The Shadow Thieves

  “Zachary! Hi, I’m Sarah. Sarah Rocklin.”

  “Pleased to meet you.” Zee shook her hand formally, like a well-bred grandson would.

  “Sam’s not here yet?”

  Zee shook his head.

  “Have you heard anything from her?”

  Zee blinked. “Uh, no?”

  “Hmmm. She wasn’t at practice yesterday, and neither was Padma. Sick, I guess.”

  “Oh!”

  “There’s something going around the dorms. I live in Exeter, so I’m not staying there, but training was pretty thin yesterday.”

  “Yeah, I guess ours was too.”

  “You guess?”

  So Zee told Samantha’s friend about his grandmother and the end of his summer and how he really was just there to tell them he couldn’t come to the game—he was there because he couldn’t be there, if that made any sense—and he had to be home to help his parents, and he was so sorry. He gave Sarah the speech he was going to give Samantha, which of course meant he would have nothing to say to Samantha at all, despite all his careful, considered preparation. Which meant that when Samantha did arrive, he would be left either repeating himself precisely and looking like a nitwit, or just stuttering aimlessly and looking like a nitwit.

  But Samantha did not arrive, and neither did Padma. Zee and Sarah waited, and waited, talking of nothing until there was nothing left to talk about. They both began to shift and look at their watches and look off into the distance and shift some more. A half an hour after game time Sarah and Zee looked at each other and shrugged.

  “I guess they’re not coming,” Sarah said uncertainly.

  “They couldn’t be inside?” Zee asked.

  Sarah shook her head. “I’ve got the tickets.”

  “Should we call?”

  “Sam doesn’t have a mobile, and the dorm phone’s useless.”

  “I hope everything’s all right,” Zee said.

  But Zee could not help but feel that things were distinctly not all right. There was something sitting in his stomach, something apart from the hollowness left by his grandmother’s death.

  Zee couldn’t have explained it to you. It didn’t make any sense—there was nothing unusual about people getting sick, after all. But suddenly Zee was overcome with a sense of unease—somewhere, somehow, he sensed that something was very, very wrong.

  “Um…” Sarah bit her lip. “I think I’ll just go over to the dorms and check on them? Maybe they just forgot.”

  Zee looked at his watch. He was supposed to be back by now, but he knew he couldn’t just leave Sarah to go off by herself. And whatever was wrong, he simply had to know.

  “I’ll come with you,” he said.

  When Zee and Sarah went to the dorms, they found Samantha, Padma, and most of the other girls in their beds, looking as if some specter had visited them and taken their souls. Sarah immediately called her mother, and soon the girls had been taken off to the hospital. Zee spent the next week calling Sarah for updates, but she never called him back, and soon he learned she had gotten sick too.

  The mysterious illness swept through the young people of Exeter. One by one they took to their beds and simply could not get out again. The whole town began to panic. People could talk about nothing else. What on Earth was taking their children?

  For it was only the children who were sick; as of yet there wasn’t a single case of an adult with the symptoms. Some doctor on the local news one night called it the Pied Piper flu as a result, and the name stuck.

  Zee watched as everyone he knew fell ill. He talked to their parents and read the newspaper and listened to various proclamations from doctors, and nothing would quell his unease. His parents weren’t helping—they kept threatening to send Zee home on a train, and he had to fight to stay. It wasn’t the Piper flu. Whatever needed to be done for Grandmother Winter, he would do it. Then he could leave.

  So his parents quizzed him every day on his health. But Zee was fine. Whatever had ailed him was passing—day by day he felt less dizzy, less tired. Perhaps he had gotten the thing and it had affected him differently. Perhaps his immune system had fought it off. Perhaps he had never had it at all.

  It seemed he was the only one.

  His club called off the rest of their season for lack of a team, and the football camps were shut down. By the end of that week everyone Zee knew in Exeter, including Samantha, had been fetched by worried parents and taken home.

