Plunkett reached into the briefcase and pulled a black envelope from the bottom of the pile.
“Go ahead,” he said. “Open it. We both know what you’ll find.”
With trembling hands, Daniel peeled back the flap and pulled out the glossy photo within. It was a hazy picture, mostly shadow. But the shadow had a shape, and a name.
“The Shroud,” whispered Daniel.
“So now I have a question for you, Daniel Corrigan,” said Plunkett, his eyes wide. “How is it that a creature from my imagination, a thing I drew to scare children over sixty years ago, is preying on the children of Noble’s Green today?”
Daniel had no answer. He was speechless. He’d been so sure that Plunkett was the Shroud. He’d been sure that this was all just some game of cat and mouse. But now as he looked at the little old man in his chair, holding a cup of tea with palsied hands, he saw something he hadn’t expected to see—Herman Plunkett was afraid.
“Why are you showing this to me?” asked Daniel, frustrated. “Why did you give me those sketches in the first place? If you’re not the Shroud, then what do you want from me?”
“I gave you those sketches because … because I’m a coward. When you came to see me, I didn’t know what to think; I panicked. So I played the fool for you. I hoped that you would see the sketches as a clue, and from your reaction I’d know whether I could trust you.
“I’m not the Shroud, Daniel. I’m just a sickly old man with too much money who is terrified of something he drew over half a century ago.” Plunkett picked up the photo of the menacing shadow. “This photo, as well as another like it, was taken last winter at the Old Quarry, and the man who I hired to take it disappeared soon thereafter. I knew then that I had gotten close to solving the mystery—too close. I’ve since backed off, but I have learned enough. Enough that I can tell you now what is really going on in Noble’s Green. If you think you are ready to learn.”
“Go on,” said Daniel. He had a sinking feeling in his stomach, but he had to know. “Start with the powers. Where do they come from?”
“I haven’t the foggiest,” said Plunkett. “Meteor activity? Aliens? Maybe it’s genetic? Maybe your friends are the next step on the evolutionary ladder?” He chuckled to himself. “Maybe it’s in the water, who knows?”
Daniel began to wonder if the old man wasn’t just a little bit senile. “I thought you said you had answers?”
“To some questions, yes. But not the ones you want to hear. As best as I can figure it, this all started a few years ago….”
“A few? But it’s been going on for generations. What about the Rules?”
Plunkett shook his head. “I don’t know anything about any Rules. But I can tell you that this is a relatively new phenomenon. Your friends are the first of their kind.”
Daniel rubbed his eyes. It made no sense. Eric had told him that the Rules had been passed down for generations.
“The Shroud,” said Plunkett, “is a more recent development.”
Daniel stood up and began pacing back and forth. This was all just too much to take in. And why should he believe Plunkett anyway? He could be insane, or worse.
The old man went on. “Imagine the following scenario, Daniel: One day, for whatever reason, some of the children of this town start doing incredible things, magical things. Some can fly, some are strong, some are fast. Now imagine that another child realizes that he has a power, too. Only this isn’t a nice, shiny power like his friends’. He can’t fly, he can’t run super-fast; all he can do … is steal other powers. He’s like a leech, this one. He can take the powers away from others, absorb them and make them his own. And what’s more, when his friends lose their powers, they lose their memories of ever even having had them.
“Just imagine, watching your friends do all these wonderful things while you stood there, unable to join in. How long could you resist? How long before you took some of that power for yourself?”
Daniel stopped pacing. Plunkett’s gaze was frightening, but Daniel couldn’t look away. When next he spoke, his voice was sad, and the fear was gone, replaced by something like pity.
“It’s not fair, really,” said Plunkett. “A child shouldn’t have to make that kind of choice, he shouldn’t have to resist that kind of temptation. There are few adults strong enough, much less a little boy. Especially a boy whose head is already filled with dreams of superheroes. A boy whose dream world was formed by the four-color comic-book depictions of heroes and villains. The boy dreams his whole life of being Johnny Noble, only to wake up one day, alone in the knowledge that he is something else entirely. He’s quite the opposite. He’s the Shroud.”
