Shadows Among Us

by Ellery A Kane

  Across the street, the sedan’s passenger door opened, and Dakota waited. She wondered if she’d ever held her breath that long. Maybe she’d set a new record right here on the sidewalk.

  Finally, a boy stepped from inside and slung a backpack over one shoulder. He adjusted his glasses and kicked the door shut with his sneaker. Dakota recognized him from freshman algebra.

  “I’ll be done by three, Mom,” he called out, halfway down the sidewalk.

  The sedan glided away, like a black swan, parting the smoke her grandfather had left behind.

  ****

  Dakota listened to the rhythmic huff of Gus’s panting as she flipped the pages of her library book, pretending to read. Her mom hadn’t said much on the drive home, just hummed along to the radio and sipped her anti-aging wheatgrass smoothie—the one all the Napa Prep moms drank, Hannah’s included, after a famous TV doctor endorsed it on his morning show—its unnatural green seeping up the straw and turning Dakota’s stomach. The adult version of peer pressure, Dakota thought sadly. Instead of pink hair and booze and sex, Mom had health food and two-thousand-dollar handbags. Although the Louis—or just Louie—was elegant, she had to admit.

  “Hey, mom?” she began, without knowing exactly what she’d say next.

  Her mother glanced at her, eyebrows slightly raised. Like she’d only just remembered Dakota was there. Her space face, Dakota called it, and she’d seen it a lot lately.

  “What did you say was wrong with grandpa? Like his official diagnosis?”

  Dakota hoped she sounded casual. Not the way she felt, like a frayed wire, exposed and sparking. Grandpa Krandel’s darting eyes still visible when she closed her own. Her mother answered with a heavy sigh, telling Dakota she suspected nothing out of the ordinary. Only the typical annoying teenager needling her mom’s soft spots whenever she could.

  “This again? What’s going on?”

  Dakota turned the cover of her book toward her mother, glad she’d thought to pick it.

  “The Bell Jar? That’s the book you chose from the reading list? Do you know what it’s about?”

  Dakota nodded gravely. “Mental illness.”

  Her mother sighed again. “No one really knows exactly what’s wrong with your grandfather because he usually refuses treatment. But he’s managed to rack up a few diagnoses over the years. PTSD. Schizophrenia. Schizotypal Personality Disorder. And Schizoaffective Disorder. That’s the most likely one.”

  “Schizo . . . schizo-what?”

  That part—the signs and symptoms and prognosis—rolled off her mother’s tongue like a second language. Thanks to Dakota’s father, she had a copy of every version of the DSM ever printed. So romantic, her mother had teased, but Dakota knew she secretly cherished her collection.

  “It means he has some of the symptoms of schizophrenia. Like paranoia. Sometimes he gets so paranoid, he even hears voices. And he also has some of the symptoms of depression. His alcohol binges didn’t help with that. When I was growing up, he’d feel so sad that he had trouble doing normal dad things.”

  “That sounds really bad.”

  “It is.” Two words heavy as millstones. Dakota wished her mom hadn’t agreed so easily.

  “So he’s a lot like the patients you work with?”

  “In some ways, yes.” Dakota thought of the stories her mom had told her. The senior at Sycamore Community College who’d stabbed his own sister with a screwdriver because he thought she was the devil. The lonely mechanic who’d shot up a restaurant, believing they’d poisoned him. The voices and the visions. The illusions that seemed so real that there was no convincing otherwise.

  “Did Grandpa ever hurt you?” she asked.

  Her mother’s eyes welled as she sucked up another gulp of wheatgrass. Gus stuck his head between them and snuffed at her mother’s shoulder. The profound silence had a voice of its own. Yes, it whispered. Yes.

  Chapter

  Seventeen

  (Saturday, July 30, 2016)

  Dakota’s wet feet smacked against the locker room tile as she ran. She skidded to a stop, nearly slipping, when the Hot Tub Harpies—that’s what she called them, but not to their faces, of course—glared at her from their perch. The mosaiced edge of the whirlpool where they parked themselves, chitchatting, until their thick legs reddened and their feet wrinkled, waterlogged.

