The Night the Shadow Walked

I was about eight or nine years old when this story unfolded, but it might as well have been a hundred years ago given the way it lingers in my mind. It was late autumn, that season when the chill bites just hard enough to remind you that winter is nipping at its heels. The walnut trees that surrounded my parents' house had already shed their leaves, carpeting the ground with brittle reminders of summer’s end. These walnut leaves had a way of rustling underfoot, creating a soundtrack that was as eerie as it was enchanting.

To set the scene properly, let’s take a step back and survey the lay of the land—our family estate, if you could call it that, although it was more of a slightly organized sprawl. On one side of the dining room was a door that led to a small cement patio. To the left, an old, dry water well stood, covered in cracked stone and iron-rusted chains—a relic from another time that served no real purpose other than to add a faint sense of foreboding. On the right, a solid wall stretched out, creating a sort of natural hallway. Down that hallway, about four meters or so, stood a humble two-by-two wooden shed with a pitched roof. It was home to a collection of mismatched tools, from rusted shovels to splintered handles, all piled together like cast-off memories.

Beyond this charmingly dilapidated shed was my father’s pride and joy, his steed of steel: a blue Ford Granada 1977. It was hardly pristine, the paint had faded to a shade that might be generously described as “vintage” rather than “tired,” but my father treated it like the centerpiece of the property. He’d reverse it in each evening with the care of a pilot landing a jet. No ordinary family car, this. To him, it was a piece of automotive history. A piece of his history.

And that’s where things start to get interesting.

Twenty or so meters beyond the well, there sat an old school bus, more rust than paint, with its tires long since gone to the junkyard in the sky. This bus had retired from transporting students to holding various odds and ends from the farm and household, taking on a second life as a sprawling, stationary closet. The sight of it was almost absurd—an old yellow bus just sitting there, as if waiting for passengers who would never come. But to me, it was simply a fact of life, part of the landscape, as natural as the blackberry tree that stood two meters away, just beyond a little ditch. This blackberry tree, massive and regal, cast its shade over the bus like an ancient protector, its branches spreading wide, as if inviting anyone brave enough to sit under it.

Of course, that ditch served its own peculiar purpose, weaving like a low-slung river through the property. You’d find it snaking its way right past the blackberry tree and cutting a strange path across the lot, disappearing into the backyard. It might as well have been a line marking the edge of civilization, beyond which lay the untamed wilderness of our imagination.

And then there was the wire fence—a feeble attempt to mark off the property, though it did little to deter anything or anyone. Just past the fence, a few scattered rods lay, remnants of a plan to build an extension that never quite made it off the ground. Those rods, sticking up like broken teeth, stood a mere four meters from the wire, yet in that world of mine, they might as well have been the ruins of a medieval castle, abandoned and eerie, silent witnesses to dreams left unfulfilled.

In this odd little space, nestled between walnut leaves and blackberry branches, lay a thick carpet of detritus: leaves, fallen twigs, bits of bark, all crisscrossed with the marks of animals and, perhaps, something else. At night, when the cold crept in and the shadows stretched long and lean, that carpet of leaves transformed. The trees, bare and skeletal against the moonlight, loomed like silent guardians. Even the wind sounded different—less a gentle breeze, more a reminder that something timeless lived in that space, something that would watch you as you picked your way across the ground.

The place had an unmistakable atmosphere, and even now, I can still feel the chill that would crawl up my spine. The walnut branches would stretch across the sky, twisting like bony fingers, their leaves scattered like brittle bones across the ground. And as I’d step into that open space, the fallen leaves would crunch underfoot, the sound unsettlingly loud in the otherwise silent night.

The Shadow Man

It was late November, and that particular night had the kind of chill that sinks right down to the bones. Around eight in the evening, my father and little sister headed off to the local shop, leaving my mother, my older sister—just a year my senior—and me to hold down the fort. We were in the middle of some forgettable television show, waiting for them to return, the cozy glow of the screen casting odd shadows on the walls. At around nine o’clock, we heard the familiar sound of our car pulling up, the engine grumbling to a halt just outside. My older sister, never one to sit still, bolted to the door to greet them, and naturally, I followed.

But as we came to a halt in front of the car, reality hit us like a punchline without a joke. The car sat there, as still and silent as a monument, but our father and sister were nowhere in sight. They simply weren’t there. The night sky, meanwhile, was breathtaking—almost distracting, really. The small crescent moon hung high, casting a pale glow over everything, and the stars seemed to be putting on a show, twinkling brighter than ever against the deep, endless blue. Nothing seemed out of place—yet everything felt wrong.

Curiosity tugged at me. My sister hovered beside the small wooden tool shed, her face a mix of fear and confusion. I stepped closer to the car, convinced that perhaps they’d parked it as some kind of practical joke, hiding just out of sight, waiting to leap out with a laugh. But the car was closed up tight. Locked. Completely still. No trickery here, no hidden figures behind the wheel. I turned back toward my sister, and that’s when I saw it: the look on her face. She was pale, her eyes wide with terror, her gaze fixed on something beyond me, something over by the walnut trees.

“What’s wrong?” I whispered, feeling the cold tingle of fear start to creep into my veins.

She looked at me, lips trembling, on the verge of tears, then barely managed to say, “There’s… someone… over there.”

