by Lozar, D. C.
The Shadow King
by
D. C. Lozar
DCLozar.com
Cover by GoOnWrite.com
The book smelled like a toilet. That was the only reason we didn’t throw it out along with the other junk we’d stole from the sewer gang – It was gross. Gross was cool.
It wasn’t until Alice joined up that we learned how to use the book to survive. See, someone had written down all kinds of important things inside. If you knew how to read, it told you which apartments were abandoned, which had food, and which were booby-trapped. As scavengers, our lives depended on stuff like that, and so it became our gang's prized possession. To be fair, we passed it by lottery to a different kid every week. The ceremony of exchange was done inside a circle of candles with all of us witnessing it. We swore to protect the book no matter what, and each of us took our oath seriously.
Jacob drew my name from the bucket yesterday.
I took the oath, and I meant it.
Today, Jacob wanted to explore the swamps at the edge of the city. The glades were an extension of our town with the same buildings, roads, and shopping centers only everything was submerged in brown water. None of us had explored much beyond the dry streets, but Jacob said his gut told him we'd find something good out there. So, we followed him single file down a steep embankment and into the muck.
You got used to the humidity in the city, the wet sticky feeling that you were walking through someone’s sneeze, but it was a hundred times worse in that goop. The ground sucked at our feet while the mosquitos, the big black ones with red eyes, whined in our ears. I slapped at them and wiped the blood off on my T-shirt. Soon, I was covered in welts the size of tomatoes.
Mickey crouched down and smeared mud all over his body. We got a kick out of that because he looked like some cheap movie monster, but he stopped getting bit. So, it wasn't long before we were all slimed up. Mickey said his grandfather taught him the trick. I never knew my grandparents, and my parents were useless.
Dad worked in an office, smoked, and watched TV. Mom stayed home, did stuff on the computer, and yelled at me whenever I made too much noise. They never told me anything useful except maybe to let the punishment fit the crime, which didn’t make sense since the punishment, me having to do more chores, stayed the same no matter what I did wrong. I like to think they had better advice, stuff they were saving to tell me when I got older, but they never got the chance. No one's seen an adult in two years. Jacob said it's just as well on account of them messing up the world.
I licked my lips and almost gagged. The stuff tasted like the rot you found on the inside of an old tire. If I were a mosquito, I wouldn't bite me either.
Jacob told me to take the lead. He wanted to go back and make sure everyone was still coming. I nodded, proud to have been trusted with the task. Being in charge of the book meant Jacob tended to notice you and asked you to do things. If you did them well, he gave you a good report at the council meeting. I checked my backpack. The book was nice and dry. I tightened the straps, making sure the pack sat high on my shoulders.
Finding a safe path was hard. There were places where the ground ended, just dropped down into a hungry emptiness that sent chills up my back, and there were things that swam past my ankles that I hoped were fish. You had to hunt around with your toes, dig down into the ooze, to make sure you were on solid ground before moving forward. I felt something roll and snap under my heel. It felt like a bone.
It was mid-afternoon when I noticed the shouting. It was the urgent kind of yelling, the kind that means something bad was happening, and so I wiped the sweat from my eyes and turned back. The line of kids behind me was retracing their steps - anxious to see what the noise was about.
I was the last to make it to the accident.
Alice had fallen through the window of a car buried in the sludge. Jacob pulled her out, but her leg got caught on a piece of glass. It was a deep cut, the kind they used to take you to the emergency room for, and a disc of crimson formed around her.
We helped her out of the muck, up into the crook of a dead tree, and gave her rags to slow down the bleeding. We told her we'd come back for her.
She knew we wouldn’t. If you couldn’t keep up, you got left behind. That was a rule.
It was too bad about Alice. I mean she was nice to look at, and she read stories to us before bed, so we didn’t think about the shadows.
