Falls the Shadow (Sparrow Falls Book 2)

by Justine Sebastian

  Tobias made good time driving back to Sparrow Falls and ducked in Bateman’s to get the necessary supplies. The girl at the register was wan looking and Tobias though it actually had little to do with him for a change. The self-check register was OUT OF ORDER according to the sign taped to the screen, so Tobias had no choice but to go to the open register manned by an actual person.

  “Are you well?” he asked. It was a different cashier from the night before; this one’s name tag introduced her as, Hi! I’m Casey!

  “Yeah,” Casey said, refusing to meet his eyes. “Just freaked out.”

  “Oh?”

  “There was a guy died in here last night,” she said. “Some junkie, you know? But they dunno how long he was even laying there just dead like that. They said he OD’d and I guess he probably did. That stupid asshole David—jeeze, I’m sorry, mister—I mean, the security guy that comes around every couple hours or so found him around time for shift change. I didn’t even wanna come in today, but I gotta have this job and the other girl has the night off. She was the one on-shift when they found the dead guy.”

  “How awful,” Tobias said. His tongue felt like it was made of rubber and the inside of his mouth was sandpaper.

  You just lemme alone. I ain’t done you nothin, man.

  He remembered the junkie with the can of tomato paste in his cart very well. And the touch to his elbow as Tobias tried to steady him. And the black butterfly he had later coughed up.

  And it was time for him to go.

  He swiped his card and took his two small bags of sundae fixings, Dawn Marie’s twelve-pack and waved off the cashier when she tried to hand him his receipt. He barely managed to tell her good evening before he bolted out the automatic doors, alarm bells blaring in his mind.

  Tobias was shaking when he got back in his car and nearly dumped his bags on Lenore who glared reproachfully at him as she perched on the headrest of the passenger seat. He muttered an apology as he cranked the car then pulled away, ready to go back home where it might not be sane, but it was safe. It was where Dawn Marie was and she would take his mind off the insane things darting around inside his head, the main one being: I killed that man. I don’t know how I did it, but I did it all the same. He knew he could kill people if he wanted to, but he had never killed someone by touch alone. But that time he had. Or maybe it was only an unfortunate coincidence.

  Tobias didn’t think it was though.

  At home, he parked beside Dawn Marie’s car and got out, still moving in a way that was almost frantic. He set the beer down on the top riser of the steps that led up to the door into the house. It was as he was reaching to slide his key into the lock that his back spasmed hard. There was only enough time for Tobias to gasp before he felt a yank behind his belly button and inside his mind at the same time. Then he felt an even harder tug and then the next thing he knew, he was stumbling out into a field like some giant had just spat him out.

  Maybe I taste funny, was the first ridiculous thought that flashed through Tobias’s mind. Then sense reasserted itself and he looked around, still holding the bag with the ice cream and blinked.

  “This is not where I am supposed to be,” he said.

  A hundred feet in front of him stood a barn, unpainted and weather-silvered, but in good repair. It was innocuous, the long field grass brushing over its rear wall and throwing skinny, worm-like shadows up its side. Tobias’s heart thudded in his ears and the skin along his arms crawled and prickled. He wanted to leave immediately, yet the tug was still there. He felt compelled to take a step forward; one then another and another until he pulled himself up with a shake of his head. It was as though there was a rope around his waist tugging him along despite digging his heels into the ground. The tug came again, more insistent, jerking Tobias forward; reeling him in.

  He threw himself backward with everything he had, breath harsh and nostrils flaring. Fear was a cold knot in his belly and the anger that surrounded it did nothing to warm it. Twice he had put such things from his mind, but he no longer could. Even as he felt the invisible tether between himself and the barn snap, Tobias knew he had been lying to himself. He wasn’t only being fucked with. He was being summoned.

  By who? Or what? And why? Tobias was just a guy and if someone wanted to see him that badly then they could just knock on his door.

  Tobias resented being dragged around like an unruly pet on a leash. He was no one’s pet; he was not some dumb beast that would come to heel on command. For a split second, he did consider going right up to the barn, free and on his own terms, to bang on the door. He would demand to know what the meaning of all this was.

