"The Shadow Man" by Madeline Rice (Sagadahoc County Winner)
Normal people do not see the things I see. Normal people do not see the shadows shift and twist when no one seems to be looking. Normal people do not look out of the corner of their eye and know they're going to see something that is not there.
Normal people are not me; I don’t really know how seeing everything no one else seems to notice started, maybe it’d always been that way and I had just started to pay attention.
I remember the day though, of course I do, who couldn’t? Who wouldn’t? The early morning waiting for the bus, my hair damp on my face, rocking back and forth on my heels waiting for the bright light in the darkness to come.
It was dark, too dark, too dark for 6:30 am. The trees stood tall and looming, making slight creaking noises and the night's rain still dropping from its leaves.
Fog was rolling in, blanketing the ground like snow. It had been cold too, fresh October air, the bus had been late that morning.
I believe that if the bus had not been late I wouldn’t have seen him- it I wouldn't have seen it.
It had stood across from me, the opposite side of the fog covered road, standing in front of an abandoned, small, house.
It was the figure of a man, and if you weren’t paying attention you would’ve glanced right over it, wouldn’t have even seen it. And god I wish I had been that lucky, but no, there it was, standing at a decent 7 feet tall, a shadowy man standing staring right back at me, I assume it was, it’s face was a blank slate, it’s body looked smooth and if I had gone over and touched it I think my hand would go right through.
I had stared at it, and it had stared back, nothing could be heard but my breath and the trees surrounding us. Then something broke that terrifying silence, the sound of a car going down a hill, a big car, the bus.
I had thought it subconsciously, and hadn't bothered to look, because I couldn’t look away from it. The bus got closer and closer, its bright headlights blinding everything around it, including the figure, because darkness can not exist in light, and light could not exist in darkness.
That became a thing I told myself frequently after my first encounter, after the bus stopped in front of me and I got on, running to look out the window, I’d be closer to him, but he was gone, I think I knew he’d be gone.
I remember the slight feeling of relief, he wasn’t there. He wasn’t real, he couldn’t be. Because if he was then I would have seen him before. Not here. Not now.
The second time I saw him was two weeks later, I’d seen glints of him before of course, when I’d gone to bed, and when the shadows moved in the hallways, and the dark mornings I was forced to face waiting for the bus.
But I’d gotten used to him, he’d become a regular thing in my schedule, he was just a figure now, a figure I grew to realize would not hurt me. But over the past two weeks a rotting smell had grown from the chicken coop.
I knew it was him, he’d started to smile at the bus stop, he would smile right at me, but mom and dad said nothing was wrong with the chicken coop, they were all healthy and fine.
But two weeks later mom and dad were late, stuck in work, and it was my job to put the chickens away. I had crept over the gravel slowly, the smell from the coop getting worse, and worse.
I had known he would be there, it was so dark, darker then it should’ve been. I was scared, I would have to go inside the chicken coop, and I think that’s what he wanted.
I opened the door, and there the chickens were, except…they weren’t alive.
They were dead, necks snapped and twisted in a way that made my stomach turn, bugs eating them, carcasses rancid and bone showing.
They were fine this afternoon, I had gotten home and they had been perfectly fine. But now they were dead, not even dead, a worse kind of dead.
A gruesome stomach twisting bloodbath that made me want to throw up. And in the corner of the chicken coop, sitting now so it’s head wouldn’t go through the roof, was the dark figure.
He was smiling, a sick, unnatural, all teeth smile, that made me shudder. Then I did throw up, I threw up all over everything in front of me, wishing it away, like when this sick feeling was out of my stomach this whole scene would be gone.
But it wasn’t and I-
“Was that when your mother found you?”
I looked up, confused, Mrs. Sterling looked at me, a kind of worried look on her face,
“Your mother said she found you at that moment, you were holding the chicken in your hand and-'' I flinched at what she said next, “twisting its neck.”
I wanted to scream at her, that isn’t true, it wasn’t true, it couldn’t be true. It was his fault, it had to be his. But I stayed silent, I couldn’t lose composure. looking up at her, she stared back, a look of pity on her face.
“Your parents are worried about you, and I am too. I think it’s best if you…went somewhere else for a while.”
A shock of fear went through me, they were going to send me away? To where? Some loony bin? No way,
“I’m not lying, I’m not insane, and I don’t need to be sent away. I am telling you he did it!”
Why couldn’t she understand that? He was standing behind her now even, in the shadow of her chair, in the different little shadows through the room, he was just tinier. But he still had that irritating unnerving smile on his face.
He had done this, and now she was taking the blame for it. It wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t her goddamned fault.
Madeline Rice, of Georgetown, and an eighth grader at Bath Middle School, wrote "The Shadow Man" as an avid consumer of the arts. They love to read, write, and create art, they also often walk around with a horror podcast playing. They are very interested in human behavior and the psyche, thus spurring "Shadow Man" into creation.