“What the fuck was that?” Sabine barked as soon as I caught up to her out in front of the photographer’s apartment. She let out a feral growl and kicked at a bloated paper bag lying on the sidewalk; it burst against her boot, sending fast-food wrappers and a crumpled-up cup skittering across the concrete. “I had plans. I wanted to help her, for God’s sake! I wanted to help her with her art! But she wouldn’t even listen.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t think she wants your help,” I said. “And whatever your plans are, I don’t think she’s in any condition to lend a hand.”
“Yeah,” she said. “I gathered that.”
Sabine let out a loud sigh; it was an exhausted rush of air, and in it I could hear her anger deflating. When she continued, her voice was imploring, and it sounded like she was asking me to do her some abstract favor, maybe change the very nature of the world around us. “I just… I was expecting something different, you know? Magic, not silence.”
I nodded and tried to give her a reassuring smile. It felt weird on my lips, and I thought I might be doing it wrong. “I know,” I said. “It’s disappointing. But maybe we shouldn’t be putting so much faith in other people.”
Sabine gave me a questioning look, and we passed a couple of moments in silence.
“He was a photographer?” she asked in a gentle voice. “Just like you?”
“Yeah,” I said, flashing a wry smile. “Just like me.” I shook my head and walked away, moving out into the middle of the street.
Sabine caught up to me as I started to retrace our path back through the dark city.
Even more than before, the streets of downtown Spokane seemed deserted. It was late, approaching midnight, and there were no lights in the surrounding buildings. There was no laughter, no screams echoing in the distance. Just silence. Silence and the sound of our feet on wet pavement.
We were a long way from the world I knew.
I glanced up into the sky, expecting to see the face of the earth floating overhead—like maybe we’d been transported to the moon or to some alien asteroid hurtling through space—but there were only clouds up there, and the muffled outline of a moon packed in cotton.
I wanted to get home. I wanted to get home to Taylor.
When we reached the house, we found Taylor seated alone in the kitchen. There was a single candle burning on the table, and its steady flame etched shadows beneath her eyes. She looked tired. She looked like a haunted woman, drawn in heavy charcoal lines.
Sabine grunted a halfhearted good night and retreated up the stairs to her bedroom. I don’t think she was trying to avoid Taylor and me or our upcoming encounter. I think she was just tired and disillusioned. I think she wanted to crawl into bed, where she could think about the Poet… and dwell and curse and seethe in peace.
“I heard about Amanda and Mac,” Taylor said.
“Yeah.”
“That… that situation…” She paused and finally, at a loss for words, finished her statement with a cryptic shrug.
“Yeah,” I agreed with a smile. “We’re on the same page there.”
I sat down opposite her, and she gave me a blank, emotionless stare. “I’m sorry I left this morning. I had things I had to do… personal things, and I didn’t want to wake you.” She leaned back from the table and tilted her head, as if she were trying to see me from a different angle. “And I guess there were things I didn’t want to deal with, too… things between us. I just wanted to let them lie. I wanted to give myself time to think.”
I nodded, feeling surprisingly calm, surprisingly focused. My visit with Cob Gilles and the Poet had changed things for me. Before, I’d been so angry at Taylor. And for what? For some perceived slight, some juvenile feeling of abandonment? Now, none of that seemed to matter. It just… didn’t matter.
If Cob Gilles was right—if the world was crazy, if photography was shit—then what did that leave? What was he still clinging to? What was keeping him alive?
The Poet.
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “It’s fine, I—”
“No, Dean, it’s not fine. It’s stupid. Us—” She raised her hand, flicking a finger back and forth between the two of us. “This, whatever it is… it’s stupid, monumentally stupid. I’m not going to be able to give you what you want. You’re not going to be happy. And I’m going to feel like shit just yanking you around.”
“I’d be perfectly happy with a little yanking.”
She was silent for a moment, and then her cold facade cracked and she let out an abrupt laugh. It was an odd, strangled laugh, having to fight its way past reluctant muscles. But it was a laugh. And she shook her head in surprised puzzlement, like she didn’t quite know what to make of me. “I suppose we could leave the yanking to Danny.”
“See! There you go,” I said, raising my hands. “Problem solved. It’s not my natural inclination, mind you, but that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make. For you.”
She continued to stare at me, those perplexed eyes jittering back and forth. And the smile faded from her lips. “What are you doing, Dean?” she asked. “I’m trying to give you an out here.”
“Yeah, well, maybe I don’t want out,” I said. “Maybe it’s not the sex that’s got me all smitten. Maybe it’s you. And everything else—every fucked-up feeling and unexplained horror—can take a giant fucking leap.”
She smiled and reached across the table to grab my hand. Her touch was light, a trembling paintbrush drawing indistinct shapes across my palm. “I didn’t realize you were such a saint.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s me,” I said. “I’m all about the piety and the motherfucking goodness.”
