by Guy Riessen
“Could be, sure.” Mary looked around at each of them significantly. “Or it could be for some kind of ritual. I mean, this wasn’t just ‘found remains, right?’ You had a walking, jumping, window-breaking shadow man stumping around your office. I’ll be pulling any DNA info I can extract next and see what comes up—there will be a lot of heat damage, but there is enough carbon apparent in the mass spectrometry that I may be able to extract DNA.”
Howard was rubbing the back of his knuckles against the stubble on the edge of his jaw. Derrick knew it meant something was dancing at the edge of Howard’s memory. “What’s up, H?”
“Not sure, but it kind of rings a bell.”
“Could it have been something similar to the bone golem at the Haunt?” Derrick asked Howard directly.
“Don’t think so. Most ceremonial magic would be broken by the process of burning the body. It’s like the psychic energy loses its connection to the material plane. Not that I’d rule it out completely, but it’s not something I’ve come across before. I was thinking a type of Shadow?”
“Shadow?” Sarah asked.
Derrick nodded, saying, “Sure, first edition Dungeons and Dragons. Those were more undead creatures though. I think it’d actually be more like a Shadow Man from Everquest? Those were supposedly ritual-created creatures. Plus, a lot of that gaming source material is old Sweeps activity burying actual data with misinformation. We’ll have to check the files to see if there was activity to Sweep anything back in the nineteen seventies for the D&D link ... or the early two thousands for Everquest.”
“There’s older source material than D&D for constructs of shadow. They show up in several older texts, including some actual tomes for summoning,” Howard said. “But those are more like condensed shadow ... psychic force that binds together a state of lack-of-light. Mythologically speaking it should receive a command from its summoner, but it would then operate independently. It would need to report back to tell what it saw or deliver what it took.”
“Well maybe that’s what it would’ve done, if you hadn’t interrupted it?” Mary asked.
“Of course, that’s possible. But it leaped from the window when we found it. Why wouldn’t it have tried to run past us into the hallway? Why suicide, especially since it was dusk? That’s one of the optimal times for most shadow creatures to move undetected. They cannot operate easily in daylight because they need to be able to move from shadow to shadow. If there’s no direct sunlight, they could move at will.”
“It didn’t respond exactly like the D&D monster either,” Derrick said, “When it leapt out the window, it burst into that ash.”
“And?” Sarah asked.
“Well, Shadow Men are magically ‘solidified’ shadow, right? When was the last time you saw a shadow made of human ash?”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
HOWARD AND DERRICK were originally supposed to play the latest expansion for Steam Epic Wars on the day it went live. Release day was just after school technically started for the professors, but it was a week before the students arrived, so it seemed safe enough to get in some late-night adventuring. If they went in a little late on Tuesday, and moved a little slower through the day, no one would ever know.
In fact, they had just downloaded the midnight early-entry release to Howard’s console, when the emergency notification had buzzed their email and text messaging with the incoming MARC message. It didn’t seem like a big deal, just some possible poltergeist reports in a national forest, but Sarah wanted them to come in early on Tuesday to get briefed.
They could play later, Sarah said. Derrick couldn’t seem to make her understand that the loot tables for the monsters were sometimes mixed up on release days and you could find rare and epic gear on totally underpowered monsters.
Derrick could practically hear her eyes rolling across the phone line. Of course, it turned out they were sent off that same day.
In that stupid bus.
On a bug hunt.
In California.
That was over a week ago.
So, when the doctor cut the cast off in the afternoon and replaced it with a more flexible brace, Derrick grabbed his crutches and raced from the ortho room, whooping like a kid that almost missed summer vacation.
Smokey was in the shop for a few days getting its timing belt replaced, so Howard drove Derrick’s blue Honda, affectionately known as Galileo, to take them to Howard’s apartment. Derrick was spending the nights sleeping on Howard’s pull-out sofa, because he couldn’t get to and from his own on-campus faculty apartment without assistance. It suited them both just fine though, since they were hoping to get in more Steam Epic Wars game-time than ever before.
