Coming soon!
Brian Thatz noticed he was being followed as he walked from his cello lesson to the old office building where he played interdimensional games.
At first, it was just a feeling that someone was watching. He pushed his glasses more securely onto the bridge of his nose and looked around. No one seemed suspicious. There were some other students with violins and guitars hopping down the steps of the music school. A crossing guard. Two women in high heels, wobbling on the brick sidewalks.
So Brian kept walking, dragging his cello. Sometimes he wished he’d chosen a smaller instrument. Even the viola would have been better.
But there was the feeling again—like someone lightly touching his back, a gaze lingering on his collar, on his neck, on the fringe of hair coming out from under his baseball cap.
He frowned and glanced at the windows he passed to see if they reflected signs of movement.
Nothing. But the feeling persisted. He kept going for a block or two, then turned.
This time, he saw who was following him.
The man wore a camel-hair overcoat and carried nothing in his hands. His face, at a distance, looked violent and bloody red.
Brian loved to read old detective stories with names like The Gimleyhough Diamond, A Wee Case of Murder, and What Goes Up. In these books, people were always being hired to follow other people. They called it “shadowing,” and the creeps who shadowed were called “shadows” or “tails.”
Brian’s shadow was not very good at remaining unseen. The man clearly was used to following sly, nimble victims who slipped through crowds and darted down alleyways. He wasn’t particularly gifted when it came to lurking behind a stocky boy struggling down the street with a cello. The shadow had to make frequent stops so he wouldn’t walk right past Brian. He had to pretend he was interested in birds.
There were plenty of birds. It was early summer in Cambridge, and the Common was alive with them. An oak shuffled with finches. Brian saw the tail pause about fifteen feet back to shield his eyes and admire them. The man’s red face was riddled with old pockmarks, scumbled like cottage cheese.
While the tail watched the finches, Brian decided to make a break for the subway station. He lifted his cello—cranking up his elbows—and hopped across the puddles. For blocks, he puffed and hauled.
Even he could tell his burst of speed was pathetic. College students taking a brisk stroll walked right past him. Bicyclists nearly ran into him. The tail kept ambling along across the Common, fascinated by jays, looking fitfully at the dirty sky, slightly embarrassed to be so visible.
The tail followed Brian past a bus stop, past an old graveyard, past a church and a drunken busker playing the accordion. The man followed him past a newsstand and down the escalators to the T, Boston’s subway.
When the train pulled into the station and the doors hissed and rattled open, Brian lunged into the nearest car. He rested his back against one of the poles and twisted his neck to look out. The tail was headed along the platform, straight for the same car. The man stepped in at the other end and stood staring, unperturbed. No longer, apparently, so interested in birds.
“Ashmont train,” the voice on the loudspeaker said. “Stand clear of the doors. Stand clear.”
Brian flung himself toward the doors as they shut. He hauled his cello behind him.
His cello got tangled with the pole and seat. Brian tripped and almost fell.
“Whoa,” said a kid in a hoodie, gripping Brian’s shoulder. “Steady.”
The doors were closed. The train pulled out of the station. The tail stared down the car as if Brian were a natural event he was watching. They all raced through tunnels, wheels screaming.
Brian knew who might have sent the man to shadow him. Nearly a year before, Brian and his friend Gregory had gone on a strange adventure in the northern woods of Vermont. They had found themselves the pawns in an ancient, supernatural game that led to mountaintops, caverns, and ogres. When Brian won the Game, he also won the right to oversee the Game’s next round. Now he suspected that the tail who stood a few feet from him had been sent by the Thusser, the elfin nation that had lost that contest. Perhaps they were trying to gain some advantage.
Maybe this man, the shadow with clotted cheeks, was sent to find out where Brian’s workshop was hidden. Several days a week after school, Brian went to an old office building, where he and Gregory set up the next round of the Game, making up riddles and designing monstrosities. Maybe the Thusser were trying to catch a glimpse of Brian’s plans.
Or maybe they sought revenge.
Brian thought carefully about what to do. He prided himself on always being rational and logical. He knew that in a few stops, the T train would shoot briefly above-ground. It would cross a bridge over the Charles River, and for a minute or so, his phone would work. He decided he would call Gregory and tell him he wasn’t going to the workshop today. He’d ask Gregory to meet him at a different stop instead, and they’d both just walk back to Brian’s house. That way they wouldn’t be giving the tail any new information. There was nothing secret about Brian’s own address. It could be found by anyone with a phone book and thumbs.
Brian took his phone out of his pocket. He waited for the train to rise out of the tunnel. He anxiously flipped the phone open and closed, open and closed.
As the subway neared the mouth of the tunnel, he speed-dialed Gregory. He held the phone up to his ear. It was ringing.
The tail watched Brian call. His blotched lips started to move, as if he whispered information to someone who couldn’t be seen. He closed his eyes.
The train rolled across a dark granite bridge between black turrets. The city of Boston was spread out on its hill. Sailboats were on the river, and people were jogging along the banks. Brian knew he only had about forty-five seconds. The phone was still ringing.
The train stopped at the Charles Street station. People got on and off, hefting backpacks. Brian hunched over the phone, shielding his face with his cello, which rested between his legs and the grasp bar. The phone rang on.
Then, finally, someone answered.
“Hey,” said Gregory’s voice. “Listen to this.”
“No, Gregory,” whispered Brian urgently. “There’s someone following me. Can you meet me at—”
There was a squalling noise at the other end of the phone, a vicious hissing, a crash.
“Did you hear that?” Gregory said. “I put the cat on my dad’s turntable. Like, for vinyl.”
“Yeah. Gregory, I’m being followed. One of the Thusser, I think. Can you meet me at—”
There was another sharp hiss, another thump.
Gregory came back on the phone. “Side B,” he explained.
“Gregory, listen!”
“How did people ever think that was a high-definition sound system?”
“Gregory, I need you to meet me at—”
The train sped back underground. Brian shouted the name of a stop, but his phone had already lost its signal.
Brian was on his own.
Excerpt copyright © 2010 by M. T. Anderson.