The Delusion

by Laura Gallier

  Not for this.

  TWENTY-ONE

  THE AUTOMATIC DOUBLE DOORS AT the food court slid open, and the smell of cinnamon rolls swarmed us, carrying traces of rotten Creeper funk. They were there, scattered and slithering around, some connected to people. There were plenty of them, but nothing like the mass numbers that stalked our school.

  Thankfully Ray Anne had a specific store in mind. On the way, I told her about the awesome scent her family gave off. She shook her head and told me that was completely absurd.

  I got a kick out of watching Creepers scatter—like cockroaches scurrying from a spotlight—to avoid crossing paths with my new prom date. Thin and fragile as she was in the material world, in the alternate dimension, Ray Anne was like a Jedi.

  I followed her into a mirror-lined store with white marble floors and walls. Fancy dresses hung on long racks suspended by clear wire.

  My mood hadn’t recovered from attending two funerals in two days—neither had my guilty conscience—but I didn’t want to sulk around Ray Anne. I spotted a seating area and dropped into a hot-pink chair that might as well have had a bowling ball for a cushion.

  “This is the one I like.” Ray Anne approached, holding up a sparkling red dress.

  “Nice. I like the shiny things on there.”

  She laughed. “Sequins.”

  And that’s how I became a guy who knows about sequins.

  While Ray Anne waited for a dressing room, a freckle-faced boy jumped feetfirst into the chair across from me. Five or six years old, I’d say, with that starlike glow emanating from his chest. This close, it was even more brilliant—a multicolored flicker.

  The boy’s shackled mother told him to hold her shopping bags while she went into the dressing room. He shouted no and shoved her bags to the floor. A pair of shoes and some lacy undergarments spilled out.

  She scolded him, picking it all up and warning him not to pull that again, then disappeared into a dressing room at the same time as Ray Anne.

  I was watching the kid bounce like a monkey in his chair when something caught my attention. High above his head, glimmering specks floated and swirled. They began taking shape, flowing into formation like a marching band. A massive silhouette stretched from ceiling to floor.

  The heaviness bearing down on my anguished mind just . . . gave way to an allover sense of relaxation, so freeing I thought I might lift out of my chair. Strange as it sounds, soothing heat somehow reached past my skin into my soul, like I was being hugged by someone gushing with acceptance for me. And as a huge bonus, it temporarily relieved the freeze I carried in my gut.

  Fully visible now, a Watchman illuminated the store. He had a slender build, dark hair, and perfect facial features—the kind humans strive for. He wore minimal armor—a thick platinum belt over a loose-fitting, light-colored robe-type garment. The material looked white, but I couldn’t say for sure with all the radiance.

  As much as I’d complained about my visionary curse, in that moment, I wouldn’t have traded it for anything. I already knew there was nothing more spectacular in the universe than a Watchman, and this only confirmed it.

  I held on to my chair, hoping not to fall to my face this time. Squinting, I observed the Watchman lower himself to one knee and place his jumbo-sized hand on the boy’s head. I didn’t understand that, or his expression. Serious. Grief stricken, even.

  Despite the Watchman’s majestic presence, everyday life continued.

  “Son?” the kid’s mom called out from behind the dressing room curtain.

  “What, Mom?”

  “Just checking.”

  “I don’t need you to check on me. And I’m sick of holding your stuff.” This time the boy hurled his mother’s belongings in the air.

  I expected her to come flying out of the dressing room and tear into her bratty son. What I totally didn’t expect was two gnarled Creepers passing through the wall and closing in on the obnoxious kid.

  My tranquil moment ended like a car crash on a Sunday drive. But I actually wanted to see this.

  I tucked my legs into my chair and dug my fingers into the padded armrests. I was about to witness an epic beatdown, a Watchman defending a child against an evil no grown man could endure.

  But the Watchman removed his hand from the boy. Just stood and stepped back. Gave the kid up like a dirty cop cowering to the mafia.

  “Ray Anne!”

  “Hold on,” she said. “I almost have it zipped.”

