City of Ghosts

by J. H. Moncrieff

  “Sometimes, but usually it’s their loved ones who get in touch with me. I pay my bills by finding things people have lost—updated wills or family heirlooms. And I’ve helped the police a few times, but those are freebies.”

  “The police use mediums? For real? I thought that was just on TV.”

  “Well, they don’t advertise it. A lot of people still think we’re con artists. If cops are having trouble breaking a case, many of them are willing to try anything—especially when a child is missing.”

  My head was spinning. It was a lot to absorb.

  “I know it’s a lot to absorb,” she said with a wicked grin.

  Shit, can she read minds too? I hoped not.

  “The majority of people spend their entire lives thinking this is a bunch of crap, and then they meet someone like me, and it gets them thinking—if she’s telling the truth about this, what else might be true? What else might exist in the world? It can get heavy.”

  Her words made me pull back, startled. Remembering her earlier admonishment to get my mind out of the gutter, I had to ask. “Can you read my mind?”

  She laughed in that low, throaty way of hers that was almost unbearably sexy. “No. But I’ve seen and experienced enough of human nature to predict how people are going to react pretty accurately.”

  I wondered if she’d predicted Meghan’s outburst, but decided not to ask. I didn’t want to ruin the mood.

  “Why didn’t you come on the ghost city tour? I know what Martin said about the temples and steps, but it sounds like you would have loved it.”

  “I don’t like to work when I’m on vacation.”

  I must have appeared as dumbfounded as I felt, because she laughed again.

  “Hey, that stuff I told you about getting shot and stabbed? It doesn’t exactly tickle. When I’m on vacation, I need a break, and I don’t just mean from my clients. I need a break from the dead too.”

  “But if it’s mostly the living that ask for help…”

  Kate shook her head. “It’s different in a place like that. I could never go to, say, Auschwitz or the killing fields of Cambodia. That much suffering in one place could do me in.”

  “What do you think would happen?”

  “I’m not sure, but I wouldn’t want to find out. All that anguish, all that terror….” She gazed out the window, and for a moment I thought our conversation was over, that I’d pushed for too much. “Some places have a sadness about them. I think everyone can feel it when they find themselves in a place like that. I just feel it more than most—it’s like I become the sadness. It’s not a great feeling.”

  Processing what Kate was telling me was next to impossible. I’d never believed in ghosts. I wasn’t sure what happened when we died, but I sure didn’t think there was a heaven, or that Hitler was at an eternal barbecue with the devil.

  But Kate had obviously experienced something powerful, something that had convinced her the dead could communicate with the living. I’d traveled with her for weeks now, and I knew she wasn’t insane. She talked about her job like it was any other nine-to-five, as if it was completely normal to go around chatting to ghosts all day.

  Maybe for her it was.

  “I don’t think the ghost city was like that, though—a place of suffering, I mean.” I remembered how I’d felt before the woman had shown up. Aside from the creepy statues, it had seemed like regular camping, albeit in an unusual setting. Sure, my imagination had run away with me a bit, but that was mostly the anticipation—my hope that something would happen. And then seeing that girl appear in a place that was supposed to be empty—it had freaked me out. But only for a minute. “It’s a tourist trap more than anything. The city was abandoned, so the government said, ‘Hey, let’s put up a bunch of crazy statues and concoct some stories about ghosts living here. We’ll get tons of money from gullible foreigners.’”

  She managed a faint smile, but I could tell her heart wasn’t in it. There was something about her expression I didn’t like—something akin to pity. “I think there’s more to it than that, Jackson. Why don’t you tell me about your story?”

  So I told her in whispers about my plan to spend the night in as many haunted places as I could. About the woman and how I’d first met her. Her claim of losing everything in the flood. And the violin I couldn’t get out of my mind.

  “Harold told us that dam opened three years ago. Can you imagine the outcry if what this woman says is true? If the government flooded the village and destroyed those people’s homes, without even letting them get their stuff?”

  Kate started to respond, but hesitated. I could see her biting her tongue.

  “Go on. Whatever it is you want to say, say it. I can take it.”

  “I…I don’t want to bust your bubble. You seem so passionate about this.”

  Sighing, I pulled off my cap and ran a hand over my skin. My scalp was itchy where the band had rubbed against it all day. “I don’t know how I feel about it anymore. I don’t want anything to do with her now, and so far she’s my only source. Harold won’t even talk to me about it.”

  She straightened in her seat. “What do you mean, he won’t talk about it? Maybe he just doesn’t know anything.”

  “I think there’s more to it than that—it was bizarre, Kate. He completely overreacted to my questions, as if he were offended I’d asked. He shut me down fast.”

  “That’s strange.” She frowned and resumed staring out the window. The massive concrete apartment complexes so loved by Chinese architects blurred into a single slab as the bus sped past. The city was a wall of stone, and for the first time since I’d arrived I felt trapped.

  Gazing into the distance, Kate was a million miles away. Maybe she was thinking about Harold and his bizarre reaction to my questions. Not me. I’d given up trying to understand Harold some time ago.

  “Anyway, what were you going to tell me?” I asked, in hopes of distracting myself from the dreary view.

  “Huh?”

  “You were going to bust my bubble, remember?”

  “Oh, that. Sorry. You mentioned that there would be an outcry if her story is true, and you’re right—there should be an outcry. But the sad truth of the matter is, unless this kind of thing happens in a person’s backyard, nobody cares.”

  “That’s pretty cynical. I had you pegged as an optimist.”

  “I am an optimist. But I also know human nature, which as a whole is apathetic to the extreme. If it doesn’t affect us or our immediate family, we don’t give a shit.”

  “Man, that’s cold.”

  “It’s true, though. I have this friend who used to work for the Associated Press, covering wars and genocides and every other horrible thing human beings inflict on one another. There she was, risking her life, getting shot at on a regular basis—seriously, a bullet went right through her hair once—but she told herself it was worth it. It was worth risking her life to make sure Americans knew exactly what was happening in those countries.”

  I had a sinking feeling I knew how this story would end.

  “But you know what happened when she got home? She discovered that nobody knew. No one—not even her closest friends and family—had bothered to read her articles. ‘I don’t read the newspaper,’” Kate said, her voice rising an octave into a mocking whine. “‘It’s too depressing.’ My friend never got over it. There she was, trying to readjust to normal life and get over PTSD and who knows what else, and for what? No one cared. So she quit journalism. Now she does public relations for some museum in Brooklyn.”

  “That’s what’s so awesome about this idea. If I can hook people with the paranormal stuff, then I can lead into the story of what happened to the villagers. People are interested in ghosts, aren’t they?”

  “Always. More than ever.”

  It felt good to be able to tell someone my idea. I was convinced my instincts were on target. What happened to Kate’s friend wouldn’t happen to me, because I had a hook. My audience would be intrigued by t
he ghost city stuff, and then I’d hit them with the rest. Maybe it would end up helping the villagers somehow—I could get my readers to pressure the government enough so the people would get some compensation.

  “So did anything happen?”

  “Huh?” Now I was a million miles away. I’d been fantasizing about how awesome it would feel to hand my boss that letter of resignation that had been hiding in my hard drive for months. One viral story wouldn’t be enough to set me up for life, but it would be a foot in the door. From there, more assignments would follow—maybe even a contract for a series of books, or a reality show.

  Dream big, as Clarke would say.

  “Did anything strange happen during the night? You know, something you could write a ghost story about?” Kate’s mouth twitched as if she were trying not to laugh.

  “I was actually planning on making that part up.” As I said the words, I remembered something. The digital recorder. Maybe I’d hit pay dirt without even realizing. “I had a little recorder with me, hoping I might capture some of that EVP stuff.”

  “No luck, huh?”

  “I don’t know—to be honest, I forgot about it. Haven’t listened to it yet. But everything the girl told me should be on there, our whole conversation. If she tries anything else, I can use it as evidence.”

  Kate had slumped in her seat like she was on the verge of falling asleep, but at the mention of the recorder, she perked up. “Do you have it on you? Can I listen to it?”

  “It’s in my pack,” I said, feeling as disappointed as she was; I wanted to hear it too. “But I’ll give it to you as soon as I’ve finished transcribing the interview.”

  Transcribing the interview. It sounded so professional, like I was a genuine journalist already.

  “Okay, thanks. I’d be really interested to hear what she has to say.” Kate leaned back against the seat. Her eyelids fluttered closed.

  “Hey Kate, what do you think of EVP? What do you think it is?”

  “You know how it sounds like static?” she asked, not bothering to open her eyes.

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, that’s what I think it is. Static—and a whole lot of wishful thinking.”

  ~ Chapter Eight ~

  After the comparatively luxurious accommodations on The Ocean Pearl, it was difficult to return to what the good folks at Valiant Tours considered a “mid-range” hotel.

  Our door was splintering so badly that a small child could have kicked it in. There were brown water stains around the drains in the sink and shower, and the toilet made ominous retching noises twenty-four seven. But I suppose it could have been worse. At least there were no roaches. As for bedbugs, I guess we’d find out soon enough.

  My roommate’s OCD tendencies kicked in immediately. Wrinkling his nose, he tiptoed across the gritty carpet and settled his pack on the only hard surface available—a rickety desk piled high on one side with Chinese newspapers. “I’m going to ask the front desk for fresh towels.”

  “How can you tell the towels aren’t fresh?” Erik hadn’t so much as popped his head into the bathroom yet.

  “Does anything about this place look clean to you?”

  He had a point. As the door closed behind him, I took the opportunity to root through my bag for the recorder. Even though I remembered every word (there hadn’t been many of them, after all), I was eager to hear the woman’s story again. Maybe something in it would convince me I was on the right track.

  At first I panicked, thinking I’d left it on the ship, but I finally found it at the bottom of my bag, in one of those weird pockets I kept using and then forgetting about.

  It took a good ten minutes to untangle my earbuds, but soon I was settled on the bed with my eyes closed, excited about my very first EVP session. What if the recorder had captured something otherworldly? I was still a skeptic, but after my conversation with Kate, I felt a bit of hope. There could be something out there.

  My heart beating a little harder in anticipation, I hit play.

