Shadowman

By Michael D. Grant

Elizabeth Murdock is absolutely in love with the old Edwards home in the small town of Brettinger, Tennessee. As an artist, she is excited to capture the areas natural beauty through her camera lens. However, Allan Murdock has kept a few minor details from his wife, knowing she would never willingly move into a murder house.

The truth about their new, beautiful home goes far beyond what Allan knows, though. Something unnatural has come to Brettinger. A creature lives along the edge of the woods. It is a dark figure, imagined in the twist of branch and busha thing of myth, seeking vengeance and using the citizens of Brettinger to exact its final, bloody revenge.

After digitally capturing an odd image on her camera, Elizabeths excitement is short-lived, as only the crazy neighbor, Angelina Buscold, will admit to seeing a figure standing among the pines. Angelina saw the same figure when she was just a child and now knows she needs Elizabeths help or no one in Brettinger will be saved from the Shadowman.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Mar 14, 2016
• ISBN: 9781480827981

Michael D. Grant

Michael Grant holds a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. He is a Registered Nurse and has worked as a freelancer for the North Georgia Newspaper Group. He lives in North Georgia with his wife Kelly and their Dachshund, Romey. Shadowman is his first novel.

Book preview

Prologue

T he blast of the shotgun was deafening. The rest was quiet work. A pushing, driving, movement of hands to finish what had to be done. And then the mowing. He’d waited two weeks and the smell of rain, not far off, was in the breeze. Weeds would take over if he wasn’t careful. Weeds were a tell. One couldn’t abide weeds.

He smiled as the police arrived. The handcuffs were a curiosity. It was a strange day. A very strange day. Neighbors standing in their yards, looking his way. He wanted to wave, but he was wearing handcuffs. A strange day.

He was urged, head bowed, through the rear door of the cruiser. Stretching up and back, the view through the rear glass showed his house growing smaller with distance. Trees shimmered their goodbyes as the first raindrops fell. He’d have to tell his students about the trees, let them write a poem. A good assignment for Sophomore English. They’d do him proud. Everything would change for the better.

Everything would change.

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Samuel McFarland High School lies in the exact center of Brettinger Township. Brettinger is in the southwest corner of Rayburn County. Rayburn County is in Tennessee. It occupies several hundred square miles of wooded hills between Chattanooga and Knoxville.

Brettinger was slow to see changes as the millennium approached. In 1979 modern traffic lights were installed, replacing ones on which the green light stayed green all the way through the amber cycle and went out only when the light cycled to red. The reason for that change may have been the twelve-car pileup. Four people died as a caravan of vacationing out-of-towners, making a rapid escape from Brettinger, didn’t take notice of the subtle transformation from green past amber and ended up running the red light.

The sheriff ’s department started driving supercharged white Trans-Ams in 1980. Drivers learned to check their rearview mirrors for tailgating ghosts; sheriff ’s deputies do love their games. But the sheriff ’s department changed back to the standard issue Monte Carlo’s a year later, after two deputies died on County Line Road. It was the curve that did it. Dead man’s curve. Or, as some of the locals started calling it, Dead Deputy’s curve.

Accidents involving local cops drag racing don’t get press in a small town, and the reason for the change – even the fact that there had ever been cops driving white Trans-Ams – was forgotten by 1984.

The industrial complex, built in 1960, was scrapped in 1989 to make way for the tourism district. Seven hundred blue-collar jobs vanished.

In 1990, the city proposed a tax hike to pipe in water from the Sequatchie River. The local spring dried up they said. Taxpayers grumbled and the city council proposed rezoning a section of the downtown area. The politicians didn’t actually care about creating a historical district; they just needed to turn a few screws. The plan worked, new water mains went in, and they backed the screws off. Politicians love their games too.

The older neighborhoods saw their needs neglected in favor of newer subdivisions. Houses boasting three car garages. An in-ground pool was an expected amenity. Neighborhoods for the better people.

The murder of Jennifer Edwards deepened the chasm separating the people of Brettinger.

It was only the beginning.

Chapter One

Brettinger

T rey Stephens lived in one of the older neighborhoods. He sometimes rode the bus, but usually walked to school. Even though it meant walking past the trees. Trey had seen them in the trees.

Them.

He didn’t know what they were, but they were there. Watching. Waiting.

He walked to school this morning, but he would ride the bus home. Trey knew they were coming for him. They knew where he lived. They knew everything.

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Derrick Miles smiled at the young man across the desk from him. It was not an ample smile – the kind of smile he used with the ladies – but rather a gentle curving at the corners of his mouth. Just enough of a smile to let the youth know he was safe. He had the freedom to talk openly about whatever was bothering him.

