14

Vic

It wasn’t fair. He’d stayed on the road. It wasn’t right that Vic’s dreams were fading.

He’d imagined his wedding with Adam. The two of them in black tuxes, holding hands. Now the image was out of focus. Even the idea of living together was blurry, a dusty old photograph. Vic wasn’t tired. He wasn’t thirsty. He wasn’t even breathing hard, though he’d have guessed they’d walked for miles over the slow roll of the dunes, and yet he felt ground down in an entirely different way, like they were pushing against an invisible river, something that urged them west, not east, in the wrong direction and away from Adam.

“We should take a break,” Jodi suggested. “Rest for a bit.”

“No,” Vic said. “I don’t think we should stop.”

He didn’t like the look of the sand. It pooled to the sides, like it wanted on the road, like something barely kept it at bay. The wolves, the demons, hadn’t returned, but he didn’t trust them not to hide behind the dunes.

“Why not?” Jodi asked, though without her usual snark.

“I’m not sure we’d start again if we did,” Vic said.

“He’s right,” Mel said. She held up an arm, let her hand swim through the air, like she’d stuck it out a car window. “It wants to push us back.”

“You feel it too?” Vic asked.

“Yes,” she said. “It’s like the wind, but it’s not the wind.”

Vic looked to Jodi, to see if she was with them.

“You two are creepy,” she said.

“I thought you were a witch,” Vic said.

“How would you know?” Jodi demanded.

“Like I said, your cousin told me that you’re like him.”

“I’m nothing like him,” Jodi said, real anger flaring in her eyes. “I’m a Binder.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? You’re family.”

“There’s a whole tradition, mother to daughter, only my grandmother left my mom out. She didn’t teach her anything, didn’t teach me anything. She gave it all to Adam instead, to a—”

“Watch it,” Vic cut her off using every ounce of his cop voice.

Jodi huffed out a breath and said, “Yeah. I feel things, and I can feel something here, but I don’t know how to read it or tell you what it means.”

“I don’t either,” Vic said.

Sometimes he could feel the Reaper inside him, something solid and cold, but it stayed curled up, hidden from him. It wasn’t any help in understanding this place.

“What about you?” Vic asked Mel.

“What about me?”

“Where are you from?” Vic asked. “You’ve got a bit of an accent.”

Mel blinked.

“Baltimore,” she said with visible relief. “I’m from Baltimore.”

“Is your memory getting better the farther we get from the sea?” Vic asked.

“I think so,” Mel said. “I remember Levi. I remember his eyes when he died. I remember Momma telling me not to follow him, but I did. That’s all I know so far.”

“Then let’s keep going,” Vic said.

Mel and Jodi didn’t argue.

Vic watched Mel for clues, signs to who or what she was. She didn’t seem to be holding up any better than him or Jodi. The women looked tired, and Vic felt the same hunch in his shoulders, the same lead in his steps.

He’d prided himself on keeping fit, on passing the academy physical and staying in shape for the job. He’d made it over the privacy fence in one try, a requirement for Denver cops. He ran and worked out five days a week, but physical endurance wasn’t what this place called for.

Vic used the line between him and Adam like he’d use a rope to climb a mountain, pulling himself along, hand over hand, using it to help fight the exhaustion.

He’d never imagined he’d be linked to someone this way, or that he’d fall in love with a guy. Vic had gotten used to it quickly, so quickly that Adam worried it was only the magic, the link between them. Vic disagreed. He could look back now and admit that he’d always been open to it, just hadn’t found the right person, hadn’t seen in a guy what he saw in Adam.

Vic realized that he’d been pondering too long, that he’d focused on his own thoughts to the point that he couldn’t recall the last time Mel had hummed a broken tune or Jodi had complained.

He turned to find them slumped to the ground.

Damn it, Vic thought.

He wanted to shout for them to get up but couldn’t find his voice. The force of the road, the push back to the west, to the shore, increased when Vic had turned around. He could do that or he could collapse like Mel and Jodi had. The unseen river pushed him back.

