As she took the first shot, the automatic flash went off with a blinding blue light, which filled the entire hall and attracted a few curious glances. But Kate had better things to think about, as the two waiters who were after her had just reached the top of the stairs.
The young journalist caught sight of a door leading to a little hidden hallway. She made sure the waiters could not see her from the top of the stairs, and without a moment’s hesitation, she ventured into the hallway, closing the door behind her.
Laughter. The laughter of children came from the end of the tunnel. Kate ran forward and tried to find the source of the sound. The hall led to a room she had never seen. The wood-paneled walls rose to a height of a little more than six feet. Children’s frescoes depicting farmers, deer, and snowmen were hanging on all four walls.
A little antique carousel was spinning in the middle of the room. Horses, rabbits, pigs, and cats turned ceaselessly around the wrought-iron center. The saddles were marked with the KDF symbol. Each one of them had a little boy or girl on top, screaming joyfully. All around the carousel ran a waist-high rail, and to the side was the ride’s operator, who lackadaisically handled the controls as a military march blared from a gramophone. On a bench in the back, a group of middle-aged women were gossiping among themselves. Periodically, they would stop to look wearily at the children.
Kate glanced back. The door she had come through was still closed. She crept back and pushed the door ajar. She saw that the two waiters were still in the lobby, looking in every direction for her. Eventually, one of them ran off toward the bridge, and the other headed into the dining hall.
They had lost her. But she did not have much time.
Think, Kate, think. What are you going to do?
The obvious choice was to go back to her cabin and wait until the delirium subsided. That is, if it ever did. She wondered if Tarasov and his team at Wolf und Klee had been right all along. What if they had somehow gone back to 1939? Feldman, Cherenkov, and Carter had maintained that it was completely impossible. That it would violate the basic laws of physics. None of them was here now, however, seeing all of this.
Getting back to her cabin was not going to be easy. To get there she would have to cross through the lobby. The well-lit, crowded lobby with those two waiters chasing her. Not to mention her outfit would attract unwanted attention. She needed to find an outfit appropriate to the period.
As she took in her surroundings, Kate noticed a little girl who was sitting at the back of the nursery, completely alone and set apart from the noise of the rest of the children. She seemed focused, looking in Kate’s direction with contempt like kids do when something greatly displeases them. Brow furrowed, she began swinging her legs in her seat. It was not just her attitude that was different. Her clothes were much simpler than those the others wore. Instead of shiny leather shoes and a lace dress, she was wearing sandals and a gray linen dress that looked like it had seen better days. It was one or two sizes too big for her like she had inherited it from an older sister.
The girl lifted her hand and pointed straight at Kate. She remained unmoving, with her arm raised and eyes fixed on Kate. The effect was so shocking that Kate had to stifle the overwhelming urge to scream. She was on the verge of running away, but if she retraced her steps she would come across the two waiters and however many other people were now searching for her. The little girl lowered her arm before she cocked her head to one side like she was listening to something coming from far away. Despite the fact that Kate’s mental alarms were blaring, something drew her toward the girl.
She approached and managed to avoid the curious mothers, who remained seated on the bench. Kate kneeled down next to the girl, who stared at her without blinking.
“Hello,” Kate said. “May I sit beside you?”
The little girl nodded, legs still swinging beneath her seat.
“Why were you pointing at me?” Kate’s voice cracked, and her mouth was completely dry.
The little girl remained silent for a while and looked absently at the floor. Kate noticed that she looked malnourished and her left arm had a huge, ugly yellow bruise.
When Kate repeated the question, the girl turned to her.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she said very simply, her voice imbued with abject sorrow.
It was unnatural to hear such a small child use that tone of voice. It spoke of suffering, horrors, and unabated hardships. It spoke of lost innocence.
“I know,” Kate managed to utter. “I’m lost and I just want to get back to my cabin. You wouldn’t happen to know . . .”
The girl shook her head and looked sullen. “I don’t mean here,” she finally answered as she lightly stroked her bruise. “I mean now. You aren’t from here. You cannot be here. She will be very mad if she sees you.”
“She? Who? Why will she be mad?” Kate babbled out. “Who are you talking about?”
The little girl reached out and touched Kate’s plastic watch with pictures of animal heads and colorful beads. Her niece, Andrea, had given it to her as a present. The little girl looked at it with dreamy eyes as if she were imagining herself wearing it on her own wrist.
“Do you like it?” Kate asked, taking off the watch and handing it to the child.
The little girl took it in her hands with reverence as if she could not believe something so beautiful could exist. She ran her hands over the beads, enjoying the feel of the plastic like it was something exotic. Suddenly, her knuckles went white, and her fist shut tight. She looked up in terror.
“We have to go,” she said full of fear. “She’s coming.”
“She? Who do you mean?”
“She’s coming! She’s coming!” She stood up, clearly shaken. “The others will follow. We have to go.”
Without a glance back the little girl ran toward the door at the back of the room. Thinking about what to do, Kate noticed the same sweet, metallic odor that had become familiar to her. The smell alone made her stomach turn. The carousel had come to a stop, and all of the children silently stared at Kate with empty eyes. Their mothers had stopped their chatter to fix their attention on her. One had dropped her eyes to the floor, while another woman, who had been knitting, held her hands frozen in midmotion, like a statue.
Every one of the women had something in her eyes. Something alien. Something dark.
Kate’s blood turned to ice. Not waiting a second longer, she got to her feet and walked backward toward the door the little girl had used. Her right hand drifted toward her camera, which hung around her neck. A loud click-click-click echoed throughout the room as Kate snapped a flurry of pictures.
It was enough to set the chaos in motion. All of the children simultaneously began shouting at the top of their lungs. These were not normal screams, however. They were deep, savage shrieks, far too cruel to come from the mouths of children. They were rough and bestial. They were howls of warning.
There she is. There she is. There she is. There she is. There she is. There she is. There she is. There she is. There she is. There she is. There she is. There she is. There she is. There she is. There she is. There she is . . .
The screams reverberated with such force that Kate thought her head might explode like a live grenade. She put her hands over her ears, but the collective noise sounded inside her head.
It hurt. It was painful.
Kate turned around and sprinted out of the room. A loud noise came from behind her like something being ripped, but she didn’t stick around to find out what it was. Her life, or perhaps her sanity, was at stake.
The door led to a long service hallway that was much simpler than the hallways in first class. At the end of the hall, she caught a glimpse of the girl and her terror-stricken face before she disappeared around a corner.
Kate sprinted up the hall, her camera bouncing hard against her chest. Something was chasing her, rounding each corner with what sounded like a watery gurgle.
This part of the ship was like a maze. The cei
ling was a complex filigree of thick cables and metal pipes instead of the beautiful wood paneling adorning the other corridors. Every so often the hall forked, and it did not take long for Kate to be completely disoriented. Her only saving grace was the little girl running a few feet ahead. Kate knew that if she lost track of the girl, she would be hopelessly lost and at the mercy of whatever was after her.
Something heavy fell to the floor behind her with a tremendous clatter. Whatever was chasing her, it was getting closer. The hall lights were becoming dimmer as whatever it was began absorbing every ray of light, like a vast black hole of wickedness. The lights flickered and slowly went out. Gradually, the entire hallway was being swallowed into darkness as if the electric current had lost its intensity. Kate was blindly running, somehow panting and gagging simultaneously. Ahead of her the girl’s gray dress blended into the darkness. The long blonde hair that seemed to float above the ground acted as her only guide.
If you trip, you’re fucked, Kate. Watch your damn step.
She ran into the opening to a staircase that led to the lower decks, and Kate knew where she was. It was one of the points of access to second class. The little girl moved down the stairs with difficulty, her sandals clapping as she clung to the handrail.
“Wait,” Kate shouted as she tried to catch her breath. “Don’t go down there. It’s dangerous.”
The little girl ignored her and continued her descent. Kate hesitated, but the sounds of whatever was chasing her were becoming louder. She placed her weight on the first step. The staircase was completely black like the depths of a cave. There was no light at all, and the shadows seemed to be moving restlessly, waiting.
Another crash sounded closer. She could wait no longer and began to move down the stairs.
Into the darkness.
XXXI
Once when she was little, Kate had been trapped in an elevator. In those days she was known as Catalina Soto, and she lived with her parents in Barcelona. Although she couldn’t recall how old she was at the time of this incident, she remembered being alone. She had been going up when there had been a power outage, and the elevator came to a halt. From there things only got worse.
The worst part had been when the lights went out and little Catalina was alone in the dark, her only companion being the heavy dread crawling up her legs.
Too young to be rational, she did not even consider that the blackout would only last a few minutes at most. Terrified, she began screaming. It was Sunday, however, and very few of her neighbors were home. Those twenty minutes trapped on the elevator constituted one of the most traumatic experiences of her life.
As a souvenir from that experience, Kate Kilroy had developed a profound fear of the dark.
Now each step down into the darkness required a colossal effort on her part. The hallway light was dimming, and it didn’t take long for her to be immersed in total darkness. Anxiety impeded her breathing. She gasped for air but felt like she was drowning.
She looked back up, yearning for the rectangle of dim light that marked the stairwell’s opening. Without realizing it she took a few steps back up, toward the light and fresh air.
But then she saw it.
She was not sure what to call it, but something created a silhouette at the top of the stairs. Kate could only make out a vague shape that looked remotely human, but it was definitely not a person. At least it did not move like one. It somehow glided along the walls and floor at the same time. Darker than the surrounding shadows, it was a black hole absorbing all light that dared to pass by.
She gritted her teeth and continued down the stairs. She could no longer see the little girl, but she could hear her footsteps and her labored breathing ahead. Kate’s camera strap dug into her neck like barbed wire. She lifted it over her neck, ready to throw it on the ground before having a much better idea. She raised it above her head and took a picture.
The flash went off and filled the entire stairwell with a surreal light. Briefly, Kate saw the little girl’s figure a few feet ahead, concentrating on her next step.
