Apparition (The Hungry Ghosts)

by Trish J. MacGregor

  Off to Charlie’s right, perhaps a mile down the track, something became visible in the falling sand, and emerged with form, shape, substance. Esperanza 14. The train sped toward them, light and sand flying away from it. Even from his limited viewpoint, Charlie could see the train’s illuminated windows, the silhouettes of people inside. Its plaintive whistle rang out, light abruptly exploded from the crevices and cracks in the old depot. The concrete glowed, then appeared to expand from within, like a hot air balloon.

  “That’s it,” Newton shouted. “Our cue!”

  Newton lurched toward the front door and wrestled with the benches stacked against it. The entire barricade tumbled to the floor. Newton pulled the door open and the sand that had drifted up against it poured across the depot floor. They trudged through it, bodies slanted into the wind, arms thrown up to protect their faces. By the time they reached the platform, the wind had stopped altogether. The sand continued to fall, as silent as snow.

  “From this point on, there’s no going back,” Karina said, her mouth close to his cheek. “Are we ready for that?”

  Charlie kissed her fully. And in that kiss he tasted all the possibilities, the permutations, the promises waiting to be fulfilled. But he had no idea what those possibilities, permutations, or promises might be.

  The train clattered and clunked its way up the track, an artifact from the late nineteenth century, a coal-belching machine that didn’t look as if it could travel even a few miles without breaking down. Sand peeled away from it and a brilliant light radiated from it. Charlie felt he was seeing the train the way Esperanza wished for him to see it or as the train wished to be seen, a bright, shiny, sleek, and powerful contraption that would get them where they wanted to go.

  “It’s the ghost train,” someone shouted in Spanish, and the hipsters poured into the station, onto the platform. “The falling sand has made it visible.”

  They giggled and laughed and pointed, the sand falling over them, and snapped photos with their cell phones and tiny digital cameras, their excitement radiating from them like an odor. Charlie ran over to them, waving his arms and herding them away from the edge of the platform. “Get back, get back so you don’t fall onto the tracks. The train’s wheels will crush you.”

  Would they? Was that part true?

  One of the hipsters, a young man, swaggered through the accumulated sand and waved his bottle of Dos Equis at Charlie. “Who the hell’re you, huh? What d’you know?”

  “More than you do, asshole.” Sanchez stepped forward, his tall, slender form illuminated by the light that radiated from the ghost train, his arms flung out at his sides. “So move the fuck back.”

  The young man hurled his Dos Equis bottle at Sanchez. He ducked, the bottle whistled over his head and shattered against a pole. The young man stumbled forward, swinging his fist. One of the other men grabbed him by the jacket and jerked him back. “Hombre, déjalo. Estás borracho.”

  Leave him alone. You’re drunk.

  Charlie grasped Sanchez’s arm. “Thanks for intervening, Sanchez. But in this virtual form, I’m not an old man. Besides, I’m already dead.”

  Sanchez laughed nervously. “Yeah, I forget that sometimes.”

  Charlie and Sanchez hurried over to the others, and seconds later, the ghost train squealed to a stop. The conductor, a short Ecuadorian man with ebony hair, hopped down. “All aboard,” he called, then saw Jessie and shook his head. “No dogs…”

  Jessie plopped down at his feet, rolled onto her back, and the conductor smiled and stooped over to rub her belly. “Okay, okay, I can see you’re well behaved. But you have to stay on your leash. Your group is headed where?”

  “To El Bosque,” Charlie replied.

  Frowning, the conductor looked carefully at Charlie and the rest of them. “You’re that group?”

  “You heard about us?” Newton exclaimed.

  “Of course. It’s why we’re visible. And why the train is empty of passengers.”

  “But earlier, I saw people,” Charlie said. “Saw their silhouettes, saw—”

  “Illusions, my friend,” the conductor said with a quick smile. “All illusions.”

  “Who told you about us?” Pedro asked.

  “What the city knows, we know. First car. We’ll take you directly there.” His eyes fixed on something behind them. “Apúrate,” he hissed, and Charlie looked back.

  The swaggering young man rushed toward them, with several dozen other swaggering young men behind him, all of them now dressed identically, in black jeans and black jackets. What the hell?

