Bad Glass (4 page)

“And that’s true? All of that stuff?”

He shrugged.

“But why?” I asked. “How? What caused it?”

He gave me an amused look, then once again started down the street. He raised his hand in a dismissive gesture, flicking his wrist like he was tossing something away. “Everyone’s got their theories: chemicals in the air, contagious brain cancer, some type of terrorist attack, mutated animals, fucking
aliens
and
demons
and the dead spilling out of heaven and hell … Frankly, it’s all just religion to me. Unknowable. Meaningless.” He crossed himself and rolled his eyes in disdain. But his sarcasm fell flat; the gesture was just a bit too fluid, too practiced. “And if you came here looking for reasons, you’re just wasting your time.”

He picked up the pace, and I followed, staying a step behind.

After another block, he once again pointed to our left. “The government buildings are just over there, on Sprague. The military’s hunkered down in the courthouse. They’ve got armed guards and everything, but if you leave them alone, they won’t bother you too much. Same goes for the patrols and roving vehicles. The military here, they’re too busy to do much actual policing.”

I looked over but couldn’t see anything from this side of the street. Just empty buildings and dark windows.

“What’d you bring, anyway?” Wendell asked, nodding toward my duffel bag. “What’ve you got stashed away?”

“What?”

“Liquor? Drugs? Anything
useful
?”

“Just clothing and supplies,” I said, bouncing the backpack on my shoulder. “And photography gear.”

“Shit. What a waste.” He shook his head. “I’d have given you
a whole shopping list to smuggle in. Some vodka. A fucking
Big Mac
. People could use some relief right about now.”

“How many?” I asked. “I mean, how many people are here? In the city?”

He just shrugged and pointed me on. As we continued south on Monroe, I became aware of people watching us. At first it was just the uncomfortable sensation of eyes crawling across my flesh, then I started to see their faces—slight, pale moons peering out from the abandoned buildings on either side. Most of the windows had been broken out and covered over, replaced with haphazardly laid boards and sheets of plywood. Eyes peered from the occasional gap, and voices echoed out. A frantic peal of laughter emanated from the heart of a building on my right, and I turned to find an imposing man standing in a doorway. His arms were crossed in front of his chest, and his huge body took up the entire entrance. When my gaze lingered, the man frowned and wagged his finger back and forth, shaking his head.

I recognized the gesture:
Nothing to see here. Move along
.

“This is Homestead territory,” Wendell said, his voice dropping into a whisper. “Bit of a commune, really, put together by a man named Terry.” He shook his head at the name, a sad expression on his face. “People joining together. Power through numbers and all of that happy shit. They just like to fuck with people, act like they know best—bunch of self-righteous bastards, if you ask me. You probably don’t want to do anything too shady around here, though, or you’ll get your face beat in. For real.”

I nodded, finally tearing my eyes away from the tough guy at the door.

“I would have probably joined up myself, if not for all those fucking rules,” Wendell said. “Plus, they really,
really
hate me.”

We turned left on Second Avenue and headed east. Slivers of glass glittered everywhere, crunching beneath our feet as we proceeded down the middle of the street. After a couple of blocks, I noticed a group of people crowded around a shattered storefront. It was on the ground floor of an old office building. Before the
evacuation, it might have been a chain coffeehouse—maybe a Starbucks or a Tully’s—but since then it had become something else. Changed, repurposed, mutated. Every bit of the facade had been broken down and removed—doors, windows, walls—transforming it into a dimly lit cave, open to the street. All the debris from the demolition had been pushed back from the opening, forming a semicircular drift of drywall and wood. Inside there were tables. The smell of grilled meat wafted out in a cloud of charcoal smoke.

There was a sloppy hand-painted sign above the opening. It read
MAMA CASS AND THE CHAR-GRILLED MIRACLE
.

“A restaurant?” I asked, surprised. I hadn’t expected this level of organization.

