Two Feet Under

by C. C. Hunter

  “Shit. You stay away from him.”

  “He apologized,” I say.

  “I don’t care. If he lost it once, he might lose it again. I don’t want him hurting you.”

  I frown. “Hayden, I think I have to help him.” I tell him about his daughter.

  He exhales again. “I don’t like this.”

  “I know,” I say.

  All of a sudden he stops as if he’s hearing something. “I’ve gotta go.”

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “Mom’s at the hospital. She’s upset.”

  “Should I go up too?” I’m willing to face Mrs. Carter and her questions and suspicions if it’ll make Hayden feel better.

  “No. Sometimes I think me being there helps calm her down.” He kisses me. “I’ll try to be back when I can.”

  “Try? No, promise?”

  “I promise. If I can.”

  His words spark pain inside me. Pain like a precursor to grief. “No, just promise me. Promise me you’ll be back.”

  A whisper of sadness fills his expression. “I promise that if I can, I’ll be back. I’m not sure I have control over anything.” He passes a finger over my lips that is both warm and cold at the same time.

  I draw in air, but it hurts.

  When he leaves I get teary-eyed again. “I love you.” My gut screams that I should have told him that. That every chance you have to tell someone how important they are to you, you should do it, because no one knows when it might be the last time.

  I fall back. After wallowing in my bed and my misery for a bit, I remember the text I got. Grabbing my phone, I see it’s from Dad.

  Dad: Good night. I love you, Riley.

  Me: I love you, too, Dad.

  • • •

  An hour later, I’m on the Internet reading more about how to help comatose people wake up. I follow some links that offer suggestions of how to help them. I’m so glad I didn’t do this when Hayden was here, where he might read over my shoulder, because let’s just say I’m more terrified now than I was when I started. There are a few suggestions of how to exercise their muscles, cautions of how easy it is to for them to get pneumonia, but it’s mostly about letting them know it’s okay to pass on. Knowledge is supposed to be power, but I don’t feel powerful.

  I’m scared of losing Hayden.

  I’m scared that no matter how badly I want to save him, I’m going to fail.

  I’m scared that Hayden is going to become like Mom. A person I need in my life but I can’t reach again. A person I’ll never get over losing.

  I shift on the bed, and I must have clicked on some link because I’m on a different page, one about near-death experiences.

  One story leads me to another. Each one retells a person’s experience of actually brushing up against death, or dying and being brought back. When I’m on the fourth story I find a common thread. They all say they were afraid to go back into their bodies. That while outside the body they were free of pain, free of whatever reality they might face that was brought on by their illness or accident. They state that the light they all saw was so beautiful, part of them just wanted to go there. At least three wrote that it was only after reentering their body that they woke up. They said it felt like a choice they had to make.

  Then I stumble across a story about a person who was in a coma for seven months. My hope soars that I might actually learn something.

  The person wrote how he could move from the spirit world to reentering his body. How he didn’t want to return to his hospital bed, but he realized that the more time he spent away, the sicker his body became. I reread part of that passage again. Too much time in my body and my soul was overtaken by the nothingness, by the prospect of pain, and the will to continue to live started to wane. Too much time away from my body, and my human form became an empty shell with no reason to survive. Life, even in the crazy stage, was still about balance.

  How long has it been since Hayden entered his body? I remember him saying he couldn’t remember moving his hand like he did when I was there. I know he was trying to push me away, but maybe it was still a good sign. A sign that he can and should spend more time in his body?

  I get a text from Kelsey, just checking in and confirming I’m her ride to school. I almost call her, but with so much about my evening I can’t share, I just text back that I’ll see her in the morning. When I turn back to my computer, my dad’s funeral home website pops up. It shows a list of upcoming funerals. I see the name Mr. Brooks. Instead of a date beside it, it reads TBA.

  I remember the heart-attack spirit telling me that a Mr. Brooks needed me. I click on the obituary link.

