The Shadow Club tsc-1

by Нил Шустерман

  I burst through the trees and jumped down into the pit, half expecting nobody to be there, but, nearly hidden in the shadows, sat the four other members of the club, all shivering and soaking wet with seawater. They all had looks on their faces somewhere between terror and shock.

  “Where’s Tyson?” I asked, terrified myself of what they might tell me.

  No one answered me for a while, then Darren looked up at me and spoke like a child.

  “Jared . . . I think we did something real bad ...”

  I sat down with them. I didn’t want to hear this, but I knew I had to. “We all did something real bad,” I said, leaning against the stone wall, feeling the wind blow across my cold, sweaty shirt.

  Darren looked down, and no one said anything. In that long silence a thought came to me. I suddenly realized that Hell wasn’t a place filled with fire and smoke—Hell was cold, wet, and lonely. Hell was the dead stone foundation of an old building in the woods.

  I pulled my knees to my chest, shivering as I felt the cold stone behind me, then laid my head in my hands, and said, “Tell me what happened to Tyson.”

  The Confession

  “When you left,” began Darren, “we kept walking Tyson deeper and deeper into the water. He kept cursing and yelling like he always does, but then, I don’t know, I guess he started getting really scared. A big wave crashed into his back, and he nearly went under. When he got his balance back, he starts begging, ’Please,’ he says, ’please, I’ll do anything you want, just let me out of the water.’

  “We all told him we wouldn’t let him out until he confessed—then an even bigger wave breaks right behind him, and knocks him down, washing him toward us. I caught him. He was coughing and sputtering, and he says, ’I’ll confess, I’ll confess anything. Let me go home!’ "

  That’s where Darren stopped.

  “So, what happened?” I asked. They all looked at me. “Well? Tell me!”

  “He confessed,” said Abbie.

  “What?”

  “He confessed, but not to the pranks.” Abbie brushed her wet hair out of her face. “He said he didn’t do the pranks, so he couldn’t confess to that.”

  “Go on, what did he confess?”

  They all looked at me, then looked at each other, then looked down.

  “The fires,” said Jason. It took a few seconds to sink in. Jason continued. “He told us that he set all the school fires. He burned down the gym last year and set all the smaller fires. He set the cafeteria fire last month, too.”

  “Why?”

  “He’s a pyromaniac,” said O.P. “That’s what I figure. He gets off on setting fires.”

  “Oh, God!” I buried my head in my hands, remembering how we all watched as the gym burned down last year. Yet somehow I couldn’t hate Tyson anymore. I couldn’t hate anyone for anything. Instead I felt sorry for him. Those dark, empty eyes weren’t empty at all; there was fire buried in them that nobody saw. I wondered if Greene even knew about it.

  “There’s more,” said Darren. “This is the bad part.” He leaned his head back. I could tell by his voice that he was crying a little. “When he told us about the fires,” continued Darren, “I got real crazy. I . . . I started to dunk his head in the water over and over again ...”

  “Oh, no!” I yelled. “How could you do that?”

  “I don’t know! I just started thinking about that fireman they carried out of the gym last year, and about all the people that could have been killed, and if you were there you would have done the same thing, ’cause you were acting just as crazy as me!”

  A shiver began in my back, working its way up to my head. Darren was right, I probably would have done it.

  “We all helped,” said Jason. “We all kept pushing him in the water, and he kept yelling, then gasping, then he didn’t make any noises at all.”

  “We were gonna stop,” added O.P., “but a gigantic wave hit all of us. We were all knocked down, and by the time we got our balance and stood up, Tyson wasn’t there.”

  I stared at them in disbelief.

  “That’s when the craziness sort of just went away,” said Darren, “and we all realized what we had done. We searched and searched the water, but we couldn’t find Tyson. It seemed like we were searching for ten minutes . . . and then, another wave rolled in, and we saw him tossed over in the crest, facedown. We all swam out to him and dragged him back to shore. It was scary, Jared—he was so limp and so heavy.”

