I Become Shadow

by Joe Shine

  So this was it. Muggers schmuggers. This would be serious. This would be coordinated and the stakes would be real. I, or they, would be dead when it was over.

  Then I heard it: the soft pitter-patter of running feet, flying up behind us. I spun around and tossed my backpack at the attacker. He caught it out of instinct as my foot connected with his jaw. He crumbled and rolled to a stop at the bottom of a staircase. But he was groaning, and still moving. He would recover soon.

  I grabbed Gareth by the collar and dragged him to the doorway of the Academic building. The arched stone entry provided a good safe nook for him to duck into and wait, and the locked door meant no one could sneak up behind him. It wasn’t ideal, but it was good enough for the moment.

  “Stay here and don’t move!” I yelled at him. “Promise me you won’t move!” I barely saw him nod before a shin slammed into my chest. Time slowed with the impact, and I watched him get farther away from me, his eyes widening. I slammed into the ground, hard on my butt—and rolled backward, popping up almost instantly. But in that same moment a different foot, from the first attacker, connected with the side of my head. I cartwheeled, absorbing the force of the blow. At least two of them, I thought.

  I found my footing in time to see both of them coming after me. Only two of them, at least for now. For clarity’s sake, we’ll call the smaller one Tom and the bigger one Jerry. Both looked to be about my age. I blocked a punch from Tom with my forearm but took a kick from Jerry to the hip. And so it went. I would block an attack from one only to get punished by the other. Don’t get me wrong; I got in a few good hits myself, but I was losing the battle and couldn’t hold out much longer. They were good. Well-trained, young, fast, strong, and fearless. But not invincible. Their overconfidence would be their downfall.

  I let loose a stomp to Jerry’s knee that buckled him to the ground. I took the moment to somersault away from the two of them. The trench knives that Junie had given me were strapped to my back, and in one fluid motion, I gripped the handles, pulled out the blades, and flung the coat I was wearing in the air behind me. Now let’s play.

  But instead of attacking, they kept their distance as if waiting for something. Tom almost had a smile. Oh crap!

  I spun to my left as the whisper of silenced automatic fire echoed off of the walls. The ground directly behind where I had been exploded with dirt as the bullets hit. More bullets whizzed all around me, barely missing me and hitting branches and bushes as I ran.

  When I made it back to Gareth the shooting stopped. I nodded at him; it was all I had time to do before I poked my head out from the edge of the building to check on Tom and Jerry. I was ready to pull back, sure that bullets would be coming right at me, but there weren’t any. No shooting. Instead I saw Tom holding his hand to his ear, listening and then nodding. He and Jerry both pulled out expanding metal batons and whipped them out. Their eyes met mine as they slowly began making their way toward me.

  “Are you okay?” I whispered to Gareth.

  He nodded. “Are you?” he asked. His voice cracked. His eyes were still wide and his breathing quick and shallow. “What’s happening?!”

  “Do you trust me?” I asked. He nodded again, without hesitation. “Then stay here, and keep your head low.”

  I took a deep breath and spun around the corner of the building. The move did what I had hoped and caught Tom and Jerry off guard. They had probably assumed they would have to drag me out of there. I dodged a swing by Jerry, sliced him across the stomach, and drove my other knife through his neck. Tom swung his baton at me, but I ducked the swing and it cracked into Jerry’s lifeless, still upright body instead.

  Jerry’s death clouded Tom’s concentration and fueled both fear and anger. Now I had another advantage. He picked up Jerry’s baton; so he had two. It took every ounce of training and focus to deflect his attacks. Boy, he was strong. But he wasn’t thinking. Every time he swung, I blocked and cut him with one of my knives. I sliced and stabbed his arms, legs, shoulders. After one final weary swing I spotted a lethal opening: his neck.

  His mouth was still trying to take tired breaths as I slit his throat. I didn’t bother watching him fall. Before the gunman (gunmen?) could open fire again I sprinted back to Gareth. My battle with Tom had taken me all over the Academic building grounds and I was now some thirty yards away from Gareth’s hiding place. I swiped my discarded backpack up off the ground on my way to him.

