The wind picked up, blowing hard enough that it actually whistled past his ears. He zipped up his heavy navy blue sweatshirt and raised the hood. It was sort of late—well, not late-late, but enough of the night had already slipped by that he wouldn't have ventured out if Kyle hadn't called him and told him he had to come. That he had to see whatever weirdness was going on under the porch.
At six foot five and two hundred seventy-five pounds, Ben Klosky hated the room under the Brodys' porch. He would never have considered himself claustrophobic, but just being in the storage room made him want to punch someone. Usually Kyle. It was a good thing the kid was his best friend.
Ben reached the corner of the house without having made a sound. He poked his head around to get a glimpse of the patio and the porch. The windows were dark, though he could see the glow of lights from deeper in the house. His gaze went to the short, stooped door beneath the porch, an entrance for goblins, he had always imagined. Tonight he hated the images this conceit put into his mind.
The wind gusted, blowing brown and red leaves across the back lawn with a scritch-scratch noise that was like tiny, deadly things crawling up his spine. A frown creased his forehead. Ben wasn't the type to spook easily, but he shuddered and glanced around nervously, no longer anxious about being seen by Kyle's parents, but anxious just the same. All of a sudden he didn't want to be out here in the darkness anymore.
His gaze ticked toward the goblin door again, and it troubled him to realize that even that shelter would be welcome.
Still unnerved, he took another glance at the porch to make sure he was not being observed and then hurried quietly across the concrete patio. He had walked over, so his eyes had long since adjusted to the darkness. When Ben reached the door he hesitated, took a breath, then rapped softly.
His ears picked up every sound, alert for any noise from the house. After a moment there was a shifting, a kind of scraping, inside the storage room, but nothing else. Just as he raised his hand to rap again, there was a click and then the door popped open several inches. Ben actually flinched.
“Get in here,” Kyle whispered.
The door swung wide, and Kyle grabbed his sleeve. Ben barely had time to crouch down to avoid cracking his skull on the frame of that goblin door. He shuffled into the storage space, which was illuminated not by the overhead bulb but by a flashlight that lay on the floor. As soon as he was in, Kyle hissed at him to close the door behind him. Ben did as he was asked, and then Kyle clicked off the flashlight and pulled the metal string on the overhead bulb.
Ben's back already ached, and he had a muscle cramp in his neck, but when that light went on he forgot his discomfort. Kyle had cleared off an old, rusty wrought-iron chair for him to use but Ben ignored it. Instead, he stared at the circle on the floor.
A ripple of something that might have been fear went through him, and suddenly he felt the closeness of the walls and ceiling more than ever.
“What is this?”
Kyle laughed softly, but if it was meant to put Ben at ease, it failed.
“The guy I was telling you about earlier, Will James? He was here,” Kyle whispered. He smiled and shook his head. “Dude, I swear to God you are never going to believe this. But it's true. It's all true.”
Ben hesitated, his unease growing. In the dim light of the single bulb Kyle looked even paler than usual, and there was a deeper red tint than Ben had ever noticed in his orange hair. In his friend's hands was a thick leather-bound book, the edges of its pages all ragged the way really old books were.
“That's . . . that's the book you were telling me about? The one you found under the stairs?”
With a grin, Kyle handed it to him. By reflex, Ben took the book and immediately wished he hadn't. Despite the cold that seeped through the walls and concrete floor of that room, the book was warm to the touch. Its cover felt more like skin than leather, and the instant he made that comparison in his mind he felt sick. There seemed to be a strange smell coming from the book as well, the odor of a match after it'd been blown out.
While Ben held the book, Kyle talked to him. About Will James, and the incredible story he had told. About this book and what it could do. But most terribly, about the things that Kyle claimed to have witnessed Will James do right here in this terrible goblin room.
Ben forced a smile. His hair was too long, and the way the ceiling was torn, with bits of pink insulation innards hanging down like Spanish moss, it made him feel as though things were crawling in his shaggy mane. In the front of his mind, he knew that they were under Kyle's porch, that his parents were in the house probably having a glass of wine and watching a movie or something, with lights on and locks on the doors. This was a place they'd hung out in the past, though Ben only reluctantly. How many beers had they drunk down here?
