Sometimes a story or a character simply won’t leave me alone. It intrudes in every idle moment and even in dreams. It refuses to go away until I do something about it.
I guess that’s my way of saying that I’ve been working on a new book. Yes, I know there are other projects… but this one just won’t stop pestering me.
I’ve only told two people who are close to me about it, but in the last month (one of the reasons for my lack of posting anything) I’ve written 47,000 words in this book. I am hesitant to make any promises for when it will be finished (or any of my other projects) but it seems to me, if I keep writing this pace, it will be finished by the end of the fall season and perhaps sooner.
The book is both Dark Fantasy and Horror and is titled Shades and Shapes In the Dark. And though it is still a work in progress, I am going to share an excerpt here for everyone, and the first full chapter for my wonderful paid subscribers over on Substack
Here is the blurb for the book:
A Girl, A Skateboard, And Four Decades of Darkness…
When nine year old Clarissa chased a thief through the woods and stumbled upon a strange meadow, she had no idea that the creature living within would begin following her and feeding on her for the next four decades. Now, she must reflect on her life, and all the ways in which the creature she has named Demon has tormented her. For somewhere in her long experience there must be an answer to defeat it once and for all, or she will face a fate worse than death.
Shades and Shapes in the Dark
By Michael Kilman
Part 1
A Game of Shapes and Shadows
Those shades and shapes in the dark,
From which we draw our desires,
Shape our way of knowing,
Of where best to put our ire.
We cannot see the murky mists,
With our eyes shut ever so tight
Where we leave behind only corpses,
And journey into endless night.
Oh how we take and take some more
For thieving is our business.
We are a shadow of what we once were
When we know only stiffness
Where ever you go is where you are
No matter how fast you’re running,
No magic, nor wisdom, can set you free,
From your mind’s endless cunning.
Come,
Let us wonder through trains of thought
And let the forms take their shape
For having read this far already
Know now, Reader,
There is no escape…
Chapter 1
Tonight, she would stand before Demon for the last time. It was the last time because, now, tonight, as the cold crept in under her skin on the darkest night of the year, and as the snow pelted her face with it’s cold harsh kisses, she would end it. She was tired of running, tired of hiding, tired of the manipulations and the games the creature had visited up on her these long years. Her torment would end before the sun rose over the snowy meadow.
She had not come here for suicide, far from it. She was no conciliatory party accepting defeat and sewing for peace. There could be no peace between them. It was time to surrender to her fate, here, tonight, no matter her fortune. She would fight with all her being until one lay dead. At least, she hoped Demon could die. Perhaps it could not. But as they say, fortune favors the bold. And her boldness was the sharpest of edges.
It had taken everything from her. Through the years it had stripped away all pretense of happiness, so that only unease remained. Only a species of longing stretched out through her loneliness as if a single gossamer thread, balancing all of her life, were holding her up. And she was dangling, oh, she was dangling now. So what use was anything but surrender?
She had come here because this is where it all began. It was the origin story of her suffering, and her brushes with madness. She had looked for Demon’s lair, for the telltale sign of bones or bodies, but she found nothing in the forest. Clarissa had wandered for through the forest for endless hours in the last month. She had learned the nature of every tree and fern she could find. Still, there was no hint of the permanence of the creature, no domicile for which it sought shelter between feedings. As the year drew closed, both on the calendar and her journey around the sun for the forty-ninth time, she had decided to return where it all began.
After she and the creature had met at this crossroad of life and fortune, she had come back one other time to confront it. She had thought it defeated then, but it returned just as fall inevitably follows summer. Clarissa wasn’t ready to die during her last confrontation. She was now. Perhaps that would make all the difference. Certainly something would change after tonight.
It would speak tonight. She had no reason to be certain of a such a thing, but it felt right being here. It didn’t matter that the fear nipped at any exposed skin. Nor, did it matter that if she was wrong it would kill her. It was right to be here, as if she stood at the crossroads of sanity and madness.
