Bad Glass

by Richard E. Gropp

  “You’re the Poet,” I said awkwardly as I made my way down the front walk. “I’m sorry about before. Sabine and I … we didn’t mean—”

  As soon as I got about ten feet away, the Poet’s hand darted up, frantically warding me back. I stopped, and she nodded. She wanted me at a distance; that much was clear. Her eyes were wide inside her mask’s oval openings. Its mouth had been zippered shut.

  “What?” I asked, holding out my hands, trying to show her that I was not a threat. “What do you want me to do?”

  She held up her hand—palm flat, facing me—and urged me to stay still. Then she reached into the pocket of her paint-spattered peacoat. Her hand came out with a video camera. My video camera.

  “How?” I asked, perplexed. I tried to think back. What had I done with the camera? How had it managed to get from my backpack to the Poet’s hand?

  Without thinking, I started toward her. “Where did you—?”

  The Poet shook her head and took a quick step back, getting ready to flee. I stopped moving forward—in fact, I fell back a couple of steps—and after a tense moment, the masked woman started to calm back down. She’s like a nervous little bird, I thought, ready to fly at the slightest hint of movement. Eventually, she nodded her head and once again resumed her pantomime. She bent at her knees and slowly lowered the camera to the sidewalk, never once taking her eyes off my face. As soon as it touched the cement, she let go. Then she turned and ran away, fleeing as fast as she could, leaving the camera sitting alone on the sidewalk.

  I watched until she disappeared around a corner two blocks away. She was moving fast, running away from me as if I were a horrible threat, as if I were the Devil himself. And what could do that to a person? I wondered. What could scare someone into such complete and total retreat? Then I bent down and picked up the battered old Sony.

  I’m sure it was just a coincidence, but as soon as my hand closed around the camera, the clouds started to move back in over the city, tumbling toward the center of the sky like dirty water flowing toward a drain. And once all the red was gone, the clouds opened up and it started to piss down rain.

  I cast a final look down the empty street, then trotted back to the front door.

  Sabine had had the video camera. That was the last thing I could recall. She’d used it to record the soldier falling out of the hospital window. Then she’d had it in the tunnel, chasing Mac into the dark. And then … I guess she’d never given it back.

  Did she give it to the Poet? I wondered. Why? Why would she do that?

  I ran upstairs as soon as I got back in the house. I retreated to my room and locked the door behind me. Then I sat down on my futon and turned on the camera’s video screen.

  The battery was almost dead, but there was enough juice to view the most recent recording, and even though the screen was only three inches wide, I could see exactly what was going on.

  It was Sabine’s project, her “absolutely brilliant” piece of art.

  The camera didn’t have a speaker, so I had to watch without sound as she took her place in front of the camera, standing there with a sly grin on her face as her lips flapped in silence. Then she started to deface the Poet’s wall. I had to squint to make out the words in Sabine’s “response,” but the emotion of the piece still hit me pretty hard. There was so much anger there, in her words, so much venom—for the Poet, for her work. And to put it there, on the wall of her building, just outside her window—it was an act of violence, and viewing it made me feel a little sick.

  Did the Poet really deserve this? Just for keeping quiet, for shutting Sabine out? Obviously, the woman had problems of her own, and her greatest sin—her huge transgression—had been merely not living up to Sabine’s expectations.

  I felt a jolt of fear as Sabine dragged the sledgehammer into view. It was like watching a crime in progress, an assault. Sabine was going to attack the city—I knew that, I could see it coming—and I couldn’t imagine anything good happening as a result.

  But when she pounded on the wall, nothing happened. The hole just got bigger. And she got tired.

  I was relieved when she finally stopped. I was hoping she’d burned through all that anger. She’d let it flame brightly for that brief period, and now, I hoped, she’d be able to just walk away. Point made. Anger expressed. Bad blood gone.

  But then she leaned forward and stuck her head into the gap. It was terrifying, watching that, watching her motionless body perched there at the edge of that hole, just waiting for something to happen.