Daniel felt sick to his stomach. He looked down at the stack of comics before him, the complete run of Fantastic Futures, Starring Johnny Noble. Complete except for two missing issues.
“Who?” asked Daniel, but the question had already left a bitter taste in his mouth.
Plunkett wiped his dusty glasses on his sweater sleeve, breathed on a lens and then wiped them some more. When he was finished, he answered with a question of his own. “Think back. What have you seen the Shroud do? What is it capable of, and who do you know that can do the same? You have faced the Shroud twice now, so who among you was missing each time?”
Daniel didn’t answer, but Plunkett nodded anyway. The old man saw the understanding, the realization, in Daniel’s eyes and that was enough. Daniel was thankful that Plunkett didn’t make him say the name out loud, because to do so would have felt like a betrayal.
“There is one last picture in the envelope, Daniel.”
Daniel reached in and pulled out the last photograph. In a kind of shock, he looked at it, took a deep breath and put it back. Then he sat down. He couldn’t feel anything anymore. He was numb.
“If you value your friends, you have to find a way to stop him, Daniel. If you need proof to convince the others—more than the photograph, I mean—then find the missing comics. They were his inspiration—may God forgive me for ever drawing them. They gave him the idea for his disguise. He’ll still have them. Find those comics and you’ve found the Shroud.”
It was nearly dark by the time Daniel pedaled back home. The normally welcoming houses of Elm Lane tonight seemed menacing in the twilight shadows, and the brisk November breeze chilled him to the bone. He parked his bike beside Mollie’s front yard and stared for a long time up at her window.
How can I do it? he asked himself, picturing the devastation, the heartbreak, in her eyes when he told her that they had to fight one of their own. He would know the look because he was wearing it right now. They had been betrayed, all of them. Betrayed from within.
He pulled the black envelope from his coat pocket and stared once more at the photo inside. It was grainy and showed a shadowy figure standing in a tangled thicket at night. Beneath the billowing blackness, beneath the dark disguise that was melting away, was a boy’s familiar face.
How can we fight our friend? How can we fight Eric?
Chapter Seventeen
About Eric
Daniel decided to approach Rohan first. Although Rohan was close to Eric, as close as any of them, he was still consistently the most logical mind in their little group. It would be important to have him there when he told Mollie. Mollie was all action and reaction—strong, but also emotional.
Daniel still couldn’t quite grasp the fact that he was planning a strategy to defeat one of his best friends. To beat Eric—their leader, and the strongest of them all. Daniel still hoped to reason with him, to somehow talk him out of all this madness, but he knew that they needed to be prepared if that failed.
The Shroud was one of their own.
As much as it sickened Daniel to admit it, Plunkett’s version of events made sense. The Rules kept the younger Supers in line, kept them afraid. Eric could use the same lies on the kids near his age, like Michael, until he could get them out of the picture, until he could steal their powers, too. Now there were only a few left, and the
only real threats to him, power-wise, were Mollie and Clay. Soon he wouldn’t even have to hide. Soon there would be no one strong enough to stop him.
They needed to act fast. If Eric learned that he’d been discovered, he probably wouldn’t have any problem attacking first. He could come for Mollie and Rohan anytime—even tonight! They needed to be ready.
When Daniel found Rohan, his friend was lying in the grass in his backyard with his ear pressed against the earth. His glasses were off and his face was pinched tight with concentration. He was so absorbed in whatever he was doing that he didn’t notice, or didn’t care, that his dog, Shaggy, was sitting next to him and contentedly chewing his way through Rohan’s untied shoelaces.
And he’s the “logical” one….
Daniel approached Rohan and waited. Shaggy trotted up to Daniel and wagged his tail, a piece of Rohan’s shoelace dangling from his mouth. Daniel scratched the mangy dog behind the ears and called, “Rohan. Hey, Rohan!”
Rohan did nothing.
