Bad Glass

by Richard E. Gropp

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  But I wondered: Could she be down here? Still alive?

  I didn’t think so.

  Floyd’s shoulders started to shake, matching his palsied hands. I opened my mouth to tell him something reassuring—I’m sure she’s fine, she just lost her bag—but Charlie interrupted. “Shhhhhhh,” he urged. He was standing at my shoulder, and when I looked back, I found his eyes fixed on the tunnels up ahead, darting from one to another. His hands worked back and forth on the handle of his shovel. “Do you hear that? Do you hear that sound?”

  I held my breath and listened. After a moment, I picked out the sound of shouting in the distance. Then there was a low, ominous growl, echoing far, far away.

  The sound of wolves.

  The sound of shouting and wolves.

  Photograph. Undated. Amanda and the wolves:

  The picture is framed in the horizontal, perfectly level. All browns and blacks, contrasting white bathed in orange.

  It is underground: a dirt cave with a ten-foot ceiling, about twenty feet across. The space is illuminated from the left, where an irregular opening spills bright orange light into the earthen room. There is another tunnel in the right-hand wall, this one filled with darkness.

  At least twenty wolves clog the far end of the space. Twenty muzzles face the camera, bright eyes glimmering in the half-light. And, standing in their midst, near the far wall: a woman. Naked, breasts bared, waist-deep in furred mammals.

  The woman is blond and dirty. A wolf sits at her side, perhaps the largest in the room. Her hand rests on the scruff of its neck, and the animal, in turn, has a paw raised up against the woman’s side. This is the only animal that is not facing the camera. Its muzzle is turned to look up at the woman’s face.

  The woman’s expression is placid—no harsh lines or hunched-up muscles. Her eyes match the wolves’ perfectly; the left one is buried in darkness—a glint of metallic orange shining out from the shadows—and the right one is bright and wide.

  There are no bared teeth—on the wolves or on the woman—but the wolves look tense, their muscles coiled with a sharp animal alertness. They look ready to spring, ready to bite and shred and tear.

  Floyd dropped Sabine’s bag, and we once again plunged into the dark. At first, I wasn’t sure if I’d picked the right tunnel, but a shout—louder this time—confirmed my choice.

  A name, raw and angry: “Amanda!” It was Mac’s voice up ahead. I recognized the hoarse, bass growl.

  We emerged into another unlit hub and paused, once again waiting for a guiding voice. My head spun as I tried to catch my breath.

  And again: “Amanda!”

  Charlie darted out ahead this time, leading us into the rightmost tunnel. The tunnel jibbed and bent, and then there was light up ahead. I could see it—not a steady light but flickering, strobing against the dirt walls. I could smell ozone burning in the air.

  We came out into a wider corridor, still dirt but about six feet wide, much wider than the narrow boreholes through which we’d been running. Up ahead, there were two figures standing at the threshold of another, even wider space. Another hub, I guessed. The light was brighter here. We didn’t really need our flashlights anymore.

  It was Mac and Taylor, standing at the end of the tunnel. Mac had Taylor gripped in a sleeper hold, with Taylor’s arm waving above her shoulder as he wrenched her back and forth in that incapacitating embrace. They were facing away from us, into the attached room, and as we approached, I could hear Mac growl into Taylor’s ear: “Make her listen! Make her come here!”

  Taylor let out a sob. The sound—so pathetic and broken coming from such a strong woman—weakened my knees and almost sent me sprawling to the floor. But I managed to stay on my feet. I continued forward, shoving the flashlight into my pocket and wrapping the baseball bat in a tighter two-handed grip. The feel of the hardwood between my fingers gave me strength, and suddenly I was filled with an intense rage.

  Charlie stopped in the tunnel up ahead, pausing in indecision about fifteen feet from its end. I shoved him out of the way and continued on.

  Neither Mac nor Taylor saw me coming: Mac remained focused on the room beyond the threshold, and Taylor couldn’t even look back over her shoulder.

  “She’ll listen to you,” Mac growled into Taylor’s ear. “Make her—”

  And I swung.

