I… am quite angry. As some of you might know, I have another story by the name of 49 Days. I had two more chapters of said story written when my compy had a huge hard drive failure. I pulled off every single file successfully… except those new chapters. And my 'Winner' icon for NaNoWriMo 2004. Which I got for this thing. It's a conspiracy. Enjoy.

Sparky's Book of Shadows

Chapter One : Friend & Foe

The moon was almost full, missing only a sliver on one side. Its light was tinted slightly towards yellow by the smog in the air, and occasionally was lost in the ever thickening clouds. Sparky frowned. It was just his luck that the night he chose for moon watching would suddenly turn cloudy. In fact, it looked like the sky would soon be completely obscured by the wispy intruders. Oh well. He would sit out here on the fire escape until he could no longer catch any glimpse of the yellow-silver face.

He could tell that the bakery below was making its last batch of fresh doughnuts for the night; the scent of fried dough always rose directly upwards in the alley his apartment overlooked. The heat of the city below combated the chilled wind that tried its best to freeze him where he sat on the fourth story metal grating. He ignored it, as usual. The weather never bothered him when he was moon watching, whether it was wind, rain, snow or even scorching summer heat. The only thing that ever did bug him was those damned clouds. And they showed up every time, curse it all! He never got through a full night without their interference.

He wondered why he was so adamant about his lunar sport. Every month, he would pick a day at random to sit out and watch the moon for as long as possible. It drove his parents nuts when he was small, for they'd try forcibly to drag him inside for bed. They gave up when he was ten, after he'd nearly broken his father's fingers. He'd just sort of flipped out when they reached the doorway and he lost sight of the moon. After that, they'd just shrugged and said, "It's only one night a month, let him do it." Oh well, that was the long forgotten and forgiven past.

The clouds were becoming thicker now. Half the face was shrouded by their veil. At this rate, he'd be heading for bed in no more than half an hour. It had been a long day anyhow, and he could use the sleep.

The time passed quickly, and he found himself heading inside around a quarter to midnight. He could probably get a few hours of sleep tonight. He had to be at work at eight the next day, which meant his alarm clock was set for six. Factor in his usual restlessness after moon watching and that gave him three hours. Maybe.

Sighing, he crawled into bed, preparing himself to stare at the ceiling for a while. The clock's rhythmic ticking, usually a comfort on long nights, seemed to mock him as each moment of potential sleep slipped away from him. Just for a change of pace, he rolled over onto his side.

Hey, what the heck is that?

A small white spot, about the size of a quarter, had appeared on the wall just above his window. It looked like a pen light's beam, but there was nothing in his apartment to cast it. He rolled onto his back so that he could see the other side of the room. Yup, nothing over there that could cause a light on the far wall. Still on his back, he turned his eyes back to the mysterious light.

It was moving. Slowly creeping up the wall and onto the ceiling, it looked like it was headed in his direction. There was no way that thing could be there! Was he hallucinating from lack of sleep?

Slowly, as the white patch moved closer, his curiosity turned into dread. There was no way that thing could be where it was and be doing what it was doing, but it was! This was very wrong! He found himself frozen in indefinable terror, his eyes the only part of him in motion as they watched the creeping encroachment. He wanted desperately to reach out and turn on his bedside lamp, so that the apparition could disappear in the encompassing glow, but he couldn't force his arm to move.

It had reached a point directly above him. For almost ten minutes, Sparky stared straight upwards at the glowing spot. After a while, he began to wonder why exactly he was so scared. Perhaps it was just a really strange reflection of the light from something outside? At any rate, light was all it was, and it certainly wasn't something that could hurt him. That being the case, he could certainly reach out and turn on the light, couldn't he?

He had almost talked himself into it, when he was given a reason to be afraid. The light opened a single eye, stark white with an abyss-like black pupil. He suddenly had what appeared to be a human eyeball staring down at him from his ceiling. If this was a joke by the neighbours above or below him, it was a very bad one. He'd never play heavy metal at three in the morning again, though. Just in case.

