Re: Susan's Shadow
Posted: Sun May 05, 2024 3:50 am
by Sue DeNym
Chapter 1
In the fleeting light of the setting sun, many young boys and girls were scampering through the streets of Quaintville, each child desperate to reach the beacon of safety that was home, before the looming darkness of night consumed the town.
A small hand pulled back the curtain of a bedroom window, and a pair of anxious eyes peeked out, gazing down upon the street. Nine-year-old Christopher Crandall recognized some of his own classmates among the scurrying children. The fourth-grade boy could only hope that they all made it safely to their houses, that none of them fell victim to the dark, mysterious figure that was plaguing the seemingly idyllic community.
They called it ... the Bogeyman. Nobody knew what it looked like, because nobody who saw it ever escaped to tell about it. What they knew was that it came out every night, to snatch away little children who made the mistake of wandering too far away from home, never to be seen again ...
* * * * *
6:25 p.m.
Susan set down her pencil. She picked up the sheet of paper that she had been scribbling on for the past several minutes, and gazed at it for a good long moment. Finally, letting out a heavy sigh, she crumpled it up and tossed it toward the wastebasket next to her desk ... the wastebasket that she knew, without looking at it even once, was by now overflowing with similarly crumpled papers.
"That stinks," muttered Susan. "A mysterious figure called the Bogeyman ... the Bogeyman, for pity's sake ... snatching away children outside at night? How cliched can you get? I might as well start the story by saying 'It was a dark and stormy night.'"
She grimaced as she remembered that she used to do that.
Susan got up from her desk and paced around her bedroom, pausing occasionally to take a sip from the mug of hot cocoa that she habitually kept in her hand. She pulled back the curtain of her window and looked out at the town below. The sun actually was setting, not that it made much difference to her. Writer's block didn't punch out for the day, much as Susan wished it did.
"Hey, Susan," came a chipper voice, followed by a familiar head of reddish-brown hair poking around the door of Susan's room.
"Hi, Drew." Susan didn't look up to greet her roommate and best friend.
"Girl, did you get any sleep at all last night?" Drew looked at Susan critically.
"I'll sleep as soon as I finish this story," replied Susan.
"Uh - "
"Don't go there," said Susan sharply, taking another sip of her hot cocoa.
"Okay." Drew giggled. "Can I help you with the story, Susan?"
"Not this time, Drew."
"Maybe it would help if I looked over what you've written."
"That's a good idea. I'll let you know as soon as I write something."
"Gotcha."
Drew's head disappeared through the doorway, while Susan somberly sat down at her desk.
Think, she said to herself, tapping her pencil against her head. Think!
* * * * *
Christopher turned away from his bedroom window, wrapping his arms tightly around himself. The young boy shivered as he thought of the previous morning, when his friend and classmate, Jeffrey, had spoken to the students in the elementary school auditorium.
Jeffrey was one of the very few to have escaped the clutches of the Bogeyman, and he was now standing, so bravely, to share the tale of his narrow brush with that darkness ...
* * * * *
"That's it," said Susan thoughtfully.
For the terror of the Bogeyman, or whatever you wanted to call it, to spread throughout the town, there needed to be at least some characters who survived their encounter with it, to tell the tale firsthand of the dark, mysterious villain.
Also, Susan needed a visual concept for the story's antagonist, something to capture the reader's imagination. It simply didn't work for nobody to know what this terrifying figure even looked like.
Susan picked up her sketchpad and turned to a fresh page. For a moment, she simply gazed at the blank paper, allowing her thoughts to wander freely, to form an image that could finally flow through her pencil. Soon, as if her hand was moving of its own accord, she began to draw ...
A while later, Susan was staring unblinkingly at the figure she had sketched. Almost without looking, she turned to a blank page in her notepad and began to write ...
* * * * *
They called him ... the Shadowman.
(Okay, that's not exactly original, either, but let's go with it for now.)
The few witnesses who could be found described him as being 12 feet tall, wearing what looked like a long trenchcoat and a flat-brimmed hat.
Nobody had ever seen his face ... In fact, those unfortunate enough to have been close enough to see his face claimed that he didn't seem to even have one ... No features could ever be made out. He was always completely dark, almost as if he was made of darkness ...
The Shadowman struck terror in the hearts of every child in the town of Quaintville. Every night, young boys and girls ran through the streets, trying to reach ...
* * * * *
"What is wrong with this?" muttered Susan.
She thumbed through her notes on her main character.
Christopher Crandall ... 9 years old ... 4th grade ... blond hair ... cute ... scared, but still brave ...
... Wait. Why did it always have to be a child?