“Wait up,” Kate shouted, more to hear her voice than to make the little girl stop running.
Kate continued snapping pictures to light the way. Each time the light died out, she was submerged in darkness again, but at least she was able to see enough in that half second of flash to help her along and widen the gap between her and the shadow.
When her feet fell on plush carpeting, she knew she’d reached the hallway below. She took a series of pictures, so she could orient herself with the aid of the flash. She nearly fell over in fright when one of the flashes momentarily lit up the face of Adolf Hitler standing right over her. She began screaming until she realized it was only a painting.
The hallway branched in several directions. The girl had chosen her path and stopped long enough to motion Kate toward her.
Kate took another picture and glanced at the camera’s LCD screen. The bitter taste of bile settled in her mouth as her stomach churned.
Shit. Shitshitshitshitshitshitshit.
In the moment the flash lit up the hallway, Kate had been able to see soft carpeting, wood-paneled walls, and perfectly white cabin doors.
On her screen, however, the same hallway was completely ravaged by the passage of time. The carpeting was only a decayed semblance of what it had been, and the wood paneling was rotting, discolored, and warped. The picture even showed the rusted iron plating that ran along the bottom. The paint on the doors was peeling, and a few of them had even fallen down.
Another watery gurgle like a sink being cleared sounded right behind Kate. She exhaled, and a cloud of vapor formed in front of her face. Little specks of frost began to cover the walls.
Come here, bitch. Listen to my voice.
The pain inside Kate’s skull became intolerable, a hot searing burn. Screaming, she stumbled away. The little girl was waiting for her around the corner, near a cargo elevator with an interior light casting a dim clarity over the room.
A metal gate divided the room in two. A sign in German warned that third-class passengers were not allowed in second class. Nevertheless, the door was wide open, swinging on its hinges. Kate blinked. The room looked just as ruined and decayed as the unrestored second-class section Kate had seen the day before. She rubbed her eyes in disbelief.
When she opened them again, the room was as pristine as the day it had left the shipyard. Kate choked back her fear. Just a moment before, the room had been in ruins. Suddenly, the image skipped.
Kate could find no other word to describe what happened. It was like she was watching an old, worn-out VHS tape that displayed a distorted picture. In a flash, the two images, the old and the new, had overlapped like two radio stations broadcasting on the same frequency. The overlap did not last long. Maybe a few seconds. The elevator’s lights began to flicker and threatened to die out completely. Then, it stopped. The room again looked as immaculate as it had in the thirties.
“We need to go down to third class. They can’t get us there,” the girl whispered.
Kate got into the freight elevator, and the girl pulled the gate shut and hit a button. With a jolt they continued their descent into the depths of the Valkyrie, jerking and creaking the entire way.
As the elevator went down, Kate examined her camera. The red low-battery light had turned on. Kate cursed. Her liberal use of the flash had drained the battery, and she would be lucky if she could get a few more shots.
The little girl looked up, scared. Something slammed into the gate on the floor they had just passed, and Kate fell back against the wall, bashing her head hard enough to see a tiny constellation of stars dance before her eyes. The elevator jerked along like someone was shaking it.
She got up and grumbled to herself. The little girl moved close to her and placed her hand on Kate’s. She pressed back in relief and appreciation. Her skin was smooth but surprisingly cold.
“What’s your name, darling?” whispered Kate.
“Esther.�
��
“Where are we going, Esther?”
The elevator stopped. Kate concluded they had to be below the ship’s Plimsoll line, probably near the cargo holds. She and Esther left the elevator and came into a wide recreation room in third class. Moisture and time had wreaked havoc here. Mold covered broken chairs, and the air smelled like stagnant water and rotting wood. Where there had been light fixtures once, brass wires gnawed away by rust hung from the ceiling.
During their descent, the image had skipped again.
Esther looked considerably more relaxed, as if that dark shadow could no longer bother her. Kate saw an antique oil lantern in the corner of the room. Its glass cover was cracked, and its copper base was a sickly green color. When she went over and shook it, she could hear that there was still fuel inside. She searched her pockets until she found an old lighter Robert had kept as a good-luck charm. It no longer ignited, but it still sparked. She brought the lighter up to the candlewick, and within seconds a warm and comforting source of light traced a magical protective circle all around her, vanquishing the shadows.
They walked down an ugly hallway with huge communal dormitories on both sides that could accommodate about forty people each. The Valkyrie was able to transport many more passengers in second and third class, and the majority of its passengers would have traveled in the latter of those two.
Following her reporter’s instincts, Kate’s hand automatically reached for her camera to take a picture. It was then she realized she was alone.
Esther had vanished.
Kate searched several rooms and called out for the girl, but it was as if she had evaporated. There was no sign of her anywhere, and Kate had no idea how to get out of third class. She looked around, confused.
Then, she heard the voice.
“Kate.”
It was only one word, but her whole world stopped spinning with its utterance. Her heart skipped a beat, and her emotions fought for attention as they all suddenly wanted to be heard.
The Last Passenger Page 19
