The Dead Lands Read online

  “You were there, and I know what you did,” he said, “and I can prove it.”

  “The hell you can!”

  Bob made a move as if to grab Mike, but he backed off, his face twisted with resolve when Mike said, “I can so.”

  “How would you do that?” Detective Gray asked mildly.

  Mike swallowed and then said, “His raincoat … it’s in the closet upstairs.”

  “What about it?” Detective Gray asked.

  “It’s ripped.” Mike shied away from his father. “I think, when he pushed her off the cliff, she grabbed him and caught his raincoat. She tore the sleeve.”

  “Can we have a look at that raincoat?” Detective Gray asked, turning to Megan’s stepfather, who was pale now and trembling. But he braced himself, his face suddenly as rigid as steel.

  “Sure, but it don’t prove a thing.”

  “What doesn’t?”

  “My raincoat … even if the sleeve’s torn … That doesn’t prove a goddamned thing. How could you even suggest that I would …”

  “You accused your own son of the murder,” Detective Gray said. He looked at Caroline, who appeared to be sinking deeply into grief and confusion.

  “How could you,” she said in a voice close to breaking.

  “How could I what?” Bob took a few steps back toward the closed front door. He was licking his lips rapidly, and his hands were shaking as he fumbled with his shirt collar.

  “How could you even suggest that Michael would do something like that?”

  “I … I didn’t say he did … I just said … I thought it was a— There’s a possibility that he …”

  Caroline froze, looking so fragile a sudden gust of wind could have blown her away.

  “You did do it,” Megan shouted, and once again Mike reacted as though he had heard her. But Megan’s mother kept speaking. “I believe him. And I know why you did it.”

  All the while, Bob was shaking his head as though he was denying accusations only he could hear. The flesh of his face trembled and seethed.

  “You did it for the money!”

  “No, I—”

  Bob kept shaking his head in adamant denial, but no one else in the room believed him.

  “For the last year or two, you were always telling me how bad our finances were, and ever since—ever since Megan died, you haven’t mentioned them even once.”

  “I had … I was grieving … I was as upset as you.”

  “How could you? … My daughter? You … you killed my daughter!”

  Unseen, Megan reached out to her mother, her arms drifting in the air like fog that was rapidly dissipating in the sunlight. Tears gleamed like liquid silver in her eyes, and Abby ached with sadness for what she was going through.

  “Perhaps you’d come down to the station and answer some questions,” Detective Gray said to Bob. His smooth tone of voice broke the tension in the room as everyone looked at him. Then Bob lowered his head, his shoulders slumped like he was trying to disappear inside himself. And then, ever so slowly, he nodded and let out a low, agonized sigh.

  Looking out the windows on either side of the front door, Abby and Megan watched as Detective Gray led Bob down to the waiting cruiser. Neither of the dead girls said a word as they watched Bob get into the back seat. Then Detective Gray swung the door shut, but before he left, he came back to the house. Accompanied by Megan’s mother and brother, they went upstairs to the closet and took out a yellow raincoat. It had a torn left sleeve. Gray carefully placed the raincoat into a large evidence bag and then left without another word.

  Abby and Megan watched all of this in utter silence. Abby wanted to tell Megan that she was free now. As painful as it was, they had done what they had to do. Now that her killer had been arrested, she would find true peace.

  — 6 —

  “I’m gonna miss you,” Megan said.

  “And I’ll miss you,” Abby replied.

  They were standing on the crest of the hill inside the Old Settlers’ Cemetery, looking down at Mockingbird Bay. It was twilight. Not much moved on this cold autumn evening as blue shadows stretched across the sand. The sea was rough, and waves crashed and roared against the shore. Wind whipped the dead and dying bushes and grass, hissing and howling like souls in pain.

  “What do you think will happen … to my stepfather, I mean?” Megan asked.

  “He’ll be put on trial and, if he’s convicted, I’d guess they’ll either execute him or send him off to prison for the rest of his life. Either way, it won’t be pleasant for him.”

  “I don’t think they execute people in Maine,” Megan said with a shiver. “But if they do … when he dies, do you think I’ll meet him here?”

  “You’ll probably be long gone,” Abby said, and even as she spoke, a hint of motion behind Megan drew her attention.

  A shadow, deeper than the other shadows, resolved into the shape of a person. Abby knew this wasn’t any ordinary person.

  It was a Reaper.

  As the figure became more clearly defined against the gathering night, she realized it was the Reaper she considered her friend. A veil of black silk hung down from the inside brim of his slouch hat.

  “What about my mother? And Mikey? Is there any way I can—”

  Even before she finished her question, Abby shook her head and said, “There’s nothing more you can do, but don’t worry. I’ll watch over them. I promise.”

  As painful as it was, this was something Megan was going to have to accept, and the sooner the better. She was leaving behind her mother and brother and everyone else she had known and loved in life. There was no way Abby could know if, after Megan “passed on,” she would be reunited with her loved ones. That was beyond her knowledge or experience. She only did what she had to do here; for the rest, she chose to let the mystery be.

  Abby was surprised that Megan hadn’t yet realized that a Reaper was moving up behind her. Her face was downcast. If anything, she looked like a sleepy child. Abby watched with mounting suspense as the Reaper raised one pale, skeletal hand and placed it gently on Megan’s shoulder. Megan reacted instantly. She slumped as her eyes narrowed to mere slits. Then she let out a long, slow gasp that rattled in her chest like her last breath.

  “I feel kinda … funny,” she said, her voice becoming a dreamy whisper that was almost lost beneath the sound of the wind swishing through the dead grass.

