Strange Country (29 page)

“Okay,” Hallie said. “Okay.”

A quarter mile later, Laddie’s ghost drifted into the cab too. Two ghosts, a harbinger of death, and Hallie. If she didn’t get to where she was going soon, she might freeze to death in her own pickup truck with the heater on high.

A car passed her going well over the speed limit. It cut back so sharply, Hallie had to hit the brakes. She got only a quick glimpse as it passed, but it looked like an old Mercury sedan with one rusted-out taillight.

Maker bared its teeth at her. “Stinks,” it said.

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Hallie said.

She stopped at the Big Badlands Overlook. The Mercury that had passed her earlier pulled out as she pulled in. The car had tinted windows, and she couldn’t see who was inside or even whether there was more than one person.

Maker sneezed again.

Hallie looked at him. The Badlands formations held lots of fossils, lots of death, years and years of animals that had died. People had probably died here too, though not so distinctly or noticeably. Maker sneezed a third time, shook its head as though shaking off something unpleasant, then it disappeared. Lots of death, Hallie thought. Probably unmakers too. Well, that was okay. That was what she’d come for.

She sat in the truck with the engine running for several minutes as she studied the map. If she headed northwest from here for about three-quarters of a mile, she ought to end up pretty close to the coordinates the notes directed her to.

She stared out the windshield at the cold and starkly barren landscape. If Death were going to come in some way other than jumbled dreams, she thought maybe he’d do it here—in this tangled chaotic place. And he would come, sooner or later. It was time. Even if she feared what it meant and the price it demanded.

The unknown ghost drifted close to Hallie’s shoulder and even through the thickness of her wool-lined barn coat, she could feel the cold, straight through to her bones. She pulled on a wool cap and gloves, turned the collar up on her coat, and buttoned it across her neck. A fierce north wind almost whipped the door out of her hand when she opened it. The ghosts drifted away from her so that, except for the biting north wind, it didn’t feel all that much colder outside the truck than in it.

Hallie hesitated, but decided not to take the shotgun she carried in the saddle box in the bed of the pickup. She did grab the iron fireplace poker and struck out into the Badlands, sticking the marked-up paper map in the inside pocket of her coat. Snow, stirred up by the brisk wind, trailed across the open space between rock formations. Things changed constantly in the Badlands as the rocks eroded from wind and rain and hard dry winters. It felt desolate in a way that the open prairie never did to Hallie. The prairie was big, but it was a big that signaled promise and potential. This just felt broken and empty, like something had ripped the life from it long ago, though Hallie conceded that it might be the season. It might look different here when everything wasn’t frozen and the sky wasn’t battleship gray overhead.

Laddie’s ghost drifted in front of her, like it had a single important destination in mind. The other ghost, the one that had floated into the truck at the entrance to the Badlands, disappeared, as if Hallie wasn’t exactly what it had been waiting for, or it would wait for another time, or it would return again in that random way ghosts seemed to have—there, then not, then there again. Maker trotted beside her, sniffing at a narrow dry rivulet that ran a winding path through the dirt. It moved down the rivulet for several dozen yards, took one last deep sniff, then turned and trotted back.

“What?” Hallie asked.

“Not Death,” Maker said, like that was an answer.

“Not Death the entity? Or not death, the dying?”

Maker looked at her, like it couldn’t understand the question.

“Not. Death,” it repeated, like, catch up, lady.

“Okay,” Hallie said. “Thanks.”

She needed to walk just under two miles north and west from the pull-in where she’d parked to reach the coordinates she’d been given. Simple, if she were able to walk in a straight line, but there were no straight lines. She had to climb over and around rock formations. The day was cloudy; no sun to take bearings on, and she was glad she’d grabbed an old compass before she left the house.

She came through a narrow gap between two rock formations, the ground rough underfoot, as if where she was walking had once been a rock formation too, though it had obviously worn completely down to nothing over the years. Stretching in front of her for maybe an eighth of a mile was an open expanse of short-grass prairie.