“Yeah,” Wendell replied, suddenly nervous. “Mama takes barter or money. Anything of value.”

We had attracted some attention. In front of the restaurant, a half dozen people had turned our way, watching as we approached. They were dressed in the same fashion as Wendell: multiple layers of heavy clothing, ragged and dirty. I stopped and set my bag on the ground, debating whether or not to dig out my camera and get some shots of the restaurant and its patrons.

“We shouldn’t stay here,” Wendell said. “It’s not safe for you. You’re new. You’re carrying all your stuff!” He grabbed my elbow and started pulling me back down the street. I took my time turning around and was surprised when he plucked the backpack off my shoulder. “Here, just, let me carry that … just,
here
!”

As I was turning, a figure pulled out of the crowd in front of the restaurant, and a woman’s voice called after us. “WEASEL! What did I tell you? What did I
fucking
say?”

And that was when Wendell started to run, taking off with my backpack.

My backpack
, I thought, suddenly terrified.
My computer
.

My motherfucking camera!

Wendell moved fast. He ran north a block, then turned east, jumping the hood of a car parked at the corner. I followed.

I managed to stay about twenty yards back. My breath was a loud steam-engine rasp, burning its way out of my throat and lungs, but I barely noticed. Even with the duffel bag weighing me down, bouncing back and forth against my legs, the thought of losing my camera kept me moving.

I was frantic, terrified. All my plans and fantasies were in that backpack. To lose it now, right after I got into the city …

I tried calling out to him, but he didn’t even look back. The bastard just kept on running, malnourished and scrawny but surprisingly fast.

There were kids on this street, playing baseball in the center of the downtown block. About a half dozen. I didn’t pay them any heed. For me, the game was just a blur of motion in the background, a dull rumble of raucous, youthful laughter.

I gritted my teeth and managed a burst of speed, pulling within feet of Wendell’s fleeing back. The sound of our chase had caught the kids’ attention. They were hooting and hollering as we neared, no doubt anticipating some type of violent confrontation.

I reached out, and my fingers brushed against the fabric of the backpack—
my backpack
—now slung over Wendell’s shoulder.

I threw myself forward just as he jigged to the right, his nimble form disappearing through an open doorway. Unable to stop my dive, I collided with the doorjamb, shoulder first, and the weight of my duffel bag slammed me hard into the wall, jolting all the breath from my lungs. The kids in the street let out a loud, sympathetic “Oh!” that quickly broke into disjointed laughter. I didn’t even look their way, instead shaking my head and sucking in a burning lungful of air. My legs were weak from the impact, but I managed to stagger into the building. It was some type of hotel or apartment complex—a tenement, really. I could tell it had been an old, run-down wreck even before the evacuation. I entered in time to see Wendell swing around a wooden banister
and up into an open stairwell. I followed, losing ground with every weak and trembling step.

I thought about ditching my duffel bag on the first-floor landing, just tossing it into a corner where I could pick it up later, but decided against it. Somebody might find it—one of the kids on the street, one of Wendell’s friends—and I just couldn’t take that chance. If I lost
both
of my bags within minutes of entering the city—well, maybe my father was right about me. No common sense.

The light in the stairwell was tinted a strange shade of red, as if it had been filtered through crimson cellophane. There was a boarded-over skylight at the top of the stairwell, six floors up, but the light wasn’t coming from up there. It was trickling in from the landings. A low-grade hum filled the air around me: the sound of an engine grinding away in the distance, muffled by plaster and drywall and sheets of plywood. A generator? Whatever it was, I couldn’t pinpoint its location; I twisted my head from side to side, but the sound didn’t get any louder, didn’t change in the least.
Is it in my head?
I wondered.
Is it the sound of blood draining from my brain? The tidal pull of a hard, weak-kneed faint? Did I crack my head against the door frame without realizing it?

I heard a door slam shut on the fourth-floor landing and continued up the stairwell. I wasn’t running now; I could barely manage a fast stride.

