Free In the Shadows of Children by Alan Ryker Page B

them I’d slipped down the bank. Then that one time—”
    “You’re wearing him. You’re wearing his memories. You’re so desperate to be real that you’ll settle for having once been real.” Aaron shook his head. Bobby wasn’t here. Bobby was gone. And Aaron felt a wave of relief and disgust. He slid down the wall and sat on the floor. Got comfortable. He wouldn’t walk past that closet until the sun rose.
    They were silent for a long while, Bobby standing, holding his backpack by one strap, his eyes unfocused, his jaw clenched.
    Finally, he spoke. “You’re wrong, brother. You called this on us by telling Dad your little story, you abandoned me to this fate that should have been yours, and now you have the gall to deny me, to say that I don’t even exist?” That obnoxious smile returned, sliding across the mask of Bobby’s face. “Well, I won’t soon. The void will let me fade when I bring it a replacement.”
    “What the hell does that mean?”
    “The boogeymen are drained children buying their own release. I stuff a soul in my sack and I’m gone. It’s impossible for me to explain to you what it’s like to linger after being drained, to live a nonexistence. But it will be over soon. They’re done with me except for one more task.”
    The fake Bobby’s words threw Aaron. Had it lied about not being able to hurt Aaron? Was it about to try to pull him through? He’d jump out the window before he let it so much as touch him.
    “You said adults are immune.”
    “You sorry sack of shit,” Bobby said, barking out a vicious laugh. “I died for you, asshole. I died in your place. Mom, too. And you’re still only worried about your own skin. Think back to the one thing that connects all the stolen children in all those stories, and then remember the phone call you made last night.”
    Aaron jumped to his feet. Elijah. He’d warned Elijah about the boogeyman.
    “No. No. Fuck you, you can’t do this. If you are Bobby, you can’t do this. Not to your nephew.”
    Bobby smiled and stepped back into the depths.
    “He’s never met you but he feels like he knows you. He looks at your pictures. He asks about you.” Aaron spoke in statements, but he was pleading. Begging.
    “Oh, we met. Last night. He might not have recognized me from the old pictures, though. I think I’ll pay him another visit,” Bobby said. He was fifty yards away, the void not changing and yet seeming to grow as the receding teenage boy added perspective.
    Aaron ran forward, charging Bobby, who continued to casually back away. Aaron ran through the veil of darkness, meeting with none of the resistance Bobby had struck when he’d pressed out in his monstrous true form. Instead, Aaron ran face-first into the low shelf over the hanger bar, splitting his lip. He ducked, tore aside the clothes, placed his hands flat on the plaster, then pounded at it.
    “Why?” Aaron screamed. “Why my boy?
    Bobby’s reply was distant, but directionless. “You have the life I should have, and things that don’t exist are envious of things that do.”
    Aaron fell out of the closet and watched the last of the darkness swirl away, just able to make out the tiny figure of his lost brother, now turned away, still walking slowly, clutching his backpack.
    Aaron pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed Sarah, desperately searching for a way to explain to her that his brother, the boogeyman, was coming for their son.
    “Hey, bucko,” Sarah said. “I’m sorry I haven’t called. Elijah passed out early and I’ve been enjoying an evening of adult television. Adult television! Not a talking tree or wise old owl or costumed hero in sight.”
    “Elijah’s asleep?”
    “Yeah, he had that skating party this afternoon. Ran himself ragged.”
    “Sarah, you have to wake him up right now. Get him out of that bedroom.”
    “What are you—”
    A whistle-pitched scream stopped her short.
    “Elijah?” she called out, mouth away from the phone. Aaron heard