Too many, but Ben wished he'd saved a few for right now.
In the back of his mind, in a little room inside his head not unlike this dry, stale, rust-smelling storage space, it felt different to him tonight. Alive and shifting with the hint of some presence, of eyes upon him. Big Ben Klosky was no coward, but when he walked through the woods alone, that was how he felt. As though at any moment something might slither from the bushes or drop from the branches above.
This was the same feeling.
He'd seen the way cats hissed and horses shied from certain people or places, but he had never imagined he could feel what they felt. Now he knew people could get their hackles up just as well as dogs.
He wanted out of there. Right fucking now.
“Kyle,” he said, voice low, that rusty smell now coating his throat and becoming a taste.
“Shit,” his best friend replied, a look of curdled-milk disgust on his face. “I knew you wouldn't believe me.”
Ben felt his fingers stroking the leather cover of the book in his hands and he glanced down at it. Opened it. Dark Gifts. Jean-Marc Gaudet. He didn't want to know what else was in it, what kind of shit had drooled out of Jean-Marc Gaudet's brain into this book.
He knelt on the concrete and pushed the book at Kyle, who also seemed reluctant to hold it. Ben wiped his hands on his sweatshirt, back and forth several times, and then he pushed his fingers through his hair to brush out the imaginary insulation maggots that his mind insisted were crawling there.
“I didn't say I didn't believe you,” Ben said. The truth was, he wasn't sure what to believe. Kyle wasn't the kind of guy who made shit up, pulled practical jokes. But he'd been known to get carried away with his enthusiasms in the past. Could be he had just found the book and—
Ben froze. As he had begun to move away from Kyle, thinking to leave the goblin room, to get some fresh air in spite of Kyle's insistence that he himself had to remain under the porch waiting for this Will James to come back, his gaze had slid across the concrete floor just beyond Kyle. On his knees, he could make out symbols in the dim light.
Rust. That smell in the room. Only it wasn't rust.
Slowly he reached out to grab the flashlight that Kyle had set on the ground. Ben clicked it on, its light shining a spot upon the wall. He swung it around and pointed it at the dark brown circle on the concrete and the symbols that had been scrawled there.
“Kyle,” Ben said, a chill racing up his spine. “Tell me that's not blood.”
With a sigh, Kyle slid the book onto the floor. He knelt on the ground in that small space and grabbed Ben by the shoulder, forcing Ben to meet his gaze.
“Benjy, have you not been paying any attention at all?” Kyle asked, his eyes gleaming, reflecting that single bare bulb. “I know it's fucked, but this isn't some game. I'm not fooling around here. Pay attention, Mr. Klosky, 'cause Elvis has left the building, and buddy, he took us with him. Nothing's the same now. If you saw even a fraction of what I saw tonight, you could never—”
The flashlight died.
Both of them glanced down at it. Ben's eyes strayed to the bloody circle again.
Then the bare bulb overhead flickered and went out. At
the very same moment the hum of electricity that ran through the house and that was always audible for some reason down there in the storage space simply stopped. The house had lost power.
Darkness swallowed them.
“Shit,” Kyle whispered.
“Blackout.” Ben blinked several times, but his eyes were not adjusting. All he could see were black and gray swaths of shadow. Yet he had frozen in place not because of the dark, but because of the other thing, the feeling he'd had of eyes upon him. Some primal part of his mind felt that the predator was here and that if he remained completely still, he would be all right.
Upstairs in the Brodys' house, glass shattered and Kyle's mother began to scream, not an angry shout but a horrid shriek of pain and hysterical anguish.
In the dark, Ben heard Kyle whisper one word.
“Mom?”
He sounded so very small.
The screaming stopped.
