Fear Made Manifest

It came with hunger.  For him and him alone.

He didn’t know where it came from, or how it found him, or even why just him.  But it was relentless in its pursuit.  It would come for him at any time it chose.  Sometimes, it could wait days, and leave him thinking it was gone, bored with him, only to leap from a shadow and send him tumbling to the ground in a heap.

Other times, it seemed to hang around him like a dangling hangman’s noose, swinging at his head as if to cinch its one loose knot of coiled rope and silence his cries forever.  He couldn’t let himself be caught.  He would vanish, suffocated by its tremendous weight.  His body’s shivers would cease to the cold grip of the afterlife.

He wanted to live.  He had to run.

His breath came out in ragged heaves, clutching at granite and brick with unsteady hands as the snarling of the beast sounded in his ears.  He tried to brush the black bangs hanging over his eyes out of the way, the blue orbs managing to read the scrawl on the brass plated block depicting “Howard Rines, Psychologist”.

The snarling was closer now, hot air snapping at his ankles.  He could feel the teeth nipping at his jeans, their hunger evident.  He barged through the doorway, glancing back at the wide open jaws ready to engulf him.  He slammed the door shut, silencing the growls and turning to the grey-haired receptionist who looked up to him as if the beast was the size of a fly.

“Come in, Mr. Helkiss.  Dr. Rines was just about to have me call you.”

***

Corey departed from the small therapy office, a new prescription list clutched in trembling fingers.  The nearby pharmacy obeyed the order on the slip, the white coated physician watching as Corey fumbled with the lid, undoing it with a heavy jerk of his hand and popping back two pieces of sanity.

They were the only things that kept that evil at bay, out of his sight and away from his mind.  Arriving at the small apartment he called home, he felt his sanctuary welcome him.  The hardwood floor squeaked in surprise, then recognition as he made his way to the bedroom, where linen sheets could hide his form once more from the world.

He paid no heed to the check sitting at his bedside table, or to the red blips on his answering machine.  They weren’t important in that moment of sweet bliss.  For the better part of the past several years, the 25 and some odd months old male had been plagued relentlessly by the black beast, that shadow lurker.  He had tried to explain it to his family, his friends.  The former would look at him with pity, while the latter outright left him.  Alone, he could only flee in terror, unable to fight such a menacing thing.  The beast seemed to feed off his terror with an insatiable hunger.

At one point, in some sort of acceptance of his apparent delusions, his mother, a wizened if weary, grey-haired, frail looking woman, recommended him to the good doctor.  The educated man looked upon his countenance every meeting with that small, up-turned smile.  His eyes wrinkled at the corners as he would listen to Corey’s descriptions.  He would then prescribe him a dose of the then running drug meant for psychosis and mental wards.

Sometimes, the pills and various treatments seemed to be the answer.  The sun would cast a brighter, warmer ray of light on his face. And sometimes, he’d even be able to manage a smile at passerby strangers.  Dark alleyways kept to their limits, and the world seemed to give him a breath of fresh air.

Other days would make those good moments seem to be only a pipedream.  The bright sun would be smothered out by clouds of grey and black.  Passing people became blobs, undistinguishable from the next.  The shadows cast by the brick and concrete towers on all sides lurched towards him, reaching, clawing with distended fingertips.  The air would chill, and slice at his gasping lungs.

He chased away those thoughts and buried his head further into his pillow.  They wouldn’t come for him here, those shadows.  They can’t reach him here.  He could let down his guard and relax.  For now, there was peace and it was his to claim.  On the next morning’s awakening, Corey felt refreshed, revitalized.  The sun peeked through the closed blinds, rays of yellow casting their glow on his white linen sheets.  It warmed him and the room, and he gave the sunrays a smile of welcome.  Today was a workday, and he could take it on today.

He showered, humming a small tune he remembered from the radio, his mind at ease.  He even managed a chuckle at the idea of how he would appear to those who knew him.  As if he was normal, like them.  Finishing up and dressing for the day, he looked to the counter where his medicine laid, the bane of his fears.  A moment’s thought directed him to leave it as he headed out the door.

Today would be a good day.  Nothing will go wrong.

***

“Hey, Corey!  Hand me that wrench I sat over there, would you?” a thickly accented voice rang out.  Corey looked up from the car report he was reading and set it aside, picking up the cold metal instrument and bringing it over to his partner at the garage.  Corey found it to be light in his hands, like a small stick, and passed it to Mickey, who rolled out from under the convertible to take it.

“Have you gotten that leak fixed yet?” Corey asked.

