Part 26 (1/2)

I was grateful when we finally reached the roof. I wanted more than anything to see the sky once again. No matter what color it might be.

We found Terry standing at the edge of the roof, near his tent and his makes.h.i.+ft camp. He was staring up at the gray clouds.

”Terry!” Taylor cried as soon as she saw him standing there. She broke into a run. Terry turned at the sound of her voice. His face was blank, unreadable, but he didn't seem at all surprised to see us there. He opened his arms, and Taylor fell into them.

”I thought you were gone,” Taylor said, her voice choked with emotion, with relief.

”Not yet.”

Terry looked older in the overcast light. The creases on his face looked deeper, and it seemed like there was more gray in his hair. ”Did you see it?” he asked, his eyes turning back toward the sky. ”The sky was red. Or was that just me?” There was a perplexed awe in his voice. He sounded completely and totally lost.

”We saw it,” Taylor said. ”Everyone saw it. It was real.” She stepped back out of Terry's arms. There was concern on her face as she studied him intently. ”Are you okay?”

”Yes,” he said with a gentle smile. ”I'm just tired. Just sick and tired.”

”What happened to everyone? What happened to Mickey and the guards and everyone else? This place is deserted. We just walked right in.”

”They're gone. All gone. They packed up their things and left. Last night was rough. People ... people started to see things, in the hallways, in the shadows. They started to hear things, too, voices in the dark. They think this place is haunted.” He shook his head. He didn't seem angry or sad about his abandonment. Just very, very tired. ”I think Mickey took some of them and headed out on his own. But the rest ... the rest just wandered away.”

He turned and faced the city, his eyes turning from the sky to study the streets down below.

Taylor gave me a look, and I shrugged the backpack off my shoulder. ”Here,” I said as I unearthed Mama Ca.s.s's parcel and handed it to Terry. ”Mama Ca.s.s wanted you to have this.”

Terry accepted the package without looking at me. He unwrapped the brown paper and let it fall to the roof of the building. Then he glanced at the book's cover and let out a short laugh. He held it up so we could read the t.i.tle: Sustainable Small-Plot Farming. I felt a bit cheated. This was Mama Ca.s.s's big secret?

”I'm a fool,” Terry said. He hauled off and threw the book as hard as he could. It sailed out over the street, making it halfway to the intersection of Monroe and Second Avenue before finally hitting the asphalt and breaking in two, pages ripping and flying as the textbook bounced and skidded down the distant street. ”What was I thinking? Sustainable farming? There's nothing sustainable here ...

”I'm leaving,” he said. ”I'm getting out. It's too painful now, watching it all fall apart, trying to hold it all together while everyone else's content to just let it fade away.” He paused for a moment and looked down at the street below. ”We're standing at the edge of a cliff here, in the city, and the ground's crumbling away beneath our feet. I think it's time I found something new. Something solid.”

Taylor took the announcement in stride. Maybe this was a good thing: Terry safe, Terry out of danger. ”Where will you go?” she asked.

”I have friends in Olympia. I'll stay with them for a while, until I get things sorted out. Maybe I'll write a book. I've been thinking a lot lately about what it means to be human, about what we owe one another.”

”I'd read it,” Taylor said. And then: ”You'll be okay, Terry. I know it.”

Terry was quiet for a little while, staring out over the city.

”And you, Taylor?” he finally asked, turning back toward her. ”You're strong, but I don't think strong matters much anymore. Are you going to be okay? Can I convince you to come with me to Olympia?” After a moment, he gestured toward me. ”And Dean, too, of course. If that's what it takes, if that's what you want.”

”You know I can't do that. I can't leave them.” ”Them”-her parents.

”Yeah,” Terry said. ”I know. You are your own woman. And when your mind is set, your mind is set.”

Taylor laughed. ”Yeah, that tautology ... you're starting to sound like Mickey there. Maybe it is time for you to go.”

”Yeah,” Terry said, with a shrug. ”f.u.c.k, yeah.”

Then he gestured toward the charcoal grill standing next to his tent and the curl of smoke stretching up into the dark sky. ”While you're here, you might as well stay for dinner, though. Right?” He offered a weary smile. ”It seems I've got more food in the city than I've got time, and I don't want it going to waste.”

Taylor took me up into the tower while Terry cooked dinner.