  Tobias had let it go once and then again, but he thought it was something he could ignore no longer. He felt as though he was going mad and he was lost now thanks to being so rudely deposited in a place he had no interest in being. He started for the barn at a brisk clip, but as he got closer, he walked slower as he began to actually think about what he was doing.

  Eventually he stopped completely about fifteen feet from the barn and stood there, mind working in overdrive as his good friend, Common Sense, asserted itself at last. Tobias was not a hothead, he was not impulsive. He thought things through and this time was no different, which was maybe a good thing.

  He had no idea what he was up against. He had the power to kill with his mind or with a touch if he really committed to the idea (and sometimes when he did not) but he had no idea what the person inside the barn was capable of. Maybe they could do the same or even worse. Tobias had lived in Sparrow Falls his entire life and such things—such possibilities—no longer surprised him the way they would people who lived in normal towns.

  Gradually he came to the realization that such a He-Man tactic was an idiotically stupid idea. If he went charging into the barn like a lunatic, ranting and demanding answers then his effort was likely to end in pain and death. Tobias was not some intrepid dumbass who was prone to going off half-cocked and to do such a thing armed with nothing but melting ice cream and a will was exactly the kind of thing a dumbass would do. What- or whoever was in that barn was dangerous and obviously had power Tobias could not even comprehend.

  So he did the sensible thing and turned and walked back the way he had come. There was a darkly furious part of him that still wanted to go back and storm the barn like it was the Bastille, but he made himself put one foot in front of the other, carrying himself away from possible injury and the tempting though bad idea. Instead, he determined he would bide his time and look into this bullshit himself to see what he could find. He would try to remember where the barn was and when the time came, he would return prepared and ready to kick ass and take names.

  Tobias stepped into the tree line with a small, sad smile as he heard Hylas’s voice saying that inside his head. It had been one of his favorite sayings, but Tobias thought it best if he not dwell too much on Hylas at the moment. He took his phone out of his pocket instead and was about to use the GPS to try and figure out where the nearest road was when he heard the rumble of a diesel engine straight ahead through the trees. He stuck his phone back in his pocket and walked toward the direction of the sound. About a mile and a half later, Tobias walked out of the woods and right into a deep ditch. There was no suggestion of a change in the pitch of the land, one moment he was carefully feeling his way through the trees, the next he was falling off the steep rise of the ditch wall and down into it.

  There were the semi-skeletal remains of a dead dog in the ditch not too far away from him. The gleam of its fangs were bright white in the moonlight, bared in a permanent snarl. Most of its face was gone, reduced to dirty black scraps of rotted flesh and the occasional tuft of fur. It had been there a while, but the stench was still strong and as he shoved himself to his feet, Tobias was certain he could hear the wet, hungry squirm of insects feasting on its putrefying flesh.

  He gagged and hefted his grocery bag, marveling at how he’d managed to hold onto it all that time. His ice cream was no more than s
oup by then and he was sorely disappointed and annoyed by that. Tobias climbed out of the ditch then set his grocery bags down long enough to brush himself off. It was busy work, every last bit of it, but it still felt incredibly necessary. He didn’t want to freak out and Hylas had been right: Tobias seldom ever did any such thing. He was calm and steady-on, he was reliable and good in a crisis. He was the guy you called when things went very wrong because he kept his shit together and made things right again. Except right now he was on the verge of breaking that lifelong streak and having himself a good old fashioned conniption.

  He needed to call someone, no doubt, but he couldn’t do that until he knew where he was at. GPS maps of the area were still untrustworthy at times especially when it came to narrow country roads like the one he was on. Some of them still were labeled as “Route 142” and such. He used his phone to illuminate the name of the road sign that thankfully had not been stolen or otherwise vandalized beyond readability. DeForest Drive. That was something he could work with. Tobias scrolled through his short contact list then chose the one number he could rely on.

