What Lay in the Dark

2. In the Shadows

I never really liked romance movies. They were so unrealistic. The perfect guy doesn't just show up in your time of need. The hot guy from the supermarket doesn't keep bumping into you all the time until you finally decide to start dating. The crazy guy from the castle doesn't just casually walk in to the newspaper office where you happen to work.  

Yet there he was. I looked up on impulse, leaving the article I was writing behind for just a moment. At the very same moment that the strange man from the castle opened the door and walked into the office. My eyes widened a little and I quickly returned to writing the article, hoping the man wouldn't notice me.  

"Egan," I heard the editor of the paper call out. I watched him out of the corner of my eye walk up to the man.  

"Kieran," the man replied.  

"What do you want this time?" Kieran - the editor - asked, smiling. 

"Do you still have the paper from this time last month?" the man asked. 

It was an odd request, but Kieran seemed used to it, heading out back without a word.  

I furtively noticed the man look towards me; I turned to my work, pretending I didn't notice.  

"There you go," Kieran tossed the man a paper. "Aren't you meant to be working?" He checked his watch. 

"Too busy being a genius for that," the man replied. 

"You're full of it," Kieran laughed.  

"You know it's true," the man smiled before walking out. 

Kieran shook his head and walked back to his office.  

I tried to focus on my work, but was faced with a slight hint of confusion and even more curiosity than the man had left me with at the castle. Questions about him formed in my head, but I knew they would never be answered. I highly doubted I'd ever see the man again. I have never been more wrong. 

I finished up my article and handed it to Kieran for editing before leaving the building. The sun was setting, casting an orange glow across the town in which I now lived. It was a small Scottish town which I'd moved to as an escape from my life in Ireland. There were a few shops and a school, but the main part of the town was made up of houses. The newspaper agency was at the end of a line of small shops and a cafe with a park on the other side. 

I decided on a walk before I went home. The air was unusually warm for Scotland and I intended to take advantage of it. Instead of my general route through the park to my house, I turned the other direction and walked down the road.  

A scream pierced my ears as I approached the graveyard. I shook it off deciding it was teenage boys trying to scare the girls they liked. But as I drew nearer to the entrance, a strange feeling of dread settled over me and I was pulled toward the gate.  

The cry, "Egan," sent my brain spinning. Wasn't that what Kieran called the strange man earlier?  

Barely thinking I ran into the graveyard, following the animal instinct that overruled my mind. I twisted and turned through trees and graves, ducking under an archway leading to a small clearing.  

A dark haired man with a scar running above his left eye turned to stare at me with wide eyes. He ignored me. He was clinging to a screaming woman and murmuring. All I heard was, "You're making it angry..."  

The last rays of sunlight shone on the face of a stone angel rising above the graves. At the base of the statue, the man from the castle - Egan - pushed himself up off the ground.  

The lady calmed down, but anxiously watched every corner of the graveyard, her eyes darting to and fro. I gasped as Egan was thrown into a stone wall at the other side of the clearing.