The City of Mirrors

by Justin Cronin

  “Sara, come on! We have to get out of here!”

  One of the horses whinnied and tore past her. It made it all of fifty feet down the road before a glowing shape swooped down and knocked it off his feet. Jaws tore into the horse’s neck with a ripping sound.

  Sara’s mind snapped back into a wider awareness. Hollis was pulling her by the wrist. The river! he yelled. We have to get to the river! With a hard yank, he hauled her into the cover of the trees; they began to run. Shapes bounded above them, limb to limb. Branches whipped her face and arms. Where was the river, their salvation? Sara could hear it but could not locate it in the dark.

  “Jump!”

  In midair, she realized what was happening. They had leapt from a cliff. As she hit the surface, a new, deeper darkness, the darkness of water, enveloped her. It seemed she would never stop descending, but at last her feet touched the bottom. She pushed off and shot to the surface.

  “Hollis!” She twisted in the water, blindly searching. “Hollis, where are you?”

  “Over here. Keep your voice down.”

  She was spinning frantically, trying to locate the source of the voice. “I can’t find you.”

  “Stay where you are.”

  Hollis appeared, treading water beside her. “Are you hurt?”

  Was she? She took stock of her body. She didn’t think she was.

  “What’s happening? Where did they come from?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Don’t leave me.”

  “Breathe, Sara.”

  She fought to calm herself. In, out, in, out.

  “It looks like there are pockets at the base of the cliff,” Hollis said. “We’re going to swim there. Can you do it?”

  She nodded. The water was freezing; her teeth had begun to chatter.

  “Stay close.”

  With a smooth breaststroke he glided away, Sara following. The cliff took form above her. It wasn’t as tall as she’d thought, perhaps twenty feet, and irregularly shaped, with blocky protrusions of pale limestone cantilevered over the pool. The water became shallower; Sara realized she could stand. Hollis guided her beneath an outcrop. A flat-topped boulder rose above the surface of the water. Hollis helped her up.

  “We should be safe here for the night,” he said.

  Shivering, Sara leaned against him; Hollis put his arm around her and drew her close. She thought of her children, out there in the dark. She buried her face in Hollis’s chest and began to cry.

  Dory melted to the ground like a puppet cut from its strings. Caleb stepped over the body. Kate was still propped against the wall, her body inert, numbed by shock and fear.

  “There’s more out there,” Caleb said. “We have to get to the shelter.”

  She looked at him with an unfocused gaze.

  “Kate, snap out of it.”

  He couldn’t wait. He grabbed her by the wrist and shoved her out the door. Pim was huddled by the hearth with the children. She hadn’t heard the shot, but he knew she had felt it, shuddering through the frame of the house.

  Caleb signed a single word: Go.

  He dropped the rifle and scooped Elle and Bug into his arms, balancing them on the points of his hips; Pim was carrying Theo. They raced out the back door into the yard. Pim was ahead of him, Kate behind. The darkness was coming alive. The crowns of the trees tossed as if by the wind of an approaching storm. Pim and Theo reached the shelter first. Caleb dropped the girls to their feet and hauled the door of the hardbox open. Pim scrambled down the ladder and raised her arms to take Theo and then the girls, Caleb following.

  At the top of the ladder, he stopped. Kate was standing thirty feet away.

  “Kate, come on!”

  She drew her collar aside. At the base of her throat, a wound had bloomed with blood. Caleb’s stomach dropped; all sensation left him.

  “Shut the door,” she said.

  She was holding the revolver. He couldn’t move.

  “Caleb, please!” She collapsed to her knees. A deep tremor shook her body. She was cradling the gun in her lap, attempting to lift it. She rocked her head skyward as a second jolt moved through her. “I’m begging you!” she sobbed. “If you love me, shut the door!”