She continued to smile, and it was such a warm and genuine smile. Sitting right there, in its path, it felt like I’d found the most beautiful place in the world.
“Then come along, Saint Dean,” she said. “It’s been a long day. We deserve some rest.”
I took my antibiotics and a couple of Vicodin, and then we settled in for some sleep. Taylor wanted me in her bed. We lay side by side, perfectly chaste, holding hands in the dark.
“Are you still concerned about Devon?” she asked as the Vicodin began to hit, lifting me about an inch above her queen-size mattress. “I think I know what it is. I think I know who he’s spying for.”
I grunted. Devon and the radio. The underground tunnels. It seemed so long ago, separated from me by a gulf of time and weirdness—by Amanda and Mac, by Mama Cass, by the photographer and the Poet. I found it amazing, how all of that horror and confusion—so intense in the moment, so overwhelming—could just fade away. It’s some type of psychological defense, I figured, some type of coping mechanism. Somewhere along the line, I’d started living in the moment, letting everything just wash over me without fully taking it in, without dwelling.
“I didn’t want to tell you until I was sure,” she said. “But maybe you should be there with me.” She squeezed my hand. There was caring and vulnerability in her voice, and I got the sense that she was offering me another gift here, that she was opening herself up, including me in her secrets. For someone with her issues, I imagined that this was a great act of intimacy.
“Yeah, okay,” I said. And then, a moment later: “Wait… go where?”
“Shhhh… tomorrow. I’ll show you tomorrow.”
I grunted again. And then the Vicodin caught me. It grabbed hold like a warm wave, lifting me up high, then washing me back down, into a comfortable, dreamless sleep.
Danny showed up in the morning. He was seated at the kitchen table with Charlie when I finally made it downstairs. Taylor was standing at the camp stove.
“Good morning,” Taylor said, greeting me with a warm smile and a cup of coffee. She looked relaxed and happy. “You looked tired, so I let you sleep.”
“Yeah, it’s—what?—ten-thirty?” Danny said, giving me a nod. “I’ve been up since five. And I swear, I’d kill everyone in the city just to keep your type of hours.” I blushed as soon as I saw him, suddenly struck by the memory of his stubbled head bobbing up and down in my lap. He, for his part, didn’t seem at all embarrassed, giving me that perfunctory nod as if there was nothing at all strange between us. Perhaps there wasn’t. Perhaps I was the queer one here, unsure of the protocol, unable to look him in the eye.
I’ve never been accused of being a prude, but Danny’s utter nonchalance made me feel old-fashioned and out of step.
“I got a fresh load of data,” he said, nodding toward Charlie, who was once again seated at his notebook computer. I could see the thumb drive jutting from the computer’s side.
Charlie looked up and smiled, beaming with pride. “It worked. Your post… it posted. And you’ve already got comments.” He spun the computer around, gesturing me toward an empty seat.
A flutter of nerves erupted in my chest.
I immediately recognized the website: Chasing the S. As far as message boards go, this one was fairly standard; there were countless more just like it out there on the Net, all assembled from the same free software packages. The view on Charlie’s screen was a simplified version of the site. All the standard images were missing: there was no black-and-white banner at the top of the page, featuring the name of the site flanked by satellite imagery of Spokane itself, and there were no tiny avatars to the left of each posting. Charlie had streamlined his application. He had programmed it to pick up text and formatting information while leaving all the bulky pictures and ads behind. The resulting design was stark and no-nonsense, and more than a little disconcerting.
I quickly scrolled through the topics on the front page. The title of my post—“Photos of Spokane: Views from Inside (week 1)”—was at the top of the list. According to the stats next to my entry, there were already seventy-six comments and over five thousand page views.
“It was up for twelve hours before Danny scraped the forum,” Charlie said, following my eyes on the page. “Right now it’s the only post getting any attention.”
I hesitated before clicking through to my thread. I was more than a little nervous. What if they hated my pictures? What if those seventy-six replies were all negative, nothing but dismissive mockery?
I braced myself and clicked through. Beneath my dismembered post—Charlie’s program had stripped away all the photos, leaving just a couple of sentences and a line of broken links—there was an avalanche of comments, a mad rush of words.
–Is this for real??? Is this bullshit???
–Please, can someone confirm?
–It’s Spokane. That’s Riverfront Park, and I recognize that storefront with all the people. It was a Tully’s before they evacuated us.
–It’s Photoshopped, you morons! They aren’t letting anyone in. You’ve seen the barricades and checkpoints!
–But that’s not true! There are civies inside! They catch people going in and out all the time!
–They’re real. According to the tags, someone used Photoshop (a student CS edition), but probably just to resize… It’s not so hard to believe, is it? We know there are people in there, and they can’t be in too good shape by now. Hell, even the weather matches. That’s Eastern Washington at the start of winter.
–Where’s the ghosts?
–Why aren’t we seeing this shit on the news? It’s a disaster area in the middle of America! It’s Katrina all over again!
