I dreamed about the face and the spiders. Not the reality of the situation—I didn’t find myself back inside that apartment, seeing these things for the first time—instead, I dreamed about the photographs I’d taken. My precisely cropped, color-corrected images. The same ones I’d spent hours and hours tweaking and adjusting the night before.
The pictures weren’t great—the light was too dim, the focus too soft—but I managed to salvage a trio of interesting shots: one taken between the walls, capturing the line of electric blue and that eerie face (the face just barely visible after extensive masking and gamma correction); a wide-angle shot showing the horde of spiders swarming out of the hole, cluttering the surrounding wall; and finally, a close-up of the spider with the human finger. In that last shot, the bizarre subject matter had to make up for a bad angle and weak, muted colors.
After I retired for the night, these static images followed me down into sleep, changing and multiplying in my dreams.
I spent the entire night tweaking dream photos, watching as spiders took life, stepped out of my pictures, and crawled across the computer screen while I tried desperately to capture and freeze them in place with my trackpad. I was trying to create the perfect photograph, I knew, the one that would make me famous, the one that would save me from a life of accounting. But the spiders refused to hold still. And as the night wore on, I grew increasingly frustrated.
When Amanda touched my shoulder, I jolted upright, coming fully awake.
“Shhhhh!” Her pale skin and blond hair glowed in a trickle of predawn violet. “It’s early,” she said. “Everyone’s asleep.”
I nodded and stifled a cough, then scooted up into a sitting position.
I was still camped out on the living-room sofa. The photo of Charlie’s mother had brought the entire house to a screeching halt, filling the rooms with a funereal stillness and putting my move on hold.
It had been a difficult evening. As soon as we got back home from Sherman and Second Avenue, Charlie had retreated to his room upstairs. The rest of us—including Devon, Floyd, and Sabine—had gathered in the living room, unsure how to respond to Charlie’s pain. Should we offer him comfort? Give him time to think and heal? Ultimately, we decided to just let him be.
There was no pot that night and no laughter, and dinner proved a rather subdued affair. After we finished eating, Taylor disappeared upstairs with a plate of food. She stayed up there for the rest of the night.
I, for my part, made my own retreat, cracking open my notebook computer and immersing myself in Photoshop.
“What time is it?” I asked Amanda. My sleep had been fitful, and I was still confused, disoriented. It took me a moment to place my location. Not California… Spokane. The city.
“Seven. Seven-fifteen.” Amanda sat down on the sofa and turned toward the window. In profile, I could see the skin hunched up on her forehead and the worried downward curve of her lips. “Just before sunrise.”
I waited for her to continue. The look on her face was the look of someone staring out over the edge of a building, gathering up the courage to jump.
She took a deep breath. “They were out there again last night,” she said. “The dogs. The wolves. They’re looking for something. They’re doing… something. I know it. I just know.”
“What are they doing?”
She shrugged. “I don’t have the specifics, but it’s got to do with the city. It’s got to do with what’s happening here.”
I nodded. There was a certainty to her voice—a desperate, beleaguered certainty. Confronted with that, there was absolutely nothing I could say.
“I have to find them,” she said. “You… you have to help me find them.” She fixed me with sad, pleading eyes; where before I had found innocent, bubbly curiosity, there was now nothing but desperation. She was exhausted. Dispirited. Emotionally drained.
“Okay,” I said. “Just tell me what to do.”
We left the house just as the sun touched the horizon. The day was cold, and our breath hung frozen in the air. I regretted not grabbing my gloves and an extra sweatshirt.
“Why me?” I asked as we headed west on the residential street. “Why didn’t you want to take Mac?”
“He doesn’t see them,” she said, watching her feet. “I’ve dragged him to the window, pointed them out—clear as day—but he just doesn’t see.” She glanced up, fixing me with bright blue eyes. “Christ, I thought I was crazy! I thought I was suffering a psychotic breakdown, seeing things that just weren’t there. But that’s not true, is it? You saw them, too. They’re real… Right?”
“I saw something. A pack of canines. Only different. Their paws…”
At my words, Amanda’s face brightened noticeably, relief breaking through that mask of exhaustion. “Right! Exactly.”
