The Dead Lands

by Rick Hautala

  You’re sure … You still can’t see it?

  I was hoping you could, but then again, why would you? It has nothing to do with you. One thing I’m convinced of is that, at least here in the Dead Lands—maybe in the living world, too—you make your own reality. You see and experience what you expect to see and experience.

  Take emotions.

  We’re so used to how we react when we’re alive—like laughing and crying and being afraid—that when we’re dead, we still feel those emotions, and react the same way we did when we were alive.

  Like when I feel sad. I feel sad a lot because I’m way too aware of the things I lost when I died, and I still miss them … But when I’m sad, I cry, and I convince myself that real tears are flowing from my eyes and running down my cheeks.

  But how can that be?

  I don’t have any skin or any tears … I don’t have any physical sensations at all. I’m frickin’ dead, and everything I knew and had that made me human died along with me, so everything I am now and everything I feel now is just an illusion.

  And that makes me wonder how much of life is an illusion. It all seems like a dream to me now, a wonderful dream, but one that’s fading away because in a sense I ‘woke up’ when I died.

  Maybe how I am now in the Dead Lands is more real than ‘real’ life, you know? Maybe it’s ‘truer’ because I don’t have anything physical weighing me down. I’m a purer form of energy and emotion and life.

  Does that make any sense at all?

  Maybe not, but I’m sorry I dragged you all the way out here on such a rotten day. I can see how much you’re shivering, but I was hoping, because we can hear and see each other, that you’d be able to experience at least a little bit of what it’s like for me. If you could see the shipwreck, you might be able to understand a little better what I’m going through.

  I’ll tell you this, though. In the hundred or more years since I died, I’ve never met anyone like you. I feel like there’s something different about you, and I’m glad we can see each other and talk. You have no idea what a relief it is after all this time to actually talk to someone who’s still alive.

  It makes me feel alive … at least a little bit.

  Chapter 11

  Shadow Man

  —1—

  Abby and Megan were walking along the beach. It was a cold day with thin, gray clouds overhead. Abby knew it was cold because there weren’t many people walking the beach, and those few who were wore heavy jackets. Some even had on scarves and gloves or mittens. One couple was walking behind a golden retriever that kept plunging into the water and then racing out, pausing only long enough to shake the water from his fur in a wide, white spray, and then running back into the water again.

  With every other step she took, Megan’s bare foot squeaked in the “singing sands.” Abby found the rhythmic sound soothing, but something about it gnawed at her mind. She knew Megan had to figure out how and why she had died, and that her missing sneaker was the key.

  Like the key with my locket. She grew wistful, thinking about Jim Burke and wondering when or if she would see him again. She wanted to tonight, but there was no telling what would happen between now and then. One thing for sure, she couldn’t trust Megan to stay put in the cemetery … not that she blamed her. But outside of the cemetery at night was a scary proposition.

  “So are you going to tell me what you saw on your stepfather’s computer?”

  Megan pursed her lips and was resolutely silent as she stared straight ahead. From time to time, she would glance out to sea where the waves broke on the seaweed-wreathed rocks. A few seagulls circled overhead, their cries carried away by the breeze.

  “When I looked at it,” Abby continued, hoping to draw her out, “All I saw was a flickering light that made me feel … really funny. I didn’t see any pictures or anything.”

  Megan grunted but said nothing, not bothering to look at Abby. Her downturned face was set with a deep scowl. Abby wanted to do whatever she could to relieve the negativity Megan was feeling, but she knew she couldn’t force her to talk.

  With a start, Abby realized they had already crossed the beach and were standing in the shadows beneath the cliffs where Megan had died. She looked up the steep angle of jagged rock and saw the gray sky above. For a moment, she had the dizzying sensation that she was looking down, not up, and quickly shifted her gaze to reorient herself.

  “You already said you think he was the one who pushed you,” Abby said.

  “I don’t think … I know he did it!” Megan’s voice echoed from the side of the cliff.

