It was midafternoon the first time Patrick Irving saw the Shadows. The late October leaves were falling softly from the colorful trees, making a soft carpet on the pavement where they fell. The ground was scented with the smell of dying leaves, even more so when the busy Milwaukee buses drove over them in a frenzied attempt to reach a destination before the workday ended. The buses whizzed by Patrick as he trudged through the fallen leaves toward his grandfather’s house in the suburbs.

As Patrick walked, he pondered the strange dark patches of Shadow where there were no trees. “There is no reason for these Shadows to be there,” Patrick thought to himself, “It’s a bright day, and there are no clouds to cover the sun.” He was slightly frightened by this thought, although he was not usually superstitious. Patrick quickened his walk.

Behind him, one of the darker patches mutated into the shape of a man, tall and slightly gaunt. It turned and silently began to follow Patrick, who by this point was beginning to run, still unaware of the Shadow pursuing him. He was so agitated that he could barely find his grandfather’s house. In his distraction, he didn’t realize that he was running straight into one of the Shadows. He tripped, screaming as he tumbled down, his fall broken by the leaves covering the ground. He rolled out of the Shaded area, his foot feeling as if he had held it under the water of a frozen lake. He scrambled up and began to run, stumbling to the reassuring form of his grandfather’s house in the distance. Behind him, more Shadows began materializing from the dark patches on the ground. A man in a long black jacket stepped from his hiding place behind a tree and walked to the center of the street. As he moved, a horde of Shadows appeared and joined him. He ignored them as he watched the receding figure of Patrick Irving and clutched tightly a long, dark object.

“Grandfather! Let me in!” 

Grandfather Irving opened the door, took one look at Patrick’s face, and pulled him inside, shutting and locking the door behind him.

“What’s wrong, boy? You look like you’ve seen a ghost!”

“I-I think I have!”

As Patrick told his story, Grandfather Irving began to tremble. 

“The Shadows have come again. There is no hiding for the Irving family anymore, Patrick. Someone’s blood will be shed. I prayed that I wouldn’t live to see a day like this again! The Shadows have come out to hunt!”

Grandfather Irving was shouting, gesticulating wildly with a haunted look in his eyes. Patrick started, eyes wide until his grandfather composed himself.

“I don’t understand what you’re talking about, Grandfather. What do you mean?”

“I’m not sure if I understand it. All I know is that all of these events can’t just be coincidences. These things have happened before. When I was young, I joined the army. I had a friend in my troop, Zechariah Trublane. Best soldier the army had. Well, one night as we were finishing up our supper, a man came into the camp and collapsed on the ground. That man was Arthur Osten, another good friend of mine. When he came to, he said that Trublane was gone and that the Shadows had taken him. We all figured that he was crazy, but Trublane never showed up. The next morning, Osten was dead. It made me wonder. I quit the army, and got married to your grandmother, Mary Cromwell.”

Patrick stiffened. No one had ever spoken about Grandmother. She had been a point of mystery for Patrick until now.

“When your Uncle John was still a toddler, we left the other kids at home and took John to a park. Your grandmother took him for a walk, and I sat down for a smoke. After about an hour, I got worried and went to look for them. I found John on his back screaming beside the trail. His right leg was swollen and freezing cold. That’s why he walks with a limp. After that, I called the police, and I must have sat down, but I don’t remember a thing except the cops asking me questions.”

He brushed his eyes and looked down.

“They found Mary unconscious in the forest. They said it was a heart attack. Anyway, she never really recovered. When she was conscious, she would babble about Shadows.” His voice cracked. “She died about a week later.”

“After that I got scared. I started to keep a gun in my pocket when I went out. One time I shot my Shadow. I don’t go out much anymore.”

Patrick nodded slowly. He had calmed down some, but he was frightened. Grandfather looked up.

“I guess I’m lucky that they haven’t come for me yet. I checked the dates of both of the incidents. Trublane disappeared on October 23, 1916, and Mary’s was on October 23, 1926. Exactly ten years apart. That’s why I think they only come out at certain times.”

