But evidence of what? The singed pages of the magazine proved nothing
to anyone about anything.
No. That was not precisely true. The existence of the magazine proved,
to him if to no one else, that he wasn’t merely imagining and
hallucinating everything that was happening to him. What he had locked
away, for his own peace of mind, was indeed evidence. Evidence of his
sanity.
Beside him, Lindsey was also awake, either uninterested in sleep or
unable to find a way into it. She said, “What if this killer Hatch
waited. He didn’t need to ask her to finish the thought, for he knew
what she was going to say. After a moment she said just what he
expected: “What if this killer is aware of you as much as you’re aware
of him?
What if he comes after you… us… Regina?”
“Tomorrow we’re going to start taking precautions.”
“What precautions?”
“Guns, for one thing.”
“Maybe this isn’t something we can handle ourselves.”
“We don’t have any choice.”
“Maybe we need police protection.”
“Somehow I don’t think they’ll commit a lot of manpower to protect a guy
just because he claims to have a supernatural bond with a psychotic The
wind that had harried laurel leaves across the shopping center parking
lot now found a loose brace on a section of rain gutter and worried it.
Metal creaked softly against metal.
Hatch said, “I went somewhere when I died, right?”
“What do you mean?”
“Purgatory, Heaven, Hell-those are the basic possibilities for a
Catholic, if what we say we believe turns out to be true.”
“Well… you’ve always said you had no near-death experience.”
“I didn’t. I can’t remember anything from… the Other Side. But that
doesn’t mean I wasn’t there.”
“What’s your point?”
“Maybe this killer isn’t an ordinary man.”
“You’re losing me, Hatch.”
“Maybe I brought something back with me.”
“Back with you?”
“From wherever I was while I was dead.”
“Something?”
Darkness had its advantages. The superstitious primitive within could
speak of things that would seem too foolish to voice in a well-lighted
place.
He said, “A spirit. An entity.”
She said nothing.
“My passage in and out of death might have opened a door somehow,” he
said, “and let something through.”
“Something,” she said again, but with no note of inquiry in her voice,
as there had been before. He sensed that she knew what he meant-and did
not like the theory.
“And now it’s loose in the world. Which explains its link to me-and why
it might kill people who anger me.”
She was silent awhile. Then: “If something was brought back, it’s
evidently pure evil. What-are you saying that when you died, you went
to Hell and this killer piggy-backed with you from there?”
“Maybe. I’m no saint, no matter what you think. After all, I’ve got at
least Cooper’s blood on-my hands.”
“That happened after you died and were brought back. Besides, you don’t
share in the guilt for that.”
“It was my anger that targeted him my anger-”
“Bullshit,” Lindsey said sharply. “You’re the best man I’ve ever known.
If housing in the afterlife includes a Heaven and Hell, you’ve earned
the apartment with a better view.”
His thoughts were so dark, he was surprised that he could smile. He
reached under the sheets, found her hand, and held it gratefully. “I
love you, too.”
“Think up another theory if you want to keep me awake and interested.”
“Let’s just make a little adjustment to the theory we already have.
What if there’s an afterlife, but it isn’t ordered like anything
theologians have ever described. It wouldn’t have to be either Heaven
or Hell that I came back from. Just another place, stranger than here,
different, with unknown dangers.”
“I don’t like that much better.”
“If I’m going to deal with this thing, I have to find a way to explain
it.
I can’t fight back if I don’t even know where to throw my punches.”
“There’s got to be a more logical explanation,” she said.
“That’s what I tell myself. But when I try to find it, I keep coming
back to the illogical.”
The rain gutter creaked. The wind soughed under the eaves and called