Christopher Golden - The Shadow Men

Anne and Jenny screamed as well, and for their final few moments in the In-Between they cried tears of unimaginable loss.

Bursting back through the Reflection Room and feeling the weight of reality realigning around them, Jim risked a look at his wife and the woman who could be her twin. They were reduced by what had happened; something was missing from their eyes. As he felt tears blurring his vision, he wondered whether either of them would ever feel fully alive again.

“Mommy!” Holly shouted as they opened the door. “Mommy!” The little girl ran across the bloodstained room and hugged her mother tight.

“McGee,” Sally said.

“Yes.” Jim nodded. Trix was holding Anne as she sobbed. Sally glanced around, then walked slowly across the room and closed the door. She had seen Jennifer’s absence and accepted it, and Jim couldn’t help hating her for it, just a little. Perhaps that was unfair blame, but right then he had to blame someone.

“Get these fucking things out of us,” Jim said.

“Not yet,” Sally said. She looked at Holly and Jenny hugging and smiled an unbearable smile. It was a look that said, That can never be me, and Jim’s anger at her shifted to grudging pity.

“Why?” Jim asked.

“Because it’s not over.” The Oracle looked at Trix, and Trix looked at Jim.

“Veronica,” Trix said.

“Veronica.” Sally waved them closer, and Jim realized that it was not yet time to rest.

It was daytime. Smoke hung over the city, drifting gently westward and tearing the sunlight into veils of gorgeous color. Jim remembered hearing of similar electromagnetic effects in the atmosphere after other earthquakes. He wondered what more this tragedy might have done, but for now he had his family with him, and he really did not care.

They looked like a party of refugees. Jenny wore a pair of pants and a man’s shirt they’d found in a storage room in the library, and she had taken the shoes from the dead woman’s body. Jim had been shocked at that, but Jenny had barely blinked as she sat and put them on. Life, death-their distinction was still strong, but now the space In-Between was vaster than ever before. Holly was tired and bedraggled, Trix and Anne leaned on each other for support, and Sally walked ahead of the small group. Some people recognized her and moved aside, almost as if making way for a queen, but most did not. Most of the others they passed in that blighted city had tragedy of their own to contemplate, and their attention was focused inward.

“Can we… can we get these things out of us now?” Jenny asked, shuddering with revulsion at the presence of the No-Face Man still inside her.

Jim had been wondering the same thing. They were out of the In-Between. They didn’t need the shadow creatures merged with them anymore. But Sally shook her head again, and Jim saw that old wisdom working behind her eyes. “You’ll need them a little while longer,” she said.

“But-” Trix began.

“Please,” Sally said with a tired sigh. “You’ve trusted me this long.”

Holly took her hand. To her, it was clear Sally wasn’t a child at all. At four or five years older, the Oracle was one of the “big kids”-at least in Holly’s eyes. “We trust you, Sally,” Holly told her, and Jim shuddered, because now there was some of that old wisdom in his daughter’s voice, too.

They had another walk ahead of them, in this city where traffic was mainly restricted to emergency vehicles. Not every street was blocked, but there were many more bicycles being used today, and with crowds of people traversing the city in search of something-or perhaps, in some cases, fleeing something-it was a safer bet to walk.

“McGee’s house,” Sally had said. “That’s where she’ll be waiting.”

“Why can’t we just get there through the In-Between?” Anne had asked, shocking Jim, because that was the last place in the world he’d ever want to go again. But Anne’s eyes were filled with a fury he had never before seen in his wife. In his Jenny.

“No,” Sally had replied. “What’s left of McGee-whatever he’s become-has seen you now.”

“I’d fight him.” Anne had pursed her lips, her cheeks glowing red, and even Trix’s soft touch had done little to quell her shaking.

“And you’d lose,” Sally had said. “He’s not our enemy. He’s not the threat. His crime happened more than a century ago, and he was its first victim. Whatever he is now, I don’t think there’s much of Thomas McGee left in him.”

So they walked, and Jim wished it was all over. He could not let go of his wife, and he wanted to hold his daughter to him, but it was impossible to walk holding them both. So he gave Holly a piggyback ride and got Jenny to curve her arm through his. Soon Holly was snoring gently on his right shoulder, and he felt the sting of tears at that gentle, innocent sound. “How could she be such a bitch?” he asked out loud, and Jenny shook her head because she didn’t know what he meant. But Trix did.

“I can still hardly believe it,” Trix said. “After what she did for my family. What she’s done for so many.”

“You can’t purge your sins with good deeds,” Sally said.

“So what are we going to do to her?” Jim asked. Before, his desire had been for revenge, payback for what Veronica had done to Jenny and Holly-using them as objects, disregarding their humanity, and causing the disaster he walked through even now. But now, with his family back, gentler emotions had swallowed his rage. He still hated her for what she had done, but the thought of perpetrating violence on the old woman-whoever and whatever she might be-was horrible.

Still, he wasn’t the only person here. And Anne’s anger glowed like a beacon.

“What happens to her will be her choice as much as my own,” Sally said. “But you know I can’t go through with you, don’t you?”

“Of course,” Jim said. “But you Oracles… you don’t need to be there to get things done.”

As they crossed Boston, the closeness of his family-he included Trix in that circle now, and Anne as well-inspired conflicting thoughts. He felt stronger than ever before, and able to face any and all dangers that could be thrown their way. But he also felt incredibly vulnerable. He had gone through so much to save his family, the idea of something happening to them now…

He heard Jennifer’s screams, and knew he always would. She knew we were running, knew she was doing it to make time for us, and she’d have done her very best not to scream. How terrible it must have been .

It took them almost two hours to walk the two miles to Hanover Street. They crossed Boston Common, where thousands of displaced people had set up temporary shelters, and relief agencies were busy erecting tents and treatment areas. There were tears, but there were also children running between the tents playing hide-and-seek, teens playing soccer, and many groups of people had joined forces to prepare and hand out food and water. Spirits were generally high, but Jim knew that would not last longer than a couple of days.

None of them had any true idea about the level of destruction wrought on the city, or the death toll. That was for afterward. For now, they still had more than one world to consider.

Holly snored, and Jim wondered what was going on in her mind. Veronica wants your daughter dead because she’s the next Oracle of Boston, the redheaded kid had told them. That gave Jim and his family’s future a whole new landscape-but it was something else he was desperate not to think about right now.

When they finally found themselves closing on Veronica’s house, Sally called a halt and gathered them together in front of a tall townhouse. “Right,” she said, and told them what to do.