City of Ghosts

by J. H. Moncrieff

  “You caused quite a scene, my friend. Harold freaked when you didn’t show for dinner. We wanted to come get you right away, but I think he figured it would teach you a lesson to stay out here all night.”

  Who knew I’d ever be thankful for Harold? “I hope he isn’t expecting a good review.”

  Erik laughed. With most of the fire out already, we kicked dirt on the pile, tromping on any errant embers. Todd and Matt joined us.

  “You okay?” Matt, a paramedic from Utah, asked. “It must have been spooky, being here at night by yourself.”

  “It wasn’t so bad. I actually had company. Speaking of, did you guys happen to see the girl who was here?”

  “What girl?” Matt asked. “The only thing we saw was you, snoring away.”

  A Floridian named Todd grinned. “Figures there’d be a chick involved. Told you guys. Jackson just wanted some action.”

  “It wasn’t like that. She seemed kind of nuts, actually. Gave me the creeps. I think she might be homeless or something—she wasn’t wearing any shoes.”

  I described her, but the guys shook their heads. No one had seen a pretty Chinese girl with bare feet and an oversized raincoat. It was a relief; I’m not gonna lie. Last night’s conversation—or lack thereof—had been one of the weirder experiences of my life. I wasn’t sure when I’d drifted off, but she’d apparently stuck around long enough to keep the fire burning and gather enough wood to last a week. Where had she gotten it?

  The thought of her watching me while I slept made me shiver.

  Even though I would have loved to just forget about her, her mention of the villagers fleeing their homes with nothing still bugged me. After enduring some teasing from the guys, I hurried to find our guide, hoping he’d calmed down enough to answer some questions.

  “Harold?”

  He glanced up from his phone, grimacing when he saw me. “Yes, Jackson?”

  “What happened to the people who lived here?”

  “What do you mean, what happened? They move.”

  “I know, but how? What I mean is, were they given any notice? Did they have time to pack their things?” I had to practically jog to keep up, but at my last question, he stopped so short I almost ran right into him. To say he didn’t seem happy would be a colossal understatement.

  “That’s strange question. Why do you ask this?”

  “I met a girl who used to live here before the dam opened. She said she lost everything in the flood, so I’m wondering—”

  Harold resumed his harried pace. “Who? What girl was this?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, realizing I’d never thought to get her name. But even if I had, I probably wouldn’t have been able to pronounce it. And if I had managed to pronounce it correctly, did Harold really think he would know her? It’s not like we were in a country with over a billion people or anything.

  Somehow he managed to shrug in my direction, text, and maintain the speed of a hyperactive cheetah simultaneously. “Forget it. She not live here now. Everything okay.”

  The girl I’d met was a million miles from okay. She had no shoes, for Christ’s sake.

  Whenever Harold had been short with me in the past, I’d backed off. Sometimes the poor guy didn’t want to answer inane questions anymore, and I couldn’t really blame him—even though it was his job! But I had a strong feeling there was a grain of truth to the girl’s claim, enough to make it worth digging into.

  “Hey,” I said in the most serious don’t-fuck-with-me tone I could manage, considering I was already on the guy’s shit list. “I’m a journalist, and I think there’s a story here. I want to know what happened to these people, and if you won’t tell me, I’ll find out some other way.”

  My threat had the desired effect. Harold stopped walking. I checked to make sure no one else in the group could hear our conversation, but they were almost a block behind us. Most had stopped trying to keep up with Harold a long time ago. He was our guide, after all—we knew he’d have to wait for us eventually.

  “I thought you work with computers.”

  “I just said that for the visa application.” It was a fib, sure, but it was a believable one. Saying you were a journalist was a good way to ensure a failed application, and no one would be stupid enough to claim media credentials while they were actually in the country—unless they didn’t have a choice.

  Besides, maybe I wasn’t a journalist now, but this story could change that. Hell, an article would be a lot easier to sell than a book. I could post it on my own blog, if it came to it.

  Harold didn’t like me. That was pretty clear, given his thinly veiled sneer, the disgust in his almost-black eyes. Before last night, I’d suspected he didn’t like any of us, but apparently I’d mistaken mild irritation for loathing. Now that I was seeing the real thing, I could tell the difference. I’d heard the Chinese didn’t like blacks, but I didn’t think his reaction had anything to do with racism. “There is no story here. You waste your time,” he said, though his eyes said something else. What is he afraid of? Dude definitely knows something.

  “Okay. You’re probably right. I have been known to waste my time.” I treated him to my most disarming grin. “Can you tell me where the villagers live now?”

  “What are you asking?” Harold threw his hands in the air. I glanced over my shoulder. The rest of the group was closing in fast. A few of the front-runners were already watching us with curiosity. I was sure they could sense Harold’s rage from miles away. “You want the new address of every person who lived here? How do you expect me to know these things?”

  “Of course not, Harold.” I said in the same tone I’d use to soothe a rabid warthog. “I was hoping you’d know where they were relocated. I assume the entire population was moved to a different area, like others have been.”

  Harold resumed his insane walking speed. He spat something else at me, but he was already too far away for me to hear. It sounded a lot like ‘Forget about it.’

  Stunned, I stared after him for a moment, unable to believe what had just happened. Harold had been brusque before, but he was never blatantly rude. His livelihood depended on receiving positive reviews from his groups, and he had a young wife and new baby at home. Why would he risk making an enemy of me? Was he hoping he could convince his boss that I was the asshole? I was certainly making his case for him, if that was the plan.

  “Dude, what was that about?” Erik asked, catching up with me.

  “Hell if I know. But I’m going to find out.”

  ~ Chapter Four ~

  My generation was raised in the computer age. I had a laptop almost as soon as I could walk, which explains why my handwriting looks like shit. Being tech savvy is a great strength, but it’s also my Achilles’ heel. Sure, I can smirk condescendingly whenever my parents reminisce about things like card catalogues and microfiche—whatever the hell that is. But take away my electronic toys and I’m at a huge disadvantage.

  The Great Firewall of China was my kryptonite. No Facebook. No Twitter. And most horrifying of all, no Google. The normal means I’d use to get information were inoperable. I made a mental note to Google Hensu once we got to Hong Kong.

  The abandoned city was even more intriguing now. If only I’d had more time to go on another tour. The woman who’d shown us around Hensu had been softer and much more malleable than Harold. If I could arrange to see her again, I was sure she’d be willing to answer my questions. But how? When? It was impossible. Our ship was still docked nearby, but after dinner it would move to the next location, taking me miles away from the story I wanted to tell.

  Where am I supposed to get answers?

  “You ready?”

  Erik’s voice startled me out of my reverie. “Huh?”

  “For dinner. You coming down?”

  “Oh…yeah, I guess.” I hadn’t noticed how much time had passed. I’d been lying on my bed for hours, trying to find a crack in the firewall, while Erik reread his battered copy of Kerouac’s On the Road.
<
br />   “If we don’t get a move on, we’ll end up sitting at the reject table.”

  Our group of sixteen was large enough to require two tables in the dining hall, but not large enough to fill both. Some of the people we were traveling with were awesome, and some…well, some were not. Stragglers found themselves relocated to the half-full table, where the single ladies whined about how much they missed their cats. Just the thought of it was enough to light a fire under my ass.

  I gave my armpits a quick sniff. I should have had a shower as soon as I’d returned to the room instead of dicking around on the Internet. I reeked of campfire. Meanwhile, my roommate’s hair was still damp from his shower. His T-shirt looked clean too, but how anyone could have a clean shirt at this stage in the trip baffled me. That was the kind of guy Erik was, though. The kind who organized his toiletries into neat little rows by the sink.

  Screw it. No one was going to be close enough to get a whiff of me, anyway.

  Erik and I pushed through the tourists blocking our way into the dining hall. That’s something I’ve noticed about the Chinese—they stop in the strangest places. They’ll fight to get in front of you on an escalator, but quit moving once they get to the top. And then they seem surprised and downright offended when you crash into them.

