Demon Shadows

by Mike Sirota

  Paul loved breakfast. When he was writing, he usually skipped lunch. As he piled his plate high, he looked around. Less than half of the people who’d filled the room the previous night were scattered about, Gail Farringer not among them. No surprise, after what Sherri had told him.

  But Sherri was there, at the third table with her young man. They were involved in an intense conversation. Paul sat by himself at the first table.

  The food was as good as it looked. He noticed that hardly any other residents came into the dining room after him. It wasn’t late, just past seven. Apparently this conclave of creative personae meant business in the morning. Paul had never been that way. The brain cells usually lay dormant until at least mid-morning, and the best work came at night.

  Sherri and Richard weren’t getting along. Their conversation grew loud, heated. The man finally rose and stormed out. Sherri might have followed but noticed Paul and joined him.

  “What a jerk!” she exclaimed. “He’s in love with me now, he says. I think it was the first time he ever got laid. Took him almost the whole time here to even talk to me. Anyway, he’s leaving today, thank God! Hi, Paul, what do you know?”

  Paul grinned. “Not much.”

  She glanced at her big yellow watch. “Can’t stay now. Finishing up a piece today, then I have to pack and stuff. I’m outta here tomorrow. Walter’s going to celebrate!”

  “I doubt it.”

  “You still coming over tonight?”

  “If you want me to.”

  “Sure. It’s number sixteen. My car’s parked near the start of that path. See ya.”

  “Bye.”

  Sherri turned and walked away. Then she stopped. Looking back, she said softly, “We’ll talk, okay?”

  He nodded. She hurried from the dining room, nearly colliding with Walter McClain, who shook his head as he watched her run across the central hall.

  “That girl, I swear,” he muttered, approaching Paul. “Well, today’s day one for you, isn’t it? How do you feel?”

  “Anxious,” Paul admitted, “but looking forward to it.”

  “Good, good. Well, I’m off. A million things to do. See you at dinner.”

  McClain went into the kitchen. Paul continued to work on his breakfast. Finally he accepted the fact that he was procrastinating. Anything to delay the start of a project. This wasn’t new. Anxiety overwhelmed him before he put down the first word of any story he’d ever written. But until this year it had never been more than three or four weeks before sitting down again.

  Now he was out of excuses, and almost out of food and coffee. No place to go, nothing else to do. It was time. He pushed the plate away and left the dining room.

  As Paul crossed the parking area a red TransAm—not old, but dented in a few places—burst out of a parking space near the service entrance. Hearing the screech of tires, Paul turned. The car sped across the asphalt, leaving rubber, and nearly tipped onto its side as it made the turn around Big House.

  “Idiot,” Paul muttered as he reached the footpath.

  A tranquil Sierra morning. In the aftermath of the previous night’s teasing snowfall the sun shone, and the earlier breeze had gone. The glare off the broader patches of snow blinded Paul. He wouldn’t forget his sunglasses next time.

  Inside his cabin, he began preparations of a ritualistic nature. He lit a fire, something he did not do well, although the starter packets of fuel made it easier. Next he opened both blinds and raised them to the top. He straightened the Wieghorst, which didn’t need it, pushed the typewriter over to the end of the desk, and in its place put a white legal pad and a five-millimeter mechanical pencil. He was ready.

  In a time of word processors and laptop computers, WordPerfect and WordStar, Paul Fleming the dinosaur created by hand. He never professed to understand exactly why—some metaphysical thing, maybe: words flowing in an unbroken line from brain to hand, through the pencil and onto the paper.

  But he remembered when it had started. Not many years ago, when he’d had to accept the reality of working at mundane jobs that paid money with regularity, his writing time became precious. A lull during a tedious night shift; a lunch hour on a park bench or in his car. No typewriter there, no computer, only the ever-present pad and pencil. Even when things changed for the better, that part of him did not. Later drafts went through his Macintosh; first drafts would always happen this way.

  For more than an hour the paper remained blank. That idea he’d had yesterday on the way up: what was it? Why the hell hadn’t he scribbled it down somewhere? But it soon came to him, as it usually did. One day later it sounded ridiculous, but a part of it was salvageable. He wrote it down.

