Shadows

  
    "There are no such things as monsters , Lindsay!" Shannon said , turning off the television. "Now please go upstairs and get to bed. I'm not telling you again. I'll be right up to tuck you in."

    "I don't need you to tuck me in ; I'm not a baby!"

    "Then stop acting like one , and get to bed."

    "I will if you sit up with me until I fall asleep."

    "I thought you weren't a baby."

   "I'm not. I just don't want the shadows to get me before I fall asleep."

   "What are you talking about?"

   "The shadows can't get you when you're asleep ," Lindsay said.

   "They can't get you at all , Lindsay. They're not real."

   "They are real , and if you send me up there alone , they'll get me. Will you please sit with me till I'm asleep? Please , Shannon?"

   Shannon sighed heavily , rose from the sofa and extended her hand to Lindsay. "Alright. Come on , let's see if we can keep the Bogey man away."

   Lindsay grinned and took her hand. As they climbed the stairs , she said , "It's not the Bogey Man. It's something much worse."

   Lightning flashed at the windows , followed by a low rumble of thunder. In a few minutes , the wind rose and rain began to fall.

   After Lindsay had settled comfortably into her bed , and Shannon had pulled the girl's computer chair beside it , she said ,"Why do you believe monsters are real , Lindsay? Have you ever seen one?"

   "Well , not really. But I have dreamed about them."

   "So , that makes them real?"

   "No. But it does when I keep dreaming about them , and when they keep telling me they're coming to get me."

   "What do they look like?"
 
   "Like shadows. Black , snakelike thingies."

   "Is it the same dream?"

   The girl nodded. "The same dream."

   "It's only a dream , Lindsay. What's called a recurring nightmare."

   "What's that?"

   "Having the same dream more than once. Everyone has them. But it doesn't mean the dream is real."

   "This one is ," the girl said. Shannon saw fear in her eyes.

    After Lindsay had fallen asleep , she went back down stairs and switched on the television. She thought about what Lindsay had told her. She remembered her own nightmares from years ago , and how they had frightened her to the point that she dreaded going to sleep. She had out grown her fear of the dark. Would Lindsay?

   Lightning flashed at the windows , followed by a low rumbling. She listened to the rainfall , remembering how it had calmed her as a child. Her eye lids grew heavy. In a few moments she was asleep.

   She came awake with a start. Had someone screamed , or had she been dreaming?

   "Lindsay?"

   The house was dark ; the television was off. The storm had knocked out the power. Shannon stumbled through the living room , feeling her way to the kitchen. She remembered Mr. Ambrose telling her that there were a couple of flash lights in the first drawer beside the sink. She found them right where he said  they would be , and checked to see if both were in good working order. They were. Lightning flashed ; this time there was a loud peal of thunder that made her flinch. She never did like thunder ; it scared her now almost as much as it had when she was a little girl. But she did like the sound of the rain. She could hear it now , as it beat steadily at the kitchen windows.

   Back in the living room , she stopped at the stairs and looked up. Lightning flashed intermittently , like a photographer taking pictures of a crime scene , illuminating the darkness that so terrified her as a child. She was not now so sure that she had completely overcome her fear. She didn't want to go up there , even though she had a flashlight with her. But she had to check on Lindsay. She was not certain if she had been awakened by a scream , or if she had dreamed it. Perhaps Lindsay had experienced another recurring nightmare , and had cried out in her sleep.

   She ascended the stairs , slowly , telling herself that the darkness had no substance , that it could not hurt her. It seemed to work. Reaching Lindsay's door , she shone the flash light into the room . The bed was empty.

   "Lindsay?" Had she gone to the bathroom?

   Shannon thought she heard something in the room , but she was the only  one there. Probably just her imagination. Lightning flashed , and the darkness receded for only a moment. She hurried to the upstairs bathroom ; Lindsay was not there.

   She looked all over the house ; Lindsay was nowhere to be found. She went back upstairs , remembering that there was one place she hadn't looked. Lindsay's closet.

   She yanked open the door , and directed the flash lights beam into the darkness , revealing nothing but a young girl's ward robe and shoes. No Lindsay. Where else could she be? She had checked every possible place a little girl could hide .... or had she? Another place she hadn't looked , was under Lindsay's bed.

   She was shutting the door , when she heard a sharp thump. "Lindsay? Is that you? Get out of there right now!"

   The girl came out reluctantly shielding her eyes from the flashlight. Something had frightened her ; her eyes darted back and forth through the darkness. She was trembling.

   "Lindsay , what were you doing in there?"

   "Hiding."

   "Hiding from what?"

   "The shadows. Their here!"

  "It was just a dream , Lindsay! I told you there are no such things ~"

   An almost familiar sound came from the darkness. To Shannon it sounded like the hiss of an angry or frightened animal , but what kind of animal , she could not say. She had never heard anything quite like it before.

   She said ,"Please tell me that was a cat!"

   Lindsay was shaking her head , her eyes fixed on a spot directly over Shannon's shoulder. Shannon turned reluctantly to see what the girl was looking at , and as she did so , there was a sudden stab of lightning. In the brief seconds that illuminated the room , she saw something that she knew she would never see again ; she had a sudden premonition that she and Lindsay would not live to tell about it.
   It was  a large serpentlike creature. Shannon remembered seeing a movie called Anaconda. This thing looked almost as big as the creatures in the film. It was blacker than the darkness itself , and in it's head were two  yellow eyes ,  like those of a cat.  They shone eerily in the beam of Shannon's flashlight.  There were two of the creatures. The one nearest Shannon towered more than halfway to the ceiling. Another hovered above the girl's bed , it's catlike eyes fixed on Lindsay.

   As Lindsay and Shannon screamed , both creatures hissed simultaneously , and maws as black as the endless void between the stars , opened and devoured each of  them whole. It moments they were gone , absorbed into a darkness that was more than shadows.