  Abby watched with growing interest as the Reaper moved around so he was standing at Megan’s side. Hooking his arm through hers, he turned and started to lead her away without a word.

  “Why won’t you take me?” Abby asked, her voice pleading.

  The Reaper stopped, turned, and even though she couldn’t see his eyes, she could feel his gaze penetrating her. Then, ever so subtly, his head downcast, he shook his head from side to side.

  “It’s the locket, the key,” Megan said, her voice distant and dreamy. “You have to … find out … what lock … that … key … opens.”

  Abby watched silently as Megan and the Reaper started down the slope. About halfway down to the beach, something amazing happened. A glow of bright light suddenly swelled around the Reaper and Megan. It grew steadily brighter until it was like staring into the sun. The figures were soon lost inside the light, and then it faded away, leaving behind a bright blue afterimage. Abby was glad it was the light, not the shadows, that had taken Megan.

  — 7 —

  “So you really have to go?”

  Abby lowered her gaze and nodded.

  “But—why? I mean … We could … we could …”

  Jim let his words drift away because he had no idea how to finish what he’d started to say. It was foolish bordering on insane to feel what he felt about Abby.

  She was dead.

  She had been dead for over a hundred years. There was no way—no way in Heaven or on Earth they could be together any more than they were now, and now that she had told him she had to “go away for a while,” he felt utterly bereft. />
  “How long will you be gone?” he asked. Even now, her figure was growing transparent as she faded away.

  “I have no idea. I’m never sure. But when I come back, I’ll look for you. I’ll find you.”

  “But what if I—” He swallowed hard, and a burning sensation filled his throat. “What if it’s years from now, or I’ve moved or … or gone off to college or gotten sick or died or something?”

  Her figure was fading rapidly now. It wasn’t an illusion. She really was leaving him, and the cold hollowness that thought left inside his chest was almost too painful to bear. Tears rolled from his eyes, carving warm, wet tracks down his face.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll find you. We have … we have something holding us together … something bonding us …”

  And then she was gone, leaving Jim to stare at the dark wall of his bedroom, blinking his eyes rapidly, forcing more tears to fall.

  — 8 —

  “Now will you come willing with me, girl?”

  Reverend Wheeler’s voice, coming suddenly out of the darkness, startled Abby. She squealed and spun around to see him standing just outside the cemetery gate. She had made it from Jim’s house to the cemetery without hearing any Hell Hounds or having any other indication that he—or anything else—was pursuing her.

  But there he was.

  Two pinpoints of red glowed like dying embers beneath the shadow of his slouch hat as he glared at her. He extended his left hand to her, but she noticed that he didn’t dare let it pass inside the confines of the cemetery.

  “Never,” Abby whispered as the initial jolt of fear gradually subsided.

  “Never is a very long time, young lady,” Reverend Wheeler said, his low voice sounding like rocks rumbling down a hillside. “You must realize that sooner or later I will get you and I will force you to confess all of your sins to me and my Master.”

  “I know who you serve!” Abby said. She involuntarily backed away from him, her feet scratching across the dead and dying grass. She wanted to deny the rush of guilt and fear his words had made her feel, but on some deep level, she wondered if he was right.

  Was it just a matter of time until he claimed her?

  Why else would she be trapped here in the Dead Lands all this time when so many other souls she met—like Megan—moved on relatively quickly? Maybe her unfinished business was to go with Reverend Wheeler, no matter where he took her.

  “I have nothing to say to you,” Abby said softly, not caring whether he heard her or not. Still feeling the emptiness of loss … of missing both Megan and Jim, she turned and drifted over to her grave. She knew that only after she passed through the earth and lay down inside her coffin would she find at least a modicum of peace.

  But that peace would only last until the mockingbird sang again.

  Abby

  What’s it like being dead?

  It’s like … nothing.

  I mean, there’s no time, no sense of anything. I guess you could say it’s like sleeping, only even when you’re asleep, you have dreams.

  When I’m down there in my grave, I don’t even dream, at least not that I remember.

  Maybe I do dream, and I just forget them, but it’s more like … like I close my eyes, and when I open them again, when the mockingbird sings, it’s like no time whatsoever has passed. I could have been down there for a day or fifty years. It’s all the same. It feels as though all I did was blink my eyes, and I’m back in the Dead Lands. No time has passed.

  Time’s a weird thing.

  Then again, so is being dead.

  It’s scary when I think about it, but when it’s happening, it’s not scary at all.

  It’s just … nothing.

  I don’t know if maybe this is the eternal rest people go to once the Reapers come and take them away or not. Maybe it’s like what I experience, but they never wake up—the mockingbird doesn’t sing for them, so they simply are gone forever.

  Then again, there’s a good chance they’re still aware on some plane of existence—like I am in the Dead Lands—only they don’t experience any misery or fear or sadness. Maybe they find themselves in a state of total bliss, if they lived a good life.

  And if they lived a not-so-good life?

  Maybe there really is Hell where they’re tortured and burned for all eternity. I don’t believe that. I can’t imagine a truly loving, caring God and Creator would do that to his creations. At the very worst, I would think what people who have led bad lives experience is a lack of bliss. An emptiness in their souls. That would be Hell enough, and then maybe—after a certain period of suffering—they, too, experience eternal bliss.

  Or maybe it really is oblivion, and once we’re gone we don’t even know we’re gone, and we’re never coming back.

  I don’t know.

  All I know is that, when the mockingbird sings, I’ll return to the Dead Lands, and when I do, I’ll have to figure out what I have to do next.

  The mockingbird will sing again.

  The End