  His windpipe clamped; he could barely breathe. Behind her, shapes were dropping from the trees. Caleb reached above his head, taking the handle in his grip.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

  He drew down the door, sealing them in blackness, and shoved the crossbars into place. The children were crying. He felt for the lantern, took a box of matches from his pocket. His hands were trembling as he lit the wick. Pim was huddled with the children against the wall.

  Her eyes grew very wide. Where’s Kate?

  From outside, a shot.

  VII

  The Awakening

  At the round earth’s imagin’d corners, blow

  Your trumpets, angels, and arise, arise

  From death, you numberless infinities

  Of souls.

  —JOHN DONNE, HOLY SONNETS

  55

  Peter awoke to a clattering of branches dragging against the side of the Humvee. He shook off his sluggishness and sat up.

  “Where are we?”

  “Houston,” Greer said. Michael was asleep in the passenger seat. “Not long now.”

  A few minutes later, Greer brought the vehicle to a halt. To the east, the darkness had begun to soften.

  “Let’s be quick now,” Greer said.

  Peter and Michael unloaded their gear. They were at the edge of the lagoon; to the east, skyscrapers of incredible height cut black rectangles against the diminishing stars. Greer dragged a rowboat into the shallows. Michael sat in the bow, Peter the stern; Greer climbed into the middle, facing backward. The boat sank nearly to the gunwale but remained afloat.

  “I was a little worried about that,” Greer confessed.

  With broad strokes he propelled them across the lagoon. Peter watched the city’s core harden into its full dimensions. The Mariner soared into view, its great wide stern riding high above the water. Inside One Allen Center they tied off, gathered their supplies, and began to climb.

  From a window on the tenth floor, they dropped to the deck. Dawn was a few minutes away. Greer had refurbished a small crane of a type once used to lower cargo over the side of the ship. He spread the net beneath it, tightened the spring on the spinner joint, and attached it to the rope that ran through the block at the end of the boom. A second rope would be used to swing the boom over the water. Greer would manage the first rope, Michael the second. Peter’s job was to act as bait—Greer’s theory being that Peter was the person Amy was least likely to kill.

  Greer handed him the wrench. “Remember, she’s not the Amy we know.”

  They took up their positions. Peter fit the tip of the wrench around the first bolt.

  “They’re here,” said Amy.

  Carter was sitting across the table from her. “Feel it, too.”

  Her heart was racing; she felt a little dizzy. It always came on like this, with a sensation of physical acceleration that culminated in an abrupt expulsion from one world to the next, as if she were a rock hurled from a sling.

  “I wish you were coming with me,” she said.

  “Long as I’m here, they’re safe. You know that.”

  She did. If Carter died, the dopeys, his Many, would die with him. Without them, Amy and Carter stood no chance.

  She looked around the garden one last time, saying goodbye. She closed her eyes.

  Two bolts to go, one on each side. Peter loosened the first, leaving it in place. As he fit the head of the wrench around the second bolt, a massive force, like a giant fist, struck the hatch from the opposite side. The deck beneath his knees shuddered from the impact.

  “Amy, it’s me! It’s Peter!”

  Another wang; the loosened bolt popped from the hole and bounced across the deck. He had seconds to spare. With a final yank, he freed the last bolt and beg
an to run.

  The hatch blew skyward.

  Amy alighted on the deck, compressing to a reptilian crouch. Her body was glossy and compact, annealed with hard muscle beneath the crystalline sheath of skin. Peter was standing just beyond the net. For a moment she seemed puzzled by her surroundings; then her head slanted with a darting motion, taking him into her sights. She scuttled forward. Peter saw no recognition in her eyes.

  “Amy.” He lifted a hand toward her and spread his fingers. “It’s me.”

  She halted, inches from the net.

  “It’s Peter.”

  Rising, Amy stepped forward. Greer pulled the rope; the net engulfed her and shot upward, her weight freeing the spinner from its brake. The net began to twirl, faster and faster. Amy was screaming and thrashing in its grasp. Michael yanked the second rope, swinging the boom over the side of the ship.

