The Dead Lands Page 13

  “You don’t want to hear what they say?”

  Megan paused and considered for a moment, then shook her head.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I mean, it’s nice and all, but what good does it do?”

  Abby wasn’t sure how to answer that, so she said, “I think it’s more for them than it is for you.”

  “That’s what I mean,” Megan replied. She wasn’t sure why, but the urgency to leave was suddenly strong. She felt as though she had forgotten something important. “I feel like there’s something else I should be doing.”

  Abby smiled wanly and said, “We can leave. Where do you want to go?”

  “Not back to the cemetery,” Megan said, “that’s for sure. It’s still daylight, and I can’t help but feel like there’s something I forgot to do.”

  Abby didn’t doubt that it had something to do with her other sneaker. All she could do was go along, hope she could help figure it out, and protect her as best she could from any dangers, especially Reverend Wheeler and his Hell Hounds.

  — 2 —

  Abby was waiting with Megan at the house when Megan’s family and friends returned from the burial. Abby was surprised that Megan had wanted to go. She wondered if she truly didn’t care or if she was deeply afraid to actually see the coffin containing her body lowered into the ground.

  In recent years, funeral directors had begun holding off from lowering the coffin into the ground while the family was still present. They waited, instead, until the people had dispersed. She assumed this was to protect the family from any trauma of actually seeing their loved one go down into the cold, dark earth. But during her time in the Dead Lands, Abby had found that this was often the precise moment when the lost soul was finally free and willing to leave with a Reaper.

  Abby was sure it was because she still didn’t understand, or admit, what had happened when she died.

  Family and close friends showed up at the house, and food and drink were served. There were tears and laughter and muffled conversations and even some veiled hostility among the people, but Abby followed Megan up the stairs to the second floor of the house.

  “That’s my bedroom,” she said, indicating a closed door to the right at the top of the stairs. “At least it was. You wanna see it?”

  Without waiting for a reply, she shifted through the closed door, and Abby followed her.

  “Oh my God,” Megan said when she entered the room. “It ... it’s just like when I left.” A trace of sadness tinged her voice as she looked all around.

  Abby was astonished by how beautiful the room was. She couldn’t help but compare it to the tiny room she’d had under the eaves in the house back in Waynesboro. This bedroom looked like it belonged to a princess. The bed had a lacy white canopy and a frilly, white bedspread that reached to the floor. On the bed was a heap of stuffed animals—a large, green Teddy bear and several others along with a few dolls. All of the furniture was painted white, as were the walls and ceiling. The window looked out onto a backyard that stretched about a hundred feet to the border of a wooded hill.

  “It’s beautiful … absolutely amazing,” Abby said. “I can’t imagine having a bedroom like this. It’s like in a fairy tale.”

  Megan looked at her curiously but didn’t say a word. But she seemed somehow unmoved by being here, too. Detached.

  “Yeah … it’s okay, I guess,” she finally said.

  They both started when they heard the tread of footsteps on the stairs.

  “That’s Mike, my brother,” Megan said. “I recognize the way he walks.”

  Before she could say anything else, she passed through the door and out into the hallway. Abby followed just in time to see Mike trudging up the stairs, head bowed and shoulders slumped.

  He raised his hand, slipped his forefinger under the collar of his shirt and, after loosening his tie, slipped it off from around his neck. He cracked it once, like a whip, and then stuffed it into his coat pocket. The sadness of his expression touched Abby, and when she looked at Megan, she saw tears gathering like drops of mercury in her eyes.

  “Mikey,” she whispered as she moved close to him.

  He shuddered with deep emotion but obviously didn’t see her or Abby as he walked past them, opened his bedroom door, and went inside. The door latch clicked softly when he swung the door shut behind him.

  Abby looked at Megan. Sometimes, she found it best to leave a person—a soul—alone with their grief; other times, she found it was much better to talk it out. Judging by Megan’s reactions throughout the funeral service and here at the house, she wasn’t quite sure what to do.

  Finally, Megan sighed and said, “I wish there was some way I could talk to him.”

  “Maybe you can,” Abby said, raising her hand and placing it lightly on Megan’s shoulder. It hovered there like a wisp of smoke, but the girl reacted as if she could actually feel the pressure. “You just have to try to find a way.”

  Megan looked at her, hope brightening her eyes. Then she pulled away from Abby and went to the closed door. As if functioning on automatic, she raised her hand and tried to turn the doorknob, but her fingers passed through it. She chuckled softly, and after shooting Abby another quick glance, she passed through the solid wood door.

  Abby debated whether or not to follow her into the room. It seemed appropriate to give them some time alone, but when she considered that in all likelihood there was no way Megan would be able to communicate with her brother, Abby followed her into the room.

  Mike was sitting on the bed, his shoulders slumped and his head bowed as he idly flipped his necktie back and forth, running it between his fingers. Megan stood close beside him, one hand hovering over his shoulder as though she wanted to touch him, was desperate to touch him, but didn’t quite dare to.

  “It’s okay,” Abby said, reading the meaning behind Megan’s hesitation. The girl was afraid of a possible reaction from her brother. “We could both touch him and yell and scream all we want, and chances are he wouldn’t have the slightest idea we’re here.

