The medical bay was as cold and uninviting as it sounded, coated in that fluorescent, medicinal glow that always meant you were among the sick and dying. In this case, it was just Rhett, Basil, and Theo, all three technically dead already.
The whole place looked overly sterile, without a single smudge on any of the shining steel. But then again, Rhett didn’t figure the place got much use. There were glass cabinets with bottles of actual medicine in them—bandages, syringes, slings, empty vials. Plastic curtains hung around empty beds. There was one nice feature: a wall that had three large portholes set into it, giving a spectacular view of the very unspectacular world outside.
Rhett also couldn’t help but note the wide glass tube that stood in the very center of the room, connecting the floor to the ceiling like a support column. The tube was filled with souls. They glowed and ebbed and pressed up against the glass, their whispering voices blessedly unheard from the outside.
The boys were all given beds, Rhett and Basil across from each other, Theo near the portholes next to Rhett. Other syllektors, ones who had obviously brought some sort of medical training with them when they died, set Basil’s leg and wrapped Rhett’s. They did as much as they could for Theo—bandages and gauze and tape—and when they were done, he looked like a horrifying cross between the Mummy and Frankenstein’s monster. The poor guy fell asleep almost instantly.
Once all the bandaging and casting were done, they were left to themselves, with Mak sitting next to Basil’s bed, holding his hand, resting her face on his chest. Rhett watched them, listened to them.
“I thought we were goners back there,” he murmured to her. “Thought we might lose each other.”
Rhett was somehow comforted. He thought of his parents, of their beautiful, untarnished love for each other. He thought of how the world seemed to rotate around them, how it could pummel them with constant obstacles and how they always, always overcame them together, as one, holding each other and comforting each other and each of them feeding off the other’s optimism, like Mak and Basil were doing now. And when, one year on his parents’ anniversary, Rhett had asked his father what made their relationship so strong, so impenetrable, his father had told him that there’s no such thing as having to work at a marriage, that life might be hard, but love is easy.
Watching Mak and Basil, Rhett heard those words play over and over in his head. That had been one of the best conversations he’d had with his dad. He was glad for it.
He looked out at the churning gray sky and wondered again about the night of the crash. He thought about losing it and swerving the car, yanking the steering wheel, trying to make a scene, to get his dad’s attention. He thought about the road in front of the car and how empty it had seemed. He could never have seen the truck behind them when he swerved, but the stretch of highway in front of the car had been completely devoid of traffic, of anything. It had been totally empty.
Hadn’t it?
* * *
Days went by. The boys healed together. Basil called it “a never-ending bro-down” in his ridiculous college-jock American accent. Treeny came by every now and then, mostly to check up on Theo, who had been her first savior back on the Golden Gate.
Mak was there often, visiting with Basil and mostly ignoring Rhett, which was as it should be. She quickly hardened back into her old prickly self, losing the cuddly nature that had overcome her when Basil turned up alive. Sometimes they nagged at each other, but it was usually in fun, and Rhett loved to listen to them. If the mood was just right, it really was like being in the room with his parents again.
Not long after they’d first been brought down to the medical bay, Basil had told them the story of how he’d survived the psychon and the drop into the bay.
“The bastard broke my fall,” he said. “We hit the water and it might as well have been a brick wall. If my scythes didn’t kill the damn thing, the hit from that water sure bloody did. And I still managed to break my leg.”
Then it was just a matter of getting back to shore, he told them. He had sunk with the psychon, trying to free his blades in case there were more that might come after him but only managed to get the one.
“I took it and doggy-paddled my way to one of the beaches. It was pathetic. After that, I had to limp through half the city to find a door that would get me back aboard the ship.”
Basil told the story with the same cocky air of indifference with which he told pretty much any story about himself. But Rhett sensed an underlying tone, something in the neighborhood of uneasiness. Basil had been afraid. Maybe as much for himself as he had been for Mak. It had certainly been a close call. And if Rhett understood anything about what Captain Trier had told him, about the existence of a syllektor after the destruction of their heart, it was that “ghosting out” was the worst possible thing that could happen. An eternity surrounded by memories that you can’t touch, can’t feel, can’t enjoy, haunting the hollow shell of your lost life. It was worse than a horror story. Because it could happen for real.
At night Rhett and Basil would alternate between playing chess and playing Scrabble. Theo tried to play (according to Basil, Theo was actually a fantastic chess player), but his hands and face were too bandaged up. He was content to just sit and watch, though, usually falling asleep halfway through a game.
