The Shadow's Touch

by Scott VanKirk

  “In your dreams, bear-boy!”

  “Well, okay, I didn’t tell her the thing about the bear, but it didn’t need to be said, you know?”

  I was grinning ear to ear. “Oh, yeah, that certainly didn’t need to be said.”

  “Anyway, she wanted us to call her when we’re ready to go snake hunting.”

  “Well, it’s not going to happen today. I’m wiped,” I said.

  “I hear you. I’ve got to figure out a way to get these bullets out of me before I die of lead poisoning. That’s going to be a real amusing conversation with my doctor.”

  I had to agree. “Well, it’ll take a few days at least before your brain turns to Swiss cheese and you go insane from lead poisoning.”

  “Yep, my thinking exactly. Call me.”

  I hung up, feeling better. Dave was still Dave, and life was worth making plans for.

  Spring said, You know I wouldn’t let you go alone, either. You should bring an army with you. This whack job needs to be terminated with extreme prejudice. It doesn’t have to be by hand, either.

  Spring, I barely recognize you anymore. What’s happened to my vicious little dryad who knew, like, a dozen words and no grammar?

  Her voice was laughing when she said, She is stewing in the hormonal juices of a young human male and watching too much television. She added more seriously, Finn, I’m growing up. I’m expanding my horizons and exploring a world I would never have known if it wasn’t for you. You are still my sun, my rain, and my roots. I know exactly how Dave feels. I tremble at the thought of never having met you.

  Her words almost brought me to tears—again! I seriously needed to hear that someone liked me better than I did.

  Searching for something to focus on, besides crying, I picked up my guitar. It seemed like I hadn’t played it in years—not that I could ever play it well, but I had been trying to learn, sort of. Now I sat down with it and started strumming a few chords. After a short while, I realized that I was playing along with the song of the caduceus. It felt good and right.

  Experimental Error

  Later, I headed downstairs to see what was happening. My mom wasn’t in the kitchen so I checked the garage. My dad was there, puttering over something.

  “Hi, Dad.”

  “Hello, Finn, how’re you feeling?”

  “All right I guess. Wotcha doing?”

  He turned back to his bench. “I’m experimenting.”

  Curious, I walked over. I noted now that the mice were gone, and he had filled his large aquarium with rats. I shuddered, looked over his shoulders, and immediately wished I hadn’t. He was playing around with a bowl of meal worms and some chocolate syrup. He picked up a squirming syrup-covered worm and popped it into his mouth with all evidence of pleasure. He beamed at me and said, “Better than popcorn!”

  Fortunately, considering where his new dietary requirements were taking him, he didn’t seem to be bothered by my revulsion.

  I searched for something to talk about other than eating grubs. “Why the rats?”

  “The mice were too small to really fill me up for long. A few rats and I’m good until lunch. Besides, they’re delicious.”

  I shuddered again, and all I could think was, Who writes this stuff?

  What do you mean, Who writes this stuff?

  Sorry, Spring, just a rhetorical joke. No laughter is expected.

  Oh. But, why…?

  I left my dad to his delicacies and headed back into the house, all the while trying to explain to Spring what I had said—I mean thought. Sheesh! Even when they shared my head, people didn’t get my jokes.

  I looked around for something to do and noticed Mom working in her garden and pulling out oak shoots. I went over to say “hi.” It was hot and muggy as usual. After a short time of talking to her, I decided to mow the grass.

  Don’t ask me.

  So, for the next hour and a half I sacrificed the grass to Phred, my personal god of mowing. I’d been praying to Phred for years to pass the time while mowing. I had an image of him in my mind as a large green giant straddling a fertile valley with his hands on his hips saying “Ho, ho, ho.” I had no idea where that came from, but that was Phred.

  As soon as I started mowing, I zoned out. For the first time I could remember, it felt good to be moving, exercising, and sweating. I figured the physical must be a good cure for the mental.

