What inspired this story was actually my school principle. He's such a prick, that I just had to write a Shadow story with him as a victim. See, this is what happened. The sophomores at my school have to take what's called the CAHSEE (California High School Exit Exam). Now, before this asshole was the principle, the freshmen, juniors, and seniors didn't have to show up for the CAHSEE, but now it's different. He wants us to come to school just so he can get more money! And he said that if less than 51 of the seniors didn't show up, he'd cancel Senior Breakfast and all other senior activities. Once this was announced, I was pissed off for the rest of the day. My friend noticed my anger, and made some suggestions to help me vent. So I decided on writing a story where he gets brutally murdered! YAY! Well, I hope you all enjoy this. Shadow one-shot. R&R please.
Cat and Mouse II
Despite the lactic acid burning away at his legs, Dan ran as fast as he could, taking a terrified glance behind him every now and then, just to make sure that he was well ahead of the demon stalking him. His blue polo shirt was soaked with perspiration, especially around his collar and under his arms. His pudgy face was drenched with sweat, beads of the salty liquid visible in his goatee and his short, spiky black hair. His large belly bounced like a ball as he sprinted down the hall of the sixth floor of the office building. One of his leather work shoes were untied, and there were multiple tears in his good pants.
The lights above his head flickered on and off, casting an eerie glow down the gray corridor. He turned to his left and checked the door to the employee work room. Locked. He let out a whimper of fear and desperation, and proceeded to flee down the hallway. As we was running, he just so happened to notice a window at the end of the corridor. For one split second, he thought about leaping out of the window and ending this nightmare once and for all. But he couldn't. That's the quitter's way out. And Dan Oboaka was no quitter. He turned left at the corner and proceeded to run.
He tried the first door on his right, the door to a sales associate's office. Locked again. He ran to the next door on the left. That, too, was locked. He let out another whimper of fear and desperation, and bolted to the next door on the right.
"Oh thank you! Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you!" he whispered quietly as the doorknob turned, granting him access to the room.
He quickly rushed inside, silently but quickly closing the door behind him and locking it just as fast.
He frantically looked around the room, looking for the perfect hiding place. He was in a classroom where they taught new employees the companies policies and customs on foreign trade. There were student desks lined neatly in rows, a whiteboard at the head of the room, and a teacher's desk directly in front of it. On the teacher's desk were pictures of family, papers, a mug that read "World's #1 Teacher", and a pen and pencil holder.
'The desk. That's the perfect place.' Dan thought as he rushed over to the brown oak desk. He vaulted over the large piece of wood, knocking several of the items laying on it's surface to the blue carpet below. He picked up the leather rolling chair, hurled it to the side of the room, and dove under the oaken furniture.
He sat there, straining to hear. There was nothing for thirty seconds before the sound of footsteps echoed in his ears. They were slow and precise, getting louder by the second. Then, they abruptly stopped. Dan began to think that the monster had gone, that it had decided the give up and leave him be. He was about to poke his head out from the shadows cast from the desk when there was the sudden sound of a lock being undone. He pulled his head back down underneath the desk and began to cry – softly and silently. There was the eerie, disturbing creaking of a door being opened painfully slow, and a demonic, evil voice rang throughout the room.
"Oh Dan..." the demon calmly called out. Tears rolled down Dan's cheeks as the footsteps proceeded, getting louder and closer toward the desk under which Dan was hiding. "Come out come out wherever you are." The voice whispered in a sing-song tone.
'Oh God,' Dan prayed silently. 'Please get me out of this hell-hole.'
There was a loud sniffing sound, and the sound of something crawling on top of the desk rang in his ears. Then he saw the claws. Those terrible, blood red claws, hanging over the side of the desk. The sniffing sound proceeded, and Dan saw a dark gray, almost black nose, twitching with every sniff. It's claws were long, and fresh tears of terror rolled down his face as he was almost prodded by one of them. He bit down on his finger and moved his head back to avoid being detected.
The sniffing went on for what seemed like hours before the nose and claws vanished and the sound of a small body sliding off of the desk was heard. Dan was still biting his finger as footsteps were heard yet again, this time going away from him, and the sound of the creaking door echoed through the room.
