The thickly dressed Japanese businessman seated next to Kellogg folded his English newspaper and sighed.

“Excuse me, but are you American?” he asked Kellogg, who was obviously trying to nap.

“As a matter of fact, yes,” Kellogg said without opening his eyes. While the dearth of nicotine in his system was making it difficult to sleep, he nevertheless made an effort to do so in order to keep people from bothering him. The trick had failed this time. “Why?”

“How can you let something like this happen?” The businessman tapped his newspaper.

“Let what happen?” Kellogg opened an eye and glanced at the paper. It said something about computer networks crashing across the United States. He didn’t bother trying to read the date, since time had recently been transmuted from a system of hours and minutes into a meaningless expanse broken up only by trips to the bathroom and stopovers in fluid Asian airports. “Oh. I wasn’t responsible for that one.”

“This was done by college students,” the man said.

“I see,” Kellogg said. He could care less about computers, having never used one in his life. “I hate to be rude, but I’d like to get back to sleep.”

“I apologize,” the businessman said unapologetically. He turned his face back to the window as Kellogg tried to sink further into the leather-upholstered easy chair that masqueraded as an airline seat.

Several twitchy minutes later, Kellogg cracked open his eye after getting the feeling someone was standing in the aisle next to him. His hand was already against his gun.

There was indeed someone there. A very decrepit, thin, and foul-smelling someone with virtually no hair and empty eye sockets. Chinese, Kellogg figured without opening his eyes any further. Wait, that guy had no eyes! How—

The Chinese man tapped a brittle finger on Kellogg’s shoulder.

“Yes?” he asked, opening his eyes. He wished he hadn’t: the man was a walking corpse just shy of rotting. His bones showed clearly through dry flesh, as if a child had taken a crayon to the skin and produced a ghoulish rubbing. His teeth were squarish and crooked, and his clothes hung in embroidered tatters from a frame that was far beyond bony. A silk noose was thrown casually over the corpse’s left shoulder, as if it were a tie that had been moved out of the way of the wearer’s dinner plate for safekeeping.

“Jesus!” Kellogg screamed, pulling his gun and leaping from his seat. The corpse made no move, and neither did any of the passengers. Kellogg stood at arm’s length from the corpse, his gun pressed against its skull, as he decided what the best course of action would be. Despite his initial reaction, shooting a corpse probably wouldn’t do any good, given its moribund nature and the pressurized cabin.

“What do you want?” Kellogg asked cautiously.

The corpse sat down in Kellogg’s seat. Kellogg holstered his weapon and stared at his unwanted visitor.

“That’s my seat,” he said. “Sit somewhere else.” He felt no embarrassment at talking to a dead Chinese man. Not after all the oddity of the past week.

The corpse looked at Kellogg and shook its head.

“I don’t want to have to use force,” Kellogg warned the corpse. He wondered why nobody else was watching this.

The corpse shook its head.

“Have it your way,” Kellogg said. He grabbed the noose around the corpse’s neck and yanked, sending it tumbling out of his seat. He quickly sat down before the corpse could pick itself up from the floor.

“Do you have any idea what’s going on?” Kellogg asked his Japanese rowmate.

“Excuse me?”

“Why is there a walking corpse on the plane? And why did it try to steal my seat?”

The businessman cocked his head and looked at Kellogg as if a tentacle had sprouted from his neck and was beating itself against the back of the seat. “I am sorry. I do not understand what you are talking about.”

“The corpse. Right there, stretched out in the aisle. How can you miss it?”

The man peered down at the floor where Kellogg was pointing. “I see nothing.”

“What about you?” Kellogg said, standing up and looking behind him at the Filipino children. “Do you see the corpse in the aisle?”

The children giggled and shook their heads. As Kellogg sat back down, they laughed between themselves in Tagalog.

“I’m not going insane,” Kellogg said to himself. “It has to be the nicotine withdrawal. Once I get to Shanghai everything will be fine.”

On the floor next to him, the corpse solemnly shook its head.

“So it’s not nicotine withdrawal?” Kellogg asked it. Once more, the corpse shook its frail head.

“Who are you?” Kellogg asked. The corpse made no move. “Are you Chinese?”

The corpse nodded. “Why are you here?” Kellogg asked. No reply. “Fuck this,” Kellogg said. It was obvious the corpse couldn’t, or wouldn’t, talk. At least it was minding its own business at the moment, which struck Kellogg as ridiculous because there wasn’t much business for a dead Chinese man to mind. Kellogg closed his eyes and tried to go back to sleep.

Somewhere down the liquid road of time, Kellogg finally reached Shanghai, his body so wracked by jet lag and the absence of nicotine that he didn’t complain when the Chinese corpse followed him off the plane.

My mind’s been fried by international travel twice in the past week, Kellogg thought fuzzily as he flashed his way through customs with the papers Master Yan had supplied him. I’m not getting on a plane for another month, even if it means I have to stay in China.

Once again, Kellogg got his firearms through customs without so much as a word or a dirty look. He figured China would be a lot more strict about that sort of thing, since Kellogg was an evil capitalist American bent on destroying Chinese culture. Or so he’d been told he’d be told. His passport said he was Maltese.

Hongqiao Airport, Shanghai’s older and less shiny hub of aerial travel, was crowded, and Kellogg’s flight-addled mind couldn’t comprehend the English announcements coming over the tinny PA, much less the ocean of Chinese that flowed around him. It was easy enough, however, for Kellogg to force his way through to the passenger pick-up area, where his first order of business was to light a Pall Mall with twitchy hands and sit down on a bench. The corpse took a seat as well.

“Still here?” Kellogg asked wearily. He looked around at the bustling mobs that surrounded him, trying to figure out who he was supposed to meet. Tommy Liu hadn’t bothered to tell him. As he smoked and watched people, he frowned at the scuffs his shoes had developed during his walk from the gate to the front of the terminal.

“I know you’re not going to talk,” he finally said to the ratty corpse next to him, “but do you mind if I ask you why exactly you’re following me?”

The corpse shook its head.

“Figures,” Kellogg said. He kept scanning the crowd, making sure to keep a hand on his suitcase.

“Mr. Kellogg?” came a voice from his right. He turned his head and found himself looking at a stout Chinese man in a business suit. His hair was long and braided, and half a dozen scars of various dimensions crisscrossed his face.

“That’s me,” Kellogg said. “Do you speak English?”

“Of course,” the man laughed. “Master Yan would not send me here if I did not. After all, you are only a gweilo! How could you speak Chinese?” He laughed again. “I do not mean to offend. I am here to take you to Qingdao.”

“Do you think I could get some rest first?” Kellogg asked. “I’ve been on a plane so long I barely remember my own name.”

“Master Yan expected this. He has a room for you already. Tomorrow we go to Qingdao. The plane is ready.”

“Couldn’t we—“

“No time to talk, Mr. Kellogg. We must go. You need rest and food, yes?”

Now that he thought about it, Kellogg was hungry. Ravenous, actually. “Sure. I don’t think I caught your name.” He held out his free hand.

“Peng,” the man said with a broad, well-maintained smile. He shook Kellogg’s hand vigorously. “Come. The car is waiting.”

Kellogg followed the burly mobster to a large black sedan almost identical to Tommy Liu’s and got inside. His cadaverous new acquaintance followed him wordlessly. Peng appeared to notice, but instead of questioning him, Kellogg took advantage of the car’s leather-upholstered luxury and fell asleep. As his eyes closed, he wondered just what sort of grand chain of events had landed him in China.