Shades (16 page)

"Let's start with that," Valenti said.

"With telepathic ghosts," Michael said derisively.

"That's where we're starting," Valenti said. "That's not where we're going to end up."

"Max said the Mesaliko were experiencing more manifestations," Michael said.

"Maybe it has to do with their spirituality," Kyle suggested. "Maybe the Mesaliko are closer to nature than our culture is. They believe in vision quests, and some of what River Dog has shown you guys has bordered on spirituality."

"Not exactly looking for New Age answers here, Buddha Boy," Michael said.

"That could have something to do with it," Max said. "But maybe it's something simpler."

"Like proximity," Liz said.

Max nodded. "Like proximity."

"The legend may have been based on something that actually happened in the past," Isabel said.

"Legends usually are," Valenti said.

"But what event?" Maria asked. "Spirits returning to haunt the Mesaliko? If we go that route, we're right back where we started."

"River Dog said Raven stole flames from the Sun God," Max said, his mind suddenly churning. "Raven brought the flames back to the Mesaliko, only he couldn't hold them in his beak. He spat the flames out, and they crashed to the earth, creating the desert."

"Let's keep the proximity thing going," Valenti said. "Looking back over Max's story, River Dog said that the ghosts had only haunted the Mesaliko people; they hadn't attacked them until today."

"Until I was there," Max said.

Valenti nodded toward the television. "All those other people who have seen ghosts, they aren't saying anything about lightning strikes or strange winds. They're just seeing ghosts."

"The ghosts reacted more strongly to us," Isabel said.

"Yeah," Valenti said. "Know when the last lightning phenomenon occurred?"

"At the hospital," Liz said. "While Max was there."

"Bingo," Valenti said.

"Maybe," Michael growled, "but what does it mean?"

"Don't know," Valenti said. "It's another correlation we need to factor in."

"Telepathic ghosts that react like a minefield to us?" Michael asked.

"That's a good way to put it," Valenti agreed.

"Why would they do that?"

"Because they recognize you as a greater threat than anyone else they've met," Valenti said.

"I heard River Dog's ancestor… or whatever it was… telling him that the Visitors had to be made to leave," Max said.

"I got the same treatment in the hospital," Kyle said. "Only it wasn't from a ghost." He quickly related the story of the strange insect creature he'd seen on the wall. "At first I thought I was just freaking because of the injury and all the weirdness going on."

Valenti grimaced. "Might have helped if you'd mentioned that story earlier, son."

"Why?" Michael demanded. "It wasn't enough that we have telepathic ghosts; now we have to add in the cyborg afterlife of Jiminy Cricket?"

"Why haven't any of you guys seen ghosts?" Valenti asked. "If the ghosts wanted to chase you out of Roswell, why didn't they start haunting you?"

"We saw ghosts," Isabel said.

"Not ghosts of people you know," Valenti corrected. "You saw other people's ghosts."

"Maybe that's worse," Maria said.

"Was it?" Valenti responded. "How about if you'd seen the ghost of someone you knew? Someone you loved and lost?"

Silence weighed into the room. Max watched Isabel, knowing they were all remembering Alex.

Valenti rubbed his face tiredly. "Sorry. I should have thought before I spoke."

"No," Max said. "It's all right. There's no explanation why we haven't seen our own ghosts."

"Because these telepathic ghosts can't read us," Michael said. "We're too strong, or we're the wrong wavelength. Something like that. Maybe the same thing that makes the ghosts fear us also protects us."

"Except our presence makes the ghosts react more violently," Isabel said.

"Because the ghosts are afraid of us," Max said.

Valenti strode into the midst of the room. "Let's check that line of inquiry where it is for the moment. We've done enough there to identify what we might be up against. We need to do some more work."

"What?" Max asked.

"The tie is missing," Valenti said.

"What tie?" Isabel asked.

"Max said that River Dog told him the spirit manifestations began a few days ago," Valenti said. "Why are the ghosts only now turning up in Roswell?"

"Because the ghosts are migrating," Max said, following the logic.

Valenti smiled mirthlessly. "I prefer the term contamination. Roswell is starting to show signs of contamination from whatever has summoned whatever the ghosts really turn out to be."

Max nodded. Scary as it was, the idea of looking for a physical culprit in the middle of all the confusion was also reassuring.

"But," Valenti said, "there's someone who got contaminated early."

"Who?" Max asked.

