Her husband had only gone in for a stress test. They wanted to keep him overnight. Trouble with his heart. An arrhythmia. One of those “better safe than sorry” scenarios. Routine, they said.
Then, twenty-four hours later, he dies from cancer? She took another swig as night fell and her house filled with shadows and her eyes with tears.
Too soon, Almira would leave her, too. This dark, empty house would become her regular haunt. The weight in her heart grew heavier as the shadows grew darker around her.
And moved in for the kill.
The Shadow reached out to touch Conner’s father, grasping to kill, and then seemed to change its mind and searched Connor’s mother’s face. Yet again, it brought its attention back to the father.
Conner moved quickly with every ounce of bravery and strength he could find that his soul could deliver. He grabbed his parents’ hands, pulling them both to the ground.
The Shadow, temporarily thwarted, swooshed past the family. It quickly circled, building up speed, building up venom.
Conner pulled his parents to their feet and screamed, “Get up. Come with me. Now!”
His parents, in shock, in unfamiliar territory, couldn’t move. They only stared at Conner without recognition. He focused on his mother.
“Mom? Mom! Get up!”
His mother just continued to stare at him. Her lower lip trembled rapidly, as if it were made of rubber and someone had just snapped it. Tears ran down her cheeks now. Conner noticed how cold her hand felt. He noticed how white her face was, the etching of fear on her forehead. The look of total incomprehension in her eyes.
In that flash of a second, Conner realized that this is how people must look, that this must be the expression on their face, right before they die. When they see Death coming at them and know that there’s nothing they can do. That the battle is not worth fighting. That it cannot be won. That it is their time.
The Shadow thing was almost upon them now. Father, Mother, and son. In the blink of an eye, all three would be dead, their hearts stopped, their lives extinguished. Their souls on the way to heaven, hell, or elsewhere.
The Shadow thing cut through thin air and slid up the far wall to the ceiling, having killed nothing, for nothing was there to kill.
Where the Croyant family had been just one-thousandths of a second before, there was only a dusty cloud. Then that cloud, too, vanished.
Almira opened the unlocked front door. (Her mother always kept it open. Almira didn’t know why; this wasn’t the same safe neighborhood it used to be.)
The house was strangely dark, still.
“Mom?” Almira peeped.
Shadows seemed to move in the house, but it was just a passing car’s lights playing across the room. Almira searched for the light switch. She made her way to the kitchen. Her mother sat half in shadow and half in the bluish glow cast from the streetlight outside. Almira could see the bottle and the glass only because of the way both items caught the light.
“You okay, Mom?” Almira said, brushing her mother’s shoulder with her hand.
Her mother stayed as still as a corpse, her eyes closed.
“Mom . . . ?”
Almira leaned closer into the still figure of her mother, listening, studying her face for signs of life.
Mrs. Feurza’s eyes popped open. “Oh, Almira,” she yelled, pressing her hand to her chest. “You startled me!”
“I startled you!?” Almira shouted, jumping back.
“How long have you been back?” Mrs. Fuerza said. “I’m so sorry. I was deep in thought.”
“Yeah, I would say so.” She sighed.
Then her mom added, “I’m glad you’re home.”
“Me, too,” Almira said.
“Sit,” her mother said. “Let’s talk.”
“You mind if I turn on a light?”
“I’d rather you didn’t,” Mrs. Fuerza said. “I’ll light a candle, though. How’s that?”
“Okay,” Almira replied. She bit her lower lip, stroking her upper arm. She searched in the dark for a chair, then the flare of a kitchen match momentarily illuminated her path. Almira took advantage of the brief light to take a couple of steps forward and sit. “What did you want to talk about?”
Before her Mother could answer, both she and Almira vanished from their seats.
“What was that all about?” Almira’s mother shrieked, her eyes wide.
“I transported you. It’s a thing I do now,” Almira said, a huge smile on her face.
“Look . . . ” Mrs. Fuerza said. She pointed behind Almira, who still clutched Mrs. Fuerza around the waist with both arms. “ . . . and you can let me go now.”
Almira did so and turned to see what her mother was pointing at.
They were still in the kitchen. Same house, same kitchen. Only now the chairs were knocked over and they were about three or four feet from the table.
“What the f—?” Almira said. “But I thought . . . ”
“I don’t know what you were thinking,” her mother said, “but I wouldn’t mind knowing why you did that just now. You know: tackling me?”
“It’s the Shadows,” Almira said, looking at the floor, her cheeks crimson.
“What shadows? Do the shadows scare you again, like they did when you were little?”
“No, not those shadows,” Almira said, rolling her eyes just a bit. “I’m talking about the Shadows of Death.”
As if on cue, a Shadow swept at Almira and her mother. Almira crashed to the floor and skidded across the kitchen. She hit her head on the cabinet and was knocked unconscious.
The Reaper spread itself over Mrs. Fuerza and drained the life out of in what would have been classified as death due to rapid, premature aging—Progeroid syndrome. When it was done, the Shadow let the woman drop from its clutches. Mrs. Fuerza’s head snapped back and hit the wall as she slumped to the tiles. Then the Reaper wheeled around to face Almira. It rushed toward her like a locomotive of death to run her down.
