Unmasked

by Kevin J. Anderson

  “Why, Rhiannon Douglas,” Tom said, are you asking me out on a date?”

  “Well, ah …” I felt myself flushing red. I sighed. “Sorry,” I said, “that just kind of slipped out. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  Tom smiled. “That’s too bad … ’cause I was thinking of taking you up on it.” He winked at me. “That is, if you’re so inclined?”

  I wasn’t sure if I was embarrassed, relieved, overjoyed, or a combination thereof. “Seven o’clock at Moose’s Tooth work?”

  “It more than works,” Tom replied. “I can be there by seven.”

  I let out a nervous laugh as I held my cane in a death grip. “A true gentleman.”

  “No, a true gentleman would offer to walk you to your car,” Tom said.

  “Um, sure,” I replied, still red as a beet. In my head, I screamed at Meridia, who was trying not to laugh. “I can’t believe you did that!”

  It worked, didn’t it? Besides, it’s not like you were going to ask him.

  Tom walked with me the short distance to the door and held it open. As we walked to my car, he asked, “So, would your source be willing to give an official statement?”

  “Um … probably not,” I said, shaking off the embarrassment. “I haven’t even met them, nor do I know their identity.”

  “Ah,” Tom said, frowning. “That’s too bad. I’m sure Crimestoppers would be willing to give them a reward for their tip.”

  “I’ll leave them a note in the mailbox and see if they bite,” I said, climbing into my Jeep and pulling a Swisher Sweet out of the glove box. I put it on my lips, letting it hang there as I fished for a lighter. “I make no promises, though.”

  “Well, I appreciate their help, all the same,” Tom said as I lit my cigarillo. “Please, pass that along.”

  “Will do,” I said, exhaling smoke away from Tom. “I’ll see you tonight?”

  “I’ll be there with bells on,” Tom said, smiling.

  I gave him a warmer smile. Tom waved as I backed out of the parking lot. I waved back as I put my Jeep in gear and drove away.

  As I turned onto Tudor Road, I said aloud, “He may have said yes, but I’m still really upset with you.”

  Meridia laughed inside my head.

  “Yeah, laugh it up,” I said. “Don’t forget, we still have to return the original copies of those manifests tonight.”

  Would you like me to do that for you, too? Or are you going to handle it?

  “Just because it’s daytime, doesn’t mean that I can’t break out that flashlight.”

  I left my boss, Mr. Boyd, a message that I was heading home to take a nap after a night of surveillance, went home, and slept for a few hours. Once I woke up, I checked my messages. There was one from Tom. Apparently, a search warrant had been issued within a matter of hours, and the raid on Alaska Discount 4x4 had occurred early that afternoon. Tom had followed my tip about checking the PCMs on the cars, and it paid off: Of the 30 vehicles they had on their lot, 23 of them had salvage titles. The owner, Shane Thompson, had been arrested, and the Alaska Bureau of Investigation had announced that a formal investigation into the smuggling ring was taking place, in partnership with Washington State Patrol and the FBI. Mr. Boyd had left a nice voicemail congratulating me on a job well done.

  With that bit of cheer, I left my apartment and drove back to the Port of Anchorage, to finish the job by returning the manifests I’d stolen from Trident Shipping.

  “Is it clear?” I asked, hiding in the shadow of the filing cabinet I had used the night before, wearing Meridia’s form.

  I don’t see anyone present, Meridia said. Let’s go. You still got your date tonight.

  “Relax,” I said, pulling myself up carefully. I’d remembered to bring the cane and take my pain meds this time. “Date’s not for another three hours. This will take less than five minutes.”

  I opened the filing cabinet and had just put the file back in, when my skin prickled and I felt a tickle inside my ear.

  Do you hear that? Meridia asked.

  As uncomfortable as the sensation in my ear was, I focused on it—trying to pick up on what Meridia was hearing. I heard the sound almost immediately. It was a muffled banging, like somebody beating a rhythm on sheet metal with a hammer.

  Just like a sound I grew to be familiar with in my Security Forces days ….

