Radiant Oddities (Anomaly Saga #4)

14

Alice didn't know how long she waited under the bed. It had to have been at least an hour before she saw someone approach. A woman.

Katrina crouched down and peered under the bed. She put a finger to her lips and passed Alice a piece of paper. She held it under the light coming from the broken window. It read:

'I know you cannot understand me, so I wrote you a note. The Host's men took William. It appears they may have taken Jack, too. I will need all of the help I can get. Will you join me in finding them?'

Alice crawled out from under the bed and stretched. She felt sluggish, but she stood up anyway. She passed the note back to Katrina. "Of course I'll help," she said. "But now what? I saw them take Chandler. I mean, Jack."

Katrina pulled out a small notepad and a pen and wrote a new note. She passed it to Alice. It read:

'Now, we get the Chandlers back. The Host will never know what hit him. Follow me.'

Alice was hesitant, but she had no other options. Stay here and get caught? Let Chandler sit in a cell for the rest of his life? No.

More realistically, let Chandler die? That really would not be fun.

So, that's how she ended up following Katrina silently through the halls. It wasn't silently by choice-she had a load of questions-but any time she opened her mouth, Katrina would hold up a pointer finger, telling her to stop and wait.

Katrina led the pair down a few halls that were strangely decorated, or even shaped. At one point, they entered a round alcove, almost shaped like a sphere in itself. In another, a hallway that thinned to a single door's width. It seemed this place had more going on than met the eye.

Finally, they ended up in a large chamber of cells. The room was lined with them from front to back, but the peculiar thing was . . . none of them were full.

"What are you trying to show me?" Alice asked.

Katrina thrust a hand at the cells, obviously seeing something Alice had not yet picked up. Katrina didn't say any words, but she sent out vibes that screamed 'open your eyes, you can see.'

"I can't see anything," said Alice, looking closely at the cells. "They're all empty. Are you saying Chandler is here somehow? And William? Because I don't see them. I wish I could."

Katrina shook her head. She closed her eyes and took Alice's hand for a couple seconds, then let go.

Suddenly, it was as if a veil of metaphorical fog had lifted. The cells were full of people, people Alice could only describe as muted, like someone had desaturated them in Photoshop. But they were real, and they were standing in their cells. "Who are they?" Alice asked.

"We're dead," said a man wearing a torn grey suit. "The Host killed us."

Alice's heart skipped a beat. "What? Katrina can see dead people?"

"Some of the living are more sensitive to these things," said a woman in the cell across from the man. "Katrina has heightened perception of us. Perhaps her loss of hearing contributed, but she certainly has a gift."

Alice looked over at Katrina. "And you . . . passed it to me somehow?"

Katrina nodded.

"There is much more to life than what they teach you," added the dead woman.

Alice remembered all the things Casey had told her and Chandler about. Maybe there really were yarn girls and disappearing doors and living skeletons. Maybe the world really was so much bigger than it seemed.

Katrina walked up to one of the muted dead people, signing something to him.

The man nodded. "Alice," he said. "Katrina wants me to explain our predicament. You see, as was said before, the Host killed every single one of us. We were all executed at the mercy of Victoria's game of chance. However, our souls were never let free. The Host has the power to keep us down, keep us confined to our cells even after death. And now he uses our souls to power the hotel."

"That's horrible," said Alice, still feeling a little light-headed. "How can we help you? I want to set you free."

"The Host has tied us to him with deep and powerful bonds. The only way to sever the connection is to kill the Host."

Alice looked away. "Wow. That's . . . pretty intense."

"It's the only way," the man insisted.

Katrina signed something else to him.

"Oh, your friends?" the man nodded. "Yeah, I saw them. They were here for a bit. They even got sentenced to death by Victoria. But then some guy in a gas mask popped out of a vent and freed them. Lucky jerks."

Katrina and Alice shared a look of disbelief. "LaVarre?!" Alice exclaimed.

"Him," the dead man agreed. "The guys you're looking for crawled out through the vents."

"We have to go find them," said Alice.

Katrina gave her a curt nod and spun around, heading for the exit.

Alice sped after her. "I just hope that wherever they are, they're making good decisions."