The Silver Ring

by Robert Swartwood

  Holding my breath, I peeked out the window. Then exhaling, I turned the lock and opened the door.

  Officer Titus stood on the other side. Wearing street clothes like he had this morning, he wasn’t the first cop I wanted to see, but he certainly wasn’t the last.

  “Hi, David,” he said, smiling brightly this time, “I was in the neighborhood and wanted to stop by again to—”

  I reached out and grabbed his arm and yanked him into the house. Slamming the door shut, I said, “Thank God you’re here.”

  Dad was standing in the kitchen doorway now, completely perplexed. “David, what the hell is going on?”

  I looked at him and Officer Titus and shook my head. For the first time the miles I’d run caught up with me and I leaned forward, gripping onto my knees, and took a deep breath.

  “You’re not going to believe me even when I tell you.”

  Dad said, “What is that supposed to mean?”

  The phone rang. Mom answered the extension in the kitchen. She said a few words, then called out my name.

  “It’s for you.”

  I looked at Dad and Officer Titus again, wanting to tell them everything but realizing just how difficult that was going to be. I hurried into the kitchen, took the phone from my wary-looking mother, and placed the handset to my ear.

  “Hello?”

  “David, this is Frank Mallory calling you back.”

  “Oh, it’s okay now.”

  “What’s okay now?”

  “Officer Titus is here.”

  There was a silence.

  Then: “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  The tone was one I never thought Frank Mallory could produce.

  “Look,” I said, turning and finding that everyone was in the kitchen now—my parents, Emma, Officer Titus—“I’m sorry to have bothered you or whatever, but I needed help and that’s why I called you. But now Officer Titus is here and he’ll take care of the situation.”

  “Kid”—Mallory’s voice completely toneless now—“I don’t know what your game is, but that’s impossible. James Titus was found dead this morning. He was murdered.”

  23

  Mallory disconnected the call—had he been on a landline, he no doubt would have slammed it—and I slowly glanced back up to see my parents and sister and Officer Titus.

  Only the man standing beside my father wasn’t Officer Titus.

  It said, “Uh-oh,” and then its eyes rolled back in its head, its skin began to change color, hair began to grow on its chin, and seconds later Cashman was grinning back at me. “Surprised?”

  Dad, having witnessed the transformation, said, “What the—”

  Cashman pulled out a gun, aimed it my dad’s head, and pulled the trigger.

  Both my mom and sister screamed at the same moment, their shrill cries almost drowning out the gunshot.

  As Dad fell to the ground, blood gushing everywhere, Cashman said to me, “That was for fucking up my truck.”

  He shifted his arm so the gun was now aimed at my mom, pulled the trigger again.

  “And that was just for fun.”

  The phone was still in my hand, now doing its monotonic beeping. It was on a cord but it was a long cord and I threw it right at Cashman’s head, shouting, “Emma, run!”

  The cord wasn’t long enough and Cashman should have known but he still flinched, moving the gun and firing but the aim was wide, taking out a cabinet door, and Emma managed to sprint past him.

  A vase of roses was on the kitchen table, something that hadn’t been there earlier this morning and which I was certain my dad had purchased out of guilt. I picked it up, chucked it at Cashman, just as he fired at me.

  In the confusion I don’t know if I felt the familiar pinprick or if the ring was now glowing; I just ran forward, right into him, knocking him down. Out into the hallway where Emma was trying to unlock the door but having trouble keeping her hands steady, tears falling down her face, her chest heaving.

  “Emma, hurry!”

  She immediately turned and sprinted up the stairs.

  I glanced back in time to see Cashman getting to his feet, trying to take aim, and I started climbing the stairs too.

  When she reached the top Emma kept running, went straight for her room, slammed the door shut. She even locked it and I had to bang on it, shout for her to let me in. Cashman fired below, three consecutive gunshots. I didn’t know what he hit. But I could hear him, his heavy feet on the steps hurrying toward us.

  “Emma, please!”

  Cashman, his feet pounding the stairs, almost to the top.

  “Open up!”

  I glanced back and saw the top of his bald head, then his eyes, then his grinning mouth, and then his gun as he raised it.

  Turning back, I banged on the door once more, and this time I became aware of the sudden pinprick and the next thing I knew I was taking a step forward through the door just as a bullet pierced the spot right where my head had been.

  24

  Emma was cowered in the corner of her room, strangling one of her stuffed animals against her chest. She was sobbing, and when she saw me she screamed.

  I hurried to her, lowering myself to my knees, taking her into an embrace.

  “It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay.”

  Out in the hallway Cashman shouted, then started banging on the door. With each bang Emma screamed again and again.

  “Shh, listen to me.” I held her tight, whispered into her ear. “We’re going to get out of this, okay? Everything will be fine.”

  Even now I don’t know why I lied to her like that. I guess it was just my job as an older brother to tell her what she needed to hear.

  Cashman, having come to the conclusion he wasn’t going to kick the door down, began shooting at the lock.

  Emma screamed and screamed.

  “Listen to me,” I said, holding her tight. “We’re trapped in here. We need to get out.”