  Did you hear, Gary? I wrote something.

  Another thought struck him. Ideas begat ideas that begat more ideas, a wonderfully biblical outpouring on to one, then two and three pages of his pad.

  It was as if he had never been away.

  When it read noon on the face of Baby Ben, he didn’t know where the past three hours had gone. If not for the noise he wouldn’t have looked up.

  It came from outside, on the porch. This time he knew what it was. Someone had opened and closed a hinged wooden box that sat near his door.

  Noon. Lunch. One of the staff had brought him lunch. He opened the door. A woman in a red coat hurried along the path. She turned when she heard the door, waved but said nothing.

  Paul opened the box. A Styrofoam carryall held a ham sandwich, an apple, a bag of chips, and a Coke Classic. A note read: Wasn’t sure what you like to drink. Let us know. It was signed Nora Hardman.

  This was great! Paul thought. He actually had an appetite. But he wouldn’t stop what he was doing. He threw another log on the fire, sat down at the desk, ate, and worked.

  An hour later he decided to go to the library. He had written down more than enough; now he needed some background to decide where he was going with it. Even though he subscribed to over two dozen periodicals, of late they’d only been piling up unread. When you dwell inside yourself, the world passes you by and means nothing.

  Paul hadn’t realized it, but it had grown stifling in the cabin. He perspired, and his down jacket only made it worse. Even outside, where the sun shone and the temperature had risen above forty degrees, he felt no immediate relief. Still, he thought how fine it would be if the weather stayed like this for a while.

  When he stepped off the porch, it changed.

  A chill ran through him, feeling like a deliberate probing of his body. Apprehension gripped him—not the same as the morning, when he confronted the start of his work, but something more disturbing. He glanced around at the forest but saw only a jay and a couple of woodpeckers in the trees.

  He took another step, and it grew stronger.

  No. 11 was the last cabin on the footpath; Walter McClain had told him that. But the narrow trail continued on, veering away from the creek again twenty yards farther along. He followed it, not quite sure why. Ice spirits danced inside him, occasionally skimming the blood in his veins. Maybe that was what pulled him along, drawing him toward…something.

  Paul’s body trembled. His steps, though tentative, always went forward. The path snaked through denser trees for at least another hundred yards then passed between two ancient Jeffrey pines.

  Just beyond them, it ended.

  Leanna Creek had twisted back through a thicket of quaking aspen and rabbit bush, its bank now a couple of yards away. Across the tributary, which appeared wider there than anywhere else, Paul saw a clearing. Once, from this spot, Thorburn Lake must have been visible, a third of a mile or so to the east. But the forest, not ravaged by man, had grown dense in the past century or more.

  Only this clearing remained.

  Cold, so damn cold! Paul stood between the two sentinel pines, shivering, all his senses tuned to what surrounded him. Above the rushing of the creek he heard a shrill sound of wind passing through a narrow space. Distant, but clear. He glanced across the clearing, through the trees, t
hen up at their boughs. Nothing stirred; not a breeze blew.

  Still, he heard the sound of wind.

  Paul turned and hurried away, denying whatever it was that had drawn him there. He ran, until a large jackrabbit raced across the path in front of him. Nearly stumbling, he swore loudly.

  He stood in front of No. 11 again. The ice spirits had fled his body. There was no more windsound.

  He shrugged. “It’s a good sign, actually,” he told a jay in a nearby tree. “I’m getting crazy, and that means I’m ready to write again.”

  Nodding, he started off slowly for Big House.

  Sheriff’s Department, Stillwell, CA was what it said on the green and white squad car parked near the back of the mansion. No one sat in it. But as Paul started down the corridor, two burly men wearing Stetsons came toward him. One looked about fifty, the other half that. He noted a vague resemblance between them. Scowling, they barely acknowledged Paul’s nod as they brushed past him.

  “Have a nice day, guys,” Paul muttered as he went into the main central hall.

