Shadow in the Dark
by Martin Groff
He watched the lake for hours from the window. He watched as the sunset
bathed the grayish waves in crimson before fading into night, and as
the moonless sky sprinkled the glassy surface with the faint glitter of
stars. He watched even as the clouds began to roll in over the
mountain, blocking out all the remaining light in the valley, and as
the sound of the cicadas waned into silence. The body never came to the
surface.
To his relief, neither did his guilt. He had been waiting for it. Maybe
it was finally gone for good, drowned out there with his brother,
laying on the muddy lakebed alongside the sunken fishing boat. If it
was, it had taken his faith along with it. Were there a God, he never
would have gotten away with this so masterfully. With the weather so
cold, the lake might even start to freeze before anyone even realized
his brother was missing.
Only here, on cloudy nights such as this, had he ever seen such utter
darkness. There was no electricity in the cabin. It was so remote that
there weren’t even any roads nearby—just a narrow ATV trail he and his
relatives would use when they came up for long weekends. To make sure
there would be no footprints, he hadn’t taken that path today, coming
instead along a faint deer trail he had discovered years ago, still
discernible amid the falling leaves. When he was a kid, he’d go out on
that trail by himself. Alone in nature, he had sometimes felt a
profound connection to the universe—it was the same feeling that had
inspired his brother to become a minister. Somewhere their paths had
diverged.
He felt around the windowsill for a matchbook he knew were there,
wishing he had lit a few candles before the last bit of daylight had
slipped away. He was relieved when he found it, and began searching
eagerly with his fingertips for a match.
“When it’s dark, you can’t see your shadow.”
His breath stopped. He felt at once intensely hot and cold; his muscles
contracted with adrenaline, yet he was unable to move. “Who said that?”
Had he really heard it?
“Like I just said, you can’t see me.” The voice was cold, feminine,
with a slight lisp. Now he was certain. There was someone in the room
with him.
Out of habit, he nearly thanked God when his fingers managed to locate
a match. He tore it out of the cardboard case and pulled it quickly
across the striker. It sparked and hissed to life, immediately bathing
him in orange light. Still, he could see very little beyond his own
hand—the light even waned before it reached the floorboards, creating
the illusion that he was standing on nothingness, floating unmoored in
the dark air.
“Be careful. That match will burn your hand.”
“Show yourself!” he responded, trying to sound assertive. Then a sharp
pain on his fingers—the match was burning him and he shook it out.
Again, total darkness. “Who are you?” he stammered. “Why are you here?”
He dreaded to hear the voice again. “Why Wesley,” it replied with a slight laugh, “it’s you who have brought me here!”
Wesley didn’t know what to make of that. “How do you know my name? Who are you?”
“I already told you,” the voice snapped before he could finish, “I’m
your shadow. I follow you everywhere. I know what you did.”
A sick feeling in his stomach, a chill down his back; he could feel the
hairs on his arm stand on end, and wanted to vomit. Cautiously, he
stepped forward toward a table he knew was in the middle of the room,
scanning the floor in front of him with his feet until he bumped into a
chair. He knew he needed to sit down and felt relieved to do so.
Attempting to sound bold, he called out to her. “Show yourself.”
Desperation and fear were all he heard in his own voice. Undoubtedly,
she heard it too.
A candle faded silently to life across the room. Had she walked over to
light it? She was sitting about ten feet away, in a chair near the back
wall of the cabin, barely discernible in the faint glow. The door
should have been right there behind her, but he couldn’t see it.
Wesley wanted to draw out the conversation so he could clear his mind
and figure out what to do. She must want something from him—he feared
what it might be. “I don’t recognize you,” he said, a little calmer
now, his voice much more even and controlled.
“But I recognize you,” she replied with a taunting air of confidence,
“and that’s all that really matters. Because I know what you did.”
“You keep saying that,” Wesley broke in hoarsely, “what are you talking about?”
“I don’t need to tell you. You already know. And so do I.”
“I haven’t done anything wrong.” The response was so faint it hardly seemed like he was even trying to be convincing.
“Then why did you avoid the main trail this morning?”
She knew. He had believed her from the beginning, but it suddenly seemed real.