  I couldn’t just sit there. I jumped up and stood with my back to the boy, arms out, as if I could actually shield him from the double-team assault. I guess the kid didn’t like me standing so close—he gave me a swift kick in the butt. I fell forward but caught my balance in time to turn around and watch the attack.

  A Creeper named Thief plunged its atrocious hand into the boy’s puny chest and literally ripped the shimmering light right out of him. He proceeded to crush it, smashing it in his hand until it turned to lifeless, ashen-looking dust—like the dirty stuff I’d seen on Walt’s ravaged body. Thief opened its misshapen fingers and let the black, powdery substance trickle to the floor.

  That’s when the boy’s mom came flying out of the dressing room. She got down on all fours in a white evening gown and demanded that her son help pick up her scattered belongings. A handful of shoppers stopped and stared.

  Now the other Creeper made its move. Grotesque wounds stretched across its forehead, down its sullen cheek, and under its garments, but I could still make out condemnat—condemnation, I presumed. The creature hunched over and gathered the gritty grossness off the floor. Then it spit on the dirt, massaging the slimy concoction through its bony fingers.

  What it did next was so off-the-charts freaky that I grabbed and squeezed a complete stranger’s arm. As the boy stood and kept up his tantrum, the Creeper flung the muddy sludge off its hands onto the child’s throat. And the stuff started moving, molding around the kid’s neck like a fat, slimy leach. Within seconds . . .

  It formed a shackle.

  I couldn’t hold it in. “No way!”

  It turns out I was squeezing a store employee’s arm, sending her into a panic.

  “Let go of me!” She yanked away. There were even more onlookers now.

  “I’m sorry, I . . .”

  Thief walked behind the oblivious boy and grabbed hold of the back of his freshly fashioned shackle, then began a jerky pulling motion. Each time it tugged, it let out a bloodcurdling shrill—not because it was straining, but with what seemed to be a kind of sick delight—its lips drawn back in a fang-exposing, crooked smile.

  I called for Ray Anne again. “Can you please get out here?”

  “Coming. I’m getting dressed now.”

  My eyes were glued to the boy. Naturally, his mother glared at me. “You have a problem?” Apparently she was too leery of me to head back into the dressing room.

  What would she have done if she’d seen the real threat to her kid?

  Thief ran its calloused hands through the boy’s gelled hair, then rubbed the back of the small guy’s head in a circular motion. It uttered something, then out popped two cords, wiggling and contorting like disgusting worms, right out of the kid’s scalp.

  “Ray Anne!” I yelled so loud that everyone around me froze, including some people outside the store. That same rattled employee was on the phone now, probably calling security on me.

  “One second,” Ray Anne said. “Is everything okay?”

  “Not. Even. A little.”

  I stared at the Watchman, but he didn’t notice me. His gaze was fixed on the boy, the corners of his mouth turned down.

  Condemnation wrapped its hand around its own wrist, then twisted back and forth, eventually pulling off a cuff that had somehow formed on demand. The disgusting creature crouched down and attached the metal cuff to the end of the boy’s bulky chain, easy as twisting yarn into place. Then it used its index finger to carve an inscription on the cuff, while the other Creeper etched with it
s finger on both of the boy’s freshly grown cords.

  And finally, it was over.

  The two terrorists melted into the wall, but the Watchman remained, hands clasped at his waist, still doing nothing. His head hung low. Then, gradually, he looked up, blinked in slow motion, and gazed into the ceiling. I was sure he was staring at something, something even I couldn’t see.

  The best way I know how to explain the atmosphere at that moment is to say it was like having the warmth of the sun on your face while an icy hailstorm pummels your skull. I stood there, plagued by an intense, troubling sense that good and evil were never meant to coexist, much less collide.

  I was ready to bolt out of there, but first, a fast, up close look at the kid’s cords.

  self-absorbed

  defiant

  Like Jess.

  His mother pointed in my face. “Get away from my son!”

  “Hey, your son kicked him in the butt.”

  I have no idea why some soccer mom felt the need to stick up for me.