  The bat slammed into the side of Mac’s knee. Tendon gave way, and he crumpled to the ground, pulling Taylor down on top of him. I bent forward and slid the barrel of the bat past Taylor’s head; she was still in his grasp, clenched tightly against his chest. I pushed the bat through Mac’s beard and slid it right up against his Adam’s apple … then I shoved him hard against the floor. He gagged as I applied more pressure.

  I bent forward and rested my weight against the bat’s handle.

  “I owe you a fucking shot to the head,” I hissed. “And if you make me do it, I’m not going to be laying down no fucking bunt. I’m going to drive your head out of the motherfucking park.”

  His hand loosened on Taylor’s neck, and she pulled her way free, immediately recoiling in disgust against the tunnel’s far wall. She let out another sob and buried her face in her hands. I kept the bat extended out toward Mac as I moved carefully to her side. Before I could put my arm around her shoulder, however, she pulled back once again, shaking her head.

  “No, please,” Mac said from his place on the ground. The crazed expression suddenly fell from his face, and his eyes filled with tears. “Please … You’ve got to just … Please!… Amanda … Amanda.” And his eyes spun back toward the brightly lit room on the other side of the threshold.

  I stayed where I was, but Floyd stepped over Mac’s legs and looked out into the room. “Dean,” he said, looking back at me after a handful of seconds, his eyes wide, his voice filled with wonder. “You’ve gotta see this shit.”

  Floyd and Charlie kept an eye on Mac while I peered into the room.

  It was a disorienting sight.

  I barely recognized Amanda. She was standing among a crowd of wolves on the far side of an oversized hub. They were pressed tightly around her; it looked like she was standing waist-deep in a furry, attentive pool. Since we’d last seen her, she’d lost all of her clothing, and she was now dressed in nothing but streaks of mud—intricate markings, purposefully drawn, like patterns of pigment in fur—across her cheekbones, her breasts, her belly, down the length of her arms.

  I took a step into the room, and the pack of wolves tensed forward. A low groan filled the hub, a faint subvocal growl filled with warning and menace. Bright light was flooding into the room from one of the connecting corridors, and two dozen sets of fangs glittered sharply in the orange glow. I felt a twinge of pain in my hand and pulled back instinctively. Once bitten …

  Amanda moved her arm, reaching forward slightly, then pulled it back toward her stomach. In response, the wolves settled onto their haunches, sitting almost in unison.

  “Amanda?” I said.

  She didn’t respond. Her eyes were wide, curious, but completely uncomprehending. They were the eyes of an animal. An attentive animal.

  “Amanda, it’s me, Dean. Remember me? Remember taking me to the park, finding the tunnel. The wolves? Remember looking for your dog—” I tried to remember its name, finally managing to fish it up from the depths of my memory. “Remember Sasha?”

  Her brow crinkled slightly at the name, and she reached down to touch the wolf at her side. The wolf showed me its teeth briefly—a tiny warning—then glanced up at Amanda’s face. It raised a strangely jointed paw and touched her side, as if it were offering her comfort.

  And there was silence. And the room was still. Her face flickered from that tiny questioning expression back to placid calm.

  I raised the camera to my eye and took a quick shot. It was an amazing, improbable scene, and my hands just reacted—a nervous gesture, really, something to occupy my eye, my hands, and a detached part of my mind
.

  “She’s gone,” Taylor said in the tunnel behind me. “Mac and I have been here for the last fifteen minutes. He’s been quizzing her, coaxing, trying to get her to remember who we are. Who she is.” There was anger and disgust in her voice. “But she doesn’t remember. They all just stand there. And they won’t let us get anywhere near.” She hawked up a glob of phlegm, and I heard her spit into the dirt at my back.

  “Face it: Amanda’s gone,” Taylor repeated. “And there’s just this … this empty shell in her place. This animal.”

  “No!” Mac roared. He rolled up onto his knees and pushed me aside, nearly sending me sprawling to the floor. He moved fast. “Amanda!” he yelled.

  None of us tried to stop him. None of us saw it coming.

