Shadowville: Book One of the Shadoweaters

by Paul Taylor

  Ben drives part of the way to Woolies and they walk the last block or two, on account of Rich wanting to keep the element of surprise on their side. Ben tells him he didn't think cops were real big on surprise, showing up in twenty police cars with sirens wailing and paddy wagons following. Rich tells Ben to quit being a smart arse or he'll sacrifice him to save Kath.

  Ben's not entirely sure he isn't serious.

  "Here," Ben says, handing Rich one of the strobes. "Take this. You might find it saves your life."

  “Unless the batteries go flat, of course,” said Rich.

  “Good work,” said Ben. “Be a bit more jinxy, why don't you.”

  Rich gives him a tight grin. “Come on,” he said. “Let's get in there before I lose my nerve.”

  They leave Ben's car parked behind the Kwong Sings arcade, and head down the back alley to Walker Street. Ben glances fondly back at his car and wonders if he'll ever see it again.

  The streets are even more deserted than they were. Before, when Shade and Ben were trolling them, they had the sensation of being watched. Not to mention the fleeting glimpses of faces and shapes at widows and in doorways. But now there's nothing. Ben doesn't feel like a single person is watching him, which, he supposes, is a good thing, but it makes him decidedly nervous. He figured the Shadoweaters'd be expecting them. Maybe they're so sure Ben'll turn up that they figure they just need to sit back and wait for them to show. No doubt they'll be ready to kick Ben's arse and whoever he brings with him.

  Ben mentions it to Rich as they move down the far side of Canterbury Street, stopping opposite to Woolies, right in front of Ben’s favourite venue, the RSM. Rich agrees with him.

  "Of course they'll be expecting us. Or you at least," Rich says. "That's probably ninety percent of the reason they kidnapped Shade in the first place."

  "And the other ten percent?" Ben asks, knowing he won't like the answer.

  "So they can kill him."

  Ben was right. He's thought the same thing himself, but he doesn't like hearing it out loud. It sounds too much like a prophecy.

  They decide they've come this far being subtle, so they might as well keep up the pretence all the way in. The best way to go in, they figure, is to split up, so Rich will head down the street and come around the back, while Ben goes straight across the street and through the front doors. Ben hopes that Kath and Shade are being kept in the storage area somewhere in back, and that Rich will be able to find them quickly and get out.

  "Wait a second," Ben says as Rich starts away. "Give me your bullets, and your gun."

  "I'm going to need—"

  "Not to keep," says Ben. "I only need them for a second. I just had an idea."

  Rich takes out his gun and hands Ben all the spare ammunition for it. Ben notices there is distressingly little ammunition. He cups the pistol and bullets in his hands and looks at Richard.

  "Now, I'm not sure this is going to work," Ben says. "I don't even know if I can do this, but I think I read it in a book once. Or at church. Either way, it worked pretty well. I think."

  He bows his head over the bullets and gun and concentrates, focussing all his attention on them. A glow seeps from his hands, enveloping them, cocooning them in light, and Ben strains harder. The glow brightens momentarily and then seems to fade into the weaponry. Ben lets out the breath he was holding.

  "What did you do?" Rich asks him.

  "If you're lucky," says Ben. "I infused your bullets with a portion of my light that should take out any Shadoweater more effectively than a strobe light would. But like I said, I'm not one hundred percent sure it worked, so I wouldn't go staking your life on it."

  Rich grins at him. "Yeah, right. Because I've got so many other options for fighting these bastards. Now come on. If we're going to die here, I don't want to drag it out."

  And with that Rich turns and is gone and Ben's left alone. Now what the fuck do I do? He wonders. With what feels like a kilo of snot blocking his sinuses and throat, Ben crosses the street towards Woolies. A small, hard ball of dread has formed in the pit of his stomach. He creeps up behind Kingie's Pie Cart - used to be the best pies he'd ever tasted but they seem to have declined in quality recently - and peers around the corner at the Woolworths Plaza. It appears to be deserted. Except for the dozens of cars still scattered through the parking lot.

  Ben makes his way through these cars to the front doors of the centre and pauses, looking up at the building, looking for Shade's tell-tale signs of shadow infestation. That sounds like a book title, he thinks randomly, 'Shade's Ten Tell-Tale Signs of Shadow Infestation'. There are none that he can see, just that odour of dried, musty paper. Is this the smell of shadows? The sky stretches far overhead, clear and blue and the weather is nice, not too cool yet and Ben can smell the melancholy scent of autumn in the air. If this is to be his final hour, he can think of no finer day to live it in. Taking a deep, cleansing breath of that fresh air, Ben pushes through the front doors and into a world of shadows.

