On that night, still feeling the sting of his father’s inability to see him, Cohen walked into the display room of the funeral home and realized he felt no fear. None. He looked around, and all he felt was peace in the darkness. He wandered among the coffins, his fingers gliding over their smooth surfaces. He meandered to the chapel and peeked in through the door. He walked over to the curtain where he and Hippie had waited, hidden, earlier that day. He crawled under the coffin in front of the window, and he pulled himself behind the drapes. He remembered the sensation of holding Hippie’s hand, feeling every movement of her fingers. Had he really felt even her fingerprints, even the lines on her hand?
The room was silent except for when the heat kicked on, stirring the air, moving the dust around, gathering up the essence of the newly dead from the basement and scattering it through the house. Cohen thought again about the Beast. He found himself listening intently for any of the doors to open, for footsteps on the sidewalk outside, for the parking of a car on the street. He watched the headlights pass the glass door and willed the shadows to keep moving.
Exhaustion set in, and the heat from the vent below the curtain moved the fabric in a fluttering pattern, the same way a spring breeze coming through the window would have moved it. The hot air gathered around him, and he drifted into a kind of light sleep, infiltrated by shadows and warm walks on soft grass and the wispy movement of weeping willows. He dreamed of the old days, playing catch with his dad under a blue sky, smiling over at Ava during a baseball game, running out to catch the bus with Kaye, his family sitting down to eat dinner on a night when no one fought. Deeper into sleep he went, down into darker dreams of wandering through empty churches and tripping in a field of high corn, only to stand and realize he couldn’t see his way out. He ran in one direction, pushing the corn out of his way, the thin leaves stinging his hands and the skin around his eyes.
He woke up with a start, certain he had heard the gentle sound of bells followed by the glass door easing its way shut.
Wide awake, he slid behind the curtain as far as he could, trying to disappear. He wondered if maybe he had only jumped awake at the sound of the heat turning off—it usually made a kind of thunking finale—and it could have been the ensuing stillness that pulled him out of that dream. He could still feel the corn like thin razors on his skin.
He sensed movement on the other side of the room. He tensed, looking out from behind the curtain with one eye, but the room was too dark. He could see nothing. A car passed outside, and a shaft of light scanned the room from left to right like a flashlight sweeping the shadows. He held his breath. Another car passed, and this time he was sure of it—he saw something moving across the back of the room, away from the chapel. Past all the coffins.
In his direction.
He swallowed hard, amazed at how loud a swallow can sound in complete silence. He tasted the blood in his mouth, and again his tongue touched the hole left by the missing tooth. His jaw throbbed. He leaned from one side to the other and realized something was behind the curtain with him. His heart nearly stopped. The thing, whatever it was, gradually touched his hand. Cold and moving.
He screamed.
Hippie screamed back at him.
“What is wrong with you two?” Than hissed from across the room.
Cohen was so scared he couldn’t talk.
“Seriously,” Than said, disgust in his voice. “Why don’t you babies go to bed and I’ll catch up with you in the morning?”
Cohen’s flash of fear was being replaced with an indignant embarrassment. “What are you two doing here?” He first looked for Than, but when he couldn’t locate him he turned to Hippie. Her smile was water on a fire.
“Did I scare you?” she asked, trying unsuccessfully to stifle a giggle. He had never heard her like that, truly and unreservedly happy.
He couldn’t stop a small smile from pulling at the corners of his mouth. He took a deep breath and let it out in a relieved rush. “What are you guys doing here?” he asked again, shaking his head, still trying to communicate how annoyed he was.
“We’re tracking it,” Than muttered. He crawled along the floor with a flashlight, trying to hide the beam, staring into the carpet.
“The Beast?”
“When did you come down here?” Than asked.
Cohen shrugged. “Maybe an hour ago. I don’t know. I fell asleep.”
“Have you seen anything?” Hippie asked in a kind, sincere voice.
“No. Nothing.”
“Heard anything? Nothing outside?” Than asked.
“No.” Cohen paused. “Are you guys okay? From this afternoon, I mean. Where did you go?”
Than grunted. “We took off. Needed to regroup, figure out what’s next.”
Hippie reached over and tugged on Cohen’s shirtsleeve. “You were amazing.”
Cohen felt a rushing in his ears at her touch. If the Beast had walked through the funeral home door in that moment, he would have stood to his feet and walked calmly toward it, fearing nothing. But there was no target for him to aim this surge of bravery and emotion at. He froze in place, not wanting her to move her hand.
“What are you looking for?” he managed to ask Than. His own voice sounded far away, as if it were someone else’s.
Than waved them over. “What do you think, Hippie?” he asked, and there was awe in his voice, and something that sounded strangely like fear.
Hippie and Cohen bent down beside him, getting lower, lower, until they were both on their hands and knees. Hippie grabbed a pen from one of the tables, reached out, and slid it along the stiff carpet. Something black and sticky like tar clung to the pen and dragged along the carpet fibers. Cohen’s insides churned. At first he thought it was blood, but it was darker, the color of ink. He glanced nervously at Than.
“That’s it,” Than whispered.
“What?” Cohen asked.
Than turned on the flashlight and shone it at the black substance clinging to the pen—it shone like a liquid but didn’t move. It stuck there.
“What is it?” Cohen asked.
Hippie pursed her lips. “The Beast is injured. This is the trail it leaves behind, pieces of itself.”
“That’s a shadow?” Cohen asked. “Like, a shadow you can hold?”
Hippie paused. “Now we can track it.”