Shadow Walkers (15 page)

I had to
do
something
.

It had seemed like Evelyn had started to hear me shouting at her from the astral dimension, out at the cabin on Silver Lake. And I’d definitely felt whatever evil astral being had touched me that afternoon out at Trumble Point. It
was
possible to communicate between the astral realm and the material one. Somehow I was going to get through to Simon now. I had to.

“Listen—” I started to say to Simon.

Even as I did, I felt something I hadn’t before—a rough yank on the back of my head, like I was a dog and someone had jerked hard on my leash. If I’d been in the real world in physical form, a violent wrench like that would have broken my neck for sure.

But I wasn’t in the real world—I was in the astral dimension. And I was suddenly being flung away from that graveyard by the back of my head. It felt like my brain was being jerked from my skull.

In terms of pain, it seemed endless, a Big Bang of sensation that exploded outward from my head. But at the same time, I knew it had all happened in a flash, in an instant.

I opened my eyes. The sharp pain was already subsiding, as quickly as it had started. But my head pounded, and my teeth ached. The light was different, much brighter than it had been an instant before—too bright. Something or someone loomed over me.

I was too dazed to make sense of where I was. I knew I was in someplace different than that cemetery in the night. But while my body was here in this new place, it was like my mind, my thoughts, were still back in that other place.

Finally, my thoughts started to catch up with my body.

I was back in my bedroom, back on Hinder Island.

“Zachary?” my grandmother was saying. She was the figure I’d sensed looming over me.

I stared at her, still trying to make sense of what had just happened. Then it hit me like another yank out of the blue: my grandmother had woken me up. My mind and body had been reunited, and my astral projection had come to an end.

I looked, blinking, at my grandmother. The light was so bright, so much stronger than it had been just seconds before. Gravity pressed me to the bed like Lilliputian cables.

“What did you
do
?” I said to my grandmother. I couldn’t have hidden the outrage in my voice even if I wanted to. Simon had been about to shoot Gilbert in that cemetery—I needed to get back!

“Do?” my grandmother said, taken aback. “I woke you up. You were having a nightmare.”

“It wasn’t a dream! It was real!”

My grandma stared at me like I was crazy. But if I told her the truth, she’d think I
was
crazy.

I took a breath. “I’m sorry, Grandma. You just surprised me. But I have to go back to bed. Okay? Do you mind? I have to go back to bed
right now
.”

That’s when I remembered I didn’t have any more incense. I couldn’t go back to the astral dimension even if I wanted to. Realizing this was like running into a brick wall at full speed.

My grandma ignored me. “I wanted to tell you the good news.”

The words cut like a horn through the fog of my brain. “Good news?” My grandma didn’t look like a mummy anymore. Now she had the energy of a ballet dancer. I’d never seen her stand so tall.

“There’s been a tip,” she said. “The police got a report of someone matching Gilbert’s description near some old cemetery. They think it might be the kidnappers!”

Emory got through to the police.

“But apparently it’s out in the middle of nowhere,” my grandmother went on, “so it could be hours before we hear anything.”

Hours
? Gilbert didn’t have hours. He didn’t even have minutes!

I needed to get back there. But I wasn’t sure that was even possible without the special incense.

“I’m sorry, Grandma,” I said. “I feel terrible. Do you mind? I need to go back to bed.” I was trying to be convincing, but I wasn’t doing it very well, was definitely acting strange. We finally hear news about Gilbert, and I want to go back to bed?

But the fact was things
were
strange. Gilbert had been kidnapped. Besides, my grandma was plenty distracted herself.

So she said, “I’ll wake you if we hear anything else.” Then she was gone.

I wanted to bolt the door to make sure she didn’t interrupt me again, but there was no lock—they’d never let me get one for fear of what I might do on the Internet. I just had to hope that my grandparents didn’t come back.

I turned to the incense holder on my nightstand. The incense was gone, burned completely down to the nub.

I picked up the ashes, grey and fine, and crumbled them under my nose. I couldn’t smell any trace of what I’d smelled before, that scent of decomposing forest.

So I had to do it without the incense. Emory had done it.

He’d also said it had taken him his whole life, plus years of intense meditation, to figure out how.

But I’d been to the astral dimension before. I already knew what it felt to separate your spirit from your body. That had to count for something.

So I lay back in bed and tried to remember how to do the astral projection thing. Celestia Moonglow had said something about deep breaths and imagining a point of light.

I breathed deeply, in and out. I tried to imagine the stress blowing from my body.

There isn’t time for this,
I thought.
Gilbert is in danger!

My head hurt.

I tried again. I imagined the point of light resting on my throbbing forehead. I imagined it rising up above my head. I imagined my spirit floating free, joining that point.

But it
was
all in my imagination. I was still pinned to the bed. It wasn’t working.

And it wasn’t
going
to work. There was no way I was going to be able to
relax
knowing that Gilbert could be dead at any second.

I couldn’t let that happen.

This time, I let myself get angry, let the fury rise like bile in my throat. I focused on the throbbing pain behind my eyes, let it swell to consume my whole head. I would tear my spirit from my body if I had to!

I strained. I writhed inside myself. I tried to
rip
my spirit right out of my physical body.

And then suddenly my spirit sat upright in bed.

———

How long had it taken me to talk to my grandmother, then force myself back into the astral dimension? Two minutes? Three? I didn’t know, and I also didn’t know how long it would take me to get back to Gilbert.

I listened for my brother.

I immediately heard him breathing—I could hear him loud and clear. He was still alive. I didn’t know for how much longer, but at least it wasn’t too late yet.

I didn’t have time to fly all the way back to the graveyard, even in the soaring, friction-less way I’d managed before. No, I needed to be there ten minutes ago. How did I get back when it was so far away?