  Dirty, covered with Tom and Jerry’s blood and a little of my own, I slid into the hiding place and asked, “You okay?”

  No answer. I looked behind me. Gareth wasn’t there. A muffled yell was all I got and all I needed.

  I jumped out of the archway and saw Gareth being dragged away by a third attacker. A she. I’d wondered why the gunman hadn’t tried to shoot me after I had killed Tom. I had been in open space, an easy target. Now I knew. Tom was the distraction so this girl could grab Gareth. She, too, looked no older than any of my classmates. She kept one hand over Gareth’s mouth and the other around his waist as she dragged him away. A large automatic rifle hung by her side from a shoulder strap. She was stronger than he was and was opening up the distance between us. As she got closer to the road, the dented brown van appeared.

  I pulled out the 9mm pistol I kept in my backpack and ran after them firing. I flattened the vans’s tires, then shot at the woman. But she was clearly trained well, evading as she ran. Only one shot connected, nicking her shoulder. She hurled Gareth into a large bush, pulled up her rifle, and opened fire on me.

  I barely had time to dive behind a concrete bench before it started being destroyed by her high-caliber bullets. I counted. I knew her gun. I knew how many bullets it held. Could the bench make it that long? It was getting blown to bits all around me. When I counted twenty-four shots I sprang up and fired again. She rolled to her right behind a tree, then popped out from behind it, firing a pistol of her own.

  I rolled and sprinted between trees. But every time I did, she mirrored my movement to keep the distance. It was beginning to be a stalemate. I took deep, calm breaths, thinking of a way to end this. That’s when I saw him. Crouched behind a stone wall at the top of a set of stairs was Lloyd. He looked both terrified and excited. The scariest, greatest day of his life, I bet. Our eyes met. He waved and he moved his other hand toward me. He was holding something. A phone. He was filming the whole thing. How long has he been there? What has he seen?

  I shook my head and mouthed, Go. He shook his head right back and looked at me like I was crazy for even thinking it. Idiot. He would die here. If he didn’t, I’d deal with him later. If there was a later.

  I was about thirty feet from Gareth. When he caught my eye, he nodded. I didn’t understand what he meant until he jumped out of the bushes and took off—running away from the van, away from me, away from her.

  It only took a second before the girl started chasing after him. She might have had no idea where I was. Either that or losing Gareth wasn’t an option. Maybe both. When she passed me I shot her directly in the head and she crumbled to the ground like a rag doll. Before she even finished rolling, the brown van spun out and came bouncing toward us on its deflated tires, screeching and shaking. But it still had speed.

  “RUN!” I shouted.

  He didn’t need the encouragement. But I had to slow my pace so I wouldn’t leave him behind. The van was struggling now, trying to maneuver through and around the stairs, benches, and fountains on campus. It sideswiped a fountain, and nearly tipped over. I pulled out my phone and hit the emergency beacon that was programmed into it. Five minutes and the cavalry would be here. But we had to keep moving until then.

  Within seconds, we were back at the dorm. Gareth bolted for the doors, but I grabbed his jacket and steered him around the building toward the back where Old Hank sat quietly waiting. Maybe this was why they’d given me the motorcycle with the sidecar. Maybe they’d known this time would come. There could have been more attackers inside waiting for us. We weren’t saf
e here. It was time to go, and time to go fast.

  I shoved Gareth into the sidecar and hopped on the bike. The engine purred to life, eager to prove itself, ready for the challenge. The van lumbered into the parking lot as I tore out of it. Once I hit the open road it had no chance. I opened the throttle, kicked Hank into fourth gear, and opened up a massive space between us. I watched through my mirror as the van’s headlights slowly got smaller and smaller. I looked down at Gareth, huddled in the sidecar, arms over his head for protection. I pulled the helmet off of the back seat where I kept it and handed it to him. He put it on and pulled the goggles down over his eyes. I took a second set of goggles out of a saddlebag and put them on myself.

