Paranormal After Dark

by Rebecca Hamilton

  He heard a faint linger of an accent—the way she said his name with the inflection on the last syllable, Tho-mas. He guessed she must have been born in Spain or even South America and then come here as a child, but he wasn’t going to get into her past now.

  “How long have you been sitting there?”

  She shrugged. “A while.”

  The idea of her watching him sleep embarrassed him and he hoped he hadn’t farted or scratched himself somewhere he shouldn’t have. His cheeks flushed at the thought and he turned his face away, willing the colour in his skin to fade.

  “I have to talk to you,” she said again. “It’s about David.”

  Immediately, he forgot all thoughts of being embarrassed and sat up straight, searching her deep, brown eyes for an answer. “What’s happened? Is he all right? Please, tell me.”

  “I’m sorry, Tom, but it’s not good. He hasn’t responded to the treatment in the way he should have and he seems to be taking a turn for the worse.”

  “Oh, God.” Tom’s hand was at his mouth. “Are you sure?”

  “I found out earlier today. Your wife should have been told by now as well.”

  “I should be there,” he said. “I need to be with them.”

  She put her hand on top of his and shook her head. “No, this is where you need to be.”

  “But this was his last chance at chemo. If he’s not responding...”

  The doctors had already been through the options with Tom and Abby. They allowed three attempts at chemo and radiotherapy to kill the cancer cells and if that didn’t work, the only other option was a bone marrow transplant. Both Tom and Abby had been tested for a match, as had Abby’s sister who lived in Ireland now, but all had come back negative. Obviously, Tom had no family on his side, so their only choice was for David to go on a waiting list. It could take months for the doctors to find a match—months their son didn’t have.

  “Oh, God,” he said again as a painful lump tightened in his throat. The world blurred before him and he blinked, trying to will the tears away, but failing. A tear ran down his nose and plopped onto the back of Samantha’s hand. She reached up and gently touched his cheek with the back of her fingers.

  The simple affection caught his heart and something broke deep inside. All the pain and guilt he’d been suffering over David’s illness and the pretence of strength he’d been trying to show Abby and David was hard. That, coupled with the fear about what he had seen and experienced in the tunnels and of what lay ahead, became too much. In that simple touch, Samantha had broken down his barriers.

  He reached up and clutched at her hand, his fingers locking with hers, and a loud bark of a sob of grief escaped his throat.

  Immediately, her arms were around him and she pulled his head against her so he sobbed into the nape of her neck. Her skin was warm and moist beneath his tears and strands of her hair clung to his stubble. She hushed him and gently rubbed his back as though he were a child himself. Tom allowed himself to cry against her, and he cried for his son, for himself, until the outpouring of grief subsided.

  Ashamed and embarrassed at his outburst, Tom sat back up. He hadn’t wanted her to see him like that—she was little more than a stranger to him. But perhaps that was the reason he’d been able to let himself go in front of her; he didn’t need to worry about letting her down.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I couldn’t help myself.”

  “Don’t be silly. In my job, I see lots of grieving parents.”

  “I don’t want you to think I’m a big cry baby.”

  “I promise I won’t. And David is still alive, he still has a chance.” She reached out again and took his hand, drawing his eyes to the deep well of her own. “He still has you, Tom.”

  He had the sudden urge to kiss her hard on the mouth, to push her back on the floor, to wrench up her shirt and touch her, to pull down her underwear and lose himself inside of her. It was a need—a desperation—to shrug off the pain and confusion, if only for a moment, and feel something else entirely.

  She picked up on his intent. He recognised the parting of her lips, the flush in her cheeks, her hesitation to move away.

  But Samantha’s gaze flicked away; a small movement, but enough to break the moment, and the compulsion was gone.

  “I’m sorry,” he told her.

  She gave a tiny hint at a smile before turning back to the matter at hand. “You need to defeat the Shadows. Once you send the Shadows back, it will reveal to you how to save your son.”