  It now took longer to finish the lawn than it used to because I had to trim around all the new oak trees in back of the house. They were a blessing and a curse. They already shaded a lot of the back yard, so it was cooler, but the grass under them was growing faster than ever, making it harder to mow and trim. As I was taking the weed-whacker to the edges, I could feel Spring’s bemusement. I didn’t stop to explore it. I knew she much preferred a wild and verdant riot of life to the manicured tameness of the suburban yard, and, though I was starting to see more of the appeal of her viewpoint, I still liked the look of a well-maintained lawn, though I would never have admitted it to my parents. There are some places you just don’t go with your parents.

  When I finished and was downing a large glass of water in the kitchen, Spring said, That was great! Let’s go practice!

  I figured that explained my odd reaction to the mowing. Spring’s love of motion and exercise were rubbing off on me. I went back outside and indulged us both with a vigorous workout. It felt good. Resting between exercises, I asked Spring, Who am I, and what have I done with myself?

  Spring laughed even though I could feel her confusion.

  I just thought to her, Look it up, Spring. Look it up.

  I didn’t stop my workout until Dad called from the porch with a phone call for me.

  It was the doc.

  “Hello, Finn. How are you holding up?”

  “Like a suspension bridge designed by a room full of monkeys who had less than eternity to get it right.”

  Amazingly, he laughed even if it did sound a bit strained. He said, “Are you up for coming out to the clinic today?”

  “Why, is something going on with Jen?”

  “No, Finn, Jen isn’t here anymore. Allen, that is, Dr. Washington, took her home last night. I’m afraid that letting her go out that door yesterday has ended a decade’s long friendship.”

  “What? That’s not fair! It wasn’t your fault! You were knocked out saving someone from their own personal demons! Speaking of which, how are you holding out? That was a pretty nasty one you swallowed.”

  “I’m maintaining. I have to admit that it hasn’t been easy. It gives me a whole new level of understanding about the amount of effort that I routinely ask from my patients. So, can I get you to swing by here in the next hour or so?”

  “I’ll have to ask my parents, but I think so. What’s up?”

  “I have a couple of people here who really want to see you, and I’d like your help in doing some experiments.”

  “I guess so, but your experiments haven’t turned out so good so far.”

  “Finn, you have given three people a chance at a normal life, and the last of those you gave the chance of living. I’d say those are pretty good results for an incurable malady.”

  I thought about that. “Okay, if you say so. It’s been pretty hard on you, though.”

  “That is unfortunately true. I’ll expect you here within the hour then. Thank you.”

  He hung up before any goodbyes. It was annoying, but I wondered just what kind of a personal hell he was going through.

  I took me a good half hour to convince my parents to let me go. About an hour later, I stepped into the cool common room of Shady Oaks and nodded to Maddy, the matronly receptionist. She gave me her motherly smile and said, “The doctor is waiting for you in his office, Mr. Morgenstern. You know the way, I take it?”

  I returned the smile and headed to his office while rolling the sound of “Mr. Morgenstern” around in my head. It was just another little note of harmonic dissonance with my self-image. (That’s geek-speak for “i
t felt weird.”) I knocked on Dr. Anderson’s open door and walked in.

  “Thanks for coming, Finn.”

  I nodded. “You bet.” I Looked at him and Saw that the dark shadow I’d parked on him covered all but a smidgen of his body. It was nowhere near as big and nasty as the one flowing over Erik, but it was still pretty unnerving. I felt myself partially crouch, ready to run if the doctor should charge me.

  He stood up and said, “I don’t want to waste your time, so let’s get started. Follow me, please.” He walked past me out the door without a second glance, forcing me to back away from the pseudopods reaching for me. He was definitely more rigid and uptight than normal. I wondered again what he was going through as I followed him through the halls. Note that I didn’t actually wish for a better, more personal understanding. I just wondered.

  As we were passing through the common room, Holly skipped out to meet me. “Finn!” She ran up and gave me a big, enthusiastic hug. I stooped and picked her up in a hug of my own. As she was busily trying to break my neck with all the strength of her little arms, she said rapid-fire, “I knew it was you! I’m so glad you’re here! I had bad dreams about you last night. I’m glad you’re okay!”