“How many times have you seen them?”
“I don’t know. A couple dozen?” She shrugged. “The first time was at the park, right before the evacuation. I was looking for my own dog, Sasha. She escaped from the backyard—I was living in a house close to the university back then. The city was crazy—everyone confused and terrified, no idea what was going on. But the park was empty. We used to walk there a couple of times a week, Sasha and me, and I figured that that’s where she’d end up.”
We rounded a corner and headed south. As Amanda talked, the Riverfront Park clock tower rose into view, peeking up over the line of buildings at the river’s edge. “There were three of them, and they started following me… just these huge canines. I was on one of the paths, moving through the center of the park, and they were about a hundred feet away. At first, I didn’t notice anything wrong with them. They were just dogs, German shepherds, maybe—too fluffy to be Great Danes, although that’s about the right size. They kept pace with me, following along in a stand of trees.” She shrugged, dismissing her initial impressions as no big deal. “I was a bit scared, but they didn’t act threatening. No barking and growling. No posturing. They seemed content to just follow… but they moved so smoothly, almost like they were floating over the ground. Not like dogs at all.
“I stopped, and they stopped. They didn’t circle around and sniff, doing all of the little things that dogs do. Instead, they just froze in their tracks—three dogs, lined up single file. Staring at me. Just… staring—like I was the most important thing in the universe.”
Amanda stopped and turned toward me, a confused look on her face. “They were so still. And even though they were pretty far away, I swear I could see the look in their eyes. So focused!” She shifted her feet, swaying awkwardly, then lowered her eyes. “I stood still for a while, watching and waiting, and finally, after about a minute, the dog at the front of the pack raised his paw and leaned up against a tree.” She shook her head. “And it wasn’t a canine movement at all. It was like something a human would do—resting his palm against a wall, taking the weight off of his feet.
“And that’s when I noticed the odd legs.” She raised her hand and pushed her palm all the way forward, trying to illustrate. “Not normal canine joints; these dogs had an extra bend, like a knuckle. And this dog was using it like a human hand! It was eerie. Eerie and far too human. I got out of there as fast as I could.
“It’s not that I was scared,” she added, shaking her head. “Not really. Surprised and confused, maybe, but not scared. I was just… just… profoundly unsettled.” She glanced back up into my eyes, and I could tell she was happy with that word—unsettled—happy she’d been able to provide such an accurate description of her state of mind.
“And you’ve seen them a couple of dozen times since?” I asked.
She nodded, then turned and resumed walking. I hurried to keep up. “I saw them a lot at my old place, a house I shared with a couple of other students, out east. And as soon as I moved in with Taylor, I started seeing them there, too, in the backyard or on the street out front. A couple of times a week, at least. I asked Taylor and some of the others if they’d seen anything doglike and strange—trying to be coy about it, trying to hide my insanity, if indeed that’s what it was—but they hadn’t. I was the only one.” She glanced over at me and smiled, moving close to grasp my hand—the uninjured one. “And now you! Thank God! Now I’ve got you.”
Her grip on my hand was unnerving. I could feel the intensity of her relief—all that bottled up desperation channeled into a strong clench. She was hanging on to me for dear life.
“Why didn’t you leave?” I asked. “Why didn’t you evacuate with everyone else?”
“Sasha,” she said. “At least…” She trailed off, a confused look appearing on her face. “I know she’s out there somewhere—I’ve been looking. But that can’t be it, can it? Waiting around for a missing dog? I was studying psychology before all of this started, so I know that there’s probably something more—some deep-seated reason buried in my unconscious mind. Maybe it’s just that I don’t have anywhere else I want to go?” She looked at me questioningly, like I might actually be able to give her an answer. Then she released my hand and shook her head. “Everyone else in my life—my friends, my housemates—they all just went home, back to their parents, their hometowns. But I didn’t want that. I really didn’t want that. I think, given the choice, I’d prefer Sasha.”
“Even if this place is driving you mad?”
“But it’s not,” she said, flashing me a broad smile. “I know that now. They’re there, right? You’ve seen them, too.”