Except the astral realm wasn’t a physical dimension—even
Voyage Beyond the Rainbow
had said that. And if it wasn’t a physical dimension, he wasn’t really far away. I’d been able to hear things even across a great distance, so maybe it was possible to somehow travel those distances in an instant, too.

I closed my eyes and focused on the sound of my brother’s breathing.

I concentrated on that breathing, let it grow in my mind. It was there, and I was here, but all that stood between us was distance, a mere gap in space—a space that supposedly didn’t even exist in the astral dimension. At the same time, I fanned the flicking flames of the anger that had let me reenter the astral dimension in the first place.

Then I let that anger explode again. I let myself go. Suddenly I was a gunshot and Gilbert’s breathing was the bull’s-eye.

When I opened my eyes again, I found myself wavering unsteadily at the edge of the gravel parking lot at Durston Memorial Park.

I’d done it.

But the fog was not yet gone from my mind. It took me a moment to make sense of my darkened surroundings.

To one side, over in the graveyard, the rotating vortexes twisted around like so many otherworldly windmills. On the other side of me, a faceless ghost in a frayed pinafore danced a lazy two-step.

Conrad and Evelyn’s SUV was long gone. The only car left was Simon’s. Directly in front of me he and Gilbert were walking hand in hand into the graveyard. Simon had removed the bounds around my little brother’s feet and hands.

“Where are we going?” Gilbert asked Simon.

“Just for a little walk,” the man said. “Then I’ll take you right home to your parents. You’ve been away a long time, haven’t you?”

I remembered the gun in Simon’s belt.

I’d been so eager to get back here, but I was in the astral dimension with no way to contact the real world.

Simon was taking Gilbert into the graveyard to shoot him, and there still wasn’t anything I could do about it.

I flew to my little brother’s side.

“Gilbert!” I said into his ear. “Listen to me—it’s your brother, Zach. You’ve got to run from Mr. Scanlon. He’s trying to hurt you. Run!” I’d been able to force my spirit into the astral dimension and across a great distance through sheer willpower, so it made sense to me that I could make myself heard in the real world though willpower too.

But Gilbert didn’t react.

“I don’t wanna go for a walk,” Gilbert said to Simon. “I wanna go home.”

“Soon,” Simon said. “Very soon.”

“Gilbert!” I shouted. “Please! I’m right next to you. Run! I’m telling you to run—run as fast as you can!”

Fifteen feet or so into the graveyard, Simon released Gilbert’s hand. “Here we go,” he said.

“What?” Gilbert said.

“Look over there,” Simon said, pointing off into the darkness.

“It’s too dark,” Gilbert said. “I don’t see anything.”

As my brother squinted into the night, Simon took a step backward, behind him. As he did, he slipped the gun from his belt and unlatched the safety. He was going to shoot Gilbert in the back of his head. Nearby, a vortex groaned.

“Run, Gilbert!
Please
run!” I was still shouting at my little brother, but it wasn’t making any difference.

Suddenly a set of headlights winked into view on the horizon. It had to be the police.

Simon jerked toward the lights, stiffening.

But as quickly as the headlights had appeared, they began to glide away. It hadn’t been the police, or even a car on its way to the graveyard—just some lonely vehicle on its way down some forgotten country road. Still, Simon had to know he couldn’t shoot Gilbert just yet. Someone in that car might hear.

So with Simon momentarily distracted, I fell down right in front of Gilbert. “Now’s your chance!” I said. “Run! Run away!”

This time, Gilbert tilted his head in my direction, as if he actually heard some vague whisper.

I kept at it. “Run, Gilbert, please, run! Run and hide! This is your brother talking! Do it now!”

Gilbert looked back toward the parking lot, and the road beyond.

“Go!” I went on. “Don’t think, just do it! Go!
Now
, you little Nabothian cyst!”

At this, at the sound of my calling him my special nickname for him, something changed on Gilbert’s face. Even in the darkened moonlight, I saw a flicker of recognition that quickly melted into something like a decision.

He broke for the parking lot.

“That’s it!” I called after him. “Go! Run for your life!”

Simon immediately sensed the boy’s flight. He turned after him. “Gilbert? Where are you going?”

I stepped in front of him. “Leave him alone, you bastard! He’s just a little boy!”

Simon walked right through me, the same way Evelyn had in the cabin at Silver Lake. But what I felt was different than when she’d done it, that little spiderweb-like brush. Now it was like swimming in a warm ocean, and you suddenly pass through a pocket of icy water. It wasn’t as cold as the chill of the shadow creature, but it was still unnerving.

“Gilbert?” he called. “Don’t run away. Don’t you want me to take you home?”

In my astral form, I zoomed after Gilbert.

“Don’t listen to him!” I shouted. “Keep running!”

I beat Simon to the parking lot. There I saw that Gilbert had ducked down behind the old weather-beaten sign, the one Emory had found that had the name of the cemetery. Gilbert had run, yes, but only as far as the parking lot. And he’d hidden, but in the most obvious hiding place of all. What did I expect? He was only seven years old. Nearby an old ghost in a hospital gown stared past me, her face as vacant as an empty grave.

Simon would find him hiding there for sure. Gilbert had to keep running. But to where? There were no houses in sight, but the main road wasn’t too far off. There weren’t very many cars this late at night, but it was still his best chance for help.

“Run for the road!” I said to Gilbert. “Do it now, you little Nabothian cyst!”

Simon stepped around the sign. “Gilbert?” he said gently. “What are you doing? Don’t you want me to take you home?”

It was too late. Simon had found him again. Staring up at him with eyes as large as two moons, Gilbert whimpered softly.

I stared at Gilbert, feeling completely powerless to help.

And that’s when the shadow creature attacked me again.