by Paul Taylor
The funeral was to be held two days later. Closed casket, no viewing. Fair enough if what Mavis had told him was true. "Advanced state of decomposition" was one of the phrases he'd heard bandied about. Another was that the corpse was desiccated, all the moisture drained from it. Ben had turned away from these descriptions, finding it all too easy to imagine Dwayne's shrivelled, withered corpse staring up at him, accusing him.
The day after Ben got the news, he'd still been moping about the place, not sure what to do, not wanting to do anything. Although he knew he really needed to get going on this web-site. But his increasing desire for Kath and his shock over Dwayne's death, led to him not being able to concentrate for more than two minutes at a time.
Monday afternoon found him sitting in his boxer shorts eating pizza, drinking beer and flicking through all the e-mails he'd accrued over the last month while watching Oprah Winfrey talk to the stars of Wild Wild West. There were about forty unread e-mails in his inbox and most of these were quickly dealt with. There were two or three from friends asking how he was, what he was up to, was he fucking anyone? He sent off identical replies to each of these telling them he was currently indisposed and he'd catch up with them soon. Then there were dozens of joke e-mails from other people he knew. These were people Ben hadn't actually communicated with for ages except by way of joke e-mails. It seemed he had whole relationships with people supported wholly by this sometimes humorous form of communication. Ben deleted all these without reading them. The last few e-mails were newsletters from websites he'd subscribed to and the usual assortment of spam, telling him how to increase the size of his penis or how to get big, juicy breasts. He got rid of the spam, he didn't need to worry about getting a bigger dick, thank you very much, and settled down to read the newsletters. Having done all that, though, he found he couldn't be stuffed reading all of them so he deleted those as well. The only thing he wanted to check out was the Paranormal Phenomena site. Even more than he wanted to look at "NUDES! NUDES! NUDES! One hundred of the hottest female celebrities in their sexiest shots ever!!"
The paranormal website always had good links and usually had interesting, although sometimes scarcely literate, readers' stories of the paranormal in their own lives. As the website put it, all these stories were 100% TRUE! Even the one about the sixteen year old boy who believed he was the antichrist and his girlfriend was the reborn Christ.
It was the readers' stories he was looking at, skimming over, "My Dog Knew He was Going to Die". And "My Grandmother Still Visits us from Beyond the Grave", when Ben saw the title "My Town's Being Taken Over by Aliens" he clicked straight onto it. As he waited for the page to load Ben watched Oprah. They were showing the scene from Wild Wild West where Salma's butt was hanging out. Damn, Ben thought, he should have bought a VCR so he could have recorded that bit and watched it over and over again.
When the article came up, Ben was relieved, and also a teensy bit surprised, that it didn't appear to be posted by Dwayne. He read the story straight through. He sat and rubbed his eyes and looked at it again but it was still the same. A current of excitement twirled across his nerve-endings as he re-read the message.
"Hi," it read. "My name's Edward. I stumbled across this group looking for somewhere to share my story and thought this might be a good place for it. Well technically it's not my story but the story of a guy I went to school with a few years back. He was a real weirdo.
"His name was Dave and he used to always go on about these Shadow People as he called them. He used to wander around the playground looking around at everyone's shadows 'To see if they were moving' he said. We all just kind of went, 'um, okay'. But he swore it was true. He said he'd come from this town called Wungla where everybody's shadows went crazy (he said) and ate everyone. Again, his words, not mine. I did say he was weird.
"He was adopted and he claimed his mum and sister had both been eaten by these Shadow People. He said it all started one day when these strange people showed up in town and started wandering around. He said everyone seemed to go all weird. His mum, he told us, was sitting at home one night, saying she felt sick, and he said all of a sudden, her eyes went all black. One minute they were normal and then she was looking at them with these big black eyes like she'd suddenly turned into an alien. He was freaked out but his mum said she felt fine. But then everyone's eyes started to turn black and people's shadows started moving on their own.
"His teacher at school was hanging around him and his schoolmates just looking at them like, he said, like she wanted to eat them. He said he saw her shadow twitching and moving around her feet like a black cat, pacing around her feet.