I think that's why I stayed behind after everyone else left. I felt like maybe I owed her something for the stories. I gave her my rations and water. It wasn't much, but she started to cry. She said I was too good for our gang and gave me a hug. That was nice. I'd never gotten a hug from a girl before, and it made me feel weird, but in a good way. Only, I guess it didn't matter because I wasn't going to see her again.
I felt guilty leaving her there, but I knew the rules. The rules kept you alive.
So, I left.
After a while, the water level dropped to our knees and then to our ankles. Trees, big gnarled ones with lots of branches grew out of the swamp to offer us a gloomy sort of shade. Birds chirped at us from the branches. I saw an alligator and some water moccasins, but they didn’t bother us. No one talked. I think we were all feeling bad for leaving Alice.
About a click away, the ground rose up onto dry land and, even if it was only an island of cement, it made us feel like we had just found the lost city of Atlantis. Jacob rushed back down the line, a smile plastered across his mud-caked face, and said he had found something major. We sprinted through the trees, and there it was: An old gas station, as pristine as the day it was built, an abandoned treasure hidden in the depths of the wild.
We broke the glass door and climbed inside. There was no power, but we all had flashlights so it was easy to see we’d found a gold mine. Canned food, water, and bags of snacks filled every shelf. We were the first ones to scavenge it, so the whole place was like pure vintage stuff.
I don’t think I’ve eaten that much in all my life: Ravioli, Lays Potato Chips, Twizzlers, Dentine, Twinkies, and a candy called Good & Plenty that no one but me liked. There was adult stuff too: cigarettes, beer, and chewing tobacco. None of us wanted it, but Jacob said we should bring some of it back anyhow so we could barter with one of the older gangs.
I don’t know who started humming first but pretty soon our whole group, nearly twenty kids, was singing and laughing. It was a great day for our family, a historic day. I’m sure we looked strange, a bunch of half-naked teens, wolfing down Cheetos and Coke, covered in slime, but we were happy like it was someone’s birthday. Jacob even smiled, and so we knew he was proud of us.
Then, it all ended.
“There’s a shadow out there!” Carli stood just inside the door. She had her flasher out, and she looked scared. “It went behind the store. I don’t think it saw me.”
Everything went dead silent. Slowly, moving like panthers on the balls of our feet, we went to the window. The sun winked at us through the tree branches. We had maybe an hour before dusk. It was time to head back.
We worked quickly, packing up as much loot as we could carry, stuffing our bags and pockets. It was a good haul; the best we’d ever had. Now, came the hard part – getting home alive.
Before we left, I went to ask Jacob if we could drop off some food and water with Alice. I found him searching for something under the checkout counter. I moved closer, curious, and he stood up fast and stared at me. It wasn’t a friendly stare.
“What?” he said.
“You find something?” I asked, moving closer. There was a black thing in his hand, and he was trying to keep it hidden. You weren’t supposed to hide loot from the group. We were expected to share. That was one of the rules. Only, Jacob made the rules, so he didn’t alwa
ys follow them as well as the rest of us.
“No.” His eyes got cold, corpse-like, and he leaned toward me. “Are you saying I did find something?”
I’d seen what happened to kids who pissed-off Jacob.
He didn’t go after them directly. Bloody noses and bruises weren’t Jacob’s style. He liked to make people think everything was good and that he respected the way they stood up for themselves. Then, in a week or so, an accident happened, or they got caught breaking one of the rules.
Bad things happened to people who broke the rules. I’d made those bad things happen. We all had. If you didn’t enforce the rules, what was the point?
So, I said, “I was just wondering about Alice.”
“What about her?”
“She's not hurt that bad, right? I mean, she was bleeding, but if we put some bandages on her, ask Frank to help, maybe let her rest for a few days?”
“We told her we were coming back for her, didn’t we?” Jacob’s fingers tightened around the thing in his hand. “Are you saying we weren’t? Are you calling us liars?”
“Chill, Jacob. That’s not it.” I noticed that some of the other kids had stopped packing their bags to watch. That was bad. The more people who paid attention, the higher the stakes got. I needed to spin the heat, make it slip off me before I got burned. “You know I got the book this week. I just wanted to write down exactly where that car was so no one else gets hurt.”