Hallie estimated that she was close now. The unknown ghost reappeared, but on the opposite side of the open space, drifting against gray rock, only visible by its movements, like ripples on water. Hallie could feel Laddie’s ghost behind her, cold like winter at her back. There was no one else. Nothing moving but the ghosts and Maker and Hallie herself as far as she could see.

As she crossed into the open, a burst of wind sent dirt swirling upward along the rock face and straight toward Hallie so that she had to turn and duck her head. Particles of soil rattled against her back and scoured along her neck and face. Then the wind was gone, the dirt settled back to the hard ground. Hallie blinked and scrubbed the grit away.

Maker growled.

Hallie’s hand gripped the poker. Nothing. Empty space and rock and cloud-gray sky. No sound except the far-off scream of a rabbit cut off abruptly. The poker was cold; the fingers on her hand ached. She didn’t like this place—this particular spot in this particular place. She checked her map. Straight across the open and past the next rock outcropping. She pulled up the collar on her coat, tucked her chin down, and moved forward again.

A loud percussive thump, like something massive thumping onto the Earth—

“Don’t,” Maker said.

“What? Why? What the hell was that?” Hallie scanned the area. Rock all around. Maker stared at a broad gap between upthrust rock, the one on the left cantilevering precipitously so that the space beneath it lay in perpetual shadow.

“Magic,” Maker said. “Here. Stinks.”

“I should have brought a gun,” Hallie said.

“Yes,” Maker agreed.

“Jesus.”

Another sharp rush of wind, dirt swirling around Hallie and Maker, like bitter rain. Hallie ducked her head; when she raised it again, she turned slowly so she could see everything there was to see, limited by the rock formations. It was quiet, except for the wind and the sweep of dirt and grass. When she was satisfied that they were alone, she said, “I thought magic was either small, nothing to worry about, or huge.”

Maker sneezed. “You don’t know,” it said.

“Yeah, I
don’t
know,” Hallie said. “You could tell me.” The unknown ghost was back, drifting at Hallie’s right. Laddie’s ghost was gone. “Do you still smell it? Magic? Or is it gone now?”

Maker raised its nose and sniffed the air. The clouds above their heads were so low and so thick that they felt oppressive, like they pressed her down, like they pressed the world down. The air felt damp, as if real snow were coming, though there hadn’t been anything in the forecast. The sky spit snowflakes at them, but so tiny and so dry that it could snow all day and there would still be nothing on the ground.

Maker sneezed again, then trotted into the gap, right underneath the cantilevered stone. Hallie with a half shrug, because she was probably getting deeper into something she didn’t want to be involved in and that would end badly, followed. Maker led her through the gap, then through a narrow crevice between two tight rock formations. Halfway through, she had to turn sideways.

It grew darker; the clouds felt as if they were sitting right on top of the rocks above her. Soft rock scraped against the back of her jacket. Maker stopped. The unknown ghost stopped. Hallie stopped. Laddie’s ghost was back and it bumped against her shoulder. She didn’t want to walk through a ghost, cold on cold, like the worst winter storm in the history of all storms. Then she heard Maker yelp. She plunged forward. Cold air seared through her lungs, like she’d just dived into a lake full of ice. Short, sharp breaths and then she was through, still gasping but already looking for Maker.

It was backed up against the rocks, talus scattered around its feet and a snarl on its lips, staring at a spot directly to Hallie’s left. Both ghosts followed her, cold like fire along her spine.

The space widened out to her left into another flat open area, this one mostly rock, like a rock formation had crumbled but left gravel and shards of stone strewn across the resulting space. Maybe thirty yards beyond where she stood was a skeleton. Not the skeleton of a person, or of anything Hallie had ever seen before. The rib cage, which was the most readily visible portion of the skeleton, curved up from the rocky floor to nearly Hallie’s height. The bones were the color of old strong tea, lines scored by wind and dirt.

She moved closer. Her hand ached and she realized that she had gripped the poker too tight again, though what use it would do here, she had no idea. She willed her fingers to relax, but it was as if they had disconnected themselves from her brain, and they remained clenched tight around the cold iron.

