Deep Down (Hallie Michaels)

by Deborah Coates

  Hallie tried to rise to her feet—a flash of pain through her rib cage, though she was still pretty sure nothing was actually broken.

  “Ole?” she asked. Because he wasn’t just some guy. He was a guy she knew and he was only here because of things he didn’t know anything about and probably wouldn’t believe if he did. If he was dead—

  “Ambulance is on its way,” Boyd said. He had a streak of dirt down the side of his face. “Ole’s … I think he’ll be okay, but he’s definitely got a broken arm, maybe a concussion. He’s unconscious. He has a fairly deep three-inch gash on his right temple. There’s a lot of blood,” he cautioned, like Hallie hadn’t seen blood before. He left Hallie then, moved like he was as stiff as she was, like he’d only been waiting for some evidence that she knew where she was and wasn’t going to completely flake out on him—and when had she ever flaked out on him? He returned to where Ole lay a few feet away.

  Ole was clearly unconscious and Boyd was right, there was a lot of blood, though it looked like nearly all of it was from a long gash across his right temple. A woman Hallie’d never seen before was applying direct pressure to the wound. When Boyd stood beside her, she made a move like she would relinquish her position, but he waved at her to continue.

  Hallie watched them for a few minutes before she tried to get up again. She felt like there was dirt in her left eye and she couldn’t stop blinking. Everything seemed oddly quiet—no birds, no traffic, no wind. Hallie felt both defenseless and yet, like things weren’t that urgent. Maybe she had a head injury herself. Because that was wrong. It was wrong. Things were urgent.

  She needed to think. Hollowell had been here and he hadn’t taken her, even though she’d been unconscious on the ground. Wasn’t that what he’d been trying to do for days?

  She struggled to her feet, took a step, and stumbled, even though the ground was pretty even. She caught herself but not before she felt a sharp ache again along her rib cage. She took another step and then another, each one easier than the one before, though everything still hurt and her eyes were still not quite focused.

  The black dog trotted out from behind Boyd and Ole and the woman Hallie didn’t know, trotted across the broken dead lawn like it didn’t have a care in the world.

  “Where is he?” she asked.

  “Got a call,” the dog said. “Still can’t ignore a call.”

  “What? Like to kill someone?”

  “Because it’s their time,” the dog said.

  Jesus.

  “Pretty damned convenient,” she said. Not that she wasn’t grateful.

  “Might not have been real,” the dog said.

  “Really?” Because the dog had done it? Could the dog do it? Or Death had done it? Which was really disturbing if she thought about it much.

  The dog looked at her and panted.

  She saw that Boyd was watching her, a tight frown creasing his forehead. He probably thought she was talking to herself.

  “Where have you been?” Hallie asked him because this probably wasn’t the time to explain that the dog he couldn’t see was here. “You didn’t call.”

  Before he had a chance to answer, the ambulance pulled into the yard.

  Deputy Teedt arrived right behind the ambulance, like they’d been taking a coffee break together or something. He swore when he stepped out of his car and saw the destruction of Boyd’s front yard, the shattered dining room window, and the unroofed garage, but he stood back while the EMTs loaded Ole into the ambulance. Ole regained consciousness as they moved him. “What the hell?” he kept saying. “What the hell was that?” Over and over, like it was the line pulling him back from wherever he’d gone.

  Hallie tried to stay out of the way, but her shirt was torn from the blast, she was covered in mud and dirt, and she had blood on her hands. In the end, when Teedt asked her, she couldn’t think of anything to say but the truth. Some of the truth.

  “You were just … here?” Teedt asked skeptically. “And then there was an explosion.”

  “Pretty much,” Hallie said.

  “As if we don’t have enough trouble,” Teedt said. And Hallie couldn’t even bring herself to be pissed. He flipped his notebook closed and stuck it back in his shirt pocket.

