Read Online The Lovely Shadow by Cory Hiles - Free Book Online Page A

slowly;
seeming to savor the incremental increase in terror that arose
within me with each step they took.
    I was trying to scream, but had lost my voice
again. I was trying desperately to push myself through the wall at
my back, sitting on my butt with my back smashed against the wall,
and my feet pushing with my feet.
    The Snoopy’s stopped advancing when they were
about three feet in front of me and just slightly off to either
side. They stood in front of me working their snarling mouths up
and down, glaring at me with their burning coal eyes, and pumping
their fists at me.
    I sat motionless, staring at those
abominations with slack jawed terror. Then I heard the shimmering
beast from the shadows start moving again.
    Slurp—drag…slurp—drag…It was coming closer.
My eyes were opened to their maximum limit, bulging out of their
sockets. My mouth dried up and I began to shake with fear.
    Slurp—drag…slurp—drag…I could see the shimmer
at the edge of the shadow. Slurp—drag…slurp—drag…I could see color
inside the shimmer; white.
    Slurp—drag…slurp—drag…The shimmer faded and
was replaced with an indistinct humanoid shape; more white
showed.
    When the beast finally came fully out of
shadow and into the light, I screamed. For when I could see the
beast clearly I saw that it was far more terrifying than the
tentacular blob I’d envisioned earlier. It was my mother; but not
entirely so.
    The torso and face of the beast belonged to
my mother. It was wearing her wedding dress, but where two legs
should have protruded at the bottom, there was, instead, a huge
tentacle. The tentacle was a sickly greenish grey color and as
thick as my mother’s waist at the point where it exited the
dress.
    It did not taper much as it progressed
towards the floor, but where it met the floor it bent behind the
beast, and then tapered sharply until it ended in a point, about
five feet behind it.
    The beast propelled itself forward like an
inchworm, pulling the back of its tentacle forward, arching the
middle, and then pushing itself forward.
    Every time the center of the tentacle left
the floor to arch upwards, it made a slimy, sucking sound, and as
it pushed itself forward it made a dragging, scraping noise. It
left a slime trail behind it as it moved, like a slug.
    Four tentacles extended from its
shoulders—two on each side taking the place of arms. They were all
the same color as the leg protrusion, and roughly the same diameter
as my mother’s arms, though much longer. Each arm tentacle was
about four feet long and clutched tightly at the end of each
tentacle was a rolled up Playboy magazine.
    The mother-squid-slug-inchworm hybrid kept
moving towards me until it stood right between the two Snoopies. My
mother’s face, which sat atop the beast, was puckered into its
normal expression of hate and anger, but her mouth wasn’t puckered;
it was mouthing something silently, just like the Snoopies.
    I stared all three beast’s mouths for a
moment and was finally able to pick out what they were mouthing;
“POISON”. All three of the monster’s mouths were in perfect sync,
silently chanting the word ‘poison’ over, and over.
    They all stepped towards me in perfect unison
and broke their silence. “POISON,” they shouted, “POISON, POISON,
POISON, POISON.”
    I began trying to push myself through the
wall again, but was still having no luck with that endeavor. After
about thirty seconds of them shouting at me audibly, they suddenly
stopped.
    I quit scrabbling against the wall and looked
at the trio in front of me. They all took one more step towards me
and the beast that was half my mother spoke to me in a sweet
voice.
    “Johnny,” she said, “do you know what happens
to little boys who look at smut?” The beast wiggled all four of the
Playboys it was holding. “They end up poisoned and dirty, just like
their worthless fathers, and then they have to go live in the
dark,” the beast continued.
    When the beast said