Ghost Key (38 page)

It’s not so bad, is it, Whit?

Not right here, on the rocks, where I can see the water and the sky. But if we were over there, where the graves are, and that was all I could see, I don’t know if I could do this.

Even if you’re smack in the middle of the cemetery, you can always see something else. Trees. Flowers. Grass. Sky. Let’s try it.

Whit drifted away from her.
Not right now. I’ve had enough, Nica. I’m ready to be physical again.

Do you think you’ll have any problem coming in here in your host body?

I can do that.

He sounded certain of this. But the proof would be in actually doing it. If Whit was to rule the
brujo
enclave with her, he couldn’t be a coward. Well, that wasn’t quite right. She was a coward, but could hide the fact. He would have to do that or confront his fears. Either way, he couldn’t be seen as compromised, fearful, uncertain of his next step, his next decision. The tribe trusted Whit’s host, Sam Dorset, as they once had trusted the mayor. But Whit himself would have to earn their respect and coming into this cemetery would be the first step.

Let’s go reclaim our hosts, Whit.

Nineteen

Maddie swam toward consciousness like a salmon struggling upstream. She knew if she didn’t reach the surface, everything would be lost, Dominica would win, and she would be trapped forever.

She latched on to her rage and it lifted her.

She grappled for memories of love and surfaced into a subtle awareness that she was in the attic, on a cot, breaking free of the deep sleep.

She remembered the kiss in the salt marsh, Sanchez in all his trusting glory, and snapped forward, gasping for breath. She struggled through the mush in her brain, heard her limbs popping and cracking. But her lungs now breathed only for her, her heart beat only for her. She was free,
free.
Maddie swung her legs over the side of the cot.

For moments, she just sat there, gripping the sides of the cot, her mind assaulted by images of the men in hazmat suits, bleeding out in the middle of downtown, of Sam Dorset controlled by Whit up here in the attic, of— A steel door slammed shut in her head. She couldn’t allow the horrors to keep her paralyzed. She curled and uncurled her toes, flexed her fingers and wrists, lifted her arms, moved her legs, sucked air into her lungs. She listened to the deep, steady beat of her heart and nearly wept with joy that her body functioned only for herself.

I’m free free free and so outta here.

Her running shoes stood side by side on the floor, and Maddie quickly put them on. When she stood, her knees felt as if they were filled with water, couldn’t sustain her weight, and buckled. She struck the floor and stifled a sob of frustration.
Get up fast, you need to get out of here
. Maddie gripped the edge of the cot, pulled herself to her feet, and weaved over to the other cot where Sam lay in the deep sleep.

“Wake up, Sam, c’mon,” she whispered, shaking him by the shoulders.

He muttered and groaned and turned slowly onto his side, as though his mind and body were mired in honey. Maddie forced him to turn onto his back and slapped him across the face. He pushed up onto his elbows, shaking his head like a dog with fleas. His eyes squinted open, his murmurs melted together. Maddie helped him sit up all the way, moved his legs until they hung over the edge of the cot.

“Sam,” she whispered urgently. “We’re
free,
okay? They’re gone and you need to get up and walk so we can get the hell outta here. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“Y-yes. But—”

“No buts. C’mon, here’re your shoes.” She slipped on his left loafer, his right. “I’ll help you stand. It’s not far to the door. It’s light outside now, so we’re going to have to sneak out through the kitchen and into the alley. And then into some other alley and get as far away from the hotel as possible.”

“If they … find us…”

“They won’t find us if you move your goddamn legs. Put your arm around my waist. Okay, good. Left foot, right, you’re doing fine, not much farther to the door. We’re going to take the back stairs to the kitchen, then go out that rear door that opens to the alley. You with me, Sam?”

“I’m moving, I’m okay, I’m so … sorry for what happened, Maddie, for what I did to—”

“It wasn’t you, Sam. Forget it. Focus, just focus.”

“I feel like shit, I need to take a piss…”

“Keep moving.” They reached the door. “Just stand right here for a second. I want to check that old bureau. Maybe we stuffed our packs in there before they put us under. Shit, I can’t remember.” She remembered removing her shoes, keeping her jacket on, but couldn’t recall what had happened to her pack. Had Dominica performed a quick memory wipe before she’d plunged Maddie into the deep sleep?

Maddie jerked open the drawers and rifled through old place mats, old clothes, old linens, old dusty
stuff
. No packs, nothing useful, of course not. Dominica had been thorough. She hurried back to Sam, cracked open the door, and they started down the old, sloping stairs.

They reached the second-story landing, but when they heard voices nearby, just up the hall, they ducked into a storage room. Pitch-black. But she’d been in here often enough while working at the hotel to know her way around. Stacked on the shelves were linens, towels, pillows, bedspreads, blankets, and quilts. Two large bins on wheels overflowed with dirty bedding and towels that had been sitting here for weeks.

Maddie patted her way across the wall until she located the handle for the oversized door to the laundry chute. She pulled it open and a thin watery light appeared at the very end of it, in the hotel cellar. Not a cellar, exactly, not like those in Esperanza, more like a postscript. It was below the kitchen, on the ground floor. Maddie knew there was an exit from there into the alley. The chute dropped about twenty-five feet, and the bin beneath it was empty.

She scooped dirty sheets and towels out of the overflowing bins and shoved them down the chute, creating a nest in the bin for her and Sam to land in. But would it be enough to prevent a hard landing that might snap a foot or leg?
Add more, play it safe.

“Sam, give me a hand here. We’re going down the chute but we need more stuff to land on.”

He didn’t reply.

Maddie glanced around. Just enough light trickled through the chute door and into the storage room for her to see Sam slumped against the wall, hands pressed to the sides of his head, as if he were holding it in place. He gave no indication that he’d heard her. Maddie went over to him, gripped his arms. “Sam. Pay attention. We’re going down the chute. From there, we can get out of the hotel and—”

“And to where, Maddie?
Don’t you fucking
get
it? There’s no place to hide from them, no place where we’re safe, no—”

“Fine. Then stay here, where they’re sure to find you. I’m outta here.”

She quickly scooped more laundry from the bin, dropped it down the chute. When the bin below looked satisfyingly full, Maddie swung one leg over the edge, then the other. “Sam?”

“They’ll find us,” he said.

“They’ll find
you,
for sure.”

She pushed off and dropped with shocking speed from darkness into a dim light. She landed feet first in a mountain of laundry, sank to her knees, looked around uneasily, making sure she was alone. The light came from a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling on the other side of the room, and between it and her stood three more overflowing bins of laundry. One of them sat beneath the chute from the kitchen like a giant open mouth waiting for leftover food. It held dozens of tablecloths and napkins. Stacked next to a laundry sink on the other side of the room were plates encrusted with old food, stained glasses, used silverware. Some
brujo
either disliked kitchen detail and had decided to get even with his boss or had suffered memory loss about where the kitchen actually was. Regardless, the neglect didn’t surprise her.

The sheets on which that Disney World group had slept hadn’t been changed since they had departed. These bins had probably been filled since January, Maddie thought. The kitchen upstairs was so filthy a health inspector would puke. But that was the
brujo
way, a disregard for basic cleanliness and hygiene.

As Maddie stood, Sam landed beside her in the nest of sheets and towels.

“You’re right.” His voice vibrated with tension, fear. “Staying here is certain death.”

“They may find us anyway, but at least we’ll know we tried.”

They scrambled out of the bin and crossed the room to the alley door. Maddie unlocked it, and they peeked out. Brilliant sunlight sliced into her eyes, the chilly air nibbled at her skin. A scrawny cat darted through the light and shadows and vanished behind a garbage can spilling over with bulging bags of trash. The alley in both directions was as empty as her hope had been for months.

She and Sam slipped out into the March morning and ran like the refugees they were. They stopped when the alley emptied into State Road 24, and huddled back against the wall, arms clutched to their chests for warmth. Just up the road lay Island Market, definitely under
brujo
control. The tribe also controlled the small museum, gas stations, bed-and-breakfast places, and motels along this road. It didn’t mean
brujos
guarded these locations right now, but she scratched them off her list of possible hiding places.

