And The Shadow Marched On
When I think about the fourth grade, I have the greatest longing to go back in time. I remember living on Cape Cod and all the crazy things my brother Tim and I did as a kid. It was an innocent, exploratory, free-spirited, and scary time. There were a lot of things that seem silly when I think about them now. But back then they were the center of my life.
We lived in a two story duplex with our uncle occupying the other half. So when mom was at work, the kids would play. We had an old hideaway bed that was kept in my mother's closet. I guess it was used to accommodate any guests that spent the night, but Tim and I had a much better use for it. "The stair rides! Woo hoo!" We'd clumsily get this huge, old, pink mattress out of it's resting place and slowly drag it to the top of the stairs. Now try to picture a second grader and a fourth grader wrestling this floppy old so-called mattress and laying it just over the edge of the stairs. Then one of us would climb on while the other held it steady.
"Ready?" "Ready!" Whoosh! Off we would be on the most exciting ride ever invented! The whole trip to the bottom couldn't have lasted more than two seconds, but those two seconds were fascinating. We would giggle our little asses off as we lugged that thing all the way to the top of the stairs again. It was a great way to pass the evening. Or at least it was until the day Tim left a perfect butt shaped hole in the wall at the bottom. "No hiding this one!" There was no hiding the pain in our rear-ends for the next week either. "Owchie!"
That hole in the wall served as an end to our stair rides, but a beginning to the street drawings. You see, those walls were made of Sheetrock. And Sheetrock, as we all know, is a very close relative to chalk. "Yes!" And we had a giant pile of this stuff lying in the cellar. "Imagine the luck?"
We grabbed all we could carry and ran out into the street. There were about ten houses on this little circle we lived on, so there was hardly any traffic at all.
"Yay!" We would take turns lying in the street while the other traced the outline of the body in various positions. Then we drew these humongous ships on the blacktop and staged the biggest pirate battle any elementary school child had ever seen. We were awesome! We were on top of the world!
When mom came home she just stared for a few moments at the entire neighborhood transformed into a battle ground on the high seas. Then she shook her head, pointed inside the house, and said not a word. I still don't know what she was thinking. The rain came that night and washed it all away though.
"Man! Looks like we have to do it all over again!"
And we can't forget hanging out the bedroom window on the second floor, just to see if I could pull myself back in of course. I was hanging there, staring down at the rather large bulkhead directly below, trying to muster the strength to get back in. I started to lose my grip and just knew I was going to fall. "Shit!" Tim, bless his heart, realized what was going on and tried with all his might, as if my very life depended on him, to get me back in the window.
"Just stop, Tim! I'm gonna jump!"
"Nooo! Don't do it! You'll be killed!"
"I have to! I'm slipping! Tell mom I love her!"
"Nooooooo! Chris!!!!"
I let go and fell what I considered to be the longest drop of my life. When I finally hit the bulkhead, it didn't just knock the wind out of me, but bounced me at least ten feet back up in the air and off to the left landing on our nice collection of snow shovels. "Ow!" Amazingly, I didn't break any bones. Hm? You know, I have never broken a bone in my life. "Yay milk!"
All these things, and more, were great. But the one thing that stands out most I am still trying to figure out. That marching. Where did that come from?
Our bedroom was on the second floor at the end of a long hall. Like the rest of the house it had burnt-orange carpeting, smokey-yellow walls, and light bulbs that put off this eerie fuzzy glow. There must have been something different in the bulbs back then. Now days they seem very white and elegant, not dull and spooky like I remember. Maybe they were the culprit?
My bed was against the far wall positioned just right to see all the way down the hall with just a lift of my head and a twist of my foot. Mom always left the hall light on, because you know, if the boogie-woogie-knoogie-man came, at least I could see him and jump out the window to the bulkhead again. But the door to our room would be open and I could see clearly to the stairs.
Now, I have always had trouble sleeping. My parents would have to put me in the car when I was around six months old and drive me around the block a few times with the radio on to get me to go to sleep. I still wish someone would do that for me now. But in the fourth grade it was time to learn how to get to sleep on my own. "What? I just got a grasp on long division and now you want me to get to sleep on my own as well? Give me a break will ya! I'm eight!"
Reading, counting sheep, warm milk and honey, trying to stay awake, maybe some soft music, none of these worked for me. When I would lay my head down on the pillow I would close my eyes and my brain would say "Great! Time to wander!" And wander it would. Still does. Slowly I would get it to calm down and relax. But that's when the sound would start.
Softly at first. Just a quiet little rustle as if I were laying on a candy wrapper. I knew I wasn't, but I'd check anyway. I had to make sure. Then the noise grew louder. It sounded like someone was walking through the leaves in the back yard. I'd start thinking someone was going to break in and do mean and nasty things to us. Something with two heads and an axe for a hand who took pleasure in scaring children so bad they just burst into dust! I would want to get up and tell mom about it, but then it might see me. So I'd lay perfectly still. "Pretend you're asleep! They can't get you when you're asleep!"
But the sound grew louder still, and now I am hearing an army marching across our front lawn. I would picture Nazi's invading the neighborhood and coming to burn the Irish-Americans for any reason they wanted. "Just burn them all! And make sure Chris goes slowly!" I wouldn't want to move. I wouldn't want to open my eyes. I'm not sure if I ever breathed when this happened either. But I am sure that if you looked into the room while the marching was going on you would think I was asleep. Except for the teeth chattering that is. The first time I got up the nerve to open my eyes, I regretted it the second the lids parted.
