Shadowland

by Peter Straub

  'Say, Bud,' he said, and the black man heard some­thing in his voice and turned around to face him. 'You don't have to answer if you don't want to.'

  'I'll remember that,' Bud said, smiling.

  'Why do you stay here? Why do you do work like this?'

  Bud's smile broadened, and he reached out to rasp Tom lightly on the top of the head. 'It's a job, Red. I don't mind it. If I was twenty years younger, I'd likely be doing something else, but this berth suits me fine, the way I am. And I think maybe I can do some good for your friend in there.' He nodded toward a door at the end of the hall. 'Maybe I can do some good for you sometime too. Reason enough?' He raised his eyebrows, and again there was that unsettling look of recognition, as if Bud knew all about the birds and the visions.

  'I'm sorry for prying,' Tom said. His ears burned.

  'I'd say you were interested, not prying. Don't look so embarrassed. You want a Coke or anything?'

  Tom shook his head.

  'Then I'll see you on your way out.' Bud smiled again and went past him back toward the floating staircase.

  Tom hesitated a second, dreading the conversation about his father he would have to have with Del before they could get to work. He heard Bud moving swiftly down the stairs, from an open window heard a far-off splash as someone dived into the pool. He went the rest of the way down the hall and stopped at Del's door.

  No noises, no sound at all came from behind it. Through the unseen window floated the drawling voice of Valeric Hillman. Del's room was so quiet Tom thought his friend must be asleep. Tom raised his fist, lowered it, then raised it again and knocked.

  Del did not respond, and Tom thought at first that his friend must be out by the pool with his godmother. But Bud would have known that. 'Del?' he half-whispered, and knocked again.

  Over or under a ripple of laughter from outside, he heard Del very quietly saying, 'Come in.' Del too was nearly whispering, but the quiet in his voice was that of effort — of concentration and force.

  Tom turned the handle and gently pushed the door. The room was so dark as to be nearly black, and Tom . again had the sense of being drawn into that separate world which was Del's — of stepping from sunlight and Arizona directly into mystery.

  'Del?'

  'In.'

  Tom walked slowly into the darkness. His first glance around the room showed him only the big fish tank before drawn curtains, the looming faces of the magicians up on a shadowy wall. He saw that it was nearly twice the size of Del's old room; looking to the right, he saw a jumble of boxes and wooden things that must have been the kit. He turned his head to the left and saw shadowy space.

  'Look,' Del commanded from the center of the shadows.

  'Hey,' Tom said, for at first he could see only the outline of a bed.

  Then he could not say anything, for he had suddenly seen Del's rigid body, and it was suspended in the empty air four feet above the bed. Del snapped his head sideways. He was grinning like a shark.

  Tom could not imagine what expression his own face wore, but it sent Del off into gleeful laughter. Laughing, he descended, first falling nearly a foot and stopping sharply, as if he had hit a ledge, then slipping down more slowly another eighteen inches. Tom held out a hand as if to catch him, but was not capable of moving nearer. Del's laughter bubbled up again; his feet dropped onto the bed, and the rest of his body followed.

  Tom watched, so scared he thought he might faint or vomit, as Del's face drew back into itself and his body lifted up off the bed again and hovered a handbreadth above it.

  'Now, that's how we end our magic show,' Del managed to say, and this time could stay up while he laughed.

  16

  The next day was Sunday,' Tom said to me in the Zanzibar, the third time I went there to talk to him, 'and I was still dazed. What had really struck me was the utter wrongness of it. Because I knew it was real. That little son of a bitch was actually levitating. It was real magic, and it seemed like the moment everything, all the craziness, had been leading to, the birds and the weird visions and everything else. I felt sick to my stomach. I was being frog­marched into magic, and I scarcely knew what was true and what was false anymore.

  'I went outside. Sparky, my dog, woke up and started dancing around, asking me to throw his disgusting old tennis ball. I picked up the soggy ball and pegged it toward the fence. Sparky tore after it. Just then, before Sparky got to the ball, the air started to go funny — dark and grainy, like an old photograph. Sparky spun around and looked around; he whimpered. He started to race back toward the kitchen door. His ears were all flattened out — I remember seeing that, and I remember being relieved: I wasn't crazy, it was actually happening.

