Ploff.

The deputy lost his barefoot traction. Sliding down the slick wall and landing hard on his backside, he clenched his teeth on grit. Shaking-so cold-he hugged his knees and lowered his head when the shovel appeared in the sky-blue opening. Dirt crumbled down from his hair to melt in the water when he lifted his face to the light and yelled, "Hannah! Call him off!"

Or turn him off. Switch off that thing with the shovel.

"I tried." She reappeared, head and shoulders, to lean over the hole. "No use." Her fingers curled over the edge. "Oren knows that Josh and the tourist died close to Evelyn's cabin."

"What? The grave was in the clearing. Nowhere near that cabin." Dave saw the shovel too late to duck his head. He gagged on the dirt, and his breakfast beer came stealing up his throat for a second tasting. Above him, the mute shoveler worked with an easy rhythm. Steep and lift, and ploff went the dirt.

"Josh and that woman died on the old hikers' trail."

Before he could ask how Hannah knew this, she read his mind and said, "Oren told me. He's been watching videotapes of the witchboard people- all day, all night-no sleep."

Dave looked up at her, his eyes wide in a mask of mud. "The witchboard people? Are you crazy?" More dirt hit his face to blind him and fill his mouth. He vomited up his last liquid meal, and the hole reeked of beer and bile. When his eyes were wiped clear, Hannah was gone. "No!" he called out to her. "Don't leave me!"

Don't leave me here with Oren, crazy Oren.

Scrambling to raise himself, Dave braced his ice-cold hands on the slippery walls. He could see her standing beside the man with the vacant eyes, lunatic Oren, who worked like a robot to fill his hole. Steep and lift and-

Hannah squinted, as if trying to see the mechanical man more clearly and from a great distance. "I don't think Oren can hear me anymore." Ploff

She hunkered down at the edge of the pit. "The witchboard people knew everything-bits and pieces here and there. Oren put it all together."

"Help me!" A downdraft swept his wet body with cool morning air. His teeth clicked. His hands trembled. "Hannah, I know you don't believe in that séance crap."

"Oren does." She looked down at him with such pity. "He knows you went up to the cabin that day. You waited awhile-just to make sure Evelyn was alone. It was raining when you saw a woman leave by the back door-a woman in a yellow slicker. You thought you were following Evelyn." She backed away and disappeared as more dirt came down. "Hannah!" he screamed.

"Josh was following you." Her voice was behind him now. He whirled around, bare feet slipping in the muddy water. His fingers raked grooves in the wall of dirt as he was falling-splash!-into freezing water. He looked up to see Hannah's face framed in the square of blue sky.

"Josh saw you kill that poor woman. But Oren says the boy didn't take a picture of the murder. Is he right, Dave?"

The sound of shoveling stopped.

Hannah crouched low to peer at him, as if her answer might be written on his face. And then she nodded in a knowing way. "You didn't know Josh was behind you-not yet. The boy could've backed off and saved himself and run. My Josh could run so fast. You never would've caught him."

Dave twisted his head to look behind him. Above the edge of the pit, he could see the handle of the shovel as it was lodged in the mound of dirt, and there it stayed. Oren, the robot, was also listening to Hannah.

"It took time for Josh to set up the perfect shot," she said. "The boy was so quiet while he looked down at his camera to line up the little numbers on the lens. And then he looked up to focus, and he waited… You rolled the body over… and saw you'd killed the wrong woman. The look on your face, a rock in your hand, the dead woman's eyes staring back at you. Josh just couldn't help himself. It was his nature to catch that moment. No power on earth could've stopped him… You heard the camera click."

Ploff. Steep and lift. Ploff

Dave's voice was pleading, breaking. "Hannah, call for help." Where was she?

Oh, Christ, don't leave me.

She came back to him and leaned over the edge. "I told you-Oren's seen the witchboard tapes. The year you came back to Coventry -that's when you went to your first séance in the woods. Everybody in town went to at least one. At the time, I didn't think anything of it."

"The sheriff sent me out there to check up on the psychic."

"That's what Evelyn thought-just Cable's silly idea of an undercover cop. But Oren says you didn't act like one. You never joined the players. You stood at the back of the room, hiding in the dark, listening. Were you scared that a message from a dead child would give you away?" Hannah smiled, but there was no mistaking her expression for happiness. "Scared now?"

Ploff.

"Hannah!"

"I tried to help you," said her disembodied voice. And then her face appeared again, but her eyes were raised to stare at the madman with the shovel. "You should've run. Oren knows that Josh died slow." Hannah lowered her gaze. "You dragged out that child's pain all day long." She drew back from the edge.

"Hannah, don't leave me!" He struggled to gain his feet. Half bent, he held up his arms to ward off the next spadeful of dirt. If he could not stand, he would die in this stinking hole. Every shovelful of earth thickened the water, and he could not climb upon mud to save himself; he could only sink. How long would he be able to lift his feet before they were encased in mud? He screamed, "Hannah!"

The walls seemed closer now, suffocating, and he looked up with the mad idea that the square of blue light was growing smaller-farther away-closing up. Mud from his hair dripped into his eyes. The light went out.

The yellow dog looked over the edge, ears flattened down and snarling.

Oren smelled piss and shit and vomit. The dog smelled fear.

The man in the hole rallied, rising to a stand and reaching high to grab the tree root. His bare toes dug into the muddy wall, scrambling, frantic for purchase. Dirt caved in all around the root, and the deputy fell, legs folded under him and covered over by the small avalanche. Dave Hardy raised his head and rubbed his eyes. He looked down at the place where his limbs should be. Oren watched the deputy twist and strain, but Dave Hardy could only free his arms; he could not move his buried. legs. Panicked, manic, as fast as he could scoop the dirt away, Oren piled on more.

Ploff, ploff, ploff.

He lowered the shovel and stood back as Hannah leaned over the hole.

"My memory is long," she said to the deputy. "The proof was in your hands. Your knuckles were red and raw… from doing murder in woods."

"That happened in a fight with Oren." Dave's voice was weaker, and his words came out like a whine. "You saw it, Hannah. You were in the gym that night."

"Oh, I'll never forget it. Every punch belonged to Oren. All those people in the bleachers-they all remember Oren's bloody fists… your bloody face… not one bruise on your knuckles. But Cable Babitt got the story secondhand. He didn't see that fight. If he had, he would've arrested you twenty years ago."

Ploff

The dirt from the caved-in wall had thickened into mud all around the deputy's body, and he ceased to struggle. He only shivered, and his words were halfhearted. "Make him stop? Please, Hannah?"

"I'll try." She stole a glance at Oren, and then turned her face down to the deputy. "But he's got this idea in his head that you raped his brother before you murdered him."

Oren lost his rhythm with the shovel. He turned to stare at her.