  The young men moved through the sand like dancers in a carefully choreographed musical, with great deliberation and precision, every step in synch, as if they had rehearsed for months. They simultaneously leaned forward, snapping their fingers, clicking their tongues against their teeth, the sounds preternaturally loud, echoing. And at the same instant, switchblades appeared in their right hands, glinting in the strange light.

  Charlie felt as if he were watching a scene from West Side Story, and these dudes were the bad gang. But what, exactly, were they? Brujos? Apparitions Maria had tossed at them? Chasers, in their virtual forms, who sided with Maria?

  The conductor waved Charlie and the others to move behind him. “Get on the train.”

  His arm shot into the air, then jerked down, apparently a signal to the engineer to get the train moving. They scrambled into the first car and the train started moving, the conductor running alongside it. Charlie gripped the railing and leaned out, arm thrust toward the conductor. “Grab my hand,” Charlie shouted.

  The conductor ran faster, grabbed on to Charlie’s outstretched hand, and Charlie clung tightly, straining to pull him up. But the man’s hand, slippery with sweat, slid away and he was sucked under the wheels. Blood suddenly sprayed across the side of the train, streaked the windows, and splattered Charlie’s cheeks and clothing. Shock shuddered through him. The conductor couldn’t die; he was already dead. But when Charlie rubbed his hand across his face, he felt the dampness of the conductor’s blood on his cheeks. Saw it smeared across the back of his hand, coloring his knuckles, seeping into the lines and crevices in his skin.

  He hurried inside the car and nearly collided with Newton. “Jesus, Charlie, you’re covered in … blood.”

  “Listen up, people,” Charlie shouted. “The conductor is dead, I don’t have a clue who’s driving this train, but I think we’d better find out.”

  “Dead?” Leo exclaimed. “He was already dead. This is a ghost train, Charlie.”

  “Forget all that. We’re not on a ghost train. We’re on a real fucking train and the dead can be killed.”

  Even chasers.

  3.

  Lauren drifted above her body, shocked at how she looked: ashen face, lips a faint blue, eyelids the color of eggshells. A filament, a thread of some kind, seemed to connect her spirit to her body. It lengthened when she thought herself upward, and shortened when she drifted down toward her body again. It was like an umbilical cord; she had read about it, heard stories about it from patients in ER who had died and returned.

  Ian and Tess, Wayra and a black man huddled together around her body. It suddenly freaked her out to see herself like this and she shot up through the blankets of this little shelter and into a raging tempest of sand, glass, and debris that spun through the church. It looked and sounded like a ferocious hurricane. How was any of this even possible?

  Then a weird silence clamped around her—no wind, no raging, just quiet. And she heard a female voice say, You have a choice, Lauren.

  It took a few moments for Lauren to see the woman who spoke, a pretty little thing about five feet tall. She stood against the wall, hands fixed to her hips. Her dark hair tumbled past her shoulders, and she wore jeans with patches on the knees and a soft blue shirt that matched the color of her eyes. She looked to be in her late twenties and radiated such peace that Lauren instantly liked her.

  Who’re you?

  The qui
ntessence of Esperanza.

  So you’re the, what, consciousness of the city?

  Close enough, although it’s more complicated than that.

  Did you cause that raging storm out there?

  I did. Otherwise, the amnesiacs would have burned down the church and all of you in here would have perished.

  I perished anyway.

  Which is why you have a choice. You can return to your body or you can stay.

  What’s going to happen to Esperanza?

  That depends. It can be removed from the physical world or can be stripped of its magic or both. Or something else altogether. I’m not sure yet. But everyone must have a choice—to stay in whatever takes Esperanza’s place or to go wherever it goes. And if there’s any amnesia associated with this, it won’t be like what afflicted Tess or the others. What are we without memory? It’s our sanctuary, our history, our place in time and space. It’s how we define ourselves. Memory is the current of consciousness.

  Lauren couldn’t argue with that.

  Many of the amnesiacs weren’t just robbed of their deepest memories, but of their very identities, and it drove many of them crazy.

  Can’t you just take Esperanza somewhere else? Why does it have to return to the nonphysical universe?

  It may be a failed experiment.

  But even when it was nonphysical, brujos were seizing souls.

  Back then, their seizures were confined to souls at the edge of death. Once the city was brought into the physical universe, brujos evolved to the point where they learned how to seize the living and use them as hosts to experience all the physical pleasures of life. Now there are millions of brujos worldwide. They personify evil.

  Then take Esperanza, its consciousness—you, that’s you—somewhere else, somewhere hidden, where legends flourish, some spot where the dead can’t find the city. Learn from the failed experiment and create something better.

  Doubt flickered across the woman’s features. I don’t think I’m the optimist I once was. The corrupt chasers are still fighting me and some of the brujos can still seize the living. Until those things are rectified, you have time to get to safety, if you choose to return to your body.

  That’s my choice. To return.

  You’re sure?

  Yes.

  She pointed at the blue blankets, now covered with sand and bits of glass. That black man is my best hope. Do you recognize him?

  The woman moved her hand through the air and the blankets became transparent, so Lauren could see through them. She didn’t have any idea who the man was. But the longer she looked at him, the clearer he became to her, and she understood that in this accelerated state of consciousness, she could see things she ordinarily couldn’t. The brujo. Ricardo. The head of the current tribe, the one who seized Leo and tasted Tess.

  That’s right. And if the consciousness of even a single brujo can evolve, then there’s hope and Esperanza wasn’t a failed experiment. Depending on what he ultimately does or does not do, I can adjust what I do.

  Then you’re still an optimist.

  The woman laughed, softly. Maybe I am.

  Am I going to be brain damaged when I return?

  No. What killed you was breaking through the barrier into El Bosque. Once you and Ian did that, I could capitalize on it. But that first tear had to come from the living. From here on in, all of you live or perish without intervention from me. If you choose to stay in whatever replaces Esperanza, you should get to the El Bosque train depot. A train will take you to safety.

  Safety where?

  The engineer knows. Wayra will doubt that I am who I say I am. So tell him that many years ago, he left a note for me tucked inside one of the many roots of that ceiba tree in Parque del Cielo. The note was addressed to the spirit of Esperanza. It was one word: “Why?”

  What was your answer?

  She leaned toward Lauren and whispered something.

  I hope I can remember all this. What’s going to replace the city?

  I don’t know yet.

  So you’re the ultimate decider?

  No, all of you are. She threw out her arms, a gesture that encompassed everyone who lived in Esperanza. More than thirty thousand of you. Then her arms came around Lauren, the most gentle and loving embrace she had ever felt. She heard a loud snap, as if someone were cracking a whip next to her ear, and her eyes snapped open.

  The first thing she heard was the fierce wind. The first thing she tasted was the desert dryness in her mouth. The first thing she saw was her daughter’s beautiful face, tears streaming down her cheeks, leaving tracks through the sand stuck to her face. The first thing she touched was Tess’s hand.

  “Mom, oh my God.” Tess slipped her arms under Lauren, helping her sit up. “I thought … we thought…”

  “I was,” Lauren said hoarsely.

  She saw shards of glass everywhere on the floor around them. The wind whistled through shattered windows, sand blew through the church. But a moment after these details registered for her, the windows started repairing themselves. It was like watching a video in reverse, pieces of glass flying up from the floor to the window frame, each bit, each fragment, fitting together until the windows were whole again.

  “Christ,” she whispered.

  “It’s Kali doing that,” Tess exclaimed. “She flew out the door when … when we all saw you and Ian and ran outside. It’s what she did in the tunnel.”

  Lauren didn’t have any idea what Tess was talking about. Wasn’t Kali a parrot?

  “Lauren, wow, you … haven’t had a pulse for … I don’t know how long,” Ian burst out, and pressed a bottle of water into her hands. “Sip this. It isn’t cold, but it’ll do the trick. Jesus, welcome back.”

  As Lauren sipped, Wayra touched her forehead with the back of his hand. “Do you feel all right?”

  “Just … thirsty. You were … going to turn me. To save me. But … you can’t do it anymore.”

