Forever Odd

“She said we’re in boot camp to learn, to fail or succeed of our own free will. Then we move on to a second life, which she called service .”
        The red-haired man, whose cheerful smile was belied by anguished eyes, came to me and put a hand on my shoulder.
        “Her name is Bronwen, but she prefers to be called Stormy. In service, Stormy said, we have fantastic adventures in some cosmic campaign, some wondrous undertaking. Our reward comes in our third life, and that one lasts forever.”
        Reduced to silence again, I could not meet their stares with the confidence I owed them, and so I closed my eyes and in memory saw Stormy, who gave me strength, as she had always done.
        Eyes closed, I said, “She is a kick-ass kind of girl, who not only knows what she wants, but what she should want, which makes all the difference. When you meet her in service, you’ll know her, sure enough. You’ll know her, and you’ll love her.”
        After a further silence, when I opened my eyes and turned in a circle, probing with my flashlight, four of the initial seven were gone: the young black man, the cocktail waitress, the pretty blonde, and the red-haired man.
        I can’t be sure if they moved Beyond or merely elsewhere.
        The big man with the buzz-cut looked angrier than ever. His shoulders were hunched, as if under a burden of rage, and his hands curled into fists.
        He stalked away into the burned-out room, and though he had no physical substance that could affect this world, gray ashes rose in shimmering shapes around him, and settled to the floor again in his wake. Lightweight debris-scorched playing cards, splintery scraps of wood-trembled as he passed. A five-dollar casino chip stood on edge, spun, wobbled, fell flat once more, and heat-yellowed dice rattled on the floor.
        He had poltergeist potential, and I was glad to see him go.

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    TWENTY-FIVE
        
        A DAMAGED FIRE DOOR HUNG OPEN AND ASKEW ON two of three hinges. The stainless-steel threshold reflected the flashlight in those few places where it was not crusted with dark material.
        If memory served me well, people had been trampled to death in this doorway when the crowd of gamblers stampeded for the exits. No horror came over me at that recollection, only a deeper sadness.
        Beyond the door, patinaed by smoke and water, spalling from the effects of efflorescing lime, looking as if they had been transported from an ancient temple of a long-forgotten faith, thirty flights of wide concrete emergency stairs led to the north end of the sixteenth floor. Perhaps two additional flights ascended all the way to the roof of the hotel.
        I climbed only halfway to the first landing before I halted, cocked my head, and listened. I don’t believe a sound had alarmed me. No tick, no click, no whisper stepped down to me from higher floors.
        Perhaps a scent alerted me. Compared to other spaces in the devastated structure, the stairwell smelled less of chemicals and hardly at all of char. This cooler, limy air was clean enough to allow the recognition of an odor as exotic as-but different from-those of the fire’s aftermath.
        The faint essence I could not identify was musky, mushroomy. But it also had a quality of fresh raw meat, by which I don’t mean a bloody stink, but that subtle smell you get from a butcher’s case, where ready flesh is presented.
        For a reason I could not define, into my mind’s eye came the dead face of the man I had fished from the storm drain. Mottled gray skin. Eyes rolled back in a blind white gaze.
        The fine hairs on the nape of my neck quivered as if the air had been charged by the advancing storm.
        I switched off the flashlight and stood in absolute, monster’s-gonna-get-you blackness.
        Because the stairs were enclosed by concrete walls, the sharp turn at each landing provided an effective baffle to light. A sentry one floor above, or at most two, might have noticed the radiant bloom below, but no light could have transferred, angle after angle, to any higher floors.
        After a minute, when I hadn’t heard the rustle of clothing or the scrape of a shoe on concrete, when no scaly tongue had licked my face, I backed cautiously out of the stairwell, across the threshold. I retreated into the casino before switching on the flashlight.
        A few minutes later, I located the south stairs. Here the door still