Ben is surrounded by clear blue sky, stretching away to the horizon in all directions. There's nothing, not a single speck of cloud, nothing. He takes a deep breath and smells the same thing, crisp, fresh air without a single hint of pollution or odour. Stretching away in front of him is some of the deepest green grass he has ever seen anywhere on this earth, in the middle of it stands a herd of bizarre, long-legged, bipedal creatures that he has never seen anywhere on this earth. They look like some Salvador Dali mish-mash of emus, bison and platypus.
Out to his left is the beginning edge of beautiful bush and standing in the midst of it is a big, old weatherboard house with verandas surrounding four sides of it. Exactly the kind of house Ben has long dreamed of living in.
And behind him... behind him is something he doesn't want to see. Behind him is where he just came from, and he doesn't, under any circumstance, want to go back there. He looks towards the house and there, coming down off the veranda, is Kath. She wears a simple blue dress with an apron tied about her waist. On the apron is a picture of a single red flower.
"Ben?" the voice is behind him. Ben recognises it, or could if he wanted to, but he doesn't want to. Instead, he walks towards Kath and his house.
"Ben," says the voice, more insistent this time.
Ben doesn't care though, Kath beckons to him and starts running. There's something odd about her run though, sort of lopsided, as if she's suffering a pronounced limp, or one of those spinal deformations.
"Ben." Ben's not going to listen to that voice, no matter how much part of him wants to. That same part assures him that this is all a dream and he will soon wake up. Another part assures him the voice is the dream and this is the only reality.
Kath and Ben have almost reached each other now, and he sees that, not only is there something wrong with her walk, but there's something very wrong with her face. Even from this distance he can see the blood, and yet, incredibly, she's smiling through it.
"BEN!" That voice is getting louder and Ben now feels something at his back, like a clutching hand, and he ignores it even more forcefully. Whoever it is can wait until after this meeting with the love of his life.
They are almost upon each other now, and Ben gets his first clear look at Kath's face and he almost screams in horror. It is the same smashed and bloodied face he remembers from that night at her house. Only worse. Her lips sag and droop over a mouthful of smashed in teeth and Ben can see a jagged edge of one of those teeth protruding through her top lip. Her nose has been smeared across most of face and is as split open and obscenely gaping as an engorged vagina. One eye has popped its socket and dangles down her face, whacking against her cheek with wet plopping sounds as she runs. And through all this she is smiling at him, trying to smile and saying his name in a wet, mashed mess.
-Fhennn. Hhennn.-
Her body is nearly as bad. A bone, half covered in flesh, pokes from her forearm, a compound fracture, and Ben can see more shining, white, boniness on one leg below the hemline of her skirt.
"BEN!!!!"
The voice rips through Ben's consciousness like a firecracker, searing the inside of his head with bright, white light, as if he has had a divine revelation. A fist closes about his hand and yanks him backwards, back where he came from, back...
As he goes, Ben notices that the flower on Kath's apron is actually a single raised and bloodied fist.
"Christ," says Shade. "I thought we'd lost you."
You very nearly had, Ben feels like telling him.
"Where am I?" he asks, deciding the classics are always best.
"Still in Woollies," says Shade. "Now if you think you can manage to fight I reckon we can take these bastards out."
Ben manages a nod. "Let's do it," he says, he's short of breath and his body still trembles with shock from his dream, near death experience, whatever the hell it was, but he's ready to go.
He's still laying right where he fell, on the floor in one of the aisles at Woollies between Allan and Cecile. They seem dazed, unsteady on their feet, which is presumably Shade's doing.
Ben realises Shade's holding his hand and he goes to yank it from his grasp.
"Uh-uh," Shade says. "I've just realised my burning love for you. That and the fact that, the only hope we have of beating these suckers is together."
"Whatever you say," says Ben. "Just remember I'm spoken for."
"Kath says hi, by the way."
And before Ben has the chance to ask any more questions, Shade bears down on his hand in a vice-like grip and yells "Glow!".
So he does.
Channelled through Shade's knowledge, Ben's glow takes on its full potential beneath the crushing shadow of Allan and his partner. The glow fills his whole body, hell, it fills the whole universe, and Ben's riding on its crest. The glow brightens to a screaming, deafening, blinding brilliance that purges all shape of any shadow before it, and dimly Ben hears the screeching pain of their adversaries. Their shadows are first contained within the glow, and then shredded to tatters and disintegrated into spiralling nothingness. And then, Allan and the woman, their bodies borne aloft by the glow, spun about like garbage in whirlwind and smashed to nothing. Their bodies explode in a spray of obliterating light.
All too soon, and not a moment too soon, it is over, and Ben is laid back to earth. He crashes back into his body with a physical blow and suddenly reencounters all the injuries that pushed him near to death's door. And just as suddenly he knows he is back at death's door. Darkness narrows down all around him, until all he can see is a single circle of light. Into this circle the vision of an angel appears.