  The door to the day room was open. Paul noticed Walter McClain standing near the fireplace and he went in. McClain saw him and waved.

  “Had some trouble?” Paul asked.

  The man looked at his watch. “You know, I’m really not supposed to talk to you.”

  “You’re not, I talked to you first.”

  “Trouble? Oh, you saw the sheriff. That’s Roy Stillwell. Deputy’s his nephew, Carl.”

  “What happened?”

  “One of our residents was in an accident. He drove too fast, spun out, and ran into a tree just the other side of the Aspen Creek bridge. Took out a rail on the bridge too. Lucky he didn’t go into the water.”

  “Was it a red TransAm?”

  This surprised McClain. “How’d you know?”

  “Educated guess.”

  “Richard Sadler is the boy’s name. Today was his last day, and he was on the way home. Talented; writes some fine music. But headstrong.”

  “Was he badly hurt?”

  “Broken wrist, some cuts and bruises, slight concussion. They took him to the hospital in Truckee. He’ll be okay. I’ll go see him in the morning. They shut the bridge down as a precaution till they get that rail fixed.”

  “Isn’t there another way down?”

  “Not for anything on wheels.”

  Paul shook his head. “Sorry I asked.”

  “It happens once in a while,” McClain said. “They’ll have it fixed before long. Anyway, right now I’m trying to think of a way to tell his parents without alarming them too much. Then I have to let Ms. Thorburn know. Oh, she won’t like this!”

  McClain excused himself and left. Paul followed him into the central hall and went on to the library. Three other residents were there, at different tables. He recognized Thea Douglas and vaguely remembered the faces of the other man and woman from dinner. Thea ignored him; the man half nodded. They took the Rule seriously, Paul thought. No problem.

  Jane Tyler, the librarian, was a plain-looking, austere woman. Although Paul doubted she was any older than he, in her presence he felt like a schoolboy suspected of mischief. But she knew her domain and helped him find everything he needed. In a few minutes he sat alone at another table, engulfed by stacks of books and periodicals.

  Paul enjoyed researching his projects. He knew some writers found it tedious, an undesirable but necessary vocational exercise. Before his life had changed, he hadn’t been able to get enough of reading about places he’d never seen, facts he scarcely had been aware of. Sometimes the creativity itself would be neglected as he became lost in a National Geographic from forty years ago or Volume 5 of the World Book Encyclopedia.

  But he didn’t plan on that today. He worked for two hours, getting done what he wanted. Leaving everything on the table—Jane Tyler had told him to do that—he headed back to the cabin to type up his notes.

  The man and woman had similar elongated faces with dark round mouths but otherwise nondescript features. They had run hard and were still in the foreground, yet could not put any distance between themselves and the Pursuers. The twisted night things mocked them silently, rising mist-like in changing ripples of colors so vague as to be disturbing. Tendrils of fiber (or maybe flesh; hard to tell) snaked out of the mist, reaching for them with coarse, misshapen hands that were disproportionately large. This was what the man and woman feared most.

  Something reared up in front of them. Long and silent, weaving like a deadly snake, it was a nightmare come alive. Not one of the Pursuers. Oh, no, they could stay ahead of the Pursuers throughout time. This thing floated down toward them, slowly but nearing steadily. Closer, until they could see a crimson slash at one end that might have been a mouth, although it had nothing remotely shaped like a head. They couldn’t turn or scream.

  The black thing thrust itself at the man and woman.

  Gail Farringer put her brush down and stepped back to have a better look at the work. She wasn’t satisfied with it. She never was. A bit more red there…and there. Better. Leave it alone now. Been at it too long, since early morning. What time was it? Almost the end of the work day! How had that happened? She’d forgotten to stop for lunch—again. It was still out there. She could eat some of it, save the rest. Wouldn’t be the first time. But dinner wasn’t far off, and dinner was always good.

  Why did the old woman make her go there every night? Gail peered out between the blinds. Someone walked along the footpath. It was him. She narrowed the crack to almost nothing, because he would look there when he passed No. 13. He always did, and it was the same now. But when he moved farther up the path she opened the blinds more and watched him until he was gone.

