The Last Passenger (18 page)

XXXI

Once when she was little, Kate had been trapped in an elevator. In those days she was known as Catalina Soto, and she lived with her parents in Barcelona. Although she couldn’t recall how old she was at the time of this incident, she remembered being alone. She had been going up when there had been a power outage, and the elevator came to a halt. From there things only got worse.

The worst part had been when the lights went out and little Catalina was alone in the dark, her only companion being the heavy dread crawling up her legs.

Too young to be rational, she did not even consider that the blackout would only last a few minutes at most. Terrified, she began screaming. It was Sunday, however, and very few of her neighbors were home. Those twenty minutes trapped on the elevator constituted one of the most traumatic experiences of her life.

As a souvenir from that experience, Kate Kilroy had developed a profound fear of the dark.

Now each step down into the darkness required a colossal effort on her part. The hallway light was dimming, and it didn’t take long for her to be immersed in total darkness. Anxiety impeded her breathing. She gasped for air but felt like she was drowning.

She looked back up, yearning for the rectangle of dim light that marked the stairwell’s opening. Without realizing it she took a few steps back up, toward the light and fresh air.

But then she saw it.

She was not sure what to call it, but something created a silhouette at the top of the stairs. Kate could only make out a vague shape that looked remotely human, but it was definitely
not
a person. At least it did not move like one. It somehow glided along the walls and floor at the same time. Darker than the surrounding shadows, it was a black hole absorbing all light that dared to pass by.

She gritted her teeth and continued down the stairs. She could no longer see the little girl, but she could hear her footsteps and her labored breathing ahead. Kate’s camera strap dug into her neck like barbed wire. She lifted it over her neck, ready to throw it on the ground before having a much better idea. She raised it above her head and took a picture.

The flash went off and filled the entire stairwell with a surreal light. Briefly, Kate saw the little girl’s figure a few feet ahead, concentrating on her next step.

“Wait up,” Kate shouted, more to hear her voice than to make the little girl stop running.

Kate continued snapping pictures to light the way. Each time the light died out, she was submerged in darkness again, but at least she was able to see enough in that half second of flash to help her along and widen the gap between her and the shadow.

When her feet fell on plush carpeting, she knew she’d reached the hallway below. She took a series of pictures, so she could orient herself with the aid of the flash. She nearly fell over in fright when one of the flashes momentarily lit up the face of Adolf Hitler standing right over her. She began screaming until she realized it was only a painting.

The hallway branched in several directions. The girl had chosen her path and stopped long enough to motion Kate toward her.

Kate took another picture and glanced at the camera’s LCD screen. The bitter taste of bile settled in her mouth as her stomach churned.

Shit.
Shitshitshitshitshitshitshit
.

In the moment the flash lit up the hallway, Kate had been able to see soft carpeting, wood-paneled walls, and perfectly white cabin doors.

On her screen, however, the same hallway was completely ravaged by the passage of time. The carpeting was only a decayed semblance of what it had been, and the wood paneling was rotting, discolored, and warped. The picture even showed the rusted iron plating that ran along the bottom. The paint on the doors was peeling, and a few of them had even fallen down.

Another watery gurgle like a sink being cleared sounded right behind Kate. She exhaled, and a cloud of vapor formed in front of her face. Little specks of frost began to cover the walls.

Come here, bitch. Listen to my voice.

The pain inside Kate’s skull became intolerable, a hot searing burn. Screaming, she stumbled away. The little girl was waiting for her around the corner, near a cargo elevator with an interior light casting a dim clarity over the room.

A metal gate divided the room in two. A sign in German warned that third-class passengers were not allowed in second class. Nevertheless, the door was wide open, swinging on its hinges. Kate blinked. The room looked just as ruined and decayed as the unrestored second-class section Kate had seen the day before. She rubbed her eyes in disbelief.

When she opened them again, the room was as pristine as the day it had left the shipyard. Kate choked back her fear. Just a moment before, the room had been in ruins. Suddenly, the image
skipped
.

Kate could find no other word to describe what happened. It was like she was watching an old, worn-out VHS tape that displayed a distorted picture. In a flash, the two images, the old and the new, had overlapped like two radio stations broadcasting on the same frequency. The overlap did not last long. Maybe a few seconds. The elevator’s lights began to flicker and threatened to die out completely. Then, it stopped. The room again looked as immaculate as it had in the thirties.

“We need to go down to third class. They can’t get us there,” the girl whispered.

