HUNTER SHEA

Creature

FLAME TREE PRESS

London & New York

For Tim Stanton.

I wish to hell you were here to read this. The Dude does not abide.

‘Normality is a paved road. It’s comfortable to walk, but no flowers grow on it.’

Vincent van Gogh

‘How can I be substantial if I do not cast a shadow? I must have a dark side also if I am to be whole.’

C.G Jung

Chapter One

Kate Woodson was dying, and her executioner was her own body.

Her doctors hadn’t said as much the past few visits, but even she knew there was a limit to what a body could take. She had been in worse shape before. Much worse. Last rites and funeral arrangements kind of shape. Kate had come out of it like a modern-day Lazarus.

But she was tired. And hurting. And sick. Always so, so sick. She’d forgotten what it was like to wake up and not be in agony, muscles weak as a newborn’s. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d just gone out of the house to go to a store or a movie with Andrew.

Though she wasn’t dying today (fat chance, Grim Reaper!), Kate was still wallowing in the deep end of the misery pool. What made it worse was the shadow watching her from the kitchen. It moved out of sight every time she turned her head.

“I see you,” she said from the daybed in the living room, her voice deep and scratchy.

She chuckled at the thought that the shadow was scared of her. Then she shivered with the realization that she was scared shitless of it.

“Call the cable stations that do all the ghost shows. We have a haunting in Sayreville, New Jersey.” Andrew wasn’t home to ask her what she was talking about. He was at work, in a job he hated, because of her. That job came with great benefits. Benefits they couldn’t afford to lose.

Not that Kate would have told him about the shadow. He was already worried enough about her. She didn’t need him thinking she was losing it mentally as well. Or worse yet, he’d blame it on the meds, making her feel like some kind of delusional addict. The few times he’d ascribed her behavior or thoughts to the pills had angered her so much, she’d worried she’d give herself a stroke over it. It was an extreme reaction, for sure. Kate was never one to hold things in.

Though she did hold back the fear that he might be right.

Besides, wasn’t it better that the shadow was a hallucination, a construct of her bad feels, rather than an actual, lurking apparition?

She scratched the back of her shoulder, her wrist popping out just enough to make her see stars for a moment.