  “No, no, no,” she whimpered, her faced pressed against my chest. “Mommy and daddy, they’re …”

  But she couldn’t say the word, as if by voicing the word it would mean they were actually dead.

  Cashman kept firing at the lock. This side of the door was starting to splinter.

  I shook my sister hard, growled into her face, “Shut up and listen to me, okay?”

  For a moment she went silent, staring back at me with wide eyes.

  “I’m going to open that door. And when I do, I want you to run. I want you to go to the front door, unlock it, and run as fast as you can. Go to the Sunoco station three blocks down. You know the one I mean?”

  She just stared back at me, unblinking. It might be easier to have her run to a neighbor’s, but there was no guarantee anybody would answer, and if they did, there was no guarantee they would answer in time.

  “Emma, you have to do this,” I said, shaking her again, and whatever it was keeping that needle skipping in place on the record of her mind finally caught and the music began to play again.

  She nodded.

  I quickly stood and turned and walked toward the door, the door that Cashman had stopped shooting and was now kicking again. The wood was splintered and was about to give any second.

  I strode up to it and gripped the broken knob, hoping it would still turn. It did and I opened the door.

  Cashman was in the process of lifting his foot for another kick. He paused, glaring at me, and right then I felt what I’d been expecting—that familiar pinprick—and rushed him, wrapping my arms around his body and shoving him into the wall.

  “Emma, go!”

  Behind me I could hear her feet pattering across the floor, past us, and down the steps.

  The silver ring was still glowing, making me invincible, but it wasn’t giving me superhuman strength. Cashman was able to push me off without trouble. He’d dropped his gun when I rushed him and now he grabbed it, rose to his feet, hurried toward the top of the stairs.

  “No!” I shouted, jum
ping to my feet, running, and as Cashman took aim at my sister sprinting down the steps, I threw my entire weight into this rush and lifted off the ground, flying through the air, closing my eyes.

  I hit him right as he pulled the trigger, his aim went wide again, and with my momentum I sent him stumbling toward the banister, the banister that wasn’t strong to begin with. It cracked, and he turned, began to raise his gun at me.

  I rushed him one last time.

  Giving it all I had now, my teeth clenched, I barreled into him.

  The banister gave and we both fell over. We were weightless for only a second, nothing more, and then we hit the ground hard, Cashman on his back, me on top. Only I didn’t feel any pain, not with the silver ring still glowing.

  I was only faintly aware that Emma had managed to unlock the front door, open it, and escape.

  Below me, Cashman groaned, mumbled a curse, and I stood up, prepared to run for the open door.

  I took only two steps when I stopped.

  My sister had appeared in the doorway again, her face now pale.

  “Emma?” I said, but it was needless. A moment later I saw the reason why.

  Nancy, back to appearing like the old woman she wasn’t, was right behind my sister, the barrel of a shiny silver revolver aimed at Emma’s head.

  Behind me, Cashman finally got to his feet. He had quit groaning and was now laughing.

  “About fucking time, Mom,” he said. “What took you so long?”

  25

  “Humans are stupid. Not pathetic, okay? Don’t go confusing my words like that. After everything your species has gone through and survived, I can’t quite call you pathetic. But stupid? You better believe it.”

  We were back in the warehouse district, parked in a black sedan. The river was in front of us; a large abandoned building was directly to our left.

  “See, David, I knew what you were going to do even before you did. Trying to get the ring off your finger was a waste of time. Yeah, I should have known it from the start, but still I wanted to try. But then I was just getting pissed, and bored, and decided to mix things up. After all, we had time to kill before the Shadow Man could make an appearance.”

  Cashman was in the driver’s seat, smoking a cigarette. I sat in the passenger seat. In the back was Nancy and Emma, Nancy holding her gun pointed straight at my sister’s head.

  “So we played a little trick on you, so what? Mom back there acted like she was scared, let you go, and immediately called me. I was waiting down the street the entire time. I’ll give you credit though. I really didn’t expect you to shoot at me like that. It took balls, and for that I salute you.”

  Glaring back at him, I said, “You didn’t have to kill my parents.”

  “No, you’re right. I didn’t have to. I wanted to, and so I did. Just like I killed that cop. All I had to do was touch him, just get a sample of his DNA, and I could instantly copy him. But, well, the guy was an asshole, you know?”

  “I don’t understand why you’re doing this anyway. I thought you said as long as I’m wearing this ring I’m invincible.”

  “Practically invincible,” Cashman said, taking one last drag of his cigarette and stamping it out in the ashtray. “The keyword there is practically. Yeah, nothing can hurt you as long as you’re wearing the ring. Why else do you think we brought your little sister along?”

  In the backseat, Emma, who had managed to stay quiet this entire time, whimpered.

  Cashman grinned at me. “See, your species is stupid.”

  “Where do you come from anyway? What planet?”

  Both he and Nancy seemed to find this question quite amusing.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Nothing,” Cashman said, lighting another cigarette. “It’s just a very human question for you to ask. See, my species, those things chasing you earlier, the Shadow Man, and a thousand other beings, we don’t come from other planets. We just … we come from other planes of existence.”

