Shadows 3

by Charles L. Grant

  A smooth, yet insistent, voice like a bassoon interrupted him, shutting his mouth, then making it gape open wide in astonishment. “Hey, what about me?” it said. “Don’t I get to say hello or something?”

  “Dad!”

  Twisting from his mother’s tightening grip, he crammed his way past her and dove at the legs of the tall man in the vested suit Wrapping his arms fiercely around the thighs, Ant spun sideways, bringing his father down to the brick-tiled floor and jumped on top of him before he could rise.

  “Pile on,” he hollered, squirming all over the man like a live fishnet. “Grizzlies 14, Dads nothing!”

  Gradually Ant’s frenzied spinning and climbing slowed until he was lying there next to his father, the both of them laughing hard enough to curl them in over their stomachs. A tickling jab was aimed at his ribs and he tried none-too-hard to push the arm away. Their bodies wrestled for a moment, then little by little they began to meld. The laughter was gone now for both of them. For the first time in almost two years, Anthony Walker hugged his father.

  And his father hugged back.

  Over them, a strong and larger woman with crowblack hair glared down.

  “Jonathan, get the hell—”

  “Hey, come on, you two,” Greg said, gently cutting her off. “Or Marilyn will have to sweep you both out the door with the rest of the dirt.” He smiled expansively and winked at the short, blond woman standing by the yellow enameled stove.

  “Homemade scrapple and eggs, Ant.” she said turning back to the pans sizzling on the burners, a blushing grin on her own face.

  Ant craned his head up past his father’s shoulder and smiled at her. “Great,” he said. His voice was a trifle hoarse. Giving his dad one last squeeze he clambered to his feet, tugging him from the floor, and added, “Come on, Dad. Let’s eat. Marilyn”—Jonathan Walker squinted at him and he corrected himself—”Mrs. Tammaris makes the best scrapple in the world. And I picked the eggs myself from Mr. Bosely’s coop. That’s on the other side of town.”

  Since the adults had had breakfast hours earlier, Ant was the only one eating. Looking only at him, his parents sat across from each other at his sides. Greg took a seat at the far side of the kitchen table, glancing every once in a while to his wife at the sink. It seemed as if each bit of food brought forth cascading rivulets of stories about the town and his friends. He told them about the leaf collection he had constructed and matted for his science class, about the cold glacial ponds he and Greg had swum in on their camping trips over the summer, about how he had been chosen quarterback for his midget football team, and about the games they had won. And grudgingly admitted to having lost just a few. He talked for what seemed like hours, cramming the weeks and months into each sentence. Losing them.

  Finally he quieted. A puzzled expression filled his face as he tried to remember something. He scanned his parents’ faces, first one, then the other, as if it might have something to do with them, but it didn’t help. The memory only faded farther away. For the first time since they had sat down, Ant saw his mother look to her husband. The communication needed no words; half command, half plea, it said: Do something, damnit.

  But as Jonathan began to open his mouth, Greg broke the silence. Again, easing the tension from without “Tell them about your eyes, Ant.”

  The older man sat back, attentive. But Kathryn Walker shot a fearful glance to her son before turning back to Greg. “What do you mean? What’s wrong with his eyes?”

  Ant came out of his lethargy, and gave a playful moan. “Oh, Mom,” he whined. “Nothing’s wrong with my eyes. They change colors, that’s all.”

  She was not put at ease. “What do you mean, honey?” Her tone was very tight though she tried to make the question sound light. “How can they change color?”

  “They just do,” he insisted. Greg had never questioned him about it. Neither had the guys on the team. They just accepted it, as he did. “They change from blue to green. And back again.”

  “When did you first notice them change?” his father asked.

  Kathryn relaxed back into her chair. He turned to Greg and said, “It was during the first week of practice, wasn’t it?”

  Tammaris nodded. “Yeah, last August.”