  Screw you, Harpies. She had to hurry. Because Boyd would be outside the Y to pick her up in ten minutes. Her stomach flip-flopped at the idea of it. The promise it held. That something might actually go right this summer. That Boyd Blackburn would be the perfect combination of Zac Efron, Steve Carrell, and Channing Tatum, and he’d scoop her up and away from the drain she’d been circling since prom night.

  Dakota wrapped herself in a towel and twisted her body like a pretzel, peeling off her suit beneath it, careful to keep herself covered. Unlike the Harpies who flaunted their saggy breasts like badges of honor. She grabbed a change of clothes from her duffel bag and darted for the stalls. Nine minutes and counting.

  She cursed herself for not coming in sooner, but she’d wanted one more shot at her personal best. So she’d floated for a while in the shallow end, letting the water swaddle her like a baby. Relaxation of the muscles, the mind, and the breath. Always the first step. Then, the final three breaths, a check of the pace clock, and the descent to the bottom. When she’d broken the surface, she already knew. Eighty seconds.

  Afterward, she swam a few lengths of the pool, gliding and gloating. But at least she wouldn’t have to lie later when her mom asked if she’d done her laps. Even if it wasn’t the thirty she’d promised her coach. Still, her not-so-stalwart commitment to swim would mean less than nothing to her mother if she knew where Dakota was headed. And who she was headed there with.

  As Dakota rushed around the corner, Mrs. Troupe, head of the Harpies, cleared her throat with a dramatic rattle, her eyes firmly locked on the posted NO RUNNING sign.

  Dakota shrugged at her without slowing down, her insides fizzing. Ready to explode like a shook-up soda. She’d been bubbling like this since Tuesday, when she’d written Boyd back. Correction. When she’d flirted back. Even her father had noticed. You’re in a good mood, he’d told her just yesterday, before leaving for the hospital where he’d no doubt be sneaking off to the on-call room with her best friend’s mother while some sick kid lay dying down the hall. But she’d nodded at him, revealing nothing.

  Dear Chewie,

  Thanks for reassuring me you’re not a serial killer. You really know how to make a girl feel comfortable. But what about a one-off? That’s what my mom calls the guys with a single victim. I should probably explain she’s a shrink who works with people like that. Not just some weirdo who likes to talk about murderers.

  As for your question, I’m in. But I don’t drive. Can you pick me up at the Napa Valley Swim Club downtown? And bring me back after? Saturday at 3:30 p.m. I’ll be wearing your namesake.

  Birdie

  P.S. I’m not a serial killer either. LOL.

  Dakota spared ten seconds to rub off the steam for a final check in the mirror. Her hair was still damp at the crown. She’d only had time for a partial blow dry. And her cheeks flushed in the humid locker room. She didn’t have Hannah’s bone structure or her ample chest or the patience to paint the flawless cat eye. But the pink hair lent an air of mystery. A bit of an edge she’d never had before. Not to mention the oversized T-shirt—her father’s—she’d knotted at the back, exposing a thin line of skin above her jean shorts. The perfect touch. Sexy, even. As sexy as a giant Chewbacca face could be.

  She burst through the double doors, smiling, and stood out front, surveying the parking lot. The after-work crowd, loosened ties and smudged mascara, flocked by her and inside, dead-eyed. Like hypnotized lemmings, incapable of breaking free. None of them seemed like a Zac-Steve-Channing. Not even close. She drifted towa
rd the benches where she sat and waited, the sun drying her hair.

  With each passing car, every pair of trousered legs, her heart skipped, her breath stopped. She distracted herself with her phone—Hannah’s photo of her, up to ten thousand likes now. Though she knew better, she scrolled through the comments anyway, the words like razors slicing her skin. A million little cuts.

  Slut.

  Hot bod. I’d do her.

  Damn. Nice rack.

  Photoshop fail.

  Probably a hag IRL.

  IRL. In real life. Whatever that was. Lately, she felt like her real life had been hijacked. A runaway train on a collision course. An airplane aimed at the side of a high-rise. A caged bird, songless and trapped behind bars of iron. It all ended the same. With a big freakin’ boom.

  She hit the tiny X on the side of the screen escaping as fast as she could, like the jump from a burning building, and pretended it all disappeared. Then she texted Hannah again.