Ten minutes after they arrived at Howard’s place they had the pull-out made back into a couch and they were both flopped on the cushions, game controllers in hand, tapping through the start-up screens for Steam Epic Wars.
The screen faded up from black; their characters stood together in a derelict back alley that emptied onto a muddy bank sloping into an estuary of the Thames. The sky overhead was turning dark and thick smog rolled between the buildings and out over the slowly churning water.
Derrick looked at Howard’s character, whose name “Norbert LaChunk” floated above his head in red letters. Underneath was a green line representing hit points and a blue line representing his medic-based mana points. Derrick’s character was similarly adorned with a name, “Abhar Amazad,” also with a line for hit points and a line for, in his case, tech-based sorcery mana.
“Ready?” Derrick said. He had the mic for his headphones lifted since Howard was sitting right next to him.
“Hells yeah! It’s go time!” Howard almost bounced off the cushions in anticipation. “I hope this Victorian Knights expansion is as badass as it looks!”
“I know, right?” Derrick said. Lifting his leg off the pillows he had stacked between the couch and the table, he rubbed the bottom of his foot against the edge of the coffee table. It alleviated the itch for a while and allowed him to focus on the game.
As soon as they pressed X to enter the world, an onscreen message popped up. “Emergency Server Patch in 5 minutes. Please find a safe location and log out.”
Howard’s controller thunked to the carpeted floor as he threw his hands up. “You have got to be kidding!”
Derrick’s head was thrown back and he was staring at the ceiling, but he waved his hand at Howard’s tablet on the table. “What’s the server status page say, H? Probably freakin’ twelve hours.”
Howard picked up the tablet and flipped the cover open. He tapped the screen several times, then said, “Hmm. Says the estimated downtime is only supposed to be an hour.”
“Just enough time for MARC to get Sarah to call us in to go take another stupid trip in that stupid bus.”
Howard laughed, then stopped suddenly and said, “That’s a little too possible to be funny. And speaking of Sarah, did you ever ask her out after that South Dakota mission you two went on?”
“North Dakota. And, no.”
Howard raised an eyebrow.
“No, man. I keep getting cold feet, you know? She’s so smart ... she’s got degrees like you, H. Out to frickin’ here.” Derrick held his hands as far apart as he could. “What do I got? Plasma Astrophysics and ... nothing else.”
Howard leaned down and picked up the controller, setting it on the coffee table. “C’mon dude, you can’t pull that shit on me. You’ve got a brain so big it would burst a goddamn Mount Rushmore head. You’re a frakkin wizard with electronics.”
Derrick made a “pfft” sound and leaned back, absently rubbing his heel against the table edge. “A hobby.”
It was Howard’s turn to make the “pfft” sound ... accompanied by an eyeroll. “Really dude, you gotta ask her out soon. There’s something between the two of you ... I can feel it whenever you’re both in the room. Plus, you can’t wait too long after what happened in North Dakota or you’ll end up slipping into the ‘friend zone,’ and
that’s one hell of a tricky place to get out of.”
“Yeah, I know ...”
Howard exhaled heavily. “Lemme tell ya something, dude.”
“What? Is my fly down?”
Howard huffed a half chuckle, but his smile faded as quick as it came. “Hey, dude, I’m sure your fly is just fine. Nah, this is more of a cautionary tale. I haven’t told you this before, well, because I keep it pretty much walled off day-to-day. And also because, I know if it had ended differently, well, we wouldn’t even be sitting here having this convo in the first place.”
“All right.” Derrick leaned back and folded his arms across his chest. He shifted his leg on the cushions.
“This was back when I was still stationed at the Annex of the Oceana NAS. My girlfriend and I had a place in Virginia Beach. We’d been together for almost six years. She’d been in the navy when we started dating, but she left after her four years were up, and she’d started a web-design business that was doing solid. I was doing pretty well too, working my way through the ranks at what they kept telling me was a record pace.”
