From: zoel1
Subject: Warning: 'Shadow People' Can Sting Like Frikkin' Hornets...
Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 07:34:21 -0500
To: The Official Shadow People Archives
About two years ago now, I was walking around 3:00 AM in an old residential brick street, wheat town in Kansas. By policy, I actually walk within the street itself, avoiding sidewalks, that late at night. By this time, I approach my house from a distance of two lots south of mine; a site viewable from my front windows.
Well…Wham! And I do mean "Ouch---#&%!!" I get nailed from behind, as if either an ice-cold, or electrical, needle had been spiked deep into the most protruding vertebra below the base of my neck, plunging surely to three-quarters of an inch depth, sufficient to penetrate marrow. Stung like bloody hell. Didn't quite knock me down but I made a conscious effort to resist the urge. The shock did indeed bend me forty-five degrees forward at the waist. Even so, the ‘sting’ felt tightly localized. Didn't affect my legs, bodily strength, nor anything else just that one throbbing vertebra; a very corporeal throb.
For once I had the wherewithal to start sensing around and sure enough, across the street, twenty feet away, where the alley intersects the sidewalk, there “it” smugly stands: definitely necked below its head and there was a dark outline of 'shoulders' but no articulated arms. All of this perception starkly discriminable due to the streetlamp nearby so I can report, I'd swear this, the ‘critter’ had no legs; the body simply faded around mid-thigh, into ordinary night air. Legs aside, “It” silhouetted a humanoid and on the basis of its arrogance, it was arguably masculine.
And… I could unquestionably see through him a house/garage backdrop without any discernable loss of clarity. This though his outline struck me cut with a razorblade---nil ambiguity. Nothin' wishy-washy here; it severed space like a template.
Due to its relative foot of elevation above my base, I must caution as to my guess at top-head height, but I'd say about six-feet tall, maybe less. Not terribly imposing, as to size.
And so, I'm standing there thinking "You nasty little shit," as if I have been confronted by a rebellious adolescent. This face-off somehow failed to register on my 'arcane' meter. Even now, I struggle to find the weirdness such an encounter should provoke, on its naive surface (I at least once would've thought). But, nope…this attack struck me oddly banal.
It manifestly suspects I have locked onto ‘it’, so ‘it’ begins to kinda fa-a-ade sideways. I continue to track it. So then, it accelerates in ten feet to the velocity of a longbow arrow, and…Whish! up the street north, a directional choice requiring it to negotiate a staggered intersection at hilarious top speed. I mean swoosh! Gone… once it finally decided it had been caught in the act. This display impressed me.
My vertebra aches remembering this. Of course, I'm currently sitting in a chair in a living room a tennis-ball's toss from the spot I got skewered. That little #%&! Asshole!
Anyone care to tell me all the horrible myths associated with getting stung by one of these bastards? I have no evidence, per se, this attack left damage, but I am not a happy lad. My vertebra certainly feels no better for the treatment.
Incidentally, I had previously seen either this same critter, or clone-similar to this critter, in my backyard. No contact that time. I had first noticed the lack of legs there, in strong light from directly behind my position, thus least confounding to the human night eye. Crisp, razor-cut: head, shoulders, no separable arms, thighs fading to zero. Viewed from approximately sixteen feet away for most of a minute. I cannot say how it departed, that time. Again, I did not say, "Wow, that was weird." Struck me, somehow, as no big deal. Like uncovering a rare insect. You just say, "Never seen one of those before." and go on...?
It's at this meta-level of awareness I note the only weirdness experienced due to contact with these beasts. I look back at the encounter, and go "What in the hell is wrong with you? How weird do things hafta get before you react?" If I had been forced to predict my response to such a meeting. My actual response would never even have made it onto the top-ten list. Not sure what I would've said but sure as hell not "Ho-hum..."
Conclusion? *They* are neither human nor ex-human. Purest Western-Civ ego to think so. My bet: quasi-terrestrial aliens. Meaning: no relation to organismic critters on Earth, but still arising as Natives of this planet and possibly of its extended dimensional over-reality. And, like a possum or a badger (as compared to a domesticated house cat), re 'culture', I would assess them as 'feral'. My neighborhood raccoons sense much the same for 'mood'. Too individualistic, too uncompromising, to keep one for a pet. Raccoons don't 'own' worth a damn.
Oh…this acre I inhabit once carried a creek, now filled in. Do these critters favor any special geography? River bottoms? This creek, although evicted from the surface, demonstrably still flows beneath ground (got a well-head in my basement).
The strangest part about it: I often forget this ever happened. Even walking at night I seldom think of it. You tell me.
The sum total of wisdom I proffer on the topic...?
Do not turn your back on “one”.
Don't.
It stings like bloody hell.
And, once stung, it never seems to completely heal.
I am not a happy lad.