“Now what?” she whispered. “It’s your island, Sam.”

He looked cold and scared. “On the next block, that half-finished church. They’re terrified of churches.”

Brujos
feared cemeteries and fire, and Dominica didn’t like oceans because she didn’t know how to swim. But to her knowledge, they weren’t afraid of churches, crucifixes, or garlic. These ghosts weren’t like vampires. Maddie didn’t argue with Sam, though. Maybe he knew something she didn’t. Maybe, through Whit, Sam had access to information that she simply couldn’t reach in Dominica. The dead shared among themselves in ways the living did not. The
brujo
net was evidence of that, a telepathic connection that guaranteed company and compassion for any ghost, anywhere, once they tapped into it. The living also had this same sort of net, but they were so divided in their religious and cultural beliefs that they rarely tapped into it. Most of the living didn’t even know it existed.

They dashed up the road, then across it, and ducked into the church. No roof, just two incomplete walls. The bright sunlight spilled across the unfinished altar, the sawdust-covered floor. Construction on the church had stopped back in January, in the early days of the
brujo
incursions, when the carpenters had been seized by young, naïve ghosts who just couldn’t wait to try out the newfound powers that Dominica, queen of the
brujos,
had described to them. The carpenters, of course, had short-circuited almost instantly, three of them bleeding out, the rest still wandering around in the tribe, their minds and spirits broken.

She felt the church was the wrong place to hide. “Sam, we need to keep moving.”

“Whit won’t come in here. Some preacher tried to convert him before they electrocuted him, and as he died, he vowed he would never set foot inside a church ever again. He brought that into death with him. He brought that fear with him when he died.”

Undoubtedly true. Dominica had issues like that, too, but she had died so long ago she could barely recall them. Whit had been dead for just six months, so the stuff he had brought into death with him was fresher, raw. Still, Maddie didn’t want to stay here. “Let’s head into those trees.” She pointed west, where there was no wall, just tremendous oaks and pines and homes barely visible through the branches. “It’s an older neighborhood. We can hide in one of those houses.”

Sam backed into an unfinished confessional. “I’m staying right here.” His face came undone, and he began to cry. “I … I need to confess, to…”

Great, Sam Dorset, ex-Catholic. Maddie hurried over to him. “Sam, listen to me. You’re not responsible for what Whit made you do, okay?
You
weren’t doing those things. Whit was. You have nothing to
confess.
”

He covered his face with his hands, his body shaking with silent sobs. “I’m … staying here.”

“Fuck that.” She grabbed his hand and yanked him to his feet so fast that he stumbled in confusion. “You’re leaving with me.”

“We can’t go out there.”
He screamed the words, wrenched his arm free. He backed toward the confessional with short, uncertain steps and kept his fisted hands out in front of him, as if he intended to punch her if she moved toward him. “They’ll find us, track us down, bleed us out.” His expression was that of a man so traumatized by
brujo
possession that rational thought had deserted him.

“Jesus, Sam,” she whispered. “Okay. Okay. Take care of yourself.”

Maddie turned and trotted west across the church, toward those towering oaks that beckoned, toward that older neighborhood in which she might hide until she could figure out what to do. In her grandmother’s old neighborhood in Key Largo, the trees had been palms, Norwegian pines, gumbo-limbos with their thick trunks, their reddish bark. She felt a pang of nostalgia for that place, for the life she’d had before her aunt Tesso had come out of her coma, before she’d known anything about hungry ghosts.

She dodged blocks of concrete, stacks of bricks, piles of wood. She lingered briefly at the edge of the trees, hoping Sam would change his mind and join her, and glanced back. He was still sitting in the unfinished confessional, head in his hands.

“Sam,” she called. “I wish you’d reconsider.”

He raised his head, gazed at her for a moment, then suddenly shot to his feet, hands flying to his throat, and shrieked,
“Run, Maddie, they found me, run, run for all of us.”
He started to choke, she could hear it, his desperate, dying gasps for breath.