William Meikle: The Hole

Either will be a relief.

Her doorbell rang just as the pain started to subside. Thankfully the nosebleed hadn’t lasted long, and the mess it left behind was mainly confined to a blot on the hand towel and the bloody handprints she’d left in her path from the kitchen. She wiped the mess clean as she headed for the door and felt almost human again as she opened it.

Bill Wozniak stood outside on the sidewalk, a rueful grin on his face. He looked as tired as she felt, but she managed a small smile when she saw the tequila bottle in his hand.

“A nightcap for my lady?” he asked, and waved the bottle.

“Just the one,” she replied. “It’s been a long day.”

“Don’t I know it,” he said. “And yes, it will just be the one. Then I’m heading back out to Hopman’s Hollow. I left young Watts on patrol duty, and I can’t let him stay there all night. He was getting twitchy the last time I called.”

Over a glass of tequila—a large one for her, a smaller one for him, Bill brought her up to speed on the situation at Hopman’s Hollow.

“It’s getting bigger,” he said. That was all he had to say.

“How fast?” she asked.

“A couple of feet an hour. That don’t sound too bad, but at fifty feet a day it ain’t gonna be too long before it starts eating into some expensive real estate. That’s when the squealing is really going to start.”

A thought struck Janet.

“The hum … it’s happening when the hole grows, isn’t it?”

Bill smiled.

“I like a lady with plenty of smarts. Yep, I spotted that earlier. I was out there when the last hum started. It got rid of the news crews quick enough… first signs of nosebleeds and they were all off to the hospital squawking about chemical weapons.”

“How about you? You okay?”

The big man tossed back the tequila, looked at the bottle, and shook his head sadly.

“Nothing a few more stiffeners wouldn’t cure. But that’ll have to wait. I’ve got to go. It’s going to be a long night.”

She spoke without thinking. “Want some company?” She wondered whether she’d misread him and spoken out of place, but his face lit up in a grin.

“That’ll set a few tongues wagging in town. Ellen Simmons will surely be at your door first thing in the morning with a detailed report of proceedings. Are you ready for that?”

She grinned back. “As long as there’s tequila, I’m ready for just about anything.” She immediately felt heat rise on her cheeks and she started to stammer. “That didn’t come out right. I didn’t mean… you shouldn’t… oh, shit.”

Bill laughed loudly. “Don’t worry, darling. I won’t tell anybody. Your loose morals can remain a secret between the two of us.”

He was still laughing as they went out to the parking bay where he’d parked the patrol car.

It had turned into one of those nights. Fred lost count of how many beers he’d necked and Charlie was already slumped in the corner of the bar nursing a JD and adamantly refusing to admit to being falling-over drunk.

At one point the hum started up again.

A girl in the corner screamed, two drunk teens passed out at their table, and some of the patrons had to leave, clutching fresh nosebleeds, but Fred was unaffected, whether by nature of previous exposure or just from being too goddamned drunk to care.

Charlie wiped fresh blood from his nose and threw Fred a mock salute.

“Here’s to the end of the world,” the older man shouted, and Fred grinned back at him, knocking back a JD and banging his glass on the bar for another. Things were starting to smooth over nicely. He had a buzz on that was only going to get stronger as the night went on; he’d already spent a wad of his eating money, but he was now past caring.

He got a second wind when a blonde arrived with free beer and questions.

“You’re him, aren’t you? You’re the guy who saved the guy who fell down the hole on the guy’s lawn?”

It took Fred several seconds to come to terms with the question, during which the blonde moved in on him, hustling her way onto the adjoining bar stool and leaning in close; close enough for Fred to feel the touch of her long hair on his arm. He started to pay closer attention.

“I was right, wasn’t I? You’re him?”

“I’m him.”

“So what happened?” she said, and passed him a beer.

A blonde and a beer; I can die happy.

He took the beer, and answered as well as his befuddled mind would allow.

“Weren’t nothing really,” he started, and was immediately interrupted as she took his cigarette from him, sucked a long drag from it, and passed it back, placing it gently between his lips. It tasted sweeter somehow, and musky. Suddenly the booze didn’t seem quite so important.

“I hear you’re a hero?” she said, leaning closer still to whisper in his ear. He felt the heat of her breath on his cheek.

“Maybe I am at that,” he replied, and gave her his best smile, to which she responded in kind. She bought him another beer while he told the story. He stuck to the truth, mostly, mainly because her deep blue eyes mesmerized him. Just looking into them made thinking a bit harder for him.

At some point he found himself retelling Charlie’s story from earlier. When he got to the part about the three missing men, the blonde, call-me-Tricia , started to get excited.

“Oh… my… God. We should totally do a séance.”

If it meant spending more time with a body to die for, and those blue eyes, Fred was all for it. She went on for quite a while, about the other side and messages from the great beyond , but all Fred remembered was how her breasts swelled against the thin fabric of her top.

The half an hour after that proved more than a bit fuzzy as he zoned in and out of a drunken stupor. He came back to reality grudgingly, sitting in an armchair in a trailer that was far too tidy to be his. A couple he didn’t recognize sat in a sofa opposite him. The man, a portly guy in his thirties with a badly trimmed goatee, leaned over and handed Fred a beer.

“So, these three dead men, they’re still hanging around?” the man said.

“Do I know you?” Fred asked.

The man laughed.

“Tricia invited me over for the séance. Tell me it’s true… these dead men from the mine, and the hole and…”

Fred felt as if he’d been cut loose from reality. He had no memory of leaving the bar, no idea what he was doing in this stranger’s trailer. To cover his confusion he lit a cigarette, getting it going at only the second attempt. He was saved having to answer by a voice from the adjoining kitchen area.

“That’s what Fred said,” the blonde called back. She came through into the main living area. “Found it.”

It proved to be a bashed-up Ouija board in a tattered box. The Mysterious Mystifying Oracle it said on the front. It looked innocuous enough, but a chill crept into Fred’s spine, and suddenly he was thinking again—of lost men, and pale things slithering in dark pits. He chugged down half the beer, spilling some on his shirt, a small price to pay for managing to dispel the dark thoughts, at least for the moment.

Tricia laid the board on the coffee table in the center of the room, then sat down at Fred’s feet. When he felt the warmth of her back on his legs, he started to think maybe he should stop drinking and pay attention again for a while.

She unfolded the board. It had obviously seen a lot of use. The lettering was scratched and faded in places, and somebody had scrawled all over it in red ink at some time in the past. But just looking at it gave Fred a funny feeling in his stomach that couldn’t be put down to the booze.