  “Are you all right?” Boyd had come up behind her and she hadn’t heard him, startled badly when he put his hand on her shoulder. She wondered if there was something wrong with her hearing, which would be really weird, since it hadn’t actually been an explosion, not in the “loud noise” sense. It had been death—not the personification of, but dying, leaf and tree and grass, dying to fuel a reaper.

  “I’m fine,” she said, dragging her fuzzy brain back to the present and Boyd’s question. And hadn’t she already told him that? She looked around, felt like she’d completely forgotten to do that, to look around. Where was Lily’s ghost? Where was the black dog? Hadn’t it been here a minute ago? Was it important, that they weren’t here? Or normal.

  Maybe she had been hit on the head.

  In some way that seemed mysterious to Hallie afterwards, the ambulance pulled away. Teedt got back in his car, talking to people, possibly random strangers, on his radio. Eventually, he also pulled away. Hallie found herself standing on Boyd’s front porch.

  “What happened?” he asked her, standing in front of her looking calm and patient. But wasn’t he the one who’d been missing? Wasn’t all this about him? He pushed her toward a chair, but she didn’t move. She couldn’t sit down yet, because she wasn’t doing it, wasn’t letting go, until something—at least one thing—made sense.

  “We should go inside,” she said, because they were in the open here. Anything could happen. She wasn’t sure they’d be safer in the house, but then again, they might.

  Boyd unlocked his front door. It seemed randomly funny to Hallie, that his door was locked, after everything, after she’d already been through his house looking for clues, after shattered windows. The woman, who Hallie finally realized must be Lily’s sister, had retreated to a corner of the porch, hunched between the railing and the living room window. Splintered wood hung off what was left of the railing. She had auburn hair that curled wildly to her shoulders, a ruby red tank top, short leather jacket with a fake lambskin collar that just skimmed the top of her low-rise jeans, high-heeled boots, and a bright orange purse big enough to fit Boyd’s entire house in. Hallie’d initially figured her for mid-twenties, but as she looked closer, she realized she was young, maybe no more than eighteen or nineteen.

  She looked cold, but Hallie couldn’t tell if she really was cold or just frightened. Boyd looked at Hallie as if to make sure she wasn’t going to fall over right in front of him, then went over to the young woman, and with an arm on her elbow and one lightly touching her shoulder, he steered her toward the front door.

  As she passed, Hallie could hear her say, “It’s too late, isn’t it? It’s already too late.”

  Then Boyd was standing in front of Hallie again and she couldn’t figure out how he’d done that, like a minute or two had slipped away from her entirely. “Let’s go inside,” he said. He hesitated. “Hallie, you’re—” He reached toward her face and she flinched. “—you’re bleeding,” he finished, awkward because his hand was still hanging in the air halfway between them.

  “What?” Hallie said.

  “Maybe you should have gone with Ole,” Boyd said as he waited for her to precede him into the house.

  “Maybe,” Hallie said, by which she meant no.

  She already knew where the bathroom was, so as soon as they were inside, she headed straight for it, went inside, and closed the door.

  It was a tiny bathroom, just space enough for the sink, toilet, and tub. She flipped on the light and looked at herself in the mirror. She had a shallow cut above her right eye, which hurt when she touched it, though she hadn’t felt it at all until right that moment. Her face was streaked with dirt, and when she ran her fingers through her hair over the sink, coarse dirt rained down like hail. B
ruises were already blossoming on her arms and along her right jawline. She could feel a stab of pain where her hip bone had connected with the ground, layered over the bruising she got out at Uku-Weber the day before.

  She ran water in the sink, found a stack of towels and washcloths in a narrow cupboard behind the door, and washed the worst of the dirt and blood off her face and hands.

  Boyd knocked on the door. “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “It’s fine,” Hallie said. Not, I’m fine, because she wasn’t and she needed a moment to stand there and breathe and stick a couple of butterfly bandages on the cut on her forehead. Because of course Boyd had butterfly bandages. He had six boxes of bandages, more kinds than Hallie had known existed.

  Because he was Boyd. Because he had to.

  He opened the bathroom door and handed her a clean plaid flannel shirt.