“Nah, not yet.  Can you believe that this is the sixth time I’ve had this car in here?” Mickey’s lower end poked out from beneath the vehicle, his voice muffled due to his position.

“Really? The same problem too?” Corey questioned.  From the report, the car had something loose or broken inside it.  Each time they gave it a look inside, it seemed to move about.  From the engine to the radiator, or hopping from the AC unit to one of the fuel lines.  They just couldn’t pin it down.

“Yeah.  This thing checks out every time it leaves the shop, but then the owner just seems to keep having the same problem.  The whole thing rattles and sputters.  Sometimes the engine won’t even start.  It’s like something lodged in it to make it that way, you know?” Mickey explained.

“I’m sure we’ll find it eventually.” Corey said.  He leaned on the car and listened to the sounds of the shop.  There was the whine and hum of drills and the whirring of the car lift as a truck was lifted up to reveal its underbelly.  The smell of gasoline, oil, car wax, and the occasional drift of B.O off one of the body shop workers filled his nose.

“Hey, Mickey.” The larger man rolled out from beneath the automobile.  “You ever get scared of stuff? Like, bad stuff?” Corey asked, rubbing his hand against his pants.

The mechanic scratched his chin and shrugged beefy shoulders in response.  “Well, yeah.  Who doesn’t get scared a lot?  In this day and age, it doesn’t take a lot to frighten some people.  Heck we got a holiday made for it!” he said.  He took a rag and went to polishing off one of the tools lying nearby as he continued.

“But yeah, I’ve been scared before.  I once went to the doc’s right?  Just a regular check-up.  Guy looks at me afterwards and says, ‘You’re about two steps from a heart attack, Mr. Willis.’ Which spooked me, cause how was I gonna get home to see the game if I only got two steps?” the pair of them shared a laugh at this.  “But I listened to the guy, and he walked me through a better routine.  But that don’t mean I wasn’t still afraid I was gonna kick the bucket.”

He looked up from the sprocket wrench and focused on Corey, who looked up from the ground to him.  “Sometimes, you just gotta turn around and face whatever’s trying to take you down.”  Mickey went quiet for a moment before he asked, “You ain’t got someone bothering you, do you, Corey? If some half-pint’s causing you trouble, I’ll knock their block off.”

Corey shook his head quickly.  “No, nothing like that.  I was just wanting to know what you thought was all.” He said.  Mickey nodded, and resumed his work under the machine.  To Corey, the rest of the shop seemed at peace.  Except there was this dull rumble.

“Hey, Mickey?  Do you hear that?”

“Hear what?  I don’t hear nothing except you, kid, and you ain’t that loud.” He answered, leaving Corey confused.  He was sure he heard it, it was even louder now.  Like something was revving up to speed.  He stepped out and away from the car to look down the length of the garage.

Nothing looked to be out of place except for – Corey felt his breath catch.  A shadow had moved; a shadow without an owner.  Was he only imagining it?  He looked to Mickey’s legs and back to the workshop in the back.  A red light glowed from there, but not from any car’s tail lights.

“Hey, Mickey?  I’m gonna go ahead and take my lunch,” Corey said, his words a hasty mumble as he turned and paced quickly to the door leading to the rain soaked world outside.  The growling turned even louder.  Mickey couldn’t hear it.  Corey prayed he wouldn’t as he dashed out of the garage.

***

The city streets were flooded with people and cars.  Thickly coated and bearing scarves, the passerby strangers seemed to give no heed to Corey as he raced down the street from the garage.  The growls still assaulted his ears, but he dared not look behind him.  Taxis raced by down the street.

Thinking, Corey realized that his feet won’t carry him as far as a car could.  He tried stopping to wave one down, but his feet stumbled.  The beast had already caught up, barreling down on him as he slowed.  Why did no one scream? ‘Because he’s already crushed them.  Under his feet.’ He answered himself.

Up ahead, a taxi pulled up in front of a hotel, where a rather bloated man stood, lowering a pudgy hand that had waved down the transport.  Corey’s eyes widened and he nearly tackled the man out of the way.  He wrenched the door open and dove in, ignoring the objections of the man outside the taxi.

“Where to, sir?” the accent of the Middle East asked him.

“Anywhere but here.  Take me away from here!” Corey pleaded.

The driver nodded and took off, the engine coming to life as he submerged into the flow of traffic again.  His electronic gauge started counting, ticking out the distance and time traveled.  The panicked passenger of the taxi fumbled with his seatbelt, shaky hands having trouble reaching for the clip to ensure his safety.

