Back of the Envelope

I wasn't sure I really wanted to put this story online. First of all, it's incomplete. I have a beginning, but I really have no idea where it's going, or how long it will take to get there, or even whether I'll be happy with whatever ending I arrive at. Posting what I have so far is an act of faith on my part. Secondly, this has not gone through my rigorous three revision process. At best, it's one-and-a-half revision away from a first draft. I haven't even tried the read-it-aloud-and-see-if-it-sounds-stupid test. So why am I inflicting this story on you? Well, partly it's just so I have an entry in the storyblogging carnival. Yeah, yeah, I shouldn't rush something out just so I can make the carnival, but what are you going to do about it? But it's also because as rough and incomplete as this story is, it was a lot of fun to write. The main character has more of me in him than I really want to admit to, considering... well, you'll see. In addition, the sardonic voice came naturally to me, and that's also why I haven't put it through my rigorous revision process: the raw prose is partly what gives this story it's flavor. I'm worried that it would lose that if I worked too hard on smoothing it out. Anyway, here it is...

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Chapter 1
An Unexpected Answer

Ryan was at the mall, having braved Boston's cold and snow to get to the shops at the Prudential Center. This was not a particularly unusual thing, though Ryan despised shopping, especially for clothes. He did, however, enjoy feeding his two main vices, books and computer games. They were vices rather than hobbies because they tended to interfere with things such as work, sleep, food, and other minor details, so he did his best to ration them. This mall was one of his favorites, since it was close and had two book stores and two software stores. He had already been to all four, and the most exciting thing that had happened was that one of the bookstores had temporarily moved while it's old place was being remodeled. He hadn't found anything worth buying in any of them. He had come because of a rumor that a book he had been waiting for had come out, but he had had no luck finding it. And while he'd seen a couple of things he might want at a later date, he wasn't willing to spend the money right now. Now he was just working his way through the holiday crowds, annoyed at his heavy jacket, which was hot now that he was inside. Fortunately, the central mall, which was at least three stories high and topped with sky lights, wasn't as hot as the stores had been.

Ryan wasn't really watching where he was going. He often did not, and the reason was fairly consistent: he was fantasizing. Specifically, it was about a woman. As fantasies went, it was fairly innocent. He was just thinking that it'd be nice if he met someone he knew here. Especially if that someone was Christine, a co-worker he had a crush on. Maybe they'd run into each other and decide to have dinner together (he was feeling a bit hungry), and then maybe they'd decide to see a movie at the theater here (Ryan saw, on average, one or two movies a year, and none that he'd heard were playing right now sounded the least bit interesting, but he'd go with Christine anytime), and then, who knew? Ryan knew it was a fantasy, and that it'd be a lot more productive just to work up the nerve to ask Christine out, but it was harmless. Besides, he didn't really want to believe that this whole love thing came from the accidental meeting of two compatible persons. He wanted to believe that God, or Fate, or something was behind it. "If anyone's listening, I sure could use the help," he muttered under his breath. He was starting to feel hopeful, which is why he looked up in time to avoid running headlong into the girl.

The girl had been running, and was panting right now. Her long blond hair was tousled and her freckled face was flushed. She was wearing jeans damp at the bottom where her high boots were tucked beneath them and a knit sweater in a red and green pattern that suggested stars or snowflakes. She was attractive, moreso than Christine, in fact, and maybe a bit older than Ryan's first impression. Early twenties, at least. She was short, shorter than he was, which is what had thrown him. He was shorter than most women, and just about every man he had ever met. Ryan went through all that in his head, and was just about to mutter an apology and sidle around her when he realized she was staring at him.

"What?" he asked.

"You're him!" she said between gasps for breath. Ryan almost looked behind him, but he was certain she was talking to him. It was hard for Ryan to get any sense of the emotion behind that. He was not that good at telling what people were thinking and feeling anyway, and all he could read from her expression and body language was "out of breath."

"Him who?" As far as Ryan knew, he was not famous. The widest his image had been spread was the picture on his website, and judging from the counter on it, the odds against this woman having visited there were astronomical.

"The guy I'm supposed to marry." This time Ryan did look behind him. Nope, no one there, at least no one standing still. The place was crowded this time of year, and there were plenty of people walking around back there, but she couldn't be talking about anyone else. He was suddenly wondering whether this was part of the fantasy he had been having. It didn't really seem to fit, and he wouldn't have thought even his imagination could come up with this one. Besides, he had never had trouble distinguishing the real from the imaginary before.

"I don't mean to be rude, but what are you talking about? I've never met you, have I?"

Her face had just begun to lose its flush, but now it reddened again, and her eyes, which had been staring straight at him, sought her feet. She seemed surprised, disappointed, and embarrassed, all at once. It didn't occur to him that that was a whole lot more than he ought to be able to read from anyone's expression. "But I thought... since I knew, so would you. You've never had... a vision? Never seen something that wasn't there and then known something would happen?" Ryan shook his head wordlessly, wondering whether this woman was on some illegal substance. Or off some prescribed substance. Now she seemed close to tears. "I thought with him coming after me, and now you appearing, but..."

"Wait a second, who's after you?" Ryan asked. He needn't have bothered asking, as the answer became apparent within that second. A large man, a head taller than anyone else in the mall, and head and shoulders above Ryan, stepped through the crowd. He was wide as well as tall, with shoulders that made Ryan wonder if he were wearing football shoulder pads. His dark hair and dark mustache, combined with the black trenchcoat in whose pockets he hid his hands, made him look distinctly sinister. The look of grim determination on his square face didn't help any, and people seemed to just scuttle out of his way as he headed straight for the girl.

Ryan distrusted him on sight, but he had to admit that he had no idea what was going on here. For all he knew, this man was a doctor, preferably a psychiatrist--the girl certainly seemed to need a good one. A second look was all Ryan needed to dispel that idea. He moved protectively in front of the girl, feeling foolish, but while she had seemed ready to run a moment ago, she was now staring at him in astonishment. "You can see him?" she asked, but Ryan didn't spare the time to ask her what she meant.

As the man stepped up to him, Ryan decided it'd be best to be polite, "May I ask what the prob--?" He suddenly found himself on the ground, and it took him a moment to realize that the man had shoved him out of the way. Hard, at that.

The stranger now had one thick hand fastened around the girl's arm, and seemed to be attempting to drag her off. She was screaming and trying to pull out of his grip, kicking at his legs, doing her best to stay where she was. People were streaming around them on either side, doing their best to avoid the trouble brewing in their midst. Ryan thought they were rather too obvious in not even glancing in the girl's direction. As for Ryan himself, he was tempted to follow their example. He lived in the city, where you stayed out of situations you didn't understand. What motivated him was purely selfish. He had never had any woman show him that much attention before, and there was no way in Earth, Heaven, or Hell, that he was going to let some strange man just drag her away. He scrambled to his feet as quickly as he could.

Ryan had never been in a real fight in his life. He had, however, taken kickboxing lessons as a teenager, and while he hadn't had a lesson in years, he still practiced. When he was alone and he was certain no one was watching, that is. What mattered was that he still knew the moves. He managed to get around the flailing girl and deliver a solid round kick to the back of the stranger's knee. As Ryan had hoped, the man's right knee folded, and as he stumbled, Ryan delivered a chop to the man's neck, which he would not have been able to reach had the stranger been standing straight. Ryan wasn't exactly certain what he expected the chop to do. He just knew that it was supposed to be dangerous enough that it was not allowed in competitions. He followed the chop immediately with a reverse sidekick. The reverse sidekick was the most powerful kick Ryan knew. It was also the most difficult, requiring excellent balance and coordination. But Ryan did practice, and he didn't really doubt that he could do it. He didn't really wear wet hiking boots while practicing, either, and he definitely had underestimated their effect. Even as one foot connected, he felt the other one slip on the slick tile floor. He would have fallen had something not caught the foot that had just landed on the man's stomach. That something, however, was the stranger's hands. Ryan didn't have a chance to come up with a clever strategy before the man twisted his hands and Ryan literally spun around his extended leg

He hit the ground hard, the force expelling his breath and maybe his lungs as well. The back of his head bounced off the floor, and everything was black for a moment. It was only a moment, though, and Ryan decided that lying on the ground was not a particularly good idea with this dangerous man standing over him. He rolled away a yard or two, and came to his feet with even more difficulty than last time, his heavy jacket feeling heavier than he remembered. And hotter. His little roll had moved him away from the stranger, despite the fact that his aim had been to trip him up. He was closer to the girl than the stranger was now, but the man was rapidly advancing on them both.

She was staring at the two of them, and Ryan couldn't tell whether she was frozen by fear or fascination. Or expectation? Maybe she'd never seen two grown men fight over her before. Well, he had never fought over a woman before. The main difficulty was that as far as Ryan could see, he was greatly overmatched, and the best strategy he could think of was to run. It was a good thing he was now closer to the girl than the stranger was, or he might have abandoned her. As it was, he grabbed her hand and started to run.

While no one had seemed to notice them yelling and fighting a moment ago, now everyone was aware of the two mad idiots running through the mall. Ryan was stared at as he rushed by people, cursed at as he bumped into them, nearly tripped up by some loitering teenagers, and almost caught by a large fellow who apparently took him for a shoplifter. A swift kick to the shin, delivered by the girl while Ryan fought to pull free, managed to get him out of that mess. It seemed that the strange man following them had no similar difficulty, however. He simply cut through the mass of people like a ship though the sea, the crowds dissolving in front of him and closing behind him. Yet no one seemed to actually see him. He didn't run, or even walk particularly fast, but he was not losing any ground to them either.

Ryan turned down a hallway that led to the restrooms, and hopefully an emergency exit. He wasn't really eager to set the alarm off, but if this wasn't an emergency, he didn't know what was. At least the hallway had less people in it.

Ryan glanced back just in time to see the large man enter the hallway. In his distraction, he would have run headlong into the closed door if not for the fact that the girl had reached it and gone straight through without a moment's hesitation, leaving the door open for him. A cold blast of wind hit him at the same moment as the mall's buzzing alarm sounded.

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This chapter is 2,144 words long.

New Post: The next chapter, Flight, is now here.

Old Post: The previous chapter of this story is here.

This is the second chapter of the story in progress I began two weeks ago. Until the story is done, or until I'm no longer able to continue, this story's multiple chapters will make up my entries in the Storyblogging Carnival. It's fun to write, and I hope it's fun to read.

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Chapter 2
Flight

The bitter cold froze Ryan's sweat and caused his entire body to break out in goosebumps. He didn't dare pause long enough to zip up his jacket when the large and dangerous stranger was right behind them, much less put on a cap to keep his head and ears warm. He did, however, manage to pull his jacket's hood over his head to keep the snow out of his hair. Unfortunately, the oversized hood was more trouble than it was worth. It blocked his peripheral vision, and the zipper which attached it to the jacket had a tendency to disengage at inconvenient times. Even now it was working loose. He glanced at the girl, who only had that Christmas sweater to keep her warm. It occurred to him to offer his jacket, but there wasn't time for that. For now the narrow alley leading away from the mall's emergency exit was still empty, but it would momentarily be filled with people fleeing from the buzzing alarm which the closed doors barely muffled. The girl was running as best she could through the six inches of snow lining the alley. Ryan somehow managed not to lose his footing in the unfamiliar powder. While snow was common in Boston, accumulation was not. The city's snow removal machinery efficiently plowed, blew, and shoveled the snow into large, dirt speckled piles with the consistency of pebble-filled ice cubes.

Lamps mounted on the walls provided most of the illumination in this empty canyon with its tall and featureless brick walls. Ryan lost sight of the girl as she left one ring of light, her figure lost behind the gauzy curtain of falling snow. Cursing himself for letting her get so far ahead, Ryan picked up the pace. Can't she wait for her fiance?

"Hell, she didn't even tell me her name. If she really believed all that nonsense about us being destined for each other, wouldn't she have told me?" he muttered.

"It's Emily," she said from below, much closer than he expected. She was on her hands and knees in the snow just beyond the ring of light whose edge he had just reached. White powder coated the front of her sweater and jeans, and more was scattered in her face and hair. There was an impression in the snow where she must have fallen, which explained how he had lost sight of her.

Ryan grabbed her arm and pulled her up. "I'm sorry, I... My name's Ryan."

She turned to him, brushing the snow off. "Ryan, I know you don't understand what's happening. Me either. But I need help, and I think you're the only one who can help me."

Ryan wanted to shake his head, say this was crazy. Instead he nodded his head and said, "This is crazy, but I'll help. We need to hurry."

"Yes, we do. Please try not to curse, though."

"Huh? What does that--"

The door squealed as it opened behind them. They both turned to look at the stranger, and then as one turned and ran, or at least stumbled along as best they could in the hindering snow. That guy is chasing us and she wants me not to curse? Dammit, I've never had a better reason.

They made it to the next lamp before Ryan dared to look back, tossing back his hood to do so. At least the snow is slowing him down, too. That-- He would have stopped if Emily had not grabbed hold of his arm and pulled him along. Realizing that stopping right now was a very bad idea, he tucked his chin so that his eyes were free of snow while keeping watch on his footing. Snow in his eyes was the only explanation for what he had seen. That large man could not have been walking on top of this powdery snow. Ryan and Emily combined had to weigh less than he did, so how could they be sinking up to their ankles while the soles of his boots were still visible? It just couldn't be. Even so, his methodical long strides were gaining on them. He had already closed half the distance.

Fortunately, the alley ended in another twenty feet or so, with a small pile of gray snow and ice blocking the way to the well-shoveled sidewalk beyond, where the concrete showed through the spattering of snow patterned by the flat edge of a snow shovel. Here the Boston snow removal machine had successfully eradicated all the clean, white snow. Street lamps lit up the area beyond the alley clearly, punctuated by the headlights moving on the busy road. His mental map of the mall was insufficient to tell him what street it was, but any street, visible to the public, had to be a boon.

Emily reached the snow pile and scrambled over. He followed her example, gripping the brick wall at the edge of the alley with his numb right hand to help pull himself over the uncertain footing, loose and powdery on the crust but with a hard and slick center. Emily, now on the sidewalk, seized his other hand to help pull him over.

Something jerked him backwards, pinching at his shoulders and armpits, lifting him up and back, as it pulled at his jacket. Ryan turned his head to see the large stranger right behind him, one hand wrapped tightly around his jacket's hood, the other scrabbling for a good grip on the back of the jacket. It was the first time Ryan had a really good look at his face. With the added elevation from the snow pile, their heads were nearly even. The face was square and blocky, too wide but otherwise normal. It was the expression which was all wrong, not angry or excited or afraid but simply blank and dull, not what Ryan would expect on a man who was trying to kill him. And there was something else, something that Ryan almost didn't notice at first. His eyes weren't normal. They had normal looking whites, irises, and pupils, except that the irises were a shade Ryan had never seen before. They were red, and not some dull, dark red that he might have believed were a normal shade of eyes for some rare ethnicity, but a brilliant, primary red that seemed to glow in the lamplight. That's it. She is crazy and somehow I caught it.

Ryan could not have spent more than two seconds looking into those unnatural eyes, one of his hands pulling at the wall with all of his strength, the edge biting into a hand too numb to feel the pain, the other pulled by Emily, as his legs just tried to keep his footing so he wouldn't fall into his pursuer's arms. The big man pulled on him with his right hand locked on Ryan's hood and his feet now sunk beneath the snow and planted firmly on the concrete beneath. How the hell is he getting traction? Red-eyes' left hand had still not found a grip on his jacket, and that's the only reason the chase did not end then and there.

The lousy, inconvenient zipper connecting hood and jacket, the zipper which Ryan cursed every time it came loose, wondering why anyone would need to detach the hood on a winter jacket, gave way. After that, physics did its thing. Pulled by Emily and his straining right arm, Ryan went over the icy ridge, stumbling three or four paces into the sidewalk while Emily somehow managed to keep them both from falling. The stranger, hood still in his right hand and left hand still empty, fell backwards, his traction finally lost, and landed in the snow with a whump. Ryan did not pause to recover his balance, but simply kept moving, using Emily's centripetal pull to make a sharp left rather than running out into the high traffic street. Now that he had clear, almost snowless sidewalk in front of him, he started running. Emily, still holding onto his left hand, joined him in his mad dash away from the stranger. Dammit, I meant to go right.

No help for it now, anyway. Now that he was out of the alley, he thought he knew where he was. Boylston Street, on the river side of the mall, but still several blocks from the river. With most of the snow shoveled away here, he had enough traction that he could run all out, and he did so, hopeful that he had at least a few seconds to gain some distance. Emily ran beside him. To the left, the wall of the mall fell away, recessed for a wide, empty plaza, behind which were the main entrance to the mall and an outdoor foodcourt, whose tables and chairs were now empty, since people with sense did not dine outside in the snow. Heh, maybe I should be surprised that it's empty. A small crowd was gathered in the plaza, having left the mall due to the alarm. The crowd was way smaller than it should have been, considering how overloaded the mall had looked when Ryan was inside. He guessed that not too many people were paying attention to the alarm. Yup, not too many people with sense here. He was just as glad, as he and Emily had been the cause of the alarm, and the emergency didn't seem to have much interest in anyone other than them. Besides, the last thing they needed right now were hundreds of people blocking their path.

Ryan and Emily plowed through the few stragglers who had drifted from the plaza and into the sidewalk, Ryan barely managing to avoid bowling over a stroller. As he looked back over his shoulder at the horrified parents with the intention of at least shouting an apology, he saw the pursuer not a hundred yards behind him and his apology froze in his throat. He was moving with the same purposeful long strides, not running but steadily gaining ground, his trenchcoat trailing behind him in the wind. Ryan would have thought they'd be further ahead by now. He whipped his head back around to face forward and narrowly avoided running into another couple who stared at him with wide eyes.

His breath was whipped away before he could see it, but he had no doubt it would be visible if he dared stand still long enough. It was coming in gasps now, the cold air raw in his throat. His clothes were damp from snow on the outside and sweat on the inside, leaving his skin freezing underneath. His clumsy, heavy boots were not designed for running, but he made do despite the soreness of his calves and ankles. He just hoped he didn't hit a slick patch of ice, as he was having enough trouble keeping his feet as it was. I'm not going to be running a marathon anytime soon. We haven't even gone a mile yet. Ryan looked back as they cleared the sparse crowd to see the red-eyed man closing on them, now within fifty yards. How can he be closing? He's walking while we're running. His blood ran as cold as his skin. If we can't outrun him, what can we do?

Ryan hadn't had time to think through a strategy, having focused on putting some distance between them and the stranger. That seemed unlikely now, but he didn't know what else they could do. Find a cop and hope he'd care more than everyone else? Ryan was beginning to doubt that a cop could stop this man. Maybe some transportation, a bus or the T, Boston's subway? They didn't have time to wait at a bus stop or a T station. Now I wish I had a car, he thought, wondering whether he'd even have a chance to reach it if he did. A cab? If they could put some distance between them and Red-eyes, then maybe they'd have time to hail a cab, but he was close and he was gaining. Besides, this wasn't New York. Cabs weren't so common that you could hail one at whim.

We can't outrun him and we can't fight him. We can't even hide unless we can get some distance. Ryan glanced at Emily. Her face was flushed and she was panting for breath. He didn't know how much further she could go. She didn't look any better than he felt, and she had been running from him longer... Of course! He's after her, not me!

Ryan skidded to a halt, shouting "Keep going!"

Emily might not have noticed him stopping, but she heard the shout. She slowed, looked back. "Find a cab or something!" he yelled after her as he turned to face Red-eyes. He didn't know whether she did as he said, but he didn't have time or breath to explain. For that matter, he didn't have time or breath to think it through as carefully as he would have liked. If he's after her, then I'm just an obstacle. If I'm enough of an obstacle, maybe she'll have time to get away. And if I'm lucky, he'll lose interest in me afterwards.

As Ryan assumed a fighting stance, he had second thoughts. He had been greatly overmatched in their last encounter. Ryan watched Red-eyes approach now, over six feet tall and at least two hundred and fifty pounds, striding down the middle of the sidewalk as if nothing could conceivably slow him down or force him to step aside. Indeed, anyone who crossed his path was out of the way by the time he arrived without even acknowledging the man who caused subconscious retreat. If I'd been smart, I'd have gone in a different direction than Emily. He considered doing that now, just getting out of the man's way and letting him do whatever he wanted with her. He could snap my arm or leg without slowing down, maybe even my neck. He certainly wouldn't hesitate to do so. He was ashamed at his cowardice, at being tempted to give up Emily to protect himself. He didn't know what Red-eyes wanted with her, but it couldn't be good.

If the big man had continued on his path, not slowing his methodical pace or even deigning to acknowledge him, Ryan might have given into his panic and run. But seeing him there, Red-eyes slowed, bearing to the right, toward the street where cars were continuing to roar past. He means to go around me? Red-eyes considered Ryan an obstacle which needed to be avoided rather than trampled. That thought gave him courage and he moved to block the man's path. Dammit, why aren't I ignoring the stupid part of my fight-or-flight response which says to fight? Ryan knew he had no chance to win, that at best he'd delay Red-eyes without being too badly injured, but even then there was a lot of pain in his near future. He resigned himself to that fact as best he could. It was the price for doing the right thing, and that was that.

Ryan placed himself in front of Red-eyes, at the very edge of the curb. His feet almost slipped on the ice, but he managed to slide off of it without falling into the standing pool of ice, slush, and water which lapped against the curb, unthreatened by Boston's drainage system. Ryan took a few steps back, away from the ice, but when the pursuer came to a halt at five paces, staring at him, he stood right on top of the icy patch without seeming the least unsteadied by it. What, is he wearing ice cleats now? "Why do you impede me, mortal?" Red-eyes said. The voice sounded wrong. It wasn't loud enough for a man speaking right next to him. It sounded distant, like the echo of a voice, pitched low and resonant to carry but barely traveling the five paces to Ryan.

"Mortal? What the hell does that mean?"

Ryan was sure it was an illusion, a result of uncertain light of the Boston streetlamps and the snow, but the man seemed to grow taller while his eyes flashed with red light. The lips in the expressionless face quirked upward at the edges. "For a moment I thought you might be a hazard, but you know even less than she does. Your courage is mere ignorance."

"Who are you?" Ryan asked. If he could get it talking, maybe he could buy more time.

"Don't you mean `What are you?' No you don't. You have eyes to see but you don't see, or you see but you don't believe. Now be gone and forgotten, mortal!"

Red-eyes started to take a step forward, not at all lacking in traction despite the thick sheet of ice beneath his feet. Ryan once again took a fighting stance, his heart thudding in his ears loud enough to drown out his panting breath. He was already sore and tired, but at least he would make this guy remember him.

Since the cab was coming from behind him, Ryan didn't see it before its tires kicked up a spray of icy water from the street and soaked his legs. With a startled cry only slightly more dignified than a four-year-old girl's, he leapt aside, all thoughts of a heroic last stand forgotten in that single freezing instant. He was glad he did, since if he had not, the cab's door, even now swinging open, certainly would have hit him. It did hit Red-eyes, whose miraculous traction finally gave way before the force of the slowing but still-moving cab. With one foot still in the air, he actually slid backwards for several feet like some huge, clumsy figure skater, before he hit the edge of the ice. Unfortunately, the edge of the ice was also the edge of the curb, and he went over, falling into the street and its standing pool of icy water. The tremendous splash must have covered the headlights of the cab, having now completed its sudden stop, with grey slush and muddy water, but Ryan didn't notice since he was staring at Emily, leaning out of the open door.

"I found a cab," she said.

"How? What--"

"Hurry!"

Ryan might have continued to ask questions if he hadn't seen the large hand on the cab's hood. He dashed to the open door while Emily scooted aside. By the time he was ducking in a large head had followed the hand and Red-eyes was almost to his feet. He slammed the door shut.

"Let's go!" he shouted to the cabbie.

"Where you going?" he asked, not at all concerned about the large, angry man with glowing red eyes who was even now coming to his feet in front of his cab.

"Um, how about the Burlington Marriott?" Emily suggested.

"That pretty far. You sure you want to go that far? It expensive."

Ryan couldn't see the cabbie, but the accent was Middle Eastern. From what Ryan saw on the news every day, much of the Middle East was dangerous even for the civilians just trying to get by, and he supposed an immigrant from one of those areas might feel a certain equanimity towards large, violent men trying to get into their cabs, but he still found it unnerving that the driver didn't react when Red-eyes, now on his feet and circling the cab, tried the passenger side front door. It was locked, and Ryan's reflexive jab at the lock on his door was so hard that the impact from the needle-like locking mechanism stung even through his hand's numbness.

"Yes, yes," Emily replied. "Now can we go?"

"Okay, but I only take cash," he said, and shifted into gear.

"Fine," Emily answered.

The large man tried Ryan's door handle and found it locked. As the cab began to move, he struck the window with his fist, and the glass jumped in its frame but didn't break.

"You hear something?" the cabbie asked as he started an illegal U-turn in the street, cutting across two lanes of traffic and into a third. Despite several long horn blasts, both from the traffic and the cabbie himself, the taxi slid into the correct lane. Ryan's eyes never left the form of their pursuer, though he thought the effort to keep him in sight might result in whiplash. Red-eyes stepped directly into the street, somehow not eliciting a single honked horn as drivers braked or swerved to avoid him. He was within a couple of feet of Emily's door as they passed him. Ryan had no doubt that if their U-turn had been just a little less brazen, he'd have managed to intercept them somehow.

When the taxi came to a stop at a red light only a few seconds later, Ryan and Emily both peered out the back window. They could see him coming, only two hundred yards behind, with that machine-like stride of his that was faster than most people could run. Ryan knew he could not see his irises from this distance, but he imagined he saw a red glow nonetheless. It had to be his imagination. Had to be.

He was walking in the middle of the street, between two lanes of traffic, but without seeming to notice the cars on either side of him. Nor did the cars seem to notice him. No one honked, or shouted, or made rude gestures at him. That was downright unnatural for Boston. They must have seen him, because their cars drifted around him with as much clearance as they would make for any pedestrian in the street, but with less commentary.

He was less than fifty feet away when the light turned green. He was within twenty feet before the cab started rolling forward, but so slowly that he was still gaining. His hand reached out to touch the trunk just as the taxi started to pull away. Ryan looked forward to see that the light, still a hundred feet ahead, had already turned yellow. Why can't Boston invent a traffic light that lasts more than thirty seconds? Even as he watched, and with twenty feet to go before they reached the light, it turned red. Ryan's heart sank. Maybe they could keep the doors locked and hope the windows held until the light changed. He looked out the back window again. Only fifty feet.

He needn't have worried, since the cabbie ran the red light.

The cabbie looked into his rear view mirror to notice Ryan and Emily staring out the back window, "What you two doing? Police not following, are they?"

"No, no they aren't," Ryan said. And the man who was following was falling behind, even his quick pace not equal to a Boston cab. Sighing with exhaustion as much as relief, Ryan turned around and slid into his seat. He was still freezing cold, especially below the knee, where his pants' legs had just suffered an additional soaking, as if running through the snow had not already let chill water seep into his socks and jeans. Above the knees, his plentiful sweat had dampened anything the snow had not. He must smell awful. Fortunately the cab was warm, and the numbness in his ears, cheeks, and fingers was beginning to recede. It wouldn't be enough to dry him out, but he'd take damp and warm over damp and cold anytime.

He glanced over at Emily, slouched in her seat, and from the way she looked, cheeks flushed, eyes closed, breathing deeply through her mouth, she was as exhausted as he was. She had somehow found time to fasten her seatbelt, however, which struck him as a singularly wise idea considering what he'd already seen of their cabbie's driving. He quickly followed suit.

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This is Chapter 2 of a story in progress. This chapter is 4,054 words long, and the total story is 6,198 words long.

New Post: Chapter 3 of this story is now available here.

Old Post: This story begins here, and continues here.

It's a day late, but here's the next chapter of my story in progress. Just in time for the next Storyblogging Carnival.

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Chapter 3
A Brief Respite

"So why the Burlington Marriott?" Ryan asked.

"Huh?" Emily's eyes blinked groggily. She appeared to have dozed off in the aftermath of their flight, slouching in the seat of the cab. Lights from streetlamps and cars gave the the backseat of the cab an unsteady illumination. They were now on Mass Ave, near Harvard Square, and about to head beyond the area of Boston and Cambridge which Ryan knew well. He vaguely knew that Burlington was out this way, but he rarely travelled so far. Boston was a city where people walked or took public transportation, and he rarely had reason to head out beyond the limits of its public transportation.

Ryan asked again. "Why did you tell the cab driver to take us to the Burlington Marriott?"

"Oh." Emily stifled a yawn. "It's a nice hotel. I've been there before."

Ryan held his jaw firmly shut lest it fall open. "We're running from that, that man, and you want to go to a nice hotel. Are you out of your damn mind?" That's a dumb question. Of course she is. I knew that from the moment I met her.

Her mouth twisted in a frown. "I asked you not to curse. And, in fact, I do know what I'm doing. Sort of."

"So what are you doing?"

"Running. I asked the driver to take us to the only place I could think of that's well outside of central Boston but within range of a cab. It seemed as good a place as any."

"I can think of a better one. How about a police station?" Although, come to think of it, Ryan didn't know where any of Boston's police stations were. The cabbie might, though. He seemed a bit too concerned about the Boston police. "Whoever this guy is, the police could handle him."

"No they couldn't. They wouldn't even see him. You saw how most people didn't notice him."

"They were just afraid. You know how people try to mind their own business in big cities. The police are different. It's their job to help people." Which is kind of sad, Ryan thought. People ought to show some concern for others even when you don't pay them to do so.

