Free Walking Ghost Phase by D. C. Daugherty

a group of blue-coverall-wearing janitors scurried about the room, cleaning up the messes. At least their swift mopping skills prevented the smell from festering.
    Matt placed his hand on the small of Emily 's back. “There.” He pointed ahead at a large 'H' above the room-length row of counters.
    Emily turned to Raven, who was scanning across the myriad of heads. “I guess this is goodbye,” Emily said.
    Raven rubbed a length of hair between her fingers and seemed to force the half-smile, her farewell gesture. “I hope I'll see you two again.” She pushed through the crowd, toward the 'M' sign.
    “ Ready?” Emily asked Matt, and mimicked Raven's hair twiddle. For a moment she looked at the blond strands. High and tight , Vasquez's voice announced in her mind. Her stomach twisted more.
    “ After you,” Matt said.
    The line to the counter moved faster than the outside misery, and about five minutes later Emily approached the check-in officer, an old, wrinkled woman decked out in full Army dress. She didn 't glance up to acknowledge Emily. “Name?” the woman asked.
    Emily leaned against the counter. Her heartbeat pounded the wood. “Emily Heath.”
    “ Speak up, please.”
    Emily swallowed, trying to push down the lump in her throat. “Emily Heath.”
    The elderly woman finally looked up from her computer screen and stared at Emily over the top rim of her glasses. “We've been expecting you.” She snorted and stabbed a few keys on the keyboard. “Your roommate's name is Margaret Healey. Your room number is 907.” She shoved an enormous green duffle bag onto the counter and pointed at a large open hallway between the J and K lines. “Follow the signs. After you've unpacked and changed, report to the barber. Have a— wonderful stay.”
    Before Emily could turn and tell Matt goodbye, his breath warmed her neck. Goosebumps rose on her arms. “Good luck,” he said.
    Emily forced a smile and grabb ed the handle of the duffle bag, but when she pulled the duffle off the counter, the weight ripped her arm down, causing her shoulder to pop. Holy shit, she thought, and looked at the frail woman who had placed the bag on the counter with ease. Not about to be embarrassed by someone's grandmother, Emily lifted the duffle with both hands and struggled toward the hallway. She glanced back at Matt. Will I see you again?
    A seemingly endless sea of white doors lined the hallway until everything in the distance vanished in the misty haze. “Margaret Healey,” Emily said to herself, making sure she remembered. Soon she passed an empty library—probably empty because of the almost bare shelves. A few doors later, a heavyset nurse watched her from behind a pharmacy counter.
    Emily turned down the first corridor, where a group of eight soldiers, their heads cleanly shaven and shoulders slumped, walked toward her. Their gazes focused on the carpet, and two girls in the front limped. As they came closer, Emily bit into her lip, hard. Streaks of blue bruises covered their necks and faces. A patch of blood had dried under the lead girl 's nose. The group went by without giving a single hint of awareness that Emily existed.
    She found the door to room 907 tucked in the back right corner of the base, adjacent to a fire exit. She studied the emergency door 's red lettering— Security Alarm Will Sound If Door Is Opened. The door's placement was almost insulting, a silent taunt; the Army had just killed a girl for trying to escape but provided clear path to freedom out in the open. Then Emily saw the steel rods slicing through the frame, keeping the door and her fate sealed.
    Emily inched open the unlocked door to 907, when a razor thin beam of light revealed the entirety of almost nonexistent space. A desk, the surface of which was barely large enough for an open book, sat in the center of the back wall. Fewer than three feet separated two low-rising beds. Under the covers on the right side, a girl slept, still wearing fatigues,