“Looks to be a stormy day today.” The driver said.  As if obeying him, the pitter patter of rain could be heard on the windshield.  Corey would have questioned the sudden change in weather if not for the panic currently racing through his veins.  He glanced out both windows and then the rear window, his neck straining as he searched.  He couldn’t see the monster.  Had he eluded it so easily?

“Are you alright, sir?” The driver’s voice was distant to Corey’s ears.  “Did we miss your stop already?”

Corey finally sat back in his seat and answered.  “No, no,” he said, “I’m just fine.  Keep going.”

The journey pressed on, and some of Corey’s anxiety drifted out of his tensed form.  His right hand clenched at the leggings of his overalls every few seconds.  His toes in his brown work boots couldn’t stop clenching.  “Maybe…maybe it’s gone…” Corey mumbled to himself.  Was he too optimistic to hope that the beast had been pulled away by some other unfortunate soul?

A thump and a crunch of metal jerked away his hopes, and the sole passenger of the taxi looked out the right side to the nearby sidewalk.  Street vendors were lined with umbrellas open, trying to keep merchandise from getting wet.  Some passerby walkers were browsing the wares.  Except for one vendor.  The hot dog vendor placed in front of the coffee shop and right next to the intersection had been knocked over, the umbrella flapping away on a gust of wind.  A dark shadow lurched into a nearby alleyway.

Corey’s anxiety returned, stapled together with an all new series of fears.  The beast solely hunted him in the past.  It always managed to slip by, unnoticed by the world.  If anything, it was as if only he could see what it did to the world.  It only touched that which Corey touched, stalked where he walked.  It’s never lashed out at others before.  Maybe it’s patience was thinner from the rain.  Maybe he had angered the beast by taking the medicine he had.

Or maybe, his heart skipping across his chest at the thought; maybe the beast had become more real than ever before, and didn’t care for hiding any longer.  It only wanted one thing, and that goal was sitting inside a flimsy taxi, quivering like a leaf on the wind.  

The taxi drove on, but Corey remained fixated at the window.  With every intersection passed, the monster seemed to follow right beside.  A bicycle messenger was sent reeling to the ground, his transport cleaved on the front wheel.  A transformer suddenly blew as they dodged a fast moving truck.  The driver’s movements stayed smooth, even with the growing rainstorm pounding onto the car’s path.

Finally, Corey could take no more.  He lurched to the cab door, tugging on the door handle with frenzied energy.  The driver seemed to take it as a signal to pull over, and did so.  The neighborhood was shoddy in his opinion, with run-down brick apartments and worn pavement sidewalks.  But who was he to argue with the customer?

“That will be 10.72, sir!” the cabbie called, but Corey gave little heed.  He wrenched the door open and dashed out, the calls of his driver being lost amidst his pounding heartbeat and the heavy rain.  He fled into an alleyway, heading in the direction of the docks.  His boots splashed through puddles of gathered rain as he prayed to any listening being to save him.  But it was not a deity who answered him when a growl sounded above his head.

Turning, he craned his head up to the rooftops, only to stumble to the ground.  He’d tripped over a beer bottle some homeless drunk had no doubt left behind.  He fell with a dull thud onto the concrete, water washing over his face and clothes.  He wiped a hand over his eyes and blinked up to see a shadow leap down from the rooftop to the ground.  It landed on a nearby dumpster and flattened it, the crash of metal and garbage ringing in Corey’s ears.

The beast was huge in size, compared to Corey’s scrawny form.  One of its four legs was as thick as his whole frame.  There was no distinct detail to its face or body, as all Corey could see of it was shadow.  Its mass was enough that it blocked the whole alleyway while facing him.  Had it turned to the side, its head would’ve gone through the adjacent building.  Red eyes peered down at him from its head, the pupils black and highlighted by the red surrounding them.  They glared at him, brimming with maliciousness, hunger, rage, and dare Corey say it, evil.  Its maw gaped open, with rows of jagged teeth that looked to outdo any knife connoisseur.  If he dared to look closer, Corey could almost imagine seeing bits of flesh still hanging from their tips.

“N-no...go away…” he whispered, scooting back on the palms of his hands and his rear planted on the ground.  “Please…”

His pleas fell on deaf ears, or perhaps, no ears at all.  The beast’s dark coloring and the stormy weather made it hard to try and even envision him.  It took a thundering step forward, bits of glass and metal crunching beneath its clawed foot.  It’s growling voice only added to his menacing presence.  The alleyway seemed to become smaller and smaller.  Corey’s heart seemed ready to burst from his chest, and ready to flee for its own self as the behemoth stepped closer.

