Chapter Two
Things weren’t looking too good for the home team. We’d been caught in the middle of our prank by some shadow guy that might or might not rat us out to Jerry. I was leaning towards might. And now more shadow guys were joining the party. I had a feeling it wasn’t to congratulate us or laugh at the toilet paper still billowing around the Kool Spot.
I couldn’t move. I could only gape at the approaching shadow people like an idiot. The three of them came side by side in tight formation, jackboots hitting the concrete at the same time. A loud click click click met my ears. They had no capes or hats, but had sharp edges on their shoulders made me think of armor. I half-expected these guys to chant “left, right, left” like the Marines. But they said nothing, which made it scarier.
“What?” Ryan muttered. His goggles slid down his face again as he whirled around. “We’ve gotta get out of here.”
Wait. The bikes. How could I have forgotten about the bikes? I glanced at Ryan, Dan, and Sean and yelled what I should’ve yelled a minute ago. “Scatter!”
I ran for mine, which I’d left leaning against the florist shop. Luckily, that meant it was far from the first shadow guy. The thudding of the jackboots got louder. And louder. They’d catch us in seconds.
I yanked my bike up off the pavement and swung my legs over the seat. The others scrambled for theirs, cussing. I knew a hand would land on my shoulder any second. I had to move. Pedals…where were the pedals? Finally my feet hit them and my bike clunked as it lurched forward.
Wind blew against my face as the gears clinked below me. Ryan sped in front of me with Dan and Sean, headed for the corner. We were free. No way those shadow guys could catch up to us.
“Split up!” Dan yelled.
Good idea.
Ryan cut in front of me and made for the corner. Sean and Dan sped across the street and down towards the old muffler shop. Their tires whizzed away into the night.
But the footfalls didn’t stop. I stole a glance back. The three shadow people ran past their leader and towards us. The guy with the hat and cape stood right on top of the unused toilet paper rolls, crushing them under his boots. Crushing my revenge. He put his hands on his thighs like a ticked off kindergarten teacher.
And then he yelled. No, he screeched.
“Never again!”
My back prickled and the hairs stood up on my neck. I pumped my legs faster and whipped around the corner. Ryan rode so fast, his hair blew down flat. I caught up with him, catching my breath. Footfalls still met my ears. The shadow soldiers were still behind us.
A wall of bushes flew past on the side. I stared at the gap between a couple of them that led to the school.
“The trail,” I breathed. “Let’s take that.”
“No. Too bumpy,” Ryan said between gasps.
He was right. That would slow us down. Which we didn’t need.
Another corner drew closer. The one that led down to the library. I followed Ryan around it, struggling for air. The footsteps started to fade behind us. We were losing those shadow people, whatever they were. And the streetlights were on down here. At least one thing was going right.
And then they clicked off like someone had hit a switch.
Darkness again. I glanced over my shoulder. No, it couldn’t be. The shadow with the cape and hat stood at the corner we’d turned like, two seconds ago. He couldn’t have moved that fast.
“Uh…Ryan? It’s right behind us!”
He looked back too, mouth dropping open. “Oh, crap. Head for the park.”
The park. It would have to work. It was so dark at night an elephant could hide in there. I pumped my legs faster, if that was even possible. They burned, begging me to stop. My lungs felt ready to explode. But that was better than whatever the shadow guy had planned for us.
I led the way next, cutting across the library lawn and narrowly missing a head-on collision with the return box. My bike bounced across the ground and over an expanse of little pink rocks, which about threw me off. Ryan cussed next to me as his bike made a squealing sound. Note to self: never cut through here on a bike again.
The light on the side of the building blinked off. That meant one thing. The shadow guy was still close.
My bike lurched over the curb and back onto the pavement. The dirt driveway of the park waited for us down the street. Almost there. Two more streetlights shined as we passed—and they stayed on.
Without a word, we swung our bikes into the park lawn. Mine started bouncing everywhere again like I was on the worst amusement park ride ever. I dodged a swing set and barely missed a sandbox. In front of me, Ryan made for the woods.
