Bone Hollow

by Kim Ventrella

  Ignoring Miss Cleo, whose wails could be heard all the way across the yard, Gabe left the scrapbook inside and crawled up underneath the house. He couldn’t see what was making the noise at first, but it sounded so dang pathetic his heart just about broke. Then he fished his flashlight from his pocket and the beam lit on a skeleton of a dog, bald except for a few tufts of wiry brown hair.

  It took Gabe nearly an hour to coax him out of his hiding place, and by then the storms had just about passed. Miss Cleo was so mad at Gabe for putting her precious poultry memories at risk that she locked him out of the house. Gabe spent the night in the storm shelter, curled up on Gramps’s old army cot, that bag of bones he called a dog snoring in his arms.

  They’d been best friends ever since that night, but Ollie had never gotten over his fear of storms. “Don’t worry now, you just try and get some sleep. Things’ll look better in the morning.”

  Gabe said it, even though he didn’t really believe it. How could things look better in the morning when the only friend he had in the world, apart from Ollie, that is, had betrayed him? Here he was, thinking he’d found a home, a place where people wouldn’t turn him out or treat him like dirt, and in the end it had all been a trick. Wynne was only being nice because she wanted something from him. The whole thing, the warm, cozy couch, the trays full of food, the pond and the candles that went off all by themselves, it was nothing more than a lie.

  Death had taken everything he’d ever loved, and now Death had taken away his home, too.

  He still couldn’t believe that Wynne had hurt that man, but he didn’t know what else to think. Wynne was Death, she’d said so herself, and that meant he’d stay as far away from her as possible, no matter how wet and how miserable he got.

  Ollie kept right on shaking all through that night and into the next morning. He didn’t fall asleep until the sun had risen, casting pale golden rays on the still-wet leaves. Despite the ache in his bottom, Gabe couldn’t get up for fear of waking Ollie. He drew in a deep breath, and soon he fell asleep, too, mouth open, head leaning against the cool, calloused bark.

  When he woke up again, he wasn’t in the woods anymore. He was in Gramps’s old log cabin, sitting on the scratchy wooden floor right by Gramps’s bed. Gramps was coughing something terrible. He didn’t look at all like Gabe remembered. His skin hung loose around his eyes and his mouth was sunken in like someone had plucked out all his teeth.

  “What’s wrong?” Gabe said.

  Gramps coughed some more and then he closed his eyes and pressed his hands together, and Gabe knew he must be praying. He didn’t pray out loud, the way Gabe did, though, and after about a minute his hands fell limp by his sides.

  Gabe leapt to his feet and tried to shake Gramps awake, but it was no use. Gabe had turned into a ghost, chilly and see-through and gray. He swiped his arm right through the center of Gramps’s chest, but he didn’t move, not a single inch. That was when Gabe saw the date circled on Gramps’s Trees of Macomb County calendar. September 14, the same day Gramps had died.

  He’d died in his cabin all alone, and no one had even found him till three days later, on account of Miss Cleo refusing to drive Gabe over for a visit. Of all the things Miss Cleo had done, that was by far the worst. Gabe had never told anyone, except for Ollie, but those three days haunted him long after Gramps was gone. Sure, he was dead, but it still wasn’t right for him to be left all alone, even if he didn’t know it.

  Looking at Gramps made Gabe’s knees go all shaky, and he sat down hard on the edge of the bed. He wanted to wait with him, like he hadn’t been able to the first time, but just then the door creaked open and a figure walked in.

  “You!” Gabe said, but the thing in the black cloak didn’t hear him.

  “Nice to see you, Captain,” said the stranger, giving Gramps’s shoulder a little shake. “Been a mighty long time, but I told you I’d be back.” The black cloak faded, and instead of Wynne, Gabe saw a young woman in a smart gray suit. Her blond hair curled around her head like a halo, and she was smiling so wide Gabe couldn’t help but smile, too. Something about her looked familiar, but Gabe didn’t know for sure till Gramps climbed out of bed and spun her around in his arms.

  “Well, I never,” he said, laughing, standing up straighter than Gabe had ever seen him. “Sure took you long enough.”