  He stared at her, his forehead creased, his eyes narrowed. “How can you possibly know that?”

  “The one who defeats the Shadows will get what he longs for most. In your case, the health of your child. It is written in the laws of the Underlife.”

  He would have laughed out loud if the whole thing wasn’t so torturous. “This is bullshit,” he said, not for the first time. “Do you know what you sound like? Come on, you’re an intelligent woman, can’t you see how crazy this all is?”

  “And can’t you see what your fate has brought you to do?”

  In his frustration, he wanted to yell, to reach up and rip the walls of the tent down around him.

  “I saw that thing,” he said, anger simmering beneath the surface, threatening to overspill. “It was almost as close as you are now and I could barely hear myself think. I had whispering inside my head, pushing out all my own thoughts. The sound alone almost drove me crazy.”

  “The stuff you saw was only a small part of the Shadows. It’s like one huge organism split into many parts, like a colony. The Shadows uses us like a host, driving our own thoughts out of ourselves so it can take over and use the fear and madness to pass on to the next one.”

  “Next one?”

  “The next host. Once it has pushed your own thoughts completely out of your head, it takes over. You will still be conscious, still aware of what is happening, but the Shadows drives your actions. You’re not much more than a puppet.”

  “I hope this isn’t you trying to make me feel better” he said with the thinnest of smiles. “Because you really suck at it.”

  “This isn’t the time for jokes.”

  “Sorry,” he said with a frown. “I still don’t understand. Why do the Shadows want to hurt us?”

  “It doesn’t want to hurt us; we’re nothing.” Understanding she wasn’t getting anywhere, Samantha switched to a different explanation. “Do you know what rabies does?” she asked.

  Tom nodded, but the frown deepened. “It’s a virus that makes animals, like dogs and bats, bite each other.”

  “You’re right, but it also does a lot more. The rabies virus passes from each of its victims through the victim’s saliva. That is the reason a rabies victim will foam at the mouth, and, like you said, they bite. But what it also does is give the victims an intense fear of water so they can’t take a drink and wash the saliva, carrying the virus, away.”

  “Okay,” said Tom, though he still didn’t see the connection.

  “A man being taken to hospital in the back of an ambulance was dying of rabies and one of the paramedics offered him a drink of water. He was so far gone he wasn’t able to speak, but he managed to write down that he couldn’t drink because the monster in his brain made him afraid.”

  “Jesus,” Tom said, running a hand through his hair. “That’s nasty, but I still don’t see what that has to do with what’s happening now.”

  Samantha pressed her lips together and Tom could tell she was starting to lose her patience with him. Tough, he thought. She’s not the one who has just had all of this dumped on her.

  “That ‘stuff’ out there—the stuff we call the Shadows—no more has it in for us than the rabies virus cares for its victims. We’re a vessel, a means to an end. It uses us to breed. It feeds from our thoughts, our intelligence, our love for one another—basically everything that makes us human. Then it is able to manipulate our behaviour to pass on to its next victim, where it does exactly the same thing ag
ain.”

  “But how?” he asked. “If the rabies virus passes from one victim to the next through biting, how do the Shadows pass between its victims?”

  She looked at him, her eyes wide with sadness. “Touch,” she said simply. “Just by touch.”

  “What? Is that all?”

  “It has to be skin on skin, but otherwise, yes.”

  “So, all it has to do is touch me?”

  She shook her head. “A few people exist who can be infected by the Shadows directly, but they’re rare. For the majority, the Shadows needs a host to be able to move on, to multiply. Just like the rabies virus. The stuff you saw is what it looks like on the outside and it can sure as hell mess with your head, maybe even send you crazy, but it can’t infect you without the help of another person.”

  “So, if you got rid of everyone who was infected, the stuff wouldn’t be able to reproduce anymore.”

  “It is not that simple. You can’t always tell the people who are infected. Some people are only carriers and the Shadows never take control, never manifest, but the person is still able to pass it on to another.”