Collapse or stumble west. Those were his choices.

“No,” Vic forced out.

The edges of his sight filled with red and black. He was losing consciousness. Vic dropped to his knees.

He stayed there, trying to summon the strength to rise.

His connection to Adam was the only thing keeping him in between.

The force lessened as light broke over him from behind.

Vic opened his eyes, turned his head, and found greenish headlights illuminating the road.

It gave him the strength to turn and see the bus idling in the middle of the highway.

The doors opened with a mechanical whoosh.

Several ghosts stepped out. They had a little more color than the spirits by the shore, more detail. Their clothes were vibrant compared to the dead Vic had seen before. Their outfits were made of junk or mismatched clothing.

A woman wearing a birdcage like a helmet bent over him, her eyes wide.

“You’re alive,” she said.

She had plastic bat wings, like from a child’s Halloween costume, strapped to her back.

“You’re not,” Vic said.

He could see through her, a little, but she could speak, and he could see that her eyes were blue.

“Get them on the bus,” the woman told the others. “Quick as you can now.”

“But—they’re alive!” one of the others, an Asian man said. He wore bright yellow sunglasses and a cloak made of patches and rags, all different colors, like a quilt of uneven scraps. The hood rose in a tall point that bent to the side.

“Yes,” the woman said. “Shepherd will know what to do.”

Vic wanted to ask who they were, where they’d take him and the others, but he was too weak, his strength too expended to fight even if he’d thought he should.

The ghosts were solid enough to grip him by the arms. They lifted him and carried him onto the bus before turning to help Mel and Jodi.

The seats were stiff, coated in fabric, with a neck rest that could have doubled as a handle for the person behind you.

The interior felt warm, heated by vents somewhere in the floor. Bolted and welded together from steel, the whole thing rattled.

There were other passengers, ghosts not dressed like refugees from an artist’s commune. Like the ones from the shore, they wore slack expressions, like the deeply drugged. They reminded Vic of hospital patients, of Eduardo sleeping off the chemo. Most looked awake, though none of them met Vic’s eyes. They seemed oblivious—to him, to their surroundings, and to wherever the bus was taking them.

It lurched into motion.

The other ghosts, his maybe rescuers, smiled. Some chatted with each other.

Looking beyond their mismatched outfits, Vic couldn’t see anything they had in common. They were every age and color. Men and women.

The woman who’d spoken to Vic came to sit beside him. Pressed against the window and the wall, Vic eyed her more closely. Past the birdcage, he could see a bit of gray at her edges, a creeping translucence.

“It’s going to be okay,” she said. “We’ll take you to Sanctuary.”

“You can talk,” Vic said. “You’re not like . . .”

He tried to gesture at the thinner ghosts, but his body remained too heavy for more than a jerk of his head.

“No, we’re not like the lost ones,” she said, following his gaze to a man with wild hair and a tattered coat. He looked like he’d been unsheltered.

“Why not?” Vic asked.

He wondered if the man’s crazed stare had been the same when he’d been alive. He realized the ghosts had to have no smell because surely the man would reek of the streets if they did.

“We’ve been saved,” she said with a bright smile that sent a chill up Vic’s spine.

The way she said it, the way she beamed—it reminded him of the missionaries that would come to their porch, the ones who didn’t listen to his mom’s protests that they were Catholic, which made them Christians.

Vic had never been comfortable with zeal.

“How?” Vic asked, already guessing he wasn’t going to like the answer. “How have you been saved?”

“We’ll show you,” she said.

That’s what he was afraid of.

At least they were heading east.

The woman hummed a quiet tune, something like a hymn, as Vic tried to rally, but his strength wasn’t there. He remained slumped against the window and the steel of the bus’s wall.

They didn’t make any more stops.

Mel and Jodi sat side by side ahead of them. Asleep, they slumped against each other. At least they were safe for now. That lifted some of the heaviness from Vic’s heart.