Howard’s eyes glinted in the afternoon light filtering in through the curtains. Derrick shifted a bit, feeling uncomfortable, and said with a half-smile, “What, and then you heard what happened to that SEAL team in the Honolulu bar when Sarah McConnel showed up?”
“Heh, no. That was a little before my time. It was already a bit of a legend. No. I was called to a General Officers meeting at Langley—top secret. GO meetings are typically just generals ... sometimes others are included if there’s orders that may directly affect them. In this case, it was the recruitment offer from the DCV.”
Derrick nodded. He was recruited straight from MIT, but the secrecy surrounding it, and the information they had about Derrick was both astounding and frightening at the time.
Howard continued, “I’m sure you remember exactly what it felt like to come out of that meeting. I was absolutely stunned ... and I hadn’t heard even a fraction of what the DCV was up against. All I knew was that it spoke to every patriotic fiber in my ... “
“Super fibrous,” Derrick interjected.
“Yeah, my super fibrous patriotic being ... only now I was being asked to serve not just my country, but the whole fucking world. There was lots I couldn’t tell my girl, but there was enough exciting news that I could share, so I called her as soon as I stepped out.”
Howard picked at the callous on his trigger finger for a moment, then continued, “I told her I had some big news ... for both of us. Looking back, I do remember how excited her voice sounded. I told her I’d be home for dinner and we’d go to La Fino’s. That was our favorite ‘date’ spot.”
Howard stared down at his hands. Derrick waited silently. When Howard did speak, it came out in a rush, like the words were tripping over themselves to be spoken. “Dude... she thought I was going to propose. She thought that was the big news, and instead it was just me, excited about my own stuff. I wasn’t thinking in terms of ‘us’ at all, just ‘me.’”
“Hey, H, we all do that sometimes, right, man? Get lost in our own worlds, and whatever’s important to us?”
“I suppose, but we’d been together for six years, dude. What else would she expect? Another promotion for Howard? Hardly. Shit, D, she was waiting for that ultimate statement of love. And here I’m fucking calling because I’m accepting a new job? And you know what else? This is like a fucking cliché—it was our goddamn, anniversary of our first date. I had completely forgotten.”
“Wow, H.” Derrick scrubbed a hand through his hair.
Howard looked up and met Derrick’s eyes. “Yeah, dude, and that’s not even the worst. Our anniversary was June sixth ... and I was recruited by DCV in two thousand seven.” He knew he didn’t have to explain the rest.
Derrick’s eyes widened. “Oh man ... the day of the terrorist attack in Virginia Beach ... holy shit, H.” Derrick’s hand flew momentarily to his mouth, but then he dropped it back in his lap. “That was your neighborhood, wasn’t it? Five thirty-seven p.m. You were on the road, but she was home? Oh man.”
A couple tears rolled down Howard’s face unnoticed. He cleared his throat. “She died in the first blast, most of our house was completely flattened. Anything that wasn’t, burned to the ground in the fires.”
Derrick reached out, laid his hand on Howard’s shoulder. The air was still, silent. In the far distance, a police siren wailed. Then the moment passed, and the curtains stirred with a hint of wind. Derrick squeezed Howard’s shoulder and folded his hands back in his lap.
“So.” Howard dragged a hand across his eyes, then down over his two-day stubble. “Don’t wait, D. We don’t always get second chances, you know?”
Then Howard grinned, rubbing the back of his head. “Just do it, dude. Jeez, you’ve already kissed her. Just ask her out.”
“Yeah. But what if that kiss was a mistake she regrets? What if it was just something that happened because we were under stress to figure out how those murders were happening?”
“‘Yeah but?’ Seriously? You, buddy, are a hard nut to crack. Anyway, you think solving-murder stress is going to make someone like Sarah kiss you? What are you, thirteen?”
“Honestly, H, yeah kinda. I’m not good at this kind of stuff ... I’m a freaking chicken. So yeah, I am kinda like, you know, standing by the gym wall at the junior high dance, staring at my shoes. When I start really thinking about it, it’s like I can’t stop thinking about every facet of it. And then all my nerves knot up and lodge in my throat.”
