by Billy Coffey
“Come on,” Jake said. “Stay close to me. Holler’s not a place to be in daylight. I expect it’ll be worse now.”
Kate took Jake’s hand. And though she understood they were no longer one, they stepped beyond the gate together.
Eyes upon her, so many eyes. Crawling over Kate’s skin like ants. The dark closed in and those eyes watched and she knew it was death, it was all death.
She whispered, “The moon’s gone,” and in the silence of that great wood, her words sounded like a shout.
Jake looked up. The canopy of trees blocked the sky. He pointed to the top of the hill and said, “We’ve light enough. Quiet now. Mind your steps, and don’t let go of me. The way’s tangled.”
They crept as quiet as they could through the brambles. Kate winced as thorns bit into her skin and kept Indian Hill in her sights. There was only that light shining out of the Hollow’s dark throat, and when they finally crested the hill, that light came from everywhere and nowhere. It shined upon the pine needles like tiny suns and made the rocks at her feet glow in yellows and oranges. Even the gray dirt that covered the Hollow looked golden.
“Lucy?” Kate called. She shielded her eyes and waited for an answer. None came. “Where’s it coming from, Jake? I can’t see where to go.”
Her eyes skated ahead to the right, where something tickled a low-hanging branch. Jake reached for Bessie and put Kate behind him.
“Lucy?” she called.
Kate’s hand tightened upon Jake’s even before her mind could accept what she saw. The world melted away and left only that small, childlike voice that lives in the heart of every person and tells us to turn back, to go no farther, because what lies behind may be grief but ahead lie all the monsters that have haunted all our dreams.
What came walking toward them from the trees was not Lucy Seekins. It was a dead boy.
8
“What’s that?”
Lucy flinched as Taylor’s face, vacant and still through his remembering, now came alive in an expression of shock. He shoved the book back into his pocket and spun, reaching for the shotgun he’d leaned against a fallen log behind the fire. Lucy backed away, her eyes searching for trouble that for now only her railing heart could feel. Taylor swung the barrel wide across the river and steadied it upon a dark, far-off spot beyond the bend.
She put herself behind him and asked, “What is it? What are you pointing at?”
“THAT.”
Nothing. Lucy saw nothing but black sky and a moon that wanted to shine but barely could. There was the wide ribbon of river water wending its way around the bend and the deep woods that stretched on forever and that was all.
“Taylor, I don’t see any—”
“Atop the hill,” he screamed. “The witchlight.”
Taylor circled the fire. Lucy caught the hem of his shirt and kept him close. Her eyes strained through the darkness and caught the gentle gray curve of Indian Hill rising from the forest, as lifeless as the world around them.
(No, she thought, not lifeless. There’s something here, something close and watching, and there’s something else close and watching too, and those two things are both different and the same.)
She said, “Taylor, I don’t see anything.”
Taylor pointed the gun—“There.”
Lucy pulled at his shoulder. He gave way only slightly and didn’t turn his face to her.
“Taylor, there’s nothing there. There’s nothing on the hill, okay? You’re just upset, but you have to stop because you’re scaring me.”
And that was true. Lucy had been scared ever since they’d arrived at that spot along the riverbank. Ever since Taylor had seen a wall of rocks he’d said couldn’t be there and had fallen into his story. It was the strange sort of fear one feels upon reaching the end of a wide and lovely road to find the place you’ve been traveling to all this while is hell instead of heaven. Lucy’s mind reeled as she saw the ugly patchwork of her life for the first time.
She saw the mother who had died and the father who might as well be dead. She saw Johnny Adkins and the long line of boys behind him, and how she’d taken their wide eyes and slobbering mouths as love. She saw herself naked in front of Taylor and the way he’d slipped his shirt over her bare shoulders, preserving what little of her decency she’d yet to give away. She saw the Hole in the grove and the red hands upon the rocks and Taylor speaking of a dream in which all were marooned and from which all must wake. Lucy saw all of these things and knew they were all her, they were all stitched together by a single thin thread that now began to fray at the horrible thought that Taylor’s dream was like the light he saw shining from Indian Hill. Both existed in a fractured place in his mind that long ago had been bent by Kate Griffith behind the bleachers of the Mattingly High football field and then broken on the cliffs above them.
