Shadow People

by James Swain

  “Follow me.”

  Garrison hurried up the marble stairs with Peter and Liza on his heels. Reaching the top, the FBI agent went down a hallway only to abruptly halt. Peter and Liza nearly crashed into him.

  “What the hell,” he said.

  Twenty feet away, his team stood with the frozen shadow person. The team also appeared frozen, with mouths agape and arms locked at their sides, and looked like empty shells.

  “Nan, Fred, Johnny,” Garrison called to them.

  The team did not respond.

  Garrison shoved his hand into his jacket. He was going for his sidearm. Why did cops think that shooting something you didn’t understand was the best alternative?

  “Put your gun away,” Peter said. “You’ll only make it angry.”

  “Is that so?” Garrison said.

  “Let me deal with this. I’ve had experience with these things.”

  “Peter beat one up at the theater yesterday,” Liza said. “He can hurt them.”

  “Yeah? Well, you have my permission to hurt this one, too.”

  Peter started down the hall. Garrison hadn’t heard a word Peter had said, and started to follow him. “Stay back,” Peter said.

  “I don’t take orders from you. My people are in danger.”

  “You’re in a foreign land. Act like a tourist. Okay?”

  “Don’t talk to me like that.”

  “I don’t want to call your wife later, and tell her you’re dead. Stay put.”

  “You’ve got a lot of nerve.”

  “You asked me here, didn’t you?”

  Garrison didn’t have a good answer for that.

  Peter turned to Liza. “Lesson number two: The FBI is never wrong.”

  “Very funny,” Garrison snorted.

  Liza smiled with her eyes. Peter realized how much he liked having her with him. It gave him a sense of confidence that he had not experienced before. He went down the hall toward the shadow person and cluster of FBI agents. This time, Garrison did not follow him.

  * * *

  He drew close to the gathering. The shadow person was smaller than its predecessors, and stood about five feet tall. Small in stature, it could not have weighed much when it was alive. The bright overhead lights had captured it in an awkward pose, and it hovered in fear against the wall. There was nothing threatening about its presence at all.

  He studied Garrison’s team. To his relief, their spirits were still inside Grand Central. Their frozen expressions and rigid bodies were the product of something else.

  Shock.

  Shock was not uncommon when dealing with the supernatural. Seeing things that did not compute could cause a mental meltdown. Even Peter dealt with it sometimes. Garrison’s team needed to be brought back to earth. He started with Nan Perry, whom he knew the best.

  “Did anyone ever tell you that you’d make a really good mime?” Peter asked.

  Perry continued to stare straight ahead. “It’s alive,” she whispered.

  “Excuse me?”

  “This thing’s alive.”

  “No, it’s not. It’s deader than dead.”

  “Take a look.”

  He followed her gaze. There was a spot on the shadow person’s neck no larger than a coin. Its color was dark blue. It looked like the corner of a lapel to a shirt.

  “What is that?”

  “It’s a piece of a blouse,” Perry said. “There’s more. Look at its face.”

  Peter got closer to the dark spirit and stared at where its face should have been. His heart leapt into his throat. A woman’s eye stared back at him. It was a murky brown and filled with everlasting dread. Was this the last facial expression the shadow person had experienced before passing into the great beyond? Something told him that it was. He was looking death in the face, and it shook him to the core.

  “That’s creepy,” he said under his breath.

  There was more. The tip of an ear was also showing. And a finger. The middle finger, to be exact. A black substance was oozing out of it. He bent over to get a better look. The fingernail was torn, the flesh bleeding. Evil spirits were bad people who went to hell when they died. The Devil was a cruel host, and relegated his subjects to suffering and indignation. This shadow person was clearly being punished for past sins.

  Then Peter noticed something else. The shadow person’s wristwatch was bleeding through the darkness. An art deco Cartier. Whoever she was, she’d had good taste.

  “Do you know what’s going on?” Perry asked.

