Ghost Key

by Trish J. MacGregor

  In the kitchen, he replenished his spent torch with dish towels and Delaney’s bloody shirt. He doused all three torches with fresh gasoline, so that just the flame of a match would ignite them and create a formidable weapon against any brujo, of any age. He opened the fridge, looking for bottled water that his trio would need as soon as they awakened.

  The hawk started screaming.

  He dropped everything he held and raced out onto the deck. Liberty flew frantically from one end of the porch to the other, diving at small fog clusters on either side of the deck, trying to drive them back. But the fog moved persistently toward the hybrid humans, his new shifters.

  Unarmed, Wayra moved toward the cluster of fog on the right and took it into himself, sucked it right into his mouth, down his throat, into his lungs. It was like inhaling a personal history, except that it burned and then became an agonizing pulse in the center of his chest. He pounded his chest with his fist, struggling to drive the pain back. He moved quickly to the other side of the deck and sucked in this fog, too, down into his cells and blood, down into the very marrow of his bones, and began to shift.

  Within the fog he swallowed, some of the brujos fled. Others were too stupid, young, or naïve to flee—and they were obliterated, crushed by Wayra’s transformation from human to other. But suddenly he couldn’t breathe. Something monstrously huge and hard, like chunks of stone, blocked his air passages. He started choking, the world tilted to the right, the left, his peripheral vision went dark. He stumbled forward, fists pounding his chest, trying to dislodge whatever it was. Blackness swam across his vision, his knees gave way. He was unconscious before he hit the deck.

  * * *

  Maddie came to in the attic.

  A dim light was on and it didn’t illuminate the dust, the grime on the tiny rectangular window, the scuff marks on the filthy wooden floor, the ceiling and walls with their peeling paint. She had spent untold hours in here, restrained on the cot, where the air stank of endings, terror, urine, despair. In here, her life was truly on hold, her consciousness imprisoned. But now there were two other cots in the attic, bolted to the floor as hers was, as though hosts were psychotics who had to be strapped in and shut up.

  Whit, in Sam’s body, was in here, too. Dominica had convinced herself that she loved Whit as she once had loved Wayra, a mythic love that transcended life and death, time and space. Never mind that it was total bullshit, that Dominica’s feelings toward Wayra had been precipitated by the ways in which he was different from her, as though he were a kind of trophy.

  Look at me, look at this shapeshifter who loves me, it means I’m special, has a shifter ever loved you? Her feelings for Whit were merely convenience. He was here, available, and he was nuts about her. Whit, who was now touching Maddie’s body, whispering sweet nothings to Dominica, who fell for it.

  If Dominica won, Maddie shuddered to think how things might evolve. At the nightmare end of the spectrum, hosts might eventually unionize, demand rights, sit at the bargaining table with brujo reps. They might hammer out agreements on how long a brujo could occupy a host, the health benefits for a host, the parameters of what a brujo could force a human to do. Aside from the obvious problems with this horror, brujos lied. They lied for all the same reasons that the living lied—to save their own asses, to make themselves look better, to escape punishment. Forget unions and compromise. Once you compromised with a brujo, you pretty much sold your soul.

  “It’ll be light soon,” Whit said. “Our calling card should be delivered shortly.”

  “Good. We’ll follow them, make sure they do it correctly.”

  When Whit wrapped his arms around Dominica, Maddie didn’t resist, didn’t shriek, didn’t try to seize control of her body. She simply didn’t have the energy. Even if she’d been able to fight, it wasn’t worth it, not when she was this close to being put into a deep sleep from which she might escape. If anything, Sam Dorset’s fondling and kisses and Dominica’s soft moans of pleasure only fueled Maddie’s rage. Then Dominica uttered words she’d stolen from Gypsy Woman’s blog and Maddie felt like vomiting. “All that’s within my heart, I say to you each time I look into your eyes.”