“You do that, Flip,” he said the words slow, loud enough for everyone to hear his tone. “And, while you're at it, write down how to find this gas station."
"You got it."
"I can depend on you, right?” Behind the counter, he slid the black thing into his backpack. It looked heavy.
“Yeah.” I swallowed hard. Jacob knew I couldn’t write two words to save my life. Alice was the one who wrote things in the book, and I noticed he didn't say I should write down where we'd left her.
“Okay, then.” He gave me a half-grin. “Let’s get home.”
I felt my stomach cramp up. Jacob never smiled that way at anyone he liked.
We didn’t go back the same way we came. I tried to pay attention, to remember some of the landmarks, but by that time it was getting dark, and it was hard to see details. No one else asked about Alice. They were smarter than me.
“I can help you,” whispered Mickey. He was tall, so the marsh water only went up to his waist. “I’ll write it down when we get back. Just slip me the book when he falls asleep.”
“Thanks. You can write?”
He nodded in the gloom and sloshed forward, leaving me to wonder why he'd never said anything. That was the kind of thing Jacob would want to know.
Then, I noticed Carli leaning down to make marks on trees, cars, and lampposts with a piece of chalk. Carli was our artist, and she never went anywhere without a bag full of chalk.
I was relieved that Mickey was willing to help me. It was good to have friends, people who were willing to take risks for you. Maybe if I kept my head down long enough, Jacob would forget about what had happened at the gas station.
I choked down a laugh. Jacob never forgot anything.
I was a dead man.
We got back home, an underground parking garage, about an hour after dark and unloaded our loot into the vault. We called it a vault, but it was just a busted elevator with doors that took four people to pull apart. We each got to keep some of the day’s take. That meant six Good & Plenty boxes, two sodas, and three beef jerkies for me.
We were exhausted, dirty, and coming down off our sugar high. It was time to sleep.
No such luck.
Frank turned on the garage’s indoor car wash, and we rushed in as a group, clothes and all.
Showers were hard to come by so you took one when you got the chance.
Frank hated us, but he hated dirt even more. There was some maximum grime threshold for our group, and if we hit it, he turned on the wash. The water was icy cold, but it was clean.
Skim stood outside, muddy from head to foot, and watched. He never showered because his parents died of pneumonia instead of disappearing. He said cold showers caused pneumonia.
I wondered if Jacob was still fuming, but he wasn’t in the shower.
Once the dirt was off, we all sloshed back to our respective cars to change.
I lived in a sleek navy Renzo four-door with silver trim. I stowed my stuff in the front and slept in the back. Tonight, I made sure I didn’t close my door all the way. I was supposed to sneak out to give the book to Mickey, and I didn’t want the lock click waking anyone.
Mickey yelled, “Lights out,” and turned down the twelve battery-powered lanterns we’d hung from the ceiling.
My feet stank, but I'd busted out my car’s windows months ago, so there was plenty of air to dry them out. I wriggled out of my clothes, tossed them through the window, and pulled on new ones. With no adults around, wardrobes were easy to find. It was getting the right size that was hard.
Once I changed, I unzipped my backpack and reached inside.
I dug around, sliding my loot aside.
The book was gone.
Quietly, scared that someone might see, I emptied the bag and checked every compartment. There were no holes, no loose zippers, and thus no way for the book to have fallen out on its own.
My heart beat like crazy.
Rule number one: Don’t lose the book!
I glanced at Jacob’s car; a black limousine parked against the far wall. I couldn’t see much because he'd only broken out the front and back windshields. The side windows were tinted one-way glass, so we never knew if he was watching us or not. A strange metallic clicking noise came irregularly from inside, so I guessed he was still awake.
I’d left my backpack outside the shower with everyone else’s. Had Jacob taken the book to make me look bad? But Skim had been there, waiting. He would have said something. You never went into anyone else’s backpack, no matter what. I shook my head. It didn’t make sense. The book couldn’t have just vanished.