  Greer let go. The rope holding the net shrieked through the block. Peter ran to the rail. He had just enough time to see the splash before Amy vanished into the oily water.

  Darkness.

  She was spinning and twisting and falling. Her senses swarmed with the awful, chemical-tasting water. It filled her mouth. It filled her nose and eyes and ears, a grip of pure death. She touched down upon the mucky bottom. The net held her body fast in its tangle. She needed to breathe. To breathe! She was thrashing, clawing, but there was no escaping its grasp. The first bubble of air rose from her mouth. No, she thought, don’t breathe! This simple thing, to open one’s lungs and take in the air: the body demanded it. A second bubble and her throat opened and the water slammed into her. She began to choke. The world was dissolving. No, it was she who was dissolving. Her body felt untethered to her thoughts, a thing apart, no longer hers. Her heart began to slow. A new darkness came upon her. It spread from within. This is what it’s like, she thought. Panic, and pain, and then the letting go. This is what it’s like to die.

  Then she was somewhere else.

  She was playing a piano. This was strange, because she’d never learned. Yet here she was, playing not just well but expertly, fingers prancing across the keys. There was no sheet music before her; the song came from her head. A sad and beautiful song, full of tenderness and the sweet sorrows of life. Why did it seem entirely new to her but also remembered, like something from a dream? As she played, she began to discern patterns in the notes. Their relationship was not arbitrary; they moved through discernible cycles. Each cycle carried a slight variation of the song’s emotional core, a melodic line that never wholly departed but supported the rest like laundry on a string. How astonishing! She felt as if she were speaking an entirely new language, far more subtle and expressive than ordinary speech, capable of communicating the deepest truths. It made her happy, very happy, and she went on playing, her fingers dexterously moving, her spirit soaring with delight.

  The song turned a corner; she could sense its end approaching. The final notes descended. They hung like dust motes in the air, then were gone.

  “That was wonderful.”

  Peter was standing behind her. Amy leaned the back of her head against his chest.

  “I didn’t hear you come in,” she said.

  “I didn’t want to disturb you. I know how much you like to play. Will you play me another?” he asked.

  “Would you like that?”

  “Oh, yes,” he said. “Very much.”

  “Pull her up!” Peter yelled.

  Greer was looking at his watch. “Not yet.”

  “Goddamnit, she’s drowning!”

  Greer continued looking at his watch with infuriating patience. At last he looked up.

  “Now,” he said.

  She played for a long while, song after song. The first was light, with a humorous energy; it made her feel as if she were at a gathering of friends, everyone talking and laughing, darkness thickening outside the windows as the party went on and on into the small hours of the night. The next one was more serious. It began with a deep, sonorous chord at the bass end of the keyboard, with a slightly sour tone. A song of regret, of acts that could not be recalled, mistakes that could never be undone.

  There were others. One was like looking at a fire. Another like falling snow. A third was horses galloping through tall grass beneath a blue autumn sky. She played and played. There was so much feeling in the world. So much sadness. So much longing. So much joy. Everything had a soul. The petals of flowers. The mice of the field. The clouds and rain and the bare limbs of trees. All these things and many others were in the songs she played. Peter was still behind her. The music was for him, an offering of love. She felt at peace.

  They swung the net over the side and lowered it to the deck. Greer drew a knife and began to slash at the filaments.

  In the net was the body of a woman.

  “Hurry,” Peter said.

  Greer hacked away. He was fashioning a hole. “Take her feet.”

  Michael and Peter drew Amy free and laid her faceup on the deck. The sun was rising. Her body was limp, with a bluish cast. On her head, a scrim of black hair.

  She wasn’t breathing.

  Peter dropped to his knees; Michael straddled her at the waist, stacked his palms, and positioned them on Amy’s sternum. Peter slid his left hand beneath her neck, lifting it slightly to open the airway; with his other hand he pinched her nose. He fit his mouth over hers and blew.