"You can hide all you want, Dan," the monster said, "but you will not leave this building alive."
The sound of the door closing and of the footsteps disappearing was music to the CEO's ears.
He waited under the desk for several minutes, listening for signs of whatever was hunting him. When he heard nothing, he climbed out from under his wooden sanctuary, peering around the dark classroom. It was the same as when he entered. Slowly climbing up from the floor, Dan rushed toward the door, peering out into the hallway from the tall, thin window in the left side of the oaken barrier. He opened the door just a crack, waiting for something to happen. When nothing occurred, the CEO slowly creaked the door open and poked his head out into the corridor, his wide, terrified eyes scanning the immediate area for danger. Sensing nothing, Dan swiftly opened the door and walked out into the hallway.
He looked left, and then right, trying to spy the creature that wanted him dead. The coast was clear. Dan hustled over to the elevator, which was merely a few feet away, and pressed the down button. As the elevator approached from the second floor, the CEO uneasily looked down the hallway to his left, to his right, and down the dimly lit corridor behind him. The sound of the elevator dinging cause him to jump in surprise, and as the doors opened, he took a quick glance inside with large eyes to make sure nothing awaited him within his ticket to freedom.
He hurried inside and pressed the L button. He began to relax as the doors to the elevator met, and he wiped the perspiration from his square forehead.
He was a little perplexed, however, when the elevator gave a dinging sound at the fifth floor.
'It must be a short.' Dan thought as the doors began to part from each other. He glanced down the corridor in front of him, and let out a cry of pure horror to see his hunter standing at the far end of the one hundred foot hallway.
It was a short, black koala-like creature, with a red stomach, long bat's ears, and black, lifeless eyes, with gray eye patches encircling them. There was a gray spot on it's forehead, and it had those terrible, long red claws, and the dark gray nose he had seen merely seconds earlier. What horrified him the most, was that the demon was holding something in it's right claw; Dan's severed head.
He frantically pushed the "Close Doors" button, crying and glancing up every now and again to see the creature slowly but surly walking toward him. The eyes in the disembodied head had rolled back to show a perfect white, and the mouth was gapping open, a thin stream of blood pouring from the corner of the orifice. As the doors began to close, the monster threw Dan's head at him. Dan let out a scream of horror as his head flew closer and closer toward him. The second after the doors met, and there was the thud of his head hitting the elevator's steel barriers. The CEO began to cry again as the elevator proceeded on it's trek to the first floor.
"What's happening? Oh God. Oh God please. Please get me out of here alive." Dan whispered, pleading to the Creator above.
The elevator dinged again, and the doors opened, revealing the monstrosity that sought to end his life. It was the same distance from Dan in this corridor as it had been in the hallway above. And it was closing. He began to scream and cry again, and began to pound on the "Close Doors" button yet again. It was getting closer. Sixty feet away. When the doors finally began to come together and close, it had been fifty feet away.
Dan had begun to sweat again, his blue polo shirt almost completely wet. He pushed the "Close Doors" button again, and this time he kept it pushed in. He had heard somewhere that when one keeps their finger on that button, the elevator will go straight to that floor. It had worked every time so far.
Except this time.
The elevator doors opened on the third floor, and the demon was now forty feet away. Crying, Dan pushed the "Close Doors" button again, and the monster was thirty feet away when the doors closed.
The second floor. Doors open. Monster is twenty feet away. Doors close. Monstrosity is ten feet away.
As the elevator let out a ding on the first floor, Dan's eyes were as wide as saucers. When the doors began to depart, he felt a warm, wet sensation in the front of his pants. He looked down to find that he had wet himself. He closed his eyes, waiting for death to greet him, his bottom lip quivering violently and soft, horrified whimpers escaped from the corners of his mouth as tears flowed down his pudgy cheeks. When nothing occurred, he opened his eyes to be greeted by an empty hallway. He was breathing heavily as the elevator doors met yet again, and he was taken to his destination.
