“It’s not a gateway,” Corson said with a rollof his eyes. “Ghosts arealwaysexaggerating.”
“Then what is it?” I asked.
“When a person dies, there is a portal forthe soul to pass through that some consider a gateway. Whether itis or not, I don’t really know. The area we’re in now experienced ahigh concentration of death in the past. In areas where there is alot of death, the passing of the many souls whodeservedto pass on to Heaven or Hell, and did so,leaves an imprint on the land.”
I bit my lip to keep from laughing whenPompadour gave Corson the finger.
Corson smiled back at him sweetly beforecontinuing. “Areas with large imprints on them tend to be a drawfor ghosts looking to escape Purgatory. They hang around in thehopes that one of the many portals that have already opened here,will open again.”
He threw his arm out to indicate all theoccupants of the diner. “You can’t skip the line,” he told them.“You have to serve your time. Hanging around here is getting younowhere. Nothing is going to open for you until you’ve been deemedworthy of passing on.”
The pretty ghost wearing a poodle skirt puther fingers under her chin before flicking them at Corson. Herskirt didn’t move when she spun away from him. A man wearing what Ithought had once been a uniform shirt and no pants turned andfloated through the wall. I swallowed heavily at the disconcertingsight of something so human looking passing through somethingsolid.
“Sometimes the portals open,” Ethelprotested.
“Because the spirit passing through hasserved its time, not because they’ve found the key to skippingahead,” Corson retorted. “Fools.”
“Holy shit!” Hawk blurted, drawing everyone’sattention to him. “It really is a truck stop instead of SaintPeter’s!”
Vargas, Erin, and I looked at him as if he’dlost his mind, and right now, I wouldn’t blame him if he did.“What?” I asked.
The color had drained from his face; helooked nearly as ashen as the specters floating around us. “It’s asong called, “Man on the Moon,” hemurmured. “I used to love it as a kid, but I never would havedreamed it was based in reality.”
The title of the song seemed oddly fittingconsidering I felt like I was on another planet as another ghostfloated by me.
“Humans glimpse more than they know betweenthe dimensions sometimes,” Corson said. “The writer of your songmay have seen something at some point.”
“So was this place built for the ghosts tocome here?” I inquired.
“No, humans built this place because it wasgood business. The ghosts came here because of its location andbecause they could,” Corson replied.
Was this why I had seen Angela on the side ofthe road? Was she a ghost? Then again, Corson and the others hadn’tseen her, and they could clearly see the ghosts in here. She’d alsoappeared in vivid color while these ghosts were all gray andfaded.
I turned to Corson. “So the ghosts interactedwith the people who used to come here?”
“No, humans can’t see ghosts, or at leastthey couldn’t,” Corson replied. “Of course, some spirits arestronger than others. If one of those stronger spirits had anability while human, they were able to retain that power, and thoserare spirits were able to make their presence known to a human. Youmostly called them ghosts, though some were known as poltergeists.There were also a few humans who would catch glimpses of ghostsbeyond the veil keeping them blocked, but for the most part, ghostshover in the background, watching and waiting for their turn topass on.”
“I… uh… I beg to differ. I can see himperfectly fine,” Erin stammered. She leaned away from a man in histwenties with round glasses and hair down to his shoulders. Histie-dyed shirt had a grayish hue to it like the rest of him. He wastrying to peer down Erin’s shirt as he rose higher into the airabove her. “Pervert,” she accused.
The man grinned at her, flashed the peacesign, and floated away. “Totally worth it,” he said to anotherone.
“Jesus,” I muttered and pressed my shirtcloser to my chest when a few of the other male ghosts clusteredcloser to us.
“Can Jesus help us?” Pompadour askedexcitedly.
I gaped at him before shaking my head. “I… Idon’t know.”
“No. Hecannothelp you. Fucking ghosts.Serve.Your.Time,” Corson enunciated, earninghim more fingers and rude gestures from the dead and see-throughcrowd.
I leaned away from one rising over the top ofme and angling his head to try to see around my hand at my throat.“Back off, buddy. You may not be corporeal, but I’ll figure out away to kick your ass.”
“She might be able to do it,” another onesaid and nudged him with an elbow.
They both drifted away before turning theirattention to Erin. “And I’ll kick your asses for her too!” Isnapped at them.
I was beginning to understand Corson’sobvious dislike of ghosts.
“Thank you,” Erin said to me. She kept thetop of her shirt pinned against her chest.