  Ant shifted his gaze back to the older man and continued. “When I was trying out for quarterback I kept throwing really great passes. I could put them right into my man’s stomach, or right over his shoulder, or anywhere. The coach said he never saw anyone start off so good right off the bat.” He grinned proudly, matching his father’s response. “And they made me quarterback. My eyes were green then,” he finished in complete frankness.

  “How do you know that?”

  “I could feel it.” A look of doubt dampened his father’s smile, so he tagged on a slight lie. “I even checked my reflection in the water bucket, and they were still green. I could just feel it.”

  “Okay, okay.” His father laughed at his vehemence. “Was that it? Or did anything else happen?”

  “No, it got better and better,” he said, brightening. “By the first time we played a real game, I could do other stuff, too.”

  “Like what?” Walker was obviously enjoying himself, and Ant was eager to please so he added in all the details he could think of.

  “After a while I could run plays or keep the ball myself and still see if they would work or not. If my eyes were green we’d always make the play; we wouldn’t fumble or lose yards and we would get the first down.” Ant crouched and spun out of his chair, his arms folded over his stomach as if protecting a football from sight after a fake hand-off. Once on his feet he hid behind the chair back, taking little dancing jumps from side to side. “I. even ran the ball myself for touchdowns. Four times!”

  “Fantastic,” exclaimed Jonathan. “That’s great!” He looked over at Tammaris and smiled broadly, sharing the pleasure he felt in his son. “How many points did you rack up during the whole season?” he asked Ant. The boy shrugged and regained his seat. He was slightly disappointed at the remark. What did it matter how many points he had gotten? He was the quarterback, he had made touchdowns all on his own, he could remember every single one of them. How he ran, how the greened bodies fell before him, and rose only to fall again. Somehow he couldn’t put it all together into numbers and totals. It was just him: what he was, and what he could do.

  When he saw an answer was not coming from Ant, Walker glanced back at Greg, who only mirrored the boy’s shrug, though with far more concern. Frowning, Walker looked away.

  “And what about when they’re blue?” he asked. No hint of the smile or his pleasure remained, as if they had been reward enough for one day. “What happens then?”

  Ant stared glumly down at his empty plate. “Nothing,” he said quietly. “My receivers all have butter-fingers. They drop the ball, or it bounces off their helmets, or I get tackled before I can even throw the ball.” It pained him to think about this part of it, especially to have to tell his dad about it. “Sometimes it happens for a whole quarter.” He swallowed hard and admitted, “Once for almost a whole game.” He paused. “We got shut-out.”

  “You mean it usually doesn’t last that long?”

  “Uh-uh.” Summoning up the nerve at last to look up from the table again, he explained, “It changes all the time now, even in the middle of a play sometimes.” He hesitated for a moment, hoping to find a way out of this part of the conversation, then finally added, “Sometimes it doesn’t happen at all; my eyes stay just like they are now. Regular.”

  They were all quiet now. Marilyn had moved from the sink to stand behind her husband, her hands braced along the back of his chair. She had been listening to the entire conversation with interest. Ant rarely talked about anything in such detail, and the expression on his face must have shown her that something vague and unruly was troubling him. Normally, a shy, quiet woman, even with Anthony, she forced out the words, “What did you see yesterday, Ant?”

  The question took them all aback,
so that the Walkers and Greg, twisting around in his chair to look up, all turned to stare at her, incredulous. From the corners of his eyes, Ant saw his mother stiffen, his father ease forward, like opposite ends of the same seesaw. But before anyone else could speak, Ant gently filled the stillness. “I felt them change,” he said softly. “Not like before; not blue or green. The sky changed color.” His eyes came up to meet hers. They were ridden with such sorrow she flinched visibly. From across the table, he whispered to her, “It was purple.”

  His mother was the only one to move, and she did so smoothly. Resting a small and gentle hand on his arm, she said, “But Ant, honey, none of it’s your fault. You don’t do anything. You just see the colors; the blues, the greens. They don’t make the passes, or the fumbles. You do.” She was speaking in little rhythms, convincing him by memorization, without truth, without facts. “You aren’t responsible for what happened to Donnie,” she singsonged.