  “That it did,” said Gabe’s very own gran, and to Gabe’s extreme discomfort she planted a kiss smack-dab on Gramps’s lips. “Now I’m back, and there’ll be no more moping around in bed all day. I’ve got plans, mister.”

  Gramps was too busy laughing and smiling to answer.

  “Come on, now. What do you say we get you home? Last I remember, you promised me a night out. Unless you’re too tired?”

  “Tired! You’ve got to be kidding. I feel like dancing!”

  “That’s more like it.” She wrapped an arm around his shoulders and together they walked out the door into the yard.

  “Hang on,” Gramps said. “I can’t go yet.” He scanned the dirty patch of grass, with its rusty car parts and broken washer and dryer, like he was searching for something.

  “He’ll be fine,” she said, and just then, with the sunlight shining in her hair, Gabe thought she was the most beautiful person he’d ever seen, even if she had died before he was born. “After all, he’s got someone to look after him.”

  “If you mean that old bean sprout Miss Cleo, I wouldn’t be so sure. I never should have let her take him in, even if I was a little under the weather. Maybe I should have a word with her before I go, just to set her straight.”

  “Now, Captain, you know she did her best,” Gran said, taking his arm and leading him toward a bright orange light. “But caring for a child isn’t the same as caring for a chicken.”

  “Exactly! No boy should have to spend all day mucking out the coops. I have half a mind to—”

  “You’ll shush up and follow instructions, that’s what you’ll do,” Gran said, tightening her grip on his arm. “Besides, I’m not talking about Miss Cleo, you silly old coot. I’m talking about Ollie.”

  “Ollie’s a dog!” Gramps snorted.

  “Exactly. Who better?”

  After mulling the matter over for a while longer, Gramps reluctantly followed Gran’s lead. They walked together into the blinding waves of light, and Gramps only looked back once. Gabe watched them go, and when Gramps looked back, Gabe waved, even though he knew Gramps couldn’t see him. They looked so happy, but then, just like that, he remembered. The realization flooded over him like a tsunami crashing into shore. The person holding Gramps’s hand wasn’t really Gran at all.

  “No!” Gabe ran and threw his arms around Gramps’s waist, but it was too late. The light disappeared with a snap and Gramps was gone.

  Ollie was barking at him when he woke up for real, covered in pine needles and soaked from head to toe. “What is it?”

  Gabe shot a nervous glance around the woods, wondering if Wynne might have followed him. She did have her ghost tunnel or whatever it was, but the woods stood silent in the bright afternoon sun.

  “How long did we sleep?” Gabe said, shaking the awful dream from his mind. Ollie bounded over and offered Gabe a quick smooch on the mouth. After giving every one of his muscles a good stretch, Ollie still hadn’t stopped barking and wiggling his tail.

  “What’s gotten into you?” Gabe said, and then he realized it might have something to do with his rumbling tummy. The tiniest bit of doubt crept into Gabe’s mind at his decision to leave Bone Hollow behind, but it was gone almost as soon as it had started. People survived in the woods all the time, at least they did in stories. If they could do it, surely he could find enough food to feed one puny dog.

  “Come on, you, time to go hunting.” Gabe pulled himself up despite the ache deep in his bones.

  Hunting turned out to be a lot harder and messier than Gabe had anticipated. For one thing, they hardly saw any animals in the woods, and the ones they did see were mostly mice. Ollie m
ight be hungry, but not hungry enough to go chomping down on something so sharp and insignificant. Second, Gabe kept slipping and smearing his already filthy jeans with mud. By the time the sun sank down in the sky, both Gabe and Ollie were slopped from head to toe in muck, and they weren’t any closer to finding something Ollie could eat.

  At least it wasn’t raining, so they lay down in a grassy, moonlit clearing. “Don’t worry, boy, we’ll have more luck tomorrow.”

  But Gabe was worried, and not just about his poor pup going hungry. Gabe watched as, overhead, the stars revealed themselves one by one, until there were hundreds and then thousands of them blinking down on him in a giant web of light. They reminded him of tiny fish flitting to and fro in the deepest part of the ocean. Not that he’d ever been there, but the way Gramps always talked about it, it was almost like he had. He was always telling Gabe interesting facts about the ocean, too, like how 95 percent of it was still undiscovered. Imagine an entire world down there that humans didn’t even know about. And not just small things, either, but mammoth creatures, like giant squid with tentacles over thirty feet long.

  Maybe, Gabe thought, as a chilly breeze ruffled his hair, the regular world was like that, too. Everybody thinking they know everything that goes on when really they don’t. What they can see is just the surface, but dip your head under, just a little, and …

  Gabe shivered. He pulled Ollie close to his chest, but Ollie wasn’t in the mood for cuddling. He stayed awake most of the night eating grass and then throwing it up again.

  “It’s only been one day,” Gabe said, rubbing the scruff on the back of Ollie’s neck. “We’ll find food tomorrow, don’t you worry.”

  Ollie spent most of the next day sniffing for squirrels, but not a single one dared venture out thanks to a fresh round of rain. Gabe found a pond and caught a toad and two fish with his bare hands, but Ollie refused to eat either one. It rained most of the next day, too, and by the time it was done raining, it was far too muddy to hunt. By the fourth day, Ollie was so tuckered out and weak, he hardly wanted to get up at all. Gabe left him resting in the shade of an old oak tree, panting and half-heartedly gnawing on whatever grass he could reach.

  “Please, Lord,” Gabe said as he searched the field for any signs of life. “Let me find something my dog can eat. It doesn’t have to be a squirrel, either. A possum would do, or—”

  Gabe stopped dead in his tracks. Something had disturbed the tall grass up ahead. Every muscle in his body tensed as he got ready to pounce. A normal Gabe wouldn’t have a chance against a squirrel, but Gabe wasn’t normal, not anymore. That same strange energy coursed through his veins. He waited and waited, and then, when the creature relaxed and went back to nibbling grass, he pounced.

  He flew six feet in a single bound, and then another six, and then, with a whoop of triumph, his hands closed around something warm and squirming. It was a rabbit, not much bigger than a kitten, with pale brown fur and wide eyes dancing with fright.

  “Ollie!” Gabe called, his heart pounding in his throat, or at least that’s what it felt like. “Come over here.”

  He didn’t know why, but he was finding it harder and harder to catch his breath. Ollie pulled himself to his feet and trundled over slowly, as if measuring each step. The rabbit kicked its legs and spasmed in Gabe’s fingers.

  “It’s gonna be okay,” he found himself saying to the rabbit. “Don’t be scared.”

  Ollie trotted closer, just a few feet away now. The rabbit’s struggle grew more frantic. Gabe tried to whisper more soothing words, but his mouth had gone dry. Ollie spotted the rabbit and Gabe tensed. He closed his eyes, waiting for something horrible to happen. A squeal or a crunch or a hungry growl as Ollie charged after his prey.

  Instead, a wet nose touched Gabe’s hand. He opened his eyes to find Ollie licking the rabbit’s nose, and then bowing, bottom in the air, ready to play. With a cool rush of relief, Gabe let the rabbit go. Ollie bounded after it for a few feet, dragging his yellow cast behind him, and then flopped down once again in the long grass and went to sleep.

  Gabe didn’t have time to dwell on his failure or the dire nature of his situation, because just then a slew of storm clouds rolled in overhead. Despite it being first thing in the morning, the sky turned black and a cold wind rustled the dry blades of grass.

  “Come on, boy, follow me,” Gabe said, but it was clear that Ollie wasn’t prepared to stand up for anything, even a coming storm.

  Determined to find a better shelter than the underside of a tree, Gabe hoisted Ollie into his arms and headed farther into the woods. The rain picked up a few minutes later, soaking his mud-caked jeans and cutting jagged rivers down his face. Ollie yelped and cried in alarm the faster they went, but Gabe couldn’t stop now. He leapt over fallen logs ripe with insects and fuzzy black mold. He scaled streams in a single bound and scrabbled up slippery hillsides still holding Ollie steady in his arms.

  His heart jumped in his chest as he saw a giant rock jutting out of the earth up ahead. He ran for it, and as soon as he reached it, a long crack of thunder split open the sky, so loud the trees all around him shook. Ollie jolted with fright, as water and leaves splattered down on their heads from up above.

  “Shh, buddy, you’re alright. We’re almost there,” he said, but just then, another crack of thunder, even louder than the first, tore through the air, echoing off the rock. Suddenly, a strange tightness tingled in Gabe’s left arm. Before he had time to register what had caused it, Ollie clawed free of Gabe’s grasp, scrambled to the ground, and took off running, cast and all.

  Fear lit up Gabe’s spine. “Ollie, no, come back!” His dog had bit him, his very own dog.

  Gabe was quick, especially now that he was dead, but that thunder had put the fear of God in his poor, pitiful pooch. He darted back and forth through the trees, running just as fast on three legs as he usually did on four. Gabe did his best to follow, but Ollie’s black behind was barely visible against the dark underbrush.

  “Ollie!”

  The wind whipped Gabe’s hair into his eyes, but he ran after that bounding bottom, ignoring the bark scraping his skin and the branches slapping him so hard in the face his teeth rattled. The rain blew in, even harder than the night they’d left, and it carried tiny ice chips that pricked Gabe’s neck and cheeks.

  “You stop right this second!”

  But Ollie was having none of that. With his hair wild and wet and spiky, he tore through the thick weeds heading straight toward a creek. The creek had overrun its banks, probably due to all that rain, and water surged over the sharp rocks underneath. Before Gabe could yell, Ollie leapt.

  No doubt he meant to clear the creek in a single bound just like Gabe, but he was small, on the outside if not on the inside, and he still had a bum back leg. He wiped out on the rocks, and a sharp pain shot through Gabe’s insides at the sight of it. Mud splatted under his cracked feet as he ran. He watched Ollie’s legs get tangled underneath him, his cast dragging him into the rushing water.

  “I’m here, I got you!”

  Coughing and scrabbling, Gabe reached the water. He reached for Ollie and somehow managed to push him to the other side. The sharp rocks bit into Gabe’s skin as he climbed the last few feet to safety. Water beat against his ankles, and just as he was about to step onto the shore, he slipped, splashing into the raging water. Ollie yipped and growled in alarm. His eyes opened wide, all the hair rising on his back.

  “It’s okay, boy, see? I’m fine.”

  Ollie didn’t seem to hear him. He looked up into the sky, like he saw some kind of monster swooping down overhead. Then, without warning, he dug his teeth into Gabe’s sleeve and started to pull.

  “Hey, now, what’s got into you?” Gabe said, in the most calming voice he could manage under the circumstances, but Ollie kept right on tugging, digging his legs into the grass to get more traction. “Okay, okay, I’m coming.”

  Gabe crawled over the rocks, and finally his hands pressed down into the soft m
ud on the other side of the creek. He started to stand up when the branches overhead creaked, a deep groaning sound that made Gabe’s nerves prickle. Ollie growled and dragged Gabe with even more fury, but just then his sleeve ripped. Ollie went sprawling back on the grass and a black shape swung down from the treetops, hitting Gabe’s skull with a thud.

  The next thing Gabe knew, something scratchy and with far too many legs was crawling across his nose.

  “Get off!” He swiped at his face, and the slimy, scratchy, crawly thing plunked into the water flowing all around him. “Why am I all wet?” Gabe thought, or said. He was still so groggy it was hard to tell which.

  Slowly, he sat up and squinted into the darkness. The only light came from a thin slice of moon peeking through the treetops. That moon reminded him of one of Miss Cleo’s yellow toenails, the kind she always left lying around on the carpet. “What happened to me?” Gabe said. Then a dull ache sprung to life on the side of his head. He rubbed it and looked around some more. Chunks of yellow plaster littered the creek bed, along with soggy strips of gauze. Gabe’s eyes widened, and just like that he remembered.

  The storm, the branch crashing down toward him, and Ollie nearly drowning trying to cross this very same stream.

  “Ollie!” Gabe called out, coughing up mouthfuls of water as he did. “Ollie, where are you?”

  Gabe listened. The wind was quiet now, but the roar of crickets and frogs and other nighttime beasts nearly drowned out his words.

  “Ollie!” He pulled himself free of the muck and started to run. It was no use searching for tracks, since that dang moonlight was too pale and sickly to reach the ground. Besides, Gabe couldn’t have stopped to examine tracks even if he’d wanted to; his heart was thumping too hard and fast to allow it. Maybe it wasn’t pumping blood, ’cause how could it? But it was pumping all the same.