  Dawn Marie answered before the first ring had even completed on Tobias’s end.

  “What the fuck, Toby? What happened? Where are you?”

  “DeForest Drive, it would seem.”

  “What?”

  “I—” He stopped. What could he possibly say to that? There was nothing. “I don’t know. But can you come get me?”

  “Yeah, of course. I know where that’s at,” she said.

  Tobias was glad that Dawn Marie knew because he had no clue where he was.

  “Thank you,” he said. “I’ll… wait here, I suppose. Not really anywhere else for me to go.” He huffed out a breath. “Where am I?”

  “You’re almost in Hackley,” Dawn Marie said. “That’s where the hell you’re at. How did you get there? What is going on? Because look, I have no problem admitting to you that I am freaking out right now.”

  “I honestly couldn’t say,” Tobias said. “I just… appeared here.” Well, that certainly sounded nuts.

  “Yeah, I know because no fucking way can you run that fast or far,” Dawn Marie said. There was the ding of her car door opening and then the sound of her big satchel purse thumping into the seat beside her. “Oh, fuck you, Lenore. What the hell? Get out of my— Fine. Fine. Stay.” Then there was the sound of the engine humming to life. “Whatever,” Dawn Marie said. “Look, are you okay?”

  “Who? Me or the bird?” Tobias asked.

  Dawn Marie groaned at the bad joke. “You, dumbass.”

  “Oh, yes, I’m fine,” he said. “Bewildered though. Yes, I am definitely that.”

  “You sound calm.”

  “I usually do.”

  “True,” Dawn Marie said. “I saw you pull up, Toby. I heard you open the garage and get out of the car. I was coming to ask if you needed any help when your girlfriend, Lenore, started bugging out like a crazy thing. Then I heard this… I dunno… like a pop sound. When I got the door open, you were gone, the bird was having a conniption and I didn’t know what the hell to think. I tried to call you, but I kept getting a message telling me you were out of service range or some shit.” She stopped, took a deep breath then really slapped it all home. “You’ve been gone for three and a half hours, Toby.”

  “It was a long walk,” Tobias said.

  Then he gritted his teeth, heartbeat thumping in his temples. Three and a half hours? Where the hell had he been? His palms were sweaty and his mouth tasted like metal. He spit to try and get rid of the taste, but it barely helped. Tobias closed his eyes and told himself to just breathe. He might sound calm, but it was a big, fat lie with a cherry on top. He was freaking out in a bad way, it bubbled inside of him and made his skin itch and crawl. Tobias lived an intentionally boring existence. Until recently, everything had been in its place and he’d been the master of his fate. His life was small, insignificant; he didn’t draw attention to himself and it was fine. Tobias had liked his life with all its neat, orderly pieces and now it was spinning out of control—out of his control. That, more than anything, was what he truly hated. Chaos did not suit him well, especially not when it was chaos he had no say over. He was a control freak by nature, albeit a subtle one and as things stood, Tobias had zero control over this bullshit.

  “Huh?” Dawn Marie asked. Then, “Look, never mind all that right now. I need to pay attention to my driving. I’ll be there soon, okay? You just hang tight.”

  “Certainly,” Tobias said. He ended the call then stood there, staring into the darkness, listening to the summer night breathing all around him. He spent an inordinate amount of his wait thinking about his melted ice cream.

  It was late and most people had gone to bed, the next day was a workday after all. Before Dawn Marie came sailing around a curve about a quarter of a mile from where Tobias stood the only other vehicle he had seen was an elderly Sentra with one headlight and brakes that shrieked like a banshee when they slowed for the same curve Dawn Marie took with the speed and nerve of a stunt driver.

  She drove right past him even though he could see she tried to decelerate in time to stop. There was no chance of that given her rate of speed; even if she had slammed on brakes the skid would have pushed her well past the end of DeForest Drive where Tobias stood in plain sight like the world’s most uninspired streetwalker.