  The only good news was that none of the kids seemed to be getting any worse—everyone stayed exactly the same. From the little Zee could gather, no one could find anything physically wrong with any of them. No one could explain their complete collapse. And no one could make them better. All anyone knew was that the Piper flu was entirely confined to Exeter, and it didn’t seem to be contagious—there weren’t any new cases developing around the afflicted kids who had been taken elsewhere.

  The Millers themselves left Exeter two weeks after Grandmother Winter died. They had sold her house and closed her accounts and sold off her furniture—except for the big green easy chair, which Mrs. Miller was having shipped home. The Millers may have hurried things a little at the end, but they didn’t tell Zee that. They needed to get out of there. Whatever plague or poison or fungus or flu had felled Exeter’s children would not get their boy.

  It was with a tremendous sense of relief that the family found London was as hale and hearty as it had been when they left. Zee called all his friends and found them quite well, thank you. He met with his best friends, Phillip and Garth, for dinner the day after he got back, and they were quite well too, and all their friends were quite well, and for one night Zee put away the Piper flu and that big ol’ uneasy lump. Football practice would start in two weeks and school in four, so the boys resolved to spend the rest of their summer enjoying themselves as much as they possibly could before the exigencies of school put fun to a tragic end.

  As for Samantha Golton, Zee stopped off at Nicki’s house on the day he got back to find that Samantha had been taken to the south of France with her family. Nicki didn’t know much more—she was no better, but no worse. And yes, Nicki was feeling quite well, thank you. And so were the rest of the girls. Everyone was just great. Absolutely everyone.

  Well, everyone didn’t stay great for long. Two days later Garth was sick. Then Nicki. Then Phillip. It went on through his neighborhood, and through their friends, and through friends of their friends. One by one the Piper flu picked off Zee’s friends, his casual acquaintances, even people he didn’t like.

  When Zee heard about Garth’s illness—then Nicki’s, then Phillip’s—he wasn’t even surprised. He was horrified, yes, panicked, yes, but not surprised. He had known it would come.

  He wasn’t uneasy anymore. The creature in his stomach had transformed itself into something much more powerful than unease. Now he was filled with fear and dread, and some kind of strange apprehension. There was something wrong, something really wrong, and it was something strange, something unnatural—and it was something to do with him.

  But what?

  There was no answer, just dread. He could barely eat or sleep. Every time the phone rang, he jumped out of his skin, sure that on the other end would be news of someone else who had fallen ill. His parents, who had at the first appearance of the Piper flu in London begun to talk of sending Zee to America, spent their time whispering and watching.

  One night Zee decided he could not stand it anymore. He could not bear this alone. He was doing nothing, accomplishing nothing, and people were suffering.

  He sat his parents down at the kitchen table, leaned in, and whispered, “I have to talk to you.”

  The Millers exchanged glances. “What is it?”

  “It’s the Piper flu.”

  Mrs. Miller sat straight up. “Are you feeling sick?”

  “No, no, I feel fine. But…but…” Zee trailed off. He didn’t know how to say it. He knew his parents sensed something was wrong. Even he could see how pale and
tired he looked, and Zee was not prone to notice his own appearance.

  “What? Zachary, what’s going on?”

  He coughed. “I think, um, I think it’s something to do with me.”

  His parents both looked perplexed. They exchanged another glance, then his father asked gently, “What do you mean?”

  “The flu. I think it’s something about me. I mean, look, everyone got sick in Exeter. And now we come back here, and suddenly everyone’s sick here. And it’s all my friends. It’s right here. It’s not all of London, or we’d be hearing about it in the paper or on the news or something. It’s just us. It’s just…around me….” Zee’s face flushed. He could hear how he sounded.

  “Sweetheart,” Mrs. Miller asked, “are you saying you think you’re carrying something? That you’re infecting people?”

  “No, not really…well, maybe…”

  “Well,” Mr. Miller said slowly, “you know, they’ve decided it’s not contagious.”

  “I know. But I mean, think about it.”

