The Shadow
"Warren Simpson has escaped from the country prison. The serial killer was last seen heading toward Cossack. Everyone is advised to stay inside and to not go out alone….." The TV blared its bad news as Tom turned to leave the Cossack Café.
“Are you sure you don’t want a ride home, Tom?” his friend, Devon asked. “They said the killer was heading toward town.”
Tom waved him away. “Nah, you have a shop to run and I just live a few blocks away.” He walked out into the darkness, wrapping his coat tightly around him. A storm was brewing, and the wind had already begun to blow. The streets were dimly lit every block or so, just enough to get from one place to another. As the darkness closed in around him, Tom thought more about the warning from the TV. He jumped as he heard a sound behind him. Quickly looking around, he picked up his pace. Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a shadow of a man behind him. His heart lurched and he quickened his pace more. But the man kept up with him. Tom strained his ears to detect some sound of footsteps behind him, but his heart was pounding in his ears, and all he could hear was his own feet pounding the pavement. Every once in a while, he could see the shadow still behind him. Tom was afraid to look back. He broke into a run, a cold sweat breaking out over his forehead.
Finally, Tom reached his house and fumbled with the keys, expecting the feeling of a knife, “Wacky” Warren’s favorite weapon, in his back any second. He nearly fell into his house and slammed the door shut, locking it tightly. He chanced a look outside, but saw nothing. Breathing a sigh of relief, he walked into the kitchen. When he turned on the light, a loud noise of glass breaking coming from the next room made him jump, heart racing all over again. And then he saw it- just a portion- the shadow of a man in the next room. He stumbled over to the kitchen drawers and pulled out a gun that he kept hidden in there for such emergencies. When you lived in a dangerous neighborhood like his, you needed the protection, and this wasn’t the first time he had used it.
“I’ll play it his way,” Tom thought to himself. Slowly, gun raised, he stepped into the next room, his bedroom. He gasped as he saw a dark silhouette against the wall across the room. Tom quickly raised the gun and fired.
The next morning, Devon arrived at Tom’s house to pick him up for work. He gaped at the police cars and all the police going in and out of his friend’s house. Many were clustered around the tree in front of the house. A branch had fallen, probably blown off in last night’s storm, and had broken the bedroom window. He jumped out of the car and ran up to one of the police.
“What happened? Is Tom all right? Where is he?” Devon blurted out.
The policeman turned to him. “You know the man?”
“Yeah, he’s my friend. What happened?”
“Has anything in his behavior changed lately? Has he become more…paranoid?”
“No, not that I’ve noticed. Why? Where’s Tom?”
“I’m sorry, but your friend is dead. It looks like his gun went off, shattered the mirror in his bedroom, and ricocheted off the safe hidden behind the mirror- killed him instantly.”