It was staring at him. Didn't it have to blink? Of course, that couldn't possibly be a real eye up there so it probably didn't have to obey the normal rules for eyeballs. That pupil was really black. He could almost feel it sucking the warmth from the air. Wait a minute, he could see his breath. It really was taking out all of the heat! Damn, now it was a competition. Would he have a heart attack or die of hypothermia first?

After an interminable time, there was finally motion. The light-eyeball started sliding its way back towards the window. Sparky watched it go, his own unblinking eyes following its progress as it moved across the ceiling, down the wall, and back 'out' through the window. It stared at him the entire time.

It was finally gone. Suddenly he could breathe again. He remained motionless for a few extra minutes, and then his arm shot out and flicked on the light with force. The lamp tottered, and for a moment he wondered if his panic would cost him his light source. He wasn't looking forward to stumbling across the dark room to the door so he could get a new light bulb. Thankfully, the lamp stabilized and cast its warm illumination across the room. The shadows were chased away, but the chill was not. Reenergized by the light, Sparky leapt out of bed, opened his door and yanked the thermostat temperature gauge up. It was lucky that the thermostat was just outside his room, for he also didn't want to wander through the rest of the dark apartment. Maybe the eyeball's match, or hell even the rest of the damn body was waiting out there. Nope, he was staying where it was light for the rest of the night, thank you very much.

Shutting the door, he returned to bed. Damn spirits or whatever they were. He rarely saw them, and it freaked him out whenever he did. More often he'd just feel them around, but that was a lot different than having one stare him down in his own bedroom. And that one had really frightened him out for some reason. There was something about it, some sort of intention behind the one eyed gaze that he feared on a deep level.

Ugh. Now he'd never get any sleep.

Indeed, the next morning found him dragging himself out of bed with only about forty-five minutes of sleep under his belt. A glance in the bathroom mirror revealed that he did indeed look as bad as he felt, his normally bright hazel eyes dull and his dye-black hair in disarray. A scary sight to wake up to. Yawning and staggering, he made it through his morning routine with only a few exhaustion-induced mishaps. A band-aid would take care of that new burn on his finger.

Patched up and still yawning, he set out to face the day. After a quick detour to return and lock his apartment door, he was on his way. He usually rode his bike to work, since it was almost a mile away, but he got the feeling that he wouldn't make it there alive if he tried that today. So, instead he was walking. A nice refreshing stroll in the cold morning air should wake him up. Heading down the stairs of his building, he bumped into a man in a black parka. Hm. He was new around here. Maybe they'd finally found a tenant for number 47. Damn, that meant he'd have neighbours on three sides again, and more people to yell at him to keep the noise down. It was a good thing he was the last apartment on the floor, because he'd go insane if he had people on four sides yelling at him all the time.

His thoughts occupied as they were, a sharp screech of tires and an outraged horn alerted him to the presence of the taxi. Okay, and that was the side mirror contacting his arm. Damn taxi drivers. Oh, of course he wouldn't stop. Sparky wasn't on the ground writhing in agony so he must be fine, and if he stopped he'd have to report it.

Good thing that moron wasn't going too fast. Sparky mused as he rubbed his freshly bruised arm. This was turning out to be a hell of a day. He could hear a large dog barking somewhere nearby as well, no doubt agitated by the noise from the taxi. It would probably break loose and come over here to eat what was left of his arm pretty soon, judging from the trend of today's events. Sticking strictly to the sidewalks and crosswalks for the rest of the way, he managed to make it to work in one piece.

"Hey Spark!" Josh waved at him from across the store. He returned the wave halfheartedly and wandered into the back room, with a quick stop over to check out the latest additions to the 'New Releases' rack. Halloween was fast approaching, so the seasonal horror flicks were starting to make their way into the video store's inventory. Hey, that one looked good. Maybe he'd run it on the store TVs later. The ever present Star Wars was running now, as it did at least once a week. He had all three of the original movies pretty much memorized. They never played the newer ones, though. It was fine to rerun classics over and over, but if they had to put up with JarJar on a regular basis, there'd be a rash of video store employee suicides.

