Apparition (The Hungry Ghosts) (41 page)

“We burned a way through this shit.” The monkeys’ screeches were so loud Lauren had to shout to be heard. “But we’ve got to move fast. The vines grow back together in minutes.”

“They’re sentient.” Tess swept her bag off the ground, slung it over her shoulder, and fell into line behind her mother, Wayra, Ricardo, with Ian bringing up the rear.

“It’s all sentient,” Ricardo said. “We’re moving through Esperanza’s memories. Tell her, shifter. You know it as well as I do.”

“Her memories?” Lauren exclaimed.

“More like a goddamn nightmare,” Ian said.

“I think Ricardo’s right,” Wayra said. “The city seems to be … reliving her own history. When Esperanza was nonphysical, she could be anything she wanted to be—a jungle, mountains, an island, cold, hot, and everything in between.”

Shit.
Tess moved faster.

2.

Charlie reached the engine compartment first, Sanchez covering his back, the others behind him. The door was locked but it was also flimsy, and when he threw his young virtual body against it, all that mass and muscle, the door sprang inward.

The engineer, standing at the console, glanced around and smiled and motioned them to come in. She was a diminutive woman with black hair so long and thick and gorgeous it invited fingers to comb through it, hands to caress it. The console she played like a piano looked like something from a science fiction movie, all lights and holograms rendered in 3-D. She got to her feet and came toward them. Her jeans had patches at the knees, the shirt she wore matched the pale blue of her eyes, she was barefoot.

Jessie barked at her, but when she held out her hand, the dog went over to her, sniffed her hand, then stretched out her front legs, arched her back, and dropped to the floor.

“So good to see you all,” she said.

Charlie grasped her extended hand. The skin felt smooth and cool. “Who’re you, exactly?”

“Oh.” She gave a small, embarrassed laugh, lifted her arms quickly, and became Kali, the Amazon parrot who had been his constant companion until she had dived into the whiteness that covered El Bosque. An instant later, she was the woman again.

“A shifter?” Newton exclaimed.

“Not at all, Newt. I’m the fourteenth council member, the quintessence of Esperanza. Kali, at your service.” She bowed deeply, mocking him, mocking the council. When she straightened, she fixed her hands to her narrow hips, a little teapot. “Did you really think this experiment would proceed without scrutiny? Without safeguards? That you chasers would be given everything without offering something in return? As it is, the impact of the events set in motion by the corrupt members of your council can’t be undone. So I’m trying to find ways around it.”

“What … are you doing here now?” Karina asked. “Why didn’t you show up before?”

“I was always around, Karina. I was in the posada for decades, where you all perceived me as an interesting parrot ghost. I lived in the trees around the city, I flew freely through restaurants, cafés, an intriguing anomaly for tourists and residents. Even the
brujos
could see me. They tried to manipulate and control me just as the chasers did and quickly discovered it wasn’t as easy or simple as they had hoped. Other trains are already picking up those individuals throughout the city who have chosen to stay behind when Esperanza is removed from the physical world. The people from El Bosque we’ll be picking up will have the same choice, as will all of you.”

“Even
brujos
will have a choice?” Pedro asked.

“Certainly. They have been as much a part of this city as everyone else.”

“They’ll fight you on it,” Karina said.

“We’ll see.”

With that, Kali slipped into the engineer’s chair, her fingers playing those intricate keys, and Charlie and Newton just stood there, understanding they—the chaser council—no longer controlled Esperanza’s destiny and probably never had.

“Hold on, just hold on,” Newton burst out. “The council has served Esperanza faithfully for a millennium.”

“Really, Newt?”

Kali flicked her hand into the air and holographic images appeared of Newton and Maria, colluding, scheming, fixing votes, fucking. Even Maria’s choices for a future life appeared, images of Newton and Maria as peasants in some repressive regime where she was stoned to death for adultery and he, a meteorologist, was executed for prognosticating about the weather.

Newton watched in horror, then burst into tears and ran from the engine compartment like a two-year-old. Charlie leaned forward, his mouth against Kali’s cheek. “That was cruel and unnecessary.”

“Let’s see how you measure up, Charlie.”

