Not good. For them.
She crossed the street, hoping to hear an approaching siren, but there was nothing except the hissing, constant desert wind and the rattle of tumbleweeds against the fences. In places, there were so many of the balled, thorny plants tangled in that it looked like a barricade. One skipped across open ground and bumped against her pants leg, and she had to stop to pull the burred tips free; her fingertips tingled and itched afterward.
Tyler had already gone inside. Angel was sliding through the fence now, with Jenna holding it open.
“Hey,” Claire said, and they both turned to look at her in surprise. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you, but this isn’t a good place. It’s unstable in there. The floor’s all rotten.”
“Ah, it’s—Claire, right?” When she nodded, Angel smiled—with far less wattage than he would have used for Monica, she thought. “Well, we thank you for the warning, but we’re very used to working in dangerous spaces. Remember the asylum, Jenna? The one in Arkansas?”
“The floors were completely gone,” Jenna said. “We had to walk on the beams or we’d have dropped at least three stories straight into the basement. Got some great stuff, though. It was a huge ratings winner.” She pushed a box through to Angel, then a second one. “Don’t worry, we’re trained for this kind of thing.”
“There are snakes in there,” Claire said. “Rattlers. And black widow spiders. It’s really not safe.”
“And we’re really okay with it,” Jenna said. “You go on, Claire. We’ve got this.” Jenna studied her with curious pale eyes. “You seem pretty eager to keep us out of there. What’s your real reason?”
Claire shrugged and kicked a random rock. “Nothing,” she said. “Just I hate to see you get in trouble in there, for nothing. You’re wasting your time around here, anyway.”
“You’d be surprised what we’ve picked up already around here,” Jenna said. That sounded ominous. “My personal opinion is that this town is a hotbed of paranormal activity. I believe we’ll get dramatic footage out of what we find inside. It’s almost as if—as if we’re being guided.”
“Guided,” Claire repeated. “By what?”
“By whom,” Angel corrected. His smile held just a touch of indulgent doubt. “Jenna believes that she’s made contact with a lost spirit.”
“I have,” Jenna said, and it sounded like the embers of an old argument, flaring up again. “Maybe you might recognize her. It’s a young girl—”
Not Alyssa, Claire thought, stricken. Please don’t say it’s Shane’s sister. Because there was no doubt in her mind, now, that Alyssa’s spirit lingered, trapped in the lot where she’d died, even though the house had tumbled down.
“Miranda,” Jenna finished. “At least, that’s what I’ve been able to make out from the EVP recordings. We have quite a lot of them. She’s very talkative.”
“Miranda,” Claire repeated, and drew in a deep breath. She’d survived out here, somehow; she’d latched onto the ghost-hunting crew in the hopes of getting help. But that was so dangerous. “Um…no, I don’t think I recognize that name. Probably before my time.”
“Huh,” Jenna said, but Claire didn’t like the look in her eyes. It was far too shrewd. “Funny how she knows your name, then. And a whole lot more.”
She was saved by the distant wail of a siren. It was coming closer. Jenna and Angel looked at each other, eyebrows raised, as it became clear it was heading into their area, and both called, at the same time, “Tyler!”
Tyler backed out of the tumbled, brick-strewn doorway of the hospital. “Yeah, what? I’m going to have to climb over all this crap to get in this way. Maybe we should check the side—”
“Did you clear the location with the PD?” Angel asked.
“Didn’t you?”
Jenna sighed. “Dammit, Tyler—”
Claire made a quick, tactical retreat as the Morganville police cruiser pulled up behind the van, lights and siren still going, and left them to sort it out.
Miranda was still around, and she was working with the ghost hunters in some way. Well—that was good that she’d found a way to survive, but still, Claire had a terrible feeling that it was also a complication.
Maybe a big one.
Claire felt better after leaving the neighborhood and starting to see open businesses again, ragged as they were; most of them were scrap yards and places that repaired appliances, maybe a couple of “antique shops” that were where you took things a step above the scrap yard. A secondhand clothing store Claire sometimes visited, though it was mostly Morganville natives who shopped there; the store over by campus was the one with stuff in her size, and from out of town generally, because of the college students who shed their clothes by season. It was terrible to be thinking of clothing just now, though; she’d just eliminated any possibility of searching Myrnin’s lab for clues to where he’d gone. It deeply sucked. Not to mention that it would take a jackhammer and a backhoe to dig through the concrete sealing the entrance if she ever intended to rescue Myrnin’s books, which were mostly irreplaceable.
She saw the first mayoral campaign sign stapled to a light pole—one for Captain Obvious—and remembered, with a shock, that the election was today. She hadn’t cast a ballot yet. Well, the day was still young; she had time. And it was kind of her duty, since it had been her brainstorm in the first place, to vote for Monica, though she’d have to hold her nose to do it.
So she headed to City Hall, and ran straight into a mob scene.
The noise was a dull roar about a block away, and she thought it was some kind of construction work, maybe a giant bulldozer or grinding machine or something…but as she got closer, she heard that it wasn’t mechanical at all. It was voices—yelling voices, all blending into something that sounded like a collective insanity. People were running toward the noise, and she found she had the same impulse to go and see what was going on. Though there’d been some attempts, nothing that big had ever happened in Morganville, in her experience. People just didn’t have the heart to riot in those numbers.
Until now.
As Claire turned the corner, she saw there was a flatbed tractor trailer parked on the curb in front of City Hall, decked out with some sad-looking patriotic streamers and ribbons, and on it stood Flora Ramos, with someone in a black leather jacket, black pants, gloves, and a motorcycle helmet with a dark, opaque faceplate. His—at least, Claire assumed it was a man—arms were crossed. Flora was at the microphone next to a big pair of speakers.
The posters that people had on poles and held up over their heads were the CAPTAIN OBVIOUS FOR MAYOR signs.
And clearly, the guy standing on the dais next to Flora was…the new Captain Obvious? It could have been the same guy who’d fired at Oliver in Common Grounds; he’d been wearing a black hood then, instead of the helmet, but the jacket looked similar.
Flora Ramos held up her hands and stilled to a dull mutter the approving roar of the thousand or so people crammed in the street.
“We’ve had enough,” she was saying. “Enough of the oppression. Enough of the death. Enough of the inequality. Enough of losing our homes, our lives, our children, to things we don’t control. And we won’t be silent. If Mayor Moses couldn’t make our voices heard, we will make them heard on every street, in every building, and on every corner of Morganville until things change! Until we make them change! We built this town with our sweat and blood and strength, and it is our town as much as that of those who pretend to own it!”
She was, Claire had to admit, a great speaker. She was angry, full of passion, and it arced out of her like lightning to sting the crowd into more yells, chants, and shouts. Claire slowed down. She was a little afraid, suddenly, of the power of that mob, and of Flora’s eloquence. So were the Morganville cops, she realized. They were out in force, all twenty or so, forming a solid cordon between the crowd and City Hall.