  “You mean like dimensions?”

  Cashman shrugged. “If you prefer that word instead, sure.”

  “And what’s so special about this ring?” I don’t know why, but right then I thought as long as I kept him talking, kept him from hurting Emma, we would be okay. “Why is this Shadow Man coming for it?”

  Cashman took a long drag of his cigarette, staring out his window. The surface of the river rippled, the lights reflected off it making it look like diamonds.

  “Well?” I prompted.

  “In every plane of existence—every dimension, as you like to say—there are different worlds. One big infinite universe, but a million different worlds. And that silver ring right there on your finger, it’s the one constant between them all.”

  I glanced down at the ring, the thing which hadn’t glowed since I was back in the house.

  “What are you saying—that it’s the most powerful thing in the universe?”

  Cashman laughed again, shaking his head. “No, David, that’s where your human mentality stops you. The silver ring isn’t the most powerful thing in the universe. It is the universe.”

  26

  “The Shadow Man isn’t his real name, you know. Fact is, I don’t even know his real name. In his world, with his language … well, it’s just easier to call him the Shadow Man. And let me tell you, he is one mean motherfucker. I’d put him right up there with Genghis Khan or Joseph Stalin. This guy, he pretty much took over his world. Those who refused to worship him, he killed. The ones who agreed to worship him are now his slaves.”

  Cashman lit himself another cigarette, took a drag, puffed out three small smoke rings.

  “So why are you helping him then?” I asked.

  “Me and Mom, we’re kind of … outcasts from our world. The Shadow Man promised us if we delivered the silver ring we could go back. Not only that, we’d be wealthy and powerful. Like royalty.”

  “You don’t think he’s going to double cross you? Like use the silver ring to destroy your world?”

  Cashman grinned as he kept staring out at the rippling water. “Kid, the Shadow Man wants to only destroy one world, and it’s this one.”

  “Why?”

  “Beats me. But the truth is nobody likes you humans. You’re all too arrogant. Self-centered. Nobody here wants to believe in the existence of other life in the universe because none of you want to share, even though it’s not like you’ll ever be able to visit other galaxies. Selfish bastards, that’s what humans are. You ask me, the Shadow Man would be doing the rest of the universe a favor.”

  I glanced back at Emma, my little sister sitting with her head down, her hands in her lap. Nancy kept the gun trained on her head, the barrel steady.

  “Let my sister go,” I whispered to Cashman.

  He shook his head. “No can do, kid.”

  “She doesn’t have to be here.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong.”

  “I can’t even take this stupid ring off even if I wanted to. So how the hell is the Shadow Man going to get his hands on it?”

  Right then the streetlamp flickered. It was just small thing, nothing more than an unsteady flash, and Cashman clapped his hands.

  “Showtime,” he said, stamping the cigarette out in the ashtray.

  “What are you talking about?”

  He jerked his head toward the warehouse. “The Shadow Man’s here.”

  “But … how do you know? The only thing that happened was the light flickered.”

  “That’s right. How else do you think we travel between the planes of existence? We don’t use flying saucers. All we do is just burst through the fabric of your reality, and by doing so it creates an electrical shortage. Just a flicker, like you said, so nobody ever really thinks twice about it.”

  He took a deep breath, smiled, and opened his door.

  “Shall we?”

  27

  There was an electrical box just inside the door. Cashman had to flip the switch back and forth several times b
efore something caught and the lights in the ceiling turned on.

  The warehouse was huge. At least three stories tall, it stretched to about the size of half a football field. It was clear it would take awhile for the lights in the ceiling to come on fully.

  Unfortunately, Cashman didn’t want to waste anymore time.

  He knew better than to bother with a gun. He just led me straight toward the center of the warehouse. Emma and Nancy trailed us, Nancy keeping her gun pressed against Emma’s head.

  We had almost reached the midway point when a soft, low voice echoed in the darkness around us.

  “Stop …”

  We stopped.

  “You have done well, Cashman …”

  “Well,” Cashman said loudly, “I do what I can.”

  “The boy has the silver ring, yes?… Let me see it …”

  The voice sounded like it was coming from every direction.

  Cashman nudged me.

  I raised my left hand up high.

  “Yes …” the voice said, excited now. “Very, very good …”

  Behind me, Emma began sobbing.

  I wanted to turn back to her, try to say something comforting, but right then the Shadow Man showed himself.

  He sort of materialized in front of us. Pieces of darkness pulled from the edges of the warehouse, swirling about, until standing only a few feet away was the distinct shape of a man.

  Cashman, despite his assurance the Shadow Man would not double cross him, slowly backed away.

  I stayed motionless, staring back at this thing that began to form features: eyes, a nose, a mouth.

  The mouth moved when it spoke.

  “Give me the ring …”

  “I can’t.”

  The black eyes seemed to darken for an instant.

  “Do not play games with me, boy … Give me the ring …”

  I held my hand up again, pulled at the ring that wouldn’t budge. “See, it won’t work,” I said, then I lowered all my fingers except the middle.