Shifting

by B. V. Larson

  “There has got to be more to this dramatic show than that.”

  I pinched my lips up tightly and looked at her. “We have to know, Doc. We have to see it.”

  She nodded once, curtly, and sat down. “So that’s it.”

  “I’m sorry,” I told her.

  She took up her annotated book again and paged through it rapidly. “May I read you a passage?”

  I glanced back at the Captain, but he just watched us both with dark eyes. He gave no hint as to what I should do.

  “Okay, Doc.”

  The Nisses of Norway, we are told, are fond of the moonlight, and in the winter time they may be seen jumping over the yard, or driving in sledges. They are also skilled in music and dancing, and will, it is said, give instructions on the fiddle for a grey sheep, like the Swedish Strömkarl.

  Every church, too, has its Nis, who looks to order, and chastises those who misbehave themselves. He is called the Kirkegrim.

  She closed the book and looked at us triumphantly. I could see she believed she had made some critical point. We stared back flatly.

  “Dr. Grimm wrote that—you know,” her voice took on a note of desperation, “the German fellow who spent so much time compiling all the old folklore of Europe.”

  “That’s a nice piece, Doctor, but I’m not quite sure what it has to do with—”

  “Don’t you see? They aren’t all evil! There are good ones—and bad ones. All of the histories of these creatures that have returned to us during these dark times are filled with stories of both good and evil. Think of the angels of the Bible, the elves that helped the farmers…”

  “Okay, I get it. And your point is well taken. Notice, we are in here without the rest of them. We have not told any of the others. We don’t plan to do you harm.”

  “What do you plan, then?”

  I told her that we had chosen exile. I even discussed the other possibilities with her, which we had rejected.

  “Logical,” she said. “Flawlessly logical... Except that I’m not a threat!”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think we can take the chance. We’d be remiss in our responsibilities. There have been so many mistakes already.”

  “And you are making another one! But very well, I’ll go then. I’ll take a lantern and a bag of food, if you will allow me that!”

  “Of course,” I said.

  Without further ceremony, she pushed past me and made for the door. Her limp seemed more pronounced than ever. She walked with a peculiar gait, as if one leg was shorter than the other.

  She came close to the Captain, who didn’t budge from his position in front of the door. The Captain gave me a look with raised eyebrows.

  I sighed. “We have to see it, Wilton.”

  She whirled on me and stood there, clutching her lantern. Her hands trembled. “Why?” she asked, her voice almost pleading.

  “I have to see something. We have to know.”

  She paused a moment, her eyes pleading with both of us. She saw no mercy in them. With laborious slowness, she bent down and pushed at her boot. The boot seemed too small or her foot too thick. I could tell as she pushed it off that it pained her.

  “You should have let me shoot myself, Gannon,” she said, her voice almost a whisper, “when I had the courage.”

  Somehow I was surprised when I saw it, even though I should not have been. There, at the end of her leg, thick course hair sprouted in a mix of brown and white about half way down her calf. At the terminus, where there should have been a foot, there was now a gray hoof.

  The hoof was cloven and had three thick points to it.

  Twenty-One

  Wilton got her boot jammed back on and gathered up the lantern and a paper sack of canned goods as we’d promised her. It was dusk when we got outside. I thought about offering her to stay the night, but it seemed like a mistake. I knew somehow it would be that much harder to get this over with in the morning.

  We almost got her out the door without anyone noticing. Vance, of course, being blessed with a prairie dog’s acuity of senses, knew something was up and appeared suspiciously to waylay us.

  “Where’s the Doc going?” Vance asked as we helped the old lady with a limp out the front door.

  “She’s going,” I said simply. I took hold of one of Wilton’s elbows to guide her over the rubble, but she shook me off and tottered out into the parking lot on her own.

  “What do you mean she’s going?” Vance demanded very loudly. A few other heads poked out into the lobby to see what was going on.

