The Shadow Box: Paranormal Suspense and Dark Fantasy Thriller Novels

by Travis Luedke

  “Fine. Just don’t blame me if this goes badly.”

  David felt a buzzing in his head, like a television turned on playing only static. He pressed the heels of his palms against his temples, trying to block out the sound. Black spots flew past his eyes and he felt nauseous.

  “Go,” Jessica, said. “Now just like in class, let me into your mental activity. Release that thought pattern. It’s creating interference.”

  A moment later, the buzzing in David’s head relaxed. He let his hands drop from his temples.

  “That’s better,” Jessica said. “Can you feel me in your head now? Don’t use words, just think, okay? You can feel my pain now, too, right? Let’s start with that rib that’s poking into something or other. No, I don’t know what that organ is called. Does it matter? Just grab hold of it with your PK and put it back into place. Let me guide you.”

  David held his breath. There was a long period of silence. Then Jessica moaned. David caught her before she had dropped more than a few inches.

  “Not. So. Hard.”

  Todd helped her back to her feet and they stared into each other’s eyes. The buzzing returned and grew progressively louder in David’s head. He felt like he was going to pass out soon, himself.

  “What the hell are you doing?” David moaned.

  “Not now.” Todd stood, arms outstretched, fingertips hovering a few inches away from Jessica’s skin.

  Jessica clamped her hands over her mouth, stifling the scream. She was crying freely now. When her hands fell away, her teeth were bared and covered with blood.

  “That hurt,” she said.

  “I did what you told me to,” Todd said. His voice had the tonal quality of a dog that has been whipped.

  “I know. It still hurt. Just one more. Please be quick. I think I’m going to pee my pants.”

  “I think you already did, sweetie. Hold on.”

  Jessica threw back her head, her mouth opened in a silent scream. Her eyes rolled back until all you could see was their whites. David grabbed her by the shoulders and helped keep her on her feet. The buzzing in his head was so loud now his vision blurred. He hoped, whatever Todd was doing, he got it finished quickly.

  As suddenly as it began, the buzzing stopped. It left behind a very sharp headache. All of his muscles felt sore, as if he had run a marathon.

  Jessica’s legs finally gave out underneath her. David lowered her gently to the floor. Her lower lip trembled and her tiny limbs shook as she sobbed silently.

  “What did you do to her?” David stroked Jessica’s forehead. Her skin was almost too hot to touch and she was covered in oily sweat.

  “I couldn’t have done it on my own. She used me in a way. Used my power to lift a couple of bones back into place. Then she, or we I guess, fused the torn flesh together. It was kind of like pushing pieces of wet dough together until they form a whole piece. I felt everything she felt. I don’t think, hell, I know there is no way I could have put up with it. Whatever I felt, she felt it a hundred times worse. But she never lost control of her power. Not once.”

  “That must be why Ms. Ryerson put her in charge.”

  They jumped at the voice. As David spun, lines of fire danced on his fingertips. Then he relaxed and the flames disappeared. She was only a few feet away, arms folded across her chest. The machine gun hung at her side. Her face seemed as cold and solid as the gun.

  “That was a stupid risk.” Elaine sighed, turned and walked back to wherever she had come from. “All that power you used, even I felt it. Any Edimmu within a few miles would have as well, let alone anything worse. Now get some sleep. I think we’ve all had enough excitement for one day.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Echo opened her eyes to the darkness. Surprisingly, she was still alive. It took her several moments to remember exactly what had happened. Memory hit her about the same time her eyes adjusted to the dark.

  “I’m back on the island,” she said aloud. She pushed herself up and looked around. “Damn you, Propates.”

  After sending Elaine away with the Anomalies, she had made her way to her bedroom. Propates was there, seated at her vanity, flipping through her most recent diary. When she entered the room, he looked up and smiled.

  “Really charming the way you describe me in here, Andromeda. Sorry, sorry, I forgot. Echo. I had no idea you still held a torch for me. I thought we quenched that flame in Jerusalem.”

  “We did. Chalk it up to too much wine.”

