Rocco's Arc

Chapter 4 of 4

The red light kept moving on the twelfth screen. It walked toward the grocery, toward Tony. Rocco grabbed the wax bucket and tipped it over. Empty. He had used every drop sealing the other eleven lenses. He had nothing left to close the last door, and the thing was almost at his father's store. He called Tony. His father picked up on the first ring. "Son, it's late. Lock up and sleep." Behind the words, Rocco heard the store's cooler humming, the same sound from his childhood. "Dad, get out of the store. Now. Something's coming through the camera by your window." Tony laughed, tired and warm. "Nothing comes here but stray cats." Then the line went quiet, and Rocco heard glass creak. He ran for Cassidy's cruiser. She was still parked at his curb, filling out her log. "No wax left," he said, dropping in beside her. "But heat pins them. Sue said hot wax holds a shadow in place. If I can't seal the lens, I break it." Cassidy hit the siren and drove. The grocery glowed under its striped awning. Fruit crates lined the sidewalk. Tony stood inside near the front window, a phone still in his hand, staring at a smear of dark on the glass. The camera sat hidden above the door, its lens catching the streetlight. Inside that lens, a red point burned. Rocco jumped from the cruiser before it stopped. "Dad, move away from the window!" Tony turned, confused. The dark smear on the glass rippled and reached toward him. Rocco grabbed a fruit crate off the sidewalk and swung it up at the hidden camera. The lens cracked. The red light flared white and screamed a sound with no mouth. Cassidy pulled Tony back by the collar. Rocco swung the crate again. The camera housing broke off the wall and hit the pavement. The lens shattered. The red light snapped out like a blown match. The smear on the window went still, then slid down the glass and vanished into the dark. Tony sat on the floor of his own store, breathing hard. "What was that?" Rocco knelt beside him. "It's gone. You're safe." He held his father's shoulder until the shaking stopped. But Rocco stared at the broken lens on the ground. He remembered Sue's warning. Destroying the anchor does not kill the shadow. It forces it somewhere worse. He had smashed the last camera to save Tony. Now all twelve of his eyes on the town were dark. His system was blind. Cassidy stood at the door, watching the empty street. "Rocco," she said. "If it didn't die, where did it go?" He had no answer. He had closed the last door by breaking it. The thing was loose now, out in the cold dark, with no lens left to show him where.