The Penumbra Vol. 1: Performance: The Penumbra, #1

Stories From

The Penumbra

Vol. 1:

Performance

by

Ben Wari

Copyright © 2012-2024 Ben J Wari

Cover Design Copyright © 2014 Christopher Moyer

Excerpts from:

Something Wicked This Way Comes © 1962 Simon & Schuster,

The Cremation of Dan McGee © 1907, and

Midnight © 1900,

Used under Fair Use.

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in reviews and the like.

This is a work of fiction. All persons, personalities, events, institutions, and references are part of the rich, fictional tapestry that authors love to use for ours and others' amusement. Any relation to anything in our reality is entirely coincidental,or perhaps a product of our subconscious.

First Printing, 2016

ebook ISBN - 9781536501469

www.thepenumbra.net

-Dedication-

For Ray, Richard, and Rod,

who thought out past here to there.

Contents

Title

1 – The Penumbra

2 – Shadows Play

3 – Wolf Season

Author Bio And Links

Bonus Material

- 1 -

The Penumbra

Would that I could continue these wonders into a thousand, thousand worlds, each a different, glimmering facet of the strange and the improbable that we lend our imaginations to...

- Charles Gloaming's finale speech, 1973

¹

*

As the shells rained down around him, pelting him with mud and shrapnel, Iverson swore he had seen this before. No, it wasn't simple deja vu or a matter of repetition or a routine done so many times that life became a blur.

²

He knew with all certainty that he had watched this exact scene play out before, his cowering along with his mates, from somewhere safe and sound and far away from the deteriorating trenches. Or had it happened to someone he knew well? Did he know anyone so old? In this great of detail? The pale light of day hanging over the battlefield was now fading and he had so little time left to think on these curling, threatening ideas.

He had been in the perpetual mist and fog of the trenches for what seemed like weeks, but he could not be sure. He felt as though he were pretending the entire time, that the uniform he wore was only a costume, though his mates around him stared so defiantly, so thoroughly at the tops of the plank walls, that it had to be real.

He didn't remember enlisting, but he remembered scraps of training. The voyage to this muck was indistinct, only glimpses. His name was Alexei Iverson, which was not of The Isles, but forgiven during wartime; as easily glossed over as his aging, stout body, his weakening, dark eyes, his hint of an eastern accent, his lack of quick reflexes. It did not matter at the front. There were many others here that were nearing that old, fearful hill as well, and after a while everyone came to look the same hungry-sick, a matching array.

Every time he moved or spoke or smoked or stared out across no-man's land, any time left to himself to view things from the periphery of his vision, it seemed as if he were someone else entirely. Most of the men mumbled similar thoughts, and he had almost convinced himself that this was something war did to a mind, like preserving moments in a specimen jar to save for a later, saner time.

³

And then the whisperings started. Or had they always been there? He was having trouble lining up events. They could have begun long before, but were only distinguishable now as human voices. Mostly murmurings mixed together (or was it more of a shuffling chorus?), though there was another voice behind them at times, at the edges of sleep. Male. Pronounced.

⁴

Most of the men didn't bat an eye when he had hinted about hearing things; they had only grunted, stuck to their duty without a word, staring out and out, until a new, damnable mist fell around them. It had lasted for days on end, lightening slightly with the mid-day, but returning to dark and shadow-strewn with a blink.

⁵

It was in that stark, unknown time that the next troop over had got fresh replacements; seasoned fighters instead of plain green lads, and the rumours (so familiar now that he looked back) had swirled into Alex's damp, muddy little home.

Say that one of the poor bloody fools, he survived going over the top a few times, even when the rest of his troop didn't. Yeah, heard some others found him the next day, shivering and pale and not a scratch on him.

Iverson knew not to heed idle gossip and yet, more men spoke of the miracle soldier, though none had seen him in the flesh.

I got a school chum says he knew the man back home, nothing special, just lucky is all.

What rubbish, it's probably not even the same bloke, just someone with a like name or face.