  Propates closed the book and stared at the cover. “It doesn’t have to end this way.”

  Echo flicked her wrist and her diary flew out of his hands. “You know there are about four hundred and fifty ways I hate you. Don’t you think you should stop while you’re ahead? You come in here, destroy another of my favorite homes, kill my servants and kidnap a bunch of kids I’m supposed to be taking care of, and now this? But reading my diary? You must have a death wish.”

  The shadows in the room swirled and collected in the corners with implications of something fluttering in their depths.

  “I’m starting to think you’re the one with the death wish.” He rose to his feet and the shadows stretched out toward him. “I warned you to stay out of this. You chose differently. I didn’t want to do this but I have no choice.”

  Echo prepared to respond but never got the chance. A bullet of shadow shot at her and sliced through her shoulder. Before she could scream in pain, another piece of darkness sliced through the air. Then another. And another. She turned in circles, trying to anticipate each new attack, failing each time. Within a minute, every inch of her skin was covered in blood. She opened a circle of light and prepared to jump.

  “Tsk tsk,” Propates said. “Not so fast. “ He blew a kiss at the portal. Shadows poured out of the corners and recesses of the room, filling the portal, blocking her exit. “Can’t let you get away this time, pet. Bad example and all. This should send the kind of message that even Wisdom can’t ignore.”

  The bullets of shadow were larger now, foot-long jagged shards. They sliced through her skin like shears through rose petals. The pain grew to a numbing heat.

  ‘Move quickly or die,’ she thought. Then she couldn’t think. In the end it was instinct and luck that saved her. A little trick, really. A simple thing. The underground tunnels were lined with a psycho-luminescent mineral that was the source of the ever-present light. It reacted to the presence of sentient life and hummed with soft light. Echo understood the reaction, if not the chemistry behind it. Her will provided the energy for the light, so she funneled as much as she dared into the ceiling. Bright light flashed from corner to corner, melting the shadow weapons in mid-air. Propates took a step toward her, cockiness replaced by fury. Before he could react, she opened a second circle of light below her and let her body fall.

  Now on her island, Echo took several deep breaths and cleared her mind. Then, for the first time in a decade, she sobbed hysterically.

  ‘He would have killed me,’ she thought. After the fit passed, she walked to the bathroom, paying no attention to the bloody footprints she left behind her. She healed herself, closing the wounds. She didn’t feel clean, however, until she showered off the blood. She stayed under the spray until the water ran cold. Then she wrapped a robe around her trembling muscles and walked to the kitchen.

  The house was empty now. Annisa and Roma’s bodies lay somewhere in the rubble back in Turkey. She rummaged through the cupboards for canned goods, allowing herself a moment of fantasy. Maybe they really were all dead. Maybe Elaine had failed and the Anomalies had fallen to the Edimmu. Maybe even Wisdom had got himself killed. Then she would be free.

  As much as she would have liked to believe that, she knew it was not true. She felt it.

  She ate a sparse meal of mushroom soup and chocolate ice cream and turned her mind to other things. Even from literally the other side of the world, she could feel Propates back in his squalid little Grecian encampment.

  ‘Why didn’t he fo
llow me?’ She scratched her chin and stared at the ceiling. ‘Maybe he’s giving me one last chance to stay out of this. If I was smart that’s exactly what I’d do. But Elaine and the Anomalies are waiting for me to rescue them. This is the last thing I’m doing. Then I’m done.’

  Leaving the dirty dishes in the sink, she opened another gateway.

  “You owe me one for this, Wisdom.”

  ***

  David screamed at the flash of light and nearly pissed his pants again. It was not until Echo stepped through the portal that he started to breathe again.

  “Where the hell have you been?” he said.

  Echo raised her eyebrows and lifted her hand as if to smack him upside the head. Instead, she waved her hand at the portal. It disappeared as quickly as it had come.

  “Way to show your gratitude, David.” Elaine walked toward Echo. “Forgive the pretty body. He’s an idiot. Glad to see you made it. We were worried.”