–It is _not_ Katrina. These morons can leave anytime they like. Hell, they’d get _paid_ to leave! Big fat government checks!
–Where’s the ghosts???
After a half hour of short, gut-level reactions, the postings started to get longer, and they started to address me directly.
–Nice pictures, intheimage [this was the name I used on the forum, dating back to the summer months, when the first vague news stories had begun to escape Spokane]. Tell us more about the city, if you’ve got time. What are the conditions like? The people look destitute, how do they get along? And what is the military doing?
–If you are, indeed, in there (and I have my doubts), how’d you do it? You’ve got a picture of soldiers there, did you have to bribe your way in? I’ve heard people talk about that, here, but I want some firsthand info. Are they willing? How much would it cost?
–Your pictures are pretty mundane, considering the reports we’ve been reading. Are the stories overblown? Have you seen anything strange?
–Cool! Post more!
–Please, intheimage, I don’t know if you’ll get this, but I was wondering if you’ve met someone named Travis Paulson in the city? He’s thirty-two years old, brown eyes, brown hair (though he usually wears it shaved bald). He lived in a house on W. Garland, up north. Here’s a picture of him, from about a year ago. [Where the picture should have been, there was nothing but a small red x. Charlie’s program had left the picture behind.] We haven’t heard from him since they closed the city, and his family is terrified. Please, please, please email me with anything.
There was more, but after that last message, I didn’t go on. I got the gist of the thread. There was healthy skepticism, doubt, and a lot of questions. But nothing damning. There was no derision or outright dismissal. And perhaps the most heartening thing here was the sheer number of replies and the number of eyeballs that had found my work. Over five thousand page views in the first twelve hours! That was good exposure. The thought of all of those people looking at my photographs got my heart racing.
Now I needed to figure out my next move.
Obviously, I had to post again, but what should I include? The spider with the human finger? The face in the wall? The underground tunnels? Should I continue to take it slow, or should I jump right into the strange heart of the city?
“I don’t have anything ready to go out today,” I said, “but I might have something tomorrow or the next day. A new post. More pictures. Will that work?” I looked up at Charlie, then across the table at Danny. Danny was smiling.
“Yeah,” Danny said. “I think we can make that work.”
“But not now,” Taylor said. She was standing at the camp stove, scraping eggs out of a sizzling pan. She cast me a significant look as she carried over a plate of eggs and toasted bread. “You’re having breakfast, Dean, and then we’re going out. We’ve got errands to run and people to see.”
My stomach growled at the sight and smell of food. I hadn’t had much appetite in the last couple of days. My stomach had been tied in knots of anxiety, confusion, and fear, not to mention the nausea caused by my wounds and infection. But after reading those replies, I felt suddenly ravenous.
I was headed in the right direction, it seemed, and that did a lot to allay my fears.
I downed my antibiotics with my last swallow of coffee. I didn’t bother with the Vicodin or oxycodone. My hand was feeling pretty good. Hell, I was feeling pretty good. Then Taylor and I hit the streets.
It was surprisingly warm out, and almost all the snow had melted from the ground. The only remaining patches of white were hidden away in the shadows: circles around the trunks of trees, small drifts piled against houses. I watched Taylor as she walked beside me. She wasn’t watching the pavement in front of her feet. Instead, she was looking far into the distance. It made her look strong. She wasn’t squinting despite the bright sun overhead. Her skin was perfectly smooth, a beautiful tea-soaked ceramic. I wanted to touch her, to run my thumb across her smooth cheek. But I could imagine her pulling away in horror, recoiling from my touch, and the thought of that reaction was enough to hold me back. I didn’t want to cause her any type of distress.
She glanced at me from the corner of her eye. “Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked, a perplexed smile appearing on her lips. “You’re kinda freaking me out here, Dean.”
“I’m just thinking about taking your picture,” I said. “I’m thinking about capturing the way the sun illuminates your skin and sets your eyes on fire. I’m thinking about the lens I’d use, the framing I’d try to get, the stuff I’d keep in the background.”
We continued to walk, and I continued to study her face.
When I didn’t move to unholster my camera, Taylor let out a warm laugh and shook her head. “Okay, Dean. Just keep thinking about that photograph.”
“Always.”
As we continued downtown, she kept glancing my way, a self-conscious smile on her lips. I watched as her cheeks blushed a gentle shade of red—a rosy, pinkish red—and my chest filled with warmth. There was a smile on my lips. It felt goofy—big and unrestrained—but I couldn’t dial it down. It had taken over my entire face and wouldn’t let go.
Looking back now, this was by far my happiest time in Spokane. I was with Taylor, and I’d managed to make her happy; maybe I made her feel beautiful and loved.
And maybe, for a time, she made me feel the same.
“Let me do the talking,” Taylor said as we turned south on Monroe. “These guys are all right, but they can be pretty intense. They’re territorial and very touchy.”
