“You don’t need me to tell you what’s going on here,” Katya said, echoing his thoughts. “You can feel them, can’t you?”
Oh God, yes, he could feel them. These weren’t moths or mosquitoes around him. They were people. People, hidden in the air. “Say it.”
“Ghosts.”
“Yes. Of course. Ghosts.”
“Oh, Jesus.”
“The Canyon’s full of ghosts.”
“I don’t believe in ghosts.”
“You don’t have to believe,” she said, “It’s nothing to do with believing or not believing. They’re here. All around you. Just let yourself see them. You know they’re here.”
Of course he knew. In his gut, he’d known all along there was some mystery like this waiting in the wings. And what Katya said about belief was right. Whether he believed in the Life Everlasting or not was a grand irrelevance. The dead were here. He could feel their fingers, their breaths, their stares. And now, as they pressed closer, he began to see them. He had to work up some spit before he could speak again.
“Why can I see you and I’m only now seeing them?” he asked.
“Because I’m not dead, Todd. And if you’re very good, in a little while I’ll show you why. You’re going to like it too. My special room — ”
At the mention of the room, the air, or rather those who moved invisibly through it, became agitated. The number of touches that Todd felt doubled, tripled. Apparently Katya felt them too, and she was somewhat irritated by them.
“Calm down, calm down,” she said.
There were subtle smears of light in front of Todd, as though the emotion the ghosts were feeling — spurred by Katya’s mention of the room — was causing them to show themselves. He thought he saw a face in one of the smears, or some part of a face: a row of perfect teeth; the gleam of a bright blue eye. The more he thought he saw, the more there was to support his suspicion. The smears grew more cogent, painting the forms of faces and shoulders and hands. They lasted only a little time — like fireworks, bursting into glorious life then dying away — but each time one was ignited its life lasted a little longer, and the form it etched in the darkness made more sense to him.
There were people everywhere around him. Not just a few. Dozens of them; the ghosts of parties past, lining up to touch the living.
“You begin to see them, don’t you?” Katya said.
“Yes,” he replied breathlessly. “I do … begin … to see them.”
“Pretty people.”
More than pretty. Beautiful; and in many cases famous. One woman — was it Jean Harlow? — wandered in front of him with her glittering dress torn away to expose her breasts. She was come and gone so quickly it was hard for Todd to be sure, but she seemed to have bite-marks on her flesh, clustered around her nipples. She’d no sooner passed from sight than two figures, tied together with ropes that went from neck to neck, came into view. Both were male. Both were naked. Both shone with a mixture of sweat and blood. This would have been distressing enough; but it was their smiles, their lunatic smiles, which made Todd flinch.
“Sal and Jimmy,” Katya said. “They fool around like that all the time. It’s a little lynching game.”
He pulled his hand out of hers. “This is too much.”
“It’s all right,” she said. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
He waved them away, like a child trying to ward off nightmares. “I don’t want to see them.”
Laughter came out of the darkness to meet his demand. The ghosts were apparently much amused. Their laughing made faces blossom all round him. Several he could name: famous beauties, returned to their perfection this bizarre after-life, as though they’d remembered themselves as their public would have willed them to be. Merle Oberon and George Sanders, Mary Pickford and Veronica Lake.
Todd started to retreat up the lawn, still waving them off. The phantoms came in giddy pursuit.
“All right, enough!” Katya yelled at them. “I said enough!” Her word was apparently law, even in such stellar company as this. The laughter rapidly subsided, and the divine faces stopped pressing toward him.