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  Walking Ghost Phase

  DC Daugherty

  Walking Ghost Phase

  Copyright © 2011 by DC Daugherty

  Cover Designed by UVUDU ? Imaging

  Edited by Judith C. Reveal

  This book is a work of fiction. Incidents, names, characters, and places are products of the author's imagination or have been used fictitiously. Resemblances to actual locales or events or persons living or dead is coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author.

  Also by DC Daugherty

  Spectral Relapse (Walking Ghost Phase, Book Two)

  Destiny’s Dwellers

  Acknowledgments

  The author wishes to thank Kerry McCall, Brenda Gideon and Jasmine Florencio for their many thoughtful insights.

  Walking Ghost Phase (n.): The latent period of severe radiation poisoning in which the affected person experiences a feeling of normal well-being. Afterward, bodily systems begin to fail and death is inevitable.

  Emily Heath walked north along 17th street, having just turned from Pennsylvania Avenue, leaving the White House behind her. At least she took a picture of the famous home, an unwritten rule for anyone on vacation in Washington. Still, the crowd of tourists near the front gate didn't seem to appreciate her desire to fulfill the once-in-a-lifetime photo-op. No fewer than six disapproving stares focused on her when she stuck out her tongue and snapped the unlevel picture of herself. Now a block up 17th, Emily tried to shake the nagging tone of her mother's voice from her mind. Why did you go if you knew you'd be miserable?

  “Oh, I knew,” Emily said under her breath.

  Her bare shoulders had darkened three shades beyond crimson, and now her skin begged for the hotel room, where she could bask in the solace of air-conditioning and false lighting. Also enduring the ninety-five degree temperature, tourists roamed the streets, filling the sidewalks in an impassable congregation. Emily tried to walk faster, but she could only stare ahead at the milk-white calves, ankle socks and penny loafers of an elderly man. She sighed and looked at the images of her friends on her digital camera.

  On the LCD screen, a girl with waist-length black hair posed in front of the Lincoln Memorial. The picture caught the moment when the right half of her upper lip curled and pupils disappeared behind the slits of her half-shut eyelids. “Not smiling,” Emily said to no one in particular. She forwarded the camera to the next picture, that of a young man who stood at the base of the Washington Monument. “Not smiling.” She advanced the camera memory again, now to a picture of a different girl kneeling down and dipping her fingers in the Reflecting Pool waters. “And not smiling. Whose idea was it to take this trip?” She glanced over her shoulder.

  No one answered.

  A high-pitched whistle pierced the air. The penny-loafer man tugged his wife's arm as he stepped toward the curb and waved his free hand above his head. Before the taxicab stopped, the couple disappeared in the crowd. With Emily's pacesetters gone, she walked faster, cutting off tourists and preventing anyone from claiming the patches of empty sidewalk ahead of her. She checked the cross-street signs. Seven blocks to the hotel. Maybe we'll find a rat in the room this time, and I can convince them to go home early.

  After she crossed over to the next block, the pedestrian traffic dwindled to a few families whose kids seemed uninterested in the retail shops: a jewelry store, a men's clothing boutique and a souvenir stand, which sold miniature Washington Monuments. Two parents argued about whether to visit The International Spy Museum or The Smithsonian, while their children, a blond-haired boy and girl, appeared hypnotized by an ice cream truck rattling down the street. The vehicle, belonging to the D.C. is for Delicious Creamsicles company, played an out-of-tune melody that echoed against the granite buildings. It stopped at the curb, and a line immediately formed at the window.

  Four blocks ahead, the green awning of her hotel jutted over the sidewalk. It was almost time for her to lay it out there, the speech she had mentally rehearsed. No one's having fun. We've seen everything worth seeing. Let's save our money. We didn't come to Washington to get sunburned. That's why we have beaches. We can always stop there on our way back, even if we need to take a detour. Let's enjoy ourselves before summer ends, before we go our separate ways, to different colleges, to new lives.