Dan was feeling a lot less horror-stricken when the doors opened to the lobby. To his right, there was the receptionist's desk, and to the left, the glass double doors that let people in and out of the building. The floor was a blue marble, and a picture of the globe took up a large portion of it. There was a pattern of fake trees and benches along the glass wall toward the front of the building.
He let out a sigh of relief, and a smug grin spread over his face.
"No one fucks with Dan Oboaka." he said egotistically, trotting out of the elevator into the dark lobby in front of him.
He stopped dead when the elevator emitted an eerie sound. He turned around and looked up towards the ceiling of the lift. It sounded as if someone – or something – was walking up in the shaft. Dan began to whimper again as part of the ceiling of the elevator was removed and his own personal grim reaper leapt down into the lift itself.
He let out a yelp and sprinted towards the glass double doors. He pushed on the left door with all his might, thinking it would give in to his will and release him into the night air. He was gravely mistaken. The door denied him his freedom, and he pressed on it several more times, praying it would break under his force.
"Open you fucking door!" Dan yelled. He glanced behind him to see that the demon was halfway between him and the elevator. Dan shot his hand into his pocket, scrambling to find his keys. "Shit!" he cursed. He looked in his other pocket. Nothing. Then in hit him. To his horror, he realized he had left his keys up in his office on the fifty-first floor.
He turned around and ran toward the receptionist's desk, his goal to escape through the backdoor in the cafeteria. He ran past the receptionist's desk and took the hallway to the left of it. He found himself in the cafeteria. There were numerous tables and chairs in the middle of the eating establishment, and a tiny kitchen in the back, with a door leading to the outside world. He ran for it.
The CEO only got halfway to the kitchen when he was lifted in the air.
"Wh-what is this? What the hell is this!" he screamed.
Without warning, he flew through the air, his body turning as he did and his back slamming against the wall, knocking the wind out of him. He looked toward the entryway he had just come through to see his grim reaper there, the spot on it's forehead glowing a bright turquoise color. 'It's– it's using psychic powers to hold me against this wall!' Dan thought in horror. Tears rolled down his cheeks as the monstrosity came closer and closer toward him. By the time it was at his feet, Dan was bawling in fear.
"Dan Oboaka," the fiendish creature said venomously. Dan looked at the creature through blurry eyes.
"Wh-who are you? What the fuck do you want with me!" he demanded. The monster blinked nonchalantly.
"You may refer to me as Shadow," Shadow announced, giving a mock bow. "And it's not what I want with you. It's what your employees want with you."
"What do you mean?"
"Your employees hate you, Dan. They hate you more that I hate the human race." Shadow said.
"Why?" Dan asked, fear welling inside him.
"Well, where do you want me to start? How about with Peter? He called in sick, so you deducted his salary. Or Jeremy. He was thirty seconds late for two days, so you fired him. Or Jessica. You remember her, don't you? She was your secretary until you sexually harassed her. Or Erica, the single mom who would do anything you asked just so she could get minimum wage to feed her kids.
"Then there's Timmy, John, Gloria, Sandy, Abel, Isaiah; all of whom you assigned to janitorial duty because they were African American. Let's not forget about the time you canceled the company trip to Paris so you could buy yourself a brand new Ferrari. Or the time you forced everyone to work on Christmas while you stayed home drinking eggnog and watching bestiality porn." Shadow said with a grin. Dan blushed. "You may be wondering how I know this. Well, it's simple, Dan.
"One day, I was prowling around the area, and I found this impressive structure. I got the idea to raid the building and kill every last living being in the facility. I did a mental sweep of the interior, and I found numerous employees, all of which loathed you. They talked about all of the deceitful, wicked things you have done, and all of the malicious, cruel things that they wished they could do to you.
"That's when I got a bigger, better idea.
"I traced every last employee back to their abodes, and whilst they slept, I visited them; in their dreams. I asked what they would say to having you out of the way for good. They adored the idea. I told them I could have you taken care of... for a price.
"All they had to do was sell their souls to my father, and I would personally take care of you for them. Not one of them hesitated. They jumped at the opportunity with great enthusiasm." Shadow concluded, beaming wickedly.