Emily shook her head. "You don't understand. It's not just apathy. I tried to get help from one of the security people at the mall, but he could not see him. He didn't see him when I pointed right at him, and when he was right on top of me, the security person just lost interest in me too. It was like he was invisible and no one could see him but me, and when I was close to him they couldn't see me either."

"You sound like a... you sound paranoid." She sounds like a paranoid schizophrenic.

"Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean that nobody's after you. And he was after me. You saw him too, right? Uh, right?"

She's wondering if she is crazy. If I were in her place, I might be wondering the same. Hell, even in my place I'm beginning to wonder. "Yeah, I saw him," Ryan answered, and was not surprised when she visibly relaxed. "I wouldn't say he was invisible. People saw him enough to move out of his way. Maybe more unnoticeable."

"See. People aren't just unnoticeable. There's something unnatural about him, don't you think?"

"Maybe," Ryan grunted. Does she mean unnatural, or supernatural? Ryan didn't reject the supernatural out-of-hand, but if it did exist, he expected it to be subtle and inobtrusive, a gentle sea underlying the fabric of the universe. He didn't expect to meet it large and in-person and trying to hurt him. By far the most likely explanation was general Bostonian apathy combined with this girl's schizophrenic delusion. "What do you think it is?"

"I think he's possessed by a demon."

"Huh." Well, if you wanted a supernatural explanation, that's about as supernatural as you can get. "Are you sure he's not some kind of mutant? He might emit some kind of pheromone which causes people to tune him out."

"I'm serious!" she said.

"What makes you think I'm not? I'm not sure I believe in demon-possession. I do believe in mutation and pheromones. I don't know whether they could do what we just saw, and I admit it seems unlikely, but I think it's more probable than what you're suggesting."

"You don't believe in demon possession? Why not? You do believe in God, don't you?"

"Yeah, I guess--"

"You guess? But, how can you be the guy I'm supposed to marry if you're not a believer?"

"Hold it! Whatever you believe, I'm not so sure about this destiny... prophecy... or whatever it is stuff. I don't even believe in love at first sight."

"Who said I loved you? That has nothing to do with it."

"Huh?" That should not have hurt. Whatever attraction he might or might not feel for Emily--and he just hadn't had enough time to sort out, or even necessarily feel, any reaction to her beyond "not bad looking"--he certainly didn't love her. Why should he care whether she loved him? Why should he assume that she felt anything at all toward him? But he had assumed that she felt, well, something. "What about all that talk about fate?"

"I don't remember saying anything about fate. I don't believe in fate; I do believe in God."

"Okay, I'm not sure that made any sense at all," Ryan said.

"It's just, well, it's prophecy. God wants it to happen, but sometimes prophecy can be conditional. On the one hand God can be disobeyed, on the other, he can be convinced to show mercy and relent. Fate is unconditional, unavoidable, unchangeable. God responds to us. I guess I'm not explaining this very well. I'm not a... theologist? No. Theologian? Whatever."

"So are you saying you intend to convince God to relent and not make us get married?"

"No. I'm saying that God wants us to get married. If we're obedient, we will. How we feel about each other is secondary. I think we'd come to love each other, but I think it's silly to think we'd feel something like that right away. Don't you agree?"

"On that, at least, I do agree. Love is not a word I just toss around unless I mean it."

There was a long silence. Ryan looked out the window for a while, watching as they passed Porter Square and its T station. He had only the vaguest idea how to get here by car, although he had taken the subway to that T station plenty of times. He knew how he got to this point, but he didn't really know where it was. That might be a fitting analogy for the current situation. He glanced at Emily. God wants us to marry, huh? He didn't really know what he wanted in a relationship, but he was pretty sure sanity was in there somewhere. He wasn't quite sure whether Emily was a religious fanatic, since he didn't know enough about religion to know where the line between fantacism and normal religiosity was. He was pretty sure the mainstream churches didn't include a lot of people who saw visions.

He frowned. My skepticism isn't a whole lot of help here, is it? Probably not. She was being chased by someone--something--that wasn't normal. From her worldview, assuming a supernatural explanation made as much sense as assuming science gone awry made in his worldview. So that part wasn't so crazy, even if he cringed at such an irrational approach to the world. No, what was so crazy was the vision thing, that she believed she had seen him in a vision and that somehow they were meant for each other. Anyway he sliced it, that was a little nuts. Perhaps not stark raving nuts--lots of people believed and did strange things; he knew a few New Agers who made this girl look like a hardnosed skeptic--but enough to make him very uncomfortable around her. Still, he shouldn't jump to conclusions.

"All right," he said. "I admit I don't understand what is going on here. Whatever he is, why is he chasing you?"

"I have no idea. It could be because of the visions, but I... I'm just not sure."

The visions again. "Maybe if you told me how this all started, I could make some sense out of it."

"I doubt it," she said. "But I can try. There's not that much to tell, really. I was alone in my apartment--it's on Newbury Street, the west side of Mass Ave, where the houses are, not the east where the shops are, although..." Ryan started to say something, but Emily must have caught his mood. "So, anyway, there I was when the door just opened and that weird guy walked in. I don't usually keep my apartment door locked during the day, since the building's locked anyway and I've never had trouble. I don't usually worry about my neighbors, and if someone else came into the building it'd have to be because someone propped the door open or let him in or something, and I don't think any of the other tenants would do that. But I suppose that with his unnoticeability, or whatever, that guy could sneak in without any problem. Anyway, I was in the kitchen, not my bedroom, or else that would have been the end of it. But I was in the kitchen, and at first I thought it was my roommate, but when I turned to look it wasn't her but this big guy coming right towarda me and moving fast. I knew right away that he was dangerous. I mean, some big guy comes into your home and comes after you like he means to grab you and of course you're going to assume that he's up to no good, he's a murderer or a rapist or whatever. But when I saw him I knew he was something worse, something unnatural. I don't think it was that I saw his red eyes right away; it was more like I felt something, I felt his... evil. I suppose that sounds silly to you, but right then it was so obvious that I screamed and I ran without stopping to think about it. There's a back door to the apartment, which leads down some stairs and out into the back of the building, where there's this paved over area. It's not an alley, since it's pretty open, but nothing's back there except for some junk people have thrown out and the trash cans and such. So I ran down there as fast as I could, screaming at the top of my lungs, and I can hear him coming down the steps after me. I'm out the door and running, but of course there's snow everywhere, and I'm tripping and falling and knocking over garbage cans but somehow he doesn't catch me, maybe because he had to climb over those garbage cans I knocked over, maybe because I've stopped screaming and I'm praying that I get away. I tend to think that's the real reason, but I suppose that you don't believe that either. Anyway, I get out to the street where it's plowed and people are staring at me, but I keep running as he's coming after me, and I'm asking people to help me and to stop him, but no one stops him and then someone grabs hold of my arm and he says he'll help me if I tell him what's happening and I point to the guy, but he just keeps asking what is it, what's wrong, so I push away from him and he watches me run but the guy walks right past him, and then I know, I mean really know that this guy can't be normal. Soon I'm on Mass Ave and it occurs to me that I should find a crowd, that that may help, and I cross the street and nearly get run over because I can't stop long enough to even check the traffic, much less wait for it. But I get over and get into the mall. I think I told you about how I ran into a security guard and he couldn't see the guy either, and then I ran into you. And you know the rest since you were there."

Ryan is staring at her in awe, wondering how she managed to tell all that without running out of breath. Still, it didn't make any sense. "So, the gist of it is that he broke into your apartment, you ran from him, you asked for help but no one else could see him, then you ran into me--whom you recognized from your vision, I guess--and I could see him, and then we both ran."

"Well, sure, if you want the short version of it. To be honest, before I first ran into you, I was beginning to wonder whether I was imagining the whole thing. I've had visions before but this was nothing like any of those, so I was wondering whether I'd lost my mind. And then you showed up, and you could see him too. Unless... I guess you both could be figments of my imagination."

"Well, I know I exist, but I don't see why that should convince you."

"Let's ask. Mr. Driver?"

"Yes?" the cabbie replied.

"Do you see this guy?" she asked, pointing at Ryan.

The cabbie glanced up at the rearview mirror, where Ryan could see his eyes, so presumably he could see Ryan. "Why? What he doing?"

"Oh, nothing. Never mind."

"You sure? If he not behaving like--what the word?--gentleman, I can kick him out."

"That won't be necessary."

"Okay. But let me know..." The cabbie returned his eyes to the road in time to honk and shout obscenities to the car in front of him, which he'd come dangerously close to rear-ending.

"Was that necessary?" Ryan asked, his face flushing bright red.

"Well, I had to be sure. I know he's not imaginary, cause if he were, who'd be driving the cab?"

She has a point. "Okay, strange madman who may or may not be demon-possessed or a mutant aside, what about these visions? You say you have them. How often? For how long? How do you know what they mean?"

Emily frowned. "I don't know if you'd understand if I tried to explain. It's a spiritual gift, I think, maybe the gift of prophecy. My brother says that that's not how theologians usually interpret the gift of prophecy, but he also thinks theologians may water down the spiritual gifts because they don't see the spectacular ones very often. It has something to do with sensationalism, no, dispen-something, er, some -ism or whatever. Of course, he also says he has the gift of punctuality, and I'm pretty sure that's not in the Bible."

Ryan sighed. "Just forget that for now, okay. Do you think these visions have something to do with why Red-eyes is chasing you?"

"I don't know. Maybe."

"Did any of them involve him?"

"No. I've never seen him in a vision or in real life."

"But you have seen me?"

"Well, yes, but that didn't have anything to do with this."

"Are you sure?"

"I suppose I'm not really sure of anything. I know God wants us to marry, but I didn't know anything else about you. I suppose I should learn more about you."

Ryan fought the urge to sigh again. "Forget me for the moment. So you don't know why he's chasing you. Do you know how he found you in the first place?"

"No, but he knew where I lived."

"And you don't think that was random?"

"Would he chase me so far if it was?"

"I don't know. If he's just some psycho..."

"Some psycho mutant, you mean. You agreed earlier that he's not ordinary."

"Okay, so some psycho mutant. If he's not right in the head, sure, he might chase you all this way without some clear reason. He might head back to your apartment and try to find you there, so you shouldn't go back, but there's no reason to think he could track you anywhere else."

"No, I don't think he can follow this cab."

"Okay, that's good. It's pure speculation, but good anyway. But what if it's more than just some psycho. If he knew where you lived, could he track you by your credit card or cell phone or something?"

"I thought only the police could do that."

"Them or anyone else who can crack your bank's computers."

"In that case, maybe you should pay for the hotel room."

"We're staying in a hotel room?"

"That's where we're going, silly. What did you think we were going to do there?"

"But... don't you want to stay on the move?"

"On the move to where?"

"I don't know, but getting in a car and driving to New York might not be a bad idea."

"I'm tired," she said, as if that explained everything. "I don't think I can drive a car right now." She looked him up and down. "I don't think you can either. I think it's best if we find a place to stay for the night."

No, Ryan didn't think he was in any condition to drive. It didn't help that it'd been a couple of years since he'd gotten behind the wheel. Living in a city where everyone walks had atrophied his driving skills.

"So you think this hotel will be safe? We could just stay at my apartment. It'd be cheaper."

"Where do you live?"

He hitched a thumb over his shoulder. "Back there a couple of miles."

She shook her head emphatically. "I really don't want to head toward him. Anyplace a couple of miles back is too close. The hotel really isn't far enough, but it's as far as we can reasonably get with a cab."

Ryan had to admit that heading in the direction of Red-eyes didn't seem like a great idea to him either. He'd feel better if they were farther away. "Okay, one last protest and then I'll shut up. Did he hear you when you told the cabbie where to go?"

"He was outside, on the ground in front of the cab. He couldn't have heard."

Ryan tried to remember exactly where Red-eyes had been when Emily had told the cabbie where to go. Was he in front with his bright red eyes glaring at them from the dark, hulking mass, or was he by that point pounding on the window, causing it to shiver in its pane? Ryan couldn't remember, and he was finding that he was too tired to care all that much anyway. Even if Red-eyes came to the hotel, what were the odds he'd be able to find them there?

* * *

They shared a hotel room but didn't sleep together. It surprised Ryan that this seemed strange to him. The girl, though she insisted they would one day marry, had no intention of having sex until they were married because of her religious beliefs. She said all this without any prompting from Ryan. She seemed to think every guy was just looking for a chance to bed every girl they met. Ryan had told her, rather acerbically, that he had no intention of sleeping with a woman on the first date, even if they were engaged--he had quickly amended that the last part had been sarcastic and he did not in the least bit believe that they were supposed to marry. And what he didn't say aloud was that while he thought she was attractive enough, he wasn't sure it was wise to even sleep in the same room with this strange woman who saw things and thought she was his fiancee. So if neither of them had the least intention to sleep with the other, why did it seem so odd that they were not doing so? He realized, as he lay in the dark listening to her soft breathing, that it was all a product of his culture. If this had been a movie, he was certain they'd be sleeping together. It made sense: guy saves girl from certain death (or something), they share a hotel room while hiding from the mysterious man chasing them, guy sleeps with girl. That was the natural and logical progression; he could even remember a couple of movies where that exact sequence had happened. And considering his movie-going habits, that must mean it was pretty predominant. Except, in the movies, the plot would normally make more sense.

He was just about to drift to sleep when he remembered that short, doubtful, insincere prayer he'd said just before all this started. God, he decided, had a bizarre sense of humor. Still, the prayer had been answered in a way, so he decided another, more serious one couldn't hurt. "God, help me through this." He glanced in the direction of the girl, breathing softly as she slept. "Help us both through this."

---

This chapter is 3,601 words long, bringing the total of the whole story to 9,799. I'm beginning to think this story will reach novella length before it's done.

Old Post: The beginning of this story is here, while the previous chapter is here.

Aha! The story now has a title. I would have come up with one sooner, but I needed a better idea of what the story was about. Even then the title ended up being vague and confusing. I brainstormed a bunch of different titles before coming up with this one. Some of them were pretty good, but I decided that this one worked best.

---

Chapter 4
Dreams and Visions

Ryan fled through the many-roomed house, and Red-eyes pursued him.

He did not understand this house, with its rooms and doors but no windows or furniture. It had no logic behind its design, no overarching theme, only fading yellow wallpaper and dusty hardwood floors beneath and bare lightbulbs overhead. All the rooms looked alike, small and square with doors in every wall, and he did not know whether he was going forward or in circles as he chose doors at random. He looked for footprints in the scattered dust, but he saw no trace of anyone's passage, not even his own when he looked behind him. He did not know where Emily was, although he thought she too was in this house. He could hear doors opening and closing, heavy footsteps echoing through the nearby rooms, and he turned away from them, moving as quietly as he could without relinquishing too much speed, trying to avoid Red-eyes' notice. In all the time in this house he had not seen Red-eyes, and he knew that once he did he would die. So he ran, or tip-toed when the sounds of pursuit drew near, turning the next doorknob slowly and praying the hinges did not creak as he slipped into the next room.

He did not know how long this pursuit had gone on, but he was sure it had been hours. He was panting and gasping, his breath long worn-out, sweat dripping into his eyes, and his chest sore from his hammering heart. It was not the running which had worn him down, as this chase was practically sedate compared to the previous mad dashes, but from the tension, hour after hour of near misses and narrow escapes. He thought that his heart would burst soon, the stress having overwhelmed his poor physical conditioning.

Ryan heard loud, thudding footsteps to his right, and he turned to the left, opening the next door with all the stealth he could manage.

His ears must have deceived him, as he found that Red-eyes was not in the room behind him, but in the room directly before him. Red-eyes' hand was reaching toward the same door that Ryan had just opened, and as Ryan tried to slam it shut, he caught it on his open palm and pushed it back open. The door swung open with enough force to shove Ryan back. He skidded in the dust and then fell on his rear, with Red-eyes towered above him.

At first glance Red-eyes was still a tall man with dark hair and a dark mustache. He wore sunglasses now, but they were not enough to hide the crimson glow coming from his eyes, seeping around the edges and even through the lenses. His long trenchcoat was buttoned up tight, but it bulged and twitched as odd shapes pressed against it from the inside. The chest bulged outward as the shape of a hand pressed against the inside of the coat. The two hands which were where they should be reached toward Ryan, the ill-fitting black leather gloves not hiding deformed claws within. All around Red-eyes was a darkness which seemed to leak out from within. The glow from the lightbulb dimmed as this dark aura hid it as Red-eyes leaned over Ryan.

Ryan scooted backwards on his bottom, pushing with his feet while using his elbows for support, and noticed that the left pocket of his coat dragging on the floor, drawing a rough scraping sound only partly muffled by fabric and dust. He always had things in the pockets of his coat, but this was too heavy for the usual pen and paper and calculator. His hand fumbled at his pocket, closing on cold metal, and he drew out the item. It was smooth, heavy, and cool, and when he saw it at first it was so out-of-place that it wouldn't register. A round cylinder the size of of his fist, a narrow barrel wider than a finger and as long as his hand, a grip wrapped in plain black leather. It was a silver revolver straight out of a Western. As he closed both hands around the grip, he was surprised at how comfortably it fit his hands. Ryan had never fired a pistol before, but now was not the time to argue. Red-eyes' twisted hands were mere inches from his throat, so Ryan pointed the pistol at his forehead and pulled the trigger.

At this range he could not miss, and the pistol's report echoed back and forth through the small room even as its recoil sent his head thudding against the floor. The loud crack was audible even above the pistol's echo, but Ryan could not spare a moment for the pain. He used his left hand to push himself up while his right still held the pistol pointing toward where Red-eyes had been. He saw the large man stumbling backwards, a hole in his forehead and the red eyes and dark aura gone from his body. Instead, the red-eyes and dark aura had remained where they were, unmoved by the pistol shot. A dark shadow still loomed above Ryan, having sloughed its human body like a dead skin. It eyes, now completely red except for a cat-like pupil, blazed crimson while dark talons reached for Ryan's throat even as the cast-off human body hit the wall and slid down it. Ryan fired twice more, but the bullets only passed through this shadow. It had a shape which was vaguely human and vaguely animal, and though its black mass was indistinct and even translucent, Ryan could see the bird-like talons clearly until they passed beyond his vision and locked on his throat. The fingers were icy cold and hard, more like rock than flesh despite the gaseous figure of its owner. He felt his windpipe collapsing under the pressure of those fingers, and Ryan gasped for breath as he fired once more into the darkness. The chill was radiating from those hands, spreading through his neck to his head and his chest. He thought the cold might kill him even faster than the lack of air. His vision was fading at the edges and he knew he could not last much longer. He stared into the blazing red eyes as he continued pulling the trigger, even though only a loud click came from the weapon now. The mouth opened--to Ryan it seemed more beak than mouth, but his dim vision could not hope to make sense of the indistinct form before him--to reveal a crimson glow leaking from within, and Ryan heard a single word in that deep, resonant voice which now wasn't so distant, just before all light and sound vanished with Ryan's consciousness.
* * *
Ryan sat up straight so quickly that he got a headrush. "Yow," he said, putting a hand to his damp forehead. The covers had slipped from his bare chest, also damp from sweat, to collect at his waist. He rubbed the sweat from his chest, wondering whether it came from the heat or the fading dream. The hotel room was too warm to be under the covers, but Ryan felt too naked in his underwear to sleep without covers with Emily in the same room. Fortunately, she was still asleep, soft and easy breathing coming from her bed to his right, so she wasn't a witness to his near nudity and less than athletic physique. His eyes were well enough adjusted to the dark that in the light streaming in even through the closed blinds he could see the generic furniture in the room.

Emily had shown little modesty when undressing for bed, and lay under a thin sheet which did little to hide her figure. Ryan looked away, not wanting to stare, and got out of bed on the left side. Placing his left hand on the wall for guidance in the dark, he followed it to bathroom. The wallpaper was embossed with elegant filigree, and the simple sensation of the patterned roughness against his fingers was comforting after the vague and overpowering dream. Turning the corner he came to the door to the bathroom. It was dark inside, the wall blocking the light from the window and only an illuminated lightswitch providing any light, and little enough at that.

Ryan reached for the lightswitch and then thought better of it. He didn't need much light and he really did not want to wake up all the way, even after that nightmare. Fumbling, he found the sink and turned on the faucet, setting the water to where it ought to be slightly warm. He had never met a faucet that actually gave the expected temperature, and sure enough the water was scalding in no time. His questing hands had found a washcloth by then, so he held it under the water without much regard for the temperature. The washcloth was unpleasantly warm as he rubbed his face with it, but it was bearable. He could already feel the stubble on his face, and without a razor he would look pretty unkempt in the morning. Quite an adventure, isn't this? It's been less than a day and already I'm missing the comfort of my own home. Apartment sweet apartment. Ryan used the washcloth on his chest and stomach next, cleaning off the sweat and dampening the top of his boxers. Done, he set the cloth down and forced his eyes open so he could face himself in the mirror. In the dark, all he could see were shadows and a vague, man-like shape. With bright red eyes.

The shape in the mirror wasn't him, couldn't be him. It was too big, lean and tall rather than stout. The shadows in the mirror had dissolved into a grey blur, while in the center, filling his vision, was the dark shape in his dream. It lacked distinct lines, its edges blurred and streaming and billowing, as if it were made of smoke barely able to hold its shape. Its resemblence to a human being was no more than a stick figure's--the same uprightness, the same number of limbs, a single head. Beyond that, Ryan could not make out much more. The head was indistinct, but he did not think it was human, as he could not make out nose or mouth or jaw, only the crimson eyes with the slitted pupils. The arms--if they were arms, for they moved with a fluidity more akin to tentacles--ended in talon-like hands, five fingers with long, sharp nails and no palm. These hands alone were clear and distinct, as they reached toward him. Out of the mirror.

Ryan would have cried out, screamed like a madman or a child, but he could only squeeze the barest wheeze out of his throat. He would have run, but his feet seemed rooted in place. He raised his right arm to protect himself, and his left went for the light switch, still glowing orange on the wall. His fingers found the switch even as one of the creature's talons swept aside his upraised arm.

The overhead flourescent flooded the room with light, reflecting from the mirror and the tiles and the porcelain to chase all the shadows away. Even in his horrified paralysis, Ryan blinked in the sudden light, and when his vision cleared the creature was gone. There was only himself in his boxers, bare chest and pouched stomach covered in dark curly hair. Ryan's head swiveled back and forth, looking for the thing which had been in the mirror. "What the hell is going on here?" he asked himself in the mirror, taking a good, long look to make sure it was him in the mirror.

He placed his hands on the edge of the sink, leaning on his arms as he took several deep breaths and let his galloping heart resume a more normal pace. His heart was in no condition for these sorts of shocks, nor was his mind. One or both would give if this continued, and he could only hope that his mind had not broken down already. His eyes were red with dark spots underneath. He really needed sleep, but he doubted he'd be able to return to sleep now. Had he fallen asleep standing up and dreamed? Was it a vision like what Emily claimed she saw? What else could it have been?

His right forearm burned, and he looked down to see blood running down his arm, to where his hand was flat against the porcelain edge of the sink. Ryan picked up the washcloth and wiped away the blood to reveal a long, shallow scratch across his arm. How...? He remembered the creature reaching for him, its talon brushing aside his right arm, a nail scratching across the skin. Ryan pressed the cloth against the cut and looked at himself in the mirror. It was just him now, looking unnaturally pale and frightened. He clenched his teeth to prevent them from chattering. That couldn't have been real; it just couldn't have.

Ryan was more tired than when he had first lay down, but he didn't think he'd be going back to sleep now. He didn't even want to return to the dark hotel room. Think, Ryan. Think! Was his mind really starting to crack under the strain? Or... is this situation even crazier than I first thought. He needed to come up with a course of action, but there were too many unknowns.

"Approach this logically. Like a scientist," he told himself in the mirror. Technically speaking, Ryan wasn't really a scientist. He was an engineering Grad student at MIT who did experimental research in semiconductor physics, but it was close enough. Since he was an electrical engineer, his affinity was for the design side of the experiments, but he knew how to do scientific research. This crazy situation might seem well beyond the laws of science, but was that really the case? Just because it was outside the known laws of physics didn't mean it didn't obey any laws. He just had to determine what those laws were, which could be done by forming and testing hypotheses. Apply the scientific method and everything would fall into place, right?

"Okay, problem one, I don't know that. It may be that logic doesn't work here and it doesn't obey any rules. If I try to pretend that it does, I'm dead. Problem two, even if it does, and I could apply the scientific method to mutants or demons or ghosts or whatever this is, attempting to disprove a hypothesis is liable to get me killed. There are way too many ways to die here."

Ryan stared at himself in the mirror and wondered how he had gotten involved in this. Was it just a coincidence, that he was there and Emily latched onto him as a part of her delusion? Or was there really some sort of prophecy involved, as she believed?

Okay, her visions provide me with a testable hypothesis. He could compare her visions with reality and see if they truly could predict what would happen, preferably as part of a double-blind test where people could not be influenced by her visions. Only he couldn't see how to make it work. He would need to record each vision in a lab notebook, carefully marking time and date and each detail of the vision, then keep a record of incidents which might be matches with the visions. As he was intimately involved in them right now, there was no way to make it a double-blind prophecy. To properly do this sort of study might take years, selecting for those visions where the subject did not know about the vision, and Ryan didn't have years. All right, let's save that one for a later date.

What about Red-eyes? What is he? Natural or supernatural? Science or religion? Flesh or spirit? How do you test something like that? For a start, let's list his traits. Ryan's coat was hanging in the closet directly outside the bathroom, and he braved the dark to retrieve a small notepad and a pen from an inner pocket. As an afterthought he grabbed a pencil as well. He kept a ready supply of writing instruments since he was always looking for one. Always be prepared. He kept the notebook so he could record any brilliant ideas he might have. Given his usual dearth of brilliant ideas, instead he found that he used it to write down pithy sayings of his own invention, such as Tempus fugit... et sequimur postea. and If we are what we eat, does that make us cannibals? Opening the six-by-four notebook to the first blank page as he sat down on , he considered what to write.

Tall. Big man. Strong--unnaturally strong? Dark hair and mustache. Ryan paused. Everything else he wrote would be about his unusual traits, those things that made him abnormal or even supernatural. Unnoticeable. Red irises--glowing? Super traction? That sounded silly, but he had seen it himself. Red-eyes had no more difficulty walking on ice or snow than pavement. Super fast? This one Ryan was less sure about. It had seemed that no matter how fast they ran they could not gain any distance from him, but if that was the case, how had he not caught them in the mall, where they were careening off people but the crowd parted for him like the Red Sea? It had only been outside that he had the real advantage, where even plowed streets were slick and gritty and filled with people. It could be a manifestation of that super-traction thing. Or perhaps he was applying logic to where none belonged.

"Okay, that's gotten me nowhere. Now what?"

Dream? He surprised himself with that one. But yes, he could not ignore the dream, nor the after-dream phantasm which had nearly ripped his arm off. So, yes, maybe this thing could cause nightmares. If it could cause people not to notice it, why couldn't it cause nightmares in its targets? Hallucination? And if dreams, why not hallucinations? Maybe prolonged exposure to whatever it was which caused its non-targets to ignore it also cause nightmares and hallucinations in its target. And the cut? Well, he'd had dreams which incorporated physical sensations before. That didn't mean the dream caused the physical sensation.

He looked at his notebook and wondered whether he'd accomplished anything. He'd done a fine job of rationalizing his experiences, if by rationalizing you meant accepting the fact that he was being chased by some freakish mutation which could be invisible to everyone but him and Emily while causing him to suffer strange dreams and hallucinations. And Emily? She already had hallucinations, so how could she tell the normal insanity from the new stuff? Why don't I just accept the fact that I've gone mad and check myself into a mental institution? Emily could come too. It would do her good.

Ryan looked himself in the eye. "I'm not insane." He smiled at himself, not because he was happy but because he believed it. It was true, the insane never thought themselves insane, and perhaps he was just deceiving himself, but up until yesterday his life had just been so normal, ordinary, and boring that it was impossible for him to believe that he'd gone off his rocker, just like that. Maybe the stress of the current situation was getting to him, but if so, it was because he really was in a situation worth getting stressed about. Now he could write off the dream as just a dream, and even the phantasm he'd just witnessed might be no more than that. He'd only been half awake, he'd been completely freaked out by the nightmare as much as by real life, and sometimes dreams did incorporate physical sensations, such as cutting his right forearm on something while walking around half asleep.

On the other hand... what if the dream and phantasm were not just his subconscious, but something outside at work. Whether supernatural or superscience or telepathic or something else, it could be significant. In which case... Ryan took pen to paper again and wrote out a brief description of the dream. That took up two pages of his notebook. Then, trading the pen for one of the cheap mechanical pencils which he bought by the dozen, he began to sketch the thing he had seene. The problem, aside from his complete lack of artistic ability, was that the shape he had seen had been blurred and indistinct when he'd first seen it, and his fading memory was making it more so. He found himself starting over several times, and he had ripped out three pages until he came up with a passable sketch. The shape of the head was a bit of a puzzle, and he smeared the lead with his thumb until it was as indistinct as it had looked to him, but the arms and talons, at least, looked like what he remembered. Satisfied, he stuffed pen, pencil, and notepad back in the pocket of his jacket and returned to shut off the light. He felt a moment's fear looking into the mirror with the light off, but nothing appeared but his own shadowy reflection. He found his way back to his bed, once again using the wall to navigate. The clock said it was three in the morning. He didn't remember the exact time when he had awoken earlier, but he thought it had been about an hour. He was feeling much better, his writing and drawing having leeched the emotional strain out of him. He was asleep again within minutes.

