by John Saul
Chuck groaned. “And for that you woke me up? Jeez, Char, when I was his age, I was out all night half the time.”
“Maybe you were,” Charlotte replied tightly. “And maybe your parents didn’t care. But I do, and I’m about to call the police.”
At that, Chuck came completely awake. “What the hell do you want to do a thing like that for?” he demanded, switching on the light and staring at Charlotte as if he thought she’d lost her mind.
“Because I’m worried about him,” Charlotte flared, concern for her son overcoming her fear of her husband’s tongue. “Because I don’t like what’s been happening with him and I don’t like the way he’s been acting. And I certainly don’t like not knowing where he is at night!”
Clutching the robe protectively to her throat, she turned and hurried out of the bedroom. She was already downstairs when Chuck, shoving his own arms into the sleeves of an ancient woolen robe he’d insisted on keeping despite its frayed edges and honeycomb of moth holes, caught up with her.
“Now just hold on,” he said, taking the phone from her hands and putting it back on the small desk in the den. “I’m not going to have you getting Jeff into trouble with the police just because you want to mother-hen him.”
“Mother-hen him!” Charlotte repeated. “For God’s sake, Chuck! He’s only seventeen years old! And it’s the middle of the night, and there’s nowhere in Silverdale he could be! Everything’s closed. So unless he’s already in trouble, where is he?”
“Maybe he stayed overnight with a friend,” Chuck began, but Charlotte shook her head.
“He hasn’t done that since he was a little boy. And if he had, he would have called.” Even as she uttered the words, she knew she didn’t believe them. A year ago—a few months ago; even a few weeks ago—she would have trusted Jeff to keep her informed of where he was and what he was doing. But now? She didn’t know.
Nor could she explain her worries to Chuck, since he insisted on believing there was nothing wrong; that Jeff was simply growing up and testing his wings.
As she was searching for the right words, the words to express her fears without further rousing her husband’s anger, the front door opened and Jeff came in.
He’d already closed the door behind him and started up the stairs when he caught sight of his parents standing in the den in their bathrobes, their eyes fixed on him. He gazed at them stupidly for a second, almost as if he didn’t recognize them, and for a split-second Charlotte thought he looked stoned.
“Jeff?” she said. Then, when he seemed to pay no attention to her, she called out again, louder this time. “Jeff!”
His eyes hooded, her son turned to gaze at her. “What?” he asked, his voice taking on the same sullen tone that had become so familiar to her lately.
“I want an explanation,” Charlotte went on. “It’s after two A.M., and I want to know where you’ve been.”
“Out,” Jeff said, and started to turn away.
“Stop right there, young man!” Charlotte commanded. She marched into the foyer and stood at the bottom of the stairs, then reached out and switched on the chandelier that hung in the stairwell. A bright flood of light bathed Jeff’s face, and Charlotte gasped. His face was streaked with dirt, and on his cheeks there were smears of blood. There were black circles under Jeff’s eyes—as if he hadn’t slept in days—and he was breathing hard, his chest heaving as he panted.
Then he lifted his right hand to his mouth, and before he began sucking on his wounds, Charlotte could see that the skin was torn away from his knuckles.
“My God,” she breathed, her anger suddenly draining away. “Jeff, what’s happened to you?”
His eyes narrowed. “Nothing,” he mumbled, and once more started to mount the stairs.
“Nothing?” Charlotte repeated. She turned to Chuck, now standing in the door to the den, his eyes, too, fixed on their son. “Chuck, look at him. Just look at him!”
“You’d better tell us what happened, son,” Chuck said. “If you’re in some kind of trouble—”
Jeff whirled to face them, his eyes now blazing with the same anger that had frightened Linda Harris earlier that evening. “I don’t know what’s wrong!” he shouted. “Linda broke up with me tonight, okay? And it pissed me off! Okay? So I tried to smash up a tree and I went for a walk. Okay? Is that okay with you, Mom?”
“Jeff—” Charlotte began, shrinking away from her son’s sudden fury. “I didn’t mean … we only wanted to—”
But it was too late.
“Can’t you just leave me alone?” Jeff shouted.
He came off the bottom of the stairs, towering over the much smaller form of his mother. Then, with an abrupt movement, he reached out and roughly shoved Charlotte aside, as if swatting a fly. She felt a sharp pain in her shoulder as her body struck the wall, and then she collapsed to the floor. For a split-second Jeff stared blankly at his mother, as if he was puzzled about what had happened to her, and then, an anguished wail boiling up from somewhere deep within him, he turned and slammed out the front door.
Secret rituals masked in science … hidden cellars where steel cages gleam coldly against the dark … a cry of unfathomable rage and pain … In Silverdale no one is safe from … Creature.
SHADOWS
They call it The Academy.
Housed in a secluded, cliff-top mansion overlooking the rugged and picturesque Pacific coast, it is a school for special children. Children gifted—or cursed—with extraordinary minds. Children soon to come under the influence of an intelligence even more brilliant than their own—and unspeakably evil. For within this mind a dark, ingenious plan is taking form. A hellish experiment meant to probe the ultimate limits of the human brain.
A novel of unrelenting, nerve-jangling suspense, Shadows is John Saul at his most terrifying.
John Saul is “a writer with the touch for raising gooseflesh,” says the Detroit News, and bestseller after bestseller has proved over and over his mastery for storytelling and his genius at creating heart-stopping suspense. Enter his chilling world, and prepare to realize your own hidden fears …
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