  A picture appears and causes me to gasp just a little. He’s clean-shaven and tattoo-less, but I recognize him. It’s prisoner-ghost. So somebody, somewhere, is trying to convince me to help him.

  Before I google the name to find out more about him, I feel the chill. I look around, and he’s not here, but his cold is. Then I see steam rising from under my door. I get up and move to open it. And when I do, I’m no longer in my bedroom.

  I’m no longer safe. I feel it. It’s in the air. Danger.

  I’m running down a hall, fast. The walls are all dark gray. I hear voices. Angry voices.

  Someone’s in trouble. Someone’s going to get hurt. I think I know who it is. And I have to stop it.

  I feel myself being sucked into the vision, deeper, deeper.

  I feel myself racing forward. My feet slap against a cold floor.

  I’m not sure where I’m at, or whose life I’m being pulled into, but I know what I’m feeling. Something is wrong. Someone’s in danger. And I’m the only one here to stop it.

  All of a sudden, I glance down and see my legs pumping. I’m wearing orange pants.

  The sound of a fight echoes around me. I scream out for someone. A name. No, not a name. I’m yelling, “Guard! Guard! Guard!”

  I’m in prison. I’m Mr. Brooks.

  I race around a corner and see a group of prisoners. They are ganging up on someone. He’s younger. Blood drips from his face. I see the biggest prisoner pull something out of his pocket. It looks like a knife, but is carved from wood.

  I see him pull his hand back as if to stab the younger prisoner. I scream for him to stop. Everyone turns to look at me. I know it right then. I know this is a mistake.

  The kid being beaten yanks away from the two men holding him. The big guy rushes at me, and I feel a gut-wrenching pain in my side. I gasp. I reach down and see the end of the wooden blade buried a good four inches inside me. I watch as my bright red blood is soaked up by my prison uniform.

  I try to draw a breath but it’s hard. My legs give. My knees hit the concrete. I can’t die. I. Can’t. Die.

  I remember my daughter. The little innocent person I’ve never met. I see the picture of her pinned to my cell wall.

  If I die. Who’s going to help her?

  Chapter Six

  I fall against the doorjamb. I’m holding my side. I look down. There’s no blood. I’m not wearing orange.

  “Hey.” A voice has me looking up.

  Mr. Brooks is standing there.

  “I thought you might be sleeping, I didn’t want to wake you up.”

  I wipe the cobwebs of the vision away.

  I don’t answer for a good thirty seconds. Then his words tiptoe through my brain.

  From angry-enough-to-kill-me to apologetic and now polite—I’m starting to see this guy in a new light. Or maybe it’s not his words. Maybe it’s that I know he died trying to save someone else.

  Then all of it makes me wonder what he did to get imprisoned. The question lands on the tip of my tongue, but it feels rude. Much better to just google. Not that my job entails snooping in ghosts’ lives, but it often helps me to make their leaving this life easier.

  “Were you sleeping?” he asks.

  “No, I’m awake.” I motion for him to come into my room. When we walk in, Pumpkin hisses, his ears go straight back, then
he jumps down from the bed and darts under it.

  “Sorry,” he says. “He really doesn’t like me. I swear I haven’t done anything to him.”

  “I don’t think it’s just you.” I go to my desk and turn the chair so I can face him. I don’t know what to say, so I just go for information. “How is your brother going to save Annie?”

  “I’m almost certain he has the same blood type. Annie needs a part of a liver. We have AB blood. It’s the hardest to match. I was supposed to give her part of mine. But a fight broke out in the prison the day before the surgery. There was a new kid, only eighteen . . . They were going to kill him, I tried to save him. And I did, but it cost me my own life and very well may end up costing my daughter hers.” His voice shakes.

  My heart hurts when I remember the little girl in the hospital bed. I remember reliving this man’s death, how he gave his life for someone else. Somehow right then I sense that no matter what his mistakes were that put him in prison, they were just mistakes. When it counted, he was one of the good ones.