I nodded, even though I wasn’t quite sure. Were we seeing the same thing? I’d seen a swarm of animals in the middle of the night. What she’d seen… it seemed like something different, something more. I could tell.
In those animals, she’d found meaning. She’d found some type of promise, something that drove her, that dragged her out of bed in the middle of the night and carried her here. With me.
We rounded a corner, and Amanda raised her hand, pointing to a slash of green on the other side of the river. I recognized the empty pathways and rolling, leaf-scattered hills from my first day in the city, when Weasel had pointed them out to me.
Riverfront Park.
Riverfront Park was a small park, just a couple of blocks of greenery trapped in the middle of downtown. It would have been a crowded place back before the quarantine, or so I imagined. There would have been families here—when the weather was nice—and come noon, there would have been office workers with bagged lunches and buskers performing for change. But now there was nothing. Just Amanda and me and the sound of the wind playing through the trees.
An offshoot of the Spokane River stretched around the south end of the park, a wide, slow-moving trough that transformed the land into a thumb-shaped peninsula. The clock tower was on the tip of the thumb, looming up over the east end of the park.
It was peaceful here. Now that the city was dead, there was nothing to drown out the muted roar of the river and the desolate whisper of the wind.
As soon as we crossed the river and entered the park, Amanda pulled to a stop and looked around in amazement. “It used to be so tame,” she said, a quiet awe in her voice, “so manicured.” I could see what she meant. The once neatly trimmed grass now stood knee-high and half dead, with drifts of winter-brown leaves cluttering up every open space.
I grabbed my camera, reslung my backpack, and started up the nearest hill. Amanda followed, craning her neck and looking around for any sign of her mysterious dogs.
At the top of the hill, I took a series of panoramic shots, trying to capture the park in the foreground and the city on the horizon. The early-morning light made the remaining grass glow a bright, vibrant green, providing a great contrast to the gray streets and buildings. Unfortunately, the hill was too small and the surrounding buildings too high, so instead of catching city blocks stretching out into the distance, all I got were walls hemming us in. Like we were standing on the floor of an immense gray-walled box.
“Over there!” Amanda hissed. “In the trees!” I lowered the camera and found her pointing toward a patch of woods to the south. Her eyes were wide, and her voice quavered with excitement.
“Where?” I asked, but she was already running, kicking up dead leaves as she slid down the hill. “Amanda, wait! It might not be safe.” I looped the camera strap around my neck and followed her down.
She entered the trees twenty yards ahead of me, immediately disappearing from sight. I plowed in behind her, then stopped, listening for movement.
“Amanda!”
There was sound everywhere: the subdued hiss of something sliding through the bushes to my left; then to my right, the brittle snap of a dead branch directly ahead. I couldn’t see much of anything. Low bushes had grown out of control between the trees, and I watched as a sea of leaves rippled around me. The wind, I told myself. Just the wind.
And then the growling began. All around. Low and guttural.
“Amanda?” I hissed. I’m not sure why I felt the need to whisper. Anything she could hear, they could most definitely hear.
There was no response.
I started moving forward through the bushes, holding a hand out in front of me to push aside the encroaching branches. I hadn’t taken more than three steps when I felt a weight against my leg—a push, nudging me forward. I stumbled over my own feet, my heart breaking rhythm inside my chest. I barely managed to catch myself. There was movement all around—the dry rustle of leaves—and the thick, dark smell of animal musk. I glanced back, but something darted in from up ahead, catching my hand in a quick, hard grip. It was an intense pressure, engulfing my palm, and a wet growl vibrated up through my flesh and bone.
I tried to pull my hand back, and a gray muzzle came into view; black lips and pink gums were wrapped around my fist. I could see yellow plaque-stained teeth. I could see blood welling up between those teeth and my hand.
I panicked and surged forward, trying to get away. My shins hit canine flesh with a dull thud, and I collapsed forward onto my knees. Onto the dog. I felt a sudden expulsion of breath puff out around my hand, and I somersaulted forward. My hand finally came free.
A loud growl swelled up from the trees behind me, radiating out of the ground cover. Then a half dozen dogs exploded from the brush, teeth bared and saliva flying. I scrambled up to my feet and started to run, bouncing off trees and stumbling over branches and roots.