  “Amy.”

  Her fingers stilled, bringing a sudden silence to the room. She lifted her hands above the keyboard, palms flat, fingers extended.

  “I need you to do something for me,” Peter said.

  She reached over her shoulder, took his left hand, and placed it against her cheek. His skin was cold and smelled of the river, where he liked to spend his days. How wonderful everything was. “Tell me.”

  “Don’t leave me, Amy.”

  “What makes you think I’m going someplace?”

  “It’s not time yet.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Do you know where you are?”

  She wanted to turn around to see his face and yet could not. “I do. I think I do. We’re at the farmstead.”

  “Then you know why you can’t stay.”

  She was suddenly cold. “But I want to.”

  “It’s too soon. I’m sorry.”

  She began to cough.

  “I need you with me,” Peter said. “There are things we have to do.”

  The coughing became more intense. Her whole body shook with it. Her limbs were like ice. What was happening to her?

  “Come back to me, Amy.”

  She was choking. She was going to vomit. The room began to fade. Something else was taking its place. A sharp pain stuck her chest, like the blow of a fist. She doubled over, her body curling around the impact. Foul-tasting water poured from her mouth.

  “Come back to me, Amy. Come back to me …”

  “Come back to me.”

  Amy’s face was slack, her body still. Michael was counting out the compressions. Fifteen. Twenty. Twenty-five.

  “Goddamnit, Greer!” Peter yelled. “She’s dying!”

  “Don’t stop.”

  “It’s not working!”

  Peter bent his face to hers once more, pinched her nose, and blew.

  Something clicked inside her. Peter pulled away as her mouth opened wide in a throttled gasp. He rolled her over, slipped an arm beneath her torso to lift her slightly, and pounded her on the back. With a retching sound, water jetted from her mouth onto the deck.

  There was a face. That was the first thing she became aware of. A face, its features vague, and behind it only sky. Where was she? What had occurred? Who was this person who was looking at her, floating in the heavens? She blinked, trying to focus her eyes. Slowly the image resolved. A nose. The curving shape of ears. A broad, smiling mouth and, above it, eyes that glittered with tears. Pure happiness filled her like a bursting star.

  “Oh, Peter,” she said, raising a hand to his cheek. “It is s
o good to see you.”

  VIII

  The Siege

  Thick as autumnal leaves or driving sand,

  The moving squadrons blacken all the strand.

  —HOMER, THE ILIAD

  56

  All night long, the virals pounded.

  It happened in bursts. Five minutes, ten, their fists and bodies slamming against the door—a period of silence, then they would began again.

  Eventually the intervals between the attacks grew longer. The girls gave up their crying and slept, their heads buried in Pim’s lap. More time passed with no sounds outside; finally, the virals did not return.

  Caleb waited. When would dawn come? When would it be safe to open the door? Pim, too, had fallen asleep; the terrors of the night had exhausted all of them. He leaned his head against the wall and closed his eyes.

  He awoke to muffled voices outside; help had arrived. Whoever it was had begun to knock.

  Pim awoke. The girls were still asleep. She signed a simple question mark.

  It’s people, he replied.

  Still, it was with some anxiety that he unbarred the door. He pushed it just a little; a crack of daylight blasted his eyes. He shoved the door open the rest of the way, blinking in the light.

  Standing before him, Sara dropped to her knees.

  “Oh, thank God,” she said.

  Hollis was with her; the two were barefoot, soaked to the bone.

  “We were coming to see you when they attacked,” Hollis explained. “We hid in the river.”

  Pim lifted the children out and climbed up behind them. Sara embraced her, weeping. “Thank God, thank God.” She knelt and drew the girls into her arms. “You’re safe. My babies are safe.”

  Caleb’s relief melted away. He realized what was about to happen.

  “Kate,” Sara yelled. “Come out now!”

  Nobody said anything.