  Ray Anne finally made it out of the dressing room, and I grabbed her arm. Too late now for her to run off the Creepers.

  “We have to go.” I tugged her toward the exit, and she accidentally flung the prom dress to the floor.

  “Why are we—”

  “Trust me.”

  Once we were locked inside Ray Anne’s silver Hyundai, we sat in the mall parking lot, blasting the AC. I talked so fast my words ran together. She was having a hard time following me and, as usual, shot questions at me, one after another so that I hardly had time to respond.

  I’d been desperate to know how people got their shackles. Now that I’d witnessed it firsthand, I seriously despised the answer. “Think about it, Ray Anne. It’s only a matter of time before the light that children carry gets snatched, crushed by evil. Innocence gone.”

  I drummed my fingers hard on the armrest. How was this right? All a person had to do was live long enough and dare to defy authority, and they’d be attacked and fitted with a shackle?

  Deep breaths weren’t working. I popped my knuckles and nearly gnawed a hole in my lip. “Don’t talk to me about good defeating evil, Ray Anne. Not after what I just saw. That Watchman did nothing to protect that child. And whether he couldn’t or wouldn’t, either way, humanity is doomed.”

  She put her delicate hand on my shoulder and waited for me to calm down. “I believe everyone does get shackled at some point,” she said. “But there’s obviously a way to get free. You know that, even if you aren’t open to my explanations.”

  “I’m open, I’m just not willing to put my faith in failure.”

  “Humanity fails, Owen. Not God.”

  “How can you defend him?” I turned in my seat and yelled like she was much farther away. “What kind of cruel, pathetic, narcissistic being creates life, then sits back and watches his creation get pulverized by evil—enemies that by design outmatch us? Why weren’t everyone’s eyes created to see them? Why don’t we have the physical strength to kick their—”

  “So God made that child talk back to his mother? It’s God’s fault the kid acted out?” Ray Anne’s passion matched mine.

  “What kid doesn’t talk back to his mother, Ray Anne? Haven’t you done that?”

  “Of course, but all that proves is that we’re all rebellious. Our innocence isn’t stolen, Owen. We give it up. We act selfish by our own choice, over and over without being sorry, and darkness rushes in. How can you blame that on God?”

  Ridiculous argument. “If he exists at all, he made us this way. He set the rules.”

  Ray Anne got quiet, and about the time I was reveling in the idea that there was no way for her to counter, she jabbed back. “What if God gave us a choice, Owen? What if this whole thing is about what we choose—who we choose?”

  “What choice do any of us have?” Sweet as she was, I was getting tired of her idealistic theories. Besides, they didn’t really apply to me. I’d been spared a shackle—some sort of strength of heart I had that made me immune, I’d concluded. But as for masses of others . . .

  Ray Anne’s phone rang. Her mom, wanting to know how the shopping trip was going.

  “Yeah, I didn’t buy the dress,” Ray Anne said. “The mall was crazy tonight. I’ll come back and get it later. Tomorrow, probably.” I could hear her mother’s disappointment seeping through the phone.

  By the time she hung up and we pulled out of the parking lot, I worried I’d been too harsh. I didn’t want to run off the only friend I had—someone who was starting to feel like way more than a friend.

  Who was I kidding? I wanted to kiss her so bad it hurt.

  We stopped at a red light, and she took the lead in clearing the air. “Look, I know our conversation got a little heated, but if you can take it, so can I.” She held out her hand, and I took in the way her tousled blonde hair framed her face. “No hard feelings?”

  I smiled and shook on it. “No hard feelings.”

  Now I really wanted to kiss her.

  She pulled up to my house, and I apologized for ruining her shopping trip.

  “Yeah, well, that’s what I get for going to prom with a guy who sees into the spirit world.”

  Adorable.

  I tossed and clawed at my covers all night. For one, I kept replaying the awful scene from the mall. Then I’d think about what Ray Anne had said, how we all have a choice. That made me want to take my pillow and start whacking stuff. What good is free will if an invisible enemy is determined to use it against you?

