Scorpion Shards (3 page)

D
EANNA FLOATED DEEP IN
the void, hearing nothing but her own heartbeat. She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out. She felt far away, beneath an ocean, for she could not breathe at all. She forced herself up and up, toward the light at the surface, her head pounding, her chest cramping,
until finally she broke surface, into the light of—

—a room. A hospital room. Yes. Yes, of course. The driverless car of doom. How terrified she had been of it. She had seen it before. Only this time it had been real. It was not just there to terrify her—it was there to kill her—and it could have, too—but she wasn't dead. She wiggled her toes—she wasn't even paralyzed. She moved her right arm and felt a searing pain shoot through her wrist that made her groan.

“You're all right,” said someone next to her. The voice of a man. No—a boy. She lazily turned her head to face him, and her eyes began to focus. He was her age—fifteenish, with red hair but eyes that were dark and so frighteningly deep that she couldn't look away.
Soulful,
her mother would call those eyes.

“Your wrist is sprained,” he said. “You've probably got a concussion too, but still you're pretty lucky, considering what happened.”

“Who are you?” she asked.

“No one important,” he replied. “My name's Dillon.” She still could not look away from his eyes, and what she saw there told her all she needed to know. His eyes poured forth his guilt, and she knew that somehow he had done this to her. He had sent the terrible driverless car.

“You bastard,” she groaned, and yet she felt strangely relieved. This time it
had
been real, not just another vision—and yet she wasn't dead. In its own way, it was a relief.

Dillon leaned away, unnerved. “I didn't want to hurt you.” He said anxiously. “I didn't want to hurt anybody . . . . It's just that . . .” He stopped. How could he hope she could ever understand?

“No, tell me,” she said and grabbed his hand. Dillon gasped and tried to pull his hand back; but even in her weakened state, she held him firmly . . . and he was amazed to discover
that his touch didn't scramble her mind. She did not shrink away from him.

How was this possible? Everyone he touched was affected—
everyone
.

“Your hand is warm,” she said, then looked at him curiously. “You're not afraid! I don't make you afraid!”

“No,” he said. She smiled, keeping her eyes fixed on his, and in that moment a brilliant light shone through the half-opened blinds—a sudden green flash that resolved into a red glow in the dark sky.

Whatever that light was, it seemed to make the rest of the world go away, leaving the two of them floating in a hospital room that was floating in space.

This,
thought Deanna,
is the most important moment of my life
 . . . and she immediately knew why.

“You're like me!” she whispered. “You're just like me!”

Dillon nodded, his eyes filling with tears, because he too knew it was true. In this instant, he felt closer to Deanna than he had ever felt to anyone.
I almost killed her
, he thought.
How horrible it would have been if she died, and we had never met.
He marveled at how the strange light painted a soft glow around her charcoal hair, and he felt a sudden reverence for her that was beyond words. The only words that he could speak now that would make any sense would be his confession.

“I destroy everything I touch,” said Dillon.

“You don't destroy me,” answered Deanna.

“I'm a monster,” said Dillon.

“That's not what I see,” she answered. It was the closest thing to forgiveness Dillon had ever felt. Then Deanna began to cry and began a confession of her own.

“I'm afraid,” she said.

“Of what?”

“Of this place. Of my life. Of everything inside and out. I'm terrified.”

Dillon gripped her hand tightly. “Then I'll protect you,” he said. “I'll make sure nothing out there can hurt you.”

Deanna smiled through her tears, because she knew that this boy who had almost destroyed her now meant to protect her with all his heart. He held her hand with a delicate intensity, as if having her hand in his was a miracle of the highest order. In this instant, she trusted him more than she had ever trusted anyone.

“No,” she answered. “We'll protect each other.”

O
N THAT SAME NIGHT, THE DARK SKY OVER
A
LABAMA WAS
punctuated by a million stars. Still, those stars were not bright enough to shed light on the ground, and since the moon had not yet risen, the ground was left darker than the space between the stars.

