by Rix, Dan
Chapter 15
The first thing I did was get out of the house.
But on the porch, I halted, scarcely able to think over my pounding adrenaline.
I’d left my bike at Malcolm’s house, and my parents had the car. I had to escape by foot.
But beyond the exterior floodlights lurked pitch black forest, and a dark, dark mountain road. My body gave another tremor.
My neighbors. I could go there!
But I couldn’t.
They were too far. Deep in the forest, their lit-up windows twinkled like distant stars, separated from me by an impossibly vast stretch of darkness.
It was a hundred yards to their house. I could never hike that far. Not in the dark.
Driven by panic, I retreated inside, my breath coming in terrified gasps. Where? Where could I go?
My gaze froze on the hallway, on Trevor’s bedroom door, still closed like I left it.
Still closed. It’s still closed.
And to think I’d watched an entire movie, oblivious of what was in his bedroom.
It made my skin crawl.
Malcolm.
I yanked out my phone, dropped it, scrambled to pick it up, and after a minute of desperate jabbing managed to dial his number.
“Can you—can you come get me?” I managed to stutter the moment he answered. “There’s something in Trevor’s room.”
A pause.
“What did you see?”
“I don’t know, I didn’t know it was in there, and I took a picture, and—and—and—”
“Get out of the house, Remi.”
“I don’t know where to go,” I whimpered. Slick with sweat, my palms began to slide on the case, which I gripped so tightly my hands trembled. “Just come get me . . . please.”
“I’m on my way,” he said.
“And Malcolm?” I whispered.
“Yeah?”
“Bring your gun.”
I went back out onto the porch, which felt safer then inside my house, but then the dark forest seemed to come alive with shadows and sinister creaking noises, so I slipped back into the foyer, where I backed against a wall, my lower lip trembling.
It could be in my house . . . it could be outside . . . it could be anywhere.
In the distance, I heard the roar of Malcolm’s car turning onto my street, and I began to relax.
I looked at the Polaroid photo again, still clutched in my fist.
In the background of the photo behind my face, on the wall of Trevor’s bedroom, there was a thin humanlike shadow with long arms.
At first, I’d hoped it was the shadow of a lamp or something else innocent, but it wasn’t. I was sure of that now. There was no mistaking that curved back, those long arms bent at the elbows, that thin neck and teardrop shaped head.
Something had been standing behind me in Trevor’s bedroom, and I hadn’t even seen it.
The mere thought gave me shivers all over again.
Headlights flashed through the foyer as Malcolm’s convertible pulled into my driveway, and I breathed out a huge sigh of relief.
I flung open the door and ran out to meet him. “Let’s go . . . drive, drive!”
But he was already out of his car, and we collided on the flagstone walkway.
He gripped my waist to steady me. “What did you see? Where is it?”
“Trevor’s bedroom,” I stuttered. “But can we please, please, please go now?”
“Not until I know what it is.” Malcolm reached back into a concealed holster in his jeans and pulled out his gun, then crept up the porch steps toward my front door, which I’d left wide open.
“Malcolm, wait,” I hissed, following him back inside—mostly because I didn’t want to be left out in the dark. “You don’t know what it looks like.”
“Go wait in the car, Remi.”
“I have a picture of it. Look.” I thrust the Polaroid into his hand, and he paused to study it in the bright foyer.
His eyes narrowed. “What’s casting that shadow?”
“I know, right? It must have been standing just outside the frame . . . whatever it was.” I pictured a scaly green alien standing right behind me, and I shuddered.
It must have darted into the closet right as I turned.
“No, the angle’s wrong . . .” Malcolm trailed off, and his gaze rose from the photo to Trevor’s bedroom door, still closed. His eyebrows pinched together.
“Malcolm, please don’t go in there,” I pleaded.
“Remember what I said, Remi?”
“About fearing the unknown, I know, and if we leave now, I’ll never be able to set foot in my house again, but that’s better than being dead, isn’t it?”
“Either it’s no threat, or it was sizing you up, in which case our best chance is to take it by surprise.” Malcolm handed me the photo and gripped his gun with two hands, his gaze intent on Trevor’s door.
His words terrified me.
He was in cold-blooded military mode—no fear, no hesitation, just ruthless decision-making.
“Malcolm, please,” I whispered.
But he was already prowling up the hallway, his back to the wall.
I darted after him, my heart drumming in my throat. “Malcolm,” I hissed.
He reached the door’s threshold and paused, pressing a finger to his lips.
I nodded, gulping down my fear. Too late to stop him.
Besides, I did want him to kill it.
In one fluid movement, he spun and kicked open the door, then jerked the gun toward the corners of the room, his shoulders pivoting with machinelike precision.
He moved inside, and I heard him barge into the closet, yank up the comforter to check under the bed.
I tensed up, waiting for the scream, the splatter of blood in the hallway, the low inhuman growl.
“Clear,” he called.
“You—you sure?” I peeked around the doorway.
Sure enough, the room was empty.
No creepy alien standing in the corner.
I glanced at the wall, where the shadow had been in the photo.
