Beyond the Pale: A fantasy anthology (9 page)

A familiar voice—Jordan’s voice,
though he couldn’t see her from where he was standing—shouted, “Run,
Alek! Run for your life!”

Alek screamed and bolted up the hill.
Behind him, he could hear the townspeople scrambling after him, but he couldn’t
look back. He didn’t want to see what was coming for him, couldn’t bear to see
what had happened to his friends, his neighbors. He ran, digging his sneakers
into the soft earth, and at last, he reached the crest of the enormous hill. He
hurried over its peak to the other side.

He was there! He was free!

But as he leaned forward on his knees to
catch his breath, his breath caught in his throat in a moment of utter terror.

His hands. His hands, which should have
been on his knees, were gone. Invisible. Disappeared. They were nothing, and
that nothingness was quickly moving up his arms. He was fading, and fast. Tears
poured down his cheeks and he shouted into the sky. “Nooooo!!! I made it! I
made it!”

Alek fell to his knees, which he could no
longer see, and waited for something to happen—for Misery to consume him,
or for his nothingness to be completed. His heart pounded in terror. In the
distance, on the side of the hill facing away from town, he saw a flash of
something. It was probably the crow’s eye, he mused.

Only…it was something purple. Bright
purple. A color, unlike anything at all in the town of Misery. Then there was
another flash. This time orange. Then pink. Then red.

And then Alek stopped caring that he was
disappearing, because a memory slipped back into his mind. A memory of colors
and warmth and joy. It was a memory of home, his home before Misery. He
recalled his family, his neighbors, and the way that life had been.
Life—that’s what it had been. Not the place between lives, the way that
Misery was. After all, he recalled, that’s what Misery was—a place where
people went between their actual lives.

And now, he was going home.

shadow children

~

by Heather Brewer

“Goodnight, Jon.” Dax pulled the covers over his little brother’s
chest. Jon was wearing his favorite pajamas again, despite the hour-long
argument that flannel wasn’t exactly a summer weight fabric and the buttons
were on the verge of falling off. Surrendering with a sigh, Dax walked out of
the room, flipping the light switch as he went. Not a second later, Jon’s
Batman nightlight went out, which instantly sparked whining from the
six-year-old.

“Dax, my nightlight! I can’t sleep without my nightlight. The shadows
will get me!”

Dax sighed again, silently counting the seconds until mom and dad would
be home. It was like this every night. John would whine to mom or dad and they’d
make sure his nightlight was working or that the hall light was on, anything to
placate Jon’s irrational fear of things that weren’t really lurking in the
shadows, waiting to snatch him away. Only tonight, it was Dax who was left to
placate him. Bad enough he had to miss out on Janie’s party to babysit his
little brother, but now he was also expected to cater to Jon’s ridiculous fear
of the dark. “I’ll grab you a flashlight, Jon. Just give me a second.”

It was all he could do to block out Jon’s blubbering as he walked into
the kitchen. He pulled the drawer open and rummaged around. A flashlight had to
be in there somewhere.

“Dax, hurry! The shadows!”

Dax found a couple of flashlights and picked one up, tapping it gently
against his chin. Maybe it would be better if he did them all a favor and
showed Jon that there were no such things as monsters under your bed, nothing
at all lurking in the pitch black of night. If he let Jon cry it out just for
one night, maybe the kid would grow up and stop being such a baby. Maybe then
babysitting him without pay and missing out on the party of the year wouldn’t
be so bad. Dax mulled this over for a moment, blocking out the whimpers from
down the hall. “It’s just the dark, Jon. There’s nothing in it that isn’t there
in the day time.”

Jon screamed. And it wasn’t one of those little brat screams for
attention. He sounded terrified. Like his life depended on someone hearing and
responding to his terrified shriek.

Dax bolted back to the bedroom and stared in shocked disbelief.

A long, dark, shadow was looming over the bed. But it wasn’t an
ordinary shadow. It was darker than the rest of the room, and moved of its own
free will. It was a creature made of shadows. It was alive. Part of it whipped
forward and wrapped around Jon’s ankle. Jon cried, “Help me, Dax!”

The shadow monster was pulling Jon off the bed, but Dax was frozen in
place, staring at this thing that couldn’t possibly exist. Jon was flailing, tears
streaming down his cheeks. Breaking free from his trance, Dax clutched his
brother’s wrist, but he was hit in the chest and thrown against the wall. Pain
bolted through Dax’s back as he hit and crumpled to the floor. He struggled to
sit up again, but a tentacle of the shadow monster stood in front of him,
defying him to move. There were no eyes or mouth, but somehow Dax knew that the
thing was looking at him. He swore he heard a growl, but it had no mouth, no
substance. The shadow monster lurched back and ripped Dax’s brother free of his
covers.