They were fast, and I could feel them gaining on me. The back of my neck tingled in anticipation, bracing me for that final, brutal snap, preparing me for the razor-sharp jaws that would sink into my fragile flesh at any moment now.
There was no way I could outrun them. No way in hell.
Then, suddenly, I was free, bursting out of the trees and falling forward into a scrim of leaves and decaying mulch. I spun around on the ground and started pushing myself backward, keeping my eyes on the trees, unable to get up off my ass.
“Dean!” Amanda cried out in surprise just before I collided with her legs and knocked her to the ground.
“Move!” I panted. “Move, move, move!” I continued to push myself backward, using my legs to propel myself away from the trees. Then my feet began to slip, and, finally, I stopped.
The trees were still. There was no sign of the dogs.
Amanda remained where she’d landed, watching me with huge perplexed eyes. “Your hand. You’re bleeding!” She crawled forward and grabbed my hand, rotating it front to back, inspecting the damage.
For a while, I couldn’t take my eyes off of the trees; then a sharp pain blossomed in my palm. I sucked a breath through my teeth and turned toward her probing fingers. “The dogs, the fucking dogs,” I said. “They’re crazed. How’d you get past them?”
She glanced up from my palm and shook her head. “I didn’t see them. I didn’t see a thing.”
With the tail of her shirt, she wiped the blood away from my palm, revealing a pair of deep holes. It was my left hand, and the holes were spaced on either side of my previous wound—the line of raw flesh that had been ripped away in the apartment building. Amanda turned my hand over, exposing a single puncture wound in the web between my thumb and forefinger. This was the nastiest of the holes. My stomach began to turn, and I looked away.
“Does it hurt?”
“Not yet,” I hissed. The fear had begun to subside, replaced by frustration and anger. “I’m sure it will. Give it a couple minutes and I’m sure it’ll be hurting like a motherfucker.”
Amanda shook her head. “You must have startled them,” she said. “You must have done something wrong.”
I gave her an incredulous look, and she stared right back, stubborn, unwilling to hear anything bad about her precious dogs.
“You see my hand?” I asked, raising it up so the blood spilled down my wrist and dripped onto my jeans. “You see what they did?”
Amanda didn’t reply. She ripped a strip of cloth from the bottom of her shirt and wrapped it around my palm. “Give it some pressure,” she said. “We’ll clean it up when we get home.” Then she grabbed my uninjured hand and pulled me to my feet.
“This is what I was looking at when you bowled me over,” she said.
I looked around, finally calm enough to take in my surroundings. We’d passed through the stand of trees and were now standing in front of an open cave mouth, an oval swatch of darkness punched into the face of a fairly steep hill. The opening was only about four feet high, and its edges were ragged, as if it had been chewed into the earth. The grass in front of the entrance was muddy, imprinted with the shape of a hundred large, hand-size paws.
I lifted my camera and took a couple of shots. At first, I tried to use my injured left hand, but a sharp jab of fire made me drop the camera back against my chest. Finally, I managed to prop it up on the palm of my right hand and gingerly stab at the shutter release with my left thumb.
“This is where they come from,” Amanda whispered, a hint of awe in her voice. “This is where they live!”
Before I could stop her, Amanda took a step forward, cupped her hands around her mouth, and shouted “Hello!” I listened as that word echoed again and again—hello, hello, hello—getting fainter as it passed deeper underground.
Judging by that sound, those reverberations, it wasn’t a cave we were facing—a shallow little grotto—but rather a tunnel, leading down into the earth.
Amanda began toward the opening, and I jolted forward, reaching out to stop her. As soon as I touched her arm, a low growl erupted from the dark tunnel—a sustained, multivoiced rumble, like rocks grinding in the heart of the earth. “We’re not going in there, Amanda. No fucking way!”
She turned toward me, a blank look on her face. I raised my hand, showing her my bloodstained bandage. After a couple of seconds, she nodded, finally relenting.
“Maybe later,” she said, a dreamy quality to her voice. “When you’re better. When we’re better prepared.”