"We always just figured he was looking for attention, trying to make himself seem cool and mysterious to get friends. But now, seeing all this stuff about Shadow People and the weird shit people have seen I'm wondering if maybe he really had seen this stuff. I guess what I'm wondering is, has anyone else seen anything like this? Like living shadows?"
Ben sat back in his chair and felt icicles form around his heart. It was ludicrous, completely, utterly insane total garbage. But things were starting to fall into place in his head, dark, shadowy things that twitched unpleasantly like half dead snakes.
The library, unusually enough, was still exactly where Ben remembered it to be. And it was still the same inside. Ben didn't know why he was surprised, nothing else had changed in the town so why should the library? It was actually a little surprising the place was even still there since folks around these parts didn't go much on them books and stuff. But it was still there, although not exactly thriving. The carpet, Ben guessed from its mouldy grey, threadbare appearance, was still the original carpet and the place needed a fresh coat of paint five years ago. Now it was hard to tell what colour the paint had even been. There was still that smell of books inside, though. A little musty and full of the quiet power of the written word. With knowledge comes power, someone had once said, and every time he stepped into a library, Ben could feel that power. The amassed knowledge of centuries of history and learning and imagined worlds enveloping him.
"Hi, how you going?" said Ben, going up to the counter.
"Hi," said the man behind the counter. "What can I do for you?"
"Atlases," said Ben. "Where might I find them?"
The man, going bald monk-style, pointed towards the back of the library. "Go straight down there to the third last rack of shelves and you'll find more atlases than you can poke a stick at."
"Thanks," said Ben.
Ben grabbed the first Atlas he saw, a Jacaranda, and opened it up to the index. He ran his finger down the 'W's and found it straight away. Wungla (Australia) and next to it, the map coordinates and page number. The town was towards the Queensland border, about halfway across the state. Not far from Casino, as the crow flies.
Step by step the fantastic story he'd glimpsed the edge of was taking shape. Although finding the town on a map was a long way from proving its inhabitants were eaten by their own shadows.
Ben went back to the counter.
"Where can I find old papers?"
"How old?" asked the librarian.
"Oh," said Ben. "To be honest, I'm not really sure. It's probably a few years ago."
"No matter," said the librarian. "Anything older than five years will be on the microfiche down the side there," he pointed to a microfiche reader halfway along the left side wall, beside it was a filing cabinet indexing all the papers. "If you have any trouble loading the thing give us a holler."
"All right, thanks," said Ben. "Do they say what articles are on each one?"
"If you want to search the computer catalogue for whatever you're looking for, it'll tell you if it's in any of the papers."
"Too easy," said Ben.
Forty-five minutes later he was printing out a copy of the front page of the Northern Star from ten years earlier, for a small fee of course. Photocopies were five cents apiece and microfiche print-outs were ten cents, twenty cents for an A3 page.
A quick skim of the article, titled "GHOST TOWN: Residents of NSW Town Disappear Overnight', confirmed only what he already knew. The town's populace had vanished under mysterious circumstances over one night in October without any explanation. Unnerved investigating police had compared the town to the Marie Celeste, giving the news-casts a great sound-bite. But the article went further, saying that there'd been only a single survivor, a thirteen year old teenager. Ben wondered if that survivor was the same Dave he'd just read about. A short piece two days later stated that the child, after a brief psychiatric evaluation, had been placed with a foster family.
Ben printed this article and left.
Back home he did a Google search for any news about Wungla. There was one article still active and he read a few posts first to make sure it was the same Wungla. It was.
Ben opened a new message and started typing.
"Hi" he wrote. "I've never been to this group before and I'll probably never be here again but I'm hoping someone might be kind enough to answer my question. I read in a newspaper article that there was a survivor of the town's disappearance, and I was wondering if anyone can give me more information on this? Thank you."
Now all he had to was sit back and wait for a reply. While he waited, Ben tried to keep himself busy doing other things but it proved futile. After dialling back onto the internet for the third time and still finding nothing, he cursed himself and decided to go out somewhere. That was the only way he could keep from compulsively checking for replies. A car was parked by the kerb down the road from Ben's. A Ford Taurus. He gave it no more attention than a cursory glance. If he'd looked closer he might have seen a shadowy figure, slumped behind the wheel of the car and watching him with flat, black eyes.
