Excerpt: One

One – Jason

The light that filtered through the curtains seemed dirty, almost dead as it broke its way into the room through the cracks in the shutters.
I stared at the ceiling from my perch on a pile of oily blankets, only half conscious. It had been a long night. My head called it a lucky one, but I was almost sorry that it had passed without incident. I was tired of being scared, tired of running. It wasn’t like I had a choice... I knew that I wasn’t a fighter and I had no idea how to defend myself. Not from them anyways.
The shapes and shades that writhed and toiled in the dark or in the light. They could be anywhere at any time and I didn’t know when I would be able to sleep again.
So I took a chance and laid my head down on the crook of my arm and allowed my eyes to close. Just for a few minutes. All I needed was a little while to rest. Just...

I woke up sometime during the night. I couldn’t be sure when. I’d gotten rid of my watch a long time before that... I found that the ticking attracted nightmares. So I looked out the window, cautiously testing the rusty hinges to see how much noise they would make when I eased open the shutters.
The sound that they did produce wasn’t loud, but it was enough to make me pause and listen for an echo in their wake. Echoes were dangerous, deadly things...
There was no approaching sound, no repeating screech so I resumed what I was doing and looked at the position of the moon in the sky.
“Damn.” I whispered. It was overcast and I couldn’t see a thing. The streetlamps cast darkness on the street and I watched the shadows wearily. I couldn’t have one waking up any time soon. That would end very badly for me.
There’s no Bee to save you this time...
The realization that my sister was actually gone hit me hard. It had happened three days before, but it was so hard to imagine life without her though I suppose that I’d already begun to manage alone by that time.
Okay yeah I was actually on the streets, but that was by choice. I had a house that I could go back to any time that I wanted. I wouldn’t though because Bee wasn’t there to chase the starlight out of the bedroom and hang tarps over the windows.
The only way to escape the harsh silver light entirely was to stay in total darkness. It also helped with shadows. They couldn’t exist without light, though usually they hated the stars as much as we did. That brightness was so sharp that it cut me when I stood in it for too long.
“Remember to keep your hat on at all times.” I murmured to emptiness. It didn’t answer back which I was thankful for. Sometimes it could have a bladed tongue and it especially liked to lash out when it caught you talking to yourself. Then sometimes the silence would scream at me to be quiet. That hurt too. It seemed to me that almost everything hurt. Pain was my philosophy of life.
I slipped on my ball cap and paced the room for a few minutes. I couldn’t stay inside that shed forever. I would be discovered soon and I was already running out of food.
I glanced at the open window again. The night seemed calm and still. A shiver crept up my spine. Quiet times were the most dangerous. They lured you into believing that you were safe and then you found yourself surrounded. I’d been in the situation myself many times, but not since Bee had given up on me.
I tried to see her wherever she was. I hoped that she was happy. It wasn’t her fault that she’d grown tired of our lifestyle. I’d known that it would happen eventually because she wasn’t the one who needed to keep running. I was the one with second sight and she just knew a lot about the creatures.
That in itself had almost been enough to get her killed a number of times. I think that she’d been thinking about leaving for a while, but then she met Kevin and that sealed the deal. He never liked me. Who would? I was sort of shady looking, almost like one of the things that I was so scared of. Dark clothes, dark hair, black eyes and a constant habit of keeping one hand on my knife.
Not the most effective weapon against unmentionables, but it was better than a gun. They hated clean steel... So as long as I wiped my blade after each use, it served me well.

I did manage to force myself outside. I wouldn’t have been scared at all if Bee had been with me, but she was living in Toronto somewhere. She’d left me.
I slung my backpack over my shoulder and walked down the sidewalk. There was nothing to see except for the normal things. Bums huddled around lit dumpsters in their shabby coats on nearly every street corner. It comforted me a great deal.
There was something about people of the world. They could feel more than the ones who had a bed to sleep in at night. They couldn’t see of course, no one can unless they have second sight, but they can almost sense the presence of a creature better than I can. That doesn’t take much though... I’m pretty hopeless when it comes to locating the nightmares on my own.
Maybe not quite hopeless...
My spider-sense was tingling. I didn’t feel like much of a super hero though. The hairs on the back of my arms and neck were standing on end and the street folk looked skittish.
I walked quickly over to one of the burning garbage bins and joined the people of the world huddled around it. Sometimes I could blend in if I was around enough others with reasonable sense. Creatures can almost smell out a person with second sight. Not a good thing for me.
I warmed my hands on the flames and glanced nervously about at the faces around me. The hobos just kept their eyes down and their hands over the fire.
I felt a shadow pass over my back and slither on. It hadn’t seen me, but I waited a few more minutes before I took my leave of the warm circle of light. Just in case it decided to come back around.
“Excuse me sir.” Said one of my former companions. “Might you be one of those folks who can see things?”
“Yeah.” I answered and then left.
“Yeah.” Came a voice from somewhere up ahead. “Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.”
I froze, ready to run back to the people I had just left, but there was no time. The echo was already fixed upon me and there was no longer any time to run.
It was my fault I suppose for not waiting longer before setting out on my own. The echo had probably been following the shadow. They tend to keep in close company.
I kept walking slowly forward towards the thing. I flicked open my blade and waited for the moment of impact... But it never came. There was no confrontation because someone else got in the way first.
It was a girl... She was small. Maybe ten years old, so pale that she was almost translucent and wearing clothes white to match... She looked like a ghost. Before I really got a good look at her, she stepped out in front of me and held her arms out to the echo.
“What the hell are you doing?” I yelled and the echo was so intent on the new target that it didn’t even repeat my words back to me.
The girl turned her head around to look briefly in my direction and when she spoke, she sounded like a ghost too, words almost too quiet for me to hear, but loud enough to cut a gash on my cheek.
“Mine.” She said. “You belong to me.”
Then the thing charged at her and she threw her arms around it and brought it to herself, holding it there until her blood splattered the sidewalk.
She fell, her garments fluttering out around her and just as she was midway through her decent, the starlight slashed its way through the clouds and illuminated her briefly in its harsh white light and in that moment, she truly seemed to disappear.
When the glow faded, she was still there, lying on the pavement on her back with her arms tucked neatly over her chest like she had already been arranged for her funeral.
The clouds parted then to reveal the moon. It was full and it washed everything white, but not so bright as to have the girl fade away this time. Her blood made an even brighter impression though against the lightness of its surroundings. It was harsher, crueller because a child had died... died to save me.

The echo was gone. I could see its wispy form gliding down the street, contented because it had found blood that night. It made me sick. I wish that I could have killed it, but it seemed like as soon as the ordeal was actually over, my strength ran out. I was scared out of my mind and all I could do was stumble back to my shed and hope that if I slept, I wouldn’t dream.
But even in the wakefulness that plagued me in the hours to come, the girl’s words seemed to repeat over and over inside my head. It was almost like the echo had found a way in too because each round of the constant statement made my head pound harder and harder.
Mine. You belong to me.
I couldn’t think of anything else besides that little person that had been killed because I was a coward. She was dead, but I made a promise to her.
I swear I’ll be better... because from now on... I belong to you.