Swathed in blackness, blind in that tiny room, Ben was in the way when Kyle started for the door. Kyle slammed into him, knocking him backward onto his ass. Ben tried to catch himself and his right hand caught on something sharp. He hissed in pain, then grunted as he felt hands and elbows and knees on him as Kyle, now driven only by an insane, beyond-thought need to reach his mother, tried to climb right over him.
Ben was twice his size. In the darkness he felt along Kyle's body, found his throat, and shoved him back, driving him down to the concrete. There was no light. None at all. Ben could not even see a glint where Kyle's eyes should have been. But he heard the whimpering just fine.
Moments before Ben had wanted nothing more than to leave this room. He had changed his mind.
“Don't even twitch,” he whispered to Kyle, his voice cracking with fear, eyes burning with nascent tears. Big Ben bit his lip.
“My . . . my parents,” Kyle whispered. His chest hitched and when he spoke again his voice was choked. “Ben, that . . . that was my mom.”
Ben swallowed, and his throat was so dry it was like eating glass. His face was warm and flushed and yet the rest of him was so damn cold. The darkness was too much. If he could just have seen Kyle's face he might have been able to communicate, been able to explain. But in his heart was the ancient echo of some primeval terror, the first men taking shelter in a cave from something cruel and hungry that stalked the night.
“Ben?”
“Ssshhh.” He put his hand over Kyle's mouth, bent close, putting his weight on his friend. “Ssshhh. Not a sound. Not a sound until the lights come back on.”
They lay there in the dark like illicit lovers fearing discovery.
Until the first scratching began on the small door of the storage space. There had been no further noise from inside the house, no sound of the porch door opening, or footsteps upon those stairs. Just that scratching, like nails dragging languorously across the wood. Kyle whimpered. The storage space filled with the reeking odor of urine and Ben thought Kyle had pissed himself, and then he felt the dampness in his own jeans.
October, Senior Year . . .
On the drive back to Parmenter Road, Will kept glancing in the rearview mirror, numb with the astonishment that still lingered in him, even after all of the events of the past few days. For every time he glanced in that mirror, he saw himself more than a decade younger, his hair too short, his eyes ablaze with wonder, a true reflection across the years. The kid in the backseat—with Ashleigh in the middle and Young Brian on the other side—was skeptical on the surface, but Will knew him. Will was him. He knew that beneath that superficial doubt was absolute faith in the truth of the impossible.
“Will!” Brian snapped, and he reached over from the driver's side to jerk the wheel.
With a quick shot on the brakes, gaze straight ahead now, Will barely missed clipping a station wagon that was parked on the street. His heart thundered in his chest, not appreciating the irony involved in his killing them all by accident. He kept his eyes on the road, at least for a moment or two. Gradually, first his thoughts and then his gaze drifted back to the kid in the backseat, to Young Will, who still had so many mistakes to make, so many lessons to learn, so many days to squander.
A smile crept across his face. Will wouldn't rob himself of those mistakes, those lost days, for anything. The kid's a lot more resilient than the grown-up version, Will thought. Ashleigh had told him everything that was going on—a revelation that had torn away the spell of forgetting he had done—and Young Will was rolling with the punches a hell of a lot more fluidly than his older counterpart had managed to.
Will glanced in the backseat again, and this time he caught Ashleigh watching him, her eyes haunted by the attack she had just endured. Will wanted to hold her, but found himself strangely reluctant. It wasn't his place. That other Will, the one in the back, it was his duty. A shudder of recognition, of shared sentiment, went through him as he caught a glimpse of their hands. Young Will and Ashleigh were holding hands, not romantically, but for strength.
Will returned his gaze to the road, but in him was a melancholy more powerful than any this bittersweet homecoming had previously created. Of all the things he missed from his high school days, none felt so painfully lost as the relationship he had shared with Ashleigh. They were still best friends, even now. But not like they had been back then.
That was the way life was. The world turned. The river flowed. And the farther you sailed upon it, the less distinct were the things you left behind along your journey.