  Please take it down. The ’rents are gonna freak if they see it.

  Time dragged, the seconds limping along behind her like an old dog. She thought of the hound in the photo and her grandfather. Their brief meeting seemed like a dream now, looking back. Like something she’d seen in a movie. Maybe one of the far-fetched spy thrillers Hannah had dragged her to in the spring before prom. When she’d happily allowed Hannah and Eric to bookend her and Tyler. When she’d shared his popcorn, stupidly grinning when his fingers brushed her own. And had jumped, clutching his arm, when the grizzled hero got blown up for the third time.

  But that was before everything. Or rather, before the thing. The incident.

  And still, somehow, the clock on her phone read only 3:35.

  “Birdie?”

  A VW bug idled in her periphery. She stared at her shoes, afraid to look up. Hope surged through her, light-saber electric.

  “I like your shirt,” he said. “Wookiee of the Year. Classic.”

  She laughed then. He did too. A squirmy sort of laugh that turned her stomach. Because the laugh, the voice, belonged to a man, not a boy. His face, when she finally looked at it, a man’s too. With shadowy stubble like her father. A crooked, slightly yellowed smile. Sweat at his hairline. A red flush on his neck. She took it all in, horrified, but she smiled back, small and polite.

  “Boyd?” she asked, still hoping he’d say no. That Zac-Steve-Channing would swoop in and rescue her. Not that she needed rescuing. Boyd seemed harmless.

  Like Ted Bundy, her mother’s voice prodded.

  A middle-aged dork, she argued back.

  Oblivious, Boyd nodded and extended a hand across the passenger seat toward the open window. She took a step forward and reached inside, nearly jerking away when she saw the thick scar there, snaking out from beneath his long sleeve. His palm felt slightly moist against her own, and she held it longer than she wanted, to prove to him she wasn’t rude. To prove to her mother she wasn’t afraid.

  “It’s nice to finally meet you,” he said. “Weird but nice.”

  “Same.”

  Dakota stood there, frozen, with the heat of the day rising from the asphalt, the car door hot to the touch.

  A VW bug.

  Boyd’s eyes flitted across her face to her midriff. It felt the exact opposite of how she’d thought it would.

  The unassuming car of a serial killer.

  Her mom was in her head again, and she banished her the only way she knew how. With action.

  She clasped the handle beneath her fingers and tugged it toward her. The door opened with a satisfying pop.

  “Do I know you?” Boyd said as she ducked her head, pink hair falling like a curtain around her face. “I mean, in real life.”

  IRL. The universe mocked her. Poked her in the ribs, stuck out its tongue.

  She slid onto the seat, lifting her bare thighs above the hot surface, and turned to him. “Uh . . . I don’t think so.”

  “It’s Dakota, right? Your real name? You go to school with my sister, Amanda. Mandy Phillips. Actually, she’s my half sister, but—”

  “Do you have AC in this thing?” She needed him to stop talking. Needed to think. That old dog had suddenly picked up speed—the seconds buzzing by in a blur, too fast—and she couldn’t catch him.

  Amanda Phillips had sat three desks behind her in AP English class. Tyler and Eric made fun of her sometimes, mooing as she hurried down the hall, head down. Admittedly, Dakota had laughed. Once, she’d even mooed along, giggling with Hannah.

  “Sorry. It went out a year ago. And I don’t have the cash to get it fixed. It’s vintage.”

  “It’s okay,” she said, her shirt already sticking to the skin between her shoulder blades. “I’ll just leave the window down. Does the door handle work at least?”

  She was only half-joking, testing it, before pulling it to her, the sound sharp and final.

  “You know Ted Bundy drove a Beetle, right?”

  The flush on Boyd’s neck crept higher. He tucked his scarred hand inside his sleeve and rested it on his lap, piloting the wheel with his left.

  Dakota watched as the library grew smaller and smaller in the side mirror. But not as small as she felt. Whatever happened now, death by heatstroke or Star Wars–obsessed serial killer, she deserved it.

