Page 30 of Shadow Scorching

“What am I looking at?” I asked, trying to pick up which camera to watch.

“There—in Jules’s bedroom,” Dante said.

I leaned in and froze. There, in the corner of the room stood a figure shadowed in mist. I could see red, glaring eyes staring at the empty bed, and then, as the shadow moved out of the corner, the figure took form, coming out of the mist. He was tall and jet black, like the Void, with no visible features except for his eyes. He looked almost like a two-dimensional cardboard cutout.

“What is that?” I sat down. “Is it a shadow person?”

“I don’t know.” Dante took his seat, staring with wonder at the screen. “He looks…wispy?”

Another look showed me what Dante meant. The shadow didn’t lookfragile, but like an image being transmitted, flickering like old video tape.

“It has to be a shadow man. I can’t think of anything else.” I sat beside Dante. “Is itreallythere? Could it be a projection, like it looks?”

“I doubt it. Who would be sending it, and how?”

As we watched, the man walked toward the camera, still flickering like an old-time movie. He leaned in to stare at the lens and, in the depths of the shadow, I thought I could detect a cruel smile on his face. The next moment, the screen went black as the camera died.

“Uh…okay,” I said. “Who the hell was that? Was it a ghost? Did we get a clear recording of what he looks like?”

“I don’t know, maybe, and yes, I think we got everything up until the moment he killed the camera. I’ll check to make certain…” Dante rolled the footage back. Sure enough, we had everything recorded.

“What about the others—” I started to say, but at that moment, the attic camera picked up something. The shadow man appeared in the doorway to the attic. As he walked in the room, there was a bright flash and he was swept off his feet, slammed against the doorway as though something had sent a giant fist into his midsection.

“Get out,” a voice snarled, echoing through the attic.

The man jumped to his feet. “You want to play?”

As he raced forward, toward whatever unseen opponent had smacked him down, another brilliant flash filled the attic, and the man froze for a moment, then vanished. The attic once again went dark, illuminated only by the light from the side window.

“Well…it seems that not everybody in Michael’s house gets along,” I said, shaking my head. “I hope that…whatever or whoever he was, he didn’t destroy the camera. Those areexpensive gadgets. If the creature in the attic is a revenant, then it’s probably the most powerful entity there.”

Dante ran his teeth over his lips. “So, we agree that’s the man is probably a shadow man?”

“I want to yes, but I’m not absolutely positive.” I closed my eyes, trying to listen to my inner guidance. “I don’t know, to be honest.”

“Shadow people are dangerous,” Dante said.

“Yeah, I know. So are revenants.”

Dante cocked his head. “My question is, are they working together?”

“By that little display, I don’t think so. Maybe they’re at war?”

“Can you call Penn? Send her the footage we just saw?”

“Yeah, I think that’s the best way to go about it,” I said. As I settled down in front of the laptop to fiddle with the controls, I gave her a quick call. She answered right away and I asked her if she could check out the footage I was ready to send her. She said she’d call me back as soon as she had a chance.

I wandered out to where Sophia was finishing up some data entry. “I feel like we’re killing time today.”

“Well, Orik definitely won’t be in,” Dante said, joining us. “His car battery’s deader than a doornail.”

“We might as well go home,” I said. “Dante, I’ll give you a ride, if you like. You can call your neighbor and tell him he can go straight home without picking you up.”

“Thanks,” Dante said.

We gathered our things and shut down the office, heading down to the parking lot.

“Hey, why don’t you come over to my place?” I asked. “I can sign up for that app and we can see whether or not I can snag Jet’s attention.”

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