Shadow People

by James Swain

  “No place to park around here, unless I go into a garage, and they’ll charge me thirty bucks an hour,” Herbie said. “How about I circle around until you need me.”

  “Sounds like a plan.” Limo drivers knew the city’s streets like the back of their hands, and Peter wondered if Herbie had ever encountered Selena. “Have you ever seen a female fortune-teller working this corner? She goes by the name Selena.”

  “Can’t say that I have,” Herbie replied.

  “You sound pretty sure about that.”

  “Cops ran all the mimes and musicians off. Fortune-tellers, too.”

  Peter felt defeated even before he started. Perhaps Selena was inside one of the many office buildings in the area. It would only take about a year to check all of those. He climbed out of the backseat along with Liza. His driver’s window lowered.

  “Check down below,” Herbie suggested.

  “The subway?”

  “Yeah. A lot of street performers work down there. Transit cops leave them alone.”

  “Got it.”

  The Times Square subway entrance was about as wide a city street. They went down the stairs and entered the city’s noisy underworld. The station was the linking point for five different lines, and contained five different sets of platforms. It was another needle in a haystack, and he approached a pair of transit cops flipping their nightsticks.

  “Excuse me, but I’m looking for a female fortune-teller named Selena.”

  “Describe her,” one of the cops said.

  How was he supposed to describe someone he’d never met?

  “She’s wise beyond her years,” he replied.

  The cop pointed straight ahead. “I think I know her. She sits by the platform for the Number Three train. Take the escalator down. You can’t miss her.”

  They bought Metrocards and followed the arrows to the Number 3. An escalator took them down to the lower level. Beneath a ripped poster for a rap artist sat a sixtyish woman wearing a black dress that could have belonged to a nun, no makeup, her gray hair tied in a bun. The contours of her face said Russian, perhaps Ukrainian. Two empty folding chairs were positioned to either side. Had she known they were coming?

  “You must be Selena,” Peter said.

  “And you must be Peter Warlock and Liza,” she said, without a hint of an accent. “I was reading a man’s fortune earlier, and you both popped up. Make yourself comfortable. I hope you don’t mind the noise.”

  They sat to either side of her. A train pulled in and disgorged people wearing business attire. A particularly well-dressed man carrying a leather briefcase dropped several bills into Selena’s dented tin cup. They were big bills, a fifty and two hundreds.

  “He a regular?” Peter asked.

  “Hedge fund manager. I saved him a billion dollars last year,” Selena said.

  “Holy cow,” Liza said.

  “Got him on retainer?” Peter asked with a smile.

  “Come to mention it, I do. His partners as well. Does that seem vulgar to you?”

  “You have a right to make a living as much as anyone else.”

  “Good answer.”

  Selena fished the money out of her cup and stuffed it into the pocket of her dress. It was not easy making a living telling fortunes. There were so many fakes in the city, it was hard for a real psychic to get by. Selena had obviously found a gold mine inside the subway station, and Peter guessed her drab appearance was more costume than real.

  “So tell me why you’re here,” Selena said. “It’s not often that another psychic seeks out my counsel.”

  “I’m having a problem with a shadow person,” Peter explained. “Actually, several of them. They keep kidnapping me and my friends, and taking us into the future where we nearly die at the hands of a serial killer. I just learned that one of them was the victim of this same serial killer. I’m having a hard time understanding all this. Will you help me?

  “Does your boyfriend always talk so fast?” Selena asked Liza.

  “Only when he’s on edge,” Liza replied.

  She addressed Peter. “The answer is obvious. You’re just not seeing it.”

  “Will you tell us?” Peter asked.

  “Bad question. Try again.”

  “Will you guide us?” Peter asked.

  Another businessman stepped up and dropped big bills into the dented tin cup.

  “Investment banker,” she said as the man departed.

  “Did you save him a bundle?” Peter asked.

  “Just his bank. You don’t need me, Peter. You already know the answer.”

  “Thanks. That makes me feel much better.”

  “Repeat the words you said to me a moment ago. Dissect them one by one. One of those words holds the key to your mystery. Do it, and see if I’m right.”

  Peter played back to himself what he’d just told Selena. While he did, a third man deposited more good tidings in Selena’s cup. Not a gold mine, but a mint.

  “He runs a foreign embassy,” she said.

  “Friend or foe?” Peter asked.

  “Friend, of course. The only information I’d sell to a foe would be bad information. Have you got it yet?”

  “I think so. The word nearly.”

  Selena nodded approvingly. “That is correct. You said the shadow people were taking you and your friends into the future, and that you nearly died at the hands of a serial killer. But none of you have died. You’re assuming you will die, but that may not be the case.”

  “I was taken into the future, and the serial killer put a gun to my head,” Liza jumped in. “He pulled the trigger right as I was yanked back into the real world. I would have died.”

  “But you didn’t,” Selena said forcefully.

  “I got lucky.”

  Selena’s eyes laughed, and the corners of her mouth turned up ever so slightly.

  “Why is that funny?” Liza asked.

  “No one gets lucky,” Selena said.

  “Sure they do. Haven’t you heard of Lady Luck smiling down on you?”

  “Tell her,” Selena said to Peter.

  “Luck is controlled by the spirits, and they only dole it out to babies and drunks,” Peter explained. “Everything else that happens in life is a role of the dice.”

  “Next you’ll be telling me there isn’t a Santa Claus,” Liza said.

  “Come to mention it…”

  “What about you and Snoop? You were both taken to the future, and escaped before you were shot in the head,” Liza said. “Isn’t that luck?”

  “No, that was fate. There’s a big difference.”

  “Now I’m really confused.”

  Selena’s eyes were still laughing. She rose from her chair and headed for the escalators. They followed and were soon standing in bustling Times Square. Down 42nd Street they went to one of the area’s many overpriced parking garages. The afternoon light was beginning to fade, and Peter realized he needed to get to his theater and prepare for tonight’s show. Selena’s day might be over, but his had just begun. Selena handed a parking attendant a stub, and the uniformed man hustled away.

  “You don’t take the subway?” Peter asked.

  “No. I live outside the city,” Selena said.

  She removed a giant wad of cash from the pocket of her dress and began to count it. Her take for the day was well into the thousands of dollars.

  “I think I’ve figured out what’s going on,” Peter said. “Will you hear me out?”

  “Go ahead,” she said, still counting.

  He spent a moment collecting his thoughts. When he finally spoke, it was with the conviction of someone who’d finally found a truth that had been evading him for the longest of times. “I was wrong from the start. The shadow people aren’t trying to hurt me, and in fact, aren’t evil spirits at all. They’re victims who are taking me into the future to reveal things that will help me stop the killer from claiming his next victim.”

  Selena’s face was a blank. A shiny black Mercedes with N
ew Jersey license plates came out of the garage. Selena tipped the attendant handsomely, then nodded good-bye to Peter and Liza as she climbed in.

  “At least tell me if I’m getting warm,” Peter said.

  She looked at him before shutting the driver’s door.

  “You’re on fire,” she said.

  50

  Peter’s limo raced downtown. In less than two hours, he would be performing a full-evening magic show for a packed house. Solving crimes was important, but so was satisfying the people who paid to see him perform.

  Liza fidgeted uncomfortably in her seat. It was rare to see her so unsettled. He was tempted to read her thoughts, but fought back the urge. Their relationship was never going to work if he kept stealing looks inside her head, and he told himself the practice had to stop.

  What are you going to do?” she asked.

  “I guess I’m going to be taking a trip to the other side.”

  “You mean you’re going to let the shadow people kidnap you again? Don’t you remember what happened the two previous times? If you go back again, that crazy serial killer will shoot you.”

  Liza was wrong. This time would be different. This time, he was going to figure out who Dr. Death was, and bring him to justice. “The shadow people aren’t trying to harm me. They’re trying to show me something that will help me figure out who Dr. Death really is. I need to go back.”

  “The shadow people may not be trying to hurt you, but Dr. Death is. You think you can escape from him? I couldn’t, and neither could Snoop. I know you have special powers, but do they work on the other side?”

  Peter shook his head. When he was in the spirit world, his psychic gifts were weak at best.

  “Then how can you stop him from killing you?” Liza asked.

  He didn’t know the answer to that question. Dr. Death had come close to putting a bullet in his head the two previous times he’d paid him a visit. Going back a third time was a definite risk, but he needed to discover what it was the shadow people wanted him to see.

  “I’ll find out when I get there,” he said.

  Liza became angry with him and stared out the window. “What if I say no?”

  “No, as in, don’t go?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Then I won’t go,” he replied.

  “You won’t?”

  “We’re a team, remember? If this upsets you, then no, I won’t do it.”

  She faced him. “Thank you. That means a lot to me.”

  “Now let me ask you a question. What about Rachael? If I do nothing, she’s probably going to die.”

  “You don’t know that. The police or the FBI might still find Dr. Death.”

  “Maybe so. But it might not be in time to save her. She’s going out to see Dr. Death on Friday night, and he’s going to kill her, just like he did his other victims. And you and I will have to live with that for the rest of our lives.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because we know what’s going to happen. That’s the curse of knowing the future. If we don’t do anything to prevent the horrible things we know from happening, our consciences will eat at us, and we’ll walk around feeling like shits because we didn’t act.”

  “Has that ever happened to you?”

  He nodded stiffly, the memory still fresh. “About ten years ago. We did a séance one Friday night, and I got pulled over to the other side. I found myself standing outside an Italian restaurant in the neighborhood where I used to live. The owner was a nice old guy who got along with everybody. Two punks went in and tried to rob the place. The owner pulled a gun and ran them off. I was standing outside when the punks ran out with the owner chasing after them. I thought it was funny as hell. When the séance was over, I told the psychics in our group what had happened. They told me that I had to warn him. I didn’t see the point.”

  “Did you warn him?”

  “No. And it still eats at me.”

  “Why?”

  “The owner got robbed two days later. It played out just like I’d seen it. Except there was one thing I didn’t see during my séance. The owner chased the punks down the street and around the corner. Then he had a heart attack and dropped dead.”