  This makes eating at buffets similar to playing dodgeball with zombies. And let’s not even talk about the food. Real Chinese food—and by real, I’m not talking about the deep-fried ball-shaped shit we get at home—kicks ass. But not on this ship. I grabbed a hamburger the other day, only to discover a fried-egg sandwich. The penguin-corn sausage I’d had at the ghost city was a serious contender for the best meal I’d had on this portion of the trip.

  But buffets were for lunch. At dinner, we had a waitress. Tonight there would be no bruises from the impromptu MMA-style brawls that occurred in the ship’s buffet line.

  Erik sprinted through the crowd in order to snag the last two seats at Table Awesome. I hurried to stake my claim.

  “Hey, Jackson. How are you feeling?” Kate was sitting on the opposite side of me. Out of all the women in the group, I liked her best. Too bad her favorite topic of conversation was how much she missed her cats and her boyfriend. What is it with women and cats? “Is your headache gone?”

  “Yeah.” I spread my napkin in my lap, even though it was clearly a case of shutting the barn door after the horse had escaped. If I ever took off these jeans, they’d have a fair shot at walking away on their own. Maybe they could even keep pace with Harold. “Thanks for the drugs.”

  Kate, like every woman in the group, traveled with her own pharmacy. I’d never understood why girls needed to pack every drug known to medical science, but I was grateful for it. As long as there were females around, the guys could travel light.

  She smiled. “No problem. Glad I could help. Say…” Leaning closer to me and lowering her voice, she continued, “I’d love to hear what it was like, being in the ghost city all night, alone.”

  I shrugged, wishing I had a better story to tell. “It was sort of creepy at first…” Pausing for effect, I savored the fact that this beautiful woman was hanging on my every word. Kate was a huge horror buff, which I would have known even if she hadn’t told me. Her tight black T-shirt, which was designed to resemble a Ouija board, gave it away. The word Yes was stretched across her right boob. It was disconcerting.

  “I bet. Shit, why didn’t I go on that tour?” She rolled her eyes, tossing back hair that was a shade of red never found in nature. It suited her, though. “Martin kept insisting it would just be more temples and steps, but all we did was sit around, playing 21 and drinking overpriced beer. I totally should have gone with you.”

  Martin was the group know-it-all. There’s one on every tour—a guy who thinks he knows more than the guide. In other words, a pain in the ass.

  “Well, he wasn’t wrong. There were temples and there were steps.”

  Seven hundred steps, in fact. It had become a joke that, in order to see anything in China, you had to climb a million steps. Harold consistently found grocery stores and bathrooms at the same altitude as Everest’s base camp. I suspected this had less to do with China and more to do with the fact our guide was a sadist.

  You have to climb a thousand steps just to get to the Great Wall. Seriously. A thousand steps. Whenever I envisioned the Wall, I’d thought of those photos of people strolling along a path like it was no big deal. No one ever mentioned the torture they’d endured to get there in the first place. They should call it the Great Staircase. Or the Great Stair Master. “The statues were sort of eerie.”

  Kate’s eyes lit up. “Really?”

  “Yeah, picture butt-ugly carvings of pig-faced ghosts. There was this twisted part called The Underworld, where the statues torture a bunch of other statues in grotesque ways. It was messed up.”

  From the corner of my eye I could see one of the other women wrinkle her nose and turn away, but Kate wasn’t deterred. “Really? Tortured like how?”

  I was telling her about the deep-fried people and the eyeball plucking when a plate of chicken and rice was set down in front of me.

  “Excuse me, Mister. What would you like to drink?” A waitress asked with a shy smile.

  “I’ll have a beer, please.” No more rice wine. While I enjoyed a good buzz as much as the next guy, I wasn’t willing to risk another headache. Traveling isn’t much fun when your brain is splitting apart.

  “Can we please talk about something else?” It was the woman who’d twisted her nose at us. Meghan, I think her name was. I hadn’t talked to her much. On the very first day of the trip I could tell she wasn’t my kind of people. She was one of those people who always looked like they’d smelled something rotten. “You two are going to make me puke.”

  “Sure. Sorry,” Kate said, but she rolled her eyes at me when Meghan wasn’t watching. Shit, why were the good ones always taken?

  And how in the hell had Meghan ended up at Table Awesome? She was supposed to be at the other one, comparing kitty-litter prices with her buddies.

  Her attitude aside, it was good to have a break from talking about Hensu. I was exhausted from sleeping in the dirt. Checking out my plate, I wasn’t sure where to start. Chicken breast, white rice, and steamed cauliflower in a white sauce. My old Home-Ec. teacher would have gone mad if she’d seen this meal. I could picture her running around the dining hall, screaming “Color! We need some COLOR over here.”

  I sampled the chicken, figuring it was the least offensive. It tasted like paper. Chewy, dry paper.

  As I struggled to swallow my origami chicken, I was only half-listening to one of Larry’s work stories. Larry was a prison guard, so he had some kickass yarns, but I was having a hard time focusing. My eyes scanned the room. China was amazing for people watching, and I never failed to find something interesting.

  This time, someone was looking back.

  I jabbed Erik in the ribs, barely daring to breathe.

  “Hey! You made me drop my fork, ass.”

  “You can thank me later. See that girl over there?”

  “What girl?” Erik surveyed the room for hotties, sitting up straighter in his chair.

  “Over there. By the buffet tables.”

  “Oh,” he said once he’d finally turned in the right direction. “Wow. Do you know her or something? She’s really checking you out.”

  What she was doing was staring. She was wearing a faded blue dress, but the raincoat was gone. I couldn’t see her feet from where I was sitting, but I assumed she’d found some shoes.

  “That’s the girl. The one from last night.” I hissed the words under my breath, careful not to let Kate hear.

  Erik let out a low whistle. “She doesn’t look happy, brother. What did you do?”

  “Nothing! All we did was talk. Well, kind of—she didn’t say much. There’s something seriously wrong with her, I think.”

  “That’s too bad. She’s really cute.”

  “She’s also t
oo young for you. Listen, I’ve gotta go talk to her for a sec. If the waitress comes by, will you let her know I’m finished?”

  “Sure. Can I have your rice?” I’d barely touched my plate.

  “Knock yourself out.”

  Pushing away from the table, I weaved through an obstacle course of diners and waiters.

  “Hello,” I said, feeling inexplicably shy. I’m not the type to get shy around women. Not usually, anyway. But this chick unnerved me.

  She watched me, saying nothing, but she tipped her head slightly in response. At least it was something.

  “I didn’t know you were on this ship too. Have you always been here? I haven’t seen you around before.”

  “No,” she said, never moving her eyes from my face.

  Now that’s a conversation starter. Where exactly do I go from here?

  “Thanks for keeping the fire going last night. When did you leave?”

  “When?” She sounded confused.

  “Yeah, last night—you know, the ghost city. When did you leave? You weren’t there when I woke up.”

  “When you were safe.”

  That was the last thing I expected her to say. “Safe from what?”

  “From the others.”

  Reality closed in on me, clouting me on the head. Right, she’s insane. Totally forgot about that part.

  “Listen, I really have to talk to you. Are you going to be around later? I’m…” I checked to make sure no one was close enough to overhear us. “I’m a writer, and I’m thinking of doing a story on what happened to your village.”

  She nodded, seeming almost eager. “Yes. I knew you were the one to tell my story.”

  Kind of creepy, but okay. “Great. I’d like to get started after dinner, if that’s okay with you. Where can I find you?”

  A faint smile touched her lips. “I’ll find you.”

  I didn’t get a chance to ask her anything else before she slipped through the crowd and out the door. When I returned to the table, my heart was racing. This was awesome. With an eyewitness account, the article would practically write itself. All I’d have to do was verify her story when I got to Hong Kong and had access to Google again. Assuming she would actually speak this time.