It was only because of the snow catching the light of the full moon peaking through the clouds that she could see something emerge into the meadow. There was no sound, save for the soft flutter of snowflakes as they gathered on the tall grass, sliding down to touch the earth and gather together. She wished she could gather like that with others. What a grand thing it would be to build something, some life with other people, but Demon had made certain of her isolation.
The trees bent outward, away from the meadow, and no animal ever dared tread here. There were no tell-tale signs of tracks crossing the open space. Any animal who did come near never made it much further than the edge of the meadow before falling into first death, and then decay and ruin. There was a circle of small bones and corpses ringing the meadow, marking it off as a place of sacrifice. When she had seen those skeletons and the strange growth of trees for the first time all those years ago, it had given her pause. Unfortunately, by then it was too late. She had already stepped inside what she now thought of as, the ritual grounds.
She had spilled blood here. It didn’t matter if it was an accident. She was certain now that, by spilling blood in the meadow, she had woken Demon and begun the unending torment that was her life.
Something was moving on the edge of the wood. It rarely let her see it in all its form and being. Mostly it lurked in the shadows, satisfied to feed on her from a distance, to terrorize with uncertainty. Mostly she only saw shapes and shades of the dark, from which it sipped on her. Even now after four decades Clarissa could close her eyes and hear the soft slurping sounds it made as it sipped from the shadows in the corners of spaces. Perhaps, she thought, it cost a lot for it to take full shape. She couldn’t be sure if it was more terrifying in full form, or as a shadow, but both were the just shades of the same color of fear.
It did not want her dead, at least she didn’t think so. It’s purpose was like a plague that left scarred survivors. Perhaps it was a parasite. She suspected it was her fear, anger, and sorrow on which it fed. For it always appeared when she was deep in possession by strong emotions or it sought to create them. When it appeared, her joy would turn sour in her mouth. Love would wilt away under the drought of goodness so that all that was left was her fixation on fear, then anger, then hatred, and finally despair.
She called it Demon. But she didn’t believe in Deities. Some might argue that the existence of such an evil would demand a deity, but why should it? No, for Clarissa, gods and devils were just lazy stories that people told themselves to feel better about their life. She spat at their simplicity. It would be so easy to hope that some god or goddess would come aid her, to defend her, to send some sign to press forward. But in forty years of torment, she had seen nothing to suggest divine intervention. No, she was on her own. Here she was now, standing in the frozen meadow, forced into a confrontation with some supernatural being. She couldn’t deny magic, but magic didn’t mean there were gods or devils or heavens, or hells.
She called it demon only because she didn’t know what else to call it. It was an animal of some kind, perhaps not one bound by the same rules and principles of our her own existence, but it seemed to follow at least some rules. At first, she had called it shadow, but that wasn’t right. Shadows couldn’t kill. Light disrupted shadows. Demon disliked the light, but… once, it had shown itself in the height of the noonday sun. That moment was forever fixed it in her memory as the moment when her passion was stolen from her, when her one refuge was taken.
There was a soft crunching noise in the snow, now several inches deep. The wind picked up. It did not howl, but it shook the snow from the tops the surrounding trees and cast it into the air like confetti. Somehow she knew that the wind was Demon’s doing and on the back of the wind, she could feel its laughter.
Footfalls emerged before her. She could see impressions forming in the snow. Silence fell. Demon had arrived.
She lifted her flashlight and shone it at the spot. Demon raised its arm to shield it’s eyes, taking a few steps backward. But there was no hiss of burning, or wince of pain, though she had bought the brightest flashlight money could buy. After a moment it let its long jagged arms, relax by it’s side. Spikes protruded every few inches, starting small at its wrists and then growing in size until they stood six inches tall on its shoulders. They reminded her rotting teeth made of something like solidified tar. It’s eyes were like giant black orbs, deep as the darkness it inhabited. To stare into them was to feel a sucking sensation on your soul. Clarissa knew from long experience, that to stare into them, was to risk everything. She stared at them now, fixing her will on Demon.
Loridian's Laboratory 