James Swain - Shadow People

Garrison was taken to the ER of the nearby Lawrence Hospital Center to be checked out.

A sign on the wall boasted that the hospital had over four hundred doctors. Judging from the activity inside the ER, most of them were on duty tonight.

Peter and Liza stood in a curtained room with Garrison, waiting for a doctor to see him. The agent sat on a table wearing slacks and an undershirt. He kept looking at his arms, shocked that the skin had not been burned. To Peter he said, “Why was I spared?”

“It’s complicated,” Peter said.

“Go ahead. I’m not going anywhere.”

“The Order was in retreat mode. Munns was dead, and the police were about to arrest Ray and start interrogating him. Ray was a recruiter and had direct contact with the three elders that call the shots. The elders needed to silence Ray before he started talking. That was their sole objective, and they succeeded.”

“Why didn’t they kill the rest of us as well?” Garrison asked.

“The elders don’t kill innocent civilians, if they can avoid it. They let their underlings do that.”

“And by not killing civilians, the police don’t pursue them. Makes sense. Looks like we’ve got company.”

Rachael came through the curtains. Except for a square bandage covering a scrape on her forehead, she looked no worse for wear, and she gave Peter’s arm a squeeze. “There you are. I was hoping to see you before I blew out of here.”

“You’re leaving?” Peter asked.

“I gave my statement to the police, and really don’t see any reason to hang around,” she said. “I think a good night’s sleep in my own bed is just what the doctor ordered.”

Liza stepped forward. “You must be Rachael. I’m Liza. It’s great to finally meet you. I heard you on the phone a few days ago.”

“You heard me on the phone?” Rachael said, sounding confused.

“It’s a long story,” Peter explained. “Maybe someday we can get together, and Liza and I will explain it to you.”

“That would be very nice. There’s an awful lot of what’s happened here that I still don’t completely understand. One of the policemen told me about the fire at the tattoo parlor. I hope no one was injured who didn’t deserve to be.”

“The good guys came out unscathed,” Garrison replied.

“How wonderful is that?” Rachael broke into a smile. It was the first time she’d done that, and it made her look radiant. To Peter she said, “May I steal you away from your friends for a couple of minutes? I have a question that I think only you can answer.”

Peter looked at Liza and saw her nod. Pulling aside the curtain, he allowed Rachael to leave first, then turned to his friends. “I’ll be right back.”

He followed Rachael outside the hospital to the parking lot. A yellow cab idled by the front entrance. Peter guessed this was Rachael’s ride back to the city. She would go home tonight and, hopefully, return to a normal life. He wished he could be so lucky.

“Can you please tell me what those things are?” she asked.

A darkish cloud hung over the taxi. Peter had thought it was the taxi’s dirty exhaust, but upon closer inspection, realized it was the shadow people, all clustered together. He’d assumed the shadow people would go back to wherever they came from once Munns was dead, and the threat to Rachael had passed.

Wrong.

The shadow people were not going anywhere until Rachael was back in New York, safe and sound. Their sole purpose for being was to protect Rachael. It had never been about him, or Munns, or the Order of Astrum. Their skin in the game was to keep Rachael unharmed, and they had succeeded.

“Can you make them go away?” she asked. “They’re scaring me.”

“You don’t want them to go away,” Peter said. “Those are your other guardian angels. They’re going to hang around for a while, and make sure you get home okay.”

She shuddered from an invisible chill. “I guess I can deal with that. But what are they? Ghosts? Or are they something else? I really want to know.”

Peter wanted to tell her to forget about them. She had escaped from the forces of evil, and that was all that really mattered. Asking questions would only lead to more questions and soon she’d be bogged down by the horrible weight of it all. He chose his words carefully.

“Think of them as friends from the other side.”

“Like fairies?”

He laughed to himself. That was one way to describe them. “Call them what you want. Don’t be afraid if you catch them hanging around. They’re just trying to protect you. Now, let me ask you a question. What do you do for a living?”

“Why is that important?” she asked.

Rachael had been targeted because she made a difference in the world, and Peter wanted to know what that difference was. “I’m just curious.”

“Very well. I’m a research scientist. It’s boring work. Endless hours in the lab staring through a microscope at tiny molecules. I specialize in molecular biology in the hopes it will one day lead to a breakthrough in cancer research.”

Peter had his answer. He smiled. “That’s wonderful.”

“Actually, no. I was looking forward to taking a break. I’ve had a rough couple of days.”

“May I ask why?”

She impressed him as a private person, and she gazed at the ground as she spoke. “Most of my experiments are done with lab rats. They are much nicer animals than you’d imagine. This past week, I had to put down six of my favorites. I gave them names, which made it that much more painful. It put me in a terrible depression. I hate killing animals.”

“But you keep doing it.”

She lifted her eyes. “You make that sound like a crime.”

“It makes you feel bad, doesn’t it?”

“It’s supposed to make me feel bad. But that doesn’t make it wrong. A long time ago I realized that some of us were put on this earth to kill in the hopes that it might better mankind. I know that sounds very noble, but I happen to think it’s true. Soldiers kill so that we may have peace, policeman kill to stop criminals from hurting innocent people, and I euthanize some unlucky lab rats in the hope I’ll discover a cure for cancer. It’s hard, but there’s no other way.”

Peter thought about the killing he’d done in his life. Had those bloody acts left the world a better place? He supposed they had, for the men he’d killed were the personification of evil, and had victimized countless innocent people. It was one way to rationalize the things he’d done, and the things that he’d no doubt do someday in the future.

“Well, it was nice meeting you,” he said.

“Am I safe to go home?” she asked.

“I think so.”

“How do I thank you for saving my life?”

“No need to. I’m glad I was in time.”

She gave him a hug. The best things in life were the good deeds we did for strangers. Someone a lot smarter than him had said that, and it felt very true right now. He went to the cab and held open the door for her. The shadow people continued to hover above the vehicle like a storm cloud. “I have a question,” he said. “You said before that you saw me in a dream. Do you remember what was I doing?”

She stopped before getting in the cab. “It was so strange. You were standing on stage doing your magic. I was in the front row watching. When your trick was done, a single person in the audience started to clap. The sound had a hollow ring, and it caused me to turn around in my seat to see what was going on. To my surprise, the seats behind me were empty.”

“Who was doing the clapping?”

“A dark figure standing in the very back row. He wore hideous stage makeup and a flowing black Gothic robe. There was a black bird perched on his shoulder that looked like a vulture. He asked me if I wanted to join him.”