Shadow Hands

Originally published in Black Heart Magazine, now closed. Republished in The Sirens Call.

***

It’s gonna get you. You know that.

“What’s gonna get me?”

I see you looking at the cars going sixty-five in a fifty and wondering how badly it would hurt. I see you looking at that bridge and wondering if the drop would kill you.

Porter was walking alongside the highway, against traffic because that’s what you’re supposed to do. The sun was low in the east, and his shadow was cast over the shoulder, its head severed by the line between asphalt and grass. The shadow was misshapen by Porter’s bulky coat as it plodded along beside him, slightly out of step.

He walked faster and put his hood up, should a stranger see the fear creeping over his face. His shadow was tall and thin, like the stilted clowns at the circus, but it slowly shortened as the morning sun rose higher in the sky.

See that yellow bug over there in the junk yard?  Its paint cracked and faded, the tires rotting off its axels? That’s gonna be you in ten years, whether you’re alive or dead.

Porter hummed a tune, not sure of what song he was humming. He imagined drunken bumblebees bouncing against his skull and filling his ears so that he could not hear his shadow speaking in that echoing voice.

He walked another mile up the hill before he realized his shadow had quieted. He glanced at the dark patch of asphalt beside him, redirecting his eyes quickly so his shadow would not catch him looking. A squirrel darted out of the trees in front of him. It stopped halfway across the road, turned back, then changed directions again and disappeared into the trees thirty feet away.

“Why are you so quiet?”

His shadow made no response except to leap over a log in its path.

There were no cars this morning, it being Christmas. Porter began to walk faster, glancing at the shadow, always there.

“Stop following me!”

Porter broke into a run, sprinting down the shoulder of the road before turning into the forest. The wind and branches stinging his face reminded him of running through corn fields as a child, running from his father, as his shadow hid in the cornstalks.

Like a hand had reached out and taken him by the ankle, he felt himself falling just before he struck the dirt, a rotting branch jabbing into his ribs.

His shadow was buried beneath him. Porter lay still, thinking perhaps it would suffocate.

Suffocate.

***

Forty years ago. His brother under him, surrounded by corn and the July heat.

“Shh! Stay quiet. He’ll hear you.”

Porter could hear his father’s voice, slurred by distance and alcohol, winding its way through the stalks. Beneath him, his brother, Benny, was still talking.

“He’s gonna find us!” Porter hissed, before covering his brother’s mouth and pressing his knee farther into his stomach. “We can’t let him find us.”

“You boys better getcher sorryasses outa there ‘fore I…”

Porter tightened his grip over his brother’s mouth, holding still as their father’s voice grew closer, until it trailed off in the opposite direction. He sighed and rolled off of his brother and onto his back.

“I think we’re safe, Benny.”

His brother lay still and silent beside him. Porter got to his feet and dusted his pants with his palms.

“Get up, Benny. We gotta go check on Mama.”

Porter started toward the house, but his brother didn’t follow. The little boy was still lying on the ground, facing the sky, a red print around his mouth from Porter’s grip.

Porter knelt beside his brother, squinting. “Come on, Benny. What are you doing?” He shook his little brother’s shoulder, but he didn’t move. “Okay, you stay here and rest. I’ll go check on Mama, and I’ll be back.”

Porter turned and darted into the stalks, feeling them sting his wind burnt face as he remembered the sight of his mama lying still on the living room floor, her body devoured by bruises, and Porter had thought she was dead. She had been so still.

Just like Benny.

When he stepped out of the corn, he noticed for the first time his shadow watching him. And he realized the terrible thing his shadow had done.

***

Porter wrestled with his shadow, surrounded by a crowd of trees. He had it by its dark wrists, his knuckles grinding against rocks and roots, and thought of all the horrible things those hands had done. Those hands had killed his brother. Those hands had held Porter’s tongue, stopped him from telling his mama. They were the reason no one found Benny’s body until it was sucked up in the combine and ground to bits. Those hands covered Porter’s eyes every night, as though that would keep him from seeing their evil.

As he hovered over it, resisting its attempts to free itself, Porter looked at the shadow’s face, as black as if it had been drawn with permanent marker, and he felt his face turning red from exertion and rage. This thing had taken so much from him—his family, his home, his life. It was the reason he had nowhere to go on Christmas day, or even someone to call. It was the reason he slept in ditches and beneath bridges. It was the reason he had nothing.

Porter ground his teeth together and released one of the shadow’s wrists. He brought his fist high and drove it into the dark face, pounding at its grisly form. Soil flew into his eyes, and blood seeped from his busted knuckles, and still the shadow remained unscathed. Porter could have sworn it was smiling.

Porter stopped as the world around him began to dim. The ground to his left and right darkened as a cloud swooped in front of the sun, and a moment later the shadow had disappeared, camouflaged by the dimness. Porter stood on his knees, his shoulders back, his neck arched, his eyes wide and searching for a hint of his opponent.

He thought he heard a small car pass on the road.

Porter was slammed into the ground, his face toward the sky. He felt hands around his neck, squeezing just like they (he) had squeezed his brother’s little face, and the air was disappearing. His lungs were burning. His eyes began to water. His head was bursting, and panic overtook him. The world around him was tinted with shades of blue, and his arms and legs were flying, his fingers reaching for his attacker, struggling desperately to save himself.

Try as he might, he could not touch a shadow.

A deep darkness fell over him. Like the darkest night he had ever known, the shadow’s body was draped over him. It was tight to him and left neither air nor light. His limbs were still now, and his mind was dull.

As he died, the shadow slipped from Porter’s body and settled beneath him, resting until someone came looking for him.

It would be a long wait.