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  “Well, we know that the guys have told us ghosts are just folks who have been caught in a portal horizon field, often without their bodies. Unless vampires are some of the aliens they mentioned, I don’t think they’re real. And if they’re aliens, then the fake stories we have are just that, stories, right?”

  “Unless they are criminal aliens that their interdimensional bounty hunters haven’t been notified of and caught.”

  Lexie sighed. “You worry too much and great, now you have me freaking out. Tell you what, we’ll just ask the guys when we get back. Meantime, that is obviously part of a well done costume. She’s young Priscilla, done gothy.”

  “You’re right,” Connie said, looking for their car in the vast parking lot. “Oh, it’s there,” she said, spying it.

  “I think I’ll use the valet to fetch it next time,” Lexie said. “He can find the damned thing.”

  “Not to park it, though.”

  “No, not to park it,” Lexie agreed. “Last thing I want is some guy going all Ferris Bueller with our baby.”

  Lexie was glad that Connie bought her act. There was something uncanny about that woman’s smile. They obviously were implants which might be a bit strange but definitely not weird in the way Connie would obsess about if left unchecked. At least, she hoped so. She was beginning to doubt these things. As it was, she could see the wheels still turning in Connie’s head. Connie sighed as they came to the first intersection.

  “Lex?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You know what the guys said about ghosts?”

  “You mean how they’re just people caught in the horizon of a wild, unstable portal?”

  “Yeah, that. Do you think that’s where some missing people go?”

  Lexie took her time answering. “You’re talking about Sam and Charlie, aren’t you?”

  “Well, what if you really did see him in the parking lot?”

  “Then his body would still be dead somewhere, undiscovered, and he’d be a ghost.”

  “Yeah, but the guys said it’s tied to a specific location if that happens. What if there’s a wild stable portal?”

  “Con, I really want to believe they’re alive out there, but it’s been a decade. Their chopper went down. It’s somewhere out there, buried under mountains of sand. One day they’ll find it.”

  “Then why haven’t I ever felt him gone? It’s always felt as if he’s out there, simply out of reach.”

  “I don’t want to talk about this.”

  “But Lex-”

  “No! Connie, I just can’t. Ever since I thought I saw him in that parking lot, it’s been killing me.”

  “You did see him, Lex. We both know you did. He’s out there. We just have to figure out where and how to get him back here properly.”

  “It’s not like their dimension, Connie. We don’t have stasis chambers holding dimensional travellers until they can hop on back. They haven’t done a body swap.” Lexie’s vision blurred and she blinked her eyes to clear them. Now was so not the time to not be able to see where she was going. She saw the Red Lobster sign coming up on their right and put on her turn signal. “Look, we’re here. Let’s table this discussion for now, okay? Let’s just go enjoy our meal.”

  “Okay,” Connie said softly.

  “Good.” Lexie parked the car. She gave Connie a tremulous smile. “Let’s go eat some seafood.” Her breath caught as she got out of the car and spotted the passenger inside another car going to the parking lot exit. He saw her looking and gave a knowing smile. Connie’s chatter had her seeing things. She blinked, then frowned. The car was gone despite not having time to have reached the exit.

  “Lex, you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” Lexie muttered. She turned to join Connie. “So, this woodfired business. You think it’s any good?” She half listened to Connie’s response as they walked to the front door of the restaurant. Before going in, she gave the parking lot a quick glance.

  “You sure you’re okay?”

  “Just looking to see how busy it might be in here.” No way was she telling Connie what she’d seen. It had been Sam in that car and if the flash she’d glimpsed of the brightly patterned short sleeve of the driver was any indication, he’d been with Charlie.

  Chapter 20

  Next Door But One

  “Well,” Nash said, “to be quite honest, Connie, it is entirely possible. Basic portals you do a body jump, though those are usually done at portal facilities so your body is right there ready for stasis. You don’t usually jump into another body, that’s a quirky fault of a misaligned portal.” Connie had begun quizzing him after she and Lexie had returned from dinner.

  “So, usually you’re walking around like a ghost?” Connie felt really confused now.

  “No, no. We’re invisible and moving about. It’s more our consciousness has traveled, not our actual being.”

  “Okay,” Connie said, not sure she was quite following but thinking she got the gist.

  “But, there’s another type of portal and they tend to be VERY unstable. They’re more like a gate or wormhole. You physically go in and come out on the other side, body and all. They tend to not be fixed on the ends though, when they occur in the wild. This means they can suddenly open up right in front of people or objects and bam! They find themselves, body and all, in another dimension with no way back because the ends have closed and moved elsewhere.”

  “So, if one opened up in front of say, a helicopter, it could have flown right through it.”

  “Yes.”

  “And the helicopter would be in one piece and everyone alive on the other side.”

  “As long as nothing on the other side would prevent it, yes.”

  “You mean like, if it opens right in front of a building or something so it crashes.”

  Nelson snorted. “Or ends up in one of the Hell dimensions.”

  “Hell dimensions?” she asked, alarmed.

  “There’s one that’s basically only two dimensional doors down from this one, actually,” Nelson replied. Nash gave him a dirty look.

  “What is a Hell dimension?” she asked once more.