  “Zach,” his father continued, “just because these are the cases we know about doesn’t mean these are the only ones. I mean, of course it seems like it’s only all around us. But it’s probably not. There could be some poor family in Birmingham who thinks they’re carrying the plague too.” He laughed slightly. Zee did not.

  “Honey,” his mother said, “if you’re feeling ill, we’ll take you to the doctor. I mean, you certainly were a little off for a while. We can find out for sure. That will set your mind at ease.”

  “And Zach,” his father added, “I know you must be scared and upset. But it’s not your fault. Believe me.”

  Zee thought if his parents exchanged any more meaningful glances, their faces would freeze that way. He couldn’t make them understand. They wouldn’t understand. There was only one person who would understand, and she had just died. Grandmother Winter would have believed him. She would have been able to help him. They would have figured this out together. But Grandmother Winter was gone, and he was all alone.

  Preterm sports started two weeks before school for Feldwop students. On the first day just over half the team showed up for Feldwop’s football practice, and as the days went on, fewer and fewer students came. Then the tennis team was hit, then rowing, then rugby. Even the chess club suffered. Finally the preterm training sessions were called off completely, for utter lack of participants.

  Without training, Zee had plenty of time to see the doctor and do whatever else his parents wanted him to do, though he did not think it would help any. He had made a mistake by telling his parents what he thought—now they were just more worried, they suspected he had gone quite mad, and he was only more alone.

  Mrs. Miller took him in to the doctor at the first available cancellation. She kept saying that they would get to the bottom of this, that they would help him feel better, but Zee could not help but feel that it was her fears she wanted to alleviate. His parents were acting suspiciously gentle with him, as if he were going to pop at any moment.

  Zee didn’t know what his mother had said to the doctor—perhaps something along the lines of “My son’s gone barmy.” But Dr. Widmapool was kind and thorough. Zee did not mention the Piper flu; indeed, they did not discuss it at all. Zee could not help but wonder if the good doctor wasn’t relieved to see a patient who could sit upright.

  Dr. Widmapool poked and prodded, both literally and metaphorically, and then sat Zee and his mother down.

  “Well, Zachary looks just fine. I don’t see any sign of this…this syndrome.”

  “Good,” said Mrs. Miller.

  “There is one thing in his blood work: He’s a little anemic. That means your iron count is a little lower than it should be, Zachary. That may be why you were feeling dizzy and fatigued. Anemia happens, and it’s not dangerous. But it’s not something you normally see in healthy young boys. It means either you’re not getting enough iron in your diet or else you’ve had some kind of blood loss. Are you a vegetarian?”

  “No,” Zee said.

  “Have you lost any blood for any reason? An injury?”

  “No,” Zee said.

  “Well…as I say, sometimes this happens. I don’t see signs of anything serious. I’ll want to monitor those levels. But I think a good vitamin regimen should cure you right up, and you won’t feel so worn out.”

  “There’s nothing else?” Mrs. Miller asked.

  “No. No signs of infection. Other than the anemia, Zachary is a healthy young man. Though he does seem to be exhibiting some of the symptoms of stress…I believe that may be causing his sleeplessness and appetite trouble. I think this is perfectly understandable, given the, um, situation. Zachary, I’d like you to talk to someone. I have a name.”

  So Zee found himself in a psychiatrist’s office. He was fairly sure this was also to make his mother feel better. With a few nice pink pills maybe whatever delusions he was having would go away, and they could all stop whispering and worrying and go back to being a normal family.

  “I’m not a nutter, Mum,” he told her.

  “Oh, honey, I know. But you have been under a great deal of stress, and he can help you with that. Dr. Widmapool thinks it will help you sleep.”

  “Whatever, Mum,” he said. It wasn’t like he had anything else to do. It wasn’t as if he could do anything to help all his sick friends. He might as well chatter away with a shrink while the Piper flu took all of England.

  So he humored his parents. He sat in Dr. Vandimere’s office for an hour. They talked of life in general—the upcoming school year, his activities, his plans for the future, even football, though Zee got the distinct impression Dr. Vandimere didn’t know his flick header from his foot trap. Every once in a while the doctor would try to work in a more direct question, and Zee would parry as politely as he could.

