The Dark In-Between

by Elizabeth Hrib

  “I think we ran out of outlets.” He rubs the back of his neck. “You really think we need another light?”

  “It makes me feel better,” Casey says, glancing from corner to corner. “The alternative is sleeping in a church every night.”

  “Yeah, no thanks,” Evan says. “Knocked it off the bucket list. Don’t think we need to repeat it. Creepy statues. Creepy angels.” He glances at Red. “No offense, but your buddy isn’t what I would call ‘people-friendly.’”

  Red stretches out along the length of the couch. “Malakhi isn’t bound to the church. There’s nothing stopping him from coming here next time.”

  “Next time?” Casey says. She sits up from her pile of pillows and comforters on the floor.

  Evan crawls into the sleeping bag stretched out beside her, poking his head out. “Uh, no. The house has a strict one-angel-per-night policy. My mom would be pissed.”

  “Malakhi doesn’t exactly take orders.”

  “Well, he hasn’t met my mom.”

  Casey closes her eyes and tries to sleep to the sounds of Red and Evan bickering until one of them starts snoring and then sleep seems to drift further away.

  Morning arrives slowly, dawn creeping into the room beneath the frayed drapery that hangs from the window; it dances in the cold air that escapes from the vent below the window frame.

  Casey watches for shadows, but none come. The night had been filled with short bouts of sleep, always disturbed by the smallest noises. The dripping of the bathroom tap. The click of the air conditioner. The slide of car tires outside. Each one became a nightmare in her fever-like dreams. The drip of water turned to the steady ooze of blood that had dripped from Red’s wound. The tick-tick-tick of the air conditioner became the clawing pursuit of some rotting creature. And the tires, their sliding scuff transformed into the pull of dark, shadowed limbs upon the ground.

  Each time Casey had bolted out of her sleep, Evan had lain next to her, eyes open, staring at the ceiling. Even now he’s awake, the whites of his eyes rimmed red. He’s unnerved by it all. He’ll never admit it because he so desperately wants to be a part of this with her, but she can tell.

  She reaches across the divide between them, searching for Evan’s hand in the tangle of blankets. When she finds it, she gives it a gentle tug. “You okay in there?”

  “Just lost in thought.”

  “Didn’t think you had any thoughts.”

  He yawns, then nudges her in the ribs. “Oh, you got jokes, huh?”

  She grins, rolling away from him. “If I asked you to run away with me forever, would you?”

  “Yes.”

  She rolls back curiously. “You don’t even want to think about it first?”

  “Not really.” Evan closes his eyes. “Do you want to run away?”

  “What I really want is a shower and a change of clothes.”

  “Then let me take you home.” He sits up. “I’ll grab something for Red to borrow. Can’t be toting around a stinky angel.”

  The car ride is quick. There’s no traffic yet, only the occasional early-morning dog walkers and joggers.

  With her first step inside the town house, Casey shivers as the air-conditioning catches her full blast; Karen is oblivious to the cold. Red and Evan pile in behind her as she kicks off her shoes and looks for the telltale signs that her aunt is home. Her stethoscope and keys are missing from the front-door hook, but there’s a note from Karen taped to the fridge.

  Brownies. Enjoy. It’s circled with a heart.

  “I’m going to shower,” she says.

  “I’ll help myself.” Evan goes straight to the fridge. Red follows him.

  “Boys,” Casey mumbles under her breath. She grabs a change of clothes, locks herself in the bathroom, and steps under the warm spray, helping herself to copious amounts of strawberry-hibiscus-scented shampoo and some very bubbly body wash. When she’s done, she wraps herself in two fluffy towels and brushes her teeth in front of the mirror. This is usually the kind of thing she does with music blasting; now it just feels like a chore that she’s rushing through. The dark circles under her eyes only serve to remind her of how little sleep she’s gotten these past couple of days. Weeks, really, if she thinks about it. She hasn’t slept right since that night.

  Girl, throw some concealer on that, inner Liddy says.

  Casey ignores her.