  “All right, then,” Abby said, nodding. “You know he did it. Do you have any idea why?”

  “I didn’t until last night,” Meagan said. “But I—like you, the computer screen was all screwed up. I’m not sure I saw what I think I saw.”

  She was staring straight ahead, her eyes wide and glistening in the dimming daylight. Abby turned slowly and followed her gaze until she saw what Megan was looking at.

  It was a small sneaker, washed up on the rocks. It must have been carried up there by a particularly high wave, because it was above the dark line on the rock that marked high tide.

  That can’t be …, Abby thought, but didn’t say, as a thrill of excitement passed through her. It couldn’t really be her other sneaker.

  What were the chances?

  “So you know he did it, but do you know why?”

  She was sure this was the answer they were looking for, but she couldn’t force it.

  Megan shifted her eyes without turning her head and stared at Abby, obviously tormented inside. Finally, she said softly, “I have no idea.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Megan nodded.

  “I don’t believe you,” Abby said. “You saw something on that computer that I didn’t. What was it?”

  Megan turned away from her and didn’t answer.

  Abby knew this was important. Megan had lied to her before, and if Abby went too far, she had no doubt Megan would lie to her again.

  “I always thought …” Megan’s voice trailed away, but only for a moment. “He always said he … he loved me … even though I wasn’t his real daughter, biologically, but he said all the time how much he loved me as if I was really his kid, and I believed him, and I never thought he’d do anything to … to hurt me. He was—he was—”

  But she couldn’t continue. Her voice choked off, the feeble echo of it rebounding from the nearby rocks. Her eyes were shining like polished steel as she looked again at the sneaker lying on the rocks.

  “That’s yours, isn’t it?” Abby said, already knowing the answer.

  “Yeah?” Megan’s voice was so faint it was whisked away by the wind.

  “So. We know where both sneakers are, and they don’t.”

  “What do you mean, ‘they’?”

  “Your parents. Your brother. The police. Anyone else. There isn’t a single living person who knows where both of your sneakers are. Mike had one of them until your stepfather found it. But no one knows this one is out here.”

  Megan shook her head before turning to look at Abby.

  “So what? It doesn’t mean a damned thing… I don’t mean a damned thing to them … to anybody!”

  “You do to me.” Abby shifted closer and placed a hand on Megan’s shoulder. “Remember how many people were out here for your candlelight vigil? Remember how many people, friends and relatives and teachers and students from your school, showed up for your funeral? A lot of people miss you.”

  “So what? I mean, get real.” Megan’s voice was heavy with defeat. “I’m dead and gone to every damned one of them, and all I do is hang around with you and miss being alive … miss being able to be with the few, the very few, people I really cared about.”

  “Like who?” Abby asked.

  “Like Mikey and my mother. I miss both of them so much it hurts, and, you know what? Honestly, I think that’s all.”

  “Don’t you think they would
be more at peace if they knew what really happened to you?”

  The question caught Megan up short.

  “Umm, yeah,” she said, looking bewildered. “I guess so, but—” She gazed out over the ocean as tears filled her eyes. “But maybe they shouldn’t. Maybe they’d be better off if, you know, if they didn’t know the truth.”

  Abby didn’t reply. What did it matter what she thought? It was up to Megan to figure out what would bring her peace. It wasn’t up to Abby or anyone else to impose it on her. Megan had to see for herself.

  “I mean, really,” Megan continued. “What good can it possibly do for my mother to know that her husband, her husband who was supposed to support and protect her and her family was the one who killed me? I can’t do it … I just can’t …”

  Her shoulders sagged forward and shook. Abby followed her gaze and saw that it was fixed again on her sneaker. Waves smacked up against the rocks, sending plumes of white foam into the air, but the sneaker was above the reach of the surging tide. Abby was convinced everything revolved around that sneaker, but it was up to Megan to put the pieces together.

  “Can we—why can’t we pick things up? Can we?” Megan asked, her voice edged with pleading.

  “I don’t know why, but no, we can’t.”