[OOC: I'd have drawn a picture, but sadly my artistic abilities are even worse than Ryan's. My attempts came far short of the image I saw in my head.]
* * *
When Ryan woke up, sunlight was filtering in through the blinds and Emily was talking on the phone. He heard her mention tickets, but he wasn't conscious enough to figure out what she was talking about. He sat up and rubbed his eyes until he could see clearly. Emily was already dressed, and she was brushing out her hair as she spoke on the phone. He yawned as she hung up.

"You're awake!"

"I guess so," he mumbled.

"Good. I let you sleep in while I made arrangements but we have to hurry if we're going to catch our plane."

"Catch our what?"

"Our plane. I got us some reservations on a flight to Columbia. It was really expensive on such short notice but I have a pretty high limit on my credit card and it is an emergency--"

"Whoa, hold on, you got tickets to Colombia, as in South America?"

"No, silly, Columbia, as in South Carolina. Although I guess it does sound sort of the same."

"Okay, first question, what do you mean `us'? I can't just join you for a trip to South Carolina or South America or South anywhere out of the blue."

"But it's an emergency! You have to come with me! We're in this together!"

"Which brings me to the second question: why South Carolina? What's there that it makes a good place to run when fleeing Red-eyes?" Ryan had never been anywhere south of the Mason-Dixon line, so his knowledge of it came only from television shows like Dukes of Hazzard (Where did that show take place, anyway?) and high school classes on US history and the civil rights movement. He knew that such things hardly covered the most positive aspects of the South, and the few Southern friends he had at school made fun of those stereotypes when they weren't offended by them, but even giving South Carolina the benefit of the doubt, it was no place that he wanted to go. He could do without the hicks and the racists and the Bible-thumpers, assuming they weren't all one and the same.

"It's where I'm from," Emily said. "My parents still live there. They can help us."

Ryan had never noticed that she had much of a Southern accent, but that was not the part of that he was interested in. "They can? How?"

"Well, my father's a minister... I'm not sure how, but I'm sure they can. I feel it."

"Look, Emily, I know you think Red-eyes is a demon or something, and I don't mean to offend you, but, what if you're wrong? What if he's a mutant or something?"

"You still think he's just a mutant?"

"It's what I'm going with, yes." Since when is someone just a mutant? "I'd prefer to think he was just some dangerous psychotic who was good at mind games, but we'll go with mutant."

"So, he's just a mutant? Or just a psychotic? Or whatever? Anything but admit that he might be a demon?"

"My point is that if he's not a demon, how is the fact that your father's a minister going to help? Is he going to pray away a psychotic?"

"Why not? If prayer works against a demon, why shouldn't it work against a psychotic?"

"Why? Why?! Can't you see the difference between a physical threat and a spiritual one? Sure, if he's really a spiritual entity--which, by the way, I'm not convinced of--then maybe he can be prayed away. Spiritual beats spiritual. But if he's a purely physical being, than how can the spiritual have any effect?"

She looked at him for a long moment, and Ryan thought that maybe his argument was sinking in. "You really don't know anything about religion, do you?" she asked.

"Argh! Why do I even try to argue?"

"Good question. Anyway, I've already bought the tickets, so I'm going. Even if my parents can't `pray away' the psychotic mutant demon, they can help in other ways. So, are you coming?"

"Yeah. Sure, why not? I've come this far. How much worse can it get?"

"I don't know, but you better hurry up and get dressed if you want to find out. We need to be out of here in twenty minutes if we're going to catch our plane."

Ryan slunk out of bed and into the shower, wishing he had more time. As he hurriedly washed himself, he reflected that in the light of day his silly nightmares seemed insignificant compared to the trouble he was really facing.

---

This is Chapter 4 of a story in progress. This chapter is 4,511 words long, bringing the total to 14,310. It's not yet in novella range, but it's creeping there. It might be novel length by the time it's done. I really have no idea where the story is going from here, but it's bound to be a fun ride. One thing I really liked about this section is the phrase "psychotic mutant demon." I briefly considered making that the title of this story, but felt that it didn't quite fit. I do intend to use it more, not just in this story or even this blog: it's the sort of phrase that needs to be worked into everyday conversations.

Old Post: The beginning of this story is here, while the previous chapter is here.

Thanksgiving continued to push this story off, so it ended up being a bit rushed. I intended to do a major revision on Wednesday, but I ended up watching my niece Wednesday morning. While my niece, who's two-and-a-half, is cute, she's also a handful, and it wasn't easy to keep up: "Come on, come on!", "Outside, outside!", "Come here, come here!", etc., again and again, over and over. After that, I needed a nap, and the revision got pushed back another day, until it was Thursday afternoon and I really needed to get it done if I wanted it ready for the next storyblogging carnival. So here it is, and feel free to criticize if you don't feel it's up to my usual subterranean standards.

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Chapter 5
Out of Boston

Those things that seemed deadly serious at night often looked silly in the light of day. Thinking back on his experiences from the previous night while in the shower, Ryan's first instinct was to simply dismiss them. Or at least the part of them that might require some adjustment of his view of the world. When he did, all that was left was some crazy guy chasing after a crazy girl whom Ryan had helped escape. He then paid for a hotel room, which made sense since she needed a safe place to stay, and now she wanted him to go with her while she went to her folks for a couple of days. So far, so not crazy. It was only when you started factoring in the dreams and hallucinations and the weird behavior of people around Red-eyes that things got interesting. Oh, and the fact that his irises were an unbelievably brilliant shade of red. That and Emily's own visions and her deep belief that Red-eyes was a demon.

Ryan dried himself off quickly, then pulled on his clothes, the same jeans and t-shirt he had worn yesterday, which were dry although the jeans were stiff, and a dark grey sweatshirt. He rubbed the steam from the mirror so he could see himself as he combed his hair. Ryan's hair was dark brown and receding, making his forehead, which had always been high, even higher. At least his eyes, also an unremarkable brown, were not too bloodshot, although there were dark spots beneath. He smiled at himself in the mirror, and then took the time to brush his teeth. He and Emily had bought a few necessities from the gift shop when they arrived last night, although he had neglected to get a razor. Rubbing the rough stubble on his cheeks, he wished he had remembered.

When he finished, he stepped out of the bathroom to find Emily packed and ready to go. Like him, she wore the same clothes as yesterday, in her case jeans and a red sweater over a white button-down blouse. She had added a blue jacket from the gift shop to the ensemble, although it looked entirely too light for winter. A winter cap of black and baby blue with a fuzzy ball on top at least kept her head warm. Her only piece of luggage was the purse she had bought from the gift shop, stocked with whatever else she had found, which raised a question he had not thought of earlier.

"Do you have any ID?" he asked. "If we're going on a plane, you'll need it."

"Yes," Emily replied. "I had my license in my pocket when I left my apartment. I didn't have a chance to grab my purse, but I always keep my license on me when I'm driving, and I had just gotten back from a trip to a friend's. I wish I could have gotten to my car, but the keys are in the purse and like I said I was in too much of a hurry to grab it and he was in the way since it was in my room--"

"Okay, okay," Ryan interrupted, raising his hands. "I really don't need that much of an explanation. So you have your license. How about a credit card? How'd you buy the ticket?"

"Oh, I have my credit card number memorized, so it wasn't a problem to buy tickets over the phone. I really am sorry to have made you pay for everything so far, so I thought I should pay for the tickets."

Unless, of course, Red-eyes is tracking your credit card purchases, in which case I should have paid for the tickets. Ryan didn't think it likely that he was. Psychotic mutant demon or not, Ryan didn't see any reason why he should have the pull to access Emily's credit card account. Besides, aside from expending all his cash on the cab ride, Ryan had put a couple of hundred dollars onto his credit card in the attempt to keep Emily and himself well-supplied and in a safe place, and he was just as happy not to be paying last minute airfare for a trip he did not want to take. So now what? Now I go meet her parents. I wasn't planning a trip, but it's Saturday today, and I'm sure I can call in sick or family emergency or something Monday and even Tuesday--Grad student work schedules were flexible that way--so with any luck, Emily will talk to her parents and they'll convince her that whatever the trouble with Red-eyes is, it's not supernatural and it's all over by now. That is assuming, of course, that they're not as crazy as she is. I sure hope it doesn't run in the family. Her father is a minister. I'll worry about that when we get there.

"Okay," Ryan said. "Let's go."

After the chaos of the previous night, Ryan was prepared for pretty much anything. Anything, that is, except nothing, which is what he got. The hotel had a free shuttle service which took them to the airport, and they arrived without incident. Once they did arrive, Ryan kept an eye out for Red-eyes, but he didn't see him. Whatever Red-eyes was, he might expect them to try to catch a flight out of the area, so Ryan would not have been surprised to find him waiting at the airport. Fortunately, Logan Airport was huge, and without any idea which airline they were taking, Red-eyes would have to rely on pure luck to catch them there. If he was waiting at the airport, Ryan didn't see him.

Ryan had to submit himself to a full pat-down to get through the security screening. One-way tickets were considered high risk, and evoked stronger security measures. By now, though, the terrorists must know this, so they'll get round-trip tickets. So what if they're not planning on coming back? It's not like they're saving the money for retirement. Ryan got through the examination with as good a grace as he could manage, although Emily looked unhappy when she came out. Still, Ryan felt better once he was on the other side, hoping that such extreme security measures might slow down Red-eyes. How could even he slip through that unnoticed?

Since they were flying on Delta, their flight to South Carolina would take them through Atlanta. While it still seemed silly that they needed to practically fly over their destination before switching to a plane heading back, Ryan was an engineer, and he had little difficulty grasping the utility of hubs. The number of permutations connecting any one city to any other city would result in an incredible number of flights. With a hundred cities, one connecting flight between every two of them would take 9,900 flights. Use a hub instead, and you need one flight from each city to the hub, and one from the hub to each city, and you could connect them all with 200 flights. 198 if the hub was one of the cities. After having done the math in his head, Ryan decided that he really had put the previous night behind him. If he could pause long enough from checking over his shoulder to work out an entirely useless math problem, then maybe the paranoia was finally wearing off.

They boarded the flight to Atlanta around nine in the morning, and they were in the air by 9:30. Ryan had a window seat near the wing, and for a moment his paranoia returned as he remembered an old Twilight Zone episode. In it, the man sitting in a window seat could see a monster standing on the wing, but it was never there when anyone else looked. The similarity to their situation was uncanny, and if Ryan had seen Red-eyes or that shadow thing which had been inside him in his dream, he would have gone as crazy as the man in the Twilight Zone episode, but he would not have been entirely surprised. It wasn't until half an hour into the flight that his irrational fear finally stopped nagging him.

For someone who had the most fanciful beliefs about their pursuer, Emily seemed even less worried than Ryan was, all fear forgotten the moment the plane was in the air. In her relief, she talked non-stop, and Ryan learned more than he had ever asked to know about her. Her last name was Adams. It only surprised him that he had not already learned it. He had never directly told her his last name, but she knew it already, having heard him use it when he checked them into the hotel room. She had grown up in South Carolina, and lived there her whole life, where her father had worked at Dutch Fork Baptist Church in some manner for as long as she could remember, finally accepting the position of Senior Pastor five years ago. She had done an undergraduate degree in Education at the University of South Carolina, in Columbia, and then come to Boston to pursue a Master's degree at BU. She had considered just staying at USC for her Master's, but she wanted to get out of South Carolina for a few years, and she really felt God calling her to go to Boston. He tried to get a clearer explanation of what that meant: Did it have something to do with those visions? Did she actually hear God's voice? The only explanation he could get was that she felt that she had to go, which left Ryan confused. She had an older brother, Dominic, who was currently in Grad school out west, at Stanford, studying Physics.

She asked him a few questions about his life, which he answered politely, but not in great detail. He had lived all over the Northeast as he grew up, his family travelling with his father, who was a Nuclear Engineer doing contract work. His mother was a nurse and could find work pretty much anywhere. He had graduated from the University of Rochester in New York and gone to Grad school at MIT, which is where he was now--assuming he got back before his advisor decided to fire him.

All in all, it was an educational flight, but he wasn't entirely sorry to see it end as the plane touched down in Atlanta. He had been annoyed with her constant chatter at first, then later found himself just enjoying the sound of her voice, which made him even more annoyed. The opportunity to get off the plane provided a welcome distraction from his tangled thoughts. As soon as they left the gantry, they had to hurry to find the gate for the next flight. The Atlanta airport was huge, and it was a long way from Terminal E to Terminal B. Only after they had located their gate did they determine they had enough time to look for something to eat. It was just past noon, the first flight had not provided a meal, and the itinerary said that the next one would not either. Emily found a McDonald's, but Ryan wanted something less bland, so he headed further down the terminal. Meanwhile, he stopped at the Men's room.

Washing his hands, Ryan took the opportunity to splash some water on his face. He looked at himself in the mirror again, realizing that he was paying way more attention to how he looked than he usually did. Want to look good for Emily, huh? He wished it were that simple. What are you doing? Looking for signs of madness in your eyes? If he was going crazy it wasn't something he could see in the mirror. Maybe you're looking for ghosts in the mirror. Well, none of that here in the light of day. Or the light of the fluorescents, anyway. Just myself and the other guys... What?!

His head twisted so fast his neck cracked. He had thought he'd seen... but no, looking behind him he just saw two guys at the urinals, taking care of their business and not the least bit interested in him. I must have imagined it. I've been doing that a lot recently. Since when has my imagination been so good? By which I mean overactive and vivid, which is decidedly not good. He turned back to the mirror, and he was still there. Red-eyes, large as life, standing behind him and watching. Well, there's my sign of madness, right there. How? He looked behind him again, subtly this time, turning his head just enough that he could look out the corner of his eye, perhaps hoping Red-eyes--It can't be Red-eyes!--hadn't noticed his previous whipsnap motion. He still couldn't see him, just the four urinals and the two guys and no Red-eyes. He looked back at the mirror and there he was. What the hell...? Ryan frowned. In the mirror there were five urinals, not four. Turning and leaving the sink behind as he headed for the door, Ryan scanned the wall, counting. Just four, no sign of Red-eyes or the urinal he was standing right in front of. Okay, I can believe that my mind is so far gone that I'm imagining Red-eyes, but a urinal? Exactly how perverse is my imagination? Is it a magic urinal? Ryan blinked and stopped just as he neared the door. No, wait, there were five there. But I counted four just a moment ago? This doesn't make any sense.

Ryan started walking again, this time quickly. He had to find Emily. What if...? Red-eyes could become invisible, only it wasn't invisible, it was unnoticeable, which meant that while your eyes could see him, your brain didn't know he was there, and you just instinctively reacted to him, going so far as to get out of his way, but all at a lower level of your brain without your subconscious bothering to inform you that "Hey, there's a big guy with glowing red eyes over there!" What if he was standing in front of something, like a urinal, blocking your view of it. Well, your brain wouldn't see it, but it wouldn't bother informing you that that was because some big guy was blocking your view. You just wouldn't notice it. But... I knew the urinal was there. Even with Red-eyes in the way, I could see part of it. Why didn't my mind just fill in the rest. Having reached the limits of his knowledge of psychology--Or is it parapsychology? No, more like psychology of the paranormal, as--Now is not the time for this, okay?--Ryan not only didn't know the answer to that question, he also had no idea where to go to find an answer to that question. He did know it wasn't the question he wanted to be asking right now.

I had assumed Emily and I were immune to his disappearing act, but what if we're not? What if we're only immune when he's trying to hurt us, or what if he can control whether we can see him or not? But why--? That was the problem with asking why. There were too many whys and he didn't have time for them. Enough whys, concentrate on the what. Is he following us now? That seems likely. Can I use a mirror to see him again? I sure hope so.

There was the McDonald's, now where was Emily? There, eating her salad at one of the tables. He went to her table and sat down.

"Hi, Ryan. Didn't you find something to eat?"

"Do you have a mirror?"

"Huh? Why do you need one?"

"This is an emergency. Do you have a mirror?"

Emily started to smile, but it faltered when she saw his expression. "No, I don't have one. Why? What's so important about a mirror?"

"Wait here. I'll be right back."

Ryan scraped the chair back and headed over to the small convenience shop next to the McDonald's, doing his best to keep Emily in his sight the whole time. He searched as quickly as he could, until he came across a small travel kit which included a small handheld mirror. He paid for it and headed back to where Emily sat, looking bewildered. He opened the kit and took out the mirror, pretending to study himself in it, while in reality looking for Red-eyes. He found him almost immediately, sitting at the table next to them. A table he had not noticed before. Ryan slid the mirror over to Emily.

"Look into it, and tell me what you see over there," he said softly. He gestured in the direction he knew Red-eyes to be, pointing with his left hand as it lay on the table while his right forearm blocked it from Red-eyes view. "Try not to get his attention."

"Whose attention?" she whispered back, but she had caught his mood, so she tried to use the mirror to look in the direction he indicated while only appearing to look at herself. When her eyes widened, he shook his head slightly. She handed the mirror back, then they both stood up, leaving her salad behind. They walked away with their heads together.

"We do not want to get on a plane with him. There'd be nowhere to run," Ryan said as softly as possible while still being audible in the noisy airport.

"I agree. But how did he get here? Did he fly with us? Why didn't he attack us then? Why isn't he attacking us now?"

"I don't know. Nor do I know why we can't see him normally now like we could before, or why we can see him in the mirror. I doubt he knows about that, or he would have been careful around mirrors."

"I don't think the rules apply to psychotic mutant demons."

Ryan shook his head. "No, I don't believe that. There have to be some rules or else we'd be dead already. You know more about theology than I do, but isn't it the study of spiritual rules? They're different, but there are still rules."

"I've never heard it stated that way. I'm not sure whether that's a good definition of theology or not; I'll have to ask Dom. Anyway, maybe he does follow some rules. So what? We have no idea what they are, and from what we've seen they're incredibly complicated, unless..."

"Unless what?"

"I thought I had an idea there, but I guess I didn't."

"Well, if you do have an idea, please share it with me, because I am really, really lost here."

"So what do you want to do?"

"If we're not getting on that plane, we need some other transportation. I say we leave the terminal and go rent a car."

"Just like that?"

"Why not? Atlanta's not just a Delta hub, it's also a major destination in and of itself. People fly here, leave the terminal, pick up their baggage, and rent a car. That's what we're going to do, minus the luggage."

"And if he follows us? He might attack us, or get in the car with us, or whatever."

"We'll use the mirror to keep an eye out for him, and we'll check the car before we get going. If we see him, we run on foot. But I'd rather be driving a car, wouldn't you?"

---

This chapter is 3,326 words long, bringing this short story to a total of 17,636 words. I still have no clue where it's going or how long it will be, but I am starting to get an inkling of what's been going on. Before this, I was as confused as Ryan, now I'm slightly less confused.

Old Post: This is a continuation of the story which begins here. The previous chapter is here.

I've finally gotten back to this story. This chapter is a bit short, since with the move and the new job, I didn't have a chance to work on it until this week, and I only got through about half of what I wanted to write. On the bright side, I have a pretty good idea what will be in the next chapter.

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Chapter 6
Dominic

Boston was an old city, where roads which had originally been paths for cattle had widened until they could accomodate cars--in some cases, only just. These roads followed land contours and property boundaries which no longer existed, making the city a confused snarl of one-way lanes coming together in five and six-way intersections. Ryan had always carefully avoided opportunities to drive in Boston. Atlanta was a new city. Sherman had burned it to the ground during the Civil War, and the rebuilt city had wide, straight roads laid out in a square grid, making it extraordinarily easy to navigate, even for Ryan's atrophied driving skills.

This was good, as Ryan didn't have the least idea where he was going. This was not an important consideration at first, as the initial plan, now that they were in a car without Red-eyes for company, was simply to head northeast and then figure out how to get to Columbia once they were out of Atlanta. While Emily had made the trip between Columbia and Atlanta a number of times, she didn't know the way well enough to describe it to Ryan, as she had rarely driven it herself. Ryan was still trying to decide which direction was north when Emily had an idea.

"Pull over here," she said, pointing to a gas station about a block ahead.

"Why?" Ryan asked. Judging by the boarded up buildings and the rough clothing of the local teenagers, this was not the best part of town.

"I just thought of something. I want to make a phone call."

"Again, why?"

"Just do it," she said, and Ryan obligingly crossed the two lanes to bring their rented silver Chevy Classic into the parking lot. The car felt large and unwieldy to Ryan, but he thought that had more to do with his driving skills rather than the handling characteristics of what was a very nice car. He still didn't know why Emily had insisted that he drive.

Ryan pulled to a stop near the pay phones, and Emily got out. Of the two phones, one of the phones was covered by a black plastic bag affixed with a cardboard sign reading "Out of Ordr" in a black marker. Who the Hell mispells "order"? Ryan wondered. The other was hanging off the hook and the side panels were painted with obscene graffiti, but Emily lifted the receiver and tested the hang-up lever, and once she was satisfied that it worked she deposited a quarter and dialed. Meanwhile, Ryan kept the engine running and his eyes on two large men, one white and one Hispanic, who seemed to be watching Emily. He didn't like the way they looked at her, but he was probably just being paranoid. At least neither of them had red eyes, though their clothes were ragged and their faces dirty.

When Emily was finished on the phone, she returned to the car, and Ryan sighed in relief. "So who were you talking to?"

"I called my brother's cell phone. He went to undergrad at Georgia Tech, and his cell is still a local number. More importantly, I remembered that he had said something about visiting Atlanta. I was right and he's in town now."

"Is he? What was his name? Dominic?"

"Yeah. You'd like him. He's a science type too, plus he knows a lot about theology. I think he can help us, so I told him we were coming to see him. What do you think?"

"I wish you had asked me before saying we'd come for a visit," Ryan said.

"Well, I didn't think you'd have a problem with it. After all, we were going to see my family, and with my brother in town now, it's like God wants us to see him. I really think we should."

"God wants us to, huh? It could just be a coincidence," Ryan said, not really believing it. What were the odds of her brother being in the town they had been forced to flee into after meeting Red-eyes at the airport they were just supposed to have a layover at? The probabilities were too low for this occurrence to be a coincidence, but as far as Ryan could tell, God didn't seem to be the active player here. "Anyway, we were supposed to meet your parents."

"We still can, but we should talk to Dominic first, right?"

So now they were trying to find Georgia Tech, so they could meet Emily's brother at the student union. Ryan didn't even know where in Atlanta Georgia Tech was, but Emily gathered some vague directions by asking random people whom Ryan would probably have avoided, including at least one woman whom Ryan was certain was a prostitute. She wasn't particularly attractive, with her bare midriff bulging with fat and her heavy make-up doing little to hide the acne scars, but that probably just meant she was cheap. She, like everyone else Emily asked, could not maintain her cynicism in the face of Emily's charm. Ryan might have worried about leaving a trail Red-eyes could follow, except that Red-eyes had never had trouble finding them before, and with his unnoticeability issues, how likely was he to be talking to other people? With their help, Ryan was able to get onto I-75, which led them right to the Georgia Tech campus. Mostly, as Ryan still had some trouble finding Ferst Drive from North Avenue, but Emily accosted a few people who looked like students to get more precise directions. There was more grass here, still green this far south, and even a few trees on campus. The roads here weren't as straight and predictable, but the student center wasn't hard to find, and Ryan pulled to a stop in front of it while Emily got out.

There were plenty of people around, and Ryan didn't see the family resemblence so easily that he could tell which one was her brother until the guy seized her in a bear hug. He was a good six inches taller than Emily, and just as blond. He wore sunglasses, and, since the February weather was cool despite the bright sunlight even in Georgia, a long tan trenchcoat. Ryan looked a bit closer, trying to see the relationship in the shape of his face, but his strong, masculine jawline and prominent nose obscured the resemblance. And the way he wore his hair long and tied in a ponytail seemed out-of-line with the impression Ryan had formed of her family. He wondered if he had been unfair. Emily brought the guy to the car, where they sat together in the back seat.

"Dom, this is Ryan," she said, as Dominic unbuttoned his trenchcoat. He didn't take it or the sunglasses off, however.

"Nice to meet you, Ryan. Em said you were a student at MIT?"

"Yes, I'm in Grad school there. I'm doing simulations of semiconductor failure modes."

"Cool. I'm at Stanford studying quantum computation."

"Uh, I think Emily wanted to discuss something else."

"Yes, I did," Emily said. "Ryan, how about you drive us around a bit while I tell Dom about what's happened? I don't know if it really helps, but I feel safer if we keep moving."

Ryan put the car in gear. "Where are we going?"

"Just around. We need to bring Dom back here when we're done."

Ryan hated driving without a clear idea where he was going, but he managed to get off the Georgia Tech campus and merged with traffic. Emily quickly--for her, anyway--told Dominic everything that had happened, starting with her apartment. Dominic didn't interrupt or question her. Glancing in the mirror, Ryan saw him leaning back against the seat, his hands in the pockets of his trenchcoat. With his dark glasses it was hard to tell whether he was listening, or even awake. When Emily finished, he was silent for a moment, then said, "Ryan, is that how you remember things happening?"

Ryan nodded, then realized that Dominic couldn't see him from the back seat, so he said aloud, "Yes, pretty much, although I'm not sure I agree with her conclusions. Don't you believe her?" He looked at Dominic's reflection in time to see him roll his shoulders.

"I dunno," he said. Emily opened her mouth, but before she could speak her brother continued, "I don't think you're lying, Em. It just sounds so incredible. I wish I knew what to make of it."

"You have to have some thoughts," she replied.

"I have some," he said. "They're not very informed, but you told me this stuff because you wanted to know what I think. I certainly don't know what that thing is. Human, demon, mutant, space alien? I wish I could say human, but how it acts hints at... unnatural abilities. I hesitate to say supernatural, as that hasn't been decided yet, but I can't rule it out, either.

"Em and I have had this conversation before, but just so you're clear, Ryan, I do believe in the supernatural, and I very much believe in demons. However, for any single account of demons that I hear, my first reaction is skepticism. Just because I believe they exist doesn't mean I blame them for everything."

Ryan wasn't sure what he thought of Emily's brother yet, but he was relieved that he didn't jump to the conclusion of demon as quickly as Emily had. He'd been afraid that her whole family would be just as devoted to supernatural assumptions as she was.

Dominic continued, "I wish I had a rational explanation for this, but I don't. I do have a thought as to its motivations, however. First, you said it chased you without catching you. It seemed intent on hurting you, but never seemed to do real harm. Then it followed you in the airport, but didn't do anyting to act against you. This makes me very suspicious. I think if it had the desire and ability to kill you, it would have done so by now. So I'm wondering, what if its actions last night were not supposed to hurt you, but scare you?"

"But why would it want to do that?" Emily asked.

"I dunno. Although it does make sense if it's a demon. Demons want to harass people, especially believers, in order to keep them from doing what they're supposed to. Just chasing you out of town may have accomplished that. It may be that he can't do anything more. He may not be able to directly harm you. That's what a lot of Christians believe, although I'm not so certain. A lot depends on how you read certain passages in the Bible, and how much protection against and authority over spiritual beings Christians really have. There is power there, no matter how you look at it, but I've always thought that power is similar to what we have over the physical world: the power of prayer, access to God, not a guarantee of success."

"I'm not a Christian," Ryan said, starting to feel out-of-touch with the conversation.

"Then whatever protection Em has, yours is less. Another possibility is that this guy is using you--getting you to run and then following, hoping you'll lead him to something."

"Like what?" Emily asked.

"If I knew that, I could give you better advice," Dominic replied. "Anyway, a lot of this assumes that he's behaving in a rational and intelligent manner. If he's stupid or crazy, and that applies whether he's mutant, alien, or human, then perhaps his motivations and purposes can't make any sense to us at all."

"And if he's a demon? He can't be insane or stupid then?" Ryan asked.

"Interesting question. I doubt demons can be stupid, but insane? They are spiritual, not physical, beings, but they are fallen, so they are by definition not... right in how they think. That doesn't mean irrational, and since we're fallen, that doesn't make them any more insane than the whole human race. So in that sense, maybe not. On the other hand, they are spiritual beings, so different from us, so far above us intellectually, that perhaps we can't comprehend their logic. Like God, their ways are not our ways. Then again, there is a logic and rationality behind spiritual beings, even if we can only glimpse pieces of it. God is the very source of reason--"

"You're getting more confusing by the second," Ryan said. "Are you saying demons can be insane or not?"

"I guess I'm saying that demons don't have mental health problems like humans, but they may certainly look insane from our perspective. Very little of what they do will look rational to us."

"Which helps us figure out very little," Ryan said.

Ryan didn't see Dominic shrug this time, but he could hear it in the tone. "Sorry," Dominic said. "But this situation already makes very little sense. You know what my suggestion is? If he is a spritual being, the only way to fight him is with God's help. You need prayer, and from as many people as possible. Where two or more are gathered and all that. And if he's not, prayer and lots of people is still not a bad idea."

Ryan tried not to grumble. Dammit! Some guy wants to kill us, and Emily and her brother want to have a prayer meeting. Well, if they're as Holy Roller as they sound, all the snake-handling might scare Red-eyes off. Nothing scares a crazy person like people who are even crazier. Still, even if Ryan wasn't happy with the result, Dominic had approached the situation logically and carefully. His underlying assumptions were different, and while Ryan wasn't about to follow the suggested course of action, some of his conclusions were useful. What did Red-eyes really want?

"Dom," Emily said. "We're going to see Mom and Dad. Why don't you come with us? I think you could help."

"I--," Dominic started but didn't continue for a moment. Ryan glanced in the mirror again, trying to read his expression. The sunglasses made it difficult. "I was going to say that I have a lot to do and really need to get back and all that, but I realized how lame that sounded." He fell silent again.

"I understand," Ryan said. "You're afraid." He tried to keep his voice neutral, but he didn't think he succeeded. You think we're not?

"I dunno," Dominic said. "I wasn't even thinking about how dangerous it was, just how... inconvenient. And it worries me that I could, even for a moment, consider the health and well-being of anyone, much less my sister and her boyfriend, less important than my convenience."

"Wait a minute!" Ryan said, this time looking back. "I didn't say I was her boyfriend. Did she say that? Well, I'm not."

"Sorry," Dominic said. "Uh, maybe you should watch the road?"

Ryan turned back just in time. He swung the wheel to the left, changing lanes without the benefit of checking his blind spot in order to avoid the car merging into the highway. There was a loud hornblast behind him, but no shattering glass or crunching metal, so it looked like their luck had held. Hell, that's the only good luck we've had since this started. I hope we haven't used it all.

Once he could breathe again, Ryan said, not looking back this time, "We're not dating!"

"Like I said, sorry," Dominic replied. "Anyway, now that you mention it, I am afraid. Not so much that Red-eyes might kill me, although that terrifies me too. But I could be coming face-to-face with the supernatural. The world as I know it can, and probably will, be altered by something like that. Will my beliefs, will my faith, survive, or will my whole world come crashing down? Frightening doesn't begin to to describe it."

"I think you need to get your priorities straight. I'm much more worried about the dying part," Ryan said. Besides, at this point, how much is left of what I believed yesterday?

"Maybe, but exactly how scary the dying is depends strongly on what I believe dying's all about."

"Dom, you worry too much," Emily said. "This hasn't affected my beliefs."

"Em, your faith and mine are different things. You never doubt. I doubt in the best of times. I like to think that doubt's made my faith stronger, but it's one thing to think that once you've worked through the doubt, another thing when you're in the middle of it."

"But Dom--"

"I really hate to interrupt your Bible study," Ryan said. "But we're about back to where we're started, at Georgia Tech. If you're coming with us, you better decide now. Otherwise I should drop you off here."

Dominic sighed. "Belief is a decision, faith is an action. I think I have the faith for this. Okay, I'll come."

---

This chapter is 2,862 words long, meaning that the total short story length is now 20,498 words.

Chapter 6 contains an homage in the form of Dominic. I thought it would be fun to give him some superficial similarities to Riff of Sluggy Freelance. That's about the extent of it: wardrobe, hair, and an occasional "I dunno." I might manage to squeeze in a "Let me check my notes," but Dominic is not Riff. He's more me.

I never actually planned for Dominic to take part in this story; he was just going to be the distant source for some of the ideas Emily had to express but which weren't appropriate for her character to actually think. However, the situation required someone who was more open-minded than Ryan and more questioning than Emily. So I brought in Dominic.

I've said before that Ryan is one side of my personality. Dominic is the other. They're both Grad students (as I was when I first wrote Chapter 1), both science people and good with computers. In other words, they're both nerds. But while Ryan is all my cynicism and skepticism rolled into one character, Dominic is a believer. Which doesn't mean that he's not cynical and skeptical, just that they're tempered by his faith. Or maybe they temper his faith. Dominic is a believer like me, complete with my doubts and my struggles. He believes, and he's thought a lot about what he believes, but the actual practice of his faith comes in fits and starts, hindered by his doubts and too much introspection. He tries, though, and sometimes succeeds in modest ways.

Old Post: This story begins here, and the previous chapter is here.

This is Chapter 7 of Eyes in the Shadow, finished Thursday night as I was suffering from massive sleep deprivation from a bout of insomnia the night before. If it seems a bit short, that's because it was supposed to be the second part of Chapter 6, but it got bumped.

---

Chapter 7
A Back Door

Ryan pulled to a stop in front of the dormitory.

"I have a bad feeling about this," he said. The day had grown overcast, which didn't improve Ryan's mood.

"Don't worry, it'll just take me a moment to get my stuff," Dominic said as he opened the door and got out.

"You're lucky," said Emily. "Ryan and I never had a chance to pack."

"Yeah, I kind of noticed." Dominic closed the door before Ryan could come up with a good comeback.

Ryan watched him walk off, dodging skateboarders as he darted up the stairs to the dorm. The square building was one of those ugly modern buildings, with a huge glass wall fronting the first floor and stone facing on the four stories above. It looked like just about every other college dormitory. Next to the door was an intercom system, and Dominic punched a keypad and held a brief conversation with someone on the other side before being let in. As the glass door closed behind him, Ryan wondered whether he was coming back. If he was looking for a chance to run out on them, this was it. Do I really think he'd do that? He promised his sister. Ryan wasn't sure, but he did know that Dominic was scared. More frightened than Ryan was, it seemed, and for all the wrong reasons, too. Who the Hell understands religious people?

Ryan kept the car running, figuring that a quick getaway was more valuable than saving gas right now. They were just pulled up to the curb, a little bit past the dorm on their right side, since Ryan hadn't wanted to spend the time to go hunting for a parking lot. The less time we're here, the better. Still, maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to find a legitimate parking place. What am I worried about? They can't tow the car while we're in it, and I can always move it if someone complains.

He settled back on the plush cloth seat. After a moment's thought, he began playing with its controls. Ryan'd had scant time to adjust the driver's seat to his liking as in their rush to leave the rental car lot before Red-eyes found them. The seat was still too far back, and he used the seat's electric motor to move it forward, then raise it a little. The car wouldn't feel so awkward now that everything was in easy reach. He considered turning on the radio, but he really didn't have the patience to look for a radio station he wanted to listen to. He never listened to it much anyway, as he found music distracting and talk radio worse whenever he was trying to do something. Ryan could never just listen to the radio—he inevitably got bored and started doing something, at which point the radio was a distraction and off it went. Oddly, he didn't have the same problem with television, perhaps because it engaged his eyes as well as his ears. For that matter, he loved to read, which was all eyes and mind and no listening at all. He just wasn't a very aural person, and that applied to long conversations as well. He could concentrate when he was participating, but his mind wandered whenever he was just supposed to listen. For instance, right at the moment, Emily was chattering about something she and Dominic had done when they were little, and Ryan was trying his best to at least pretend he was paying attention. He nodded and said "yeah" and "huh" in an attentive matter whenever Emily would leave a space for response—which wasn't often—but he couldn't for the life of him remember what her story was about, and tuning in to Emily's words for half-a-minute didn't offer him much clue, as she was talking about how her story had demonstrated the psychology of sibling relationships, still without giving him any hint as to the actual events of said story. He might have been worried about missing the point if he weren't fairly certain that there was none.

Given the scant attention he was giving to her, it was a wonder he noticed when she stopped cold. His automatic "uh-huh" got caught in his throat as he noticed that her eyes, locked on the rearview mirror, were suddenly wide. "What?" She remained silent, her eyes scanning the mirror, her head tilting to get a better angle. "Emily, what is it?"

"Red-eyes," she said.

Ryan's right hand went to the gearshift while his left stabbed the lock button, the automatic lock sealing every door in the car. "Sorry, Emily, but we can't wait for your brother anymore."

"But...," she began, her neck craning further to the left to keep her target in sight, her hand searching for the door lock, "he's not coming toward us. He's going toward..." Her hand found the lock and clicked it open. Rather than waiting for Emily to realize that she had unlocked rather locked the door, Ryan jabbed the automatic lock again. But he had misjudged Emily's intentions. Rather than locking Red-eyes out of the car, she had done exactly what she intended and let herself out, and she was already pushing the door open by the time the lock clicked shut again. "Dominic!" she shouted.

I knew coming here was a bad idea. Both times!

Ryan shifted the car back into park and jerked the key from the ignition. Somebody should teach that girl the value of self-preservation! Ryan got out of the car, wondering how he was even going to spot Red-eyes. Unless he had decided to go noticeable again, Ryan could be staring straight through him as he walked up and snapped his neck. Emily had the hand mirror and was using it to search for Red-eyes, apparently having lost track of him. He could be on top of her before she could even find him! Ryan circled the car to come up beside her. Since he found it difficult to watch the mirror over her shoulder, he futilely scanned the sidewalk.

The dorm had a wide patio fronting its glass wall, and a slightly narrower set of steps connecting the patio to the sidewalk. On either side of the stairway was a grassy slope, still green in the Southern winter, and more grass plus a few shade trees bracketed the patio and its two-foot-high brick wall. Few people loitered in the cold weather, most of them hurrying on their way. However, the skateboarders were continuing their stunts on the patio, one hopping his board from the patio to the sidewalk without touching the intervening steps. He had a rough goatee, a winter hat hiding his hair, a white T-shirt over a long-sleeved black shirt, baggy shorts long enough to come to Ryan's ankles had he worn them, and no protective gear whatsoever. His landing looked good to Ryan's inexperienced eye, so he was surprised to see the young man fly from his skateboard, landing hard on his back against the stairs. His board continued a few inches before bouncing against nothing more solid than air and rolling backwards. What the--? And just like that, Ryan could see him: Red-eyes, standing above the fallen skateboarder, his arms just now dropping to his sides. You miscalculated, didn't you? People usually go around you, even when they can't see you, but it's awfully hard to turn a skateboard in mid-flight. But while Ryan saw him, the skateboarders still didn't. They rushed to their fallen friend's side without a glance for his assailant. For that matter, Emily was still frantically scanning her mirror back and forth. Red-eyes ignored the skateboarders, stepping around them to head up the stairs. Ryan's eyes followed Red-eyes' intended path to the dorm, looking through the glass wall to see Dominic, wearing his sunglasses even inside, coming down the stairs, a duffel bag in one hand and a laptop case hanging from the opposite shoulder.

"Another possibility is that this guy is using you--getting you to run and then following, hoping you'll lead him to something." Or someone. Someone like Dominic. Ryan dropped the keys into Emily's hand as he brushed past her. "Drive the car around back," he said, pointing at the dorm.

"Where? How? Why?"

"Hurry!" Ryan shouted as he sprinted off, making a straight line across the grass and over the low wall surrounding the patio, in a dead run for the door. He passed within ten feet of Red-eyes on the way to the door, close enough to feel his icy aura. Like in the dream. God, I hope I'm imagining it. Ryan would not have been surprised to feel Red-eyes' hand wrapping around his wrist like a manacle, a manacle with razor sharp claws which sank into his skin. He almost looked back, but he didn't dare. I don't want to know how close he is.

Ryan could guess that Red-eyes' intention was to catch Dominic just as he came out the door. If so, his timing was impeccable, which made Ryan's slightly less so. He arrived at the door just before both Dominic and Red-eyes, but when he tried to open it, he found the it locked, the knob refusing to turn. He glanced at the intercom system. It was obvious how it worked: dial the room number and they'll let you in, or, if you live here yourself, slide your ID card in the attached cardreader. It made a lot of sense if you weren't about to be ripped apart by a psychotic mutant demon. Lacking ID card and friend in the building, Ryan could only pound on the door to indicate that Dominic should let him in. While Emily's brother looked confused by Ryan's wild knocking, he pulled the door open anyway. "What--?" he began. As soon as the door was ajar, Ryan shoved his way inside, causing Dominic to overbalance and fall in a tangle of luggage. Ryan heard a distinct crunch, but he didn't pause to find out what Dominic had broken. As quickly as he had flung the door open, he twisted himself around to the other side and threw his full weight against it. The door did not slam shut, as he had hoped it would. The hydraulic door closer resisted his efforts. He could see Red-eyes now, only a few feet from the door, his arm outstretched to catch it before it could latch. Ryan pushed harder, the hydraulics pushed back just as hard, Red-eyes' fingers touched the door... Click. The latch had reached home.

For a moment Ryan thought Red-eyes wasn't going to stop, that he'd just walk straight through the door, but after one more step he came to a standstill. His right hand pressed against the door, his face mere inches from the glass, Red-eyes gleaming—no, glowing, Ryan was sure of it this time. He raised his left hand in a fist and pounded on the glass. Ryan jumped with the glass, but the door held. Red-eyes struck again, and again.

"Are you okay?" Ryan said to Dominic, who was slowly gathering his things and himself from the floor.

"Yeah. Is that Red-eyes?" He gestured to the door.

"You can see him?" Ryan asked.

"He's kinda hard to miss."

"You'd be surprised," Ryan replied. He was going to explain, but hadn't Emily already told this story? If Dominic hadn't believed it, Ryan didn't have time to try to convince him. "I don't know how long that glass will hold. We should go."

"Where? And where's Emily? Is she out there with that?" Dominic asked, still just watching Red-eyes. Ryan had long since gotten used to the empty expression that somehow still conveyed malevolence, so he wasn't interested in staring at him right now, certainly not while he was trying to break through the glass which was all that separated them.

"That way." Ryan pointed to the back. "This place does have a back door, right?"

"I dunno. I haven't really checked." At Ryan's frosty stare, he shrugged. "Hey, I'm just visiting. I haven't been here a whole day yet."

Great, just great! "Well, pray that it does then, `cause that's where Emily's supposed to meet us."

Dominic led the way toward the back, taking Ryan down a long hallway. They passed several closed doors, each with its own number and an eyehole, so Ryan guessed they were more dorm rooms. Behind them, the pounding continued, and he thought he heard glass crack. If this was a dead end... It wasn't. They found a door at the end of the hall, which opened onto a stairwell with flights leading up and down.

"Arghh! Where now?" Ryan asked.

"Down," said Dominic.

"I don't think we want to go to the basement."

"No, I'm pretty sure the ground is lower at the back of the building. If there's a back door, it's down."

"Are you sure?"

Dominic shrugged. "Not really."

"If you're wrong--" Ryan froze as he heard glass shatter behind them. Well, it's not likely I'll get the chance to kill him, is there? "Down it is."

The two hurried down the stairs, their footsteps echoing in the concrete stairwell. Ryan cringed at the noise, but it wasn't as if Red-eyes had needed something as mundane as sound to find them before. At the bottom, they found two doors at opposite ends of the stairwell. Each had a small window, so Ryan could see that one opened into a lighted hallway, the other onto the outside. Relieved, he headed out the back door with Dominic on his heels. They stood on a small concrete porch, with three steps heading down to the parking lot. The lot had seen better days: the pavement was cracked and the lines fading. The cars didn't look much better, mostly small imports five years old or more, probably belonging to the dorm residents. Ryan scanned the parking lot, but he saw no sign of the silver car Emily was supposed to be bringing. Where the Hell is she? He felt something cold touch his cheek, and he slapped it away. Just a drop of water. What, did I think it was Red-eyes, caressing my cheek? He glanced skywards. It looked like there would be a downpour soon.

Dominic adjusted his sunglasses, "Where's Emily?"

"I guess she's not here yet. Oh, wait, is that her?" He pointed to a silver car coming down the road behind the lot.

The two hurried down the steps and sprinted to the car just as the downpour began. They reached the car before Emily had crossed more than a third of the parking lot towards them. Emily pulled to a stop as they both climbed in the passenger side, Dominic tossing his stuff in the back while Ryan took the front seat. Even after such a short time, Ryan's hair and shoulders were damp from the rain. He turned to look at the dorm in time to see Red-eyes coming out the door.

"There he is," Ryan said. "Let's go."

"Where is he?" Emily said as she made a tight U turn. "I can't see him."

"You can't?"

"No. How come you can see him and I can't?"

"I don't know," Ryan confessed. Red-eyes was already down the steps and walking across the parking lot. The rain didn't faze him at all. "But he's coming this way. Let's go."

"Alright, alright," Emily said. "I just hope I can find the way out. It wasn't easy to get back here." The car rolled forward to the edge of the lot, and Emily signaled for a left turn.

"Hurry up," Ryan said.

"There's a car coming." In fact, there was a long line of cars, starting with a Beatle, then an SUV, a pick-up, and...

"Cut them off! He's almost here!"

"He's not even halfway yet."

"Huh." Ryan looked over his shoulder toward Red-eyes again. He was coming quickly, but Ryan admitted he wasn't that close yet. Maybe it was only halfway across the parking lot. But how--?

"I can see him in the mirror, silly."

"I'm not the one acting silly. Halfway across the parking lot is too close. Let's go!"

"Alright. Okay. It's clear now anyway."

As it turned out, it wasn't quite clear. Emily had somehow not noticed the white Saturn that screeched to a halt and blared its horn when she pulled out. This caused her to jump, but thankfully she didn't stop, and she pulled into the road, going very slowly. Rainwater streamed down the window, nearly blinding them until Emily figured out how where the controls to the windshield wipers were located. At Ryan's urging she sped up a little, but it still didn't feel fast enough. Red-eyes was fast, and it wasn't like a thunderstorm was going to slow him down at all. Still, they made it onto Ferst, and from there, they found their way back to the Interstate. Only then did Ryan relax, although with the pouring rain, they were still driving at a rate that felt too slow. It really was growing dark, between the clouds and the early evening.

Ryan looked into the back seat, where Dominic was looking back out the window.

"I know we're going slow, but I think we're still going faster than he can run, Dom." It seemed a bit odd to call him Dom, but it was what Emily used.

"No, I suppose he can't. That was scary, huh?" Dominic took his sunglasses off and cleaned them with a handkerchief. "I can still hear my heart in my ears."

"Yeah, I know what you mean. You did okay, though."

"Thanks, but I just did what you told me." He placed his sunglasses back on his nose. "You're pretty good at surviving attacks by psychotic mutant demons."

"Yeah, I've gotten pretty good at running away. So why are you still wearing sunglasses, anyway? It's getting dark out here."

"Is it? Dark or not, I need them to see. My sunglasses have corrective lenses, and you kinda crunched my regular glasses when you knocked me over."

"Oh. Sorry."

"Heh, I'll live. Emily, can you find your way from here?"

"Well, I can just follow I-20 East, right?" she said. "That ought to get us there."

"More or less."

"Dom, why did Red-eyes attack you?" Ryan said. "Was he after you when we thought he was after us?"

"I don't know. Was he even attacking me, or was he doing something else? Let me think about it, okay? I'll get back to you when I come up with something."

He leaned back and folded his arms, and Ryan turned his attention forward. Emily turned up the heat, but she was unusually subdued as she concentrated on driving in the inclement weather. Since Ryan rarely drove in Boston, he often got rides from others, so he was used to being chauffered. Driving in Boston could be a nerve-wracking experience, but so could riding shotgun if you paid too much attention, so he'd long since become accustomed to zoning out and not worrying about other people's driving. Anyway, it wasn't like he'd be able to help if his driver wasn't up to the task, and he thought Emily was handling the weather fine. After a few moments, he noticed soft snores coming from behind him, and he turned to see that Dominic had fallen asleep. I guess I shouldn't be expecting any more ideas from him right away. Still, that last one isn't bad at all. Ryan leaned back, letting himself be soothed by the car's motion and even the sound of the rain splattering on the windshield. He scratched a bit at the cut on his right arm, which didn't so much itch as tingle, but it wasn't too long before sleep came for him as well.

---

This chapter is 3,307 words long, bringing the total length to 23,805 words. One more chapter, and it will definitely be novella length.

Old Post: The first chapter in this series is here, while the most recent chapter is here.

Well, it's two weeks late, but here it is, the next chapter of Eyes in the Shadow. I originally had a draft of this done two weeks ago, but when I was doing the revision, I decided that I didn't like how it went. There was one completely extraneous thing that I liked, but served no real purpose in the story. It just acted as a useless and unlikely coincidence that would almost certainly be a red herring. So I decided to save it for later... What?

Anyway, I like how it reads now much better than how it did.

---

Chapter 8
An Ill-timed Walk


Ryan opened one eye. It was the change in the car's movement which had first disturbed his rest, then the sudden brightness had woken him fully. They were parked at an Exxon station, stopped right in front of the convenience store. Between the light from the store window and the fluorescents illuminating the area under the gas pump's canopy, it was nearly as bright as day. Ryan opened and shut his eyes a few times trying to get them to adjust to the light. It was giving him a headache.

"Why..." He paused and cleared his throat. His voice was always hoarse when he first woke up. I couldn't hear what I said. "Why are we stopping? We're not out of gas, are we?"

"Nah," said Emily. "I just really needed to go. Besides, it's about time one of you guys took over driving."

Slinging her purse over her shoulder, she got out the door. The light gave her blond hair a golden halo. Ryan looked back at Dominic, who was still slumped back in his seat, hands in the pockets of his trenchcoat. With his sunglasses still on, it was hard to tell whether he was awake or not. He considered checking, then decided that there wasn't much reason to, so he got out of the car as well, absently scratching at the cut on his arm as he did so. The damn thing was annoying the Hell out of him. It didn't itch the way a cut should; instead it tingled, which was even more annoying. He hoped it wasn't infected.

Ryan's legs felt weak still, but as he had spent most of the day sitting down, that wasn't unexpected. He saw Emily disappear around the corner of the store, and after a moment he followed. It turned out that she knew where she was going, as the doors to both restrooms were on the side of the building. There were no windows on this side, and the wall blocked out most of the light streaming from the canopy, so aside from the flickering low-wattage bulb hanging between the two restroom doors, this side of the building was pretty dark. Emily entered the closest door, and after checking for unwelcome shapes in the shadows, he went to the second one. The Men's room was a cut above most gas station restrooms, meaning that it might be clean enough to serve a greasy diner. Still, it was brightly lit, and a quick glance in the mirror didn't show him anything he needed to worry about. Ugh, I'm getting so tired of looking for someone in the mirror every time I enter a room. Does it even help? Not every room even had a mirror, and no mirror showed him everything, but he was not going to start carrying a hand mirror around to scan every corner. I'd probably get arrested for doing that in a restroom. After doing his business, Ryan washed his hands and then pushed up the sleeve of his sweater to get a better look at the cut on his right arm.

It was across the inside of his right forearm, crossing his veins in a straight line. In fact, if it were a little bit closer to the wrist, it'd be like the scar left by a razor blade in an attempted suicide. The creepy thought gave him goosebumps. The scratch didn't look infected, at least not how he thought an infected cut should look: red and swollen and hot to the touch. Instead it looked... dead. The skin around the cut was pale and cool, even clammy. It felt stretched thin, taut, and it seemed to be actually pulling the wound open, exposing the pink muscle beneath. It still oozed a bit of blood. He pulled the sleeve back down.

What if it poisoned me? Ryan shoved the panicked thought back. "It" hadn't been there. He had cut his forearm on something, a nail protruding from the wall perhaps, and then dreamt about the shadow creature in his half-dozing state. He refused to believe that the shadow-thing was real. He could deal with the psychotic mutant demon if he had to—it was solid, a physical entity of a certain size and mass, even if some of its attributes were beyond his ability to explain. He would not allow himself to be spooked by ghosts which came out of mirrors.

Ryan almost looked at the cut again, then stopped himself. Looking at it wouldn't do him any good. He needed to go to a hospital and have them check it out. It could be tetanus. That's not what tetanus looks like! the panicky part of his brain argued. How do I know what tetanus looks like? He needed to see a doctor about it, but now wasn't a good time. After we get to Emily's house, I'll ask where I can find one.

The door opened, and in the mirror Ryan saw Dominic enter the room, still wearing his sunglasses. "Isn't it a little dark for those things?" he asked.

Dominic shrugged. "It's either dark and clear or bright and blurry. Anyway, one of us should take over driving. Do you want to, or should I?"

"Are you kidding? You just said you couldn't see anything."

Dominic snorted a half-laugh. "I did, didn't I? Well, I could probably manage, but maybe you should be the one driving."

"Yeah, I think that'd be best. I'll see you at the car."

Ryan pushed the door open and stepped out into the night. Even in the relative darkness on this side of the convenience store, glimmers from the front hurt his eyes. He rubbed his eyes, then his forehead. It didn't hurt much, but his head was definitely complaining. I hate it when I wake up from a nap with a headache. He looked in the opposite direction, where some trees stood behind the gas station's lot. I shouldn't... but I just want to walk around a bit before I have to take over driving. Once around the building can't hurt.

Ryan walked past the corner, his left hand trailing on the brick wall. You know, if this were a horror movie, going off on my own would have to be the most stupid thing ever. Don't you yell at the idiots who do that? He spun as he heard a crackling in the leaves, but he saw nothing but shadows and moonlight. Most of the noise he heard came from the other side of the building, where all the people and cars were—maybe it had come from there and he'd just imagined it came from the woods. It wasn't really a woods at all, just some sparse trees going back a few hundred feet and what looked like some houses beyond. There wasn't much underbrush either. Okay, Red-eyes won't attack me. He's not even after me, not really. It's Emily or Dominic he wants... and maybe I shouldn't have left them alone. He shook his head in a vain attempt to shake off the worried panic. I wasn't always this paranoid, was I? They haven't been alone for more than a minute or two yet. I can't just follow them around everywhere. He had always worried about things, but he had never been this bad. Ryan just wanted this to be over. The tension was getting to him.

The air was cool, but not really cold, and despite being right behind a gas station, it smelled fresh. That must be because the wind was coming from the other direction, carrying the scent of damp leaves rather than gasoline and car exhaust. It had rained here too, and water still dripped from the leaves, but only a drop or two touched him. The cold water felt nearly as good as the cool wind on his flushed skin. The car had been stuffy; between the three people and the heat blowing from the vents, it had been hot and humid, making him feverish. Right now, I'd rather walk than drive. Too bad South Carolina is just too damn big. One reason he liked Boston was that he could walk pretty much anywhere, and he much preferred to walk rather than drive. There weren't a lot of trees in Boston though, and it was rare for him to walk on dirt rather than pavement, so the feel of leaves beneath his feet was odd but pleasant.

Ryan's fingers brushed against the brick wall, then lightly touched a blank metal door, the only one on this side of the building. He didn't know why anyone would use it, as there was nothing back here, not even discarded rubbish. He looked to the woods, where he could hear water dripping from the trees, and noticed something. From where he stood, it looked like it might just be a shadowy patch on the ground, but he was pretty sure that it wasn't. Digging into his pocket, he drew out his key chain. Aside from the mass of keys, most of them to the offices and labs he needed access to for work, Ryan kept two other items hooked on his keychain: a pocket knife and a flashlight. They were, in his opinion, the two things absolutely essential for a man to have with him at all times. Unfortunately, he'd had to give up the knife when he got on the airplane. He still considered that sort of paranoia ridiculous. However, he still had his tiny LED flashlight, and he clicked it on and played its surprisingly bright light over the shadow. The shadow didn't dissolve into damp leaves and roots; his light didn't seem to penetrate its depths. Ryan left the wall to approach, his curiosity getting the better of his caution. As he got closer, he could tell why the shadow had seemed so deep: it was deep. It was the product of a hole in the ground, a round pit lined with grey bricks and flush with the ground. He couldn't tell how deep it was, as his little light couldn't find the bottom from here. It had to be deeper than he was tall. He moved closer, to try to get a better angle, but stopped when he was still a few feet from it. It was about ten feet around, and it had to be deeper. What the Hell is that? Maybe an old well? Why would anyone just leave a big hole in the ground out here? Shouldn't it be covered up or marked off or something? Ryan was just glad he hadn't stumbled into it.

Still staring at the hole, he felt a sudden chill at his back. He turned, the panic rushing through him again, but still managing to step away from the pit as he did so. Shadows cast by the trees swayed across the surface of the wall. It took him a moment to realize that the lighting behind the shadows was the moon itself, as no other source behind him cast as much light. It was amazing that he could see them at all considering the halo of light coming over the roof of the convenience store. Something about the movement of the shadows struck Ryan as odd: their swaying lacked any unified motion, which didn't make sense, as all the trees experienced the same wind. Something about their motion was oddly mesmerizing, and it was getting faster, an agitation boiling through the shadows utterly unlike the rippling of the leaves that was their source. Ryan heard only a soft and steady susurration overhead. If anything, the wind was decreasing, dropping to the barest breeze that could not create that whirlwind in the shadows. Of a sudden, the shadows collapsed, the scattered bits and pieces pulling together, collecting at the center of the closed metal door in a small dark circle no bigger than Ryan's head. In doing so, they left the rest of the wall dim and grey and lacking any distinction in lighting. Remembering the flashlight in his hand, he shined it at the wall, trying to chase away the shadow, or at least illuminate some part of the grey wall, but the flashlight wouldn't touch it, even though it lit the leaves at the wall's foot. The circle of darkness pushed outward, stretching unevenly in every direction, here and there coming up against limits, then collapsing in on itself again. It expanded again, and again, breathing in and out and each time going a little bit further, more and more of it reaching the outer edges of the shape it was trying to fill, a vaguely man-like shape with oddly shaped arms and a bird's head.

Ryan hadn't believed it was real. He still didn't believe it was real. But he recognized the shape of the shadow-thing, even with the darkness filling out only part of the form. The breathing shadows expanded one last time, reaching all the way to the tips of its talons, and this time the shadows didn't collapse again. It was flat, two dimensional, just the shape of the thing Ryan had seen before, until it opened its glowing red eyes, cat-like pupils shrinking to a slit, as if this cat had more than enough light. The head had seemed bird-like to Ryan before, but he hadn't realized quite how ugly it was. This was no Egyption god with the head of an eagle. It had neither the fierce beauty of a hawk nor the humble grace of a swallow. Instead, it looked like the head of a featherless, newly-hatched chick, all wide eyes and hungry beak and wattles of skin hanging from bone. It began to move. As it had reached out of the mirror to claw Ryan before, now it lifted one leg, its knee joint bending in the opposite direction of a human's, and the cat's paw it had for a foot lifted off of the metal door the shape had formed on. Only when it separated from the wall did it gain any depth, but it was no longer a paw when it did so, but a scuffed and muddy black boot, covered by the hem of grey slacks. More of the leg appeared, and if it weren't for the shadow that preceded it, it would have looked like it was walking through the closed door. Ryan knew who he was looking at even before the tail of a black trenchcoat came off the wall. It was Red-eyes.