"Ben?" says Kath. "Ben, are you okay?"
Ben manages a nod, although he's a country mile from okay, and closes his eyes. Kath has him now, and everything will be okay. He can hear her talking, speaking to Shade. He sounds as out of it as Ben is. Ben can't even move. Cool hands on his brow, they must be Kath's. He wonders how near he is to death. He wonders how Shade is. He wonders how Rich is. Is Rich dead?
"Kath?" Ben gasps. "Kath."
"Sssh," she says, caressing his brow. "Don't try to talk."
"But, Rich?"
"Rich's fine," she says. "Just dazed."
Kath is yanked from Ben's small circle of vision and she starts screaming. Ben struggles to sit up, to see what it is, but it's no good, he's too tired. All he wants to do is sleep. Their last battle took it right out of him, and all he wants to do is close his eyes and drift away. But no, it's not to be.
There is a crash from somewhere behind him and he feels tentacles wrap around him, grabbing his shoulders, his arms, wrapping his head.
He's hoisted up into the air and waved around like a prize catch at a fishing competition, and he hears a voice that is in no way a surprise to him.
"You didn't think I was out of the picture that easily did you, Benny-boy?"
Neil's shadow spins Ben about and slams him, headfirst, into the floor. Dimly, through a veil of shattering stars, Ben hears Kath cry out in alarm. Neil's shadow pins him to the floor and again, his shadow presses itself into his orifices, up his nose, down his throat, even poking at his eyes and into his ears. Ben gags chokes on Neil's shadow, stars flare around the edges of his vision as he tries, vainly, to cough out the obstruction.
He's too weak to fight back, Shade, too, is apparently out of it, which leaves Kath, who is less than likely to be able to defeat Neil. Ben'd rather she didn't try anyway, he likes her far too much to see her become Neil's victory dinner. As Ben thinks that, he realises that may be what she'll become anyway. His glow makes one last, desperate attempt to fight back as his air supply is entirely cut off, and it feels like the shadow is pressing down into his lungs and his stomach, probing into his veins, towards his heart and brain, where it will take hold and squeeze until his brain pops like a balloon. The world goes black, and Ben approaches death for the second time in an hour.
The shadow so muffles his ears that he barely even hears the gunshot that saves his life.
br /> In any case, he is too close to death now to fully appreciate what is happening. All he knows is a muffled noise in his eardrums, and suddenly he is free and falling to the floor. He sprawls on his back in the aisle almost at Neil's feet. From this angle he can clearly see the bullet hole where it has cut through Neil's chest, but it doesn't seem to have harmed, so much as merely surprised him. He turns to Rich, still holding the smoking gun, and laughs at him.
"What?" Neil's saying. "You think that pea-shooter can hurt me now? Do you seriously think anything can hurt me?"
He laughs again. Abruptly, the laughter turns to a coughing fit, and Neil hunches over almost double, hacking so hard he sounds like he's going to vomit. A small ray of light, no more than a pinprick really, shines out of the bullet hole.
"I think," says Rich. "That thanks to your good old friend, Benny-boy, as you call him, I have all I need to bring down a filthy piece of shit like you."
"No," gasps Neil. As the pinprick of light widens to become a ray, shining out the front of his chest, he whacks both hands over it, as if covering it will make it go away.
The light spills out between his fingers, a beam now, and Neil begins to scream as other pinpricks of light pepper his body. Ben watches in horrified fascination as Neil's veins bulge and throb against his skin, the shadows trying to push their way out from the inside. His skin stretches and tears in some places, the shadow pouring out of the tears like a thick paste.
His eyes bulge like peaches, the veins standing out on them like some kind of brail road map and they burst, showering his face with goo. His screams become full-on high-pitched squeals of pain and Ben almost feels sorry for him. Almost. His veins tear free and flap about his body like rags in the wind and he staggers to his knees.
Ben scoots backwards as much as he is able before Neil falls on him. The last thing he wants is to feel that hot, feverish body pressed against him in its death throes.
Neil smashes into the ground head first, only inches from Ben, his face inclined towards him, and opens his mouth in a silent scream. A rivulet of shadows burst out onto the lino floor, and shrivel on contact. Light pours out from his body at all angles until Ben is forced to close his eyes against the glare.
When Ben opens his eyes again, Neil is gone, his body no more than a sifted pile of dried-out shadow and Ben knows it's finally over, for now. He eases onto his back and closes his eyes, he only wants to sleep for a little while, and then he'll thank Rich and Kath for saving his life. A few minutes and he'll be right.
Ben falls into a deep, dreamless sleep, from which he doesn't awaken for almost two days.
EPILOGUE