  With that, Whit fell onto her, and they groped at each other’s clothes and bodies and Maddie’s rage collapsed into terror as she realized that what she’d thought would be a few fondles and kisses was about to become full-blown sex. She reached for Sanchez, reached and reached, but nothing happened. She tried to vault out of her body, but couldn’t do it. Panicked, she struggled to recall how she’d fled her body before, how her consciousness had broken free of her physical self and soared. Up and out, up and out, up and out, c’mon, please …

  She couldn’t do it. But she suddenly felt Sam’s essence, his consciousness, fighting Whit. Maddie reached out to him. Sam, it’s Maddie. Don’t fight him. Cling to your rage when he starts putting you into the deep sleep. It’ll keep you conscious. Maybe we have a shot at escaping.

  Maddie? Christ, I can hear you, I … I’m so sorry, I … knew what he hoped to do and I … I just don’t have the strength to fight him, he inflicts too much pain …

  Just endure it. They’re going to plunge us into the deep sleep, Sam, and if you can cling to your awareness, we can get out of here.

  I’ll try. I’m so sorry this is happening to you, I’m so incredibly sorry for what I … tried to do to Kate and now … now to you, but it’s not me, Maddie, it’s not me …

  I know, Sam. I know. I’ve lived with this abomination inside me for months.

  They can’t hear us, can they?

  Not right this second. But as soon as they’re done with us, they’ll be more aware. Just do what I’m telling you, Sam. Anger, rage, your passionate desire to be free … it’ll trigger chemical reactions in your brain that will help you remain conscious. Just pretend that you’re sleeping.

  I—

  He stopped abruptly and in the ensuing silence, Maddie felt everything she didn’t want to feel—Sam pumping away inside her, Whit using Sam’s voice to groan like a pig, her own voice crying out. She desperately wanted to tear apart the pleasure Dominica enjoyed with her body. But her exhaustion drove her, instead, into her virtual cave.

  She put on a Led Zeppelin album and cranked the volume up as high as it would go. The music pounded and throbbed against the walls of her consciousness and Dominica bolted away from Sam and slapped her hands over her ears.

  “Jesus, she’s playing Led Zeppelin so loud I can feel it in my teeth.”

  “Ignore her,” Whit said, reaching for her again, nuzzling her neck.

  “It’s impossible to ignore her. We should get moving, Whit.”

  “I know. It’s just nice being with you like this, Nica. And neither of our hosts resisted too much until now. Maybe they’re adapting to the rules.”

  “They might as well. It’ll make life easier for all of us.”

  “Listen, once we’ve got the entire island and all those assholes in the government, let’s move in together.”

  Oh, sure, by all means, Maddie thought. Move in together, kill each other.

  One final embrace, then they got up, dressed, and Whit went over to one of the cots and stretched out. Dominica stretched out on the cot again. “See you soon, Whit. Be sure to put Sam in very deep. It may be hours before we return.”

  Dominica began to fiddle with Maddie’s brain and blood chemistry and she steeled herself against it, conjuring every terrible thing the bitch had done to her all these months—sex without her consent, unbearable pain, the horror of being a prisoner within her body, the endless hours strapped to this miserable cot, so deep within the Snow White sleep that she didn’t even dream. And that was just for starters.

  As Dominica flooded her body with endorphins, raised her sugar levels, slowed her heartbeat, Maddie’s fury escalated into a murderous wrath that she held tightly within. Even so, she could feel her body shutting down, surrendering, losing the battle.

  She grasped onto those moments in
the salt marsh when Sanchez had held her, kissed her, when her lungs had breathed only for herself, when her heart had beat only for herself. She clung to those moments outside the Island Market, when she had been free. She took those sensations and emotions with her as she fell into the abyss of darkness.

  The Final Days

  March 21–22

  It turns out that an eerie type of chaos can lurk just behind a façade of order—and yet, deep inside the chaos lurks an even eerier type of order.

  —Douglas Hofstadter

  Eighteen

  The sun peeked up over the horizon and showered the bank of fog in a reddish light that made it look as if it were bleeding. The sight unsettled Sanchez. Even worse, though, was how the first light allowed him to grasp just how huge the fog was. It seemed to stretch at least half a mile on either side of the cemetery. Although it still hadn’t entered the cemetery, Sanchez felt it was just a matter of time and was likely to happen sooner rather than later.

  In just the last few hours, the fog had grown bolder and now covered Cemetery Point. Technically, the point wasn’t part of the actual graveyard, where the headstones and mausoleums were, and so far, the fog hadn’t ventured into that area. Zee had ordered everyone to move themselves and their vehicles into the graveyard and had set up a fully armed perimeter security. They hid in trucks, in trees, on top of the trailers, and crouched behind the outermost gravestones. Zee’s private army. Even Sanchez had been drafted.

  He and Jessie huddled in a cart not far from the gate, the AK-47 between them, a carton of grenades on the floor in front of the passenger seat. Zee still had it in his head that his army could defend their territory—the cemetery—against these brujos. He had lost sight of the fact—or perhaps never recognized it as strongly as Sanchez—that they were prisoners here. The brujos had them right where they wanted them, where they could seize them in one fell swoop.

  Even when Sanchez tried to interpret these events as he might a dream, he reached the same conclusion: Armageddon was just around the bend. It wasn’t the end-time Zee and his group foresaw, but could very well be their personal end-time.

  Sanchez suddenly heard multiple vehicles racing up Gulf Boulevard. Holdouts? Probably not. The fog was so pervasive you couldn’t outrun it. He started the cart and moved closer to the gate. A vehicle appeared in the fog, a dark shape, maybe a truck or jeep, moving fast.

  As it approached the gate, he saw it was a large dump truck. No one opened fire on it. Their orders were to shoot only if threatened—in other words, if a vehicle barreled through the cemetery fence or gate or the fog crossed into the graveyard. The dump truck didn’t slow, didn’t stop, just kept on going, but something was rolled out the back of it. The fog instantly covered whatever it was, as if the brujos within had to sniff or taste or claim it. Then the fog rolled swiftly away from it, retreating all the way across the street, into the trees on the other side.

  “What the hell.” Sanchez leaped out with his weapon and ran over to the gate.

  In the middle of the road lay two bodies, their legs tangled in the sheets. A man and a woman. She was sprawled on her stomach, the man lay on his back. Blood saturated their clothes, clumped like the dregs of sleep in the corners of the man’s eyes and dried under his nose, on his lips, beneath his ears. They had both bled out. Despite the blood, Sanchez recognized Fritz, Zee’s son, and knew the woman was Fritz’s wife, Diane.

  He told Jessie to stay, whistled shrilly to warn the others, and unlatched the gate. Sanchez walked quickly out into the road, his heart drumming, his hands frozen on the assault rifle. Forget interpreting any of this as a dream; the whole thing had collapsed into nightmare country.

  He trained his weapon on the fog on the other side of the road, some of it visible through the trees. He couldn’t hear the brujo litany, but sensed the ghosts within the fog chattering among themselves. They didn’t number in the hundreds. Dozens, perhaps, but not hundreds. A positive sign, he thought, unless this group was just a scouting party. He felt these ghosts were at the lower end of the hierarchy in the brujo army, the ones who were still confused by the fact that they were dead but conscious. Some of them had seized locals early on, locals who had known Fritz, fished with him, gone boating with him, done business with him over the years. And the memories of those hosts remained vivid in their collective consciousness. They understood that Fritz’s death meant Zee and his little army would attack and perhaps they weren’t too keen on fighting this battle.

  Sanchez stopped beside the bodies. He didn’t want to touch them but couldn’t stand the sight of their open eyes. He knelt and shut Diane’s eyes first and immediately saw how she and Fritz had died, cannibalized by brujos within a fog, bled from the inside out. He also saw the larger picture, the cheering audience, Dominica’s tribe in their host bodies and in their natural forms, the despicable mutant ghosts.

  He couldn’t bring himself to touch Fritz’s eyes. He didn’t want any more details of their deaths. But the highways of blood that crisscrossed his eyeballs compelled him to close Fritz’s eyes, and as he did so, he saw that Dominica had intended to hang the two, but that something had interfered. So she had instructed the fog to attack. The images Sanchez saw of the attack were so hideous and brutal that they continued even when he was no longer touching Fritz, as though they were permanently etched into his brain cells, his DNA. He felt what Fritz had felt in his final moments, the agonizing explosion of capillaries, veins, arteries, organs, a body turned against itself, an immune system that hadn’t just failed, but had collapsed completely.

