The Departed

by Shiloh Walker

  “Yes. Halloween is in two more days.”

  Tristan’s image flickered, wavered. “Then it hasn’t happened yet—they won’t do it until Halloween. We can still save her…”

  * * *

  HER first look at the hotel had already told Dez everything she needed to know—it would be way too pricey for her peace of mind if she just did the rack rates. No help for it, but she’d be damned if she paid rack rates.

  So she called a friend. The travel agent had a line on all sorts of good deals. Even then, it wouldn’t be cheap. Fortunately, Dez had money in her account and it was even more nicely padded now since she’d deposited the check from Myra. A check that had been far too generous.

  Forty-five minutes later, she was checked in, following a uniformed bellhop to her room—assuming you could call his pseudo-safari gear a uniform. She smirked a little, shaking her head. But hey, she wasn’t carrying the suitcase or even her vanity case. If they wanted the bellhops wearing pseudo-safari gear or even real safari gear, so be it.

  Once he’d tackled the dangerous task of stowing her suitcases in her room, she gave him a couple of wrinkled ones from her pocket and shut the door, studying the room. She’d spent the previous night sleeping at a roadside motel with a full-size bed. The mattress had sagged in the middle and it had creaked and squeaked every time she moved.

  This room looked like paradise.

  Good thing, considering how much she was paying.

  Sighing, she made her way over to the bed and collapsed, facedown, without bothering to strip off her jacket. She barely had the energy to toe off her shoes. Five minutes horizontal—that was all she needed. Just five minutes.

  It took only forty-five seconds for him to find her.

  The temperature in the room dropped and she sighed, turning onto her back and watching as Tristan shimmered into view. “You can’t sleep!”

  “I’m not,” she said simply. Sitting up, she braced her elbows on her knees and stared at him. “I’m tired, I’m stressed, and I just needed a few minutes.”

  “We don’t have a few minutes.” He started to pace, something that managed to stir up the air currents in the room, making it feel like the air conditioner was on. She was glad she’d left her jacket on. “We have to start looking for her now before it’s too late.”

  “Okay.” She rubbed her hands over her face and stood up. “But you’ve got to help me out. Where do I go? How do I start?”

  She expected him just to give her a blank stare.

  But to her surprise, he gave her another one of those grim smiles.

  “We should see if any of my so-called friends are around.”

  “And where do we find them?”

  “In the water park…most of us used to work here.” His image wavered, shoulders going up and down almost as if he’d sighed, and a strange, whispery sound slithered through the room. “It’s how it all came up. We had this thing going—not quite a club, really. We thought we were too cool for that. We called it a fraternity. We didn’t do mean shit—a few of them tried but I can’t stand mean shit. We were talking about our senior year—making it memorable. I was all for that—something people would never forget. But then…”

  His eyes closed a moment, then he opened them and looked at her. A smile twisted his lips. “I thought I was the one in charge, you know? I was such an arrogant idiot.”

  Her heart broke for him.

  “Have you remembered anything else about that night?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter, either. All that matters is this.”

  It wasn’t all—she could see that. He was still clinging to his rage, and that rage was going to chain him here if she didn’t help him. But for now, she’d go along with it.

  What they’d done to him, it did matter, it had to matter. But she wasn’t going to harp on it now. Not when they might be running on so little time. Giving him a smile, she said, “If you say so, Tristan. If that’s what you want. Well, then—let’s go look for these so-called pals of yours.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  “SO everything’s ready for tonight?”

  Brendan Moore leaned against the wall, studying everybody. He saw excitement. He also saw fear and nerves. He didn’t give a damn. It was going to be a party to remember—just the way they’d all planned. Nobody could get in the way now. They all knew what would happen if they tried, too.

  Besides, it was too late to stop things.

  Beau smirked and lifted his beer to his lips. “Oh, yeah. It’s ready. Man, people are going to freak.”

