The queen of holding on after it’s too late.”
How long had it been? he wondered. How many years exactly had the real Nick been gone, and Cameo holding on to the memory of him. Keeping the reminder of his absence fresh every time she put the hat on, pulled him into her body again, talked with him. How many times in that private internal conversation had she told him how much she loved him? How many times had he said it back to her?
He was looking at a wound that was never going to heal, bleeding again. “Hey,” he said gently. “I know this is hard. Seriously. At some point, you’ve got to let him go-”
“No, I don’t. I can’t. I can’t let any of them go, Bugsy, because if I do, then they’re dead. Really dead. Finally dead. Permanently. As long as I can bring them back. Talk to them. Be them…”
As long as you can do that, nothing ever ends, Bugsy thought. As long as you can do that, you’re going to be carrying everything and everyone forever. Your mom. Your boyfriend. My girlfriend. You’re responsible for keeping all of them alive, because they’re already dead. You poor bastard.
“Yeah,” Bugsy said. “Okay.”
On the Congo River, Congo
People’s Paradise of Africa
The pit. Again. Michelle is sick of the pit. She is sick of the smell, and the dark, and the bodies.
“Adesina?” she sighs. “Where are you?”
A hand drops onto her shoulder and she jumps. When she turns, no one is there. The pile in the pit shifts. It moves as if possessed.
“Adesina!”
“Miss! Wake up, miss.”
Michelle jerked awake.
“Your friend,” Kengo said. “I’m worried about her.”
She pushed her hair back from her face and sat up in the bunk. “Did she sleep?”
Kengo shook his head. “I don’t think so. Maybe a little. She just keeps staring into the jungle. And she says things. Is she crazy?”
“You mean more so than usual?” Michelle poured herself a cup of water from the container on the small galley counter. It was warm and brackish, but given how crappy her mouth tasted she figured it could only help. “I’ll go talk to her.”
She went topside. It wasn’t raining, but the humidity was so high it might as well have been. The sky was overcast and there was a preternatural quiet.
Joey was still sitting on the back bench of the boat, huddled in the poncho.
“You should take that off,” Michelle said. “It’s not raining anymore.”
Joey glanced up at her and Michelle was shocked to see how bad she looked.
“I’m cold, Bubbles. Really fucking cold.”
Michelle squatted down and took her hand. It was icy and she wanted to sympathize, but she didn’t have time for Joey to fall apart. She needed her to be Hoodoo Mama.
“You’re going to get sick if you don’t rest,” Michelle said. “At some point we’re going to be walking, and you need to be stronger.”
“Walking through blood?”
“Whatever it takes.”
Joey leaned in closer to Michelle and started stroking her arm.
“I’m cold, Bubbles,” she said again. Her voice was thick with Cajun honey. “I’m so cold. We could warm each other up. You remember, like we did back home. It was cold then, too.”
“It wasn’t cold,” Michelle said, pulling away. “It was in the middle of a hurricane and it was a mistake. I’m not making the same mistake again.”
“You’re a hard-ass, Bubbles,” Joey said sadly. “I always thought you were so nice, so fucking sweet with your blond hair and your green eyes. Not anymore. You’d walk over corpses to do what you needed to, wouldn’t you?”
“Maybe,” Michelle said. “But I don’t want to be walking over yours. Go get some sleep.”
Joey pulled the poncho over her head and then handed it to Michelle. “They’re all so fucking little,” Joey said. “Do all the kids die here?”
“I don’t know. I’m just trying to save one.”
Joey stumbled past her and went inside the cabin.
And as Michelle watched the jungle slip by on the river, it began to rain. She pulled on the poncho and lifted the hood over her head.
Then, over the rain, she could hear something that made her want to cry. It was the sound of Joey and Kengo fucking. Joey was using Kengo to fuck away whatever was preying on her out there in the jungle.
On the Lualaba River, Congo
People’s Paradise of Africa
Something had to give. It did, finally, around midday.
Wally guided his boat into a shaded cove along the river when the rain came. The patter of raindrops on his head felt like somebody had taken a jackhammer to his skull. Even the tiniest ripples on the water vibrated the boat enough to make Wally moan in agony. He’d given Jerusha all of their painkillers, so he had to ride out the migraine.
He wondered if he shouldn’t just give himself over to the PPA. Anything had to be better than this.
Wally lay down in the boat. What point was there in going ashore? His tent was useless. He closed his eyes. Sleep claimed him instantly.
Until his leg erupted in searing pain. Wally yelped. He sat up, fast enough to rock the boat.
Ghost huddled over his shin, jabbing at a rust spot with her knife. She pivoted the knife, digging at a rivet. Wally realized she was trying to pry his rivets out, to open up his leg and get a better target. It hurt like heck.
“Hey, knock it off,” he said. He reached for her.
Ghost saw him, and dematerialized again. But her preoccupation with the rivets in his leg delayed her just a fraction of second, which was enough time for Wally to dart forward and touch the blade with a fingertip.
It became a ghost knife in her hands. Then it became a ghost knife with a rusty blade. And then it was a ghost knife handle and a pile of rust.
Yep. Steel.
Ghost looked at her ruined knife, then at Wally, then at the remains of the blade. For the first time, the expression on her face changed. Her little eyebrows squeezed together, the corners of her mouth turned down. Anger? Fear? Irritation? Wally couldn’t read her.
She lifted the wooden knife handle threateningly, but she looked a little confused. It might have been cute, if she wasn’t trying to figure out how to stab him. Was she planning to hit him with it?
“A www, come on.” Wally shook his aching head. “Give it a rest, would ya?” He lay down in the boat again. “Try to get some sleep,” he slurred. “You’re still growing.”
Sleep claimed him. And it held him for many, many hours.
On the Congo River, Congo
People’s Paradise of Africa
Kengo came up from the cabin. Michelle expected him to have a smile on his face, or to be swaggering, but instead he just looked frightened. He moved stiffly, like an old man. He gingerly sat down next to her.
“There is something wrong with your friend,” he said.
“Really? It didn’t stop you from screwing her.”
“She is pretty.” His hands shook as he lit a cigarette. “And I thought, well… it doesn’t matter. Yes, I slept with her. But she is so violent.” He put the cigarette into the corner of his mouth, rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, and showed Michelle the scratches along his arms. “My back is worse. I don’t know what is chasing her, but I think it rides somewhere inside her.”
Part of Michelle wanted to sympathize with Kengo. After all, Joey had scared him and hurt him. But part of her just wanted him to shut up. She couldn’t worry about both Joey and Adesina.
“Is there a place called Kisan, along the river?” Michelle asked.