“Please, just let me go!” He tried to beg, but Corey found no mercy waiting.  In his rain-soaked, shaking vision, the monster only grew more in size, becoming more terrible, more real.  Why didn’t anyone come to help him?  Had they already fled?  Or were they all gone as well, devoured whole in its wake?

The creature’s maw opened wider, its hot breath coalescing into steam in the cold air.  A rancid, horrible smell washed over Corey.  He gagged.  It was something not of this world; of something Creation had wanted to never see return to light again.  He kept the bile down, if barely, and gulped a gasp of air and rainwater.  Why won’t it stop growing?  Its sides were bulging, expanding to fill the space before Corey.

Panic overtook the frail man.  He turned to run, scrambling to his knees only to stop when there was nothing but bricks to fill his vision.  The alleyway was one of the few dead ends in Chicago.  He was a dead man in a dead end.  Corey wondered if Death himself was watching, ready to stamp his papers and take his soul to whatever plane awaited him.

He rolled around again, his shivering backside pressed to the towering wall as he looked upon the similarly imposing form of the shadow beast.  Its height had reached gutters that funneled rainwater down from the rooftops.  Trash cans were bashed aside, flung to the ground as it flexed its clawed foot.  Corey flinched at the sound of crushed metal, and curled into a ball as tears streamed down his cheeks.

This was his end.  He knew it would come.  He only wished it had come later.  That and…why.  Why him.

The beast’s great maw opened wider, and a vibrant bellow sounded.  The roar of victory, his death knell.  He sucked in his last breath, his lungs swelling as the monster reared back to dive onto him and feast.  Corey’s mouth opened to choke out a final sob.

“Why?!”

He waited.  Seconds passed.  The raindrops ticked away a whole minute.  He looked up.  The gaping maw of the beast still filled his vision, red and black and sharp teeth.  But it wasn’t moving.  Saliva dripped from an elongated fang the length of Corey’s arm and hissed when it hit the cold wet concrete.  Corey looked death in the face, but death had been given pause.

Corey’s voice gained a second wind.  Cracked, but audible, it spoke again.

“Why?  Why me?”

It was a pathetic plea.  If it had been made to a mugger, or a killer, they’d have given it no heed.  Yet this monster, this shadow, it waited.  It occurred to Corey he’d never tried talking to it before.  He never thought it would listen.

The beast tilted its head and closed its jaws.  Its vicious eyes remained trained on him, and Corey easily imagined it picking what parts of him would be the most delectable.  So why wait?  Why not tear him apart, send his tattered remains to scatter on the ground?

“What are you?  Some kind of monster?” Corey again asked, but no response.  He looked above the beast to the skies, and could see the gutters and brick lining of the rooftops that were hidden a moment ago.  It had shrank down, but why?  Had he caused that?

A low roll of thunder sounded in his ears.  But Corey found the source to not be the storm, but rather the being before him.  It tensed its legs and seemed to try and stare Corey down.  It didn’t like that he was speaking, voicing his questions.  It only wanted to take him, devour him. It growled, and arched its back.  A waving tail slapped into the nearby brick wall and hit loose some of the older material, one of the bricks flinging past Corey’s head.  He ducked, and the beast huffed.

He was confused.  He was still alive.  Talking kept him alive.  His questions made the monster, his pursuer, wait and stall.  Is there something in his words?  Was the beast more intelligent than he suspected?  He got up from the ground slowly, the beast watchful as shaky legs quivered to hold his frame up.  Something told him if he kept talking, he wouldn’t die.  His words kept him back.

“I want to know.  Did I wrong you?  Did I hurt you?  Why do you hunt me?” Corey asked.  The rain muffled his voice, but the being before him heard him loud and clear.  His hands shook at his sides, and he could feel the cold air chill him, making him zip up his work clothes moreso.  His hands fumbled with the zipper, his eyes trained on the behemoth’s own.

A low growl was his answer, and the red eyes narrowed at him.  Corey felt he made a mistake and stepped back, bumping into the brick wall again.  The space gave room for the monster to put a claw forward, and Corey could make out jagged nails that dug through the concrete.  If it felt pain from such a thing, it didn’t show.  It seemed to surge again, swelling slightly as Corey’s body shook.

Within his mind, Corey’s being was cowed by what he beheld.  There was no way to fight, no way to run.  He had nothing to fend his pursuer off with.  And yet, within, one voice remained.  It was small, very small, and he had to quiet his other thoughts of death and panic to hear it.  But it spoke with conviction.  Do not be afraid.  Stand your ground.  He locked onto that feeling, and tried to bring it to the forefront.  He puffed out his chest, taking a deep breath.