My lungs tightened a little.
It was gone.
Which put to rest any lingering hope it was the shadow of some piece of furniture. That would have still been there.
So I had seen something.
“And that door’s been closed the entire time?” Malcolm asked.
“I think so. I mean, I was outside for a few seconds. Did it go out the window?”
Malcolm tried the windows, shook his head. “Windows are locked from the inside.”
A whisper of fear brushed the back of my neck.
It had slipped away. It could be anywhere.
Skin prickling, I glanced behind me at the deserted hallway and, feeling frantic, hurried inside the bedroom to be close to Malcolm, because wherever he was felt like the safest place.
He reholstered his gun. “Let me see the photo again.”
He took it from me and examined it under the bedside lamp, glancing between the lamp, the Polaroid camera on the nightstand, and the spot on the wall where it had captured a shadow.
His frown lines deepened. “What the hell . . . ?”
“What?” I breathed, following his gaze.
“So you took the picture here”—he held up the Polaroid camera and pointed it at the wall—“with the flash on. Which makes two sources of light, pretty close together—the flash, and the lamp—but if you look at the angles, whatever cast that shadow should have been in the picture, right? So what the hell cast that shadow?”
“Um . . .”
“Look, in the photo, you can see your shadow is right behind you. You can only see the edge of it because the flashbulb and the lens are a few inches off.”
He pointed to the thin outline of my shadow projected on the back wall.
“So this shadow should follow the same logic. Whatever’s casting it should be right in front of it, in the picture, but where is it?”
I swall
owed a dry, sticky taste. “So it’s invisible?”
“But then it wouldn’t cast a shadow.” Malcolm rubbed his jaw, then handed me the camera. “Here, take another picture. Just like you did before. We need to rule out an artifact in the camera itself.”
I did as he instructed, lining up the camera exactly like before, then snapped the picture.
We passed it between us as it developed, impatiently fanning it back and forth.
What if the shadow was still there? What if we couldn’t see it, but the camera could?
I didn’t know which would be scarier.
At last, we had a faint image.
No shadow.
“So it’s not the camera,” said Malcolm. “Take another one, and this time, I’ll stand where we should’ve seen something.”
Malcolm situated himself behind me, lining himself up between the camera and the wall, and I clicked another picture.
Again, we waited for the picture to develop.
Sure enough, Malcolm’s shadow fell exactly where we had seen the shadow on the wall, except he was in the picture too and blocking most of it, standing about four feet behind me.
Was it standing right behind me?
I fought another rising shiver, my brain still too clouded with fear to process anything.
“So we can’t see it,” I said, “but it still casts a shadow?”
Malcolm chewed on the inside of his lip, his expression grim. “Actually, I’m wondering if the thing is the shadow.”
I refused to stay in my house after that.
I couldn’t sleep there tonight. Or ever again, for that matter.
There was literally a disembodied shadow on the wall of my brother’s bedroom.
The sharpness of my fear had worn off, leaving a dull ache in my abdomen, more akin to dread.
What did it want?
Did it want me?
I should move to LA tomorrow, just pack up my bags and leave. I was eighteen now, I could rent a room in an apartment, enroll in summer classes. My parents couldn’t stop me. I could leave all this behind.
The thought gave me a brief surge of hope, before the fear gripped me again.
I would never feel safe. Here, Los Angeles, the East Coast, it didn’t matter.
A shadow could follow me anywhere.
I would see it everywhere—in dark rooms, out of the corner of my eye, at the end of long hallways—just watching me.
Always watching me.
I would go crazy.
“You want me to drop you off at Zoe’s?” Malcolm said, slowing as we passed her street.
I tensed up, not wanting to get out of the car yet. Not wanting him to leave me.
“Can we just, like, drive for a little bit?”
I didn’t care where we went. Just away.
We had to go away.
“Sure. We’ll drive.”
He downshifted, and we sped away.
“So that’s what we saw before,” I said softly. “It was just that shadow?”
“Yeah, maybe,” he said.
“You think that was the Glipper?”
“I don’t know what that thing was.”
“I don’t think this is aliens.” I hugged my knees to my chest. “I think this is something else.”
“Hey, you want to go to Jace’s?”
“Not really.” I hesitated a moment, then said, “You think it could be Trevor’s ghost?”
“He was playing a board game with his sister when we left. You could get in on that. I won’t be able to stay, though.”
But I didn’t want a distraction.
I mean, I did.
But I wanted Malcolm to be there, because he had seen it too. He believed me.
Jace would try to disprove everything I’d seen.
“We could . . . I don’t know, like . . . go to your house?” The moment the words left my mouth, I felt my cheeks warm.
He shifted gears in silence, and I only blushed hotter.
Aaaaand . . . rejected.
It was such a stupid suggestion, he wasn’t even going to respond.
“Look, I just need to be out right now,” I said. “I can’t go back home yet.”
“There’s nothing to do at my house,” he said finally.
I picked at the cuticles on my fingernails. “I don’t care, we don’t have to do anything.”
