Inside the hushed rooms of Casino Memorial Hospital, Ben sat hunched in a chair and watched as Kath read off his laptop, the information he'd gathered concerning what was currently going on in Casino. He watched as her pretty forehead developed a deeper and deeper crease and she chewed at her lower lip. Finally she looked up at him, eyes wide and her whole face trembling.
"What-?" she shook her head. "What does this mean? Ben, what's going on?"
"I don't know," he said. "I don't even know if anything is going on. But what I've got there," he waved a hand at the laptop, "is pretty much everything I've found out."
"But what does it mean? It doesn't make any sense!"
"From what I understand, for some reason or another, these people have arrived in town who are carriers of some sort of a... some kind of virus, we'll call it. And this makes people's shadows, well, vampiric, for want of a better word."
"Vampiric?" snorted Kath. "So what? They vaaant to suck our blooood?"
"Look, I know this sounds ridiculous. And at the moment I know as much about this as you do. I'm just trying to make some sense out of it."
"I'm sorry," said Kath. "It's just, it's so frightening, Ben. This is really freaky shit."
"I know," he said. "I know, it's scary."
Looking at the laptop's small, flat screen, Kath said in a very small voice, "What do we do now?"
"Now? Now's up to you. But I say we take the advice of one of those messages I read and get out of here."
"Ben," she said and he already knew what was coming. "We can't. What about Nan and Pop? What about Uncle Rich?"
Ben smiled despite himself. It was hard to think of someone almost the same age as them as "Uncle".
"They can come with us."
"I don't know," said Kath. "It's just, it's all so sudden, and I mean, I haven't really seen anything yet."
Ben looked at her. "You don't believe me?"
"I didn't say that, I just said—"
"These people killed Dwayne," said Ben.
"What people?"
"The out-of-towners," said Ben. "The Shadoweaters, whatever the hell you want to call them. I don't know, the people behind it all." His own vagueness of what was happening infuriated him.
"You don't even know for sure what you're talking about, Ben," Kath pointed out as gently as she could.
"I know!" snapped Ben. "I wouldn't have a fucking clue what's happening. All I know is that there's something very strange going on here and I'm trying to protect you from anything bad happening."
"I know," said Kath. "I'm scared and now you expect me to uproot my whole life just because you say so. Because you feel uneasy."
"My say so should be enough," he said quietly. "Fine. It doesn't matter. I've got to go. I'm gonna go and see Rich, see if maybe he believes me, and I'll come back here this afternoon to pick you up."
Ben moved closer to the bed and took Kath's hand.
"Kath," he looked into her eyes. "Please, this could be very, very serious, so think about it. I love you and I don't want to lose you again now."
He kissed her deep and thoughtfully and she only resisted briefly. "I'll be back later," he said.
Half an hour later, Ben walked out of the police station feeling even more uneasy. His meeting with Rich hadn't gone at all the way he'd expected. And he'd found out more unwanted information to boot. At first, it had seemed to be going all right. Ben had walked in, smiled, said hello, told the cop behind the counter that he'd like to see Officer Richard Bennett, please. The cop told him no worries and walked away. While he'd waited Ben wondered at the faint unease he felt. It was like being called into the boss's office at work, even if you hadn't done anything wrong, it made you nervous just being there. Because in places like that, you got the feeling things could very suddenly go wrong. That any little move you made could put you in serious hot water. Eventually, Rich had come out. Big man, trying to look casual, but walking too quick, his eyes too urgent. Ben thought when Rich saw it was him he might relax, but it only seemed to upset him more.
"Ben," Rich had said, smiling briefly at him. "What is it? What's wrong?"
Ben had told him there wasn't anything actually wrong, but things might be starting to go very wrong.
"Can we talk somewhere private?" said Ben. "I think this might be pretty important."
"Yeah, okay," said Rich. "I've got news for you, too."
Rich took him into one of the interrogation rooms and sat him down on the other side of the desk.