Whatever Trey said wouldn’t get back to his mother. His teachers wouldn’t know about it. None of the other students would ever know what was about to be said. All that would be assumed is that a high school sophomore and the school’s guidance counselor had discussed whatever it is that students and guidance counselors have to discuss.

The young man tried to return the smile.

It was at that moment that Derrick knew he was about to hear some great teenage secret.

I’m in love with Ms. Akins.

That would be no surprise. Most of the boys at Samuel McFarland were in love with the ladies’ gym teacher. Most of the male faculty members were too.

It might be the way Deborah Akins’s black hair, in that simple ponytail she seemed to favor, shone in the fluorescent lighting as she walked the hallways. Or perhaps it was the way her azure eyes sparkled. It could even be her bouncy friendliness towards everyone she passed, or her perfect-toothed smile set into her perfectly sculptured face.

Only a select few people at Samuel McFarland knew Deborah well enough to call her a friend.

Derrick called her a friend. He also called her a lover.

Obligations to his wife and their two children kept him from calling her more than that, although, from time to time, Derrick allowed himself the freedom to fantasize about Deborah’s potential as a live-in.

Derrick’s smile broadened with the thought of their last encounter.

The young man lost every trace of the burgeoning smile he was attempting in response to Derrick’s wide toothed grin. Without the smile, Trey Stephens looked like every other troubled teen that Derrick had ever encountered. And though the physical characteristics were different – Trey had sandy hair, brown eyes, and stood a skinny five foot eleven – they all had the same demeanor. They all shouted, "Help me!", without uttering a word.

Trey shifted in his chair, breaking eye contact. It was obvious that sixteen-year-old Trey Stephens was becoming nervous. But it was Derrick’s job to get to the root of whatever was bothering the young man. He cleared his throat and refocused his attention.

What would you like to talk about, Trey? Derrick asked, his smile returning to its former simplicity.

Trey sat for a moment, quietly massaging the knuckles of his hands. He alternated left index, right thumb, left ring, right pinky. He shifted in his seat. He wouldn’t look up.

I can’t help if you don’t tell me what’s wrong, Trey.

Left thumb, right middle, left pinky, right ring.

I’m not so good at reading minds, you know. Derrick thought he had said it cheerfully enough, but Trey reacted badly; he slid his hands up, crossing his arms defensively.

Trey began a slow rocking movement in his seat.

Rocking.

Rocking.

Derrick had seen this before. It usually had to do with bullies. Even worse, thought Derrick, was the possibility that a gang of young thugs was causing havoc again.

It was a sudden realization. This was clearly a problem for someone else, maybe the police. There was no reason to waste any more of his or the Trey’s time on a problem he couldn’t possibly solve.

Trey, Derrick kept his voice soft, perhaps I could call someone else. Someone you might feel…

What are you afraid of, Mr. Miles? Trey’s voice was a whisper, causing Derrick to ask the young man to repeat himself. Trey looked up, holding Derrick’s gaze.

What are you afraid of?

The boy’s face was a mask of uncertainty. This was costing the boy too great an effort. Derrick broke eye contact, beginning an involuntary study of Trey’s loose fitting clothes. There didn’t appear to be suspicious lumps concealing a gun, but how could he be sure? And if not a gun, Trey could be concealing a knife.

It wouldn’t be one of those little folding jobs that fathers give their sons. Besides, Trey’s father wasn’t around these days. George Stephens had left several years ago, without saying a word to anyone. He packed his clothes and disappeared, with a little over five hundred dollars he’d stolen from the Safeway.

No, this knife would be bigger. A hunting knife. Maybe a fishing knife.

There was an incident, only three weeks ago, where a group of teens held a fishing knife to an old woman’s throat while robbing her house. The thing she remembered most clearly was the way the ringleader kept saying, Maybe we should scale her, laughing and flashing the knife blade in the beam of his flashlight.

Despite Trey’s sleight size compared to his own six-two, two hundred and fifteen-pound frame, Derrick had heard and seen enough about gang initiations to be alarmed. These kids could become violent at a moment’s notice. Trey looked nervous. He was about to do something.

All these kids have a short fuse, thought Derrick, tensing his arms, preparing himself. Hormones. Damned teenage hormones. Son of a bitch.

The phrase ran through Derrick’s mind. Son of a bitch. He had to be ready to move. Why did he ever think he could make a difference? What a stupid idea. He was only one man.

Trey uncrossed his arms.

I don’t understand, Trey. Derrick fought to keep his voice calm. He leaned forward, ready for the coming assault.

