Apparition (The Hungry Ghosts) (44 page)

“No way,” Ian said. “We’re not separating again.”

“The bridge is coming apart,” one of the women sobbed. “Help us, the bridge…”

Wayra stretched out on his stomach and extended his long arms toward the woman. Lauren, Tess, and Ian held his legs so that he didn’t get jerked over the side when the woman clasped on to his hand and paw. He pulled her to safety, then thrust out his arms again, shouting at Ricardo and the two others to move faster, faster.

A deafening rumble burst from the canyon, the ground shook, a hole burst open eight feet to Lauren’s right and a geyser of stones shot out of it. Fissures appeared, speeding every which way. Another hole opened up behind them and a pine tree, fully formed, burst upward. Off to their right, a ceiba tree exploded skyward from the ground.

The man and woman ahead of Ricardo crawled off the bridge. And just when Lauren thought Ricardo would reach them, the bridge tore loose of its moorings on the far side of the chasm and swung out over the river, Ricardo clinging to it.

It swung toward their side of the canyon and Ricardo had the presence of mind to extend his right leg so that his foot struck the wall first, saving him from slamming full force into the wall. The bridge swayed in the wind and Ricardo climbed fast, like a monkey on a jungle gym, hand over hand, right foot, left foot. They struggled to hold the bridge steady and Wayra kept shouting, “You’re almost there, Ricardo. Keep climbing.”

But the old rope snapped and the bridge tore out of the rock and fell toward the river.

Ricardo flashed a thumbs-up, then hurled himself back, off the falling bridge, arms flung out at his sides, and vanished beneath the water.

Twenty-one

The Depot

1.

Wayra stared in disbelief. The last vestige of Dominica and his ancient past had been swept away. Ricardo, a dead man stuck in his virtual body, had drowned. His last connection to Dominica and the much earlier parts of his existence had just saved the lives of everyone on their side of the chasm. Sorrow overwhelmed him. He dropped his head back and howled, a sound summoned from the emotional depths of who he had been and would never be again. The howl resounded across the rapidly shifting terrain and even to Wayra, it seemed primitive, strange. He hoped that Ricardo could somehow hear it and would understand it was Wayra’s tribute to him, a
brujo
who had evolved beyond evil.

Ian clasped Wayra’s shoulder. “C’mon, let’s
move
.”

They ran, dashing between and around trees that kept shooting up from the rocky surface. The ground shook, lightning flashed and crackled and riddled the entire dome of the sky. Eerie shadows swam across the ground, the air glowed a neon blue.

He couldn’t see the depot anymore; the tremendous trees blocked his line of sight. But he worried that it might not be there any longer, that it had faded like the other buildings or had been swallowed up by an opening in the ground.
What then? What the fuck would they do then?

Trees continued to burst upward from the ground, but not as quickly as before. The temperature started dropping, ten, fifteen, twenty degrees within a matter of moments. All of them had stripped off layers of clothes in the jungle and no longer had anything with which to cover themselves. Wayra could now see his breath. The chill bit through his skin, seeped into his bones.

Through the trees, he caught sight of the depot, now a lone building on top of a hill, bathed in blue light, pines to either side of it. Flickering candles lit the window, silhouettes moved around inside. A door in the depot suddenly flew open and Javier raced down the hill, as if he’d been on the lookout for them, and he carried a bundle of blankets. “Amigos, I thought … something had happened to you.” He quickly passed out the blankets, then looked around, frowning. “Where’s Ricardo?”

Wayra shook his head.

“Carajo.”
Javier quickly made the sign of the cross. “He became good, Wayra. I never thought I would be able to say such a thing about a
brujo,
but it’s true. We wouldn’t have made it across the bridge if it weren’t for him.”

“I know. How many are in the depot?”

“A hundred and seven. With you four, a hundred and eleven.”

“My God,” Lauren breathed. “That number again.”

“How’d they all get there?” Tess asked.

“Different ways. Cars, buses, bicycles, scooters, on foot. But they say that all the vehicles dissolved a long time ago, just like the rest of the buildings did right after I got into the depot.”

The earth shook, booms exploded behind them, and they broke into a run. Around and behind them, the terrain shifted wildly, sheets of rock peeled away, trees shot upward, and geysers erupted, spewing stones, vegetation, water. Giant boulders cracked open like walnuts then blew outward in every direction, all of it illuminated by the neon-blue light.

Just before they reached the depot door, a wind kicked up and it started to snow.

2.

Charlie stared out the windows, watching the jungle as it blurred past, the train hurtling through light and dark at an alarming speed. Nothing he saw looked familiar. Now and then, through the trees, he caught sight of an unnatural lightning crackling across the sky. It was a neon blue that seemed to move from one location in the sky to another, without any apparent pattern. Karina sat mutely beside him, gripping his hand, her eyes darting from the window to the faces of the people who shared the first car.

The door between the first and second cars suddenly opened, a fierce, damp wind blew through, and Victor swept in with Franco and Liana. Newton leaped up and threw out his arms and shouted,
“You’re here, the collective voice of sanity has arrived!”

“This is the ghost train,” Liana burst out. “I don’t understand. I—”

Franco caught Newton’s arms and shoved him back into his seat. “How the hell did we end up in here? Who’s in charge?” he demanded.

“Calm down,” Victor told him. “Just calm down, Franco.”

“Don’t tell me what to do!” Franco bellowed.

Charlie got up, his confusion about how they’d gotten here secondary to his concern that they apparently didn’t have any idea what was going on. “Sit down, all of you,” Charlie said. “We’re headed—”

“You’re behind this, Charlie.” Franco faced him, eyes filled with fury. “
You.
I knew it, I fucking knew it. You’ve been nothing but trouble right from the start.”

Sanchez, now on his feet, snapped, “Hey, sit down and stop yelling. Things are weird enough right now, okay?”

Franco pointed at Sanchez, his finger just inches from Sanchez’s nose. “I know who you are.”

“Get your goddamn hand outta my face.” Sanchez pushed Franco’s hand away, then suddenly exclaimed, “You traitor. You knew what would happen when Tess went to El Bosque and set off this whole chain of events. You were working with Maria all along. You never wanted Esperanza to be replaced by something else. It was all lies.”

In that brief touch, Charlie thought, Sanchez had discovered the truth about Franco. It suddenly all made sense. But before he could say anything, Franco grabbed Sanchez by the front of his jacket and Jessie leaped at him, snarling savagely, and knocked him back. Her teeth tore into his arm and Franco kicked at her and beat his fist against her head and screamed,
“Get it off me, get it off!”

Sanchez grabbed Jessie’s collar, trying to pull her back, but she clung tenaciously to Franco’s arm, blood pouring from it. Charlie sensed that Franco was armed—a gun or knife, he couldn’t tell which—and hurled himself at the other chaser, tackling him. They slammed to the floor of the car, Charlie on top of Franco, pinning him down, trapping him there, their faces just inches apart.

“I knew that vote was too easy, you bastard,” Charlie hissed.

“You’re such a goddamn nuisance.”

One of Franco’s arms jerked free and he sank a knife into Charlie’s stomach, the blade twisting cruelly through his intestines. Charlie slammed the heel of his hand into Franco’s nose and felt the bones snapping, then punched him in the mouth, breaking all those pretty teeth to bits. Franco started choking on his broken teeth and Charlie rolled off him, his hand pressed against the wound in his stomach. Blood—real blood, red blood, human blood—seeped through his fingers.

How could he be bleeding? Hurting? Dying? He lifted his hands off his stomach and turned them this way and that, studying the blood.
Was it real?
It looked and smelled real.

The bedlam around him was certainly real: everyone shouting, Maddie and Karina beside him as Leo, Sanchez, and Pedro lifted him onto a row of empty seats. He heard Victor banging on the door of the engine compartment, shouting for help, heard Leo barking instructions, Pedro praying, Newton freaking out, Victor fretting over him like a protective parent, Franco groaning, Illary whispering to him as she clutched his hand.

And then Leo tore open Charlie’s shirt, exposing the stab wound. His hearing faded in and out, his vision blinked off and on. He started dissolving, felt his essence coming apart, molecules and atoms drifting like boats that had broken free of their moorings. He abruptly found himself in two places at once—lying in a row of seats in Esperanza 14, bleeding profusely from the stomach, and floating through falling snow.