  “I resuscitated him,” said O.P. “I didn’t even know if I was doing it right, but I must have been, ’cause it worked. He coughed up water and just kept coughing, so we rolled him onto his side.

  “He was really dazed,” continued Darren. “I don’t know if he was even completely conscious at first, but then a minute later, he stumbles up, and begins to run away.”

  “He threw a rock at us,” said Abbie. “It nearly hit Darren in the head.”

  “Do you blame him?” I asked.

  “No,” said Jason. “Anyway, he ran up the way we came, coughing, cursing, and screaming, ‘I’ll show you! I’ll show you!’ That was the last we saw of him.”

  So that was it. “What a mess,” I said, figuring that to be the biggest understatement of my life.

  “There’s one more thing,” said Darren. “We came back here to wait for you on account of we were afraid to go home, since Greene had probably called all our parents. While we sat here waiting we found something out.” Darren looked down—nobody could look me in the face.

  “Tyson . . . didn’t . . . pull. . . the pranks,” said Darren. He stopped for a while, then said, “I cut Vera’s brakes,” and Abbie said, “I poured paint in Eric’s locker,” and O.P. said, “I put David’s trumpet behind the bus,” and Jason said, “I put the blockbuster in the fish tank—I didn’t mean to blow it up. I also hid the camera in Tommy Nickols’ locker.”

  “We figured Cheryl or Randall put the rocks down for Austin,” said Darren.

  “Cheryl did,” I said.

  “Thought so,” said Darren.

  “What did you do?” asked O.P.

  I thought about it. “I did the worst thing of all,” I said. “It was my idea to start pulling pranks to begin with.”

  We sat there for the longest time, cold and wet, afraid to go anywhere.

  “So what do we do now?” asked Abbie. “What happens when we get home? What happens tomorrow? What happens at school on Monday?”

  “Whatever happens to us happens. We deserve it. Anyway, let’s not think about any of that now.” I stood up. “I’m going to Tyson’s house,” I said, “to start . . . unscrewing things up, and apologize.”

  “How do you apologize for nearly killing someone?” asked O.P.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve never almost killed someone before.”

  One by one they all stood to follow me, and we walked out of Stonehenge together, but as we did I noticed something and knelt down beside it. It was the pile of marionette heads, arms, legs, and bodies torn to bits. He must have spent hours on each one. Now they were beyond repair.

  “Why do you think he made those?” asked Abbie.

  “I think I know,” said Jason. “He doesn’t have any friends. He had to make up friends of his own.”

  “We were all in his collection,” I said. “I guess we should have been flattered.” I stood and led the way to Tyson’s house.

  Fire and Water

  Something was wrong at the lighthouse.

  There were lights in the windows, but they were the wrong color, and they flickered.

  Darren realized it first. “It’s on fire!” he said, and we ran toward it. “Tyson set the place on fire!”

  The front door was wide open, just as we had left it, and Tyson’s aunt and uncle were still not home. As I peered in, I could see flames eating up the living room. There wasn’t much time to think, or to do much of anything, but one thought did make its way to my brain. If Tyson was in there, and he died, it would be my fault, becaus
e we pushed him to do it. I knew that I couldn’t live with that; I couldn’t live with it for one single day!

  I ran through the front door, as the rest of the club screamed for me to stop.

  Inside, it didn’t seem as bad as it had looked from the outside. The drapes were on fire, the furniture and part of the floor, too, but I could make my way around easily, if I held my breath. I ran down the hall that was just beginning to catch fire, but when I looked into Tyson’s room I had to turn away—the fire was everywhere. I couldn’t see a thing, and could feel the heat all around me! There was no way I could get near the room.

  Fire moves faster than most people probably think it does. When I turned around, the hallway was blocked off by flames, so I turned and ran through a door, finding myself in the kitchen. It was amazing, but nothing in the kitchen was on fire yet. I closed the door behind me.

