SHADOWS OF DEATH: Death Comes with Fury (and Dark Humor) To a Small Town South of Chicago

by Carl S. Plumer

  For a long minute, no one said anything. Then Conner said, “Shit,” just under his breath. Flower looked at him, nodding unconsciously. Then she looked back at Ricky Martin.

  “Why do you think that?” Flower asked him quietly. “I don’t see anything different about you. You’re still good ol’ Ricky Martin, as far as I can tell.”

  “Yeah, well, I didn’t tell you yet how I got out of there.”

  “Yeah,” Almira said. “So, how did you? Did the portal open up again? Or did you find a different escape route? What’s your secret?”

  “This has nothing to do with portals or anything like that, anymore.” Ricky looked into each of their faces, one by one by one. “This has nothing to do with anything that we know of, nothing that we understand.” Ricky Martin sighed. “Basically, I wished myself out of there.”

  Conner made a face as though he just smelled dog poop. Almira’s eyebrows nearly reached her hairline. And Flower bit her bottom lip, as if she was worried about Ricky, as if he’d lost his mind.

  “I know what you’re all thinking,” Ricky Martin said. “But I’m here, aren’t I? Right here in front of you. You can’t deny that.”

  “Okay,” Conner said. “But how? Let’s say what you’re telling us is true. How? How can that be? You just can’t make a wish and POOF! it comes true. It doesn’t work like that.”

  “Of course not,” said Almira.

  “Then what?” Ricky asked. “I pictured home. Then I could see it, clear as a photograph. In hi-res and 3D. And then, just like that, I was in it. I was standing in the thought that I had been having.”

  Flower sighed. “Wow.”

  “I’m not sure I believe this shit,” Almira said. “But like you said, Ricky, here you are. Unless one of those shadow monsters carried you out in a moment of empathy and flew you home, then I guess this is the story we have to go with.”

  “Thanks. I think . . . ” Ricky muttered.

  “Have you tried wishing for anything else?” Conner asked.

  “I almost didn’t want to try. I didn’t want to visualize something that might go bad, you know? But, yeah, I’ve tried.”

  “What did you picture?”

  “You know that show on the networks? With those girls who they live together? Ricky asked.

  “Those two hot blondes?” Conner asked.

  Almira immediately hit him in the arm.

  “I’m just trying to clarify!” Conner said. “Right, those two. Go on.”

  “Well, I tried to visualize them in my room. You know. Naked.”

  “Jeez. Men!” Flower made a face and stared at Ricky, her eyebrows like darts.

  “Give me a break! I just had a near-death experience. A handful of them, as a matter of fact. So, I was just testing my, um, new ’powers.’ Wanted to relax and see what was what.”

  “And . . . ?” Flower asked.

  “That’s just it,” Ricky Martin continued. “Nothing happened. I tried picturing money. A new gaming system. An awesome new car. Nothing happened.”

  “Hmmm. So, that whole wish thing was a fluke,” Almira said, folding her arms across her chest.

  “Oh, I know!” Flower said, excitedly, raising her hand and waving it. “It only works when you’re in that dark, crazy place with the shadow monsters.”

  “Yeah. Not bad, Flower,” Conner said, smiling. “I bet that’s it.”

  “Not quite,” Ricky said. He ran his hand through his hair. “That’s along the lines of what I was thinking, too. But then it occurred to me: maybe it’s about travel. About getting somewhere. From point A to point B. Not just about wishes.”

  “And?”

  “So I pictured myself outside. What I mean is, I pictured my backyard, in as much detail as needed.”

  “Then BAM! There you were, right?” Conner asked.

  “Wrong. I didn’t transport or whatever you want to call it. But the walls of my room came down.”

  “What?!”

  “I mean, they got sort of wiggly and almost see-through. I could see the backyard, almost as if I had started transporting there. But then it stopped, or I stopped. And I was still there, still sitting in my room. But I could tell something amazing and weird had happened.”

  No one said anything. Then there was a tap at the door, and an officer stepped in. “Which one of you is Conner Croving?”