  What’s down there? I wondered. What’d she find? Spiders? A damaged face, a shattered body? A cache of gold, the perfect piece of art? Or, hell, maybe there were glowing words down there, etched into the building’s supports—answers to all of our questions, spelled out in bright, glowing colors (this is what’s happening, this is what’s going on).

  Or maybe it was nothing. Maybe it was just a dark, cramped space down there beneath the street. And what Sabine was seeing, what had stopped her cold, was something that in normal circumstances would have stayed a faint whisper in the back of her head. A fear, a personal epiphany, projected into an empty, brick-ringed hole.

  Whatever it was, it was a way forward. And it was a path Sabine must have felt compelled to take.

  Without looking back, she moved inside and disappeared.

  And that was it. That was the end of Sabine’s protest, the end of her little piece of performance art.

  I stared at the static scene for a long time. At first, I was waiting for her to come back out. Then, after a while, I was sure that she wouldn’t. After about five minutes, I hit the fast-forward button and spun through nearly a half hour of empty street. Then there was a hint of movement screen right. I hit the “play” button once again and watched as the Poet tentatively made her way on-screen, first standing back to study Sabine’s poem, then moving up to the wall to stare into the hole. She didn’t look for long—she just gave the hole a cursory, uninterested glance—before she backed up and headed toward the camera.

  The Poet stopped in the middle of the street, a couple of feet away. She bent down and stared into the camera lens for a long moment, her bright eyes sparkling behind her black leather mask. Then she reached out and shut it off.

  The screen went a brilliant blue in my hands, and I sat there for a while, trying to figure out what to do next.

  It took me about fifteen minutes to make it to Sabine’s poem.

  The rain was coming down hard by then, and the streets were all flooded. Spokane had been transformed into a maze of inch-deep rivers, and I cut a wake through the water as I made my way to St. James Tower, home of Cob Gilles and the Poet. By the time I got there, my clothing was soaked through. It stuck, cold, to my skin, and I couldn’t stop shivering.

  The poem was there. Large as life and just as angry. I noticed the can of green spray paint lying discarded in the gutter. Sabine’s ladder lay flat on the sidewalk nearby.

  I didn’t hesitate. I went right up to the hole and peered inside. There was less than a foot of space between the outer wall and the inner wall, and that space was almost completely filled with debris. There was absolutely no way anyone could have climbed inside. It was a physical impossibility.

  But that didn’t really surprise me.

  It was just like with Amanda and her tunnels. Where Sabine had gone, I couldn’t follow. Not yet, anyway. And not on this path.

  I rested my head against the wall for a long moment. I was exhausted, drained of all energy, beaten down to a pulp.

  Then I turned and headed back home.

  Taylor heard me open the front door and met me in the entryway.

  “Dinner’s ready,” she said. She looked tired. Her face was long, and every muscle in her cheeks and jaw had gone perfectly slack. “You’re soaking wet. Where did you go?”

  “I was looking for Sabine.” Taylor’s eyes went wide with concern, and I paused for a moment, trying to figure out what to say. I didn’t want to tell her t
he truth. I didn’t think she could handle another loss. “I thought she might be across the street, but she’s not there. She’s probably with Mama Cass.”

  Taylor nodded and dredged up a reassuring smile. “She’s a big girl, Dean. I’m sure she’s fine. We’ll all be fine.” Her voice was faint, and I could tell that she didn’t really believe what she was saying. She was just trying to be strong. For me.

  I nodded. “I need to go change,” I said. “But save me some food, okay? I’m absolutely famished.” I forced a smile of my own. It felt wrong on my face—a weak and transparent lie.

