Swamp Shadow: Chapter I

Thick mists from the nearby marshlands made a stealthy invasion on the Travers residence. The musky scent of the swamp hung heavy in the air. The night was deathly quiet.

The clock on the dash of Derek Travers’ Cherokee flashed 8:35pm. The SUV fishtailed up the winding, stone-paved drive, headlamps stabbing impotently into the fog. The waxing moon peeked out occasionally from behind thin cloud cover but improved visibility only slightly.

Christ, he thought and glanced again at the clock. He was late again, much later than usual, though. Evan would already be in bed, and Heather would be pacing the floor waiting for him. His latest project was taking much more of his time than he’d intended, leaving Heather home alone with the challenge of caring for Evan. Ever since the accident that had left Evan paralyzed, Heather had become a nervous wreck. She’d been forced to quit her job and stay home to care for him. It was a full-time job to see to his needs, and it wearied Heather. She got no rest during the day and lay awake much of the night worrying that something might happen to her son while they slept. The whole thing had shattered her.

Even though his income was the only thing supporting them now, Derek still found himself feeling guilty each morning when he walked out the door to go to work. Heather would smile weakly and wave, but Derek knew underneath she was fretting over what horrible things might happen to Evan. She wasn’t used to seeing Evan so helpless. She was used to seeing him running with his friends, playing baseball, climbing trees. Now she saw him as a china doll to be locked safely inside a display case.

He fingered the button on the garage door opener as he neared the house. For the third time this week, he had to slam on the brakes and skid to a halt inches from the door because it failed to open again. He jabbed the button angrily, but the door stubbornly remained closed.

He let out an exasperated sigh, grabbed his briefcase and stomped up to the front door.

Before he could put his key in the lock, the door flew open.

“It’s almost nine,” Heather said.

“I—I know. I’m sorry,” Derek said. “The garage door wouldn’t open again.”

“It’s the fog—I told you,” she said, moving aside so he could enter. “It interferes with the signal somehow.”

As he stepped past her, he gave her a quick kiss on the cheek.

“Didn’t do that when we first had it installed. Why now all of a sudden? Is the fog getting thicker?”

“Things wear out.”

“Speaking of fog—you see it out there? Weird. Couldn’t see a damned thing coming up the drive. It was clear as can be on 363, but down here on Willow …”

Heather looked out into the night.

“Yes, it is odd, isn’t it? It’s so quiet.”

The fog around the house was like a gray wall. She couldn’t see more than a few feet beyond the porch.

“Evan asleep?”

“No,” she replied with a shake of her head, long dark hair swinging from shoulder to shoulder. “I let him lie downstairs awhile to watch a movie. It’s Hitchcock week on AMC. He’s still down there.”

Derek sighed.

“I know, I know,” she answered the unspoken complaint. “But you know how much he loves movies. It can’t hurt just this once.”

“Yes, but you shouldn’t leave him alone; you never know what might happen.”

“I just now ran up to see if you’d made it home yet.”

Heather looked tired. It was taking a lot out of her to stay home with Evan. Having to quit her job and turn her back on her career had been hard enough, but now she had a new burden. And Derek hadn’t been much help to her. The accident that left Evan wheelchair bound had drastically changed their lives.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s just that I worry.”

“I know.”

Derek tossed his jacket on the banister, set his briefcase next to a small stand and walked down the hall to the basement door. Heather followed.

The family room in the basement was a small nook just large enough for a television, a sofa, an easy chair and a loveseat. The sofa faced the TV and away from the stairway. Wooden TV trays hung neatly on a rack next to the loveseat, magazine holders next to the easy chair were filled to overflowing, and the coffee table between the sofa and TV was strewn with notepads, books, magazines and TV listings.

Evan lay on his back on the sofa. Two cushions propped him up. A long straw from a glass on a TV stand allowed him to sip a soft drink while he watched TV.

“Hey, Sport, what’s on?” Derek said, walking around to the front of the sofa.

Evan’s eyes lit up.

“Hey, Dad! I’ve been watching Hitchcock on AMC. They’re showing a different movie each night this week.”

Derek sat next to his son and tousled his hair.

Heather watched with folded arms from the stairway.