Winston Marcus Pell lay in his lightless room, wiggling his fingers, trying to see them. His dark skin could have been painted fluorescent yellow, and still he'd have seen little more than a vague shadow.

A night this black was either a good omen or a bad one—depending on which set of superstitions you chose to believe—and Winston had to keep reminding himself that he didn't believe in that silly stuff. Educated people like him didn't have superstitions—that was left to the poor folk still trapped deep in the Black Belt, tilling its cruel dark soil. People who didn't know any better.

So why, then, was Winston so afraid on nights like tonight?

The wind came and went in great and sudden gusts that rattled the windows and tore off leaves before their time. Those yellow October leaves, orphaned by the wind, would shatter against the side of their big old house, sounding like scampering mice. When the gusts had passed, there was silence as empty as the night was dark. This was wrong, Winston knew. It was terribly wrong.

There are no evil creatures out there,
he told himself. Those were stories told by old folks to keep kids from wandering
out into the dark—but the silence—it was all wrong!

There are no crickets.

That was it!

The realization made Winston's neck hairs stand on end and made him want to shrink even smaller beneath his blanket. There were
always
crickets, chirping all night long out here in the country—even in October. When they'd moved out from Birmingham, it was weeks before Winston could sleep because of the crickets.

What had shut the crickets up tonight?

Winston cursed himself for being so stupid about it. Damn it all, he was fifteen—no matter how he looked on the outside, he was fifteen
inside
, and shouldn't be worried about what crickets choose to do on this night. On this dark night. On this dark creepy night.

Winston knew why he was afraid, although he didn't want to think about it. He was afraid because, apart from the local superstitions, he knew there were stranger things in heaven and earth than he could shake a stick at.

Like the strange and awful thing that had been happening to him for almost three years now. Of course no one talked about that to his face anymore. No one but little Thaddy, who was just too dumb to know any better.

Winston clenched his hands into fists, wishing he had someone to fight. Well, maybe he was afraid of a night without crickets, but if something were out there, he was mad enough to beat the thing silly. He'd paralyze it and leave it helpless on the muddy ground, no matter how big it was.

A gust of wind ripped across the silence, then a thin ghostly wail flew in from the next room followed by the sound of running feet.

Thaddy was in Winston's room in a terrible fright. He
smashed his shin against Winston's wooden bed frame, and his wail turned into a howl.

“Hush up!” ordered Winston. “I don't want you waking Mama.”

“There's a monster outside, 'Stone,” cried Thaddy. “I seen him! He was at my window gonna rip my guts out, I know it.” Thaddy wiped his eyes. “I think it was Tailybone.”

Thaddy made a move to jump into bed with Winston, but thought better of it. Instead he just grabbed Winston's blanket off of him and curled up with it on the floor.

“You had best give that back, or you'll be sleepin' with no front teeth.” But Thaddy didn't move.

“It's out there, 'Stone, I saw it. It was drooling on my window. I swear it was. We gotta get the rifle.”

“We ain't got a rifle, you idiot!”

Winston slipped out of bed and touched his feet to the floor. In the silence, the floorboards creaked.

“Where are the crickets?” asked Thaddy.

“Hush yo' ass, or I'm gonna paralyze your lips till morning.”

“No! I'll be good. I promise. No more talking,” which was like a wind-chime promising to be quiet through a hurricane.

Winston glanced out of his window. In normal moonlight, he could see the yard and beyond, all the way through the neighbor's field. Tonight, he could barely see the fence—and just beyond the fence, the cotton seemed to roll like beasts in the shadows. Tigers and big fat alligators.

“I can smell it out there,” mumbled Thaddy. “It's got a dead smell, like somethin' back from the grave.”

“Quit trying to scare yourself,” said Winston. He didn't smell it the way Thaddy did, but Winston knew that Thaddy was right—something
was
out there—he could sense it.

Winston grabbed his baseball bat from beneath the bed and headed toward Thaddy's room with Thaddy close behind. No reason to wake their mother up until they knew for sure.