  “It’s so … ” Megan said. “He looks so sad.”

  “You guys were close?” Abby asked.

  Megan considered for a few seconds, her face registering the conflicting thoughts that passed through her mind.

  “Sometimes. He got on my nerves lots,” she said. “I mean, he was your typical little brother, you know?”

  Abby smiled wanly and shook her head. “I never had a brother or sister.”

  “Well—you know, he was always tagging along and irritating the crap out of me, and he sure tried to get me into trouble instead of taking the rap when he did something wrong. He’d start something and then, when I got pissed and started yelling at him or hit him, he’d run to Mom—always his Mom—and say I started it.”

  She paused and looked at Mike. Then she knelt down in front of him and put both hands on his shoulders as if trying to get him to look her straight in the eyes. Again, he shuddered and then sighed.

  “Do you think he felt that?” Megan asked, her eyes brightening with hope. “I think he just got a sense I was here.”

  Abby shrugged and said, “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “I’m right here, Mikey,” Megan said, leaning so close her ghostly lips brushed against his ear. “I’ll watch over you and make sure nothing bad happens to you like it did to—”

  She cut herself short and cast a furtive glance at Abby, who noticed that she hadn’t finished her sentence. Something bad, indeed, had happened to Megan, and unless or until she found out what it was or admitted it to herself, she wasn’t going to find any rest in the afterlife. Her worries for her little brother and the aching loneliness she was feeling missing him, at least, in the land of the living would only get worse until she became—

  Abby shivered, not wanting even to think about what might become of Megan if she didn’t deal with the circumstances of her death. The memory of that lonely woman, staring sadly from the upstairs window of the lighthouse keepe
r’s house sprang to mind. A yearning sadness for Megan filled her, and she vowed once again to do everything she possibly could to help Megan figure it out.

  Megan suddenly jumped back, startled, when Mike shifted off the bed and stood up. Abby didn’t hear anyone coming up the stairs, although if she listened carefully, she could still hear people talking and laughing downstairs. It always struck her as odd how some people joked at such gatherings after a funeral. Laughter was like whistling as you walked past a graveyard, she guessed … a way for people to relieve the tension and grief they felt in the presence of death.

  Both Megan and Abby watched as Mike went to his bedroom door, opened it, and looked out into the hallway. After checking that there was no one in either direction, he closed the door again and walked back to his bed. Abby thought he was going to sit down again, but he dropped down to his hands and knees and then, supporting himself on one hand, felt around under the bed with the other hand.

  Abby could have easily looked underneath the bed to see what he was trying to find, but she held back, watching Megan’s reaction. She was watching, too, her face creased with concern. But her expression shifted quickly into one of shocked surprise when she saw what Mike pulled out from under the bed.

  It was her left sneaker, the one that had fallen off her foot as she ran toward the cliff.

  All three of them jumped when a heavy knock sounded on Mike’s bedroom door. Then the door opened to reveal Mike’s father, glaring.

  — 3 —

  “So. What have you got there?” Mike’s father asked as he looked at the sneaker Mike was holding with both hands on his lap.

  The blood drained out of Mike’s face as he looked up at his father, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. His hands started to tremble, and tears sprang to his eyes.

  “Noth—nothing,” he stammered. He fought the impulse to try to hide the sneaker, knowing it was already too late. His father had seen it, but maybe—hopefully—he didn’t realize what it was.

  “Is that …?”

  His father started to move toward him. Mike was trying desperately to think of something to say or do to distract his father, but it was already too late. His shoulders slumped like a prisoner in the dock who had just heard a sentence of execution read by a judge.

  “It—that looks like Megan’s,” his father said.

  “I … She … I kept this because I … it reminds me of her.”

  “Her sneaker?” his father said, frowning skeptically as he held his hand out for Mike to give it to him.

  “I … I gave her these—the beads for the laces, and I wanted to … wanted to have them to … to remind me of her.”

  “Really?” his father said, still frowning as if he didn’t believe a single word he said.

  And why should he?

  There was no way Mike could tell the truth about how he had found this sneaker—not without revealing what—and who—he saw that day.

  “Give it to me,” his father said.

  Mike’s hand was shaking out of control as he handed the sneaker over to him.

  “Looks kinda muddy to me,” his father said as he inspected the sole of the sneaker. He kept glancing from the sneaker to Mike and back to the sneaker again, all the while frowning as though deep in thought.

  “You find it in her closet?” his father asked.

  Mike nodded, but instantly wished he hadn’t because he knew what the next logical question was, and he braced himself for it.

  “So where’s the other sneaker?” his father said, his voice echoing in Mike’s ear like a roll of thunder.

  “The other?” he asked in a high, pinched voice.

  “Sneakers usually come in pairs. Do you have the other one hidden someplace, too?”

  Biting down on his lower lip, Mike shook his head, unable to speak.

  “Kinda peculiar, don’t ‘cha think?” his father said. “What the hell would you want with just one sneaker?”