Dax ran forward and grabbed Jon by the ankle. They both flew through
the air and into the closet. The door slammed shut, sealing them in pitch
black.

A sound caught his attention, like a large amount of sand falling
through a grainy, wooden hourglass. It was coming from the floor. Dax looked
down. The floor was moving. It swirled around his feet, the sand-like substance
of what had once been a wood floor crashed over the toe of his sock in small,
black waves. He pulled his foot back, but the sand clung to it. Beside him, Jon
whimpered as the sand closed over his arm. Dax brushed it away, but it seemed
to have a life of its own. The sand covered him and all he could do was lay
there, feeling the weight of it curl around his feet, his ankles, his legs,
knowing he was sinking into it—whatever it was. It moved up his torso and
he felt suffocated—there was no air, only sand.

Beside him, Jon screamed, but his screams were cut off as the sand
closed over his small head. Dax grabbed desperately for Jon’s hand, but there
was nothing to grab. His brother was gone.

Strangely, he could feel his legs dangling on the other side, like he
was slipping through some hole. It covered his chest, and Dax took a deep
breath and held it, not knowing if he would ever breathe again, not knowing
what was happening or what to do to stop it. The sand swirled around, tickling
his eyelashes, covering his face. He felt the weight of it on top of his head,
and wondered if he would ever see Jon again.

Suddenly, the sand compacted tightly around him and, just as quickly,
released. Dax fell several feet, landing on the hard ground below. He coughed
and drew air into his lungs. His chest burned, but after a few deep breaths, it
came easily again. Remembering the flashlight, he turned it on and looked
around, gasping at what he saw.

He was in a cavern. An enormous cavern of what must have been
obsidian—the walls were shiny and black, the floor smooth and reflective.
He shined the flashlight up at where he’d fallen through, but there was no sign
of any hole or trapdoor, or even sand. Only hard, black rock. The floor
trembled slightly beneath his feet. He noticed the movement less when he
stepped forward, but despite the floor’s solid appearance, it struck him as
fragile.

On the ceiling, just on the edge of the flashlight beam, something
moved. Dax chased it with the light, but it remained at the beam’s edge. And
like that, on the edge of his hearing, Dax detected a sound, like a group of
people whispering very softly. “Hello?”

In the distance, a noise. It sounded like his brother crying.

“Jon? Where are you?” But silence answered him. Dax called out again,
but the only sound was his voice chasing after itself in an echo.

The last thing he wanted to do was move deeper into the cavernous
tunnel, to move away from this spot, which he feared was the closest he would
ever be to home again, but Jon had sounded like he was getting further and
further away, so he had no choice. He had to find his brother and then, he had
to find a way to get them out of here.

Clutching the flashlight in his hand, Dax moved through the cavern. All
around him he could hear faint whispers, but couldn’t understand what they were
saying. He paused several times, shining the light behind him, trying to catch
whoever—whatever—was whispering, but each and every time there was
no one there. Dax was, despite the nudging of the darkest corners of his
imagination, completely alone.

Jon was nowhere to be found. It was as if he’d vanished into thin air.

The large tunnel broke off into three smaller tunnels up ahead. Dax
listened, but heard nothing that told him which one Jon might be down. He ran a
frustrated hand through his hair and, just as he’d decided to take the middle
tunnel, the whispering stopped and a new sound began. A small click as
something hit the floor, then an even smaller noise, like something rolling
several feet. He pointed the flashlight down, searching, sweeping the floor for
any sign of movement. The sound ceased as whatever it was rattled to a stop
just in front of his feet. He bent down, focusing on the item with the light.
In near disbelief, he plucked it from the ground, turning it over in his hand.

A red, shiny button. Just like the ones on Jon’s pajamas.

Dax stood again, shining the flashlight on the tunnels again. “Jon?”

He stepped forward and just as he was about to enter the center tunnel,
he saw movement with his peripheral vision. Taking a step back, he shined his
light on the right tunnel entrance. At first there was nothing, but after a
moment, Dax thought he could hear a small whimper. He hurried down the right
tunnel, clutching the button in his hand and calling out for his brother.

Several yards in, the whispers returned, but though they were louder in
the smaller space, Dax still couldn’t determine where they were coming from or
what they were saying. It was unnerving, like he was being followed by someone
without a voice, who insisted on making themselves known. His flashlight
flickered and went out. The whispers grew louder and felt like they were
closing in, but that was crazy. They were just noises… weren't they? Dax
knocked the light against his palm. When the flickering subsided and the light
returned, the whispers ceased… and someone was standing in the tunnel with him.