  “I still say we should have stuck with Halloween.”

  “Shut up, Kyle,” Brendan said, rolling his eyes. “The party tonight is the best way to do it. It’s supposed to be about senior year, anyway, not Halloween. Everybody from school will see it, and we’ll be in the middle, too—nice little alibi in case anything gets fucked up.” He paused and looked at each of them. “Not that anything is going to get fucked up, right? Mark, you took care of all the security shit, right?”

  Mark nodded, rocking a little, tugging on his lip. He wanted a drink. Needed it, but his stomach was fucking burning. If he had a drink, he’d puke. And he needed to quit drinking—that was part of why he was in this mess. Started drinking, hanging out with these assholes. He couldn’t believe they were doing this. Shit, he should have listened to Tristan, back when they still had a chance to talk to somebody about Brendan…

  “Mark, damn it, get your head out of your ass.”

  Jerking his head up, he stared at Brendan. His heart raced, his gut rolled. But he managed to smile. “Sorry, man—just running things through my mind, ya know. Don’t want anything to get fucked up.”

  Brendan stared at him for a long, hard moment and Mark hoped none of the fear he felt showed in his eyes, on his face.

  Finally Brendan looked away and Mark wanted to heave a sigh of relief, but he didn’t dare. Couldn’t let the guy know how scared he was, what he was thinking. Not Brendan. Not Beau, either.

  * * *

  THE noise was cacophonous—pushing past the level of deafening. Even before she drew near, Dez bolstered her shields. With that much noise, she’d need it. Even though she didn’t have the same connection to the living that she had with the dead, she knew better than to go unshielded, especially around chaos.

  It was going to be hard to pinpoint much of anything—damn it, she was the worst possible person to be doing this job. Worst possible person to help Tristan, it seemed, because he needed somebody who could connect with the living—all she could do was connect with him, and his memories were too fractured. He had no connection to what had happened after his death, just a desperate need for justice, to help this girl, wherever she was.

  Sighing, she pushed through the door and immediately a blast of muggy air wrapped around her. For a moment, it chased away the cold and she paused, enjoying it even as her eyes went wide at the sheer chaos she saw before her.

  No. It wasn’t chaos. Chaos didn’t quite touch this.

  Happy chaos didn’t even touch it. The shrieks of joy coming from the kids, the shouts and giggles. Without even realizing it, a smile curved her lips and she stood there, letting it settle over her.

  There weren’t many times in her life when she’d seen such…delight.

  A pint-sized tornado came blasting her way. Dez froze, watching as an exasperated mother followed, grabbing the girl before she could get around Dez and make it to the doors.

  So many sensations, so much emotion—all of them wrapping around her, flooding her. There was laughter, exhaustion, frustration, exhilaration—but overall, almost everything she allowed to filter through her shields felt…right.

  Dez stood there, all but wallowing in it. It was so exhilarating it took a minute to realize that something felt off. Wrong. Completely off. Utterly wrong. And terribly foul.

  A whisper of evil, underlain with terror. It skittered along her shields li
ke a slimy little beast trying to push its way inside her soul. She swallowed, closed her eyes, and tried to focus on it, but it was faint. So faint.

  Aware of the fact that she was catching attention standing there, she showed her wristband to the teenager sitting a few feet away from the door. Once she’d done that, she just wandered around the huge, open-air room, no destination in mind. Just wandering, trying to get a lock on that faint, insidious taint of wrong.

  It lay in the back of her throat like poison and she was glad she hadn’t eaten anything—she just might have started puking.

  “Are you looking for something?”

  Dez suppressed the urge to shiver as Tristan appeared at her side, too close. And cold—much colder than he’d been before. Being here was hard on him. She could see the icy glitter of rage in his eyes, see the emotional upheaval in his disturbingly solid form.

  Uneasy, she glanced past him and saw one of the children staring toward them. No…at Tristan. The look in the little girl’s eyes was a mix of fear and amazement. Damn it, Tristan was manifesting too fully. Looking around, she saw a rocky grotto with a sign—Over 18 only.

  Excellent. Many younger kids were more sensitive to the paranormal—she had to get him away from them before they started pointing at him. If too many kids began pointing at a guy no parents could see…well, she didn’t want to think about that. Draw no attention, a good motto.

  “We’ll talk in a minute,” she said, heading for that grotto.

  Once they were there, she sat on a lounge chair that let her see much of the water park and she started to study things. “Looking for something? Yeah, I guess. But I don’t know what it is.” She waited a beat, and then asked, “Do you have any idea?”

  Tristan shook his head no. His eyes closed and for the briefest moment, his image faded. But then he looked back at her, and his form strengthened once more and that glitter of rage in his eyes was even stronger. Bad, bad sign…too angry, getting too angry. “I don’t know anything, damn it. Shit, this is a waste of time. We need to go find Kyle, Mark. See if they’ll talk. Something.”

  “No.” Dez shook her head. “If I wasn’t meant to help, I wouldn’t have heard you. I’m here for a reason—believe that. And there’s something here, I can feel it.”

  The words had no sooner left her lips than she heard a bell. It was no delicate chime, either. It was loud, echoing through the cavernous room. And for some reason, the sound of it sent shivers racing down her spine.

  Like a puppet on a string, she found herself rising and following that sound, listening to the shrieks of laughter as she left the secluded grotto. Moments later, she stood at the entrance of what looked to be a huge fort, and at the top, there was what looked like an oversized wooden bucket. A very oversized wooden bucket. The sight of it made her gut clench and she didn’t even know why.

  It started to tip.

  The sound of laughter and shrieks grew louder and all the while, she grew colder and colder.

  Swallowing, she closed her eyes. Something was wrong…so very wrong.

  Tristan said her name, but she barely heard him. Barely even realized he was there. Dread crept through her. Although she knew it was the very last thing she should do, considering where she was and how many people were around her, considering what she suspected was going on, Dez lowered her shields.

  Logically, she could have expected nothing to happen, really. After all, the living didn’t call to her. But if that was the case, she wouldn’t have felt so overwhelmed just by the sheer delight of the children in this place, she supposed. Logically, she shouldn’t have felt much of anything.

  Maybe that was why it was so overwhelming when the wave of terror, pain, and desperation almost sent her to her knees. It hit hard, so hard and fast, in a rush of words and sensation and emotion.

  First, it was panic. Just sheer panic, followed by pain that wracked her body. Dez clutched her chest, felt like she was choking, gagging. But it wasn’t her. Then it eased, faded away, replaced by a ragged burn and a dismal, heavy weight in her heart, in her mind.

  The knowledge of death, coming soon.

  I’m going to die…will anybody know? Does anybody care? Do they even know I’m gone—

  The thought fizzed out, replaced by the sheer, utter terror, weariness, and pain, so much pain. And cold, mind-numbing cold. Something roared in Dez’s ears and for a minute she didn’t know if it was something she was hearing, if it was adrenaline or something else.

  Finally, though, she realized it sounded like a real sound. But not one she was hearing. It was coming from somewhere else—someone else. Water. Rushing water. Lots of it.

  Like a woman mesmerized, she continued to stare at that oversized bucket. There was the barest idea forming in her mind, but she couldn’t be right. It just wasn’t possible. It was unreal even to consider it. The sound of children’s laughter echoed all around and she swallowed, bile churning in her gut.

  Nobody would do that. What kind of sick fucks would do that—how could they do that?…

  Another stream of thoughts blasted her, mostly incoherent, but so full of terror. Oh, God…somebody, please…

  And in that moment, Dez managed to uproot her frozen feet and she was able to move.

  * * *

  “WHAT the…?”