  Carlene Mitts was among them. Her face was stitched in worry. She went outside and accosted Doctor Wilton in the parking lot.

  “I don’t know what’s going on, Doc,” she said, “But I’m worried about my little Nancy. She cried all last night because she’s getting sick. She’s got a cough.”

  “Children get sick all the time, she’ll be fine.”

  “She’s got a fever.”

  There was kindness in Wilton when she turned to her. I saw it in her eyes and it made me feel guilty.

  “Take the antibiotic marked amoxicillin,” Wilton told her. “A red plastic bottle you’ll find in the dentist office. They always keep a supply on hand for people who get root canals. She’s not allergic to penicillin derivatives, is she?”

  Carlene shook her head, “I don’t know, I don’t think so.”

  “Good, open up the capsules and mix them into her juice. One half a capsule three times a day should do it. Don’t overdose her, she’ll get diarrhea. If she gets hives, stop feeding it to her and give her an antihistamine.”

  “Doctor, why are you leaving?” Carlene asked. “This is your office now, for crying out loud. We are all your guests, really. Maybe it is all of us who should leave.”

  “I can’t stay, my dear. This place is only for the pure,” she said with a dark venomous glance at me.

  More people were coming out now. Holly Nelson was there, and Monika. Even Mr. Nelson had managed to get his wheelchair to the entrance and gazed out at the drama unfolding in the parking lot. News travels fast in a small village.

  “This is crazy,” said Vance, putting up his hands to beseech us all to come to our senses. “Whatever the fight was about, we can get over it. There’s no need to break up now. We can put it together, trust me.”

  “You don’t understand, Vance,” I told him. I tried to catch his eye and signal to him to shut up. As usual, this had no effect.

  “Don’t understand? Oh, I think I understand. You guys are pissed at each other because we’ve had some rough times and just buried two of our people in an atrium.”

  Mrs. Hatchell showed up then, and I groaned inwardly. She nodded in smug, full knowledge of the situation. She believed she’d taken it all in with one instant glance.

  “Everyone,” she began, “I’m sure mistakes were made, but I’m even more certain that you people are all having a good time with your pissing contest. We however, the lowly citizens such as Mrs. Mitts and I, have an unfortunate need of all of you. It’s time for everyone to get over this and play nice.”

  I rubbed my face and sighed. My fantasy of a quiet resolution had exploded in my face. I noticed the Captain seemed disinterested in the whole affair. He was over at the tree again, toeing it and poking it with his rifle.

  Wilton glared at each of us in turn, but saved her last look for Vance. “Just can’t let anything go, can you boy?”

  Vance blinked, surprised at the attack.

  “I’m going to set up house at my old pharmacy down on frontage road, the one near the beach. If you need something, come look me up there and I’ll see what I can do for you. Some of you might even want to join me, as time goes on,” she added with a dark grin, as if speaking of a private joke.

  Carlene pleaded with her one last time. “But why, Doc?”

  It took her a couple of grunting attempts, but she managed to kick off her boot. There was no foot holding it there, and I imagine it had been close to sliding off al
l the time anyway.

  Everyone recoiled in horror to see her hoof, which looked all the more odd in the open light of day. There were gasps and cries and sobs from the crowd.

  “No Doc!”

  “Dear Lord!”

  “She’s one of them.”

  This last came from Jimmy Vanton. Wilton spun on her hoof to face him. The new appendage seemed to serve quite well for this pivoting maneuver.

  “That’s almost right,” she told Vanton. “I’ve been touched by the shift, it’s true. But we all have. Some of you know it, some of you will learn it soon. We’re all going to change, at least a little.”

  With that, she turned and left us. No one tried to stop her now. No one argued. She walked slowly across the parking lot, we watched her odd, hobbling gait until only her lantern was visible down the street.

  I watched until finally she turned a corner and even the lantern winked out. What was it that the Preacher had called her kind? Shadows, my mind answered back.

  The night closed over us, and we went back inside.