  “I didn’t even know I had a daughter, until her adoptive mom came to see me and asked if I’d save her life. My girlfriend got pregnant right before I went to jail. She gave the baby away. I was furious she didn’t tell me. Maybe if I’d known it would’ve helped get my life on track. But even angry, I can’t explain how good it felt knowing I could do something for her. I only had eight more years on my sentence, and Annie’s mom even said I could visit her when I got out and turned things around. Now it’s over, and I don’t care about me, but her . . . She has to live.”

  He has tears in his eyes. I swallow emotion down my throat. “I’ll help you. Can you give me his name and address?”

  He drops down on the side of my bed. “That’s just it. I don’t know. We were in foster care. We got separated. But I do know who the foster mother is. She still lives in the same place. I went there hoping to find something. But she wasn’t like you. She can’t see or hear me. But I also have the address of the caseworker who worked with my brother and me. She’s older. Lives in a nursing home. I’m not sure her mind’s all there now.”

  “Are they here in Catwalk, Texas?”

  “One is, the other is in Dayton. It’s about a thirty-minute drive from here.”

  “I know where it is. I went to a car show there.” I’m not even worried about driving there knowing Dad would ground me. I have to do this. I reach for a pen and paper. “Give me their names and addresses. Oh, and your brother’s name and when you guys were separated in foster care.”

  “Are you going to see them tomorrow?”

  “I’ll try, but I have school, too.” And if I don’t see Hayden by then, I’m going back to the hospital.

  “She might not have a lot of time. I heard the doctors saying there’s some kind of an operation that might give her a little more time. They put a stent in of some sort, but it’s dangerous and she might die on the table.” Desperation weighed down his words.

  “I’ll go right after school.” The good thing is it’s Monday and Dad usually has funerals, so that means he’ll be working late.

  “Thank you. I’ll do anything I can to pay you back. I’ll look for your mom when I cross over. I won’t stop looking for her. I swear.”

  “Wait. How do—” The request to help me find my mom is one I ask from every spirit I see, but I know I haven’t mentioned it to Mr. Brooks. “How do you know about my mom?”

  “A woman, an African-American woman, older and kind-hearted, told me.”

  “Bessie?” I ask. That was Kelsey’s grandmother . . . “You’ve seen Bessie?”

  “Yeah. That was the name. She’s the one who told me you might be able to help me.”

  “But I thought . . . she crossed over.” I specifically recall seeing a falling star and experiencing the rewarding feeling.

  “She has,” Mr. Brooks says. “She said there was a problem with her family and she had to come back to help.”

  My concern goes straight to Kelsey. “What kind of problem?”

  “She didn’t say.”

  I sit there trying to wrap my brain around this. Then I remember Kelsey saying her heating and air system was on the fritz. She felt the blasts of cold. That must mean Bessie is showing up there. Did that mean the problem has to do with Kelsey and her mom?

  The thought, along with the cold, starts to sting and has me hugging myself. I refocus on Mr. Brooks. “And you could see her?” I remember Hayden and Abby not being able to see each other. Was that because he wasn’t dead? But he’d seen Bessie, too.

  “Yeah. She was at the funeral home.”

  I tap my pen against the pad. “Could you see the others at the hospital?”

  “Were there others there?”

  “Yeah.” So it must be a Bessie thing. But what kind of trouble brought her back? Is my best friend in danger? “Can you do me a favor? If you see Bessie again, ask her to come see me.”

  “I will. Anything to help you. Just please find my brother and convince him to help Annie. Do it fast, or she’ll die.”

  He fades.

  Nothing like a ticking clock. Just how quick can I do this? I grab my laptop and go straight back to Google.

  • • •

  When I wake up the next morning, I have company. Hayden’s in bed with me, and I don’t complain. He smiles. I smile.

  Then I remember what I read online last night about him needing to be in his body. I sit up and tell him.

  He closes his eyes. “I don’t like being there.”

  “I know. But so many of these people said that’s what it took to wake up.” Then I tell him about the guy who’d been in a coma for seven months. How he said it was a balancing act.