  Upstairs, I found Sabine’s duffel bag tucked beneath her bed. I gathered up all of her clothing and stuffed it inside, filling it nearly to overflowing. Then I crammed her drawing papers in on top. Charcoal words jumped out at me as I worked. They smeared beneath my damp fingertips—bold but so very, very fragile. And so very, very temporary.

  corridors and echoes …

  … inside …

  … she hides

  By the time I was done, the room looked completely abandoned. The bed wasn’t made, but all trace of Sabine was gone, hastily packed away. I left the door wide open and fled back to my room. I wrapped the duffel bag inside a patchwork quilt and buried it in the back of my closet, beneath a stack of neatly folded bedding.

  Then I stripped out of my wet clothes and collapsed naked onto the futon.

  No one has to know, I told myself. Not Taylor, or Floyd, or Charlie. It would do them absolutely no good. It would cause them nothing but pain.

  Sabine had been talking about leaving—I could tell them that. After meeting with the Poet, she’d gotten fed up. And, frustrated, she left. Without saying a word. It would be the most natural thing in the world.

  And they’d believe it. They’d want to believe it. We were all tempted to leave. We stayed—we kept staying—but we knew it was wrong. We knew we should be packing up and hiking out of here.

  Hell, my car was waiting just outside the city limits. I could gather up my cameras and go. Right now. I could be in the car in a matter of hours. I could be in Seattle by midnight.

  My hands started shaking in my lap. I clenched them into fists and then shook them loose. Again. And then again. Clenched and released. Clenched and released. Finally, I fished my jacket from the floor and dug through its pockets, coming up with my bottle of Vicodin. After a moment’s hesitation, I popped open the lid and bolted down a couple of pills.

  I wasn’t going anywhere.

  Photograph. October 25, 12:11 A.M. Taylor, bound:

  The shutter speed is wrong. Every edge is blurred slightly, giving the picture—a young woman sitting, bound, on the edge of a bed—a feathered, ephemeral quality. It is like the scene is moving, caught in transition.

  The bedroom is lit in candlelight—a warm yellow, burning out of frame, somewhere to the woman’s left. Her clothing is disheveled; the shoulder of her hoodie has slipped down, exposing pale skin at her neck, between strands of wild black hair. Her hands and forearms are extended out in front of her body, bound together with loops of gray duct tape. There is tape across her mouth, too, stretching from ear to ear.

  The woman’s eyes are wide, lashes and brow raised in fright. She is looking right back at the camera. Her entire world is focused on that one point in space and time—laser sharp and terrified. Her right cheek is lost in shadow; her left is glistening with tears.

  We had red beans and rice for dinner. It was an instant mix that Taylor had found in the pantry. I didn’t have much of an appetite—my head was swimming, and the Vicodin made my arms and face feel heavy—but I ate anyway, trying to keep up appearances.

  I didn’t say anything about Sabine. I wanted someone else to find her emptied room.

  Now that the sky was once again normal—five o’clock and already pitch black, still raining hard—Floyd seemed calmer. He was still casting nervous glances toward the windows, but he was talking now and eating. It was probably just the oxycodone, but there were bursts of bubbly delirium mixed in with his chattering nerves.

  “So, now that the world is over,” he asked, “what do you do?” He was addressing all of us at the table. His fork moved aimlessly through his food. “What’s your final meal? Your last words?”

  “The world isn’t over,” Charlie replied, glancing up from his computer. His voice was subdued, but there was a hint of anger there, tamped down and carefully locked away. “Devon was lying. It was complete bullshit.”

  “And the speed of light? The machine? The laser?”

  “It was a fake. A hoax.” Charlie paused, and as I watched, something inside him changed. Slowly, his eyes went wide and his back straightened in his chair. “Or maybe, maybe what’s happening here affects perception. Maybe it just seems like the speed of light is changing, but really, really, it’s just an inability to measure things. Maybe there is something wrong with physics, but local and not at all catastrophic.” Charlie’s voice gathered speed as he went along. He was getting excited. “I bet my parents figured it out. I bet they’re out there right now, hunting down the source.”

  Taylor shot me a concerned look. Her expression was grave, and there was a question in her eyes: What do we do? What do we do about Charlie?