  “I’m sure you were. Let’s get out of this dead city. The sooner I hand you back to Wisdom, the better. I want nothing more to do with this whole fiasco.”

  “What about the other Anomalies?” Todd grimaced as some inner pain racked through his body. “We have to rescue them or something. We can’t leave them with Propates.”

  “Not my concern,” Echo said. “Not even on my radar. Wisdom created this mess. He can fix it.”

  “Wisdom had an errand to run,” Elaine squared her shoulders. “I don’t think we should take his not being here as a bad thing. I’m sure he’ll show up as soon as he can. When he does, we’ll make a plan to get them back.”

  “How do you know he’s not back already?”

  “Jessica says she can’t feel him. And like I said, he expected to be away for quite some time.”

  “And I take it you’re not at liberty to discuss his little mission, are you?” Echo bit her tongue and shook her head. “Typical. That man is never here when I need him. I don’t know why I keep expecting that will change.”

  “You’re more important to him than you realize, Echo.” Elaine cleared her throat and put a hand on Echo’s shoulder.

  Echo's shoulders slumped and she sighed. “Let’s get the four of you someplace safe. When Wisdom wants to find us, he will.”

  Echo flicked her wrist again and the portal reappeared. David let Jessica and Todd go first. He motioned for Elaine to follow them. She rolled her eyes and pointed him forward by jutting forth her chin.

  On the other side of the portal, he closed his eyes to shake off the afterimages of bright light that stained his retinas. To his left, something roared. He opened his eyes and slowly realized what the sound was: ocean waves crashing against a beach.

  Eyes wide, he walked past Todd and Jessica to the open-air windows. He took a deep breath of the salty air. Although Dartmouth never got this warm, the scent reminded him of home. Sweat poured freely down the back of his neck and ran in a steady drizzle from his armpits to his elbows.

  “Glad to feel moisture again,” he said. “I felt like I was drinking sand the whole time we were underground.”

  “Nice, isn’t it?” Echo handed him a glass of ice with a little iced tea thrown in for color. He drank it down quickly, convinced it was the best iced tea he had ever tasted. Then he put the glass against his cheek. He could almost see steam rising up from where it caressed his hot flesh.

  “It’s paradise,” he replied. She smiled in response and put a comforting hand on his elbow. Then she handed out drinks to the others. David turned back to watch the waves crash against the beach and listened to the conversations around him.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Echo’s voice was throaty and solid, full of command. Jessica rattled off a list of various injuries. Several times Todd tried to speak for himself, saying that Jessica was the one who needed to be looked after, but she kept shushing him.

  The windows looked out over a wooden porch to the high crescent moon and millions of stars. It was bright enough for him to see fairly far. At the right end of the porch, a staircase ran down to a ten-foot wide patch of grass. At the edge of the grass, greenery gave way to clean white sand. He looked up and down the beach. It went on as far as he could see to left and right. Off to the left he also saw a patch of forest with a thin strip of grass separating it from the sand. A breeze blew over his face and dried the perspiration on his cheek.

  ‘I have no idea where in the world I am,’ he thought. ‘My life is so completely crazy. Earlier today I saw psychic surgery in an underground city built by reptilians. Now I’m standing at the edge of an unknown ocean. I barely know these people. Hell, I don’t even know their last names. Home feels incredibly far away.’

  He lifted the glass to his lips. The ice cubes were melting and he drank the build-up of water collecting in the glass. ‘Strange to think I just left Dartmouth a few weeks ago. Wonder how Mom’s doing. Is she even trying to look for me? Probably not. She probably hopes I disappear until the police close the case.’

  His third murder.

  It was easy to forget he was a killer. Sometimes he went an entire day without the thought popping into his head. Then a piece of an overheard conversation or a stray fragrance would take him back. He would smell the burning flesh; hear the screams of the gaggle of kids across the street. Worst of all was when he remembered the feeling, the satisfaction he felt as Dane Houghton rolled around on the grass trying to smother the fire that ate him alive.

