Thursday night, the shadow man came back. I haven’t seen them since we moved into the house. Ian was here when last I saw them. I was afraid. I whispered for him to go away until he left.
Not this time.
I don’t know why I wasn’t afraid… They’ve always frightened me. Living static. Large reflective eyes. Bug features. Elongated fingers. And silent … always silent.
It started with a dream. Not my dream. I don’t dream, not usually. I see colours at night. Deep, dark ones. Sometimes I have other peoples’ dreams. Sometimes I have what I can only describe as “visions”, a flurry of images that fill me with a sense of elation, or foreboding. The kind of dream that is forgotten right away, and then comes creeping back randomly in the daylight hours months later as a sense of deja vu. Sometimes my dreams are nonsensical, repeating bouts of bull shit, wherein I have no control.
But mostly, I have nightmares.
I knew almost immediately that the dream I was having was fake. A ploy. A distraction. It was too bright, too perfect and cheery.
Every time I do manage to dream, I always know that I’m dreaming. Once I have that realization, and try and affect something the world fades away around me, and I’m lying in bed gesturing needlessly in the darkness.
This time, I knew I was dreaming, and I could impact this dream.
I sat up partially in bed, waking up instantly and there he was. Standing at the foot of the bed, the covers pulled back, exposing my feet, and an open wound on my ankle.
He didn’t notice me until I started cursing at him. In my own head I was screaming every obscenity I knew, and my lips and breath could hardly keep up. His static body flickered and he looked at me with his big bug eyes. Ian didn’t stir.
I ordered him out of my house. I demanded that they all leave me the hell alone. I cursed so much I don’t know what curses I used.
He touched something inside the cut on my ankle, slid his finger over the wound, closing it, and disappeared.
I was left, half-sitting up in bed, the blankets pulled away from my feet and my voice wheezing out in a tire, dry, rasp.
I’m not afraid.
I wonder if they’ll return.