Walking Shadows

by Narrelle M. Harris

  "And then what would I do?" Abe asked, his tone a peculiar mix of kindness and acrimony, "What am I for, if not for this? I am a bringer of death, and if I am not death I have no purpose. I can learn no other."

  "Maybe we…"

  "Please, Evan. It hurts. I want to stop. I have wanted to stop for so long. No-one would ever let me. You said you might, one day. Make it today."

  Evan nodded.

  Gary fished a set of keys out of his pocket.

  "Um, so, do you want to use the shed, then?" He glanced nervously at the fence. "Before Jamie comes back out?"

  For a moment I thought he was being callous, but his expression spoke nothing of revenge or boredom or irritation. I wasn't sure what it looked like, but it was very, very far from not caring.

  CHAPTER 24

  The struggle with Mundy had happened in relative darkness. It would have been easier to turn the light on now, but it didn't seem right. The thing we were about to do needed shadows and silence.

  Evan helped Abe to his feet, an arm slung across the boy's back. The branch protruding from Abe's side made it difficult for them to walk. Nevertheless, they managed.

  Gary's eyesight eased things. He led the way to the shed at the end of the yard and found the padlock in the deeper darkness there. He unlocked it, waited for us to enter then he switched on the light. A bare bulb on the end of a long cord hung from the middle of the tin roof.

  I don't know what I expected. A chamber of horrors, probably. It was just a shed with a concrete floor, lined with cupboards and workbenches. Evan lowered Abe to the ground and stood in the centre of the room, absorbing the utterly suburban banality with the air of someone who was also surprised at how ordinary it all was.

  "You said you had things," he said.

  Gary pointed at a box heaped with ancient camping gear. "Yeah. Um. My Dad and me, we used tent pegs on Gunther. The guy who turned me."

  "I know of Gunther," said Evan darkly. "I didn't know he was dead. Or that you killed him."

  Gary scratched his nose to hide his discomfort. "That was the deal. I got to put off dying, he got to be properly dead. Anyway, the spikes are there. There's some kerosene too. And matches. For after. You have to make sure he doesn't come back."

  "I know how to do this," growled Evan.

  "Yeah. I guess you do."

  Tense silence followed while they regarded each other in not-quite-hostility. Gary shifted his glance to Abe. Abe had his hands wrapped around the branch and was attempting to shove it further into the wound again. "You're at the wrong angle for that," said Gary.

  "It hurts."

  "Hang on," Gary said. He crossed the short distance to the cupboards. He opened one and transferred several items to the bench. A hacksaw. A glue gun. The chunky home maintenance book I had seen in his house once before. The second last item was a strange, bulky appliance with a cord. The last item was a large plastic box that rattled.

  "Here," he said, turning to Evan, holding the contraption out to him. "It's a nail gun. I use this around the house sometimes. It's pretty easy to operate. It's loaded up, you just have to plug it in and, um, pull the trigger here." He demonstrated.

  Wordlessly, Evan walked over to the bench.

  "Where's the power point?" he asked.

  Gary indicated a white extension cord that trailed around the space from an outlet near the wall. Evan, staring at the gun, nodded.

  "What is it?" Abe asked in a strained voice, showing morbid interest.

  "It's fast," Gary expanded helpfully for him, "It should do the trick. Four or five nails maybe."

  "Good. Fast is good."

  And everyone stood there, waiting for something else to happen.

  Evan laid the nail gun back on the bench and returned to Abe. I thought he was going to try dissuasion again. Instead, he helped Abe get more comfortable. Another glance up at Gary and me.

  "If you don't mind.?"

  Gary looked blank, so I took him by the sleeve. "We'll wait in the house," I said.

  "Oh. Yeah." Gary closed the shed door carefully behind us, and we crossed the yard. In the kitchen, I put on the kettle for something to do. There was only one cup, since Gary only ever made tea for me. As though a cup of tea would be any use to Evan when he was done. I stood in front of the kettle, watching it boil anyway.

  Gary stood by the open door, staring broodily into the yard.

  "Hey," I said, "are you all right?"