He would have recognized that face and those pajamas anywhere. Relieved
to see his brother again, he stepped forward. “There you are. I've been looking
everywh—”

The child had his arm extended, stroking the walls in a loving manner
that sent a chill up Dax’s spine. Something about the way he moved seemed
unnatural. Suddenly, but calmly, he turned his head toward Dax. Dax’s trembling
fingers found his open mouth, hushing a gasp. The child had Jon’s mouth, his
cheeks, his forehead, his hair, but the eyes… they were filled with shadows.

The thing in front of him might have looked like Jon, but it wasn’t his
brother. It was something else. Something sinister. Something dark.

Dax backed up, clutching the flashlight tightly to his chest. When he hit
the tunnel wall, he expected it to be cool, but it was warm, almost like a
living entity. Even though he knew that it wasn’t Jon, he swallowed hard and
whispered his brother’s name.

The Jon-thing turned slowly, without speaking, and disappeared around the
bend.

Dax’s heart slammed against his ribs. His breath came in quick gasps.
Panic overtook him, but he forced himself to move forward, because something
inside of him told him that the Jon-thing knew where his real brother was. Dax
turned around the bend, reluctantly following wherever it was that the
Jon-thing was leading.

By the time he turned the corner, it was already moving around the next
bend. Dax picked up the pace, jogging after the thing that looked like his
brother.

After several more bends in the tunnel, he turned the corner into a
small room. A boy was lying on the floor in the fetal position, shuddering with
sobs. Raising every hair on the back of Dax’s neck, the Jon-thing bent down and
stroked the boy’s hair wordlessly with its small, pale fingers. The boy
scrambled away from him, terrified, and Dax shot forward, hugging his
brother—his actual brother—tightly. At first, Jon screamed and
pushed him away, but then, realizing that it was Dax, he clung to his brother’s
chest, sobbing into his shirt, soaking the fabric. “It’s okay,” Dax whispered
into his hair, not entirely certain he was telling his brother the truth. “It’s
going to be okay.”

The Jon-thing tilted its head. When it spoke its voice mimicked Jon’s
perfectly, but still something seemed off about it, false. “You shouldn't lie
to children.”

Dax sneered. “What are you?”

It smiled, its dry, cracking lips stretching back from its Jon-like
teeth, which seemed sharper than Jon’s, hungrier. “We are shadow children.”

Instinctively, Dax looked around, but saw no one else. “We?”

The Jon-thing smiled and looked up, as if exchanging bemused glances
with someone that Dax couldn’t see. “We tire of the darkness. We want to live
as you live.”

A small trail of colored dust, shimmering and full of light, floated in
the air between Jon and the monster that was mimicking his form. Jon swooned,
not at all steady on his feet. He looked pale. He looked weak. The sickening
realization hit Dax that the creature was somehow feeding on his brother,
sucking his essence from him and stealing his shape. Maybe it was the only way
the thing could become solid. Maybe without whatever it was that it was
stealing from Jon it couldn’t become anything more than the horrible shadow
that had snatched Jon from his bed. Maybe it couldn’t face the light before and
somehow Jon knew that, and when Dax had forced his brother to remain in the
darkness…

Dax swallowed the lump in his throat. It didn’t go down easily.

It was his fault. Jon knew that these things existed and he knew how to
keep them at bay. Dax ignored that, brushing it off as just a stupid little kid
fear, and let the monsters in.

It stretched out its hand again, caressing Jon’s hair the way someone
might pet a puppy. Dax jerked Jon from it and glared. It met his gaze with its
shadowy eyes, blinking some like it couldn’t possibly understand why he wouldn’t
want it touching his brother. “You cannot escape.”

Dax gripped Jon to him, standing, holding his brother as tightly as he
could without hurting him. He looked at the Jon-thing and tightened his jaw. “Watch
me.”

With Jon in his arms, he bolted back down the tunnel, back the way he’d
come. As he ran, the indistinguishable whispers started again, quickly growing
louder until they were almost deafening. Jon cried against his chest, so scared
of what was happening, and Dax ran as fast as he could, darting around corners
with ease. The whispers grew faint as he ran. He was beating them, beating them
all. Finally, out of breath and with nowhere else to run, he entered the large
cavern that they had first fallen into. Dax sat Jon down on the ground, only
then noticing that the trail of shimmering dust still hung in the air, winding
its way through the tunnels. Running from the Jon-thing wasn’t enough to sever
that essence-stealing tie. His brother tugged at his sleeve, still trembling,
but Dax was firm. “Hold on, Jon. Let me figure this out.”