The rustling stopped.
Clutching a plank of wood, I tried to seem somewhat intimidating.
As my hands grew clammy, I tightened my grip on the board. We had some real clowns on this tour, and I’d expected at least one of them to burst out laughing when I went into my tough-guy act.
Silence.
“Matt? Eric? Todd? Come on, guys—this isn’t funny. I’m freezing here.”
Water dripped from the ravaged roof in a slow and monotonous trickle. It was enough to drive me insane, but at least the rain had stopped.
I was about to attribute the rustling noise to a harmless rodent when I heard another sound—one that wasn’t as easy to dismiss.
The crunch of footsteps on the path, gradually getting louder.
Maybe it was a dog.
A rabid dog.
Something out of Stephen King’s nightmares.
I shone the flashlight down the path, squinting into the dark.
Nothing there.
Still the footsteps moved closer.
“Who’s there?” I yelled, grateful my voice remained steady. My hands were another matter, causing the light to waver. “Hello?”
The path was empty—until it wasn’t.
There was a glimmer of white, and a pale face emerged from the darkness. I stumbled backward, nearly impaling myself on what was left of the firewood. Retreating until I hit one of the posts that held the shelter upright, I willed whoever it was to go away. I hadn’t signed up for this.
It was a prank, just a stupid prank to make some cash.
That beige cubicle was looking better all the time.
The air in the shelter changed, becoming heavier and heavier, weighing on my lungs and pulling them down, down, down.
My breath escaped with a tiny squeak.
A young woman stood outside the remains of the temple’s threshold, staring at me with huge, dark eyes. She wore a coat that was three sizes too big for her and her feet were bare.
Sagging with relief, I pressed my hand against my chest as if I could will my heart to slow down. “You scared the crap out of me, girl. Where did you come from?”
The girl continued to stare at me without speaking. I was getting that prickling feeling on the back of my neck again, and I didn’t like it.
“Were you with a group?”
What happened to her shoes? If she’d planned to spend the night, she certainly hadn’t put much thought into it.
There was no hint of recognition at my words—no indication she intended to reply. Her expression was as blank as it had been before I spoke. And then it dawned on me.
She doesn’t understand a word I’ve said.
Traveling would be so much easier if everyone spoke the same language. Squirming, I was wondering how I was going to get rid of her when she responded.
“I live here.”
“You speak English?” A lot of the younger generation did, or so Harold said, but this was the first time I’d encountered someone other than our guide.
There was an unbearable pause while she studied me in silence. Finally, I couldn’t take the awkwardness any longer.
“What do you mean, you live here? I thought this place was abandoned.” Then it occurred to me that she might be homeless. Hensu would make an ideal hideaway for the down and out. No one came around at night, and during the day, she could blend in with the hordes of tourists. She’d need some shoes, though.
“I do.”
“Yeah, right. Where, in the pagoda?”
In the middle of the town square was a pagoda thousands of years old, but unfortunately Harold hadn’t let us anywhere near it. The ground underneath was so saturated with moisture that the pagoda could disappear into a hole in the earth at any moment. I knew I was being a jerk, but I was tired of playing games. Being alone in the ghost city had been creepy, but stumbling through this clumsy small talk was much worse.
“My house is down there.” With a pale hand, she indicated the hill our group had climbed to reach the ruins of the abandoned city. At the bottom, there was a dock where small boats deposited their cargo of wide-eyed tourists and their cameras.
Sure. Sure it is.
Then it dawned on me.
“Let me guess—you’re one of the actors, right?”
Dozens of costumed performers wandered the site during visiting hours, posing as judges of the underworld. No doubt there had been a few ghosts flitting around as well. This girl, with her pale face and bare feet, would be a natural.
“I’m not an actor. I’m a musician.”
I couldn’t remember any music on the tour, but then again, it had been pissing down rain. Maybe she hadn’t wanted to get her bone trumpet wet.
Don’t be an asshole, Jacks. I could hear Roxi’s voice in my head. You’re just pissed ’cause she scared the shit out of you.
Even the imaginary Roxi was smarter than me.
“What do you play?” I asked, though I couldn’t have cared less what this strange girl did for kicks. I wanted to get back to my project, and there was no way a ghost was gonna drop in with all this chitchatting going on.
“I’m a violinist.”
Figures. “Do you play songs, or handle the special effects?” I’d seen YouTube videos where musicians coaxed the squeal of a rusty hinge or the shriek of a wraith out of a violin—even a howling wolf. It was pretty amazing. I guess it made sense to have a violinist on site setting the mood. The weather had accomplished that on my visit, but on a sunny day, the statues would seem more ridiculous than threatening.
A shadow crossed her face. “I don’t know this word. What is ‘EFF-acts’?”
“Sorry. Sound effects.” If I hadn’t witnessed her frown a second ago, I would have thought the only expression she was capable of was no expression at all. “You know, spooky stuff. Screeching doors, screaming vampires…” I waggled my fingers in the air in my best vampire imitation and then promptly dropped my hands to my sides as she gawked at me like I was an idiot. Damn, this chick was cold. Not the slightest hint of a smile.
Clarke used to claim my smile was a guaranteed panty remover, but whatever charms worked their magic with other women cut no ice with her. Maybe, as with so many other things, they simply didn’t translate.
“My violin doesn’t screech.” She glared at me. “I am a very good musician.”
What we have here is a failure to communicate. I smiled, shaking my head. Don’t try to get cute, Jackson.
“Do you have it here? Your violin, I mean?” I’m a sucker for musical talent, probably because I don’t have any myself, unless you count turntables. I attempted to master the guitar when I was ten, but all I got for my trouble were broken strings and bruised fingertips. If you want my sister to bust a gut, just ask her about my childhood rendition of Stairway to Heaven, affectionately known in my family as Stairway to Hell.
I liked the idea of hearing some strings. It wouldn’t be the Lone Man Spends Night in City of Ghosts exposé I’d had planned, but I’d bet there were some killer acoustics in here. From the look of her hands, I was willing to bet she could play something beautiful. Maybe even Vivaldi.
Best of all, we wouldn’t have to talk.
She lowered her head, dark hair closing over her face like shutters. “It was destroyed. In the flood. Along with everything else.”
Then I got what she’d been trying to say. Her tense was off—understandable, considering English wasn’t her first language. What she’d meant was, she’d lived there. Before the flood waters came and her village was evacuated.
“Why don’t you sit down and warm your feet? They must be freezing.” Realizing I was still gripping my pathetic weapon, I tossed the plank of wood on the fire, which sent up a torrent of protesting sparks. She didn’t move, only continued to stand at the entrance of the temple, watching me.
“I wasn’t invited.”
“Well, you’re invited now. Come on in.” I hunkered down next to the fire and stretched my chilled hands toward its
warmth. As she hesitated, I waved her in. “C’mon, sit. I don’t bite. Seriously, get closer to the fire. You look cold.”
“I’m always cold.” She finally took a seat on an old floor beam across from me, watching me as if I might, in fact, bite.
“Said every woman ever.” Now that she was talking instead of dissecting me with her eyes, I appreciated the company. One thing our tour had lacked was any opportunity for meaningful interaction with the locals. Hopefully having someone to shoot the shit with would make the night go faster, because it was obvious nothing supernatural was going to happen. In order for my book to be a best seller, I’d have to make shit up, but that was okay. Writers did it all the time. I’d call it…I know—narrative non-fiction. “Would you like a Coke? It’s lukewarm, but at least it’s something.”
“No, thank you.”
My mouth was dry—probably from the many times I’d rammed both feet into it—so I drank what was left in my can. As I slurped the flat, syrupy sweetness, I could feel her staring at me again. It took everything I had not to squirm.
