Forty-Four Box Set, Books 1-10 (44) (159 page)

Two guys with bad acne and ill-fitting black suits came in.

“Repent,” one said.

“The end time approaches,” the other added.

I looked at the clock on the wall. I still had three hours to go. Not soon enough,
I thought.

“What can I get for you?”

One of them held out a pamphlet and I pointed to the counter. He set it down and waved his hand over it slowly like he was playing Blackjack.

They turned to leave.

“Have a good day,” I said.

“She’s pretty,” I heard one of them whisper when they reached the door.

“The flesh is weak and the wages of sin is
death
. Come along, Brother Ted.”

“Hey, are you still seeing Officer Mulrooney?” I said to Mo after they had left.

“Jesus, you make it sound like we live in Mayberry.
Officer
Mulrooney.” She scratched at a tattoo. “What of it?”

“No, nothing. I think it’s good. I mean, if you do.”

“Clearly, I do, or else I wouldn’t be with him. I swear, Craig, after all these years, your small talk still clunks like a bag of hammers on a mirrored ceiling.”

I smiled.

“Yeah, he’s all right,” she said after a while. “Maybe a little clingy and shit, but what the hell.”

For Mo that was almost an admission of true love. Somehow I had really gotten her to open up. I almost felt giddy.

“Well, I’m happy for you,” I said.

“Stuff it, Craig. Don’t you have work to do?”

“And how’s the band?”

“It is what it is. We’re cutting an EP next month. We’ll see what happens.”

I could tell by the slightly artificial detachment in her voice that she was excited about this, too.

“Do you sing on any of the tracks?” I said.

“Just backup.”

“That’s too bad.”

I had heard Mo sing in the back room a few times when she didn’t think anyone could hear. She had a surprisingly sweet voice that revealed a vulnerability that she otherwise kept hidden behind dark tattoos and angry onslaughts on lead guitar. Her voice reminded me a little of a young Keith Richards.

“Whatever,” she said, squinting at me and then walking away.

When closing time finally arrived, I said goodnight to Mo and went in the back to get my things. I grabbed my sweatshirt and bag and turned to leave, but then froze.

I heard it before I saw it, the noise coming from behind a shelf. It sounded like something heavy was being pulled along the ground.

I almost let out a scream when I saw it.

There on the floor, dragging itself toward me, was something not altogether human. Something no longer alive.

I stared in horror at its mangled body and bloody face for a moment, turned off the light, and walked quickly out to the Jeep.

***

I drove home and thought about what I had seen.

It seemed the ghosts were back. At first I tried to talk myself into believing that I had imagined it. Not enough sleep. Too much coffee.

“Sure,” I said out loud. “It was just my imagination.”

I started singing, the Temptations joining in on backing vocals at one point, and for a few sweet moments I got lost in the fantasy. But it didn’t last.

I knew better. I had been down this road too many times.

I wondered what the thing on the floor wanted.

CHAPTER 6

I was lost in a blizzard, the snow so thick I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. I didn’t know where I was or how I had gotten there. I didn’t know where I should go or if I could even move. The spitting snow wasn’t hurting my face. In fact, I didn’t feel the cold.

Suddenly I heard Jesse’s voice, high-pitched and far away.

“Abby, you should run away with me to San Antonio.”

He hadn’t called me
Abby
since middle school. And he hadn’t talked about running away since that day when we were in sixth grade and his dad had taken away his skateboard.

“How is taking away my skateboard going to help me do my homework?” he said. “It doesn’t make any sense. Taking away my skateboard is only going to make me run away.”

“Have you thought about actually doing your homework?” My voice sounded young and strange, too. “You could come over after school and we could work on it together. It won’t be that bad.”

He started to say something else but I couldn’t make it out and pretty soon he was lost in the static that filled my ears.

A minute later there was laughter and loud talking, the kind that verges on shouting, like when people have been drinking. A lot.