Chess had been Basil’s game of choice. “Back when I was a young little mouthbreather,” he said, “I’d play with my sister on a set that we made out of an old crate and some bottlecaps.” Scrabble had been a staple in the Snyder household while Rhett and his parents were alive. His parents even began implementing “Tequila Scrabble” on Saturday nights. Sometimes they’d even let Rhett join in … but with club soda instead of tequila.
Over those games, Rhett told Basil and Theo about his parents, about the accident, about how guilty he felt for causing it. About how he sometimes hated himself, both for the accident and for the guilt, not knowing which was the right way to feel.
Basil nodded. “The hating yourself part is the hardest thing to get over, isn’t it?” he said. “You just feel like you could have been so much better. Ha-ha! Triple Word Score!” And he went on as if he hadn’t said anything at all.
* * *
One night Mak poked her head through the door, eyebrows raised in question. She found Rhett and held his gaze.
“Basil’s asleep,” Rhett said quietly. “Although what we’re listening to is either his snoring or the mating call of a hippopotamus. It’s hard to tell the difference.”
She stepped into the room with a tiny smile on her face, and Rhett felt a little firework of pride go off inside him—it wasn’t often that he got a smile out of any of them.
“I’m … actually here to see you,” Mak said, her voice low to keep from waking Basil and Theo, who was also turned over and snoring loudly.
Rhett was sure that he couldn’t hide the surprise on his face, but he tried to play it cool.
“Well then, by all means, step into my office,” he said.
She picked up a chair and set it next to Rhett’s bed. She sat down with her elbows on her knees, as if she was about to give him some kind of pep talk. Maybe she was. He didn’t know. He was in uncharted territory.
When she didn’t say anything for a while, he asked, “Is everything all right?”
“I never thanked you,” she murmured.
“What do you mean?”
“I never thanked you for saving me. On the bridge.” She was staring at her hands fiddling with each other.
“Oh. Well, you don’t have to thank me,” Rhett said. “It was a group effort, anyway.” He nodded toward Basil, a growling lump under the sheets across the room.
“I know,” she replied. “I just … I was afraid. I didn’t realize I was stuck right away. Because at first I couldn’t move. As soon as I heard that there were psychons out there, I … I froze. I failed my team. Again.”
Rhett was stunned. He was incapable of finding the words to fill the gap of silence that was stretching out between them.
“Theo looks like crap,” she went on. “We almost lost Basil. I think Treeny is completely traumatized. And look at you.” She gestured to Rhett’s leg. She paused, then said, “You were braver than I was out there. You pulled me out of that car, and because of that, we saved everybody. So … thank you.”
Mak stood, leaned over Rhett’s bed, and put her lips against his cheek. Without thinking, he switched his senses on. The pain in his leg was phenomenal, daggering into him with seething red blades. But the feeling of her kiss against his skin blew the pain right out of him. It wasn’t romantic—he wasn’t sure he could ever feel anything like that for Mak, especially after having compared her and Basil to his parents. It was the simple act of being soothed by another person that made the agony in his leg worth it. When she pulled away, he let his senses fade again.
Rhett opened his mouth to tell her about what he’d seen in San Francisco, about the girl that had appeared to him and nearly ruined his mind with just her voice, about what she had said (I am the speaker of languages. You are the keeper of souls), about the fear that was burning a hole inside him. But what came out instead was “You don’t have to thank me, Mak. You’re part of my team, and you’re my friend. Even if you’re a little pushy sometimes.” She laughed quietly. “And you didn’t fail anybody. We might be dead, but we’re still mostly human. In fact, I think I feel more human now than I did when I was alive.”
Mak sat back down, cocking her head in a silent question.
“I just mean that before I died, I was so … disconnected. High school is … the literal worst sometimes. And everybody’s always so caught up in their own stuff. It was like being on a different planet from everyone else. Here … it feels like I’ve known you guys forever.” Now he was the one fidgeting.
Mak was nodding, her head down.
“Her name was Lana,” she said. Rhett looked up at her, startled by her words. “She was around Treeny’s age. They were really close. And she was like a little sister to the rest of us.” She looked around the room for a moment, seeming uncertain. But she went on. “We were in Austria, picking up the soul of this skier who’d gotten caught in an avalanche. It was taking too long. We all knew it. We were digging through the snow, trying to find the guy. I was about to just call it. Give up and let the psychons find him. I should have. But Lana wanted to keep going. She was never afraid, that kid. Never.” She swallowed. “The psychons showed up, of course. We tried to fight, but the snow was so deep and unsteady. They … they dragged Lana away. I couldn’t figure out why they would do that. But I saw the top half of the skier sticking out of the snow. He was long dead, and I could tell his soul was already gone.”