Kate got into the freight elevator, and the girl pulled the gate shut and hit a button. With a jolt they continued their descent into the depths of the
Valkyrie
, jerking and creaking the entire way.

As the elevator went down, Kate examined her camera. The red low-battery light had turned on. Kate cursed. Her liberal use of the flash had drained the battery, and she would be lucky if she could get a few more shots.

The little girl looked up, scared. Something slammed into the gate on the floor they had just passed, and Kate fell back against the wall, bashing her head hard enough to see a tiny constellation of stars dance before her eyes. The elevator jerked along like someone was shaking it.

She got up and grumbled to herself. The little girl moved close to her and placed her hand on Kate’s. She pressed back in relief and appreciation. Her skin was smooth but surprisingly cold.

“What’s your name, darling?” whispered Kate.

“Esther.”

“Where are we going, Esther?”

The elevator stopped. Kate concluded they had to be below the ship’s Plimsoll line, probably near the cargo holds. She and Esther left the elevator and came into a wide recreation room in third class. Moisture and time had wreaked havoc here. Mold covered broken chairs, and the air smelled like stagnant water and rotting wood. Where there had been light fixtures once, brass wires gnawed away by rust hung from the ceiling.

During their descent, the image had skipped again.

Esther looked considerably more relaxed, as if that dark shadow could no longer bother her. Kate saw an antique oil lantern in the corner of the room. Its glass cover was cracked, and its copper base was a sickly green color. When she went over and shook it, she could hear that there was still fuel inside. She searched her pockets until she found an old lighter Robert had kept as a good-luck charm. It no longer ignited, but it still sparked. She brought the lighter up to the candlewick, and within seconds a warm and comforting source of light traced a magical protective circle all around her, vanquishing the shadows.

They walked down an ugly hallway with huge communal dormitories on both sides that could accommodate about forty people each. The
Valkyrie
was able to transport many more passengers in second and third class, and the majority of its passengers would have traveled in the latter of those two.

Following her reporter’s instincts, Kate’s hand automatically reached for her camera to take a picture. It was then she realized she was alone.

Esther had vanished.

Kate searched several rooms and called out for the girl, but it was as if she had evaporated. There was no sign of her anywhere, and Kate had no idea how to get out of third class. She looked around, confused.

Then, she heard the voice.

“Kate.”

It was only one word, but her whole world stopped spinning with its utterance. Her heart skipped a beat, and her emotions fought for attention as they all suddenly wanted to be heard.

“Kate,” the voice repeated.

She began trembling incessantly as fat tears fell down her cheeks. That voice. She knew it so well. She had missed it so much. That voice.

She whirled around, propelled by disbelief and hope. She was ready to see the body from which that voice originated. Ready to be drunk on happiness.

Smiling, he watched her as he leaned against a door frame, his hair uncombed. Vibrant, confident, charming.

It was him.

As he had always been.

Kate wiped the tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand and broke into her first genuine smile since he’d died.

“Hello, Robert.”

XXXII

They stared at each other for what seemed like forever. Robert grinned, his eyes crinkling with the familiar fan of wrinkles around his eyes that she’d always covered with kisses. Kate wept openly, caught between the most intense extremes of pain and joy.

Robert was within her reach, but she knew he couldn’t be real. He’d been dead for a month, and his cold gray ashes were in a ceramic black urn in her cabin.

“It can’t be,” Kate said, shaking her head as her insides tore apart. “I know you can’t be here.”

“I’m here, Kate. Right in front of you. I’m as real as that silly camera around your neck, which is actually mine, or at least it used to be. We bought it together in New York. Remember that day we thought the world might end because it was raining so hard?”

Kate could hardly see through her tears. Of course, she remembered that day. On a walk through the city, Robert had laughed elatedly about his new camera, just like a little kid. They’d stopped to watch a mime in Central Park before the rain drove them back to their hotel. While the downpour outside threatened to wash the city away, they made love for three hours. The people in the next room had complained about the noise, and in response, Robert made outlandish excuses to the concierge while she remained in bed mortified and holding back waves of giggles.

She remembered it all so vividly that it hurt.

“You’re gone, Robert,” she sobbed. “You were hit by a fucking drunk driver who sped off.”

“True,” he answered seriously. “But somehow, I’m here for you, Kate. I’m here. I don’t really know why or for how long, but I’m here.”

“How do I know you aren’t a hallucination?”

