Нил Шустерман - Scorpion Shards

Deanna floated deep in the void, hearing nothing but her own heartbeat. She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out. She felt far away, beneath an ocean, for she could not breathe at all. She forced herself up and up, toward the light at the surface, her head pounding, her chest cramping, until finally she broke the surface, into the light of—

—a room. A hospital room. Yes. Yes, of course. The driverless car of doom. How terrified she had been of it. She had seen it before. Only this time it had been real. It was not just there to terrify her—it was there to kill her— and it could have, too—but she wasn’t dead. She wiggled her toes—she wasn’t even paralyzed. She moved her right arm and felt a searing pain shoot through her wrist that made her groan.

“You’re all right,” said someone next to her. The voice of a man. No—a boy. She lazily turned her head to face him, and her eyes began to focus. He was her age—fifteenish, with red hair but eyes that were dark and so frighteningly deep that she couldn’t look away. Soulful, her mother would call those eyes.

“Your wrist is sprained,” he said. “You’ve probably got a concussion too, but still you’re pretty lucky, consid­ering what happened.”

“Who are you?” she asked.

“No one important,” he replied. “My name’s Dillon.” She still could not look away from his eyes, and what she saw there told her all she needed to know. His eyes poured forth his guilt, and she knew that somehow he had done this to her. He had sent the terrible driverless car.

“You bastard,” she groaned, and yet she felt strangely relieved. This time it had been real, not just another vi­sion—and yet she wasn’t dead. In its own way, it was a relief.

Dillon leaned away, unnerved. “I didn’t want to hurt you.” He said anxiously. “I didn’t want to hurt anybody . . . It’s just that . . .” He stopped. How could he hope she could ever understand?

“No, tell me,” she said and grabbed his hand. Dillon gasped and tried to pull his hand back; but even in her weakened state, she held him firmly . . . and he was amazed to discover that his touch didn’t scramble her mind. She did not shrink away from him.

How was this possible? Everyone he touched was af­fected— everyone.

“Your hand is warm,” she said, then looked at him cu­riously. “You’re not afraid! I don’t make you afraid!”

“No,” he said. She smiled, keeping her eyes fixed on his, and in that moment a brilliant light shone through the half-opened blinds—a sudden green flash that resolved into a red glow in the dark sky.

Whatever that light was, it seemed to make the rest of the world go away, leaving the two of them floating in a hospital room that was floating in space.

This, thought Deanna, is the most important moment of my life . . . and she immediately knew why.

“You’re like me!” she whispered. “You’re just like me!”

Dillon nodded, his eyes filling with tears, because he too knew it was true. In this instant, he felt closer to Deanna than he had ever felt to anyone. I almost killed her, he thought. How horrible it would have been if she died, and we had never met. He marveled at how the strange light painted a soft glow around her charcoal hair, and he felt a sudden reverence for her that was beyond words. The only words that he could speak now that would make any sense would be his confession.

“I destroy everything I touch,” said Dillon.

“You don’t destroy me,” answered Deanna.

“I’m a monster,” said Dillon.

“That’s not what I see,” she answered. It was the closest thing to forgiveness Dillon had ever felt. Then Deanna began to cry and began a confession of her own.

“I’m afraid,” she said.

“Of what?”

“Of this place. Of my life. Of everything inside and out. I’m terrified.”

Dillon gripped her hand tightly. “Then I’ll protect you,” he said. “I’ll make sure nothing out there can hurt you.”

Deanna smiled through her tears, because she knew that this boy who had almost destroyed her now meant to protect her with all his heart. He held her hand with a delicate intensity, as if having her hand in his was a mira­cle of the highest order. In this instant, she trusted him more than she had ever trusted anyone.

“No,” she answered. “We’ll protect each other.”

On that same night, the dark sky over Ala­bama was punctuated by a million stars. Still, those stars were not bright enough to shed light on the ground, and since the moon had not yet risen, the ground was left darker than the space between the stars.

Winston Marcus Pell lay in his lightless room, wiggling his fingers, trying to see them. His dark skin could have been painted fluorescent yellow, and still he’d have seen little more than a vague shadow.

A night this black was either a good omen or a bad one—depending on which set of superstitions you chose to believe—and Winston had to keep reminding himself that he didn’t believe in that silly stuff. Educated people like him didn’t have superstitions—that was left to the poor folk still trapped deep in the Black Belt, tilling its cruel dark soil. People who didn’t know any better.

So why, then, was Winston so afraid on nights like to­night?

The wind came and went in great and sudden gusts that rattled the windows and tore off leaves before their time. Those yellow October leaves, orphaned by the wind, would shatter against the side of their big old house, sounding like scampering mice. When the gusts had passed, there was silence as empty as the night was dark. This was wrong, Winston knew. It was terribly wrong.

There are no evil creatures out there, he told himself. Those were stories told by old folks to keep kids from wandering out into the dark—but the silence—it was all wrong!

There are no crickets.

That was it!

The realization made Winston’s neck hairs stand on end and made him want to shrink even smaller beneath his blanket. There were always crickets, chirping all night long out here in the country—even in October. When they moved out from Birmingham, it was weeks before Winston could sleep because of the crickets.

What had shut the crickets up tonight?

Winston cursed himself for being so stupid about it. Damn it all, he was fifteen—no matter how he looked on the outside, he was fifteen inside, and shouldn’t be worried about what crickets chose to do on this night. On this dark night. On this dark creepy night.

Winston knew why he was afraid, although he didn’t want to think about it. He was afraid because, apart from the local superstitions, he knew there were stranger things in heaven and earth than he could shake a stick at.

Like the strange and awful thing that had been hap­pening to him for almost three years now. Of course no one talked about that to his face anymore. No one but lit­tle Thaddy, who was just too dumb to know any better.

Winston clenched his hands into a fist, wishing he had someone to fight. Well, maybe he was afraid of a night without crickets, but if something were out there, he was mad enough to beat the thing silly. He’d paralyze it and leave it helpless on the muddy ground, no matter how big it was.

A gust of wind ripped across the silence, then a thin ghostly wail flew in from the next room followed by the sound of running feet.

Thaddy was in Winston’s room in a terrible fright. He smashed his shin against Winston’s wooden bed frame, and his wail turned into a howl.

“Hush up!” ordered Winston. “I don’t want you wak­ing Mama.”