  In a matter of moments, he was up on his feet and colliding with the wolves, trying to wade through the sea of fur and muscles and teeth, trying to reach Amanda on the other side. I saw her cringe back in fear, and the wolves surged forward, putting themselves between Mac and their mistress. That’s what she is, I realized, that’s what she’s become.

  And then they were on him.

  The room filled with growling and a single shrill howl. Fangs flashed as jaws clamped down on Mac’s arms and legs, pulling him to the ground. Shaking muzzles. Tearing flesh. I couldn’t hear him over the scrabbling claws and deep-throated growls, but I saw his mouth flash open. I don’t know what he was trying to say. I don’t know if he was trying to call out Amanda’s name once again, or if it was just an incoherent howl of pain and anger as the wolves tore chunks of flesh from his body. I saw one angry muzzle dive in and clench shut around his face, locking tight and shredding his flesh back and forth before finally pulling back with a mouthful of cheek and lip, leaving behind blood and a glimpse of pale white bone. Then Mac was gone, lost beneath a blanket of writhing fur.

  The frenzy went on for nearly a minute before Amanda stepped forward into the edge of the fray. She made a noise at the back of her throat. It wasn’t a growl, more like an oscillating whine. The pack slowed its frenzy, then backed away one by one. The final wolf had a large chunk of Mac’s arm dangling from its blood-drenched muzzle as it stepped back.

  Amanda didn’t even glance at the slab of shredded meat and jutting bone. She just turned, and the entire pack turned with her. They ran into one of the connecting corridors, soundless and graceful.

  And they were gone.

  I think it might have just been my imagination, but at the last moment, just before she disappeared from sight, it looked like Amanda dropped to all fours and started bounding forward on hands and feet. In that blur of activity, however, I couldn’t be sure.

  I stood at the threshold and watched as the last of Amanda’s pack disappeared into the darkness. Then it was quiet.

  I could feel Charlie, Floyd, and Taylor in the space behind me. Standing there in shock. But I didn’t turn around and look. I didn’t want to see their horrified faces.

  They’d be turned toward me, I knew, looking to me for direction. But I didn’t have the answers they were looking for. I didn’t have a clue. What I did have was a splitting headache. I had a lump in my throat and a small animal turning somersaults in my stomach. But no answers. No ideas.

  Mac was dead. That was about all I knew. He was dead, and he couldn’t have been any deader. Nothing but a disjointed slab of meat piled in the center of the floor.

  But Taylor was safe. Thank God, Taylor was safe.

  I looked down at the baseball bat in my hands. Disgusted, I tossed it aside.

  After nearly a minute, Charlie stepped up behind me. “See that corridor?” he whispered into my ear. His hand shot forward, pointing to one of the connecting tunnels. It was filled with flickering orange light. “That’s fire down there,” he said. “We must be near the mushroom. The army’s burning it from the ground.” He paused for a moment, letting his outstretched hand drop back down to his side. “It can’t be healthy down here … being so near.”

  I inhaled deeply. I could taste the thick char of smoke in my lungs. I hadn’t noticed it before. I’d been distracted—what with Amanda and the wolves, with Mac and his violent death. I coughed deeply and expelled a large clump of phlegm.

  “Let’s get out of here,” I said, turning away from the room. “We got what we came for. We got Taylor. Let’s get back to the surface.”

  Taylor was standing at my shoulder when I turned, and I nearly ran into her. The dirt on her face was streaked with tear tracks, and she refused to look me in the eye.

  Broken, I thought. Taylor had always been broken to some extent, but it seemed worse now. Her abduction, that loss of control—she looked so fragile, so absolutely devastated. I moved to put my hand on her shoulder, but she shrugged it aside and turned away, starting into the dark tunnel. She had her arms crossed in front of her chest, clutching herself tightly, a defensive pose, like a hedgehog curled into a tiny ball.

  And as she pulled away, the darkness came to life around her, reaching out and grabbing at her arms and legs.

  It was like an animal, this darkness, I was sure. With thoughts and intentions, trying to engulf her, trying to suck her into its depths. Coming at her from every side. Tendrils from every shadow. Writhing blindly. Touching her and wrapping tightly around her limbs, drawing dark lines across her back. Insubstantial yet also thick, wide. Not spider joints, thankfully, but long midnight-black tentacles. Pure black. Spilled ink, etched across a paper-made Taylor.

