Matthew Tallman's Blog: Offical blog of The Shade

The Shade Chapter One

An intense wave of pain shot its way up my spine, telling me I needed to get up. The hard hospital tiles had broken my fall with the gentle care you would expect. Slowly I opened my eyes, getting my first look at the ceiling of the room I had been thrown into. My bloody fist clinched a hand full of tile fragments and crushed them into powder.
That didn’t go as expected.
My hands shook as they slowly lifted my body back to an upright position.
Once on my feet, I scanned the empty room quietly. There was nothing significant about it; the room looked just like the hundreds of others in the abandoned hospital. The paint on the walls was cracked and peeling from years of neglect, along with a floor covered in a thick layer of grime. However, I wasn’t scanning the room to look at the scenery; my eyes were looking for something far more—sinister. My legs quivered as they tried to keep me from doubling back over.
Then I felt a presence in the room with me.
It wasn't something tangible that I could see with my naked eye, but I knew that something was there. My breath remained slow and steady.
The fall must have been harder than I thought.
My hand rubbed the back of my head as I tried to get my bearings. Then it happened, coming out from the wall in front of me, the specter emerged.
It looked like a man in shape only. Truly, it was more like a cadaver that had been charred in an unholy fire. I gazed in horror at the creature, black as pitch. As I stared into the blackness that comprised it, the darkness seemed to swallow me up, almost like falling through space with nothing to grasp onto. Flesh from the specters body was peeling away, matching the paint on the walls. It's eyes, if you could call them that, were as black and deep as the ocean depths. It moved closer to me, with a twisted look on its face that seemed to say. "You, you're screwed, and there's nothing you can do about it."
With my fists balled tightly, readying myself for an attack. I could feel the color draining from my clenched fists as the creature leapt at me, its arms opened wide, ready to take me to the ground. I instinctively ducked, letting my body slam against the hard tile floor, causing my assailant to vault over me. I rolled forward—creating more distance between the creature and myself—and then sprang back to my feet.
The specter landed softly, only a few feet behind me.
I spun around to face the creature.
It turned to face me, but before it had time to attack; my fist was already rocketing towards its face. The power encapsulated in my closed hand crushed itself against the creatures face and as the two forces made contact, a thunderous boom erupted in the room.
Take that you piece of—
The specter recovered quickly, and before I knew what was happening it had latched its arms around my waist and we were tumbling towards the ground. We slammed against the floor, rolling a few feet. When we stopped, my legs heaved upwards with all their strength, breaking the specters grip on me, hurling it across the room.
The creature hit the floor as I quickly found my way upright. Using the confusion to my advantage, I ran for the door. I made my way through the door and immediately turned right, heading down the long hospital hallway. My breath was stuck in my chest, as if my lungs refused to work. My heart thumped quickly inside me as I ran. I felt the side of my body begin to burn as the pain the specter had inflicted became apparent. Halfway down the hallway, I found a room and ducked into it to avoid the specter. My hand met my mouth to stop myself from breathing too heavily. My heart pounded so loudly in my chest I thought that it would give me away.
From down the hallway, I could hear the specter moving closer towards me. My eyes shut tight as the sound of footsteps came closer towards me. Closer and closer the footsteps of the creature passed by the room. It breathed heavily as it searched the hallway for me.
My muscles tightened.
I could feel the creature as it passed by the room.
One, two, three.
I counted in my head and then took off down towards the opposite end of the hallway. I ran back down the hallway, leaving the specter behind me. I had only fooled the creature for a moment, because almost immediately after I emerged from the room the sound of heavy footsteps running towards me echoed down the hall. I would have looked back, but I knew what chased after me, I knew the unending horror of what a monster like the specter could do to a man. I tried with all my might, to will my legs to move faster, but with no success. The noise from the creature behind me grew closer, and closer. Each step that I took down the hallway the creature gained another few feet on me, I knew that within a few seconds it would be on top of me again.
So in a split second decision, I stopped to make a stand.
My foot pivoted and my whole body turned to face the specter. My eyes grew large seeing that the creature was only a few steps away from me. I balled my hands into fists and readied them to defend myself. Just then, the creature lunged off the ground, leaping through the air towards me.
In that moment, as my eyes watched the creature fly like a missile towards me. Time seemed to slow down, and for one second, it almost seemed to stop. However, as soon as the creature struck me, time sped back up again. We fell towards the floor together, slamming each other against the hard tile, making it crumble like autumn leaves. We wrestled with one another, grappling for the best position to finish each other off. Together the specter and I rolled across the tile, as we did the specter grabbed my shirt, pulling me towards it, only to slam my head back down into the ground.