Scratch the mutant theory off the list. No mutant can do that! The face lifted out of the metal surface, still blocky and locked in a rigid grimace as if it were made of stone. He stepped out of the wall and kept walking, not pausing to catch his bearings after taking form out of shadow. His clothes were the same expensive garments he had worn before, but while he had seemed well-groomed and neat when Ryan had first seen him, now he was unkempt. Water streamed down his face, although it was not raining here. His hair lay limp, matted to his head, and even his mustache dripped water. His blank trenchcoat was damp and dripping as well, stained with mud, and his pants were stained and rumpled and frayed. Ryan had nearly forgotten how big he was, wide as well as tall. It didn't take much for someone to tower over Ryan, and this guy would tower over anyone. The eyes were still red, and while they did not glow with the same intensity as the shadow-form, they still shone in the night, reflecting light like some animal's. It seemed unlikely that the moonlight could produce that bright of a reflection. Maybe... maybe it's an hallucination. Maybe I didn't just see him appear out of shadow. Maybe he's not even here. Why would he be? I thought he wasn't after me.

Ryan decided that real or not, he better act as though it was, and right now there wasn't time to speculate. He had to run, to get to the car. If he made a wide enough arc around Red-eyes, if he was fast enough... Red-eyes was too close already, but Ryan took a step back, shifting his legs so he could sprint in the transverse direction. Ryan had never seen Red-eyes move quickly, never seen him run, or move at any speed other than that distance-eating stride, but somehow Red-eyes covered the intervening space quicker than Ryan could even shift his weight. He couldn't even cry out before the large hand locked around his neck. Red-eyes didn't squeeze, not like in the dream where he had strangled Ryan. Or had that been the shadow-thing? The huge hand only applied the minimum pressure to hold onto him. The hand was cold, the same icy chill he had felt in the dream, and damp with what felt like ice water. Ryan thought he could feel his body temperature dropping, and in his shock, he didn't even think of struggling. What could he do?

"What do you want with me?" he asked, hoping to stall as long as he could still breathe. Maybe I can kick him... If I can reach! His arm's as long as my leg!

The mouth opened, and again Ryan heard a voice that sounded as if it came from a long way off, coming from this man's lips as if he were just mouthing words spoken by another. "You still do not know? You are a fool." Maybe Ryan was crazy, but he was pretty sure the lips weren't even in synch with the words.

"Yeah, maybe. So tell me."

"I do not want you."

"Do you want her? Her brother? Why attack me?"

Red-eyes stared straight into his eyes. "To get what I want, I must go through you."

Ryan closed his eyes to shut out the sight and saw an afterimage of the shining eyes. His headache was getting worse, though the slight feverishness he had felt before was replaced with a chill. Even his teeth ached with cold. Ryan's heart should have been thudding faster than a drum, but it had instead slowed, choking on his sluggish blood. The tingling which had affected his scar seemed to be growing, as now his entire forearm tingled. Ryan had wondered why Red-eyes wasn't squeezing the life out of him, but now he realized he was. Ryan was dying not by strangulation, but by hypothermia. Was that even possible? Could Red-eyes leach the heat out of him like this? It's happening, whether I believe it or not. If I'm going to survive, I have to do something now! His arms felt leaden and numb, aside from the tingling which had now passed Ryan's right elbow, and that had become worse. It now felt like pins and needles jabbing their way into his flesh. Forcing his arms into motion—he had to open his eyes and look to make sure they were really moving--Ryan managed to wrap his hands around Red-eyes' wrist. He pushed against his arm, at the same time digging in with his heels and thrusting himself backwards.

To his surprise, Red-eyes' grip really was no tighter than it felt, and Ryan's sudden action broke him free of it. He tried to catch himself with one leg as he started to fall, but his foot found no ground beneath. The pit! How'd I get so close to the edge?

His hands still had hold of Red-eyes' wrist, and now he was the one who held on despite the freezing numbness in his hands. His right foot found the wall of the pit and scrambled to find the ledge, but Red-eyes was already moving forward, his other arm reaching towards Ryan's hands. He could not have made a reasoned decision to fall rather than be caught. Maybe it was panicked reflex that made him let go, or perhaps his cold-dead fingers just didn't have the strength to hold on. Let go he did. Red-eyes wasn't going to let him go that easily, and his huge hand wrapped around Ryan's, crushing the fingers in its attempt to hold onto him. But he was off-balance as well, and with Ryan's forward momentum added to his own, his preternatural steadiness left him. As Ryan went over the edge, Red-eyes went with him, the two of them twisting as Ryan tried to pull away and Red-eyes tried to hold on. Earth and leaf-dappled sky, darkness and Red-eyes whirled in Ryan's vision, and the only thought he had time for was that when Red-eyes landed on top of him, he would be crushed.

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This chapter is 3,448 words long, bringing the total length of the story to 27,253. Okay, now it's novella length. Let's see if we can reach full novel size!

The Rest of the Story: If you want to read the story from the beginning, you can see the whole story on one page. If you just want to see the previous chapter, it's here.

This was a hard chapter to write. I'll talk a little about why it was after you read it.

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Chapter 9
The Pit

The water continued to drip, as regular and relentless as a clock. As each shining drop struck the shallow pool below, Ryan could hear a distinct tink. The ripples it sent out shattered the bright image of the moon into dancing motes which drew together just in time for the next drop. Closing his eyes, it really did sound like a clock, tinking away the seconds, the minutes, the hours. How much time had passed? It felt like an eternity had gone by, and another would come as he sat there watching the drops fall. Surely gallons, rivers, whole oceans of water had dripped down by now. But why had the pool gotten no deeper? Had so much time passed that the first drop had already evaporated, born aloft by the heat the moonbeam imparted, only to condense on the cold stone high above and fall again as one more tink? Was the entire water cycle in miniature here in this tomb?

It was a tomb by definition, a resting place of the dead. He hoped it was only temporary, but moment by moment, Ryan grew more certain that this would be a tomb for a long, long time. A resting place for two bodies rather than one. Ryan looked at the body lying near him, and he would have scooted himself further back if he could have pushed himself through the wall pressing against his shoulder blades. This tomb had no more space than any other burial plot, and between the body and the pool, which covered an eighth of the damp and sandy floor, there was nowhere left for Ryan to go. The body lay splayed on the ground, limbs and head at angles you might see in a rag doll, but never in a human being. The trenchcoat stretched over his shoulders like dark wings. Blood and other fluids dripped from the cracked skull.

Ryan shivered and wished he wasn’t so afraid. Yeah, it’s creepy, but he’s dead. Red-eyes is nothing more than a pile of muscle and bone now. The huge man took up most of the free space on the sandy ground, but his mass was empty now. Ryan should not have been intimidated by it still, but he couldn’t bring himself to get any nearer than he had to.

He’s dead, but is it? Was the shadow-thing inside of Red-eyes gone too, or had Red-eyes’ death freed it, like in the dream? That was just a dream! There’s no truth in dreams!

Only there was. He knew now that the shadow-thing was real. When it was just the thing he’d seen for a moment while half-asleep, he’d convinced himself that it was a dream, but dreams did not step off of a wall and become a solid, living psychotic mutant demon. He wanted to believe that he had imagined that too, but he could no longer convince himself.

At least he didn’t see the shadow-thing. The moon was directly overhead for the moment, giving him just enough light to see all those things he really wished he couldn’t. He had dropped his flashlight when Red-eyes attacked, so the moon was the only light he had down here. Well, almost. He clicked on his watch’s light, one of those Indigo lights where the whole face lit up, but there was nothing to see. The face was cracked, the display blank and the hands stopped. He hadn’t even felt when that had happened, but the knuckles on his left hand were scraped and he could feel a bruise forming against the back of the watch. Now all the damn thing did was light up, and it wasn’t even sufficient to read by, much less search for a way out. Well, at least his left arm didn’t hurt as much as his right. The pins and needles he had felt while Red-eyes was draining the heat out of him hadn’t completely gone away, although it wasn’t quite as bad. It still felt heavy and uncooperative, and he was beginning to worry about it.

Ryan looked around again, but he couldn’t find a way out any more easily than before. He thought this pit was a well, probably partially filled and thankfully dry. It was about ten feet in diameter, with an uneven sandy floor covered with scattered bricks which must have tumbled from the walls. The bricks were smooth, cut stones, not the red bricks of modern construction, and the walls stretched up about twenty feet. He was just as stuck as he would have been if it were a hundred feet deep. Here and there a gaping hole was left in the wall by a missing brick, which might have made it possible to climb if they weren’t too sparse to get him more than a few feet up before there were no more within reach. Having found no way to get up on his own, Ryan had tried calling out, but no one had come. He wasn’t that far behind the gas station, but maybe his voice was directed in the wrong direction by the shape of the well.

He hoped that someone would find him eventually, but he wasn’t feeling lucky enough to expect it to be Emily or Dominic. Instead he was certain that some total stranger would find him in this hole with a dead body, and he wasn’t looking forward to trying to explain that. At least the dead body wasn’t his. He had expected to be crushed by Red-eyes, but instead he had landed on top, and while every inch of his body felt bruised, he hadn’t been seriously hurt. He remembered the shock of the landing and everything exploding in brightness. It had been an effort just to draw breath. That’s when he had realized that he was lying on top of Red-eyes, and he had scrambled away from him, until he found he couldn’t go any further. Then he had shut his eyes and waited to die. It took a few minutes before he had the courage to open them again and look at the unmoving body. Was Red-eyes unconscious? No, the eyes had been open, but they were empty and lifeless. In fact, they weren’t even red anymore, having faded to a dull, ordinary brown. He saw then that the back of Red-eyes’ head was caved in by one of the bricks which had been lying on the ground. Ryan had checked for a pulse, just to be certain. Afterwards, he had spent the next few minutes washing his hands in the shallow pool, trying to remove the feel of that flaccid skin. His hands were now wrinkled and clammy, but he could still feel the cold, empty flesh on his fingertips.

He still couldn’t believe that Red-eyes could die that easily. He should be immortal, or at least like a villain in one of those horror movies, the ones that never stayed dead. But they also didn’t leave a body, and Ryan was staring at it right now. But it was such a stupid, anti-climactic way to die that Ryan couldn’t bring himself to believe it was really over. He wanted to, but he couldn’t quite convince himself that it was. He still expected Red-eyes to sit up, dripping blood and brains from the hole in his skull, and crawl towards him, his twisted limbs dragging his broken body across the ground. Did the shadow-thing even need a living body? Where was it?

“How long has it been?” he asked the darkness. “It has to have been at least an hour.” Only, shouldn’t the moon have moved farther? He thought it had moved some. Or had it been directly overhead, like now? I remember looking at his—its—eyes, but how could I have done that if there wasn’t enough light to see? The moon hadn’t been overhead when he fell. He was pretty sure of that because it had been casting shadows on the wall. But it must have been the source of light when he had realized that Red-eyes was dead, so… Was I unconscious for a while? But why? I didn’t hit my head, did I? God, maybe I have a concussion. That’s just what I need! His head didn’t hurt any worse than the rest of him, and he couldn’t find any bumps. If he had been unconscious, maybe hours had passed. Where were Emily and Dominic? Had they looked for him? Of course they had, but if he was out cold, they could have called his name again and again and he wouldn’t have responded. So what would they have done?

“They would have gone on without me,” Ryan said quietly. “Maybe they figured I just decided to run. Hitch a ride with a stranger or call a cab and just head home and let them fend for themselves. It’s not like the idea hasn’t occurred to me.” Ryan leaned his head back to rest on the cold bricks behind him. “Of course that’s what they did. Maybe they looked for a bit but they’ve given up by now. They’re probably already home.”

Ryan sighed. Why should he be surprised? He’d only known Emily for twenty-four hours, and Dominic for a fraction of that, so of course they had no great attachment to him. As for all Emily’s talk about visions and the will of God and destined marriage, well, he’d never believed it, and maybe his efforts to convince her not to had worked. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and swallowed hard. I’m stuck in a hole with a dead body and my “friends” have abandoned me, but I’m not going to cry like a little kid! He had been a crybaby as a kid, but he had hated that about himself and worked very hard to change it. He hadn’t cried in years. His highly developed cynicism was a byproduct of that effort. The world’s hard and everybody in it only cares for himself, but I’ve known that for years. And if there really is a God, he doesn’t care either, else he’d do something about it.

“I’m right, aren’t I?” he said aloud. “Either we don’t mean anything to you at all, or you have a really sick sense of humor. It’s not like I ever cared much about other people before, and I never put myself on the line for anyone until now. But in the last twenty-four hours I’ve risked my life how many times? All for some girl I barely know and who is interested in me just because she thinks you told her to be. And that’s crazier than anything else that’s happened, ’cause why should you care about who loves me? And now, now—we won, didn’t we? We beat it. I beat it, even if it was mostly by accident. And now that it’s over, I’m stuck in this hole. She and her brother have left me. Even if somebody does find me—and I guess they probably will—they’ll want to know why I’m down here with a dead body. What am I supposed to say? That he’s really a demon who chased me from Boston? I didn’t do anything wrong, but it’s all just too crazy for anybody to believe. So is it going to be prison bars or a padded room? ’Cause they’re not just going to let me go!”

He stopped, panting. He’d been shouting towards the end. Well, if I wasn’t damned before, that did it. What do I think I’m doing, yelling at God? He’s not listening to that. Emily had thought he listened. She even believed that he cared. Damn, the thought that she’d abandoned him hurt worse than anything else, even the prickling in his right arm, and that had just gotten worse all of a sudden. What the Hell is wrong with my arm? “All right, if you care, prove it!” he yelled, as if volume could make his voice pierce the veil between God and man. “Help me!”

“Ryan?”

His heart leapt to his throat. That wasn’t God’s voice, it was Emily’s, which was so much better. She was up there! “Emily! I’m down here!”

“Down where? I don’t see any—”

“Be careful!” he yelled to her, suddenly envisioning her falling over the edge. “There’s a pit.”

“Okay, I found it.” A flashlight played over the mouth of the well. A moment later, she was at the mouth—too close to the edge for Ryan’s comfort—looking down. “I can’t make out what’s down there. What happened?”

“Red-eyes.”

“He threw you down there?”

“No, we both fell.”

“He’s down there? Now?” He could hear the sudden panic in her voice. Fear of Red-eyes, or fear for Ryan?

“Yeah, but he’s dead.”

“Dead? Are you sure? Because I don’t think a demon can die, although--”

“If he wasn’t, I’d be dead. So yes, I’m sure. Can you help me out? Do you have any rope?”

“I’ll get Dom. We’ll find some rope or whatever. Wait right there.”

“Where would I go?” he yelled back, but she was already gone. She had come back for him. The relief he felt washed over him like a warm bath. His muscles relaxed as he rested his head against his knees. He tried to keep from tearing up, wiping his eyes on the fabric of his jeans, but that just got the grit into his eyes, making the tearing worse. At least I can blame it on something in my eyes now.

“I still think you have a sick sense of humor, but thanks.”



Emily was back in just a few minutes, this time with Dominic in tow. They had brought rope with them, and Dominic looped one end over a branch and lowered it to Ryan. The line didn’t look thick enough to hold his weight, but he tied it around himself as securely as he could: he’d never been very good at tying knots. Once he had secured himself, Dominic and Emily pulled him up, while he scrambled against the well’s wall to lend them what help he could, which wasn’t much. The progress was slow and jerky, and once his rescuers nearly dropped him, but it only took a minute or two to reach the top, with Emily helping him up while Dominic kept a firm grip on the rope. Once Ryan had his hands and knees planted on solid ground, Emily wrapped her arms around him and squeezed hard enough to make all his bruises ache.

“Thank God you’re okay!” she said.

“Yeah,” he said, wondering whether he should try to return the hug, but he was just in too awkward of a position to do so. “And thank you for getting me out.”

“What is this thing?” Dominic asked, gazing into the hole. He had finally taken his sunglasses off, probably figuring that dark and blurry was better than pitch black.

“It used to be a well, I think,” Ryan said, standing up now that Emily had let go. He fought with the knots he had tied in the rope around him as he stepped back from the well, having had his curiosity fulfilled. “How long was I down there? It seemed like forever.”

“Dude, you were only gone half an hour.”

“Half an hour? Are you sure? And did you just call me dude?”

“Sorry,” Dominic said. “I guess I’ve been in California too long. And it may have been a bit longer, since we didn’t realize you were missing at first, but I’m sure it’s less than an hour. ” Dominic drew out a long flashlight from his trenchcoat pocket and sent the light into the well, probing it.

Emily followed Ryan away from the well. “We should call the police and tell them about the body.”

“What?!” Ryan said. “Are you kidding? What are we going to tell them?”

“The truth, of course. We don’t have anything to lie about. Unless… You didn’t kill him, did you?”

“No! Of course not! He grabbed me, I tried to escape, and we both fell. He broke his skull on a rock at the bottom.”

“You see? We’ll just tell them that.”

“Okay, maybe it’s just me, but I think telling the police is a bad idea. Even if they decide it was an accident or self-defense, they’ll be asking questions. They’ll want to know if we ever saw him before. And what do we say then?”

“That he was trying to kill us in Boston, too. I don’t see what the big deal is.”

Dominic said, “Hey, guys?”

“Well, I do.” Ryan said. “They’ll want to know why we didn’t go to the police. Why no one else saw when he attacked us at the mall. How he got to Atlanta without flying. If we try to explain his unnoticeability, they’ll think we’re crazy.”

“Em? Ryan?” Dominic tried again.

“Well, we can’t just leave his body there.” Emily said. “Someone will find him eventually, and if they figure out that you were in the hole with him, then won’t that look even more suspicious? Besides, it’s the right thing to do.”

“Why would they connect me with this?” Ryan said, although Emily had reminded him about something. He glanced about, and fortunately his LED light was still on, so he had no trouble spotting his key chain. He took a few steps and scooped it up. “I doubt there’ll be any fingerprints if it rains again, and even if there’s that and DNA evidence too, it’s not like I’m in any database. As for doing the right thing, I’m not so sure what the right thing is when it comes to dead psychotic mutant dem—”

“Hey!” This time Dominic yelled, and Ryan winced, worrying that the noise would bring people running. If someone found them here with the body, all his arguments with Emily were moot.

Once both Emily and Ryan turned to him, Dominic gestured to the hole with his flashlight. He had his sunglasses on again for some reason, but he took them off. “Maybe it’s too dark and my eyesight’s too bad to see anything, but I’m pretty sure I’d see a dead body if it were down there.”

“What? But Ryan said… Ryan, are you sure Red-eyes’ body was down there?” Ryan wasn’t listening to either of them. Instead he was just looking at Dominic. At this angle, the moonlight illuminated his face well enough that Ryan could see his eyes clearly. The irises were red.

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This chapter is 3,088 words long, bringing the total length of this novella in progress to 30,341.

I've said for over a month now that I was about to change the course of the story, and now you see that I have. I won't speak much more about the new course, except that you can see some foreshadowing of it way back in Chapter 4. At the time, though, I didn't know it was foreshadowing. I'm still making this story up as I go along, and while I know it's now going to be a much different story, I don't know how it will play out. I hope I'm up to writing it.

The Rest of the story: If you missed the last chapter, it's here, or you can see the whole story on one page.

This chapter was hard to write. I'm not even sure why, exactly, it just didn't feel right once it was written. I finally resorted to my read-it-aloud-and-see-if-it-sounds-stupid technique, something I haven't done recently for anything I've written. Not too surprisingly, I think it helped at one point where things just didn't flow very well. See what you think.

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Chapter 10
Suspicions

Ryan took a step back, eyes locked on the familiar red irises in the unfamiliar eyes. What the Hell—? He only made it one step before the rope still tied around his waist snagged on the tree branch it was looped over. His key ring was still in his hand, the small flashlight still lit, and he lifted it towards Dominic’s face. The light washed over Emily’s brother, glinting off his pale hair and illuminating the dark spots under his eyes. Dominic blinked, raising a hand to shield them.

“Wow, that’s a bright LED, Ryan,” Dominic said. “But I think we need to figure out what happened to Red-eyes.”

Ryan kept his flashlight on Dominic for a few moments longer, staring at his eyes, but they didn’t look red now, just a pale brown no more unusual than Ryan’s own eye color. He clicked his flashlight off, wondering if it had been a trick of the light. Maybe, but he knew there was more to Red-Eyes than the big guy who had chased them. When he had died, the eyes had lost their red tinge. If that shadow-thing had left him then, it could have found a home somewhere else. In someone else’s body.

“C’mon, Ryan,” Emily said, heading towards the pit. She got on her hands and knees at the edge, poking her head over the side and pointing her flashlight into it. Ryan fumbled at the knots in the rope tied around him, finding it even more difficult to untie than to tie with his clumsy right hand, then hurried to follow her, placing himself between Dominic and Emily. He watched as she swung her flashlight over the sandy floor. It reflected from the pool, cast shadows behind the fallen bricks, and brought out specks of light among the sand. It did not show Red-eyes.

“Give me that,” Ryan said, kneeling by her side. When Emily handed him the flashlight, he swung it over the well’s bottom, then its walls, passing again and again across the spot when Red-eyes should have been. Damn it, where is he? “I… I don’t know what happened. He was down there a second ago. He was dead! How could he…?” Ryan shook his head, driving visions of a zombie Red-eyes out of his mind again. “Do you have the mirror?” he asked.

Emily sank back on her knees, digging into her purse. Dominic shined the flashlight onto it to help, while Ryan kept an eye on him. If he does anything suspicious… Ryan didn’t know what he would do in that case, but he’d think of something. “Here,” she said, pulling out the hand mirror.

Ryan took it, and after some effort juggling mirror and flashlight, and even then he didn’t trust his right hand’s grasp on the mirror, he managed to find the beam’s area of illumination in the mirror’s reflection. He scanned it across the well again, trying to move mirror and flashlight in concert, but he kept losing the beam in the mirror, so it took five minutes before he was satisfied that he had searched the pit as well as he could. Nothing but bricks and sand and water. “I don’t know how he vanished. He was down there and he was dead. I checked!”

“Well, um,” Dominic said, “you did just fall into a pit. Are you sure you didn’t, you know, bump your head on the way down?”

“I’m sure!” Ryan said, coming to his feet much too quickly as he rounded on Dominic. He tottered and for a moment thought he would go over the edge again, but he managed to catch his balance by grabbing the lapels of Dominic’s trenchcoat. Then he snatched his hands back as if burned. Was that just a hint of a smile he had seen on Dominic’s face? “I’m not crazy. I know what I saw, and it was as real as anything else on this insane trip!”

“Okay, okay,” Dominic said, raising his hands. “I’m not calling you crazy. It’s no harder to believe than anything else that’s happened. I just think that since we don’t have a body, maybe we shouldn’t assume it’s over just yet.”

“Yeah, you’re right about that,” Ryan said. “Especially not with that—” He stopped, realizing that he hadn’t told either of them about the shadow-thing he had seen before. Maybe he should. It was on the tip of his tongue to do so, but he had seen Dominic’s eyes turn red just a moment ago. And he had seen that mocking smile. Maybe he’d tell Emily when they were alone, but he didn’t want to let Dominic know what he knew or thought he knew. “Well, if we don’t want his zombie to show up while we’re standing over this pit talking about it, we should go. Emily, did you want me to drive?”

“Ryan, I’m not going to ask you to drive after you just fell down a well! I’ll drive. You just relax, okay?” she said.

“If you insist,” he said, standing up and brushing his knees off. He was about to hand her flashlight and mirror back when he found himself caught in another hug.

“I’m glad you’re all right, Ryan,” she said, kissing his cheek.

He was glad she couldn’t see how red he was turning in the darkness, but he hugged her back. “Thanks,” he said awkwardly, at a loss for what else to say.

Once she had let go, Dominic clapped him on the shoulder and Ryan flinched. All he said was “I’m glad you’re okay too, but don’t expect a kiss from me.”

“Thank God for small favors,” Ryan said.



Ryan scratched at the cut on his right arm, worried about how much it was bothering him. What the Hell was wrong with it? It was just a scratch, but the prickling was disturbing. Most of the time it felt like the pins and needles that occurred when one’s limbs came back to life after falling asleep, but every now and then it became stronger, less like needles than bee stings, hundreds of them all along his arm. And on top of that, his hand had begun to feel weak and numb, so he could barely manage to make a fist. He wanted to ask a doctor about it, but he wasn’t certain modern medicine could do much. He was starting to believe that the scratch had been poisoned by the shadow-thing, and he doubted any hospital had an antivenin for that. He’d be panicking over it, if he weren’t more worried by the possibility that the shadow-thing had taken up residence in Dominic. Maybe if he could figure out a way to deal with that, he would also be rid of the poison.

He settled back in his seat, glad that Emily was driving. Dominic was snoring in the backseat again. The smooth rumble of the car was lulling, and a car’s vents were blowing warm air in his face. He wished that he could fall asleep himself, and get some relief from his aching head and burning eyes, but he felt an itch between his shoulder blades every time he thought about Dominic behind him. Was he really asleep? If Ryan nodded off, would he try something? Ryan kept finding himself looking over his shoulder at Dominic, who had his hands stuck in the pockets of his trenchcoat, his mouth gaping open and his head tilted back onto the seat’s headrest, so that Ryan had a great view of his nostrils. He certainly looked harmless that way, without even his sunglasses; although with his eyes closed, Ryan couldn’t see the irises. The sunglasses hadn’t bothered him at first, as Dominic’s explanation had made sense, but they were beginning to now. If his irises really were red sometimes, the glasses hid that pretty effectively. And in that dream, Red-eyes had been wearing sunglasses too. And a trenchcoat, although at least Dominic’s wasn’t black. Maybe he’d been under the shadow-thing’s influence even before Ryan met him.

He should bring it up with Emily. He would have to, if he could figure out how to begin. “Emily, I think your brother is possessed” just didn’t broach the subject delicately, and he had no idea how to do better. He needed to try a different tack, and there were things he wanted to know anyway.

“Emily, why was your brother in Atlanta?”

“Huh?” she said, glancing at him. “I thought I told you. He went to college there and he was visiting friends, I think.”

“But doesn’t it seem strange that he was there just when we arrived?”

“Sure, but Dom has the gift of punctuality.”

“Which means?”

“Dom explained it to me once, but I’m still not sure whether he was joking or not. You see, the Bible contains these lists of spiritual gifts, things like prophecy, or teaching, or generosity. It’s how God helps his people to do his will. However, the lists the Bible gives aren’t really exhaustive, at least Dom doesn’t think so, so there are other gifts which aren’t listed. Most Christians think that spiritual gifts are all about the stuff that they’re good at, so if they’re good at teaching, they figure they must have the gift of teaching, and if they’re good at administering, they have the gift of administration, or whatever. Dom thinks that’s part of the tendency to water down the gifts, to treat them like they’re nothing more than skills that can be learned—”

“Emily, could you please get to the point?” Ryan said, letting some of his impatience seep through.

“I’m trying, Ryan, but there’s a lot to explain. So anyway, Dom says the point of spiritual gifts is that they’re not just skills, but supernatural empowering by God. They’re things that people just can’t do on their own. He thinks a lot of Christians make the mistake of thinking that God can only use them for what they’re good at, rather than making them good at the things he wants to use them for. So when Dom was wondering what gift he might have, he considered what sorts of things he did which he just knew he couldn’t have done on his own, and he realized that he was always on time.”

“That’s it? He’s always on time? How’s that supernatural?”

“Not just on time to things he tries to be at, Ryan. What he means is that he always shows up when he’s needed, even when he doesn’t mean or expect to be there. He’s just there whether he wants to be or not. Things like showing up in Atlanta just when we needed him.”

“Really?” Ryan asked. He had thought Emily’s view of things was bizarre, but now it looked like Dominic was just as bad. “It just sounds like he’s lucky or something.”

“No, no. A gift isn’t luck; it doesn’t make your life easier. It makes it harder, usually. When you have a gift, it means that you’re supposed to do things with it, and you don’t always do what you should do, or it’s not even clear what you should do. Sometimes you just fumble around trying, and sometimes you—” She paused a moment. Her voice was strained, as if she were holding back tears. “Sometimes you know exactly what you should do, but it’s hard. You hesitate, even turn your back on it, because it’s just easier that way. You forget… that the gift isn’t for your sake, it’s given to you so you can share it with others.”

Ryan cleared his throat. “Are we still talking about Dominic?”

She blinked a couple of times. “I guess we both have personal experience failing to use our gifts properly.”

Ryan just looked at the floor. This was emotional for her, maybe personal in some way he didn’t understand. That didn’t stop the cynical part of him from mocking it. Her whole family thinks they’re chosen by God or something. Her with her visions, and Dominic with his… punctuality, of all things! How do you even know that you’re always there when you’re needed? If you weren’t there, you wouldn’t know that you’d be able to help. He forced those thoughts back into the snide part of his mind, not wanting to hurt her with his unwanted rationality. Besides, he had other questions for right now. “Okay, so he showed up there because he was supposed to. Have you, um, noticed him acting odd lately?”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Just… have you?”

“Well, no odder than either of us. I’ve only known you for a day, though, so I guess I don’t know what would be odd for you.”

“But Dominic’s acting like he always does?”

“I guess. I mean, he’s never been in this situation before, so I don’t know what ‘usual’ is when he’s helping us run from a psychotic mutant demon.”

Ryan sighed. He wasn’t getting anywhere. He had to tell her, but he didn’t want to tell her right now, where Dominic might overhear. If the shadow-thing was in him, Ryan didn’t want it to find out that he suspected Dominic, and if it wasn’t, no reason to make Emily’s brother think he was paranoid. He probably was paranoid, at that, but that didn’t make him wrong. Ryan looked out the window, watching the mile markers go by. There wasn’t much traffic, and they had finally left behind the last of the rain. It should be an easy drive from here. A sign showed the distance to Columbia as only 47 miles. “Less than an hour,” he whispered, hoping that nothing would happen before they got there. Or after.