Dan was at a loss for words. He had no idea that his employees loathed him with such an intense passion.
"Please... please... I'll do anything... I can change... I'll sell my soul... please... just let me live..." He pleaded. Shadow merely shook his head.
"One soul cannot compete with 320." he hissed. Dan's eyes were wide with absolute horror, tears flowing from them like waterfalls. "Now Dan," Shadow whispered. "It is time for you to die. Let's make you more comfortable," he said in a calm, disturbing tone. He smiled, and two throwing knives appeared in his claws. Dan gasped in horror as his arms stretched out to his sides, being perpendicular to his body. Shadow hurled both daggers with deadly accuracy, each one of them embedding themselves through the flesh and bone in Dan's hands and into the wall.
Dan screamed in horror and agony, tears pouring from his saucer wide eyes. His mouth was hanging wide open as he looked from one hand to the other. Then he stared at Shadow with terror in his eyes as the demon formed a katana in his claws. Then, with one, swift motion, Shadow cut Dan's torso open in an explosion of crimson, the human's internal organs spilling to the tile floor.
To Dan's complete and udder shock, his blood was cold. Inhumanely cold. Almost freezing. He had never noted it to be actually cold before
Shadow then reached nonchalantly into Dan's chest cavity and ripped out his heart. Dan screamed as he felt his heart being torn from his person, the arteries holding it in place being severed as it was violently removed from his body. Shadow then held the still beating heart up for Dan to see.
It was black. Jet black. Blacker than a devil's soul.
As Dan began to drift into an eternal sleep, he heard on last phrase:
"Look for me in hell, my friend."
Darkness enveloped him.
Shadow stared up at his latest victim, pride welling up inside him. He glanced down at the still beating heart.
'Time for the fruit of my labor,' he said to himself, popping the organ into his mouth and swallowing it whole.
He turned his attention toward the mess on the ground. Organs were everywhere. A pool of blood surrounding them like a moat. Shadow thought about how he could get rid of them mess. He couldn't eat it all right then and there, but he couldn't let it sit out in the open; it would be perfectly good food gone to waste.
He snapped his claws as he got another idea.
He proceeded to disembowel Dan, removing muscle, organs, body tissue; everything but his skeletal system. He carried several of Dan's blood soaked organs behind the serving bar around to the kitchen in the back, walking past the stove and the sink over to the freezer. He opened the door and ventured into the cold of the chrome appliance. Scanning the frozen shelves, he looked until he found what he was searching for; the meat that they were to serve for lunch the next day. Shadow replaced the meat with Dan's internal organs, consuming the Earth gist himself.
He made several treks back and forth, from the human meat to the freezer, until all of Dan's interior was stored in the chilled room for the employees' lunch. Closing and locking the tall silver appliance, Shadow walked back around the serving bar, across the cafeteria, and over to the hall from which he came. He stopped momentarily, and glanced back at the crucified CEO upon the wall.
He was the most pathetic kill yet. Not one of Shadow's victims had been such a coward, such a timid, pitiful excuse of life. He snorted and sneered upon the corpse as if it had already begun to stink of decay. Turning, he walked down the hallway and into the lobby. He strolled over to the double glass door, and, holding his paw out in front of him, unlocked it with his telekinetic abilities. Pushing the glass barriers open, Shadow stepped out into the cool, crisp night air.
He closed his eyes and tilted his head upward, facing the black night sky. He could feel the employees' souls gathering in his father's domain, being eternally damned to an eternity to torture and abuse. He chuckled to himself, and opened his eyes, a grin spreading over his black, furry face. He had just thought of what the menu on the wall next to the kitchen said the special for lunch the next day way. It was ironic, yet comical: Mystery Meat.
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Well, I hope you all enjoyed that, and that it will tide you over until the next chapter of Evil's Shadow. And if I might quote Tobin Bell in Saw II:
Oh yes. There will be blood...
For those of you who have just read this story, have no idea who Shadow is, and want to read more of him (or just want gruesome, gory violence), check out my story Evil's Shadow.
Well, 'till next time... see ya!