  “Thanks,” she said, but he was already gone.

  When Hallie finally opened the bathroom door, she felt ready to face whatever was out there. Lily’s ghost had returned and floated past her in a chill breath of arctic air. Boyd stood in the small hallway that separated the two bedrooms.

  “Do you have coffee?” she said, because she just needed him to back off some. Seriously.

  Boyd blinked. “Sure,” he said after a moment. He went into the kitchen and Hallie walked out into the dining room, rolling up the sleeves on the shirt Boyd had given her. The girl was there, near the windows, pulling her hair back against the nape of her neck, then releasing it.

  “Who are you again?” Hallie asked, not that anyone had told her in the first place, or had a chance to. Not that she didn’t know, or was at least pretty sure, but it would be nice if someone said it.

  The girl startled, like she’d thought for some odd reason she was alone. Lily’s ghost drifted toward her, reached out a ghostly hand, and touched her curls. The girl moved sideways abruptly, as if she’d felt a sudden draft. She looked out the window, like looking over her shoulder.

  “I’m Beth,” she finally said. “Beth Hannah. Boyd—well, maybe he should tell you because it’s all a little crazy.” She paused and Hallie could see her take a deep breath, like a gulp.

  “I’m Hallie,” Hallie said, even though Beth hadn’t asked. You shouldn’t just trust that I’m not going to hurt you, Hallie thought. But Boyd had let her in the house and maybe Beth trusted Boyd.

  “You should sit.” Boyd’s voice, right next to her, made her jump. He put a hand on her arm and when she turned, he handed her a white ironstone mug filled with hot coffee. She accepted it without a word and crossed into the living room to sit in a chair between the fireplace and the front windows, where she could see the yard and the street just beyond it.

  “He’s coming back,” she said.

  “How soon?” Boyd asked.

  “I have no idea,” Hallie said. “He’s never around very long.” Huh. She’d just realized that. “But he comes back.”

  Boyd’s nod was tight, like anything more would be extra motion. “Okay,” he said. “Okay.” Like he was going to figure this out if it killed him. He was wearing a dark red barn coat with a pair of jeans that looked brand-new, a dark blue button-down shirt with thread-thin white lines making squares like grid work, and freshly polished boots. He looked like he had a bruise along the left side of his face, but Hallie couldn’t tell if it was that or the light above their heads casting shadows.

  “But he’ll be back.” Hallie thought this was the important point.

  “He’ll be back,” Boyd said grimly.

  “Catch me up,” she said. “Why is she here?” Then, because even Hallie realized that was rude, she said it to Beth. “Why are you here?”

  Beth took a step forward, her arms out wide, intense. “Because he wants me,” she said, like that would explain everything.

  “For what?” Hallie asked.

  “We don’t know,” Boyd said. “Probably for the same reason he wanted Lily.”

  “But he’s dead now.”

  “Yeah,” Boyd said heavily, like he spent half his days wishing the world would make sense.

  Beth took a deep breath, looked at Boyd, then started pacing in the narrow space between the front door and a set of low bookshelves underneath the windows.

  “Okay, see, I’ve been seeing him on and off for the last week. Mostly just in different places, like if I was at the mall, I’d see him in the parking lot. Or if I went to the grocery store, he’d be in the produce aisle. You know?” Like everyone had a stalker, like that was the way things were.

  “Three days ago, he came to my apartment—I live in Cedar Rapids, you know. Iowa,” she added unnecessarily. “I think he thought I wouldn’t recognize him, because I was a kid when he used to come around, when he wanted Lily to—” She stopped and looked around the room as if looking for something familiar. Boyd gave her a slight nod when she looked at him. “—when he wanted Lily.”

  “But you recognized him?” Hallie said. Boyd had crossed the room again after handing Hallie her coffee, and he leaned against the front door as if to keep things out. In the better light he looked pale. And that was definitely a bruise. She looked away from him and back at Beth. Right now, she wanted to know only two things—when was Hollowell coming back, and how did they stop him?

