visit www.marycmoore.com to learn more about the author.