  She dresses in clean clothes, runs a brush through her hair and pulls it into an easy ponytail.

  When she gets back to the kitchen, Red and Evan are downing glasses of milk like thirsty men in the desert.

  “Aw, Case,” Evan mumbles around a mouthful of chocolate fudge. “You gotta have one of these.”

  She picks up a fork and takes a piece right out of the pan. Her aunt really is a good cook.

  “Shower’s free,” she says to Red. He takes the rolled-up bundle of clothes borrowed from Evan and heads down the hall.

  “You smell like a strawberry milk shake,” Evan tells her, tugging on the end of her ponytail.

  “Hope that’s not one of your better pickup lines,” Casey says, covering the brownie pan with plastic wrap and putting it back in the fridge.

  Suddenly, she realizes that this is the first time she’s been alone with Evan since yesterday in the kitchen. Since their almost-kiss was interrupted by some shifty creature. Ugh … wow. What is she doing trying to kiss him? What is she doing with these feelings? Feelings are the worst, Casey decides.

  Everything just sucks.

  Except the brownies. Those are okay.

  “So,” Evan begins awkwardly, letting the word hang there between them.

  Casey wants to close her eyes, count to ten, and hope this moment disappears into oblivion. So what? she wants to ask him. What does it all mean? Where do we stand now that there are all these tipsy, bubbly, confusing feelings in the way?

  But she doesn’t. She doesn’t ask him anything. She just smiles a bit, too much lip and not enough teeth.

  It’s moments like these that hit her the hardest: Liddy would know what to say.

  “Shore Fest starts this week,” Evan says, cutting straight into her mopey self-chatter.

  “What?”

  “Down on the boardwalk,” he explains like they haven’t been going to Shore Fest every year since they were toddlers. “You know … food … fun … fireworks.”

  “I hadn’t realized,” she says, resting her head on her hand where she’s propped against the island counter.

  “Yeah, I wasn’t going to say anything considering the current circumstances, but … I mean, maybe this will all be over by then. Or maybe it won’t … but that doesn’t mean you stop living in between, right? It’s good to get out. To do normal things.”

  “Normal,” Casey repeats.

  “Yeah, you know … Wait, not that you’re not normal anymore. I mean, you did die. And you can talk to dead people … Can you talk to dead people? Well, they talk to you at least. But that’s fine, you’re still you. What I meant was—”

  He stops talking.

  “You okay?” Casey prods.

  “Yeah, I just ran out of breath.”

  “Well?” Casey asks when he’s had time to recover from his bout of babbling; something so uncharacteristically Evan that it’s caught her interest. Granted, Evan likes to talk. He’s good at it. Communication is one of his better skill sets. But rarely does he babble for no good reason.

  “Well, what?” he asks, blinking owlishly at her.

  If there were crickets around to chirp, it would happen about now. Casey resists the urge to drop her head into her hands in frustration. Instead, she looks him in the eye.

  “What did you mean?”

  “Oh! I wanted to know … I guess I just wondered if maybe … if you wanted to go with me one night. When you’re not busy trying to save Liddy’s soul or anything like that. I mean, I get it. Priorities, right?”

  Casey’s lips pucker, fighting a grin at the eager look on Evan’s face. At the way he clut
ches at the counter, doing push-ups against it while he waits for her answer. He’s fidgety and it’s kind of endearing.

  “Shore Fest,” she says.

  “Yeah.”

  She nods. “Sure, why not?”

  “Okay,” he says letting go of the counter and stuffing his hands in his jeans. “Great. I mean, yeah. It’ll be great.”

  Casey moves the dishes to the sink to give her something to do with her hands. Why does this feel different from every other year? From every other weekend or weekday? Why does it feel like he’s asking her on a date?

  Because he is, dummy! her inner Liddy squeals.

  Casey squeezes soap into the sink. The bottle sucks in air as the last of the soap spirals through the water. She puts it on the counter and crosses into the hall closet for a new bottle, quite aware of Evan’s gaze on her. It makes her nervous all over, but in a good way.