  Mark blinked as he saw the chick eyeing the bucket. She was rubbing a hand over her chest, like she was having trouble breathing, too. His mom did that. She had asthma and he’d see her doing that when she was having more trouble than normal.

  But something about this woman had him thinking she wasn’t needing an inhaler, though. She had a look in her eye, a weird one, one that froze him to the bone. His bowels were about to turn to water, but there was something besides terror.

  Relief. Yeah. It was relief. If somebody knew now, if somebody did something now before Brendan’s damn plan got put into motion…Except she was walking away. She turned on her heel and walked out.

  No—

  He blinked, his eyes blurring. Denial burned inside him and he wanted to scream, wanted to rage. Fuck, fuck, fuck. His hands shook and he needed a drink, needed it so bad. Tipping his head back, he stared at the ceiling. God, I can’t do this, I just can’t…But how do I stop it?…

  Tristan had tried. He’d been so much tougher, so much stronger and braver. And look what they’d done to him. Mark was a fucking pussy. But if he didn’t do something, say something—and soon—he’d have to live with this. If he tried and failed and they killed him, so the fuck what?

  A breath shuddered out of him. He couldn’t live with it. He knew it. So he either needed to do something or just fucking slit his wrists and be done with it now, because he couldn’t be part of this. It was killing him already.

  He took a deep breath and swiped at the tears that had leaked out of his eyes. He needed to do it now. Before he lost his nerve again. Hoping his voice wouldn’t crack, he called out, “Hey, I need to go take a piss, man!”

  Luther, the forty-two-year-old ex-cop who worked with him in the afternoons, said, “You already did, and would you quit talking like that? Your mother would kill me if she heard you—she’ll think I taught you to talk like that.”

  “I’ll be back in a few.” Maybe. If I don’t die of a heart attack…He stood and automatically glanced at the security cameras. That was when he saw the woman again.

  She hadn’t left…

  She was striding down the hallway. Heading back toward the water park area. And she had a heavy duffel bag slung over one shoulder. One that didn’t look like any swim bag he’d ever seen. Her eyes glinted with determination and Mark swallowed.

  What are you doing?

  And for reasons he couldn’t explain, instead of hiding somewhere and making an anonymous call, he found himself heading to the water park. He got there just as she was pushing through the doors. Trailing after her, he watched as she breezed by the lifeguard checking the wristbands—they should have checke
d her bag, he thought as sweat collected and trickled down his neck. They should have checked—it was the rules.

  But they didn’t and he even knew why.

  She walked around with that I belong here attitude. Luther had told him all about that attitude. If you act like you got a right to be someplace, a lot of people won’t even question it. She acted like she belonged there, like there was nothing unusual about the bag she carried. Like there was nothing unusual about her walking, fully clothed, toward the three-story water fort.

  Mark’s radio buzzed, but he ignored it. Water was all over him now, but he ignored that, too. Nothing mattered now except her. She was near the edge of the first floor of the fort now, letting that bag slide off her hand. Something about the way she caught it made him think it was heavy. Very heavy, despite how easily she carried it. She dumped it on the ground and then turned, looked up at the water bucket.

  His heart leaped into his throat at the look in her eyes.

  Oh, fuck. She knows.

  Then she slanted a look his way.

  * * *

  SHE’D known he was following her almost from the second he came inside. She’d felt him, even through her shields. Felt his torment, his confusion—shit, he was almost as screwed up as some of her ghosts.

  Dez stared at him, her heart so full of fury, it took a moment to realize what she was seeing in his eyes. There was terror, yes, but there was also something else. Relief. And hope.

  One thought blasted at her shields, so strong and clear, she had to wonder if he had some sort of psychic skill— Oh, fuck. She knows. Shit, there was just too much stimulus coming at her here. It was driving her nuts.

  “Yeah.” She had to raise her voice to be heard over the water. “I know.” Flicking her wet hair back from her face, she glanced at his radio, then back at him. “What do you plan on doing about it?”