  “But what about David? If he is infected, like you people keep saying he is, why hasn’t he passed it to Abby or me?”

  “David is different.”

  “What about me? Aren’t I supposed to have come in contact with the Shadows? Did it infect me then? Is that why David is sick?”

  “We don’t know for sure, but we don’t think it can infect you. You have been in direct contact and you are still alive. Plus, if the Shadows had reached the surface, we’d know. You did something to the Shadows because it went back beneath ground for thirty years. Not a single Watcher came across it in the tunnels. But now it’s back and wants out. So, you had better remember what the hell you did back then because it won’t only be your son dying.”

  He stared at her, surprised in her sudden change of tone. “And if I don’t remember?”

  “That isn’t an option.”

  They stared at each other, a silent challenge. Tom’s eyes narrowed. He tried to stand up in the confines of the tent, his back bent, his feet tangling in the sleeping bag.

  “But I can’t, fucking, remember.” His voice was, low, barely controlled. “Why can’t you people understand?” He fought his way out of the tent, its canvas doorway wrapping around him as though trying to keep him in.

  He managed to get free and half-stepped, half-crawled, out of the tent, only to find Otto standing outside, his arms folded across his broad chest. Bugs sat on his right shoulder, its nose twitching in the air as though picking up the scent of raw meat.

  Tom glared at Otto. “What?”

  “This isn’t her fault,” he said. “Don’t take this out on her.”

  Exhaustion suddenly swept over Tom once again. This was bullshit. He should be with his family.

  “I’ll help you, Tom.” Samantha’s voice came from behind him before he had even realised she had followed him out of the tent.

  He shook his head, deflated. “I don’t want you to put yourself in danger on my account.”

  “I wouldn’t be helping only for you. I’d be doing it for all of us.” She paused. “And David. I’d be doing it for David.”

  Tom managed a small smile, suddenly choked. He didn’t want to cry again. “I can’t bear the thought of them thinking I’ve deserted them—especially now. I feel like I’m causing them pain and I can’t stand it.”

  “You could call them?” Sam suggested.

  “Call them?” he echoed back at her. He looked around at the vast cavern and the thick stone walls. He didn’t know how deep below ground they were, but he guessed there wasn’t much chance of getting a mobile signal.

  She read his mind. “We’ve rewired the connection for the emergency phones in the tunnels. A couple of our more technologically minded people managed to run cables down here and apparently it wasn’t too difficult to wire in a phone.”

  A spark of hope lifted the weight on his heart. Just to hear their voices again would strengthen him! But then he remembered how he’d left things with Abby, how she had acted as though she hated him, and wondered if she would even speak to him.

  He looked at his watch and was amazed to discover it was after six in the morning.

  “Where do I call from?” he asked, half-expecting them to laugh at him, at his stupidity for believing such a fantastical idea. But Otto turned and headed down towards the back of the cavern. Bugs tightened its claws into the cloth of the big man’s shirt and into the thick muscles beneath, trying to keep its balance as Otto moved, loping his way across the stone floor.

  Tom followed, putting pressure gingerly on his ankle. The muscles still throbbed, but the night rest seemed to have done it some good. In fact, now he knew he could call his family, he felt better. Even his head was clearer. Tom realised it was the first night he’d slept without the help of a bottle of whisky for a number of months.

  Perhaps he was turning over a new leaf?

  Chapter 10

  IT WAS JUST after six on Sunday morning and Abigail Young felt utterly lost.

  Last night, David’s consultant had called her into his office and told her about David’s poor prognosis. He’d asked her if she wanted to wait for her husband to arrive, but she’d said, no, she didn’t know when he would be back and that he’d had to go away on business for a few days. The lie had felt strange on her tongue and her cheeks had coloured with shame. The consultant, Mr Stephenson, had smiled at her in sympathy, but Abby had only seen raw pity. Who went off on a business trip on a Saturday? She had forced herself to smile. Whatever else was happening, she needed to be strong for David. Her self-pity didn’t help anyone.