“The nominees for Best Supporting Actor in a Series, Miniseries, or Motion Picture made for Television are… Jim Carter for
Downton Abbey…
Aaron Paul for
Breaking Bad…
David Norton for
Lightning in the Dark
… And the Golden Globe goes to…”

The static came back before I could hear the winner’s name.

It was like I was trapped inside a radio on a lonely, long-distance drive through the desert on a hell-white night.

Another station. New voices. This time I could hear Kate and my mom. It had been so long. They were talking about my birthday.

“I’m going to get her a rock tumbler,” Kate said.

“What’s a rock tumbler?”

“It polishes rocks into gemstones. We saw a commercial for it the other day. She really seemed to like it.”

I could hear her whistling through her teeth the way she did back when she had braces. I had forgotten how she would sometimes spit out tiny flecks of saliva when she spoke.

“And I’m going to get her those soccer cleats she’s been asking me for,” my mom said. “They’re expensive and she’ll outgrow them before next season, but I know how much she wants them. She told me she’s going to be the next Mia Hamm.”

I remembered those shoes. I got them for my eighth birthday.

I didn’t recognize the next two voices.

“I could use a break,” the first one said. “My back is killing me.”

“How about over there up by those rocks?” the other said.

“How many more miles do you think we have left today?”

“Off the top of my head I’d say seven or eight. But I’ll check the map.”

All of a sudden I couldn’t hear anything. Not the voices, not the static, nothing. But the next moment the snow in front of my eyes had cleared and I could see.

Like a butterfly, I was floating above a meadow filled with wildflowers. The sun was high and warm and the air smelled of pine. I could see a creek flowing gently and a trail next to it. But mostly I saw the flowers.

Rich sapphire blues, brilliant reds, gentle yellows, deep violet purples. Still in midair I reached down and picked a small bouquet, brought it to my nose, and inhaled the fragrance. Their perfume smelled like summer in the mountains, brief and sweet and intoxicating.

The trees in the distance swayed in the breeze and for just a moment my hearing came back and I could hear the wind along with insects buzzing and birds chirping and the soothing sound of water over smooth stone. But then the static returned and the voices were back again.

“Is Abby home?” my mom asked.

“No, I think she’s still at practice,” Kate said.

“Well, I guess I’ll tell you first then. I went to see the doctor today.”

I could hear her beginning to sob. I closed my eyes, remembering the pain of that day.

“What is it?” Kate said. “Mom, what’s wrong? Mom…”

There was no answer, only the sound of two hearts breaking.

The static took over again and when I opened my eyes I saw that I was still above the mountain meadow, higher now, level with the cliffs, the colors below mere specks. The sun had disappeared behind some dark clouds and it looked like rain.

And then the bottom dropped out.

I suddenly felt myself falling, my eyes bulging and the air screaming in my ears.

All the colors of the field below had turned deadly and were rushing up to meet me.

CHAPTER 7

After my shift at Meg’s, I stopped at the store and then headed home. In the parking lot I looked up at the sky. Firefighters from all over the West had converged on Central Oregon, but the smoke was still bad in town and the mountains still lost in a sea of haze. I hoped they would be able to make some progress soon.

I was making focaccia from a recipe I’d seen on television. I was using a cast iron skillet on the stove top. If it turned out right, someday when we weren’t in fire season, maybe I’d make it over a campfire.

As I mixed the flour and water and heated up the pan, I thought of the vision. It had left me sad, scared, and confused. The wildflowers were still with me as well, exploding in my head like fireworks when I closed my eyes.

It was the one physical scar that remained from my drowning. All these years later, I still couldn’t see colors. Except in dreams. I wondered if they would ever come back, or if I would always be trapped in a black and white world.

Originally even my dreams were in shades of gray, but over the last couple of years my visions had begun to include color.

At first I had talked to Dr. Krowe about it. He was the psychiatrist who had helped me piece my memory back together following the accident. He was cautiously optimistic that it might be a good sign. He found a few cases similar to mine where patients eventually regained their ability to see colors.