“Yeah, but it’s kind of late, isn’t it?”

“It just went off. That’s not too late, is it?”

Derek laughed. It was hard to deny Evan anything, especially something this simple.

“And aren’t you a little young for Hitchcock?”

“Todd’s mom let him watch all of the Alien movies,” he protested.

“Yeah, well, that’s Todd’s parents, isn’t it? Don’t get any ideas. You’re not watching any Alien movies until you’re at least thirteen, and maybe not even then.”

Heather leaned against the back of the sofa.

“Come on, Daddy,” she said, “Hitchcock’s not so bad. By modern standards he’s pretty tame.”

“Depends on the film. Some of them are fine, but others are just inappropriate for a ten-year-old. You want him watching Psycho or Frenzy?”

Heather opened her mouth to protest, but Evan intervened.

“Tonight it was just Rear Window, Dad. That one’s not bad at all. They don’t even show the woman getting cut up.”

Derek shook his head disapprovingly.

“Up to bed with you, Mister,” he said, scooping Evan up off the sofa.

Heather folded Evan’s hands neatly across his abdomen and then followed Derek as he carried their son upstairs.

“I guess we’d better make a pit stop at the bathroom on the way up,” Derek said. “Looks like you had a lot of soda while you were watching that movie.”

Evan nodded agreement.

At the top of the stairs, Derek turned to Heather.

“You go on to bed, hon. I’ll tuck him in.”

Heather smiled thinly and kissed Evan on the cheek before walking across the hall to the master bedroom. She watched from the doorway as Derek took Evan into the bathroom and listened briefly to their chit-chat before she closed the door to get ready for bed.

Derek tucked the blankets in tightly around Evan and placed the call button on the pillow within easy reach.

“Dad?”

“Hmm?”

“Will there be more tests?”

“I don’t think so, Evan.”

“I’ll never walk again, will I?”

Derek shook his head.

“Let’s not talk about this now. The tutor will be here early, so you need to get some sleep. Shouldn’t have been up this late anyway.”

“Can you pull the blinds up so I can see out the window? I like to look at the fog in the moonlight. It’s cool. Like you see it in old movies like The Wolfman.”

“Sure.”

He kissed Evan on the head, said good night and rose to leave. At the window he pulled up the blinds and paused to peer out at the thick fog that had crept to the house. Frogs chirped loudly in the night, obviously enjoying the damp weather.

“Good night, son,” he whispered. “Get some rest.”

Evan lay for a long time after his father left the room, gazing out at the play of the fog in the moonlight. Tendrils of fog reached out into the night like the tentacles of a jellyfish groping for prey. He imagined the thick mists populated with all manner of ghosts and Hollywood monsters.

He had finally grown weary of staring out the window and started to close his eyes when he saw something else. Something was moving in the fog, something dark. It moved like the fog but faster, seemingly with purpose. It approached the house from the direction of the marshes.

Evan watched fascinated as the dark mass in the fog inched closer to the house. The darkness and fog obscured any outlines and prevented him from seeing what exactly it was.

It was soon so close to the house that he could no longer see it over the windowsill. He stared out the window and listened. The fog lay like a great blanket silencing the night.

And then he heard a rasping sound outside his window. Something was climbing the trellis.

His heart began to thump as the sound drew nearer.

He was terrified and fascinated at the same time. He was afraid of whatever was coming up the side of the house, but he also wanted to see what it was.

A dark shape eclipsed the moonlight. The window frame groaned as if an enormous weight pressed against it. Outlined by the moon, the thing was like a cloud of smoke that moved with sentience.

The latch on the window popped and the two panes swung inward. Black tendrils reached into the room and crept toward him.

Evan’s mouth began to work reflexively, but he could not summon his voice. The tendrils curled around his arms and shoulders, and the thing seemed to pull itself toward him. The whole of it was suddenly in the room, an amoeba-like, inky cloud. It used the tentacles wrapped about him to lever itself up to his face.

He gasped and whimpered trying to cry out, but his voice would not come. He found himself staring into the blackness. It wrapped around him like an oily pillow so that he could not breathe. Then he could feel it penetrating his body through his ears, nose and mouth.

He could not scream.