  'That fairy-tale house was in front of me, where the fence should have been, that house with the little brown door and the trees all around it and the thatched roof. Through one of the little windows beside the door I could see the old man looking at me, running his hands through his beard. I went up the path. Now, now, now, I thought — now I can, find out. I don't know what I thought I was going to discover, but I had that feeling. The old man, the wizard, if that's what he was, was going to clear everything up for me. When I reached his door, I looked through the window again, and got a shock. He looked terrible — as sick and scared as I had been that morning. On his face these feelings looked frighteningly out of place — you expected a face like that to be incapable of showing such things. He backed away from the window. I pushed the door open.

  'The house was completely black. In midair, a candle was burning — it must have been on the mantel, but it didn't illuminate anything around it, just shone out. Like a cat's eye.

  'The door banged shut behind me. I turned around to get out, pretty badly scared, but I couldn't see the door. Then I heard something coming toward me, and I turned back around to face it.

  'And then I almost dropped dead of fright. I realized that it wasn't just one thing, it was a lot of things, and they were sick somehow, sick and wrong. . . it could have been four or five, it could have been a hundred. I couldn't tell. But I knew they were from him, that man I had seen or dreamed of seeing on Mesa Lane on the day before school started. It was like that whole world I had sensed before, in the house, the magic world, had been warped into evil.

  'A face flickered in front of me, grinning like a devil, and then other faces jumped into life around it — cackling and grinning, the ugliest faces I had ever seen. They were there only for a moment; then they disappeared.

  'Behind the candle there was now a spot of brightness. In the circle of light I saw the shadow of a pair of hands making a dog's head. The ears lifted. The tongue lolled. Shadow play, that's called: making pictures with your hands' shadows. I'd seen it before, of course, but never done as well — those fingers seemed almost triple-jointed — and never so that it seemed sinister. The dog's face turned toward me. Now, that's impossible in shadow play, you know. But I could see the ears sticking up, and the neck. Then the fingers parted to let the eyes shine through. That was as bad as the faces. The eyes were just empty light, and they looked completely malevolent. It wasn't a dog, I knew. It was a wolfs head.

  'Then the eyes widened out, the hands fluttered and folded and melted together into a bird. A bird with huge wings and a tearing beak.

  'It flew straight toward me, still in its circle of light, claws out — not hands, a shadow-bird. I ducked down, and heard laughter from all over the room.

  'The shadow-bird disappeared into the blackness. I heard it beating away, and turned my head to follow it, and saw another sort of shadow play. A gang of men was kicking a boy, killing him by kicking him to death. They were in a ring around him — I heard them grunting, I heard their feet landing. One of them kicked the boy's head, and I saw blood flying, spattering out. This was taking place in the circle of light, but no fingers could have been making it. The men kicked the boy's body aside, fluttered apart just as if they were hands after all, and reformed as a word: SHADOW. Then another series of letter
s flew together. LAND. Shadowland. The laughter built up around me, nasty and knowing, and I didn't know if all those twisted faces watching me were laughing because they were warn­ing me away from Shadowland, or because they knew I would identify the dead boy with Del and would know I had to go there.'

  'Had to?' I asked.

  'Had to,' Tom said.

  17

  On the morning of the day we were to have the club performances, I arrived at school an hour early: my father, who drove me in, had a seven-thirty appointment in the center of town. He dropped me off across the street from the Upper School and I crossed the street and went up the steps. The front door was locked. I peered in through the leaded glass and saw an empty, murky entry, stairs ascending to the library in darkness.

  For a short time I sat on the steps in the early sun, waiting for the janitor or one of the teachers to arrive and let me in. Then I got bored and went back down the steps to the sidewalk. When I looked back, the school had changed; seeing it empty, I saw it anew. Carson looked peaceful, well-ordered, and at one remove from the rest of the world, like a monastery. It looked beautiful. Under the slanting light, Carson was a place where nothing could ever go wrong.

  Down the street, I slipped through the bars of the gate across the headmaster's private entrance. I moved up the private drive and then stepped onto the grass. From this side I could see only the original old buildings of the Carson School. This view too seemed mysteriously touched by magic. For a second my heart moved, I forgot all the bad things that had happened, and I loved the place.