  Silence.

  After checking to make sure it was working, I settled in for a long wait. Once I’d finished my preamble about Hensu’s history, the only consistent sound was a faint crackling, which I assumed was the fire. I cranked the volume, but couldn’t hear anything else. No supernatural messages, no eerie laughter, nothing.

  “You scared the crap out of me, girl. Where did you come from?”

  My own voice, amplified to an unnatural level, almost made me scream. Bolting upright in bed, I surveyed the room, not remembering where I was for a second. I must have fallen asleep.

  “Were you with a group?”

  I’d been about to lower the volume, but I paused, remembering how quiet her voice had been. Listening hard, I waited for her to speak, for her to tell me that she lived among the ruins of the ghost city.

  “You speak English?” My own stupid voice again. I checked the volume. It was set as high as it could go. Straining to hear any sound beyond the fire, I winced when my words came back to me at an uncomfortable decibel level. “What do you mean, you live here? I thought this was a ghost city.”

  I played the section a few more times before finally accepting it—my recorder hadn’t been close enough to pick up her voice. Frustrated, I yanked out the earbuds, barely resisting the urge to throw the device across the room. High sensitivity, my ass.

  Erik strode out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist. He was rubbing his wet hair with another. “Oh hey, you’re awake. It wasn’t easy, but I got us some clean towels.” He stopped talking when he saw my face. “What’s wrong? Did something else happen?” He glanced at our door.

  “Not really, other than I fucked up my new career before it even started.” I ground my heels into the bed, wishing I could hit something. But I didn’t want to shock my mild-mannered roommate. Between my slobbish tendencies and the stalker, I’d put him through enough.

  “How?” Erik appeared genuinely sympathetic, which is more than I would have been in his position. “What’s going on?”

  “You know how I said I interviewed that girl, kind of, at the ghost city?”

  He nodded, drying his hair with one hand.

  “My recorder wasn’t close enough to pick up her voice. All I can hear is my own moronic rambling.”

  Erik examined the recorder, frowning. “That’s odd. These things are awesome. I’ve used a similar model for my band rehearsals, and it picks up everything.”

  “She was pretty quiet. I didn’t even mean to record her, initially. I just had it running when I was by myself, on the off chance it might pick up some EVP.”

  “EVP?”

  “Yeah…you know, electronic voice phenomena.” Now I felt really stupid. Pretty soon I’d be telling him I believed in the boogeyman. Of course, Erik was from California. I’ve never been, but I’d heard shit could get pretty weird over there. He was probably more open-minded than most, based on geography alone.

  My roommate’s brow furrowed, making it obvious he didn’t have a clue what I was talking about—and why would he? Until a few months ago, I hadn’t known anything about this stuff either. I explained my plan to capture the disembodied voices of the spirit world. It sounded ridiculous. “Don’t get me wrong—I don’t actually believe in this stuff. But there’s always a chance, right?”

  “Sure. I’ve seen a ghost before.”

  “Were you high at the time?”

  Erik laughed, wandering over to the desk to paw through his bag. Thankfully, his towel stayed around his waist. Withdrawing a miraculously clean T-shirt, he yanked it over his head. “No, man. It was legit.”

  “What was it, your grandma or something?”

  “Nah, nothing like that. It happened all the time when I was a kid. This guy used to lurk outside my bedroom window.”

  My mind immediately went in the pedophile direction, and I suppressed a shudder. “Creepy.”

  “Yeah, you could say that. The worst part was, his face was beyond fucked up. It loo
ked like plastic instead of skin. Kind of like Freddy Krueger, you know what I mean?”

  I’d seen A Nightmare on Elm Street several times, but I’d never met a burn victim in real life. “He’d been burned?”

  Erik plunked himself down in the chair across from my bed. “Yeah, I guess so, only I didn’t know that then. I was just a kid. All I knew was that there was something wrong with his face.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Um…we lived in that house until I was about ten, so I guess this started happening when I was five, maybe even younger.”

  “You had a burned guy staring in your window for five years?” I didn’t know whether to believe him or not, but at this point, I hoped it had merely been a super persistent nightmare.

  “Yeah. It was weird at first, but after a while I got used to him, you know?”

  “How in the fuck would you get used to something like that? Didn’t you tell your parents?”

  “I did, but they didn’t believe me. You see, it only happened at night. The first couple times I saw him, I screamed, but by the time they got to my room, he was gone.”

  He must have been dreaming. It was night, he was a kid—but my roommate shook his head.

  “I know what you’re thinking, man, but you’re wrong. It wasn’t a dream. That dude was real.”

  “How did you know? What made you think it was a ghost instead of a man?”

  “He wore weird clothes, for one thing. Black robes—and he had a priest’s collar, but we weren’t religious in my family, and I was too little then to get what it was. But one day my class took a field trip to a museum.”

  “Okay…”

  “They had this huge picture of a building on the wall—my teacher said it was where the Jesuit priests used to live. There were a bunch of men posed in front of it in a row, wearing black robes. So I asked my teacher where that building was, and guess what she said?”

  “What?”

  “It had burned down in the 1950s, but when it was still standing, it had been right across the street from my house.”