Kevin Guilfoile - Cast Of Shadows

Barwick had entered the Jungle to spy on Coyne, not to bait him. Or become another of his victims. She had a life here in Shadow World, a life she loved as much as its mirror in the alternate universe of the real world. She simply couldn’t risk it all chasing the crackpot whim of a high school kid she barely knew. She had to give Sam Coyne the same answer she’d give in real life if he asked her to go somewhere for quick and meaningless sex.

“Sam, no,” she said. “Thanks, but no.”

He stared at her for a minute as if others in this situation had changed their minds in the line of his hypnotic pupils. She didn’t doubt they had.

“All right, Sally,” Coyne said. “Some other time.” She watched him turn and walk back to the bar where one of the two blondes was still waiting. At just a word, she hopped off her stool and followed him toward the coat check. Sally waited until they were lost between bodies in the crowd, then set off after them.

Her escape from the dance floor was as littered with oversexed obstacles as her entrance, however. “No. No. No thank you. God, no! ” she insisted to one poorly rendered avatar after another until she finally reached the cold air outside. Snow had begun to fall. At her computer, Barwick looked out the window. The flakes were just beginning to stick to the boxwood outside. She marveled again how the Shadow World programmers were able to make the world on her screen so responsive and complex.

It was nearing last call and the bouncer had left, locking the entrance door behind him. The sad crowd of boys on the sidewalk were gone. The street was visible for several blocks in either direction, but she couldn’t see Coyne or the blonde. Sally began walking to the Camry, her head twisting in all directions, but a hand on her arm stopped her. Justin was out of the car.

“Sally, they walked into that building!” he said. “Across the tracks!” Barwick looked in the direction he was pointing and saw a large tin garage used by a private disposal company to warehouse garbage trucks.

“Eww,” she said. “Are you kidding me?”

“Maybe he’s testing out a new technique,” Justin said, looking over his shoulder as Sally tried to keep up with him in her heels. “Or maybe he’s done this very thing dozens of times as the Wicker Man, in the real world. Maybe he dumps the bodies with the garbage, and they’re never found. Who knows what his body count might be?”

Barwick didn’t buy it. “Sex next to a garbage truck has got to be an in-game-only fetish,” she said. “Stink doesn’t go through the computer. Besides, I’m not so sure this guy’s a TTL.”

“Why?” Justin asked.

“He’s too good looking.”

In his bedroom, Justin smiled.

A door to the giant tin barn was left open and Justin and Sally slipped inside. Dozens of blue trucks were lined up in rows, ready to make their rounds in just a few hours. A few fluorescent lights were on, high in the rafters, and they could hear loud echoes – a man and woman breathing and giggling – from somewhere inside the barn. Barwick put a finger to her lips and Justin understood. If we can hear them, they can hear us.

They walked with gentle footfalls up and down the rows, and the sounds from Coyne and the blonde became louder and more passionate, but they couldn’t tell if they were just inches away or dozens of yards. The crazy acoustics of the metal roof and walls, and the directional limitations of their headsets, limited their ability to home in.

Until they heard the blonde screaming.

“That way!” Justin whispered, running off before Sally could get her bearings. She slipped her heels off and followed the screams, which became more and more angry.

You sonofabitch! You sonofabitch! You goddamn crazy sonofabitch!

At least she wasn’t a True-to-Lifer, Barwick thought. If she were a TTL, the screams would be more terrified. More real. This chick’s just pissed.

Ten seconds later Sally ran right into Justin’s back. He was frozen between the front and rear bumpers of two garbage trucks. Because he was six inches taller than she was, Sally couldn’t get a look at anything on the other side of him.

“I can’t see!” Justin whispered desperately. “I’m blind here. I can’t see!”

It took Sally a moment to figure out what he meant. This was a fine time for his computer to freeze, or for a glitch in the software to show itself. He turned to face her. “I can see you,” he said. “But I can’t see out there.” Then she understood. Around the corner, there must be a scene so deranged or sexually explicit (or both) that it set off the parental filters on Justin’s computer. His screen had gone black.

“Look away,” Sally said. “Turn around and get behind me.” She pushed him aside and nudged in front of him, almost wishing she had the parental filters activated herself. Even if the blonde wasn’t a TTL, Barwick wasn’t sure she wanted to see what Coyne had done to her.

And when she stepped out to look, she wasn’t able to see it. Not right away.

The instant she maneuvered in front of Justin, Sally was hit in the face with something hard and metal. The pain meter at the bottom of her screen redlined. “Ow!” she said instinctively. She rolled over onto her back and looked up. Sam Coyne, pants buttoned but belt unbuckled, stood above her holding a shovel caked in dirt and filth. He sneered at her.

“What are you doing?” he asked. His voice was calm and measured – and calm and measured, under the circumstances, was cold and creepy. “If you wanted to come along so badly, Sally, you should have just said yes when I asked.”

Barwick tried to push herself backward, but the blow had injured her avatar, making it unresponsive to commands. “Sam, stay away from me,” she said. Through Coyne’s legs, she could see the blonde’s naked, lifeless avatar lying in an expanding pool of red. Somewhere in Chicago, the woman who had been playing the game with that character had no doubt stomped into the next room and was already watching television in a foul mood.

From one of his deep pockets, Coyne pulled a bloody towel. The towel dropped to the ground, unveiling a long knife with a black handle. “Sally, I usually like to get to know a girl first,” he said, crudely grabbing his crotch with his other hand. “Too bad.”

Barwick tried to stand, and managed to lift herself up on a straightened arm before falling back to the ground. Coyne lunged at her, then stopped himself, taking a slow step, then another lunge, a slow step, a lunge. Toying with her. When he was so close his right shoe gently kicked her bare left foot, Sally managed a scream.

And not some prissy, fantasy-playing, nothing-at-stake blonde-girl scream, either. It was fat and loud and high-pitched and it echoed through the old tin barn like a soprano aria. Coyne was startled then, not just by Sally’s yelling, but also by footsteps.

Seconds later, Coyne was on his side against the concrete, the knife skidding away with a sound like a shuffleboard disc. Justin was on top of him, flailing at the man’s face, but most of his blows missed or were blocked, and a few even struck concrete, punishing his own knuckles and forearms. Sally tried to right herself and looked around for the knife. By the time she saw it, deep under a truck at least a hundred feet and three rows away, Coyne had reversed positions with Justin. Now he was attacking with jabs, like a boxer, and Justin could do nothing but cover his face.

“Justin!” Sally yelled.

“I can’t see!” he managed to spit out between desperate breaths.

Shit! Barwick thought. Coyne likely thought Justin was babbling or referring to some temporary condition caused by the blood in his eyes. Sally knew better. As long as the blonde’s naked body was in his line of vision, the parental controls on Justin’s computer forced his screen to go black. Because Coyne was standing between Justin and the naked avatar, when Justin faced Coyne he couldn’t see anything in the game at all, much less defend himself against the man’s blows.