Page 19 of Below the Shadow of the City

I glance down past the dumpsters and hanging fire escape ladders. A figure lurks in the shadows and my breath catches.

Months ago, shortly after Perrie left, I got into the habit of taking late night walks. There was a path I wore around my neighborhood, I knew where the next turn was without looking up from my shoes. I’d let one headphone blast the saddest songs I had on my playlist. Like a cat, I’d slink around without being seen. I’d wrap myself in a large black sweatshirt and heavy coat and shuffle silently on the slush covered streets.

No one ever bothered me, my gaze would follow the cracks in the sidewalks. But I’d passed this exact alley and I saw the same shadowy figure. The streetlight cast my shadow down on the concrete as I watched the creature lurk.

I thought it was a figment of my imagination, a physical manifestation of the heartbreak I held. For a moment, we stared at one another. There was little I could see, it was more of a rough fuzzy shape than a tangible form. And then, it vanished.

Now, I’m face to face with it again. I’m almost positive that it’s the same being as before. Something in me wants to call out to it, as if acknowledging its presence would make it real somehow. Instead, I shut my eyes and will it away. The singular cheap beer I choked down at the comedy club certainly didn’t create this hallucination.

When I open my eyes again, it remains unmoving. It stands a little straighter, and turns towards me, now properly silhouetted by the dim streetlights. Its form is large, utterly massive by the way it dwarfs the dumpsters it stands beside. I see horns protruding from its skull, and a tail whips around on the ground like a cat’s. It’s nothing I’ve seen before, and nothing I care to see again. It tilts its head curiously at me, and before it can approach, I run to my building.

CHAPTER 8

WEDNESDAY, LATE SEPTEMBER

Ianxiously pace the apartment late into the evening, much to the chagrin of the neighbors who live below. I have a plan, or a concept of a plan, at least. If I can sneak into the laundry room when I know he’s in there I can finally catch a glimpse of him. At this point it’s unfair that we’ve been talking with such consistency and his identity is still a complete mystery to me.

The physical attraction side of things is one small piece of that puzzle, I think it would take quite a bit for me not to be attracted to him. Save for him being a very old man or a literal demon, there would be little keeping me from fully falling. It’s not something I can admit, not to him or to anyone else. It’s stupid, honestly, falling for a voice alone. Maybe limerence is the word best suited for my present predicament, and maybe I’m descending into madness at this anonymous digital crush. He hasn’t given me any indication that he wants to meet me anywhere nearly as bad as I want to meet him.

He has a routine, I’ve learned. I haven’t taken much advantage of it, and maybe he doesn’t realize he’s revealed this pattern to me. He’s dropped mentions of what he’s up to in our near constant communication. He works, but remotely, which means there’s no commute I can find him on. He reads, he goes for runs, he cooks, and he brews coffee. In the midst of all that, he’ll mention his annoyance with one of the broken laundry machines, or complain that he’s dropped a quarter on the way to the laundry room. It’s the one part in his small universe I know the true location of, it’s a window into his existence.

If I could trap him there, I think. Then immediately shake it off. I’ve gone too far in this pursuit. It’s casual texting and phone sex, there’s no meaning behind it. I’ve done casual before, a younger version of myself picked up and dropped partners like a carousel. I feel like a stalker for tracking his movements. If he actually wanted to see me he would have made the move.

But the toe curling madness that his timbre brought upon my body was hardly enough to satiate me. I need more, selfishly. I also want to know him as a whole person, like the silly little things that make him happy or the songs that remind him of his younger self. I want to share meals with him and hear his laugh in person. This lust can only be satiated over the phone, and I’ll have to get over that fact.

Despite this, I still selfishly need confirmation that he’s a real, tangible person.

He tends to do laundry on Wednesday nights, which makes sense, that’s how we initially met. After more deliberating and anxious pacing, I toss on a sweatshirt and creep down into the basement again. My hands are shoved in my pockets as I traverse the corridors to get to the laundry room. The singular bulb still flickers. Everything is the same as it was that first night. The conditions for us to meet have been perfectly recreated by the universe.

I press my hand against the door. The hollow steel is the final thing separating me from something that will either break my heart or change me for the better. I fling it open and see clothes tumbling in the dryer. He’s down here, or at least he was.

“Adam?” I tentatively ask, my voice wavers more than I thought it would. I’ve talked to him daily but suddenly I’m overcome with anxiety about the prospect of actually meeting. The response is complete silence aside from the periodic thudding of the dryer. The door on the other side is open, barely unlatched, like someone ran off too quickly and didn’t let it shut fully.

My fingers fumble for my pepper spray, I came down here without any plan. I don’t even know what he looks like. I could run into another random person and have a far different outcome than I did the night “Adam” and I met. I was unusually lucky when I’d met him that first evening. It would be foolish to assume I get lucky twice.

I press the door slightly and it swings open into a dark hallway. There’s a figure lurking five yards or so from the doorway. There’s something oddly familiar about it, like I’ve seen it before.

Maybe, whatever has transpired with “Adam” has manifested into a hallucination of the alley monster. Maybe I’ve just been crazy since January for varying reasons. The silhouette moves. Its size alone is enough to render me completely paralyzed with fear, it looks so much larger in the hallway than it did in the alleyway.

“You shouldn’t be here,” it says. It speaks. This was new. This may be proof that the monster wasn’t a hallucination, but it makes me even more terrified. My knees quake and I brace myself on the doorframe to steady myself.

“Y-you’re the…thing from the alley,” I stutter. “What the fuck are you? Why are you here?” I’m asking questions like the main character in a fantasy or sci-fi movie, but that’s exactly what it feels like. I’m living through an impossibility.

“Sigrid—” it booms at me. It turns its head and I notice the outline of horns extending from its head. Whatever it is could kill me before I could even scream.

“How do you know my name?” My fingers tremble as I move them to the trigger of the pepper spray.

It steps closer. Its arms are out as though it's attempting to show it means no harm. I can’t make the assumption that it's harmless. Not when it might have followed me in the shadows for months. Not when it towers over me and weighs over twice as much as I do.

“What do you want from me?” I plead, I look down to measure the distance between us. We’re fifteen feet apart or so. If it wanted to it could run at me before I so much as blinked.

“Sigrid, you really shouldn’t have tried to find me,” it steps closer again. The voice is familiar, but the form is foreign. I act on impulse and do what I can to stop it from getting closer. I shut my eyes and slam my finger on the trigger, waiting for it to let out a growl or yell from the sting of the pepper spray.

Instead, the spray sputters and spits. Proving itself to be completely ineffective at stopping this creature. The monster pauses and looks at the useless canister, its stance softens. Maybe I should have grabbed a kitchen knife.

“I didn’t want us to meet,” there’s sadness in its tone.

“It can’t be,” I exhale and release the tension I’d been holding in my chest. In no reality is the guy I’ve been talking to for weeks the same as this creature. The two can’t exist in the same universe, the alley monster shouldn’t even exist to begin with.