Day one
I am dying. I can feel my soul separating from my body and I don’t have much time. Let me tell you how I got here.
My Grandfather, Randy Milton. I blame him. This all started with him. You see, he was dying. He was old and sick and dying. He drank too much, smoked too much and eventually it caught up to him. He always said he didn’t care because at least he got to live. I never understood that until now. He was on his deathbed when I came to visit him during his last two weeks of life. Literally, he was in bed and it smelled of death. Maybe that is where the term deathbed came about.
Anyways, one day while visiting he said he needed to tell me something. A secret. He said I wasn’t allowed to tell a soul. That he really needed to get this off his chest before he died. So over the following two days he told me his story. His dark secret.
My grandfather was a serial r****t and murderer.
Yes that’s how he started his story. The first words from his mouth were, “I r***d, tortured, and killed 26 women.” I thought he was delusional from all the medicine he had been taking for his pain. I thought he had gone insane. I thought I was going insane and heard the wrong thing. I wasn’t, he wasn’t.
He was telling the truth. I just continued to sit there like an idiot, on the side of his bed listening in shock. Listening to him to mumble on in full detail of how he would kidnap them from the dark streets of New York. Throwing them into his van and taking them to his home. He would tie them standing up in his basement. Then strip them naked and gag them.
“26 women,” echoing in my ears the entire time.
He went on telling me how he f****d them in every hole they had for weeks before he got tired of them.
When he got sick of one of the women he would then lie them down on an old mattress and cut off their gentiles piece by piece untill they would bleed out. He said it started after my father passed away when I was child.
I became so sick to my stomach that I ran out of the house puking and drove home. I didn’t tell my wife what he had said. But she knew something was wrong. I crawled into bed and went on to a restless night’s sleep. I woke up in a puddle of sweat. I had nightmares all night about what he had told me. Every single detail ripped through my unconscious mind. I didn’t want to believe him. I researched the names of a few of the women he mentioned. And they were true. They were real people. Real women who had gone missing over a period of 40 years. I needed to know more. Why wasn’t he rotting in prison? How did he get away with it? Why was he telling me?
Day Two
I returned to his home later that morning and sat on his bed. I asked him reluctantly to tell me the rest of the story. He looked at me like he wasn’t surprised and was expecting me to return. Like he knew I couldn’t resist. I didn’t think I would ever return after everything he had told me. But there I was, sitting on the edge of his stank filled deathbed.
He noticed the dark circles under my eyes and laughed saying that he didn’t blame me. That he had many sleepless nights himself. I asked him how he was living a free life after what he had done. He said he wasn’t. He said he has never had a truly free life.
He then continued on with his story telling me that he found a women that helped him. Her name was Sammy Higmaker. She had special gifts. He went on saying that he blackmailed her into helping him. Saying that he would tell the whole world of what she was and what she has done if she refused to help him. She was a witch.
He told her everything and said he needed a ‘ get out of jail free’ card. Something to make him unnoticeable, untraceable, and unimportant to the law. He wanted to get away scott free with no consequences. To be essentially invisible to all people of law. She gave him everything he needed to cast the spell and the instructions on how to do it, before giving him an eerie warning. She said there must a consequence. But not one of the law. And to be careful.
He killed her afterwards. Another victim of his disgusting assaults. He said he couldn’t resist. She was just too beautiful not to kill. He went on to tell me of how he performed the spell and it worked. He even tested it by turning himself in and the police didn’t care what he had done. He could now get away with any hideous crimes. Though he said he did it, because he wanted a chance to redeem himself and to live a normal life. He didn’t want that life anymore. He said he tried his hardest.
He just couldn’t resist.
Shadows
He said after he did the spell he felt a presence watching him. Something that was always there. It was his own shadow. He explained how he knows he is sounding crazy, but it is true. His shadow was following him, watching him. Like it was memorizing the way he did things. He said it followed him everywhere he went. On the street, while he slept, as he drove, and as he r***d, tortured and murdered women. Again, i thought he was crazy. It was just a shadow. Everyone has a shadow, I do, and you do. He said it would be there even in the dark, or the brightest day. That no matter what he did to get rid of it, it would always come back.
He would track down new witches asking for help. For some kind of spell to rid of the shadow, and everything he tried failed him. He said he had to just accept that this shadow, his shadow, was apart of him now. That he didn’t know what it wanted, or why it was there.
My grandfather suddenly had a horrified look on his face, and screamed, “NO!!! Not here, not now!!” I turned to look but saw nothing.
My grandfather’s breath became labored. His eyes closed. The horrific look still plastered to his face.
