TWENTY-FOUR
STEPPING INTO THE LIGHT BEFORE ME, A PRETTY YOUNG blonde in a blue-and-yellow cocktail dress revealed immodest decolletage. She smiled, but at once her smile faltered.
From my right came an old woman with a long face, eyes vacant of hope. She reached out to me, then frowned at her hand, withdrew it, lowered her head, as if she thought, for whatever reason, that I would find her repellent.
From my left appeared a short, red-headed, cheerful-looking man whose anguished eyes belied his amused smile.
I turned, revealing others with my flashlight. A cocktail waitress in her Indian-princess uniform. A casino guard with a gun on his hip.
A young black man dressed in cutting-edge fashion ceaselessly fingered his silk shirt, his jacket, the jade pendant that hung from his neck, as though in death he was embarrassed to have been so fashion-conscious in life.
Counting the player at the blackjack table, seven appeared to me. I couldn't know if all had perished in the casino or if some had died elsewhere in the hotel. Perhaps they were the only ghosts haunting the Panamint, perhaps not.
One hundred and eighty-two people had perished here. Most would have moved on the moment they expired. At least, for my sake, I hoped that was true.
Most commonly, spirits who have dwelled this long in a self-imposed state of purgatory will manifest in a mood of melancholy or anxiety. These seven conformed to that rule.
Yearning draws them to me. I am not always certain for what it is they yearn, though I think most of them desire resolution, the courage to let go of this world and to discover what comes next.
Fear inhibits them from doing what they must. Fear and regret, and love for those they leave behind.
Because I can see them, I bridge life and death, and they hope I can open for them the door they are afraid to open for themselves. Because I am who I am-a California boy who looks like surfers looked in
I'm afraid that I have less to offer them than they believe I do. What counsel I give them is as shallow as Ozzie pretends his wisdom is.
That I will touch them, embrace them, seems always to be a comfort for which they're grateful. They embrace me in return. And touch my face. And kiss my hands.
Their melancholy drains me. Their need exhausts me. I am wrung by pity. Sometimes it seems that to exit this world, they must go through my heart, leaving it scarred and sore.
Moving now from one to the other, I told each of them what I intuited he or she needed to hear.
I said, 'This world is lost forever. There's nothing here for you but desire, frustration, sadness.'
I said, 'You know now that part of you is immortal and that your life had meaning. To discover that meaning, embrace what comes next.'
And to another, I said, 'You think you don't deserve mercy, but mercy is yours if you'll put aside your fear.'
As one by one I spoke to the seven, an eighth spirit appeared. A tall, broad brick of a man, he had deep-set eyes, blunt features, and buzz-cut hair. He stared at me over the heads of the others, his gaze the color of bile and no less bitter.
To the young black man who fussed ceaselessly and with apparent embarrassment at his fine clothes, I said, 'Truly evil people aren't given the license to linger. The fact that you've been here so long since death means you don't have any reason to fear what comes next.'
As I turned from one of the encircling dead to the next, the newcomer prowled beyond the perimeter of the group, keeping my face in sight. His mood appeared to darken as he listened to me.
'You think what I'm telling you is bullshit. Maybe it is. I haven't been across. How can I know what waits on the other side?'
Their eyes were lustrous pools of longing, and I hoped they recognized in me not pity, but sympathy.
'The grace and beauty of this world enchant me. But it's all broken. I want to see the version we didn't screw up. Don't you?'
Finally, I said, 'The girl I love…she thought we might have three lives, not two. She called this first life
I paused. I had no choice. For a moment, I belonged more to their purgatory than I did to this world, in the sense that words failed me.
Eventually I continued: 'She said we're in boot camp to learn, to fail or succeed of our own free will. Then we move on to a second life, which she called
The red-haired man, whose cheerful smile was belied by anguished eyes, came to me and put a hand on my shoulder.
'Her name is Bronwen, but she prefers to be called Stormy. In service, Stormy said, we have fantastic adventures in some cosmic campaign, some wondrous undertaking. Our reward comes in our third life, and that one lasts forever.'
Reduced to silence again, I could not meet their stares with the confidence I owed them, and so I closed my eyes and in memory saw Stormy, who gave me strength, as she had always done.
Eyes closed, I said, 'She is a kick-ass kind of girl, who not only knows what she wants, but what she
After a further silence, when I opened my eyes and turned in a circle, probing with my flashlight, four of the initial seven were gone: the young black man, the cocktail waitress, the pretty blonde, and the red-haired man.
I can't be sure if they moved Beyond or merely elsewhere.
The big man with the buzz-cut looked angrier than ever. His shoulders were hunched, as if under a burden of rage, and his hands curled into fists.
He stalked away into the burned-out room, and though he had no physical substance that could affect this world, gray ashes rose in shimmering shapes around him, and settled to the floor again in his wake. Lightweight debris-scorched playing cards, splintery scraps of wood-trembled as he passed. A five-dollar casino chip stood on edge, spun, wobbled, fell flat once more, and heat-yellowed dice rattled on the floor.
He had poltergeist potential, and I was glad to see him go.
TWENTY-FIVE
A DAMAGED FIRE DOOR HUNG OPEN AND ASKEW ON two of three hinges. The stainless-steel threshold reflected the flashlight in those few places where it was not crusted with dark material.
If memory served me well, people had been trampled to death in this doorway when the crowd of gamblers stampeded for the exits. No horror came over me at that recollection, only a deeper sadness.
Beyond the door, patinaed by smoke and water, spalling from the effects of efflorescing lime, looking as if they had been transported from an ancient temple of a long-forgotten faith, thirty flights of wide concrete emergency stairs led to the north end of the sixteenth floor. Perhaps two additional flights ascended all the way to the roof of the hotel.
I climbed only halfway to the first landing before I halted, cocked my head, and listened. I don't believe a sound had alarmed me. No tick, no click, no whisper stepped down to me from higher floors.
Perhaps a scent alerted me. Compared to other spaces in the devastated structure, the stairwell smelled less of chemicals and hardly at all of char. This cooler, limy air was clean enough to allow the recognition of an odor as exotic as-but different from-those of the fire's aftermath.
The faint essence I could not identify was musky, mushroomy. But it also had a quality of fresh raw meat, by