"Leroy Wilkins," Valenti answered.

"The guy in the Crashdown?" Kyle asked.

Valenti nodded.

"He was just the first one anyone knew about in Roswell," Kyle said.

"No," Liz put in. "My mom was talking to my deceased grandmother this morning."

"And you can't really say Wilkins was contaminated early," Maria said. "Wilkins came into the Crashdown today spazzing out. Today's when all the ghosts seemed to have showed up."

"Before he showed up in Roswell," Valenti said, "Wilkins took a pickax and a sledgehammer and tore down the basement wall where he'd hidden his partner after murdering him. At his age that would have taken some time. Wilkins had poured that wall to stay. When Michael and I searched the room, we found beer bottles and plates with unfinished meals."

"And a Bible," Michael added, evidently growing more interested in Valenti's story. He reached for another pizza slice.

"Why would Wilkins have a Bible there?" Max asked.

"Do the math on this one, Maxwell," Michael said. "A Bible at the hidden grave of the man Wilkins murdered."

"Wilkins was trying to perform an exorcism," Maria said.

"Yeah," Michael said. "The food that was down there? Been down there for days. Wilkins was haunted long before the rest of Roswell started feeling the affects."

"Where does Wilkins live?" Max asked.

"On the other side of the city from the Mesaliko reservation," Valenti said. "The ghost invasion would have had to skip over Roswell to get to him, then double back. There are other people living out there." He nodded toward the television. "So far, there aren't any reports of anyone else out there being affected."

"Why was Wilkins so special?" Maria asked.

"Exactly," Valenti replied.

Liz looked troubled. "Why didn't the ghost that was haunting Wilkins's basement haunt someone else after you left?"

"Because I grounded it out with the crowbar," Michael reminded her. "The lightning blast destroyed it."

"It's a ghost," Maria said. "How can you kill it again?"

"I don't make up the rules," Michael said. "I just play the game."

"This is so not a game."

Michael shrugged. "Whatever."

"After the lightning blasted the ghost away," Valenti said, reaching into his pocket, "I found this." Light splintered from the small piece of metal he held.

"What is it?" Max asked.

"I don't know," Valenti answered. "Something that didn't belong. That's what most investigations are all about: finding the things that aren't supposed to be there."

Kyle moved forward. "Can I see that?"

Valenti handed the metal piece to his son.

Turning the metal over in his palm, Kyle looked puzzled. "This metal looks a lot like the insect thing I saw in the hospital."

"Cyborg Jiminy Cricket," Michael said.

Kyle took no offense. "Yes."

"That's the thing the lightning blast destroyed," Michael said.

"Maybe it was a button," Isabel suggested.

"Swanson had one metal button," Valenti said. "It was on his jeans. I know because I checked."

"There's no way this could be a coincidence," Maria said. "Is there?"

"If you can put together odds like that," Valenti said, "we're going to Vegas."

"Already been," Michael said. "Didn't even bother to pick up the T-shirt."

"The tie to the Mesaliko reservation is Wilkins," Liz said. "The Mesaliko chased him off tribal lands a few times."

"Right," Valenti said. "I had to escort Wilkins off private property a few times myself." He shook his head. "But I keep thinking about how Wilkins must have been these past few days. With all the food and beer in that basement room, Wilkins sat there for a long time trying to get the nerve up to break into that basement wall. Why?"

"Because he was haunted," Liz said.

"Yeah, but the ghost didn't follow Wilkins into Roswell," Valenti said. "That thing… whatever it was… waited for Michael and me today."

Liz rubbed her upper arms as if suddenly chilled. "That's totally creepy."

Valenti nodded in agreement. "So the ghost didn't follow Wilkins into town."

"Something did," Michael said. "I saw Swanson."

"Another ghost picked Wilkins up when he entered town," Valenti said. "That can be the only answer."

"You think these things communicate?" Kyle asked.

"They have to," Max said. "They carry the same message, and they operate in the same fashion." He paused, realizing where Valenti was headed. "What we need to know is how Wilkins came to get his own ghost ahead of the people of Roswell."

"Exactly," Valenti said.

"The bit of metal you recovered could be some kind of transceiver," Isabel suggested.

"Figured that too," Valenti said. "But it crawled… moved under its own steam… out of Swanson's clothes. And he's been dead more than thirty years."

"You think whatever that was," Max said, "was locked up behind the stone wall."

Valenti nodded. "That's exactly what I think." He reached into his pocket and took out a leather pouch. Shoving a finger inside the pouch, he showed the ripped side. "I found this around the neck of Swanson's corpse."

"What was inside it?" Maria asked.

"I don't know," Valenti said. "A small keepsake, maybe. Whatever it was, it escaped."

"What do you mean, it escaped?" Max asked.

Valenti wiggled his finger, showing the ragged edges of the hole. "Whatever was in here," he said, "cut its way out."

16

"This is not a good idea."

Isabel studied Max's face as he spoke to her. Apprehension showed in his eyes and the set of his mouth. He's always been too serious, she decided. Taking Max's hand, Isabel said, "You know I have to do this. There is no other way."

"It's too dangerous." Max looked over his shoulder, obviously hoping someone else would back his argument. "We know that Wilkins is a murderer. You don't know what he'll do when he sees her in his dreams."

Valenti met Max's gaze, then looked at Isabel. "If you can do it," Valenti said, "it will help to know."

Isabel nodded. "I can do this."

"Isabel," Max said, "you've never dreamwalked anyone like this. Wilkins is still in the hospital ICU, still on the critical list."

"I'll be all right."

Max fell silent, and with that silence came the full bore of his reproach at her chosen course of action.

"We need to know what Wilkins knows," Isabel said.

"There's another way," Max insisted. "We'll find another way."

"No," Isabel said with the finality she knew her brother would recognize. "Max, I'm going to do this. Because I can, and because it's the only way I can see for us to learn enough to figure out what we're supposed to do." If anything. There still remained the chance that they'd be just as helpless as anyone else.

"Come back," Max said. "Just make sure you come back."

"I will," Isabel promised. Sliding back on Michael's couch, she laid her head back and closed her eyes. In seconds, she was asleep, and in her dreams she reached for Leroy Wilkins, prospector and murderer.

When Isabel opened her eyes again, she found herself in a small, dark room with stone walls. A dank, earthy smell filled her nose and almost made her sneeze. The soft glow of a battery-powered camp lantern barely fought back the shadows that cloistered the room.

"What are you doing here?"

Turning toward the man's angry voice, Isabel saw Leroy Wilkins standing against the wall near the basement door. He was tense and frightened, his eyes sunken so deeply into his head that they were dark pools.

"It's okay," Isabel said in a soft voice.

Wilkins looked around the small room. "I ain't here. I got no business bein' here."

"Do you know where you are?" Isabel asked.

Madness lingered in Wilkins's gaze. "This is the basement in my house."

Isabel waited, noting that the old prospector's eyes settled on the wall opposite him. The wall was complete now, not the broken mass of rock Valenti and Michael described. Terrell Swanson's corpse still remained on the other side.

"I ain't in the basement in my house," Wilkins said. "I'm in the hospital. They took me to the hospital. Told me I was havin' a heart attack. I remember that."

"You are in the hospital," Isabel said. "This is just a dream."

Wilkins's eyes narrowed in suspicion. "I don't know you, girl. You don't dream about people you don't know, an' I don't know you."

"They're giving you medication in the hospital," Isabel said. "Medication causes hallucinations and dreams."

Wilkins shook his head. "You ain't no hallucination or dream, girl."

Isabel felt the strain of keeping the psychic contact. Wilkins wanted her out of his head and was trying to shove her out.

"I need to know what happened down here," Isabel said.

Wilkins grew more agitated. "Ain't nothin' happened down here."

"Terrell Swanson's ghost chased you into town," Isabel said.

"Don't know what you're talking about." Wilkins turned from her and started for the door.

"You killed Swanson," Isabel accused. "You killed him and you buried him behind that wall."

Wilkins wheeled on her. Rage and madness made a harsh mask of his face. "You'd best be watchin' what you're sayin', girl." He took a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from his pocket, stuck a cigarette between his lips, and lit up. The lighter's flame burnished his hard, wrinkled leather features and danced in his crazed gaze.

"Why did you dig Swanson out of the wall?" Isabel asked.

"Don't know what you're talkin' about," Wilkins said sullenly. He put the lighter away, inhaled on the cigarette, and made the coal glow orange, then exhaled a cloud of smoke into the basement that hung in the still air.

"Something happened," Isabel said. "What made things change? Swanson had been walled up for almost thirty years."

Wilkins turned to the basement door. "I 'spect the next person you're going to be talkin' to is my attorney."