Are you afraid of shadows, Mr. Miles? Trey asked quietly.

Shadows? Derrick asked, watching Treys hands.

Shadows, Trey repeated.

I don’t know, Trey. Who are the shadows? A new gang? I haven’t heard of them. Derrick wondered what kind of crazy prank the boy might’ve been put up to. Was he expected to come back to the gang hideout with a finger? He’d heard about that too.

Trey covered his mouth with a balled fist, the other hand supporting his arm at the elbow. He looked as if he was preparing to bite his knuckles. Or was he trying to force himself to stop talking?

You know where I live, Mr. Miles. It was a statement, but nevertheless required an answer.

You live in Lakewood. Derrick could have been more descriptive if he’d wanted. Lakewood, at the western edge of Brettinger, was one of the oldest neighborhoods in the city. Houses once thought as stately in years long past had fallen into disrepair.

Most had at least one set of windows bandaged with duct tape. They all had structural damage, whether a broken porch railing, formally a stately white, now gray with soot and years of pollen, or a section of wall, damaged by wind and sun, now patched with unpainted CDX plywood. These homes might one day be restored, but no one had given it much thought.

The newer tract houses weren’t much better. They’d been built during a previous growing phase. Brettinger needed somewhere to house the less fortunate people.

Intermingled with the once stately homes and the tract houses were the trailers. They’d simply started appearing. Derrick couldn’t remember when? Many trailer homes were singlewide, installed before the county required that a mobile home must be at least eighteen feet in width to qualify as a proper residence.

Trey and his mother lived in one of those singlewide trailers. Theirs was on the back end of Lakewood, in an area known as The Flats – a name given because it was the only section of the neighborhood free from hills. Beyond The Flats was a wooded area where the city’s jurisdiction ended and county-owned land began. Most unimproved county-owned land was covered with pine trees. It wasn’t an area large enough to be called a forest, but the trees thickened and deepened, giving The Flats a feeling of partial seclusion. And the trees gave the residents something to view besides the desperation of life around them.

Then there was the Lakewood Recreational Park.

The park was two hundred feet wide, one hundred feet deep. The county politicians, in one of their bureaucratic frenzy’s, had decided to clear a small parcel of land, installing two swing sets, a slide, a see-saw, and three picnic tables, all surrounded by a makeshift gravel walking surface.

We need to give those people in Lakewood something to be proud of, they’d said. Give them a reason to want to clean up the area themselves.

Only a few knew the real reason for the creation of the park.

Nadine Dicks, the county commissioner’s wife, didn’t want to see those people when she took her children to Godfrey-Jones, the city of Brettinger’s public recreational park, where the better people took their children to play. When those people from Lakewood came to Godfrey-Jones, they brought their stained t-shirts and questionable hygiene. Those people drove noisy cars with noisy mufflers. Those people let their children run around like animals. Smelly little animals.

In actuality, there had only been one occasion when Nadine had a direct confrontation with someone from Lakewood. A single mother – Lakewood had no shortage of those – had taken her children to Godfrey-Jones for a day outing. The woman was starting a second job. This outing would be her last chance to spend quality time with her children.

Six-year-old Jimmy had a dribble stain on his t-shirt from the Strawberry soda he’d been drinking. Five-year-old Kami sported a Blue-Ice tongue and Blue-Ice lips. Their mother’s clothes were stain free, but obviously second (or possibly third) hand. She drove a fifteen-year-old minivan with sun-faded paint. Oily smoke rattled from the muffler.

Nadine Dicks couldn’t care less about the reasons why they looked the way they did. She only knew those little animals raced wildly around Godfrey-Jones, jumping from the swings, running back to swing and jump again; crawling up the slide the wrong way; banging the seesaw into the ground.

Laughing and yelling.

Laughing and yelling.

Laughing and yelling.

Enough. Something had to be done about those people.

It had been an easy thing to convince her husband. What are you going to do about… was all she had to say. It was enough.

Funds were allocated for Lakewood Recreational Park. Land was cleared. Equipment purchased. A ribbon was cut. A picture was taken and printed in the Brettinger Bugle. A problem was solved.

No one was ever seen swinging on the swings in Lakewood. No one ever slid down the slide or teetered and tottered on the seesaw or lunched at the picnic tables. The residents of Lakewood didn’t care about the park. They wanted something done about the dropped-off dogs roaming free through the neighborhood. They wanted the city garbage collectors to put all of the trash into their trucks, not half in half out. They wanted sewer service. They wanted someone to do something about the Old Rock Road street gang, which delighted in roaming into Lakewood, breaking out windows, boosting hubcaps, slashing tires, and who knew what else, while the residents slept. They wanted better street lighting so they could feel safe at night. They wanted to matter.