  She hoped whatever Beth was telling them right now would help her figure out the answers.

  “Oh, yeah,” Beth said. She’d lost some of her fear as she spoke, looked more angry and less terror-stricken. “I recognized him. But I knew it couldn’t be him. Because he died. I knew he’d died. I thought maybe it was his evil twin or something.”

  “His good twin,” said Hallie.

  “What?”

  “Well, Travis was the evil twin, right? He killed Lily. I mean, if they’d been twins. Which … they weren’t,” she finished awkwardly, reached up to rub her head, then stopped because moving her arm like that pulled at her injured ribs. Boyd frowned at her, made like he would move across the room toward her, but she waved him off. She was fine. She was. She drank the rest of her coffee.

  “Okay,” Beth said, the word drawn out like it was half a question. “Well, anyway, he asked if he could come in and I didn’t even know what to say. You know, it’s not all that often that your dead sister’s dead stalker comes back to haunt you.”

  “Like probably never,” Hallie said.

  “Like, exactly,” Beth said.

  After a brief moment, she continued. “He didn’t try anything. He said he just wanted to talk. He said he remembers me and he always liked me and he misses Lily. Which I would say is the creepiest part, except he’s dead, you know. That trumps all the other creepy by, like, a hundred.”

  “What did he say when you asked him about it?” Hallie asked. “About being dead.”

  “He laughed.”

  “Did he tell you what he wanted?”

  Beth stopped pacing. She stood in the middle of the living room and didn’t look at either Hallie or Boyd. “He said I could see her again. If I went with him. He said he could take me to see Lily.”

  19

  “Jesus.”

  “Yeah, like I would go.”

  Hallie wondered if he could, though, if he could take someone to the other side, if she—or anyone—could cross to the other side, if she could see Dell again. Or Eddie Serrano. Or her mother.

  She blinked.

  “And then the wrecks,” she said. It wasn’t really a question.

  “Yeah, like the next day.” Beth’s eyes were wide, as if she couldn’t quite believe any of it, couldn’t believe she was here, in this house, in South Dakota, telling this story. “And I was scared shitless, let me tell you. I expected him to show up any minute. I went home and grabbed my stuff and I went and hid in a church.”

  “In a church?”

  “Well, I thought, you know, that maybe he couldn’t go in there, because he was dead and it would be sacred ground.”

  “Did it work?”

  “I don’
t know. That was when Boyd came. We went back to my apartment and we didn’t see him at all. But maybe he just wasn’t around.”

  “But you’ve seen him since.”

  “I don’t think he just knows where someone is,” Boyd said. “I think he has to find them.”

  He knows where I am, Hallie thought, though she didn’t say it. Her head was hurting worse and she wanted to go back in the bathroom and look for aspirin. Instead, she said, “He can’t cross iron.”

  “What?” Boyd looked at her like maybe she hadn’t been listening to anything they said. Or like maybe he’d lost track of the conversation himself somewhere.

  “And I think,” because Hallie had to get this whole thought out of her head and into enough order that it actually made sense before she could go back and explain what she meant. “I think he’s here because the walls are getting thinner.”

  “What does that mean?” Boyd seemed irritated beyond the specific conversation they were having.

  “I—” There was movement out the window, a dark shape. Hallie looked, expecting the black dog maybe. But it was Hollowell. “Hell,” she said. “He’s back.”

  “Shit.” Which was always a surprise, coming from Boyd. He crossed quickly to the window while Beth retreated to the corner of the living room away from the windows.

  “Why is he doing this? What does he want?” Beth said. She looked like she wanted to hide in or under something, and Hallie could hardly blame her.

  Boyd turned and left them—to lock the back door? Hallie wasn’t sure. She stood. Hollowell was just standing there, looking at the house. What was he waiting for?

  Boyd returned with his service pistol still in its holster and the flap unsnapped. “I’m going out there,” he said.

  Before Hallie could say anything or move—and when had she gotten so slow?—he had the door open and was out on the porch and going down the steps.