Shine: The Knowing Ones (2 page)

Panic seized her as the figure moved toward her—rushing. Sam raised a hand, her lips parting to scream as the figure moved into a lighted area. “Sam...are you okay?”

Paul pulled his bag more securely over his shoulder as he crossed the room to her.

Sam let out a huge breath dropping her head. “You scared me to death,” she said.

He smiled, placing a hand on her shoulder. “A little jumpy tonight?” he asked. “You look terrified.”

Sam let out another breath and shook her head. She glanced up at him. “Yeah,” she said. “A little jumpy.”

“You want me to wait for you?”

“No,” she said. “I’m sorry. I have just been on edge the past couple of days. I’m good. Sorry, Paul.”

He laughed. “You’re sure...I don’t mind waiting.”

“I’m sure. Go. We’ve all been here way too long.”

“You got that right,” he said. He patted her on the arm. “See you tomorrow.” He glanced over his shoulder. “You and Ivan were brilliant by the way.”

Sam smiled. “Thank you.”

He rounded the corner and walked out of the dressing room. Sam closed her locker door and exhaled. “Samantha Shields, get a grip.” She pulled her bag over her shoulder and started for the door just as the sinister voice called out.

“Samantha...”

The voice echoed in the darkened hall. Sam hovered in the dressing room doorway, gripping her bag, unable to move. Her eyes darted about as the voice seemed to come from nowhere. With bated breath, she glanced over her shoulder, mentally noting places to hide—counters, the showers, lockers...the door had a lock, right? How had Paul disappeared so quickly?

“Samantha”

“Shit.”
Her thick brown pony tail whipped over her shoulder as she jerked back to the looming hallway. Her hand trembled, clenching harder on her bag strap, flushing the pink from her knuckles.

She scanned the darkness. Shadows filled the corridor. Muted evidence of flood lights spilled through the glass doors she would find at
the end of the hall...if she could summon the courage to move. She drew a breath and lifted a foot. A large silhouette of a man stepped out from behind the wall—mammoth frame, burly shoulders and a fringe of wild black hair. Lime green irises glinted in the darkness.

Sam froze. Her eyes shifted to the back exit behind her.

A low, hollow voice answered her unspoken thought—not in English.

Hysteria squeezed her beating heart to a stop.
Run.
She bolted for the back entrance—closing in on the door. Demonic braying boomed through the foyer, echoing through the open levels and balconies. Sam flew down the hall, terror in a knot at the top of her throat.

Nearly out, the gap narrowed with every desperate shoe fall. Seething energy moved in on her from behind—so fast—no way to escape. He crashed into her from behind, knocking the air from her chest. The glass doors shook under jarring force as they swung open—their bodies careening through and colliding with the stretch of campus lawn.

A shock of pain wracked her skull as her head smacked into dying grass. Thick snarls of heavy breathing warmed the flesh just below her ear. Gasping for air, she struggled beneath his weight—his substantial body crushing into hers. Iron fingers clamped around her throat, squeezing. The atmosphere grew heavy—changing as the predator chanted incantation in a foreign tongue.

She clawed into the grass, tearing at the dirt beneath her. The earth below trembled. Living energy from the soil churned, entering her fingertips, traveling like electricity through each knuckle, vein and muscle fiber. A fluid jolt of power shot up her arms, flushing through her neck and shoulders, charging her body.

With an animalistic shriek the predator vanished—gone in an instant as if he had never been there at all. Sam sucked in air, coughing, the soil gleaming beneath her fingers. She lifted her head.

A calm silence swept over her. A woman appeared. A long red velvet gown billowed around her form touching the grass. A beautiful beaded head dress covered the crown of her head, long dark hair spilling out from underneath falling past her shoulders. Her eyes gleamed with radiant blue light. She lifted a hand toward Sam. A flash—seven enormous stone monoliths materialized in Sam’s mind. Crimson liquid spilled down the rough façade of each one, and the vision faded. The woman remained standing before her, reaching further, straining, gleaming eyes desperate to communicate—

A car door slammed in the distance. “Sam!”

A slender blonde ran across the lawn toward Sam and the woman disappeared. Twinkling light sparkled before Sam’s eyes as a loud buzzing filled her ears...and everything went black.

CHAPTER TWO

“S
am! Sam! Can you hear me?”

She woke to Anna bent over her in the darkness. “Sam, please, are you alright? My God, somebody help me!”

Sam struggled to lift her head, stunned and confused. Her voice escaped her throat in a weak mumble. “Anna?”

Anna dropped down close to her face. “Sam, oh my God, Sam are you alright? What happened?”

Sam pushed herself up on her elbows and rolled to a sitting position. She held a hand to her head as a new shock of pain rocked her skull
. “Oh...God...”

“Sam—” Anna’s voice cut off with a gasp. “Oh my God, Sam...your neck.
Who did this to you?”

Sam put a hand to her throat. Fiery pain shot through her esophagus as she swallowed—raw and sore.

Anna moved to her feet, squatting in preparation to stand. She took Sam by the shoulders. “We gotta get you to the hospital.” As Anna rose, Sam grabbed at her arm. “No...we can’t”

Anna stared, dumbfounded. “Sam, you were attacked. We have to go to the hospital—”

“I can’t.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Sam drew in a deep breath, rolled to her knees and staggered to her feet. Holding a hand out, she clung to Anna and steadied herself. “I will be fine. Just get me home.”

