LOST IN THE SHADOWS
by Jeff Hathorn

	It was a cool sultry evening.  I was sitting in my favorite chair 
reading a book.  The book was a novel I never remembered getting, and 
looking back, I'm not sure I ever got it at all.
	It was an old book, and the cover was darker than a thousand 
midnights in a buried coffin.  On the spine in crimson letters were the 
words, "Lost in the Shadows".  Now, I love a good horror novel, and this 
title made me curious, but the biggest mistake I ever made was opening that 
book. 
	 The first chapter, "What was that?" was about a man who had found a 
book in his attic and read it while a killer stalked him right outside his 
house.  I noticed that the book was incredibly descriptive. For example, 
the book stated that the man, as he was reading his book, repeatedly 
glanced at the grandfather clock as it rang midnight in the hall opposite 
his easy chair. Just at that moment the grandfather clock across the living 
room, in the hallway, rang out its low, monotonous, midnight announcement. 
(Or was that a warning?) I read in the book that he gazed at the wall paper 
behind the clock and realized that he secretly hated it, for the black 
shapes on the white background made the entire house seem eerily empty. As 
an afterthought I looked at my wall paper and noticed that its sinister, 
black geometric shapes seemed to be trying to block out the white, which 
showed through only in patches. I then knew that the book's explicit 
details were exactly the same as in my own house. Even the description of 
the man could easily be a reflection of me. I stupidly thought that it must 
have been a coincidence.

	I set the book down because it was making me edgy and paranoid.  I 
could swear I heard a leaf crackling outside my window. I grabbed the book 
and tried to get rid of it, but my curiosity was so immense I had to read 
on.  In chapter two the man realized he was getting paranoid, thinking he 
was some kind of prey, so he tried to get rid of the book, but he couldn't, 
and he started going crazy.  I had already started going crazy and was well 
into the middle stages of insanity.  As I looked at the page, the words had 
changed to my present description.
	I flipped through the pages ahead, hoping to find a happy ending (I 
decided I didn't like horror as much as I thought). Luckily the remaining 
pages were all blank, so I knew my terror was almost at an end. I went back 
to my place in the book and finished the page. It ended mid-sentence. When 
I got to the bottom I flipped the page from force of habit, but it wasn't 
blank.  It had an illustration of me looking out the window at a face.  I 
jumped up and turned around so fast my chair fell over, and in the window I 
saw the face.  The face was just as in the book, disfigured and covered in 
scars.  I grabbed the book, ran upstairs, through the bathroom into the 
bedroom (stepping on the lip of the cat's litter tray and spilling it), 
slammed the bedroom door and locked it. I grabbed the phone and dialed 911, 
but it was dead.
	I looked at the book and read that the killer had gotten in through 
the window.  I went back to the beginning in hopes I could start over, but 
every page was the same as the page I was on before.  I read on. I read 
about how I had run upstairs, spilled the cat litter, tried to call for 
help, and flipped back 
in the book.  I read slowly so as not to rush this horrifying terror, but 
that only heightened the suspense.
	Suddenly I had a brilliant idea.  I ran to my desk and got out a 
pencil.  I began ripping pages  out of the book.  Page after line-filled 
page fluttered to the floor, until at last I found a blank one.  I wrote 
that the killer had started upstairs.  When he got to the top step, he 
stepped on a cat's tail which caused the cat to screech, startling the 
intruder into jumping back.  He landed on a step, twisting his ankle and 
ripping his Achilles tendon, and then fell over the banister, splattering 
his head on the white marble floor below.  I heard a scream outside my 
door, followed by a tremendous racket.  I smiled and wrote, "The End".