Deep Down (Hallie Michaels)

by Deborah Coates

  Hallie could have said, I can take care of myself, which she mostly could, but Boyd knew that. She could have said, Why don’t you take care of business down there and let me take care of things here, but he knew that too. She could even have said, You can’t make up for something you did or didn’t do seven years ago by trying to protect everyone you’re acquainted with from everything. And she was pretty sure he didn’t know that. Or, at least he knew in the thinking part of his brain. He just couldn’t accept it in his gut. And saying it wouldn’t change that.

  She said, “He wants to use me to get to you.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Well, because he told me so.” It seemed pretty simple to Hallie.

  Another long silent moment. When he did speak, it wasn’t what she expected. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “For what?”

  “For not doing this right the first time.”

  “When you were nineteen?”

  “People fight wars when they’re nineteen,” he said.

  “I know,” she replied. “I was one of them. Just because you can fire a gun, just because you do, it doesn’t mean you know anything. It doesn’t make you smarter.”

  “Lily died,” he said.

  “Yeah, and you didn’t. Sometimes that’s all you can do.”

  He didn’t answer and she knew he didn’t agree with her. She didn’t entirely agree with herself. Sometimes being smart mattered. Sometimes what mattered, though, wasn’t what you did but that you did something.

  Finally, she said, “When will you be back?”

  “Tomorrow,” he said. “Late.”

  “Have you found anything?”

  He paused, like he did, then said, “I found his death certificate. It was misfiled and shoved in a drawer. Then someone found it, but they never refiled it. It was sitting halfway down a three-foot stack of misfiled certificates. He—”

  He coughed. Hallie heard a voice in the background and Boyd answering, though she couldn’t make out the words. When he came back on, he said, “The thing is, no one seems to know how he died or where his body is now.”

  “Wouldn’t the death certificate say?”

  “It says ‘undetermined.’ Which is … unusual; they would have known he’d been in an accident. As well as not helpful. I’m going to try to track down the doctor who signed the death certificate. I’m hoping I can talk to him or her tomorrow.”

  “Do you think it’s important?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know what’s important, that’s the problem.”

  Well, it was a problem, anyway. “Are you still in Cedar Rapids? Or at your parents’? Is that where you said you were?” Hallie had only a vague idea where things were in Iowa, though she’d helped Brett trailer a horse down to the Iowa State vet school once when they were both in high school. She was pretty sure Ames, which was where the university was, and where Lily and Hollowell had both died, and Cedar Rapids, which was where Boyd had gone to pick up Beth, were not that close.

  “I changed my mind,” he said. “Got everything we needed in Cedar Rapids right after I talked to you this morning. We drove over to Ames. Or Nevada.” Which he pronounced with a long a—Ne-vay-da—not like the state. “That’s where the courthouse is and I’ve just spent three hours going through death certificates.”

  “Do you really think that the way he died has something to do with why he’s come back?”

  “I think I want as much information as possible.”

  He sounded tired and frustrated. Hallie understood that because she was tired and frustrated too. She had a bruised left hip that hurt when she walked, a scrape along her right arm that rubbed against her shirtsleeve, and she felt like she’d been on a forced march for half a day.

  The phone hummed, followed by a harsh crackle that hurt Hallie’s ear. Outside, the dog barked frantically, as if it had cornered something. “Are you there?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” Boyd said, though his voice was faint; she could barely hear it. “Hallie,” he began, but she lost what he was going to say—if he was going to say anything—in the static. Before she could ask him to repeat it, she heard, “Just … be careful.”

  “I’m always careful,” she said.

  “Yeah.” Something that almost sounded like a laugh. “I know.”

  After Boyd disconnected, Hallie shrugged into a barn coat and went outside. She didn’t see anything, not even the dog—the real dog, not the harbinger, though she didn’t see that either. She crossed the yard, figured she’d retrieve one of the two fireplace pokers she’d bought at the hardware store that afternoon. She hoped to hell when Hollowell reappeared they’d prove their use.

  She was halfway between the house and her pickup when she saw the shadow again, not so inky black as it had been in the daytime, dimmed under the yard light, and smaller, like it had shrunk, but definitely the shadow. Hallie moved to her left to walk around it. The shadow moved too. She stepped back to the right. The shadow paced her.

  Jesus. She didn’t have time for this.

  She took a step back and the shadow advanced.

  “What do you want?” she asked.

  As if it had been waiting for her question, the shadow surged forward, quick as a snake, and wrapped itself around her ankle.

  Flash. Flash. Flash.

  An old man, thin and well dressed with an ebony cane, one hand extended toward her. An entire wall of flame in the middle of desert sand. Bright sun overhead, stark brown sand, fire so hot, it burned white. A farm, not a ranch but a farm, black and white cows in a field by the road, long drive, white house with paint so fresh she could almost smell it, manure and old grain and fresh hay. Three black dogs next to three white crosses.

  Then, like landing, she was back in the yard, back at the ranch, bent almost double and gasping for breath. She straightened, wiped a hand across her forehead, and was surprised that she was sweating.