  * * *

  Vance was on me as soon as we had a spare moment alone. “You let her just leave?” he demanded incredulously.

  “You’re the one who thought I was crazy to push her out.”

  “Yeah, sure, but that was before I knew she was the guy with the hooves! What the hell was she doing out at that wreck, and at our cabin that night?”

  I shook my head. “Wasn’t her.”

  “You’re sure? That looked like the perfect shape to make that track.”

  “Yes, but she has one normal foot still. She couldn’t have made the tracks at the cabin. You saw the tracks. There were clearly two hooves.”

  “So there is something else out there with a hoof like that? With both of them like that?”

  “Right. I’m not sure what, but something. Another shadow like Wilton, but further gone.”

  Vance frowned and tapped at his temples. “So was Wilton a traitor or not? Did she shoot the tree on purpose? Did she get Brigman killed?”

  “I don’t know. Couldn’t be sure, so I tossed her out. Otherwise…”

  “Otherwise you would have killed her,” finished Vance.

  “I don’t know. I’m sure we would have to have a group vote for that. A trial or something.”

  Vance nodded. “I guess you did the right thing. We can’t trust her, but we really don’t know how much of a danger she is. But sending her out there at night. Isn’t that almost like killing her?”

  “Maybe, but she’s got a chance, this way.”

  When I went back inside, I found that most of the others avoided my gaze. It was as if, by discovering Wilton’s hoof, I’d somehow made it happen. No one had wanted to see her go.

  Only Holly Nelson came to seek me out. Her dark serious eyes latched onto mine. I saw that in her hand she had a hunting knife she’d picked up somewhere, a move up from the screwdriver. I’d never seen her without a weapon in her hand since that day when the flying things had caught us.

  “Gannon,” she said, “you did the right thing. Don’t let them tell you otherwise.”

  I thanked her and headed to bed for another night. When I opened up the room, I did it as quietly as I could, just in case Monika was already asleep. I blinked in the gloom and realized she wasn’t there. I felt a familiar pain in the pit of my stomach. All of a sudden, it hit me. I’d probably blown it with her. She’d had a very strange look on her face when I’d banished the Doctor. She probably thought I was a fool, and perhaps she was right. Vance was really going to laugh at me. I’d been sleeping in the same room with the last cute girl in town and had gotten nothing but some tender kisses and light touches. Every time I’d reached for more, she had stopped me by putting her hand over mine, firmly. I sank down to sit on my cot and sighed.

  I almost got up and went looking for her, but stopped myself. If I found her with Vance or someone else, there was going to be a scene, and we hadn’t made any commitments to each other yet. We’d only just met, really. She was a free woman who could do as she pleased. At least, so far she was. I had dark possessive thoughts and told myself that if she had left, then she wasn’t worth the trouble of hunting down.

  I found a bottle of wine I’d been saving for a night like this one. I uncorked it, and had drained about half of it when the door quietly opened. It was Monika. She had on a long dark coat. She smiled and I returned it. I liked her smiles, they were rare, and weren’t wide toothy grins like the American girls I’d known. They were different and sweet, those shy smiles.

  I must have had a look of comic surprise on my face, because she laughed softly, and stepped forward to touch my shoulders. She read the situation perfectly.

  “You thought I left you?” she asked.

  I nodded.

  She touched my nose as one might a child and shook her head. “No, not yet,” she said, smiling again. After a second I realized she was joking and grabbed her and pulled her down to sit on my lap. She laughed again.

  She didn’t have much on under that coat, I soon learned. I didn’t get everything a man might want that night, but she was soft and warm and I liked what I did get very much.

  Twenty-Two

  That night I sweated and dreamt that Monika and Vance changed into wet tentacled monsters but with their natural heads. I cut them apart while the Captain watched and gave me dispassionate pointers. Then I found my own tentacles, and I cut them away too…

  I awakened, sucking air like a drowning man. My stomach was a knot and my heart was pounding. Monika murmured and I had to slide my arm out from under her neck delicately. It was tingling and half-asleep. I shook blood into it in the dark and pulled my boots on.