“Homestead?” I asked, guessing at our destination. I recognized the street from my first day in the city. Weasel had escorted me past these very buildings, bitching about the Homestead and all of its rules. I remembered people staring out at us distastefully, peering from doors and windows. But looking back, I realized that those disgusted looks might have had more to do with Weasel than with the stranger entering the city for the first time.
“Yeah,” Taylor said. “They know me. I lived here for a while, before I found the house. They’ll let us in.”
Taylor led me to a street-level door halfway between First and Second Avenue. The building itself was squat and unremarkable: a two-story structure sandwiched between a pair of taller neighbors. As soon as we got within a dozen feet, a man stepped from the shadows inside the building. He was big and thickly muscled, and he had a kinked black beard that masked most of his face. There was a baseball bat clenched in his hands, and he was holding it like he was getting ready to drop down a bunt: his right hand down on the knob, his left wrapped around its thick barrel. I could see an eagle tattooed on the back of his hand. I stopped dead on the sidewalk, but Taylor continued forward. As she approached, the man shifted the bat up against his shoulder and pulled himself to his full height.
“What are you doing here?” the man growled. “I thought you’d left for greener pastures.”
“I can’t pay the old man a visit?” Taylor said, her voice cold, confrontational. “Do you really think Terry’s going to turn me away?”
The man grunted. “Maybe not, but that’s his weakness. In my opinion, the gone should stay gone. If they have nothing to offer, they have nothing to offer.”
Taylor made a clucking sound at the back of her throat, and then she flashed the man a mocking grin. The grin looked out of place on her delicate lips. “Since when did you get so deep, Mickey? And since when do you guard doors?”
The big man let out a frustrated sound—something between a grunt and a deep-throated growl—then he lifted his chin toward me. “If you go in, you leave your boy behind.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “We go in together. That’s what Terry would want.”
The big man glowered, stone-faced, for a couple of seconds, then he flexed his fingers against the bat. It was a gesture of pure frustration, his fingers pulsing with pent-up energy. “Fine,” he said. “I don’t care! This place is going to hell. No rules. No fucking order!” With that, he turned and disappeared into the building. Taylor followed. I had to break into a trot in order to catch up.
There was a second man standing just inside the doorway, and he stayed behind as Mickey led us back into the building. All the exterior windows had been boarded over with sheets of reinforced plywood. It looked like the Homestead had battened itself down for a hurricane. Or a military assault. Mickey produced a flashlight and waved us forward impatiently.
Before the evacuation, the building had housed a number of small businesses. Every door sported a different name and slogan. We passed MATTHEW FRANK DISCOUNT AUTO INSURANCE, TEMPLE SMITH OFFICE SUPPLIES, and, toward the back of the building, perhaps the sketchiest acupuncture clinic I’d ever seen, labeled simply ACUPUNCTURE. Then Mickey led us up a narrow flight of stairs, and we started back toward the front of the building. Halfway there, Mickey stopped at one of the boarded-up windows. He hit the plywood with a sharp, practiced rap, and the large sheet of wood swung aside. Outside, a five-foot plank spanned the distance to the neighboring building.
Taylor didn’t hesitate. She climbed over the sill and crossed the gap, disappearing into the building on the other side.
Mickey gestured impatiently for me to follow. It wasn’t a long way down—maybe fifteen feet—but I still took my time. I held my hands out for balance and placed my feet with care. When I reached the middle, the board suddenly started to bounce, and I looked back to see Mickey crawling out of the window behind me. The thought of that behemoth bouncing along at my heels—the thought of the wood cracking beneath all that extra weight—was enough to speed me up.
I stumbled over the windowsill on the far side, but thankfully Taylor was there to stop me from falling. Mickey jumped down a couple of seconds later.
“What the fuck is this?” I asked. “What the hell are we doing?”
“Precautions,” Taylor said. She gave me a brief, placating smile but didn’t offer any further explanation.
We were in a short hallway. There was a small bathroom to our right and an even smaller office to our left. The floor was a beautiful polished wood, and Taylor’s footsteps thumped solidly as she took over Mickey’s lead. I followed a couple of steps behind, and I could feel Mickey looming at my shoulder.
The hallway opened up onto a large, mostly empty room, and we stopped at the threshold.
It was a ballet studio.
I was surprised at our destination. I’m not sure what I was expecting—a small, smoky room, maybe, or some type of fortified bunker—but this was not even close. The room was light and airy. The far wall was nothing but glass, providing a view of Monroe Street directly outside. And the wall opposite was glass, too, panels of flawless mirror, reflecting the sun-dappled room. There was a bar bolted to the mirror, and I could imagine ballerinas stretching up and down its length, their pointed toes raised to the sky as they limbered up lithe, supple bodies.
A hint of rose lingered in the air. It was the last remnant of a fleeing ghost. A sense memory: powdered perfume over stale sweat.
“Taylor!”