  “Those are gunshots!” I said, eyes widening.

  As I tried to focus on what direction they were coming from, my skin prickled again, right as the door rattled.

  I dove for the safety of the filing cabinet shadow, plunging through it and back to The Void on the other side as two men ran into the records office and slammed the door shut, locking it.

  “Jesus!” said a balding man, wearing slacks and a button up shirt. His tie had ended up hanging off his shoulder, and his eyes were wild and panicked. “How did they figure it out?”

  “That bastard Shane must’ve talked. Or one of his people did,” said a tall man in a hard hat and work shirt with a safety vest over it. “They were the only ones who knew, and they all got picked up earlier today.”

  “What? How come you didn’t tell me, Todd? And why did your guys shoot as soon as the Troopers pulled up?”

  “Because they don’t want to go to jail, Arne!” said Todd. “And neither do I!”

  “Yeah, like shooting the police is going to keep you from getting arrested!” Arne shouted.

  “Correction: they shot at the police. I didn’t,” said Todd. “If they want to go out that way, that’s their business. Me, I’m going out the back window, heading to where my bush plane is parked, and flying the hell out of here. Up to you if you’re coming, Arne, but you better decide quick.”

  “Hey …” Arne started to reply, but something caught his attention. “ Where’d that come from?”

  Damn it! I knew I was forgetting something.

  “Somebody’s in here,” Todd said, pulling a pistol out of his waistband.

  Now a sane person would’ve just left the cane and fled the scene. But I’m not exactly sane and my cane presented a problem. Blackthorn canes are pretty distinctive, and aren’t very common in the United States, much less Alaska. The only reason I ended up with one is because Grandpa Dowd grew up in Ireland, and he decided that if his granddaughter was going to have to use a cane to walk, it might as well be stylish.

  And stylish that cane was, with its jet-black, thorned shaft and polished wood handle. So stylish, in fact, that if I left it behind, the cops were going to know very quickly that I was here and would probably want to ask me why. I wouldn’t be surprised if Tom recognized it on sight.

  So, against my better judgement, I stepped through the shadows back into the office, wearing Meridia’s form.

  “Darn, you caught me,” I said, picking up my cane.

  “Jesus Christ!” Arne said, backing up against the door.

  “Or did I catch you?” I asked thoughtfully, leaning on it and pretending to be lost in thought. “Kind of a gray area, really.”

  Not the time, Rhiannon, Meridia chided.

  There is always time for banter, my dear Watson, I said. Watch and learn. As I thought that, Todd raised his gun in horror, aiming it at me.

  I dropped back into the shadow I had emerged from just as the gun barked. Three shots rang out— punching holes in the drywall behind where I had been standing. The light fixtures in the drop ceiling cast a shadow underneath an emergency light mounted on the wall directly above Todd, just big enough to fit my upper body through. I came through it and, using my cane, smacked his hand, making him drop the gun. I let my hair fly down, grabbing his hard hat and using it and my cane to pummel him senseless.

  “Well, that’s one,” I said. “Where’s Arne?”

  Running down the hall with the gun you failed to secure, Meridia said matter-of-factly. You might want to catch him before he escapes.

  “Damn it!” I said, pulling myself back into The Void and looking through shadows in the hallway.
Sure enough, the idiot was scrambling down the hall, pointing Todd’s pistol wildly behind him.

  He was about to reach a junction in the hallway when a man in a trooper’s uniform pointing a gun yelled, “Drop the weapon!”

  Tom!

  Arne must’ve been too focused on running from me to consider that the cops were still outside. As soon as Tom shouted at him, he yelped, turned around, and swung the pistol towards Tom.

  I didn’t even think. I exploded out of the closest shadow to Tom, hitting him like a linebacker. We fell to the ground as Arne fired three erratic shots at where Tom had been, then dropped the gun and ran past us to the door.

  Tom and I shared a very surprised glance. I don’t think he quite believed what he was seeing.

  On the bright side, I don’t think he recognized me, either.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” he said, bewildered. He looked at the door. “I gotta go get him.”

