James Swain - Shadow People

“Maybe so. But it might not be in time to save her. She’s going out to see Dr. Death on Friday night, and he’s going to kill her, just like he did his other victims. And you and I will have to live with that for the rest of our lives.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because we know what’s going to happen. That’s the curse of knowing the future. If we don’t do anything to prevent the horrible things we know from happening, our consciences will eat at us, and we’ll walk around feeling like shits because we didn’t act.”

“Has that ever happened to you?”

He nodded stiffly, the memory still fresh. “About ten years ago. We did a séance one Friday night, and I got pulled over to the other side. I found myself standing outside an Italian restaurant in the neighborhood where I used to live. The owner was a nice old guy who got along with everybody. Two punks went in and tried to rob the place. The owner pulled a gun and ran them off. I was standing outside when the punks ran out with the owner chasing after them. I thought it was funny as hell. When the séance was over, I told the psychics in our group what had happened. They told me that I had to warn him. I didn’t see the point.”

“Did you warn him?”

“No. And it still eats at me.”

“Why?”

“The owner got robbed two days later. It played out just like I’d seen it. Except there was one thing I didn’t see during my séance. The owner chased the punks down the street and around the corner. Then he had a heart attack and dropped dead.”

“Oh, Peter, I’m sorry. If he had a bad heart, he probably would have had a heart attack eventually.”

“I still should have gone to see him. It was my responsibility, and I let him down.”

“How often do you think about it?”

“Every single day.”

The back of the limo fell silent. Being a psychic was a gift, and it was also a curse, and sometimes, quite strangely, it was a little bit of both.

“So the moral of the story is, we have to let the shadow people take you over to the other side if we’re going to save Rachael,” Liza said.

“Only if we want to live with ourselves.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know, Peter. I just don’t know.”

A magic show took as long to prepare as it did to perform. Every prop that Peter used in his act needed to be tested to ensure it was working properly. Musicians and comics could have things go wrong and still salvage a show, but that wasn’t true with magic. If a trick went haywire during a performance, the mystical illusion of wonderment that Peter had worked so hard to create would be shattered, and the audience’s evening ruined.

Each night before his show he did a prop check, a light check, a sound check, and a music check. Only after those were completed to his satisfaction did he retire to his dressing room, and change into his performance clothes.

He took his time dressing. He got nervous before going on, and dressing helped calm him down. Soon, his fans would begin lining the sidewalk in front of the theater with tickets clutched in their hands. Mostly families with kids, but lots of couples as well, and plenty of squealing teenage girls. The front doors would open, and they’d file in. Sometimes, he’d peek out the window to the street to glimpse their expectant faces. They came from all over, yet shared one thing in common: They loved to be fooled.

He stood in front of a mirror as he dressed. A strange motion in the reflection caught his eye, and he watched a shadow person seep out of a crack in the wall, and stand directly behind him, hovering a few inches off the floor. He turned around, and faced his unwanted guest.

“Leave me alone. I have a show to do!”

It made no sound, and continued to hover. From the same crack seeped a second shadow person, followed by a third and a fourth, until six otherworldly spirits were crammed into his tiny dressing room. He tried to reason with them.

“I know what you want. Come back later, and I’ll go over to the other side with you, and you can show me whatever it is you want to show me. But not now. I have a show to do.”

His guests didn’t budge. That was a problem, because he wasn’t going to back down. He shook a finger in what would have been their faces, if they’d had them.

“I’m not kidding. Get out of here.”

The wall of black closed around him. He heard a sharp scraping sound as a chair was pulled across the floor, and his body was forced into it. The lapels of his jacket were tugged back, the front of his shirt unbuttoned. He roared his disapproval.

“Damn you!” he shouted.

His buttons popped as his shirt was pulled open. A black hand grabbed the five-pointed star hanging around his neck, and yanked on it.

“Stop that!”

There was a loud banging on the door. He jerked his head, fearful a stranger might step into his dressing room and see this insane scene. “Yes?”

“Peter, what’s wrong?” Liza said fearfully through the door.

“The shadow people are here. They’re trying to take me away.”

“Hold on-I’ll help you!”

Liza started kicking the door. He tried to summon the demon within, wondering how it would fare against a band of spirits. Before he could find out, the black hand ripped the five-pointed star from his neck, and tossed it to the floor.

He entered the next world still fighting.

It was déjà vu all over again.

Peter was transported from his dressing room to the snaking dirt road on the hill beside Dr. Death’s house in Westchester County. As before, Dr. Death was chasing him, the Volvo’s headlights dancing in the darkness as the vehicle raced down the hill.

Damn the shadow people! Peter thought as he ran for his life. Why couldn’t they just come out and tell him who Dr. Death was? Or at least point him in the right direction? Why did each visit have to be a hair-raising experience that made his heart beat so hard that he could hardly breathe?

At the bottom of the hill he took a hard left, sprinting ahead. Something felt different from his two previous visits. The air was noticeably cooler, the sky not nearly as dark. He’d been brought back to the same place, but it was not at the same time in the future.

The Volvo’s wheels skidded as Dr. Death took the turn and goosed the accelerator. Peter knew what came next. Dr. Death would stick his handgun out his window, take aim, and shoot him in the leg, delivering a nasty flesh wound. The beginning of the end, unless he did something drastically different from the two previous times.

He bolted to his right. Maybe he could change the outcome of this. At the edge of the road he tried to jump into the forest, only it was as dense as a jungle, and there was nowhere to escape to.

“Damn it,” he swore.

He wondered if the shadow people heard him, or if they cared. Ghosts and spirits were bad that way. Divorced from human feelings, they often forgot what it was like to suffer.

A gunshot ripped the still night air. He groaned and grabbed his thigh. Blood was pouring down his leg, and he pressed his hand against the gaping wound to stop the flow. The Volvo parked in the road, and Dr. Death climbed out. The serial killer wore the same college professor clothes and the same lunatic smile. Gun in hand, he told Peter to kneel. The young magician complied.

“Want to say something before you die?” Dr. Death asked.

Peter told himself that he was going to somehow escape, and that he must learn who Dr. Death was before he was sent back to the real world.

“What day is it?” he asked.

“What kind of stupid question is that?” Dr. Death replied.

“I was brought here against my will. I want to know.”