  A sharp north wind blew across the yard. Hallie crossed to her truck, grabbed the fireplace poker from the seat, and headed back to the house, actually turning around a couple of times to make sure nothing—not shadows or black dogs or dead men sneaked up on her.

  She hadn’t asked Laddie about the shadow, because she’d assumed it was something else, something not related to Lily or Hollowell or the black dogs or Pabby. But why was it happening now? Even if what was going on out at Pabby’s didn’t have anything to do with Hollowell, they were both about death, about black dogs and reapers. So, yeah, that shadow. Hallie added it to the list.

  First thing the next morning, after she’d checked on Laddie’s cattle and made sure the horses had feed and water, Hallie headed over to see Pabby.

  The dog jumped into the truck as she was on her way out to the road. She was almost completely used to the way it jumped right through the door onto the seat. Since she’d seen it appear and disappear in less than the blink of an eye, she was pretty sure it didn’t have to go through the door to get into the truck. She suspected it did it for fun.

  This morning instead of curling up and going to sleep, the dog sat straight on the seat, looking out at the countryside like it was suddenly interested.

  A late-model Nissan with Minnesota plates passed them going north.

  “Dead next Wednesday,” the dog said, its tongue lolling.

  “What?” Hallie’s foot hit the brake. “That guy? In the car just now?” She took her foot off the brake and stepped on the gas again, but kept looking in the mirror as the gap widened between her and the car. She wanted to turn around, catch the car, tell the man inside to see his doctor or stay off the roads or hide, just hide. But he wouldn’t listen to her. Who would listen to something like that?

  “Do you know when everyone’s going to die?”

  “Yes,” the dog said. No hesitation.

  “Is Pabby right? Is it her time or not?”

  The dog inclined its head. “Times change,” it finally said.

  Times change.

  Well, that w
as helpful. Though it made a certain amount of sense. Because look at how many things were going on right here, right now. Black dogs, Travis Hollowell, and that shadow. Because Hollowell must have been waiting for something all these years, for something to change before he came after Boyd and whatever it was he really wanted.

  But what was it specifically that had changed, what had caused that change, and how could it be changed back? Hallie was getting tired of knowing all the questions and hardly any of the answers.

  She asked the dog, “You’re a harbinger, right? You’re told where to go? Who’s going to die?”

  “Right,” the dog said.

  “So how come you’re here?”

  “Told you. You’re interesting.”

  Hallie rephrased. “How are you able to be here? Aren’t you … constrained by your function or something?”

  “What I told you,” the dog said.

  “Because times changed? So before, you just went from one person about to die to another? But now you can, I don’t know, take a vacation or something?”

  The dog looked at her but didn’t say anything, which she took for a yes. Reapers and black dogs and who the hell knew what else, doing whatever they wanted to do. That was a problem.

  A big problem.

  There were almost ten black dogs at Pabby’s ranch when Hallie arrived there, lying in the tall grass and in the shade of the gray barn. She had just turned off the truck, her hand on the key ready to pull it out of the ignition when all the black dogs stood up, turned north, and sat, narrow backs straight as arrows. Hallie pushed herself off the seat into a half stand, like that would let her see whatever they were looking at.

  “Go now.”

  The dog turned in a circle three times and pawed at the seat.

  “What? Why?”

  “Leave.” There was urgency in its half-whispered voice. Hallie put her hand on the door handle. If something was happening, she intended to find out what it was. The dog grabbed her arm in its jaws.

  “Hey!”

  “Stay,” it said.

  “What?” Hallie asked.

  “Reaper.”

  The word, like the rush of a thousand raven wings, sent the now familiar stab of pain into her skull. The dogs outside pricked their ears. Hallie still couldn’t see anything, though the north wind was blowing hard enough to rock the truck.

  Then, like she had coalesced out of gray sky and winter cold, a woman appeared. She was dressed entirely in white—white blouse, white flowing skirt, long white shawl with knotted fringe, and white boots. Even her hair was white, a luxurious thick white that seemed to glow in the fading afternoon light.

  Hallie couldn’t hear anything, the windows were rolled up and she was too far away, but one of the dogs pawed the ground, the same thing they’d done when Hallie talked to them herself.

  The woman made an angry gesture and the dog gave a high-pitched yelp and flew nearly three feet before it rolled over and lay still. The other dogs sank down, chins on the ground.

  Hallie opened the door and was half out of the truck when the black dog said again, “Wait.”

  She didn’t.

  “Why have you not solved this problem?” Hallie heard the woman say as she approached.

  “Not our fault.” The dog that spoke attempted to sit, but the woman made another gesture and the dog yelped and rolled to its side as if it had been kicked.

  “Hey!” Hallie said. She was not defending harbingers of death. She wasn’t. Not even harbingers that looked exactly like dogs. She was looking for information.

  The woman turned her head and looked at Hallie. Her eyes were cold and pale, not exactly the same as Travis Hollowell’s eyes, which had been the yellowed color of bones, but not exactly human either. “You don’t see me,” she said. Like saying it would make it so. She had an odd voice, a faint vibration running through it, like an echo. She waved a hand and something shimmered in the air between them, but Hallie could still see her, perfectly clearly.

  “Yeah, look,” Hallie said. “What the hell is going on here? Who are you?”

