Dead Waters - Anton Strout [62]
Professor Redfield had found it fascinating enough to spend great expanses of time obsessing over it. I needed to know why, and if the answers were out there, I had to find out. I stepped out onto the main section of the bridge.
Connor hesitated. I stopped and looked at him. “Coming?”
He dug his hands down into the pockets of his coat. “Probably a bad time to bring this up, but I don’t really care for bridges, kid.”
“No?” I asked. “Afraid of heights or something?”
“Not quite,” he said. “You remember why we don’t go down to Ground Zero, right?”
I nodded. “Yeah,” I said. “No one from the D.E.A. dares to step foot where World Trade Center once stood. Too much sorrow. Too many ghosts.”
“Pain sticks, kid. Before 9/11, bridges were the number-one source for sorrow around here. Despondent people love to fling themselves to their unhappy demise. A gruesome but romantically poetic way to go, if you ask me. You show me a Manhattan bridge and I’ll show you at least a handful of ghosts moping around on each of them for eternity. So, like I said—not a fan of them. Just look for yourself.”
I turned to look out onto the bridge, adjusting my eyes to really look.
I knew that most New Yorkers turned a blind eye to the stranger things they came across in Manhattan. The fragility of the human mind helped protect itself. My own mind was no exception, and even when I could focus on the hidden world around us, I was not nearly as trained as Connor at seeing the dead. I willed myself to focus on the empty spaces my conscious mind must be avoiding.
“Whoa,” I said when my mind keyed in to the entire scene before me. The bridge was covered with dozens, maybe hundreds of ghostly figures. Spirits drifted directionless across the span. I turned to Connor. “Are you seeing this?”
Connor gave me a dark smile. “What do you think, kid?”
“We’re not going out there, are we?” I asked. “Think about my hair.”
“Way to focus on what’s really important,” Connor said.
I stepped closer to Connor, dropping to a whisper with the horde of apparitions so close. “I think I have a point,” I said. “A very vain but accurate point.”
“Jesus,” Connor said, agitated. “I’m sorry you’re too damn pretty to do your job.” He looked out over the bridge. “You do realize that we’re supposed to exhibit some sort of heroism, right? It is in our job description, kid.”
“Right,” I said, feeling somewhat dressed down. “Sorry.”
“Just stay close to me,” he said.
“Fine by me,” I said
Connor walked off onto the bridge. The wind picked up, joined by the sound of rushing water below that I could see through the struts as we went, giving me a bit of vertigo from all the movement. The chilling bite of the wind blew at our clothes and hair. The shapes around us were like a living fog, drifting in the wind up and down the bridge. They were slow enough that we were able to move among the spirits without running the risk of passing through any of them.
“Is this something ghosts do regularly?” I asked. “I mean, get together like this? Maybe they’re going to go bungee jumping off the bridge.”
Connor shot me a don’t-be-stupid look and continued out onto the bridge where the greater concentration of spirits were. I followed him, the ghosts drifting out of our path as we went.
Connor stopped when we were about halfway across the expanse right in the heart of the ghostly gathering. There were hundreds of them. He turned in circles, looking them over. “Interesting,” he said.
Meandering spirits swirled all around me. “Popular place,” I said. “I guess if you’re looking to off yourself, Hell Gate is the place to go.”
Connor shook his head. “I don’t think these are all suicides, kid.”
“Why not?”
Connor waved his hand out toward the crowd. “Look at the way they’re all dressed,” he said.
I studied the crowd closely, taking note of the clothes. All of them looked to be from