The Cold Blooded Shadows

The Cold Blooded Shadows

(I’ll just leave this with you to start. “He says I suffer from delusion, but I'm so confident I'm sane. It can't be no optical illusion, how can you explain. Shadows in the rain.” From – Sting – “Shadows In The Rain)

Violet’s first reaction was a gasp. Had someone been across the room watching, they would have seen her eyes suddenly appear like bingo balls in the tiny hurricane box, blowing into the catcher. One second they’re not there, and then David Copperfield like, they appear. The room was lit by an almost full moon, and it now shone through the window on Violets beautiful blue eyes. They stood out now, not because of their beauty, but because of the fear. They defined the term wide-eyed.

Violet really wasn’t sure what she was scared of. She knew however, she was really scared. On the wall to her left, the long rectangle of light showed the shadows of the big oak in the courtyard. The wind had the limbs bouncing and swaying like hundreds of tiny elephant trunks begging for peanuts.

The limbs rocked and bounced in the winds that seemed to be blowing from ten different directions. One thing in the shadow remained though. It blended in nicely with all the movement and the shapes, but it remained the largest part of the shadow. It reminded her strangely of a lizard.

The head was a definite lizard shape. The tail also seemed to fit the shape but it bounced around like that of a nervous cat, seemingly tapping the ground to some unknown beat.

She kind of giggled with that thought, remembering what she had heard jazz was. It had been described to her as four people playing different songs to the same beat. The tail tapping reminded her of the weird unknown jazz beat that sometimes tapped away in her head. For a moment she wasn’t scared but the whole lizard seemed to move in unison, and out of pace with the bouncing of the limbs.

Now she was scared again. A bit of an unknown terror held her for a moment. And she slid further under the covers. Now only her big blue eyes shone in the night along with sparkles of moonlight on the beads of sweat covering her head. The fear showed as a broken steely look in those eyes.

She was confused because the night was cold and she was sleeping with the windows open. She was cold even under the covers. But there was the perspiration on her forehead not only persisted but was getting worse, and now it was wetting the pillow like tears.

The wheels of fear in her mind had been grinding away since the sudden eye opening squeamish feeling, and now they sped up. She still couldn’t define whether it had been a dream, or just some subconscious foreboding, but she was wide awake now. She felt herself slightly trembling at the odd movement on the wall she called the lizard.

Lizards were reptilian and thus cold blooded, right?

Violet could swear the shadow had an almost shiny area that appeared to be a reptilian stomach. It was kinda whitish instead of the shadowy gray. She could almost make out scales overlapping and undulating on the wall. That just couldn’t be.

She watched as she heard the wind as it clearly rose, peaking at a sound similar to a steam whistle in her mind whose level equaled that of a noon factory break, and whining down to a low growl. The limbs whipped around in a circular motion, wildly grabbing at the moonbeams bouncing off the openings in the dark clouds intermittently as the clouds seemed to move in a circular motion instead across the sky.

Maybe that noise woke her, casting a feeling of dread over her like a widow’s veil. The lizard wasn’t moving now, even though the tree was. It was a strange sensation, like the opposite of when you’re at a traffic signal and the car next to you starts to move. You get that weird sensation you’re moving, and push the brake harder because your foot is already on it.

The wind continued its tornadic motion apparently and the sound seemed to undulate with a sound from a howl to a growl, in time with the motion on the wall of the tree limb shadows.

Violet’s fear was so thick her cat leapt straight up and dashed off the bed. Did the lizard seem to step back on that one? It couldn’t have.

This was all too unreal. Slowly Violet eased the covers down to her waist and slowly sat up. She leaned forward even slower scrutinizing the form on the wall across the room. Nothing seemed odd now, and she knew her mind was working her own little fear factory overtime, and it was functioning at maximum efficiency. She placed one foot on the floor and began raising up out of bed.

The wall was ten feet away, but in her mind, the walk would take months. She eased across the room until she stood inches from the wall. She placed her hand on the shadow.

A deep yowl pierced the room and her concentration. The cat was at the edge of the door and wouldn’t come in. Even though it was just the cat, the yowl was as fearful a cry as she had ever heard.

As she turned back to the shadow, she could swear the weird movement happened again, but she just couldn’t be sure. She placed her hand on the wall and rubbed it all over the rectangular space. Nothing. No movement, No lizard. Just shadows from the big oak tree.

It is indeed weird how your mind works the fear factory overtime. Time to go back to bed.

She called the cat but it wouldn’t come in the room. Screw you then. It’s cold and she thought he would eventually want the body heat.

That was her next to the last thought as she felt the talons on her back and the teeth in her throat. Her last thought was chameleons blend in right? Her neck snapped under the pressure of the teeth as the cat yowled again, and ran.