Shadow of the Past (13 page)

“He’s not a big reader,
apparently.”

He could see that she was fighting a
smile, but before he could go out on a high note she stopped
him.

“Mark, this was a really big deal. I
made sure nothing more serious happened to you because I know these
boys. I’ve dealt with them on a couple of other incidents and I
know they are definitely capable of pushing someone to
this.”

“Well, it’s nice to know that I’m not
just crazy.”

“Mark,” she said, giving him a warning
look. “What happened wasn’t your fault, but you messed up, big
time. Aside from the possible legal trouble and school punishments,
you’re going to have to deal with those boys again. They aren’t
going to let something like this go. I’ve seen things like this
escalate very quickly, and I want to be your advocate if anything
else happens. You have to be straight with me and I need to know
that you can keep your temper in check and talk to me, really talk
to me, if there’s trouble. Believe it or not, I’m on your
side.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. And for the favor I did
you by keeping you in school, I want you to do me a
favor.”

“What’s that?”

“Talk to me. Twice a week, before
school or after, it doesn’t matter, but I want to know what’s going
on up here,” she tapped her temple, and then a tap to the chest,
“and in here.”

Oh, supervomit.

“And I take it there’s no way to
politely decline?”

“Not and stay in school.”

“Well,” he said, shrugging his
shoulders. “Checkmate, I guess. I’ll come see you the morning that
I get back, okay? Does that get me off the hook?”

“All except the paperwork,” she
smiled.

“Please, please, please tell me it’s
true!” The blur running up alongside Christine said. For a brief
second she thought it was one of those boys Mark had beaten up, but
finally Steve stopped in front of her.

“God, you scared the crap out of me!
What the hell are you talking about?”

“It’s running all around school
already,” Steve said, hands clasped and eyes wide with excitement.
“I just have to know if it’s true. Please, God, let it be true that
Mark kicked the shit out of Jack!”

“Yeah, it’s true,” she said, trying to
keep the grin from her face. “He--” she didn’t even get a chance to
finish before Steve dropped to his knees, threw both hands into the
air, leaned back and screamed “THANK YOU, JESUS!” A couple of girls
walking by rolled their eyes, and Christine reached down and
dragged him to his feet with a smile. “Get up, you
spaz!”

“Yes, you’re right. Total spaz,” he
said with a crazed grin. “Damn, I wish I’d been there! I mean, I
heard it was the best fight ever! Was it? You were there, right?
They say there was a beautiful redhead chick, and that had to be
you.”

She rolled her eyes. “Well, I was
there, but that’s not the most accurate description.”

“Oh, don’t be bashful,” he said,
wagging a finger in front of her face. “You’re a looker, don’t deny
it!”

She swatted away the finger with a
laugh, and he smiled back at her. “There’s that smile, I knew I
could get it out of you.”

She opened her mouth to say something
back, but he just carried on. “This is just too good. I mean, that
asshole has been fucking with Mark since the day before forever,
and now, finally, revenge!” He finished with a grandiose yell,
waving a fist in the air.

“Yeah, that's one word for
it.”

“Speaking of,” Steve said, lowering his
voice, “I heard it was more than the usual fare, if you catch my
meaning.”

“You can say that.”

“That bad?”

“I've never seen anything like it. He
just . . . exploded. I guess with Clara and everything they were
saying it was just too much, but that was something
else.”

“Wow,” Steve said, shaking his head. “I
mean, don’t get me wrong, I can't blame Mark for going all
Columbine on him, but I don't think Jack is going to take the hint,
y'know?”

"Awesome. Just what he
needs."

The late bell rang, and Steve gave a
long drawn out sigh. “God, how do they expect me to work like
this?” He turned to go, and then stopped and spun around on his
heels. “Hey, did I forget to tell you that it sounds like Mark was
sent home today?”

“Oh my God, really?”

“Oh yeah,” Steve smirked. “The students
aren’t the only ones using the grapevine. Do you still want to get
together at lunch?”

“Well, my options are kind of limited,
so sure.”

Steve rolled his eyes. “Oh geez, don’t
sound so excited about it. Would it kill you to say ‘Steve, I would
love to have lunch with you today, you big handsome
stud.’”

“Steve, I would love to have lunch with
you today.”

He cocked a hand by his ear, but she
just smiled and turned and walked away.

“Okay then, no problem,” he called
after her. “We’ll get to the last part later.”

She waved over her shoulder at him
without looking back, and he stayed where he was, watching her
disappear around the corner.

Chapter
Thirteen

In the darkness every muscle
in Darren’s body hurt.

He rolled, and the ground
crunched and shifted under him.

He tried to get up but a
sudden wave of dizzying sickness shoved him right back to the
ground. He was lying on a thin layer of sand and tiny rocks, and
after a deep breath he tried sitting up again. It worked, although
the nausea stayed with him. He put a hand to his head and there was
a sudden flare of pain. The side of his face was covered in a
tight, almost dry-almost sticky film.

“What happened?” he mumbled,
but when he actually saw the almost-dried blood on his fingertips
it all came back to him. His room, the house and those eyes coming
towards him in the darkness. He scooted backwards, thinking they
were going to come for him again. He didn’t move very far at all
before his back ran into a wall.

He was in a corner he
realized, cold stone walls on either side of him. He felt along the
wall to his right, looking everywhere as his eyes slowly picked out
more features in the blackness. A few feet ahead of him the ceiling
dropped down so low he wouldn’t be able to get up off his hands and
knees.

He crawled forward, one arm
outstretched to hopefully touch anything before he ran into it. The
ceiling was cold, rusted metal and firmly in place he realized
after as many shoves as his still weak arms would allow. He looked
back at where he’d be lying, and saw that the ceiling there was
wooden and slanting downward in an odd up and down
pattern.