  I finally drifted off and had a horrible nightmare about being in the woods with Walt and Marshall. I held two loaded guns identical to the one my mom’s ex back in Boston kept on the nightstand. Both barrels were aimed at their decaying heads.

  Normally it would be a relief for a dream like that to end, but not when you wake in the middle of the night gagging on Creeper stench. I thrashed in my bed, twisting my neck in every direction. I didn’t dare sleep anymore without my closet light on and the door wide open, so for the most part, I could see.

  But in my world, seeing could be more terrifying than not.

  There was a word plastered on my closet door, black lines still dripping.

  fear

  It hadn’t been there when I went to sleep.

  It’s one thing to have the feeling you’re not alone. It’s another thing to be sure of it—and not know where the intruder is.

  I pulled my knees to my chest and gathered my covers around me up to my nose. That’s when I noticed that my dog was missing from my bed.

  I whispered her name, scanning my room until finally I spotted her in the shadows, hunkered in the corner. Her reflective neon eyes were fixed on me.

  “You okay, girl?”

  She didn’t budge.

  TWENTY-TWO

  EVER BEEN TOO SCARED TO stay still but too petrified to move? That was me, in my bed, shivering, barricaded under my thin sheets. I think my dog was paralyzed too.

  “Come here, girl.”

  She gave a low-pitched growl. Adrenaline shot like fire through my veins.

  Murder. Had to be. In my room.

  I had a sickening idea of where it was likely hiding, but there was only one way to know. I leaned over the side of my mattress, slow and cautious. Grabbed a fistful of my blanket draped onto the floor, then dared myself to pull it back.

  The longer I waited, the harder it got. I held my breath, then went for it.

  A series of colorful words flew from my mouth, and I made it all the way out my bedroom door in two steps. I’d seen something poking out from under my bed. A grungy gray foot. Festering toenails.

  Worst fears realized.

  I basically slid down the stairs into the living room. There was my mom, sprawled on the sofa, wasted. I stood there, feet apart, knees bent, contemplating my next move. Then my heart stopped for the second time in less than a minute. A Creeper emerged from behind the sofa, stretching tall, in the process of connecting with my mother. I’d neve
r seen this one before. Ugly doesn’t cut it.

  I might have tried to wake her had my attention not been hijacked. The stairs, popping and cracking. Murder, coming for me.

  I grabbed my mom’s keys and darted out of the house. I know only a deadbeat would leave his incoherent mother in a den of devils, but she was too drunk to run. And she wouldn’t have believed me anyway.

  I drove, fast and aimless. It was 5:00 a.m. I couldn’t call Ray Anne at this time and couldn’t stomach going back home. I wasn’t even sure what a Creeper could do to me—I had no chains or cords. But I didn’t want to find out the hard way. It wasn’t like I repelled them.

  I’m a creature of habit, I guess, because at some point I ended up driving by my school. I was taken aback by the sheer number of Creepers slithering outside—maybe since there were no humans inside to badger? They clung to the brick, scurried along the rooftop, huddled in groups, converged on the front steps. Like a hoard of insects, droves of them.

  Why my school? I would have researched it if I’d had any idea where to start.

  I pulled over and watched the spectacle—like a horror film, only the villains could leap off the big screen and come after you. Despair throbbed in my chest. These vermin had invaded my world and infested my life—had me on the run in my boxer shorts before sunup.

  I banged my head on the steering wheel, feeling sorry for myself. And my species. The nauseating odor crept through my sealed windows.

  What are they doing?

  One by one, the Creepers scampered to a huddle, quickly forming a massive clump near the edge of the property, hunkering down. It was like a giant, shifting, slithering wall of black.

  Across the street, twelve Watchmen were approaching, walking in sync in a triangular formation. I flew out of the car, climbing up the hood and onto the roof of my mom’s Infiniti.

  Wow. Colossal warrior bodies. Brilliant illumination. Full body armor light-years ahead of anything humanity has ever dreamed up. Skin colors as varied as the human race. All looked to be in their early twenties, though I doubted they aged at all.