Christopher Golden - The Shadow Men

Now it was Sally’s turn to look embarrassed, as if she was ashamed of having snapped at him. “I’m the Oracle,” she replied. “It’s what I’m for.”

Jim glanced back to make sure they were all still together. Trix and Anne, hands held tightly, helped each other over the debris. Trix’s pink hair gleamed in the city light. Jennifer gazed around at the terrified people they passed, obviously wanting to stop and help but sticking with them-with him-for the sake of yet another of her otherworldly twins, a woman who was her, though they had never met, and a daughter she had never had.

“Tell me about these Shadow Men,” Jim said. “How do we fight them?”

“They aren’t people… not anymore. I mean, they’re not solid, right? But they’re not really ghosts, either. If they’re solid enough to attack you or grab you, then you can grab them back. It’s tricky. They kind of fade in and out. It won’t help you beat them, but maybe it’ll help you get away from them if they try to take you through.”

“Through where?” Jim asked.

Sally glanced at him, a bit surprised and disturbed at the same time. “Into the In-Between, of course.”

Jim shuddered, mostly because of her tone but also because of the haunted look in her eyes. “What happens if they do?”

Sally glanced back at Trix and the Jennys, then at Jim again. They were making their way around an abandoned Volvo station wagon that had bumped up onto the curb and run over a couple of parking meters. “I know Veronica can’t have told you much, but didn’t the Irish Oracle-”

“O’Brien.”

“Didn’t O’Brien explain what she’d done to you, sending you here?”

Jim shook his head. “We weren’t there long before the faceless guys… the Shadow Men… came and killed him.”

Sally sighed. “Right. Of course.” She gave a small shrug. “Y’know how I just said they’re not people anymore? Well, they were. The In-Between-the shadow stuff that separates three Bostons, or I guess the two Bostons now-it has tides.”

“An ebb and flow,” Jim said, nodding. “Veronica said something like that. But she was saying that sometimes the three cities overlapped.”

“Yeah, but she didn’t tell you about the In-Between. That’s what’s really flowing. And sometimes it washes into one of the real worlds, and when the wave goes back, it brings people with it. If they’re in a place where the cities overlap normally, where the Bostons are the same, then they can slip from one to the other. But if not, and they’re dragged out of their world… they end up in the In-Between.”

Jim felt a little nauseous. “You’re saying they get turned into those shadow things?”

“Not right away,” Sally said. “It takes time. I’ve seen them when they’re not fully changed, part flesh and blood and part shadow stuff.”

“Jesus,” Jim muttered.

“Veronica showed you and Trix how to get through at the crossings, the places where the cities overlap, and as long as you’re quick and careful, you can do that, because you’re Uniques. Holly, too. But Jenny…”

Jim stopped, not liking the girl’s tone. “Jenny what?”

Sally scuffed her feet on the sidewalk, so much like a little girl. “There are only a couple of places where you can get Jenny through. If you tried anywhere else, she’d get lost in the In-Between.”

Jim couldn’t help but laugh. “That unbelievable bitch. That was her plan all along, for us to come over here, lead her killer shadows to you and O’Brien, and then lose Jenny on the way back anyway.”

“I don’t think so,” Sally said. “I’d bet that was just her Plan B. Plan A was for all of us to die.”

Jim gaped in horror and disbelief, a cold edge forming inside him. He had been terrified for Jenny and Holly, determined, but now he was furious. Veronica was going to pay for what she’d already accomplished, and for what she had tried to do. But first he had to get his family back. “So your No-Face Men are…?”

Sally looked up at him, and her smile was almost smug. “My own little victory,” she said. “The souls of those yet to be. That’s why they have those faces-flitting with potential. And those long limbs, where they stretch for life. And they’re eager to serve.”

Jim nodded and fell back, suddenly more afraid of this little girl than he thought possible.

Behind him, Trix and Anne spoke in soft voices. He glanced back at them and saw the way Anne looked at Trix when she talked-amazement that Trix was alive, sorrow that this was not the Trix that she knew; yearning for a love she’d lost, and hope that it might be born again. He wasn’t watching where he was going, and he caught his foot on a bit of cracked sidewalk and fell to his knees. He skinned his hands trying to catch himself and swore softly, feeling like an idiot.

“Hey,” Jennifer said, helping him up. “Are you all right?”

She turned his palms up to examine the scrapes, the contact making him catch his breath. Sensing his sudden tension, Jennifer glanced up at him with inquisitive eyes. They stood like that for several seconds, and Jim understood exactly how Anne must feel when she looked at Trix. But his wife… his Jenny… wasn’t dead. She wasn’t. “I will be,” Jim said. “Thanks.”

He withdrew his hands from her grasp, and the two of them caught up to Sally. It seemed to Jim that he and Jennifer were both keenly aware of each other’s presence, that there was a magnetism that drew them toward each other even as it pushed them away.

She’s not Jenny, he told himself again. But Jennifer looked so much like her that it hurt.

Trix had never been big into drugs, but she had experimented here and there, licking microdots off paper like children’s candy at the age of fourteen, smoking pot through high school, and taking a turn at cocaine and Ecstasy in college before deciding that both scared the shit out of her. It had been six or seven years since she’d had anything stronger than a shot of tequila.

But damn if she didn’t feel high right now.

Wandering through a devastated city where people faced doppelgangers with whom they would now have to share their worlds and their lives, anyone would have felt lost in the surreal. But it wasn’t any of those things that made Trix feel as though she had fallen down the rabbit hole. It was Anne.

Her skin prickled with excitement, and she felt almost giddy. The feelings confused and frightened her, but she could not ignore them. All the daydreams she’d had about Jenny, from musings and sighs to masturbatory fantasies couched in guilt and reservations, had been real in this world, for some other Trix. Anne was not her Jenny. She was not Anne’s Trix. And yet…

And yet.

Trix knew it couldn’t be. Not really. But Anne kept taking her hand, and the way the woman looked at her with those gentle eyes made her want to laugh. It wasn’t a time for laughter. Jenny and Holly were still missing, and she loved her Jenny and needed to have her back in her life, safe and sound. But maybe there had been three Bostons for a reason. Maybe the whole point of an alternate world was for there to be a place where other fates could unfold, and where broken hearts could find happier endings.

“Hey,” Anne said, nudging her. “Are you okay?”

Trix looked at her, tried not to laugh at the absurdity of the question, and then couldn’t stop herself. She snickered, attempted to cover up, and failed. Anne blinked, stung for a moment, but then she grinned. “Stupid question, huh?” Anne asked.

“Not at all,” Trix said, clutching Anne’s hand and swinging her arm like they were lovers on a leisurely stroll. “It’s the perfect weather for a walk through Copley Square.”

They laughed quietly, and Trix glanced ahead to see Jim looking back at her. She knew that she should cool it with Anne, stop holding her hand, stop whispering with her. She knew for sure that she and this woman shouldn’t be laughing together in the middle of chaos, not when Jenny and Holly were presumably in the hands of someone-or something-that meant them harm. As weird as it was for her, she thought, it must be so much worse for Jim. Trix feared for Jenny and Holly. They meant the world to her. But being with Anne made it all feel incredibly dreamlike, and if she didn’t laugh a little, she might scream.