Josh followed him into the back, beckoning for the new guy, Derek, to take over the register. "Man, you look like you were up all night."

"I was."

"Oh? New girlfriend?" Josh asked with a wink and an elbow nudge.

"Not quite." Cutting off his coworker before he could speculate further, Sparky muttered, "I don't want to talk about it."

Josh blinked, and then shrugged. "Whatever. You gonna be okay for work today?"

"Yeah, I'll be fine. It's the waking up that's hard. Give me a cup of coffee every couple hours and I'm good to go."

"You sure? You look like death warmed over."

"Yeah, I was out of caffeine at my apartment, so I'll grab some from the office before I come out into the store." It was strange. He was sure he'd bought a whole new can last time he was at the supermarket.

"All right. See you in a minute." With that Josh headed back out to the store, shooing Derek away from his traditional position. Josh had been at JB Video for six years, since he was a sophomore in high school, and the only one who beat that tenure was the owner himself. For some reason he really liked to work the register, so no one else got to do that on his shift.

After gulping down a cup of lukewarm black coffee, Sparky donned his work vest, decorated with promotional buttons from a variety of movies, and headed out to check in the returns and restock the shelves.

The day dragged on interminably. For the first half of the day Sparky jumped at every shadow and loud noise, prompting the owner, Bill, to ban him from coffee. After that, every minute seemed like an hour. He couldn't get the image of that freaky glowing eye out of his mind. And his arm hurt, damn it! He had burned his right pinkie while making breakfast, after which his right forearm got whacked by a taxi, and then for the rest of the day various other accidents kept adding insult to injury, in a most literal way. His right arm, hand and shoulder suffered whacks from doors and passersby, pinches from video boxes, drawers and shelving, and in more than one case he nearly ended up bleeding. It was a good thing he was left handed, or he'd have been crippled by now.

Bill finally took pity on him at four o'clock. "Go ahead and go home early, Sparky."

"Huh?" The clerk looked up blearily from where he was re-shelving some DVDs.

"You look terrible and I hear you had a rough night." The video store proprietor patted him on the shoulder. "Plus you filed a Disney movie under horror."

Sparky winced. Oops. He mustn't have been paying attention. "Sorry."

"Don't apologize." Bill waved him off. "You work overtime often enough that this is no big deal. Go home and rest."

"Okay. Thanks." The young man drug himself into the back, dropped off his vest, and headed for home.

The first thing I'm going to do when I get back to the apartment is put some ice on my arm. After that, I'm sitting down in front of the TV and staying there until I fall asleep. Sparky was a bit nervous about sleeping in his bedroom tonight, for the ghostly eyeball might make a return visit. Yep, a night on the couch was sounding pretty inviting. Maybe he could find someone to share that night as well… of course, that might require sleeping in his room, but it would be fine if he wasn't alone.

Unfortunately, his daydreams were cut short by a most uncomfortable sensation. When he set foot on his block, he got the distinct feeling that someone was following him. He could feel their eyes on his back as he walked, even after he crossed a street and passed through a crowd. A hundred feet from his building, he had had enough.

God damn it! He had been burned, beaten, nearly run over, exhausted, and scared out of my mind in the last less than twenty four hours, and now someone was stalking him! And even worse, it was probably some bum who had seen him leave work and was thinking he might have a paycheck since it was Friday night. It was too bad for everyone concerned that he didn't get paid until next week. He twisted around, his face contorted into a vicious snarl that had made even the most seasoned mugger back down to date, and unleashed his wrath on his pursuer.

A puppy stared at him.

"What the hell…?" Sparky was sure he had felt human eyes on him. He instinctively knew the difference between a dog and a person, and he had always been able to feel it before when a dog followed him home. It happened more often than he liked to admit, and he would usually leave them by the front door, bring them some leftovers from his fridge and then send them on their way.

This dog was creeping him out though. Why had he felt a human following him? Sparky shook himself. It must be the exhaustion setting in. That was it; he was going upstairs and crashing for the night. No company, no plans, hell not even dinner. He started to walk again, and heard a bark behind him. Suddenly the dog was at his side, mouth hanging open and tongue lolling out while it stupidly grinned that dog smile.

