Ghostwalkers by Jonathan Maberry Page A

swept up and down the hills, turning forests to ash. Rivers and streams had been changed by the new complexities of the landscape. And not very far across the border from Nevada lay the edge of the world. Instead of the miles upon miles that had once stretched to the bluffs and beaches west of the Camino Real pilgrims’ road, a new range of shattered mesas had risen up as most of the rest of California had cracked like dry biscuit and tumbled into the churning Pacific. Millions had died in what anyone within sound of that upheaval must have truly believed was the true apocalypse warned about in the Revelation of Saint John.
    Even now, a decade and a half later, the land still looked like an open wound. Grey fancied he could feel the land moan and groan as it writhed in agony.
    And yet …
    And yet, the ash from those burned trees had enriched the soil and now there were new trees reaching up to find the sun. Riots of flowers bloomed in their millions, and even the desert succulents were fat and colorful.
    At least that was how Grey saw it for the first day of their journey.
    All of that changed the deeper they ventured into the broken lands. The lush growth waned quickly as they climbed a series of stepping-stone mesas that marched toward the shattered coastline. The soil thinned over the rocks and was more heavily mixed with salt from ocean-born storms. The flowers faded to withered ghosts and gasping succulents and austere palms replaced the leafy coniferous trees.
    As the hours burned away, Grey found himself sinking into moody and troubled thoughts. His life had taken some strange, sad paths since he had gone to war. And stranger still since he’d tried to leave that war behind. No matter how far he rode the world did not seem to ever wash itself clean of hurt and harm. And everything seemed to get stranger the farther west he went.
    Not that the south was any model for comfort and order. That’s where his luck had started to go bad.
    That’s where he began to dream that the dead were following him. That he was a haunted man. That maybe he was something worse.
    Doomed, perhaps.
    Or damned.
    Maybe both.
    Even now, as he drowsed in the saddle he could catch glimpses of silent figures watching him from the darkness beneath trees, pale faces that turned to watch as he passed. It would be easier, he thought, if all of those faces belonged to strangers. If that was the case he could resign himself to accept that it was the land that was haunted. He’d heard enough stories—and recently had enough experiences—to accept that any definition of the word “ death ” he once possessed was either suspect or entirely wrong.
    After all there were those things that had been raised by the explosion of Doctor Saint’s strange weapon. Surely if the hinges of the world were breaking, then the door to hell was already torn off and cast into the dust. It made him wonder about all those wild tales he’d read in dime novels about the lands of the Great Maze. Monsters and demons, angels and goblins. He’d enjoyed those books as exciting and absurd fancies.
    Now he wondered.
    And he feared.
    If even a fraction of them were true, then dear God in Heaven why was he riding west? Why had he agreed to this job? Why was he moving toward the lands of madness and monsters?
    As if in answer, the voice of that woman—that witch or vampire, whatever Mircalla was—whispered inside his memory.
    You do not know what you are, man of two worlds. The man who lives between the worlds. Yes … that’s what it says about you. You do not belong to either life or death . That means that I and my sisters cannot have you, Greyson Torrance. You are exempt, pardoned. Not from your crimes but from my web.
    And when he had demanded to know what she meant, Mircalla had confounded him more.
    It means that the universe, for good or ill, is not done with you. I am forbidden to claim you. Your journey is not