Using my good hand, I pulled her away from the dark entrance. It was hard on her, I could tell, leaving it behind. As long as the hole was in view, she kept glancing back over her shoulder, a wistful look on her face.
I remained tense as we skirted the nearby patch of trees and set off for home.
By the time we got back to the house, the shock of my injury had faded and my hand had started to throb. The bones felt sore, bruised and out of place inside my flesh.
We found Mac, Floyd, and Sabine in the kitchen.
“Amanda!” As soon as we entered, Mac swept across the room and lifted her into his arms. “I woke up and you were gone. I thought… I thought…” He paused, taking a moment to compose himself. “Tell me, what happened?”
“Nothing,” she said, pushing out of his embrace. “We both woke up early, so I thought I’d show Dean around the neighborhood.”
All eyes turned toward me, and Amanda shot me a meaningful look. I got the message loud and clear: nothing about the dogs, nothing about the tunnel.
There was silence for a moment, then Sabine shouted “Fuck,” finally noticing my hand. The bandage had soaked all the way through, and I was dripping blood onto the floor. “What the fuck happened to Dean?”
“Jesus,” Floyd added. He stood up and backed away from his place at the kitchen table, blanching at the sight of my bloody hand. Sabine grabbed me by the shoulder and led me over to Floyd’s abandoned seat. I dropped my backpack to the ground and let her push me down into the chair.
Sabine unwrapped my blood-soaked bandage and held my hand open on the tabletop. She examined my wounds for a second, then raised her dark, kohl-rimmed eyes to my face. Her question was still there: What the fuck happened?
I glanced up at Amanda, and she lowered her eyes to the ground. Mac was watching her closely; he was so focused on his girlfriend, he hadn’t given me or my bloody hand a second glance.
“I tried to pet a dog,” I said. “A stray. He must have been hungry.”
“Yeah. Fucking brilliant,” Sabine huffed sarcastically. “Petting stray dogs? You’re a fucking Rhodes scholar, now, aren’tcha?”
Sabine cleaned the puncture wounds with water and a clean cloth. The worst of the holes was as big around as a dime; Sabine moved the skin, and I could see lengths of tendon through the opening: bunches of purple-red cord quivering in the open air. It was a nauseating sight. Floyd brought a first aid kit from the bathroom, then averted his eyes as Sabine flushed the wounds with antiseptic and bound them with gauze.
Once she was done, Sabine shook her head. “Those are some pretty nasty holes you’ve got there,” she said. “I cleaned them out as best I could, but you’re going to have to watch out for infection. That could fuck you up but good.” She made a clicking sound with her tongue. “And I’m not even going to mention rabies.”
I nodded. That was something I didn’t want to think about. Spokane was cut off from the world. Where would I go for real medical attention? The military? Or I could always just leave, I thought. But the thought of fleeing the city, just when I was starting to get some good photographs, filled me with dread.
“Look on the bright side,” she added with a sly smile. “You’re going to be rocking some pretty cool scars after this. And if you want, you’re only a couple millimeters away from a real bitching hand piercing.”
Floyd laughed—a loud hyena snort—and I found myself smiling despite my worry and pain.
I heard the front door swing open, and the kitchen fell silent. Everyone turned toward the entrance just as Taylor walked in. She was clutching a stocking cap in one hand, using the other to brush strands of long black hair from her sweaty forehead. She had a bright smile on her lips, but it turned a bit quizzical as she glanced around the room, trying to figure out what was going on.
“What happened?” she asked, nodding toward my bandaged hand. Now that it was wrapped in clean, white gauze, the sight was far less nauseating than it had been.
“Dean got—” Sabine began, but I cut her off.
“I just hurt my hand a bit,” I said. “Not a big deal.” I pointed to the bandage and shrugged dismissively. “Just a precaution.”
I know it sounds stupid, but I really didn’t want Taylor to know the extent of my injuries. I liked her, and I wanted her to think I was all macho and strong, not some walking disaster area.
Sabine, Floyd, and Amanda gave me perplexed looks, but they didn’t argue. And Mac, for his part, remained completely impassive.
“Well, if you’re up for it, I think we can still make the hospital raid.” Taylor tapped at the face of her watch. “If we hurry.”