“Today is October 23, Grandfather! ” 

“Exactly. Today is a dangerous day for Irvings. If you don’t want to leave or go outside, you can stay with me. I have some extra room in– ”

His face paled, and he started twitching.

“They’re here! They’ve found us! Run, Patrick! Run!”

Patrick sprinted through the house and was out of the back door before Grandfather stopped shouting. The Shadows sped from the room after their fleeing quarry.

Patrick jumped the neighbor’s fence and ran through the yard, running up the driveway and out onto the street on the other side. He was too late. Even running his fastest, he couldn’t outrun the Shadows. They were waiting for him out on the street, flat long shapes against the setting sun. A man stood among them, holding a long dark object in front of him. A chill ran through Patrick’s blood as he realized what it was. It was a Shadow, in the shape of a sword. It looked more evil than all of the Shadows, more evil even than the man who wielded it.

Yet, as Patrick looked at the sword, then at the man, and finally at the Shadows on the street, he felt a sense of calmness and finality. He knew he would never win against the Shadows, and that they would kill him, but for some reason, he no longer cared. “What kind of life would that be?” Patrick wondered, “Always being scared and hunted like Grandfather is. That would hardly be worth living for.”

“Who are you, and what do you want with me?” He asked calmly, his voice barely shaking. The man looked at him steadily and then spoke, his voice low and gravelly.

“I am James Gray, the sorcerer whom your ancestor attempted to destroy. I have made a vow to kill all of his descendants and acquaintances. You are charged with being in acquaintance with an Irving, and must pay the penalty!”

“I am an Irving.”

“So you admit your faults! You, Patrick Irving, shall be blotted from the earth, as will your relations, one by one, until your family name is no longer remembered on this earth!”

He turned the sword towards Patrick, and a coldness swept through his veins, unlike anything he had felt before. His neck was grabbed from behind by a frigid hand.

“My Shadow’s strangling me,” Patrick thought to himself, “I’m going to die like this.”

Suddenly, Grandfather Irving emerged from a hedge and sprinted toward them, out of breath from his first full sprint in many years.

“Patrick! Fight it! Don’t give in!”

Grandfather Irving pulled an ancient revolver from his jeans pocket and fired five shots into James Gray. Gray staggered and dropped the sword. It broke, shattering into a million pieces, and began to melt away. With an awful screeching, the Shadows began to dissolve as the man stumbled and fell to the ground. Patrick fell backward onto the leaf-covered sidewalk, gasping in the precious evening air. The sun set.

. . .

Tony Irving was watching TV when his grandfather came to visit. His Mom called out, “Tony, your Grandpa’s here!”

Grandpa Patrick sat down on the couch. “How was your day, Tony?”

“Fine,” Tony replied, his eyes still glued to the screen. “We played a new game at school today. It was called Shadow Tag. Whoever’s ‘It’ has to tag someone else’s Shadow. That was fun.”

“Shadow Tag,” mused Grandpa Irving thoughtfully.

“Yeah.” Tony looked up at his grandfather.

“Tony…” Grandpa paused. “Have I told you that story about the Shadows?”

Tony shook his head and turned off the TV. “No, but I’d like to hear it.”

Grandpa Patrick got up. “Let’s go for a walk.”

As they walked, Tony listened to the whole fantastic story, barely concealing his amusement.

“Grandpa, I’m not a little kid anymore. You can’t fool me with your weird stories.”

Patrick looked up. “Tony, I am disturbed that you think I would have told a story like that to you when you were younger. I didn’t expect that you would believe my story that quickly, but it happened to me, and I know for certain that it was real.”

Tony shook his head. “We should go back inside now, Grandpa. Mom’s making a snack for us.”

Tony Irving was so preoccupied with his thoughts of the blueberry scones his mother was baking, he didn’t realize that between the two of them, there was only one Shadow casting far down the late autumn sidewalk.