Shadow Walkers (16 page)

It came at me from behind. The tentacle-like legs of the shadow creature clamped down around my head. I’d been so distracted by what was going on with Gilbert that it had caught me totally by surprise. In spite of Emory’s warnings, I’d forgotten all about it.

This time it didn’t completely cover my face. This time I could see it, could watch what was happening to me.

It was even blacker than I remembered, so much it almost hurt to look at it. But within all that darkness, I saw its eyes staring down at me—those horrible, white human eyes, greedy, but intensely intelligent. What were they doing on the
underside
of the creature? Now I knew for a fact they could move.

At the same time, a projection, like the stinger of a mosquito, emerged from underneath those eyes. It stretched out and around, aiming for my forehead.

The creature jammed the stinger down right into my astral skull. I expected to hear it—for it to make sucking or a gurgling sound—but it didn’t. It punctured my brain in complete silence.

I understood exactly what was happening. The point of contact was the flip side of the soul-kiss I’d shared with Emory up in the heavens. Rather than trying to join spirits with me or make me feel one with the universe, the creature was attempting to overpower me, to eliminate me, to subtract me from the world.

On some level, I was repulsed by what was happening, the fact that this alien thing was trying to violate my mind.

But I didn’t feel any pain. On the contrary, everything I had been feeling—my desperate need to help Gilbert, the frustration of not being able to
do
anything, even the throb in my head—suddenly disappeared, replaced by an almost soothing numbness. It was as if the creature’s stinger was releasing some kind of spiritual anesthetic, like what a mosquito injects to mask the pain of its sting. It must have done the same thing when it had attacked me before.

On one hand, I knew I wanted this horrible thing off of me, far away from me.

On the other hand, it was almost nice to finally feel relief from the all the pain and frustration.

I didn’t want Gilbert to die, but I finally realized that it was all out of my control anyway—that it had
always
been out of my control.

The creature began to change, to silently metamorphose into something even less substantial, like heavy smoke, like the strange incense that had brought me to the astral dimension in the first place. It was as if the body of the creature was beginning to seep, eyes and all, down through the stinger directly into the center of my astral brain.

I watched it, transfixed, amused. I took back what I said about being disgusted by it—I wasn’t now. The creature had been right to attack me. I was weak. I wasn’t strong enough to fight the shadow creature off alone. But Emory was gone now, so there wasn’t any point in fighting back at all. I shouldn’t have come to the astral dimension in the first place, and after I did, I should’ve listened when Emory said it was time to go home again. I hadn’t, and now I was paying the price. I deserved this.

The creature entered me, silently slithered its way into my soul. I could feel it slowly filling me, could feel it on the inside, in places I’d never felt anything before, in places that I didn’t think had any feeling. I didn’t want the creature to possess my soul and return to the world of humans, as it had done so many times before. I knew for a fact just how much evil this being had done, and could do again. But there was nothing I could do.

It didn’t feel bad. I didn’t feel anything, but that lack of feeling was almost a relief. What would it mean, being possessed by the creature? Would I simply cease to exist? Maybe I’d be placed safely away in some restful little corner of my mind, a peaceful island oasis, an island in my own mind.

An island. That’s where I belonged, somewhere safe and protected and predictable. That’s where I’d
always
belonged. I’d been wrong to ever think I could leave. I’d come home—my
real
home. I could finally relax at last.

But in the silence of the creature’s invasion of my soul, I suddenly heard a sound. It was quiet, like it was coming from far, far away, but somehow it penetrated even deeper into my soul than the creature’s stinger.

It was the release of the safety on a gun.

Gun
? I thought.

A smoker wheezed.

Then I remembered Simon, who had no idea what was happening between the shadow creature and me, was still trying to kill Gilbert.

Gilbert
.

My little brother, the one person I’d had a connection with all along, even if I hadn’t realized it.

If I gave up, if I gave into the creature and leaned back into a lazy hammock on that island in my mind, Gilbert was going to die. In order to save him, I couldn’t give into the creature—I had to somehow fight back.

I turned toward my brother. Through the clutch of the shadowy creature, I saw him lying on the ground in front of me. He was bawling his head off. I wasn’t sure how I hadn’t heard the sound of his crying before, had only heard the click of the safety.

Simon stood in front of Gilbert pointing the gun at him.

“No,” I whispered, to both Simon and to the creature on the top of my head—and now inside me as well.

The creature tightened its grip on me, like a python being threatened by the loss of its prey.

“No!” I said again, louder. This time, it was directed entirely at the creature. I reached up and touched it, the shadow of a spider-octopus that had attached itself to my head. It felt more pliable and much slicker than before, a greasy, deflated beach ball underneath a haze of smoke. But at least there was still something there for me to touch. It wasn’t too late.

Once again, I seemed to have caught the creature by surprise. It no doubt remembered the last time it had attacked me, how I had accidentally brushed its mind, but also how it had overpowered me anyway, how it would have possessed me if Emory hadn’t helped me at the last second. Still, I was alone this time, and the creature probably hadn’t considered that I might fight back this far into its metamorphosis, especially after anesthetizing me with its stinger.

It had misjudged me. I wasn’t as weak as it thought, and I was tired of living on islands.

Slowly, finger by greasy finger, I pried the thing off my face. It writhed, undulating like an eel on a hook. It made noise now, squealing with outrage. But I kept pulling it off me, felt it slipping, inch by inch, out of my soul. It had to know it was losing this battle.