Another flick of her hand created holographic images from Charlie’s life, his snafus in court, his personal failings. He relived the time when he had gone out for drinks with a female prosecutor to whom he was attracted and got her to drop charges against his client. He hadn’t slept with her, he was married then, he loved his wife and Lauren was pregnant with Tess. But it had come much too close for comfort.

The display pissed him off and Charlie jammed his hands under Kali’s arms, lifted her up, this little thing that weighed practically nothing at all, and hurled her out of the chair. Leo caught her before she slammed into the wall and quickly set her down on the compartment floor. “Jesus, Charlie, what the fuck’s
wrong
with you?” Leo shouted.

“She…”—he stabbed his hand at the brunette, whoever the hell she was—“is one of
them,
Leo. Just as corrupt as Maria and her gang. Don’t you see? It’s their final extravaganza. They create the black sludge that swallows bits of the city. They create the blinding whiteness that covers the disappeared area. They create total chaos. Then they provide the solution. All hail the corrupt members of the council.”

Kali got to her feet and pointed at the console. The train started to slow down. “You were always a wild card, Charlie. A gringo, through and through. But you had support from some of the council members, so I thought,
Hey, why not? It’s an experiment, right?
Your problem is that you never fully left your life as Charlie Livingston, Tess’s father, Lauren’s husband, Maddie’s grandfather. And because you were so young compared to the rest of the council, you were an anomaly, the white crow.”

“None of what you just said convinces me you’re anything but part of Maria’s group,” Charlie spat. “Or just another hungry ghost.”

“And it’s not my place to convince you otherwise.” She looked at Leo. “Thanks for catching me.” Then she hurled her left hand into the air, and said, “I’m curious about this, Charlie.”

The scenes flashed by: Charlie in the posada where Tess and Ian had stayed as transitionals, and Kali the parrot greeting him hello as he tossed her peanuts; Charlie and Kali the night he’d gone to Wayra’s home, their obvious camaraderie; Charlie and Kali at that first council meeting at the Última Café. The prosaic scenes suggested that Charlie had known she wasn’t a hungry ghost or a corrupt council member and made him look like a liar or a fool.

Or both.

“So this is, what, a life review?” Illary asked.

“Up until Newton’s outburst and Charlie’s tantrum, it was supposed to be a rescue mission.”

“We’re wasting time,” Sanchez said. “Let’s get to El Bosque.”

The others nodded and Kali pointed at the console again and the train picked up speed once more. It charged along the tracks, now covered in sand that sparkled in the moonlight. To either side of them, heaps of sand, dunes of sand, lay everywhere, a glinting blanket that lay across roads, drifted up against the sides of buildings, stranded cars. Here and there, Charlie saw people emerging from wherever they had hidden during the storm’s fury.

“What about them?” Pedro asked, motioning at the people outside.

“They’ll be picked up by one of the other trains,” Kali said. “All of you should go back into the first car. It’s going to get rough and wild.”

Charlie lingered as the others hurried out of the engine compartment. “I apologize for throwing you,” he said. “But not for my suspicions.”

“Your suspicions are healthy, Charlie. And just so you know I’m not the monster you’re thinking I am, the conductor didn’t die. Esteban is sitting back there in the first car, enjoying Sanchez’s dog. He has been with me too long to be allowed to die beneath the wheels of the train he has ridden faithfully for decades.”

Charlie leaned back and peered into the first car. Sure enough, Esteban the conductor was sitting beside Jessie, his arm thrown across her back as he talked with Maddie and Sanchez.

“But his blood spattered my face and clothes.”

“Illusion, just as Esteban said.”

He looked down at his clothes and watched the bloodstains fading away. “What will happen to Esteban when Esperanza is removed?”

“I suspect he’ll reincarnate.”

“And what will happen to chasers who choose to stay behind in whatever replaces the city, Kali?”

“You mean, what will happen to you and Karina?”

Yes, he supposed that was exactly what he was asking
. He nodded.

“You’ve already gotten a taste of that. Communication between the living and the dead won’t be possible anymore. The living won’t see the dead. You won’t be able to assume virtual forms. There won’t be any council, no
brujos.
But you’ll still have all the splendor of the afterlife at your disposal.”