  “That’s me,” said Conner, standing up. “Conner Croyant.”

  “Follow me, please.”

  [ Conner, you there? ]

  [ Yeah, hey Ricky. What’s up? ]

  [ I need to talk to you guys. My parents are keeping me on a short leash tho. ]

  [ Mine, too. ]

  [ I have something I need to show you all. ]

  [ Like what? ]

  [ Can’t tell you over FB IM. Can you get away tonight? ]

  [ I don’t think so. ]

  [ I mean, after your parents are in bed. Like at 1:00 AM or something. ]

  [ Where do you want to meet? ]

  [ Behind the football field? ]

  [ Okay. Need to watch for cops, tho. ]

  [ Right. Behind the visitor bleacher, then. No one can see us there. ]

  [ Did you IM the girls? ]

  [ Doing that now. Almira just said she’s in . . . Flower, too. ]

  [ Great. See you at 1. ]

  [ Yeah. ]

  [ Can’t give me even a hint? ]

  [ No. It’s serious, though. ]

  [ Okay, that just makes it worse. ]

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “Flower. Can You Hear Me?”

  Kantaby High was as lit up as could be expected at 1:00 in the morning. Meaning, spotlights shown on the front of the building and the lawn, as well as from the corners of the building all the way around. But ten feet from the building, the light faded into the night. The football field was in total darkness. Behind the visitors’ bleachers, four figures stood in the darkness, talking animatedly.

  “What the fuck are you talking about, man?” Conner said. He stood nose to nose with Ricky Martin, then turned and walked away.

  “Listen to me,” Ricky said, calling after him. “I’m saying that I think I know the reason for all these deaths.”

  “The bus crash?” Conner said, turning back. “The police car?”

  “Not just those, but yeah, those, too.” Ricky Martin adjusted his glasses. “I’m talking about these deaths. All over the U.S., all over the world.” Ricky blew his hair out of his eyes. All that he succeeded in doing, however, was fogging his glasses and getting drops of spittle on his nose. Ricky swiped at his nose with his shirtsleeve and then took his glasses off. He wiped them clean and returned them to his face.

  “Okay, okay. Let’s talk about this,” Conner said, getting up on his toes a bit and back down. “Although,” he said, pointing at Ricky, “I’m getting more than a little pissed.”

  Flower reached her hand out and lightly touched Conner’s arm. “Conner, calm down.”

  Almira squinted and tightened her chin. She pushed her way over to Conner and took his hand.

  Ricky cleared his throat. “Okay, here’s how I figure it. It’s those demon shadow things—these ’Reapers.’”

  “Demon reaper what?” Almira asked.

  “Look, we all went in there right?” Ricky continued.

  “Right.”

  “They tried to kill all of us, right?”

  “I guess so,” Flower said.

  “They were horrible things. They aren’t from this world.” Ricky sighed and swallowed dramatically. “All I’m saying is, there was a tear or a rip or something that let us in. And I’m saying—” He closed his eyes, gathering his thoughts.

  “Saying what? What are you saying?” Almira said.

  “I’m saying,” Ricky continued, “I think the same tear must have let them out.”

  Flower gasped.

  Conner let out a dry laugh. “To do what?” he asked, in a mocking tone that added weight to the word “what”. He started to pace again, biti
ng at the fingernail on his thumb.

  “I think that’s obvious.” Ricky pushed his chest out a bit and lifted his chin up. “Kill. It’s what they do.

  “Maybe. I don’t know. Seems crazy.”

  Conner continued to mutter like this, walking in a figure-eight pattern, under and back out of the bleachers, over and over.

  “Shut up, Conner,” Almira said finally. Her hands snapped to her hips. “Stand still and open your damn mind! We were in another realm, you know? A whole other fucked up dimension. With shadow monsters, for chrissake!” Almira stamped on the ground with her boot, her eyes watering up. “I think it makes sense that they’ve followed us out. And that they’re now killing people, in mass numbers. That out here they’re as invisible as they were in their own weird world.”

  Conner froze in his tracks, Ricky Martin’s jaw hung slack, and Flower held her hands, prayer-like, to her lips.