"What the hell do you want, mutt?" It yapped at him again in response. "I don't have any food for myself right now, much less you, so get lost."

It wagged its bushy tail and stayed at his side. Apparently his bad mood wasn't enough to deter it. This was just what he needed to end this glorious day. A freeloading dog without a clue. And not even a handsome dog, this thing was ugly as hell. Brown and gray in patches, it was nearly waist high despite showing the gangly legs, massive feet and ridiculously large ears of a puppy. Its ears stood up for the most part, but lost their stability at the tips, where they flopped over strangely. Its mustard yellow eyes were too large for its head and seemed too often squeezed shut in happiness. How could it see where it was going like that? Well, it probably just assumed that Sparky wouldn't walk into a wall on purpose or anything. Its long pink tongue dangled from its mouth over long, particularly sharp and white teeth.

And it just kept following him. Right up the stairs of his building, into the lobby and then straight onto the elevator. This thing had no fear. At this point Sparky was confused by the dog's antics, but was also becoming somewhat amused as well. Did this count as a mood swing? Great, he was going nuts. The dog was crazier though. It acted like it belonged right there at his side, as if he had owned if for however long its short life had been.

It was a damned good thing that his apartment allowed pets. No one would report him for this stupid mutt right away. Well, unless Marcia in number 42 saw him. She hated animals, especially dogs, and complained about the ones that already lived in the building incessantly. Sparky had hated her instinctively from the first moment they met four years ago.

Sneaking quickly past the door of the second apartment, gripping the ruff of the dog in one hand since it sported no collar, he hurried to his apartment and unlocked the door as quickly as he could while casting glances down the hall to make sure that none of the doors opened and someone saw his visitor. He had no idea why he was going through so much trouble to let the dog in, but it somehow seemed that it would be a travesty to deny it after it went through so much trouble to follow him all the way up to his apartment. Besides, he got the feeling that if he tried to chase it out now there'd be one hell of a row, and he'd really get in trouble for 'owning' such a noisy animal.

As he opened the door, the dog muscled his way in and headed straight for the kitchen. No hesitation, no inspecting the new place, no waiting for him. What kind of pushy animal had just adopted him?

Well, whatever. He wasn't going to even try to deal wit this right now. He'd wanted some company tonight and he'd gotten it, though not in the form he'd been thinking of. The dog seemed clean and well behaved enough, so he'd let it stay until it got troublesome and then he'd put it back out onto the street where it came from. For some reason it never occurred to Sparky that the animal might have an owner. He just sensed that it didn't, that it was a free spirit that had chosen his apartment as a place to crash for a while. It probably picked a new owner every week, and apparently the last one had given it a bath because it was noticeably lacking the pungent dog smell that usually came from street mutts.

It scrabbled its way across the kitchen linoleum and sat down next to the small, two person table. Its yellow eyes stared at Sparky expectantly, saying plainly, "So, what's for dinner?"

Scratching his head in a combination of bemusement and confusion, the actual resident of the apartment set about making the meal.

"I can't believe that worked." One shook her head.

"Never underestimate a canine." The other grinned before turning away. "So, what do you want for dinner?"

Sparky wondered if he should make a trip out to buy dog food. The animal had happily eaten the plate of food he had served it, not even bypassing the vegetables. He wondered if that was because it was starving, or if it simply had odd tastes for a dog. Right now, it occupied the other end of his couch. It had simply followed him out after dinner and jumped up there, like he was a buddy over to waste the evening.

They were watching a random old movie that Sparky had picked up from work, and the animal appeared enraptured by the screen. It was as if he were actually watching the movie. Sparky had his feet up on the small coffee table and was leaned as far back into the cushions as possible. He yawned as his lack of sleep finally started to catch up to him. A full stomach, a warm apartment, and even some company were making this evening turn out pretty good, despite the rest of the day. He hesitated to actually fall asleep and leave the dog to its own devices, but then decided that he didn't have anything that couldn't be replaced should it be destroyed. That decision made, he closed his eyes and drifted off to the sound of the actors' voices and the dog's breathing.