  Mike started to say it was all he needed to remember Megan by, but he knew even before he said it how lame that would sound, so he remained perfectly silent as his father continued to inspect it. His body was shaking like a tree in a gale, so he sat down on his bed, withering under the steady stare of his father.

  “You know, that day at the hospital, after your mother and I made a positive identification of Megan’s body, they gave us a bag with her possessions in it, and do you want to know something odd?” Mike didn’t speak. “There weren’t any sneakers or shoes in that bag. She was barefoot when they found her.”

  Mike swallowed so hard his throat made a funny gulping noise.

  “Yeah. No sneakers. And you know, this one looks kinda muddy.”

  His father was frowning as he shifted toward him gripping the sneaker in one hand and holding it like a club he was going to use to smack Mike. But he was smiling as he came over to the bed and sat down next to Mike, resting his hand gently but firmly on his shoulder.

  “Would you care to tell me how you really came to have this sneaker?”

  His voice was as hard as chromed steel, and his eyes were even harder as he looked squarely at Mike.

  Mike found he couldn’t maintain eye contact for very long, and he shifted his gaze to the window. For just an instant, a haze of darkness clouded his vision, but then he focused on the clear blue sky outside and wished he could fly off into it.

  His father’s grip on his shoulder tightened just enough to make him wince.

  “You know, Mikey,” he said. “If there’s something you haven’t told us or if there’s something weighing on your mind, you might want to tell me about it now.”

  Mike couldn’t force himself to look into his father’s eyes again, so he fastened his gaze on the floor and stared at it until it dissolved in the tears that were gathering.

  “Wha—what do you mean?” he finally managed to say. He hated the way his voice sounded like he was a scared little kid.

  His father straightened up and took a deep breath that hissed in his nostrils. Then he signed and shook his head.

  “If you haven’t told us, your mother and me and the police, everything you know about what happened that day … if maybe over the last few days you’ve remembered something … some important detail, say, that might have slipped your mind at the time, it’d be for your own good to tell me now.”

  Mike knew his father wouldn’t be convinced by any denial he made now. He knew Mike was hiding something. The problem was, Mike had no idea what it was other than a vague sense that he hadn’t put the pieces of the puzzle together. Was it that he still didn’t fully realize the significance of what he had seen that day? Or was it that he was blocking it, denying it because it was too terrible to think?

  “Well, then,” his father said, shifting forward and standing up. “I’ll leave you to your thoughts. Maybe it’ll come back to you.”

  Mike looked up at him vacantly and nodded, his mind a roaring blank.

  “You don’t mind if I keep this, do you?” His father tossed the sneaker into the air and caught it. The rubber made a loud smacking sound when it hit the palm of his hand.

  All Mike could do was shake his head, no. He watched and didn’t say a word when his father left the room, closing the door shut behind him. Once he was alone, the sounds of the get-together downstairs seemed louder, but it was all a garbled buzz as he sank facedown onto his bed, put his hands over his head, and sobbed so hard it hurt.

  He was unaware of the two shadowy presences that hovered beside him for several minutes before moving away as the day darkened, and nighttime slowly came on.

  — 4 —

  It was getting on towards midnight. The street outside Andrew Collins’ apartment was quiet except for the occasional car passing by. Somewhere off in the distance, a dog was barking. The sound echoed in the air, making Collins shiver in his darkened living room, a glass half-filled with whiskey in his right hand. Beside him on the couch was his .38 Smith & Wesson. It was loaded. He kept picking it
up and putting it down every few minutes, ever since he’d started drinking.

  Looking at the luminous digital display on his cable TV box, he noted the time. It was strange, he thought, how every time he checked the time, he noticed certain patterns. When he had first sat down, it had been 10:09 … like a countdown—ten, nine, eight, seven. The next time he had checked, it was 11:11—a simple enough pattern. He kept drinking and fondling his revolver staring off at nothing and thinking about how, no matter what he did with the rest of his life, what had happened—

  No, he reminded himself. You have to own it!

  —what he had done was going to follow him to his grave.

  It was bad enough that he served time, and it was absolutely true what they said about child molesters in jail. The majority of inmates looked down on child molesters as if they gave honest, decent criminals a bad reputation. He’d suffered more than his share of threats and beatings doing his time. He considered himself lucky to have made it out alive.

  But what good did that do?

  Here he was, getting picked up and harassed by the cops just because one of the people—

  No! Own it!—one of the little girls.

  —he’d exchanged e-mails with and—Yes … Admit it!—had tried to meet up with had ended up dead on the same day he was supposed to have met her out at Fort Williams Park.

  He took another gulp of booze and sighed and sat there, mulling things over.

  Okay, at least he held up pretty damned well with that detective. The jerk hadn’t gotten a thing out of him. They didn’t even realize he had been out there that day, and that he had seen Megan McGowan, and that he had started toward her when he saw someone else following her.

  Another man!

  His next gulp of whiskey was large enough to make his eyes water, and a queasy sense of discomfort—no, of actual dread rippled through him when he glanced at the digital clock again and saw the time.

  It was 12:34.

  Collins snorted but resisted the urge to spit. He couldn’t believe he’d been sitting here that long without moving. Maybe the clock was playing tricks on him.