short horror stories

The shadow man

I have seen the man. the man of the night. he is a shadow, and moves freely among the unaware. he calls out into the woods where things hibernate.the world has been his home for a thousand years. he knows every crevice and hill, and also of parallel areas existing in the folds and angles of normal buildings. these places are under the noses of everyday people. these hidden Mountains are within the head of a pin. the shadow man knows things. things about me and you. he knows how to replace your shadow with his spirit like form. you may notice him moving with you as you hear him speak. he talks about what you have been doing all day and night. he judges you along with other ancient spirits. you start hearing them everywhere you go, and sometimes they make you change your plans. you also avoid certain areas, while changing your path so they can't predict your patterns of thought. the moonlight shines thru the clouds and it looks like there are people up there busy at work. the night also brings restlessness and thoughts that manifest into living things. we don't always know exactly what happens when parts of the city goes dark. we just exist and observe what's lurking in our dreams. But when it's dark, you can barely see him. He blends in among the homeless, and goes solo when he needs to. He has doppelgangers around the city, but you know the real thing when he gets near. Most can smell his sulphur odor, some see the darkness and light shifting around them to announce the shadow man's arrival. When he's near, most slip into psychosis and start hearing voices. Very disturbing ones that un- ceasingly demand, manipulate, and cause false beliefs. When he takes the place of your shadow, he observes you. He does it by inhabiting light particles and changing the rules of reality. The man also takes form of people you know, and is always in the distance. He beckons you, then disappears. His ways are long ago set in stone. He is an old spirit, with memories of his life before his transformation. One day, he went to a voodoo priest, and payed him to visualize a new world for him. On occasion, he can access this parallel place by slipping into a trance, then he steps through a door in his mind. He appears to fade away into the air. He goes there to look at his environment to see around corners, receive info about those around him, and interpret symbols that appear to him. This realm is always creating new developments in reality. Strangers from out of town gravitate here. Survivors of great suffering come to see the shadow man in hopes of learning his secrets. Currently he is stalking one of his doppelgangers, and sees him trying to create bad waves for the the real one. Armed with a dart full of hallucinogenic juice, he throws it into the man's neck, hitting the carotid artery. When he gets close, the man goes into hyper psychosis, and starts trying to chew his own hand off. The shadow man guides him towards an abandoned house, where a witch lives among the unaware. This place is called the Julian hotel. He gently pushes him into a window, then calls to the witch with his mind. She sits him down in a circle drawn with chalk, and lights candles around him. She then preforms the ritual of attaching a demon to his skeleton. He wakes up in panic in an empty lot behind the piles of trash. He starts to reconsider his impersonations of the shadow man, even though he is payed well for what he does. He feels like doom is on the horizon. He has no privacy anymore, always under an invisible eye. The shadow man walks down the dark street connected to the body of a willing host. A host he has hypnotized into helping him. He is going around from dumpster to dumpster, trying to collect scraps of bio tissue and blood samples for the purposes of voodoo. He goes to a tower downtown to get to the roof where he has the advantage of high ground. He prepares his bag of tissue flakes, blood spotted napkins, and fingernails. Now on the roof, he can part from his hosts body to visualize the door to the parallel place. From there he knows to mix intentions into his cauldron. Rising vapors creep into the air in that realm and this one. Smaller shadow beings throng around the door, waiting to know their missions. He wraps up his ceremony of chaos, and slips back onto the tower roof. His host is standing on the trap door that goes into the secret maintenance tunnels within the tower walls. He says "melt into the spirals of your DNA". Travel upon atoms to ripple the air with heat and discover our direction tonight. More doppelgangers are active in the night, and need to be confronted. We have to walk the streets and alleys to make an illusion for the imposters. After we leave this tower, don't make eye contact, unless you will leave bystanders cursed, and vulnerable to those evil ones in the night. If we see a doppelganger, we will sneak up and breathe a demon into their world. It is a parasitic one that will live attached to his ribs. Those who pay these imposters are powerful people who fear the shadow man. One by one, they will topple. Along comes a crowd of drunks unknowingly stepping around them. His host and shadow self are connected at the toe once more. An invisible hand arranges obstacles for the ones who travel in circles through town, looking to trap the shadow man in shards of glass, or small mirrors. The hand is manipulated by a conjurer named gimple grut. He grabs the strings that connect the timelines of people singled out for control. He steers them thru grid of the city to scavenge for useful items, and magic things. Some objects you would not expect to hold any power, but possess abilities of use to the shadow man. There are enemies, and those that help. He lives as shadow, and moves around in your skin. He projects thoughts into your head, to inspire either crippling doubt, or exilerating speed of the mind. He picks evil ones to get dirty with problem causers, and calls uplifting spirits to those who need it. His days are full of shifting in and out of doors, teaching the schizophrenic ones to handle their visions, and auditory voices better, and misleading the ones from the crowd of gang stalkers. His witches do a kind of witchcraft that involves trimming bushes in the unmoving lights at night, so the imagery produces shadows that resemble gods, creatures, and watchful patterns that see for the shadow man. These artful nighttime projects are all over town. Sometimes you'll see demons made of tree leaves, or a god carved from the shadow of a bush lit up by a street light, or just a spot of paint on the concrete, that looks like an evil insect. All these doings are to monitor the streets, and hinder those that notice the images. If you pay attention, you will see spots of paint in sight. Always within sight, but placed with care, each one living to be noticed by those who look at the strange patterns manifested by us.