Scary Stories and tales

Shadow On The Wall

The house was everything she had ever dreamed of – the large kitchen, the back patio, the fireplace in the living room, the large picture windows looking out at the hillside beyond the back yard, she’d always wanted to have a place with a view. It felt like it was hers the first time she ever walked into it. Before she knew it her bid was accepted and she was making plans to move in.

One night she drove over with a pickup truck load of stuff. It consisted of minor things that she didn’t need immediately, but she felt if she put them in her new house, she was almost there. If she didn’t have to wait for her husband to come home from Seattle, she’d be moving in already. She tossed her bean bag onto the floor into the living room and thought about starting a fire in the fireplace to make a cozy atmosphere while she unpacked. As she got closer to the fireplace she realized there was a large black stain on the white wall next to it. It looked almost like a shadow of someone sitting in the room. It startled her and she looked behind her but no one was there of course. She wondered why she hadn’t noticed it when she first inspected the house. Maybe the euphoria of finding her dream home kept her from noticing. No trouble, she thought, I will wash it off. It must be soot from the fireplace. A few minutes later, the wall looked much better and she went into the kitchen to throw the rag into the sink.

In the kitchen, she made a cup of tea and brought it with her back to the living room. It was raining outside now, so she really wanted to enjoy the cup of tea by the fireplace. She set the cup down and bent over to get a log from the pile, and as she was standing back up she noticed the shadow was back. She dropped the log, she was so startled. She stood back and looked at it from a distance. It definitely looked like the shadow of a person, head, neck and torso. She spun around and no one was behind her. Spooked, she grabbed her purse and ran out, leaving her tea behind.

Back at her old house, she called her husband’s motel room but didn’t reach him. She left him a message and decided to go to bed for the night. The next morning she felt silly. It was daylight and she thought maybe she had been seeing things and let the rainy night get to her. She loaded some more stuff into the truck and went back, looking forward to seeing it again and thinking of how nice it would be when her husband could enjoy it with her. They could have breakfasts out on the deck when the weather was nice. She was already making plans to buy patio furniture in her mind by the time she got to the house.

She walked in and couldn’t help herself. She was looking straight at the spot on the wall, to reassure herself that it wasn’t there. But it was! She got closer and thought to herself this is crazy. It looked so much like a man was sitting there in the room, casting a shadow on the wall. She decided to ignore it and start bringing stuff in. She would show it to her husband later, and her friends as well. She brought in different pieces of light furniture and some boxes, and made her living room look more lived in, put a chair in the room so she could sit upright, rather than on the floor in the beanbag. She set up a lamp on a table near the chair and then went off to other rooms, feeling excited again about all the possibilities. Later after going out to lunch, coming back, working some more, she decided to sit in the living room and try getting cozy in there again.

She turned on the lamp and chose the bean bag chair because it was most comfortable, her muscles were sore from all the unpacking. She didn’t want to look next to the fireplace, but she did, and her heart was pounding as she realized how realistic the shadow looked. She turned because she suddenly felt as if there was someone there. Sitting in the chair next to the lamp was her husband, casting a shadow on the wall. For a few moments anyway, and then he was gone like a wisp of air. She ran home to phone his motel room again. God, let her please be going crazy. A policeman answered the phone – they were inspecting the room right at that moment. Her husband had been shot yesterday, early in the evening, the same time, she realized, she had noticed the shadow on the wall.