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This chapter is 2,291 words long, bringing the total length of the novella to 32,632 words.

The Rest of the Story: If you missed the last chapter, it's here, or you can see the whole story on one page.

This is the next chapter of Eyes in the Shadow, a continuing story involving dreams, visions, a demon, and one very skeptical and cynical Grad student. Although I had this whole chapter written over two weeks ago, it still took a great deal of time to get ready. It looks like I was right in thinking that these chapters would be some of the hardest to write. Hopefully, it's paid off, and it won't be a chore to read. I just wish I was as far ahead in the next chapter, but I only have a couple of paragraphs of that so far.

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Chapter 11
Home

The most remarkable thing about the house was how small it was. Ryan had seen larger apartments. It was a white ranch with a small front porch and an attached one-car garage. Ryan didn’t think the garage would hold their rental car, even if it were otherwise empty, so he wasn’t surprised when they parked in the driveway. The yard was a decent size, with some sort of shrubs clustered near the porch, but Ryan couldn’t see much of it as none of the lights were on. It was nearly eleven, so Em’s family might have gone to bed, but Ryan still would have expected a light to be left on for them. In fact, most of the other small houses in this overcrowded neighborhood still had their front lights on.

“You did tell them we were coming, right, Em?” Dominic asked as Emily turned off the rumbling engine. When she switched the headlights off the yard became a dark island in the residential night.

“Not exactly,” she admitted as she got out of the car door.

“And what does that mean?” Dominic also stepped out of the car to continue the conversation over the roof. Ryan got out with them, but he immediately moved toward the front of the car, keeping his distance from Dominic.

“I was going to call them, really, but we were at a hotel and they would have charged a fortune to make a phone call. I thought about calling collect, but then Mom and Dad would have had to pay for it. So anyway I put it off, thinking I’d call them from a payphone, which would be cheaper than the hotel, but I kind of forgot about that until we got to Atlanta, and then we ran into Red-eyes. I was thinking that I had to find a payphone and call them when I remembered that you were in town, so I called you instead, thinking that I could use your cell phone to call and it wouldn’t cost anything. Not that I just wanted to talk to you for your cell phone or whatever. I did ask to borrow it when we met up, remember? But you told me the battery was about dead and it was charging up in your room? After you went and got your stuff, I kind of forgot to ask if you had gotten your cell phone, what with all the running from Red-eyes again. Do you have your cell phone?”

Dominic sighed, a reaction that Ryan often had when Emily rambled. “Yes, I do. Not that it does us much good now. We’re just going to have to ring the doorbell and wake them up.”

“Uh, maybe not,” Ryan said. He had taken a look in the garage while Emily was talking, his keychain flashlight just penetrating the dust filmed glass. “I don’t see a car in here. Are you sure they’re home?”

“Why would they be gone?” Emily asked, coming up beside Ryan. Dominic followed. Ryan moved back, ostensibly to let Emily look, but also so he could turn to look at Dominic.

“Hmm, wasn’t there some kind of retreat this month?” Dominic asked. “I don’t remember which weekend it was, but it could be this one.”

“I was hoping they would be here, that they could help. What are we going to do now?” Emily asked.

“Don’t worry, Em. I’m sure they’ll be back tomorrow. We’ll just go inside and get some sleep tonight.”

Dominic rang the doorbell anyway, just to make sure no one was home, before taking out his key and letting them in. From the small living room where they entered, Ryan could see straight to the other side of the house, a sliding glass door in the next room, which looked like a dining room. The house didn’t have any hidden depth to make up for its lack in the other dimensions. Ryan wiped off his shoes on the floor mat to avoid tracking mud or sand or whatever was on his shoes onto the light blue carpet. He felt grimy all over; he was grimy. Wearing the same clothes for two days in a row while running through snow and falling into sand-filled wells could do that. He stepped onto the carpet and looked around. Ryan had become used to sharing an apartment with two other guys, so while he had grown accustomed to small living spaces, when guys shared a place the furnishing was sparse at best. The furniture here made the cramped space seem even smaller. The living room overflowed with it, with couches, and reclining chairs, and end tables, and lamps, and an entertainment center, and a gun cabinet, and a coffee table, and—Gun cabinet?

“Whoa, what’s with the weapons?” he asked. It was a cabinet set against the wall, with a cherrywood finish and two rows of drawers at the bottom and glass doors above, behind which were four rifles hanging on racks. One of them might have been a shotgun--Ryan really didn’t know all that much about firearms. There were locks on every opening, ensuring that no one could get in without a key. Or at least a prybar.

“What about them?” Emily asked.

“I thought your father was a minister.”

“So?”

“So? So?! What, is he an armed minister?”

“Around here, most of them are. He likes to go hunting with his friends, and do some sport shooting with the pistols. I’m a pretty good shot with the twenty-two myself.”

“Better than me,” Dominic said with a small smile.

“That’s because you always use the forty-five. The recoil on that thing throws off your aim.”

“You don’t have a key to that thing, do you?” Ryan asked nervously.

“Well, I left mine in my apartment. Dom has his key though, right?”

“Right,” Dominic affirmed. “Do you really think we’ll need the guns, Ryan?”

I’m much more concerned about you getting your hands on one. He couldn’t say that aloud, though, so he just shook his head. “I guess not.”

“Good,” Emily said. “Even if Red-eyes is demon-possessed, we don’t want to kill him. Especially if he’s demon-possessed. He’s not really to blame for his actions then.”

“I told you that he was dead,” Ryan growled, angry now. Hadn’t they believed him? “I don’t care whether the body was gone or not, there wasn’t any pulse! If I thought he was coming back, I’d recommend we arm ourselves to the teeth and keep shooting until he stays down, ’cause he’d be some sort of zombie! The reason we don’t need guns is because he’s gone for good!”

“Whoa, dude, calm down!” Dominic said. “We’re not doubting what you saw, but maybe what you saw isn’t all there was to it. I think we’re all agreed that he isn’t human, at least.”

You’re wrong. Red-eyes was human. It’s the shadow-thing that isn’t. That wasn’t dead, and it was probably with them right now. Was it speaking through Dominic’s mouth, just pretending to be him? If so, it must have stolen his memories, since it knew all the things that Dominic should. Or was Dominic still himself, while it was only beginning to take him over from the inside? Or had the red irises just been Ryan’s imagination or some trick of the light? He had spent most of the last day trying to convince himself that the things he was seeing were wild imaginings or optical illusions, and he hadn’t succeeded once. Too many times his stubborn disbelief had made him hesitate when he should have acted. From now on he would trust what his eyes told him, and they had told him that Dominic’s eyes had been just as red as Red-eyes’, which had happened right when the body had disappeared, and Ryan wasn’t even going to try to put a positive spin on that coincidence.

“Okay, okay,” Ryan said, forcing himself to calm down. “So what do you think we should do?”

“If you’re certain Red-eyes won’t be coming, then maybe we should just get some sleep. You can have my room, if you want, and I’ll sleep on the couch here,” Dominic said.

Next to the gun cabinet? I don’t think so! “No, I’ll take the couch,” said Ryan. “You can sleep in your own bed.”

Dominic shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He headed off to his room with his suitcase and laptop, pausing to hang his coat in the coat closet nearby and toss his keys on the dining room table. Ryan heard the door open and close.

“Are you sure you’ll be all right?” Emily asked.

“Yeah, just…” Ryan dropped his voice to a near whisper. “Sit down: I have to tell you something.”

“What is it?” Emily asked, sitting down on the couch.

Ryan sat down next to her, at the very edge of the seat cushion as if ready to bounce to his feet and start pacing. He forced himself to stay where he was and ignore the butterflies in his stomach. Calm down, you’re not asking her on a date. No, just telling her that her brother is a demon. “Let’s say Red-eyes was demon-possessed or something,” Ryan began. He forced himself to look her in the eyes, primarily because this was important, but also so he could watch how she would react. This was the first time he’d admitted to her that he thought Red-eyes might have been a demon. She just continued to look at him, her tongue moistening her lips. Ryan forced himself to continue. “I’m pretty sure Red-eyes is dead, but that doesn’t mean the thing that was inside him is. It could possess… someone…”

Emily’s eyes widened. “Really? You’re… you are Ryan, right?”

“Not me!” he said more loudly than he intended. He dropped his voice again. “When we were standing by the pit, I thought… Dominic’s irises looked red.”

“I didn’t see anything,” she said. Emily wasn’t speaking softly at all, and Ryan kept expecting Dominic to come back through the doorway asking what they were talking about. Emily’s brow furrowed. “Besides, Dominic seems fine to me. Maybe it was just a trick of the light or whatever.”

“Emily, I’ve blamed everything I’ve seen over the last twenty-four hours on a trick of the light and I’ve been wrong every time. This time I’m going to believe what I saw.”

“But it doesn’t make any sense! Christians can’t be possessed,” she said.

“I’ve had just about enough of your condescension,” he said, angry. “Yeah, I’m not a Christian, and the more you keep treating me like that means I’m a fool or a devil, the gladder I am that I’m not. Don’t you dare look down on me!” He realized that he was shaking his right fist at her.

“But, but, I don’t! I…” There were tears in Emily’s eyes, but Ryan was too angry to care. “I’m sorry, Ryan,” she said, getting off the couch and all but running from the room.

Ryan just watched her go, then looked at the hand in front of his face. He had almost no sensation in his fingers—it was a wonder he could clench his fist. He let it drop to his side, and his fingers slowly uncurled on their own. Maybe I shouldn’t have done that. I know she has odd beliefs; I thought I was used to them by now. Since when did I start taking offense when someone worried about the state of my soul? He was still angry now; he could feel it like a snake tightening around his chest. Then again, that might have just been his bruises. Considering that he hurt all over, it was no wonder he got angry so easily. And Emily thought he was wrong about Dominic. Worse, she had immediately thought he might be possessed, while there was no way her saintly brother could be. If the fact that he’s a Christian makes him so wonderful, how come he’s such a selfish coward? He admitted as much when he said he didn’t want to come with us. Ryan took several deep breaths and tried to tamp down his anger. Still, that’s not Emily’s fault, and I can’t blame her for wanting to think well of her brother. Maybe I should apologize to her.

He poked his head through the doorway. Straight ahead was the dining room he had noticed earlier, to the left was the kitchen, and to the right a hallway. Yellow light came from a nightlight in the bathroom, which was on the left side of the hallway. There were two doors on the right side, both closed, although light seeped underneath each one. Those must be Dominic’s and Emily’s bedrooms. At the end of the hall was another door, closed, which probably led to the master bedroom. He crept down the hallway as quietly as he could. At the first door he heard someone moving around, opening and closing drawers. Dominic unpacking, probably. He went to the next door. Yes, this one was Emily’s room, judging by the small ceramic teddy bear mounted on the door. No guy would have something like that on his bedroom door. He lifted his left hand to knock, then paused when he heard something. He held his breath as he listened. Muffled sobs were coming from the other side of the door. Damn, I made her cry. I should apologize… He swallowed at the tightness in his own throat, but his raised left hand didn’t move. I can’t face her, not when she’s like this. When she’s calmed down, I’ll tell her I’m sorry. But, but not right now. He let his hand drop and turned away, his eyes on the grey toes of his tennis shoes, barely visible in the dim light.

He paused when he passed the bathroom. A shower might be nice. His face felt greasy and his scalp itched, and he was pretty sure that he had gotten some sand in his shirt. Unfortunately, he didn’t have any clean clothes to change into, so he’d just end up putting the dirt back on afterwards. Instead he went into the living room and took off his coat and his sweater, his shoes and his socks. They hadn’t even brought him a blanket. Or, to be honest, I chased Emily off before she could. He leaned back on the couch, using his heavy jacket to cover himself. This might be South Carolina, but it was still chilly, and apparently no one was going to turn up the thermostat. I’m not planning on sleeping anyway. He considered getting up and checking the doors, but Red-eyes was dead. The danger was inside with them, and he was going to keep watch for it even if he had to stay up all night.



Once again, Ryan fled from room to room, while Red-eyes’ echoing footsteps haunted him.

The maze he was running through seemed familiar, but he could not remember when he had seen it before, could not remember whether he had been able to make sense of it then. It didn’t make sense now. This building was all identical rooms without windows or furniture. All the rooms were the same, small, square chambers with doors in every wall, faded yellow paper covering the walls, dust-covered wooden floors, and bare bulbs shedding disinterested yellow light. For all he knew, he was going in circles as he chose his route at random, trying not to leave an easy trail for Red-eyes to follow. He could hear him, his steps thudding nearby, and doors creaking open and slamming shut. He tried to keep heading away from those sounds, sometimes fleeing from the room just as he heard the steps approach the door, slipping quietly into the next room and shutting the door as softly as possible given his haste. He could not remember seeing his pursuer, nor seeing any sign of Emily, though he thought she was here too. He kept looking in the dust, expecting to see a footprint which told of either’s passage, but not even his own shoes left a mark.

There was so much he couldn’t remember, including how this had begun. He knew he must have been running for hours, simply because his sore legs and tired heart told him so. The stress was getting to him worse than the physical exertion, wearing him down with each close call as he barely slipped out of Red-eyes’ reach one more time. He wasn’t sure how long he could continue.

Ryan heard the heavy tread of booted feet to his left, and he went straight, opening the door in front of him as quietly as he could, praying that it would open silently.

He had heard wrong. His pursuer was not in the room to his left, but in the room directly before him. His hand was extended towards the door, and as Ryan tried to slam it shut, he caught it on his open palm and flung it back open with enough force to push Ryan back. He skidded in the dust and fell back, with his pursuer towering above him.

But it was not Red-eyes. Though he was taller than Ryan, he was not the massive man that Red-eyes had been. He wore sunglasses, and as with Red-eyes, they could not hide the crimson glow coming from his eyes. He had the long trenchcoat as well, but it was tan, not black. It was all so familiar, as it had been from the beginning. Also familiar was the darkness which seemed to leak out from within. He both was and was not Red-eyes. Though he might look like Dominic, what was inside was the same shadow-thing that had animated the large man who had tried so many times to kill Ryan and Emily.

Ryan pushed himself backwards with his feet while using his elbows for support, and felt the left pocket of his coat dragging on the floor, pulling up a cloud of dust as it did so. His hand fumbled at his pocket, and even before he had drawn it out, he knew what it was, even though he had never seen it before. It had a round cylinder the size of his fist, a narrow barrel as wide as his finger and no longer than his thumb, a brown rubber grip. It was a black revolver, like what appeared in the hands of the police in so many old television shows. Why was he thinking that it should be a larger, silver pistol out of a Western? As he closed both hands around the grip, he was surprised at how comfortably it fit his hands. Ryan had never fired a pistol before—or had he? Why this weird feeling of déjà vu? Dominic's twisted hands were mere inches from his throat, so Ryan pointed the pistol at his forehead and pulled the trigger.

Even someone as unskilled as Ryan could not miss at this range, and the pistol's report echoed back and forth through the small room even as its recoil sent him sliding back another couple of inches. He kept the pistol pointed at Dominic, or rather at where he had been. Dominic himself had crumpled to the ground, a hole in his forehead and the red eyes and dark aura gone from his body and instead standing where he had stood, the black shadow-thing shed of human body. Only this time the shadow lacked substance. It was just a wavering mist with fading red eyes. The shape, never distinct in dreams or visions, grew blurrier, its twitching claws dissipating even as they reached for Ryan. The mouth opened, and even though the horrid beak lacked the lips to form human words, a voice echoed from within the crimson glow inside its throat. Ryan heard a single word in that deep, resonant voice which was growing even more distant, a word which he had never heard before, but that was as familiar to him as his own name.

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This chapter is 3,343 words long, bringing the total length to 35,975 words.

The Rest of the Story: You can read the whole story on one page by clicking here.

This one's short. It's another example of where I write a lengthy chapter, then realize that I'm not sure I like half of it. When I'm lucky, it's the second half I'm not sure about, so I split it in two and just use the first part. When I'm unlucky, it's the first half that's problematic, and either I delay for two weeks, or I spend a few hours trying to make it something I'm happy with. This is one of those times where the first half worked.

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Chapter 12
Awake

Remember it. Remember it, damn it! Don’t forget the word… Ryan put his left hand to his head, but the memory was fading fast. He blinked and yawned. He hadn’t meant to fall asleep at all. He needed to guard against Dominic, and especially to make sure he didn’t get to the gun cabinet. He must have dozed off. He leaned his back against the wall, and almost fell asleep where he stood before it occurred to him to ask why he was standing. I was lying on the couch, he recalled. Did I actually get up before coming fully awake? God, that’s crazy. He opened his eyes and looked around as he tried to figure out where he was. A yellow nightlight glowed from a doorway just across the hall from him—that must be the bathroom. The glow showed him the door whose jamb was digging into his right shoulder: Dominic’s room, if his sluggish mind remembered correctly. The door was ajar, and a trickle of moonlight paled the nightlight’s yellow glow at the door’s edge. I must have been heading to the bathroom.

His right arm felt dead and heavy. It was totally numb below the elbow now, not a hint of the prickling that had bothered him earlier, but he could not feel his fingers at all, or move them in the slightest. It felt heavier than it should, too, pulling down on his shoulder. I need to see a doctor about this. He glanced at his arm, and blinked again.

“That’s… wrong. I have to be dreaming still.” He reached his left hand out and gingerly tapped the thing that his right hand was holding without bothering to communicate any sensation to the rest of him. The gun was real. It was a black revolver with a short barrel, an exact match for the pistol in his dream, and the hand he couldn’t even feel, much less move, held it tightly, his fingers wrapped around the grip and his index finger pressed against the trigger. Ryan carefully pried the index finger loose with his left hand, disturbed at how much pressure it had been putting on the trigger. Not quite enough to fire, it seemed, but it had to be close. He pulled his other fingers loose one by one. I can’t move those fingers at all, can’t even command them to let go, but I find them holding a gun? The fingers were pliant enough when he moved them off. He almost dropped the weapon as it slipped from his reduced grip, but his left hand caught it around the cylinder just in time. When he realized that he was holding it with the barrel pointed directly towards his belly, he almost dropped it again. He had to remind himself that it was much more likely to go off if it fell than if he just held it, but he twisted his hand to point the barrel away from him.

He went into the bathroom and set the gun on the sink’s countertop, then closed the door, and, after a moment’s hesitation, locked it. Switching on the overhead bulb lit up the room, causing Ryan to squint. The hall bathroom was cozy, with a pink marble countertop and a lily pad soap dish filled with tiny green frog-shaped soaps. There was a tub with a sky-blue shower curtain, a knit cover on the toilet seat, and white and blue towels. The black gun sitting on the countertop was decidedly out of place. Ryan stared at it, wondering where it had come from. He couldn’t tell one gun from another, but this thing just looked ugly, with its snubbed barrel, oversized cylinder, and a handgrip of brown rubber. Ryan thought it was loaded, from what he could see of the cylinder, but he didn’t know how to open it to make sure. He could probably figure it out, but the last thing he wanted to do was try figuring out a loaded weapon. He did check for the safety, and if the red ring clearly showing was any indication, then it was off. He knew nothing about guns, and he had no desire to learn, so what had he been doing with it in his hand?

He tried to remember it. Where had it come from? Had he even seen it before? Could it have come from the gun cabinet? That made the most sense. But how had he gotten it from the cabinet? It had been locked, and the guns—mostly rifles, he hadn’t seen this pistol—should have been unloaded. He would have had to have gotten the key first. Meaning… “No, that doesn’t make sense at all.” Ryan had never sleepwalked before. Oh, he sometimes got up and moving while his brain was still working on waking up, but he was always fully aware by the time he had gotten more than a few steps. This was different. He would have had to get the keys from the kitchen table, where Dominic had left them, find the right one and unlock the gun cabinet, get the gun, load it, and then come here. He didn’t even know how to load a gun. He couldn’t have done it in his sleep.

Where did I think I was going anyway? “To kill Red-eyes.” That’s what his dream had been about. Only, Red-eyes was dead, and instead it had been Dominic in his place, different but disconcertingly similar, his trenchcoat and sunglasses so like what Red-eyes had worn in the earlier dream. “I was going to kill Dominic. Because I thought he was Red-eyes.” And, maybe, he is. “I was outside his door with a gun and… In the dream, I didn’t even pause. I just pointed the gun and pulled the trigger. Could I really shoot someone so easily? Could I really kill Emily’s brother that easily?”

Oh God, what’s going on here? Ryan’s mind just wouldn’t wrap around it. He couldn’t imagine how he… His thoughts froze in their track as he heard a door creak open in the hallway. Whose? Emily’s or Dominic’s? Footsteps approached, muffled by the carpeted hallway yet still causing the floorboards to creak. It was coming from further away than Dominic’s room, so it had to be-- A knock rattled the bathroom door and he jumped despite his best efforts.

“Dom, is that you in there?” Emily’s voice asked.

Ryan looked at the door, then at the gun. He had to hide it. “No, no, it’s Ryan. I’m almost done… I’ll be out in a second.” He started the faucet running, then slowly pulled open the cabinet below the sink. Its hinges squealed but not too loudly. Maybe Emily wouldn’t hear. He placed the gun inside, setting it down at the very back of the cabinet. When he had shut the cabinet door, he ran his left hand under the tap, then wiped it off on the towel hanging by the sink. His right arm hung uselessly by his side, so he didn’t even try to wash it. Only then did he open the door, where Emily stood blinking at the bright light coming from the bathroom. She was dressed in a simple blue nightgown that went to her calves, her long hair was disarrayed, and she had a fading red line imprinted on her cheek. She still looked lovely.

“Ryan…,” she began. “I’m sorry for earlier tonight.”

“Don’t be silly, Emily. I’m the one who should be apologizing. I’m sorry I blew up like that. I, I just can’t seem to hold onto my temper tonight.”

“Do you really think Dominic might be… I mean, that Red-eyes could possess him? It seems impossible, but if you say you saw something, I believe you.”

But why? Why would you believe me over your own brother? “I don’t know, Emily. The thing inside of Red-eyes could be anywhere. I don’t think you should trust anyone.”

“Except you?”

“Well, I know I’m not possessed, but why should you take my word for that? And even if I’m not, that doesn’t mean I can’t be.”

“Don’t talk like that, Ryan! If I can’t trust you, then I’m all alone in this. I refuse to believe that.”

“Emily, I’m sorry. I wish I knew what was going on, or I could tell you there was nothing to worry about, but I don’t understand half the things that are happening to us.” I should tell her about the shadow-thing, and the dreams. She needs to know, but… Looking at those wide eyes, Ryan couldn’t. She was scared enough as it was. “Just be careful, okay.”

“I will, and I’ll be praying for all of us,” she said, and then looked at the arm that hung by his side. “Is something wrong with your arm?”

“I just landed funny when I fell into the pit,” Ryan lied. “My whole body hurts.”

“You should have said something,” she said. “Maybe we should take you to a doctor.”

“Tomorrow. Just let me get some sleep and see how it feels in the morning.”

“Okay,” she said doubtfully. “We’ll wait until tomorrow, but if it’s not better then, we’re going to the doctor.”

“That’s fine,” Ryan said, slipping past her. She went into the bathroom and closed the door behind her, and Ryan headed back to the living room, his left hand on the wall to guide him in the dark. Why hadn’t he just told her about the shadow-thing? He should have. He kept meaning to, but every time he chickened out. He needed to decide for himself what was real and what was false before he started telling other people about them. What happened to it? Where did it go? Is it in Dominic? Or somewhere else?

He fumbled into the living room, and then felt around on the end table until he found his keys. He picked them up and clicked on his flashlight. The outer clothing he had removed lay next to the couch, and his heavy jacket lay on the floor with it. He went over to the gun cabinet. Two of the drawers were open, and Dominic’s key hung from the lock of the one on the right. He knelt beside it and looked inside. It was filled with boxes of ammo, one of which was open. He had to set down the flashlight in order to do so, but he closed the box, fumbling with the lid in the dark, then the drawer, which he locked. He checked the next drawer, inside of which were three wooden boxes, one of them open. The felt-covered packing material was shaped for a revolver which wasn’t there, a revolver which, as far as Ryan could tell, would perfectly match the one he had woken up holding. Ryan closed and latched this box, then closed and locked the drawer. He’d have to wait until Emily was done and then get the gun and put it back. Meanwhile, he carried Dominic’s keys to the kitchen table and put them back. As soon as he had set them down, the bathroom door opened. He stepped away from the table just before Emily noticed him.

She gave a startled little gasp. “Who’s--? Oh, Ryan, it’s you. Are you looking for something?”

“I was just wondering where you kept the blankets,” he replied.

“Oh. Oh! I’m so sorry! I forgot all about getting you set up.” Emily came into the dining room and opened up a door which turned out to be the linen closet, and brought out some sheets, a pillow, and a blanket. She quickly set up the couch to a halfway decent semblance of a bed, then left him to get back to sleep. Ryan sat on the couch, this time even more determined to stay awake. He had to put the gun back. After that… no, he didn’t think he would be getting any sleep tonight. If he could find and load a gun while sleepwalking, then falling asleep was dangerous as much because of what he might do as because of what Dominic might attempt.

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This chapter is 2,028 words long, bringing the total length of the story to 38,003 words.

The Rest of the Story: This is a long story, and it won't make much sense if you start here. If you just missed the previous chapter, that's here. If you want to read the whole thing in one place, that's on this page.

Ugh, another hard chapter to write. I went over it half-a-dozen times, and finally got some of the difficult passages to work, while some other passages I'm still not certain about, but, well, here it is.

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Chapter 13
The Church Service

The sun rose slowly. Ryan waited out the sunrise minute by creeping minute. He sat on the couch, comfortably equipped with sheets and pillows and blanket, and watched the gradual lightening of the room, waiting for the others to awake while his mind endlessly plodded through the events of that night. Did I really almost kill Dominic? he had asked himself over and over. Around four his limbs had given a convulsive jerk and he had kicked the blanket away. He had been drifting off when it had occurred to him: maybe he had shot Dominic. What if… what if, instead of going into his room, I had been coming out of it when I woke up? I could have already shot him. No. No, no, no! I couldn’t have! Even if I could, I’d know if I did! Besides, a gun shot would have brought Emily running. Yes, of course. I’m worried over nothing. He took several deep breaths, forcing himself to calm down. No, he hadn’t killed Dominic, and he hadn’t almost done it either. The sleepwalking had only been the stress, the paranoia, the recurring dream. He just couldn’t allow himself to sleep again. That wasn’t the only reason to stay awake: he couldn’t trust Dominic either. His eyes had been red. Ryan had spent the night worried that every creak and shift of flooring he heard might be Dominic rising from bed in order to seek his sister’s death. He’d startled off the couch so often, tiptoeing to the hallway and making sure no one was up and about, that he half-thought he had spent more time on his feet than on the couch. Around five, he’d tried turning on the television with the volume muted and scanning for something worth watching, but he hadn’t found anything, so instead he continued to rest on the couch, propped up on the arm, watching the light filtering through the blinds get brighter.

He remembered putting the gun back, but his sleep starved brain couldn’t recall whether he had unloaded it when he did. He didn’t think so. Certainly he wouldn’t have dared make a one-handed attempt at figuring out how to unload a gun. Ryan wondered whether he should have kept the gun with him. His heavy jacket had a deep pocket, so no one would even notice if he hid it there… like in the dream. No. That dream was already too insistent. It might be silly to worry about it, but he didn’t want to contribute to the circumstances which might make it come true.

The others started waking up around seven. Dominic was up first, and Ryan got off the couch once again, making a show of getting some water from the fridge, waving to Dominic as Emily’s brother slouched his way into the bathroom. Dominic yawned and waved back. He wasn’t wearing glasses of any sort right then, but Ryan was too far away to see what color his eyes were. Emily was up soon after, still in her blue nightgown, and finding the bathroom occupied by Dominic and the shower running, she went into the master bedroom. There must be another bathroom in there. Now that both siblings were up, and Emily had agreed to be cautious of Dominic, Ryan could relax a bit, and once Dominic had vacated the shower, he took one himself. He still had nothing clean to wear, but he at least brushed the dirt out of his clothes, and by the time he was washed and dressed, he felt decent if so tired he could have slept where he stood. Damn, I haven’t felt this tired since my senior project. I got, what, ten hours of sleep that week?

When he left the bathroom, he found Dominic and Emily at the kitchen table, eating cereal. Dominic was wearing a white shirt with a red tie and khaki pants and, for once, he had on regular glasses. Emily was wearing a dark blue skirt and a white sweater. Ryan looked at them, his fuzzy brain chewing on the scene for several seconds before it pointed out the oddity. “So, why are you two dressed up?”

“For church, of course,” said Emily. “How’s the arm?”

“Better, actually,” Ryan said. It wasn’t a complete lie. It still felt weak, but it no longer felt dead. The prickling had returned, and the fingers at least twitched when he willed them to. “I think it’ll be okay.” That part was a lie.

“Great!” Emily said. “Will you be coming with us, then? To church?”

“Er, um… I hadn’t thought of that. I’m really not dressed for it.”

“Don’t be silly,” Emily said. “No one’s going to kick you out for how you’re dressed.”

“I suppose not,” Ryan answered carefully. They’d probably stare, though. “I’m not sure…”

Dominic said, “We’re not going to force you to go, but considering what you’ve just been through, I’d think that you’d want to check it out. There’s more to religion than the demons, after all.”

“Dom, that’s not the way I’d put it,” Emily said. “But you have a point.”

Ryan sighed. When you were worried about demons, church was the logical place to go. In any case, maybe he owed God this: he’d seen quite a few of his half-serious prayers answered. It was just that he hadn’t been inside a church since his father left. “Okay, I’ll go. When’s the service?”