There was an old, ratty sofa sitting in the corner of the room, facing out toward the massive window. Surrounded by stacks of books and a jumble of discarded clothing, it looked completely out of place on the barren expanse of hardwood floor. Like a pile of trash dropped into the middle of a perfectly manicured garden.
There was an old man struggling up from the low sofa. “Taylor!” he repeated, a wide smile on his face. “My darling girl!” The man was at least sixty-five years old. His hair was salt-and-pepper black, but his temples had faded to pure white. His wide smile was caught in a web of wrinkles, and there were thin lines radiating out from his joy-narrowed eyes.
“I saw you pass by outside,” he said, nodding toward the window. “But I thought you were going to just keep on walking. I thought you were going to give this old man a wide berth.”
Taylor shook her head. A bright smile spread across her face, and she broke into a trot, running up to the old man and sliding smoothly into his arms. I was surprised at the intimacy of the gesture.
In the hallway behind me, Mickey let out a disgusted grunt. Then he turned and left. I heard him scramble back off the windowsill and across the plank to the neighboring building.
“I see Mickey hasn’t changed,” Taylor said, backing out of the old man’s embrace. “Still pissed off… at everyone and everything.”
“Mostly at me, I think,” the man said. “I’m sure he thinks he could do a better job. Thankfully, no one in their right mind would follow where he wants to lead.”
The man noticed me standing on the far side of the room. He flashed a smile and nodded in my direction. “Why don’t you tell your friend to come over here, Taylor. This isn’t a peep show. He’s more than welcome.”
I approached slowly, and Taylor turned her wide smile my way. “Dean, this is Terry. He started up the Homestead. He’s done a lot for me. He… well, I guess he saved my life.”
“I don’t know about that,” the old man said with a smile. It was a relaxed, weary smile. He offered me his hand, and we shook. “It’s not like I did her any favors. She’s strong. I offered her a place to stay, but she more than paid her dues.”
“Modest as ever,” Taylor said. She turned away from the two of us, then crouched down and started to shuffle through the books on the floor. “Agricultural texts? Gardening? You’re still trying to start that farm?”
“That’s the dream,” Terry said. He let the words hang in the air for a second. Then an exhausted sigh escaped his lips. He gave me a nod—an apologetic dismissal—and retreated back to the sofa. Despite his slight frame, the sofa cushions sagged under his weight. It looked like the ratty old thing had reached its last couple of springs. “It’s not going to happen. Nobody’s interested. They’d rather scavenge than farm. Or get what they want from Mama Cass.”
“What happened?” Taylor asked. There was genuine concern in her voice. She sat down on the sofa’s armrest and focused all of her attention on Terry’s exhausted face.
“Nothing. Nothing happened. I figure this is just the way it works. There’s no movement, no change in our situation. The government isn’t opposing us anymore; they aren’t making progress with the city, and they aren’t trying to kick us out. And nothing we do seems to make a difference. The buildings still fall apart. People get tired and lonely. And on occasion they disappear. It’s only natural the Homestead should fall apart. What good is an organization—what good is society—if it can’t keep entropy at bay, if it can’t protect and unite its people?” Terry shook his head. Despite his dire words, the exhausted smile remained on his lips. “There were—what?—fifty people here when you left? There can’t be more than thirty now. Mickey wants to do more to keep them. He suggested a… a recruitment drive. He wants some type of paramilitary force. He wants to raid Mama Cass’s supplies!” He let out a short laugh. “Ha, he even wants to levy taxes!”
“But… the work you do. The support you give…”
“It’s not a bad thing,” Terry replied. “I’m still here. And I’ll help anyone who wants my help. I’ll give them structure, help them get their heads on straight. It’s just… no one seems to want that anymore.”
Taylor seemed at a loss. She extended her hand, to put it on Terry’s shoulder, but the old man shook his head and pulled away. A broad smile spread across his face, and I could tell that it was a massive effort on his part, casting aside all that gloom, trying to appear jovial. “Hell, maybe it’s all a sign of my success. Under my umbrella, people get strong enough to leave. I’ll think of it like that, okay? I help them, and they get strong enough to make a go of it on their own. Hell, just look at you!” He held his hand out toward Taylor, palm up, like he was presenting a beautiful piece of art to a gallery of viewers. “You’re looking great. Are you happy?”
Taylor smiled and cast me a sly glance. There was a touch of blush in her cheeks. “Yeah, I’m doing well. But you’re the one who set me on that path.”
Terry smiled. And this smile seemed effortless.
“I guess you’re here to see Weasel?”
“What?” Confusion warped Taylor’s face, and she jolted back in surprise.
“I assumed that’s why you came. He’s been here for three days now.”
“I thought you were done with him. I thought you refused to let him back.”
Terry shrugged. “I’ve mellowed in my old age, I guess. The rules just don’t seem as important…” He shook his head. “Anyway, he’s your friend, and Johnny pleaded for him.”
