Shadow Animals Read online

  “Yes.”

  “They...oh my god...my god…”

  “What’s after you, Saul?”

  “I—don’t know.”

  “Why is it chasing you?”

  Saul shook his head.

  “You have to go home. It’s too dangerous.”

  Saul choked back a sob. “I can’t…”

  Galen sighed. “I know. I’ll help you—in what ways I can. Just be quiet for now.”

  Saul cried, unable to restrain his worries and his tensions any longer, but quietly into his hands, watching Galen fit his cigarette holder with a fresh cigarette and light it, the tiny flaring ember, the pale light, the scars on Galen’s face, eyes glimmering in darkness.

  It was when I first began going on camping trips upriver with my son—just like my father did with me, because he would want me to do the same with my son—that I started to wonder about the Copperton Forest. As a kid, I’d never thought to question the great furry rodents the size of sheep that sometimes grazed in the shade beneath the trees, or the flightless three-foot-tall auks waddling along the water’s edge, or the tangle vines that I saw, on more than one occasion, snatch birds right out of the air as they flew by; and as an adult, dull and dismissive to wonder, I’d forgotten and never travelled far. But my inquiries were met with shrugs and shaking heads. When I eventually went in search of answers—the voice of my father in my head again—the only book I was able to find, the only written information of any real value, was Gately’s brief entry in Unusual Landscapes.

  Even so, my son and I never, on those initial trips, made it as far as the village of Sage, and it is never mentioned in the Gately text. I wonder if things would have been different if we had. Could my son have made friends there? Would they have known him and protected him? Or was the darkness, as alluring as a sweet yet poisonous cloud, already too great?

  Perhaps I should have known then, that when the floods came that year, as the rains came every year, they would be the great ones. A “One-hundred-year Flood,” they called it. I should have known that year, that when the waters came, when they were particularly violent, when they filled the arroyo by my house, crept up the bank and over the flood walls as I’d only seen happen once before when I was very young, they came with purpose.

  “Alright, let’s go,” Galen said.

  “Where?”

  Galen stood in the dark corridor, turned his head up slowly so that the glow from his cigarette illuminated his face, and smiled crazily. “Follow me.”

  Saul stepped after his new guide.

  They moved quickly through a cramped hallway of dirt-caked tile, turned a corner and were in a vast area, in darkness that echoed. The sound from the padding of their shoes through the grit came back to them, as if they were being followed. Then, abruptly, they were in another corridor and there was the softness of daylight ahead. Galen was pushing on something and a door opened and they were outside and it was too bright to see. Saul squinted and held his hands over his eyes.

  “They won’t bother you in this part of the city,” Galen was saying. “At least, not as long as you’re with me.”

  Slowly, Saul’s eyes adjusted to the daylight. Galen was watching him somberly, his smile completely wiped away, so that it seemed as if it’d never been, and perhaps it hadn’t.

  “They won’t find us in broad daylight?” Saul asked.

  “Well, since the lift I wanted to use seems to be out of commission, this is the best possible way to get around.” A hint of a smile twitched Galen’s lips for a moment, then was gone. “Come on.”

  Saul followed Galen around some piled up sacks of trash and down the alleyway. They were swept into the crowd moving slowly through the busy street and Saul’s senses were instantly overwhelmed. Everywhere there were people in funny hats and clothing and they all seemed to be talking at once. A woman in a grand flowing dress approached, the bodice of her gown opening outward, forming a frilly cage through which her bare breasts could be seen, tiny green birds flitting about within. A man thrust sticks of meat into their faces, screaming, “Curried meats! Curried meats!” A tiny boy winked at him from between the legs of a woman of almost paper-white skin, her hair styled to appear as if it were whipped cream. A gruff looking man smoked a small pipe and made exaggerated expressions of surprise and awe with his face. From deep within the crowd, a hairless man of perhaps nine feet in height moved with the people, his skin tinged a faint purple color.

  Galen drew him into the current and they walked. “This,” Galen proclaimed, “is the aptly named Merchant Street.”

