Moon Shadow, Moon Shadow..

 If you watch long enough, under certain conditions, shadows grow impatient. When in a room alone with your a small light source, focus on it. The Shadow will slowly close in on you, until you move. Watch sometime in a room lit with only by candle light. If you're completely still for long enough, the Shadows will begin to move. Sometimes you can make out shapes. These things have lived with you your whole life. - creepypasta.net 

 I first met the Shadow people in my basement. They mostly stayed in the dark corner, quietly coming out in the evening when I would take the trash down to the incinerator at the bottom of the old stairway. Watching the fire burn brightly while I pushed in the trash, I would occasionally see the shadow of a person moving closer as if attracted by, but also repelled by the firelight.
  Seven steps to the top of the stairs. I could make in in two and half leaps if I had to.  Of course I did if one of the shadows got too close or I saw the firelight reflected in their eyes.  I was not courageous or curious enough to stay and see what happened.  Nothing ever did; if anyone else saw them I never heard; nor did I ever speak of it until now. 
  The Shadow people didn't follow me to California. Perhaps too much sunshine and very few basements. I put them out of my mind for many years. After I enlisted and came back east I would sometimes see one lurking about. I put it down to an over active imagination and a vague belief in the supernatural. The Shadow folk reappeared in a little country town in Texas I lived in for a few months. In the evenings I would take my dog Rufus out for a walk. Occasionally she would just stop dead in her tracks and refuse to go forward. At first I put it down to something I couldn't sense like another animal. Then, one night I again caught the glint of light from eyes fixed on me. The childhood memories came rushing back. Rufus and I took our walks a little earlier from then on. I soon moved back to to the city. 
  Though there were stories of ghosts aboard the Coral Sea I never encountered one nor a Shadow. Once in a while on the mess deck something strange would happen. Like a full dinner tray jumping right off a table. I saw this more than once. It gave credence to the story of the phantasm that inhabited the mess along with the crew. A well known story that survived for years in the ship's folklore.
  I had gotten into the habit of listening to late night talk radio while working nights. The show I usually followed was Art Bell's Coast to Coast.  Art claimed to be an abductee of aliens; The Close Encounter of the Fourth Kind. His talk show highlighted his beliefs and those of his callers who had their share of inexplicable adventures with aliens, sasquatch, chupacabra, the CIA and demons. The shadow people were often mentioned. 
  Samoa, our Shepherd/Black Lab Pound Puppy alerted me to the presence of the Shadows here in Virginia; though there are few basements. It was on a late evening walk we noticed the strange being. Sam did something odd. She completely avoided a fire hydrant that she would normally sniff at until I had to drag her away. Sitting on the hydrant was a Shadow, barely visible in the darkness. I edged past, it stared at me, obvious intelligence reflected in the silvery, dark eyes.
      weeks later and several sightings later, Journey woke me. I glanced at the red numbers on my alarm clock. it read 3:23. "Dad, I just saw a man in my room. " We went back there, checked it out and found nothing to indicate anything unusual. Window was close and locked, as was the one in the other bedroom. I thought she had just dreamed it, and asked her to describe it. "It was dark grey, almost like a shadow, but real" I said she could lay down with me if she liked, but she decided to return to her own bed.
  Days later she started experiencing sharp pains in her abdomen. She would roll up into a ball on the floor and scream. This meant a trip to the emergency room, once an ambulance ride. I felt helpless as the doctors were unable to find anything amiss. This went on for months. She had to drop out of school for awhile because the attacks would occur at any time of day. CAT scans revealed she was missing a kidney but the doc didn't believe that was the problem. Finally a laproscope from an understanding, patient, and skillful doctor discovered some muscle tissue that shouldn't have been there connected her abdominal wall to a spot on her large intestine. The tissue was removed during the laproscopy and the pain disappeared.
  I didn't see the Shadows again until the winter of 2007 /2008.  A few months later I was diagnosed with cancer. Was there a connection?  Or is it all my imagination? I ask because I saw a Shadow last night. Sitting quietly on a wall the next street over. Sam didn't pay any attention to it. I just returned the stare. For some reason it didn't frighten me. Instead, I felt sort of a calm peacefulness from it, as if it wished me well. Today. Cameryn was suspended from school for two days. She smacked a friend in the back of the head. Richard returned the gesture, missed, but hit some other kid; apparently doing damage to his eye. Is there a connection?  I wish I knew.