  "Sure, I'm fine. I'm a vampire," he said, and I'd never heard him sound so defeated. "I feel less every year."

  I looped my arm through his. "What's wrong?"

  "I'm not like Mundy. I'm not like any of them. All I wanted was a proper life and I can't have one. I just have to make do with what I've got."

  What could I say that wasn't inadequate or patronising? I pressed my cheek against his arm, trying to convey my sympathy.

  Gary sighed and watched the lines of light around the shed door. "I get worried I'll forget things," he said at last. "I can remember everything from before I turned like it was yesterday. But since then, so many days were all alike, they kind of bleed into one long fuzzy day. It's been 40 years and sometimes I can't remember any of them.

  "I think, that's why vampires all live mostly in the past, like Alberto, or mostly in the present, like Magdalene. It's hard to remember the in-between times."

  He crooked a faint sideways smile at me. "It's been different since I met you. Things happen all the time, even little things. I write them all down so I'll remember. Spending time with you is the nearest I get to living."

  I laid my hand on his arm. He cast his gaze back to the outline of light. "That's going to be me, one day, hoping it'll be quick."

  And, bang! Like that, in the solar plexus. First breathless, then a surge of rage. "Don't you say that! Not after everything we've been through this week."

  He stared at me, and my rage was consumed by something worse and less controllable. All the fear and grief collided and resolved into powerless, ceaseless tears.

  "Don't you dare say that," I sobbed. "Don't you leave me now." I tried to hit him and ended up grabbing a fistful of his shirt, clinging to it for strength to stand; to keep going at all.

  Gary's surprise turned to helplessness. "Not any day soon," he said in an attempt to be reassuring. "I'm not ready yet."

  "Good." I didn't stop crying, or let go of his shirt.

  Slowly, as though not sure of the correct procedure, Gary patted me on the shoulder, then drew his arm stiffly around me. I buried my face in his shirt and cried some more. His arm tightened across my shoulder, and he brought his other arm up, the tentative hug accompanied by a slight pat-pat on my back.

  "It's all right, Lissa. I'm not planning anything."

  My reply was muffled against the cloth. "You better not."

  More pats. "Would you like a cup of tea? The kettle's boiled."

  Ah, tea. The universal panacea. I sniffed and nodded. Stood back. I felt stupid and also wet. And my arm was throbbing. Gary patted my shoulder gently again.

  "No biscuits, I'm afraid. I dropped them somewhere last night when I was following Abe."

  I wanted a tissue, but my satchel and all its contents were spread all over Gary's back yard, "Tea's fine."

  "You're bleeding again. Do you want me to fix it?" He mimed spitting on a hankie.

  "Not yet. I need a cuppa though."

  Leaving him to make tea, I went to the bathroom. I blew my nose on some toilet paper. Blood was spotting the sleeve of my stolen shirt and I pulled it up to check the wound. It looked pretty good, considering I'd been shot.

  I've been shot. Oh dear God, my life is so, so screwed up.

  I fought the urge to have another cry. However you looked at it, weird as it was, my life was still mine. I was alive and breathing, and glad for it. I could have been killed a couple of times over in the last week, and all I had to show for it were some bruises and a small, puckered hole, clean around the edges, bleeding slightly. If I
was lucky, there wouldn't even be a scar by morning.

  Rinsing carefully, I cleaned away the excess blood while hopefully leaving a residue of saliva to complete the healing.

  After peeing, I washed my face and hands. I would have liked to see exactly how terrible I looked, but Gary didn't own any mirrors, on account of not particularly liking the dead-man-walking reflection he saw in them. Anyway, I probably looked exactly like the freaked-out, shot-at, tear-stained, exhausted librarian that I was. I made a half-hearted attempt to tidy my hair, then gave up and returned to the kitchen.

  A cup of tea was resting on the kitchen table. The usual array of textbooks, model plane parts and sundry notepads had been shoved to one side to make room for me. Gary was leaning on the door jamb, watching the backyard intently. I sat at the table and wrapped my hands around the mug. The banality of a simple cup of tea helped to calm me.