  Saul was stunned and didn’t know what to say.

  “We don’t have far to go, but, as you can see, it’s rather slow moving. You can be sure, however, we’ll be safe here. Just watch your pockets carefully.”

  Saul pulled his pack tight over his shoulders, suddenly self-conscious. As long as they moved with the people, they didn’t seem to have any trouble getting around.

  “I’m afraid,” Galen said, “my conversational skills are somewhat lacking. I’ve spent too much time alone in recent years. Perhaps I could tell you a story? Or catch you up on the latest city rumors?”

  Saul stared at a cart piled high with bodies, flies buzzing about, sitting to the side, dripping blood in the street.

  “Did you know, just last week, there was supposed to be a sighting of Marrow’s Aerial?”

  Saul tore his eyes away from the cart of bodies. “What?”

  “It’s just a rumor, of course, and you’ve probably never heard of it, but Marrow’s Aerial is said to be a great flying ship, sometimes glimpsed amongst the clouds. Upon its prow sits a giant stone totem, an elongated head with cavernous eyes and an open mouth with a great fire forever burning within; and it is this totem which propels the ship, fed on the burning of books. And so, because of this, Marrow’s Aerial is also a great library, with shelves upon shelves of tomes old and new, most mundane, but some of exquisite rarity, from worlds beyond reckoning and antiquity, and from civilizations ancient and forgotten.”

  Ahead of them, the crowd parted and there was a cluster of kids circling a man’s cart piled high with animal cages. It was impossible to see the exact nature of the animals through the tightly-spaced bars, but, as Saul watched, a tiny pink hand reached out and, with a quick swipe, scratched a little boy on the nose. The boy jerked back with a hiss and the man whose cart it was screamed at the kids, “Get away! Get away!”

  Unable to remove his eyes from the spectacle around him, Saul heard himself ask Galen, “Who are you?”

  “I’m Galen! Haven’t you heard of me? Although I’ve gone by other names. I’m the prophet, but I forget you’re not from around here.”

  Further ahead, people brandished wooden poles with dark leathery things stretched into crosses at their tips. “The prophet?” Saul asked.

  “Yes. I’m the model for the prophet Galen. At least I was originally, before my disfigurement. My original name was Randolph—my friends called me Randy. When I still had friends, that is.” They walked by a troupe of dancers spinning shawls about their bodies like mist. “When I was young, with no idea what to do with my life, I fell asleep drunk one day in the streets after a night of whoring, and when I awoke, found myself in a factory of sorts, surrounded by plastic molded copies of myself. I fled. Soon, my likeness began to spring up all over the city, my own eyes staring back at me from the spires of buildings and the tops of towers. Tiny versions of me were being sold in the streets. They still are!” Galen laughed. “I was rather good looking back in those days, don’t you think?” He pointed to a building not far from them that looked like a church. At the top of the stairs that led up to it, there stood a life-size figure of a young man with dark hair and a discerning look, his arms crossed, dressed in rags.

  “Doesn’t look anything like you,” Saul said.

  Galen sighed. “Not now, no. A prophet for the common people they called me, still call their memory of me. Now I’m old, and they prefer to remember me as I was. Even my dreams, that once so accurately foretold the future, betray me now.”

  Saul didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your concern. See there?” Galen pointed down the street directly ahead of them, which was now thinning of people, the merchants less densely packed. “See that tower, the tallest one?”

  Saul looked. A narrow column shot up from what appeared to be a small city park. Higher than all the other buildings around it, it might have been made from stone, dusted with green moss in places, sanded smooth.

  “Your son’s in there,” Galen said. “The Theatre Verrata. At the very top. Yet there’s no direct entrance.”

  Saul swallowed, felt for his rifle strapped to his pack. “How do I get inside?”

  “Some say there are great riches at the top of the Theatre Verrata, or great truths. Some try to scale its height, but none have made it, I don’t believe. They either fall or are shot down by snipers from one of the adjacent buildings.”