Isabel stood helplessly watching, not knowing what to do as Wilkins's hand closed on the doorknob. Then a thunderous, sonorous boom echoed throughout the basement.

Wilkins cursed and yanked on the doorknob, but the door wouldn't open. The thunderclaps continued in regular syncopation. Wilkins continued fighting the door and cursing loudly.

Isabel gazed around the room, trying to find the source of the sound and couldn't.

Giving up on the door, Wilkins turned around, the cigarette tumbling from his lips as he stared in wide-eyed fear. He gazed around the basement and pressed his back against the door. "Can't get out. Can't get out this time. Just like the last time."

"What is that noise?" Isabel asked.

Wilkins glared at her, but the effort came off weak because there was so much fear in his eyes. "Don't you know what that is?"

The rhythmic booms continued, and now Isabel could tell there was a before and after sound, like a double-pump blast. She could hear the constriction, the boom, and the letting go.

"It's a heartbeat," she whispered, and the realization left. her dry-mouthed with anxiety even though she knew she was only dreamwalking and the events weren't actually going on.

"It's a heartbeat," Wilkins agreed. "It's Swanson's heartbeat."

The pulse beat more loudly. Isabel would have sworn the walls pushed in and out with the sound of it.

"He's alive, you see." Wilkins sounded stunned. He stared at the opposite basement wall. "Walled up almost thirty years over there, and somehow he's alive."

Isabel remembered Valenti's story about the skeleton lying in torn and tattered clothing on the basement floor.

"But he can't be alive." Wilkins shot Isabel a desperate look. "I caved his head in. Took a short-hafted hammer an' done the job myself. The strike was rich, you see. A uranium strike. An' it was bigger than anythin' we'd ever found. I knew it could make a man rich, but I knew it could only make one man rich. I wanted that man to be me." He shifted his gaze back to the wall. "So I killed him, an' he didn't die. Thirty years, he's been waitin' to get back at me."

Isabel wanted to speak but was afraid to interrupt

Wilkins's dream sequence. The answers were here; she just had to wait for them.

"Swanson's heartbeats got louder," Wilkins said, walking as if in a daze across the basement. "I heard 'em for days. Just listened to 'em. Couldn't turn the TV or radio up loud enough to get rid of them. Couldn't get drunk enough to forget them. They just stayed right there, an' wasn't nobody could hear them but me."

"I hear them," Isabel stated quietly.

"Swanson ain't comin' after you, girl," Wilkins said. "It's me he wants. He wants to drag me into that grave with him. But I ain't gonna let him." His face turned hard, but the fear remained intact. "I'm gonna take him outta that wall, show him I ain't afraid of him. Then I'm gonna bust him up into kindlin'."

Isabel stared at the wall. Despite the fact that she knew this was only Wilkins's memory, anxiety still tingled within her. She couldn't be hurt here, but that knowledge didn't seem as convincing as she'd hoped.

Wilkins took up a pickax from the basement floor and attacked the wall with a vengeance. Concrete chips spun free of the wall and shot in all directions.

Pain fired through Isabel as one of the chips slammed into her left cheek. When she touched her face, her fingers came away wet with blood. Nothing like that had ever happened. Suddenly the journey back to Michael's house seemed like an impossible distance. She turned and walked to the door. Her hand slid around the doorknob, and she twisted. The knob turned, but the lock didn't disengage.

She was trapped.

Max sat by Michael's couch and watched Isabel sleeping. His stomach knotted into a ball.

"Hey."

Looking up, Max saw Liz standing beside him. She'd come over to him and he hadn't even noticed.

"She'll be fine," Liz said. "Isabel knows what she's doing."

Max looked at Liz. "Do you really think so?"

Hesitation showed on Liz's face. "I don't know what to think anymore. All of this, Max"… she took a deep breath and let it out… "all of this is so far over our heads, I don't even know when the last time was that I felt like we could deal."

Glancing around the room, Max saw Michael and Maria talking quietly in the kitchen, picking pepperoni slices from the leftover pizza. Valenti stood by the door, like he was just about to go out and do something, but his attention was riveted on the television. News stories of people who had seen ghosts in Roswell continued to interrupt television programming. Kyle sat nearby on the floor, his injured arm elevated as he dozed.

"I know," Max said. "It's always been kind of complicated." He shook his head. "I had no right bringing you into this."

"You didn't bring me into this," Liz said. "You saved me that day in the Crashdown."

"I should have stopped there," Max said. "When you came back around asking questions, I should have just walked away."

"You couldn't do that," Liz told him.

Max looked into her eyes and felt as if he were standing on the edge of a cliff. "No. I tried."

"Life's complicated," Liz said. "Maybe yours is a little more complicated than others', but I'm sure it could be worse."

"I don't know. Roswell seems to be full of ghosts because of us."

"No. The ghosts were coming. You… we… may be able to help." Liz nodded toward the television. "Those people out there don't have a clue, Max. River Dog doesn't know what to do. He told you that. But you and Michael and Isabel, maybe you three can do something about this. Maybe you were meant to."

"I hope so," Max said. There was a lot more that he hoped for, but he didn't dare put those thoughts into words.

"No matter how complicated your life gets," Liz said, putting her hand inside his, "I'll be there for you."

Max looked at her, elation pushing up through him and overpowering the hopelessness and fatigue that had been dogging him. "You will?"

"Yes," Liz said. "That's what friends do."

Friends. The word dropped like an anvil through Max's stomach. Sour bile rose to the back of his throat, but he managed to swallow it back down. Friends. Could he just be friends when he wanted so much more? Then he felt guilty. After the way he had treated Liz, he had no reason to expect anything more. In fact, he should be grateful that she was still willing to be his friend.

Max tried to speak but couldn't. The effort hurt, and he knew his words would come out strained. Instead he squeezed her hand reassuringly.

"Max," Liz said, her voice soft and low.

Max turned his attention to her, but before she could continue, Isabel jerked violently on the couch. A low moan escaped her lips.

Releasing Liz's hand, Max leaned up on his knees and searched Isabel's face. Her features contorted in fear or pain, Max wasn't sure.

"Isabel," Max called softly, not wanting to wake her too abruptly. "Isabel."

Isabel moaned again, then jerked and tried to roll. Max caught his sister before she tumbled from the couch.

"What's wrong?" Valenti asked, suddenly at Max's side.

"I don't know," Max said.

Isabel jerked and convulsed, moaning again.

"Isabel," Max said. "Come on. Come on back. Isabel!"

Isabel stood with her back to the locked basement door. She wanted to go back to Michael's house, but she knew she might not get another chance to dreamwalk Leroy Wilkins. The answer to some of what faced them lay in this room. She was certain of that.

Wilkins hauled back the pickax again, then threw the gleaming point forward, digging the pick into the wall. Concrete shattered and broke. Sparks leaped from the contact, buzzing out like burning embers. The old man gasped for breath, sounding like a bellows in the enclosed space.

But the maddening thump of the heartbeat continued.

Isabel forced herself to stay when everything in her wanted to go.

The pick passed through the concrete wall with a metallic crunch. Wilkins gave an insane whoop of glee. "I got you now, Swanson. I got you now. You ain't gonna crawl out of that grave an' come for me some night. I'm gonna finish the job I started all those years ago. Gonna put you back in the ground, an' you're gonna stay there."

Fractures spread across the concrete surface, marking out the roughly rectangular shape the body had been hidden behind. Chunks of rock fell onto the basement floor at Wilkins's feet. Once the hole was made, Wilkins dropped the pickax and seized the sledgehammer. He beat at the opening in the wall, smashing it wider and taller.

The battery-powered camp lantern threw a golden glow over the skeleton dressed in rags within the makeshift tomb. The thumping of the monstrous heartbeat reached a crescendo, and the deafening noise vibrated inside Isabel.

"It wasn't him!" Wilkins cried. Dropping the sledgehammer, the old man reached into the hole and hauled the corpse out. The weight was too much for Wilkins, though, and the dead man slipped free of his grip. The corpse clattered to the basement floor, raising a small gust of dust that eddied in the illumination given off by the camp lantern.

Isabel watched as Wilkins backed away from the dead man.

"That heartbeat wasn't him," Wilkins shouted over the thundering thump. "Heartbeat wasn't him at all. I thought it was, but you can see for yourself: He ain't got no heart."

Through the ragged shirt that was stained with old blood, Isabel looked at Swanson's empty rib cage. It was true: The man had no heart. Where was the heartbeat coming from? Was the noise just Wilkins's guilt finally catching up to him?

"It wasn't Swanson," Wilkins said. "It was that bug. That bug that he kept at his throat."