  My heartbeat quickened, and I stumbled forward a half dozen steps, trying to catch her before she could disappear, before the darkness could consume her.

  I’d found her. I’d ventured into the very depths of the city and actually found her!

  To lose her again, to the darkness, to the tunnel, to the city—

  But my vision cleared, and she was still there, in the tunnel before me. Perfectly normal. A stark outline against the dark wall. No tendrils, no errant shadows. Nothing but her back, flickering in and out of darkness as Charlie and Floyd moved behind me, their flashlights swinging up and down.

  I took a stutter step back, disoriented. What had I seen? Was it a trick of the light? Vicodin? Spores? Physical and emotional stress?

  Floyd, at my side, reached out and grabbed my bicep, holding me steady. I turned and faced him. His eyes were full of questions, full of concern, but I just shook my head.

  “Let’s go,” I said. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

  At the first hub, I passed Taylor and led the way into one of the right-hand tunnels, wanting to make sure we didn’t head back the way we’d come. I didn’t want Taylor to see Sabine’s bag or, God forbid, Danny. I just wanted to find some way up and out. Back home. Back to our little makeshift headquarters.

  Then, maybe, out of the city. And far away. Far away from this fucking place, with its waking nightmares and its constant fucking wounds.

  As far as I was concerned, this was it. I’d had enough. Even without Taylor—with her hidden face, always shrugging me off, always turning away—I needed to leave. No matter how painful that might be.

  This wasn’t a life.

  This was a fugue-state dream that I needed to wake up from. I needed to move on and grow the fuck up. I needed to get real. Finally, for once in my life, fucking real. Not art and photography, not romantic chaos and confusion without a center. Not the end of the world, painted in brooding, melancholy shades of gray and red. Real.

  I needed a job. I needed an apartment. I needed someplace stable and calm, something in my life that wasn’t tinged with madness or melancholy or fucking adolescent dreams. I needed to grow the fuck up! And that most definitely meant leaving Spokane and Taylor behind, finding someplace and someone stable. Things I could lean on without fear of falling on my face.

  I didn’t need piles of shredded meat bleeding in the dark. I didn’t need deformed flesh and a girlfriend who couldn’t even stand my touch.

  As I pressed on into the tunnel, I fumbled the bottle of Vicodin fr
om my pocket and dry swallowed another pill. That was another thing I needed to leave behind.

  But not yet. Not here.

  Time passed, and I lost all sense of direction. Turning randomly. Tunnel after tunnel after tunnel. Hub after hub after hub. They all looked the same to me, and it felt like we weren’t making any progress at all.

  Then Floyd paused and gestured me to a stop.

  “Do you hear that?” he asked, turning the flashlight back the way we’d come. Charlie and Taylor had taken the lead three hubs back, and there was only darkness behind us now.

  I shook my head. I didn’t hear a thing.

  “It was laughter,” Floyd whispered, a nervous smile on his face. He closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. The smile quivered, but it didn’t quite disappear. “It’s my brother. It’s Byron. He’s down here, Dean. He’s always been down here.”

  Charlie and Taylor paused up ahead as soon as they noticed that we’d stopped following. They were out of earshot, about twenty feet away, a semicircle of light in the darkness, their half-moon faces turned our way.

  Floyd took a step forward and then stopped. I was worried that he was going to take off into the tunnel, looking for his brother. And if that happened, I knew, he’d disappear. Forever. I knew it, just as I knew that Sabine was gone. And Weasel. And Danny. And Amanda. And Mac—most definitely Mac. I grabbed Floyd’s forearm and held him back. He looked down at my grip. There was no annoyance there, on his face, but no relief either. Hell, there was no comprehension whatsoever. He might as well have been staring at the bottom of an empty bucket.

  “He was looking for me that night,” he whispered, “when he died, when I …” He raised his eyes and once again squinted into the dark. “I don’t think he ever stopped looking. No matter where I run, no matter what I take, he’s always there, tortured and alone, looking for his big brother.”