thinks?"
He fidgeted for a moment and sought relief by looking into the courtyard only to find Yolanda scowling back at him. He mumbled, "Ghost bad for business ..."
"Well? I'm waiting," as I drummed my fingers.
"You see her?" he asked.
"Her?" I repeated.
"Si. The lady ... the lady killed in that room."
"No, thank goodness, but we sure as hell felt her or saw a part of something ... a presence of some sort." I checked out Joyce still standing under the palm tree. She appeared a lot calmer. Carlos said 'killed', not died, so I decided to risk staying a couple of minutes more to ask the obvious question, "What happened to her?"
"About a year ago, very close to today, her husband kill her. He use his fishing knife, very messy."
"A fishing knife!" I gasped. "Good God, why?"
"Her husband loco... crazy," pointing to his own head. "They come here for several years. He always act like the 'Macho' man. He loud, pushy. He think he 'own' his wife. Show no respect. But in his head, 'I' think he act this way because he a very jealous person. Jealous of his pretty wife, muy bonita, and he be 'mucho' ugly - like a pineapple face. Comprende? (Understand) Anyway, on that day he come back from fishing with his amigos. They really be his drinking buddies; they never catch the fish. He very drunk." Carlos furrowed his brow, "I think he be drunk most of the time." Continuing, "He see his wife hug another man in the doorway of number Eight. He hide behind palm tree. The same tree your wife is standing under now. Man leave, he run inside. Do the bad thing with his knife."
"Gosh, how terrible."
"Worst. The man was her brother. He in the Navy. He just docked at the Key West Navy Station down the street that morning. She no see her brother in years. He visit her ... nothing to it. It was a 'goodbye' hug. Her husband never meet the brother. He didn't know his face. I learn all these things when the brother come here to see her body for the police."
Flustered, I exclaimed, "Why didn't she tell him right away ... when he came in the room ... to stop him?"
"He no listen. Police say he stab her in the throat first. She no can talk or scream. He then gut her like a fish and do other things too horrible for me to say," as he gestured with his hand over his chest and genitals. Carlos paused and sighed, "I clean up much blood. Yolanda still no go in room. She say it haunted. I think maybe it's true."
I felt queasy, light-headed. I thought I was going to barf my lunch. I gave my thanks, but now regretted I had ever asked, 'What happened?' Half-dazed, I fished out my car keys and fumbled my way out the office door. "Goodbye, Carlos. And I do mean, goodbye."
As we eased out of the lot, I saw the motel door was now closed and the drapes were drawn tight again. "Sonnava beach" I knew damn well no one had entered the unit after us. In the car, Joyce's eyes were riveted straight ahead and she asked no questions. I put two fingers to my right eyebrow and bade, "Adios" to the Southernmost ghost. An anguished spirit trapped in the bowels of her own personal hell. Was she waiting for her husband to return? To explain about her brother? Or to kill his worthless, macho ass!
A ghost waiting forever in the Las Palmas Motel, room number Eight, Key West, Florida.
We sped away, never to return.
Based on a true story
I am the President!
Spring, 2027
"Ready?" She nodded, 'Yes.'
Ironsmith's strong hands seized the steel hatchway's lock wheel and turned it slowly counterclockwise. It was difficult, having been six months since its last opening. The retracting bolt stopped and he took a final scan of the hallway television monitor before pulling the heavy vault-type door toward him. He carefully inspected the one hundred-foot long concrete corridor which ended at a darkened elevator as he used his entire six foot, three inch/ two hundred and twenty pound frame to dislodge the ponderous device. It swung free. Turning to her he said, "Let's go."
The President of the United States of America, Warren Ironsmith, age fifty-six, and his thirty-six year old Black Cultures Advisor, Claretha Hightower, stepped cautiously into the passageway. Neither bothered to steal a last look at their home/prison of the last three years: a hardened bunker eight stories below ground level. No second glances were necessary; they knew every inch of the interior - too well - often to the point of their own personal shame. Even though he had no intention of returning, Warren closed the door and spun the wheel to lock.
The subterranean fortress they were vacating located in suburban Front Royal, Virginia, fifty miles west of Washington, had been constructed sixty years earlier as a product of the Cold War with the former Soviet Union. The government had and still needed a remote presidential command center in times of national crisis or a catastrophe which may have endangered the Capital. The eight thousand square foot facility contained its own power plant, environmental recycling system, living accommodations, food stores and a clinic which could support ten people for two years before their resources were exhausted - barring a break in the leaden superstructure. A separate high-tech communications room was to have served as an interim operations hub but it had never gotten off the ground prior to their occupation due to poor maintenance and the lack of updating the equipment because of congressional budget cuts, had taken its toll over the years. All their efforts to contact the outside world had been met with frustration and futility: they hadn't been able to establish a link with any type of transceiver, domestic or foreign. This lack of response left them wondering if they were really alone or just temporarily cut-off in a dead zone.
The multicolored digital tracking maps were still frozen, displaying the horrifying results of that most fateful day: the day of worldwide nuclear war and the end of modern civilization. Thirty-four direct hits on American soil by enemy atomic weapons had transformed President Ironsmith into a leader 'in absentia' of roving bands of mutants and the walking dead. Unknown to the bunker occupants, the majority of surviving mankind had regressed into a primitive state and in some areas, far worse - lower than Stone Age barbarism.
Ironic, it appeared the enemy's warheads had missed their primary target, Washington, possibly because the President had diverted forty percent of all air defense resources to concentrate on protecting the greater D.C. metropolitan area. Or, maybe it had been pure luck. Not to imply the Capital had escaped unscathed, nearby Baltimore had been turned into a smoldering pit, along with most other major eastern cities, which resulted in airborne radiation poisoning nearly as deadly as the initial ICBM blasts. As it stood, the surviving ten percent of the country's population existed in a ninety percent burnt and barren wasteland.
The President had decided it was finally time to leave their so-called cocoon of safety. As far as Clare was concerned it was way 'past' time. She desperately longed for fresh air, freedom and especially, contact with different people. Besides, staying was no longer an option since their food stores were near depletion. Due to intelligent rationing and having less than the planned capacity personnel, it had enabled them to stretch the original estimated survival time frame.
Clare had packed and carried in a satchel over her shoulder all the remaining MREs (meals ready to eat) except for three pouches of Italian. Warren hated Italian; the garlic and peppers gave him heartburn and ordered her not to bring them. She hid a couple for herself; she liked Italian and who knows how valuable a little food pouch could be in the unknown future.
She and the President were the last two remaining in the bunker; the six other survivors had been sent on scouting missions in three month intervals apart and none had ever returned. The environmental sensors now indicated the radiation had decreased to an acceptable level and the air quality had tested poor but breathable in their immediate vicinity. Ironsmith had grave doubts regarding the accuracy of the instruments but stood convinced that whatever the actual conditions were immediately above it would be much better on the other side of the Appalachian Mountains twenty miles southwest of their present location.
The elevator loomed dark and fore
boding. Ironsmith panned the inside with his high-powered, six-cell flashlight and patted for assurance his vintage pearl-handled .45 caliber semiautomatic pistol stuffed in his waistband. He soon found their first challenge would be to climb upward through the elevator shaft (its power feed had been severed in the attack) to the ground floor of the building above - a small, fabricated, two-storied brick schoolhouse. The building, typical in every outward respect of a Hollywood movie set, had been constructed to blend into the surrounding neighborhood. The one conspicuous exception to the facade was that no children were ever seen near this facility, only the comings and goings of black limos transporting stone-face men graced these schoolyard grounds. As intended, a passerby would never guess the building's true function from the quiet, tree-lined street a hundred yards distant. Even the extensive radio tower network had been camouflaged as well as the helicopter landing pad; it being disguised as an asphalt basketball court.
The wooden stepladder placed inside the elevator by the first scout sent out was still there; its top step positioned three feet below the compartment's upper trap door. "I'll go first. You hold the light." Ironsmith drew himself up and through the emergency exit then extended his hands down to assist her.
They stood atop the