  That’s when I began to get scared. Really scared. It just came over me, nearly making me pass out. Smoke filled the room, and I could hear the rumble of the flames eating up the walls around me. There were no windows in the small kitchen, and only one other door. I ran to open it.

  It was locked.

  Turning the knob, I pushed on it again and again, but it wouldn’t budge. I was trapped! I heard the television explode in the living room, and I realized that coming into this burning house was the biggest mistake I had ever made. That’s when I did it.

  I wet my pants.

  That’s right, I wet my pants, and I’m not ashamed of it either! I was on the verge of frying to death! No human being can stand that stress.

  Anyway, I didn’t realize it right away; I was too busy kicking at the door. Then for no particular reason, I turned the knob and pulled rather than pushed. The door opened.

  How stupid! I thought to myself. How stupid it would be if I died because I was too much of an idiot to pull the door instead of push it!

  I closed the door behind me and found myself in a round room, standing before an old wooden spiral staircase. I was inside the base of the lighthouse.

  Behind me the roar of the flames got loud, and I knew that the kitchen was history; I had gotten out just in time. Ahead of me lay the spiral staircase, no windows or doors, and so up I went.

  At the top of the stairs, I found myself inside a dirty glass booth, the light cage, I think it’s called. In the center of the round booth was the old light that hadn’t been used for dozens of years.

  I saw him right away. Tyson sat between the light cage and the railing that ran around it, clutching something in his hands and rocking back and forth. He saw me right away, too. I stepped out of the light cage, and onto the ledge. He looked up at me. His eyes were red from tears; my eyes were red from smoke. He picked something up that lay next to him—a broken piece of brick—and he hurled it at me. It hit me in the shoulder. I tried not to feel it.

  “Go away!” he said through his tears. “Just go away!” He threw something else—this time a shard of thick glass. I ducked and it went over the rail.

  “I hate you!” he screamed. “Hate-you-hate-you-hate-you! I wish you were dead! I wish . . . I wish you were never born!”

  I moved slowly in on him, and he leaned away, still clutching whatever it was he was clutching. “Tyson,” I said, “the fire’s almost here! We’ve got to figure out a way down!”

  “No. I’m staying. You can jump for all I care.”

  “Tyson, I’m trying to help you!”

  “Yeah, sure you are.”

  I held out my hand to him, and he turned away. “No!” he screamed, holding the thing he was holding far away from me. “No! You’re not taking this, too!” He stood and ran around the ledge and I ran after him, going in circles until I finally caught him. He turned and threw it at me, hitting me in the forehead. I tried not to feel it.

  “Take it!” he screamed. “Take it, I don’t care. I don’t care, I don’t care ...” He fell to his knees, crying, and rocking back and forth, and I looked at what he had been holding. It was the picture of him and his parents—the one thing he had saved from his room before setting it on fire. I knelt beside him. He was crying harder than ever now.

  “Why are you doing this to me?” he mumbled. “Why? Why? Why? You never used to bother me like the other kids in school did. Now you’re the worst. Well, I don’t care,” he said. “When the fire gets here, it won’t matter. Then everyone’ll be sorry.”

  “I already am sorry, Tyson.” Tyson just sobbed and sobbed. He wasn’t even fighting me off anymore. He just sobbed and rocked back and forth.

  I felt funny about it, but I put my arm around him, like he was my kid or something. He didn’t stop crying. “I’m your friend now, Tyson. I’ll always be your friend. I’ve never been so wrong about anybody in my entire life, and I’ll make it up to you.”

  “I didn’t pull those pranks,” he mumbled.

  “I know. I was wrong.” We sat there for a moment, and then I looked down at myself. “Look at me,” I said. “I pissed in my pants!” He looked at my pants, then up at me, and for a second I thought I saw a smile there beneath the tears. I smiled at him. “Welcome to the club, right?” I said.

  He shrugged.

  “Sure. We can call it the Pee-Pee Club!”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “C’mon,” I said, “it’ll be a real pisser!”

  And at that, he laughed. It was short, but at least he laughed.

