Shadowville: Book One of the Shadoweaters

  Ben sat in his armchair by the flickering glow of his television set. A frosty Crown Lager rested in his hand on the right arm of the lounge, a piece of pizza sat in his left. He'd been paid for his last job today. This was his idea of a celebration.

  If Ben had his way, he would've been out to dinner somewhere with Kath, celebrating in style. But Kath was still in hospital. She was due out tomorrow and he was planning to meet her with a big bunch of flowers. For now he was on his own, watching Mission Impossible again. He still reckoned the first one was better than the second. The movie cut to an ad break and a news report came on, a brief recap of that day's events.

  "Following a bizarre series of disappearances," said Sandra Sully. "Police have tonight issued a warning for people to be on the lookout for anyone seen about the local area acting suspicious or in any way strange. The warning comes after the mysterious disappearance today of a local toddler. The boy's distraught mother claims a shadow man kidnapped her baby. Police are circulating descriptions in hopes of a lead."

  "What the fuck?" muttered Ben and a cold, ice, snake slithered down his spine. This was exactly the kind of shit that was supposed to have happened in that town up North.

  Ben reached over and scooped up his laptop, and hooked onto the internet. He didn't know if the newsgroup he'd found previously would be any help, but he had to at least look.

  Ben skimmed over the hundred odd postings in alt.mysteries.wungla, barely glancing at the titles, not even sure what he was looking for. He was hoping it would work much the same as the method he'd once used for Christmas shopping, which was to walk into a store and wander up and down the aisles until you found what you were looking for. Ben stopped, staring at the screen, and his breath caught in his throat. Suddenly he was very cold. His teeth were chattering and wouldn't stop. One of the most recent postings had a subject line of 'Happening again in Casino?'

  Ben double-clicked on the message to open it up, noticing there were already half a dozen replies to it.

  "Hi," read the posting. "I'm not sure if you guys are aware of this or not, probably you are and I'm rehashing old news. But this morning there was a shadow-related disappearance in a small Northern Rivers town called Casino. Apparently a woman was in her back yard with her baby son hanging up washing when he was kidnapped by what she claimed was some kind of a shadow man. Could this be the beginning of Wungla all over again?" finished the message.

  "Sweet, merciful fuck," muttered Ben.

  He quickly read through the other messages, looking for any further information, but it proved scarce. There were two replies to the first posting, asking where he'd come across the report, and the other messages debated about who to go to with the information. Or if they should even go to anyone.

  "What's the point?" lamented one poster. "Nobody's going to be able to do anything. We know this from Wungla. How are you supposed to fight a shadow?" There was a general tone of agreement to that one and they decided to withhold the information for the moment.

  Ben opened a new message and started typing.

  "Hello, my name's Ben Reilly and I live in Casino. First of all, is this true? Is the entire town destined to vanish into its own shadow? How long will this take? How did it happen? And most of all, is there anything I can do about it?"

  As expected, the answer didn't come straight away and Ben had to wait, fidgeting, for it. To keep himself occupied, he went back and re-read older postings on the group, looking for answers there. Predictably, there wasn't much, as Ben had found with other newsgroups they quickly degenerated into spamming and flaming other posters. The only thing the entire group seemed to agree on was that none of them could agree with each other about anything. After a few minutes of going back to check for new messages every two seconds, Ben got the shits and shut off the computer. Mission Impossible still had a half an hour to run, then he could watch Letterman. Anything would do to keep his mind off this shadow business.

  The television didn't do a very good job of diverting his attention though, after only five minutes, Ben was paying little attention to the movie. He was deep in thought about shadows. If indeed it was true, and he had no reason at this point to believe it wasn't, (apart from the fact it was completely absurd), what could he hope to do about it? Some of the posts had intimated that a conspiracy was involved. That was blatantly ridiculous though. People who'd spent too much time watching The X-Files. Ben wondered, not so much whether he could trust Rich, but how effective Rich could be. The only other option open to him was going to the papers about it. But they'd probably take him as seriously as they did that poor woman. Yes ma'am, killer shadows stole your son. No, we believe you. Here you go, put on this jacket. No that's okay, we'll tie it up for you, it laces up at the back. And why don't you come and have a nice lay down in this rubber room. Unless, of course, he had some proof. But what did he have, besides some rambling messages taken from the internet? It was on the internet, it must be true. Ben stood up, paced the floor.

  "Great" he muttered. "So my options are nil. I can't fucking do anything."

  He grabbed a piece of pizza, munching on it as he went to the kitchen for another beer. Standing in front of the open fridge, he paused, thinking. His shadow, thrown by the light of the fridge, stretched across the floor behind him. It didn't look particularly ominous.

  Ben's hand trembled ever so slightly as he reached down towards his shadow. His fingertips hovered inches above it, twitching in small, nervous circles. He inhaled shakily and touched his shadow.

  Nothing happened.

  "Crock of shit," he said with a sigh of relief. After grabbing a beer, Ben returned to the lounge room. But he still felt a long way from being convinced.

  Sometime before he had a chance to check again for new messages, Ben dozed off in the armchair, his arm slid off the arm rest and spilt half a bottle of beer across the floor. His shallow, restless sleep was filled with strange dreams where shadows cavorted about the edges of his vision like black sheets in the wind.

  "He is coming," voices chanted out of the darkness. Gargling, scabrous voices like an old man with emphysema.

  "The Man With No Shadow comes."

  Ben awoke with a start, staring about the dim recesses of his room, making sure no shadows lurked in its corners. Ready to pounce and swallow him.

  One of those trashy Telecafe ads was on so he guessed it must be well after midnight. What time, though, he didn't know.

  "He is coming."

  Ben jumped to his feet and looked around, trying to spot the source of the voice. It had sounded like it was right behind his armchair. Turning on the overhead light helped to banish the shadows and put the whim-whams at bay. But he was still as jumpy as a cat on a hot tin roof. This time, when he checked the Wungla newsgroup, he was rewarded with one message. He guessed most other posters to the group were earlier to bed. In any case, the message didn't make him feel that much better or provide any illuminating information.

  "Take my advice," it stated. "If this is indeed happening in your town, pack your bags, round-up all your nearest and dearest, and run like hell.

  "Thanks a lot," muttered Ben.

  There was, however, something very useful at the end of the message. A URL for the poster's website on the Shadoweaters, as, Ben recalled, Dwayne had first called the out-of-towners. It seemed a known term on the newsgroup, too. He wasn't entirely sure what a Shadoweater was, and was even less sure he wanted to find out.

  The web-site design was predictable, featuring grey text sinking into long black shadows, but it was jam-packed with eye-popping information. According to the website there were certain "carriers" of the Shadoweater virus, and these people drifted town to town infecting the populations. At first it was a mild effect, you couldn't kill a full grown person with your shadow. Unless you'd had training. In each town these Shadoweaters recruited people to their cause, roping in all the local crazies to join them and help "shadow" other people. To what end, no one seemed yet to know, and that unnerved
Ben more than anything else. Maybe there was no end. Maybe they did it for the hell of it.

  What was he going to do?

  Maybe he didn't have to do anything. Maybe he should take that poster's advice and get out of town while the getting was good.

  Ben liked the sound of that. He wasn't a coward, but neither did he consider himself particularly brave. There was no point, as far as he was concerned, in needlessly risking his life. He'd already attracted the attention of these out-of-towners, the Shadoweaters, and he had no intention of being the next casualty.

  But he couldn't just allow the town he grew up in to eat itself, could he?

  Ben sighed. Obviously he wasn't going to be able to let this go until he did something. And running away was not an option.

  At least, not until he'd gotten Kath out of hospital and told somebody what was happening.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR