Hell and Back

by Patricia Blackmoor

  “I guess she changed her mind.”

  Courtney stepped closer to Mitchell. “You and Meg might have been ready to dump your family, but I wasn’t. But if it’s what you want, I will.”

  “You’re going to have to.”

  “It doesn’t matter if we can’t find that money.”

  “We could probably still move with what we have.”

  “Do you know how expensive it is to live in California? That money will hardly get us anywhere. And let’s be real—could you leave twenty grand behind?”

  Mitchell shook his head, his face set in an expression of annoyance. “No.”

  “I didn’t think so, and neither could I. We’ll just have to search each room again. I can take the kitchen if you want the living room.”

  “We didn’t find it the first dozen times, we’re not going to find it this time,” Mitchell said, crossing his arms.

  “You don’t know that.”

  “She probably didn’t even hide it here.”

  “Well where the hell else do you think she would have hidden it?” Courtney asked. “She wasn’t close with her parents. She wouldn’t have hidden it at the school, and besides, we already picked up the stuff from her desk. She couldn’t have deposited it in an account or put it in a safe deposit box without attracting attention. It has to be here.”

  Mitchell rubbed at his temples. “We’ve searched the house so many times.”

  “And we’ll search as many times as we need to so that we can find that money and have a nice life for ourselves,” Courtney said, stepping forward and putting a hand on his still-crossed arms.

  Mitchell gave her a tight smile.

  “You need to relax,” Courtney told him. “Do you want to help me search the bedroom?”

  Mitchell smirked as Courtney stood up on her tiptoes, the two of them meeting in a kiss that grew more deep and passionate as each second passed. After a moment Mitchell scooped Courtney up in his arms and carried her into the bedroom. Our bedroom.

  I stood, gaping after them.

  “What. The. Fuck.” I finally said.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Parker came over and touched my arm. “Maybe we should leave,” he said.

  I crossed my arms, staring at the closed bedroom door. “Nope. We’re going to wait here until they’re done.”

  Parker grimaced. “You’re sure?”

  I sat down on the couch, my arms crossed. “I’m sure. I have a lot to talk to them about.”

  “You can’t talk to them,” he reminded me, sitting down beside me on the couch.

  We were silent for a moment before I spoke. “I’ve been dead two weeks. Two weeks, and they’re together.”

  “Do you think—”

  “I don’t know. I’d like to think he wasn’t cheating on me with my best friend, but…”

  If I could have cried, I would have been tearing up. I couldn’t believe it, but at the same time, I knew what I would find, what I would see if I walked through that door. I would see his hands on her tiny body, palms clutching her hips, his lips on her neck.

  I bit the inside of my cheek, not even sure how I was supposed to feel.

  I was dead, and of course, I would have wanted Mitchell to move on. I had just never, never in a million years, imagined it would have happened in two weeks. And for him to be with Courtney...I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.

  I wanted both of them to be happy, both Mitchell and Courtney. And if they were happy together...well, that was good, wasn’t it? Of course they would fall in love. They had spent a lot of time together. When two people spent that much time around each other, there was bound to be some attraction, some tension. I couldn’t fault them for that. They had been the two most important people in my life. It was okay if they wanted to find happiness with each other.

  Right?

  Wasn’t it?

  “You’ve been awfully quiet,” Parker said, nudging me.

  “I’m thinking.”

  “I can tell. You have your thinking face on.”

  “I have a thinking face?”

  He gave a small laugh. “Yeah. You sort of scrunch together your forehead, and your mouth presses into a really small line, so it almost disappears.”

  I laughed, but it was sardonic, sarcastic. “I never realized.”

  “What are you thinking so hard about?”

  I nodded my head toward the bedroom door. I almost missed the screaming of hell. It was much better than the moans coming from the bedroom. I squared my jaw.

  “I’m trying to decide how I should feel about their relationship.”

  “What are you thinking?”

  “I’m trying to decide if I should be happy for them or not.”

  Parker nodded, crossing his arms as he settled in to the corner of the couch. “Let me guess. You want them to be happy, but you’re a little put out that they moved on so quickly.”

  I nodded. “Yep. That about sums it up.”

  “That’s not an easy thing to try to decide between. You don’t have to make a choice. It’s okay to feel conflicted.”

  I glanced at him. “I think that’s the first time I’ve heard someone say that.”

  “What, that it’s okay to feel conflicted?”

  “Yeah. I grew up in a world that was so black and white. Good guys and bad guys, Christians and heathens, Democrats and Republicans. There was never a gray area.”

  “The world thrives in gray areas,” Parker said. “That’s what I don’t like about this heaven or hell situation. For example, maybe you shouldn’t have gone to heaven, but I really don’t think you should have gone to hell as well.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “For the record, I don’t think you should have gone to hell either.”

  “That’s different. I made a deal. I made a promise that if I got those things from the demons, I would serve my time.”

  “But all eternity? That doesn’t seem fair.”

  “I was never a good negotiator. That’s on me.”

  I leaned my head against his shoulder, somewhat without realizing it. I was simply overwhelmed, and his shoulder seemed as good a place as any to relax. He didn’t protest, just let me rest my head there. I closed my eyes, savoring the sensation.

  “We still need to figure out how to get the money to Mitchell and Courtney,” Parker finally said after a few moments.

  “You’re right,” I groaned. “Okay. So how do I let them know where the money is? You said I can’t move things.”

  “Right, your hand will go right through anything you try to pick up.”

  “So how can we sit on the couch? Why don’t we just float through the doors?”

  “Because hell has all these weird and benign rules?”

  “That’s annoying,” I sighed. I reached over, trying to push the controller off the couch, but like Parker had said, my hand when right threw it. Annoyed, I swatted at it, and it clattered to the floor.”

  “What?” I asked, staring at the controller on the floor as the batteries rolled under the couch.

  “How did you do that?” Parker asked.

  “I have no idea. I got really annoyed so I just hit it.”

  “Emotion,” he muttered. “That could have something to do with it, strong emotion.”

  “That’s how some ghosts communicate, right? When they’re really angry they can slam doors and stuff.”

  “I’ve heard stuff like that, but real ghosts are few and far between. That’s a good start, though.”

  “All right,” I sighed, standing up from the couch, shaking out my hands. I crossed to the dining room table, a table that was rarely used for dining and more often used for stacking mail. I took a deep breath and struck out, expecting the letters and ads to splay across the floor, but they didn’t.

  “You must not be emotional enough,” Parker said, coming up behind me.

  “Funny. Everyone always told me I was too emotional.”

  “Well, channel some of that.”

  “Oka
y,” I said with a sigh. I channeled all the emotions, frustrations of the past few weeks, all the regrets I had from dying, all the anger and hurt I felt from finding out that my boyfriend and best friend were sleeping together—loudly—two weeks after my death. I channeled the pain I had felt from my time in hell.

  “Oh, fuck, Mitchell…” Courtney’s voice floated down the hallway.

  I struck out. The envelopes and advertisements flew across the tile floor, splaying underneath the oven and onto the carpet.

  “Impressive,” Parker said. “I want to try.”

  He reared his hand back and crossed into the kitchen, smacking at a pot on the countertop. Like mine had, his hand went right through it.

  “You don’t have enough negative emotions,” I said. “You gotta find some more.”

  “We’re making progress,” he said, a little annoyed. “Enough that you may be able to figure out how to tell them.”

  “I can knock things onto the floor. That doesn’t mean I can communicate with them.”

  “It’s a start, though,” he said. “Could you...write a note?”

  “Oh, maybe,” I said. I crossed into the kitchen where the junk drawer was, where we had kept all of our extra pens and such. I focused with everything that I had, channeling my emotions as I reached for the drawer to pull it open. It didn’t work how I had expected; instead of sliding neatly, I yanked the drawer out, spilling all of the contents across the floor.

  “What the hell was that?” Mitchell’s voice came from the bedroom. I dropped the drawer to the floor as the bedroom door opened and Mitchell and Courtney came rushing out.

  “What the hell?” Courtney asked. “Did you leave a window open?”

  “No, I didn’t leave a fucking window open,” Mitchell said, rolling his eyes. “Besides, how is a window supposed to pull out a drawer?”

  Courtney froze. “You don’t think someone was here, do you?” she asked.

  I folded my arms. “Good. Let’s get them a little bit scared.”

  “Hello?” Mitchell called out. “Anybody here?”

  Of course there was silence. They couldn’t have heard me even if I’d wanted them to.

  Courtney and Mitchell exchanged looks. “We should look around,” Courtney said, keeping her voice low.

  Parker and I sat back down on the couch, watching them as they ran around. It was actually slightly satisfying to watch them hurry through the rooms, opening each door, checking the closets, checking outside, running around like chickens with their heads cut off. I crossed my arms as they hurried around.

  Mitchell came back to the living room and saw his controller on the floor.

  “What the hell?” he asked, bending down to pick it up. “The batteries are gone.”

  “They rolled under the couch,” I said, but of course, he couldn’t hear me.

  “What the fuck?” Mitchell asked. “Why would someone come in here to take my batteries?”

  “No one came in here to take your batteries,” Courtney said, rolling her eyes.

  “She’s right,” I said.

  “Well then where the fuck are they?”

  “They’re under the couch,” I told him.

  He tossed the controller onto my lap.

  “Hey moron, they’re under the couch,” I repeated. Parker laughed.

  “What the fuck,” Courtney said, crossing her arms. “Someone was here.”

  “Why would anyone break into our house?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, Mitchell,” she said sarcastically, throwing her arms in the air. “Because we’re bank robbers?”

  “Say it a little louder, why don’t you.”

  “Okay, fine. I’ll shout it. Because we’re—”

  Mitchell clamped a hand over her mouth. “What the hell, Courtney? Is this how you act when you think you might be caught? Because if so, we’re fucked if we ever actually get caught.”

  “I’m fine,” she snapped.

  I shook my head. “Looks like the honeymoon period is over.”

  “I’d be surprised if they had one at all,” Parker said.

  “God, maybe Meg was smart to hide the money,” Courtney said. “If it’s not here, they can’t find it if they search us.”

  “See? Who’s the dumb bitch now?” I asked.

  “It doesn’t matter anyway, because there’s no way they’ll find us.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “We hit three different banks, all different companies. We wore masks. We wore gloves.”

  “What if someone traced the car?”

  “It’s still at the school, and besides, she parked like a block away each time.”

  “Fuck,” Courtney sighed. “If someone’s onto us...”

  “No one is onto us.”

  “Well then who the fuck did all this?” she asked, motioning to the mail all over the floor of the dining area and the junk all over the floor of the kitchen. “It wasn’t a fucking ghost.”

  “Maybe it was,” Mitchell said. “Maybe it’s Meg, and she’s pissed.”

  “Bingo,” I said.

  “Oh, grow the fuck up,” Courtney told him.

  “You’re the one who wanted to use a damn ouija board,” he spat back at her.

  “I was kidding. God, can’t you take a joke?”

  “Of course I can take a joke.”

  Courtney took a deep breath, one I had seen her take a thousand times when she was stressed during finals or after a rough day at work.

  “Okay, Mitchell, let’s not freak out, all right?”

  “You were the one freaking out.”

  She took another deep breath. I had taken a million of those during my relationship with Mitchell. “We need to make sure we lock the doors from now on.”

  “You were the last one to come inside. You should have locked the door.”

  “I’m not trying to play the blame game with you!” Courtney said, exasperated. “We just need to be a little bit more careful, that’s all I’m saying. If someone did come into the house, we don’t want them coming back.”

  “Right, fine,” Mitchell said, throwing up his hands.

  “They’re really freaked out,” I said. “Imagine what would happen if I did some of this in front of them.”

  “Don’t,” Parker said. “We don’t want to draw unnecessary attention to ourselves.”

  “I know you’re right, but it would be funny.”

  He laughed. “Yeah. It would.”

  Courtney and Mitchell crossed their arms, facing off against one another. Finally, Courtney relaxed, shaking her head.

  “We shouldn’t have done it.”

  Mitchell scoffed. “Which part?”

  “The whole thing, I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She squared her jaw, rolling her eyes. “I mean, maybe we shouldn’t have started this whole thing in the first place. Maybe we shouldn’t have robbed banks.”

  “And what? You want to still be working your dead-end job at the bank?”

  “I am still working my job at the bank! The robberies haven’t changed that.”

  “But you won’t.”

  “When?”

  “When we find this money!”

  The tension in the air was thick, almost palpable as I watched the two of them square off.

  “The money? The money our dead friend hid somewhere, and we have no idea where? You mean that money?”

  “Yes, Courtney, that money.”

  “The money that was supposed to change our lives, make everything better, that is now missing? That money?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, great, so where is it, Mitchell? If that money is going to save our lives, change our lives, make everything worth it, then where the fuck is it?”

  “I don’t know! You know I don’t know that!”

  Silence fell between them. Courtney had teared up. I hadn’t known I’d be jealous of tears until now.

  “We shouldn’t have done it,” she murmured.r />
  “What this time?” Mitchell spat.

  “Killed her, Mitchell, we shouldn’t have killed her! God!” Courtney began to cry, sinking down onto the floor as my heart sank into my stomach.

  “What?” I murmured.

  “Hey, hey,” Mitchell said, kneeling down beside her. “You know we had to, right?”

  “Did we? Couldn’t you have just broken up with her?”

  “And what, have her go to the police?”

  “She wouldn’t have, you know that.”

  “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”

  I hadn’t realized I was digging my nails into my palm until I felt the sharp pain.

  “Meg,” Parker said uncertainly.

  “I’m fine,” I said curtly.

  “She wouldn’t have said anything. I really don’t think she would have,” Courtney said, shaking her head.

  “It was your idea, may I remind you.”

  “I wasn’t seriously considering it. Just like I had never seriously considered robbing a bank!”

  “Not my fault you have good ideas,” he said with a shrug.

  “It doesn’t bother you at all? You pulled the trigger.”

  “What?” I leapt up from the couch, blood sticky on my palms.

  Mitchell froze. “Did you hear that?”

  “Hear what?” Courtney asked as she sniffled.

  Mitchell shook his head. “Never mind. Come here.” He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her in for a hug.

  “Fuck this,” I said, shaking my head as I looked at them. “Come on, Parker.”

  “We’re leaving?” he asked, standing up from the couch.

  “Yeah. Let’s go.”

  “What about the money?”

  “Fuck the money. It can rot in the ground for all I care.”

  Parker shrugged. “All right, then.”

  Together, we stormed through the house, passing through the door and out to the sidewalk. I turned back, looking at the house I had once called my home. I put up both middle fingers.

  “Fuck you, Mitchell. Fuck you, Courtney. You’re never getting your hands on that money.”

  I turned away, and I planned on never returning.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Meg, where are we going?” Parker asked as I stomped down the sidewalk.