  “Then what do you suggest I do?”

  Galen looked at Saul gravely, appraising. “I like you,” he said. “You remind me of myself a little, in a way. I’ll continue to help you. We go under.”

  “Under?”

  “Of course. I’ve spent most of my adult life living in the labyrinth beneath the City. I know a way that has long been forgotten.” Catching him off guard, Galen leaned in close and smiled like Saul had seen him smile only once before in the shadows. “But I found it,” he said, then the smile was gone. “I’ll take you there.”

  Galen turned down one of many narrow alleys. Saul followed him until he stopped. “Alright,” he said. “We’ll start here.” He pointed to a circular manhole cover set in the pavement. “Into the sewers we go.”


  I killed her. I should have done something. I should have stopped her.

  Somehow, going into the darkness and the dampness beneath the city brought a bitter ache to my heart. I could see her in front of me, before my eyes adjusted to the lack of light, dangling, her face shocked, accusing, even as her internal parts dribbled and flopped to the concrete. I’d known her only a very short time, but she felt, at that moment, like a daughter to me. She could have been my daughter. I could have taken care of her, would have been glad for the responsibility, would have worked twice as hard to feed an extra mouth at home. I could see her sitting across the kitchen table, Ezzy slurping spaghetti next to her, my wife smiling at them both.

  We crept in silence along the dank walkway, the water in the canal sliding by next to us, things scurrying and making rustling sounds all around.

  We walked for a long time. I don’t know how long. Until, eventually, we came to a place where light spilled down upon us through lazily spinning fans from grates far above. We sat in one of the small alcoves, an unremarkable wall of brick on one side. Galen said we had to wait. For what, he wouldn’t say.

  Despite the light far above, it was very dark. I couldn’t make out Galen’s face as he spoke now for the first time since we’d left the surface. He told me a story while we waited. A creation story.

  “Do you know of Awa?” Galen asked me, seemingly from nowhere.

  I shook my head—I’d never heard the term.

  “Before the material world existed, and everything that we know to be the earth and sky, there was only the Void.” Galen’s voice was quiet, nearly a whisper. “Awa, a presence passing by the Void, became distracted by a sound. It was faint, this sound, but, having never experienced the sensation of hearing, Awa stopped to investigate. Fascinated by the sound, Awa discovered It could make sound as well and began to compose music. Awa composed the first harmonies, the first lilting waves that began to reveal hints of a greater reality beneath. Awa then created a huge mountain, so that It would have a place to play Its music. Awa then began to create things around this mountain, to give the mountain an orientation of importance in relation to the earth below. Awa created the physical lands, the trees, the ground, and then the animals and the birds. Atop the mountain, It created all manner of apparatuses for the production of sound.

  “Then, in order to fully experience that which It had created, to satisfy Its curiosity, Awa created a physical form for Itself. Awa discovered life was wonderful, filled with pleasures, bodily and spiritual—from the warmth of the Comet It had created, to the flavor of food and drink, to the sheer joy of the imagination and creation. But life, Awa also discovered, was filled with much pain. Awa became aware of the burden of time, that nothing It created seemed to last, that no form of life seemed capable of living forever. Awa created companions for Itself, in Its own image, in order to allay the agony of loneliness, and created the pleasure of sex as a way to know his new companions intimately, then later as a means of self-perpetuating creation, so that degenerating life might live on and on. Awa began to age and experience Its own degeneration.

  “Awa created all manner of things to ease Its aching body. It created vast comforts to balance the displeasures It had somehow created as well. And when It was too old to lift Its feebly failing body, Awa lay down at the top of Its mountain and looked out into the Void and wondered if their were others like It, somewhere out there. Then Awa remembered the sound It had first heard, that faint voice, and finally understood what it had said, a single word, The Word: ‘Death.’”

  Galen fell silent for a time, and we sat in the dark without speaking, while I pondered his story.

  That’s how he told it, the best I can remember.