Then the sky lightened, the red and black shifting to more of an orange. Here and there he spied streaks of earthly blue.

Vic exhaled. He felt like he could breathe again.

“That’s better, isn’t it?” the woman asked.

The gray was gone from her edges. She appeared more solid, less translucent.

“Yes,” Vic said.

“That’s the miracle of Sanctuary,” she said. “Of salvation.”

With a happy honk of its horn, the bus lurched to a stop. Stretching, Vic realized there was no driver.

“I’m June,” the woman said.

A grin burst over her face like it was a surprise to her, like she’d just remembered that she could.

Mel and Jodi stirred. It wasn’t like they woke up, more like they’d reanimated.

“Where are we?” Jodi asked.

“Sanctuary,” Vic said.

He hadn’t meant to sound so distrustful. He didn’t want to play his hand yet. The dead outnumbered them, and he had no weapons, no magic. More than ever, he wished he had his scythe.

Jodi narrowed her eyes at the scene, watching the woke ghosts help the lost ones off with clear suspicion.

“What the hell?” she muttered before turning to Mel.

“Have you been here?” she asked.

“I don’t think so,” Mel said, with a shake of her head.

“You would have stayed if you had,” June said. “It’s heaven.”

Jodi shot Vic a wide-eyed, worried look.

He slipped up a finger, hinting for her to stay quiet.

“Come see! Come see!” June said from the door to the bus. With a wave for them to follow, she stepped outside.

Vic exchanged a worried glance with Mel and Jodi then stood.

“It’s a town,” Vic said, eyeing the ramshackle buildings. They were obviously old, looking abandoned, probably from the Wild West. “A ghost town.”

“Those are never creepy,” Jodi said, giving the place the stink eye. “Though I guess the art is kind of cool.”

Paint slashed the front of the buildings and the ground, like kindergartners had gone amuck with buckets of purple, pink, and green.

Junk was everywhere, usually arranged in some artful manner. A shopping cart full of old televisions, the tube kind, flickered as their screens came and went.

A tree of rebar sported leaves of old vinyl records. They span and twisted in the warm breeze, some broken, some intact.

The woke spirits like June herded the lost ones toward the buildings where tables made of anything from crates to planks and barrels stood waiting in rows.

The sky above remained orange. The ground below was soft, muddy, though it didn’t suck at Vic’s boots. Every now and then a slash of normal blue lit the sky.

“Shepherd found this place,” June said. “He named it Sanctuary. Then he found us and showed us how to save ourselves. He helps us bring others, save them like he saved us.”

“Shepherd,” Vic repeated quietly.

He really wished he was armed, because no way anyone called Shepherd by a group of people who smiled this much was any kind of good.

Mel and Jodi closed ranks, moving closer to Vic.

“It looks familiar,” Mel said.

“So you have been here before?” Vic asked.

“Or seen pictures,” she said. “I—I can’t remember.”

Maybe it would help her memory. Whatever it was, the ghost town seemed closer to their world. It had given Vic back his strength. Maybe it could do something similar for Mel, reverse some of the harm the devils had inflicted.

“But no—this isn’t right,” Mel said. “This shouldn’t be here.”

“What do you mean?” Jodi asked.

“It’s alive, a little, and life does not belong here.”

“Okay,” Vic said, holding up his hands, gesturing for calm. “Rule one, nobody eats or drinks anything. I know that much. And we get back on the road as soon as possible.”

“Yes, Dad,” Jodi grumbled.

Vic wouldn’t have minded if she’d left her usual attitude in the devils’ bellies.

“Where would you go?” a man asked. “There’s only desert out there, only the road back to the sea.”

Vic knew the man had to be Shepherd before he turned around but took a step back at the sight of him.

“You’re one of them,” Vic said.

Shepherd didn’t wear the devil mask, but his skin was made of patches, different colors and pieces patched together. He wore a full suit, something old-fashioned, not unlike Mel’s, though his was white.