He glanced sideways at me, and I had the uneasy feeling he was assessing how fragile my emotional state was—I straightened up and looked him straight in the eye, hoping to pass his test.
“That okay with your parents?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I lied.
“No, it’s not.” He faced forward again.
My jaw fell open in disbelief. “Are you even my friend?”
He scowled. “The fuck’s that supposed to mean?”
I made an exasperated sound in my throat. “You know what, forget it. Just take me to Zoe’s.”
He skidded to a stop in the center of the road and reversed into the nearest driveway, then peeled out in the opposite direction, heading back toward Zoe’s. I watched the houses pass by with a pang of disappointment.
Clearly, he didn’t want to spend a single second more with me than he had to.
But instead of driving to Zoe’s, he pulled onto his street and screeched to a stop in front of his house.
I stared in shock. “But I thought . . .”
He gave me an intense look. “I don’t want to be alone either. Fuck that thing.”
I laughed despite myself.
Did Malcolm just admit he was scared?
For some reason, around him, I felt a hundred times braver. Ironically, hanging out with Malcolm was maybe the one thing right now that could distract me from the shadow.
Inside, I hovered in the entryway, peering around his bare living room. There was a TV on the floor, but no couch to sit on.
“So . . . how do you watch movies?”
“On my laptop. In my room. On my bed.”
“Huh.” Nodding, I worked my fingers into knots in front of me, suddenly nervous about hanging out with him alone.
What were we supposed to do together?
With the whole group, it always seemed obvious.
He raised an eyebrow. “You want to watch a movie?”
In his room. On his bed.
I shrugged.
Oh God, could this be any more awkward?
“You can spend the night if you want,” he said.
My stomach did a horrible somersault, and I fought through a lump in my throat. “Sp-spend the night?”
“If you’re too scared to go back,” he said. “I get it. My stepdad’s on a hunting trip with his buddies, so he won’t be back for a while, and my mom, she’s, well—” he rubbed the back of his neck, “—she’s around here somewhere.”
Crashing at Jace’s house, when we were all there, was one thing.
Spending the night at Malcolm’s house, with just him, was very, very different.
“Where would I sleep?” I rasped, my throat dry, my heart booming in my chest.
“I have a sleeping bag.”
Suddenly, I could barely get enough air. I nodded, feeling faintly nauseous. “Okay.”
We lapsed into silence.
“Oh, I’ll text my parents and tell them I’m spending the night at Zoe’s.” I fumbled with my phone, staring dumbly at it before I remembered how to text. I turned away from him so he wouldn’t see my trembling fingers.
“You should also text Zoe, in case they call her.”
I looked up. “What?”
“In case they call her. Your parents.”
“Oh. Right. Yeah.” I tucked my hair behind my ear and pretended to text her.
But I didn’t.
I didn’t want her thinking anything.
I’m spending the night at Malcolm’s . . .
No, I couldn’t text her that.
And I already knew my parents wouldn’t call.
I put away my phon
e and faced him again, my pulse accelerating at the realization that we were now alone, that we had agreed to this, that there was no turning back. We looked at each other, sharing that tacit understanding, and the tension in the room only thickened.
I didn’t know how to act anymore.
My knees felt weak, my throat tight.
What did we do now?
Sit and talk? Continue to stare at each other?
“Come on, I’ll put on a movie.” He waved me up the stairs.
I followed him, grateful for the icebreaker.
While he yanked the sheets up on his bed, I surveyed his bedroom from the doorway, wondering about logistics.
There was scarcely room on the floor for a sleeping bag, and he had no chairs, which meant we’d be sitting on his bed to watch the movie.
I swallowed hard.
I could do this.
Lounging against the headboard, Malcolm dragged a laptop onto his knee and swiped the touchpad, his expression grim.
Deep breath, deep breath. Steeling my resolve, I approached his bed—feeling more like I was swimming than walking—and sat on the edge. Then I pulled my legs up, so we were sitting next to each other. My movements felt stiff, mechanical.
It was all I could do to keep from shaking violently.
I couldn’t get my lungs to work around him—they seemed to have performance anxiety and had seized up—and I decided I would just have to hold my breath the whole time.
“I don’t bite,” he said.
But he seemed on edge too, his body rigid as a statue.
“Neither do I,” I said, glancing sideways at him.
His nostrils flared, but he didn’t reply. He tapped a few more times. “This one’s funny . . . you’ll like it.”
I had no idea what movie he started. He could have put on Schindler’s List and I wouldn’t have known the difference.
All my attention was focused on him, on his smell, on his body . . . on his presence.
He shifted, and his shoulder pressed against mine. I went stone still.
But he didn’t move.
I didn’t move.
We stayed like that, skin touching, and every second we did, my heart beat faster and faster until I thought it would burst from my chest.
I peeked sideways again, a thrill fluttering in my stomach.
Could I get closer?
Working up the nerve, I slowly leaned sideways, so my thighs rested against his.
He let me.
There I stayed, not breathing, not moving, terrified of breaking the moment, almost sick from the headrush of nervous adrenaline. Through his jeans, his body heat pressed against my bare thighs, the sensation terrifyingly intimate.