James Swain - Shadow People

“So the man in Hyde Park was sent to kill my parents. When he failed, a second assassin was sent to New York, and he failed as well. Is that what you’re telling me?”

“You’re stealing my thunder.”

“Finally, the Order got fed up, and the other members came to New York to do the job themselves,” Peter said. “Only this time, I wasn’t able to protect my parents, and they were stolen out from under me. I went into a rage, and ran around New York killing bad men in retaliation. Is that the deal?”

“You make it sound like you were a monster,” Max said. “That was not the case.”

“From what you’ve just told me, I killed eight men before I turned eight years old. What would you call it?”

“They were bad men, and got the fate they deserved.”

“I was a child. Children are not supposed to kill. It was wrong. Please don’t justify it.”

“But they were trying to kill your parents.”

“Why didn’t my parents stop them? They were both psychic. How could they have been so blind to the danger they were in?”

Max shook his head, clearly frustrated. “Your mother and father left the Order of Astrum because they wanted to lead normal lives. They were psychics, but it was a small part of who they were. They kept their powers turned off most of the time, so to speak. That was why they didn’t see the danger.”

But their seven-year-old son had seen the danger. Unlike his loving parents, Peter had not turned off his psychic powers, and when danger had come calling, the demon inside of him responded in a way that was so horrible that the memories had been repressed.

His chair made a harsh scraping sound. Standing, Peter tossed his napkin onto his plate. Why couldn’t Max’s story have been different? Something easy for him to digest and come to grips with? He could have accepted just about anything, except this.

Max looked into his student’s face, and saw his pain. “What’s wrong?”

“I want to have a normal life, too,” Peter said, and walked out of the restaurant.

Peter got out of the cab at the Centre Street entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge.

“Keep the change.”

The driver smiled at his good fortune and pulled away. It was not every day that a passenger gave him a hundred bucks for a twelve-dollar fare.

Peter zipped up his leather jacket and climbed the stairway to the elevated pedestrian walkway that ran the length of the bridge. Day or night, rain or shine, freezing cold or unbearably hot, there was always a mob of people walking and jogging and enjoying the sights from the bridge. And then there were poor souls like him, who needed to clear dark thoughts from their heads.

It was a half mile to the bridge’s center. Upon reaching it, he gazed up at the main tower, which was as tall as a skyscraper. Many times, he’d imagined climbing over the railing, crawling on a beam to the tower, taking the stairs to the top, ripping off his clothes, and diving into murky depths of the East River. Not to kill himself, but simply as a way to change, believing that the Peter who came out of the water would be different from the Peter who’d jumped in.

But he hadn’t done it. In the end, something had always held him back. He gripped the railing with both hands and gazed at the water. He’d read once that everyone desired to be someone else. For him, that person was someone totally ordinary. He yearned for a morning when he’d wake up and not have had a vision the night before which foretold the future, or step into an old building and not be confronted by a ghost. He wanted a life with the normal daily ups and downs, happiness and pain. Was that too much to ask for?

“There you are.”

He released the railing and spun around. Liza came toward him wearing stone-washed jeans and a wool sweater, looking as radiant as the day he’d first laid eyes on her.

“How did you know I was here?”

“Because this is where you come when you’re in the dumps. Did you get my texts?”

He took out his Droid and saw the message icon flashing in the upper corner of the screen. Had his cell phone buzzed in his pocket and he’d not noticed? That was no excuse, and he said, “I haven’t been myself today. What happened to Sierra and his friend?”

“They left right after you did.” Liza saw something she didn’t like, and placed her hand beneath his chin so she could stare fully into his eyes. “You look despondent. Please tell me what’s going on. I want to help.”

Where to begin? Start by how you feel and take it from there. “I used to think that the day my parents died was the worst day of my life. I was wrong. Today is the worst day of my life.”

“Because of what Dr. Sierra and Hunsinger told you this morning.”

“That was just the beginning.”

He edged up to the railing and resumed looking at the river. Liza clasped his hand and stood beside him. They shared the same view, but he doubted they were seeing the same things, and he found himself wishing that Liza could read minds, for he would have given anything not to repeat the things that Max had told him.

“Sierra and Hunsinger were the tip of the iceberg. I killed eight different people when I was a little kid.”

“Oh, my God, Peter. Are you sure?”

“Max confirmed it. He saw me strangling a mugger the night my parents died. Said the guy deserved it, not that it made me feel any better.”

“Who were the others?”

“Two of them were assassins trying to do away with my parents; the other six came after my parents died. My demon did a ‘Death Wish’ on all the bad guys roaming the city that night.”

“So you only killed bad people. Well, I guess that’s some consolation. Isn’t it?”

When confronted by the forces of evil, most people turned away, or made excuses, or tried to ignore the facts staring them in the face. It was how they coped with evil in its purest form, and Liza was no exception. He fell silent.

“So what are you going to do?” she asked.

He struggled to reply. In the back of his mind he saw himself taking the plunge into the river and emerging a different person, or not. That was one way out.

“I remember the first time you brought me here,” she said. “We had just started dating, and you took me out to dinner, and then brought me here. We stood right in this spot, and you explained to me that there were sixteen bridges that connected the island of Manhattan to the different boroughs, and then you named them. There was the Brooklyn Bridge, the George Washington Bridge, the Triborough Bridge, and I can’t remember the others. Then you told me how you grew up believing the bridges were anchors that kept the city from floating away. Remember?”

He nodded.

“Is that why you came here? Because you feel like you’re floating away?”

It was as good an analogy as Peter could think of, and he nodded again.

“Are you afraid your demon will come out again, and go on a rampage?”

Growing up, his parents and later his parents’ friends had taught him to control his anger, and it allowed him to control the demon as well. So far, he’d been able to keep the monster under control, but who knew what the future held?

“That’s part of it,” he said.

“So tell me the rest. Please, Peter, I want to know. Say what’s on your mind.”

“I lost my dream. I’ve always known I was different. I talked to my mother about it, and she told me not to worry. She told me that one day I’d grow up, and everything would work out. I took that to mean that when I became an adult, I’d meet a special person, get married, have a couple of kids, and lead a normal life. I’d get to shed being a psychic just like a soldier gets out of the army, you know? Sure, I’d still have gifts, but I wouldn’t have to use them unless I wanted to. That was my dream, and I’ve held on to it for all this time. But now I know that isn’t true. This evil inside of me will always be there, and I’ll always need to keep a lid on it. Because if I don’t, it will come out, and there will literally be hell to pay. I won’t get to retire, ever. I’m stuck being who I am.”