Shadow Animals by Keith Deininger

Author:Keith Deininger [Deininger, Keith]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Tags: Horror, Fantasy
ISBN: 9781502719614
Amazon: B00L8500A6
Barnesnoble: B00L8500A6
Goodreads: 22573488
Publisher: Codex Meridian Books
Published: 2014-06-22T04:00:00+00:00

I killed her. I should have done something. I should have stopped her.

Somehow, going into the darkness and the dampness beneath the city brought a bitter ache to my heart. I could see her in front of me, before my eyes adjusted to the lack of light, dangling, her face shocked, accusing, even as her internal parts dribbled and flopped to the concrete. I’d known her only a very short time, but she felt, at that moment, like a daughter to me. She could have been my daughter. I could have taken care of her, would have been glad for the responsibility, would have worked twice as hard to feed an extra mouth at home. I could see her sitting across the kitchen table, Ezzy slurping spaghetti next to her, my wife smiling at them both.

We crept in silence along the dank walkway, the water in the canal sliding by next to us, things scurrying and making rustling sounds all around.

We walked for a long time. I don’t know how long. Until, eventually, we came to a place where light spilled down upon us through lazily spinning fans from grates far above. We sat in one of the small alcoves, an unremarkable wall of brick on one side. Galen said we had to wait. For what, he wouldn’t say.

Despite the light far above, it was very dark. I couldn’t make out Galen’s face as he spoke now for the first time since we’d left the surface. He told me a story while we waited. A creation story.

“Do you know of Awa?” Galen asked me, seemingly from nowhere.

I shook my head—I’d never heard the term.

“Before the material world existed, and everything that we know to be the earth and sky, there was only the Void.” Galen’s voice was quiet, nearly a whisper. “Awa, a presence passing by the Void, became distracted by a sound. It was faint, this sound, but, having never experienced the sensation of hearing, Awa stopped to investigate. Fascinated by the sound, Awa discovered It could make sound as well and began to compose music. Awa composed the first harmonies, the first lilting waves that began to reveal hints of a greater reality beneath. Awa then created a huge mountain, so that It would have a place to play Its music. Awa then began to create things around this mountain, to give the mountain an orientation of importance in relation to the earth below. Awa created the physical lands, the trees, the ground, and then the animals and the birds. Atop the mountain, It created all manner of apparatuses for the production of sound.

“Then, in order to fully experience that which It had created, to satisfy Its curiosity, Awa created a physical form for Itself. Awa discovered life was wonderful, filled with pleasures, bodily and spiritual—from the warmth of the Comet It had created, to the flavor of food and drink, to the sheer joy of the imagination and creation. But life, Awa also discovered, was filled with much pain.

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