Bad Glass

I could combine the photos, I thought, snapping the shot. At first it was just an idle bit of fancy, but the image that rose to mind was strangely affecting. I glanced down at the LCD screen and studied the photograph I’d just taken. I could see it now. The combined picture would have Amanda, Mac, Charlie’s mother, and Taylor, all lined up in a row. Amanda, Mac, and Taylor would look confused and just a little bit bored—on the camera’s screen, Taylor had her arms crossed in front of her chest and an impatient look on her face—but Charlie’s mother … she would be wreathed in a halo of mist, glancing back over her shoulder with that scared look on her face.

It would be an interesting shot. A hole punched through the world. A hole punched through time.

“Charlie!” Taylor called. I looked up from the camera and found her turning a full circle in the middle of the street, her hands cupped around her mouth. “Charlie!”

I joined the others at the sign, and we all started craning our heads, studying the surrounding buildings. After about a minute, I noticed Charlie half a block away, standing motionless in a doorway on Second Avenue. He wasn’t moving to join us. He wasn’t even looking our way. His head was down, tilted against the door frame, and the way he looked—the slump to his shoulders—made me think that the frame was the only thing keeping him on his feet.

I started toward him, and the others followed as soon as they saw where I was going. When I got within a dozen feet, I slowed down and stopped, not sure how to proceed. Charlie’s face was ashen-gray, and his cheeks glistened with tears. That emotion stopped me cold. I didn’t know what I could do for him. He’s a kid, I thought, just a kid of seventeen. I knew he was curious, painfully smart, and full of answers, but really, I didn’t know him at all.

As I watched, his shoulders started to shake, trembling like branches caught in a swirling wind.

Taylor took over. She sprinted past me to Charlie’s side and wrapped her arms around him, scaring up a hitching, breathless sob.

“I can’t find her,” Charlie groaned, expelling breathless words against Taylor’s shoulder. “She was here, in the picture. She was here, but now she’s gone … and I can’t find her!”

“We’ll help,” Taylor said, her voice soothing and calm. “If you want, we’ll help you look.”

Taylor lifted her hand from Charlie’s back and gestured Amanda, Mac, and me toward the surrounding buildings, using a little twirl of her finger. Trying to get rid of us, I realized. And I felt relief—then guilt at that relief—as I retreated back down the street, away from Charlie and all that raw emotion. Both Amanda and Mac kept their faces down as they moved away, disappearing into the nearest doorway on the south side of the street.

I glanced from the bent sign toward the surrounding buildings. There was nothing there, no signs of life. There were street-level stores with shuttered windows; a couple of stairways leading down to substreet levels—cafés, a shoe store, some second-rate restaurants; and, looming overhead, a cluster of old run-down office buildings.

In the picture, Charlie’s mother had been facing down the length of Second Avenue, looking back over her shoulder. Her body had been turned toward the line of buildings on the north side of the street. Not much of a lead, but it was something. A place to start, at least. I headed toward that side of the road and opened the first door I came to.

On the other side of the door, I found a small alcove lined with metal mailboxes. An apartment building, then. Judging from the number of blank name tags on the mail slots, I guessed that most of these apartments had been vacant before the evacuation. There was a narrow stairway at the end of the alcove, leading up to the housing overhead.

“Hello?” I called. My voice was tentative, weak. “Anyone home?”

I waited for a response, but none came.

I started up the stairs, and a gamy, spoiled-meat smell greeted me on the second-floor landing. Not decomposing flesh or dead animal, more like deli-style roast beef left out in the sun. A thick, damp smell. Almost musty.

There were six apartments on this level, and four of the doors stood wide open. Each of these tiny two-room dwellings was completely bare—nothing but frayed carpeting stained a uniform dingy brown. The bathroom doors stood open, revealing tiny sinks and coffin-size showers.