  “But we’re standing on the ground and we climb up stairs or whatever as if they’re solid. But they’re not. So why don’t we just fall through things?”

  Abby shook her head and said, “It’s just the way it is. A wall may look solid, but we can pass through it if we want to.”

  “But if we stand on the ground, why can’t we touch and pick up other things in the real world? Why, f’rinstance, can’t I pick up that sneaker?”

  “I think you could if you concentrated hard enough—if you believe you can to the core of your being, you might be able to eventually. I’ve seen other ghosts move things, but usually it’s when they’re angry. I’ve heard the word ‘poltergeist’ used in connection with these kinds of ghosts.”

  “So it’s only if I get angry I could do something that someone still alive could do?”

  Abby shrugged and said, “I think so.” She had tried too many times to count in the past hundred or more years to influence the world of the living, but she’d never been able to. That was why she was so amazed that she and Jim Burke could actually see and hear each other. It was something new, and she wondered if, after all this time, her situation was finally changing. It was both exciting and scary.

  “Why do you want to pick it up … the sneaker, I mean?” Abby asked. “What would you do with it?”

  Megan’s eyes clouded with thought. She was silent as she drifted over the rocks to the sneaker and stared down at it. After a long time, she leaned forward and extended her fingers toward the sneaker. If Abby had a breath to hold, she would have as she watched Megan’s hand get closer and closer … and then pass through the dirt-stained white shoe as if it wasn’t there. Megan’s hand paused, the fingers out of sight up to the middle knuckles.

  “I can’t feel it. Not at all,” she said, as much to herself as Abby.

  She moved her arm from side to side, watching as her fingers reappeared and then disappeared inside the sneaker. Her body began to vibrate, and for a moment or two, Abby was afraid she would disappear right then and there; but then she turned and looked at Abby with a most peculiar expression.

  “We have to let them know,” she said. “Somehow.”

  Abby didn’t say a word. She just stood there, watching Megan.

  “We have to let my mother and the police know what he did to me.”

  Her expression contracted into a snarl that exposed her top and bottom teeth. Her eyes got hard, like flint striking sparks from steel, and her body continued to vibrate. Against the vastness of the ocean behind her, she looked like a leaf on a tree, shaking in a blast of cold, autumn wind.

  “Can you help me?” she asked. “Can you help me figure out what we have to do so someone knows what he did?”

  Abby felt a blade of cold inside her. The anger, pain, and betrayal raging inside Megan frightened her, but she nodded solemnly and said, “Yeah. I’ll do what I can. For now, though, it’s getting dark. We should get back to the cemetery.”

  — 2 —

  “So that’s it? We just close the case?”

  Detective Gray was sitting in the chair next to the desk of his supervisor, Chief Patterson. Patterson, a pale, beefy man, was silent for a long moment. He clenched his left fist and pressed it against his chin. His elbow rested on the desk.

  “What else have we got?” Patterson raised his eyebrows so they looked like two wooly, white caterpillars crawling on his forehead. The overhead light in the office gleamed on his balding head like sunlight reflecting off pond ice.

  Gray was stumped. He had to admit it. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that Andrew Collins’ suicide wasn’t the end he was looking for with this case. Cops call it their “blue sense,” when they know something but don’t know how they know it. Well, his blue sense was telling him there was more to Megan McGowan’s death.

  Collins killing himself was too pat … too easy.

  Gray cleared his throat and shifted uncomfortably in the chair.

  “When I interviewed the guy the other day, it was just—I have a feeling, a hunch, he isn’t our guy.”

  “I need more than a hunch.” Patterson sniffed as he shook his head. “You’re not giving me a helluva lot to go on here. ‘N your ‘hunches’ ain’t gonna amount to squat in court.”

  “Then let’s get a warrant and go through Collins’ computer files,” Gray suggested. “Jesse, down in IT can pull up files even if they’re erased.”

