Frozen, part five

The Shadow Knows

How to describe the Shadow?

No, fuck the Shadow.

But, really, what was it?

He leered at the President, still on his mysterious phone call. “What is it, eh?”

For 25 years, he had hunted the shadow. Since he’d first seen it while fucking the President’s wife. (“And for that,” he told the President, taking the man’s hand in his own, “I am truly sorry. I had a drinking problem, but it’s better now.”)

He had traveled as much of the world as his bike, and his pedaling legs, and 25 frozen years had allowed, for pleasure. But, also, he had done it to seek the Shadow. The only other thing that seemed unfettered by his ability. Alive and moving in his frozen world.

“Yes, my friend.” He said, petting the President’s head, “How to describe the Shadow?”

He was balls-deep into the First Lady’s ass when it flitted across his vision. Not really a shadow then. It was more of a spark. The way you sometimes get a weird flash in your periphery.

He jerked his head and saw a man-sized shadow moving across the floor. But there was no other movement anywhere. Just a shadow, and not moving with any human speed. It was as if he were watching a statue’s shadow fan across a lawn on a sunny day through time-lapse photography. Very cinematic, really. He paused, his dick still inside America’s First Lady’s ass, and allowed the Shadow’s movement to mesmerize him.

Then he pulled out, wiped off his cock, and ran for his bike. Riding home with feverish speed and not unfreezing time until he hit his bed, sweat-soaked and gasping for breath.

He waited through an unfrozen night for the Shadow, fearfully watching the street through his window.

“That’s when I figured,” he told his friend, the President, “fuck the Shadow. A trick of the eye, right?” He rubbed his belly. “A bit of undigested beef.” He stood up and roared, “These are the chains I forged in life!”

All joking aside, he had spent a quarter century frozen. Why? He asked himself that question at least once a day. It was the Shadow’s fault. He wanted to see it again. And, since that day, he had only seen it once. He was on his bike, riding along Route 66 in New Mexico through the volcanic badlands outside of Albuquerque, planning to spend a year or so exploring the Grand Canyon, when he saw the Shadow cross the road and bolt into the rumpled layers of volcanic rock beside the road. He stopped and tried to follow it, but it was gone. A black cat crossing his path and – poof – gone into the night.

The Shadow was following him. He was sure of it. But what was it?

After the second sighting, it became second nature, he always watched for the Shadow.

And then the day came, 25 years after he froze the world for good, where the Shadow appeared a third time. He was talking with the President about the Shadow when he saw it cross the lawn outside of the Oval Office. He didn’t even bother to excuse himself from the conversation, he just launched up and through the open window onto the portico, then onto the lawn. He chased the Shadow as it flitted through trees and towards the fence, and the road. It led him through the city. He knew it was leading him, but he couldn’t stop. He had to connect with this thing that defied his ability. He followed it through Capitol Hill, then down past Massachusetts Avenue and onto First Street, moving Northeast past Union Station, and then into the American Psychological Association building. He paused. Just for a second. It was where he used to work…25 years ago. Though if he unfroze time, it would only have been a second since he last sat at his desk. But would his coworkers notice, then, that he was no longer 35 and, suddenly, in the blink of an eye, 60?

No time for serious thought. The Shadow beckoned. It hovered outside the building, and he pursued it into the lobby. He followed it past the security desk, the fascist, idiot, underpaid guards forever standing by the ID card scanner. He followed it past the bank of elevators – useless while frozen. He pursued it into the back hall, then up the stairs through the admin office. He might be sixty, but that’s no excuse to be slow-witted. He grabbed the pass card off of an employee in the mailroom before he bolted into the stairwell.

The Shadow moved slowly up the stairs, and he followed it now at a creeping pace. Finding himself, inexplicably, not wanting to disturb it, or make contact with it. It drifted up the stairs, conforming to the shape of the concrete and rolling languidly up each flight. He stepped sure-footedly two stairs beneath it, following it all the way up to the sixth floor, where his office was. Where he froze time.

“Ah…” He said to the Shadow as it vanished behind the fire door, “So you are connected to me.”

He scanned the card and unlocked the door to the sixth floor that would take him to the main hallway by the Operations Department and the Directory Office. But the door didn’t click open. Fucking frozen.

He sucked in a breath. What to do? Unfreeze? God… If anyone saw him… And what if the Shadow vanished forever when he changed the environment?

He prepared to say a curse he hadn’t uttered in 25 years when the door clicked on its own. He pushed against it and it opened to the hallway.

Now he did stop for serious thought. The Shadow wasn’t just defying his ability, it had the same ability. Or a species of it. He grinned down the brightly lit hallway, then called out, “You don’t impress me! You don’t scare me!”

There was no reply. But the Shadow lingered in the hallway. Cast by no one, it bounced and bobbed for a bit, then carried on.

He followed it to the glass doors of the Communications Center, then watched it move into the tiny bookstore and turn towards his office. He scanned the card, knowing it was useless. The door remained sealed and he pressed his forehead against it. Minutes passed.

“Okay, asshole.” He growled.

The door clicked open. He pulled the oversized brass handle and stepped into the bookstore, turned, and walked, after a quarter century, to his old office. Frozen in time so long ago. The Shadow sat outside the door, then zipped inside and covered his desk as he, in turn, shadowed the doorway.

“Right, then. Here I am. Talk to me.”

The Shadow didn’t move. It sat wavering over his desk.

Then it vanished.

He searched his office for hours. A clue, a note. Anything. But there was nothing. The Shadow had led him here for…what? To tease him?

He returned to the Oval Office and told the President his story, but the bastard was no help. He had no advice.

He went to the Hotel Washington and marched up the endless flights of stairs to the bar, where he drank his way through the top shelf booze over a period of about two months. He slept on the deck, overlooking the Treasury Building, and vomited on the wealthy patrons sitting frozen at their tables. He shat in Senator Lieberman’s lap, and, during a particularly twisted day with a bottle of tequila, he gently put his penis in Lieberman’s open mouth. The bastard looked like he was in mid-shout. Yelling something to his female companion.

He moved his cock in and out of Lieberman’s mouth until he came. That would give the little Jew something to sputter about whenever he unfroze time.

He screamed down at the streets and, much to his later shame, he raped a waitress. She was bent over a table, plucking a credit card from the center, and he lifted her cocktail dress and massaged her pussy. She would never get wet while frozen, so he greased up his cock and took her. Staring at Lieberman’s cum-filled mouth the whole time. Fuck you, asshole. You don’t have this power. You can’t do this. I came in your mouth and now I’m fucking your waitress.