“Jesus Christ, Weasel,” Taylor hissed to herself. Then she turned back to Terry. “And why the fuck are you listening to Johnny?”
Terry didn’t reply.
“Fine,” Taylor said. She closed her eyes for a moment, and as I watched, the anger faded from her face; once again, there was nothing but caring, warm emotion, though perhaps not as warm as before. “No, Terry, why we’re here, what I want to know… do you have Devon spying on my house? Are you keeping tabs on me?”
Terry let out a laugh. “Yeah, yeah, that’s me,” he said. “I didn’t think you’d catch on. I’ve had him stopping by once or twice a week to tell me how you’re doing. It’s all innocent, though. Nothing nefarious. I’m just trying to keep track of my favorite girl.”
“And you’re paying him for this?” Taylor asked. “You’re paying him to spy on me?”
“Not much—just some food, some pot—and if you’re worried about his character, I’m not making him report anything too personal or bad. I just want to know how you’re doing, if you’re in trouble, if you need help.” He flicked a finger in my direction. “He told me about Dean last time he was here. He said you seemed happy.”
“When?” I asked, jumping into the conversation. “When did you see him?” I was excited. This seemed like a miracle to me. Finally, here was the answer to a mystery, an explanation that actually made sense, that didn’t get lost in a jumble of magic and religion.
“A couple of days ago,” Terry said. “Just after Weasel moved in.”
“And where’d you get the radio?” I asked. “How’d you wire up the tunnels?”
Terry met these questions with a look of confusion. It seemed genuine. “Radio? Radios don’t work here. And tunnels?” Terry shook his head. “No. No, I don’t go near any tunnels.”
I looked over at Taylor, and she returned my gaze, confused. I hadn’t told her about the radio and the wires. After a moment, she offered me a halfhearted shrug. “Maybe it’s something Devon did on his own. Maybe it’s not important.”
I shook my head. No, that wasn’t it, but I didn’t bother trying to argue. Taylor hadn’t been there. She hadn’t followed the wire down into the dark; she hadn’t seen the vast network of tunnels. There was no way that that didn’t mean something. And there was no way Devon could have done it all on his own.
“Where’s Weasel?” Taylor asked Terry. “I want to see him. I want to make sure he’s okay.” She cast me a nervous glance, looking for my reaction. But I didn’t react. There was just no energy there, no anger. Not anymore. Weasel wasn’t a threat; he’d never been a threat. Taylor could like me and still want to help her friend, even if that friend had tried to fuck me over. I could see that now. I guess I was getting more secure in our relationship.
“He’s in the tower, down in the basement,” Terry said. “I don’t know if he’s there right now. Frankly, I haven’t seen him since he moved in.”
Taylor stood up and made to leave.
“Don’t be angry with me,” Terry said. “I didn’t mean anything bad. I just want to see you safe. I want to see you happy.”
Taylor nodded. “I know, Terry,” she said. “I’m happy. I’m safe. But it’s you I’m worried about.” She bent down and gave him a kiss on the forehead. And then, in a quieter voice: “But don’t spy on me. Don’t you dare! I don’t want to end up hating you. Okay?”
“Okay,” Terry said, once again flashing that exhausted smile.
Then Taylor turned and walked away.
Taylor left through the front door. I followed her to the threshold, then paused, turning to look back into the room. Taylor continued on without me.
Terry was still seated on the sofa, facing the wide window. His hand was up on his forehead in a pose of absolute fatigue. Struck by the tableau, I fished the camera out of my backpack and started taking pictures. I framed it so that the bottom part of the vertical photograph showed barren hardwood floor, struck slightly out of focus. And then, up in the top third, there was Terry, seated on that ratty old sofa, surrounded by stacks of books. He was front-lit, as sunshine broke through the clouds on the far side of the glass. His shadow—nothing but a slumped head perched atop the sofa’s elongated width—stretched back into the room, darkening the polished floor.
The Weight of the World, I thought, considering titles. No… The Weight of Civilization.
When I thought I had the shot, I holstered the camera and reslung my backpack.
“Take care of her, Dean,” Terry said, still holding that pose, head down, hand up on his forehead. He must have heard the shutter from across the room. “Don’t let anything happen.”
I nodded, even though I knew he couldn’t see me. Then I followed Taylor out the door.
We climbed stairs up to the third floor, then crossed to the next building over, once again making our way across a makeshift bridge. The buildings on this block were all close together, but still, crossing these spans, feeling the wood wobble beneath my feet, was a nerve-racking experience, and each time I found myself holding my breath and keeping my eyes fixed on the far side. Three floors up, the fall might not prove fatal, but it certainly wouldn’t be pleasant.
When we reached the third building, we continued to climb. The building ended up on the fourth floor. We stepped out of the stairwell onto a tar-papered roof.