  Patterson seemed not to consider the suggestion. He shook his head tightly and pushed away from the desk. Without a word, he walked over to the table by the window where a half-filled pot of coffee was steaming away on a hot plate. It looked like it had been there since morning. He glanced back at Gray and held up an empty cup, but Gray shook his head no. Patterson poured a cup for himself and then turned around and leaned against the table.

  “You can keep poking around if you want to,” he said after taking a slurping sip and wincing. “But we’ve got enough other shit to deal with. I don’t want this eating up your time.”

  He took another sip and winced again. Gray wondered why he drank the stuff if it tasted as rank as, apparently, it did.

  “Usually, a guy pops himself when he’s under investigation—that’s a pretty good sign he might’ve been feeling a little bit guilty or afraid.”

  “Not a guy like Collins,” Gray said firmly. “He had some other issues he was dealing with.”

  “’Issues?’” Patterson said derisively.

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Yeah, so if he wasn’t the perp, you got anyone else?”

  Gray was stumped on that, but he didn’t want to admit it to his supervisor. As much as a creep like Collins got under his skin and maybe even deserved what had happened to him, it just didn’t add up. He never cracked, not even a little, during interrogation, so why put a gun in his mouth later?

  The real problem was, Gray didn’t have the faintest clue where to go from here … other than a hunch.

  — 3 —

  The night was dark, and clouds covered the moon and stars. A high wind blew through the trees, scattering leaves along the road where they rattled like old bones against the pavement.

  Abby moved slowly up the street, poised and ready for any sign of danger. Megan had promised to stay in the cemetery tonight, and after all she had been through, Abby was confident she would. She needed time to process what she had been through today, and she needed to figure out what—if anything—she would do next.

  “Do you remember me?”

  The voice, speaking so suddenly in the darkness, startled Abby. She turned and looked to see a middle-aged woman standing in the darkness under some trees. Behind her was a small wooden cross, painted white, and several bouque
ts, some of them wilted and brown.

  “What?” Abby asked.

  “Do you remember me?” the woman said again. It was obvious she was dead. Her pale face and blank expression indicated that she still hadn’t realized or accepted that she was dead.

  “I don’t know why I’m here,” the dead woman said. “I’ve been waiting here … I don’t know how long. I saw my husband here once, and my two children came by and left those flowers, but they didn’t talk to me, even when I spoke directly to them. They ignored me.”

  Abby realized what had happened here, but she couldn’t get involved now. She had to get back to the cemetery and see how Megan was doing.

  “Why are you ignoring me?” the woman said, her voice sharp with anger.

  “I’m not ignoring you,” Abby said even as she shifted away from the woman. “I just have to do something … a favor for someone, and then I’ll come back and see how you’re doing.”

  “I just don’t understand why no one’s come to pick me up?” the woman said. “I can’t walk. It’s too far. And I don’t dare leave here because this is where they’ll be looking for me.”

  “I understand,” Abby said, and then she turned and walked away. The dead woman’s voice gradually faded into the night.

  Abby felt pity for the dead woman and wished she could have helped her, but she had problems of her own. That’s why she had left the cemetery, even though she knew it was dangerous. She wanted to ask Jim if there was anything he could do to help her and Megan. Also, she really wanted to see Jim again. She couldn’t quite admit to herself how much Jim reminded her of Jon Hilton—so much so, in fact, that she wondered if he might actually be Jon’s reincarnation, if that were even possible. There was still so much Abby didn’t understand about life and life after death.

  Before she turned the corner, she looked back and caught a glimpse of the dead woman. Her figure was nothing more than a gauzy white smear in the darkness, and her voice was so faint with distance Abby couldn’t hear what she said.

  When she got to Jim’s house, she saw that all of the lights were off. Either Jim and his mother weren’t home, or else everyone had already gone to bed. As she moved closer to the house, a hint of motion off to her right drew her attention. She wondered if that dead woman had followed her as she dropped into a crouch. Her eyes shifted back and forth as she looked for somewhere to run when she heard a low, rumbling growl.