“Grappling hooks this time?” Floyd said, a wicked smile spreading across his lips. “I wouldn’t miss that for the world.”
I nodded my consent, and Taylor smiled approvingly. She seemed to be in a good mood, and the light in her eyes made me forget all about the holes in my hand.
Our vantage point was cold. Extremely cold.
We lay perched atop a building about a block away from the hospital, completely exposed to the frigid wind blowing out of the north. Taylor had brought a couple of blankets, and the six of us lay huddled close together—elbow to elbow, with our arms braced up beneath our chins—staring across the street at the commotion a block away.
Charlie and Devon were the only ones missing. When we checked their rooms before leaving, we’d found Devon gone, and Charlie… well, Charlie had refused to budge, muttering a single dispirited sentence through his locked door.
I had my camera cradled in my uninjured hand, the lens cranked to its longest telephoto setting. Sabine had my camcorder, and I could hear her cooing as she played with the buttons, checking out its various features.
“They think it might be the epicenter of what’s happening,” Taylor said. She lay to my right, her palms cupped around her eyes in order to block out the sun. “They’ve tried four—” “Five!” Floyd interjected. “—five times before. But the people they send in keep getting lost and confused, and they stumble out hours—or days—later. And none of them can say what happens.”
“And some of them don’t come out at all,” Floyd added.
“I don’t think that’s true,” Taylor said, adding a dismissive cluck.
“They couldn’t get through on the ground floor,” Floyd said, continuing Taylor’s explanation, “so they’re trying farther up this time.”
“Shhhh!” Sabine hissed. “They’re going in!”
I panned my lens down to the base of the hospital building. There was a cluster of military vehicles parked on the sidewalk: a single open-backed transport and three Jeeps. A tent had been erected in the parking lot thirty feet away, and a massive computer console was visible through its open door. The computer was surrounded by three officers, one of them pacing nervously in and out of view.
At the sound of a loud, hollow thump, I panned to a group of soldiers on the sidewalk. A thin trickle of smoke spun up into the sky above their heads, following the graceful arc of a flying rope. A grappling hook hit the hospital’s roof ten floors up, and I watched as a soldier pulled the rope tight, testing its strength. He strained against the rope for a couple of seconds, then handed it over to a helmeted comrade, giving him a reassuring pat on the back.
The helmeted soldier was wearing a military-green backpack; I could see a brick-shaped radio strapped to one side and a rifle strapped to the other. The cylindrical body of a camera was mounted to the top of his helmet.
After giving the rope a tug of his own, the soldier stepped up to the building and began climbing its side. He moved slowly, hunting for footholds with cautious deliberation. When he got up to the third floor, he stepped onto a window ledge, turned his shoulder against a tall pane of glass, and quickly smashed it in with his elbow.
Then, after a moment’s hesitation, the soldier disappeared inside, trailing behind a length of electric-yellow rope.
For nearly ten minutes, we watched this yellow tether spool through the window frame, moving in fits and starts. It was extremely tedious. As I lay on the rooftop, I could feel my injured left hand stiffening into a useless claw—bruised muscle pulling tight beneath damaged skin—and the camera in my right seemed to get heavier with each passing second. Then the rope stopped moving, and for a handful of minutes there was nothing, nothing at all. Just boredom.
I could hear Floyd fidgeting two berths to my left. “How long—” he started to say, but motion down in the parking lot stopped him short. The three officers had stormed out of their command tent, their eyes turned up toward the building.
I panned back in time to see the soldier fly out of the window.
Not fall. Fly.
Propelled out into empty space. Thrown, perhaps. Or maybe he dived, throwing himself out the window at full sprint.
For a split second, the soldier fell through the air, his body perfectly limp, spinning toward the sky. Then he hit the sidewalk with a loud crack. For a moment, his comrades on the ground stood frozen in place, unsure how to react. In fact, the whole scene stood frozen in time: that motionless body lying still on the ground, those paralyzed clumps of soldiers and officers.
Then the fallen soldier heaved himself up off the ground.
Shedding first his helmet, then his backpack, the soldier—injured and broken—stumbled away from the building, moving in a crazed, drunken gait.