  All at once, I was punched in the small of the back by something. I lurched forward and nearly lost control of the bike. Warmth began spreading across my lower body. I looked down, trying to catch my breath. A bullet had gone through my back and out my side, thankfully missing any vital organs. I turned to look behind me and found a black town car right on my ass. A man was hanging out the window aiming a second shot. They had snuck up on us while I was dealing with the helmets and goggles. Stupid safety.

  I swerved the bike as the man fired off another round. He missed wide.

  At the sudden movement Gareth spun around to see what was going on. I smacked the top of his helmet with my hand and yelled, “STAY DOWN!”

  I opened up the throttle on Hank and tore around a semitruck like it was standing still. But still the car kept pace. A normal motorcycle could have gotten away easily, but with the added weight of the sidecar and two riders, 100 mph was about all I could expect.

  After the semi, there was nothing but open highway. Breathing was becoming difficult. I had to do something. The town car was easily matching our speed so I continued to swerve across the lanes to keep from giving the man a clean shot. He was aiming high, only at me, even to the left to ensure he didn’t accidentally hit Gareth. Whoever it was wanted him alive, needed him alive, and I could use that against them.

  I screamed over the engine, “GARETH!”

  I pointed at the back of his seat. Keeping his head safely behind the backrest, he crammed himself in to the foot of the side car and rolled over to look. There was a brass loop in the middle of the seat cushion. He pointed at it and I nodded. He looped his finger through it and pulled it off.

  It was a fake cushion. Behind it was a metal lock box. He looked up at me.

  I yelled, “three-one-three-nine!”

  He spun the lock and opened the door. Inside were four grenades and a pistol with extra ammo. Looking at him, I mimed grabbing a grenade, pulling the pin, and throwing it behind us. He nodded. He’d played enough video games to understand this.

  With trembling, nervous fingers, he took out the first grenade, pulled the pin, and threw it. An athlete he is not. He missed well wide before it exploded harmlessly on the shoulder one hundred yards behind the town car.

  He looked up at me for advice, but I had none. It was pretty self-explanatory how these things worked. Their only flaw was that a human had to provide the accuracy. Unfortunately, this human had none. His third attempt did hit the car, but with the five-second fuse, it bounced off the windshield and rolled into the grass median before detonating like the other.

  Well, we’ve definitely called attention to ourselves, I thought, fighting to ignore the cold numbness overtaking me, my struggling lungs. There would be witnesses and cops and questions. Could FATE really handle it all? I guess if anyone could it would be them. But a terrorist attack on a college campus in broad daylight? That’s what this was, for all intents and purposes …

  One grenade left. This had to work or we were dead. I watched Gareth out of the corner of my eye. He was looking around, working something out in his mind, biting his lip as he concentrated. I watched him pull the pin and let the clip fly. My eyes widened when he didn’t throw it. He was going to kill us. He held the grenade for three full seconds then casually dropped it over the side of the sidecar onto the road.

  He had timed it perfectly. The town car drove right over the grenade as it detonated. I watched in my mirror as the the blast lifted up the town car and tossed it like a child’s toy off the road, landing as a crumpled inferno.

  Gareth didn’t look back. Maybe he was too horrified at what he’d done. I could relate.

  “Where do we go now?” I barely heard him scream over the engine.

  “Some place safe.” I yelled back down at him. He nodded and looked ahead at the open road ahead of us.

  I looked down at the left side of my belly. The blood had soaked through my shirt and was beginning to drip off my jeans onto the road. But it was on the side facing away from Gareth, so he had no clue. I kept Hank running at full tilt. I was getting weaker, but I could make it. I knew it. I was going to get Gareth some place safe. I was going to get him to Austin. I was going to get to Junie.

  CHAPTER 23

  WORLDS COLLIDE

  While driving down the desolate highway I replayed the events in my head over and over. First of all, where were the cops? Where was the National Guard? I hadn’t heard a single helicopter or siren. Not one. Nothing made sense. I couldn’t make heads or tails of any of it. There were too many questions and no answers. I, no, we had been attacked. That was all I had to go on. Why the hell hadn’t anyone shown up yet to help us? Had the message not gone through?