I had a great view of the hall, through the dark figure that was now in the doorway to my room. A transparent silhouette of an enormous man with no hair and no neck whose gritty texture was that of black smoke forced into this shape and held motionless against its will. It was an evil shadow cast upon the vacant space between my bed and the safety of grown-ups. Draining life force was on its mind, and I was in its sights. It never moved its arms, head, or any part of its upper body, just its legs as they kept beat with the now thunderous marching sound filling the room.
I was frozen. I couldn't move, think, blink, or die. I wanted to do all of these, but my mind and body had already split and left me alone with this creature of doom. I may have wet the bed that night.
Tim rolled over in his sleep and it caused me to jerk my head to the right, thinking I was taken by some spectral decoy and now in for the real terror coming through the window. Nothing there. Quickly I looked back to the door and my new nightmare pal was gone. "Gone? Gone where? Under the bed? In the closet? Is it eating my Lincoln Logs?"
I got a visit from this thing at least twice a week for the rest of the time we lived in that house. I don't remember ever warming up to it, just facing the fact that it couldn't get passed the door. It would just linger there in the doorway keeping step with the sound of the ghostly marching that saturated my sleepless nights of youth. My fears, manifested into a dimly cloaked aspiration, watching me toss and turn.
When I was twenty nine years old, and living alone again for the first time in a while, I awoke from a very disturbing dream one night. Now old enough to discern dreams from reality, I just rolled over to go back to sleep. As I settled into the cold side of the bed I caught a glimpse of my shaded observer slowly marching in the door of my new apartment. Time hadn't changed him a bit. Except that this time, he stopped for one brief moment, raised his left hand, and then I believe he waved.
I smiled as I closed my eyes, satisfied that everything was safe. Sleep fell upon me swiftly for a change, bringing a wave of puzzling images with it. But a scared little fourth grader and a tired aging man shared a chuckle somewhere in the dark. And the shadow marched on.
The Dark Alley
This was the darkest alley in the city. Out either end you could see the lights dancing from all the clubs. You could hear the music echo off the walls. You could feel the high spirits of everyone out to celebrate the downfall of the Taliban. But in this alley, you could see practically nothing.
Standing in the shadow of this alley's single doorway stood a tall, dark, and handsome man. His hair was long and black as the night. His eyes were deep brown with an odd reddish glow. His attire, that of one on his way to a funeral. He kept perfectly still. Everything about his stance said "I thirst for blood."
Footsteps! Someone was heading down the alley. His pulse began the race. He had not fed in what seemed like months, and this may be just the prey he was waiting for. A smile came across his lips as he thought about the stupidity of humans. Anyone of them that would walk down this alley of his, he liked to call "The Alley of Death," deserved to die.
As the footsteps came closer he saw the man walking towards him. Maybe six feet tall, 185 lbs, short brown hair and beautiful blue eyes. He had a thing for blue eyes. They always tasted best to him. His smile was getting bigger. And as his lips pulled apart to form that smile, they revealed a long, sharp set of fangs. he would feed tonight. Oh yes! Tonight he would feed.
The man was close enough to touch now. He jumped from his hiding spot and landed only three feet in front of his dinner. This startled the man and he let out a quivering yelp. The dark figure raised his hands in the air, opened his mouth, and growled in a terrifyingly high pitched squeal. The man was frozen.
"Sometimes I wish they would run" the dark figure thought to himself as he grabbed the man and sank his fangs deep into his neck.
The feeling of the blood running into his body made the dark figure high. The fluid slowly ran down his throat, soothing the dryness that had been there for so long, and made it's way to his stomache. He could feel his power regenerating as he drank. He thought back to when he was human and remembered this feeling only when he had been with a woman so many years ago. How he sometimes missed that touch from another. But if this reminded him of it, then he would take it. he closed his eyes and began to suck the rest of the blood from the man.
Oddly the man was not struggling. "They usually squirm" the dark figure thought, but still he fed. Fed on the blood that would keep him the most powerful being in all the...
What was that? The pleasure he had been feeling now turned to pain. There was a burning in his stomache and throat he had never felt before. He let the man go and fell to his knees. The burning now worse than before and spreading throughout his entire body. His hands went to his chest and he began to scream. Something was eating him from the inside out. Something was killing him!
For the last few seconds of his life, the dark figure stared up into the eyes of this expressionless man and wondered how he could have been so stupid. Then the burning inside turned to pressure as he began to bloat. The screaming had stopped now that he could not breathe. He could feel himself getting bigger. Feel the flesh pulling away from the bones. Feel his milky white skin stretch to it's limits and finally burst leaving a puddle of blood and chunks of the dark figures inards stuck to the wall. Two fangs landed at the mans feet.
The man stood there staring at what had just happened for the longest time. As if he were calculating something. Then from his pocket he pulled out some tiny metalic object covered with buttons. He punched five of those buttons and began to speak.
"Orion Scout One, to Mission Leader" he said into the tiny object. "I have searched this planet for any signs of intelligent life, and have been unsuccessful every attempt. Mission is safe. Begin the invasion now"