  “Well, for starters, it isn’t alive,” Peter said. “What you’re seeing are remnant memories and emotions that stayed behind. Think of them as leftovers.”

  “Of a person.”

  “That’s right. We shed a lot when we die.”

  “It’s not a zombie, then.”

  “Nope. It won’t eat you.”

  Perry breathed a sigh of relief, and visibly relaxed. So did the other agents. The threat had passed. Or so everyone thought.

  “Let’s move this thing,” Perry said.

  “Don’t touch it,” Peter warned.

  Perry stuck out her hand and made contact with the shadow person. Humans and spirits were not meant to physically interact, and many bad things could have happened at that moment. Perry’s hand could have caught fire and been burned to a crisp, or it could have melted, with the fingers falling off like icicles. Her hand could have also disappeared, never to be seen again. This was what happened to people who touched things they weren’t supposed to.

  But Perry got lucky. Nothing happened to her hand. Instead, she was given an invisible shove, and sent flying down the hall. Now unfrozen, the shadow person raced up the wall, and disappeared inside an ornate light fixture. Moments later, the hallway was thrown into darkness.

  “It’s going to get away,” Peter called out. “Call someone, and tell them to turn the light back on.”

  “Are you all right, Peter?” Liza called out.

  “I’m fine. We’re all fine.”

  Garrison got on his cell phone and began barking out orders. Peter could feel the shadow person’s unearthly presence lurking overhead. At any moment, it could leap down, and kidnap Perry or the other FBI agents in the hall. He whispered to Perry and the others, and they formed a tight circle around him. “It won’t attack you if you’re standing close to me,” he said.

  “Attack us how?” one of the agents asked.

  “You don’t want to know.”

  The hallway light flickered to life. The shadow person had done something to the bulb, and it burned only half as brightly as before. Peter looked straight up. So did the others. Like a bunch of tourists visiting the city for the first time, he thought. It was almost funny.

  What they saw was not meant for any tourist’s eyes. The shadow person was stuck to the ceiling like a giant spider, and appeared to be gazing down at them, as if sizing up its next meal. Peter stuck his hand down into his shirt and pulled out the five-pointed star. He held the star so it was pointing directly at the evil spirit that seemed intent on harming them.

  “Leave us alone,” he said.

  The shadow person pulled back. Peter held the star up higher and raised his voice. “Go back to where you came from. Leave us alone.”

  “I think it’s leaving,” Perry said under her breath. “Way to go.”

  It was a little-known fact that human beings were capable of chasing away ghosts and evil spirits. Bathing them in bright light was one way to do it. Another was to hold up a mirror and expose them to their own reflection. But the best way was with a talisman. All of these methods had been used by ghost hunters to rid dwellings of evil spirits for hundreds of years.

  The five-pointed star was as powerful a talisman as you will find. The shadow person slid down the wall and slithered across the floor, passing so close to Peter’s feet that he could have touched it with his shoe, had he wanted to.

  “Can you brighten the lights?” Peter called to Garrison.

  “We�
��re trying to, but it’s not working,” Garrison called back.

  The shadow person continued down the hall toward where Garrison and Liza stood at the top of the stairway leading to the main floor, its movements like a giant stingray gliding across the ocean floor. Liza stood perfectly motionless, as did Garrison. The shadow person slipped past them and disappeared down the stairs.

  The eye was strange. It often saw only what it wanted to see. For the first time, Peter noticed a third person in the picture. A woman in her late twenties, with a shock of blond hair, painted eyebrows, dressed in black. She stood behind Liza and Garrison, using their bodies as a shield. In her hands was an iPhone that she was using to record what was taking place.

  Was she a reporter? Or just some person who liked to film stuff and post it on YouTube? Whoever she was, she was a problem, and Peter needed to talk with her.

  “Excuse me, miss? Can I speak with you for a second?”

  She lowered the camera. She wore a bemused expression, like a cat that’s just eaten a canary. Definitely trouble. She ran down the marble stairs without responding.