  Then, after I had moved farther around toward the rear of the building and gone through a gap in the thick hedges, I saw a form lying facedown in the grass beside a briefcase, and knew I was not alone. Cropped head, meaty back straining the fabric of a jacket: it was Dave Brick. My euphoria drained off on the spot. Brick was stretched out disconsolately on the grassy slope where Mr. Robbin had summoned us all to look for the satellite. The ludicrously tight jacket was Tom Flanagan's. Brick had borrowed it because he had absentmindedly left his own at home two days before, and Flanagan was the only boy who had a spare in his locker. Brick was tearing up handfuls of grass slowly and methodically. When he saw me he began to rip out grass at a faster pace.

  'You're early,' he said. 'Eager beaver.'

  'My father had an early appointment downtown.'

  'Oh. I always get here early. Get more time to study. Janitor's late this morning.' He sighed and finally stopped pulling up grass. Instead he rolled his face into it. 'It's going to start all over again.'

  'What is?'

  'The questions. The Gestapo stuff. With us.'

  'How do you know?'

  'I heard Broome talking with Mrs. Olinger last night when I left school. He wanted me to hear.'

  'Oh, God,' I said, as much with impatience as with apprehension.

  'Yeah. I almost stayed away this morning.' Then he lifted himself up onto his forearms. I feared for Tom's jacket. 'But I couldn't, because then he'd know why, and he'd come at me harder when I finally came back.'

  'Maybe he'll leave you out this time,' I said.

  'Maybe. But if he calls for me, I'm going to tell him this time. I can't take that anymore. And now it'll be worse.'

  'I already told Thorpe, and it didn't do any good.'

  'Because you didn't tell him I saw Skeleton too. That was nice. I'm, you know . . . grateful. But I don't care about Skeleton anymore. If Broome calls me out of Latin, I'm telling.'

  'I don't think he'll believe you.'

  'He will,' Brick said simply. 'I know he will. I'll make him believe me. I don't care if the whole school blows up.'

  When the janitor appeared, I followed Brick inside with the feeling of walking into a maze where a deranged beast with the head of a bull crouched and waited.

  Five minutes after the start of Latin class, Mrs. Olinger appeared with a folded note in her hands. Dave Brick looked at me with flat panic in his eyes. Mr. Thorpe groaned, restrained himself from bellowing, and tore the note from Mrs. Olinger's hands. He unfolded and read it and wiped a hand over his face. His reluctance was as loud as a shout. 'Brick,' he said. 'Headmaster's office. On the double.'

  Brick was trembling so uncontrollably that he dropped his books twice trying to ram them into his case. Finally he stood up and blundered through the center of the classroom. He looked at me with a white face and raisin eyes. Flanagan's jacket made him look like Oliver Hardy.

  Then I again had that sense of a secret life running through the school, beating away out of sight, humming like an engine. After Latin class, Mrs. Olinger was waiting outside the room. She looked uneasy, like all messengers with bad news. Mrs. Olinger touched Mr. Thorpe's elbow and whispered a few words in his ear. 'Blast,' Mr. Thorpe said. 'All right, I'm on my way,' and sped down to the headmaster's staircase. We went to Mr. Fitz-Hallan's room and found a note chalked on the board telling us that class was canceled and that we should use the free time to read two chapters in Great Expecta­tions.

  'What's up?' Bobby Holhingsworth asked me as we settled down and opened our books. 'I can't explain it,' I said. 'I bet they're finally getting around to throwing out Brick the Prick,' Bobby said happily.

  I finished the chapters and went out to my locker for another book. On the way I passed the Senior Room and heard a voice I thought was Terry Peters' uttering a sentence with the word 'Skeleton' in it. I stopped and tried to hear what he was saying, but the door was too thick.

  After I got the book from my locker, I looked down across the glassed — in court and saw Mr. Weatherbee rush out of his room and tear down the hall, moving in a kind of agitated scuttle. Mrs. Olinger moved after him.

  Mr. Fitz-Hallan, Mr. Weatherbee, Mr. Thorpe — it was the cast that had heard my original accusations.

  Out in the hall, a few older boys ran past, lockers slammed, bells went off at irregular intervals.