When we reached the eighth floor, she gestured to an empty doorway across from the stairwell. ”This was my room,” she said. ”After my parents ... well, after my mom kicked me out, Weasel took me to Terry and Terry put me up here.”

It was a boring room: maroon hotel carpeting, heavy drapes pulled away from a dirty window, nightstand, chest of drawers with an empty TV nook. The bed was a single stripped mattress hanging half off its frame. I inhaled deeply. Underneath a musty layer of abandonment, the room smelled faintly like Taylor.

”I wasn't in a very good state,” she said. She moved about the room absently. After making a complete circuit, she approached the bed and nudged the mattress back into place atop its box spring. ”Weasel found me in the park, camped out on the steps. I couldn't leave the city-I just couldn't-and I didn't know where else to go.”

”It's good to have friends,” I said. I crossed the room and looked out the window. The window faced the neighboring building, and four floors down, I could see Terry standing at the grill in his rooftop camp.

”Yeah, it was.”

I turned and looked back at her. She was sitting on the edge of her bed now, staring blankly at the wall. ”He used to hold meetings,” she said. Her face lit up at the memory, a smile surfacing on her lips. ”A couple of times, in the first weeks, he held them down in the hotel ballroom, just off the lobby.” She pointed down at the carpeting, toward a room eight floors beneath our feet. ”It's a big room, down there, and there were a lot of people back then-this was back when everybody still thought they needed a community in order to survive, in order to buck the government-and Terry refused to yell. He'd stand on stage in this huge room, in front of a sea of people, and he'd talk in his normal conversational voice. And I swear, everyone held their breath, trying desperately to hear what he had to say. He set up committees and scavenging groups, put people in charge of research-figuring out electricity, how to grow food, how to communicate and get supplies in from the outside world. He was magnificent back then. He was a complete government packed into a single body.” She sighed, and her smile dimmed. ”It's hard to believe that that was just a month ago.”

I looked down at Terry. He was just a lonely old man down there, standing in front of his grill, flipping burgers.

”Maybe that's our attention span now,” she said. ”Maybe that's civilization, sped up to its natural end. Entropy. Apathy. And he's gone now. He's leaving.”

I didn't know what to say. I stood at the window and watched her face move from emotion to emotion, from wry amus.e.m.e.nt to melancholy sadness. And then, whispering, she continued: ”What happens, Dean, when the people you're close to don't want to be close to you anymore? What happens to me in this world?”

”You go on,” I said. I moved closer, tentative at first but gaining confidence as I sat down at her side. She didn't cringe or move away. I got the feeling that she needed me right then, needed me at her side. ”Besides, you've got me. And the people you're losing ... you aren't really losing them. Your mom still loves you, and Terry-it's obvious he still cares. It's just, things come between us-that's how it happens. People move along their own trajectories. Terry's got places he needs to be, and your mother ... she just wants to protect you.” I didn't mention her father. He was gone now-I was sure of that-and there was absolutely no way I could put a gloss on that horror.

She shook her head. The violent motion dislodged tears from her cheeks, and I watched one hit the mattress next to her leg. Then she looked at me, and a gentle smile surfaced on her lips. ”Like I said, Dean, there's something wrong with you. Something deeply and truly wrong.” But the way she said it, it was gentle and warm.

She reached out and rested her hand on my leg. It was only a brief moment of contact, but it filled me with confidence. It felt like I was doing my job here. I was lifting some of her burden, and that made me happy.

I nodded toward the window, indicating Terry down below. ”The food should be ready by now.”

Taylor nodded and wiped the tears from her cheeks. Then she started a last circuit around the room, idly trailing her fingers along the hotel walls. Her expression was distant as she moved slowly through memory.

When she reached the chest of drawers under the empty TV nook, she idly pulled open the top drawer and her breath hitched in surprise. She stood still for a moment, transfixed by whatever she'd found inside.

”What is it?” I asked. And, after a moment of silence: ”Taylor?”

She shook her head. I stood up and moved to her side, but her hand quickly darted into the drawer, pulling back whatever it was before I could get a good look. It looked like a piece of paper, but she quickly turned away, blocking it from view. Her hand disappeared into her pocket, and when she turned back, the piece of paper was gone. Her face was set, secretive and angry.

”What is it?” I repeated.

”It's mine,” she said gruffly. ”It's mine.”

Then she shouldered me aside and headed toward the door.