  “Hey, hold on,” Peter called out.

  He raced down the stairs in pursuit. The young woman had reached the main floor and was running hard, her footsteps pounding the marble.

  “I said stop!” Peter shouted.

  At the exit, she paused to glance over her shoulder. Their eyes met, and Peter read her thoughts. Her name was Maddison O’Brien Jones, MJ to her friends, and she was a freelance journalist and a blogger. She was working on a piece that would expose Peter’s psychic powers that she planned to sell to one of the New York tabloids. If they didn’t bite, she’d post the story on her Web site, of which she had several thousand followers. The video was the final piece of her story, and would prove that Peter did indeed communicate with the spirit world.

  MJ ran outside. Peter was five seconds behind. The sidewalks were mobbed and she was nowhere to be seen. A sinking feeling came over him. His psychic powers were about to be revealed, and his world turned upside down. He’d never be able to lead a normal life again.

  He had to find MJ, and talk her out of this. He had an idea, and looked to the sky.

  “Call me,” he said to the clouds.

  30

  His cell phone vibrated. It was Holly, calling on the landline from her apartment. He pressed the icon on the screen that let him answer the call.

  “Need some help?” the young witch asked.

  Liza burst through the exit and ran toward him. While Peter was willing to share things with Liza, there were some things about his life that he wasn’t yet ready to talk about; his strained relationship with Holly was one of them. “I’m going to have to call you back,” he said.

  “I see lovely Liza has joined you,” Holly said. “Why don’t I start texting?”

  He ended the call. Liza grabbed his arm, looking panicked. “Who was that blonde, and why was she filming you inside Grand Central?”

  “Her name is MJ, and she’s a blogger writing an exposé on my psychic abilities. She was shooting a video of me with the shadow person, which she plans to put on her Web site.”

  “Oh, my God, Peter, what are you going to do?”

  “Move to the country and grow vegetables.”

  “You have to stop her.”

  Peter wasn’t quite sure how to accomplish that. It was a free country, and MJ could publish anything on her blog she wanted about him. There were many amazing things that he could do with his psychic powers, but making people do his bidding was not one of them. His cell phone vibrated and an icon appeared on the screen indicating that he had a text message.

  “Let me see who this is,” he said.

  It was Holly. No one was better at finding people than a witch. She’d tracked MJ to the bar of a trendy Mexican joint called Zengo on Third Avenue a few blocks away. MJ had gotten settled into a booth and was reading the bar’s long list of exotic tequilas available for sampling. She’s going to have a victory drink on me, Peter thought.

  “Anything important?” Liza asked.

  “Just Snoop checking in. I need to think this through. Let’s go get something to eat.”

  “You’re hungry?”

  “Starving.”

  Liza acted puzzled. Food was the last thing on her mind right now. Peter took her arm and headed down the sidewalk. Reaching the corner of 42nd Street, he took a left, and went east.

  “You’re acting weird, Peter,” Liza said.

  He pretended not to hear her. They came to Third Avenue and walked south to Zengo’s on the west side of the street. He’d read about the restaurant but never eaten there. One of the partners was the famous opera singer Placido Domingo, which seemed unusual, considering the menu was Mexican.

  They went inside, and Peter canvassed the restaurant. He did not spot MJ sitting at any of the booths or up at the bar. Had Holly made a mistake?

  He approached the hostess stand. A pair of female eyes looked up from a seating chart filled with Xs and Os. “Table for two?” the hostess asked.

  “Do you have a bar?” Peter asked.

  “La Biblioteca is our house bar, and is on the lower level.”

  “Does it serve tequila?”

  “It’s their specialty. It has over four hundred brands on the menu.”

  “Sounds like our kind of place. Thanks for the help.”

  “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” Liza asked as they walked away. “And you hate tequila. It makes you puke.”

  “Only when I eat the worm in the bottom of the bottle,” Peter said.

