Shadows

Sorry for any weird formatting stuff, I copied and pasted from word.

No one really noticed James as he sat in the corner chair at the bar. He was quiet, unobtrusive, and mind-numbingly drunk. Nothing about this was particularly interesting; it was a bar on a Friday night. The only real distinction between the other patrons of this London bar and James Harper was the reason he was drinking.

“Another. Please,” he muttered to the bartender, pushing his empty down the bar. His hands shook as he attempted to light the wrong end of a cigarette.

“Vodka?”

James nodded, his eyes never leaving the scuffed wood in front of him.

The bartender shook his head; he had been replacing most of the vodka with water for the last hour, but the man sitting at the corner of his bar had not sobered up at all. Silently, he made the drink and set it down in front of him.

“Hey.” The man looked up. “Here’s your drink.”

“Thank you,” came the slurred reply. The bleary, drunken eyes darted up to meet the bartender’s gaze. The muddy hazel irises were rimmed red, and a shadow flickered behind them. The bartender felt the specter of recognition behind is own eyes, but then it was gone.

James downed the drink, swaying in his seat before standing, agitated, and plunking down a wad of bills. He stumbled towards the door, half running, half falling, desperate to escape the bar.

“Hey! Come back here! Let me find you a cab!” the bartender called out. His words fell flat and unheeded, struck down by bar noise. “Dammit,” he shook his head. The weight of responsibility tugged at his sleeve, prompting him outside. After a moment he shrugged it off; he couldn’t afford to leave the bar to chase after a single drunk.

James Harper stumbled down a backstreet, clutching at invisible handholds. His nervous and digestive systems were in all-out war to destroy his body, causing him to shake and fall every couple of steps. The air was dank with the stench of standing water, trash, and vomit, clogging James’ lungs as he lurched down the alley. His brain felt like it was being drowned in the lake of alcohol he had consumed, but he welcomed it. The inability to construct and acknowledge a single coherent thought staved off the anxiety that he had developed over the last few months. It was not the anxiety of small, definite things; mortgages, health care, school, and his family did not concern him. They were things of definition and substance, things to be confronted and dealt with. It was the anxiety of giant, crushing, of something that drove him on. It was the something that whispered incoherently to him in the night and imperceptibly tugged at the corners of his eyes during the day. Something was chasing him and he fled drunkenly from it.

In the heart of the alley, James tripped and fell hard, his hands unable to catch all of his weight and allowing his face to scrape against the loose, grimy gravel. “Whatthehellwasthat?” James slurred as he attempted to raise his head and search out the cause of his fall, but the inky blackness was impenetrable by his alcohol addled eyes.

He let out a low, miserable moan, clutching at his head with numb fingers. The ground rolled like waves under him and his stomach was rolling nauseatingly. He feebly attempted to rise, but the waves of the pavement were too strong. He felt acidic bile rise from his stomach as the seasickness took hold of him, a long stream of vomit erupting from his throat. After the ground beneath him had calmed to a gentle current, James spat, attempting to clear his mouth of the foul taste as he crawled further into the alley. Merely a minute later he collapsed, unconscious in the darkness.

It was almost noiseless in the alley, midnight black and still. The only sound was the irregular, rattling breath of James Harper, drunkenly unconscious and surrounded by the former contents of his stomach. After nearly an hour, the breathing changed, becoming a sharp intake as James begrudgingly regained consciousness. The pitch darkness that clouded his eyes was still spinning, but the nausea was reduced somewhat. James frowned, confused; something was missing. He shrugged and attempted to sit up slowly, his eyes closed. It didn’t help. The darkness inside of his eyelids warped and twisted at the edges, bringing sharp bouts of nausea until he was fully upright. He forced his eyes open wide, attempting to pierce the darkness of the alley, but with no luck. Cautiously, but curiously, James searched his pockets. Wallet. Phone. Keys. James attempted to rack his brain through the muddle; what was he missing? With no answer surfacing through the alcoholic haze, James went about the business of trying to gain his feet. Two long, excruciating minutes later, James was mostly vertical, leaning against the wall. He glanced at the deep navy of the night sky, blearily deciding that it had not been more than two hours since he left the bar, which made it nearly three o’clock.

It was then, staring into the depths of the darkness above him, that James was driven to his knees. He remembered. He felt the something gnaw at his befuddled mind, crushing his thoughts into tiny, anxiety sided boxes. The shadows around him seemed to grow darker and more definite, edges and depths appearing in places where there was nothing to cast a shadow. James slumped against the wall, his head in his hands; he could feel the damning weight of the something pressing in around him, surrounding him with shadows.

“What are you? What do you want with me?” James screamed into the darkness.

“Everything, James Harper,” the sinister, nearly inaudible voice answered from the heart of the shadows.

James froze, drunken terror etched across his face, “Who said that? Who’s there?” He howled, eyes bulging out of his sockets. No answer, only the darkness and the something pressing in closer, the shadows reaching icy, ethereal fingers towards him. James felt the surge of pure animalistic terror overtake him, driving everything else out. The moment the fear mixed with the alcohol still bubbling in his belly, James Harper did the only sensible thing he could think of. He ran. James burst from the alley, his head flipping wildly from side to side, searching for safety. He saw a row of buzzing neon lights, the beacons of nightlife in downtown London. The shadows could not follow him in those lights. A line of taxis idled outside each of the neon signs, waiting for those who were too drunk to find their own way home.

James rushed to the nearest yellow door, wrenching it open and nearly falling into the poorly upholstered back seat. The driver looked back, somewhat startled.

“Where to?” he asked.

James mumbled his address and released the breath he didn’t know that he had been holding, trying to hold off the terror that still gripped his stomach.

“Rough night?” asked the cabbie congenially.

James didn’t answer for a long moment, “You have no idea.”

The door to James’ home was emblazoned with the number 23, a door that led to the safety and comfort and his family. He felt the something at his heels as he walked through the door, no longer pursuing, but no longer as fear inducing as he entered his home. James scuffled through the darkness of the house, only moderately drunk now. He slowly made his way upstairs, out of his sweat and vomit stained clothes clothes, and into the shower.

James attempted to ease himself into bed, but his coordination had not yet returned to him, and he fell into bed like so many rocks.

“Sweetie? Where have you been?” the sleepy, groggy voice of his wife muttered, still half asleep. Her eyes were barely open, still laden with sleep.

“I was out late with Rob and Mick. I’m sorry sweetheart.” He said, bending over to kiss her. Shadows flickered behind his eyes, reveling in the lie.

“Okay,” she mumbled as she rolled over, “get some sleep James.”

James settled in to bed and let the exhaustion of the night overtake him, his eyes closing thankfully as he drifted off to sleep. On the other side of the bed, James’ wife swung her legs over the bed and stumbled to the bathroom. Minutes later, she returned, becoming unwillingly more awake as she lowered herself carefully into bed. She began to breathe deeply, searching for sleep, when she felt her chest tighten. Immediately her eyes snapped open in terror, shadows dancing behind them.