  “You haven’t been sleeping well?”

  “Bit rough.”

  “Tell me about your dreams.”

  “My dreams?”

  “Yes. Is there anything you dream about that you remember in particular?”

  “Doors.” The word just popped out of Zee’s mouth. He’d had no idea it was in there. But once it was out, he realized it was true. He dreamed of doors. At night his brain filled with them. Long, narrow corridors; hidden hallways; small, dark staircases—and at the end of them, doors. Simple, nondescript doors, the kind you could pass by a thousand times and never notice. But in Zee’s dreams he wanted desperately to open them, to see what was on the other side. He could feel it, there in the psychiatrist’s office, the urge to reach his hand out, wrap it around the knob, and turn….

  “Doors?” Dr. Vandimere repeated eagerly. He leaned in.

  “Moors,” Zee said. “I’m frightened of the moors. Hound of the Baskervilles and all that.” He widened his eyes. “I have nightmares!”

  “Ah,” said Dr. Vandimere. He made a note.

  “I was sorry to hear about your grandmother,” the doctor said.

  “Yeah,” Zee said.

  “You were very close.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And then the Piper flu hit.”

  “Yeah.”

  “A lot of your friends got it.”

  “Yeah.”

  “How did that make you feel?”

  Zee blinked. “Uh…well…” He cut off. He was trying to be polite, but the doctor was getting awfully personal. Really, he was a perfect stranger.

  The doctor shifted in his seat. “There’ve been a lot of cases of this flu.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And a lot of your friends are sick.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Both in Exeter and here.”

  “Yeah.”

  “The flu might even seem to be…following you.”

  Zee raised his eyebrows.

  “You know, Zachary”—the doctor smiled gently—“sometimes things happen we can’t understand. Sometimes bad things happen to people we care about. And when something bad happens to o
ur friends or family, but not to us, we feel guilty. We don’t know why we should be exempt, and sometimes we even begin to feel that what’s happening is our fault. But it’s not our fault….”

  Dr. Vandimere went on while Zee’s ears burned. He was never ever, ever going to speak to either of his parents again. He had enough to deal with without being patronized. There was something going on, something strange and terrible, and the whole world thought he was crazy. He was just going to have to figure this out on his own.

  It did not take long.

  The day after his appointment with Dr. Vandimere, Zee walked to the tuck shop to get a sandwich and drink; he was on his own for dinner, as his parents were going to a meeting at Feldwop about the Piper flu that evening. Zee had wanted none of that. But he did want a sandwich, preferably a turkey one, and perhaps some crisps. All his brooding had finally caused him to work up an appetite.

  So he walked the few blocks to the shop, and as he walked, he found himself extremely aware of each door he passed. There were so many of them; there were doors everywhere, countless, and they all seemed to be beckoning to him.

  It was a little strange.

  And there was something else, something even stranger. Zee suddenly found himself very aware of the back of his neck, like the skin itself had sentience. The feeling traveled down his spine, electrifying his back. His head tingled. His legs seemed aware and alive. And then suddenly he knew with absolute certainty what he was feeling:

  Zee was being followed.

  In the movies whenever people realize they are being followed, they act extremely cool. They continue walking calmly, confidently, while carefully planning their next move.

  Zee did not act cool. Zee stopped right where he was and looked around wildly.

  There was no one there, no one at all, just Zee alone on this sunny, door-lined street. Zee turned around and around and tried to find someone, anyone, but there was nothing.

  He got his sandwich. He got his crisps. He even got a pickle. He walked back home slowly, still paranoid and prickly, swiveling his head this way and that.

  He turned the corner and saw a young man on the other side of the street. It made Zee feel strangely good—he hadn’t seen another young person in days, and Zee had to fight off the urge to run and talk to him. But the boy seemed preoccupied with something. He was stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, looking around curiously. Zee half nodded at him as he passed, then turned the next corner.