Something caught my feet, taking my legs out from under me. I slammed onto the cold floor. A fierce burning shot up from my ankle. The footsteps behind me accelerated. My torch spun, creating a mad dance on the walls and blinding me to the darkness. For a moment, my thoughts, too, were obscured. Then I understood. I had stumbled over a body.

  I crawled toward it, reaching warm skin that cooled under my hands. I ran my fingers over its face. I felt exposed teeth and taut cheeks, caught in a grimace. Above that, a narrow face, a long nose. Fareed. Oh merciful God, am I truly alone? Fareed dead, Old Boy nowhere to be seen, what hope was there?

  I pulled myself upright and fought the pain that raced through me. I limped down the corridor, still pointlessly clutching my gun. I hobbled through narrow corridors and tried to keep my footfall soft. I ignored the sweat coating my palms, the slamming of my heart against my ribs. I fled in terror but also because that’s all there was. It was either run or die. I ran.

  * * *

  I came up into the sunlight, gasping as air, hot and cold, fought within me. Dark spots filled my vision. Once my eyes adjusted, I searched beyond the gunwale. The seawater stretched out uninterrupted. There was nothing but angry, bright sunlight and water. Our skiffs were gone.

  A cruel turn of events, marooned upon this ship.

  Something moved on the bridge. A man’s shadowy form stood out against the glare. I pulled back. It was another sailor, a dead thing, hunting above deck rather than below. But no, the man’s dark skin stood before me, its blackness a testament to life. Perhaps it was Old Boy. What a blessing if he yet lived. I ran forward, fear lifting with each step, ignoring the burning that shot up my leg.

  The figure turned at the slap of my sandals. For a moment, Jamal’s features were cast in shadow, and then they revealed themselves. No frozen grimace, but twisted nonetheless, eyes vacant and mouth wide with terror.

  He raised his gun.

  I held up my hands. As if a surrender could restore his wits, Foolish Boy.

  He fired. I dropped against the edge of the bridge. Gunshot spewed out in all directions, pinging off the gunwale, striking the deck. This was my death, then. A life that could have been stolen by hunger, drone strike or disease would end here, on this icy ship. No gravestone to mark that I once lived, not even the small comfort of my father and sisters reciting prayers, my head facing Qiblah in the hope of redemption.

  “Jamal,” I called. “Stop. It’s just me.”

  He turned toward me, but his eyes refused to focus.

  “You can’t kill them,” I said. “They’re dead.”

  The decision came suddenly, as if it was not I who made it. I grasped my gun and stood from my protected corner, turning in one motion. My gunfire and Jamal’s scattered across the deck, indistinguishable. For a moment, it seemed like the outcome was pure luck. Maybe it was.

  After a long volley of shots, Jamal’s gun went silent. I kept firing. This, of course, is why we carry the Kalashnikovs. They discharge endlessly.

  When I stopped, Jamal lay slumped against the bridge, singlet and sarong darkening, weapon dangling. The air was still. Blood dripped from his body and fell from the bridge. It struck the deck in a steady pattern. I backed away, the sound—the reminder that life oozes from a person—worse than the sight of his limp form.

  Shot rang in my ears. I made my way to the bridge. The old corpses were gone. The navigation room lay empty, its cold a relief. For a moment, I was alone.

  I sensed movement behind me. Through the window I saw Old Boy. He stumbled and reached forward, condensation gathering on the glass under his palm. The other hand went up in fear. Fear. I had never seen the man afraid.

  He wove his way to the door. For a brief moment, I held onto the thought that he could save me. Then I watched as some foul thing extinguished the light in his eyes. I reached for the door, fumbling for its lock. It turned in my hands.

  Old Boy stepped in, hands in front of him. His mouth tightened, his lips curled. He was turning into one of those things. Here, before me. I retreated until my back pressed against the navigation desk.

  Old Boy collapsed to the floor. He lay still.