He kept crawling forward
until he came to another wall, made of the same rusted metal as the
ceiling. He followed it along, seeing a tiny flicker of light up
ahead. After a couple more feet he came to a makeshift door, cut
unevenly from the metal, with several small holes poked in it and a
slit big enough to see through.

He pushed as hard as he
could on it but realized the door was barred from the outside and
it wouldn’t budge. Looking out the slot in the door he could see
the bottom of a staircase to the left, and he realized that the
wooden part of the ceiling of his little cell was the underside of
that staircase, leading upward. He was in a basement, he
realized.

HIS basement.

“Oh God.” His voice was a
tiny croak, and it echoed pitifully in the darkness around him. He
slammed into the metal door as hard as he could but it still didn’t
budge. He pushed again, slamming his palms painfully into
it.

“Hey! Hey!”

“Shhhhh! He’ll hear
you!”

Darren whirled around,
looking into the darkness for whoever spoke. In the far corner saw
a girl, hunched over in a dirty ball, holding her knees to her
chest and peering at him.

It was Suzie Morris, and she
shrunk away when he moved close to her. He could see the skin on
her wrists was rubbed raw and there were dark spatters over what
had once been a nice dress.

“What’s going
on?”

“He’ll hear you,” she said,
shaking her head. “He doesn’t like it when we talk.”

“Who?” he asked, lowering
his voice to match her ragged whisper.

“The Shadow Man.”

She was staring straight
ahead, not at him but through him. “He saw you. He took you and
brought you here. And he’s going to make you witness.”

“Witness? Witness
what?”

Before she could answer,
there was a pounding on the ceiling. Once. Then again. And
again.

Someone was coming down the
steps. Darren watched the boards above them bend and creak, sending
tiny rivers of dust down on them. Darren crawled to the cell window
to get a glimpse of his jailer. The footsteps were steady and calm,
pausing at the landing above Darren’s head. The boards creaked, as
if he was testing them under the weight of his foot.

When he came down the next
half-flight of stairs his back was to Darren, and all he could see
were tall, gangly limbs and the silhouette of shaggy, unkempt hair.
In his hand was the cane and he let it tap along the stone floor.
Watching the man (the Shadow Man) walk away from him, limping
slightly, Darren was able to take in the rest of basement for the
first time.

About twenty feet from the
cell door was the basement’s only source of the light: a large coal
furnace, its door open and the flames inside flickering bright reds
and oranges. Hanging directly in front of the open furnace door,
maybe three feet from the opening, was a black boy who could be no
older than he was. He was chained at the wrists, his hands
stretched over his head and feet barely touching the
floor.

“Hey!” Darren yelled,
shaking the door as much as he could, succeeding only in making the
chain rattle.

The man stopped right behind
the chained up boy, towering over him. The man turned slightly,
looking back at Darren, but then returned his attention to the
child in front of him. The boy, who had been hanging limply,
stirred slightly as the man knelt down next to him. The man reached
under the boys’ chin and lifted his head. The boy’s eyes flickered
open, and when he saw the man in front of him he began to twist and
writhe in his chains.

The man made calming,
shushing noises and clamped a large hand around the boy’s neck to
keep him still.

“You see Him, don’t you?”
The man’s voice echoed in the cavernous room.

The boy was still writhing
and struggling, making whimpering, panicked noises. With a snarl,
the man slammed the silver top of the cane into the boy’s bare
chest. The chains rattled with the impact and the boy doubled over
as much as he could, legs swaying wildly.

“Stop struggling. I know
He’s there, I know you can see Him! Tell me that you see
Him!”

The boy was just sobbing,
shaking his head back and forth. As the boy writhed around in his
chains, Darren could see numerous cuts and bruises all over the
boy’s body. Who knew how long he had been hanging there.

“Stop it! Stop it!” the man
roared. He let go of the boy’s neck with a disgusted shove and
swung the cane up into the boy’s stomach. The boy’s legs actually
left the ground, the impact causing him to swing back and
forth.

“He’s in there!” the man
said, pointing with the cane at the gaping mouth of the furnace.
“Don’t lie to me! Don’t tell me that you can’t see!”

Darren looked, expecting to
see something, but all he saw were flames staring back at
him.

The boy just hung there,
sobbing, his toes barely touching the ground.

“You liar,” the man hissed,
bringing the cane up. “I’ll make you see Him.”

Darren tried to close his
eyes, but he couldn’t. All he could do was hold his hands in front
of his face and try not to see the torture played out between his
dirty fingers. The sound of it echoed all around him: screaming,
grunts of exertion, the rattle of chain on metal. Above it all the
flames of the furnace roared in approval. Darren screamed as loud
as he could. He couldn’t stop the sight of the beating, of the
blood flying through the air and silver flashing up and down, but
he could drown out the noise. At the end, all he could hear were
his screams and the flame.

Mark sprung out of bed, arms thrashing
in the air, ducking low to avoid ceiling. When he stopped, out of
breath and covered in panicked sweat, he realized he wasn’t a
little kid, or in a basement, or in any real danger.

He got back into bed, reminding himself
that it was a dream, like the one he’d had about Darren before but
far more powerful. The sensations were fading but he could feel the
stinging in his palms from hitting that tiny metal door, and his
throat felt raw from screaming. These were not normal dream
feelings. Seeing a man beat a little kid with a cane is not a
normal dream experience.

Yeah, how about that cane,
huh? Kind of looked familiar didn’t it? If you’re having trouble
remembering, I’m sure Clara could help.