  I nodded. “Good luck.”

  As Tom got up, I rolled into a shadow on the wall and disappeared, making my way back to my car as quickly as I could.

  I’d been sitting in the far corner booth at Moose’s Tooth Pub & Pizzeria, nursing one of their craft brews, when Tom finally showed up wearing jeans, a cowboy hat, and an old work jacket. He was more than a half-hour late, but at least he’d had the decency to message me and let me know.

  “Hey. Sorry I’m late,” he said, pulling up a chair across the table from me. “I had to finish up the reports before I could leave. The dealership employees claimed there were people at Trident who were in on it. Boss wanted to arrest them too, before they could flee the state, so APD went with us to make it happen.”

  “No worries,” I said as the waitress brought him his own pitcher and mug. “How’d it go?”

  “It was … interesting,” Tom said, frowning. “We arrested six people there. Four of them began shooting at us the second we arrived. APD handled those guys, but the final two …” Tom paused.

  “Yes?” I asked, feigning surprise.

  “The final two, the dock supervisor and the general accountant, tried to escape through the office during the confusion. I went in through a back door to find them and surprised the accountant. He pulled a gun on me and fired.” He leaned forward and continued speaking, in a whisper. “Something … saved me.”

  I leaned forward, a careful expression of shock on my face. “What was it?”

  “Dunno,” he said. “It was like some crazy ghost. Came out of a dark corner in front of me and knocked me out of the line of fire right as the gun went off. The accountant ran outside and I chased him out to the end of the dock. When I arrested him, he kept screaming over and over: ‘Don’t let that thing get me! Don’t let that thing get me!’ But it gets weirder ….”

  I took a long sip to hide the smile on my face. “How so?”

  “The dock supervisor was found in the records office, beaten damn near unconscious. Beaten with his own hard hat and some other blunt implement. Nobody knows who did it. And that’s not even the strangest thing!”

  “Well, come on, tell me!” I said, on the edge of my seat. I deserved an Oscar for this performance.

  Tom’s expression hardened. “The shadow ghost? That was you.”

  “What?” I said, losing my smile. “Don’t be silly.”

  “For Christ’s sake, the ghost smelled exactly like those cheap little cigarillos you smoke, Annie,” Tom said, exasperated. “And the dock supervisor had these weird puncture wounds on him that look like he’d been beaten with a bat with nails in it.” He pointed to my cane. “Or a long stick of wood with little knobs on it.” He leaned back in his chair. “I bet if I took your cane to the state forensics lab, they’d confirm the wounds were caused by it. I’d rather not do that, though. I’d much rather you come clean and tell me what the hell you were doing there.”

  “Are you asking as a cop?” I said, my voice tightening.

  “No, Rhiannon,” Tom said. “I’m asking as a friend.”

  Damn it. He had me dead to rights. And it was Tom. He was a genuinely good guy. He never looked down on me for being a woman and never coddled me for my disability. He was funny, kind, and had covered my back dozens of times. There was no reason not to tell him.

  And yet … I hesitated.

  I suddenly felt myself speaking again. “Do you remember when I got caught in that bombing in Afghanistan?”

  Meridia, what are you doing? I was apoplectic.

  Saving the day … as usual.

  Tom nodded. “Yeah. That’s how your leg got messed up.”

  Meridia continued, in my voice. “When I woke up in the hospital, I found out I had been somehow bonded to a creature made of living shadow. Her name’s Meridia.”

  “How’d that happen?” Tom asked, listening intently.

  “I’m still trying to figure that part out,” she said. “What I do know is, she’s living in my head, and I can use her abilities to manipulate shadows.”

  “How do I know you’re not lying?”

  “You want proof?” Meridia said. “Set your beer glass down in the shadow of your chair.”

  Tom gave me a quizzical look, then set the glass down.

  I looked around, to make sure nobody was watching. Then Meridia quickly shifted to show her true form. A hair tendril snatched Tom’s glass, pulled it into The Void through the shadow it was sitting in, and back out through the shadow under my chair. Meridia held it up for him to see, then set it on the table as she shifted back to my normal appearance. “Is that going to be a deal breaker?”