He took a deep breath and gripped the steering wheel tightly. They were all haunted by the way Ashleigh's attacker had disappeared from Robinson Field, misting into the dark, becoming part of the shadows. Mike Lebo was dead. That part of his past was irrevocably changed, and he felt that loss. But Ashleigh was safe. He and Brian had been right to fear that their arrival might alter their enemy's plans. Had they not been watching over Ashleigh, waiting for the right opportunity to connect with her again—something they had been about to do when the shadow man appeared—he didn't even want to think about the result.
Ashleigh. Will smiled as he turned the corner and drove them all up Parmenter Road in the shitbox Buick Brian had bought out of the classifieds for five hundred in cash. As he thought of her, of all she had meant to him, he found himself missing home for the first time since his trip back. Not Eastborough home, but home. The time he had come from. His year. His apartment. His job. His friends. And, strangest of all, the Ashleigh of that time, the married lawyer with twin daughters and all the confidence in the world. He missed her.
As they drew nearer to his house, Will slowed.
“They're out tonight,” his younger self said in the backseat. “With the Djordjeviches.”
Will smiled incredulously. So that was this night? “I remember,” he said as he pulled into the driveway. He turned around in the seat, gaze ticking from Young Brian to Ashleigh and then pausing upon his own face. “They're going to be late.”
Young Will shook his head. “They only went to Framingham.”
“Yeah. But they're going to have to drive Jelena—Mrs. Djordjevich—back to Newton. Long story.” Though he saw the confusion and curiosity in his own young eyes he tore his gaze away and looked at Ashleigh. She still seemed skittish. “Now's not the time for this. We should get inside.”
They got out of the car, its doors creaking as they were slammed shut, and all of them walked up to the front door together. As Young Will got his keys out, Ashleigh stood close by him. Will and Brian had explained to her what they had been doing the past two days—buying the car, getting a motel room, buying clothes, and getting cleaned up—but fortunately she had not pursued the matter of Mike Lebo's death as yet, and Young Brian hadn't asked where his future self had gotten time-sensitive cash.
But all of those things were going to have to be discussed now; all cards would have to be put on the table. The shadow man was still out there, still hunting, and there were other victims to come.
Inside the house, Young Will led the way to
the kitchen and Will the Elder took up the rear, closing the door behind him. As he followed the two Brians up the stairs he noticed Young Brian lean over to his twenty-something counterpart with a giddy grin on his face.
“I like the goatee,” the doughy-faced teenager said. “It's a good look.”
The elder Brian nodded. “It works for me. For us.”
“So what do I . . . I mean, what do you do?” his younger self asked.
Brian paused and glanced back at Will, who gave an abrupt shake of his head. With a sad shake of his head, Brian glanced at the kid.
“I'm you. I know how bad you must want to know, but you're also me. Do you really think you're going to get me to spill the future, just like that? We've fucked this stuff up enough already.”
Young Brian shot him a withering glance.
His older self arched an eyebrow. “I'll tell you this much. We do pretty well. Up until now.”
The kid nodded. “Cool.”
Moments later they had gathered in the living room. Will had begun to think he was adjusting to all of this, but stepping into that room put the lie to that. As he sat down in a high-backed antique chair with floral upholstery, his hands shook. He flexed them into fists, gazing about the room breathlessly. The mustard-colored sofa was just as ugly as he remembered it, the coffee table as scuffed by his own childhood antics. Above the fireplace was an elegant drawing of a man and woman embracing, sketched out in delicate reds on white parchment. Every knickknack was familiar to him, though some of them were long-forgotten treasures.
Will rose and crossed to a shelf, where he snatched up a brass elephant. He let his fingers run over it as they had done many times. The brass was slightly tarnished and the smell of it was like a gift from the past.
For a moment he just held on to it, his back to the others. Then he turned and tossed it to Young Will, who sat on the edge of the coffee table with Ashleigh. The kid caught it easily and he stared back at Will. On the couch, the Brians were side by side, comfortable, and Will wondered how they could have adapted to one another so quickly when he and his younger counterpart had barely exchanged words.
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