On the other hand, maybe Darlene’s neediness wouldn’t be so bad if they were together more often throughout the week. Then again, maybe it would remain the same or perhaps even get worse. She realized then that she’d begun to think of Darlene as an emotional black hole, an endless void that could never be filled, no matter how much time and attention a lover gave her. The following day after having this realization, Sharilyn broke up with her.

Darlene, surprisingly, had seemed to take it well. She didn’t argue, cry, yell, promise that she’d change, or tell Sharilyn that she’d regret this decision for the rest of her life. She’d asked Sharilyn if she was sure this was what she wanted, and when Sharilyn said it was, she’d said okay. To say Darlene’s reaction was anticlimactic was an understatement, but Sharilyn had been so relieved that she hadn’t questioned it. But of course it wasn’t over between them – not by a long shot.

Darlene began sending texts, leaving voicemails, having presents delivered to her grandmother’s house – flowers, jewelry, cute stuffed animals, gourmet chocolates…. She’d park her Prius across the street at night and watch the house, hoping to catch a glimpse of Sharilyn, who’d peek through her bedroom curtains periodically throughout sleepless nights to see if she was still out there. Darlene began following her after that, driving two or three cars behind Sharilyn, trying not to look too obvious and failing. Darlene had never stalked her at work before, though, and she’d never tried to make actual contact – until today.

“You need to move on,” Sharilyn said. “For both our sakes.”

“I love you.”

Sharilyn said nothing. What was the point? Darlene refused to hear anything she didn’t want to hear. “I have to go.”

Sharilyn opened the driver’s-side door and stepped out into the rain. She planned to go inside, start working, and hope Darlene got the message and left. She didn’t know what else to do.

She ran around the side of the building – as much to get away from Darlene as to get inside where it was dry – but when she was only a few feet from the entrance, she stopped. There were people running across the parking lot toward the building. No, not people. Shadows shaped like people. Their movements were too fluid to be human, and their arms and legs seemed to stretch and contract as they moved, as if they were made of rubber. The sight of them sent a wave of revulsion through her. These things were a violation of everything she believed to be real. They should not, could not exist. In short, they were wrong.

It was hard to gauge their exact number. They moved fast and they didn’t run in straight lines, crisscrossed in front of one another as they came, making it difficult to count them. There were perhaps a dozen of them, maybe more. A man – ball-capped, bearded, and beer-bellied – had parked his pickup in front of one of the pumps and was busy fueling his vehicle when the shadow things reached him. He hadn’t seen their approach, but some instinct warned him at the last instant, and he turned just as the first raised a clawed hand to strike.

He didn’t have time to scream.

Sharilyn thought the creature would slash the man with its claws, but instead its substance stretched, lost definition, become amorphous, and flowed over him like a wave of darkness. And when it rolled past, the man was gone. Destroyed or absorbed, Sharilyn didn’t know, and really, what did the particulars matter? Gone was gone.

With each death they caused, each bit of destruction they wreaked, the creatures grew stronger, as did their ability to interact with and affect reality. The others also lost their forms, and they all flowed together, merging into a single large mass of black. They washed over the gone-man’s pickup, and it too disappeared. The edge of the dark wave caught part of the gas pump, and half of it vanished. The residue of gas in the partially disintegrated hose splashed onto the ground as the black wave rolled on toward the building.

“What the fuck is that?”

Darlene was standing at Sharilyn’s side. Her attention had been so focused on the shadow things that she’d been unaware of the other woman’s approach. Darlene’s voice jolted her out of her paralysis, and she grabbed the woman’s hand and dragged her inside the store. The man at the register – a skinny guy with curly red hair named Ray – looked over at them as they entered.

“Where the hell have you been, Sharilyn? My shift ended fifteen minutes ago!”

Sharilyn didn’t acknowledge his words, didn’t even look at him. The wave was coming, and she and Darlene had to get as far away from it as they could.

There were only a few customers inside the store – a heavily tattooed man perusing the snack cakes, a woman around Darlene’s age getting a bottled water from one of the coolers at the back, and an old dude with a thick white beard thumbing through an issue of Guns & Ammo in front of the magazine display. The three of them looked over when Ray shouted and when they did, they saw what was rushing toward Go Mart’s entrance. The tattooed man gaped, the woman screamed, the old guy shouted, “Fuck me!” and Ray said, “Jesus Christ!”

There was no sound of breaking glass or display shelves being overturned. The dark wave had absorbed the gone-man and his truck in absolute silence, and Sharilyn knew the same thing was happening now. She pictured the shadow wave flooding into the store, sucking in everything it touched with eerie silence, including Ray and the others.

Sharilyn was heading toward the rear of the store, hoping to reach the stockroom where there was an exit she and Darlene could escape through. Part of her realized that she could move faster if she wasn’t pulling Darlene along behind her, but she didn’t consider letting go of her hand.