  ****

  Fear dried Dakota’s mouth, and it took effort to swallow. She squeezed her eyes shut—she couldn’t look—and held out her hands. It felt warmer than she’d expected, and she flinched. Its pure muscle writhed beneath her grip.

  “Careful,” Boyd said. “Don’t drop her. Sensitive she is.”

  Dakota opened her eyes, laughing at his silly joke with pure relief. Because she was holding a snake—a ball python, she’d been told—in a dark basement with an odd stranger, and she wasn’t dead yet. She’d even made it past Boyd’s mother, who’d barely pried her eyes from the television after he’d mumbled something to her about lending a Star Wars costume to a friend from ITT Tech. Dakota doubted she looked old enough for college, but Boyd’s mom waved them on without a second look. As if he could’ve told her anything. Even the truth. Hunting serial killers with your underage friend? That’s nice, dear.

  “You know Yoda is a boy’s name, right?”

  “Not my Yoda. Look at her eyes. The same green-gold as the Jedi Master himself. And she’s both wise and powerful.”

  Dakota pretended to examine the small head protruding from the snake-ball in her hands. Green-gold eyes. She’d take Boyd’s word for it.

  “The Force is strong with this one,” Dakota teased as Boyd nodded, serious as a heart attack.

  He took Yoda from her hands, depositing her in a glass terrarium, where she stayed tightly balled. “Yoda likes you,” he said, stroking the snake’s scales with his finger. “She trusts you.”

  Dakota stayed quiet. Because she most definitely did not like Yoda. Or Boyd’s Overbridge that smelled of feet and old pizza and required her to descend a set of stairs not unlike those which led to the Montgomerys’ basement.

  “Now, I’d like you to meet Leia.”

  “I think I already have.” She grinned, pointing up at the Princess Leia poster taped above his bed.

  Boyd motioned her over to the computer at his desk, trying to hide his blush. He pressed a few keys, bringing the screen to life. She watched over his shoulder as an animated Princess Leia appeared with her blaster raised and ready to fire.

  “So Leia is a PC?”

  “Not exactly. Leia is an artificial intelligence engine I programmed to hunt Shadow Man. Do you want to give it a spin?”

  Dakota nodded, dragging a folding chair from the cluttered corner of the basement and parking it next to Boyd’s recliner.

  “How does it work?” she asked.

  “Well, I taught it how to think like a detective. A really smart detective. I already inputte
d all the information we have about each of Shadow Man’s sixteen known victims. Age. Race. Hair color. Parents’ jobs. Location of the body and in what condition it was found. Everything. Then Leia digests it all and makes sense of it. Tells me the commonalities. I tested her for the first time last weekend.”

  “And?” Dakota leaned forward, barely able to contain her excitement. “How long have you been working on this?”

  “Two years maybe. Since I joined Shadow Snoops. I know I’m pathetic.”

  “Are you kidding? This is so cool. It’s like that supercomputer they used to decipher the Zodiac’s messages, right?”

  With a modest grin, Boyd shrugged. “That’s the idea anyway. I’ve been dying to show you. Go ahead. Hover on the blaster.”

  She moved the cursor across the screen and a button appeared with another line she recognized: I’ve got a bad feeling about this.

  “Do you dream in Star Wars quotes too?”

  “Wookiees don’t dream,” he deadpanned.

  “I suppose I should click the button then.”

  “Only if you want to unmask Shadow Man. With Leia’s help, of course.”

  Dakota’s finger hovered over the mouse. She wanted to enjoy this feeling a little longer. The anticipation of something good for a change.

  “I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” she said, exaggerating each word. As if the fate of the galaxy was at stake.

  ****

  Boyd’s VW sure could move. It zipped along the highway like a little yellow butterfly. But Dakota was still worried they’d be late. That her mom would be waiting.

  She’d see her with Boyd.

  And she’d completely lose her mind. Total freak-out. Even worse than when she’d gone to the lake with Tyler. Or dyed her hair pink.

  Dakota fidgeted with the printed page on her lap. Formulated in Leia’s brain and spit out from Boyd’s printer, it contained an analysis of two hundred variables, the most common rank ordered by percentage match among victims. She ran her finger down the column to the one that interested her most: Miscellaneous. They’d both agreed the dog-walking meant something. But what?