  He suddenly heard, There’s something older than the chasers and ultimately it will save you.

  The images dried up and by then Sanchez was doubled over gasping for breath. His mother materialized beside him and gripped the back of his neck tightly; he could feel the pressure, the warmth of her hand, just like the hand of a living person. Her breath brushed his cheek and he caught the fragrance of her skin, her hair, all of it intensely real, there, present. Had she spoken to him about something older than the chasers? Or was it something he’d picked up from Fritz?

  “Get up, Nick,” his mother whispered. “Fast. Don’t let them think you’re weak.”

  His head ached and throbbed, his vision blurred, he felt like he might puke, he didn’t want to move. But he didn’t intend to get seized, so he stumbled to his feet, swept up his weapon, aimed it at the fog. A cart filled with men from Zee’s camp drew alongside him, and the driver hissed, “Get the bodies loaded fast.”

  As half a dozen men hopped out of the cart, Sanchez moved in front of it, aware that his mother remained nearby but was no longer visible. He eyed the fog on the other side of the road. “Stay the fuck back.” He spoke sharply but quietly. “We don’t intend you harm. We only want to bury our dead.”

  The chatter got louder, pulsing and thumping against his temples. The fog crept out from the shadows of the trees, eddying, swaying, but didn’t move any closer to him, the cart, or the bodies. Jessie howled and raced back and forth along the inside of the fence. Sanchez kept his weapon trained on the center of the fog until the cart whispered toward the cemetery, the bodies of Zee’s son and daughter-in-law on board. Then he backed away, slowly, his stomach knotted, his trigger finger aching.

  Just before he reached the gate, the fog sprang across the road like some wild, hungry beast, moving so swiftly that thick, long tongues of the stuff wrapped around his knees. An arctic cold bit through his jeans and pierced skin, muscles, bone. His knee joints felt as if they were ripped apart and tossed into a shredder. His legs collapsed beneath him. He slammed against the dirt road, lost his grip on the rifle, and it clattered just out of his reach.

  Sanchez rolled, struggled to vault to his feet, to run, but the fog formed a cold cocoon around his chest, thighs, and ankles that prevented him from getting up. His mother shouted, her voice needle sharp. But even as she shouted and he struggled to hear her exact words and to break the hold of the fog, something entered his bod
y through his skull. He felt the invasion, the violation, the utter and complete desecration of his mind, body, soul. His mother’s voice faded away.

  He didn’t know how long this hungry ghost was inside of him; it felt like lifetimes. He realized this was Dominica, the bruja who had held Maddie captive for so many months, and she tasted him, read him, sipped from his being as though he were a cup of hot, milky chocolate. His RV experience, his ability to read whatever touched him, leaped to his defense. He tasted her, read her, plundered, and plunged into her deepest memories. But he swam through madness. Most of her memories weren’t linear, weren’t connected to anything else. They existed as isolated islands of pleasure or despair, of hope or hopelessness, sweeping contrasts. He gleaned what he could and fled the weight and confusion and lunacy of her memories.

  As she tried to accommodate herself to his body, it triggered something in his immune system that made it easier for her to adjust to physical life. The virus. This was the virus that O’Donnell and the CDC and FEMA and all the other government agencies believed was a biological weapon.

  Sanchez started laughing. He couldn’t help it. The real terrorists weren’t amorphous enemies in the Mideast, they were the dead, the ancient dead, like this bruja whose existence dated back so many centuries he couldn’t count them all. The harder he laughed, the more difficult it was for her to seize control of his brain, his organs, and especially his lungs and heart.

  Breathe for me, she whispered, her voice strangely seductive. Let your heart beat for me.

  Keep laughing, Nick, his mother shouted at him. Keep laughing.

  Who’s this bitch? Dominica demanded. Your mother? Your alcoholic mother is giving you advice?

  Even though his body was paralyzed, he continued to laugh, tears coursing down his cheeks, and Dominica’s soft, slippery voice moved around inside him. So you’re the man Maddie thinks she loves, Sanchez? What a worthless piece of shit you are, you and your empty life, your alcoholic mother, your temperamental father, your sister with all her intellectual pretensions. But you would make a great host for Whit, so we haven’t seen the last of each other, you and I.