Daniel sighed and lifted his foot. He brought it down on the ground hard, and watched as Rohan jerked upright with a start.
“Ah! Earthquake!” he shouted. “Oh, it’s you.”
Rohan pulled his glasses out of his pocket and blinked up at Daniel. “I was listening to a new ant colony being built under Mom’s rosebushes. You surprised me.”
“Yeah, well. We need to talk. It’s about Eric.”
“Eric?” asked Rohan, standing. He absentmindedly dusted himself off. Rohan had a habit of dusting off all the wrong parts of his body. He usually patted down the clean patches and left the dirty ones the way they were.
“If you’re worried about Eric,” said Rohan, “don’t be. It’s all taken care of.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“I mean that Mollie and I talked it over last night and we decided that you were right. You’ve been fighting too many of our battles for us, Daniel. It’s not fair. So Mollie is taking care of Eric herself.”
Taking care of Eric? Just how much did they already know?
“Wait a minute, Rohan. What are you talking about? What do you mean that Mollie’s taking care of him? Have you been talking to Plunkett?”
“Plunkett? Of course not! I only meant that we decided to tell Eric about the Shroud and all that we’ve learned. He’ll probably be mad at us for breaking the Rules, but his birthday is coming up and we felt like he should know the truth. We owe him the truth.”
Daniel let go of his breath, which he hadn’t even been aware he’d been holding, then sat down on Rohan’s porch.
“Daniel, what’s wrong? You don’t look so good.”
“It’s Eric, Rohan. I think we’ve all made a terrible mistake. We need to go see Mollie before she talks to him. I have something to tell you both, and it will be easier if I only have to say it once.”
“Before she talks to Eric? She’s with him right now. She was going to see him this morning and tell him everything. I offered to come along, of course, but she wanted to do it alone.”
Alone? Mollie was alone with Eric? Who knew what he might do once confronted with all she knew? Eric’s birthday was only a few weeks away, and the way Daniel saw it, Eric would then have two choices—either he could pretend to lose his powers and his memory, thereby protecting his secret for a while longer, or he could decide that he was so powerful that he didn’t need to hide anymore. If he chose the second option, he would want Mollie out of the way. All he would need was an opportunity to be alone with her….
“Rohan! We need to get over to Eric’s now! Mollie’s in danger!”
“Danger? From what, the Shroud? She’s with Eric, she couldn’t be safer.”
“No, she’s in danger from Eric!”
“Who’s in danger from me?” asked a voice from the sky above.
Daniel looked up to see Eric floating above them, Mollie by his side. Daniel had to shield his eyes as Eric drifted down, the sun shining like a halo behind him. It should have been one of those wondrous scenes, an image that Daniel would’ve remembered forever, but after what Daniel had learned it was horrible. His friend was something grotesque.
Rohan spoke up before Daniel could answer. “Eric, isn’t it kind of risky to be flying around in broad daylight like that? And in my backyard, no less?”
“Aw, c’mon, Rohan. I flew so fast that no one would’ve seen me. I wouldn’t have been more than a blur. I’m getting faster and faster every day!”
Yeah, thought Daniel sourly, and I know why.
“Sometimes,” Eric said as he picked up Shaggy in a bear hug, “you just have to live your day like it’s your last. Am I right, Daniel?”
Daniel looked at Eric, searching his face for some sign that he suspected something—a wink, or a sneer. But all he found was that smile, that contagious smile.
“Yeah, Eric. Absolutely.”
“So, c’mon,” he said. “Who is in danger from little old me?”
He met Daniel’s look with an even stare.
“Mollie,” Daniel answered. “She’s in danger of losing her title of fastest flier. It’s like you said, you’re getting faster and faster every day.”
Mollie snorted. “In your dreams, maybe.”
“Well, thanks for the vote of confidence, Daniel, but I don’t think I’ll ever be that fast. The jealousy is just killing me.”
“Well, that’s what I meant, anyway,” said Daniel.