I didn’t know this building. I didn’t know what might be waiting for me outside the stairwell. A gang with weapons? Wild animals? Wendell, hiding in the shadows with a two-by-four?

The baseball game out on the street had started back up, and the loud
crack
of ball against bat rang out like a gunshot, jolting my heart into a stutter. The hit was followed by a loud cheer and the sound of glass breaking in the distance.

I paused on the fourth-floor landing and tried to catch my breath. My chest was sore from the collision on the ground floor, and I couldn’t stop panting. There were gray spots swimming at
the edges of my vision. I pushed forward, opening the door and moving through in a low crouch, just in case Wendell was waiting for me on the other side.

The fourth-floor hallway was empty. Gray light seeped in through the open doorways along its length, illuminating drifts of crumbled plaster and refuse heaped against the walls. The whole place seemed damp. The carpet—a muddy, threadbare red—squished beneath my feet, and the smell of mold and rot made the air feel heavy and foul. I paused for a second, listening for Wendell. I could hear a rhythmic squeaking—the grind of machinery, maybe? pistons?—but no footsteps, no scrambling at windows or fire escapes.

Had he gone to ground? Was he hiding in one of these rooms?

I moved slowly from door to door, easing forward to peek into each room. The first half dozen were vacant. Nothing but stripped dirty mattresses, overturned nightstands, and shattered lamps. There were wrought-iron fire escapes outside each window, but all the sashes were closed, and I could see no signs of attempted escape.

The squeaking sound was coming from a room halfway down the corridor, and as I drew near, low animal growls and panting started to drown out the more mechanical noise. Bracing myself, I peered around the doorjamb and found a man and a woman having sex on a dirty mattress. They were still dressed in their derelict tatters, and the woman—pinned to the ground—was wearing gloves, her shrouded fingers digging into the back of the man’s jacket. The way they were going at it—it was something brutal and primal. All energy and friction, like dogs in heat.

Growling. Saliva flying.

They couldn’t see me where I was standing in the doorway, but even if they could, I don’t think they would have noticed. They were so consumed by their act, by their … 
passion
? No, not passion. Something less human, less emotional.

Not passion.
Drive
.

I watched for nearly half a minute, lost in the spectacle, before
finally noticing the kid in the closet. He must have been about eight years old. He wasn’t hiding; the doors were wide open. Instead, he was just sitting there beneath the hems of abandoned clothing. His eyes were wide, his dirty face an expressionless mask. He was watching me with an intense curiosity.

And it hit me—that boy’s stare—like a punch to the solar plexus.

I stumbled away from the doorway, my stomach churning, suddenly very, very dizzy, my head just about ready to fall off my neck.
I’m not right
, I told myself.
I cracked my skull. A concussion, internal bleeding, something serious and deadly
.

I continued down the corridor, away from the room with the fucking couple.

Away from the child.

The hallway made a ninety-degree turn, and I found yet more rooms stretching the width of the building. Only one of these doors was closed, and, coming from inside this room, I heard something new. To my ears, it sounded like a seldom-used window rattling open—rain-swollen wood groaning inside its frame, the sound of physical exertion vibrating through glass.

Wendell
, I thought, grateful for the distraction, for the chance to refocus my energies.

By the time I got to the door, though, the sound had stopped. Now there was only silence in the building. Even the sound of fucking, back along the corridor, had disappeared. Slowly, I eased the door open.

There were two people in the otherwise empty room. One—a young woman—was lying on her back in the middle of the floor. She was wearing a thin white dress; the material looked insubstantial, far too thin for the cold October air. Her face was pale, and her bright blue eyes stared up at the ceiling. Embedded up there—in the ceiling—was a naked man, his skin a sickly shade of black. The man’s body was spread facedown, reclined back against the ceiling in a relaxed pose. Where his body contacted
the wood and plaster, his flesh disappeared, like a mannequin half submerged in a pool of water.