But Almira came to just then, shaking her head to wake up, fast. Seeing that it was too late to save her mother, she leapt into the air, closed her eyes, and holding her breath as the Shadow turned again, disappeared into thin air.
The Shadow ripped through the space where Almira had just been.
Flower and Ricky Martin sat in Flower’s backyard, still in each other’s arms. They gazed moon-eyed at each other under the nearly full moon.
“So, right as the entire planet is going to hell,” Ricky whispered, “I have my first kiss.”
“Mine, too,” Flower sighed. “Great timing, right?”
Ricky stood up and stretched his muscles.
“I’m feeling a little better,” he said, trying to touch his toes, but falling far short. “You were right about the fresh air.”
“The kiss helped, too, I think,” she said, her cheeks turning pink.
Ricky laughed. “The kiss is what did it, of course.” He grinned at her. She smiled back. “I think I wore myself out. I need a nice rest. And, ah, um, a woman’s love.” Ricky coughed and looked away.
Flower looked down. Then she whispered, “Is it love?”
Before Ricky could answer, Conner materialized on Flower’s back lawn.
“Holy crap!” Ricky shouted. Then he turned to Flower. “Ooops, sorry.”
But Flower had already jumped up and was running over to Conner, who had stood and faced her.
“Oh, Conner, you’re all right!” She gave him a hug and he hugged back.
“What about my Mom? My Dad?” Conner asked.
“What are you talking about?” Flower asked.
“Are they here already? They were with me.”
“I’m not sure what you mean,” Flower said, softly.
“I know I grabbed them in time . . . ” Conner said, his voice fading to nothing.
Flower and Ricky said nothing. They knew what had happened. The Reaper or Reapers attacking Conner’s family must have been able to grab his parents in mid-flight at
the last second while Conner was trying to escape.
Realization set in Conner’s eyes and he fell to the ground and sat there and cried.
“Hey, man,” Ricky said, coming over and sitting by his friend. “It’s not your fault. These Shadow things, they’re evil. You did everything you could.”
Conner punched the ground, both in frustration and in an attempt to stop the pain, the sadness.
“You are lucky to be alive,” Flower whispered, sitting down as well.
After a few minutes, Conner wiped his nose with a finger and said, “You guys okay?”
“I have no idea. We don’t know if our parents are alive or dead or what . . . ” Ricky Martin bowed his head, deep in mournful thought. Then he turned his head slightly and gazed at Conner out of the corner of his eyes.
“Wait a minute.”
“What?”
“You can do it, too, then.”
“Do what?”
“The ’shadow move.’ Materializing, dematerializing. Whatever you want to call it.”
“Holy shit, I think, I, I . . . ” Conner swallowed, looking around him. As if he was just now realizing where he was and what he’d done. “I can fly?”
Ricky sat, rubbing that little beard of his.
“So, it wasn’t because I was in there longer than you guys, in that other dimension,” Ricky Martin said thoughtfully. “It was only because I was in there at all. We can all do it. Each of us who entered that other dimension. It showed up on me first because I had the longest exposure to that place.”
Just as he was discovering this fact, and articulating it, Almira arrived out of nowhere, tumbling across the lawn.
“Good, we’re all here now,” Ricky Martin said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
In A Single Flicker Of Time
Ricky, Flower, Conner, and Almira wrestled with what they understood had become of the world. What had become of them. They piled into Ricky’s parents’ SUV and just started driving.
“We have to do something,” Flower said, once they were underway. “We have this talent, this strength.”
“But what can we do against so many?” Almira asked. “There’s thousands of the bastards.”
They drove along in silence. Then Ricky Martin spoke up. “We can be like ninjas, striking in the night. Striking at the night.”
“What do you mean?” Conner asked.
“Go where the Shadow things are, stop them from killing.”
“How?” Connor took his hands off the wheel and slapped them back again. “We’re just, just—us.”
“I’m not sure,” Ricky said. “But this power we have, to disintegrate and reappear. It naturally takes us away from those things. Self-preservation, right?”
“Yeah . . . ?”
“Well, if we can manipulate it somehow,” Ricky continued. “I bet we can make it so that we disintegrate and then appear right where they are.”
“Kind of pop-up unannounced in the middle of the killing?” Flower asked.
“Right, and stop all of these deaths from happening.”
“Well, a few at least,” Almira said, a worried look on her face.
They had, by some instinct, arrived at the side of the road where the rip through to the other universe was located.
Conner pulled over. “Look where we are,” he said.
“Yeah, we know,” Almira and Flower said in unison.
They sat, all four staring into the bushes.
“Well, let’s get started,” Ricky said, stepping out of the car. Conner was next.
Flower, shrugging, exited the car and stood by Ricky. Almira left, too, and took Connor’s hand.
“Everyone, be careful. Stay safe,” Ricky said. “The idea is to find one of the Shadows out there, in the middle of a killing, and take it out.”
The other three stared at him, as if waking from a dream.
“You have to cut through the Shadows. Twice.” He said. “I don’t know why I know this. But make sure you slice it in half. You can do this by simply by diving through it.”