  “I’m just grateful you’re still with us, Lauren.”

  She squeezed his hand. “Thank you for trying.” She looked at the black man. “Ricardo, you’re her best hope.”

  “You recognize me?”

  “When I was dead, I did.”

  “Whose best hope?”

  “The woman I met. She said she was the quintessence of Esperanza and that if the consciousness of even a single brujo can evolve, then there’s hope.” Lauren saw the looks that Wayra, Tess, Ian, and Ricardo exchanged—not looks that said she was nuts, but looks that said they understood completely. And why wouldn’t they? Tess and Ian had both experienced NDEs, Wayra was a shape shifter, and Ricardo was a ghost stuck in a black man’s body. “Each of us needs to decide whether we’re going to stay here and take our chances on whatever replaces the magical Esperanza, or whether we’re going to accompany the city to wherever it goes if it returns to the nonphysical.”

  Ricardo ran a hand over his head. “How does that apply to me?”

  “I don’t know,” Lauren admitted.

  “I know how it applies to Illary and me,” Wayra said. “We live out the natural span of our lives from this point forward. No shape shifting, no turning anyone. And that’s fine with me. She and I have lived way too long already.”

  “You’ll be the only man in town with a paw,” Ian remarked.

  Wayra held his paw up and laughed. “My eternal reminder of what was.”

  “I’m staying,” Tess said.

  “Me, too,” Ian said.

  “Do you know you’re going to be a grandmother again?” Ricardo asked Lauren.

  “Ian told me.”

  “Twins,” Ricardo said.

  “You learned that from a pregnancy test?” Lauren glanced at Tess.

  “No. Ricardo discovered it when he tasted me…” She frowned. “Well, whenever that was. I’ve lost track of days.”

  “So this woman you met,” Ian said. “She claimed to be the consciousness of Esperanza. If we’ve all decided to stay, then we should get to El
Bosque’s train station. A train will take us to safety.”

  “Where?” Wayra asked. “Where is safe?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “You sound suspicious, Wayra,” said Ricardo. “Do you think it’s a trick?”

  “I’m not sure what to think.”

  “It wasn’t a trick,” Lauren said.

  “I would love to have a conversation with the embodiment of Esperanza,” Wayra said.

  Unmistakable sarcasm, Lauren thought, and suddenly remembered what the woman had said about Wayra. “She said you’d be skeptical. I’m supposed to remind you about a note you wrote to her and tucked in one of the roots of the ceiba tree in Parque del Cielo.”

  Wayra looked amused. “Really. Did she tell you anything else about it?”

  “Yeah. The note was addressed to the spirit of Esperanza and had a single word on it—why?”

  His smile shrank.

  “That’s true?” Ian asked.

  “Uh, yeah, it was centuries ago. I’d forgotten about it.”

  “Were you and Dominica together then?” Ricardo asked.

  “Barely.”

  “Is this something a brujo could find out from a host?” Ian asked Ricardo.

  “Probably not.”

  Wayra ran his long fingers through his hair. “Did she give you an answer, Lauren?”

  Lauren thought a moment, struggling to remember, then snapped her fingers. “‘Because I can, and you always had a choice about whether to participate or not.’ That’s what she said.”

  Something ancient and hidden flickered through his dark eyes. Lauren couldn’t read it. But incredulity and acceptance brought a smile to his mouth.

  “Wow. Okay.” He pushed to his feet. “The wind is starting to die down. I say we head for the neighborhood train station. If you’re up to it, Lauren.”

  “Definitely,” she said, and Wayra held out his hand and she grasped it and he pulled her to her feet.

  Nineteen

  The Shift

  1.

  When Tess emerged from the church with the others, the twilight was fading, giving way to an open sky, a rising moon, stars, and hundreds of birds flying south, silhouetted against the moonlight. Had the dead birds come back to life, like her mother did? Tess wondered. Or were these birds from elsewhere in Esperanza? Their cries and squawks and songs sounded like an orchestra tuning up, sometimes off key, sometimes perfectly in synch. Blankets of sand glistened in the moonlight, and several dozen men and women stumbled through it, shouting, headed for the nearest way out of El Bosque.