"I wonder," murmured Susan, tapping her notepad with her pencil. With some hesitation, she scratched out the numbers 9 and 4.
* * * * *
17-year-old Christopher Crandall sat down on the edge of his bed.
In a different time and place, the handsome, athletic high school senior would have been eagerly contemplating which of several girls he would ask to be his date for the prom. But in the here and now, he could think only of his friend Jeffrey's narrow escape from the Shadowman.
"I had just reached the door of my house," Jeffrey had told the students in their high school auditorium. "And then ... "
The teenaged boy shivered as he went on, "It's hard to describe. It was like darkness was suddenly all around me."
He paused and then smiled as he said, "And not just because it was night," which brought some weak, scattered laughter among the students.
"I felt something grab me, like a pair of arms, but cold ... icy ... dark ... Somehow, I knew it was the Shadowman. He started pulling me away from my house. I didn't know what to do, I panicked, for a moment I thought I would never see my family again, or my beautiful girlfriend, Erin."
A girl in the front row visibly blushed as she smiled up at Jeffrey.
"I was scared, but I knew that I couldn't just give up, so I started fighting, struggling, kicking and punching, anything and everything I could think to do ... I could feel the Shadowman there, and I thought if I could touch him, I could maybe hurt him ... For a while, I felt like I could wrestle him to the ground ... "
* * * * *
Rip. Crumple. Toss. Again.
Susan leaned back in her chair and sighed. Something just wasn't working about this ... Something very basic ...
Once again, she looked at her notes for Christopher Crandall and also his friend Jeffrey, tapping the edge of her notepad with her pencil. After a long moment, she scratched out two lines of her notes, and then pulled up a fresh sheet of paper from her notepad ...
* * * * *
A soft hand lightly pulled back the curtain of a bedroom window, and a pair of very lovely, and very worried, eyes peeked out, watching the figures rushing down the street below.
15-year-old Christine Crandall should have been anxiously wondering which of the boys in her year at school might ask her to the upcoming Winter Formal dance, but now, she was doubting that she would even attend. It was not safe for Christine, nor any other girl, to be out and about at night, when the dreaded Shadowman could be lurking anywhere in the darkness.
She saw her father near the front of the house, talking to a local locksmith. The Crandalls had just had high-security double locks installed on every door of their home. Christine's father had said that you can't be too careful these days, with burglaries on the rise ... but Christine knew the real reason.
She turned away from her bedroom window, wrapping her arms tightly around herself as she walked to her dresser. The pretty high school sophomore began nervously brushing her long blond hair.
Christine had two brothers, but her parents weren't worried about them. No, it was only their daughter whose safety they feared for. It was only their daughter who needed to fear for her own safety.
The boys didn't need to worry. The Shadowman only ever snatched girls. Never boys, only girls. Girls who were foolish enough to be too far away from home when the darkness of night settled over the streets.
Why, then, the security for the Crandalls' house? Surely, Christine would be safe in her own home?
Christine sat down on the edge of her bed.
No female in town was safe from the Shadowman, but it seemed that he most often snatched pretty teenaged girls. The more attractive a girl was, the more the Shadowman seemed to be drawn to her, and it seemed that everybody in Christine's life had lately been intent on warning her that she was much too beautiful to ever be safe from the Shadowman, even in her own bedroom.
Christine shook and shivered as she remembered listening to her classmate and close friend, Jennifer, tearfully telling the students in their high school auditorium about her own terrifying encounter with the Shadowman ...
* * * * *
9 p.m.
"Finally got something, Susan?" asked Drew.
"I think so," said Susan, with an excitement that her friend had not heard from her in days.
"Well, don't keep me in suspense, girl."
"Here." Susan tore a page out of her notepad and handed it to Drew. "Let me know what you think."
Drew sighed as she gazed down at Susan's pencil scratches.
"You know, Susan, I don't know if you're aware of this, but there is a remarkable new invention. It's called a word processor, and FYI, that thing on your desk, which is called a computer, has one."
"Drew." Susan regarded her friend seriously. "How many times have I explained this to you? The fundamental creative process flows, at its most elemental level, in the very simplest and most valuable form, with a pencil and a sheet of paper."
Susan held up her pencil and tapped the side of her head.
"My creative process, Drew, begins with the writer's most classic struggle, within my own mind, forming, accumulating, gathering thoughts, thoughts that flow out through the pencil I hold in my hand, crafting themselves on the canvas of this once blank paper."
Susan turned and held out her hands emphatically over her notepad.
"I am an artist, Drew, and when I write on this blank paper, I create art where once there was nothing!"
Drew was silent for a long moment.
" ... I'm going to use a word processor, Susan."