“There’s one at eight-thirty, which is the one we’re going to,” Emily said. “There’s a later service, too, but as long as we’re up, we should go to the earlier one.”

“Sure, sounds fine to me,” Ryan said. “Here, let me have some of that cereal.”



Ryan stopped complaining about being underdressed once they arrived at the church. True, most of the men were wearing suits or at least shirts and ties, and almost all the women wore dresses, but compared to the two hunters sitting in the back still wearing camo and smelling of dirt and sweat, Ryan didn’t feel so out of place. The church was not a large one. The sanctuary may have been able to hold three hundred people, but it was less than half full for the early morning service. There were two columns of pews, one on either side of the central aisle, and since neither Emily nor Dominic had been choosy on where to sit, Ryan had picked out a place for them on the far right near the back, where he could lean against the pew end. The pew had a hard wooden back, but the seat was cushioned, so Ryan thought that he’d probably sleep through most of the service. The windows lining either side of the sanctuary were tall but unstained, Ryan was disappointed to see, so the only stained window was in the back, behind the choir loft, and it just showed a cross with a thorn crown hung over it, with a dove overhead. Before the pulpit’s dais was a wooden table, the words “DO THIS IN REMEMBRANCE OF ME” carved across the front, a gold cross in the center, and a huge Bible with gold-edged pages lying open to one side and a thick white candle on the other.

The organ music started up shortly after they arrived, and the choir filed in wearing yellow robes, taking their seats at the front of the sanctuary, behind a low rail setting the choir loft apart from the pulpit’s dais. Soon afterwards, a lean, white-haired man dressed in a blue suit took his place behind the pulpit, instructing the congregation to rise and sing with the choir. Ryan looked on the hymnal Emily held and tried to follow the singing. It had been over a decade since he had gone to church, and he and his mother had been irregular attenders even then. He just didn’t know church music very well, and the two years of piano lessons which had taught him how to read music didn’t help much in trying to keep up. He kept getting lost in the hymn, “Be Thou My Vision,” especially when the music leader unexpectedly skipped a verse. So after a short stint of actually trying to sing with everyone else, he settled for mouthing the words. His efforts to understand what was being sung were even more futile. Many of the words were archaic, and the rest seemed to be in essentially random order. Ryan had a feeling that much of what was being said was a code, full of meaning for those steeped in the jargon of religion, but irrelevant to him. It left him feeling frustrated, and he was glad when he was able to sit down. Or he would have been, if he had been allowed to do so without first being instructed to turn and greet his neighbor, which meant shaking hands with total strangers. Since they all seemed to know one another—half a dozen people greeted Dominic and Emily by name—they recognized him as an outsider right away, and they were eager to quiz him about his identity, origin, and relationship to the siblings. At least those two made some effort to run interference for him, so he only had to give a few noncommittal responses.

Ryan was seething by the time he sat down, irritated at having been put on the spot. This whole exercise was a waste of time; he was exhausted, his head ached, and he just wanted sleep. He should have been dozing off, but he was too tense. His limbs were practically quivering with the need to move, to just get up and run out, and he felt like there was a tiny hyperactive bird in his chest, fluttering around, as frustrated as he was at being cooped up. Still, he bent his head and closed his eyes with the rest when the prayer started. He couldn’t follow that, either, but he wasn’t really trying. Even so, it was hard not to notice that the gentleman leading the prayer said “Oh Lord” at the beginning of every sentence. Sometimes at the end, too. Trust me, man, God knows who you’re talking to. Then it was more singing that he could hardly understand, and then the offering plate was passed around while the choir sang without the congregation. Ryan dropped a couple of dollars into the plate, annoyed that he was expected to give to a church he was attending for the first time. And then there was something the schedule called “The Doxology.” Everyone stood up and sang it without the benefit of the hymnal, leaving Ryan feeling even more lost, but what the Hell? He was just mouthing the words anyway.

Then, finally, it was time for the sermon. The man who took his place at the pulpit was well overweight, with a grey speckled beard, most of his hair missing from the front, and a really bad comb-over to cover it.

“Is that your Father?” Ryan whispered to Emily.

“What? No, that’s the associate pastor. Daddy won’t be home from the retreat until this evening.”

Ryan wasn’t quite sure where in the hierarchy the associate pastor fit, but he supposed that it was something like an associate professor, and he was still in the middle of some sort of pastoral tenure track. The associate pastor lay out a stack of notes on the podium and started to preach a sermon on the sin of lust. Frankly, Ryan didn’t consider himself a very lustful person. Despite ready access to pornography thanks to high-speed Internet, he’d never taken advantage of it. Why would he want to look at pictures of naked women anyway? What he wanted was a real woman, and not just for sex. He wanted someone he could talk with and just enjoy being with. Hugs and kisses were fine, and God knew he had nothing against sex, but it was loneliness he wanted relief from. His eyes were drawn to Emily, who was watching the preacher with rapt attention. He wondered whether his attraction to her was supposed to be a sin, which was what Mr. Associate Pastor seemed to be saying. So, if attraction is wrong, what am I supposed to feel? Love? I hardly know her. I like her, but love her? I don’t know if I even can. Maybe if she weren’t so damn crazy. He let his thoughts carry him away from the preaching, which wasn’t easy as it grew awfully loud from time to time. What was he getting so worked up about? Every time Ryan did listen for more than a minute or two, he ended up confused and angry. So Ryan sat there, his eyes burning and head aching, every nerve begging for this to end. He kept glancing at his watch, despite the fact that it had stopped running last night and he’d just put it on out of habit. Though he couldn’t tell the time, he was certain that the service had passed the hour mark some time ago.

When the sermon finally ended, it was time for the “Invitation.” Ryan hadn’t been quite sure what the word meant when he’d seen it in the schedule, so his wandering thoughts returned to the pastor as the organ started playing softtly and the pastor said, “Perhaps some of you this morning are slaves to Lust, and you want Jesus’s help to break the bonds. Now is the time to come forward. Perhaps you’ve never tasted the freedom that Jesus gives, not just from Lust but from a whole host of other sins. You want his help. He’s only a prayer away. Please, come now, as we sing.”

And so everyone stood up and sang “Amazing Grace,” all six verses. Then, when they were finished, the minister said, “I feel in my heart that God is calling someone here to come forward and repent. So we’re going to keep singing until he does.” They started from the beginning again, “Amazing grace—how sweet the sound!—that saved a wretch like me…”

Ryan gritted his teeth as his knuckles turned white from the grip they had on the next pew. I can’t believe this! His head pounded, the fluttering he had felt in his gut had grown into full-blown nausea, and he couldn’t even find the breath to breathe the words anymore. His arms literally trembled. Finally, he couldn’t take it anymore. When they started singing “Amazing Grace” for the third time, he used his left hand to pry his right from the pew back in front of him—how could his weak hand have such a grip on the wood, anyway?—and walked out of the sanctuary, not caring how many eyes were on him.

As soon as he had gotten through the vestibule and out the front door, Ryan felt a tremendous wave of relief. He still didn’t feel well, however. His head ached and his stomach roiled, and the music from inside was loud enough that he could still hear it. Ryan pressed his left hand against the brick wall next to the front door and bent into the wall, his head bowed so that his crown nearly touched the bricks. He was actually panting, and he felt like he was going to throw up. Good God, why do I feel so awful? And what was with that service? “It just went on and on and on. And most of it was uncomfortable and confusing. It was all just so… annoying!” When his breathing had slowed and his breakfast felt like it might stay down, Ryan turned around so he could lean back against the wall. While it was cool out here, the bricks had been warmed by the sun, and they felt nice against his back. His eyes were looking directly into the sun, so he closed them, letting the rays try to warm his face faster than the chill air could numb it. It felt like an even battle.

His left hand brushed the rail next to him, and he looked down. He was at the edge of the church’s concrete porch, where the iron railing which prevented the congregation from toppling off met the wall. It was pretty badly rusted, and it looked like the screws which had held it in place had come loose. Ryan wiggled the railing and it shifted with alarming ease. He certainly wouldn’t trust that thing to hold his weight.

He heard the door swing open next to him, and he turned, unsurprised to see Emily. “What took you so long?” he asked.

“I wasn’t sure why you ran off. I thought you might just be going to the bathroom, but then I realized you had no idea where the bathroom was, so I thought I better look for you. Why did you go?”

“I wasn’t feeling well,” Ryan said truthfully. Plus I couldn’t stand it in there any longer. I think—I think it was what was making me feel ill. “I didn’t get much sleep last night, and I have a headache and an upset stomach. Are they done yet?”

“They were on the fifth time through ‘Amazing Grace’ when I left. I think Pastor Dan’s going to keep going until somebody comes forward,” she said with a smile.

“I take it you think that’s a fine idea?”

“Not really. Daddy doesn’t like Pastor Dan doing that. He thinks it’s a form of coercion. If the Spirit’s working on someone, you don’t need to force him along with musical duress.”

“Huh. I’d thought you’d want to get people to God no matter what it takes.”

“That’s not how it works. It’s God who—,” she paused, her head cocking to one side. “Do you hear that? The music’s stopped.”

“I guess somebody cracked and went forward,” Ryan said.

“Yeah. Let’s go see if it was Dom.”

“He wouldn’t…”

“We won’t know unless we check.”

It was indeed Dominic who had gone forward.

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This chapter is 3,005 words long, bringing this novella to a total length of 41,008 words.

The Rest of the Story: You can either go directly to the previous chapter, or view the whole story on one page.

This chapter was pretty easy to write. The previous chapter was a real pain in places, but this one came smoothly and painlessly. The next chapter, that's the real killer. I have a rough draft, but I'm not entirely happy with it. I'm not certain about how it plays out or how it's written. Heck, I'm not even sure how I feel about what happens. Revising Chapter 15 into something I like will be a major undertaking, one which may wait until after I write the conclusion and can go back and edit that chapter in light of it.

Having said that, here's fourteen, the one I didn't have trouble with.

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Chapter 14
More Mysteries

Pastor Dan was speaking when Ryan and Emily re-entered the sanctuary, his eyes squeezed shut, one arm wrapped around Dominic’s shoulders and the other lifted in the air. Ryan and Emily stood at the back watching, that urge to run building again in Ryan, but he held firm for Emily. All the churchgoers had their heads bowed, but Ryan kept his eyes on Dominic. What is he up to? “Father,” Pastor Dan was saying. “Give Dominic, Emily, and their friend the strength to stand against this spiritual assault. Confound the enemy and put him to flight. Heal any rifts among them, that they may know your unity and peace. Father, may you protect our brothers and our sister from harm and temptation, and help them to rely upon you in this time of trial. In your name we pray, amen.”

“Amen,” the rest of the church answered. Even Ryan mouthed the word, although he was mostly distracted by the pins and needles which had started up in his right forearm all of a sudden. This was the most painful yet, like a hundred bees stinging him. He bit his lip and tried not to tear up from the pain. Still, even the stinging was better than the numbness.

Pastor Dan raised both hands now and called out, “Go in peace!” The organ music started up in response, and the choir filed out the rear doors they had entered by. The congregation began to stand as well, gathering their things. Dominic quickly shook Pastor Dan’s hand, then hurried to meet them by the door.

“What was that about?” Ryan asked. He didn’t know whether to be angry or grateful over Dominic’s showy request for help.

“I told him that we felt we were under spiritual attack and wanted their prayers,” Dominic replied, heading out the door. Ryan and Emily followed him.

“You didn’t give him details, did you?”

“Of course not. I said just that.” Dominic looked back and grinned. “Anyway, it ended the invitation and let everyone leave.”

“Damn, I thought I was cynical,” Ryan muttered.

“Ryan…” Emily began.

“No, Em, he’s right,” Dominic replied. “Sometimes I am. I’m the one who said we needed prayer in the first place, and I was too dang embarrassed to get up and go ask for it. It’s only because Pastor Dan kept us singing until someone responded that I finally worked up the nerve to go up there and ask. I should be grateful, and instead I’m mocking him. I’m sorry I did that.”

Ryan stopped at the base of the steps, looking at Dominic. Dominic, noticing he had fallen behind, turned and said, “What?”

“I don’t know. It just seems like you’re giving in awfully easy.”

“I was wrong. You pointed it out. I apologized. What’s the big deal?”

“It hardly seems like the natural response.”

“Heh. I guess I’m just feeling more Christian after church.” He snorted a laugh. “See, now I’m back to cynical.”

“Yeah,” Ryan said, giving Dominic another long look. He’s definitely acting weird.




When they reached the house, Dominic turned on the television, Emily started checking on the status of the food supply to see if there was anything available for lunch, while Ryan took a nap. He didn’t like leaving them alone, but he was just too exhausted to do much about it now. Dominic graciously offered his bed again, and this time Ryan took it. The room was small to begin with, and even more crowded with the queen sized bed, a dresser, and a desk. Dominic’s suitcase was still on the floor, and the bed had been left unmade. Ryan didn’t care. He tossed himself down and closed his eyes.

After what seemed like only a couple of minutes, he heard Dominic calling. “Hey, guys, come here! You have to see this!”

Ryan stumbled out of bed, bumping one shoulder against the door jamb as he wobbled to his left side. His older bruises met the new jolt with joy, and he grunted as he hurried to the living room, This had better be worth it. Dominic sat on the couch, now cleared of sheets and blankets, with the remote control in hand. For some reason, he had his tan trenchcoat on again. Admittedly, Ryan was thinking that the house was a bit chilly himself. Did it even have heat? Emily was standing in the doorway between the living room and the dining room, and Ryan stopped behind her. The television was tuned to a local news program, where a shockingly blond woman was standing on what looked like an airport runway. Police tape was strung up on a temporary barrier surrounding an area behind her, with a white chalk body outline in the center. Police were all over the place, as were a number of other news cameras were visible in the background.

“Police have not yet released a cause of death, although they are saying that they have not ruled out foul play. They are not yet offering any theories on how he came to be on the runway. The FAA has shut down all flights in and out of Atlanta as a precaution. Once again, the deceased has been identified as a Mr. Richard Majison of New York City, shown here in a photograph provided by his employer.”

Ryan’s nausea returned with a suddenness that left him gagging. Emily placed a hand on his shoulder, “Ryan, are you all right?”

“Yeah, sure,” he lied, managing to hold onto his breakfast. “It’s just a shock. No, two shocks… three… I think I lost count.” The photo on the screen was Red-eyes, the blocky face and dark hair and mustache unmistakable. That must have been why Dominic called them in the first place. The screen was now showing a recording of the body-bag being wheeled into an ambulance, with another photo, perhaps from a driver’s license, superimposed in the corner. He even had red pupils in the photo, which was no different from so many other bad driver’s license photos, but Ryan didn’t miss the irony. It wasn’t anywhere near as ironic as the name, though.

“Is he… is he a relative of yours?” Emily asked.

“I have no idea,” Ryan said. God damn it! How the Hell can Red-eyes have my last name? As if this wasn’t confusing enough! What does that mean? It’s not a common name in the States, but maybe in some other countries… Who the Hell am I kidding? Of course it’s not a coincidence! The worst part was that even if Red-eyes was related to him in some way, Ryan had no way of knowing. His father, Daniel Majison, had left when Ryan was fourteen. In truth, he had simply vanished, disappeared off the face of the earth, but the way he had left everything in order, surreptitiously prepared in the weeks before he left, made it clear that he had left voluntarily. Every debt, including credit cards, the mortgage, and the cars, had been settled, every project at work had been either completed or handed off to a colleague, papers drawn up to give Ryan’s mother full possession of every piece of property she knew about, and a few she hadn’t, and a decent trust fund set up for her and for Ryan. Then he had packed some luggage, called a cab, and left one bright Tuesday afternoon while Ryan was at school and his mother at work. The only thing missing had been a good-bye and an explanation. They had never seen him again, never received a letter or a phone call or so much as a postcard. Even if Ryan wanted to ask him about this, he couldn’t. Unfortunately, he had nothing else to go on. He had told Ryan’s mother that his parents were dead and he had no siblings, and never spoke of it again. He had never mentioned any cousins or aunts or uncles. Ryan knew absolutely nothing about his father’s side of the family.

Ryan didn’t want to think about it right now, so instead he tried to focus on what the reporter was saying. “Mr. Majison was last seen at work on Thursday, and his employer reports that he did not show up on Friday as expected. While the police have not yet released the official word on the time of death, sources close to the case say that Mr. Majison died yesterday, approximately forty-eight hours after his disappearance.”

Dominic clicked off the television. “That is weird.”

“You think?” Ryan said. “What’s he doing at the airport, rather than in the pit? That’s where he died!”

“Unless…” Dominic said, pensive. “Unless he was never really there.”

“What?” Ryan sputtered. “He was there! He nearly strangled me!”

“He seemed to be there, true. But what if it was, I dunno, his ghost?”

“I felt him. It was no ghost.”

“Well, in quite a few ghost stories, the ghosts feel quite solid. I never put much stock in them, but then I’m not entirely sure I believe in ghosts at all.”

“But, Dom, if Red-eyes was demon-possessed, would he even have a ghost?” Emily asked.

“Of course he would, Em,” Dominic said. “Demon-possession doesn’t remove your soul. The soul’s just subjugated to the demon. I suppose that could be true even in death. Hmmm. I dunno. I always thought God would take the soul after death, that’s the reason I’m not so sure about the existence of ghosts, but if souls can hang around after death, I suppose the demon could still be in charge. God would send him packing if he showed up for judgment, though.”

“Ugh, this is too much,” Ryan said. “So you’re saying that a ghost attacked me in the woods? What about at the dorm? Was he a ghost then too?”

“I dunno. He was obviously alive when he made it to Atlanta. I suppose we’ll have to wait until the police tell us his exact time of death before we know.”

“Let me think, let me think,” Ryan said, his head whirling. The ghost thing was nowhere near as disturbing as the name. But what does it mean? If he is a relative, he didn’t seem to recognize me. Of course not, he’d never met me, but the shadow-thing should have known something if I was connected to Red-eyes in some way, right? At first… at first it thought I might be a threat, but it decided I wasn’t when I didn’t know enough. Then it said something about going through me, whatever that means. What if…? Ryan’s mind floundered. There was a germ of an idea there, but it wouldn’t coalesce. He couldn’t see it, or maybe he just didn’t want to see it. He had the impression that it was truly horrifying.

“I think I need more sleep. I can’t deal with this right now.”

“Ryan, I think…” Emily began, and then the hand on his shoulder tightened painfully.

“Ow! Emily, let go!” Ryan said, but Emily didn’t respond. She just stood there, eyes wide open and staring, her hand gripping his shoulder painfully, mouth open in a small moue. “What’s wrong with her?”

“She’s having a vision,” Dominic said. He stood up and came to his sister, prying her hand off Ryan’s shoulder. “Come here, Em. Have a seat.”

Still holding her hand in both of his, Dominic led her to the couch. She came willingly enough, although she didn’t seem to know where she was going and her brother had to keep her from tripping over the coffee table. He then backed her into the couch until she plopped down onto it. Ryan watched all this with a sort of bemused awe. He wasn’t sure whether he really believed in her visions or not, but he was intensely curious about what she was seeing. If her visions were real, it might help them, but it looked more like she was having some sort of fit to him. “Does this happen a lot? If it had happened when she was driving, we could have been killed.”

“She can hold them off when she wants to, but I don’t think she’s ever had one while driving anyway. I guess God knows what he’s doing.”

“Do you really think her visions are from God?”

“Oh yes,” he said, watching his sister carefully. He looked like he also wanted to know what she was seeing. “I know so.”

“Right,” Ryan said, a bit disappointed that he wasn’t more skeptical. “Do you think this is about our situation?”

“Oh yes, I’m sure it is.” He looked at Ryan now, and this time it couldn’t be a trick of the light. His irises were gleaming a bright red. “In fact, I’ve been waiting for it.”

---

This chapter is 2,134 words long, bringing the total length of this novella to 43,142 words.

The Rest of the Story: The previous chapter can be found here, or you can read the entire story on one page here.

This is one of those times when I really wish I were a better judge of my own writing. Unfortunately, I need, at the least, some distance from the original writing before I can judge how good it is, and given the compressed timeline for publishing these chapters, I just didn't get it. This chapter is important, and I hope it works, but I would have an easier time telling whether it did if I could put it away for two months and read it then. Alas, it's only been three weeks or so, and aside from writing the remainder of the story in that time, I came back and revised this chapter twice. So I hope you enjoy it, and please let me know whether it works.

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Chapter 15
Confrontation

“I understand now,” Dominic said, the red gleam still in his eye and a small smirk on his face.

Ryan stared at him, waiting to see whether the red irises would go away again. They didn’t; if anything, the red was growing more vibrant, catching the sunlight filtering through the blinds and reflecting it in a brilliant gleam. At least they weren’t glowing with an internal light of their own. Yet. “Understand what?” he asked.

“The demon. I understand what he’s trying to do.”

“Of course you do,” Ryan said. You are the demon now. He wanted to charge Dominic, punch him in the face, wrestle him to the ground and keep him away from Emily, but his muscles felt like water, and he couldn’t seem to force himself in Dominic’s direction.

“Demons attack people spiritually, not physically. They prey on their weaknesses, tempting them where their resistance is weak. They don’t kill people, they break them.”

“But Red-eyes was trying to kill us!”

“That’s what we thought he was doing. If he were really trying to kill us, we’d be dead. He hasn’t even hurt us all that much.”

“Then explain this!” Ryan said, pointing to a scrape across his cheek. Most of his other injuries were hidden by his clothes, but his chest and his limbs were a patchwork of purplish bruises.

“You fell into the well while trying to escape him. He didn’t throw you into it,” Dominic said, continuing to speak calmly and slowly, not at all perturbed by Ryan’s anger. “Did he ever hurt you directly, Ryan?”

“Yes he did! When, when…” That first fight, when Ryan had met Emily, had resulted in a some bruises, but only that. Considering how huge Red-eyes had been, he hadn’t done as much damage as he could have. Maybe he really wasn’t trying to hurt us… Ryan shook his head in denial. “You’re crazy! What was he doing, then?”

“He was trying to scare us,” Dominic said, and his smirk widened. “Make us fearful, make us doubt. It’s what demons do. They show mortals a world where there’s no good, no hope, no God. Doubt makes men weak, vulnerable, easily misled.” The smile only accentuated the menace in his gleaming eyes.

“So the big scary guy trying to hurt us was just supposed to make us doubt?” Ryan didn’t know whether to believe Dominic or not. He’s not just speaking about the shadow-thing, he’s speaking for it. But why would it tell me this?

“He was driving us to desperation, Ryan,” Dominic continued, still speaking in that slow, inexorable cadence. “Once he’d accomplished that, he abandoned the body to wait until he could truly attack us. Spiritually.”

“What is he waiting for?”

“Emily’s vision,” Dominic said, gesturing towards Emily. “His false attacks manipulated Emily into seeking a vision, praying for one, desperate for some kind of guidance.”

“But why?”

“Our greatest strengths are also our greatest weaknesses. Emily’s spiritually vulnerable in the aftermath of her visions, less resistant to fear and despair.”

He’s not calling her “Em” anymore, Ryan realized. He keeps saying “Emily.” It was not a large thing, just a tiny change, but it added to Ryan’s conviction that the man he was speaking to was no longer Emily’s brother. What was more damning was the sudden knowledge. Dominic wasn’t offering tentative speculation, but stating this full-fledged theory as fact. Even if Dominic could have guessed all this, there’s no way he could have been so damn certain.

“Ryan…”

Ryan looked at Emily when she spoke. She was still staring off into space, seeing things no one else could with her wide eyes. His name had been whispered, barely audible, but it gave him strength. He glanced at Dominic, worried that he might try something, but he was continuing to watch Ryan, uninterested in his sister’s plight. Ryan pushed himself between the siblings and knelt next to where Emily sat on the plush green couch, taking her right hand with his left. She didn’t show any indication that she felt it. “What is it, Emily?” he asked.

“Ryan,” she said again, still not looking at him but over his head. A tear was trickling down her cheek. Is she talking to me, or to a vision of me? She spoke again, in a whisper with more power than any shout, and Ryan felt a tremor run through his body, “It’s behind you!”

An icy weight fell on his right shoulder, and Ryan whipped around, toppling over in his haste and banging his left hand on the end table. Dominic let his hand drop. “Don’t worry about it, Ryan. She sometimes speaks in her visions, reacting to what she sees,” he said. He turned towards her, his gleaming eyes running up and down her body, and licked his lips. He placed one hand on her shoulder, and she shuddered as she felt his icy touch, but her eyes remained focused beyond. “I’m here, Emily,” he said. “I’m waiting.”

It wasn’t that dry voice which convinced Ryan that he needed to act. Nor was it the words he spoke. While they were infuriating and unbelievable in their rationality and certainty, nothing in them couldn’t have come from Dominic himself. It was not even the glowing eyes, though they had tipped Ryan off. Instead, it was the look in those eyes. They were not dead or empty, as Red-eyes’ had often seemed. Nor did they look angry. The look in those eyes was one of hunger. They were the eyes of a glutton staring at a feast of rare delicacies, lingering on his favored portions, deciding what to try first while determined to try them all. When Ryan saw Emily’s brother looking at her with that look of… of lust, all doubts evaporated and he knew he had to do something.

The gun cabinet was within a few feet of where Ryan had fallen, and he scrambled towards it now, reaching towards the drawer where he had put the gun away last night in order to keep it from both Dominic and himself. His hand found the handle and pulled, and the drawer slid open without resistance. I thought I locked it! He couldn’t even remember whether he had unloaded the gun, why should it surprise him that he hadn’t locked the drawer? Looking over the drawer’s lip, he saw the gun sitting in its wide open case. Ryan reached in and picked it up, then came to his feet as he swung it towards Dominic.

“Get away from her!” he said. He was holding the gun as he had last night, in a right hand that was now steady and obedient. It really had gotten better, although it was still completely numb.

Dominic’s eyes turned from Emily reluctantly to look at Ryan. “What are you doing, Ryan?” he asked, still in that calm tone, unfazed even when faced with a deadly weapon.

“Do you think I can’t tell what you are?”

“Put the gun down, Ryan. You’re not acting rationally.”

Ryan gritted his teeth. Dominic had spoken his name more times in the last minute than he had the whole preceding day. Did he think he could lull Ryan with his name? Well, it’s not going to work. “You’re the one acting crazy, Dominic. Now move away from her!”

“I don’t think that would be a wise course of action. What do you intend to do to her?”

“What do I intend? Me?! Your eyes are glowing and you’re questioning my intentions?”

“Calm down, Ryan. There’s nothing wrong with my eyes.”

Ryan held the gun in both hands, pointing it straight at Dominic. He would have expected his hands to be shaking, but they were perfectly steady. Or rather, his right hand was. His left hand trembled slightly, but not enough to disturb the weapon. It was odd. Ryan still had no sensation in his right hand, he couldn’t even tell how much pressure he was putting on the trigger, he just knew it was right. He wasn’t more than ten feet from Dominic, further away than in the dream, but it was still close enough even for his untrained aim. “Emily?” Ryan said, hardly daring to hope that she would emerge from her trance in order to respond. “Can you hear me? You have to get away from Dominic. He’s not himself.”

“Ryan,” she said aloud, and he felt hope well up in him, only to fall away as she continued, “It’s behind you.”

Wha…? But Dominic’s right there in front of me! Before Ryan had a chance to wonder what she meant, Dominic said, “She’s still having her vision. She won’t interfere in our talk.”

“There’s nothing to talk about. Now move away from her.”

“You think I’m Red-eyes now. Is that it? You said that my eyes were glowing. Are you sure, Ryan?”

“What do you mean, am I sure? I can see them right now!”

“But are you seeing what’s really there?”

“What are you saying? That I’m hallucinating? That I’m crazy?”

“Well, you think I’m possessed. I don’t think you’re possessed, but I think the demon may be making you see things that aren’t there.”

No, I’m not seeing things. Your eyes are shining as brightly as Red-eyes’ ever were! That’s as real as the gun I’m holding!

“Behind you!” Emily said suddenly, loud enough to make Ryan jump. Insistent enough that he cast a quick glance behind him. Nothing there, just the gun cabinet and his shadow on the wall next to it. He whipped his head back around and caught Dominic taking a step forward. He froze when he saw Ryan’s gaze upon him, but he didn’t back up.

“What are you doing?” Ryan asked. He’s obviously trying to sneak up on me and get the gun away. I can’t let myself be distracted again!

“Put the gun down, Ryan,” Dominic said again. His voice was too calm. His tone was not pleading or soothing, not angry or fearful. It was emotionless. Empty. False.

Behind you! Emily didn’t say anything aloud this time, but Ryan still heard her in his head. What is she talking about? Dominic’s there. The shadow-thing is inside him! Despite that, Ryan still felt an itching between his shoulder blades, he heard—no, felt—a stirring behind him. But… He risked a quick glance, and then faced forward before Dominic had a chance to move. Once again, it had just been his shadow on the wall. Only… only that didn’t seem right. The light was coming from the windows to his right, but the shadow had been directly behind him. And it had looked… wrong. What if…?

“Ryan,” Dominic said. “Do you really believe I’m—?”

“Shut up!” Ryan snapped. “Shut up and let me think!” Dominic obligingly shut up.

How could he not be possessed? His eyes are bright red! Ryan had decided that he was going to trust what his eyes showed him, but what if they were wrong? Red-eyes had been able to hide from them before, and the things they’d shown him at the gas station were, while not false, not the whole truth either. What if Dominic’s eyes aren’t red? Can the shadow-thing make me see something that’s not there?