I whipped around, squinting into the gloom, and there it was: a figure, hunched and slow-moving, as if weighed down by something unseen. Every instinct screamed that this was all wrong. People don’t walk like that. Not naturally, anyway. The figure seemed almost carved out of the darkness itself, moving at a deliberate pace across the thick carpet of dried walnut leaves. And in that silent November night, I could hear each step it took—crunching the brittle sticks and leaves with a dreadful, slow rhythm.

“Who… who are you? What do you want?” I shouted, though the words felt like they were tumbling out of someone else’s mouth. Every part of me was screaming to turn around and bolt back into the house, but I kept moving forward, one cautious step at a time, my sister clutching the back of my shirt.

We moved as one, inching closer to this silent, creeping shadow, until there were barely five meters between us and the edge of the tree line. And still, we couldn’t see a face or any real defining features—just a mass, like the silhouette of a person without detail, moving with a disturbing sense of purpose. I could feel the hair on my arms prickling with fear. Something was terribly, terribly wrong.

By now, my sister had reached her limit, and tears began streaming down her cheeks. She begged me to go back to the house, pleading in a whisper that grew more desperate by the second. I told her to run and get Mom, to bring back anyone who could help. She dashed off, her cries ringing out as she sprinted back toward the house, leaving me alone with this dark, haunting figure. Soon again I heard the sound of footsteps behind me—my sister, running up from the house.

I felt a strange pull, something urging me forward as if my feet were moving on their own, drawn toward this shadow that seemed to pulse with a silent threat. I kept shouting, kept demanding answers, but there was nothing. Only the crunching of its heavy footsteps and the cold weight of the moonlight on the trees. It was then that I knew, with bone-chilling certainty, that this was no lost traveler, no late-night neighbor stumbling around in the dark. This was something else entirely, something otherworldly, something that didn’t belong in the rational, explainable world.

For a moment, the figure seemed to pause, and so did I, both of us locked in a strange, silent stand-off under the ancient walnut trees. And in that frozen second, I felt the weight of a thousand superstitions, a thousand tales of specters and shadows that haunt the fringes of childhood, hovering around me like wisps of smoke. My heart was thundering in my chest, the primal fear overriding every shred of logic or reason.

The Blackberry Tree

Between fear and curiosity, my heart hammering and my mind spinning, something stronger than both pulled me forward. There was a strange urge—to close the distance, to see who or what was lurking in the darkness. Surely nothing could last that long, couldn’t linger so intently just beyond the edge of the light. My sister and I both had our eyes locked on it, that shadowy figure, and every step it took sounded sharp and deliberate against the blanket of leaves underfoot. It sounded real. It looked like a person—no, it was a person, it had to be.

And then, as if the universe decided we’d had enough suspense, my mother appeared out of nowhere. She ran up, looking bewildered, and asked what in heaven’s name was happening. My sister, voice quivering, tear-streaked, could barely get the words out, “Something’s walking…” And there it was, plain as day to me—a shadowy figure moving slowly along, its form swaying, purposeful yet lethargic.

“What do you see?” she asked, voice sharp with urgency.

I pointed directly at it, not bothering to hide my frustration, “That person, right there, that shadow walking along.” I looked over at her, confident that she’d see it now. But instead, she squinted, stared hard, and then turned back to me, shaking her head.

“I don’t see anything,” she said flatly, eyes darting between me and the spot where I’d pointed. She looked baffled, like maybe she thought I was making it up, or maybe I’d simply lost the plot. “What exactly do you see?” she pressed, now a bit gentler, as though she might coax me out of a strange dream.

And there was no dream here. I insisted, desperate to make her understand, “It’s a man! Look, he’s walking slowly, like he’s exhausted or something. See? He’s stepping over the rods, and he’s got… something on his foot. A chain, with a ball at the end. He’s coming right toward the blackberry tree!”

But she just stood there, staring at me with that same blank expression, her eyes full of worry and confusion. She couldn’t hear it, couldn’t see it, couldn’t feel the chill in the air that had turned my blood to ice. It was like we were standing in two different worlds, mine dominated by this ghostly figure, hers dominated by an overwhelming desire to get us back to safety.

She shook her head. “I don’t see or hear anything,” she said softly, almost pleading. Then, she took my sister’s hand and tried to pull us away, urging us to forget about whatever it was we thought we saw. But I couldn’t tear my gaze from it. Not yet.

It continued walking, that shadow without a face, without any details I could name or describe. It was an outline, a presence, a suggestion of something that had been. And as it drew nearer to the blackberry tree, I couldn’t help but think it was heading somewhere specific, a place it had gone many times before, a route it knew by heart. And the way it moved—it was haunting. It moved like someone in a dream, bound to an endless task.

But as it reached the blackberry tree, just a few steps from the ditch, it shifted. In profile, I swear it turned as though it was about to glance over its shoulder. I couldn’t see a face or eyes, yet I felt its attention, like it was somehow looking straight at me. My heart stopped cold.

And then—nothing. Just like that, the shadow disappeared. One moment it was there, this figure that had crept into our world from who-knows-where, and the next it was gone. No trace, no final crunch of leaves, no dissolving into mist. One step closer, and it simply ceased to exist.

To this day, I’ve never seen anything like it again, nor do I ever expect to. But the memory remains, lodged like a splinter in my mind, impossible to ignore. I still see that silent figure moving through the moonlight, shackled by some invisible chain, returning to a place only it understood. And every so often, when I look out over those blackberry trees in the dead of night, I half expect to see it, a shadow on a mission, walking without purpose, and disappearing before it reaches the end.

In-text Citation: (Cervera López, 2021, pp. 46-48)