“Taylor?” she asked. “What did you do to that boy? The one Kate tricked. What do you mean it wasn’t out of love?”
The trees to their left exploded before Taylor could answer. Lucy screamed as the Hollow gave way and parted in the presence of the bear she’d met near the grove. It moved on to the riverbank with a slow grace and stopped just beyond the firelight. The bear’s white eye focused on Lucy. The red one went to Taylor. It was a grotesque sight that nearly made her scream again.
Taylor lowered the shotgun and propped it back against the log behind the fire. He approached the beast but kept his distance, careful not to step beyond the light. They faced each other in silence.
“He speaks of a coming,” Taylor said.
Lucy shrank backward toward the fire, trying to escape the bear’s look. “What’s coming?”
Taylor turned to her. There was a smile on his face, a wide grin that offered Lucy little of the hope she craved. That grin was old and tired and looked like madness.
“My aid comes,” he said. “My aid and my salvation.”
The bear grunted. Its enormous black head swung from Taylor to the hill and back.
“How can a bear know that?” Lucy asked.
Taylor smiled again. “Have you learned nothing from me, Lucy Seekins? You think your precious grove would have a Keeper, but not this Holler? That’s no more bear than I.”
9
He was as he’d always been in my dreams—the same frayed shorts and dirty sweatshirt, the same hood pulled tight over his head—but this was no dream and there was no waking up. Kate’s grip on me went slack as Phillip neared. I felt her moving away and wanted to tell Kate to run, that Phillip McBride had drawn us there to have his revenge and Taylor was Phillip’s trick so run, run far and hard to the gate but mind the rocks because they leave a terrible scar. My hand fell away from Bessie. Phillip stopped between two pines that overlooked the expanse of the Hollow behind Indian Hill and stood there. The light from him shone out. He wore no smile.
Tears streamed from Kate’s face. Her body shook as she stepped farther from me to him. “Phillip?” she asked. “Is that you?”
“Stop,” I said, and when Kate didn’t, I reached out and made her. “It’s a trap, Kate. We have to get out of here. We have to go right now.”
Kate shook my hand away. “Is that really you, Phillip? Please tell me that’s you. Please say something.”
Phillip only stared.
“Kate,” I said.
“Phillip . . .” She moved away, closer to him, and in her eyes I saw all the things she’d wished to say if only she could see Phillip again. All the hurt and sorrow she’d endured. All the people she’d helped in his name and all the tears that had watered his grave. “Phillip? Phillip, I’m so sorr—”
Phillip’s arm shot out to Kate. His hand was the same hard fist I’d seen in all my broken sleep, fingers tight and turned up to the black sky. Kate screamed and stumbled back. I drew Bessie. The handle stuck between my belt and the folds of my uniform. I panicked, pulling at my back and waist as Phillip reached his fist to Kate and Kate begged no, she never meant to hurt him, please don’t. Fear floode
d my every sense, drowning me and driving me mad as I finally freed the tomahawk and held it by the head rather than the handle. All I could do was throw Bessie like that, like the baseball I threw against those stacked bottles on that bright spring day when Kate played her trick. Yet what came next was not the cheering of a crowd but another scream from deep inside Kate, one that sounded of terror and rage and hurt—
“No, Jake, NO.”
The blade careened at an awkward angle toward Phillip’s chest. His eyes remained on Kate. He turned to me just as Bessie sailed through him as through air. The tomahawk bounced off the tree behind him and landed in the dirt. Phillip’s arm moved my way, offering me what he’d offered Kate. From a faraway place I heard him say, This is yours, Jake, this is what I’ve come to give you, and I knew that whatever hell lay in Phillip’s hand was the hell I deserved.