I leapt off my bike and rolled it over there as fast as I could. We could duck down and wait for those freaks to pass by. Then we’d ride back to our houses and lock all the doors. And board up the windows while we were at it.
Pine needles stabbed me in the face as I wheeled the bike past them and dropped it on a mat of them. It made a soft thump at it landed. Ryan set his bike down next to it and wiped the sweat off his forehead. “Let’s just hang in here for a while, okay?”
I nodded, picking some sap out of my hair. The tree in front of us blocked out everything except for a little square of moonlight on the street and the swing set right in front of us. Unless those shadow people had night vision, they wouldn’t find us.
I shook my head. What were those shadow people, anyway? And what the heck did they have to do with the Kool Spot…or my cousin? One part of me wanted to believe it was all a joke Jerry rigged up. That would mean those things weren’t real. But another part of me didn’t. If this was a joke, it meant Jerry, the cousin who’d helped me catch frogs when I was little and got me out of my parents’ stifling house all the time, had practically told me to get lost. What was worse, I didn’t even know why.
I wanted to chuck a pinecone across the park, but let out a slow breath instead. Something might notice if I did that.
A mosquito buzzed at my ear. I slapped it away and faced Ryan. “You see anything?”
“No,” Ryan said, hugging himself. His skin looked green in the moonlight. “B…but I’m not moving. Unless we can somehow teleport to my house.”
“Maybe Jerry plotted this,” I said, trying not to think about what that meant. “Those could’ve been people in costumes, you know.” Yeah right, a dumb little voice in my mind said. If those were costumes those shadow people had on, they were really good ones. And the leader shadow’s grip on my wrist felt like bare skin. Not a glove. But what was I supposed to say? That we were doomed and about to be eaten by weird shadow people? The “never again” sounded pretty ominous.
Minutes went by as I crouched on the pine needles, praying that Dan and Sean had gotten home okay. I might not care for Dan’s attitude too much, but I’d never wish anything awful on him. He’d probably made it, though. The shadow people seemed to be after me more than anything.
Bugs buzzed around my face. And it was getting closer to midnight. After that, my parents were going to murder me for being late and daring to stand up for myself again. Ryan wouldn’t have a problem, though—his mom didn’t care about much anymore. Still, we couldn’t stay here long. But what if those things planned to ambush us as soon as we left the park? We were screwed. I really, really wished I’d thought out the toilet paper prank a lot longer than five minutes this afternoon.
All that happened in the fifteen minutes that we sat there was a cat running across the road. “It doesn’t look like they’re coming,” I said. “We should get going.” I hoped Ryan didn’t hear how my voice was shaking.
If he did, he didn’t care. He kept sucking in breaths next to me so fast he sounded like a train. “Maybe they went after Dan and Sean instead.”
My stomach lurched. “But they had bikes,” I said. “And those shadow things chased us first. So that gave them lots of time to
get home.” I somehow felt worse listening to my own words. It was me the shadow leader guy had been after. Me. Not Ryan. Not Dan or Sean. You look familiar. I shuddered again as I imagined the million things that could’ve happened if I hadn’t had my bike right there at the Kool Spot. “Let’s go.”
I pushed my bike towards the edge of the woods. Ryan followed suit, almost tripping over a branch. As soon as I hit that pavement, I’d burst my sides open riding home.
I froze. Footsteps were coming down the street. Heavy footsteps.
My heart leapt into my throat. “Uh…Ryan?”
He stared at me, eyes huge. I knew what that meant. Back to the woods.
We sounded like rhinos rolling our bikes back in. But I didn’t care. I wasn’t willing to bet that whoever was coming was friendly.
I dropped my bike for the second time and crouched back down on the pine needles. The footsteps got closer. I could only hope that it was some kids out walking. Or the cops. Anything but—
The shadow guy with the hat and cape appeared on the street. Along with five other shadow people.
Crap. Now there were six of them?
A shudder raced up my spine and every muscle in my body tensed. I wanted to take off running through the woods. But I didn’t. I couldn’t move. My limbs had turned to stone. All I could do was crouch there, paralyzed, as the six of them turned and walked right into the park.