  I laughed and said, “I had bad dreams about me too, squirt. Me, too.” I put her down and gently disentangled her arms from around my neck. “What have you been up to? How are you feeling?”

  “I’m great! You made the bad things go away. Now I’m reading about oceans!”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  She nodded emphatically. “Yep. Did you know that a blue whale is the biggest mammal in the world? It’s not even a fish. It’s as big as two whole city buses.”

  “I did know that! Whales are just about my favorite animals!”

  “Mine, too!”

  Anderson interrupted impatiently, “Finn, could I get you to talk with Holly a little later?”

  I said. “Oh, yeah. Sorry. Just a sec.” I said to Holly, “I’ve got to go help Doc with some stuff. Can you go and draw me a big picture of a blue whale? I’ll come and look at it in a little while.”

  She beamed at me, said “Yes,” and disappeared back down the hall. My heart seemed to go with her. It was weird to think that I used to be uncomfortable around kids.

  We resumed our journey to the back of the common room and outside to a barn that sat behind the main building. I was baffled about what we were going to do there. As we were walking, I asked Dr. Anderson, “Doc, what’s going to happen to Holly now that she’s doing better?”

  He replied in a disinterested voice, “She will be put back into the foster care system.”

  I’d heard all sorts of horror stories about the foster care system. I didn’t know if they were true, or common, but the thought of someone treating Holly badly was hard for me to contemplate. “Do you think someone will adopt her?”

  “I doubt it. After about age three to five, it is very difficult to get a child adopted. Most people want a baby to play with.”

  We entered the barn and were treated to an odd sight. There was a cow tied to a pole in the middle of the barn chewing away placidly. This side of the cow, a man was lying asleep on a portable cot. The familiar, vile, blackness coated his aura. This one seemed downright anemic after what I had been dealing with, but I supposed it still sucked for this dude. We approached the odd pair. Instead of waking the man, Anderson said, “This is Antonio. He’s shadow-ridden.”

  Antonio’s aura was fairly average, though slimed with shadow. I could also see a weak aura around the cow. Interesting. I thought I could see where this was going.

  “Antonio is 27 years old. His paranoid schizophrenia struck him when he was 17. I found him in the streets on a trip to New York. When I sensed the shadow in him, I had him brought here with the promise of three square meals a day. I’d like to see if the shadows are strictly a human malady or if you can move the shadow from him to the cow. Can you do that for me?”

  Man, he wasn’t wasting time. I nodded uncertainly, “I can try.”

  “Then please do.”

  “Now?”

  “Now.”

  “Okay, here goes.”

  I took a deep breath to center myself, and then I formed the globe around both man and shadow as I had done before. I slowly contracted the globe and began to move it away. The man moaned and thrashed weakly in his sleep. Anderson assured me that he was well sedated, so I continued to move the globe slowly away from the stricken man. In doing so, I stretched Antonio’s aura to nearly the breaking point before it pulled away from the shadow with only a small feeling of tearing. On top of the cold, I could feel the rage and the hunger of the shadow itself. As with the others, its touch in my mind made me feel slimy and unclean. I moved it onto the poor cow. The shadow ignored the cow; instead, it kept reaching toward me.

  “It doesn’t seem to be interested,” I said.

  “Let’s give it some time. After all, the cow probably isn’t as good a meal for it.”

  With some effort, I held it there hovering over the cow’s back. After about ten minutes, just as I was about spent, it sent a pseudopod out and touched the cow. The cow grunted and then the shadow flowed over it. Gradually, and gratefully, I released the globe, ready to catch the shadow again if it moved away from the cow. It didn’t, it just flowed over the cow’s body. I took a deep breath to combat my fatigue and just watched a moment. The cow itself started lowing and shifting nervously, but it didn’t get any worse than that.