28

The air was filled with a low hum, like a thousand insects or a pair of high-tension electrical wires. The ever-present wind was light, though cold, like a gentle steady pressure urging her forward.

Fine particles of gray dirt drifted across the bones. The rib cage was huge, nearly two-thirds as tall as Hallie, and it wasn’t even completely exposed, though judging by the curve of the bones, there was maybe only an additional two to three inches still buried. There was no skull, a few bones just above the rib cage that looked like vertebrae, some smaller bones on the side toward her that might be finger bones or part of a paw or—she wasn’t close enough—they might be broken from larger bones.

She stepped forward.

“Stop.”

Maker sat well back from the skeleton, almost at the curve of the rock formation, panting.

The wind died, the low hum with it.

Hallie trusted Maker. More or less. It was a black dog and a harbinger of death, but it had helped her when it didn’t have to, had saved her life at least once. “What is this thing?” she asked.

Maker’s mouth snapped closed and it cocked its head at her, like it was thinking about the answer. “You know,” it said.

She glanced over at the ghosts, both of them drifting in the gap between rocks. Everything was still like collectively held breath—Maker and the ghosts waiting to see what she would do. Hallie herself waited, and that was—she was here because unmakers had threatened her, because they killed things simply by existing in the world. Because there was a crack in the walls between the worlds.

Because
she
was here.

She stepped up and touched the bones.

The pain knocked her to her knees, and the only thing she knew was that it wasn’t her pain. Wind howled, a stormy night. She felt rain on her face. She was running, but there was something—what was wrong with the way she was running? It felt awkward and low, but she couldn’t stop, it would be dangerous to stop. Lightning flashed, noonday bright, and she could see them, three of them. Their eyes glittered from the storm and something else, something that allowed them to see her. She had to run, to keep running. She could outrun them, if she didn’t falter, if only she didn’t falter. But the storm was getting worse; there had never been a storm like this one, never been rain like this. She would make it to the Badlands, she would lose them among the—

A sharp crack and she stumbled, righted herself, and went on, but slow, too slow.

And they were coming.

Someone shook her. What? Couldn’t they—?

The wind howled. Shrieked. Like the middle of a blizzard. And maybe it was a blizzard, because something was hitting her. Snow? Was it snow? Where had it come from? Where was she?

She lurched to her feet. The world was gray. Someone in a hood shouted something at her, but she couldn’t hear the words. The wind and the dirt—it was dirt, not snow—what the hell? The dirt scoured them. Hallie ducked her head and headed toward the dubious protection of the rock formations. The wind pushed her back, but she persisted. She lost sight of the other person. Her head bent low, her barn coat pulled up to cover her face, she stumbled forward.

She reached the rock face, slid along it by feel. Between the rock formations, the wind cut off so abruptly, she almost fell. Behind her it roared on, whipping up dirt like an angry god. She leaned against the rock and breathed.

Jesus.

Maker was beside her again.

“What just happened?” she asked.

But the dog didn’t answer, just lay down and put its head between its paws.

After what Hallie estimated was five minutes or so, the wind swirling frantically around the skeleton died abruptly. Dirt fell, like a sudden cloudburst. Hallie waited a few more minutes, brushed one hand roughly through her hair to shake loose the dirt caught there, then reentered the open space. Something wet trickled down her face—blood from a thin cut above her eye. The palms of her hands were scraped and raw. The skeleton looked unchanged. Though dirt drifted high against the rocks behind it, the skeleton itself looked no more or less exposed than it had before Hallie touched it.

She walked around it—or as close as she could get, since the largest curve of its center rib was within inches of the rock face. She didn’t touch it again. She took out her cell phone to take pictures, but the battery was completely drained.

Damnit.

“I was sure you’d be able to do it.”

Well, son of a bitch.

Hallie turned around.

“I figured,” Beth repeated, looking pretty much as she had when Hallie saw her in the cemetery, “I figured you’d be able to open it.”

The clouds overhead were even thicker now, heavy and low. Snowflakes fell, larger, but still dry, still not quite sticking when they drifted to the ground, sifting into low spots, against rocks and into narrow crevices.