“I’m not sure I can do this,” Almira said, shaking. She squeezed Connor’s hand hard, and he squeezed back.
“I’ll go first,” Conner said. He ran his hand over his head a couple times like he was trying to sand it smooth.
“No, don’t go, Conner,” Almira pleaded. “I love you.”
“I know you love me, but I need to do this,” Conner said. “To show you all that I can do this thing and come back safely.”
“No-o . . . ” Almira said again, her eyes filling with tears.
“Ricky, what do you think?” Conner asked his buddy.
“I think it’s a good idea. One of us goes out there to kill a Reaper—it doesn’t have to be Conner—and then comes back.” He nodded as he processed the idea. “It will give us all confidence to do it, too. Instead of us all heading out into the darkness alone, without knowing . . . ”
Flower sighed and bit her lip. “But what if the one person doesn’t come back?” she asked. “What if they fail? What if they’re killed by the Shadow thing they’re trying to kill?”
For a moment, no one said anything. Then Conner cleared his throat and spoke.
“This is the end of the world, the apocalypse. If we don’t at least try . . .” His voice trailed off. More quietly, he said, “. . . there’s no one else . . . ” He studied the ground at his feet. Then he glanced over at Almira.
“I love you, too,” he whispered.
Then he vanished.
Conner materialized in the back seat of a Chevy sedan—quite an old one, too, based on the condition of the seats. A man in his early forties sat in the driver’s seat. He wore thick glasses, and black seaweed hair covered parts of his head, the scalp peeking through everywhere. The radio was tuned to an ’80s station, and the man tapped the steering wheel with the fingers on both hands where they gripped the wheel.
Why was Conner in this car, of all places? No sooner than the thought popped into his head, a gauzy shadow poured itself into the front passenger seat. The things wispy hand reached toward the driver, who by this time had started to whistle along with a Duran Duran song.
Conner dematerialized and shot himself directly at the shadow, slicing it roughly in half. The man drove along as if nothing was happening, as if it were just another, quite ordinary day. Conner rematerialized again in the back seat. The man began singing along, off key, with the chorus. Conner noticed that the shadow thing had floated up the roof of the car. And, although now only half a shadow, it was still intent on killing the driver.
The man tapped along and screeched, “Hungry like the wo-olf!” as the shadow descended.
Conner acted fast, dematerializing again, and cutting the monster in half once more, destroying it completely.
Then Conner himself disappeared, to reappear on a playground, somewhere in South Los Angeles. A group of small children ran and played on the swings, monkey bars, and the rest of the equipment. A different group of children chased each other around.
Conner stood and watched, a smile on his face. This is good, he thought. A nice break from all the terror.
The screeching of tires and the sound of an air horn pulled Conner from his happy thoughts. A large garbage truck had lost its brakes and power steering, crossing lanes on the highway overpass a few blocks away. In an attempt to avoid hitting anyone, the driver steered the giant vehicle onto the exit ramp and into this neighborhood.
It bore down on the playground, the steering now shot, the brakes useless, thirty young lives in the balance.
The truck careened through the playground, pulling up bushes, knocking down trees, crushing fences and toys. The behemoth came to a stop at last, smashing into the side of the building that abutted one side of the park.
The driver, dizzy and disoriented, hopped out and limped toward the children, to see if he could help, to witness what he did not want to see: the carnage, the small dead bodies.
He stopped in the LA sun
to stare at the wreckage he had wrought. A quarter acre of a war zone. A toppled swing set. Crushed monkey bars. A spinner in ruins.
But not a child, a baby, or a mother to be seen.
The playground was deserted.
Then he heard the loud talking, the surprised laughter, the crying of little babies.
He turned his gaze from the mess of the destroyed playground to the scene across the street and into the eyes of a young man.
And around him, children and babies and their mothers. All perfectly safe. Stunned, but unharmed.
The truck driver peered back to the young man, but he was already gone.
“Baby, you’re safe!” Almira called, as Conner rematerialized in their midst, kneeling on one knee, shaking. She dashed over to him and eased him to his feet. They hugged and kissed and held each other.
After a few minutes, Conner was filled with sudden, new vitality.
“We can do this!” he shouted, pumping a fist in the air. “It works!”
“What are you talking about?” Almira asked.
“Saving people. Snatching them from the grasp of Death. I just did it. I just saved people. Kids, too.”
Almira stared at Conner as if he had a funny face. “You all right, baby?”
“Never better.”
“Hey, Conner,” Ricky said, walking over to his best friend. “How did it go?”
“Amazing. You were so right.” Conner turned to his friend. “Not only can I do this, I can also bring people with me, save them by moving them. And I can kill the Shadows, they don’t even realize I’m there . . . ” Conner stopped to catch his breath.
“Cool.” Ricky said, laughing a bit. “Cool.”
“Yeah, you just go and then—boom!—you’re with a Shadow thing and you just cut him up. It works!” Conner was breathless, pumped up with the excitement of the first victory for the human race since the calamity had taken hold. “We need to do more, help more people, destroy more Shadows.”
SHADOWS OF DEATH: Death Comes with Fury (and Dark Humor) To a Small Town South of Chicago Page 18