  I stumbled out into the hall, strapping on my saber and checking my .45; the clip was full. I left the safety on. I was sure it was nothing but a dream, but these days I was determined not to ignore my instincts. In the hallway, I was surprised to see that dawn was a blue glow in the sky outside. Soon, the sun would rise out of the trees to the east. Sleeping in rooms with the windows blocked out made one lose track of nature’s alarm clocks. I found the Captain alone in the lobby.

  He nodded appreciatively when he saw me. “Long day, hot night with that little girl of yours and you’re still up before dawn. You make a sharp troop, Gannon.”

  I frowned at him, wondering what he knew about Monika. He ignored me, so I rubbed my eyes and groped for coffee.

  “Good time to make plans,” said the Captain, “the cold morning air clears the head.”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “Nick Hackler brought word about the Preacher.”

  I perked up. “What word?”

  “Some kind of trouble. He said there were gunshots up there yesterday, after the storm. He heard them. No one else is up on that hill.”

  I sat back, thinking hard. “We have to go check it out. One way or the other.”

  “One way or the other,” he agreed while having a quiet morning cigarette. The drifting smoke made me want to cough, but I put up with it in silence. I wondered how many years it had been since a cigarette had been quietly smoked in that lobby. Probably thirty, maybe forty or more. Now, no one was likely to come and demand he put it out. Times had changed.

  I got out the map that the Preacher had given me. I pondered it. There was a shift line on it, a blue one, across our path to his cabin. I showed it to the Captain. He showed me his teeth in return.

  “I’m beginning to like your aggressive style,” he said to me. “More balls than brains and it’s gotten you quite a ways. What do you want to do, sneak around it or bull our way through?”

  I looked at him and at the map. “There are some fair-sized caves up there, really close to that spot. I used to play in them as a kid.”

  He nodded, looking at it. Monroe county was famous for its limestone caves. In Kentucky, to the south, every farmer seemed to have a cave on his property and that he tried to charge tourists a few bucks to see. Every year in ele
mentary school they gave the kids long-winded speeches about staying out of those dangerous caves. Of course, a country boy like me who had grown up in these hills had often ignored the warnings.

  “What if we could find a way through the caves that went under that line?” I speculated.

  “Let me guess, you want to try out the cave idea.”

  “We can’t just leave him up there. I might as well try out his theory. Maybe he’s dead up there, maybe not. Either way I want to do the last thing he asked me to.”

  He nodded and leaned back. “Okay, I’m in, but if you turn into a fanged aardvark, I’m going to blow you away. Fair warning?”

  “Fair enough, and the same goes for you.”

  He grinned again darkly and nodded. I could tell by his grin he didn’t think I would be able to take him under any circumstances.

  Vance didn’t think it was such a good idea when I bounced it off him. “Let me get this straight, you know where the change happens, so you are going to seek out this fantastic danger to your very soul. You’ll go there, down in a cave for crying out loud, with a psycho to cover your back.”

  “The idea is to see if the cave prevents the effect. I think I can sense the effect now. I think I’ll know if I’m close to the danger point.”

  “Gannon, did you ever read any stories about supernatural monsters and stuff? Did you skip that part of youth? Did you ever notice that they like caves? That monsters tend to hang out there in stories? When did you ever read a story where the cave was a good, happy place?”

  The Captain appeared, “I, the psycho, agree with your ravings, boy.”

  We both reddened. It was hard to keep a secret even if you whispered in this place.

  “Here’s a new tactical plan,” he went on, undisturbed. “I’ll be the control on this little experiment of yours. I’ll take the long way around the blue line on the map, going about a mile or so out and swinging around to the cabin from the south. You two ladies will do the cave thing. It should slow you down enough that we should make it at about the same time. If we make it at all, that is.”