"You don't know what you're missing, Drew." Susan resumed scratching her pencil on her notepad as her friend walked out of the room.
"And believe me, Susan, I'm grateful," Drew called out.
* * * * *
"I was almost to the door of my house," said Jennifer, visibly shaking as she addressed the students in her high school auditorium.
The attractive teenaged girl self-consciously brushed her long brown hair out of her eyes. Fighting back tears, she glanced at her friend Christine in the front row, who nodded at her with an encouraging smile.
Jennifer took a deep breath.
"Just as I was reaching for my front door ... All of a sudden, I was grabbed from behind, and ... and a hand was clapped over my mouth."
The girl bit her lip.
"I tried to fight, I struggled as hard as I could, but all that did was make him laugh ... I felt like I could hear his laughter inside my own head ... It was no use, I couldn't fight him off. I was too small, I wasn't strong enough, I was too much of a ... a ... "
She paused, and then swallowed hard.
"Well ... too much of a girl. I couldn't fight him off, because I was, because I am, a girl. And in case I didn't realize that myself, the Shadowman made it very clear to me ... "
Jennifer closed her eyes tightly, remembering what the Shadowman had whispered in her ear, seemingly inside her head ...
"It's no use struggling, pretty one ... You actually think you can fight me off? ... You? ... It's always the same, with every one that I snatch ... It's like you forget that you're only a GIRL ... "
After a long moment, Jennifer composed herself. The assembled students' eyes were all locked on her. Hardly a sound could be heard throughout the hall.
"I could only listen as he whispered to me ... His arms around me were so strong, I couldn't move a muscle. His hand was so tight over my mouth, I couldn't make a sound ... He told me why it is that he only snatched girls and never boys ... Because, unlike boys, we're not strong enough to fight back ... And besides, he said to me, girls are much prettier than boys ... "
Those were the exact same words that every girl who had been snatched by the Shadowman had described him whispering to her ... But hearing it still left the students as spellbound as they had the first time the story had been told.
"The next thing I knew," said Jennifer softly, "a blindfold was slipped over my eyes, my hands were tied behind my back quick as a flash, and I was gagged!"
Jennifer was quiet for a moment. Tears that she had been trying to hold back were now beginning to escape from her eyes.
"He threw me over his shoulder and carried me off ... I looked up, and even though my eyes were covered, I felt like I could see my house shrinking away in the distance ... I had been so close, I was at the door of my home, and now I was being taken away ... I was afraid that I might never see my home again, see my family or friends, my best friend, Christine, or my wonderful boyfriend, Eric."
A handsome boy sitting in the front row near Christine turned slightly red, and he smiled up at Jennifer.
"As he was carrying me away," said Jennifer, now giving up any effort to stop the tears that were flowing down her cheeks, "I ... I felt his hand sliding up my leg, up inside my skirt ... He was fondling my bottom ... He started whispering to me what a pretty girl I was, and how much fun he was going to have with me ... "
Jennifer looked up at the ceiling.
"I don't know where he had taken me. When he pulled off my blindfold, we were in a place that was very dark. I had heard all about what the Shadowman had done to other girls, so I wasn't surprised when he put me over his knee and began spanking me ... He spanked me so hard and so long ... "
She paused, shivering. It felt so strange, it was almost like Jennifer could hear the Shadowman whispering into her ear again, what he'd said to her ...
"That's good, cry ... Cry for me, my pretty ... A girl as pretty as you needs to be spanked very, very much, until she cries and cries ... "
Jennifer shook her head.
"When he was finally finished spanking me, the Shadowman sat me up on his lap, and he started to ... He started to undress me ... I could feel him unbuttoning my blouse. I begged and pleaded with him through my gag, but he didn't stop ... It was like he enjoyed listening to my muffled pleas ... He whispered to me that I was so pretty, but he was going to make me look really pretty, with nothing covering me up anymore ... "
She wrapped her arms around herself, shivering again.
"By the time he was done, I was wearing ... nothing."
Jennifer was silent for a long moment. The principal, who had been standing behind her on the stage the whole time, finally spoke.
"Jennifer, if you don't wish to continue, you don't have to."
But Jennifer shook her head.
"I have to do this, Mr. Franklin," she said. The principal nodded.
"The Shadowman ... began running his hands around my body. His hands never seemed to stop for a second, he was fondling me, groping my ... I, um, I don't think there was a single spot on my body that he didn't ... touch."
Many of the girls in the audience were shifting uncomfortably in their seats. Christine glanced over at Eric, whose hands were clenching the armrests of his chair so tightly, his knuckles were white.
