Shadowville: Book One of the Shadoweaters

  Morning crept into afternoon and the town went about its merry day, for the most part unaware of the dark, malignant cancer invading its life.

  The sun shone overhead from a cobalt sky, birds chirped and children played. The bitterly, cold night of winter had been sidelined by the few, all-too-brief hours of sunlight, so they had to make the most of the mild weather while it lasted.

  Ben shivered as he pulled up in front of his house, but it had little to do with the weather. All the drive back from the station, short as it was, Ben had been aware of shadows all about him.

  The brain was funny like that, Ben had found. You could go about your daily lives and a million things would flit across your senses and be gone. If, for some reason, you became aware of something, through fear or anger or frustration, you would notice every single occurrence of that event throughout your life. It would suddenly seem your life was all but full of this thing, while in reality it had been there all along. It just never registered in your field of vision before.

  As he pulled his long brown Valiant into the driveway Ben was still pondering what he thought of as the secret life of shadows.

  Ben sorted through his keys until he found his house key and slid it into the lock. He had meant to go straight to the hospital to get Kath but, seeing it was almost lunch time, he decided to grab a bite to eat first. Besides, he wanted to drop off his laptop as well.

  As Ben pushed the front door open, a hand snapped out of the semi-darkness and clamped onto his wrist. He barely even had time to register this, before the hand hauled him through the gap and slammed the door closed.

  Neil spun Ben around and slammed him down on his back, sending the laptop bag skittering across the floor like a frightened dog. Ben had a fleeting glimpse of the wooden ceiling and then Neil's face was filling his vision.

  "I knew you'd have to come crawling back to your nest sooner or later," said Neil, his eyes shining in the gloom. "And no fat security guard to save you this time."

  "What the fuck do you want?" said Ben, hoping he sounded a lot braver than he felt, because right now he was about as far from brave as his little legs could carry him.

  "I want," said Neil. "We want, for you to be a good little boy and disappear."

  "I'm not leaving," said Ben. "If you want me outta here, you'll have to kill me."

  Neil growled and flipped Ben over onto his stomach. He grabbed Ben's arm and twisted it up behind his back. Ben cried out as red hot pain lanced up through his shoulder.

  "You idiot," said Neil. "That's exactly what I'm here for, to kill you."

  He stood up, hauled Ben around and flung him into the wall with a crash that shook the whole house. Stars flashed in front of Ben's eyes and anger filled his body. This was all his revenge fantasies coming to pass. The best chance he would ever get, to make Neil pay for everything he'd done to Kath.

  Ben swung with his free hand - his left, never his best - and drove his fist into the side of Neil's head. The blow connected nice and solidly, filling Ben with a savage joy as bone cracked into bone. Neil reeled backwards, clutching at his head.

  "Oh, you're going to pay for that one, Reilly. Nobody," he growled. "Nobody hits me." He charged at Ben and tackled him.

  Ben was ready and took the tackle, grabbing Neil and driving his fist into the back of Neil's head. Neil let go of Ben and tried to pull away, but Ben had him in a half headlock and wasn't letting him go. Ben slammed his fist into Neil's head again and again. Whether it was even having any effect though, he couldn't tell.

  Neil moved, or what he first thought was Neil, and Ben froze. What he was seeing was impossible, that was all. Flat out impossible. Long tendrils of shadow were stretching up towards him from Neil's feet. They were like snakes scenting the air, weaving slowly up towards Ben, poising to strike. They were probably behind him as well.

  Almost as soon as he thought it, Ben felt them. Tentacles wrapped around his arms and neck and tore him away from Neil.

  "Now," said Neil, in a voice that was paper thin. "Now we get it on."

  He rose up, turning to face Ben. The shadows revolved Ben with him so that they faced each other. More shadows reached out and twisted about Ben, wrapping him like a mummy. They tickled him, almost as though a low charge was running through them. The shadows pulled him down face to face with Neil, and Ben saw something horrible, something that filled every corner of his being with the worst, deep, atavistic fear. Neil's eyes were completely black. "Are you ready to die?"

  Suddenly, Neil looked around, and his shadows eased their pressure. Ben drew up his feet and kicked Neil full in the guts. Neil staggered back, his shadows pulling away, and Ben dropped to the floor. Rising to his knees, gasping for breath, Ben watched as Neil kept looking towards the door, his head tilted like an animal listening for its owner.

  He jumped up and Ben tensed, expecting another attack, but instead Neil raced for the back door. As he yanked the door open, Neil snarled that Ben hadn't seen the last of him, then he was gone.

  Ben remained where he was, kneeling on the floor of his hallway as if praying, gasping for breath. Even as he wondered what had scared Neil off, he heard a car pull to a halt in front of the house. As a car door slammed closed, Ben stood and made his way to the front door. He opened it a crack and peeked out. Rich was walking up the front path with a case of beer balanced on one shoulder. He grinned when Ben opened the door fully.

  "I hope you don't mind," said Rich, tapping the carton with his free hand. "But I realised you haven't had a proper house-warming yet—"

  Rich's grin died on his face as he got a good look at Ben.