Derrick pushed his hair away from his eyes. “Or ... or ... it’s like I can’t shut up. Like all my thoughts just start vomiting out uncontrollably about just random junk.”
“We’ve all been there, dude. Just don’t wait for the ‘perfect moment,’ or let yourself get distracted with your own life, you know? You gotta just buck up and ask her out. I can almost guarantee she’ll say yes. Like I said, there’s chemistry between you two right now ... don’t precipitate out of the solution.”
“Funny, H.”
“Yeah, well ...” Howard cleared his throat and threw an arm over the back of the couch. “So, how’s the leg feeling without the cast?”
“Itchy. And hungry. I think it wants a pizza.”
Howard laughed. “After that four-minute marathon gaming session of disappointment, I think even my own leg wants a pizza.”
Suddenly a screeching noise blasted from Derrick’s wrist.
Howard nearly jumped clear of the couch. “What the hell?”
Derrick pushed the sleeve of his black-and-red flannel shirt up, revealing what looked like a circa 1982 Casio calculator watch. Unlike the classic though, this one had a full-color screen, and it was maybe half again as thick as the original watch.
Derrick tapped several of the small rubberized keys and the screech stopped. He looked over at Howard, pushing the pillows out from under his leg and levering himself up.
“That’s my car alarm, someone’s breaking in,” Derrick said, grabbing the crutches leaning against the couch arm.
“Shit,” Howard waved Derrick back toward the couch, grabbing his gun off the side table and sweeping several magazines into his pocket. “I’ll go down and check it out. Considering your office, I doubt this is a false alarm.”
“Dude, this’s me—my alarms don’t ‘false!’ And I’m coming with,” Derrick said, using the crutches to get over to the door so he could open it.
Howard racked a bullet into the chamber and followed Derrick out the door.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
HOWARD LIVED ON THE second floor of a four-story apartment building located across town from Miskatonic University and next to East Derby Park. There were four buildings arranged in a quad, with a pool and standing communal BBQs set into a cement central area surrounded by grass and a play structure on two ends. Located in a circle ringing the quad were the one-car garages assigned to each apartment.
Covered parking spaces next to the street
sidewalk were available for guests, but there were also two handicapped reserved spaces on each side of the parking lot with direct access straight across to the central area.
Derrick had to take the elevator, and he hammered the down arrow with one of his crutches. Howard raced to the end of the short hallway then crashed through the door to the exterior stairwell. Derrick heard the clang of his footfalls on the metal steps as Howard descended. Looking up at the floor indicator while it slowly counted down ... four ... three ... two, Derrick pressed the elevator button faster. He hobbled in as the doors opened and pushed the L-button then pounded on the “Door Close” button to no obvious effect.
Derrick shoved his way through the front door of the building and stepped out into the afternoon sunlight. Howard was leaning into the corner of the building swapping out a pistol magazine.
Moving closer, Derrick said, “Back up a bit, H.” He looked up toward the top of the apartment building, saying, “Get into the sunlight. I’ve got a sneaking feeling, you don’t want to be in the shadows in that corner.”
Howard backed up. He was twisting a long sound suppressor onto the barrel of his 40-caliber handgun. Noticing Derrick’s curious look, he said, “Swapped in one hundred sixty grain subsonic rounds.”
“Figured as much. Don’t want to disturb the neighbors with your antics?”
“Heh, yeah. Whenever they end up calling the cops, there’s always lots of questions,” Howard said.
“Probably the crappy company you usually keep,” Derrick said, stopping next to where Howard stood in the brown woodchips next to the building wall.
“Undoubtedly,” Howard said, looking pointedly at Derrick. “Plus, you know how pissed Sarah is whenever she has to come down to the police station with federal docs, and follow-up calls from whoever the hell she gets to make the follow-up calls that make the police department dance.”
“Yep.” Derrick nodded. He began to slowly crutch his way along the sidewalk toward the parking lot. The sun was bright on the white concrete and a few leaves drifting in the warm sullen breeze reminded him of the unpredictable Fall weather.
