Valley of the Shadow (5 page)

    Mitch stared at it, waiting for something to happen. After a few seconds he raised an eyebrow. “And . . .”

    “Shh.” Nathan held up a hand and listened.

    Then Mitch could hear a soft hissing sound. Wisps of smoke began wafting out from the chalk line. It looked to Mitch almost as if the chalk dust was burning its way through the drywall. He frowned. “What’s that?”

    The hissing grew louder, and soon smoke was pouring out along the entire perimeter of the circle. After several seconds it seemed to stop. Nathan put his sunglasses back on and smashed his fist into the center of the circle. The drywall cracked and crumbled away.

    Shafts of intense white light sliced through the cracks in the wall. Mitch swore and stepped back, covering his eyes. Nathan pulled the pieces away, and more light shot through the swirls of smoke that lingered in the air.

    Mitch could barely see anything. “What is it?”

    “Here.” Nathan nudged Mitch’s arm, holding out another pair of sunglasses.

    Mitch could barely see them but managed to slip them on. They blocked the light a bit, enough for him to see a glowing, rippling surface beyond the drywall. It looked like water. Like the surface of a swimming pool standing vertically behind the wall. Defying gravity.

    Mitch stared at it, his breath gone. “What . . . what is that?”

    “A window,” Nathan said. “Just a window. Can you see anything?”

    Mitch hesitated; then, drawn by sheer curiosity, he leaned closer. At first he couldn’t see anything through the rippling surface. He held out his hand but couldn’t feel any heat coming from it. He touched it with the tip of his finger. It felt like solid ice, though it seemed to move like liquid. But his finger couldn’t penetrate the surface.

    “It’s cold,” he said. His voice was barely a whisper. “Freezing.” He peered at the glowing surface. “I . . . I can’t see anything.”

    “Look closer.”

    Mitch squinted. He thought he could see something beyond the watery surface. A series of dark blotches, distorted by the waves. But he couldn’t make out what they were. He continued to gaze through the hole and eventually the images began to congeal, to form a picture. An entire scene was taking shape.

CONNER PAUSED OUTSIDE
the main entrance to the detention facility, mentally kicking himself. He had been too eager. He had spent the last two months tracking Devon down through the court system, waiting for the right chance to see him. And now he had blown it by just blundering in like that. He had shocked the kid. He should have made the initial contact by phone, but something inside him wanted to have the first meeting face-to-face. He should have known better. Conner shook his head. He wasn’t thinking straight anymore. He should have known better.

    The morning air was crisp, but the late October sky was hard and blue. Cloudless.

    Conner started down the steps and passed another man coming up. A man who looked familiar somehow, dressed in jeans and a leather jacket. A beefy, blue-collar type. Conner frowned, stopped, and turned around.

    The other man had turned as well. Now Conner placed him. He did know the man after all. “Jim Malone?”

    Jim nodded, extending his hand. “Conner, right? How are you? Good to see you up and around.”

    “Thanks.” Conner smiled and shook hands. “Believe me, it’s good to be up and around.”

    Jim chuckled. “I guess you had quite a scare, huh? We heard from your secretary about your . . . y’know, about the heart attack.”

    Conner patted his chest. “Double bypass. It certainly helps to put things in perspective.”

    “I guess so.” Jim scratched his head. “I’m not sure if you remember, but we were in that same day. Of your heart attack, I mean. Annie and me. We met with you earlier that afternoon.”

    “Yeah, I remember. I was trying to convince you to move forward with that malpractice lawsuit. As I recall, you had decided to go home and pray about it over the weekend.”

    “Yeah, well, you could say we were asking God to show us a sign. We were real confused and weren’t sure if we should go ahead with it.”

    Conner raised an eyebrow. “A sign, huh?”

    Jim shrugged sheepishly. “Well, we didn’t ask specifically for Him to give you a heart attack or anything, but when we heard about it on Monday . . . well, we kinda figured maybe God was trying to tell us something.”

    Conner found himself chuckling at that thought. “Do me a favor. Next time ask for something a little less dramatic, will you?”

    Jim laughed.

    Conner nodded back toward the building. “So, what brings you here? Are you visiting someone too?”