He remembered how bright the sun had been—how it had cast such a
distinctive shadow behind him as he came in along the deer trail. He
hadn’t thought much of it then, but now, in the utter darkness, he was
beginning to confuse memory with sight. For a moment, it was as if he
was there again. Yes. She had followed him all the way. He had seen
her. No, not her. That was his shadow, and she was not his shadow. He
shook his head, refusing to be drawn into her mesmerizing fantasy.
“This is ridiculous,” he spit out, remembering how he had scanned the
woods and lake, and checked the cabin for any other person, “I didn’t
see you there.”
“What do you remember of the moment you killed him?” Her even-tempered
tone disturbed him. It reminded him somehow of the ghosts he had seen
in movies.
He tried to think back. For as vivid as the walk to the cabin had been
in his memory, nothing seemed to surface of the killing itself. He
remembered coming up behind his brother with the rope—then nothing.
Just blackness, like an empty videotape, until he saw himself pushing
the boat into the lake, his brother skillfully tied to the mooring line
to make it look like an accident. The boat sank—how had he done that?
Drilling into the hull would have been too obvious. Maybe he had hit it
with a rock. Beaten it until the wooden boards cracked apart, to make
it look like his brother had crashed into something while out there,
with no one around to save him.
But still, he would remember if someone had been there watching him,
even if the rest of his recollection was dark. As if she knew what he
was thinking, she whispered, “When it’s dark, you can’t see your
shadow.”
“So what happens now?” Wesley hissed, anger overtaking his fear for a moment.
She laughed. “Remember how you planned everything so carefully, so no
one would know? You even made sure to wrap some of the boat tether
around his neck, to account for the strangulation marks when they find
him.” She paused for a moment, grinning at him. “I wonder. Do you think
the old guilt will resurface along with his corpse?”
He didn’t know enough about the anatomy of sin to answer that question.
His brother seemed to. That’s why he had buried him under the lake.
Everyone thought it was jealousy that had caused their falling out, but
he knew it had always been fear—fear of damnation, of judgment, an
anxiety his brother’s apparent purity had constantly evoked. Until just
a few moments ago, he thought he had managed to escape it; now a part
of him wished he had gone to the bottom of the lake instead, rather
than face the anguish of this instant.
Then it occurred to him, and in a moment of revelation the most potent
fragment of his old faith returned. “Are you Satan?” he asked quietly,
ready to believe her reply.
She didn’t respond quite as he expected. Cocking her head quizzically, she smiled. “Do I look like Satan?”
“I don’t know. I’m not sure what he—what Satan looks like.”
“Maybe I should get you a mirror!” She laughed loud and long at this,
and he wanted to cry. “Remember,” she mused playfully, “I’m not the
murderer here. I’m the witness.”
Wesley began to panic now. He wanted to get out, but he still couldn’t
see the door. Like a trapped animal, he moved frantically in his chair,
clawing at the armrests. “Get me out of here! Shine a light around—I
know the door is still there somewhere!”
“Why don’t you walk out into the darkness and look for yourself?”
“Stop doing this to me! Tell me how to get out!”
“Embrace it!” she shouted with new intensity. “The darkness is luxurious. I love it. Let it envelope you!”
“Where’s the door!” Wesley screamed, seemingly with everything left in him.
“There is no door! We’re in your mind!” she responded with a wicked
giggle. Then, after a thoughtful pause, she added, “Or maybe your
heart. It certainly is dark enough!”
Total darkness. The candle—out. More panic. “Where are you!? Where did you go!?”
A loud tearing sound—no, that was his breathing. Otherwise, silence.
But he could feel her smiling at him, there through the impenetrable
blackness.
“When it’s dark, you can’t see your shadow.”
*****
If you picked up a newspaper down in Bangor two days later, you
probably would have come across a few lines about a strange story from
upstate. Two brothers had just been found dead, drowned in a lake, a
few miles northeast of Hay Brook. It appeared they had died in a
boating accident, although the bodies were found far away from each
other, and there had been a suspicious anonymous tip referencing a
murder called in the night before. The article assured readers that the
investigation would continue.
THE END
© 2021 Martin Groff
Bio: Martin Groff is a graduate student and instructor of writing
at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is most passionate about enabling students to
find their own voice and innovate on genre expectations, and makes this
the goal of his own writing as well. His work appears in The Quaker,
The Broken City, and The Green Blotter, among others.
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