When he woke up some time later, the only light in the apartment came from the TV screen, now displaying the blank screen that showed that the video cassette had run to its end and rewound itself. It was now very quiet in the apartment, far too quiet for a place with a dog in it.

Hoisting himself up and placing his feet back on the floor, Sparky twisted his head around to search for the animal. He was alerted to its presence by a soft growl. The noise made every hair on his body stand on end, and seemed to emanate from the vicinity of his bedroom. That was strange, because Sparky was fairly certain he had closed the door to keep the dog from entering that room, and incidentally to help him forget about that damn eyeball.

Sparky scrambled to his feet and went to see what exactly was making the dog growl, or rather snarl as it was now doing. It sounded like his new friend was getting more upset by the second. On his way to the room, Sparky glanced at the clock. It showed 1:03 in the morning. Wow, he had been asleep for a while.

He came to a stop in the bedroom doorframe, his eyes not having to search for the animal as it stood dead center in the moonlit space. Its fur glowed silver in the soft light, and its bared teeth glinted unnaturally white. It was staring straight up, and Sparky suddenly knew exactly what it saw. It had been around one in the morning when he had seen the ghostly apparition last night, and now it was back for a return visit. The morbid need to prove himself right pulled his unwilling eyes upwards.

The single dead eye met his gaze. The pupil had slid over to observe him as soon as he entered the room, and now threatened to swallow him into its black depths once again. The dog was in an absolute frenzy now. At this rate, pretty soon it would start howling. Oh no, wait, there it went. The howling, snarling, snapping creature rose to its hind legs and then launched itself towards the ceiling. The surprising part was that he damn near made it. The dog's jaws came within and inch of the eye, drawing its attention away from an eternally grateful Sparky. The white ghostly thing sparked momentarily before abruptly shooting for the safety of the window. The dog followed it from the floor, launching himself at the window as it escaped, stopping himself from crashing through with a paw on each side of the frame.

With its hackles still raised, it returned to the immobile Sparky, laying its ears back against its head and licking his hand to get his attention. Dropping to his knees in relief, Sparky patted the dog's head in gratitude. The animal wagged its tail and nuzzled his hand, seeming to say, "It's alright now, I chased it away."

"Thank you." Sparky honestly expressed his gratitude to the dog. It was a damned good thing the beast had followed him home today, for there was no way he would have been able to handle a second sighting of that thing while alone. As it was, he actually didn't feel frightened any more after seeing his furred friend chased the apparition off. Actually, he felt pretty safe. Not safe enough to sleep in his bed tonight, but he would definitely catch a few more hours on the couch.

He returned to the living room with the dog, after giving one last glance over its shoulder and a soft growl, following. After shutting the bedroom door, Sparky flopped out across the couch and the animal hopped up to occupy the arm chair.

Sparky awoke the next morning to sunlight falling across his face and not remembering falling asleep the night before. Last night would have seemed like a bad dream but for the large canine still comfortably stretched across the chair. Apparently it had been just as worn out by the events of the evening for it was still asleep. It woke up when Sparky moved to start his morning routine, however. It didn't bother moving until after he had taken his shower, gotten dressed, and gone into the kitchen to start breakfast. Sparky watched it slither down from the comfortable cushions and stretch out languidly, yawning widely. As it joined him next to the stove, Sparky came to a decision. He had been thinking about it since he woke up that morning, and now he was sure.

"You know what?" The dog looked up at him, the tip of its tail wagging back and forth. "I think that you're welcome to say here for as long as you like, dog." Sparky said, "In fact, you can stay here for the rest of your life if you want."

"Really? Thanks man! I think I'll take you up on that!" The dog squeezed its eyes shut and wagged its tail harder.

Sparky froze. "Did you just… talk?"

CHAPTER ONE – END

NEXT TIME: Chapter 2 – Subways and Spies