  But somehow Ant knew better. And tried to tell her so with his eyes.

  The next few days were a mixture of loss and acceptance for Ant. From the moment he saw them both, he knew that their time together would be short. It always was. Nevertheless, he had long ago reconciled that as a fact of life. True, there were two differences this time, but he also knew better than to take any special meaning from diem: This was the first time in his life that he could recall his parents being with him at the same time on their occasional visits (let alone for something as important as the pending Thanksgiving Day game), and that—he was acutely aware of their mutual loathing for one another.

  As the week wore slowly on he began to notice things. He was painfully aware that they did not sleep together as Greg and Marilyn did; his parents each occupied a separate small bedroom to the rear of the second floor. They did not talk to each other in his presence, and the bitterness he heard in their screeching arguments through his ceiling at night made him thankful for that. Worst of all—since they each wanted to be with him constantly—they would not tolerate the other’s invasion of the same room, and he was thus left alone most of the time, each seeking to avoid the other. Like vampires, he thought. Afraid to see themselves in the mirror of the other.

  Keenly, yet forever lessening, he felt the loss of them, of their bond. They had not lived together for so long as he could remember, each away on business that could not be concluded without their spouse’s consent. But he did not really understand the strain and the hatred that those conditions brought upon them. His mother came to him every six months or so; his father irregularly, this last space the longest. Yes, he accepted their loss, their hatred of each other, and gradually his own resentment of them both.

  And on Wednesday, he accepted the loss of Donnie as they put him in the ground.

  Turkey Day.

  Even without the coach having to add it to his pep talk, every boy on the Grizzlies knew they would be playing this game for Donnie. “Win one for the Gipper,” one of the linesmen’s father kept shouting from the stands, but no one knew what he meant. All they understood was that they had lost Donnie; they didn’t want to lose the game, too.

  Ant played to win, like he always did, but the first half was almost entirely blue. He fumbled the ball twice and threw two interceptions. His teammates jeered him, and he cried a little when he heard someone say, “We’d be winning if we had Donnie here.” He meant to keep the ball that time, he wanted to tell them, he really did, but when he looked for who had said it no one was there.

  During the second half he kept his eyes closed much of the time. He did not want to see the blues anymore, and even though the sky was heavily overcast he never raised his vision from the ground. He would not let his eyes mix with the blue that lay behind the clouds, not for anything. Including Donnie.

  Finally, it was over. They had lost the game, too. 35-6.

  They were all silent in the car on the way back to the house. Greg drove the old station wagon and Marilyn sat close beside him, as close as Ant leaned against his father in the back seat. His mother followed in her own car.

  As they emerged from the cars before the cedar-shingled structure, Jonathan Walker slid a comforting hand down his son’s arm. Ant had been fighting tears all the way home, and when his father said, “Don’t worry about it, Ant; you did your best,” he broke from his hold and ran around the house, toward the woods. Immediately, Greg started to follow. “No,” called Walker. “I’ll go after him.” Tammaris stared uncertainly at him. “I should,” he mumbled, and trotted away around the comer.

  Ant stopped right at the back yard when he heard his father call to him. He did not turn around, but heard the large steady footfalls crushing the leaves behind him. Like the bodies that did not fall anymore, that he wanted to fall very badly. Fried and burnt humus wafted through his nostrils and the world grew a shade darker.

  Slowly he shifted to look up at his father and whimpered softly when he saw his tears matched in the man’s eyes. “I’m sorry,” his father said. “Oh, Ant, I’m so sorry.” Then he was on his knees, holding him, crying out a pain Ant did not know was within him. He was lost for a moment in the clamped arms and chilled-sweat smell of the man who was his father, then a voice pulled him away.

  “What’s the matter with the two of you. It was only a game.”

  Only a game, he thought.

  Donnie.