    “Yeah, uh . . .” Jim looked up at the facility. “To tell you the truth, I’m not sure exactly what I’m doing here. Just trying to make a connection with one of the kids, I guess.”

    “Me too,” Conner said. “Just an acquaintance really, some kid who got in with the wrong crowd, I think. I thought maybe I could be of some help, but unfortunately, I think I may have just made things worse. I don’t think I’m cut out for this kind of stuff.”

    “Yeah.” Jim looked down and sighed. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”

    They both fell into an awkward silence for a moment. Conner didn’t really know the guy well enough to make further small talk, and frankly he was going to be late getting to the office as it was.

    He turned to leave. “Well anyway, nice to see you again. I hope you have better luck than I did. Take care.”

MITCH GAZED DEEPER
into the stranger’s window of liquid light. He could see the images more clearly now.

    “There’s . . . like, another room back there,” Mitch said. “Some kind of room.”

    Nathan stood still. “Good. See anything else? any details? What kind of room?”

    Mitch squinted, pushed the dark glasses tighter against his face. “Umm . . . I see something. A bed, I think. And some other stuff . . .” Then he straightened up. “It’s a hospital room.”

    Nathan moved closer. “Can you see the bed?”

    “Yeah . . .” The surface seemed to grow calm, and the entire room came into focus. Someone was lying on the bed. Mitch could see a network of tubes, lines, and monitors behind it. He couldn’t quite see the person’s face. It was wrapped in gauze. The person was big—too big to be a woman or a child. It was definitely a man.

    There was some kind of picture on the patient’s arm. A tattoo. In fact there were multiple tattoos, the biggest one resembling a snake coiled around the upper arm. Though not exactly a snake . . . more like a dragon. A Chinese dragon wrapping around his arm, jaws open wide, fangs bared, horns curling up from its head…

    It looked like . . . exactly like Mitch’s tattoo. On his arm!

    Mitch lurched away from the window. “This is some kind of trick,” he said. “Just another hallucination.”

    Nathan grabbed Mitch’s arm. “It’s no trick. Look again!”

    Mitch saw movement through the portal. Someone had just come into the room. It looked like a doctor. He leaned over the bedside and touched Mitch’s head.

    Mitch frowned. “Who’s that?”

    “Listen,” Nathan hushed him again.

    Mitch could hear another voice, echoing softly, as if far off in a vast canyon.

    “Mitch.”

    The doctor took a clipboard off the foot of the bed and began reading. Mitch instinctively moved sideways for a better view, and the entire scene inside the window rotated along with him. Almost as if Mitch was able to turn and get a three-dimensional view of the room through the portal. Mitch had a clear view of the doctor’s face now. He gasped.

    “Conner?”

    Mitch hadn’t seen the guy in five years, but he was sure that was Conner Hayden. Why was he dressed like a doctor? Mitch reeled. He watched Conner replace the clipboard and lean down again. Mitch could hear his voice better now. More distinct.

    “I’m not going to let you die.”

    Mitch pounded the wall with his fist. “Conner!”

    Suddenly the image went black.

    Mitch backed away and pulled off his glasses. The hole in the wall now revealed only some wiring and part of a wooden stud behind it. The light and the watery surface were gone. It looked like just an ordinary hole in an ordinary wall. His brows curled down, and he turned to Nathan. “Where did it go?”

    “These windows only last a few minutes.” Nathan removed his glasses and shook his head. “Think what you want to think, but I’m telling you it’s the truth.”

    Mitch inspected the hole. There was no sign of water or any electronic devices. Nothing to explain what he’d just seen. “I don’t believe you. Give me one good reason why I should believe you.”

    “What’s the last thing you remember? I mean . . . all those years ago, before everything started going crazy. Do you remember?”

    Mitch tried to think back. He ran a hand through his hair. “I . . . uh . . . I was going to pick up Linda. My girlfriend. I was going to pick her up from work. I was going to propose. Had a ring and everything.”

    “It was a big night.”

    “I had my bike. I just got my Harley running. I wanted to surprise her.”

    “And then?”

    Mitch paused. It was all hazy after so many years. He had ridden north and then … He shrugged. “Then I saw the storm.”

    “You never made it to see your girlfriend,” Nathan said.

    “Because of the storm.”

    “No, because a Dodge pickup truck crossed into your lane and sent you flying into a ditch.”

    Mitch’s lips tightened. “No, it didn’t.”

    “You broke three ribs, fractured your pelvis, and sustained severe head injuries. Someone called an ambulance.”

    “Shut up!”

    “They brought you to the hospital, but you had lost a lot of blood. They put you on a ventilator. They’ve been monitoring your brain scans, looking for the slightest glimmer of hope. Any sign that you might still be in there.”

    “I said shut up!”

    Nathan grabbed Mitch by the collar. “That was two months ago! You’ve been here only two months!”

    Mitch shook himself free and shoved Nathan aside. He stumbled to the front of the store, his chest heaving. The room seemed to sway beneath him. This was crazy. He couldn’t listen to any more of this nonsense. He wouldn’t.

    Nathan drew up beside him. “This place . . . this isn’t Indiana. It’s like a movie set. It’s all just a facade. Your body is lying in a hospital room in Illinois. In a coma. But your soul has gotten trapped here. In this place.”

    “I can’t believe it.”

    Nathan continued. “Think about it. All the weird stuff you’ve seen here? This place does that to you. You see what you want to see. It even shows you stuff you don’t want to see. Old memories. Dreams, nightmares. All of that can take on what seems like real form.”

    “Are you saying I’m dead?”

    “No. Not yet. This place is just like a doorway. When someone dies, they usually pass right through to the other side. But sometimes people get stuck in between. Trapped here. Not dead but not really alive, either.” He pointed at the hole in the wall. “You’re being kept alive—barely. But there’s still some hope. That’s why you need to get back into your body. The longer you stay here, the harder that’s going to be. The less chance you’ll have of surviving at all.”

    Mitch turned away. This conversation was beyond bizarre. He had been here for five years. He could remember every day. Every book he’d read. How was that possible? “There’s no way it’s only been two months.”

    Nathan’s voice softened. “Time doesn’t have any meaning in this place. Not like it does in the material world. I know you think it’s been years, but it’s only been two months since your accident.”

    “How do you know all this?”

    Nathan paused. “I’ve been sent to help you. To help you find your way back.”

    “Sent by who?”

    “God.”

    Mitch laughed. “Dude, God doesn’t care what happens to me.”

    “Yeah, I know that line. I’ve heard it all before. The fact is He does care, Mitch. More than you know. I’ve got to help you get out before it’s too late.”

    “Too late for what?”

    “Survival,” Nathan said. “The longer a spirit remains separated from its body, the less chance there is for the body to heal. You’ve suffered major injuries, but there’s still some hope you might recover. That’s why you have to leave that farm. And we have to get going as soon as possible.”

    Mitch rubbed his eyes. His head was throbbing. “I can’t take this anymore. Why should I trust you anyway? Howard hasn’t done anything to hurt me. Other than being a little quirky and a terrible cribbage player, he’s not all that bad. And we’ve managed to keep the aliens away. Give me one good reason why I should trust you.”

    At that point, the milk truck rumbled up in front of the store and its horn blared. Mitch moved to the window and peered out.

    Howard waved at him. “C’mon, Hoss. The day’s a-wastin’.”

    Mitch nodded and waved. “So,” he grunted and turned back to Nathan, “give me one good reas—”

    But the store was empty. Nathan—whoever he was—had vanished.

JIM MALONE SIGNED IN
at the main desk and made his way through the security gauntlet of the corrections facility. He produced a letter and some additional paperwork from his pocket, along with two forms of ID, and slid them to the woman behind the counter inside the first set of locked doors.

    She was black, stout, and gruff looking. A mop of glistening dark curls hung low, just over her eyes. She squeezed the last bit of a cream cheese–laden bagel into her mouth and scanned the papers for several seconds. Then she curled an eyebrow at Jim.

    Jim shrugged. “His . . . uh, his probation officer said it was okay. Just to talk for a few minutes. He said to bring you this letter, and he said you could call him if you needed to.”

    “Popular kid,” the woman grunted through a mouthful of bagel and pressed a button beneath the desk. The door to Jim’s left buzzed. “C’mon through.”