Free Shadow of the Past by Thacher Cleveland Page B

bed.
    “Hey.”
    “Mark, I’m so, so sorry. How’re you
doing?”
    He sighed, rubbing his forehead. “I . .
. I don’t even know. It doesn’t seem real.”
    “Yeah, I know. The detective guy just
left, and . . . god, my parents are so freaked.”
    “I’m sorry,” Mark said.
    “Don’t be, they’re just being dicks. I
just hope yours are handling this better.”
    Now this too. “Christine,” he said, “I don’t have any
folks.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “I mean,” he said with a deep sigh, “I
don’t have parents anymore. I live with my Uncle Joe, that’s the
guy who picked up when you called. I’ve lived with him since I was
little, and Clara . . . Clara was like a mom to me, and now . . .”
he stopped, trying to keep the crack in his voice from exploding
into tears.
    “Oh, Mark,” Christine said, and he
could feel the pity in her voice. He wasn’t sure what made him feel
worse: her thinking he was a weirdo or her pitying him. “I’m sorry.
This has got to be so hard for you.”
    “Yeah, it’s . . . well, there aren’t
really any words. I’m just sorry I got you involved in all of this.
I knew you were going to find out about my folks sooner or later,
but I didn’t want it to be like this. It was stupid to hide it and
I’m sorry. I know I must seem like a freak and you probably don’t
want anything to do with me after all this.”
    “Mark, as fucked up as all of this is,
I’m not going to abandon you or anything. I really like you and I
want to help you get through this, okay?”
    “Yeah?”
    “Yeah. Look, I should probably go try
to settle my folks down or something, but I’ll see you tomorrow.
Try to take it easy, alright?”
    “I will. Christine?”
    “Yeah?”
    “Thanks. I mean it.”
    “No problem. Bye.”
     
    After hanging up he staggered
downstairs and got some food while dodging Joe’s questions of “Who
was that?” and “What did she want?” He mumbled his way through an
explanation and as soon as he was finished he went back upstairs to
try to make a dent in his homework.
    Despite his nap earlier, he felt his
mind sagging under the weight of exhaustion. His eyes fluttered and
he let the pencil fall from his hand. He rolled over, pushing the
books off the edge of the bed. That would fix it, he realized. He’d
just sleep for years and it would all just be a distant memory by
the time he woke up.
    It was supposed to be a good
day, right? The best day? Well, I guess we all get what we
deserve.
     
    He was waking up, but he felt lost
again. He was dizzy, and when he went to rub some sleep from his
face he realized there was nothing there. No hands and no face. He
was just floating and formless in near total darkness. He thought
for a second that something had ended and he’d be snuffed out just
like Clara had been. Before he could decide if that would be a
relief or a tragedy someone turned on a light.
    It was Clara, still alive and in her
apartment, walking towards him. She was coming from her bedroom and
wearing a nightgown, wiping sleep from her eyes. He was standing
(or floating) in her kitchen. He called out to her, but there was
nothing. No hands, no face and apparently, no voice.
    She stopped in front of him and reached
out for the refrigerator. She paused for a second, her nose
twitching, and then she turned to look right at him. Before he
could tell if she could tell he was there a hand launched out of
the darkness next to him and crushed her wrist, forcing her down on
one knee.
    Mark was screaming and thrashing in his
own mind, but nothing he thought could affect anything around him.
From the darkness stepped the figure he’d seen in the apartment
before, covered in swirling smoke and where eyes would be under the
hat shaped smoke two tiny flames burst to life.
    The cane with the silver head swung out
from the smoke, and just as Mark recognized it from his dream it
smashed into Clara’s head. Once, twice and then a third time. He
let go of her wrist and