Robert sighed. Kate saw that he was dressed in the same cream-colored suit that he had put on the day he was killed. Even his tie was the same. With a spark of tenderness, she noticed that the knot of the tie, which she had tied herself, was exactly the same. When she’d arrived at the hospital to identify his body, emotional and screaming his name, the tie was gone. The paramedics had removed it, trying to save him. They returned it inside a plastic bag, a wrinkled ball that was stained with blood—his blood. But the knot had still been tied just as she had always done it. Just as she had learned from tying her father’s tie as a little girl.

“Well, I guess there’s only one way to find out, right?” Robert said with a playful half smile.

The expression was so familiar that Kate shook like a tree branch.

It was him.

“Have you come to take me away?” she asked. “What’s it like? Will it hurt?”

“Kate,” sighed Robert, shaking his head patiently. “You are not dead. Now are you going to spend the whole morning being the clever little reporter, or are you going to kiss me?”

Kate heard herself laugh like an enthusiastic little girl before a giant iridescent soap bubble, wanting to touch it but fearing it might burst.

“I’m not going to disappear, Kate.”

Her feet, which had been soldered to the floor, came to life. Pressed up against him, she breathed in his aroma, the same combination of cologne and musk that she remembered so well. He felt hard, smooth, and hot, just as she remembered. She ran her hands up his body and around his neck, while he laced his hands around her waist before lowering them to her ass.

Kate closed her eyes in bliss as an animalistic growl, of both liberation and submission, escaped her throat. The mixture of relief, pain, joy, and excitement she felt was unbelievable. Robert scratched his stubble against her cheek, and instinctively, she looked up and parted her lips.

The passionate kiss was long and intense. Kate couldn’t stop caressing her husband’s face. It was like this was their first time again, and she eagerly devoured what was in front of her. Their two bodies fused together as if they were simply extensions of a singular entity that was impossible to pull apart.

After a few minutes they parted, breathing hard. Kate’s eyes burned with the bright flame of excitement that had been extinguished.

“Robert, why here?” Kate asked, her cheek nuzzled against his chest so she could hear his heart. “Why now? Why is this happening, love?”

Robert kissed her on the forehead and rubbed her back. “I have no answers to your questions, Katie. Some things can be explained, and others can’t. There are rules. Rules that cannot be broken. Just know I’ve been allowed to come here for a reason. To help you.”

“I don’t like this place.” She buried her nose in his chest to breathe in his musk. “It’s probably teeming with rats.”

“Oh, there aren’t any rats. That’s for sure.”

“How do you know?”

“Because if there were rats, every last one of them would have poked its whiskers out to have a look at your amazing ass.”

Kate playfully slapped his shoulder and was taken aback by the sound of her laughter. It was lighthearted, carefree, and full of life. In this dark, dirty part of the ship, it sounded completely out of place and somewhat disconcerting.

“I’ve missed you so much,” she whispered. “I don’t ever want to let you go, Robert. Stay with me.”

Robert let her go and sighed. “I don’t want to leave you, either,” he said. After a moment of hesitation, he added, “There’s something important you need to know. Don’t ask me how I know it or who told me because I can’t explain that.”

“Rules,” Kate said.

“Rules.” Robert nodded. “But listen closely. There’s something evil on this ship. Dark, voracious, and evil. It’s ancient and very dangerous. It’s wrathful. You and I, for whatever reason, don’t fit into its plans. We shouldn’t be here. If it manages to catch you, it will take you somewhere even I can’t get to. I will lose you forever.”

“All of this is so scary. I need you.”

“I’ll be with you, babe. But you need to get out of here. Now. We both play a part in all this.”

Kate shook her head and clung to Robert harder. The very notion of returning to the top deck of the
Valkyrie
and leaving her husband was unbearable.

“I don’t want to leave you. Not after all this time.” She shook her head. “No way.”

Just then a tremendous vibration pulsed through the
Valkyrie
, breaking their embrace and knocking them to the ground. A second later the dull blast of a distant explosion seeped down into the depths of the ship. Seconds later the far-off sound of alarms could be heard. The ship lurched as if a torpedo had struck it.

“What do you think that was, Robert?” She turned back toward her husband, but he was gone.

She screamed his name until her throat hurt, but Robert had vanished just like Esther. She briefly wondered if she had hallucinated the whole thing, but even her clothes smelled like him. She could still taste him.

It had been real. She had been with him.

“Robert,” she whispered.

A soft light came on to Kate’s right. The service elevator had opened for her.

“Thanks, babe.” Kate smiled as she got into the elevator. “I’ll come back for you. I promise.”