  The woman took a step toward Hallie and Hallie resisted the urge to take a step back. She looked both human and not, like Travis Hollowell, but there was something more, her skin tone or maybe the way she stood, like wind blew just for her and in a different direction than it was actually blowing.

  “I am here,” said the woman, “because Delores Pabahar’s time has come.”

  “No. It hasn’t,” Hallie said. But what she was thinking was, Oh, shit, a reaper, which was what the dog had told her, but … She should have had the iron poker and paid attention to the hex ring and where was the edge and—

  The woman’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t interfere,” she said. With no more warning than that, she reached out and grabbed Hallie with both hands, one on each temple.

  Laughter. Bright sunshine, dust, and cold. Early morning, the light so thin, the landscape looks surreal. Hallie turns to say something. Eddie Serrano sitting right there, right beside her. She remembers, remembers what it is she’d turned to say. It is the last thing she ever says to him: Don’t forget. About a bet and a chess match. Second to last, actually, she realizes, because she sees the Humvee in front of her go, the blast driving up through the center of the vehicle, stops it cold on the trail and she is going too fast to stop. She tries to steer around it. Too late. Too fucking late. The sound and then the blast in that order. Backwards. “Watch—!” she shouts. Then the world, like a kaleidoscope.

  Over over over.

  At the end there is black, all black, and words, words she can’t hear or understand, but knows they’re words all the same.

  And black.

  14

  Hallie blinked.

  Instead of the bright brittle light of a cold Afghanistan morning, she saw gray South Dakota skies. She was on her knees, hard ground biting into her skin. She rubbed her eyes and blinked fiercely, because she could still smell it, burnt rubber and blood and singed—

  “You died.”

  Hallie tried to climb to her feet, then sank to her knees again, one hand on the ground in front of her. She felt as if she’d run all day without stopping. And so cold, like half a dozen ghosts had rushed through her one after the other. She’d been touched by a reaper. And she hadn’t died. Again. She hadn’t died again.

  “What?” There was a stabbing pain in her chest, like her heart had stopped and started again. It was familiar, that pain, or at least it was familiar now.

  “You’ve been brought back,” the woman—the reaper—said. “Who arranged that?”

  Hallie coughed, like clearing her throat would clear her head. With her hand on the ground, she pushed herself up hard, on her feet in one rough motion and stumbling backwards so she wouldn’t pitch straight forward into the reaper’s chest.

  “I don’t … actually know,” she said. Though what she was thinking was shit, shit, shit because until the reaper had touched her, she hadn’t remembered what happened when she’d died, hadn’t remembered screaming or the sound of the explosion or the sky painted red with blood. And now she did. Like someone had pulled something loose in her head and everything felt different, but the same.

  She coughed. Coughed again. “Maybe it wasn’t my time,” she said.

  “That’s not how it works,” the reaper said. “Your time is your time.”

  “It’s not Pabby’s time,” Hallie said. “But you’re here anyway.”

  “It’s her time,” the reaper said, her voice toneless, like something she’d said a thousand times before.

  “Pabby says it’s not,” Hallie said. She felt thick, like she was in two places at once, knew she should be thinking about what this all meant, about how she could make this reaper go away forever, or at least until Pabby’s proper time. But all she could really concentrate on was staying upright.

  “Pabby says? Well, that’s convincing. You have no idea what you’re in the middle of, do you?” The reaper laughed.

&nb
sp; Hallie rubbed at her eyes. They felt gritty; the world looked grainy, as if there were some sort of film over them. “Why don’t you tell me,” she said.

  “You just can’t— Shit.”

  The reaper was gone. Nothing left except dead grass and a rosebush with one last dead flower clinging to a vine. Out past the barn something flickered, like the prairie grass heeled over and back up. “Shit.” Hallie echoed the reaper, though she wasn’t entirely sure what had just happened.

  “What’s going on out there?” Pabby shouted from the porch. Her voice sounded thin, like they were high on the side of a mountain and she wasn’t getting enough air.

  Hallie raised a hand. “It’s okay,” she said, though of course it wasn’t, was probably getting worse all the time, even if she wasn’t exactly sure how.

  After lingering a few more minutes outside to make sure the reaper wasn’t coming back, she went inside and sat at the kitchen table and told Pabby what she knew, which wasn’t much. She drank a cup and a half of bad coffee and almost felt warm again. Pabby hardly said anything, and when Hallie said she had to go, she just got up without a word of encouragement or protest and walked with her to the front door. She looked—thinner? Older? Different from the last time Hallie’d seen her. The black dogs were taking their toll.

  She was still shaky when she got back in the truck. The black dog was back, waiting for her; Hallie’d expected it would be long gone.

  “What was that?” Hallie asked it.

  “Reaper,” the dog said, the word like a whisper on the wind.

  “Yeah, I know that,” she said. “Why did you tell me not to go?”

  “Because you are past.” Wind rattled the truck windows.

  “Past?”

  “Past time to die.”

  Hallie paused with a hand on the ignition. She mostly didn’t think about death, didn’t think about the fact that she’d died. And that had been easy, because she hadn’t remembered dying.

  And now she did.