Shadowfires

lift his
spirits, for his muddy thought processes made it difficult for him to
think ahead to a better future. His condition was eerie, unpleasant,
even frightening; he felt that he was not in control of his destiny
and that, in fact, he was trapped within his own body, chained to
this now-imperfect, half-dead flesh.
    He staggered into the bathroom, slowly showered, brushed his
teeth. He kept a complete wardrobe at the cabin, just as he did at
the house in Palm Springs, so he would never need to pack a suitcase
when visiting either place, and now he changed into khaki pants, a
red plaid shirt, wool socks, and a pair of woodsman's boots. In his strange gray haze, that morning routine required more time than it should have: He had trouble adjusting the shower controls to get the right temperature; he kept dropping the toothbrush into the sink; he cursed his stiff fingers as they fumbled with the buttons on his shirt; when he tried to roll up his long sleeves, the material resisted him as if it possessed a will of its own; and he succeeded in lacing the boots only with monumental effort.
    Eric was further distracted by the shadowfires.
    Several times, at the periphery of his vision, ordinary shadows
burst into flames. Just short-circuiting electrical impulses in his
badly damaged-but healing-brain. Illusions born in sputtering
cerebral synapses between neurons. Nothing more. However, when he
turned to look directly at the fires, they never faded or winked out
as mere mirages might have done, but grew even brighter.
    Although they produced no smoke or heat, consumed no fuel, and had
no real substance, he stared at those nonexistent flames with greater
fear each time they appeared, partly because within them-or perhaps
beyond them-he saw something mysterious, frightening; darkly shrouded
and monstrous figures that beckoned through the leaping brightness.
Although he knew the phantoms were only figments of his overwrought
imagination, although he had no idea what they might represent to him
or why he should be afraid of them, he was afraid. And at
times, mesmerized by shadowfires, he heard himself whimpering as if
he were a terrorized child.
    Food. Although his genetically altered body was capable of
miraculous regeneration and rapid recuperation, it still required
proper nutrition-vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates, proteins-the
building blocks with which to repair its damaged tissues. And for the
first time since arising in the morgue, he was hungry.
    He shuffled unsteadily into the kitchen, shambled to the big
refrigerator.
    He thought he saw something crawling out of the slots in a wall
plug just at the edge of vision. Something long, thin. Insectile.
Menacing. But he knew it was not real. He had seen things like it
before. It was another symptom of his brain damage. He just had to
ignore it, not let it frighten him, even though he heard its
chitinous feet tap-tap-tapping on the floor. Tap-tap-tapping. He
refused to look. Go away. He held on to the refrigerator.
Tapping. He gritted his teeth. Go away. The sound faded. When
he looked toward the wall plug, there was no strange insect, nothing
out of the ordinary.
    But now his uncle Barry, long dead, was sitting at the kitchen
table, grinning at him. As a child, he had frequently been left with
Uncle Barry Hampstead, who had abused him, and he had been too afraid
to tell anyone. Hampstead had threatened to hurt him, to cut off his
penis, if he told anyone, and those threats had been so vivid and
hideous that Eric had not doubted them for a minute. Now Uncle Barry
sat at the table, one hand in his lap, grinning, and said, “Come
here, little sweetheart;
let's have some fun,” and Eric could hear the voice as clearly as he'd
heard it thirty-five years ago, though he knew that neither the man
nor the voice was real, and he was as terrified of Barry Hampstead as
he had been long ago, though he knew he was now far beyond his hated
uncle's reach.
    He closed his eyes and willed the illusion to go away. He must
have stood there, shaking, for a minute or more, not wanting to open
his eyes until he was certain the apparition would be gone. But then
he began to think that Barry was there and was slipping closer
to him while his eyes were closed and was going to grab him by the
privates any second now, grab him and squeeze-
    His eyes snapped open.
    The phantom Barry Hampstead was gone.
    Breathing easier, Eric got a package of