  Thinking back, David fought to keep his lips from curling back into the same smile he had worn as he had stared past the orange and blue flames to watch flesh and bone melt. At the time, he had not even known the boy’s name. He had heard it on the television hours after the boy had stopped struggling.

  ***

  Dane Houghton was nobody, not in David’s life anyway. He was a 16-year-old high school student with a part-time job delivering newspapers.

  At 19 David graduated high school and took a job washing dishes at a fish and chips restaurant. It was ludicrously hot as he walked home that day in late July. He had changed his shirt after work, but it was hopeless; everything about him reeked of wet garbage. His hair was thick from the oily air in the kitchen. A pungent film coated his face and neck. So when the kid walked by and told him to take a shower, David wasn’t feeling particularly charitable.

  It was tempting to think it was temporary insanity, brush it off as a psychotic break. Only, he seemed incapable of fooling himself. As comforting as it would have been to believe otherwise, David was fully cognizant of his actions and the consequences of what he planned to do. He knew it was wrong, but he didn’t care. The voice of reason told him he should just ignore the thin brown-haired kid. After all, David was the adult now. The most he should have done was tell the kid to screw off. Instead, he turned, slowly, and snapped his fingers.

  Flame flashed over Dane’s t-shirt and jeans. He waved his arms around, dropped his bundle of newspapers before any of them caught fire, and then threw himself on the ground. It was only then that David saw the group of kids getting off the bus. The kids who pointed and screamed. The bus driver got out and pushed all the children back on the bus. David barely paid attention to them. He kept his eyes on the burning body, the boy he set on fire.

  The boy he killed for telling him to take a shower.

  ***

  “I’m not a monster.” He looked at the glass in his hands and set it down. He felt sick to his stomach. The smell of burning flesh was thick in his nostrils.

  “Did you say something?”

  He looked over his shoulder. Echo was just putting the phone back in the cradle. He had not heard her speaking on the phone. He realized he had been staring out at the sea for longer than he had intended. He walked over to one of the beige chairs in the living room and sat down before his legs gave out beneath him. “Nothing,” he said. “Just talking to myself.”

  She shrugged her shoulders and walked out of the room.

  ***

  He woke up to the smell of food.
He didn’t remember falling asleep in the chair. It wasn’t like him to nod off like that, but he did feel better now.

  Jessica and Todd were playing cards at a circular table between the living room and the kitchen. Both seemed stronger, somehow. It took several moments before David realized they were no longer covered in bruises. Jessica’s shoulder bone was back inside the flesh. He felt the back of his head and looked over his own body. Except for the remnants of dried blood on his skin, none of his wounds were visible. It appeared Echo was a talented healer after all. Hearing muffled talking, he searched for the source. Elaine sat at a mahogany desk at the far end of the living room with a phone to one ear. She was writing notes with her right hand, her voice rising occasionally in angry tones. David stood up and walked over to his classmates.

  “What’s going on?”

  Todd placed a seven of diamonds over a seven of clubs in a pile of cards on the table. “Crazy eights. Echo took off again. I think Elaine’s calling Wisdom’s offices around the world trying to track him down.”

  “I hate you!” Jessica kicked a leg of the table and picked up a card from the turned-over pile. “Shoot. I can’t go. Are you happy?”

  Todd smiled and laid down a three of diamonds. “Very happy. Do you want to play, David?”

  “No thanks,” he sat down at one of the other two chairs around the round table. “Isn’t this kind of unfair? I mean, with you guys being psychic and all? Can’t you tell what the other one is going to play?”

  Jessica rolled her eyes and picked up another card. “It wouldn’t be much fun if we did that, now, would it? Besides, all we would have to do is think of a whole bunch of cards we don’t have and it would throw off the other person. Even if I tried to cheat, I know Todd well enough to realize he wouldn’t think about the cards he really has in his hands.”

  “You know me that well, huh?” Todd laid down a two of diamonds. Jessica kicked the table leg again and picked up two more cards. “Echo rounded up a few servants somehow. A few of them are cooking supper for us. She said she’d be back by the time we’re on dessert.”