  In a way that makes her heart stutter. She tries to control the smile, to reel it back into something semi-normal.

  As she touches the doorknob, the world around her fades. Harsh fluorescent lights. Whitewashed hallways. Signs promoting hand hygiene and one of those automatic hand sanitizer machines.

  She closes her eyes, trying to capture the already fading images.

  “Casey?”

  A circular desk filled with patient charts divides a forked hallway. On the corner of the desk sits a stuffed bear wearing a white T-shirt. It reads: ST. MARGARET’S UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL.

  That’s the same hospital Karen works at.

  Casey!

  “It’s Liddy,” she says, letting go of the knob like it’s burned her.

  “Where?” Evan says. “Now?”

  The bathroom door opens and Red steps into the hall, toweling off the dripping ends of his dark hair.

  “We have to go back to Limbo,” she says to him.

  He drops the towel on the counter and strings the chain of feathers around his neck.

  “What can I do?” Evan asks. “There must be something. I can help. I can…”

  She takes his hand in hers, fingers laced together. “Go somewhere else. Please. Somewhere busy, with people and light. So I know you’re safe.”

  Evan tries to pull away, to dismiss her worry. “They’re not after me, Casey.”

  “Please,” she begs him with all the urgency she can muster. If there was ever anything that frightened her as much as losing Liddy, it was now the thought of putting Evan in danger. Especially when that danger is something he can’t hope to fight on his own. “Go somewhere they can’t hurt you,” she pleads, fingers squeezing his. “That’s how you can help me.”

  “All right, fine,” he says, but the look on his face is torn, the struggle between what he wants and what she wants clearly at odds. “I’m going. I’m going.”

  NINE

  RED GRASPS THE edge of the coffee table and pushes it toward the couch, leaving an empty space in the middle of the living room. He kneels on the carpet, carving the circle into the ground, hesitating long enough for her to join him inside. She waits for the uncomfortable, squeezing pressure of Limbo. It strikes Casey as what it must be like to go through the spin cycle in the washing machine.

  They arrive in that strange in-between place, pressed against a door, a bright light visible against their shoes. The door opens against Red’s shoulder and they spill out beneath harsh, industrial-standard lights.

  Aside from that, the white walls, paint-chipped handrails, and poorly waxed floors tell her she’s in a hospital. Casey recognizes the tiny stuffed bear from her flash of vision. She takes it off the nursing station, looks it over, then puts it back in exactly the same spot. It’s a hospital, all right. Only different. The constant mumble of nurses and patients, the whine of machines, even the dull buzz of the elevator—it’s all eerily quiet.

  Red looks up and down the hall once, then turns around and carves the protective markings into the utility door that secures their entrance and exit.

  Casey wanders down the abandoned hall, brushing her hand along the laminated public service announcements on handwashing, flu outbreaks, and the signs of stroke. She pushes against the release bar on the stairwell door, but it doesn’t budge. Next, she stops at the elevators and presses both buttons multiple times with the incessant impatience of a toddler. Neither lights up no matter how forcefully she jams her thumb against it. She lays her ear to the dinged-up stainless-steel door. Not even a hum from the motor.

  “Casey, wait!” Red hisses, finishing his work quickly and running to catch up. He hesitates as they approach the end of the hall, putting his hand out before pulling ahead of her. He peeks around the corner first, then cocks his head, and she falls in step beside him.

  “Liddy was here,” she says. “The bear at the desk, it’s the same as in the vision I saw.”

  Ahead, there’s a howling kind of sound, like air being forced through a small, confined space. It isn’t the usual hospital noise, and that’s what draws her to it.

  Beside her, Red’s eyes dart left and right, taking stock of every closed patient room. He pops the doors open, doing a sweeping check of each one before closing them again. When they get to the end of the hall, he reaches for the last knob but Casey catches his hand.

  “Not yet,” she says, pressing her ear up against it. Soft murmurs echo from inside. Voices press together, then part, not quite in song, but something awfully close. It reminds her of the door Henry had disappeared behind, and she pulls away.