Ryan reached out and took my arm. That would have made me blush or something under normal circumstances, but these were not normal circumstances.
The shadow leader led his minions closer. I held my breath. Maybe they could smell us. Or hear our heartbeats. But they stopped on the other side of the swing set and formed a loose circle. A meeting.
I let out a breath. So they hadn’t spotted us. They’d just met back here because it was far back from the road. Who was going to notice shadow people meeting in a park that was almost pitch black?
Us, of course. I had to know what those shadow people were saying. Especially if it had to do with me.
I glanced at Ryan. His airplane goggles had fallen down to hang around his neck and he had a look on his face like he’d swallowed a lemon.
I nodded to him.
Ryan snapped out of it and shook his head at me. I knew what he wanted to say. Are you insane? You’re going to get yourself killed. As usual, though, it was my job to do the scary stuff. It was ever since I took the daddy-longlegs off Ryan’s lunch box in kindergarten and made friends with him.
I crawled closer to the edge of the woods.
The shadow people still stood around in a circle. I squinted to see if one of them might be Jerry in disguise. No. Unless he’d gone on one of those miracle diets where you lost fifty pounds in two days, he wasn’t with them. I didn’t know whether to feel relieved or scared. A little of both, I guess.
The leader shadow took off his brimmed hat and rubbed his hand over his hair. Messy strands of it fell back down to his head. Hair? Shadow people had hair?
He smashed the hat back down on his head. “Well, that ought to show them not to try that again. Kids. They irritate me. That’s why we need to step up our campaign, people.”
My fists closed on air as Ryan shrank back a bit. I was liking this guy less and less every minute.
The leader still wouldn’t shut up. He slammed his fist down on the palm of his other hand and paced around his little troll circle. “Tight control. That’s our motto when it comes to dealing with teens. They’re a menace to society, as you just saw.” He stopped in front of a tall shadow guy and jabbed his finger at him. “And to think you were one a few months ago.”
Blood roared in my ears. Menace to society? What had they expected me to do after Jerry screwed me over? Smile?
That solved one mystery, at least. These weirdos definitely had to do with Jerry banning us from the Kool Spot. What if he was in league with them? I’d never let him live it down.
The other shadows muttered something. Probably how much they agreed that we were evil and needed to be locked up. The leader added something to that, but his voice was so low I couldn’t make it out. Then he spoke louder, enough so I could hear him if I strained my ears. “…could be a problem. We’ll have to do Procedure Number Twenty-Eight soon. Especially with that one. She’s too dangerous to our cause.” He paused. “It’s the nature of her kind to fight us. We need to nip that in the bud.”
My spine felt as if someone had dumped a bucket of ice down it. He was talking about me. I was a hundred percent sure, mostly because I was the only girl in the toilet papering expedition.
And then something really weird happened.
The leader shadow turned away from us. At least I think it was away. He snapped his fingers and muttered something else.
Okay, that’s not too weird. Here was the weird part.
A bright purple dot appeared on the other side of him and started to grow. At first I thought it was a laser pointer or something. That’s how bright it was. But no. The thing was swirling, like someone was twirling the laser in a circle really fast.
It got bigger by the second. Black mixed in and started to swirl with the purple. A hole. That’s what this thing was. It looked like the painting of a black hole I’d seen in my science book last year.
I grabbed onto a tree branch in case it started to suck everything in. But it didn’t. Once the hole was a little taller than the leader guy, it stopped growing and just floated there, waiting.
My hair stood on end. Ryan shifted next to me. The air felt electric, like the hole was about to start shooting sparks at us or something. Maybe it was time to go. I went to grab my bike for the fifteenth time, but stopped cold.
The leader shadow walked right at the swirling hole thing. And disappeared.
I had to hold in a gasp. What the heck was this? A gateway to another dimension or something?
The six other shadow people lined up in front of the thing. One by one, they walked right into it and vanished, like their leader. Once the last shadow had disappeared, the hole started to shrink back down to a purple dot. With one last flash of violet light and a pop, it was gone.
Chapter Three