  Tobias smiled faintly as he waited for Dawn Marie to find a place to turn around and come back for him. She did a few minutes later, going at a much saner pace and when she stopped, Tobias stepped forward and got into the car. Lenore was on him at once, beating at him with her wings, pecking at his face, preening his hair with all the fussiness of a frantic and worried mother.

  “Please try to obey the speed limit,” Tobias said to Dawn Marie.

  She snorted, but didn’t stomp on the gas the moment his seatbelt was fastened.

  Tobias took one of her cigarettes, lit it then cracked the window to blow smoke out. Lenore sat on his knee and he rested his hand on her feathered back to calm her. He could feel her little bird heart thundering away beneath his palm; she had been frightened. Though he could not feel Dawn Marie’s heartbeat, he could see her in the dash lights. She was wearing a pair of pajama pants with a hole in the knee and a shirt that had once belonged to Hylas that she’d commandeered years ago. It had a picture of Alice from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and the Caterpillar both hitting the hookah. The Mad Hatter stood behind Alice, sniffing her hair while she smoked.

  “Are you going to tell me what happened?” Dawn Marie asked after a prolonged silence.

  “I would if I knew,” Tobias said. “One minute I was reaching to unlock the door and the next, I was standing in a field.”

  “Just a field? Some random field?” Dawn Marie asked. Another of those darting glances to her side at Tobias.

  “Well, no,” Tobias said. He flicked his cigarette butt away then rolled up the window again. “There was a barn, too.”

  “A barn,” she repeated. “Okay. What else?”

  “My ice cream is hopelessly melted,” Tobias said.

  Dawn Marie snorted out a burst of laughter that didn’t sound all that amused. “Priorities, fucker: yours are screwed up,” she said.

  “I’m as shocked as you are,” Tobias said. “More so, I think. This is most unusual.”

  “You go from screwy priorities to huge understatements,” Dawn Marie said. “Nice. Toby, this is not okay.”

  “I know it isn’t okay, but I don’t know what to do about either, now do I?” Tobias asked. “I have dealt with strange things before, but never something like what’s happened lately.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa, Mr. Dunwalton,” Dawn Marie said. She took her hands off the wheel to hold them up, like she was trying to ease Tobias down. He reached over and took the wheel. Dawn Marie took the hint and put her hands back on it where they belonged. “What are you not telling me here?”

  “Oh, not much,” Tobias said.

 
; “Toby.” Her voice was firm. “Spit it out.”

  So he did—sort of. He told Dawn Marie the bare bones outline of things. Which was not telling her anything at all, Tobias realized when he was finished talking. He’d only really told her a wispy fraction of it.

  “Holy goddamn shit! Are you fucking with me right now? This is insane, Toby. In-sane,” Dawn Marie said when he was done talking.

  Her reaction made him glad he had kept most of it to himself. It was enough to tell your best friend that some stranger was yanking you through time and space for unknown reasons. It was another thing entirely to tell her you could kill with a touch and occasionally, when things were going really badly, you coughed up big, black bugs. At least Tobias thought so. Then he thought that yes, maybe his priorities weren’t so much screwed as they were skewed.

  “My sentiments exactly,” he agreed.

  “Look, I know you’re calm and all, but you have seriously… You need to freak out about this,” Dawn Marie said.

  “No,” Tobias said. “Which is not to say I’m… un-freaked out. I am. But running around in circles, flapping my hands and shrieking like a little girl who’s just seen a frog will solve nothing.”

  There was a pause where Dawn Marie said nothing then, instead of speaking, she started laughing.

  “What’s so funny?” he asked.

  “You,” she spluttered out. “I’m picturing you, The Great White Giant running around in circles, screaming like a little girl. Just FYI, in my imagination, you have pigtails and a pinafore dress.”

  “Good lord,” Tobias said, but he smiled.

  “It’s great, right?” Dawn Marie asked. “Oh fuck me. That is awesome.”

  She sobered after another few seconds of laughter and Tobias was glad to have provided a tension breaker, even if it was by accident.

  “Still, Toby,” she said once she’d regained her composure. “This is not good. I think it might be really damn bad, in fact.”