But it was only Lakewood. Those people. How much would you have to do for those people before they would finally be satisfied?

This was where Trey lived. But he lived in The Flats. Despair pushed the air on one side with broken toys lying on browning lawns. Children sporting food color smiles and wearing stained clothes. Dropped off dogs roaming free.

And the Lakewood Recreational Park on the other. The park and the trees.

I live in The Flats.

I know, Trey, Derrick said, wanting to at least seem to understand. Was it the poverty of his neighborhood that drove Trey into his office? Who are the Shadows?

Or maybe Trey wasn’t talking about a gang at all. It could be that he was simply speaking of…shadows. It sounded crazy, but Derrick had heard of stranger things. Could they be the shadows cast by people who had more? People who looked down on those who lived in Lakewood? People like Nadine Dicks? The psychology of the problem could be somewhat profound.

Trey took his hand from his mouth, massaging his knuckles again.

What shadows are you afraid of, Trey? It seemed a reasonable assumption that the young man would have asked because of his own fears.

The boy started to speak, then moved his fist to his mouth again.

Do you ever go outside at night, Mr. Miles?

Well, yes. Of course, Derrick said, still on guard.

Do you live near a woods?

No, Derrick said. We have trees in our subdivision, but you could hardly call it a woods.

Then you wouldn’t understand.

Understand what, Trey.

The shadows in the woods.

Derrick eased back into his chair. I guess I don’t understand, Trey. What shadows are you talking about?

Trey stood to leave.

Wait, Derrick said, urging him to be reseated. Tell me about the shadows, Trey. Help me understand what you’re talking about.

Trey sat. He propped his arm at the elbow again, this time tapping his lips with his knuckles. You don’t see them in the daytime, Mr. Miles. But you know they’re there. You only see them at night, when it’s dark. The shadows in the woods move at night.

Are you talking about real shadows, Trey? Like the shadow of my hand on the desk? Derrick moved his hand over the desk. The fluorescent fixture in the ceiling cast it’s shadow across the oak grain.

Yeah.

Don’t you see shadows in the woods when the sun is out, Trey?

I knew you wouldn’t understand. You don’t live near the woods. You don’t know.

Trey, Derrick said, attempting an explanation, shadows are created by light. He pointed toward the ceiling fixture. Surely there are more shadows during the day than at night.

You don’t understand and you’re not listening.

Trey’s voice had become suddenly sharp. Derrick put himself back on the alert for any quick movements.

They move, Mr. Miles, Trey said. At night the shadows move. They keep coming closer. They know where I live.

Derrick could feel the expression forming on his face. Concern, condescension, exasperation, pulled his mouth and eyes into a mask of loathing. The boy was obviously beyond his help. He was sure Trey had seen his of contempt. The young man slumped back into his chair, closing his eyes.

They’re coming closer, Mr. Miles. The shadows are coming closer. You don’t understand. You don’t live near the woods. The shadows are coming closer.

There was nothing Derrick could think of to say. The boy obviously needed psychological help. But what could he do? He was just one man.

Derrick smiled slightly, hoping it would seem reassuring.

I’ve seen things that couldn’t possibly move appear to move, Trey. It’s called an optical illusion. The mind can play tricks on us. You think maybe that’s what it is? An optical illusion?

Trey breathed deeply, suddenly calm. His hands rested on his knees. I hadn’t thought about that before, Mr. Miles. You’re probably right. It’s just an optical illusion and I’m letting my imagination get the best of me.

Derrick watched as Trey stood, moving toward the door.

I’m sorry I bothered you with this, Mr. Miles. I know it must have sounded stupid. Geez, an optical illusion.

The boy paused once in the hallway, just outside Derrick’s window. He had a look about him that Derrick recognized. He could not allow the boy to see him looking up. He didn’t want the boy back in his office. There had been enough crazy for one day.

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Trey had hoped for the best, but Mr. Miles would never understand. It had been a waste of time telling him. Now he was sure that Mr. Miles thought he was nuts.

He’d paused in the hallway, just outside Mr. Miles’ office window, hoping for some chance to go back in and explain it better, hoping to somehow prove he wasn’t just another crazy kid.

Mr. Miles had looked away. He didn’t care. None of them cared.

The shadows were moving closer. They would come for him tonight, and no one would ever know.

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With Trey gone, Derrick placed a call to the school nurse. He couldn’t have suggested that Trey speak with her. He didn’t want to alienate the boy any further. Suggestion would be the same as admission. But there must be something mentally wrong with a young