Bad Glass

Or was it something stranger?

Perhaps hoping to stoke controversy or, more likely, trying to end on a note of humor, the newspaper went on to print two of my photographs: the face between the wall and the spider with the human finger. The low-res black-and-white reproductions were almost incomprehensible, but the writer went on to describe them: “… what appears to be a disembodied human face and a spider with a human finger in place of one of its legs. Purported to have been smuggled out of Spokane, these pictures recently appeared on the-missing-city.com, an Internet message board devoted to Spokane-related speculation. The photographer is currently unknown.”

There wasn’t any commentary on the photos, but the writer’s message, in including them, seemed clear to me. It was a threat, a warning.

Without official word from the government—without comprehensive explanation and media oversight—the public would go about creating its own crazy theories, filling the giant vacuum left by the government’s bloodless and insincere “no comment”s. Including my pictures in the article … this was just a taste of things to come. Without the truth, the media would be stuck publishing more and more ridiculous speculation—and there was some truly strange speculation floating around out there, some downright sinister and paranoid stuff. With my pictures, it seemed like the writer was trying to force the government’s hand, trying to force it—in the face of panic and confusion—to respond with information and truth.

But, I wondered when I first read that article, what happens when the truth rivals even the craziest Internet rambling? In that case, what could the government actually share?

And what does it take to drive a country insane?

Photograph. October 23, 08:45 A.M. Entryway:

The house has been abandoned. The front door stands open. There are signs of forced entry here—cracked wood around a canted doorknob. The photo frames the gaping maw, a large rectangle around a smaller nested frame. The welcome mat is cut in two by the image’s edge. “WELCOME.”

A wedge of sunlight illuminates a Persian rug on the other side of the doorway—an indistinguishable black and red scene spread across the white tile floor. Windblown leaves and pieces of junk mail form patterns on the tile and on the rug, describing eddies and gusts, describing neglect and desolation. It is a language punctuated by streaks and blobs of mud.

In the background, the house disappears into depthless gloom, hidden away from the sun’s feeble reach. There’s a portico back there, leading toward the rear of the house, and the dim outline of a staircase—graduated shades of gray reaching up toward the top of the frame.

There’s a landing at the top of the stairs. And in the corner, away from the ledge: two pinpricks of light, hidden in the dark shadows. Lidded slits, reflecting a glimmer of electric red. A shiny metallic pink.

Eyes. Animal eyes. Peering down at the camera. Peering down at the photographer.

There was light coming through the window when Danny woke me up.

“Rise and shine,” he said. “The world can’t turn without you.” He had a box of doughnuts in one hand and a thermos of coffee in the other.

“What the hell happened?” he asked, smiling, bemused. He crouched down next to me and handed me the thermos. “Charlie’s downstairs on the sofa, you and Floyd are up here having a sleepover, and no one else is home. Taylor’s gone.”

I ignored the question for a moment, instead focusing on the thermos. As soon as I got the cap off, my stomach started to growl, the smell of the coffee hitting me hard. When was the last time I ate? I wondered. Yesterday morning? I poured steaming coffee into the thermos lid, bolted it down, and then turned my attention to the doughnuts.

“What happened?” I finally said, echoing Danny’s question as I fumbled with the box. I had a hard time forming the words. I was tired, and the muscles in my jaw were tense and cramped. “Fuck if I know. The city happened. Weasel happened … I happened.”

Danny nodded and didn’t press me for details. He’d been in the city long enough to understand; there was no point in explaining the unexplainable. He watched as I bolted down a couple of doughnuts.

“How’s your hand?” he asked as soon as I started to slow down.

I paused, my eyes darting down to my bandaged palm. My hand! It had completely slipped my mind.

When was the last time I’d taken the antibiotics? I felt a rush of panic and immediately grabbed for my backpack. I found Mama Cass’s pills and swallowed a double dose. Then I started to unwrap the dirty gauze. I took it slow, my fingers shaking. I was afraid of what I might find.

What I found, however, was a pleasant surprise. The infection was gone. Completely gone. Underneath the bandage, which was stained a disgusting phlegmy yellow, there was nothing but a hardened scab. The surrounding skin was pale white, without even a hint of red. And even the gamy, rotten smell was gone.

I held up the hand, and Danny nodded his approval.

“And how’s he doing?” Danny asked, turning his attention to Floyd. I turned toward the bed, and, as if feeling the weight of our eyes, Floyd let out a pathetic groan and rolled toward the window. His hand crept up and covered his eyes. “Did our boy have a rough night?”

“Yeah. He overdid it on the oxycodone.”

“Fucking lightweight,” Danny said with a smile. The smile didn’t last long. He turned back toward me, and his expression collapsed into serious lines. “And what about Taylor?” he asked, his voice hushed, concerned. “She’s usually here this early. I brought her some breakfast.”

I shrugged, dejected. “I don’t know. Yesterday … she just ran away from me. We found Weasel—” I didn’t want to describe it. I didn’t want to tell Danny about the fingers in the floor. “It’s just … Weasel’s gone, and she freaked out. She ran away. And I don’t know where she went.”

“Did you try her parents’ house?”

“What?”

“Did you try her parents’ house?” he repeated, more slowly this time, as if my incomprehension were the result of poor enunciation. “She goes there a lot. She visits them almost every morning.”

“Her parents are here? In Spokane?” I was shocked. This information … it seemed ridiculous to me, utterly strange and unlikely.

Danny nodded, his eyes suddenly going wide. “I guess she doesn’t talk about them too much, but I assumed …” He paused. “I’m just surprised she didn’t tell you. She likes you, man. She likes you a lot.”

What had she told me about her parents? I tried to remember.

She’d said that they had disappeared. She’d said that they were gone.

“Where do they live?” I asked. “How do I get there?”

Danny watched me for a second. He was wearing an expression of concern, and for a moment I didn’t think he was going to talk. Why? Is it something he sees? I wondered. Something written across my face? Something that scares him?

Then Danny pulled out a small pad of paper and started drawing me a map.

It was gray out on the streets—still early morning, but you really couldn’t tell. Under that low, gray ceiling, it