"I felt so violated ... Eventually, when he was ... through ... He pulled down my gag. I was about to start pleading with him again, even though I knew it wouldn't do any good ... but before I could say anything, his mouth was covering mine ... Just like I did before, I tried to struggle, I tried to fight, but I just couldn't ... Remember, I am a girl, after all ...
He was kissing me for a long time ... I felt even more violated than I did when he was groping me ... The Shadowman's kiss ... "
Jennifer looked out over the audience, her face becoming oddly hard, her voice turning strangely cold.
"The Shadowman's kiss felt like ... like he was sucking the life out of me ..."
She blinked, and suddenly seemed back to normal.
"After a long while, he seemed to be finished kissing me. Then he ... He gagged me again, and blindfolded me. I could feel him lifting me up over his shoulder ... His hand was on my bottom again ... and he was carrying me off ...
The next thing I knew, I was lying on the sidewalk, several blocks away from my house. My blindfold was gone, but I was still gagged, and my hands were still tied behind my back, and ... and I was still naked. I couldn't see the Shadowman anymore, he was gone.
There was nothing I could do but stand up, and start walking back to my house, naked, gagged, with my hands tied behind my back ... just like all of the other girls whose stories we've heard here."
"Thank you, Jennifer," said the principal. He leaned in and whispered something in Jennifer's ear, and she nodded before walking off the stage.
Christine and Eric were waiting for her. They both hugged her before walking her to the front row to sit down.
"I guess I shouldn't have worn pink that day," murmured Jennifer as she took her seat, "or a skirt. They warned us that pink clothing and skirts seem to draw the Shadowman's attention."
* * * * *
11 p.m.
"Not bad, Susan," said Drew, setting down the last page of Susan's pencil scrawls. "You've, uh, you've written better ... "
"I know," sighed Susan. "But my other stories just aren't coming together."
She glanced at a small stack of notebooks on her desk, which she knew were filled with still disjointed thoughts and notes on the stories she had been trying to write in the past several months.
"I'm just glad to finally get something down that I can share with people," said Susan.
"Well, I can understand that," said Drew sympathetically.
Susan tried, and failed, to suppress a yawn.
"You really should get some sleep, Susan," said Drew. "You've got a class in the morning, remember?"
"I'll go to sleep soon, Drew, I promise. I just want to write a little more."
* * * * *
"Are you going to be all right, Jennifer? ... Okay, well, if you need anything, anything at all, call me. I don't care if it's four o'clock in the morning, you call me if you need me. Understand? ... All right, good night, Jennifer."
Christine sighed as she put her smartphone back into its charger.
Within seconds, her mind was, once again, filled with the haunting memory of Jennifer's tearful sharing of her terrible ordeal. Although she was far from the first girl to do so, it had still been so very brave of her to stand up and recount her traumatic experience.
It was now well after sunset. The town was blanketed with the darkness of night.
If Christine dared to pull back the curtain on her bedroom window now, she would have seen the streets mostly deserted ... with, every now and again, a frightened girl trying to make her way back to the safety of her home, having had the misfortune or the foolishness to still be out after the daylight had gone ...
... or perhaps she would have seen a girl, naked, gagged, her hands bound, trying to get back to her house, having had an encounter like that of Christine's best friend that night ...
Christine pulled her bathrobe tightly around herself. It was the strangest feeling ... Even though her body was completely covered, Christine felt naked. It had been this way ever since the Shadowman first appeared in town, abducting one girl after another ...
She found that everywhere she went, out on the streets, in school, at the mall, the library, even in her own home ... No matter how she was dressed, Christine felt as if she was naked. It was like there was somebody watching her at every moment, somebody who could see right through her clothing ... Christine was not alone in this. Many other girls, especially pretty teenaged girls, had expressed the same feelings.
Christine could not shake that feeling of being naked ... or the fear that somebody was waiting for a chance to tie her up, blindfold and gag her, and spirit her away ...
* * * * *
12:30 a.m.
"Susan, come on," said Drew insistently. "You've got classes in the morning, you've got to get some sleep."
"Okay, okay." Susan reluctantly got up from her desk. "I'm going to bed now."
"About time. Good night, Susan."
"G'night, Drew."
It figured. Just when Susan was finally getting going on a story, it was time to put it away.
"Well," she sighed, "I'll just have to continue it tomorrow afternoon ... or maybe in the morning, if I can sneak a little pencilwork during class ... "
Susan picked up her notepad, gazing at what she had written, for the first time in days, with satisfaction. She wasn't sure why, but she felt certain that this was how it should be.
She put the notepad in her drawer, and turned out her desk lamp. As she did so, she shivered slightly, and pulled her silk bathrobe tightly around herself.
As Susan walked to her bed, she wondered why she suddenly felt so naked ...