  Just do your job, Ren Sharpe. You’re not paid to think.

  Gareth was safe though. In the end, that was all that mattered. I checked the mirrors for the billionth time, assuring myself we were not being followed. I had no need for a map to Junie’s. I had memorized the route long ago while fantasizing about the day I would travel it. I already knew the name of every farm road I passed. Each one represented one step closer to safety, to him.

  The Austin city limits sign brought about the first butterflies in my stomach. Or maybe it was the gunshot wound. At least I wasn’t dizzy anymore. But I was freezing, and I didn’t know if that was because of the blood loss or the winter wind. It lashed my chapped face. Each passing mile now coaxed forth more queasiness. Of course I’d imagined our reunion under much different circumstances. In the dream reunion, there was lots of laughing, me actually looking cute, maybe a chocolate fountain—your typical girl-who-isn’t-a-machine-like-killer stuff. In our real reunion, I would be on the lam, beat to hell, my face wind-whipped, near dead from blood loss. But since I had honestly thought we’d never see each other again, this was better than never. If he could love me looking like this …

  When I finally turned onto his street, my damaged stomach did a jump. I counted the addresses on the mailboxes. Excitement grew as I got closer to his house. Gareth turned to me, looking bewildered. I’d explain everything. I would.

  Made it. Managed to park. The world was fuzzy, closing in around me fast. Everything was a struggle now. I stumbled up the sidewalk toward his front door, clutching my stomach. Fortunately, no one was doing yard work. There were no witnesses to my labored, blood-soaked march up the well-manicured lawn. Try explaining that one at the summer block party.

  I knocked. Heard feet approaching.

  The door opened.

  “Junie.”

  And everything went black.

  I FLUTTERED IN AND out of consciousness only catching glimpses of what was going on.

  Junie and Gareth carrying me.

  The feeling of hardwood on my back. A table?

  Junie cutting off my shirt with scissors. Dangit! I liked this shirt.

  Gareth cleaning my face. Are you crying?!

  I came to, albeit briefly, because of hushed voices that were trying not to be loud but failing miserably at it.

  “We have to get her to a hospital,” Gareth hissed.

  “No, we don’t, and for the hundredth time, we can’t. Trust me, I can do this,” Junie replied calmly.

  “You’re not a doctor. I’m taking her,” Gareth stated.

  “You can’t take her
to a doctor. Too many questions,” Junie said a bit more sternly.

  “Well, there will be a lot more of them when she dies.”

  “She won’t die. I won’t let her. We’ve been trained for this. If you let me get to work, it’s nothing I can’t handle. The longer we wait, the worse it gets. Please trust me.”

  “Sorry but no, I’m calling for an ambulance. She’s too important to me.”

  “And what do you think she is to me? If any part of me thought a hospital would be better for her, do you think I’d be standing here right now? You have no idea what you’re dealing with here. It’s nothing you could understand.”

  I heard movement, footsteps, and some scuffling.

  Then Junie said, “If you get in the way of me saving her one more time, I’ll kill you where you stand. Do you understand me?”

  There was silence. I tried to speak, tried to tell them to stop, but nothing seemed to be working. My brain was telling my lips to move, but they wouldn’t cooperate.

  “I’m Type O Negative. I’m a universal blood donor.” Gareth said quietly.

  “Good. Now we’re talking. Roll up your sleeve,” Junie replied.

  I heard cabinets opening and dishes being collected before passing out once again.

  Gareth, holding my hand and watching Junie work.

  Junie, hands bloody, checking my breathing.

  Rolled onto my stomach looking down. What an odd pattern for a dining room rug.

  I HAD DREAMS ABOUT the attack. But instead of fighting the attackers I was fighting me. Like clones or something. It was a weird sensation to be fighting mirror images, punching my own face to a bloody mess. Truly strange. But something had irked me about the attack. The age of the attackers, their movements, fighting styles … it all had felt too familiar. Thus the odd dream about fighting myself. And like dreams seem to do, when I began to wake up, it slipped away a dim mist. Almost forgotten. Gone but for the faintest trace.