Free The Lovely Shadow by Cory Hiles Page A

didn’t want her, my anger
faded and I was able to find some semblance of forgiveness. I could
forgive, for the Sickness took her against her will. I could even
feel a certain level of sadness for her—for what she had lost—but I
would never forget.
    Forgiveness settled onto me like a warm
blanket, fresh from the drier, and warmed me from the inside out,
bringing a certain level of peace into my heart that I hadn’t had
in a long time. I smiled contentedly in the gloom.
    As I was still lying there, basking in my own
magnanimity, the drier buzzed, making me jump nearly out of my
skin, and causing an instant flash of pain throughout my broken
body. I got up and dug my clothes out of the dryer, leaving the
towels behind, and dressed myself.
    After dressing, I decided to occupy my time
for a bit by picking my mattress up and setting up my chair in its
place. That chair was damn comfy, and the process of setting it up
gave me something to do besides sitting and staring at the darkness
at the back of the basement, wondering what evil horrors might be
hiding back there.
    I glanced involuntarily towards the darkness
and remembered staring into the darkness in my dream, looking for
the shimmering beast. I shuddered, and quickly diverted my
attentions to tearing down my night-time accommodations in favor of
my day time ones.
    I pulled the mattress out of the way, and
leaned it up against the side of the stairs. I found my chair and
set it up. With my chore done, I decided it was time for some
breakfast.
    I moved over to the rack and searched out a
box of cereal. It turned out to be my favorite; Lucky Charms. I
carried it back over to my chair, where I sat and ate it dry,
sucking on the marshmallows until they dissolved. When I’d eaten my
fill, I realized from the pressure in my guts that I was going to
have another biological receptacle problem soon.
    I had no problem peeing in the washer, but I
wasn’t about to hang my butt over the opening and crap in there.
That was my source of drinking water for crying out loud! I looked
towards the dark side of the basement in dismay. I knew I had to go
find a bucket back there; a prospect made even more terrifying
after my dream from the previous night.
    ‘How much can one kid take?’ I thought
forlornly to myself.
    I just stood there beside my chair trying to
summon up enough courage to enter the darkness. My belly burbled.
That was all the motivation I needed to get moving. I had just got
clean pants back on and had no desire to soil them again so
soon.
    I took a deep breath and cautiously shuffled
out of my circle of dim illumination and into the inky blackness.
The dark side of the basement was like a whole other world,
separate from the one in the light, but somehow connected to it by
an unseen force that held the two worlds together and kept them
from bursting apart and spinning uncontrollably out into the far
reaches of the universe in opposite directions.
    I had remembered seeing in the past, a couple
old five gallon buckets near the place that I had grabbed the
mattress the previous night, so I headed to that area, got on my
hands and knees, and felt around blindly near the floor until my
hand hit a bucket.
    I grabbed it as quickly as I could and
started crawling backwards towards the light, dragging the bucket
along. I was feeling rather proud of myself for having braved the
darkness and not let my imagination get too carried away.
    Just before entering the light, while still
figuratively patting myself on the back for my bravery, something
leapt up from within the bucket and clawed my hand as it scrabbled
for purchase. I screamed a crystal shattering scream and flung my
hand away from my body violently, throwing my bucket back into the
blackness in the process.
    I was backpedaling towards the light as
quickly as I could, shrieking like a banshee the whole way.
Whatever had clawed my hand was now in my pant leg, near my left
calf, scratching me as it scrambled around. I kept