over a dozen feet away—but I could imagine them rolled back inside his skull.
There was a woman seated next to the man’s stunted body, a white woman in her fifties, propped up in a comfortable nest of pillows.
“Taylor!” she cried. “Taylor!” Now the woman’s voice was loud enough for me to hear, frantic and shrill and filled with a primal, instinctual fear. “What is this?
I looked up and saw Taylor towering over her parents. Her eyes were locked on me, narrowed and filled with a cold, biting anger. She wasn’t moving. My presence here had frozen her solid.
Her mother continued to struggle with the blanket, trying desperately to throw it up and over the clothesline. She worked one-handed, refusing to release her grip on her husband. “Help,” she said, turning to look back at Taylor. “Please, Taylor, for the love of God, help!” Her words came out frantic and disjointed. There were tears running down her cheeks.
Finally, Taylor stepped forward and put the blanket back in place, carefully draping it over the clothesline. Once it was back up—and her parents hidden from view—Taylor pointed at me and gestured me away from the window. It was an angry, dismissive shooing gesture. And at that moment, I swear, there was genuine hate in her eyes. At that moment, I think she couldn’t fucking stand me.
I backed away, horrified.
What had I done?
I sat down in the dirt and waited for Taylor to appear. There was a frigid wind blowing down from the north, and the clouds were getting darker overhead, a dense slate-gray weight perched above the city. It felt like snow.
I didn’t know what was going to happen with Taylor. I’d looked in on something private here, a secret, and didn’t know how she was going to react.
Her parents. Her father, melted into the floor, consumed by the city.
I thought it was unheard of—this phenomenon—I thought it was something that I alone had been carrying around. I thought it was mine. But Taylor had seen Weasel; she’d seen his fingers. She was a part of it now. I’d infected her.
Maybe it would be for the best if she pushed me away. Maybe I was a cancer that needed to be excised from her life.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” she asked, rounding the corner of the house. She stopped on the other side of the yard, crossing her arms and leaning back against the wall. “Did you follow me? Did you fucking follow me?”
“Danny told me about the house, your parents’ house. I was worried about you. You ran away … after Weasel. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“And how the fuck did Danny know? I didn’t tell him. Has
I shrugged. “I don’t know, but I didn’t mean—” I struggled for a moment, trying to figure out what I did mean, what I’d been hoping—or expecting—to find on the other side of her parents’ window. Finally, I managed: “I didn’t mean to scare your mom. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I’m sorry.” Taylor’s face remained impassive, set in stone. “And I’m sorry about your father.”
There was a hint of emotion then, a slight twisting at the corner of her lips. Taylor remained still for a while. Then she pushed herself away from the wall and let out a loud sigh, her anger transitioning into a desolate sadness.
“She won’t leave him,” she said. “My mother. She thinks he’s still in there. The sounds he makes; she thinks he’s communicating, thinks he’s saying her name. Miriam, fucking Miriam. But he’s not. It’s just stupid, senseless noise.” She clenched her arms tighter across her chest, like maybe she was just now starting to feel the cold October air. “She’s set up camp right there, next to him, and she won’t leave … Yet she won’t let me stay in the house! She wants me out of the city. She wants me gone.”
“She loves you. She wants you to be safe.”
Taylor clenched her body even tighter. I could see her shivering now. “I don’t see why,” she said quietly, a bitter hint of self-loathing in her voice. “She should hate me. I ruin everything I touch.”
“That’s not true,” I said, shaking my head. “That’s just not true. I don’t know … maybe it’s me. You remember what Danny said? There were no reports of anything like this before I showed up. Nothing. Nowhere. It’s just around me—people falling through walls, losing cohesion. It’s something I brought into the city, something the city brought out of me. You just got too close … And I’m sorry for that. I’m just so, so sorry.”
“No, Dean,” she said, her voice calm, suddenly devoid of energy. She was stating fact now; there was no room for emotion. “It’s not you; it’s not even the city. It’s me. I’m doing this. Everything around me.” Then, more quietly: “It’s what I do. People get close to me and they fall apart.”
“That’s just not true.”
“This happened a month ago, Dean,” she said, gesturing frantically toward the house, toward her father trapped inside. “Before you got here. We were fighting. I was yelling at him—fucking yelling—and he stepped through the fucking floor. He put his foot down, and it just didn’t stop going. And it’s not just him, Dean. I see this a lot. It’s happening all around me … You saw Weasel!”
I stood up and started toward her, wanting to give her some type of comfort, but she held up her hands and took a step back, shaking her head violently. “Jesus Christ, Dean. No! Just stay back.” Her voice hitched, and tears started to pool in her eyes.
“What must she think?” she whispered forlornly, staring back toward the house, toward her mother. “She knows, right? She’s got to know. But what must she think … of me?”
I tried to give her a warm, reassuring smile. “You’ve got it wrong, Taylor. It isn’t you. I’m not sure what it is, but it isn’t you. Your mother understands that. It’s the city … it’s just the city.”
“But how can you know that? You can’t know that. No one knows that!”
“I do,” I said. “I just do.” I paused, remembering the man dangling from the ceiling back on my first day in the city. “I saw something like that—” I gestured toward her father. “—when you weren’t around, when Weasel stole my backpack. So it can’t be you … Hell, I thought it was me.”
Taylor stayed silent for a handful of seconds, staring at me like she was trying to figure me out. “You’re lying,” she finally said. “You’re a lying bag of shit, and you’re just telling me what I want to hear.”
“I may be a bag of shit,” I said. “But I’m not lying.” I took a single step forward, and this time she didn’t retreat. “I’m close to you, right? We’ve slept in the same bed. You’ve been happy with me, you’ve been mad at me. Well, I’m still here, aren’t I? I’m fine. And Danny’s fine. And Floyd and Charlie and Sabine—they’re fucked up, but they’re still fine. They’re not falling apart.” I shook my head once again. “It’s something else, Taylor, some other process. It’s got to be. And whatever you think you know, you don’t. You really don’t.”
Taylor watched me for a moment, her face impassive, absorbing my words. Then she shook her head, refusing to believe.
“You aren’t saying anything here, Dean. Your mouth is open, but there’s nothing coming out.”
She turned abruptly and started back around the side of the house, heading toward Second Avenue. “Now get the fuck out of my mom’s yard, before she finds her shotgun shells.”
I followed Taylor through the city streets. She stayed about ten feet ahead of me. Each time I tried to catch up, she put on a burst of speed, leaving me behind. She was pissed off. I couldn’t reach her.
Her father had fallen through the floor over a month ago. She’d been living with that, bearing that responsibility. How could I prove that it wasn’t her fault?
And then—
There was a great tearing sound in the sky just as we reached the middle of the 290 bridge. It was loud and