  “Is the guy normal, like completely healthy now?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” I say. I don’t tell him that I read it took him almost two years to learn to talk. I don’t see it as lying, either. I’m just withholding information for his own good. And for my own. I need Hayden to live.

  I scoot over and kiss him. It gets his mind off the bad stuff. It gets my mind off the bad stuff. And I’ve got quite a bit of stuff right now. My Google search didn’t offer anything on Mr. Brooks’ brother. No social media accounts or anything. But I did find answers I didn’t like about Mr. Brooks.

  The mistake he made that put him in prison wasn’t so small. He was charged with murder. He wasn’t the one to pull the trigger, but a young woman working at a convenience store was shot and killed. It doesn’t change my mind about helping him. It doesn’t change the fact that he gave his life for someone else, or that he’s eager to help save his own daughter’s life, but I can’t deny it makes me leery.

  After another short make-out session, Hayden pulls back and looks at me. “What’s wrong?”

  “What do you mean?” I nip at my lip with guilt.

  “You’re worried. I can tell. Did the prisoner-ghost come to see you last night?”

  I tell him about the visit, about the vision, about my plans to go see the foster mother and caseworker after school, but I keep the he-was-convicted-for-murder news mum. Hayden’s brows still knit together with worry.

  “I still don’t like it. Promise you won’t try to help this guy without me being with you.”

  “But you need to be spending more time in your body.”

  “No, you said the guy said it was a balance. I can balance. Be with you and still spend time in my body. Promise me you won’t go alone.” He leans closer and waits.

  “I promise.”

  “Okay, I’ll go to the hospital now and then I’ll find you after school.” He kisses me again and smiles. “By the way, I like these pajamas.”

  I look down, and the neckline of my pajama top is just low enough to show a little too much cleavage. “Behave.”

  His smile fades. “Are you kidding? My goal is to get well so I can misbehave with you.”

  “Then get well,” I say.

  “So you’ll misbehave with me?” His tone is half tease
.

  “Maybe.” I touch his cheek.

  His eyes light up with humor and with something that reminds me of hope. “Is that a probably maybe or a don’t-hold-your-breath maybe?”

  “Definitely a probably maybe.” I smile, and it comes straight from my heart, and then I can’t stop the words that follow. “I love you, Hayden.”

  “You do?”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  “Funny, because I’ve been feeling the same way about you.” He kisses me one last time and then he’s gone.

  I miss him already.

  • • •

  Instead of texting Kelsey that I’m waiting outside in my car the way I normally do, I get out and knock on the door. I even got here a few minutes early. I’m hoping I might see Bessie. While I might have enough on my plate, Kelsey’s my friend. I can’t just look the other way if there’s a problem.

  The front door is yanked open.

  I expect to see Kelsey, maybe her mom, but instead it’s a man. A shirtless, big man, with a cup of coffee in his hand, wearing a pair of purple sweats and an earring dangling from his left ear. For one second I think I have the wrong house, but then I recognize the mug he’s holding as one of Kelsey’s grandmother’s cat cups. And bam, I remember Kelsey’s mom’s boyfriend has been staying over.

  At first he’s all frowns, then that changes into a grin. I prefer the frown. I’d prefer if he wasn’t gawking at my boobs. Is this the trouble Bessie meant?

  To his credit, his gaze doesn’t linger, but it brushed up against too long. “Now who do we have here?” His tone has a sneer to it that makes me uncomfortable.

  “Is Kelsey here?” I don’t answer his question.

  “You must be Roxanne?”

  “No,” I say, sounding properly smug. But I know this must be Charles.

  I hear footsteps. “I’m ready.” Kelsey’s voice echoes behind the jackass still taking up the doorway. “Just let me grab my backpack.”

  Worried even more now, and wanting to chat with Bessie, I take a step to move inside. He doesn’t budge. He even grins as if to say I’ll have to squeeze through. But no way am I going to rub my boobs on him.