  As they round the next corner, where she expects to see another whitewashed hallway, they find the side of the building blown out, wind whipping through shattered panes of glass. That explains the howling, Casey thinks. Plant life climbs up the rubble and wreckage, curling around bits of stone and rebar. A kind of dystopian wonderland come to life.

  “What happened here?”

  “It’s a version of where the soul died,” Red says. “That doesn’t always match the physical world.”

  She leans forward, caught by Red at the last second and yanked back from the edge. “I wasn’t going to fall,” she insists.

  His fingers tighten against her shirtsleeve. “I know.”

  Casey stares over the edge of the building. Rubble piles up the side like some sort of forgotten staircase. Below sits a grove of trees, limbs spread as if waiting to catch her.

  “What do you think?” Red says.

  Casey clicks her tongue. Rooms are empty. Elevator’s broken. Stairwells locked. “I don’t want to, but I think we have to go down there. If Liddy is still here, in this part of Limbo, it’s not up here.”

  “If you say so,” Red says. He hooks his dagger in the loop of his pants to free both hands for the climb.

  “So, we’re just going to freehand this, then?”

  “I forgot my climbing gear,” Red deadpans. “And last time I checked, still no wings. So unless there’s a secret escalator around—”

  Casey glares at him, stepping to the edge of the building. “You’re not funny.”

  He takes a step forward, dropping down to a platform that looks like it once belonged in a doorway. Red bends his knees, testing the stability of the platform. It trembles under him.

  “Can you not do that!” Casey snaps.

  Red flashes a perfect set of teeth at her. “Scared of heights?”

  “No.”

  “Good.”

  Casey follows Red onto the platform, bracing herself, hands clutching a rusty piece of rebar above her head. It’s slow moving. Every step sends bits of rubble shifting and Casey has visions of the debris collapsing beneath them and both of them hurtling toward the ground.

  “Are you?” she asks when they’ve made it to the halfway point. Even halfway is too high.

  “Am I what?”

  “Afraid of heights.” She slips on a piece of glass, arms shooting out as her leg slides off the concrete blocks they’re crouched on.

  Red nabs her by the collar of the shirt, holding her steady. “Only when I’m falling.”


  “Well,” Casey says, heart hammering. “Let’s avoid that.”

  “Touché. I try to keep the falls to once a century if I can.”

  Casey focuses more intently on her footing, but she’s intrigued by Red’s comment and can’t help prodding. “You’re talking about the actual fall, aren’t you?”

  “Oh yeah, the big one. Straight down through the clouds. Not as fun as it looks. It’s like an ice bath inside those things.”

  “So you’ve fallen before,” she says. A statement, not a question.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” Red replies hotly.

  “I’m just—”

  “Shocked? Speechless. Disappointed in my moral character? You’ll have to get in line for that one.”

  “Trying to figure out why,” Casey finishes.

  “Angels fall for many reasons. It’s not exactly a science, the things we do. Even we make mistakes.”

  “They’d have to be pretty big mistakes,” she says, doubling back at the look he gives her. “I’m guessing … you know, to go through all the work of…” She flaps her hands like wings.

  “Your charades game needs some work.”

  “You know what I mean,” she says exasperatedly.

  “Of course I do.”

  “So, was it always for the same thing?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Didn’t learn the first time? Or—”

  Red stares straight down. “Sometimes there isn’t a choice. Protecting humans is a messy job. You wouldn’t believe the kinds of things you get involved in.”

  “Why would you be punished for something like that?”

  “Because there’s always a better way.” Red says it like he’s imitating someone. “You know how it goes. Rules. Ancient and unbreakable.”

  “So you break it—”

  “—you buy it,” Red says. “A one-way ticket to ground-town.” He reaches up to help her off a high ledge.

  “Was this time the same as the others?”

  Red hesitates. He doesn’t look directly at her, but she doesn’t miss the way his back tenses, shoulder blades sticking out sharply. “No, this time was different from the others,” he says quietly.