Mickey would be waiting for it. He would wonder why I hadn’t come.
Tomorrow, Jacob would ask to see what I’d written.
Fingers trembling, I stuffed my loot back into my bag. I had enough to survive on my own for a few days. I should make a run for it. Maybe I should find Alice. We could team up.
Then, I remembered how Alice had hugged me. It had been a long hug, like when you’re saying goodbye to someone forever. Only now, I didn't think that was what she was doing. Now, I think she was making sure I’d come back.
Alice had the book.
Going out alone after dark was another broken rule.
I gritted my teeth. I was racking them up. Still, once you broke one, there wasn’t much point in keeping track. Jacob was a lot like my parents that way. The punishment didn’t depend on the crime. It was going to be bad no matter what I did.
I had my supplies, but I knew Alice wasn’t going to give me the book for that. She would want bandages and first aid stuff. That meant I needed to talk to Frank.
Frank was the building’s A.I. and part of the reason we had chosen to live in a parking garage. For some reason that none of us understood, including Frank, he still worked. His best guess was the solar cells they had installed on the roof were the best money could buy and, as our little gang could attest, well worth the investment.
Frank, on-the-other-hand, was a little iffy.
He didn’t like us sleeping in his cars. He thought their owners could be back at any moment and would be upset to find pint-sized hoodlums camping out in their vehicles. Frank called the police thousands of times a day to tell them about the trespassers who had taken over his car park. Of course, no one ever answered. He threatened us with jail time, reprimands from our parents, and had even tried to guilt us into leaving. He never turned on the lights or heated the car wash. In short, he was a total nub.
Still, we stayed.
It’s not that we didn’t try to e
xplain things to him. We did. It was just that his system reset at six in the morning, and so he forgot. Mickey said Frank had Old Timer’s Disease for computers.
I rummaged through the stuff I’d saved over the years. There was a chance I wasn’t coming back, and I didn’t want to leave anything important. There was a picture of my older sister, Lyle, who disappeared with my parents, and a pocketknife that no one knew I had. I stuffed these in my jeans and pulled on a pair of dry socks and my best tennis shoes. Knowing we were going into the swamp none of us had worn shoes today, but it was good to have something to protect my feet.
Eventually, the metallic clicking sounds issuing from Jacob’s limousine stopped, so I guessed he was asleep. Carefully, I pushed my door open.
I kept low, clinging to the shadows. There was a place where I had to cross between two rows of cars, and it put me out in the open. If Jacob had been watching through his tinted windows, he couldn’t have missed me. Still, I was fast, just a blur, and no one sounded any alarms, so I got lucky. I found Carli standing guard near the ramp, but she was chalking a picture on the wall, so it wasn’t hard to sneak past her.
Frank’s mainframe was on the ground floor, three flights up from our gang’s basement stakeout, and so I was a little winded when I entered the lobby. The atrium’s bay windows looked out onto an abandon city street filled with unused cars, shopping carts, and garbage. It was a clear night with a Gibson moon that made the lobby look eerie and dreamlike. I shivered, wishing it was a dream – it wasn’t.
Frank was in the room behind a walnut security desk. I walked toward it, trying not to make noise even though I knew no one could hear me. I couldn’t help it. It was that kind of night.
I needed to talk to Frank, and there was only one way to do it.
I stuffed my backpack under the desk, out of sight, and pulled the pocketknife out. It was old and rusted with a dull blade. Alice had shown me how to sharpen it on a stone, but I had never gotten around to it. I shrugged. You can’t fix what you can’t fix.
Gritting my teeth, squinting shut my eyes, I drew the blade along the top of my thigh, hard and fast - nothing happened. I opened my eyes and tried again, using more force, and making sure the blade was on the right side. Still nothing. My denim jeans were too tough. I had to come up with a way to do this fast before I lost my nerve.