  “Would you like to sit down?” the consultant said.

  Abby had been here before. The expression on the doctor’s face wasn’t that of someone about to deliver good news.

  She sat down in the chair across from Mr Stephenson’s desk. She sank down into the over-stuffed chair, so she ended up having to look up at the man about to deliver her son’s death sentence. Her heart thumped and she struggled to catch her breath. She found herself consciously having to think about breathing in and back out again.

  Abby glanced over at the empty chair beside her, the one where her husband should be sitting.

  “The chemo hasn’t worked, has it?” she said in a tiny voice, pre-empting what the doctor was about to say.

  He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Mrs Young. The blood tests show the cancer hasn’t gone into remission.”

  She felt as though she’d been punched in the stomach. She couldn’t breathe.

  My little boy. Oh, God, I’m going to lose my baby.

  “I...” she started, unsure of what she was going to say. Her chin wobbled and she clenched her jaw shut. Tears burnt like molten fire behind her eyeballs and a painful lump seemed to be trying to force its way out of her windpipe. Her hands trembled in her lap and then her legs joined in. From the depths of her throat came a thin keening sound she had no control over.

  Shock, she thought somewhere in the back of her mind. This is what shock feels like.

  “There must be something else?” she managed, squeezing the words from her narrowed throat. The consultant stood and moved around to her side of the desk, picking up a box of tissues as he went. The move was so smooth she instantly knew he’d done it numerous times before and somehow that made everything worse. This was real; this was what happened. Kids got sick and they died. David wasn’t any more or less special than the next kid—it was just what happened!

  “David is going to need a bone-marrow transplant,” he told her gently. “I’m afraid it’s his only chance.”

  She shook her head and buried her face in her hands.

  “When?” she asked through her fingers.

  “He’ll be put on a waiting list until we can find a match.”

  “But he’s not got time!” Someone seemed to have their hands around her throat, squeezing tight. “Maybe the
tests are wrong?” Desperate now, she grasped at every straw. “Do them again, please? Run the tests again.” She begged now, tears streaming down her face.

  The consultant put a large, solid hand over hers and she looked at it in surprise, the human contact breaking through her panic.

  “The tests aren’t wrong, Mrs Young, but that doesn’t mean we won’t find a match.”

  She almost laughed, hysteria close to the surface. “Hardly anyone one gives bone marrow to a complete stranger.”

  How could this happen, she wondered? Her beautiful, amazing child. How could she go on if she didn’t have him with her? What would be the point of her life?

  The selfishness of her thoughts struck her. Surely she should be thinking about David now and not herself. Did the fearful love she hold for her child—that desperate need to always protect him—stem from self-preservation? She remembered reading somewhere how to have a child meant forever having your heart on the outside of your body. She knew what that meant now; for if her heart was dead she had no way of living.

  “Is there anyone I can call for you?” Mr Stephenson asked, concerned. “A family member? A friend?”

  Abby had almost forgotten about the doctor’s presence. Peoples’ names and faces tripped through her mind; her sister perhaps? She dismissed the idea. How could anyone do or say anything that could possibly make her feel any better? She glanced again at the empty chair and wished Tom was with her. Why did he have to choose now to go AWOL?

  “I should go and call my husband,” she said, climbing awkwardly out of the chair. “He needs to know what is happening.”

  “Of course.” Stephenson straightened and walked her to the door. “If you have any other questions, you know where I am”

  She nodded dumbly and stepped out into the hallway. She shuffled down the corridor, her head down, walking as though she was the one suffering from cancer. Every ounce of energy had drained from her. She wanted to collapse on the floor, to scream and cry, to bash the floor with her fists, to take this rage and fury, the injustice, the disbelief, the pain, and let it erupt from her in a raging torrent. But she did not. She just continued to walk like a little old woman, hunched and beaten by life.