The man was alive. At least his body was alive; I couldn’t say anything about his mind. I could see muscles twitching beneath his skin while his chest eased in and out, taking calm, shallow breaths. His eyes were wide, but they quivered wildly, rolling with the rhythm of short-circuiting nerves. There was no consciousness there, none that I could see. Just autonomous reaction: a body gone mad, without human control.
And the young woman in the white dress continued to watch, transfixed, lying on the floor beneath the body. She was just a girl, really, no older than seventeen. The man’s extended right hand made it look like he was reaching down, like he was offering the girl a tender caress, or grasping for his own salvation.
My hand started to shake, and I let it fall from the doorknob. There was a smell in the room, a strong, powerfully human smell. Sweat. Sweat and the sharp copper scent of freshly spilled blood.
Standing in the doorway, I hunched double, trying to fight back a sudden wave of nausea and vertigo.
And when I glanced back up, I found the girl watching me. While I’d been looking down, she’d turned her head my way, and now those bright blue eyes slammed into me. Her hand fluttered up toward the body in the ceiling, and she started to speak, her lips quivering weakly. I focused on her fingers. I was afraid she was going to reach up and grasp the dead man’s hand.
No… that was not what I was afraid of. I was afraid the man would grasp her hand.
I backed out of the room before she could find a louder voice. I didn’t want to hear what she had to say. I desperately didn’t want to hear. I retreated back the way I’d come, making it ten feet before I had to hunch over and vomit against the wall.
After that, I dropped into a kind of autopilot, letting my legs carry me out of the building.
Wendell and my backpack were long gone. They weren’t even memories in my shell-shocked mind.
I’m not sure how long I sat out on the curb.
The rain started to fall not long after I made it out of the building. The baseball game in the street fell apart, and the kids scattered under the cold drizzle. They barely noticed my ashen-faced stupor. Perhaps it was common here, that look, something they saw every day.
The rain wasn’t heavy, just a light, damp kiss against my face.
“You shouldn’t do that.”
It took me a moment to recognize the words, to parse them as human language and riddle out their meaning. A handful of seconds passed before I glanced up and saw a young woman standing before me. She had a black hoodie pulled up over her dark hair, protecting her from the rain, and there was a hard look on her face—smooth, tempered steel cast into human form. A backpack dangled from her hand.
“Do what?” I finally managed. “What shouldn’t I do?”
“Trust people.” She lifted the backpack by its strap and swung it back and forth in front of my eyes. It took me a moment to recognize it as my backpack, and when I reached out to accept it, my hand was shaking.
The steel fell away from her face, revealing a crinkle of concern. When she resumed speaking, her voice was quieter. “I caught up with Weasel down the street, reclaimed your bag. That man’s nothing if not predictable.” She shook her head, a weary gesture of disappointment. “Don’t get me wrong; he’s a good person, but he’s also an asshole. Takes advantage of the newcomers, steals their shit. I’ve tried to get him to stop, but he doesn’t listen. He’s got monkeys to feed.” She tapped a gloved finger against the inside of her elbow.
I nodded.
“You should get out of the rain,” she said, pointing to the hotel door behind us. Immediately, I stood up and started shaking my head.
“Not in there,” I said, backing away. “No fucking way.”
“Okay. Fine. We’ve got other options.” She led the way to a small one-story building on the other side of the street. It was practically a shack, a run-down shanty, dwarfed by the buildings on either side.
As soon as we got through the door, I dropped my bags to the floor and leaned back against the wall. It was a huge effort to stay on my feet. The pull of gravity seemed absolutely immense.
“You look pale,” the young woman said.
I nodded.
She pulled a bottle of Pepsi from the pocket of her sweatshirt and offered it to me. “Sugar should help. It’ll keep you from passing out.” I took a deep swig. The liquid went down the wrong way, and I coughed up a thin drizzle of spit.
After I finished coughing, the young woman offered me a sly smile. “My name’s Taylor. Taylor Stray—Gupta-Stray, actually. And you,” she said, pointing a finger at me, “you’re new here.”
“What…” I began, but I couldn’t finish the question. I didn’t even know what I wanted to ask. I stopped talking and closed my eyes. “My name’s Dean Walker,” I finally said, keeping my eyes shut.
“And you’re a photographer?” she asked. I opened my eyes in time to catch a shallow shrug. “I looked in your bag. After I took it from Weasel.”
“Yeah. I take pictures.”
“That’s good. There’s a lot to see here. I don’t know what pictures and stories have made it out to the real world, but we’ve certainly got a lot to photograph.” She made an idle clucking sound at the back of her throat. “Not quite sure it’s smart to seek it out, but it’s certainly there.”
I pushed myself off the wall and peered out the shack’s front window. The hotel loomed across the street—just a building, really, but suddenly malignant, hard to look at. “What is that place?” I asked. I ran my hand across the back of my skull but couldn’t find any wounds. No bumps or gashes. No concussion. Nothing to explain the things I had seen.
“The hotel?” Taylor asked. She shrugged. “Just a hotel. Nothing special.”
I picked up my backpack and fished out the camera. As soon as it was in my hands, I started to feel stronger. My fingers were still shaking as I took off the lens cap, but that wasn’t just fear and shock, not anymore. I was starting to get excited. I had seen something inexplicable. It had been overwhelming and terrifying, yes, but that was what I’d come here to find. That was why I ditched out on my final semester and broke a government quarantine. To capture those images, to capture Spokane.
And now I’d become a part of it—whatever was happening here, inside this city. I’d become experienced.
I took some pictures of the hotel’s face, moving from the windows to the doorway, trying to catch some of the foreboding I felt. But the foreboding wasn’t there. It was nothing visual, just a wound inside my head.
“Feeling better?” Taylor asked. “If you’re ready, I can show you around, help you find a place for the night.” I turned with the camera still raised to my face, viewing the room through its lens.
And that was when I noticed her eyes. They were beautiful. She was beautiful.
Outside, the rain was starting to let up, and the setting sun put in a final, last-minute appearance. A beam shot through a hole in the shack’s ceiling, highlighting Taylor’s face. And in that light, those strong, clear eyes practically shone. She was holding out my backpack, trying to get me moving. I took a couple of photographs, hoping to catch the intense look on her face.
“Just take the fucking bag,” she growled, finally tossing it at my feet.
“Jesus Christ!” I said. “Watch the fucking glass!”
“Yeah.” A wide smile spread across her face. “You’re feeling better.”