  At first, he doesn't see anyone about, and he allows himself to be cautiously optimistic. Maybe this won't be so bad after all. In any case, the feel of the strobe light in his hand is comforting, and he tightens his grip on it just in case. The plaza section of Woolworths has been completely looted. Built in a semi-circle, there are about half a dozen shops on either side with Woolworths itself at the top of the half circle. All the shops Ben can see from where he stands have been thoroughly trashed, windows smashed in, and clothes and books and magazines strewn across the floor. And everywhere the remnants of shadows, like the slimy residue left by slugs.

  The place is quiet but Ben can hear, down in the Woolworths itself, muffled voices. Shadoweaters. His heart quickens.

  There's a rustling noise behind him. Ben whips around and triggers the strobe light at the ceiling, squeezing down the trigger.

  In the flickering light he sees a pigeon fluttering madly against the ceiling.

  With a sigh of relief, Ben lowers the strobe and takes a deep breath. Relax, he tells himself, stay calm. He's so calm, he doesn't realise there's someone behind him until they flit out of the darkness and snatch the strobe from his hand.

  "No!" yells Ben, as they tear off into the darkness with his only reliable weapon.

  Ben can't even see the thief clearly in the gloom. He, or maybe even she, is just a gaunt twist of shadow as they disappear into the supermarket.

  Damn it. Ben's defenceless now, and the thought occurs to him to turn tail and run. To get out of there before he gets his stupid self killed, but he knows he can't. No matter how chicken Rich thinks he is, once Ben commits himself to actually doing something, he usually goes through with it. No matter how sick to his stomach he feels at the thought of it. As he considers his next move, Ben hears another noise behind him, to his left. He waits, luring them in, and when the noise gets louder, his would-be attacker closer, Ben turns. Their body hits him like a sack of grain and he staggers backwards, trying to concentrate enough to fling out his glow at them. Their shadow crawls all over him, in his ears, up his nose, clawing at his eyes, and he can't focus, he can't direct his glow. They're going to kill him.

  Ben stumbles backwards and falls to the floor. Flat on his back on the cool tiles, he can feel the shadows twisting beneath him, there's more Shadoweaters coming towards him, and all he knows is the feeling of the shadows stroking his head, poking into his nose, his ears, at his eyes, snaking down his throat and he's going to suffocate, he can't breathe, he can't see, and he's going to die there in the darkness-

  Something like a firecracker bursts and bright, red light flares behind Ben's clenched eyelids. The howl of the Shadoweater echoes in his ears, and all at once the pressure on him eases and he's free.

  Ben sits up and inspects himself, checking his body. Light flares out from him in all directions, like a jellyfish underwater. The Shadoweaters, and the shadows themselves, recoil from it, flinching away from it like it's flame. The Shadoweater who attacked Ben is writhing on t
he floor, having caught the full brunt of his panic attack. The shadows are writhing and twisting across his body like a barber's pole, and he thrashes in pain as the shadow tears itself free from his body. Light stabs out from him like flares until eventually he collapses, slumped on the floor, the shadows gone from his body. Heart barrelling in his throat, Ben moves closer to the Shadoweater. As close as he dares, in case he's faking. He's splayed out on the floor and, Ben sees almost immediately, unlike Mavis, he is still alive. The shadows haven't sucked him dry as they did her. A mystery for another time, perhaps. Ben hears more noise inside the supermarket itself and heads in that direction, leaving the restored young man to recover.

  More Shadoweaters close in around him, and he lashes out with his glow, sending it spinning out around him like a scythe, cutting them down.

  The front of the supermarket is draped and hung with shadows like Christmas decorations and Ben can see, like the Motel, faces moaning and screaming beneath the surface. He flashes a beam of his glow at it and the streamers of shadows disintegrate.

  "Right," he says. "This is it, then, the endgame."

  Ben steps up to the entrance to the Woolworths and hears a noise from in front of him. He looks up.

  "Well, well, well," says Neil. "If it isn't Reilly come to rescue the girl and be a hero. I hope you enjoyed it, Reilly, because this is where heroes come to die."

  With a roar on his lips, Ben charges at Neil.

  CHAPTER FIFTY