“It's Tailybone, I know it!” whined Thaddy.

“There's no such thing, that's just a dumb old story,” Winston said, for himself as much as he did for Thaddy.

Then Thaddy made an observation. It probably wasn't true, but it bothered Winston just the same. “You're shorter today, 'Stone,” he said. “Reckon now you've got so short you can't whoop a grave-monster.”

Winston threw Thaddy an evil look and put his forefinger up, just an inch away from Thaddy's mouth as a warning. Even in the dark, Thaddy could see the silhouette of the finger about to touch his lips.

“No! No! 'Stone, I'll shut up. I promise.”

Little Thaddy was ten years old—a full five years younger than Winston—but Winston was two inches shorter. Winston was, in every way, the size and shape of an eight-year-old.

It hadn't always been that way. He had grown like a weed until the time he was twelve or so. Then, when his friends started sprouting legs and knobby knees, Winston stopped growing up . . .

 . . . and started growing down.

The way he figured, he'd have the body of kindergartner again when he was eighteen.

“I wish
I
could grow backward,” Thaddy had once said, when he outgrew his favorite bike. But as he watched his big brother become his little brother, Thaddy's thoughts on the subject changed. Thaddy made no such wishes anymore.

The door to Thad's room was ajar, and Winston pushed it all the way open. Its hinges complained with a high-pitched creak as the door swung open to reveal . . . an open window. If
there was a thing out there—it could be in the house now! It could be anywhere!

“Thaddy, was your window open before?”

Thaddy stuttered a bit.

“Think! Was your window open or closed?”

Thaddy couldn't remember.

A gnarled branch hung just outside the window, coiled as if fixing to reach in and grab something. In the tree, a rag fluttered in the breeze.

“It's my shirt,” said Thaddy. “I threw it at the thing. Maybe I scared it away, maybe.”

Winston stood at the threshold of the room for the longest time, not daring to go in. He squinted his eyes and looked at the tree. The light was so very dim that he could barely see the tree at all, and the more he looked the more he thought he saw a face in it. A big old twisted face. A goblin with a head the size of a pumpkin leering into the window.

“It's just the tree,” explained Winston, breathing a silent sigh of intense relief. “Your fool head is playing tricks on you again.”

“But what about the smell, 'Stone?”

“Dead possum, maybe—under the window, like last year,” said Winston, but the smell didn't catch him the way it caught Thaddy.

Thaddy clung to this explanation, and climbed into bed. Winston tucked his brother in, making sure to touch only the blanket.

“Thank you, 'Stone,” said Thaddy. “And I'm sorry about what I said before about you being too small and all. I think it's great that you're small.”

“Quit talking about that!”

Winston didn't want anyone talking about it ever. The very
first sign of trouble came about three years ago. Not only had it become apparent that he had stopped growing, but something else just as alarming began to happen. It was the way Winston's touch could make a person tingle. Carpet shocks, his parents called it. Didn't think much of it. Then they had taken Winston to the doctor for a simple flu shot. The doctor noticed his height was half an inch shorter than a year before. Didn't think much of it. Must have been a mistake. A few months later, they knew it was no mistake. He was a whole inch shorter. Four doctors later, and they still didn't know what to make of it—and none of the doctors would acknowledge the strange effect Winston's touch was beginning to have on people. Vitamin deficiency, they said. Genetic fluke. One doctor named Guthry wanted to called it Guthry's Syndrome and tried to send him up to the Mayo Clinic where they'd study him like a rat.

So they stopped seeing doctors.

It was the crazy old sisters down the road who called it “Growing Down.” They called Winston a witch child, and it made his dad furious. Mr. Pell had been a man of science—a pharmacist—but more than that—a scholar. He was an educated man with educated friends; he had moved back from the city to set an example and help the small town he grew up in. Those two old sisters were everything he hated about growing up black, poor, and ignorant in the Deep South.