Rohan gave Daniel a look. It was obvious that Rohan suspected that he was lying, but he didn’t call Daniel on it. He seemed content, for now at least, to give his friend the benefit of the doubt.
Eric glanced around. “You guys want to go out to the fort today?”
Rohan looked anxiously to Daniel, who said, “Actually, I need to hang near the house. I promised my mom I’d help her sort through Gram’s stuff.”
“Oh,” said Eric. “Sure, buddy. Of course. Rohan? Mollie?”
“I, uh … chores,” said Rohan.
“Okay,” said Eric. “How about you, Mollie? Care to do some flying?”
Mollie looked at Daniel, hard. Daniel returned her stare, and prayed that his eyes told her all she needed to know.
“Maybe later,” she said at last. “I might meet you there.”
Eric shook his head, visibly disappointed. “All right. You know where to find me if you change your mind. Bye, all.”
And like that, he was gone. True to his word, he was so fast that they could barely see a flash as he sped off into the sky and into the shadow of Mount Noble.
As soon as he was gone, Mollie turned on Daniel, poking him in the chest. “Do you guys mind telling me what’s going on? You look like you’ve just swallowed your tongue, Rohan.”
“Daniel has something he needs to tell us, Mol. Something so important it’s worth lying to Eric for. At least it better be.”
Daniel sighed. He had a bad taste in his mouth already. “Mollie, what did you tell Eric? Did you tell him about the Shroud?”
“Well, no. I was going to but … I chickened out, okay? I was hoping we could tell him together.”
“That was my first plan, Mol,” said Rohan. “But you said you should be the one….”
“Well, I changed my mind, okay?”
“Knock it off, both of you,” said Daniel. They didn’t have time for this, and Daniel couldn’t put the truth off any longer. “I have something that I have to show you. When you see it, you’ll understand why I lied to Eric. It wasn’t easy, but I had to do it.”
Daniel showed them Plunkett’s photograph of Eric as the Shroud.
As it turned out, lying had been the easy part. The truth was much, much harder.
Chapter Eighteen
Briarwood
They took the news that Eric might be the Shroud about as well as Daniel had expected. Rohan’s first reaction was to get very quiet. Daniel knew that he was turning the evidence over in his head, testing for himself whether Daniel’s conclusion fit the facts. Rohan was quick to point out
that photos could be altered. Heck, with a little time at the computer, he could make any one of the kids into the Shroud. But Daniel thought Rohan would eventually agree that they should at least look for more evidence, even though he would urge caution along the way.
Mollie’s reaction was just as predictable, if a tad more violent. First she called Daniel a bad name and then she took a halfhearted swing at him, which he managed to duck. Daniel knew it was halfhearted because if Mollie really wanted to hit him, he wouldn’t even see it coming. As it was, he barely got out of the line of fire in time, despite the fact that he was waiting for it.
Then Mollie got quiet, which in many ways was worse. Daniel would take the hitting and cursing Mollie over the quiet Mollie any day.
“But you don’t have any real proof,” she said after a time. “You have all these theories and Plunkett’s word, but no proof!”
“There’s the photo,” offered Daniel.
“Photos can be fakes!” said Mollie. “Rohan just said so!”
“Listen,” said Daniel. “I hope I’m wrong. I pray that I’m wrong, but you have to admit that Plunkett’s theory makes a lot more sense than everything else we’ve been told. All that stuff about the Rules and Johnny Noble—do I even have to ask who first told you all of that?”
Mollie was silent, but Rohan nodded. “It was Eric,” he said.
“Eric is older than all of you,” said Daniel, “and he’s only a little younger than the other kids who’ve lost their powers. From a strategic standpoint it makes sense—you go after them when they turn thirteen, before they get too powerful to stop. And just look at all the things Eric can do! He’s as strong as Clay, he can fly like Michael could and he’s almost as fast as Mollie. Why does he have all those powers when you all have, at most, one or two?”
“Then why does he wait at all?” asked Mollie. “Why doesn’t he come after us when we’re little, like Rose?”