Kate said, “Phillip,” and he turned back to her. She crept closer to him. “Phillip, please.”
“Kate, get back,” I said. “He brought us here. He told me he was coming back and we were dead, Kate. Please listen to me. We have to leave right now.”
“No, no, that can’t be right.” She kept moving, shaking her head. “Do you watch, Phillip? Do you see us still? We were just kids. We were just stupid kids and we didn’t know. I was afraid. So much sin happens when we’re afraid. We’ve changed now, Phillip. I have a book. There are names in there and I help them because of you. I’ve tried so hard, Phillip. Please just tell me what I can do.”
Phillip turned to face the river below. That simple motion said all that was needed. Nothing. There was nothing Kate could do, and I knew deep down she had always known that was so.
He raised his arm again, pointing beyond the hill where we stood. I moved to Kate and put a hand to her shoulder, telling her to stay. I stepped into Phillip’s light and followed his finger down to the river.
Far off beyond the bend, a fire flamed. Its light played upon a mound of rocks I knew well.
“He’s down there, isn’t he?” I asked him. “Taylor? You’ve brought us to him.”
Kate moved beside us. “Taylor’s there? Is Lucy with him?”
Phillip nodded yes.
“Is she safe?”
This time there came no bow of Phillip’s head, and in that silence much was said. None of us was safe now. None but him and Taylor.
“Do you want me to go down there, Phillip?” Kate asked. “Is that what I can do? Go down there for you? For Taylor and Lucy?”
Yes.
Phillip walked on then, down the hill to the Hollow below. Kate moved to follow him.
“No,” I said. “Please don’t. Those rocks down there, where they are. I built them, Kate. I built them in my dreams. I don’t know how that’s possible, but it’s the truth. I’m not lying anymore. Someone will die down there, and it can’t be you.”
“Time for talking’s done, Jake. Like you said, there’s no going back.”
“Think of Zach.”
“Zach was the one who said we have to go,” she said. “Going back will only put Lucy in more danger. I can’t lose her, Jake. I’d rather lose myself.”
“You don’t understand, Kate. I stacked those rocks because I was trying to bury Phillip, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t bury him.”
She looked at me and said, “Maybe that’s why he’s here, Jake. Because I’ve never been able to bury him either.”
Kate moved away toward Phillip’s light. I watched her go. And though every part of me screamed to run, I gathered Bessie and followed.
10
The bear swung its wide head to Taylor. The light upon the hill began to move. Slowly at first and barely perceived, then faster. Coming to the river. To them.
“What comes?” Taylor asked. “Tell, friend.”
But the bear would not. It turned its giant paws in the soft mud and moved off, back into the trees from where it had come. The light was near now, off the slope of the hill and onto the flatland, moving at a rate Taylor found impossible. He judged it would reach the bend in minutes at that speed. Salvation, the bear had said. That was what neared. And yet if Taylor’s deliverance did indeed approach, why was his heart not overflowing with joy? Why was he even now fighting to swallow the whimper in his voice so Lucy would not hear it?
“Taylor?” Lucy whispered. “Taylor, I’m scared. I don’t understand what’s happening. Nothing’s coming, Taylor. It’s nothing at all.”
That light, gathering like a rising sun. Lucy looked on. Taylor shielded his eyes as brightness broke over the bend and wondered how it was that she could be so blind. And yet he believed that even if Lucy could not see the light, she could see and hear the ones who came with it. She shrank back when she heard the sound of her own name called out.
“Kate,” Lucy said. “Taylor, it’s Kate and Jake. You have to do something.”
But Taylor couldn’t. Because while he was sure Lucy only saw two vaguely, he saw three clear. He saw Kate, he saw Jake, and he saw his salvation. Taylor shook his head no and no again even as his heart shouted yes. It shouted yes and it shouted that all had been for naught and all had been a lie, because no one dreams once they’re Awake. Such is what he’d told Lucy. No one dreams once they’re awake, and why would you? That’s why no one comes back.