  “We don’t know anything,” I said, feeling an edge of annoyance starting to slip through my numb Vicodin shield. I turned toward Floyd and continued: “And as far as planning our last words, what’s the point? If it’s over, it’s over … There won’t be anyone left to hear. Or care. Or remember. Just words, floating through space.”

  Taylor fixed me with a disapproving glare, and for a brief, surprisingly liberating moment I wanted to tell her to go fuck herself. But I stayed silent. I think I was pretty high by then.

  That’s when Danny showed up.

  “Hello?” the soldier called as he came in through the front door. I heard him shed his rain-drenched coat onto the entryway floor. Then he stuck his head into the dining room. He was wearing a ridiculously out-of-place fishing hat, and there was water dripping from its brim.

  When he saw us there, sitting at the table, he flashed a broad smile. “If you’ve got the food, I brought the drinks,” he said, pulling a couple of bottles from a rainproof utility bag.

  He glanced around the table and saw the serious expressions on our faces. His smile faltered briefly, quivering in confusion. Then it strengthened once again.

  “C’mon, guys. It’s time to cheer the fuck up,” he said. “It’s time to celebrate!” He let out a brief laugh. “We figured it out. The military—your loyal military—we finally know what’s going on.”

  We retired to the living room, and Danny ate while the rest of us passed around his booze. One of the bottles was amber bourbon, the other a brilliant, sky-blue bottle of gin. Leftovers from the other night, remnants of his clandestine booty. I took a long draw on the gin as soon as it got within reach.

  “They found spores in the air,” Danny said between forkfuls of food. “It’s not a very high concentration—I don’t remember, something like one part in a million—but they found it. They finally found it! We’ve been unlucky up until now. We’ve been running air samples since day one, but—you see—it moves. In clouds, or waves, or something. It’s only around at certain times, and you’ve got to catch it just right.”

  He smiled and dropped his fork into his empty bowl. “Once we knew what we were looking for, the experts were able to find the source. Earlier today, they found a giant mushroom.” He let out a wild laugh, amazed at the thought, or at the sheer craziness of having to say those words. “Really, it’s some type of fungus, underground, near the shore of the river, east of Riverside Park. Apparently, it’s huge. It covers nearly a full square mile.”

  “The spores are hallucinogenic?” Charlie asked. He didn’t sound willing to believe. “You’re saying we’ve been hallucinating … all of this?” He gestured, weakly toward the kitchen and, I imagined, the notebook computer still sitting on the dining-room table. The emails
from his parents.

  “Well, yeah. It affects mood and perception. Sometimes it’s subtle, and sometimes it’s full-out catatonia. It blocks the receptors—neurotransmitters in the brain.” He tapped idly at his temple. “Like serotonin. And norepinephrine. Just like LSD.”

  “But what about the sky?” Floyd asked. His eyes darted from Danny, to Taylor, and then back to Danny. “The sky was red. And crawling. There were … there were things up there. We all saw it. That wasn’t just some fucking hallucination!”

  Danny smiled. I got the sense that he was enjoying his role here, telling us this stuff, answering our questions. He was a fount of knowledge, a deity, if just for a minute or two, answering all our prayers. “That’s part of its bloom, part of its cycle. It’s been fruiting, and when enough spores reach the atmosphere, light refracts off the particles, just below cloud level … And I’m guessing it’s not really as spectacular as you think it is. The sky was red, but everything else … that’s just your brain spinning out of control.”

  Danny’s expression settled into serious lines, and he surveyed each of us in turn, meeting our eyes. “In fact, everything you’ve seen or heard here in the city … I wouldn’t put too much stock in it.”

  Danny leaned over and dug into the pockets of his khaki pants. He came up with a bottle of pills and shook it for a second, making it rattle. “This is Zoloft. It should help. It should free up your receptors.” He tossed the bottle over to Floyd, catching him unaware. The bottle hit Floyd’s hands and fell to the floor. Floyd quickly scooped it back up. “Take two. All of you … two a day for as long as you’re here. The experts say it should help. They’ve got us all taking it.”