  "They're taking a while," he said, "Should I go check?"

  "Have you heard anything?"

  "The nail gun went off a few minutes ago. Seven times."

  "Leave it a while."

  He nodded briefly and a fraction of the tension in his shoulders seemed to dissolve.

  I asked him to spit on the tissue I'd brought with me from the bathroom. He obliged and I dabbed it on the bullet hole. The wound tingled.

  Gary returned to his vigil at the back door. I rose to stand by him and watch a rectangle of light open at the end of the dark yard. Evan's silhouette moved through it, and disappeared as the shed door closed.

  He met us at the door, looking sad and exhausted too. There was no mistaking the fact that I had never seen Evan look so at peace, either.

  "Do you have something I could wrap him in?"

  "Sure." Gary left the kitchen.

  Evan and I looked at each other, acutely aware that a whole lot more than a door frame stood between us.

  "How are you feeling?" I asked.

  Evan considered. "Free," he said. "We're both free, now."

  "And physically? You weren't too great when I found you in that bathtub."

  "On the mend. Abe was very conscientious about looking after me."

  "Vampire remedies are very effective," I concurred, nodding briefly towards my exposed upper arm. The wound was already much improved from ten minutes ago. Maybe I wouldn't have any explaining to do to Kate after all.

  Evan winced. "Seeing Gary cross that threshold drove Abe to the brink, I think," he said in a tone of apology. "He was already doubting his purpose, and he saw no end to it. He'd tried crossing a threshold himself before, you see, and failed. He couldn't even take the first step."

  "Oh?"

  "There are stories in the family records. One is more of a fable, I suppose, but Abe says once, early in his mission, he chased a vampire into a mosque. Abe watched her die from the entrance."

  "I see," though I wasn't sure I did. "And the fable?"

  "That's from before Abe's time. Elijah Winterbourne, Abe's partner in the 1790s, found a text in a library in Constantinople. It's the story of a vampire who enters a church, with the woman he loves. He ends up killing her by drinking her dry, and wakes up, his humanity restored, beside her body. Once he realises what he's done, he climbs to the top of the belltower and throws himself off."

  "That's a lousy redemption story."

  "It's a good punishment story, though,' said Evan, "My experience is that those are more popular with religious authorities."

  "Screw that."

  "Yeah." He agreed thoughtfully, "Screw that."

  "Does your family have a lot of old records?"

  "Three hundred years' worth. All scanned and stored on the hard drive of my laptop."

  "Which is gone now."

  "Oh, no. When we left the holiday house, after Gary came for you, we put all the important things in a luggage locker. My laptop, our passports…"

  Gary reappeared and thrust a bundled bed quilt that smelled of mothballs past me.

  "Here," he said, "What are you going to do now?"

  "I'm not sure. Hiring a car will have to wait till morning."

  "You can't carry him down the street."

  "No," Evan agreed, "I can't."

  "You should stay here till the morning," I suggested. They looked warily at each other. "And not in the shed, either," I said to Gary.

  Gary weighed the logic of the option with his very understandable dislike for Evan.

  "I need to stay over too. If you don't mind, that is," I said. It was too late for trains, too expensive for taxis. With Kate at Anthony's place, I didn't want to be home all by myself. And I wasn't ready yet to leave Gary, after everything that had happened. Oscar, I thought with a pang of guilt deadened by exhaustion, had been fed and watered before we'd gone Evan-hunting, and would be all right alone for one night.

  Reluctantly, Gary acquiesced to logic. After Evan returned once more from wrapping up Abe's body, Gary showed him to the sofa in the living room.

  That was it for sleep space. I was prepared to bunk on the floor in Gary's office, but he diverted me to the generous armchair in his room instead. I hesitated at the door. I hadn't been in this room since that first time, when I had been caught snooping in his private life.

  "I'll be fine on the floor, really."

  "It's a comfortable chair. I used to fall asleep in it back when I used to sleep."