  "What the hell happened to you?" he was staring at the front of Ben's shirt.

  "What?" Ben touched the front of his shirt, felt it wet and warm. He raised his hand and saw blood on the fingertips. "Where?" he murmured, and touched his fingers to his mouth, then his nose. He must have bashed it, either when Neil threw him to the floor, or into the wall. Funny, he hadn't even realised. "I had a visit from our good friend, Neil Bryce."

  "Jesus, are you serious?" said Rich. "The bastard's been here already?"

  "I didn't do this to myself," Ben offered a feeble grin.

  "As a police officer I can't always rule that out," said Rich. "Did he hurt you bad? Are you okay?"

  "Nah, I'm fine," said Ben. "He only took off just before you walked in. Weird. Like he knew you were coming or something."

  "What did he want?" asked Rich.

  "Listen," said Ben. "Not to intrude on your official police business-ey type stuff, but I'm sort of bloodied here and I'd like to go and clean up a bit."

  "Shit," said Rich. "Mate, I'm sorry. I'm off duty and everything. You go get cleaned up. You mind if I give the boys at the station a call? Send 'em out to pick him up?"

  "Knock yourself out," said Ben.

  Ten minutes later they were settling into Ben's two armchairs, sucking stubbies.

  "It's crazy," said Ben. "I'm sure I must have imagined it, or I was hallucinating, but Rich, I actually saw shadows come out of his body like tentacles. They grabbed me! How the fuck do I make sense of that? I think he meant to kill me, you know."

  "Yeah," said Rich. "I don't doubt it. But I don't know what to tell you about this shadow stuff, man. Except maybe you better go and get a good night's sleep."

  "Yeah," said Ben. "Maybe I should."

  "I put a call in on Neil, see if we can get someone to swing by the house and pick him up. Whack him back in his cage. Anyway, enough about that crazy fucker. What I really came here for was to pick your brains about this whole shadow business."

  "I thought you said what I told you was everything you already had on file?"

  "Most of it," said Rich. "We'd already linked it to the disappearances in Wungla." He swallowed another mouthful of beer. "What really caught me," he went on, "despite what I said at the station, was this man without a shadow shit you dug up. What else do you know about that?"

  Ben rubbed his eyes. "I don't understand,"
he said. "First you tell me you have all my information, then you come here and ask me to fill you in. You dismiss the Man Without a Shadow as a fairy tale and now you want to know if I know any more about it. I'm gettin a headache here, man."

  "Yeah, I know," said Rich. "It's police shit. Officially, I'm not supposed to pay any attention to this stuff, but hell, if you want to get official, this whole business is pretty much a hot potato. Nobody really has a clue what we should or shouldn't be doing. So I'm trying to find out as much as I can and hoping I might find a clue to something. Anything."

  "Okay, I get the picture," said Ben. "In that case, let me share with you my vast mountain of knowledge."

  It took longer to finish their beers than what it took for Ben to reveal what little he knew of the Man Without a Shadow and the myth behind it. When Ben finished, Rich was looking at him with a look of incredulous amazement.

  Ben sighed. "You don't believe it."

  "Do you?"

  "I wish I knew," said Ben. "It's exciting to believe it, isn't it? It sure makes the world a more interesting place. I think I do. Sometimes it's fun to believe stuff and I believe this. I do."

  Rich was looking at him. "You're mad, you know."

  "I prefer reality-challenged," said Ben. "But yeah, pretty much. Three quarters mad, I think."

  Rich shook his head. "I just... I can't believe this. It's an old wives' tale for crying out loud. Even if this guy does exist, what's he going to do to help? Nail all of our shadows to the ground?"

  Rich was looking at Ben desperately, waiting for him to say something. "I don't know," Ben shrugged his shoulders. "If it is the same thing as happened up North, then I think it's probably going to end the same way. I don't see that it's going to suddenly stop." He looked at Rich. "I don't know. You're the cop. How are we supposed to deal with this shit? What does it say in the Rule Book?"

  Rich laughed, a jangling, manic noise like dropped keys. "The Rule Book got thrown out when that woman's little boy disappeared. Although if it did have a section entitled 'Invasion of the Killer Shadows', I've a fair idea what advice it would give."

  "And what's that?"

  "Pack your bags, grab your loved ones, and run like hell."

  "Well, that book's just full of good advice, isn't it?" laughed Ben. He pushed his hands through his hair. "I guess this is about as fucked up as it gets."

  "You got it," said Rich.

  Ben looked at his watch. "Oh, hey, I'm s'posed to go and pick Kath up from the hospital. You want to come for a ride?"

  Rich stood up. "Nah, I'd better go. I've got work to do."

  "You sure?" said Ben. "I know Kath's a mad piss-head but we aren't going to drink all those beers ourselves."

  "I really can't," said Rich. "Tell Kath I said hi, though. And I might drop back around tonight. Kath's staying here, is she?"

  "Yeah," said Ben in a low voice. "Whether she likes it or not. I'm not letting her go back to that psycho."

  Of course, he thought, after Rich had left, that would be a lot easier if he knew where that psycho was going to turn up next.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN