by Gary Jonas
“So there's something awake on the island,” Rayna said, “and it can possess people?”
“Is it something like the Vanguard?” Kelly asked. We'd dealt with the Vanguard before. They were essentially a ghost army who took control of living people to wage war, and they couldn't leave a host without killing the body.
“I don't think so,” I said. “It released Stuart and he was fine. Had it been the Vanguard, he'd have to die for them to move on.”
“Is it just one ghost?”
“It's not a ghost,” I said. “I would be able to see him or her and I can't. It's some kind of entity made up of smoke and darkness.”
“Could it be multiple ghosts tied together somehow?” Rayna asked.
“Again, I'd be able to see the ghosts intertwined. Whatever it is, it's not a ghost.”
“And you have no idea what the hell it is,” Kelly said.
“Bingo. I was hoping one of you might have an idea.”
“Don't look at me,” Rayna said. “I couldn't even see it.”
“I didn't see it either,” Kelly said. She sounded more skeptical.
“You weren't looking for it. I think if you'd been watching, you could have spotted it. I don't think it was invisible to people. It was simply hiding in the shadows.”
“And able to possess someone,” Rayna said.
“It wasn't a true possession,” I said. “At least not like one I've ever seen. A possession by ghost requires magic because it's not something a normal ghost can do.”
“Maybe it really is a demon,” Rayna said.
“I don't believe in that sort of thing,” I said.
“It doesn't require your belief. It simply needs to be real.”
“Can you call someone at DGI?” Kelly asked.
I hesitated. Someone at Dragon Gate Industries might know more about this sort of thing. They would charge for that information, but there was a bigger risk than money involved.
“I don't want them to know I'm alive,” I said. That wasn't the real risk. The real risk was that they'd tell Kelly it was nothing to worry about. Anything that had been there for more than sixty years and hadn't done anything wasn't likely to have more power now.
“Oh, that's right,” Kelly said. “Monica works there.”
“Yes, she does,” I said, happy to have a reason to avoid DGI.
“Who’s Monica?” Rayna asked.
“My older sister, Monica Chastain,” I said. “We’re not on good terms.”
“You have a sister?” she asked. “And I’m just learning that now?”
“I don’t talk about my sisters.”
“Sisters? Plural?” Rayna leaned forward as though she wanted to challenge me.
“Can we talk about this later?”
“Later means never,” Rayna said, and I knew I’d hurt her.
My last contact with Monica had been back in 2009 when she sent a card telling me her husband had died, but that I was not invited to the funeral.
“If you talk to DGI, don't give them your real name,” Kelly said.
“I suppose I could call and pay for a consultation to see what this thing is and hope Monica isn't there.”
“Why do you care what it is?” Rayna asked.
“Sorry?” I said, not understanding what she meant.
“Do you think this thing is an actual threat?”
“What do you mean?”
Rayna sighed. “I mean it doesn't seem all that dangerous to me. Has it killed anyone?”
“Pedro and Juanita.”
“Has it killed anyone in the last thirty years?”
Shit, I was losing Rayna now too. She was really upset with me. “I don't know. Maybe.”
“You still want to pin unsolved murders and suicides on it?” Kelly asked.
“I don't know,” I said again. “Maybe?”
What I wanted was for us to work as a team, but I couldn't just say that. I mean, I could have, but that would defeat the purpose of our coming together. I was losing my grip on the situation regardless because if there wasn't a clear and present danger, Kelly wouldn't be interested and neither would Rayna.
Kelly rolled her eyes. “Might as well pin it on Ted Bundy,” she said.
“Maybe it's the ghost of Ted Bundy,” Rayna said. “Except that you'd see him, but even if you did, you might not mention it, so that's just silly talk. After all, you don’t even bother to mention siblings. Any brothers out there?”
“No,” I said.
Rayna turned up her nose. “Some darkness wandering around an island isn't a real threat.”
“And it's not something I can kill,” Kelly said. “I enjoyed the trip to the island. I learned some fun facts, so I'm fine with that. I agree that the abandoned hospital is strange, but I don't see that it's a danger to anyone who doesn't go in there.”
“Can we go back to the hospital and fight the thing there?” Rayna asked. “At least that was fun.”
“That was pointless,” Kelly said.
“I'll call DGI tomorrow,” I said.
“Whatever,” Kelly said. “I'm going down to the gym so I can do a workout.” She stared at me for a moment. “That means it's time for you two to go.”
***
I went back to my room, took a shower, then stretched out on the bed to take a nap. A few minutes after I closed my eyes, a pounding on my door startled me.
“Jonathan!” Rayna called through the door. “Let me in! Hurry!”
I rolled out of bed, pulled on a pair of boxer briefs, and opened the door. I knew I’d need to apologize for not sharing family information with her. “What's up?” I asked.
Rayna pushed past me and spun around, her eyes wide. “Don't let it get me!”
I looked around, leaned out into the hallway, and checked both ways. Nothing there.
I turned to face Rayna, and she threw herself into the corner, eyes darting around as if she expected an attack from every direction at once.