His eyes were lit with the same green fire as the embers the devils had eaten.

Shepherd smiled and cracks opened in the gaps between the parts of his face.

He had patches of beard and a mustache. All of his hair, even his eyebrows, were different colors and lengths. His ears didn’t match. It was like he consisted of several faces, several people.

“I am not what you are thinking,” he said. “And if you have met my brethren, they are not what you think either.”

“So what are you?” Jodi asked. “A demon?”

So much for subtlety.

“Yes,” Shepherd said. “I suppose I am.”

He waved a hand at the town, at the tables where June and the others had led the lost. More of the awakened ghosts, all dressed as bizarrely as June emerged from the alleys and the buildings, moving toward the tables with a hungry leer, though Vic didn’t see any food.

“But as I said, we’re not what you think,” Shepherd continued.

“I think you tortured us,” Jodi said. “I think—”

“The others weren’t kind to us,” Vic said, cutting Jodi off before the situation escalated. “Any of us.”

“They don’t how to be anything else,” Shepherd said. “They weren’t trying to hurt you. It’s their function, what they’re meant to do.”

“What do you mean?” Jodi demanded.

“They help the dead let go,” Mel said. “Prepare them for the sea.”

“Exactly,” Shepherd said. “That is all we knew until you came, Mother.”

Mel shrunk back from the name.

“What are you talking about?” she demanded.

“Some of us tasted life,” he explained. “Your life, and we awoke. We left our masks behind and climbed out of the dark. You sparked our first feelings, our first thoughts. So we call you Mother.”

“And they call you Shepherd,” Vic said, looking to June and the others.

“Just so,” he said. “I have shown them how to remain themselves. I protect them from the call of the sea.”

“How?” Mel asked.

“Through you, I tasted life,” Shepherd said. “I have shown my children how to do the same. In this place they remember pieces of who they were.”

He lifted his palms to gesture at the square, where the woke had gathered the lost. Vic blinked to see the thinner ghosts laid atop the tables. Unprotesting, they stared blankly at the sky.

“What are you doing?” Vic demanded. “What are they doing?”

“Surviving,” Shepherd said.

As one, the woke ghosts tore the lost apart, ripping into them with their bare hands, like each was some quivering sea creature. The lost remained lost, their expressions placid as the woke brought pieces of the other dead to their mouths and gulped or slurped them down.

“How can you do this to them?” Vic demanded.

“They pass through here to give up what they carry,” Shepherd said. “This is no different from what the demons do. We simply do it sooner. We feed the dead to the dead.”

“And then the woke feed you,” Vic said.

“Yes.”

“But you’re keeping them from the sea,” Mel said.

“Yes,” Shepherd said. “If we can bring them back to themselves, they may stay. If not they feed those who do.”

Vic did not want to watch, but he felt like he had to, like he had to see this, to bear witness and not look away.

“Where are the other demons?” he asked. “You said you weren’t the only one.”

“Some help me, but most have gone to the city.” Shepherd turned toward the distant lights on the horizon, the northern glow Vic had spotted before.

“And what about us?” Vic asked, watching June greedily tear off a piece of the unsheltered man. “What if we don’t want to stay?”

“We’ve no need of you, mean you no harm. The children saved you. We have found our place here.” Shepherd turned to Mel. “You birthed my consciousness, Mother. I will always be grateful for that, but you are not bound to me. Go if that is what you wish, but you should know that no one who has left Sanctuary has ever returned.”

“We don’t belong here,” Mel said, her voice firm.

Vic wondered if she were about to pull another trick out of her hat, like she had with the demon in the desert.

“We will go east,” Mel declared.

Shepherd did not argue.

“Good enough for me,” Vic said.

He turned to grab Jodi, to get them out of here before June and the others decided they wanted to taste the living, but Jodi stared at the feast, her eyes shining with fresh tears as she fixed on one of the figures.

“Mom?” she asked.