Hallowed by Bryant Delafosse

fell into a reservoir all by herself,” Claudia announced.  “She was murdered.”
    “Murdered? What makes you think it wasn’t just suicide?”
    “No, when a person commits suicide they do it in the privacy of their own home.  Pills, razor to the wrists, rope to the throat. They don’t throw themselves into an empty reservoir.”
    I shrugged.  She had a good point.
    Claudia nibbled her lip.  “You think your dad might be getting a little bored in his retirement?”
    “He still does consulting for a few security firms in Dallas.  Why?”
    “Paul, what did your father mean when he said that they didn’t think he was fit to return to duty?”
    I took a deep breath and gave her a look.  “That was kind of a big deal, okay, and I’m not all that sure I can trust you.”
    She gave me an overinflated look of disbelief, but I could sense behind the melodrama that I had actually hurt her somehow.  “Fine, Paul, keep your secrets.”
    After walking in silence for a few moments, I knew from the stolid expression on her face I had indeed hurt her.  She started to quicken her pace a little and I had to make an effort to catch up with her.
    “Okay, if it gets back to my Dad that I told you, I’m a dead man.”
    She slowed down and gave me a single nod.
    “You know that my Dad shot a man, right?”
    Her eyes lit up, but her voice remained casual.  “No, I didn’t.  What were the circumstances?”
    “Routine traffic stop, guy fires on him, and he fired back,” I told her.  “That’s how he got grazed incidentally.  To hear my mother tell it, though, he almost had his arm blown completely off.  The truth is somewhere in the middle, I guess.”
    Claudia gave a nod and stared raptly at me.
    “Well, every officer who fires his gun in the line of duty has to see a psychologist to get released back to work, but Mom told me that he couldn’t pass the psych eval.”
    Claudia frowned at me.  “What?”
    “Yeah,” I said with a sigh.  “I never got any of the details.”
    “Are you kidding me?  Wow, aren’t you the least bit curious?  I would be.”
    I made a sound of dismissal that ended the conversation as we turned up her driveway on Ash Avenue.  I lifted and dropped my arm and started to back away from her.  “What time are we getting together on Saturday?”
    “Saturday?”
    I glanced at her in confusion.
    “Oh right,” she quickly recovered.  “I don’t know.  Ten?”
    “Nine-thirty.”
    “Fine.”
    I started away with a final wave over my shoulder, but she called out once more.
    “If this is a murder, there’s a possibility that he’s done it before and will do it again.”  When I gave her a blank look, she said as way of explanation, “The body they found in Abner.”
    “Oh, right,” I finally remembered.  “What about it?”
    “If it’s a serial killer, he won’t stop, y’know.  They keep at it until they get taken out or die of natural causes.  Jack the Ripper probably died of old age.  Some believe the Black Dahlia killer did too.”
    I was at a loss.  All I could do was stand and gawk at her, waiting for a punch line that never came.
    The last thing she said to me was, “Seeya,” and as she disappeared into the house, I couldn’t help but think how little I knew about the girl that had returned to Haven.

Chapter 6 (Saturday, October 3rd)
    Saturday morning I woke from a dream and immediately begin to scribble in the notebook on my nightstand.  Recently, I had begun to keep a journal.  I found that putting down as much as I could remember on paper helped me to recognize it for what it was.  A nightmare.  But it didn’t stop the frequency.  If anything, I was having them more often, usually on days of unusual anxiety.  Looming exams.  Baseball playoffs.  Band concerts.  It became most vivid when someone in my family was in trouble or sick.
    In the dream, I once again stood on the porch of The House Without Doors, an orange pumpkin bucket full of candy