  Tom frowned. “And the informant?”

  “Doesn’t exist,” Meridia said. “I dug through their records myself.”

  “Hmmmm.”

  An awkward silence reigned over the table.

  “Soooooo, what now?” I asked hesitantly, taking over again.

  Tom looked at me with half-lidded eyes, and rubbed his mustache. “Well, in the official report, your ‘source’ is going to remain confidential. I wasn’t knocked over during tonight’s raid; I tripped and fell, in a very lucky fashion. And the person who beat up Mr. Todd Martin has not been determined and never will be.”

  “And … us?”

  Tom gave me a wolfish grin. “We’re going to get you another snooty beer, you’re going to fill me in on what you haven’t told me about what happened over there, and then we’re going to go somewhere else so you can show me more of what this … thing … this Meridia … can do. Deal?”

  Inside my head, Meridia asked, Do you need me to do this part for you, too?

  No, I told her, I think I’m good.

  I grinned back at Tom. “Deal.”

  Brennen Hankins has worn a variety of hats: ranch hand, commercial fisherman, cannery worker, weather balloon technician, electrician, Airman, husband, tabletop gamer, and now, writer. Growing up between Oregon and Alaska, he bounced between the two before finally enlisting and getting sent God-knows-where. When he’s not traveling, wrenching on his trucks, taking photos of the Northern Lights, or hunting, he can be found either writing or cooking up new renovation projects for his house. Along with his long-suffering wife Emma, he currently lives in central Montana with his brother and a mischievous Siberian Husky for company. Follow his mad ramblings, published works, and aurora borealis photos at oldhatnation.com.

  The Hibakusha

  Michael Scott Bricker

  The demon didn’t force Noriko to die again, but he brought memories of the bomb beneath his mask. It was Shikami this time, the malevolent spirit who fed upon her sorrow. The holes in his wooden mask glowed with the light of the Hiroshima blast, lips opened wide like a growling beast, teeth stained with the ashes of those who had died in the name of war. With him came the morning, two years before, when her children were vaporized as they played. Noriko suffered the burning again as the horror disfigured her flesh, but it was unlike that day in 1945.

  Shikami brushed the scars upon her cheeks with his long finge
rnails, and he whispered to her with the voices of the dead. Noriko’s vision went, and she felt herself being pulled into the air, and the roar of the blast and the ringing in her ears faded as the wind released her. She heard chanting, wailing, the beating of drums. Her body wasn’t burning before she woke up, this time, and she was grateful that Shikami was not without mercy.

  “Hello? Kon’nichiwa. Are you okay?” The soldier was bending over her.

  Noriko was flat on her back. Her eyes opened, and she saw the soldier. She wondered if he was real or a delusion. The red dusk glowed against the bones of the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall. She must have passed out. “You are an American,” she said.

  “You speak English. I wasn’t expecting that.” The soldier looked into her eyes.

  She found that she could still smile. The soldier looked young. His face was angular and kind. “Do you think that all Japanese speak only our own language? I speak four languages.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I meant no insult.”

  “Then I will take no insult.” She tried to get up.

  The soldier helped her stand.

  “I am strong enough. The fall did not damage me much.” She looked up at him. He was very tall, and his uniform hung loosely on his thin frame. “You should eat more.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “I am sorry,” she said. “For a Japanese person, I am not as reserved as I should be.”

  “I’m not offended. My mother used to tell me to eat more too.”

  “Then she is a good mother.” Noriko removed the soldier’s hand from under her arm. She could stand on her own. “How long has it been since you last saw her?”

  “My mother? Two years, I think.”

  “That is too long.”

  “The occupation will be over, eventually. Then everything will get back to normal.”

  “Nothing will ever be normal again.” Noriko limped toward the Promotion Hall. Her leg had bothered her ever since the atomic bomb burned off her kimono. One of her eyebrows had never grown back.