My grandfather’s last words, his last eerie warning to me was, “He will come out of the shadows.” I returned home with a strange feeling. Now that my grandfather was dead, I told my wife everything. She told me it was probably just tales of a twisted old mind before death and to push it from my mind. That it probably wasn’t true. I explained to her that I did my research and found that these women were in deed missing and that his tale must be true. She waved her hand and walked away from me.
As hard as I tried to forget and push it from my mind, I just couldn’t. His words echoed in my head. The nightmares of every gruesome detail that he told me, happening every night. Then it started. I woke from a nightmare and saw him. I saw my grandfather’s shadow. It was standing near the end of my bed. I turned on my bedside lamp and it was still there. I saw it everywhere. I thought I was going crazy. This shadow didn’t belong to me. My shadow was gone and his had taken over. It followed me everywhere.
It was there when I walked down the street. It was watching me from the window as I ate dinner with my wife. It was outside the curtain of my shower. It was everywhere. Lurking. Watching me, following me, like it had done to my grandfather. But why was it after me? I didn’t do anything wrong. I wasn’t my grandfather. What did it want from me?
Consequences
I remember my grandfathers words, when he told me that the witch said there would be consequences. Was I his consequence? Why? What had I done to deserve this? I definitely wasn’t as evil as my grandfather. I had never done anything even as remotely horrific as my grandfather.
Last night I went to my grandfather’s house with my wife to sort through his old things, and prepare the house for it to be sold. As I was packing up his books, I heard a noise coming from the basement. I ignored it, figuring it was rats. It kept happing, each time getting noisier and noisier. I decided I would check on it. Worst decision of my life.
I was only half way down the stairs when the door to the stairwell slammed shut. Something was drawing me to the basement. The same basement my grandfather had taken all those women too. I could feel it. Like whatever it was, it was meant for me. I turned the corner and nothing unusual. No rats, no boiler making noise, just my grandfathers shadow following me. I heard my wife pound on the door and yell out for me.
I went to go back up the stairs then stopped. My grandfathers shadow didn’t move with me this time. It stayed still.
I moved again, and nothing. I ran for the stairs, tripping over my two left feet the entire time. Once again only making it to the middle of the stairs, before my grandfathers shadow hand reached out and grabbed my ankle.
I screamed and yelled for my wife as the shadow drug me down the stairs. I kicked as hard as I could to no avail. My grandfathers shadow was strong. His shadow flipped me over and tore off my cloths. It all happened so quickly. He chained me standing up, naked and cold. I repeated my grandfathers last words, “He will come out of the shadows.” I could hear my wife screaming for me, telling me she is dialing 911.
The shadow did to me, what my grandfather did to all 26 women. Over and over. 26 times. It had been but 20 minutes by the time it all ended, but it felt like an eternity of torment. Like time moved slower. I sobbed, I screamed, I cried out for my grandfather, for my wife, for anyone to help me. No one came. Never speaking, he beat me. He Stuck his wrinkly shadow d**k in all of my orifices, one by one. That was the worst part. I just kept repeating my grandfathers words, over and over. I knew based on the story of my grandfathers secret where this was all leading. By then I could hear the police at the basement door. Banging, yelling.
I stared my grandfather straight in the eyes as he took me down from the chains. Layed me on the old mattress and mutilated my body. Cutting my precious man hood off. Then it would start all over again. Like it never happened. 26 times, time started over. And each time I became more and more numb inside. Until the last time. He just left me there on that stank filled mattress. Alone. My grandfather’s shadow disappeared. The first time I didn’t see him since my grandfather’s death. I was my grandfathers consequence. That is why this shadow followed him. To memorize his sick behavior so he could do it to me. My grandfather must have learned of this right before his death. The reason behind his horrified last look.
Here I am. In my grandfather’s basement, in a pool of blood that the mattress is slowly absorbing. My d**k in my left hand. I am dying. I can feel my soul separating from my body. I am numb. I cannot feel anything anymore. My wife is still screaming. I hear her sobbing. The police still trying to break down the door.
My wife, and the police eventually found my lifeless body. They never figured out what happened. There was never anyone to blame. My wife went on to have a son. Our son. I didn’t even know she was pregnant. I am a shadow. My sons shadow. And I will do to him, what my grandfather has done to me. And he will do to his son, what I have done to him.
I blame my grandfather. And his dirty dirty little secret.
~ Abreon Turner ~
Author’s Note: Thank you for reading please leave a comment letting me know what you thought of this story. I can only learn to do better with criticisms.