“Jesus…,” Rhett whispered.
“Those monsters ripped her apart. They opened her up and took the soul right out of her chest and then they … they smashed her heart. For fun, I guess. Or maybe because she got in their way. She was gone. Ghosted. Just like that. We were all broken for a long time. Treeny still is. She was never right after Lana. We fought—hard—to be a team again. That’s why when you showed up … I just couldn’t let history repeat itself.”
Rhett let out a long, heavy breath. It hung there between them, like an invisible speech bubble waiting to be filled. Finally, he said, “How do you feel now?”
Mak looked over at the spot where Basil’s chest was rising and falling, filling and emptying with the air he didn’t need to breathe. She turned back to Rhett and stared at him.
“Now I feel like we’re lucky to have you,” she said.
Rhett smiled. It was all he could do.
“What about you?” Mak asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Are you still angry you got roped into all this?”
He thought for a moment, listening to the give and take of Basil’s and Theo’s snores.
“No,” Rhett said. “I’m not angry about being here. Sometimes I’m angry because I feel like I got yanked out of a life that I hadn’t even figured out yet. But if given the choice between being here or there…” He nodded at the tube of souls glowing in the middle of the room. “… I’d rather be here. With you. With them.” He looked around at where Basil and Theo continued to sleep soundly.
It was Mak’s turn to smile.
Rhett took her hand then, and she let him. And they were quiet for a while.
* * *
Basil and Rhett were released from the medical bay long before Theo, who continued to look like Frankenstein’s Mummy for a solid two weeks.
Rhett and the others got back into the groove of things as best they could—training, gathering, working. Mak pushed the team harder than ever in the training room, including herself. Rhett caught her early one day, alone in a corner of the room, pummeling a rubber torso with her machete, slicing it into foamy wedges, her senses and emotions coursing through her so that she was dripping with sweat and tears. The handle of the machete was slick with blood from blisters on her palms. She may have finally told Rhett what happened to the fifth team member—Lana—but that didn’t mean that she had forgiven herself. He left her alone that day and decided not to mention it to anyone.
The first time they had to go out and collect a soul without Theo was nothing short of tense and frightening. Rhett was glad to have a new knuckle blade to replace the one he’d lost on the Golden Gate, but that didn’t make it any easier.
They found some poor guy who’d been on a hunting trip and had somehow been shot, either by his own bullet or someone else’s. The guy was bleeding out in the middle of a dense forest, where a pack of psychons could have rushed the team at any time, from any direction. They had all agreed ahead of time that Treeny would collect the soul, and Mak and Rhett and Basil would stand guard. But even with the three of them surrounding her, Treeny still seemed terrified as she pulled the hunter’s soul into her.
They got out of there as quickly as they could.
After that it was only slightly easier. Every new death brought with it its own set of risks, and without Theo, the team’s chance of survival against the psychons was severely damaged. Which is why they were all extremely happy to have him back when he was finally released from the med bay.
And of course he was released on a working day, when the push was nowhere to be found and the five of them were down in one of the cargo holds, hauling crates of food up to the mess hall. Theo was with them, though, working as hard as ever, even with his face still yellow and swollen from the battle on the Golden Gate. Rhett was glad to see the big guy back on his feet, and he said so.
“Thanks, stretch,” Theo replied, his New York accent like a kind of music. He tossed a crate of potatoes onto one of his massive shoulders and took a few stiff steps over to where they had a flatbed cart waiting. He set the crate down. “It’s good to be out of that stinkin’ ward. Never liked those kinds of places.”
“Because you don’t like hospitals, or because you were such an outstanding citizen in your former life that you never had to visit one?” Basil asked. He and Rhett were in new clothes, pulled from a collection that had accumulated on board over the centuries. Rhett had really only needed some new jeans and found a decent pair right away. He had wanted to ask if there was some kind of Goodwill donation box for the afterlife. Basil, on the other hand, had searched high and low for a new blazer to replace the one that had been ruined by the psychons. Now his new blazer was hanging off the corner of one of the crates, and Blazer Guy himself was dragging crates across the floor to the cart, sleeves rolled up and his normally perfect hair dangling in his face.