  “Oh, Peter, I’m sorry. If he had a bad heart, he probably would have had a heart attack eventually.”

  “I still should have gone to see him. It was my responsibility, and I let him down.”

  “How often do you think about it?”

  “Every single day.”

  The back of the limo fell silent. Being a psychic was a gift, and it was also a curse, and sometimes, quite strangely, it was a little bit of both.

  “So the moral of the story is, we have to let the shadow people take you over to the other side if we’re going to save Rachael,” Liza said.

  “Only if we want to live with ourselves.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know, Peter. I just don’t know.”

  * * *

  A magic show took as long to prepare as it did to perform. Every prop that Peter used in his act needed to be tested to ensure it was working properly. Musicians and comics could have things go wrong and still salvage a show, but that wasn’t true with magic. If a trick went haywire during a performance, the mystical illusion of wonderment that Peter had worked so hard to create would be shattered, and the audience’s evening ruined.

  Each night before his show he did a prop check, a light check, a sound check, and a music check. Only after those were completed to his satisfaction did he retire to his dressing room, and change into his performance clothes.

  He took his time dressing. He got nervous before going on, and dressing helped calm him down. Soon, his fans would begin lining the sidewalk in front of the theater with tickets clutched in their hands. Mostly families with kids, but lots of couples as well, and plenty of squealing teenage girls. The front doors would open, and they’d file in. Sometimes, he’d peek out the window to the street to glimpse their expectant faces. They came from all over, yet shared one thing in common: They loved to be fooled.

  He stood in front of a mirror as he dressed. A strange motion in the reflection caught his eye, and he watched a shadow person seep out of a crack in the wall, and stand directly behind him, hovering a few inches off the floor. He turned around, and faced his unwanted guest.

  “Leave me alone. I have a show to do!”

  It made no sound, and continued to hover. From the same crack seeped a second shadow person, followed by a third and a fourth, until six otherworldly spirits were crammed into his tiny dressing room. He tried to reason with them.

  “I know what you want. Come back later, and I’ll go over to the other side with you, and you can show me whatever it is you want to show me. But not now. I have a show to do.”

  His guests didn’t budge. That was a problem, because he wasn’t going to back down. He shook a finger in what would have been their faces, if they’d had them.

  “I’m not kidding. Get out of here.”

  The wall of black closed around him. He heard a sharp scraping sound as a chair was pulled across the floor, and his body was forced into it. The lapels of his jacket were tugged back, the front of his shirt unbuttoned. He roared his disapproval.

  “Damn you!” he shouted.

  His buttons popped as his shirt was pulled open. A black hand grabbed the five-pointed star hanging around his neck, and yanked on it.

  “Stop that!”

  There was a loud banging on the door. He jerked his head, fearful a stranger might step into his dressing room and see this insane scene. “Yes?”

  “Peter, what’s wrong?” Liza said fearfully through the door.

  “The shadow people are here. They’re trying to take me away.”

  “Hold on—I’ll help you!”

  Liza started kicking the door. He tried to summon the demon within, wondering how it would fare against a band of spirits. Before he could find out, the black hand ripped the five-pointed star from his neck, and to
ssed it to the floor.

  He entered the next world still fighting.

  51

  It was déjà vu all over again.

  Peter was transported from his dressing room to the snaking dirt road on the hill beside Dr. Death’s house in Westchester County. As before, Dr. Death was chasing him, the Volvo’s headlights dancing in the darkness as the vehicle raced down the hill.

  Damn the shadow people! Peter thought as he ran for his life. Why couldn’t they just come out and tell him who Dr. Death was? Or at least point him in the right direction? Why did each visit have to be a hair-raising experience that made his heart beat so hard that he could hardly breathe?

  At the bottom of the hill he took a hard left, sprinting ahead. Something felt different from his two previous visits. The air was noticeably cooler, the sky not nearly as dark. He’d been brought back to the same place, but it was not at the same time in the future.

  The Volvo’s wheels skidded as Dr. Death took the turn and goosed the accelerator. Peter knew what came next. Dr. Death would stick his handgun out his window, take aim, and shoot him in the leg, delivering a nasty flesh wound. The beginning of the end, unless he did something drastically different from the two previous times.

  He bolted to his right. Maybe he could change the outcome of this. At the edge of the road he tried to jump into the forest, only it was as dense as a jungle, and there was nowhere to escape to.

  “Damn it,” he swore.

  He wondered if the shadow people heard him, or if they cared. Ghosts and spirits were bad that way. Divorced from human feelings, they often forgot what it was like to suffer.

  A gunshot ripped the still night air. He groaned and grabbed his thigh. Blood was pouring down his leg, and he pressed his hand against the gaping wound to stop the flow. The Volvo parked in the road, and Dr. Death climbed out. The serial killer wore the same college professor clothes and the same lunatic smile. Gun in hand, he told Peter to kneel. The young magician complied.

  “Want to say something before you die?” Dr. Death asked.

  Peter told himself that he was going to somehow escape, and that he must learn who Dr. Death was before he was sent back to the real world.