That way lay madness. If he couldn’t trust what he saw, what could he trust? How could he separate the truth from the lies? The only option would be to hide in the corner doing nothing, but inaction was just as dangerous as blind action. If Dominic wasn’t possessed, then Ryan risked killing him. Hell, shooting Dominic was just as certain to kill him if he was possessed as if he wasn’t. By far the safest thing was simply to keep the gun on him until Emily came out of her trance, then maybe she could help him sort the truth from the lies. The problem was that Ryan was not certain that was enough. Maybe he could prevent him from doing physical harm, but Dominic had said she would be spiritually vulnerable afterwards. How could a gun stop a spiritual attack? He wasn’t even certain what a spiritual attack entailed. For that matter, the gun might not do much good against a physical attack either. If Dominic decided to rush Ryan, either Ryan would have to shoot or throw away his bluff. Either way it would end, and right now, he had no idea which way it would go. He really had only one option.

“Okay,” Ryan said. “I’m going to take Emily and we’re leaving.”

“I can’t let you do that,” Dominic said. “I can’t trust you with her, not when you’re like this.”

“And I can’t trust you with her!” Ryan retorted. “We’re at a stalemate.”

“I guess we are,” Dominic said, not seeming the least bit perturbed by that.

“At least… at least move away from her. We’ll both keep our distance.” Will that be enough? Probably not, but it wouldn’t need Dominic if it didn’t need to be close.

“You have the gun,” Dominic replied. “You don’t need to be close to hurt her with that.”

“Just move away, and I’ll put the gun down,” Ryan said.

Dominic didn’t say anything for a moment. With his gleaming eyes, his look was unnerving, as was the small smile that twitched his lips. What the Hell is he smiling at? Or is that a delusion too? “Okay,” Dominic said with a shrug. He walked to the corner of the room near the front door, getting as far away from Emily as he could without leaving, but it still wasn’t very far. Once there he leaned against the door, his hands in the pocket of his trenchcoat.

Ryan sighed. He supposed that was as much as he could hope for, so now he had to fulfill his part of the deal. He squatted down and placed the gun on the blue carpet, its weight dimpling the fabric, its muzzle pointed toward the window and away from everyone else in the room. He tried to unwrap his fingers from around the grip, but they only twitched in response to his mental command. What the Hell? I thought my hand was better! Movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention, and Ryan turned to look. The shadow he had seen on the wall, the one he’d thought was his own, was moving, its taloned hands reaching out from the wall, its beaked mouth open and emanating a dim red light that flickered in time with its soundless chuckling. Then, even as the icy tips of the talons brushed his dead arm, the chill somehow penetrating the numbness, the shadow vanished. He blinked and looked again, and saw nothing, not even his own shadow, which was some distance down the wall from where the shadow-thing had just been. Shaken but uncertain what to make of the vision, he reached out with his left hand to pry his right fingers off the pistol, but even as his fingertips brushed the ice cold flesh of his unresponsive index finger, his right hand was moving. Ryan watched in shock as his right arm rose of its own volition. He couldn’t feel the arm, as if it wasn’t a part of his body at all, and it certainly wasn’t behaving as if it was. What… how…it can’t…the shadow-thing! The line of thought scattered into incoherence. He didn’t have time to wonder how the shadow-thing was controlling his arm—that had to be what was happening—as he grabbed his right wrist with the hand he could control, trying to stop it from rising. Uncontrollable as the arm was, it was no stronger or faster than it had always been, and he was able to slow its ascent. How can it do this?! Ryan couldn’t stand alcohol, couldn’t handle drugs, not even the mild sedatives in so much allergy and pain medication. Ryan prided himself on his self-control, he needed it. To lose control of part of his own body was insane, impossible. It was also more terrifying than when Red-eyes had him by the throat. He fought to hold his possessed arm down with his good one, but his right arm was dominant and the left couldn’t stop it completely, so while it wasn’t quite pointing at Dominic yet, it was moving inexorably towards him.

So intent was he on the wrestling between his arms that he didn’t notice Dominic charging until he was almost on top of him. Instinctively he came out of his crouch and dodged to the side, banging his knee on the end table and toppling onto the couch, rocking it with a thud that shook the house and caused a framed picture on the wall behind the couch, a portrait of the siblings and their parents, to fall to the floor. He landed on his belly with his face practically in Emily’s lap and both arms trapped beneath him. Dominic jumped on top of him, driving the air from his lungs and causing his bruises to flare up in new pain. His hands tore at Ryan, tugging at his clothes and scratching his skin as they sought the gun. Ryan himself was trying to take control of the gun from his crazy arm as he twisted around. He couldn’t see it and couldn’t feel it, so he had no idea whether his hand even continued to hold it. He couldn’t let Dominic get it, he couldn’t trust his own damn hand with it. I just need to get rid of it! He found it when the wrestling forced him onto his side, and he found the gun still in his hand, wedged between his chest and couch’s back, pointing directly towards Emily. Even as he watched, the finger tightened on the trigger.

Oh God, no! He couldn’t stop his own finger, which moved with teasing slowness, pulling the trigger. The hammer hesitantly began to rise. He clawed at the gun with his left hand, trying to pull it free, but Dominic had a grip on his shirt sleeve, pulling it taut so he could just barely reach, his sweat damp fingertips sliding across the surface of the weapon. I can’t stop it! I can’t control my arm and I can’t reach the gun with the arm I can control. “Get off me so I can stop it!” he shouted, kicking with his legs, twisting his body, trying to move the rest of him in hopes of pulling the weapon off target, but Dominic bore down on him so he could barely move and his limited gyrations failed to cause his right arm to do more than waver. The trigger finger let up the slightest bit in response, then continued to pull. The only part of him he could move was his head, but unless he could stop the bullet with his teeth, he couldn’t save Emily.

He stopped, stunned with his idea. No, I can’t do that! That's insane! He rolled his eyes upward, towards Emily, where she still sat staring at nothing, but now with the tears streaming down her face. Would I rather kill her? My arm might be crazy, but it’s still mine. If I let this happen, I’m a murderer, and there is nothing else I can do to stop it. God, help me to do this!

The hammer reached its apex. Ryan bent his head down to the gun, kissing the muzzle while keeping his teeth clenched tight behind his lips, as if they could somehow stop the bullet. My teeth won’t stop it, but the back of my skull might. Better me than her, he thought as he closed his eyes.

The hammer fell.

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This chapter is 3,287 words long, bringing this continuing novella to a total length of 46,429 words. It's almost done!

The Rest of the Story: Chapter 15 can be found here, or you can read the whole story on one page.

This is it, the final chapter. All the conflicts are resolved and all the mysteries are explained, except for the ones which aren't. Okay, enough chit-chat, here it is. Enjoy!

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Chapter 16
Resolution

Click.

That was not the sound Ryan had expected to hear. To be honest, he hadn’t expected to hear anything at all. He hadn’t thought that his brain would have a chance to register the sound of the gunshot before the bullet passed through it.

Though he had to cross his eyes to do so, he stared at the gun, astounded that it hadn’t fired. The hand grasping it trembled and shook, then viciously whipped the weapon back and forth as if it could be shaken into working order. The iron sight tore his lower lip as the barrel clattered across his teeth, the pain causing his eyes to blur with tears and his cheeks to twitch. In contrast, his stupid, disobedient arm didn’t feel a thing, unless that was a tickling he felt near the scar. Click. The finger squeezed off another would-be shot. And yes, there was definitely a tickling in his arm. The sensation reached his index finger as it convulsively pulled the trigger again. Click. The hand started to repositionthe gun, but Ryan clamped down on the barrel with his teeth, unwilling to risk Emily’s life in this insane game of Russian roulette. His jaw ached as his hand twisted the gun, trying to pry his mouth open, but his head moved with the weapon, trying to manage some control over it without breaking his teeth. The tickling spread to envelope the whole arm just as it crossed the threshold from ticklish to painful, becoming the familiar prickling that had plagued him for the past day. Click. The prickling grew into full-fledged pins and needles. He felt something crack in his mouth as the hand continued to jerk the pistol around, and he hoped the gun had only chipped a tooth. Click. The pins and needles graduated into stinging, a swarm of bees crawling over every inch of skin from the tips of his fingers to his palms, from the back of his hand to the inside of the elbow, from his bicep to his shoulder, each one taking the opportunity to sting him again and again. Click. The pain ratcheted up in intensity, the stinging becoming blistering heat, as if his arm were being consumed in an inferno. He finally released his aching jaws from their hold on the gun so he could howl in pain. Six… six shots. The gun… it’s emp—empty. The pain washed out further thought. His hand convulsed and the gun fell from twitching fingers. He was vaguely aware that Dominic was no longer trying to restrain him, for his left hand was now free to wrap around his right wrist, pressed against the small cut that was at the center of the pain. It throbbed in agony as if someone were driving a white hot iron spike through it one hammer stroke at a time. He heard someone speaking—Emily, and she was speaking quickly and loudly, the words tripping over one another, not in that sparse, slow, dazed whispering of her trance. She sounded… Angry? Worried? Confused? He couldn’t tell, he couldn’t understand the words. But from somewhere he heard words he could understand, a deep, resonant voice, coming from a great distance, as if echoing up from a deep pit. “Damn you!” As the speaker fell deeper into the pit there was one final word, a familiar one Ryan had heard before, twice now in his dreams, though he’d been unable to remember it. This time, he’d remember. This time… His vision filled with brightness, until everything was hidden by the brilliant white light, and his ears filled with a rushing wind, drowning out the word as he repeated it to himself, shouting it in defiance of forgetfulness and unconsciousness and pain.



“Majus!” Ryan cried. Though his mouth was wide open to yell the word, the sound that came out was no more than a choked whisper. He coughed, then swallowed, and his throat burned as he did so. It was raw and dry, and he desperately needed something to drink. Ryan kept his eyes shut as he tried to remember what had happened after that blazing pain in his arm. Everything was a blank. A dull ache still suffused it, and that was enough to make him sob with relief. His right arm hadn’t felt so much like a part of him since… since… had it really only been a day? Ryan made a fist and opened it, pleased at how readily his hand obeyed him, pleased that he could feel it doing so. He shifted, trying to get comfortable, and realized that he was lying with his back on soft cushions, his head propped up on a pillow, and a blanket covering him. This definitely wasn’t the position he’d been in when he’d lost consciousness, if that was what had happened. His left arm was trapped between his body and a vertical cushion, which meant… he opened his eyes, and the first thing he saw was Emily’s worried face surrounded by a golden nimbus—the midday sun backlighting her, undaunted by the blinds trying to shut it out. She was sitting on one of the dining room chairs, bending over him, and she smiled when she saw him open his eyes.

“I’m so glad you’re okay. Dom said you would be, but I wasn’t sure, and I wanted to call a doctor, but Dom said a priest would be more appropriate, except that we’re not Catholic, and I thought about calling Pastor Dan, but…” That was where Ryan stopped listening long enough to glance around. As he had expected, he was still lying on the plush green couch, but he’d been placed in a more comfortable position and accoutered with a pillow and blanket.

“What—?” Ryan began, then paused to clear his throat. “What happened? And what the Hell is a Majus?” His voice sounded hoarse to his own ears.

“We were hoping you could tell us what happened.” That was Dominic. Ryan couldn’t see him from where he lay, but judging from the direction of his voice, he was sitting in the easy chair in the corner, next to the gun cabinet. “As for Majus, it sounds like the Latinate singular of Magi.”

Emily handed Ryan a glass a water, and he propped himself up against the couch’s arm so he could sip some of the cool liquid. Once he’d moistened his throat, he said, “You mean, like the guys who brought gifts to Jesus in the manger?”

“There’s more to it than that, and he probably wasn’t in a manger at the time, but yes. Before we discuss that, however, perhaps you should tell us your perspective on what happened. From our perspective, after threatening to shoot me, you tried to shoot Emily, or yourself, or maybe both. The gun didn’t go off, though, and then you started screaming, dropped the gun, and passed out.”

“Dom’s exaggerating,” Emily said. “Well, not about what we saw, but my vision told us what really happened.”

“Your vision? What did you see?” Ryan asked.

“Em, maybe we should wait until he tells us what he thinks happened,” Dominic interjected.

“Don’t be silly, Dom,” Emily said. “It’s over now. The vision said so.” After waiting a moment to see whether her brother would protest, Emily continued. “I saw a dark shadow standing behind you. It was really weird looking, with an ugly bird-like head, and claws, and arms that bent the wrong way. One of its claws was blocking your eyes and it was whispering in your ear.”

“Are you saying I was possessed?” Ryan asked, a chill running down his spine.

“Not possessed,” Dominic inserted. “But you were definitely being influenced: lied to, shown things, maybe more”

Ryan wanted to deny it, but too much of what had happened didn’t make sense unless his perceptions had been altered in some way. “You eyes were red. I was so sure you were possessed,” Ryan said. “Was that just a hallucination?”

“I don’t think it counts as a hallucination if a demon is making you see it,” Emily said.

“And my arm… was he controlling it? Because I wasn’t.” That part he preferred to think of as demonic possession. Otherwise, he was going insane, thinking that he had no control over his arm, and the mad part of his mind which did have control was homicidal.

“Maybe,” Emily said. “I think so. In my vision, you had a gun in your hand, and the demon had one hand—the one that wasn’t blocking your eyes—wrapped around your wrist and it was trying to make you point it at Dominic, then at me, but you were wrestling to turn it around. Finally, you had it pointed towards your head, and that’s when you pulled the trigger and the gun went off. I thought you were dead, I really did, but somehow the bullet went right through you and hit the demon instead. And when it hit him, he vanished. Just poof.”

“Okay, that’s… interesting,” Ryan said. “But it does sound a lot like what happened. I couldn’t stop what my arm was doing—it was as if it were someone else’s. All I could do was block it. I wasn’t the one who pulled the trigger, though. I’m just glad it wasn’t loaded.”

“Oh, the gun was loaded,” Dominic said.

“What?!” Ryan sat straight up. The motion made him dizzy, but he placed a hand on the couch’s arm and twisted around so he could see Dominic. Emily’s brother was leaning back in the easy chair, wearing his trenchcoat. He held the gun in question in his right hand, resting on the chair’s arm. Obviously he doesn’t trust me now. Well, I can’t really blame him.

“I checked,” Dominic said. “There are bullets in the cylinder.”

“Then why didn’t it go off?” Ryan asked.

“I dunno. They could be duds, but the rest of the bullets from that box were good.”

“I think it’s a miracle,” Emily said.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Ryan said, running a hand through his thinning hair. “You’re saying a miracle saved my life?”

“Why not?” Emily replied. “If a demon was out to get us, why couldn’t God come to the rescue?”

“If God could come to the rescue, why didn’t he do it before? Why did we have to go through all this?”

“I… I don’t know,” Emily said. “Dom and I were praying for that, but God works in mysterious ways. Maybe he wanted to teach us something or whatever.”

Dominic cleared his throat. “Why give the demon free rein at all? Why let it possess and kill Richard Majison? Why let it influence you? ‘Why’ questions are notoriously hard to answer.”

“Okay, then what about a different type of question? What drove it off?” Ryan act. “I hardly think it was my suicide attempt.”

“Don’t call it that!” Emily said. “You weren’t trying to kill yourself, you were trying to save me even if it meant dying yourself. There’s a world of difference there. Anyway, I think that selfless act broke its hold on you, and God rewarded you by keeping the bullets from going off.”

“Er, if you say so,” Ryan said, embarrassed. I’m not selfless. I’m as greedy and self-serving as the next guy, and more conceited than most. So… why did I do it? That was the question. What had possessed him to place his life between the gun and Emily? Love? He still barely knew her. Whatever he might feel for her, it had very little of romance. Some sort of honor? That little-used word just didn’t mean a lot to him. “I still don’t understand this,” Ryan said.

Dominic shrugged. “Maybe we’ll never completely understand what went on here, but I think it would help if we knew the whole story.” He looked at Ryan, his brows lowered and a small frown touching his lips. “I want to hear your version of what happened, and anything else that you haven’t told us.”

Ryan bowed his head. He had been holding out on them both, partly because he was worried about what the dreams meant and partly because he hadn’t trusted Dominic. Did he trust him now? Well, Dominic had the gun now and he wasn’t shooting anybody, and that was a good sign. And somehow, the fear and suspicion just didn’t seem as deeply settled in him as before. Maybe Dominic was right and he really had been under the shadow-thing’s influence. The idea that he might have been at least partially controlled by the demon was still horrible, but it was no longer unbelievable.

Ryan decided that whether he trusted Dominic or not, he owed them both this. Anyway, even if Dominic was possessed right now, confiding his experiences to him couldn’t be any more dangerous than letting him hold onto the gun, and there wasn’t much he could do about the latter. “Okay,” Ryan said. “There have been a few things that I haven’t told you two about. The weirdest happened right after the first time we escaped Red-eyes, while we were staying at the hotel. I had a bizarre dream that night…” After telling them about the dream, he described how the shadow-thing in the mirror had reached out and scratched him. He showed them the scratch, which now looked like a normal cut, not an open wound on a corpse. As the throbbing pain he’d woken up with faded, it had begun to feel like a normal scratch, with none of the odd pins and needles he’d been experiencing or the cold, dead skin around it. If the cut’s healing, maybe it really is over. Ryan then told them how he had seen the shadow-thing appear at the gas station, becoming Red-eyes as it came out of the wall. He hesitated before telling them about the red gleam he’d seen in Dominic’s eyes, but Hell, he’d already told Emily. Finally, he explained last night’s dream, and waking up with the gun in his hand. “What I don’t understand is what the dreams meant. Were they true or false?”

“Both,” Dominic said. “I think the first dream was truthful, while the second one lied. The demon was probably trying to manipulate you through your dreams. Lies are more effective if they’re mixed with the truth. But you still haven’t told us what happened today.”

Ryan sighed. “When Emily had her vision, your eyes turned red again, and you were acting strange—your expression, your words and tone of voice, little gestures—I knew you had to be possessed, and that I had to get you away from Emily. So I pulled open the drawer of the gun cabinet and grabbed the gun. It was weird that it was unlocked; I thought I had locked it. And it’s also strange that my arm, which had been practically paralyzed all day, worked fine when I picked up the gun. But when I tried to put the gun down, it was like it was someone else’s arm. I couldn’t control it any more than I could feel it.”

“And that’s when I tried to tackle you,” Dominic said. “But were you trying to shoot me or Emily?”

“I don’t know!” Ryan said. “First it was pointing at you, then Emily, and when I saw that my own damn finger was pulling the trigger, I did the only thing I could and tried to catch the bullet with my skull.” Ryan wiped his hand across his eyes. “I… I’m still not sure why I did that. I’d like to say I did it out of love or something romantic like that, but I just… When I saw that I was pulling the trigger, I had to stop it. If I killed Emily, I’d be a murderer. It wouldn’t matter that some demon made me do it, I’d be evil, and I’d rather be dead than the kind of person who would do that. Does that make sense?”

“It’s all right,” Emily said, placing a hand on his shoulder.

Ryan didn’t look at her. He wiped his eyes again, surprised that they were tearing. Damn it, I’m not going to cry! “You’re not disappointed? I like you, Emily, and I didn’t want you to die, but I don’t know that I’d die just for you.”

Emily smiled. “Jesus said that no man had greater love than to lay down his life for his friends, but we’ve known each other for less than two days. We’re still practically strangers, and you’ve already given me more than I have any right to expect. And no matter what you say, you were willing to sacrifice your life for mine, and I’m not going to complain that your motivations weren’t pure enough or whatever.”

Ryan heard motion behind him as Dominic got up, followed by a metallic click. Alarmed, certain that Dominic was about to finish what his own arm had been unable to do, Ryan whipped his head around. Dominic was standing next to the gun cabinet, the revolver in his hand with the cylinder open as he removed the bullets, carefully placing them on top of the cabinet. When he was done, he closed the cylinder and placed the gun in its case and closed the still-open drawer. When he saw Ryan watching him, he said, “I don’t think I’ll be needing the gun. As for the bullets… I think I want to test them. I for one want to know whether or not they are duds.”

“I’m not sure I do,” Ryan said, sniffing. “So I’ve told you everything I remember. Do you understand things better? ’Cause I still don’t.”

“I think that I was right in my earlier assessment that the demon couldn’t hurt us directly, but I was wrong in what I thought he was trying to do. I was expecting a spiritual attack… although I can’t say exactly what that would be like. Something like spiritual rape, I imagine.”

“Damn, that’s what it felt like,” Ryan said very softly. Idiot, do you think you have any idea what rape feels like? No, but was having some… thing alter what he saw and thought, or taking control over a part of his own body, any less of a violation? He didn’t know, and he didn’t want to think about it.

Dominic continued, either not hearing him or pretending not to, “What I didn’t see is that he could use a spiritual attack to cause physical harm. He tried to trick us into hurting one another by making you think that I was possessed. Then, when Emily was vulnerable because of her vision, our desire to protect her and our suspicions of one another created a very dangerous situation.”

“And then he tried to make me shoot you by taking over my arm? How is that any different from having Red-eyes kill us?”

“Hmm, I dunno. Maybe it was desperation. I don’t think the demon was incapable of physically hurting us so much as forbidden, and it tried to break the rules and was stopped. Or maybe it would have worked if you hadn’t resisted the way that you did, as the responsibility would have fallen on you for not fighting it.”

“So who did he want dead? You, Emily, me? At one point or another he tried to shoot each of us.”

“If things had gone exactly as planned, you would have shot and killed me, then probably gone to jail, and Em… well, how do you think you would have reacted, Em?”

“I don’t know what I would have done then,” Emily said. “If you were… gone, and Ryan did it… It doesn’t make sense! What about the vision that I’m supposed to marry him? How could I marry the man who killed my brother? But… could the vision be that wrong?”

“Which may be the point,” Ryan said slowly. “If she begins to doubt her visions...”

Dominic nodded. “Yeah, maybe. Or maybe you’re going one step too far. You two are supposed to be together, like it or not. I think he was trying to prevent that.”

“But could it be prevented?” Ryan asked. “If it’s prophecy, isn’t it inevitable?”

“Obviously, the demon thought it wasn’t,” Dominic said. “He might be right. God isn’t the Delphic oracle, where every attempt to avert the prophecy just brings it closer to fruition. There are examples in the Bible of people convincing God to… change his mind, for lack of a better phrase.”

“Emily said something along those lines, but even if God can be convinced, I doubt that a demon killing the people the prophecy’s about would do it.”

“Good point. I guess that’s why he tried to get you to kill me. After that happened, you two wouldn’t want to marry. You’d be the ones trying to change God’s mind about the prophecy.”

Back to prophecies I don’t really want to believe. “I don’t suppose you have any idea why we’re supposed to marry.”

“Not really. But I wonder if it has something to do with what you said when you first woke up.”

“You mean ‘Majus’? You did say you knew more about the Magi.”

“Just a little, most of it speculation,” Dominic said. “The term, the same one that’s used for the Magi who visited Jesus, refers the priestly caste of the Medes, who were a powerful influence in the Parthian Empire at the time of Jesus’s birth—Persia, Assyria, Babylonia, that area. They were Zoroastrians.”

“But why would Zoroastrians be interested in the Jewish Messiah?”

“Well, there are similarities between Zoroastrianism and Judaism, possibly due to the fact that Zoroastrianism’s rise to prominence roughly corresponded with the Jewish exile in Babylon,” Dominic said. “And as there were still Jews living in that area centuries later, when Jesus was born, it’s likely that the Magi were familiar with the Jewish prophecies.”

“So what happened to them?” Ryan asked.

“I dunno.” Dominic shrugged. “I had assumed they disappeared, not dying out but losing their identity through interbreeding and generational forgetfulness. Now I’m beginning to wonder. You said that the demon called you ‘Majus’? And your last name is Maji-son.” He said the name differently, emphasizing the first two syllables with a long i, rather than the short i Ryan pronounced it with.

“Do you think I could be related to them? I don’t look Middle Eastern.”

Dominic smiled, “That’s at least sixty generations back. You could easily be descended from the priestly caste of the Medes and not look like you’re from that region. The problem is that you probably wouldn’t know. Nobody would. Very few people these days have that much of a sense of history, and I didn’t think anybody had accurate records stretching that far back, but something’s different here. Your name, Red-eyes’ name, the demon calling you Majus… somebody knows. And more importantly, somebody cares. Do you know much about your family’s genealogy?”

“No,” Ryan said. “My father never spoke of it, and he disappeared when I was fourteen.”

“What do you mean, ‘disappeared’?”

“It’s a long story,” Ryan said. It wasn’t that long of a story, but Ryan didn’t want to talk about his father. He never wanted to talk about him. I don’t even want to think about him. “And right now I’m just worried that this might not be over.”

“It is over, Ryan,” Emily said, taking his hand in both of hers. “The demon’s gone. I’m sure of it.”

“I think Em’s right, Ryan,” Dominic said. “The demon is gone.”

“I guess so,” Ryan said. But if someone, or something, is so interested in me, in us, then will the shadow-thing be the only one who comes after us? He looked at Emily, who was smiling at him, and he forced himself to smile back. “Well, if it is over”—for now—“then I’m going back to bed.”

The End

---

This is the final 3,997 word chapter of my 50,426 word novella.

It's done! Eyes in the Shadow has been my main writing project since October, about nine months now. It's not the only thing I worked on during that time, but it is what my focus has been. For most of that time, I didn't have a clue where it was going. I didn't know what Red-eyes was--I suspected that he was a demon, but I didn't know for sure--or what he wanted, or how--or even if--he could be defeated. I didn't know where Ryan and Emily would go, or who they would meet, or what they'd try and whether it would work. I basically made it up as I went along. That's a lot of fun, but it can also be dangerous. When I follow my usual writing process, I write a dozen chapters but don't publish the first until I'm done with the twelfth, so I always have the ability to fix my mistakes. If I get my characters into a situation that they can't get out of, I can go back and change things, preventing that situation from happening or preparing a way out in advance for when they arrive there. The way I wrote this story, publishing each chapter before I was done with the next, if I got my characters into such a situation, I'd either have to pull a deus ex machina or end my adventure with a tragedy. And I was determined not to pull a deus ex machina. There was also the danger of inconsistencies. It really does take me months to write a story of any length, and all sorts of little details that occurred in chapter one can be forgotten by chapter ten. This is usually caught in the first revision, where I read through all the chapters I've written and make corrections, taking advantage of the ability to read it all together in the course of a couple of days so I can see how well it all fits together. I wasn't able to do that either. Finally, sometimes ideas that I have late in the story either aren't compatible with or just don't flow from the previous chapters, but if it's a really cool idea and it doesn't require extensive changes, I can just run with it and smooth out the earlier chapters to make it fit. It frustrated me immensely that I couldn't do that this time. What was already published was all but set in stone. That "but" refers to some small mistakes that I corrected where two parts of the story I had already published disagreed, and one of them had to be changed. That happened once when I had given Ryan two different majors with different research topics, chemical engineering studying zeolites (which a friend of mine had done) and electrical engineering studying semiconductor failure modes (which I did as an undergrad). I don't recall any other times I went back and changed a part of the story.

You may wonder about how I ended things: my hope is that you find it satisfying. I established pretty early on (Chapter 4) that you couldn't get rid of the shadow-thing just by killing Red-eyes. The demon, or evil spirit, or whatever it was, would live on. I did this for a couple of reasons. First, I wanted to limit the extent of Red-eyes' power. I wanted him to be dangerous, but I did my best to be ambiguous over how superhuman he really was. The most frightening thing about him was that you never knew the full extent of his abilities. I knew that if I left the obvious solution of fighting back open, the characters would eventually find guns and start shooting, and then I'd either have to kill Red-eyes or make bullets bounce off of him, and then so much for ambiguity. So I made it so they could kill Red-eyes but not solve the real problem. The second reason I focused on the shadow-thing is that I find spiritual beings much more terrifying than physical beings. Physical creatures can hurt you, true, but you can either avoid them or hurt them back. Spiritual beings are different. How can you get away from them? How can you hurt them? This of course gave me a new problem. Now that I have a spiritual entity as the enemy, how do I keep him from becoming too powerful? How do my characters get rid of him? Well, presumably God has the power, but I was trying to avoid a deus ex machina. I can't really have God solve the problem while giving my characters nothing to do. It might make a good allegory that way, but not a good story. On the other hand, theologically I believe that there's not really a whole lot human beings can do about demons. They will try to destroy us, and all we can do is resist. So that's what Ryan, who was the central character and the main target of the demon's influence, had to do. He had to resist the demon, and it would flee from him. This was complicated by the fact that Ryan's pretty skeptical about God and demons. Christians can pray for help, and while Ryan's thrown off a prayer or two, he's not a believer, and having him convert just didn't feel right. Committing to God is a profound decision, and not something I could see someone as skeptical and cynical as Ryan doing after a mere two days of really creepy experiences. He would need time to process what had happened, time I didn't give him. Ultimately, there was only one thing he could do to end it, and that was an act of self-sacrifice: interposing his own life between the demon and Emily. By doing that, he'd show real commitment to resisting the demon's influence, and such a commitment could be honored by a bit of subtle divine intervention without seeming cheap or easy.

So now I've wrapped up the story and explained all the mysteries, except for one. What's the deal with the Magi? Or Maji, or however you want to spell it? Well, that part I'm not saying. It's an idea I've been playing with for a little while, and I made the decision to connect Ryan to them pretty late in the story, when I was wondering whether Eyes in the Shadow would have a sequel. (The answer to that question is maybe. If so, I'll definitely explain more about the Maji then.) The late introduction of the Maji connection shows, due to the serial nature of the story and my aforementioned inability to prepare the way for important plot twists that only occured to me around Chapter Eleven. I will eventually do a rewrite of this story, maybe even see if I can get it published, and when I do I'll deal with the complications which cropped up due to the limitations of a serial story.

Update: Cleaned up the commentary at the end of this chapter, since it turned out to be pretty disjointed.