  Something followed him in. No human form, neither alive nor dead. Instead, a poisonous vapor seared my mouth and nose. With it came a wash of images. Barbed wire fences, white men skinny in a way I thought impossible, in tattered khaki, trapped in cells like cages. Men with black hair and light skin burned buildings, homes and shops. They chased down people who looked much like them, except they were kids, market girls and old men. Soldiers descended upon prone bodies. Blood. Fire. More barbed wire. Men and women stood in their thousands, faded clothing hanging from starving forms. Bombs dropped from airplanes, a city in flames. A much larger explosion, poison shooting out in all directions. People falling in the street, children writhing.

  My memories interwove with these pictures of a war I’d never seen. Pirates like me, traveling out in search of ships and dying of thirst. Capturing ship’s hands and torturing them. Corpses and sandbags side-by-side on the broken sidewalks of Mogadishu. Children laid flat by bullets as they walked home. Farmers torn apart by landmines. Troops shooting from rooftops. American planes firing from overhead. My mother and my sister’s children fading into death as they waited for food that never arrived. My father and I refugees, sailing empty-handed for a foreign land. Homes destroyed, wells drying up, a devastating hunger. Kids sickened by the waste that floated in our seas.

  I am certain I screamed. My mouth went wide, even as the sound caught in my throat. I tried to push back against the wretched images that played before my eyes. Pain tore through my skin as it fixed into place, my mouth too large for my face. My sight dimmed and the navigation room turned murky. My vision filled with an ugly gray, full of the recollection of images too horrible to face and too terrifying to deny.

  * * *

  The ship lists. The waves slap its sides. The radio crackles. I speak, although I know you can’t hear me. When you finally do hear my voice, you will be close.

  I don’t want to hurt you. But I continue to speak. I will bring you here. Like me, you will be filled with dread. Yet you won’t be able to halt your approach. You will see what I have seen. And you will join me.

  Jay O’Shea is an award-winning author, vegan warrior, and part-time canine swim instructor who lives and works in Los Angeles. An Associate Professor at UCLA, she is currently studying the cognitive benefits of hard-style martial arts training.

  O’Shea has written and edited several books on dance. Her essays have been published in three languages and six countries. Her short fiction has appeared in Bartleby Snopes, Toasted Cheese and in the anthology Bloody Knuckles. She has written a novel, The Alchemy of Loss.

  People died, and then they received a serial number.

  With bodies cremated, a handful of personal belongings became someone's earthly remains, new artifacts in the People's History Project, sealed and placed in metal alloy containers which were themselves stored in great underground Halls.

  And if ghosts existed, if these people had souls, they resided in the traces of psychic memory resting like a patina of dust on their belongings, slowly eroding away.

  * * *

  Now–

  Gregor had stopped wearing the traditional Memory Coordinator robes months ago, so he froze when the seated duty guard outside the Dead Hall said, “You need the proper ID to enter this area, sir.” The name on his badge—as shiny and new as the guard, Gregor thought—was Herbowitz.

  “I have it,” he said, nonplussed, fishing in his pockets for his card.

  The guard eyeballed him. “It's against regs to be out of uniform.”

  Gregor pulled his card out. He looked down the empty metal hallway as he handed it over. “I don't see it offending anyone.”

  Herbowitz snatched Gregor's identification, face reddening.

  At least he's someone who hasn't already heard about me, Gregor thought, and, before he could stop himself, the image of Amelia came to him—pretty Amelia, seven years old, her porcelain skin dotted with blood.

  Amelia, who he'd met only in flashes of psychic memory.

  Herbowitz was staring at him, his eyes suddenly wary.

  Maybe Herbowitz wasn't so shiny new.

  “You finished?” Gregor asked.

  Herbowitz held the card by the corner, as if it might be diseased, and Gregor knew he'd heard what happened, how wild Gregor had been, trying to save a five-years-dead girl; Gregor sent a guard crashing through a glass door and broke the ribs of a supervisor.

  Herbowitz touched a button on his desk. Gregor heard the hiss of air-locks in the Dead Hall's vault door. “I had to check.” He wouldn't meet Gregor's eyes.