  There was a light in the lighthouse, but it wasn’t the kind of light you’d want to see—the lighthouse base was on fire. Whatever wood was down there had caught and was being eaten up. Smoke started to pour out of the light cage.

  “We’d better get out of here,” I said, helping Tyson up.

  “You go,” he said. “I want to stay.”

  “Don’t be dumb.” I looked over the railing. “How far down is it?”

  “Pretty far,” said Tyson.

  It seemed a long way down to the ground, but flames were already licking up inside the light cage. The flames from the house made it impossible to jump on any side, except for the side facing the sea, and so, as the flames began to reach out of the light cage, Tyson climbed over the railing. I didn’t just yet. I ran around to the other side of the light cage, picked up Tyson’s picture, smashed the glass, and took out the photo.

  Tyson was still clinging to the ledge when I got back. I climbed over to the other side, and we sort of just stood there for a while, as the fire became fiercer. I thought of the time I was on a five-meter high board. I had stood there at the edge, looking over for a good ten minutes before I got the nerve to jump. We couldn’t do that now.

  “On the count of three,” I said. “One . . . two . . . three!” We both let go without looking down, then hit the side and slid down the slope of the lighthouse. The stone was hot from the fire inside. We hit the bushes beside the lighthouse hard, but they were dense enough to break our fall. Still, we didn’t stop, because the bushes sloped off quickly to the rocks above the ocean. We kept rolling, then suddenly I found myself rolling down rocks. The cliff wasn’t too steep, but the rocks sure were jagged. Finally we stopped, just above the ocean. Tyson, who was falling backward, probably would have smashed his head if he hadn’t landed on me first.

  I looked up, and the lighthouse seemed amazingly far away. It was hard to believe we had tumbled all this way in such a short time.

  It was high tide, the rocks were wet and slippery, the wind felt like a hurricane, and the waves kept hitting below, shooting water up through the crevices like a whale’s blowhole. There was no way we could climb back up, but the storm offshore was churning up the sea so much, it seemed the ocean was no escape either. The waves were at least ten feet high now.

  Another wave came in, and this one lifted us both up and smashed us down against the rocks again, sending foam flying in all directions.

  “Ow!” I yelled. That one hurt! These were the types of waves that turned boulders into sand, and we would be dust if we sat there much longer.
>
  Up above, there was an explosion.

  “Watch out!” said Tyson. The entire light cage had shattered, sending shards of heavy glass down in our direction. “Duck!”

  Big splinters of glass and burning wood landed all around. Up above, the frame of the house fell, and the burning beams seemed about ready to come toppling down the rocks toward us. Our only chance was to get off the rocks, and make our way to the beach.

  “But I can’t swim!” said Tyson.

  “I know,” I said as I saw a wave—the darkest, meanest-looking one yet—looming in front of us, blocking out the rest of the ocean. “I can swim, though. Hold on to me!” I said. “I won’t let you go.”

  Before we had time to figure out how we were going to work this, the wave was upon us. Tyson grabbed me around the waist, and we were underwater. The wave rolled us, dragging us across the rocks, then dragging us back, spinning us every which way around until I couldn’t tell which way was up.

  When my head broke the surface, we were off the rocks and out in the icy open sea, a hundred long yards from the beach. I kicked off my shoes, and with Tyson sputtering, coughing, and gagging, I began to swim toward shore, with him holding on to my belt for his life. At that moment I would have given anything in the world to have been Drew Landers, or even Randall; two strong swimmers who could handle this better than I could.

  Tyson was panicking, nearly pulling me under each time a wave hit us, but somehow we kept our heads above water. My arms could barely stretch away from my body to pull the water, but my legs were strong from track. I kept kicking, counting each kick, and praying, which I never seemed to do enough of unless I thought I was going to die. All we needed was a riptide to drag us out into the sea, and we’d never be seen again. I began to wonder if there were any sharks around here. There were stories about people who got eaten by sharks nearby, and Ralphy Sherman says—well, to hell with what Ralphy Sherman says.