  Pecking around her shoes, a flock of pigeons ate crumbs on the sidewalk. Every place she had visited in Washington, the unusual birds were the highlight of her trip; how they scurried past the feet of pedestrians, unafraid, even seeking acceptance.

  Then the flock cooed and flew off with uncanny synchronization. A stiff bump into Emily's shoulder sent her stumbling toward the oncoming pedestrian traffic. Before she regained her balance, a blue-coverall-wearing man blindly sprinted past her, not once turning to apologize, seeming entranced by the cell phone he held to his ear. “Jerk,” Emily shouted.

  The man slid to a stop in the middle of the sidewalk, and in that moment Emily expected—no, hoped—he would return the comment. An ugly incident with a local might strengthen her argument for an early departure.

  He didn't even pretend to notice her.

  She walked around him and brushed his shoulder, but the man still yelled into the phone. “I'm not out of range. I need ten more minutes.” Now his eyes formed perfect circles as he gazed south, mesmerized by something in the distance. The phone slipped out of his hand and cracked on the sidewalk. “That son of a bitch.” The man ran to the curb, where he knocked down a young woman in a summer dress. The broken top of her miniature Washington Monument statue spilled out of her bag and rattled across the cement. The man barreled into the street and through traffic. Cars swerved. Horns blared. A bald cab driver stuck his head out the window and cursed. Soon the man disappeared between two office buildings.

  Then the world went silent, the air stale. The reddening welts on Emily's shoulders throbbed beneath the tug of her tank top. A memory surfaced from the depths of her mind. She saw herself at seven years old, standing on a stage as she prepared to sing for the audience. The theater spotlight popped to life and bathed her in a blinding glow. Heat stung her arms and face.

  It was how she remembered the beginning of the Washington Event.

  Before her seven-year-old self belted the first note, Emily returned to the real world. Down the street, pitch-black building shadows began to recede. A deafening pop echoed across the city. A hiss sounded in her ear, and a burning stench rose to her nostrils. The tips of her blond hair curled into tiny black globs. The sunburned ache crawled over the rest of her body.

  Screams rang out. Children cried for their parents. Beside her, a father knelt down with his son tucked under his chest. The ground rumbled, low at first but growing louder, closer, when a sudden gust of wind swung around the buildings, punched her in the face and knocked her to the sidewalk. The Delicious Creamsicles truck, which had come up the road for another stop, lifted off the ground and sailed into a granite office building on the other side of the street. A chunk of rock ripped from the bottom right corner. Windows shattered; glass clinked on the pavement. The father who shielded his son flew through the air, smacked a minivan and crumpled to his hands and knees.

  A sudden shadow darkened the sidewalk.

  “Move,” someone shouted. Fingers dug into Emily's underarms and pulled her toward the shadow's edge. The top of the brick condominium building crept over the sidewalk as if a knife had sliced lengthwise between the third and fourth floors, blotting out the sky. Before her, the little boy stood alone, crying, arms frozen to his sides, legs unmoving, while his father in the street tried to stand and regain his senses.

  “No,” Emily s
creamed. She lunged forward, breaking free of the hands of whoever had tried to pull her to safety. The father, now on his feet, raced for his child. Overhead, a balcony, with its ornate steel handrails still attached, swelled as it plummeted to the earth. Emily threw out her arms and planted her palms against the shoulders of the little boy. His head whipped back, and he shrieked as his tiny body sailed into the street.

  Emily landed on her knees in the center of the shadow. The growing darkness gave her only enough time to see the father carry his son to safety.

  Then the building collapsed.

  Darkness.

  Emily dragged her palms across jagged rocks, attempting to pull herself free from the object—cold and metallic, she guessed the balcony rails—which pinned her shoulders and head to the grit. With each sliver forward, she gasped; the ground scraped her cheek like a sheet of sandpaper. Dizziness swam in her mind, and heat radiated across her body. Just a few more inches.

  Darkness.

  The sound of muffled sirens penetrated the shrill ring in her ears. A beam of light shone through a puncture in the cement. She reached out and shoved her blood-soaked hand into the hole.

  Darkness.

  Voices. Jackhammers.

  Darkness.

  A constant pulse of light sent throbs of pain across her temples. The faint sound of clicking and clacking echoed below her. She slowly opened her eyes, and the fog at the edge of her vision seeped into the walls. Directional signs and room numbers blazed past her.

  Then the face of a black man hovered over her. Through the blur of tears, Emily made out the glow of his pudgy cheeks and bald scalp. His lips moved, but a piercing whistle drowned out the words. When she rubbed her ears, trying to clear the noise, her fingers slid across something moist. Bright red droplets trickled down her palm.

  The man dabbed at her ear with a bandage and leaned closer, near her cheek. “Miss, can you hear me?” The ferocity in his face didn't match the whisper coming through his lips.

  “Barely.”

  “You're at Georgetown Hospital. Do you remember how you got here?”

  Emily's brain processed his question. An image of the White House, an elderly couple and a flock of pigeons passed in her mind. The whistle in her ears was now the slow and dull melody from an ice cream truck.

  “Do you know your name?” the man shouted.

  Emily looked at him, her face blank. He might as well have spoken in a foreign language. Name? Her name? Now tears welled in her eyes. For a moment the sensation of loss crawled over her skin. Then a spark of light shone in her mind, and as if she raced to beat anyone else to the answer, the words spilled from her mouth. “Emily. Emily Heath.” She took a deep breath and wiped her cheeks.

  The man patted her shoulder. “Nice to meet you, Emily.” He smiled. “I'm Ron. You have a nasty bump on your head, but we're going to take good care of you. Just relax and enjoy the ride.”

  As Ron pushed the gurney through the hospital, the annoying buzz in Emily's ears slowly dulled. Now she heard the squeak of his shoes. Moans and sobbing cries came from somewhere distant. Before she could pinpoint the cry of a child, the gurney came to a sudden stop. Her insides churned, the contents sloshing, pressing on her stomach lining. Blurred outlines of what she suspected were doctors and nurses ran past her. To Emily's left, a woman who was wearing dress slacks and a conservative, yellow blouse paced behind a nurse's station as she squished a phone between her ear and shoulder. The length of dangling phone cord restricted her to a small back and forth walk as if she were a dog on a leash.

  “One more,” Ron said to the woman.

  The woman's hand, still gripping the phone, flopped to her side. “Christ, will this ever end?”

  An acidic pressure built in Emily's chest, and the room spun in a blur of white and baby blue. She twisted over on her side and hung her head off the edge of the gurney. By then, the woman was snapping her fingers at Ron. In one uninterrupted motion, he grabbed a white trashcan and slid it beside the gurney. Once the gags subsided, Emily stared at the bottom of the canister, at the red threadlike swirls in the partially digested matter. Blood.

  “Take her down the hall,” the woman said. She scribbled something on a piece of paper and handed it to Ron. “Once you find a spot, give that note to the first nurse you see.” As she looked at Emily, her expression of frustration became one of unmistakable worry. She turned her back and shoved the phone to her ear again. “No, you listen to me. I wouldn't care if you had the President himself en route. Don't send anyone else here.”

  Ron now pushed the gurney faster than before, the plastic wheels rattling, the metal frame vibrating. In the next hall, they passed a front-to-back line of adults and children who lay on beds or leaned against the walls. A few had blood on their faces and arms, while others had wiped the stains on their shirts. Still, none of the injuries appeared life threatening, and three nurses attended solely to the children, applying bandages to minor cuts and scrapes. “What happened?” Emily asked.

  “Some damn fool set off a bomb near downtown. Nuclear, I hear.” Ron nodded at something in the distance. Ahead in the next intersection, three armed soldiers stood, eyeing anyone who passed them. “This place is already crawling with Army. They're taking fingerprints from everyone.”

  Until now, Emily hadn't noticed the black stains on her hands. She rubbed her fingers together, rolling up the ink and dried blood rolled like miniature carpets, but before she could expose the clean flesh beneath the ink, the gurney came to a dead stop. The remaining contents of her stomach sloshed; her mouth salivated. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Ron said.