  Almira continued. “Look—” She sighed, wiping at her eyes. “—we’ve had a big increase in the death count, worldwide. Almost at the same time that we broke through into that, that other place—Hades or whatever it was. I think it’s a pretty remarkable coincidence that we discovered the portal to Hell and suddenly a pestilence or a curse or whatever is now on the land.”

  “Pestilence?” Conner mocked.

  “You know what I mean,” Almira cried.

  “I agree with Almira,” Flower said, now with hands on hips, too. She kicked at a pebble by her foot. “I think those things, whatever they are, they like to kill, like Ricky said. We have to assume they’re here, in our dimension, or time-space. That they’re here now, doing what they do best. If we don’t stop them, they’ll wipe out life on Earth.”

  “Stop them?” Conner’s eyebrows shoot up his forehead. “Whoa, that’s a whole other fucking thing.”

  “I know, but—”

  “First of all, we can’t see them,” Conner blurted. “Second, we can’t stop them. Third, they’ll kill us first.”

  “I’m just saying,” Flower said, catching her breath. She chewed her lower lip for a second. “I’m just saying—”

  “We need to think—”

  “Let me finish, goddamn it!” Flower stamped the ground and folded her arms over her chest.

  The three others stared at her. None had ever heard her get this mad before.

  “Okay,” Ricky Martin said in hushed tones, reaching out and touching her shoulder. “I, for one, want to hear what you have to say.”

  Flower sniffed, wiped her hand across her nose, and started again. “We’re the only ones who know about these creatures. The only ones who will probably ever know. You know why? No one can see them here, you know, in our world. Secondly, no one will ever believe us, ever. If we try to tell anyone, they’ll just lock us up.”

  They each wrestled with their individual thoughts for a minute or two.

  “There’s nothing we can do, anyway,” Conner said softly, his shoulders drooped.

  “I wouldn’t say that,” Ricky Martin said.

  “Meaning what?” Almira asked.

  “Meaning,” Ricky Martin said, “that maybe your friend, the great and amazing Ricky Martin, has a plan.”

  Michelle Martin had taken Ricky’s little sister Olive and had gone to her mother’s house. She’d been there since Thursday, since Richard Martin II had kind of, well, collapsed. Had a minor breakdown. Call it what you will, he had become, or had perhaps decided to become, useless. The deaths, his son’s involvement, the worldwide plague or whatever was going on, just brought him to a stop. Never the strongest of men emotionally, Richard Martin Senior found he needed a little mental break, that’s all.

  He lay on the floor and burped loudly, his gaze fixed on the ceiling, as if the answer to the world’s, and his, problems were written there.

  At which point, someone rapped rudely on the wooden screen door.

  “Mr. Martin? Good afternoon. Sorry for the intrusion.”

  Richard Martin, Sr., stood up and looked toward his open front door, assessing Detective Meehan through the screen.

  She peered in at him. “May I come in?”

  “What’s this about?” Richard Martin asked, making no move to open the door or regain his dignity.

  “Well,” Detective Meehan said, looking about her as if to be sure no one else was listening. “More of the bus crash victims have died. This, well, it brings the death toll up to twenty-two.”

  Mr. Martin hung his head and then opened the door.

  Meehan stepped in. “Thanks.”

  “I still don’t see why you think my son had anything to do with this.” He let the screen door slam.

  “Frankly, Mr. Martin, I don’t. Initially, I got to admit, some part of me was thinking sci-fi, you know? You ever see that movie, Scanners? I was thinking telekinesis. Crazy I know.”

  “Yes, a bit.”

  “But, I think something did happen out there on that little stretch of highway. Something not natural. And I want to get to the bottom of it, whatever it is.”

  “I can understand that.”

  “I think your son and his friends witnessed it. But for some reason, they’re not talking. I’m pushing them hard, I know. Not because I feel they are responsible—no, I no longer think that—but because I need them, one of them at least, to tell me what they saw.”

  The two adults sat on the living room couch, looking at each other.

  “You want a drink of any kind? A beer? A scotch?”