  Liza reluctantly followed him down the winding stairway to the bar. It was a cavernous space filled with polished dark wood, the walls lined with display cabinets featuring expensive agave drinks. Peter searched for MJ among the booths. She was in the back of the room, working on a drink while reading a menu. Liza tugged on his sleeve.

  “Tell me what’s going on,” she demanded.

  “Our snooping reporter friend is here,” he said.

  “Where?”

  “In the back corner in a booth. She’s sitting by herself, getting ready to order.”

  Liza had a look. “You’re right—she’s over there. How did you find her?”

  Peter could not tell Liza that this was Holly’s doing while their relationship was having so many problems. So he told a lie instead. He hoped it was the last one he told her.

  “My psychic powers sometimes let me do things that I normally could never do. Like find people who are running away from me,” he explained. “MJ left a psychic trail, and I just followed it. I’d explain it to you, but I don’t understand it myself.”

  “Wow. That’s some power to have.”

  “Well, let’s just say that I’m probably never going to lose my car keys. Now comes the hard part. We need to convince MJ that I’m not really a psychic.”

  “How are we going to do that?”

  “Easy. Just follow my lead.”

  * * *

  The snooping blogger did not look up from her menu as they approached. She’d already polished off her drink and was ready for another. In his best waiter voice, Peter said, “May I get you a refill?”

  “Please,” she said. “Wait a minute—you’re not my waiter.”

  “No, I’m not. This is my girlfriend, Liza. May we join you?”

  Peter and Liza sat down, effectively blocking MJ into the booth. Her eyes darted back and forth liked a caged animal’s. In a trembling voice she said, “How did you find me so fast?”

  Peter’s mind had been racing since they’d entered the restaurant. He needed to tell MJ a yarn, and it needed to be convincing enough for her to buy on the spot. That was going to take some doing, and he was glad he had Liza alongside to back up his fabricated story.

  “One of my assistants was standing outside Grand Central when you ran out,” he explained. “He decided to follow you, and told me you were here.”

  “Your assistant?” MJ asked suspicious
ly. “You don’t work Mondays.”

  MJ had done her homework, and he wondered how much more she knew. Holly was scrying on him and MJ was spying on him. He wasn’t sure which was worse, and he said, “You’re right. My theater is dark on Mondays, which is when I rehearse new material. I’ve been working on an hour-long special for HBO that features illusions that I perform around New York. I was inside Grand Central with my team practicing a new illusion when you caught us in the act.”

  “That black thing I saw was a trick?” MJ said. “Gimme me a break. That thing was real. You’re into dark magic, and have these amazing powers. Admit it.”

  Peter gently kicked Liza beneath the table, and she picked up without missing a beat.

  “What you saw inside Grand Central was a hologram,” Liza said in a matter-of-fact tone. “It’s a brand-new illusion in Peter’s show, and he was trying to see if it would work outside the theater. Unfortunately, there are still some kinks to be worked out.”

  MJ leaned across the table to stare at Liza. “Are you into dark magic, too?”

  “Not at all,” Liza said with a frozen smile.

  “Then why are you lying for him?”

  “What you saw is a trick,” Liza said, not backing down. “If you publish a story that says Peter has some kind of weird powers you’re going to look like a fool.”

  “Is that so.”

  MJ’s face flushed. Peter tried to read her mind but found her thoughts blocked off. The young blogger dug an iPhone from her purse and punched a command into it. She showed them the screen. “I’ve been collecting videos of you. I took this one at your theater on Saturday when that black thing jumped out of the Dollhouse trick. Take a look.”

  On the small screen appeared a video of Peter striking the shadow person during Saturday’s matinee. How had MJ gotten into the theater without Snoop spotting her?

  “Here’s another one of you doing real mind reading,” MJ said.

  On the screen appeared another video taken inside the theater of Peter reading the mind of a woman from the audience. It was followed by an interview of the woman outside the theater on the sidewalk. The woman told the camera how Peter had known things about her past that not a single living person knew, and how could he not be a psychic?