  Gregor sighed inwardly and stepped into the cavernous Hall—more metal plating, more recessed lighting, regimented shelves filled with containers. He pulled the door closed behind him.

  Why not just quit? an internal voice asked.

  Gregor snorted—and do what? Memory Coordinators were bred for the People's History Project. It might not have always been that way—back when MCs existed on the fringes of a society that called them frauds, or insane—but it sure as hell was now. Some MCs could barely read.

  Despair, his friend for the past three months, settled over him like a well-worn coat.

  He stopped at the third aisle and pulled a long metal container. The placard on the front displayed only one serial number. He started to think how odd that was, then Amelia's face reappeared to him, and he shuffled to a desk in the corner.

  * * *

  Then–

  “Looks like a path to Hell,” Jerzyck said, looking down at the crater.

  Davis nodded. Massive concrete pillars poked into the gray morning air like the crooked teeth of a semi-buried monster. Metal girders twisted together like spliced wires. From where Davis and Jerzyck stood, two lengths of nylon rope had been staked, outlining a path into the dark center.

  Jerzyck sighed, a roly-poly man whose hardhat looked too big for his head. “It's safe enough, though. Structural engineers checked it.”

  “There's nothing left but rubble,” Davis said. “Why aren't we just clearing the rest of this out?”

  Jerzyck shook his head. “Dunno. Don't think I wanna know.”

  “Why?”

  Jerzyck studied him, as if trying to determine if he was trustworthy. “Gov'ment was out here Sunday. That's why we're here and why the bonus is so fat.”

  “What'd they do?”

  “Marked the path, for one thing. It was four of ‘em—two government types and a business guy.”

  “What about the fourth one?”

  “Wore a fuckin' purple robe, like a monk from Vegas.”

  “The hell?”

  “Swear to God. I got here as they was coming out and the monk was, like, 'I think these will last.’ And everyone was nodding, like it made a lick of sense.”

  Davis lit a cigarette with his Zippo. The snap of the lid was particularly loud. “Shit.” He looked at the rest of the site. Beyond the crater, the bulldozed and cleared remnants of the Martha K. Dixon FBI Building resembled any other jobsite, its border marked by tall, chain-link fencing, where he heard the morning rush hour heading into downtown Hathaway.

  But everything was still and silent in here.

  “Where the hell's everybody else?” he asked. “Two people can't do this.”

  “Thompson and Wilson are on their way,” Jerzyck said. “Smith and Glasten, too.” He glanced at Davis. “But I'm not waiting around. I don't want to mess with this more than I have to. Too many people died here. If any place is haunted, it's this place. Fuckin' mass grave.”

  Davis grunted noncommittally. He cared little about death, hadn't even attended his parents' funerals. He thought, but didn't say, You live, you die, everyone else moves on. Even here.

  Jerzyck turned towards the loaded wheelbarrow. He handed Davis a paper air mask, a walkie-talkie and a clutch of canvas sacks. “Just get what you can. Ready?”

  Davis pitched his cigarette.

  Jerzyck started down the path, Davis following. It was steeper than it looked and the lip of the crater rose quickly.

  They passed blocks of concrete triple their height, their cracks wedged with wires, broken bricks, busted tiles. They flicked on their headlamps. It didn't help much. The sky above was a jagged gray line.

  The path split at the end of the staked rope. Jerzyck took the right, which seemed to rise a little, leaving Davis with the lower path.

  Davis started down, treading carefully over debris. Up ahead, he spied something small and dusty-red. He picked it up—a novelty pair of Minnie Mouse sunglasses. An arm and lens were missing. He glanced behind him. The end of the trail rope was barely ten yards away.

  Maybe this'll be easy after all.

  He turned back to the grit-covered glasses. He imagined this in someone's cubicle, a memento from some family trip. A personal touch in an impersonal environment. Maybe the owner had—

  Davis shook his head. The owner was dead and gone.

  He dropped the sunglasses into his sack.

  * * *

  Now–

  Gregor set the sunglasses in the container and pulled the recorder studs away from his temples.

  Just what he'd expected—a flat flash of memory, almost two-dimensional in its unreality: faint screams, black smoke, a faint vibration as the floor lost support. The bright doorway Gregor imagined whenever his mind picked up psychic energy had barely opened. The artifact was too damn old.

  He'd been working for three hours. He should've taken a break by now—it was protocol—but to do what? Sit in the corner of the breakroom while the other MCs ignored him?

  He checked the screen of the memory recorder, a tiny plastic rectangle with rounded edges, and saw that everything had saved to the People's History's central data cores.

  Did anyone bother to check these things? Pondering the question too much was apt to depress him.

  He looked at the single serial number on the container and, curious, pulled the touchscreen from the wall. He tapped the number in and the screen flashed. A file appeared, bearing the title HATHAWAY BOMBING - AUGUST 6, 2018.

  Gregor whistled. That was over two hundred years ago.

  He scrolled through the file, an ancient PDF document: On August 6, 2018 a terrorist bombed a Federal Bureau of Investigation office—central government law enforcement agency, the touchscreen automatically translated—in Hathaway, Pennsylvania—later absorbed into the Sprawl mega-metropolis in 2156. There were 356 people killed. Early members of the People's History Project scavenged remaining personal items.

  Gregor set the touchscreen back. That many people dying, under such traumatic circumstances—how strong their energies must've been. The artifacts would've been practically screaming back then—

  Wait.

  If that many people died, shouldn't there be more than one container? Something that big should have an entire aisle—

  He stopped himself. They probably had gotten through most of the artifacts, but, as the People's History Project grew and the rituals of death became less about cemeteries and funerals and more about creating links in the great chain PHP was forging, the remaining artifacts had gotten lost in the shuffle, winding up down here. The average lapse time between gaining possession of an artifact and when a Memory Coordinator accessed it was five years. Two hundred years ago—

  When was the last time anyone had touched these things?

  He thought of Amelia. How real that girl's final moments had been; he'd smelled the moist concrete, felt the wet air.

  He couldn't have been the only MC who felt something when accessing psychic energy—maybe not as extremely as him because it'd been a murder in a time when murders were incredibly rare, but something.

  Gregor shook his head. He knew MCs didn't feel what he now felt. It was a job—push a button, pull a lever, record the last moment of someone you've never met.

  Why me? he thought, putting the temple-studs back on his head. Why do I have to be different?

  Not for the first time he wished he hadn't handled Amelia's artifact, which had been a handful of colorful barrettes. If he hadn't handled them, he wouldn't be here, forgotten in a room full of forgotten things.

  But then he wouldn't have known Amelia, and that was its own bitter fruit.

  He pulled the next artifact—half of a wooden nameplate and closed his eyes.

  * * *

  Then–

  The nameplate broke in half when Davis tried pulling it out of a wedge of rock. It toppled to the ground amidst a shower of grit.

  Fuck it, he thought, bending over to pick up the busted nameplate.

  And felt someone rush by behind him.

  Davis jumped and spun.

  His headlamp picked out sharp and irregular walls and the meandering, rubble-strewn path.

  But he'd felt the passage of air, heard the harsh pant of breath.

  He shook himself. He was alone down here. Jerzyck was in some other portion of the crater—he imagined the supervisor's path was wide as a freeway and better lit—and no one was stupid enough to think they had the experience to go traipsing around.

  Then why was the hair on the back of his neck standing up?

  A burst of chatter erupted around the corner, like a group of people talking at the same time. It quickly faded away.

  “Goddammit,” he muttered and climbed around the rubble until he reached the corner.

  The path was empty, of course. The mound of rubble he was on petered out, became the tilted, busted tile of a sub-basement floor.

  “Too many people died here,” Jerzyck had said. “If any place is haunted, it's this place.”

  Well, you're a dumb fuckin' Polack, Davis thought, wiping the sweat from his brow. So I don't expect much.

  “What I care about is my bonus,” Davis had said. “No ghoulies or ghosties or long-leggedy beasties. Just sacks of junk and a nice nut in my account.”