  "It's your private room, Gary"

  "Don't worry." He ushered me in and insisted that I sit. There was room enough for me to tuck my feet up. Gary shook out a crocheted granny blanket that was folded on the back of the chair and settled it over me.

  "Are you sure?" I still felt guilty and intrusive.

  "I'm sure. Anyway, all my favourite things are in here." He smiled.

  I smiled back. Then I slept.

  Saturday morning, I awoke to find that Evan had gone. According to Gary, Evan hadn't slept much, and had used the time to Google a local car rental. He left the house at first light to be at the rental offices when the doors opened. Immediately on his return, Evan parked the car discreetly along the side of the house and laid Abe's carefully blanket-wrapped body in the boot before driving off.

  Gary described it all very matter-of-factly, until it came to the placing of the body in the car.

  "Abe was so tiny. It's always like that, after the stuff we have for blood goes wherever it goes. The bodies shrivel up into husks, the way spiders do. He hardly weighed anything. It's weird. Undead for all that time and in the end, it's like he was hardly even here."

  Gary was sitting at the kitchen table as he told me this, fiddling with half-painted parts of a model plane. The pieces shattered. I stood behind him, my cheek against the top of his head, my hands clasped in front of his chest. As usual, there was no warmth in him at all. He had no scent that I could detect. No heartbeat. Technically dead, but oh, most definitely not actually dead.

  "You're here," I said. "You make a difference."

  The reply was a non-committal grunt.

  "Don't give up," I said, arms still around him. "Evan said it.

  No-one's ever done what you did and survived. You don't know how far it can go."

  "I get the feeling I've reached the limit," he said quietly. "I walked into a church and it nearly killed me. Properly."

  "I know. But don't give up. There's a lot of space between walking into my house and walking into a church for you to explore. And you don't have to do any of it alone."

  He patted my hands absent-mindedly and then his fingers came to rest over mine. "Lissa, I've made you some promises. I want you to make one too."

  Apprehensive, I sat opposite him. "Go on."

  "You've got to stop throwing yourself into trouble like you do. You're going to get yourself killed, and then where will I be? I don't want to have to keep secrets from you just to keep you safe. I don't even know why you do it."

  "That makes two of us," I muttered. That was not entirely true.

  I did it because I was afraid not to. I jumped fee
t first into all this horror, convinced that somehow I could prevent all the awful things from happening; that maybe if I could save Gary or Evan it would be like saving Belinda and Paul and Nanna. Part of me seemed to think that failing to at least try would somehow betray the memories of those I'd already lost. Already failed to protect.

  Like I said before, people do stupid things thinking it gives them control.

  With the many, many stupid things I'd done this week, the wonder was that I was still alive. My impulsive, compulsive need to be there, to place myself between those I loved and harm, had brought me close to sudden death more than once. Those I'd wanted to protect had almost died too - Gary in the church, as well as Evan. How long before I led Kate to danger? How long before I got myself killed and left her all alone?

  No matter how much I wanted to, I couldn't save everyone. Not on my own, at any rate. There were better ways for me to try, too. I could be there for my sister and not make her sick with worry all the time. I could work with Gary to find out what kind of future he could have. I could look after myself and build my own future, too.

  "I'm sorry I've been so crazy," I said. "I just couldn't bear the thought of anything happening to any more people I love."

  Gary blinked. "Well, I feel that way about you too. And I bet Kate does, even more than me."

  "I promise you, Gary. I'll stop throwing myself in the line of fire in futile attempts to control my life. I'll take better care of myself. And we'll look out for each other."

  "Yes," he agreed.

  "And no more secrets."

  "None."

  We sealed the deal with an emphatic nod, then I leaned across to kiss his cheek. He rubbed the spot sheepishly for a moment before jumping up to make a fresh cup of tea for me.

  I was reluctant to leave, but I had to get home before Kate or she'd worry. I also needed to shower, change into some decent clothes, find breakfast and remember what a normal life looked like. Kate needed some concrete promises from me, too, I decided.

  Gary regarded me steadily. "I've got to straighten up this place," he said. "And I don't want Kate mad at me again if you're not home and in one piece when she gets there."