  “Emergency procedures, sir,” a man said. “Please, stand aside.”

  “I need to get this girl to a nurse.”

  A short pop of metal on metal resonated in the hall. Someone might have clicked a pen, or maybe Ron tapped his shoe against the gurney wheel. But Emily's mind registered the sound as something else, a sound she remembered from every horrible action movie. The sound a gun made when someone wanted to say Shut up and do what I tell you. “This will only take a second.”

  She opened her eyes. Ron was standing against the wall while a soldier who held out a white box no larger than his hand approached Emily. He waved the device above her stomach, and the box squawked like the rapid croak of a frog, growing louder when he touched it to her shirt. “Are you feeling nauseous?” the soldier asked. “Vomiting? Dizziness?”

  “Why do you think I'm in a hurry?” Ron answered for her. “She needs treatment.”

  “What's your name, ma'am?”

  Emily hesitated but not because of any mistrust toward the soldier. She didn't want to vomit over her words. After she told him, a different soldier jotted down something on a clipboard.

  “My apologies for any inconvenience, ma'am,” the main soldier said. He slapped the end of the gurney. “You're free to go.” The soldiers huddled together, and before Ron pushed Emily out of earshot, the clipboard-holding soldier spoke something into a handheld radio.

  Now deeper in the hospital, Ron guided the gurney through a corridor of the seriously injured. The wheels lost their usual click and clack, replaced by the sound of tearing Velcro. Up ahead, streaks of blood on the floor veered down each hallway. Ron slowed, navigating the tight space. They passed a man with bloodstained bandages covering his face. Above his flat nose, a slit revealed glossy eyes teaming with confusion and rage. A moment later they went by another victim, and Emily turned her head and cringed. The young woman, maybe in her mid-twenties, screamed as a nurse tightened a bandage around the bloody stump of what was once a forearm.

  “They were close to the blast,” Ron said. “Lots of tourists.”

  Emily concentrated on her location at the time of the explosion. She could see the awning of the hotel but couldn't recall the name, that the street had a number, but she didn't know which one. It was as if someone had cut those frames out of a film, and the h
arder she tried to splice them back in the roll, the more her head throbbed.

  In the next hallway, Ron pushed the gurney into an empty spot against the wall. He approached a lone nurse and handed her the note from the woman on the phone. Then he looked at Emily. “Good luck, kid. Nurse Collins here will take good care of you.” He jogged down the hall, careful not to slip in the puddles of blood, and disappeared around the corner.

  Nurse Collins rolled an IV stand toward Emily's gurney. “This says you're having stomach issues.” Without looking, she hooked her foot under a nearby rolling stool, pulled it to her side and sat. “We're going to fix that.” Collins swabbed the crease of Emily's elbow and pushed the needle under her skin. Clear liquid soon filtered through the IV line. “Give the medicine a few minutes.” Collins glanced down the hall. Her legs trembled, seeming ready to propel her to her feet as if she expected a new arrival at any moment. “Emily, is it?”

  Emily nodded.

  “Are you from Washington?”

  “No.” Her voice was hoarse, but she felt a sudden urge to talk; a flash of memories returned. “I'm on vacation. I was staying at the Constitution Hotel. The one with the green awning and obnoxious bellhops. It's on—”

  “17th avenue,” Collins interrupted, and her face glowed. “My husband and I went there for our tenth anniversary. Oh, and tell me about it—those bellhops are pushy for the tips. Did you come here alone? Travel with your parents? Friends?”

  The film roll of Emily's memories spliced again. She stared at Nurse Collins, ashamed, as if she had forgotten the most important memory of her life. “I don't—I can't remember.”

  Collins gently grazed Emily's forehead, brushing back a few strands of hair. “Do you remember hitting your head?”

  “Not really.”

  “You have a pretty nasty bump. I think you might have a concussion, which would explain your memory loss.” Collins sighed. “A doctor can order up the tests to confirm, but I doubt any are available right now.”