There wasn't a hell of a lot he could do, thought Ben as he got in his car, no one to visit. If he'd thought of it he could have checked online to see what movies were on. No matter. He wasn't in any hurry, he could drive over to the cinema in Lismore and see what was showing. He hadn't seen Mission Impossible II yet and that would kill a couple of hours. As Ben pulled off down the street, the Ford remained by the kerb, its occupant patiently waiting, watching with dull eyes for him to come back.
About three hours later Ben pulled his car back into the driveway, having successfully fought an urge all the way home to drive like he was in MI:2. The car hadn't moved since he left and Ben noticed it this time, easing his car past as he tried to work out whether it was familiar to him. He pulled his car into the driveway and looked back at the vehicle. It wouldn't hurt to have a look at it. As he walked up to it Ben looked around for any sign of the owner. He couldn't see one anywhere. He noticed the driver's door wasn't closed properly and the keys were still in the ignition, too.
I know people reckon you don't have to lock your doors in the country, but this is ridiculous, he thought, turning to go back inside the house.
The afternoon was quiet, almost no sound of traffic was audible, there was no breeze, even the birds, ever present down the river bank, had quieted. Ben paused in the middle of his front lawn, halfway between his driveway and the front door, and shivered as a shadow passed over him.
Shaking off the chill, Ben strode up to his front door, trying to walk fast without actually running. He stopped again in front of the door and looked at it, feeling a deep sense of unease creep over him. An electric eel of fear uncoiled in his innards and his eyes felt too wide and strangely big in his head. All the hair on the back of his neck felt like it was standing on end.
The front door was partly open.
As Ben coaxed the door fully open he wondered how the intruder had gotten in so easily, surely Ben had locked the door when he left, he was sure he had. The long stretch of hallway reached out in front of him like a mine shaft with off-shoots on either side. Were there any squeaky floorboards, Ben thought furiously, trying to remember hearing any creaks or groans as he walked in and out. Very, very gently, like a stalking tiger, he stepped in through the doorway.
"Hello, Ben," called a voice and he almost filled the seat of his pants with a steaming hot special delivery. "Come on in, why don't you?"
What the--?
The voice was stilted, and uneven but it was quite jovial, very friendly, yet Ben wanted nothing more than to turn and run from it.
"Come on down, Ben. What's the matter?"
It was familiar. It sounded like his old neighbour from the Settlers, Allan, thought Ben. Except for one difference. His voice was a thin whisper, as if he had strained his vocal chords. Ben strode down the hallway with a confidence he didn't feel. His heart pounded like a pair of rabbits in his chest and all the blood was rapidly vacating his head. The rectangle of darkness that marked the lounge room, Allan must have drawn all the curtains, grew steadily larger. Ben stepped through it and braced himself.
Allan was sitting in the armchair, one foot up on his knee very relaxed and smiling up at Ben as if it were his own house. Allan was sitting but to Ben it felt like Al was looking down on him. His insides felt hot and slippery as oil, the way they had when he'd been caught on the train in Sydney once without a ticket and known he was going to get into trouble. Only this time, he feared the trouble might be a lot worse than a fine.
"What the hell are you doing here?" he demanded, hoping to get back the advantage. This was his place, after all.
"Sorry," said Allan, raising his hands in apology. "I came to see how you were settling into your new house and I found the door unlocked so..." he shrugged.
"So you just let yourself in?" said Ben. "Well, that's fuckin great, isn't it?"
"So sorry," said Allan. "I didn't mean to startle you."
"You didn't startle me," snapped Ben. "Is that your car out the front?" he pointed towards the door.
"Yes," said Allan, raising his eyebrows. "Yes it is."
"You left the door wide open and the keys in it," said Ben. "Someone'll steal it."
Allan shrugged. "I can find another. Now sit down. We need to speak."
"I'd rather stand, thanks," said Ben, too angry and scared to pace or sit down or even move.
"Have it your way," said Allan. He looked about the room and Ben realised the ever-present sunglasses weren't there. He caught his breath as he saw the peculiar glint to Allan's eyes and he thought maybe he knew why Allan wore sunglasses all the time. Allan's eyes were black. All the way through, from the pupil right out to the edges of the cornea.
"How is your web-page going, Ben?" Allan asked.