"Now," said Rich, as Ben booted up his laptop. "I think you need to know, Neil's been released on bail. And I think he's got a fair mean on for you."
"Let him come," said Ben. "I can handle myself. Who put up bail, if you don't mind me asking?"
"Technically I'm not supposed to tell you," said Rich. "I thought some of his mates would have scraped some cash together and fronted up, but it wasn't. It was that guy that's been staying over at Richmond Settlers, you probably saw him there? Old Mavis keeps trying to tell us he's in on these child disappearances."
"Ben nodded. "Figures. That fits in with what I know. I saw Neil hanging around with them the other day."
"Doesn't bode real well for Kath, does it?" said Rich.
"It doesn't bode well for anyone," muttered Ben.
"So, anyway," said Rich. "What have you got to tell me?"
Ben took a deep breath. "Okay," he gave him a wan smile. "First of all I want you to know I'm not crazy."
"I already know that's not true," laughed Rich. "Anyone who would leave my cousin like that couldn't be all there. Now, come on, what've you got for me, there?"
Ben spun the laptop so it faced Rich, and started telling him what he knew, letting Rich see for himself on the screen. For the second time that day Ben laid it all out, the mysterious people from out of town, the disappearance of Wungla, and how Dwayne thought it was all connected. He told Rich how the disappearance of the little boy and the mother's bizarre claims mirrored what had occurred in Wungla.
As Ben went through it all, he noticed Rich's face growing wider and wider with what Ben perceived to be disbelief. He brought up all the messages and information he'd collected and showed it to Rich, without much hope in his heart.
Rich shook his head. "It's okay. I don't need to see any of that."
Ben's heart sank. Now all he had to worry about was whether Rich would have him involuntarily committed, or if he'd let him wander the streets preaching to passers-by about how the Shadoweaters were going to eat them all.
But when he spoke, it wasn't to ask Ben how he felt about rubber wallpaper.
"How do you know all this?" Rich asked him, still with that shocked look of disbelief, his eyes wide. Ben had an urge to tell him to be careful, or his eyes would fall out.
"Like I said," Ben told him. "Off the internet, hearsay, from what Dwayne told me and what I've seen. Why?"
"Well," said Rich slowly, his face finally beginning to close up a little. "You've basically described our whole case file on this thing."
Ben looked at him. "You're kidding?"
"I wish I was," said Rich. "The problem is, now that we've got all this information, nobody really knows what to do with it. How do you fight shadows? They might as well be vampires, or werewolves, or dinosaurs, or meteorites from space, we still wouldn't know what to do. God," he said, rubbing both hands over his face. "It's like one of those goddamn fifties sci-fi movies. Maybe we should start bottling up sea water. Or get some garlic and wooden stakes. Start stockpiling silver bullets."
"Surely there's something," said Ben. "Don't you have any clues? Any ideas at all?"
"Not a one," said Rich. "Short of evacuating the whole damn town. But even that won't solve anything, since it appears to be the people who're infected and not the town itself."
"What about this Man Without a Shadow? What if he's real?"
Rich looked at him. "I know we've fallen well and truly down the rabbit hole here, but let's not get carried away. I very, very much
doubt the possibility that somewhere out there a man is walking around who casts no shadow."
Ben started to say something and thought better of it. What could he say? Rich had already set him firmly on his arse by showing the cops weren't as stupid as Ben thought. Ben had come to the station, fully expecting to be ridiculed and slapped into the nearest loony bin. But he'd sadly underestimated these guys, he didn't intend to do it again.
Finally he told Rich he guessed he was right and, frustrated at having come to no real conclusion, he decided to leave.
As he walked Ben back out to the counter, Rich warned him again about Neil.
"Be careful," he said. "I've got every reason to think that Neil's blaming you for his arrest."
"I know," said Ben. "And he's going to be pissed off about Kath as well."
"Just watch yourself," said Rich. "That's all I'm saying."
Ben never was very good at taking advice.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX