Shadow

By Robert Barner

In a world devastated by environmental collapse, the fate of Earth rests in the hands of a psychic child without a body.

The year is 2044 - and Bobby Hayes has a world-changing secret. Discarded from birth as something broken and not quite right, he's a powerful psychic with the ability to read people's true th

• Language: English
• Publisher: Robert Barner
• Release date: Mar 22, 2024
• ISBN: 9798989753031

Book preview

SHADOW

Robert Barner

Copyright © 2024 Robert Barner

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

Contents

Copyright

Chapter 1: A Shadow of Things to Come

Chapter 2: Just Me and My Shadow

Chapter 3: In the Shadow of the Lord

Chapter 4: A Haunting Experience

Chapter 5: The Tiger’s Claws

Chapter 6: The Academic Stowaway

Chapter 7: Photogenic Me

Chapter 8: The Death of Me

Chapter 9: Moving On

Chapter 10: In the Void

Chapter 11: Sin City

Chapter 12: What Happens in Vegas…

Chapter 13: The Big Reveal

Chapter 14: A Shady Partnership

Chapter 15: Sitting on the Dock of the Bay

Chapter 16: The Tiger and the Falcon

Chapter 17: The Shadow Knows

Chapter 18: Tiger, Tiger, Burning Bright

Chapter 19: A Bird in the Hand

Chapter 20: Archimedes’ Lever

Chapter 21: Escaping the Finger Trap

Chapter 22: Show and Tell

Chapter 23: Here, There, And Everywhere

Chapter 24: The Birth of Janus

Chapter 25: Split Decision

Chapter 26: A True Predator

Chapter 27: Giving the Problem Some Serious Thoth

Chapter 28: In Rivendell, or Something Like It

Chapter 29: The Sharing

Chapter 30: Living in the Shadows

Chapter 31: The Eight Principles

Chapter 32: Making Friends

Chapter 33: The Apostles

Chapter 34: Made in the Shade

Chapter 35: Cat and Mouse

Chapter 36: A Prickly Thorne

Chapter 37: Together Again

Chapter 38: More Than Human

Disclaimer

This is a work of fiction, set in the near future. Names, characters, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or events, is entirely coincidental.

Chapter 1: A Shadow of Things to Come

The adults who are gathered in our home for my mother’s weekly prayer occasionally shift their attention away from their coffee and each other, to acknowledge me with a sideways glance. I’m sitting quietly in the corner with my coloring book, trying to ignore them, to no avail.

Possessed of the devil, that’s what.

He’s mentally retarded. Kid gives me the creeps!

His parents should put him in one of those homes for kids like him.

I struggle to block out the vicious thoughts that press into my mind, each clamoring for my attention. The voices rage on, never ceasing, making it impossible for me to pull away from them. And the accompanying feelings, sharp and cruel, sometimes with the colors of grey and black that meant that bad things were going to happen. It wasn’t so much that I heard the voices when their mouths weren’t moving; it was seeing myself through their eyes, as this thing that was broken and not right.

When the group takes a brief break an old, big-boned woman hobbles over, and looks down at me with a smile that never reaches her eyes. And this is your son, Bobby? Through her eyes, I see a scrawny, paper-thin boy with skin too pale from hiding indoors, and the tired and haggard eyes that one would expect to find in an old man, rather than a five-year-old child. That kid is just plain weird. The conflicting clash of words and thoughts grind together like the rusted gears of a large machine. Her words are sharp pointed teeth that bite me inside, in the soft core of my center, where I have no protection. I bide my time until the group closes their eyes in prayer before taking the opportunity to quietly slip away out the hallway to hide in my room. I know that I will pay for this act of defiance later, but for now the calm I feel from the retreating tide of voices is worth the price.

It is always like this. Sometimes the barrage of voices hurts so bad that I cry out at the pain and flail around with my arms, and for this I am punished. Again, I see my dad looming over me, his dark thoughts rumbling like a thunderstorm as he slowly unbuckles his belt. Going to beat the devil out of that boy, he thought, or were those his words? I could no longer tell the difference. The whippings hurt, but what hurt more was sensing the feelings of disgust that accompanied them. What could I do? I was too little and scared to run away, so I hid inside my mind, hunkering down in that far corner where no one could hurt me. I hid that way for a long, long time.

I sense the passage of time, but at this point in my life the days meld into each other, so it’s difficult to track. I began to understand that somewhere buried under the weight of all those other thoughts resided a separate me, and that’s when the world came into focus as something distinctly distinct from myself.

It’s a cold day and my mom has got me bundled up warm because she and my dad are taking me downtown to meet a lady. On the drive over my mom tells me that the lady is a kind of a doctor. Seeing me flinch, she adds that the lady will just be talking to me and that I should be good, which means, as my dad describes it, no crazy stuff.

We enter an office, and as soon as I step through the door I begin to relax. The room feels more like someone’s cozy study than a doctor’s office, and the walls are a robin’s egg blue, which I find calming. A wooden bookcase lines one wall, and in the middle of the room are four comfortable high-backed chairs. A pile of large colorful fuzzy pillows is stacked next to one of the chairs.

A woman enters the room and smiles at my folks, introducing herself to them as Dr. Sandra Norvell. As she looks towards me her smile widens. And you must be Bobby. You can just call me Sandy if you want. A peek into her mind shows me that, unlike most adults I’ve met, her smile extends to her heart, which warms me inside. Sandy talks softly to me like I would when coming across a skittish cat for the first time. When she steps closer, I notice that she smells like flowers. Without looking around I know that my parents have left the room, which helps me relax. It takes so much effort to keep their angry and anxious feelings at bay.

Sandy plops two pillows down on the carpet, then sits on one and pats the other, inviting me to join her. As I do, I find myself glancing around the room, trying to avoid the scary feeling that I get when I have to make direct eye contact with someone. The colors of Sandy’s mind mirror the light blue walls of her office, so I know she is a nice person. At the same time, as often happens with me, I am having trouble separating her words from her thoughts, so I pretend not to hear her and just pull back into myself until she stops talking. Sandy must have picked up on my discomfort because a few minutes later she scoots her pillow around so that instead of facing me she’s now sitting next to me. As she does this, she slides some pictures and puzzles over to me.

Bobby, she asks, can you put these pictures together in the right order? I glance at the pictures and the correct arrangement appears in front of me like a cartoon. She gives me several more sets of pictures, and as the solutions roll out before me I quickly arrange all of the picture pieces in the correct order. A sideways glance at her reveals that I’ve been rewarded with a big smile, and I pause to bathe in the warm feeling that flows from her.

Bobby, I’m going to show you some puzzles now. Can you use this marker to show me the right path through this maze? With no more than a glance at the maze the right path forms in my mind and I zip through it, before grabbing another one and doing the same. I like this game, because there is an order here that makes sense. We continue that that for a while, with her growing smile warming my belly.

As I play with the puzzles, I begin to notice how, by focusing like this, I find it easier to block out Sandy’s thoughts and just listen to her words. I file that insight away for later use as I continue to work on the games. Sandy tells me that she is going to the other room to talk to my mom and dad. While I wait for her to return, I amuse myself by creating mazes in my mind and solving them. At the same time, I extend a small part of myself to flow into the next room and listen in on the conversation that she is having with my parents.

Doctor, you said something about Bobby being artistic. What does that have to do with his problems? My dad’s thoughts turn darker as he says this, and I have to direct my attention back to my puzzles to calm my fears. His words don’t make a lot of sense since I know what an artist is, and I can’t draw very well. My mom, as usual, isn’t saying much, although I can feel her heart racing.

I take a risk and extend myself to look through Sandy’s eyes. She gives a small shake of her head and points to the test reports on her desk. Mr. Haynes the word I used is ‘autistic,’ not ‘artistic.’ It’s a neurological disorder that has been well researched. The image that she holds in her mind is of a lost little boy who is largely shut off from the outside world.

My mom’s eyes begin to tear up. Are you trying to tell us that Bobby’s mentally disabled?

Not at all, Ms. Haynes. In fact, Bobby is one of the brightest children that we’ve ever tested. His scores are much better than what we typically see of children in his age group. You see, autism doesn’t mean that a person isn’t smart. Bobby has a very strong mind. His problem is that he gets his signals crossed when he is trying to make sense of everything that is going on around him. This same problem makes it difficult for him to communicate with others. I feel the truth of this in Sandy’s mind. With it comes the beginning of understanding—I’m not damaged, just different from other people.

Seeing the sideways glance that passes between my mom and dad, Sandy tries a different approach. Have you ever seen one of those old-fashioned radios where you have to turn the dial to get a channel? Seeing my parents nod she continues. Then you know that as you turn the dial, at some point different channels start to interfere with each other, making it difficult to hear one over the other. Autism is like that. Children who are autistic have trouble communicating and understanding what other people think and feel.

My dad’s face has gone hard, but Sandy plows on. This is probably the reason that Bobby sometimes doesn’t like to be touched, or sometimes has trouble reading people’s facial expressions. Mrs. Haynes, you had told me that when Bobby is upset, he sometimes rocks back and forth, is that right?

Yes, or he might wave his arms around.

Well, when autistic children get upset, they sometimes comfort themselves with repetitive moments, as Bobby does..

My mom dabs her handkerchief to her eyes. Are you trying to tell me that we need to put him in an institution? I don’t need to rely on my mind-reading skills to feel the icy current of fear in her words.

Not at all. I will introduce you to some simple exercises that you can do with Bobby that will make it easier for him to communicate with you, Before you go I'll give you some literature on these. We also have some very good programs here that can help, if you can bring him in regularly. Also, try to keep him away from a lot of stimulation. Things like noisy crowds and loud music are going to scare him. He does a lot better when he is by himself in a quiet room, doesn’t he?

My mom gives a weak smile. Yes, that’s the one thing that seems to help him.

Good. You might think of creating a place like that in your home. And Mr. and Mrs. Haynes the other thing that I want to emphasize is that Bobby is a very bright and inquisitive boy. I know that you feel that he’s locked up in his own little world, but there is a lot of thinking going on in that mind of his, so I would recommend that you encourage this by giving him picture books, along with puzzles and games that can stimulate his thinking. My mom shoots a questioning look at my dad, who just grimaces and nods. I feel the frustration ebbing through both of them, but at the same time, I can tell that they are at least somewhat receptive to Sandra’s advice.

Months pass, and it becomes easier for me to hold other people’s thoughts at bay. My parents follow Sandra’s advice and for the first time, books other than the Bible begin to appear in our home. My parents start by giving me simple picture books showing nature scenes, or math problems involving the counting of everyday objects, but after watching me hungrily devour them, they soon move on to books designed for older children.

It’s my seventh birthday and my dad places a scruffy little black and white dog in my lap. I sensed that my parents were apprehensive about giving me a dog, but upon seeing my face light up at the little furball wiggling excitedly in my arms, they quickly relax. There is such a wave of pure love and joy radiating from that little body that it is almost overwhelming. I hold the little dog up at arms-length while it struggles to lick my face.

Oreo I announce. Mom and Dad, I’m going to call him Oreo because he reminds me of the cookie. My mom beamed at me. Up to that point, it was the longest sentence that I had ever spoken. With Oreo settling into my lap I decide to try something that I had always been afraid to do with another person. With that, I send the pup a strong feeling of love, wrapped in a blue cloud. With a playful bark, Oreo sends the feeling right back to me. Success!

My parents are in the other room, so I decide to take another risk and send Oreo a thought, Do you want to go outside and play? The little dog’s ears pick up as he gives an inquisitive tilt of his head. He has heard my thoughts but seems unsure of what I am trying to communicate. I try again, this time employing a different approach of picturing the two of us running together through our backyard. Yes! The reply startles me, and I realize that I wasn’t hearing the actual word, but rather the images and feelings that accompany it. The two of us play outside for the rest of the day until my mom calls me in for supper. It is the happiest memory from my childhood.

Oreo and I are playing a game of get the ball in the backyard, where we stay to avoid being teased by the neighborhood kids. I kick the ball to Oreo, who grabs it and races away from me into our front yard. Chasing after him I almost bump into the two boys who are walking by our house. The small one gives me a nasty smirk. Look who is here— it’s the retard.

Ignoring the boys I walk over to Oreo. The bigger boy piles on with, Hey, spaz boy, don’t you know dogs are for normal kids? With that, Oreo gives a frightened yelp as the bigger boy gives him a small kick. Without thinking I feel a wave of hate ripple out from me, pouring into both boys. The smaller one begins to back away while the bigger one just stands there, looking at me with a face that’s gone pale.

I slowly walk over and give the bigger boy a hard grin, You hurt my dog. This time I allow the anger that flares up within me to emerge unfettered, as it leaps into his mind. The effect is immediate, as he sways unsteady on his feet before running away a second later, with his smaller friend close behind. I stand there looking after them, shaking with a lot of conflicting emotions. There is guilt because this is the first time that I have ever used my mind to hurt someone. But hovering just below that guilt is something else that I have never felt before. It takes me a moment before I suddenly recognize what I'm experiencing as a sense of pride. Today, I somehow used my mind to protect my friend, and that felt both good and right.

Months roll by and I realize how effortless it’s become, not only to sense what my dog is feeling but also to experience the world through him. Looking through Oreo’s eyes the world shifts to a different color palette of grey, brown, yellow and blue. My hearing becomes sharper, but the biggest difference is in my sense of smell. The tangy smell of a nearby squirrel, the spicy smell of the chicken my mom is frying on the stove, and the blended smells of flowers, grass, and trees, all give me a different way to experience the world.

My experiments with Oreo have made me curious to see how far I can go in melding with the minds of other people. Up to this point, most of my time was spent with my mom or dad, and I feared that if they ever discovered my special gifts they would decide that these abilities were of the devil, and needed to be beaten out of me. My only option is to be patient and wait for the right opportunity to come along.

Thanksgiving arrives and I decide that the opportunity I’ve been looking for might arrive in the form of a visit from Aunt Peggy, my mom’s older sister. Aunt Peggy is always kind to me, and her thoughts are the pale aqua color that I’ve come to associate with a tranquil mind. I also know that, unlike my mom and dad, Aunt Peggy has attended college and enjoys reading a lot of things besides the Bible.

As I sit on my living room floor petting Oreo, Aunt Peggy is reading a magazine as she is comfortably nestled in the big high-back armchair that is usually reserved for my dad. I give her a few minutes to get into the rhythm of her reading before tiptoeing into her mind to see through her eyes. I’m surprised to discover that not only can I follow the words she is reading, but also the thoughts and the mental images that accompany those words. I give an involuntary shiver of delight, as words, thoughts, and images fuse together to help me understand much of what she is reading.

The article explores the different types of whales that live deep in the ocean, and as I read through my aunt's eyes, I imagine myself swimming in the ocean with those huge gentle creatures. My mind drifts and I can almost feel the ocean, wrapped around me like a cool blanket. I hear a low rumbling noise, just below my normal range of hearing and, with a start, I sense that the noise is coming from me as I move my large tail fin through the water looking for others of my kind. The sudden insight startles me, and Aunt Peggy shivers as she looks around the room for the source of the noise. As I pull back from her mind, she gives a mental shrug and relaxes. I try to make sense of what I just experienced, but I can’t tell whether the sensation of being a whale was just a product of my overactive imagination, or that I had somehow managed to reach out to one of those great creatures.

Time passes, and I begin to understand how to partially shield myself from others’ thoughts and feelings. With a lot of effort, when I am around only a few people I can now manage to focus my attention on one person while tuning out the intruding thoughts and images of others. At the same time, large crowds continue to prove too much for me, and when this happens, I once again pull back into my shell.

I know that I have to be careful in how much I reveal to others about what I can do. My parents still worry a lot about me, and although I don’t want to, I can also sense their deepest fears—that their son represents some kind of evil abomination. My only hope in keeping those fears at bay lies in my ability to pretend that I am just as ordinary as everyone else, though, on the inside where it matters, I felt anything but normal.

Chapter 2: Just Me and My Shadow

Jamie’s vest lit up with a bright red glow as an explosive sound burst through the small speaker embedded in his vest. Ugh! From where he squatted in the lower limb of the large oak tree he glared down at me, his protagonist and best friend. How did you find me so soon? he shouted. I hid real good that time. I didn’t have to slide into his mind to know that Jamie was pissed off. A glance at his beet-red face, now complementing his wavy red hair, gave that one away.

From where I crouched in my strategic hiding spot behind the tree, I looked up at my friend and shrugged, mumbling a feeble sorry. There wasn’t anything else I could say in the way of explanation. After all, I felt bad enough about cheating, without compounding the problem by trying to explain how I had managed to pull it off. Any admission along those lines would once again result in my parents fretting about what they termed my crazy talk, or another private session with Reverend Jackson.

I stole a guilty glance to my porch where Oreo, my dog and cheating accomplice, lay resting. Picking up on my mental thread of anxiety, Oreo opened his eyes and raised his head in my direction. I responded to my dog’s emotional spike by sending him an image of me scratching his head. This seemed to work well enough, for he gave a soft moan and nodded back off to sleep.

At times such as these, I comforted myself with the knowledge that my connection with Oreo has grown to the point where my ability to send was almost as strong as my ability to receive. And there was no arguing with the fact that if you wanted to win in a game of laser tag, it helps to have a partner with a second pair of eyes and a keen sense of smell.

By now Jamie had managed to ease his heavy frame down from the tree. Stupid game! Stupid friend! he shouted. Tossing his plastic laser vest on the ground he kicked it in front of him. If my dad hadn’t pushed me into playing this stupid game, I never would have tried it. A second later he grabbed the dirty vest off the ground and began walking back to his own house. I ran to catch up and handed back the vest and laser gun I had borrowed from him. Without intending to, I found myself picking up on the memory Jamie was replaying in his mind.

Jamie is standing outside the entryway to his kitchen as he eavesdrops on his parents’ conversation.

All the kid does is sit on his ass all day playing video games. Is it any wonder he’s overweight and doing poorly in school? This statement came from Jamie’s dad, Carl Harmsworth.

As always Jamie’s mom, Becky, rushed to her son’s defense. Carl, you’re being too hard on him.

Hard on him! That’s a laugh. He only has a few chores to do and we have to struggle to get him to do those. Pointing to the laser game kit he added, At least with the game he’ll be outside, and getting some exercise. During the past year, I learned some things about Jamie’s parents that helped me make sense of the angry thoughts I now heard leaking out of my friend. Jamie had once told me his dad was an ex-Marine. Seeing the puzzled look on my face he explained that his dad was one of the toughest kinds of soldiers there were. Unfortunately, the army's increased use of kill drones and robotic tech meant that they didn't need as many human soldiers anymore, so Jamie's dad had been pushed out of the military. The week before, Jamie had overheard his dad grumbling about being replaced by a lot of stupid kids who only know about video games.

I thought about the times I had seen his dad heft the old-fashioned weight set he had set up in their garage. From the effort he put in, I could tell Mr. Harmsworth was very proud of the fact even five years after leaving the military he still managed to stay in great shape. At the same time, from the assorted thoughts and feelings leaking out of Mr. Harmsworth’s mind, I could tell that he sometimes felt worthless. I felt a kind of kinship with him, since worthless was a feeling that I could all too easily understand.

As Jamie stomped back to his house on the opposite side of the street, he spared one final look at me. "Why don’t you ever want to play Total Chaos like a normal kid? That I can play!" In the second it took for me to fumble for a reply Jamie had already stormed into his house and shut the door behind him.

Of course, I didn’t need to be told I wasn’t a normal kid. Although things had improved for me there were still times when my mental defenses still weren’t strong enough to prevent the twisted threads of thoughts, feelings and images from those around me from flooding my mind, threatening to overwhelm me. It was in such moments I was most likely to have my seizures, as my dad described them. Avoiding that kind of stress was one of the reasons why I had been homeschooled. The other reason was my parents’ fear regarding ‘all of the evil that was paraded about in public schools these days’.

The mass shootings are bad enough my mom would say, without having your kids exposed to ideas that sprang right from the devil.

Those fears had fueled my parents’ decision to move from the nearby city of Huntsville to our small town of Domain, Alabama. For Martha and Bill Haynes, an important part of walking in the way of the Lord meant finding someplace where it was easier to avoid the corruptions of city life. The same motivations fueled their fears about bringing video games or the Internet into their home. As strong prayer warriors Sara and Bill could spot the devil, no matter how much he tried to hide his evil under the guise of fancy ideas or flashy technology. They knew well enough how those things could introduce bad beliefs into even the most Christian of homes if you weren’t always vigilant. That’s why you didn’t find Internet connections in our home, and why my parents shunned cell phones, relying instead on a single antiquated landline.

My mom and dad never discussed these things with me of course, since these were grownup affairs. Still, I often caught fleeting traces of these thoughts, whenever they saw kids playing in our neighborhood or would chat with their few friends.

Although Jamie and I regarded each other as best friends, I was reluctant to invite him into my home. I had once overheard Jamie’s parents chuckling about my parents’ strong religious views, so I was concerned about how Jamie would react around my folks. With these thoughts in mind, I decided to wait until my dad was at work and my mom was out grocery shopping, before inviting Jamie over for the first time.

The other houses in the area were very new and had long since been built from the ground up through 3-D printing. In contrast, our home was what was commonly referred to as a natch-house, or naturally built home. The 90- year-old Craftsman house was largely unaltered from its original design. Being a natch-house, our home lacked the superior insulation offered through the use of advanced composite materials, as well as the typical solar wall skin and roof, or the latest smart home tech.

While my dad was good with his hands, one of the challenges of owning a natch-house was that it was difficult for him to find the materials he needed to keep up with repairs. As a result, our front picket fence was missing a lot of its wooden slats, while the roof lacked several of its cedar shingles, with patchwork gaps filled in with simple synthetic fiber wood. As a result, many of our neighbors viewed our home as a dilapidated eyesore.

Even then, I had known our house was another thing that had set me apart from other children. The neighbor kids sometimes teased me about the fact that my parents were so poor that we were forced to live in a natch-house. That wasn’t completely true of course. For my parents, it wasn’t so much the money as the fact that our home reminded them of what they had looked back on as better times gone by. Buying the home meant being able to hold on to those memories for a bit longer.

Unlike the other kids in their neighborhood, Jamie viewed the chance to visit our house as an exciting new adventure. Having never had the chance to step into a natch-house, he was looking forward to having a chance to explore it. However, my friend’s initial excitement soon evaporated once he had stepped inside. I saw a puzzled expression grow on Jamie’s face as he scanned the living room. Where’s your vid-screen?

I gave a half-hearted shrug. Don’t have one. Dad says there is nothing but filth on the vid these days. As we walked upstairs, I flipped on the hallway light.

You have to turn your lights on? No voice controls? Once again, I gave a sheepish shrug as we made our way to the renovated attic on the third level, which served as my room. When we reached my bedroom Jamie’s face lit up. Cool room! he said, as he trotted over to the window. You can spy on the entire neighborhood from up here. For a moment my face lit up at the compliment before he followed up with, But where’s your e-reader and teach screen and headset?

I shook his head. Mom and Dad don’t allow them in the house.