Dan thought he saw his son's silhouette through the open garage door.
"Bobby? What are you doing out there? Get back to bed, it's late!"
"No, dad, it's not me."
"Don't play games with me, kid!"
The boy had been acting strange ever since his mother disappeared, but what came next would still have surprised Dan, if he had the time to be. The silhouette entered the garage, still a shadow under the bright light, and from it came a sound, a scream. And then nothing.
The piercing, jagged arm of darkness pulled back from Dan's ravaged chest with unearthly speed. Robert looked at his father's corpse for an instant, then ran out. The black thing followed him, preceded him, flowed alongside him. One moment he ran, thin tentacles trailing him like a maiden's hair. The next instant it pulled him up and he rode it like a California wave.
The boy and the darkness reached an apartment building. Tendrils reached out towards a balcony, taking hold of a railing. Bobby swung himself up, was swung up, over and over. More balconies, more flights. Four? Five? Twenty? Bobby laughed. The black tightened around him, wrapped him. A lone tentacle switched its hold, and threw him in a terrible arc, into a patio door, a living wrecking ball.
Glass shattered, metal broke. Bobby's feet would have landed with a thud, but the shadow caught him. It shook off the shards and began to hunt.
The crash awoke a father. A mother. A daughter. Three screams. It was over faster than a nightmare.
The darkness grabbed hold of the broken door and threw Bobby over the balcony railing like a slingshot bullet. He laughed again. Wings formed, and they both glided down, away. In their wake, droplets of blood sparkled in the moonlight. Behind them, back in the building, neighbors were barely beginning to turn on their lights and investigate the noise.
They were too late. They were always too late.
Bobby landed on the roof of a house. Smoothly, stealthily. The darkness flowed like a stream of oil in front of him, and he slid down the angled tiles all the way to the ground where cool, dewy backyard grass awaited his feet. He stood there a moment, catching his breath. The night was still and silent.
Stillness and silence.
The shadow reached out towards the nearby door, and slipped through a pet hatch. Again it wrapped Bobby, and took him inside. It was a tight fit, but Bobby was still small, and he passed through without a sound. The hunt was on again.
The hunt wanted to be on again.
But movement caught Bobby's eye. In the corner of the kitchen, from behind an open cabinet door, appeared a little dog. A puppy. Weeks old, at most. A little fluffy ball with hair the color of milk coffee.
The hunt was called off. Bobby reached out to touch the puppy, with his own arms. The darkness fell from him, attached itself to his feet, and became his shadow, faint and hazy across the tiled floor.
Child and dog passed through the pet door together.
Day came, night came again. But from that time forward, two shadows prowled the streets together.
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Topic: Daily Create! (Read 4039 times)