I guess I still love her after all, she thought.

They had almost reached the door in the back, the one with the sign that said Employees Only, when Darlene screamed. Sharilyn knew she shouldn’t turn and look, but she couldn’t stop herself. She saw a wall of blackness rushing toward them, and she had just enough time to tighten her grip on Darlene’s hand before it engulfed them.

* * *

The Shadowkin continue spreading throughout Oakmont, causing havoc in different ways depending on the situation. Their choices aren’t conscious ones, but rather reactions to stimuli in the environment around them. Sometimes they cause damage solely with their claws, tearing chunks out of physical objects or inflicting terrible wounds on their victims. Other times, they loosen molecular bonds, attack on a mental or spiritual level, or dissolve pieces of reality itself. The Shadowkin have a single function – to break everything down, and that’s exactly what they do, in one fashion or another.

Oakmont and its residents die haphazardly, incrementally, and there is nothing anyone can do to stop it. Anyone currently in our reality, that is.

Chapter Eight

Justin Nguyen sat at a table in front of a window, watching the rain come down as he sipped his second double scotch. It was lunchtime, but he hadn’t eaten anything. When he’d first gotten to the bar, he’d intended to order food – something greasy, carby, and artery-clogging. What did eating healthy matter now? Besides, he could use some comfort food. But when a server came over to take his order, he realized something. By eating, he was providing nourishment for his body. All of it, his tumors included. He lost his appetite after this realization, and all he ordered was a double scotch. He’d meant it to be the only drink he had, but it had gone down fast and easy, and it felt so good, he’d ordered another. Why not? He needed to live it up while he could, right?

He let out a bitter bark of a laugh, then took another sip of his drink.

One nice thing about being diagnosed with cancer – it made his relationship problems seem like not so big a deal. For weeks, he’d been frustrated by Lori’s inability to commit fully to their relationship, as well as her blindness when it came to the issue of Larry. He’d tried to explain to her that keeping her ex-boyfriend as a roommate was just a way for her to maintain a buffer between them. He felt she was keeping Larry in her life on purpose, as an excuse for not completely committing to him. To them.

He’d almost decided not to call her today and tell her about his diagnosis out of spite over last night’s disastrous phone conversation. But he was scared – fucking terrified – and he’d needed to talk to someone. And did part of him hope that his diagnosis would make Lori feel sorry for him, prompt her to direct more of her emotional energy toward him? Probably. He supposed even cancer had a silver lining, tarnished and thin though it might be. The truth was, he was still in shock after receiving the news that his own body was in the process of trying to kill him. He kept finding himself breathing shallowly, as if he was afraid that taking full breaths would agitate the cancer cells that had invaded his lungs, causing them to reproduce even faster.

He wore a white button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled up, navy-blue slacks, and black shoes. Normally he wore a tie to work, but today’s tie was lying on the passenger seat of his silver Corolla. He hadn’t bothered to put it on before his doctor’s appointment, and he hadn’t felt like doing it afterward. He might just let the fucking thing sit in his car all day. He hadn’t decided yet.

His doctor had done his best to reassure him, to tell him not to give up hope. He would be referred to an oncologist, of course, and the doctor spoke of treatment options such as chemotherapy, immunotherapy, radiation therapy, pulmonary lobectomy, pneumonectomy…. All of it sounded horrible to Justin, and after a bit he’d stopped listening.

He’d never been to the Curious Keg before. The bar was located halfway between his doctor’s office and BioChem Diagnostics. He’d taken a half-day off for his doctor’s appointment, and he was trying to decide if he should call off for the rest of the day or if he should go in and hope work kept his mind off his cancer. They both seemed like shitty choices to him right now. Maybe more scotch would clarify matters. He drained the rest of his drink and held up the empty glass to signal his server. When she came over, he said, “One more of the same, please.”

She looked doubtful, like maybe she thought he’d had enough for now. He was ready to argue with her, but she smiled, nodded once, took his empty glass and headed for the bar. Justin wondered if she’d seen something in his expression that had told her to keep her damn mouth shut and go get his drink. If so, good. Cancer Man didn’t need any lip from the waitstaff.

The Curious Keg was only a step or two above a dive bar, the kind of place with grimy windows, sticky floors, graffiti carved into tabletops, and an omnipresent odor of cleaning chemicals that didn’t quite mask the faint smell of urine. He imagined his lungs were like this. Not a complete wreck yet, but well on their way. The place was only half full, and Justin didn’t know if that was due to it being too early for a full crowd, or if the place was always like this. Most of the customers looked like blue-collar workers drinking their lunch the same as he was, while some looked as if they might be unemployed or homeless. Shabby clothes, unkempt appearances. He knew he was stereotyping, but he didn’t care. As an Asian man, he’d been stereotyped plenty in his life. People who thought English was his second language even though he’d been born and raised in the United States, people who thought he possessed a genius-level intellect simply because of his race, women who expected him to be emotionally reserved and have a small penis. After a lifetime of that shit, he figured he’d earned the right to stereotype others a little.

The server brought his third drink, and he thanked her without taking his gaze from the window. The rain was coming down heavier now, and he could hear the sound of it striking the pavement outside, a muted ssssssshhhhhhh. Cars drove by on the street outside, and Justin wondered how many of their occupants were dealing with their own small tragedies today. Maybe all of them, he thought.

He sometimes wondered why he kept trying with Lori. She was smart and extremely empathetic – which made her perfect for her career – but she lacked a capacity for introspection. She remained focused on the present while still looking toward the future, but when it came to examining the past, forget it. It was like she had some kind of mental block, almost as if the past didn’t exist for her. If he hadn’t gotten his CT scan results back today, if he’d called her solely to discuss last night’s conversation, she would’ve acted like it was no big deal, almost as if it had never happened at all. It was one of the qualities about her that he found most inexplicable – and maddening. He was a big believer in looking back at one’s past, to try to learn from one’s mistakes in order to become a better person. Without introspection, people continued to follow the same destructive patterns of behavior they always fell into. How was that any way to live a life?

He’d contemplated breaking up with Lori from time to time. Logically, she wasn’t a good match for him and vice versa, but despite this – or maybe in a weird way because of it – he felt a powerful draw to her that he couldn’t explain or deny. He supposed logic didn’t mean dick when it came to matters of the heart. A cliché, maybe, but that didn’t make it any less true.

He wished Lori were here with him now. Even if they only sat quietly and watched the rain fall, her presence would be a great comfort to him.

He found it ironic that at work he’d run hundreds of medical tests for physicians. Nothing on the level of CT scans, of course. Just basic blood panels mostly. He wondered how many people had gotten bad news from their doctors because of test results he’d sent over. Had some of those results basically been a death sentence? He didn’t know, but he thought it likely.

Still gazing out of the window, he watched a white Jeep Cherokee SUV enter the parking lot and pull into an empty space next to his vehicle. A pair of women got out, the driver swinging her door open so violently that it smacked hard into the Corolla’s passenger-side door.

“Goddamnit!”

Justin jumped up from his seat and rushed toward the door. His server called out to him – Probably thinks I’m trying to skip out on the check, he thought – but he ignored her. He was in the grip of a white-hot rage that had come upon him suddenly and without warning. Some of it was due to the amount of alcohol he’d had on an empty stomach, but much of it was a reaction to the news he’d received from his doctor. He’d lost control of his body, control of his life. He was not going to sit by and watch some careless stranger put a dent in his goddamned car and not do something about it. He had to prove there were still some things in this world that he could stand up to, that he didn’t have to roll over and accept like a whipped dog.

He was already shouting when he plunged out into the rain.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing? You can’t just—”

His words died in his throat and he stopped and stared at the two women. He hadn’t fully registered their appearances when they’d first gotten out of the SUV, but now he did, and he had no idea what to make of them. Both women had been dry when they’d gotten out of their vehicle, but neither carried an umbrella, and they were quickly getting soaked. But that wasn’t what he found so strange about them. Their clothes were covered with dark reddish-brown stains that looked like blood – a lot of it. They looked like they’d gotten caught in a slaughterhouse explosion. The rain, heavy as it was, wasn’t doing much to wash the stains from their clothes. The older woman wore her long gray hair in a braid, which hung down her back. The braid swayed back and forth idly, and it made Justin think of the way a horse’s tail swishes lazily as it fends off flies. The younger woman had tufts of fur growing in scattered patches on her skin, her eyes were amber and shaped like a cat’s, and when she opened her mouth, she revealed upper and lower incisors, the teeth long and sharp.

“Meow,” she said, then grinned.

Justin forgot about the dent in his car door. All he wanted was to go back into the bar, find a table where he couldn’t see the window, and hope these two women wouldn’t follow him inside. He started to back away from them, but before he could get very far, the younger woman rushed toward him and grabbed hold of his left arm. He felt claws extend from her fingers and sink into his flesh. Not deep, but far enough to hurt. He reflexively tried to pull away, and she pressed the claws in deeper. He cried out in pain, and he looked at his arm, saw blood welling from the points where her claws were embedded in him, the rain washing it away even as it left his body.

The woman gave him a lazy, contented smile and made a fluttering thrum in her throat. Was she purring?

The older woman stepped closer to him. He saw no sign of sanity in her eyes, only glittering madness. That complete lack of rationality was more terrifying to him than the younger woman’s catlike features. Even though his arm would become little more than shredded meat if he yanked it free from the younger woman’s cat claws, he almost did it, so afraid was he of the insanity that peered at him through the older woman’s eyes.

“It’s nice to meet you.”