“Terry likes heights,” Taylor said. There was a small tent set up on the corner of the roof. Arrayed around its entrance were several potted plants and a small charcoal grill. A thin ribbon of smoke curled up from the grill, guttering up toward the sky. “He linked up all of these buildings to give us territory, but he himself prefers to sleep out in the open.” She was smiling widely, her affection for the old man beaming through. “The first floors of these buildings are all boarded up. There are only two entrances, one on each end of the block, and Terry keeps them guarded. It’s his own medieval castle, you see. Only here, no one’s trying to storm the gates.”
The next building on this side of the block was much taller than the one we were standing on. In fact, it was the tallest building in sight, stretching at least ten stories tall, an imposing brick edifice, each side a dark red face stubbled with tiny windows. Taylor stepped to the edge of the roof and gestured up toward the building’s top floors. A lot of the windows up there had been covered over, and I could see the glint of aluminum foil in those recessed squares, glimmering like silver teeth between narrowed lips. “The tower,” she said. “I used to live up there… for a while.”
The buildings here were not quite even, and the bridge over to the tower was skewed, slanted down at a fifteen-degree angle. Thankfully, somebody had set up a handrail, though it didn’t feel much sturdier than the planks bouncing beneath my feet. Once again, I held my breath, not letting it out until Taylor grabbed my arm and helped me down on the far side.
We ended up in a stairwell. Taylor pulled a flashlight from her pocket and led the way down, casting shadows back and forth across each riser as I struggled to keep up. She didn’t pause when we reached the bottom. She shouldered her way through a heavy fire door into a cold and musty basement.
It was like stepping into a long-abandoned crypt: the penetrating cold, the touch of moisture, a slight hint of rot floating in the thick, stale air. There was a dim light at one end of the main corridor. Taylor touched my arm—a brief, tentative touch—and started toward the light.
The corridor ended in a large industrial kitchen. There were stainless steel tables running along all four walls, and a cooking station stretched down its middle, complete with stove tops and a wide ventilating hood. The floor was dark red tile, and it dipped down toward a drain in each of the room’s four corners. The smell of rot was stronger here.
The light was coming from a pantry on the far side of the room. Taylor gestured with her flashlight, then led the way over to its entrance.
There were three people in the pantry, and all three lay stretched out on the floor. At first, I thought they were dead, then one of them—a large black man wearing a bright red knit cap—groaned and turned over, burying his sweaty face in a blanket on the floor. The other two—a girl sporting wild black dreadlocks and a stick-thin man with a scraggly, unkempt beard—remained still. The girl had her face pressed up against the man’s chest. She was shivering, despite the sheen of sweat glistening on her cheeks.
There were lit candles scattered around the room and a single battery-powered lantern burned in the corner. The batteries must have been dying, as the lantern gave off only the dimmest orange glow. There was a candle and a charred spoon at the girl’s feet, and she had a pair of panty hose cinched tight around her bicep. The smell of ozone, sweat, and cooking heroin lay thick in the air.
“Shit,” Taylor muttered. “Motherfucker!” She crouched down next to the bearded man and began slapping his cheeks, first softly, then with increasing strength. After the sixth slap, the man’s head snapped up off the floor.
“Fuck, man,” he said, wearing a distant, shit-eating grin. “What the fuck…? Taylor?”
“Yeah, Johnny,” Taylor said. “You’re a motherfucking piece of work, aren’t you?”
“I try,” Johnny said, still wearing that lunatic smile. He let his head drop back down to the floor. “I’m a work of art… always in progress.”
“Just tell me where Weasel is,” Taylor said, shaking her head. “Tell me where he’s staying.”
Johnny was silent for a handful of seconds. His eyelids began to droop, and then, abruptly, they fell shut.
“Motherfucker!” Taylor growled. She clamped her hands over both of Johnny’s ears and started to shake his head back and forth. His eyes snapped open, and there was a look of fear there as he tried to get a fix on Taylor’s angry eyes. “Where’s Weasel, Johnny?” Taylor continued to growl. “Just fucking tell me!”
The violence jolted the dreadlocked girl out of her stupor. She pushed away from Johnny and frantically rolled across the room, finally coming to rest against her other roommate. She pressed herself tight against his sleeping body and curled into a fetal ball. Her eyes remained open. She watched Taylor and Johnny from beneath drooping, heavy lids.
“Fuck,” Johnny groaned as Taylor continued to shake him. “Just stop! Stop! I’m going to be sick.”
Taylor grabbed the collar of Johnny’s shirt and pulled him up into a sitting position. A ribbon of spit poured from his lips, and I thought he really was going to be sick. “The other… the other end of the hall,” he said, trying to prop himself up with a shaking arm. “He emptied out a broom closet. Won’t fucking come out.”
Taylor put her hand against Johnny’s face and pushed, hard, sending him tumbling back to the floor. Johnny let out a loud groan and grasped his head between his palms. He closed his eyes and started rocking back and forth.