“What's the problem?” I asked.
“There's something here,” she said. “It's following me, watching me, creeping me out. Don't let it touch me!”
“Um,” I said. “There's nothing here.”
“I can feel it!”
Was this how I looked the other night? I stood in the room, closed my eyes, and tried to sense anything wrong. The room felt completely normal.
Rayna sank into the corner, hands covering her head. She grabbed hold of her hair and pulled.
“Whoa,” I said and knelt before her. I took her hands and pulled them away from her hair. “Let go. It's all right. Nothing is going to get you here. You're safe.”
“Nobody's safe! It's here with us!”
“There's nobody else here, Rayna.”
“The roof! I'll go to the roof. It can't get me there!”
She tried to get up, but I pushed her back into the corner. “You're not going to the roof. Calm down and tell me what you feel.”
“Something is here,” she said, trembling.
“Do you feel it behind you?”
“It's been behind me since we left Kelly's room.”
We'd gone separate directions as our rooms were on opposite sides of the hall. “So it started when you were alone.”
“Yes.”
I'd felt it when I left Kelly's room, but I didn't feel it now, and I'd ignored it because I'd been through it before. What had I done that Rayna had not?
“Have you taken a shower?” I asked.
“No.”
I nodded. “I want you to take a shower.”
She looked at me as though I were crazy. “You want me to take a shower right now? Why? So you can watch?”
I laughed. “While that would not be objectionable, that's not at all what I meant. Go into the bathroom, close the door, and take a shower alone.”
“I can't be alone right now! It's going to get me.”
“Fine,” I said. I grabbed her and dragged her from the corner.
“What are you doing?”
“You're going in the shower clothes and all,” I said.
At first she fought, but when she heard “clothes and all,” she stopped struggling so much. “You'll be there?”
“Yes.”
“I can't be alone.”
“It's all right.”
I led her into the bathroom, cranked on the shower, and pulled the glass doors back. She hesitated but climbed into the tub fully clothed. The water splashed against her. Droplets splashed out and got me wet and made a mess on the floor until I pulled the door closed.
“Rinse off,” I said.
“The water feels good,” she said.
“Are you feeling any better?”
After a moment, she said, “I'm not so scared now.”
“You're going to be fine,” I said.
“Do you have any shampoo?”
“Back of the tub.”
“Got anything better than the hotel special?”
“It's just shampoo.”
“You need to get something from a salon, Jonathan. The stuff the hotel supplies isn't good for your hair.”
“And you're back to normal.”
“Can you wait outside?” she asked. “I want to get out of these clothes.”
“That sounds like a reason for me to stay right here, actually.”
“Go outside,” Rayna said, but I heard amusement in her voice.
I left the bathroom, got dressed, then sat down to wait.
Thirty minutes later, Rayna exited the bathroom in a cloud of steam with a towel wrapped around her. “That felt wonderful,” she said.
“All better?”
“Definitely. What the hell was wrong with me?”
“I had a similar experience.”
“Do you have a theory?”
“More of a hypothesis.”
“I'm listening,” she said.
“Dust.”
“Dust?”
I nodded. “When I went to the abandoned hospital and had that odd experience, I got the weird sense someone was following me. I think it was dust particles. And that those particles were charged by the darkness entity.”
“And I got them on me at Ellis Island?”
“I think we all did, but I took a shower first thing.”
“Kelly didn't.”
“Kelly doesn't feel fear.”
“And I wasn't worried when I was with her.”
“Neither was I because she's Kelly. Did you feel anything like this yesterday after our trip to Kings Park?”
“Not really. When we got back, I was filthy, so I took a shower first thing.”
“Me too,” I said.
Rayna moved closer to me. “You looked pretty good in your underwear,” she said. “I'm feeling a bit frisky right now after that adrenaline rush. You want to fool around?”
Before I could reply, Esther popped into the room.
“Oh,” she said, seeing Rayna in a towel looming over me. “Am I being a fire extinguisher? I can come back.”
“Esther! Are you okay?”
“Of course.”
“Esther is here?” Rayna asked, looking around.
Esther furrowed her brow and made herself visible to Rayna. She waved. “Sorry to be a wet blanket, though you look a bit wet already.”
“I just took a shower,” Rayna said, blushing.
“Where were you?” I asked.
“On the island. I talked to one of the ghosts there. Most of them couldn't speak English, but one little boy was my huckleberry. Mostly ghost kids right now.”
“What happened to the adults?”
“They were . . . assimilated.”
“You've watched too much Star Trek,” I said.
“No such thing as too much Star Trek,” Esther said. “You were right, though. There used to be dozens of ghosts on the island. Most of them have been eaten or absorbed by the darkness.”
“Any idea what it is?”
“The kids said it was the screams of the sick and dying. They've been playing hide-and-seek with it for years. These days, parts of the darkness leave for a time but then get washed back to shore to reassemble.”
“People are tracking bits and pieces of it off the island.”
“And when they shower,” Rayna said, “those bits and pieces get washed back out to sea.”
“I think there's more to it,” Esther said.
“Do tell.”
“Despair. It's what I felt on the island. It pervades the place.”
“A lot of people had their dreams of coming to America crushed right there,” I said. “They got as far as New York harbor, and they could see America, but they couldn't get here.”
“Exactly. They suffered and died on Ellis Island. All that despair, all that fear, all that anguish. Those poor people.”
“It permeated the buildings, gathered, and now it's awake and sentient?” I asked.
“It would wake up when people went to the island.”
I nodded. “Lately more and more people are visiting, so it's alert and trying to get here.”
“Sounds crazy,” Rayna said.
“How were you feeling before your shower?” I asked.
She nodded. “I see your point. Despair, worry. I didn't want to be alone, I felt separate and afraid. I thought I was going crazy. Maybe you aren't too far off on the murders and suicides.”
“Impossible to tell,” I said. I needed to downplay it now because if people simply needed to shower, it wasn't a threat, and to say otherwise would destroy what credibility I had left.
“Murders and suicides?” Esther asked.
I explained my hypothesis.
When I finished, Esther said, “I thought the kids were making up stories.”
“What do you mean?”
“They beat their gums, saying the darkness used to whisper to people on the island. Some of the sick and dying offed themselves.”
“Damn.”
“Maybe it bumps people off when it gets over here too.”
“People like Pedro and Juanita.”
“Exactly.”
“Still,” I said, “it didn't seem all that strong to me. I mean, yes, it took control of Stuart for a time, but I punched him, and it let go.”
“You didn't tell us that,” Rayna said.
“I didn't? Must have slipped my mind.”
“That's not like you.”
“The kids told me it's smaller now,” Esther said.
“So there's nothing to worry about,” Rayna said.
Esther shook her head. “They said it's been leaving the island bit by bit and when it's strong enough, it's going to bump people off like nobody's business.”
“So how do we stop it?” Rayna asked.
“Pray for rain?” Esther asked.
“It's holed up somewhere,” I said. “Kings Park, maybe?”
“Maybe,” Rayna said. “There was something there, that's for damn sure. It just managed to hide from us when we went after it. Or maybe it left.”
“I think you're right and it just hid from us. Maybe Kelly's right. Maybe I really should call the folks at DGI.”
“You can afford it,” Esther said.
“Being rich doesn't suck,” I said.
“It's after five,” Rayna said. “It will have to wait until tomorrow.”
For a heartbeat, I thought she wanted me to get Esther to leave so we could practice some bedroom Olympics, but that moment had passed. She walked to the closet and rummaged through my clothes.
“Do you have a robe?”
“I haven't bought one,” I said.
“Then can you be a friend and go get some clothes for me from my room?”
“I think you look great in that towel,” I said.
“No hanky-panky,” Esther said, folding her arms.
“Spoilsport,” I said.
“My hotel key is in the pocket of my wet pants,” Rayna said.
Esther pointed to the restroom. “Get a wiggle on,” she said. “She wants so
me dry clothes.”
“I think she's perfectly capable of—”
“Go,” Esther said, still pointing.
I laughed. “Well,” I said, “at least I know where I stand in the pecking order.”
CHAPTER TEN
While I slept the night away, a woman named Edith Bennett jumped off the George Washington Bridge. When I turned on the television to watch the news in the morning, they were fishing her body from the river.
“—has been identified as Edith Bennett of Washington Heights,” the reporter standing in front of the Hudson said.
They flashed her picture on the screen, and I recognized her instantly. She was the silver-haired woman who kept telling us to be quiet on Ellis Island.
“What the hell?” I said and turned the volume up.
“I ain't sure what happened,” a man identified by the Chyron graphics as Lyle Bennett said. “She seemed fine yesterday morning but got real agitated last night. She wouldn't listen to reason.”
“Authorities aren't sure why she jumped,” the reporter said, “but—”
I was out the door before she finished her sentence. I stopped in the hall, realized I was wearing only underwear—“Shit”—and managed to catch the door before it closed. I went back into the room, threw on some clothes, grabbed my room key, and bolted out the door again. I raced to Kelly's room and pounded on the door.
Esther stuck her head through Kelly's door. “Oh, hi, Jonathan.”
“Tell Kelly to let me in.”
Esther pulled her head back into the room, and Kelly opened the door a moment later. “It's not even eight o'clock,” Kelly said.
“Do you have the TV on?” I asked.
“No. I hate television.”
“A lady from our Ellis Island tour killed herself last night. Jumped off a bridge.”
“Which lady?”
“The one who bitched about us talking.”
Kelly shrugged. “Good for her.”
“Not quite the reaction I was looking for.”
“Did the demon talk her into it?” Esther asked.
“Really, Esther?” I asked. “Like the news is going to say, 'A woman threw herself off the George Washington Bridge after a demon told her life was pointless?'”
“Well, we are in New York.”
“This could be a coincidence,” Kelly said.
“No way.”
“Jesus, Jonathan. I don't care if some old bat said good-bye to the cruel world. She had a bug up her ass anyway.”