“Sam, you—”

“Anna,”
Sam said, “please get me home. I’ll explain on the way.”

Anna stood speechless, panicked. She shook her head, wrapped an arm around Sam and walked her toward her car.

Anna drove along South Campus Drive. Large trees lined the street, bright moonlight casting shadows on the grass. The dark of night dulled the brilliant gold, orange and red leaves that gleamed in autumn sunlight during the day. Intermittent street lamps plunged cones of light onto the asphalt, revealing splatters of color from leaves that had already fallen.

“What’s going on, Sam?” Anna asked.

Sam stared through the windshield, her gaze vacant. “Something is wrong,” she said. “Something is seriously wrong
with this place.”

“What do you mean?”

“I feel it,” she said, “I’ve felt it since we moved here. It’s like something horrible is looming over me all the time, and now this...”

Anna turned in a panic.
“
What do you mean
‘This’? What happened?
”

Sam hesitated. “Anna...I don’t even know if he was...
real.”

Anna swerved to the side of the road and put the car in park. She turned in her seat. “Sam, you’re freaking me out. What do you mean?”

Sam glanced up. “This guy...appeared in the building,” she said. “He was huge, and he was speaking some other language. His energy wasn’t...human.” She lowered her head. “This is insane,” she said. “I don’t know what this is. It’s completely different from anything I have ever experienced.”

Anna stared. “Sam, there are bruises on your neck. That’s real.”

“I don’t know
if it was real,” Sam said, her voice tense. “I know I’m not making sense. But I’ve never experienced this. This is more than me reading auras or knowing who’s at the door before the bell rings.” She dropped her head into her hand and exhaled. “This isn’t my abilities,” she said. “This is...
outside
of me.” She blew out another breath and lifted her head. “He seemed totally real—”

“He left marks.”

“I know.” Sam said gesturing in frustration. “But I saw a woman too. She was every bit as real Anna, but she vanished when you showed up.”

Anna stared, then shook her head. “So...like ghosts or some sort of demon or something?”

Sam looked through the windshield. She paused a moment before speaking. “Remember that time in the gully when we were kids?”

Anna nodded.
“Yeah
...of course
...”

“Come on Sam. Let’s get to the stream, we can build our clubhouse right by it!”

Against strict parental instruction, the two eight year old girls made their way down the small dirt path against a setting summer sun. Sloping this way and that, they pushed through a canopy of green foliage, penetrating the dense, tree-filled gully just behind Anna’s house. Sam and Anna’s tiny arms overflowed—carrying cookies, blankets, and other provisions for their secret hideaway.

“There’s a place down there, past that big tree that’s leaning into the water,” Anna said, ducking under a low branch. “I saw it yesterday from my window.”

“Yeah, but if you can see it from your window, other people might be able to see it too.”

“No, they won’t, you can see it just barely, and no one’s going to be in my room but me.”

Anna turned when she received no reply. Sam had stopped dead in her tracks.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

Sam remained silent, eyes wide, frozen on the now dark path.

“Sam, what’s wrong?” Anna pled, an edge of fear growing in her voice. She hurried back to where Sam stood.

“Do you feel that?” Sam whispered.

“Feel what? You’re scaring me.”

“We have to go back. It’s bad, really bad.”

Sam grabbed hold of Anna’s arm, squeezing harder and harder as malevolent hysteria consumed her.

“Ow!” Anna cried.

Sam barely seemed to notice. “He’s coming,” she said in a whispered panic. A rumbling crack sounded from high above them in the steep ravine. A large stone tumbled down, crashing into the earth, coming to a stop at their feet. Another followed—and another until a full landslide of dirt and stones collapsed in front of them nearly burying them both.

“Sam! Come on!” Anna’s small fist grasped the fabric of Sam’s ruffled sleeve yanking her up the path. Both girls turned to run. Tears streamed down their cheeks as they clutched each other, flying up the dirt path, jostling their
snacks and blankets, stumbling, pushing branches out of their way, clamoring toward the hole in the chain link fence.

They raced through the backyard, now cloaked in darkness. Deep shadows carved into the grass as they took the porch steps, shoving through the back door, not stopping until they reached the sanctuary of Anna’s bedroom. Anna shut the door tight as Sam dropped her things and piled into a corner, shaking, arms wrapped around her knees, rocking back and forth. Racing to her side, Anna sat down, hugging her close.

“Those rocks almost killed us,” Anna cried.

“I did that,” Sam said, trembling all over.

Anna stared. “You moved the rocks? How did you move the rocks?”

New tears filled Sam’s eyes. “I just told them to move. A bad man was coming. I didn’t know they would fall so close to us.”

Anna’s big green eyes lit with terror. “Is he still down there?”

“I don’t know. I can’t tell.”

They huddled together, weeping in fear as a large shadowed figure departed in silence from deep within the gully below.

The next day, a body was recovered, half buried in leaves and mud about twenty feet from where the girls were headed. From Anna’s bedroom window they watched in stoic silence as police scoured the gully, stringing up caution tape and interviewing the neighbors. Neither of them ever spoke a word of it to anyone, but a bruised imprint of Sam’s fingers took days to disappear from Anna’s arm.

Sam turned to Anna. “I did it again just now,” she said. “I pulled energy from the ground...and somehow that made him go away.”

Anna stared for a moment then shook her head. “What can we do?”