If someone did, it meant the world wasn’t a dream at all.
11
Beyond the bend stood the fire and the rise of stones I feared had been laid as the marker for our graves. Kate’s eyes strained ahead. Phillip walked in front of us. His strides quickened and then slowed when we lagged beyond the arc of his light. The river churned.
Two people huddled at the fire against the rocks. One stood tall and strong, the other shorter and scared. Kate lurched forward and called out, “Lucy.”
Phillip led us on, faster now, and I could not understand why. Kate and I were caught. He was leading us to Taylor, and Taylor was his trick, and yet the man standing against the fire ahead looked frightened and confused.
Lucy moved from her spot—not closer to us, but to Taylor.
“Lucy, it’s me,” Kate called. “It’s Kate, Lucy. Come this way. It’s all going to be all right now.”
But I knew it wasn’t. Taylor hadn’t moved since we’d rounded the bend. Now he did. He ran behind the fire and dropped to a knee, reaching for something. Phillip turned to me, and I saw in his eyes a single word I could make no sense of. That word was hurry.
Taylor fumbled with whatever was in his hands, dividing his attention between the task at hand and us. When he straightened, my eyes caught a flicker of firelight against a long, muted barrel.
“Gun,” I screamed.
Kate called out for me and then called louder. I couldn’t hear her.
Nearly fifteen miles away in the crowded hall of the VFW, Big Jim Wallis was announcing to the town the official result of his emergency meeting with the council. The vote was unanimous, five to none. And at the very moment he deemed me dismissed as Mattingly’s sheriff on the grounds that I had run from trouble, I ran toward it.
12
Lucy saw Jake closing hard. Taylor turned to her and asked, “Do you trust me? Tell me, lady. Speak if you’re sure.”
Lucy said yes, but the quiver in her voice said she was no longer sure at all. Doubt had crept in as soon as she saw Kate and Jake round the bend. It swelled when she heard Kate call her name and saw Taylor kneel to the log behind the fire. And now that doubt erupted as Taylor raised the shotgun to her chest.
Lucy screamed and brought her hands to her face, sure Taylor meant to Wake her just as he’d woken Eric Thayer and as she’d failed to do with Hollis. She tumbled backward into the wall of rocks. The barrel of the shotgun followed her.
“That’s far enough, Jake,” Taylor told me. “Step inside this ring, what happens is on you.”
I skidded against the riverbank’s soil and stopped just outside the fire’s light. Taylor kept the gun on Lucy and turned. His eyes caught the small movement I made behind my b
ack. Taylor shook his head and smiled, daring me. I moved my hand away but held my ground. Standing there in the dark with the river churning beside him, I wanted nothing more than to be dreaming again. All the horror in all those nightmares could not match what I saw in the person on the other end of that barrel. Taylor Hathcock looked not like a man at all but a boy grown old on a diet of poison.
I saw Phillip’s light spilling over my shoulder and heard Kate approach. She stopped when I stretched out my hand. Phillip passed through the gap between us and entered the wide ring of the fire’s glow. Taylor wavered and shrank back, swinging the shotgun from Lucy to Phillip.
Phillip continued on, unconcerned. He walked through the center of the flames and stopped mere inches from the barrel.
“Fly from me, demon,” Taylor cried. “I’ve no quarrel with you.”
Lucy cowered against the rocks, her body shaking at the sight of Taylor shuffling away. She looked from him to me to Kate, then back to Taylor. It was that scatter-gun I should have been paying attention to—how the barrel wavered and how the finger upon the trigger shook, ready to fire. But Taylor’s shotgun was the furthest thing from my mind. It was Lucy Seekins I watched and her face I read. I don’t think she saw Phillip at all.
Kate eased from my side and skirted the edge of the fire to the rocks. Taylor’s eyes followed her. Phillip moved, setting his body between them. In one slow motion, he raised an upturned fist to Taylor’s eyes, and I understood that if Kate and I were in a trap, Taylor had been snared as well.