He fell out of the snow and into a kind of dream, a current of the past. He was Charlie before Franco had stabbed him, Charlie in the throes of his deal with Leo to find Lauren a job, Charlie embroiled in the lives of the people he loved, Charlie, ex-attorney, ex-father, ex-husband, ex-mentor, ex-everything. In yet another current of the past, he was at the council meeting, surprised that Franco objected to the council’s plan to remove Esperanza from the physical world. As Franco demanded that people be given a choice and that Esperanza be replaced with something else, Charlie saw the smug glint in Maria’s eyes as her gaze fixed on Franco and heard the voice of her dark, twisted heart.
He’s in my pocket, too.

Traitor.

The current shifted. He stood in front of the home where Maria lived, the last place where he had seen Franco and confronted him about following Tess to El Bosque. The house had faded to a translucency the color of pearls, the grounds looked washed out, bleached, the beds of flowers had wilted. Charlie walked through the translucent wall and found an infant swaddled in blankets on the floor of what had once been the living room. The baby kicked her little legs and her wide blue eyes impaled him.
She’s in hiding,
the infant said.

Where?

I don’t know.

Nice try, Maria.

She threw back her pudgy little arms and laughed hysterically.
You’re dying, Charlie.

I’m already dead.

Then why’re you bleeding from a stab wound?

All the rules have gone south.

Which means you’re dying.

She kept laughing and it enraged Charlie. He scooped her up, his fingers clutching at the back of the pale pink shirt she wore.
If I can die, so can you
. The baby wailed and cried, her face scrunching up, her tiny mouth falling open. He started to hurl her against the translucent wall, then thought of how Franco had stabbed him and twisted the knife so deeply inside him it had felt as if the blade might come out through his back.

He quickly set Maria back on the blankets.
As much as I’d like to smash your head against that wall, I’m not killing you. That would set me up for a really shitty next life.

Maria kicked her stumpy, dimpled legs, pounded her baby fists against the air and her face turned apple red.
Kill me, kill me,
she sobbed.
Otherwise I’ll just be left here until the transition is complete.

And then what happens?

I’ll be … banished into another life, one I don’t choose.

How fitting.
Who turned you into an infant?

Kali, this woman named Kali. She claims she’s the fourteenth—

She is.

That’s a lie, there was never a fourteenth council member, it’s all just lies. Get Newton over here, he’ll listen to me, he’ll—

I’ll send Franco. He’s as corrupt as you are.

With that, Charlie backpedaled through the wall, the infant’s wails pursuing him.
You can’t do this to me, Charlie.

He felt the train slowing down. Or was this sensation part of yet another dream? He didn’t know, couldn’t tell. He struggled to raise his head, but Kali ran her hand over his forehead and spoke softly: “It’s okay, Charlie, really, it is.”

What was okay? That he was wounded, dying, bleeding all over the train?

“I had to know whom I could trust.”

He felt a sharp prick in his arm and Leo said, “It’s morphine, Charlie. It’ll help with the pain and I’ll be able to … to stitch you up.”

Charlie detected the hitch in Leo’s voice and knew he was lying, that there would be no stitching up because he was bleeding internally, his intestines were the consistency of chopped liver, and he was, just as Maria said, dying. The morphine was simply intended to make him comfortable. Or maybe Leo had given him an overdose so that he could die peacefully.

“Stay with me,” Karina whispered. “Stay with me, Charlie.”

The morphine ran through his blood now and a blissful silence held him, rocked him, caressed him. He felt his senses shutting down, turning off, one by one.

3.

Tess nearly gagged when they entered the depot. It smelled of piss and body odor, fear and uncertainty. People stood around in small groups, families or their equivalent, and dozens of candles illuminated the interior and cast faces into odd reliefs of light and shadow. In a corner, a man played a harmonica, the notes hauntingly sad.

Javier led them over to some chairs along the wall and suddenly a small boy leaped up and ran over to Tess and threw his arms around her. “Señora, señora. You saved me, thank you.”