  She retrieved her lunch from the box on the porch and hurried back inside.

  Unreal! Paul thought. He’d never imagined it would happen so fast.

  At six o’clock he was halfway through typing his notes. He liked what he’d come up with, three sound, commercial storylines. Tomorrow he’d choose the best one, or meld them together. It was a hell of a start. He’d thought it would take him a couple of weeks to get a working outline to Gary Marks, but at this rate he would have it ready to go in a couple of days. And if they had a fax machine at the colony, his agent would get it that much quicker.

  Time to break for dinner. No reason to be late. He could finish the notes later. But what about Sherri Jordan? Okay, he’d do the notes tomorrow. He was much farther ahead than he could have imagined.

  Sunset brought the night chill, but nothing like what he had felt earlier. He made it to Big House quickly and realized how familiar the path already felt.

  The dining room buzzed with Thorburn’s artists-in-residence. Looking around, Paul knew that at least one was missing: Sherri. He remembered seeing her purple Volkswagen outside.

  His place card was on the third table. He sat between Michael Whitney, a cellist-composer, and Kathy Parrish, a journalist who had come to the colony to begin a work of political nonfiction. Allan Kroll, in his rumpled tan suit, sat at the same table, farther down. He seemed alert; he even smiled and talked to the woman next to him.

  All the residents were in a different place than the night before—except Gail Farringer. Isolated, preoccupied with her thoughts, she awaited dinner for reasons that clearly had something to do with survival. The staff must have made these concessions for her, Paul thought, and he wondered why they couldn’t have just let her avoid the obviously unwanted exposure to others.

  Gail Farringer mystified him and he felt sorry for her.

  The grand procession began exactly at six-thirty. Again. Walter McClain made a couple of mundane announcements. As he talked, Paul realized Sherri Jordan was still absent.

  As the servers began pushing around their carts, Sherri burst into the room. She grinned sheepishly then moved quickly to a vacant place at the first table, under the cold glare of McClain.

  Michael Whitney was a pleasant, soft-spoken man. He and Paul quickly discov
ered they shared a number of interests. Kathy Parrish, confident and strong-willed, had worked hard to achieve her success. Some tension arose between her and Paul at first, but afterward Paul found that he enjoyed her company.

  Harriet Thorburn resumed her reminiscences. She regressed a decade from the post-World War II era she’d been talking about the previous night. This time she seemed to have trouble and rambled more.

  Dessert was apple pie and ice cream. Paul’s server gave him a piece nearly twice the size of the others at his table with two scoops of ice cream.

  “From Ar-toor,” she told Paul in a heavy accent. “He say you have it.”

  “Tell him thanks,” Paul said, wondering how he was going to eat it all. But he did.

  Gail Farringer left early again. This time, Paul swore she had been looking at him as she walked to the door. Or did he imagine it?

  Harriet Thorburn had finished. Residents began to drift out of the dining room. Paul said good night to Michael and Kathy, declining an invitation to join them for a drink in the day room.

  Sherri met him at the door. “Whoa, wasn’t that a great entrance? Were they pissed! Well, they can’t do anything to me now. You coming over?”

  “Right away,” he said. “I need to do something in the library.”

  “Perfect. There are a few last things to pack. See ya.”

  Paul had forgotten to look something up earlier, and it had been driving him crazy all evening. He thought his books might still be on the table, but the efficient Jane Tyler had long since put them back. It took him several minutes to find what he wanted. He started making notes then realized he was becoming engrossed. Leaving the book on the table, he started out.

  A freestanding bookshelf near the librarian’s desk caught his attention. He’d noticed it earlier but hadn’t stopped to look. These were the works of John Thorburn. Not an extensive body, but still impressive. There were multiple copies of everything, the greatest number being Trails of Promise—The Way to California. Hardbound volumes a century old stood next to copies of the trade paperback edition Paul remembered from college and even smaller, more inexpensive versions that were distributed in grade schools. Even knowing he might not get a chance to look at it, Paul pulled out one of the trade copies and stuck it under his arm.