"What business is it of yours?" said Ben, rubbing his forehead. He felt feverish, it was too warm in here.
"I only ask," Allan reached over and spun Ben's laptop around so it was facing Ben. It was switched on. "Because I went right through all your files and I was wondering what this alt.mysteries.wungla is and why you've been sending messages off to it. Is it possible you're worrying about things you have no business worrying about?"
Ben looked from the laptop to Allan in stunned disbelief. "How the hell did you get into my laptop?" A half-crazed, hysterical fear swept through him. Allan had killed Dwayne. And now he was here to kill Ben, too. Outside, random shadows flickered across the window.
"You know that's not important, Ben," said Allan.
"You're right," said Ben, taking a step towards him, his voice jumping a little. "What is important is what the hell are you and what are you doing in my house?"
"It doesn't matter what I am," said Allan. "What is important is who you are. Who are you, Ben? We thought when you followed us the other day that you might be a police officer or something. But you're not, are you?"
"No," said Ben.
"What is it you do, then?" he asked, smiling up at Ben. "What do you think you are doing that is making us pay attention to a bug like you? Or more to the point, what are you, that we would even be marginally interested in your pathetic doings?"
Ben goggled at him. The scales tipped from fear to anger and cycled right up to a white-hot fury that seemed to flare out from his body. It had, B
en decided later, been Allan's variation of 'What do you think you did wrong?' and the condescending tone of his voice that had finally sent him over the top. For too many years Ben had sat on the wrong side of a boss's or teacher's desk, watching smarmy little bastards with egos over-inflated with the tiny power they held, sit there and ask him that very question. They'd invariably haul out some file with indecipherable notes scribbled all over it, and pass it to Ben to read before asking, "What do you think's wrong with this?"
Every time one of these pricks had said that to him Ben had felt, not an insane urge, but a cold, clear-cut need to leap across the desk and shove those words down the speaker's throat.
Now he did.
Or at least, he tried to.
Ben lunged at the armchair, intending to launch himself bodily at Allan. As Ben jumped, Allan moved. Ben didn't even see him move. It was a case of one second he was there and the next he was somewhere else.
Allan smiled as, standing now beside the armchair, he watched Ben crash into the empty chair and go tumbling to the floor. Ben's ribs cried out at this latest outrage and he realised he was probably going to re-fracture them, or thoroughly break them. Ben landed flat on his back and before he could even move Allan was on top of him. He held Ben down with a surprising ease and rested one knee on Ben's neck. Although the knee wasn't pressing down too hard, Allan made it perfectly clear that it would crush Ben's neck if Ben so much as even farted.
"Don't." Allan held up a finger as Ben struggled. "Now," he said when Ben quieted. "You've been sticking your nose in where it doesn't belong. We thought Dwayne's death might throw a scare into you but it hasn't, has it?"
"Fuck you," rasped Ben.
The room darkened momentarily, shadows creeping in from the corners.
"No, thank you," said Allan in a prim voice and Ben had a crazy urge to laugh. And why not? This whole thing was crazy. "Now, you're looking for this survivor of Wungla, aren't you? This Man Without a Shadow?"
Even though he didn't have a clue what Al was talking about, Ben nodded. When someone had their knee jammed into your throat you agreed to whatever they said. "Forget about it," Allan hissed, pressing down a little more and making Ben gasp and struggle. "Forget you ever heard of Wungla, The Man Without a Shadow or Shadoweaters. As far as you are concerned they do not exist. And if you don't stop sticking your nose in where it doesn't belong then neither will you!"
In one fluid movement he removed his knee from Ben's neck and stood up. Ben struggled to get up and Allan held a warning finger up to him.
"Don't," he warned.
Ben struggled up into a sitting position and Allan, in a blinding flash, spun around and kicked him square in the jaw. The force of the kick slammed Ben back down into the floor with blood spurting from his mouth and his teeth halfway across his head. His head made a perfect, cartoonish, bonk noise as it hit the floor.
"There's something odd about you, Ben," said Allan. "Something I don't like. If I'd had my way, you would be dead by now. But you're not. And that intrigues me. I don't think this will be the last time we meet. Good day to you, sir," said Allan, turned, and was gone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX