Page 104 of Aftertaste

IN TASTING CHAMBERNo. 1, he set the plate onto the table and lifted the cloche with an unsteady hand. The aroma—meat, béchamel, fries—drifted into the room amid delicate tendrils of smoke. He could feel it in the air, a spirit stirring, like a vibration, an instrument being tuned.

And then, before his diners even had a chance to chew, there was a disturbance in the main dining room.

A cry. An exclamation of surprise. Delight.

Then another. And another.

Kostya could see it through the mercury glass of the chamber he was standing in.

Lights, overhead. Dim, but glowing.

A moment later, applause. Enthusiastic cheers. Whoops and hollers for someone—something—he hadn’t brought back.

And then, a cascade of glass, the shatter of precious, delicate things. Not like a server had dropped a tray, but like the world had fractured apart.

Followed by a different kind of cry.

Screams.

First one person and then many more, their voices avalanching until the whole building shook from the sheer force of sound.

Kostya burst through the door and felt his heart stop.

Ghosts wereeverywhere.

Raining down from the ceiling; crowding in through the walls; rising up from the floor.

Their translucent bodies multiplied in the glass and mirrors and reflective surfaces until it was impossible to understand how many, exactly, there were, only that they were endless, that they were coming, that they wouldn’t stop.

The diners who weren’t in private rooms rushed the doors, skidding over broken plates, slipping on scattered forks and knives. There were cuts on their hands, across their faces, blood streaking their wounds, flecking the floor. The waitstaff were frozen, petrified, unsure if this was part of the plan or some horrible malfunction, not knowing whether to reassure their sections or run for their lives. Cooks and busboys vomited up from the kitchen, chased by more ghosts, their mouths—enormous, distorted, hungry mouths—all howling.

And, in a horrible moment where time congealed, Kostya recognized them.

The flap and flutter of Sister Stacy’s habit, the nun transformed now, dead eyed, gaunt and grave and terrifying. The climbing bro whose sister had tanked Hell’s Kitchen, mutated, murderous, his mouth a gaping hole. The teenager whoseabuelohad come to find him, who had returned once Kostya tasted the ketchup soup of his own childhood, matured into something dangerous, bloodthirst in his gaze.

Hehad done this to them. His food. His aftertastes. His every bad decision.

Maura was right. He’d poisoned them.

As they crested the stairs, other spirits floated up behind them. Ghosts he’d never seen before. Ones he hadn’t raised. Hungry Dead that had somehow crossed over. Uninvited. Unprevented.

The veil had been compromised.

Shouts and cries rose from the bowels of the kitchen, and Kostya fought against the crush of panicking people to get back to his line. Patrons shoved past him, pushing toward the exits, scattering around debris. A waiter slipped behind a thick velvet curtain only to be driven out by a cackling ghost, glee upon its face. The hostess was on all fours, seeking shelter beneath the dining room tables, a handful of diners crawling behind her.

Overhead, a swarm of spirits massed, gumming together in a terrifying cloud. It was chaos. The fear in the air was metallic on Kostya’s tongue, aluminum, iron, so much like blood, and then, all at once, every bulb in the place shattered in unison, leaving the room in absolute dark.

Thin shards of glass rained down. Kostya felt them hit his face, slice through his eyebrow, across his cheek. He couldn’t see a thing—every window had been blacked out to maximize the effect of the returning souls’ light—but he could hear.

Shouts. Screeches. The slap of shoes against the floor. Gasps and painful yelps. Cries. The explosion of more glass as dishes and stemware andmirrored walls were smashed to smithereens. The distant rumble of the 6 Train in the restaurant’s bowels.

Rectangles of light appeared as people ignited their phones, searching for ways out, finding ravenous ghosts blocking their paths. Kostya felt a patch of frosty air creep along his spine and turned, casting the light of his own phone into the dark to illuminate a spirit, close enough to touch.

Time stretched, taffy, as he looked at her.

This ghost—he felt a shiver of recognition—was gaunt and haggard, her skin mottled with patches of rot, her bones protruding in places. Like she was haunted. Or maybe cursed. Like touching her might turn him to stone, or at minimum give him a terrible rash.

She stared hard at him, her gaze a dull knife, something once sharp and precise and powerful rendered impotent, destroyed by lack of care. She’d been beautiful once, but all that was left of it now was a thicket of violet hair and the shadow of a smile, her mouth black with decay, the teeth small and pointed. She’d died so young he could almost read it in her face, all that unrealized potential.

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