I placed the batter in the hot pan and went out back to pick some basil. I held it up to my nose and closed my eyes, taking in the fragrance and imagining what bright green looked like. It had been so long.

A soft, smoky wind blew the branches of the willow as the little waterfall gurgled over the rocks above the pond. It was really beautiful out here. I had somehow found time to weed and plant some flowers. I bought a new hummingbird wind chime that played in the breeze and a few small statues and put them in the flower beds and over near the pond.

I had planted herbs all around, in pots and in the ground. In addition to the basil, I had rosemary, parsley, thyme, lemon balm, and mint going. I had a row of tomatoes growing up against the fence, their branches heavy with fruit.

I was proud of the garden. It was peaceful and a good place to hang out.

And then I remembered the pine needles on the roof. There were a few clumps up there, all right. I pulled out the hose and went to work. It didn’t take too long.

And then I smelled it. Smoke. But this time it wasn’t coming from the forest fire.

It was coming from the kitchen.

CHAPTER 8

A lone howl pierced through the quiet of the desert.

“That coyote sounds like he’s getting closer,” I said.

“Could be a wolf.” Ty leaned over and kissed me. “They’re in Oregon now.”

“That would be cool.”

We were on sleeping bags in the back of his pickup, looking up at the desert sky. The meteor shower overhead had been going on for more than an hour, hundreds of bright flashes streaking through the night.

“That focaccia bread was right,” he said.

“I’m glad. It was a fairly simple recipe, except for the part where I had to make two of them because I burned the first one.”

“Well, my stomach appreciates your tenacity.”

We talked a little bit more about our days and then about building a pizza oven in the back yard.

“I would love one of those,” I said. “We could make Pizza Marguerite all the time.”

“I’m on it. This week, I’ll start looking into how to build one.”

“Wow, did you see those?” I said after several meteors shot across the sky at the same time.

Another long, soulful howl swept across the lonely landscape of the Badlands. I let my head fall into Ty’s chest and he wrapped an arm around me, pulling me close. His lips found me again and we sat there kissing for a long time, my heart pounding hard and furious and melting into him.

I smiled when I finally came up for air. It was crazy. I still felt that way when I kissed him, as if we tapped into something bigger than us.

“I love you, Ty,” I whispered.

“Me, too.”

He was quiet for a moment.

“You know, they mate for life,” he said finally.

“Who?”

“Wolves. They find one mate and that’s it forever. That’s probably him now, calling to her.”

“You sound like a poet,” I said, starting to laugh.

But I stopped when I looked at him. His eyes were on fire. He suddenly pulled away, a strange swirl of energy dancing around him, jagged and awkward, floating in stops and starts. Something was bothering him.

“You okay?” I said.

He jumped out of the truck. Then reached for my hand. I took it and stepped down next to him. I placed my fingers on his chest, feeling his heartbeat pulsing underneath his shirt. It was fast and strong like a wolf running free through an open country.

“There’s something I wanted to talk to you about.”

Another howl reached my ears.

“Sure,” I said, gazing into his eyes. “What is it?”

He took a deep breath.

“I can’t live without you, Abby,” he said. “And I never want to. You mean everything to me.”

He pulled something from his pocket and played with it between his fingers.

He suddenly dropped to one knee.

“I want you to…” He paused, his expression serious. “No, wait. That’s not how I rehearsed it.”

My heart pounded in my ears.

“I love you, Abby. With everything I have. Heart, body, and soul. There is no one else for me and never will be. I love you and I want all of you. The good, the bad, the ghosts.”

He smiled. 

“You’re my sun and my moon and my stars. You’re my whole reason for living, and I want it to be like this between us forever. I want your face to be the first thing I see in the morning and the last thing at night. I want to balance out some of the darkness in your life. I want to spend the rest of my life trying to make you happy. I want to grow old with you on a porch, watching sunsets and holding your hand.”

The sky began to spin as I struggled to catch my breath. I closed my eyes for a moment and then saw the ring, shining and sparkling, glittering in the darkness.