  The doctor reacted dispassionately to my news of success. He just went on to the next stage of the experiment. He had me help him move Antonio’s cot right next to the cow. Nothing happened with the shadow. Anderson picked up the man’s flaccid arm and put it on the cow. I’d have much preferred to end the experiment before that, but I understood why he was doing what he did. The shadow gathered around the man’s hand, but when we pulled it away, it stayed with the cow. Antonio’s aura only stretched for a moment before snapping back to him.

  I said, “Hang on a second.” I laid my hand on Antonio’s chest, and I pushed my aura out over his, where it had torn. I kept it there for about five minutes with a continuous effort of will. When I pulled back, I felt dizzy and even more tired, but when I could Look again, there was a yellow patch on his purple aura. The yellow gradually diffused into the rest of it, leaving his aura whole with just a hint of gold. That was just too cool for words.

  Anderson looked questioningly at me, and I said, “I was just trying to fix a little of the damage to his aura.”

  He nodded with a neutral expression and turned away. If Anderson was non-emotional before, now he was practically an automaton.

  Anderson had me grab the shadow off the cow and then repeat the experiment with a pig and a chicken. The pig worked out okay. The pig wasn’t happy, but it didn’t turn rabid either. The chicken was different. As soon as the shadow latched onto the chicken, the chicken went crazy. It started squawking, jumping, and shaking. It pulled wildly against the tether holding it down. Instead of calming down like the pig and the cow, it just grew more frantic until finally it fell over with its chest heaving. A short while later, it died. Unfortunately, the shadow did not die with it. When the chicken died, the shadow looked diminished, but it was freed from whatever bond it had forged with the chicken. It flowed directly at me. Instinctively, I put my shield up and the black shadow splattered against it like thick, black, mobile, oil spill. It quickly flowed around on the surface of my shield.

  That was unnerving enough, even though I had dealt with it before, but what happened when the shadow passed close to Dr. Anderson freaked me out even more. A black pseudopod whipped out from Anderson’s shadow, grabbed the one on the shield, sucked it off the shield, and then withdrew back to the doctor. It added a little bulk to the doctor’s shadow, but the only reaction from him was a single quickly indrawn breath.

  When I described what had happened to him, he just nodded his head and said, “Okay, that is one experiment we won’t have to do.”r />
  I was tiring, so the last experiment of the day was naturally the hardest. I was to transfer the doc’s shadow to the cow and see what happened. If it didn’t stick, I’d put it back onto Anderson.

  That man had more guts than should comfortably fit in anyone’s belly. Just touching one of the shadows with my imaginary(ish) shield made me squirm—and I wasn’t actually touching them.

  I created a sphere around the doc and started forcing the shadow off of him. He closed his eyes. I could see the muscles in his face tighten. As I pushed the shadow completely off his body, he started to shudder and shiver, but he never made a peep.

  It took longer to detach than the smaller ones, but finally the doc’s aura snapped free of the grasp of the shadow, again losing a little piece to the darkness.

  I separated it and moved it over the cow. It only took a minute before it latched on, and the poor cow started kicking and snorting. It acted for all the world like a bucking bronco for about ten minutes. After it finished, it was breathing hard, and its mouth had lathered up a bit. After a bit of rest, it began eagerly eating the hay in front of it again. “Holy crap. It worked.”

  We had a way to save a human’s life for the cost of a cow’s life. It was a sucky deal for the cow, but one I could live with.

  Anderson himself deflated, closed his eyes, and took several deep breaths. He said, “Thank you, Finn. That was becoming quite taxing.”

  I just gaped at the emotionless way he threw out the understatement of his life. He definitely wasn’t human. I felt fouled and dirty just pushing one of those vile things around.

  Afterward, Anderson brought me the food of the gods: Nacho Doritos, Dr. Pepper, and PBJs. The only thing better would have been fried bologna sandwiches. Shortly after I entered the common area with my food, Holly came out of her room to join me. She saw what I was eating and asked if the orderly would let her eat the same thing. She was a fellow aficionado of the finer things in life.

  While she waited for her food, she proudly showed me the picture of her whale. She’d taped six pieces of paper together and drew a whale that took up just about every square inch.