“I said tell me!  Why…why do you want me for?” His voice dented the muffled barrier the rain tried to form around his voice, and the beast gave the slightest of flinches.  It could’ve simply been a twitch, a feeling of a muscle in the monster’s form.  But in Corey’s mind, it wasn’t any of that.  He flinched from his determination.  Corey took a step forward, and the shadow receded back.  His eyes widened in wonder.

The monster was afraid of him.  This behemoth, this shadow, it was harmed by his words.

Speak more, the voice within him said.  Speak more with force.  Drive the shadow back.  He grasped the voice within him like a blade, to cut away the darkness.  “Do you even know why you do this?  Why me?” Corey’s voice gained strength, and the beast shrank moreso.  The bulging sides refitted themselves to normal, no longer threatening to expand and overtake the buildings on either side.  It gave a small whine, a groan of pain.  Streaks of black trailed behind the receding path of the shrinking beast’s claws.

“You don’t know, do you?  You can’t tell me.  You don’t have any idea why you do this, why you chase me, scare me, and come after me.” He stepped forward again, and the shadow drew back.  It was now his height, and coalescing into a new shape.  The maw closed, and the limbs withdrew into its form as it curled into a ball on the cold ground beneath it.  The red eyes betrayed an emotion of pain, of fear and confusion.  This was not how it was supposed to be.  To the beast, this was not its expected achievement.

Corey looked on in fascination as the shadow ceased to be the beast, and instead straightened and narrowed into a newer form.  It grew a pair of legs, long but gangly.  Arms that were wiry with muscle but looked thin and lightweight.  Hands that clenched in the air, grasping for a life line.  It took the form of a man that stood only an inch or two higher than him, but Corey didn’t need any more detail to recognize him when he saw his wild, confused eyes.  Even in the shade of red that marked it as being still the shadow, he knew who it was.

When he was but a mere child, Corey had been the victim of a kidnapper.  Snatched from the playground by a delusional, desperate man, the then boy suffered through the trial of being wrenched from his home and family, placed under the cruel care of a figure who claimed him to be his long lost son.  Tethered by fright and a cold, steel chain lock on his door, Corey endured the trial for several days, before the madman was found and he was returned home.  He had remained at his mother and father’s side for two weeks straight after that, wincing and near tears every time they so much as went to the bathroom.  He thought he’d gotten over it, but in the end as he sees it now, that man had still haunted him, even after the steel doors of the jail had enclosed on him forever.

“You.  You’re the one behind all this?” he asked the shadow.  It did not speak.  No roar or bellow answered him, nor whimper or cry.  Only a blank stare, the same that had greeted Corey when the kidnapper had first taken him away, his arms reaching towards him and plucking him from his rocking horse.  “You were in jail.  No!” Corey stopped himself.  “You died in jail!  Of cancer!”

Still no response.  The rain had slowed to a trickle now, the dark clouds turning lighter shades of grey.  A haze of steam surrounded the figure before Corey.  His shaking limbs now sat firm at his sides, his eyes steeled with a new resolve.  He was stronger than this man was.  He could feel the heated courage flowing in his veins, the strength and will of the underdog emerging from the ashes to strike back.  His hand balled into a fist, and the red eyes widened.

“You can’t hurt me.  You can’t frighten me anymore.  You’re nothing but a shadow.” Corey stepped forward, and the shadow stepped back.  The sound of cars driving by began to hum into the alleyway, and beams of sunlight began breaking through the smog above.  “You tried to hurt me before.  But no more.  I’m done with you.”  Red eyes widened in shock, and a shadowy hand rose up as if to hold off Corey’s words.

“I. Said.  No!” Corey enunciated each word, and at the last syllable, rushed forward and threw his cocked first forward; catching the shadow on what he thought was the chin.  The shadow man didn’t fall.  He didn’t stumble.  He shattered, like a window pane broken from the inside out, bursting into the street in shards of black.  A wheeze of defeat followed, the anguish of the shadow’s fall to Corey’s new spirit.

Corey looked around, his heart beating wildly in his chest.  The sun glowed on his pale face, his blue eyes peeling slowly to the right, then the left, to look and see if there was any remnant of his pursuer turned prey.  Nothing was there.  He straightened up.  It was gone, and with it, his mind seemed to be lighter at ease.  A weight that he once felt existed there was no longer present.  He smiled.

“He’s gone…” he said to himself.  Passerby citizens looked on in curiosity at the mechanic who emerged from the alleyway, whistling a happy tune as he made his way down the street.  Some who peeked down the alley saw nothing to indicate where he’d come from.  The dumpster remained in place, the gutters dry.  But for Corey, none of that mattered.  His life was no one’s but his now.  And he was going to live it.