  Nash sat on his hind legs and stroked his whiskers before replying. “The one Nelson here is rabbiting on about is a close copy of this one. The difference is, it is suffering through a nuclear winter.”

  “You mean, there was a nuclear war?” she asked, aghast.

  “Our xeno-archeologists tell us that it began with a disagreement known as The Cuban Missile Crisis.”

  “So, we diverged from them when someone started a war?”

  “Pretty much,” Nelson agreed.

  “So, everyone there is dead or what?”

  “There’s plant life and some animals, but no humans,” Nash confirmed. “Unless you count the xeno-archaeologists and biologists who are crazy enough to go there. Some of the mutations are pretty damned freaky.”

  “Okay, so back to what I actually wanted to know. If say, someone went in their body to another dimension, could we sometimes see them here like we do a ghost?” Connie pressed.

  Nelson and Nash looked at each other. “Why?” Nash asked, carefully.

  “No reason, just curious.”

  “It’s because she has this idea that I really saw Charlie and he’s alive in another dimension,” Lexie said, coming out of the bathroom.

  “Well,” said Nelson, “she could be right. I mean, they could be making use of some kind of portal we aren’t familiar with, if the dimension they are in makes their own artificial ones or something.”

  “If they were, wouldn't they just come back and stay back?” Lexie asked.

  “Maybe they can’t. If a wild portal sent them through, they could have gotten there but been stuck with whatever portal opening tech that dimension has that they can access,” Connie argued.

  “She’s got you there,” Nash observed.

  “Or they could be in the next layer,” Nelson said.

  Lexie gave him an angry glare. �
�What the hell are you even talking about now?”

  “Layers are where all the possibilities exist at once, until one peels away to become another dimension proper as an outcome takes hold.”

  “That is some mystic bullshit right there,” Lexie said.

  “No, it’s basic portal mechanics. It’s the probabilities that allow-” a woman’s scream cut Nelson short.

  Connie ran to the door of their room and yanked it open. All up and down their hall, people were poking their heads out. Two doors down, a cleaning cart sat outside the open doorway of a hotel room. Another scream wailed, louder this time as the woman making the noise came into view. She wore a maid’s uniform and her olive skin looked bloodless. “Dead! Oh, he’s dead, dead, dead!”

  “Somebody’s dead,” one of their neighbors told someone in their own room, standing in their open doorway. “Call down to the desk and have them send somebody.”

  “Damn, being on this floor is unlucky,” someone else said to the hallway at large. The cleaning lady had stopped screaming and now leaned against her cart, eyes streaming.

  Connie found herself in the hallway. “It’s okay,” she consoled the woman. “Someone’s calling the desk for help.” She looked over at Lexie who had come to join them. “I’m just going to go take a look,” Connie said. “Make sure they are, you know, and not in need of help. Lex, can you sit with her for a moment?” She went inside the hotel room.

  The room smelled of sex and she wrinkled her nose at the used, tied up condom that the occupant had thrown at the small wastebasket. They’d missed and it was sat on the carpet. Her mouth went dry as she spotted the clothes on the floor. Her eyes flicked to the bed. There was definitely no coming back from this. Leather Pants Elvis had left the building.

  She staggered out of the room, careful to not touch anything. “Oh, he’s dead, all right. He’s gone all marble looking already, too, which is super weird,” she whispered to Lexie.

  “Why’s that weird?” Lexie whispered back.

  “The air con in their room is going full tilt so it’s super cold in there and since it’s one of the Elvises we saw just a few hours ago on his way to go perform, he can’t have been dead too long.”

  “No! Which one?”

  “Leather pants.”

  “The one we saw flirting with Goth Priscilla?”

  “Yup. Looks like after his performance, he got lucky.”

  Lexie glanced at the open doorway. “I wouldn’t call that lucky. He looked pretty young, you sure it was him?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure. The clothes were on the floor but he was still wearing that chunky ring on his finger.”

  “Oh.”

  The elevator dinged and a hotel manager appeared along with two members of security. “Please go back into your rooms,” the manager called out. “We have a report of a guest who has fallen ill. An ambulance is on its way.” The manager’s glance fell to the two sisters. “You two witnesses?” he asked in a low voice.

  “We heard the cleaning lady scream and came out. Con here went to see if he needed CPR or anything but it seems he’s past that.”

  “Okay. What room are you in?” Lexie pointed to their door.

  “And your names?”

  “Constance Marie Lifton and Alexandria Janelle O’Connor.”

  “And did you know the deceased?”

  “We’d ridden on the elevator at the same time, when we left to go for dinner. He and his friends were heading down to participate in some singing contest or other.”

  “Okay. I’m truly sorry this has happened, but I'm going to have to ask you to return to your room and remain there until the police get here. They may have more questions.” The manager turned to the cleaning lady and gently touched her shoulder. “Dolores? Let’s get you to my office. You can have a nice sit down.”

  One of the security men came out of the hotel room. “He’s dead all right, but it looks like he might have had company.” He turned to look at the sisters.

  “We were at Red Lobster until about fifteen minutes ago,” Connie informed him. “That spooky Priscilla with the fangs was flirting with him when we left the lobby to get to our car. Ask her your questions.”

  The man held up his hands. “I’m not accusing anybody of anything,” he said. “Just going through the possibilities.”

  “Well, that’s not one of them,” Lexie said. “Now if you’ll excuse us, we’re going back to our room.”

  “Spooky Priscilla in the lobby, huh? We’ll have to view the tapes,” they heard him say to the other security man as they returned to their room.

  After shutting the door behind them, Nelson asked them, “What happened? Who’s dead?”

  “One of the Elvises we met on the elevator.”

  “I want a new room, in a different hotel,” Connie said plaintively.

  “You know the whole town is booked up,” Lexie reminded her.

  “I know, I know. I didn’t say we could get another room. Just that I wanted to.” She hesitated, then ventured, “Lex?”

  “Yeah?”

  “He had this big hickey on his neck with two small puncture wounds easily visible.”

  “Like a vampire bite?” Nelson asked. “That was bold of them.”

  Lexie looked at him sharply. “You saying vampires are real?”

  “Uh, yeah, duh. You definitely have some loose upper layers in this dimension if they’re here.”

  “I don’t follow,” Lexie said.

  “They aren’t from an alternative version of this world or any other world in this galaxy. They’re from an entirely different universe.”

  “And that’s supposed to make me feel better?” Connie asked.

  “No. Just, you know, passing along information.”

  “Well, don’t. TPO, dude,” Nash said. “TPO.”

  Chapter 21

  Breakfast with a Side of Limp Sausage

  “We’re here to meet our dad, Jarrett Dade,” Lexie told the hostess. “He told us they were already seated when he texted us a few minutes ago.”

  “Right this way,” the hostess smiled.

  Connie’s fingers itched to buy some of the stuff in the Cracker Barrel storefront as they walked through to the restaurant. “I want to look around the shop before we go,” she told Lexie.

  “Connie, we can’t haul a lot of stuff around in the car, there’s no room.”

  “Oh, yeah, I forgot for a second. Oh, there’s Daddy and them.” Connie waggled her fingers in a wave as she pulled a chair out at the table. “Hey, y’all.”

  “Morning, Jacob, Laura, Daddy,” Lexie said as she took her own seat. She accepted a menu from the waitress. “I’ll have a coffee, please.”

  “Me, too,” said Connie. “And an orange juice, thank you.”

  The waitress nodded and left to get their drinks while they perused the menu.

  “It all looks so good,” Connie moaned.

  “Well, I’ll be having the double meat breakfast and I don't want to hear a single word about my arteries or anything else to do with my health,” Daddy said.

  “I’m having the one with pork chops,” Lexie decided.

  “That one sounds good to me, too, but with ham,” Laura said.

  “I’m having oatmeal,” Jacob added. “I need to not outgrow my dress size.”

  The waitress returned with their drinks and asked, “Are you ready to order?”

  Everyone gave their order, Connie going last and blindly stabbing a finger at the menu. “With bacon, please.”

  The waitress smiled and repeated their orders before leaving.

  “So, I heard the deader was on your floor,” Daddy said.

  “Daddy!” Connie said. “Have some respect!”

  “Okay, settle down. I heard that a recent resident on your floor was found deceased. That better?”

  “Better for manners, yes, but not for the guy who died. No way will anything make him get better,” Connie said wryly. “It was just two doors down from us, Daddy. We heard the m
aid scream.”

  “What on Earth was the maid doing there that time of night?” Laura wondered.

  “Once we were back in our room, I wondered the same thing. In the elevator this morning, someone said they overheard a desk clerk tell the other one working with him that someone had called down asking for fresh towels. A woman, they said,” Lexie replied.

  “And yesterday evening, when we left to go to Red Lobster, he was one of the Elvises in the elevator with us. They were heading to that no lip syncing contest. And get this,” Connie leaned in conspiratorially, her voice low, “that Goth Priscilla chick with the fangs met him and was hanging all over him. And when I went to check to see if he was actually dead or if he was in distress, he had a hickey with two teeny puncture marks, like a vampire bite.”

  “No…” Laura gasped.

  “Oh, man,” Jacob said. “So, you think Priscilla there killed her Elvis? That’s bad, real bad. This will give our community a black mark.”

  “It’s not really about the community, though, is it? I know people will be prejudiced. They’ll read headlines and think it’s all a bunch of weirdos and jokes who ought to be doing low-rent weddings in Vegas. To further add to the fodder they will continue on about how it’s no surprise that one of us was a crazy who killed another crazy because being an Elvis is crazy. I’m not even concerning myself with that. Those people would never be the ones to look at us like normal human beings anyway. Once they heard the words Elvis and impersonator the prejudice is a foregone conclusion. No, what concerns me is that he’s the second dead Elvis at the convention. Is there a connection? Do we have a potential serial killer here?” Daddy commented.

  He turned his gaze to his daughters. “I am not going to lie. This is probably an isolated incident. If that Vampira Pris killed either or both of those Elvises, she had to have gotten close to them.”

  “The room smelled of sex and there was a used condom on the floor,” Connie said, wrinkling her nose. “He’d missed the trashcan when he threw it.”