  Yet, still, even after that, I couldn’t get Koryn’s death—she never even had a chance to scream—out of my head.

  After what could have been hours or days, Galen lifted his head. “It’s nearly dark now,” he said.

  Saul cleared his throat. “Is that what we’re waiting for?”

  “Yes. And the beam.”

  “The beam?”

  “Just watch,” Galen said, staring intently at the brick wall beneath which they huddled.

  Saul watched, the light from above fading, the alcove darkening even more. “What are—?”

  Galen hushed him with a raised hand.

  Saul sighed and fixed his eyes on the wall, trying to locate the spot in which Galen seemed to be so interested. After a couple of minutes, a faint mark of light began to crawl up the wall, brightening as it travelled. Galen was crouched now; Saul could sense his tense muscles, ready for something.

  When the light was nearly halfway up the wall, it suddenly flared, and Galen leapt into action, thrusting something he held in his fist, that Saul hadn’t noticed him take from his coat, into the light.

  Instantly, the wall shifted, and another black passage opened before them.

  “A duskdoor,” Galen said. “But you still have to have the key.”

  Galen shifted his cigarette holder, which he’d held tightly in the corner of his mouth the entire time they’d been walking, from one side of his mouth to the other. He flicked a match to life and held it out so Saul could see the opening was only a small and featureless room. When the flame on his match had nearly reached his finger, he used it to light his cigarette, and dropped the match into the dark. He reached out and put the small box of matches in Saul’s hand. Saul could still see the spot of flame pulsing before his eyes.

  “Inside,” Galen said, “there should be climbing rungs going up the wall. Be careful. They are very old.”

  Saul looked carefully at Galen. “You’re not coming with me?”

  “I can’t help you any further, I’m afraid. At the top, you’ll find your son, inside the Theatre Verrata.”

  Saul tucked the matches into his pocket. He shrugged. “You’ve gotten me this far.” He stepped into the small room, began feeling the cold and crumbling walls for the rungs Galen was talking about.

  “You’re fortunate to have found me,” Galen said. “You might even make it out of this alive. Not every meeting is a coincidence.”

  Saul found the rungs and began to climb. He looked down, and saw Galen’s face poked into the room looking up at him, his cigarette appearing in the dark to float before his face. “How is all of this here?” Saul asked, his mind reeling suddenly through the things he’d seen.

  Galen smiled, for the third time that day, and then, without an answer, pulled his head out of sight, and Saul’s life forever.

  * * *

  Saul was alone again. It was very quiet. He moved carefully, lifting each hand in turn, feeling for the next rung, making sure it wasn’t loose or so rusted it might cut his skin, then pulling himself up and on to the next one. He could see nothing, although he could sense a light source above him. He could hear himself panting as he strained; he wasn’t as young as he used to be. If he slipped, he was done, and he still had a very long way to go.

  After a while, he began to wonder at the height of the tower. It seemed as if he’d been climbing for a very long time. He tried to bring to mind how the tower had looked when he’d seen it from the outside. Approximately how many stories would he say it was? Ten? Twenty? Below him, there seemed to be a vast emptiness; above, a thickening darkness that pushed on his shoulders and the top of his head. His backpack was very heavy. He should have left some of his belongings at the bottom, only taken his rifle.

  Something scuttled below him.

  Saul froze, his heart suddenly beating with fear, suddenly aware of the sweat running down the side of his face, tickling his lower back, slicking the space between the palms of his hands and the corroded metal rungs he gripped for dear life. He tried to hold his breath and listen, but doing so only made his breathing harder, more ragged. Something moved in the shadows below him and he thought of Ja and Ji, that huge gibbering mouth and those maliciously intelligent eyes shining out at him, that ridiculous bowler hat. He realized, only too late, that he’d been so stunned by the sights around him he’d forgotten the danger he was in, the relentless agents of what pursued him. He’d allowed himself to be mystified by Galen’s stories, to forget for a moment why he was here, what he was doing. He’d forgotten about the presence that wanted him, that wanted his son.