Mel Odom - Shades

Fractures spread across the concrete surface, marking out the roughly rectangular shape the body had been hidden behind. Chunks of rock fell onto the basement floor at Wilkins's feet. Once the hole was made, Wilkins dropped the pickax and seized the sledgehammer. He beat at the opening in the wall, smashing it wider and taller.

The battery-powered camp lantern threw a golden glow over the skeleton dressed in rags within the makeshift tomb. The thumping of the monstrous heartbeat reached a crescendo, and the deafening noise vibrated inside Isabel.

"It wasn't him!" Wilkins cried. Dropping the sledgehammer, the old man reached into the hole and hauled the corpse out. The weight was too much for Wilkins, though, and the dead man slipped free of his grip. The corpse clattered to the basement floor, raising a small gust of dust that eddied in the illumination given off by the camp lantern.

Isabel watched as Wilkins backed away from the dead man.

"That heartbeat wasn't him," Wilkins shouted over the thundering thump. "Heartbeat wasn't him at all. I thought it was, but you can see for yourself: He ain't got no heart."

Through the ragged shirt that was stained with old blood, Isabel looked at Swanson's empty rib cage. It was true: The man had no heart. Where was the heartbeat coming from? Was the noise just Wilkins's guilt finally catching up to him?

"It wasn't Swanson," Wilkins said. "It was that bug. That bug that he kept at his throat."

"What bug?" Isabel asked. She had to work hard not to get grossed out. The bones were filled with old spider-webs, and the husks of dead spiders knotted up inside the silken strands.

"Me an' him," Wilkins said, "we found this bug. A little metal bug. We found it at a dig site. Wasn't nothin' there. No gold, no uranium, no copper. Wasn't nothin' there but dirt. An' that bug he kept in that leather pouch at his throat. He thought the bug was somethin' the Mesaliko made. The bug was dead. As dead as Swanson." His eyes dropped to the corpse. "Only now the bug ain't dead, is it? And Swanson ain't dead either."

Spotting the leather pouch at the dead man's neck, Isabel recognized the article as the one Valenti had shown them back in Michael's house. Valenti had said something had torn through the leather.

As she watched, a gleaming silver thread poked through the side of the leather bag. Involuntarily Isabel took a step back. The silver thread worked quickly, joined by other silver threads, all of them clenching and unclenching furiously, like the segmented legs of a wasp. In seconds the side of the leather bag ripped out, leaving a ragged edge.

A silver shape emerged. Balanced on thread-thin legs, the improbable insect creature had the characteristics of a spider and a wasp. It spread two of the threadlike appendages, and a diaphanous foil wing pulled taut between them. The creature leaped and hopped as if trying to launch itself into the air, but never succeeded.

"I tried to kill it." Wilkins crept forward from the shadows, clinging to the wall. He took a fresh grip on the sledgehammer and raised the heavy head high. "I tried to kill it an' that's when Swanson come to life again."

Before he could bring the sledgehammer down, a ghostly form drew up from the tangled scatter of bones and rotting clothing. The man was taller than Wilkins, and thin as a rail. He wore an eye patch and a hard expression.

"You killed me, Leroy Wilkins," the ghost accused, leveling an accusatory finger. "You killed me, an' I come to kill you back." Moving with unnatural speed, the ghost closed on Wilkins with fists upraised and ready to strike.

Wilkins cowered against the back wall.

Using her power Isabel tried to erase memory of the ghost from the dreamwalk connection. Instead the ghost froze in midrun. The ghost probably wasn't, Isabel decided, much less scary frozen than it was while in motion.

Offering mute testimony to that fact, Wilkins cringed against the wall. He mewled plaintively, hiding behind his raised hands and arms.

"Mr. Wilkins," Isabel called softly. She approached the man cautiously, knowing he might attack her because he was so afraid.

"It's not Swanson," the old man whispered hoarsely. "But it is. He wants to kill me."

"This isn't real, Mr. Wilkins," Isabel said. "This is just a memory. A dream. This isn't happening. You don't have to be afraid."

Wilkins peered at her angrily. "You'd be afraid too if you had one of those things huntin' you. They're devils, come from Hell itself to bring Swanson back to get me. You seen it."

"It's not real."

"It was." Wilkins stared at the frozen ghost. "It was real enough then, an' it will be real again. You can't stop them."

Isabel glanced at the ghost. Did it just move? She wasn't certain. But she believed Kyle had been right when he'd suggested that the creatures were able to read minds, or at least were able to access a person's subconscious and find an image that would terrify him or her.

She turned her attention back to Wilkins. "Where exactly was the site where you found the bug?"

"Didn't turn out to be nothin' but a placer mine." Wilkins said. "Only had a spot of color, nothin' a man could make any money at."

"Where, Mr. Wilkins?" Isabel persisted.

Without warning, the ghost surged free of its frozen state. Even though Isabel knew the ghost hadn't broken free of her control on its own and that actually Wilkins had taken back control of the dreamwalk, a surge of fear still slammed through her at the sight of it. She knew the ghost couldn't hurt her, and still she was scared.

Wilkins screamed as the ghost grabbed him. The sound of a beating heart filled the basement again, but the beats were somehow different this time.

Isabel grabbed at the ghost's shoulder, intending to pull the thing off the old man. Instead her hands passed through the ghost. She tried again, reaching for Wilkins this time, but only met with the same result. Ghost and man were both intangible to her.

"Mr. Wilkins." Isabel stepped within arm's reach of the old man. "Mr. Wilkins, I need to know where you and Swanson found the bug."

Without warning, the battery-powered camp lantern dimmed so much that the basement walls could no longer be seen. In the next instant, Isabel was standing in deep black space with no way to orient herself. For all she knew, the world had ceased to exist.

The ghost slowly faded away, like smoke lifting from a field when the wind changed.

Wilkins remained against the wall, screaming and crying out for help. Then the heartbeat ceased thundering.

Voices tumbled out of the darkness, frantic and practiced all at the same time. "Code Blue! I've got a Code Blue!"

"His heart's stopped. Start CPR."

"CPR started."

Wilkins crumpled to a fetal position. Tears glistened on his face as his rheumy eyes sought Isabel's out. "I'm scared," he whispered. "I don't want to go."

Isabel didn't know what to say.

"He's in full arrest," a far-off voice said.

"Guy's old," someone else said. "Even if we save him, we could do a lot of damage here."

"We're breaking ribs."

"Give me the paddles."

Isabel listened to the voices, thinking it had to be a television episode playing in the background. She wanted to leave.

"Don't go," Wilkins begged. "I don't want to be alone."

Isabel shook her head. "I can't help you," she whispered. "There are people in the hospital. They can help you. They're helping you now."

"It's too late," Wilkins said. "They can't help me."

"Clear!" someone shouted from what sounded like a thousand miles away.

"I don't know what to do," Isabel said.

"Stay with me," Wilkins asked desperately.

The darkness shuddered around Isabel.

"Nothing," someone said.

"We're going again. Clear!"

Another shudder passed through the darkness, and this time it claimed Leroy Wilkins, blotting him from Isabel's view in a heartbeat. She stood alone in the darkness and felt it pull at her. Then she tried to slip out of the dreamwalk and return to her body in Michael's house, tried to feel Michael's battered sofa against her body.