My head felt woozy from the blow; while I was recovering, the specter positioned itself on top of me. Its arms reared up and its fist plunged down towards my face. The first blow landed. It felt like being hit by a car. A quick second later, another fist slammed into my jaw; then another in my eye, then another.
I can't take much more of this.
With all the strength I could muster, my hand shot up, catching the specters punch that had been meant for my face. I summoned all muscles to tighten and crush the creature's hand. My body summoned every muscle in my body to throw the specter off me, and for once in my life, my muscles came though. With one quick jolt from my arm, I shoved the creature away from me. It stumbled backwards towards the wall, unable to stop itself from making contact. I continued to watch it from the floor waiting for the inevitable moment when the creature crashed through the old sheetrock; but the moment never came. My eyes fixated on the specter as it disappeared into smoke.
My breath was heavy, as my lungs finally allowed me to breathe. I moved my hand towards my face, letting my fingers touch it, but as they did, I winced as a wave of pain shot through me. I could tell that my face was a jumbled mess of broken bones and blackened bruises. My arms pushed me to my knees and from my knees; I rose to my feet. My body felt dizzy, like when you stand up too fast and all the blood rushes to your head.
I knew that the specter was still near, my eyes glanced around, looking for the creature.
He’s playing with me. He knows that he had me dead to rights, so why did he let me go?
I tried to focus my eyes on the grime covered walls but it was hard to focus; my vision became a blur every time my head moved in the slightest. Then my whole body stiffened as the presence of the creature filled the hallway. The presence made it feel as if someone else was in the room with me and yet I was completely alone. I searched the dusty corridor with my eyes, taking note of everything. The amount of lights hanging haphazardly from the ceiling, the discarded beds and gurneys left in the halls, all of the dust moats that seemed to dance in the air in front of me, I took inventory of everything.
I looked downward to find my hand trembling in fear.
In fact, my entire body shook with anticipation of what was coming next.
The specter leapt out from the wall towards me. My body ducked, causing the creature to miss me. The specter was headed for the floor but before it made contact, it disappeared once again. My eyes began to scan again, waiting for the next attack. Then from my left, the creature burst from the wall. This time my body was prepared. As the creature flew by me, I grabbed hold of it. While holding the specter, I gave it one solid toss, managing to send it crashing into the closest wall. The action was so fast by the time the specter hit the wall it had only just realized what had happened. The wall caved in where the creature struck it, creating a thick cloud of white dust before me. Franticly my eyes searched the dust for any signs of movement.
Where are you?
I continued to search as the dust began to settle.
Where are you? Where are you?
My eyes turned up nothing. Then from behind me, something slammed into my back, which sent me stumbling forward towards a wall. I hit the wall, cracking the sheetrock in places.
I found him.
I turned my body around to face the specter. Its hands grabbed my shirt and threw me to the ground. I hit the floor in a seated position, that was, until the creature kicked me in the face. The blow snapped my body completely backwards, causing my head to smack the tile.
“Is that all you’ve got.” My voice choked out through layers of blood and saliva.
Taunt the specter, that’s a great idea.
The specter looked at me as if it were annoyed. As if any emotion could be distinguished from a face so evil. I watched as the specter stood above me, then in one swift motion its leg went back, and then came forward towards my gut. My hands moved to intercept the foot but they did nothing to soften the blow. The kick sent me sliding across the floor towards the wall, only stopping when my back made contact with the wall.
I opened my eyes. The world around me was out of focus and a dark figure approached me. Time itself seemed to slow as the specter walked, each stride taking longer than the last. I fluttered my eyes to regain focus but by then the creature stood over me. Slowly my eyes looked up at the creature. Blood dripped from my face, and my body ached, but I knew there would be no mercy, no repose. Then I watched the creature raise its leg in the air, and then propelled its leg down towards me.
Two point five seconds until his foot slams me into the ground and I’m nothing but a stain on the tile.
Two point five seconds was enough time for my mind to think of everyone that I was about to leave behind. My family, my friends—Angela. Then my mind moved from those I’d leave behind to the things that I’d never get to do. All the things that I would miss out on, all of the things that I regretted not doing, everything, all at once passed in front of my eyes.
Let me back up for a moment. To truly understand how precious those last seconds were you'd have to understand everything else that led up to that moment. I’ll have to take you back six months. Back when I was a regular high school student just trying to make it through my senior year. But that was before, before the accident, before I met Virgil, before The Speakers.
My name is James Langley, and this is a chronicling of events that would change humanity's future, forever.

Starting Blog & Book update

Welcome to my new blog, as this is my first post I'll keep it short. I've begun (what should be) my final edit of The Shade. This along with the fact that I'm looking for someone to format the book means that it should be out by the end of Feb or the very start of March.