Theo only grinned in response to Basil’s jab.
The cargo hold seemed to be as long as the Harbinger itself, stretching out under hanging yellow lights for as far as Rhett could see. The hold was overtaken by mountainous stacks of crates, which, according to Treeny, never diminished. There was always a supply of food on board, no matter how many syllektors there were or how many meals they ate. The five of them were deep in the labyrinth, schlepping crates onto the cart as quickly as they could, trying to be done with the day’s work.
Mak and Treeny were mostly silent, each of them still harboring their guilt from what happened on the bridge in San Francisco. Rhett understood that. Every time he looked at Theo’s face he was reminded of all the things he could have done differently. But he’d helped to save Mak, and, in a way, he’d saved Treeny, too. If not for the other thing—the she-thing—he might have considered that day a victory.
“Hey guys?” Rhett said suddenly, surprising even himself. He was going to tell them. The words were there on his tongue, waiting to burst out of him. The eyes of the girl-monster flickered in front of him.
The other four stopped—Mak with a crate resting on her hip, Basil with his arms folded and leaning against one of the stacks, Treeny behind a crate as big as she was that she had been pushing toward the cart, and Theo with his muscular arms wrapped all the way around a crate marked WINE. They were all looking at Rhett, waiting, and he wished that he could pop open the crate Theo was holding and have a drink.
“I just … wanted to say … thanks,” Rhett stammered, losing his nerve. “Thanks for taking me in.”
They all smiled at him—even Mak—and for just a moment all thoughts of the she-thing were pushed from his mind. On the worst day of his life—at the end of his life—he had lost one family but gained another. They were all standing here in front of him. He trusted them and they trusted him and they were friends. More than that, they were a team. They had conquered the psychons once and, if they had to, they would do it again. But for now they were content to just be together, working, training, gathering. And that was happiness enough for all of them.
“Don’t get all sappy on me, mate,” Basil said, winking.
“Yeah, you’re not allowed to get soft,” Mak said playfully. “I need a human shield the next time we run into the psychos.”
They all laughed, including Treeny, who shook quietly with giggles, covering her face.
“Did Mak just make a joke?” Theo asked, his voice legitimately concerned. And they all cracked up again.
When they had settled down a bit but still weren’t inclined to get any work done, Basil glanced over at Theo.
“Here’s a thought,” he said.
And then they really did crack open the wine. Rhett wasn’t sure if there was an age limit for alcohol aboard a ship of the dead, especially when the dead people in question could avoid the effects of getting drunk if they wanted to. But he gladly took a swig from the bottle when it was passed to him and allowed his senses to absorb the flavor—and the alcohol—as it went warm and heavy into his stomach.
They sat among the crates, passing the bottle around, telling stories about life and afterlife and everything in between. When Mak mentioned Lana without any hesitation at one point, the others joined in, telling Rhett about her fearlessness, her passion. Rhett talked about his parents, their apartment in New York. He told them about his high school and the places he used to hang out at in the city.
They ignored the work they were supposed to be doing, enjoying the rare time they had to relax and, who could have thought, just be teenagers. A couple of hours passed. Until they heard someone coming into the cargo hold, their hard-soled shoes clacking against the floor. The five of them scrambled to gather the wine bottles that they’d gone through and get them back into the crate. But Theo fumbled one and it shattered against the floor. Everyone cringed.
Captain Trier stepped into their little alcove of stacked crates, hands behind his back as always. He stood there with one eyebrow cocked.
“I started to get worried when I didn’t see any of you in the mess hall for dinner,” he said. “I obviously had nothing to worry about. Except maybe for that.” He dipped his head in the direction of the broken wine bottle.
“Our apologies, Captain—” Mak started, but Trier cut her off, holding up a hand.
He glanced around the hold with a look of pure interest. Rhett held his breath, waiting for whatever punishment was about to be doled out.
Finally, with a smirk, the captain said, “Don’t drink all the wine.” And that was it. He turned and disappeared behind the crates, going out the way he had come in.
When he was gone, Rhett and Basil broke down into hysterical laughter, uncontrollable, and the other three joined in, holding on to the edges of crates to keep from falling over.
“We just got straight-up busted,” Basil said, nearly weeping.
“Worth it,” Rhett replied.
They sat and drank and talked until the Harbinger went quiet for the night, their voices echoing above them in the massive hold, replaying the sounds of their laughter.