Lohan can feel Shea's eyes tracing over his scars. He drops his hand from his abdomen and crosses his arms protectively around himself, bracing against the memories threatening to flood his brain. He goes back to that night, the sticky summer's eve, nine years ago, when he was just eight years of age.
Lohan is sleeping in bed, his form small under the sheets. He hears a noise, and sits up. He never was a very heavy sleeper. He quietly pushes the covers off and swings his legs over the side of the bed. His feet touch the floor, and he walks to the door, his feet making 'shhsk' sounds across the dirt floor. He presses and ear to the door. He can hear voices.
"Do it." commands a cold, deep voice of authority.
"N-no, I c-can't do this t-to my own son," another voice protests, quavering and fearful.
Lohan recognizes this second voice. His father. What was he planning to do to him?! But he was fearfully drawn to this conversation and could not pull himself away, could not pull himself to escape.
The first voice laughs, a darkly amused laugh devoid of mirth. "Ahaha. It is very simple, Quentin, a child could do it! Take the knife you hold in your hand, go inside this door, and slice the boy to rivets. He is a mere slab of meat on the butcher's block."
Lohan gasps. Bad idea..
There is a rustle, as if someone had turned their head. "What was that? Find out. And remember what I told you."
Quentin is shoved into the room, and into a stunned Lohan. He cries out in surprise. This of course, leads to Lohan's screaming bloody murder. Quentin takes this opportunity while the child is occupied, to raise the knife with a hand trembling like a leaf, and whisper, "I am sorry, son," as he drives the knife home.
Quentin slices Lohan many times, and at each, Lohan's screams become more inhuman and keening. He cries, and this makes the wounds hurt all the more. At last, when the ground was slick with the blood and tears of a helpless child, Quentin stops, panting, and lets the bloody knife drop to the floor. He soon follows, collapsing.
A dark form, barely visible in the shadows of the doorway, laughs, the same mirthless laugh as before. He turns and melts into the shadows, his laugh remaining, echoing, echoing, echoing......
Lohan and Quentin collapsed on the floor in a pool of blood, unconscious. This is how Lohan's mother found them not fifteen minutes later when she came in. What a shame that she had always been a heavy sleeper. It was not the screams that woke her, it was the lingering laugh of a madman.
Her hand flew to her mouth as she let out a scream of her own. She rushed downstairs to call an ambulance.
Lohan was immediately flown to a hospital specializing in wounds like his, an placed in ICU. His father wasn't so lucky. He was pronounced dead at the house, having suffered a massive heart attack and brain hemorrhaging.
Lohan is whisked back to the present, and he gasps like a fish out of water. In his eyes is fear, and an inhuman shadow, the image of the laughing shadow man etched permanently onto his retinas. He sinks to the floor, panting, his arms even tighter around his chest. He is scared. He knows the shadow man will come back. To finish what he started.