You know what I heard, said one usually quiet youth, I heard the few times his troop’s gone out on patrol, no sentries see them. No one fires at them, no rounds come near him. Searchlights brush right past.

It's ungodly! whisper-shouted another. And so it went.

⁶

To Iverson, it had to be true, because he knew it was true. Somehow he had foreknowledge of this battle-legend, even though it was spotty. The man was a survivor, but he had paid an awful price to become effectively immortal. But what was the twist?

⁷

If there was such a man (there was), he would meet him, that fact was unavoidable. There was another truth hiding in there, but it slipped off any capable thought. The nights drew on.

⁸

*

Ginger 'Snaps' Lampwick was probably not the smartest dame in the big, bad old city, nor was she the sultriest or richest, but you can bet when it came to being cagey, clever, or even conniving, well sister, I wouldn't want to be on the wrong side of a case she worked.

⁹

See, some said she had a gift--she could read folks right straight through their lies, through their own tangled web of crap that they might have even believed in. Yes, she could wrangle the truth out of anyone (those sly green eyes of hers didn't hurt any, either), if the work called for it. Thing was, this peculiarity wasn't at her beck and call, no ma’am, she could only be effective once the sun went down and darkness took its turn.

Only nowadays that skill didn't seem to work as well as it once did. Leads dried up, cases stopped coming in. Other things were strange to her, too. She felt like some days, scenes, moments, were repeating themselves. They felt predictable--no, more like directions she could almost call out before they happened, if she were inclined.

And to top it all off, what could be less helpful to a gal already late on her office rent, with a whiny ex battering at her telephone all day and only a sad, solo swig of whisky left in her life, than a new job with an insane request?

¹⁰

She didn't usually take jobs from people without a reference, and precisely never when they came from packets sent through the mail slot, but this one came with a grand in advance and a promise for more. So hey, she figured, with a thousand reasons for it, I can't even come up with two against.

'Find a man in this town who is too afraid to leave his own shadow,' was all the note attached had said. There was no card or name or even a number scratched down for her to get back to. She had asked around about such a man over the next evening or two, feeling foolish, but giving it a fair shake all the same.

She hadn't been back to the office, working on this ridiculous, impossible offer. Her faded blue suit was a mess, holes worn through it, some questionable stains glaring out at the world. Not to mention her hair--the less said there, the better.

¹¹

Yet she felt compelled to go all-in on this one. It might have been in her nature to be a helpful altruist if she hadn't felt the need to charge for her services (a gal’s got to drink). She had been hired to find a man who she now increasingly expected didn't exist.

Not much came out of the usual suspects and she would have dropped the job (despite the lack of other work) if another hundred hadn't come sailing through her apartment mail a morning later. That had got her back on track with all the aplomb of a booze-hound jumping after a broken bottle full of single malt.

*

As day rolled into night again and the oppressive mist reigned, Iverson tried to remember life at home and, in a return to despair, found he could not.

¹² The only notable things left were those wondersoldier rumours and now, during his late shifts, a slight rustling to go with the whispers and cutting breeze. Had he not been so conditioned to the trench, he might have wondered where there could possibly be any dry leaf, twig, or brush to make that sound. Paper, maybe? Only the officers would have that these days, and that was in short supply.

¹³

The next night was a break in the monotony, though no one wished for it. The boys caught hell in the form of shells shattering their world for hours on end.

Iverson learned the next morning (through pounded eardrums) that they got off easy, that the neighbouring trench suffered near total casualties. That there was only one left, completely unharmed.

Word spread down the line of a counterattack next dawn, a foolish attempt to show strength. Dread filled every man around until evening meal, when a small clamor came from a crowd down past the next alley.

It's him! Really him!

I told you--

No, he's far taller, I tell you.

Keeping back, Iverson fidgeted, not daring to look up until the crowd parted for a moment to reveal someone that had haunted his waking dreams. A memory of someone so familiar, but where had that lingering spectre come from?

The lone survivor was just