The stinger was the last thing to leave my head. I felt nothing when it popped free, no pain, no physical sensation at all. But the second it was gone, I felt a brewing of all the emotions it had silenced—the isolation, the frustration, but also the determination and sense of self.

Most of all, I felt anger. I didn’t try to suppress it, to get in its way. That anger had worked for me twice before, by getting me back to the graveyard and by helping me communicate with Gilbert. It wasn’t the clarity of mind that Celestia Moonglow had talked about, or that I’d felt when I’d first arrived in the astral dimension. But in a way, I finally had my focus back.

With all my might, I threw the creature to one side. It squealed once more, then pulsated away—but awkwardly, flapping like a jellyfish, not surging like a octopus. Like it was injured somehow.

I ignored it and turned toward Simon. This time he wasn’t bothering to take Gilbert into the cemetery. This time he was going to take care of things right in the parking lot.

He raised his gun and pointed it right at Gilbert’s head.

With a scream of outrage, I flew right at Simon.

As before, my astral body passed right through his physical one.

But this time, I took Simon’s spirit with me. Simon’s physical body fell completely limp, and his spectral body floated free. His spirit even had a silver cord billowing out of the back of his head, like plasma fuel from a leaking spaceship.

I hadn’t planned this or thought about it at all. But it made sense in retrospect. After all, I knew that spirits had some sort of a physical form in the astral dimension—Emory’s and mine did anyway. Spirits had some sort of physical aspect even when they were still attached to bodies. When I’d passed through Evelyn’s and Simon’s bodies, I’d definitely felt
something
. And whatever I’d felt that afternoon out at Trumble Point, it had touched something in me.

Mostly, though, I think it happened because I so desperately wanted it to. I was learning that a surprising number of impossible things were possible if you just wanted them badly enough.

Simon’s spirit body floated upright, unsteady in the astral dimension. “Huh?” he said, confused, already slipping on the greased surface of the astral dimension. “Where the hell am I?” Finally his eyes focused on me. “Where did
you
come from?” He didn’t even realize what had happened—that he was no longer a physical being.

“Leave my little brother alone!” I said, facing off against him like a sumo wrestler.

Simon glanced down at his hand. But he carried no gun with him into the astral dimension. He grimaced, confused and frightened.

Then the shadow creature pounced on him from behind, like a cat on a wounded mouse. It had already somehow collected itself and gathered its strength. It quickly scurried right up to his head and latched itself over Simon’s face.

“Wh—”

I held back, surprised by this development.

Simon was too disoriented to put up a fight against the creature. Effortlessly it slid its stinger into Simon’s forehead and quickly began flowing down into his brain. The shell of Simon somehow seemed to be a perfect fit for the creature, welcoming and hospitable.

It was right then that Emory swooped down next to me. He’d returned to the astral dimension.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

I nodded even as I kept staring at what was happening to Simon. Emory didn’t say a word, just watched the ongoing transformation with me. I knew he’d figure out what was happening fast enough.

“We need to help him,” Emory said, immediately floating forward.

I held out a hand to stop him. “No. Wait.” It was horrible what was happening, but some part of me told me to let it happen. Was it the petty, vengeful part of me?

In seconds, the shadow creature was gone. Simon had been completely unprepared for the attack so it had poured right down into his soul—or maybe he’d just been even weaker than me.

But the creature hadn’t disappeared completely. Two very familiar eyes peered out at me, just as greedy, just as horrible when peering out from a human face. Simon’s feeble soul had been conquered, pushed aside into his own dank little island in his mind. The shadow creature, meanwhile, had found a fresh new host.

Simon’s astral form, now totally in the creature’s control, smiled at me with the self-satisfied grin of a snake. He began to speak, but not in Simon’s voice. It was an unsettling rasp.

“Ahhhhh,” it said. “This soul will do just fine.”

With that, he began to relax, and Simon’s silver cord buckled, preparing to pull his now-possessed spiritual body back to his physical body.

At first I thought I’d made a mistake, that my desire for revenge meant something really bad was about to happen.

Then I had an idea.

I shot forward, my arms stretched out in front of me. I grabbed Simon’s astral projection around the waist. Then with all the mental strength I could muster, I carried us all toward the closest vortex, a dark one slowly spinning at the edge of the parking lot.

Simon’s astral projection squealed, not like the man he had once been, but like the shadow creature he had become. I was too late: I slammed the shadow-possessed Simon directly into the center of the slow-motion cyclone. The creature was too surprised to struggle, to even fight back. It had all happened too fast.

Simon was immediately sucked away, like human waste down a vacuum toilet.

I rolled to one side, desperate to avoid the suction of the vortex. But it turned out to be unnecessary. With Simon sucked into its gullet, the vortex quickly whirled in on itself, disappearing without a trace. Since no part of me had been inside the gate, it hadn’t tried to take me with it. Meanwhile, the silver cord that had connected Simon’s soul to his body was cut in half, and now it was winding through the air, slowly fading like the moon at dawn.

I immediately turned to my little brother, still stretched out, crying, on the gravel.

“Gilbert!” I said, crouching near him, trying to caress him in a spectral hug. “Are you all right? Everything’s okay. I’ll be right here until help comes.”

Gilbert’s tears began slow. He sat upright.

Emory levitated next to me. “He’ll be fine now,” he said. Sure enough, as if specifically to reassure me, the faint sound of sirens rose in the distance.

That’s when I turned to Emory and smiled.

“For the record,” I said, “I think I love you, too.”