  18

  The air of a general but unacknowledged disruption was still present as we trooped into the auditorium. Below the stage on which a piano faced a drum kit and a recumbent bass, the students were standing up in the aisles, moving into little talkative groups, breaking up again, calling to each other. Many of the morning's classes had gone teacherless. Morris saw Hanna and Brown standing to­gether on the far side of the auditorium, and went around to join them in waiting for an announcement. I saw Mr. Thorpe shake his head at Mr. Ridpath, then curtly turn away. His eyes snagged mine, and he pointed at a spot beside the door. Mr. Ridpath too glared at me, but Mr. Thorpe seemed far angrier.

  He reached the door before me and expressionlessly watched me come toward him. He looked like a gray-haired icicle — the Mount Rushmore of icicles. He waited a few seconds, making me sweat, before he spoke. 'Be in my office at three-fifteen sharp.' That was all he had intended to say, but he could not keep from releasing some of bis rage. 'You caused more trouble than you will ever know.' When I could not reply, he made a disgusted puffing sound with his lips and said, 'Get out of my sight until three-fifteen.'

  He was going to expel me, I knew. I went weakly to the first row of seats and sat down beside Bob Sherman. Most of the school was still standing and talking.

  'Boys,' shouted Mrs. Olinger. 'Be seated, please.' She had to repeat herself several times before anybody took any notice. Gradually the buzz of conversation died out, and was replaced by the sound of chairs scraping the floor. Then a few voices picked up again.

  'Quiet,' shouted Mr. Thorpe. And then there was silence. Morris, standing on the side of the room with the other members of his trio, looked crippled with stage fright.

  Only then did I think to look for Skeleton Ridpath: if he was in the audience, it would mean that he too would be in Thorpe's office at three-fifteen. I turned around and saw that he was not in the seniors' two rows. So perhaps Broome had already expelled him.

  From the podium before the stage, Mrs. Olinger was saying, 'We are privileged this morning to witness the first performances by our two clubs. T
o begin with, please give your full attention to the Morris Fielding Trio, with Phil Hanna playing drums and Derek Brown accompany­ing on the bull fiddle.'

  Morris smiled at her because of the old-fashioned term and I knew that he at least was going to be all right. The three of them filed up the stairs to the stage. Brown picked up his bass, Morris said, 'One . . . one . . . one . . . one,' and they began playing 'Somebody Loves Me.' It sounded like sunlight and gold and fast mountain springs, and I switched off everything else and just listened to the music.

  During Morris' last number I heard a startled buzzing and whispering. I turned around to see what had caused it. Laker Broome had just come into the audjtorium. He had one hand clamped on Dave Brick's shoulder. Brick was white-faced, and his eyes were swollen. Morris also turned his head to see what was happening, and then went determinedly back to his piano. I heard him insert a quote from 'Hail, Hail, the Gang's All Here' into his solo.

  He was having, under trying circumstances, the best time he could, which is one definition of heroism; but looking at Laker Broome's rigid posture and assassin's face, I thought that the bomb I had been expecting all morning had just been tossed into the auditorium.

  19

  The headmaster applauded with everyone else when Morris nodded and stood up from the bench. Dave Brick had been parked on an empty chair far at the back of the room, apart from the rest of the students. Mr. Ridpath stared at him with loathing for a moment, then began to sidle toward Mr. Broome, hoping for one last word, but Mr. Broome looked straight into the center of his narrow vain face, and Mr. Ridpath froze solid to the floor. 'Attention, boys,' Mr. Broome called out.

  When we were all turned around in our seats to face him, he began speaking and walking up the side of the auditorium to the bottom of the stage, and we swiveled to watch him — it was a display of power. 'I hate to interrupt these interesting proceedings, but I want you to bear with me and share a fascinating story. I promise that this will only take a moment of your time, and then we can enjoy the second part of this excellent show. Gentlemen, we have finally been given the answer to the single greatest problem this school has faced since its founding, and I want all of you personally to witness the final act of that problem.' He smiled. By now he was at the podium, and with mock casualness, he leaned one elbow on the blond wood: he was tense as a whippet. 'Some of us will be meeting at three-fifteen in the assistant headmaster's office. That will be a private meeting. At four-fifteen I want the entire school reassembled here just as you are now. This school has been unwell, and it is time to cut back the diseased branches.' He gave that taut, creased smile again, and I saw in him the same devil who had burned in Skeleton Ridpath's face just before he had beaten Del. 'And now I believe we have some magic from two members of the first year.'