  “No thanks. I’m on duty.”

  “Coffee, then?”

  “I’m fine, really. Anyway, as I’ve told you before, a thorough mechanical inspection was done of the bus. There was no reason for any kind of system failure. None at all. Brakes, steering, everything just fine. The road was gone over with a fine-toothed comb, as well. Nothing out of the ordinary there, either. It’s odd.”

  “Seems to me,” said Mr. Martin, tilting his head, “if you don’t mind me saying. This whole tragedy fits in with what’s going on worldwide. The escalation in dying. All those unexplained deaths. Well, not unexplained, but just too many.” He sat back into his chair as if he’d just delivered the most important speech of his life.

  Detective Meehan drew in a long breath and let it out. She smoothed her shirt. “I’ve thought of that,” she said. “I don’t really care too much about what’s happening outside my purview when I’m investigating a case. Not relevant. The death toll worldwide has dramatically increased, yes, but in this case these folks didn’t die of diseases or heart attacks (except in one case) or anything else other than being passengers on a crashing bus. A bus which never should have crashed in the first place.”

  “Right. Well,” Richard Martin said firmly, “I’ve talked with my son. He’s assured me he’s told you everything he knows. I believe him.” Martin stood up and took a step toward the door.

  “Okay. Please talk to him again,” Meehan said, standing too. “Or I’ll have to bring him in for questioning again.”

  “This is getting ridiculous, and you know it,” Martin said through clenched teeth. “I’m almost ready to file harassment charges.”

  “I’m sorry you feel that way, but I’m just doing my job. I’m sure you’d see it differently if someone you loved died on the bus that night.”

  Martin paused and let his jaw relax. “Yes, of course.”

  For a moment, a leaf blower a few houses away filled the silence between them.

  “What about my son’s friend, Conner?”

  “Conner Croyant?”

  “Yes. Have you questioned him since all this happened?”

  “We spoke with him briefly. But his parents have doctored up. That is, along with having a lawyer standing in my way, they’ve got a doctor saying the kid’s traumatized. It’s making it very hard for me to get any time with him. Might have to resort to a court order.”

  “I see.”

  “Well, I’ll be going. If you can get your son to say something that might be helpful, I’d apprecia
te it.”

  “I’ll try.”

  “Here’s my card again,” Meehan said. “If you get anything or if he feels like giving me a call, my number’s on there. I’ll see myself out.”

  Meehan left, closing only the screen door behind her. Had it not been for the high-decibel racket from the leaf blower, she might have been able to hear Mr. Richard Martin grunt for help as he clutched at his head, where a bundle of aneurysms ripped through his gray matter like the roots of a tree. She might have heard him scream again as he hit the floor, writhing in pain in the shadows of the corner of the room. Might have been able to get an EMT out double-quick. Might have saved his life.

  Instead, she got in her car and drove away, waving professionally to a man a few yards up the road. The one with the leaf blower strapped to his back.

  On the ground behind the man, mostly hidden in the man’s own shadow, rippled an almost imperceptible darker shadow, moving closer, as if the wind played along the grass.

  Flower Gardner made her way down her suburban street, deep in thought. Night was falling and a few of the streetlights had already blinked on. She was only cognizant of the cold air and the darkening skies subconsciously. She was thinking about death, and what she and her friends had seen. What it meant and what, if anything, they could do about it.

  She crossed the street, leaving the safe bluish glow of the streetlamp for the gray shadows on the other side. Again, without being conscious of having done so.

  As she walked along, a large shadow removed itself from the side of the house, interspersed as it was with the shadow of the tree trunk and branches, and moved silently along, parallel to Flower. Flower kept her head down, vaguely watching her own shoes as she walked, obsessed with thoughts of danger and death.

  The shadow thing attacked then.

  It could have given her a heart attack—it does happen in ones so young; rarely, but it does. Or it could have waited until a car driven by a texting driver came around the corner and simply had her walk right in front of it. She was complete in her distraction, after all. The accident would have looked natural. Or have a heavy branch crack free above her and knock her brains loose. Again, odd, but it happens.