“That sucks about your violin. Wasn’t there enough warning to pack your stuff?”
With my excitement over the tour and seeing an abandoned city for the first time, I hadn’t given a thought to the people—the ones who used to call this village home. What they had gone through; what they had suffered? Some of those families had probably lived here for generations, and having to leave everything behind must have been painful.
She stared at me like I was the stupidest guy who’d ever crossed her path, and I was definitely feeling like it. “Pack my stuff?” she repeated with excruciating slowness, as if she were speaking to a mentally challenged child.
No slang. Use the biggest words you can think of. The Chinese I’d met who did speak a little English—like Harold—used the most formal version. The bigger the words, the more likely she was to understand me.
“Sorry…gather your belongings? Were you able to gather your belongings?”
“No.”
“You weren’t given any warning?” Her story was giving me chills. Of course I’d heard of people losing everything in a flood, but this particular flood was manmade, the result of rerouting the Yangtze River through a new dam. I’d always thought the horror stories about the Chinese government were exaggerated. It was hard to believe they’d deliberately flood an entire city, forcing people out of their homes with nothing left to their names.
Her brow furrowed in confusion. When she wasn’t wearing that you’re-an-idiot expression, she was quite pretty. Not exactly babe material, but she had potential. Too young for me, though. I guessed she was in her early twenties. “Warning? For what would I need warning?”
“To get your—I mean, to gather your belongings. Your violin and everything. So you could take it with you when you left.”
She sighed. It was the longest, most exasperated sigh I’d ever heard. It seemed to come from her toes and work its way upward, deflating her. “I don’t understand your questions. I never moved. I’ve never gone anywhere.”
Either she didn’t comprehend English, in spite of her ability to speak it, or she was disturbed. Neither scenario was ideal. Time to change the subject.
“So… have you seen any ghosts around here? I’m writing an article about the Hensu hauntings.” With all the stealth I could manage, I nudged my recorder closer to her. If she had a good story, I wanted to capture every word.
“Ghosts?” She raised an eyebrow at me, and fluttered her hands at the nearest statue, the one that gave me the creeps. “Ghosts are everywhere.”
Maybe I wasn’t cut out for this writing stuff, especially if I had to interview the locals. Getting paid to travel was cool, but I could always harvest rice crops or haul garbage out of the ocean. At this point, that seemed preferable.
“Yeah, I saw those, but I’m not talking about statues. I’m talking about the real thing.” When she continued to stare at me without speaking, I exhaled a sigh of my own. Turning on my phone, I checked the time. It was just ten thirty—how was that possible? Ordinarily you wouldn’t catch me going to bed before two in the morning, but it had been an exhausting day, and the after-effects of the previous evening’s rice wine were haunting me. Behind my right eye, my brain throbbed.
Piling the fire high with the last logs and bits of kindling, I glanced over at her. She was still watching me, her face as expressionless as a mask. I wanted to ask her to stop, to look somewhere else, but how do you say that without being offensive?
I regretted asking her to stay. Having her around was beginning to feel worse than being alone.
“So…what do you do for fun around here?”
“Fun?” She raised an eyebrow at me.
“You know, entertainment.”
She cocked her head to one side, as if she were an entomologist and I were some freakish species of bug that had crawled onto her microscope. “You are reporter?”
It took me a minute to get her meaning. Oh yeah, the ‘article.’ “Not really. I’m more of a…creative writer, I guess you’d say.”
My aptitude for bullshit knows no bounds. That counts as creative, right?
“But you write. You tell stories.” An insistent tone crept into her voice, like she was accusing me of lying.
I was getting that hinky feeling again. Even though every pitiful instinct I had was screaming at me to deny it, I chalked up the paranoia to exhaustion and the last of yesterday’s rice wine torturing my beleaguered liver. After all, what’s the worst that could happen?
“Sure, I guess.” Leaning forward, I stirred the embers with a stick, feeling her eyes burning into me.
“I look for someone to tell my story. You—you could tell my story.”
Oh shit, here it comes. Clarke had warned me about this kind of thing. Once my friend had announced his plans to write a novel, everyone came out of the woodwork, claiming to have a better idea he should use instead. The thought caused a deep ache in my chest. He’d never had the chance to write that book.
“Maybe—it depends. What’s your story?” At least it’ll help kill a few minutes.
I expected her to launch into an autobiographical tale, or perhaps start talking about her music. Instead, she appraised me through the firelight, her eyes large enough to swallow her face.
Her scrutiny was unnerving.
“The world must know my story, but I am not sure you are the right person to tell it.”
Wow. Keep your old story, then. “Okay.” I shrugged, wondering why she’d brought it up in the first place. “Fair enough. But my tour group is only here until tomorrow. Then our Yangtze cruise ends and we’ll be traveling by bus again.”
Her lips curved in a smirk that seemed to mock me. “Do not worry. I will find you.”
~ Chapter Three ~
Something hit my boot and I awoke with a jerk, bolting upright in a panic. The last wisps of a dream floated away on the morning air—vague memories about a violin and a promise I should never have made.
“Jackson, you’re in troub-BULL.” Matt practically sang the words as he grinned at me. “You’ve gotten yourself in some serious shit this time.”
Blinking, I raised my hand to shield my eyes from the sun. Matt may have been the first to crash my party, but I could see Erik and Todd standing behind him. “What are you talking about?”
“Jackson!” Recognizing the clipped voice of our tour guide, I groaned. Harold sounded more pissed off than usual. Harold wasn’t his real name, of course—it was the English name he used so he wouldn’t have to endure us crucifying his Chinese one. Although with all the names at his disposal, why he’d chosen Harold was beyond me.
“Hey, Harold.” As I spoke, a jolt of pain shot through my brain and I grimaced. Even after hours of sleep, I still had a headache. If anything, it felt worse.
“Why were you not on the van?” His scowl told me he was gearing up for a full-on tirade. If this were a cartoon, steam would be pouring out of his ears. “Why d
id you not return to the ship with the rest of the group?”
“Sorry. I was in one of the temples, and I missed the departure.”
His eyes narrowed as he glared at me, hands on hips. I could tell he didn’t believe me, but I wondered if he would have the guts to call me on it. It was anyone’s guess—Harold could be sharp tongued and more than a little rough around the edges. Most of the time he acted like we were nuisances whose main purpose was keeping him from his iPhone.
“The woman who run Hensu tour tell me she searched everywhere. She said she called your name several times—no answer.”
I lowered my eyes in an attempt to appear contrite. “I guess I didn’t hear her.”
The lie was easy because there was some truth to it. I hadn’t heard anyone calling me. The so-called “search” was perfunctory at best. I’d gotten lucky in that hardly anyone from my group had opted for the tour. The miserable weather had convinced most of them to stay on the ship, playing cards and drinking. Which was good, because Matt or Erik would have found me for sure.
Harold’s face grew darker as he surveyed the remains of my pitiful camp. Finally I realized what had drawn his attention—my fire was still smoldering. Shit! How had I slept so late? I’d planned to awaken long before my rescuers arrived, which would have given me time to hide the evidence. Even more damning were the piles of firewood stacked nearby.
“Fire?” Harold flared his nostrils. “You set fire here? This is important culture and heritage site. It’s thousands of years old. You could have destroyed…”
“Sorry, Harold, but I needed the fire. Without it, I would have frozen to death. Don’t worry—I was super careful.”
He waved his hand in front of my face like he was erasing me. “Bah,” he said, imbuing the word with contempt. “Not too cold here. Put it out. And hurry up. Everyone waiting for you.” He stalked off, pushing past the people who’d gathered to watch the explosion.
My roommate Erik helped me to my feet.
“I’m sure glad he cares about my health and wellbeing,” I said, careful to keep my voice down.
City of Ghosts Page 2