“Leave Weasel alone, Johnny,” Taylor said. “Terry might be letting your shit slide, but I won’t let it go. I’ll fuck you up—absolutely fuck you up—if I ever, ever see you near him again. Okay? Okay?”
Johnny let out another groan. I took that as a sign of agreement.
“We’ve got to get him out of here, Dean,” Taylor said as we crossed back through the kitchen. She paused and looked back at me over her shoulder. There was a hint of fear in her eyes, a glimmer of trepidation fighting its way past all of that seething anger. “He’s going to die here if we don’t do something. We’ve got to get him home.”
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s fine. I understand.”
After seeing Johnny, I really couldn’t argue with her logic. I wouldn’t wish that kind of punishment on anyone.
A grateful smile flickered across her lips. And then she was gone. She barreled out of the kitchen and back down the main corridor, quickly making her way to the other end of the floor.
There were a half dozen storage rooms at this end of the basement, but Taylor barely paused as she darted past, sending a brief flicker of light across each open door. I struggled to keep up. Finally, at the end of the corridor, she pulled to a stop. There was a jumble of debris strewn across the floor, here—a mop, several brooms, rags, a bucket filled with dirty gray water—and it barely left enough space to let open the broom closet door.
Taylor stepped up to the closet and knocked. “Weasel?” she said. Her voice was tentative, weak, a stark contrast to all the energy she’d unleashed against Johnny. She knocked again, this time a little bit harder. “Let me in. I want to help.”
There was no response.
“Please, Wendell,” she said, her voice cracking. She continued in a low whisper: “I’m sorry. I forgive you.”
Then she opened the door.
There was no one inside. The closet was a tiny space, barely large enough to house a sleeping man. There were blankets layered in a stack on the floor, the top blanket turned down in a neat triangle. It looked like a child’s bed, prepped and ready for a good night’s sleep.
“Fuck,” Taylor said, letting out a nervous laugh. In the backwash of her flashlight, I could see tears glistening on her cheeks. “All of this work… I thought we’d find him dead, and the fucker’s not even here.”
She played her flashlight across the floor of the closet. The blankets took up most of the space, but there was more of Weasel’s stuff inside. There was a stack of flannel shirts folded into a pillow at the head of the bed and, lying next to it, Weasel’s fedora. I remembered it from my first day in the city. He’d doffed it like a gentleman as he greeted me.
Taylor once again panned the flashlight across the small room, finally settling on a stack of notebooks tucked into the corner. They were cheap notebooks. I recognized the style: black-and-white marbled covers, the words Composition Book and College Ruled stamped across the front. There had been stacks and stacks of these things at my university bookstore—nearly a full pallet, dumped right inside the front door—on sale for fifty cents each. A worn-down nub of pencil lay on top of the stack, and there were wood shavings scattered across the floor.
Taylor let out a curious grunt. “His journals,” she said. “He’s always writing. Every fucking day.” She got down on the blanket and pulled the topmost notebook into her lap. She held up her flashlight and flipped through the thin pages. I could see densely packed words scrawled in pencil and ink.
She leaned forward to put the notebook back, then paused in midmotion. Her eyes widened, and her left hand started to move slowly at her side, gently caressing the blanket down by her leg, feeling… something. I couldn’t see what she was doing. After a couple of moments of tentative exploration, she scooted off the edge of the blanket and pushed it back violently, bunching it up against the far wall and exposing the concrete beneath.
And then she let out a sudden, strangled sob.
“No, no, no,” she hissed. She clamped her eyes shut and fell back against the wall. Her legs went dead, and gravity pulled her back down to the floor.
There were fingers in the concrete. Four fingers and the tip of a thumb, sticking up from the broom closet floor.
Fingers, reaching up from the world below.
Taylor dropped her flashlight, and it rolled slowly across the floor. The fingers were at the edges of its light, but they still cast sharp shadows: tapered pyramids stretching across the concrete, pointing up toward the left-hand wall. The flashlight stopped rolling, but the shadows didn’t remain still. The fingers were quivering. Not strong, conscious movements, but rather an electric tremor, tendons adjusting beneath skin, pulling tight against bone.
Taylor let out a weak groan. “It’s Weasel,” she said. Her voice was a raw, guttural whisper. She kept her eyes clenched shut. “It’s Weasel,” she repeated.
I didn’t say anything. My heart was beating fast, but I was not afraid.
I was numb. I was astounded.
I got down on my knees and pulled the flashlight over to my side, fixing the fingers in the center of its beam. The fingernails were ragged and packed with dirt, and there was a bruise beneath the middle cuticle. The knuckles had been scraped raw, but otherwise there seemed to be little damage. And the concrete itself was absolutely perfect—no cracks, no crumbling, no hint of violence of any type.
I glanced back at Taylor. She had her hands up over her eyes, as if she were trying to hide, as if she were trying to retreat from the world into the comfort of her pressed palms. I left her alone. Instead, I grabbed my camera and started taking pictures.