Charlie tried to envision it but couldn’t. “What will happen to you?”

“I’ve spent most of my afterlife period as a parrot and find I’m very comfortable in that world. Perhaps I’ll reincarnate as a parrot in the Amazon. I haven’t decided yet. It depends on Ricardo, on what he does.”

“Why?”

“Because if the consciousness of one
brujo
can evolve, then there’s hope. It’s what I recently said to Lauren.”

Before Charlie had a chance to ask her about that remark, she suddenly leaned forward, peering intently ahead. “What the hell. Do you see
that,
Charlie?”

Just ahead, a jungle of tremendous trees consumed the track and spread to either side of it so fast that within seconds, only the tips of the surrounding mountains were visible in the moonlight. “If you’re the essence of Esperanza, then you’re doing this, right? You’re creating the jungle?”

“My consciousness is creating it but not from the part of me that is conscious. Do you understand what I’m saying? It’s like when you and Karina created your beautiful home, Charlie, with that jungle in your backyard. Everything that chasers and
brujos
create here in Esperanza is created from the raw materials of my memories, my consciousness, and your own.”

“Then if we created the jungle, we can get through it,” Charlie said, and desperately wanted it to be true.

“I hope so. Better buckle up, Charlie.”

I hope so?
That was the best she could do?

Charlie quickly ducked into the first car with the others. Esteban, the conductor, nodded at Charlie and touched two fingers to his temple, as if tipping his hat. “Amigo, thanks for trying to pull me onboard.”

“Thank you for helping us out.”

Esteban opened his arms, an odd smile reshaping his mouth. “And here we are.”

The train picked up speed and Newton pressed his face up to the window. “Jungle? Did you see that jungle out there? What’s this crazy bitch doing now?” he demanded.

Jessie started howling and crawled under Sanchez’s seat.

The priest blessed himself.

Leo knuckled his eyes.

Maddie reached for Sanchez’s hand.

Sanchez raised her hand to his mouth and kissed the back of it.

Illary pressed her hands to her thighs.

Karina bit at her lower lip and Charlie threaded his fingers through hers.

Then the ghost train, Esperanza 14, charged into the jungle, into a tunnel of glistening green.

Twenty

The City’s Memories

1.

The moon sped across the sky, night collapsed into dawn, the sun punched a hole in the sky and waves of heat shimmered in the air. Wayra’s internal clock screamed it was all wrong, that night and day were too short or too long, that the position of the rising sun was no more accurate than the moon’s position had been. Even though he understood they were traipsing through Esperanza’s memories of her own history, he didn’t have any idea what it meant for him, for any of them. He longed to find Illary, to return to their home in the foothills of Mariposa, to resume their lives. But he knew the last part wasn’t going to happen, not now, not ever.

Reality had been turned inside out like a dirty sock.

The trees grew more profuse but didn’t provide any relief from the heat. Instead, the canopy trapped the heat and humidity inside of it and turned the jungle into a sweat lodge. His perspiration-soaked clothes clung to him, sweat dripped into his eyes. Monkeys kept screeching and swinging through the trees, insects swarmed and chirred, and beetles the size of his hand scurried across the ground, up the trunks, and into the branches.

He had no idea how far they had traveled or how long. When they had first left the church, the depot had lain a mile or two north. The screaming muscles in his legs, his fatigue, told him they had gone fifteen or twenty miles or even farther. As the geography changed, so did distance, time, space.

Even though they tried to stick together, Tess had trouble keeping up and they finally stopped to rest in an area that looked as if a machete had been taken to the abundant growth. Remnants of a campfire were evident within a circle of stones, the ashes cold, physical evidence that they weren’t alone in the jungle, that other groups of refugees were also headed for the depot. He didn’t find any comfort in the thought. Suppose the other groups were hostile?

Wayra sank to the ground and dug his last bottle of water from his pack. The others did the same. No one spoke. He knew they were all thinking the same thing. What would happen when they ran out of water, when the geography shifted again?

He dropped his head back and peered upward and glimpsed the sun directly overhead now. High noon. Night to dawn to high noon in—what? Minutes? An hour?