House of Skin

EDDY

He, too, was readying himself.

Unlike Spider, he hadn’t been sleeping all day. Sleep was something that was evading him a little more each passing day. He couldn’t rest. The Shadows wouldn’t let him. They kept after him hour after hour, pouring out their excesses to him. Weeping of their damned souls and failed existences. They were becoming more and more bothersome by the hour.

Each time he closed his eyes, they started screaming or laughing or crying, telling him of their needs, their wants, their anxieties. He almost cursed the day he’d taken Cassandra into that damn house. The only way he could keep them at bay was to open all the drapes in his little apartment and let the light chase them into the corners. And even there, they wept like mourning widows.

He knew who they were now, at any rate. Just nasty bits of earthbound souls. What was left after the good and righteous parts of them fled to Heaven or wherever it is they went. Left behind was the greed and vice and lust and hatred. All the bad things. He supposed the Shadows were his inheritance… being that his father had killed their physical bodies and left them to rot in that decaying house.

And as such, he figured he should care for them as best he could.

It gave him someone to talk with when he was alone. And he liked to watch them clinging to the walls or pooling on the floor like oil. If it wasn’t for the bickering amongst them or the constant whining, he might’ve actually liked them.

“I have work to do tonight,” he told them. “Please don’t be a nuisance.”

They slithered over the floor and wound around his legs like bothersome cats.

He stepped free and put on his black overcoat. He wore dark jeans and a simple brown long-sleeved shirt beneath. He combed his long dark hair and slipped on his sunglasses. He was ready. Unlike Spider, he dressed simply. He wanted only to be unremarkable in every way. It was important considering the nature of the work to be done.

He left his apartment and went out onto the street. He walked and no one paid him any mind, just another lost soul in the city. He avoided streetlights. He didn’t want his shadow cast against the facade of a building, in case someone were to see. It would draw undue attention being that he cast not only his own shadow, but a vast, tumbling heap of others hissing at his side.