  As his father’s hug eased around him, Ant stepped back and stared at him, at the pain on his face. Slowly he rose from his knees and weakly staggered toward the line of trees where the woods began. Ant watched him, wanting desperately to look away, but somehow could not. The pain, the utter miserable hurt on his father’s face drew his gaze even after he had turned away.

  “Ant,” he heard his mother call sternly from somewhere behind. “What was the matter with you today? I thought you were supposed to be so good out on that field.” Shut up, he thought. “And now I find you back here having a crying party with him.” His gaze still followed his father. “Ant! What the hell is the matter with you?”

  She grabbed at his shoulder, trying to pull him around to face her. Her nails dug through the soft down and nylon of his jacket, into his muscle, reminding him of his own pain. Jerking his body sharply, he pulled from her grip, agonizingly maintaining his watch. His father had reached the trees now and had wrapped his arms around the trunk of a poplar. Dull, distant sobs came through the chill afternoon air; bursts of white frostbreath sharp around the bole, choked into the bark.

  All the remembrances of pain.

  “Ant!” His mother was screaming at him now, stepping around in front of him. “Damnit, answer me when I speak to you. Never mind him. I’m speaking to you now.” With one last step, she moved in front of him, directly blocking his gaze at the man crying into the treebark.

  He didn’t know why she was angry. Or why he was hurt. It could just as easily have been the other way around.

  She seized his chin in her firm fingers and raised his face to her. The world darkened even more. He looked at her but with no difference. As they stared at each other, the anger gradually left her face, her eyes opened wide from the terrible slits of her hate. Her face went blank, until she accepted.

  She smiled and let go of his chin, and struck him hard across the cheek.

  Then, slowly, like twin blood-burning coals, Ant’s eyes began to turn a deeper red.

  And gracefully, she stepped out of the way and let him look back at his father.

  Fall. A body.

  Introduction

  Alan Ryan has had short fiction published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and in several volumes of the Chrysalis series. His first novel, PANTHER! will appear from Signet about the time this book sees print. As if that isn’t enough, he also writes book reviews and satire for the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times.

  It’s also worth mentioning that a good deal of this story is true. But, as with a shadow, the problem lies in knowing where the dark begins and the reality ends
.

  TELL MOMMY WHAT HAPPENED

  by Alan Ryan

  His parents knew Robbie was strange. And just a little scary. Robbie … saw … things.

  At three, he had not yet mastered enough language to express or describe with any clarity the odd things he saw, the distant images or scraps of ideas that entered his mind unbidden, unsought, like leaves drifting on a breeze. Nor did he have the age or insight to recognize the images or ideas as strange. Children’s minds are not like ours. And Robbie’s mind was not like other children’s. Not at all.

  He was the loveliest child to look at. Light brown hair curled like wisps of fragile silk around his head. His porcelain ears were so perfectly formed—the whorls like those of the rarest seashell—that their intricacy was almost a proof for the existence of God. His skin glowed pink with an inner light that seemed to mold the baby flesh with health. A lovely child to look at.

  Margaret Lockwood adored her son. She loved him all the more for having lost two children in miscarriages before him.

  She had invested four months flat on her back in bed to give Robbie life. Oh, she loved him.

  David Lockwood, as often as he smiled at the beauty and perfection of his tiny son, even more often stared in wonder at him: How could such a beautiful thing exist? How could they have made such a thing? How? And in the stillness of the nighttime house, his hand would grope in the nursery’s half light for the hand of his wife and squeeze, squeeze. Imagine! Just look at him!

  But there were other times, too, when Margaret and David Lockwood stared at Robbie. In silence. With a different kind of wonder.

  Robbie saw things. Things other people did not see. Things he could know nothing about It was very strange how Robbie could see things.

  As far as Margaret and David Lockwood could determine, Robbie began to see things about the time he first began to talk. It was, of course, possible that he had been seeing things before that. There was no way to tell for sure; he may have been simply unable to articulate the things he saw. They preferred—without actually discussing the matter at any great length—not to examine the question too closely. It made them uneasy. And Robbie was too perfect a child to think of in odd terms.