I’ve reached the end of the block. Time to make the call. Once I penetrate the building, I’m all in, there’s no going back.
I step through a broken plate-glass window and into the lobby of a bank. A carpet of paper covers the floor: deposit slips and brochures and old magazines and the remnants of a banner (OUR LOWEST RATES EVER!) and bills in every denomination—I can see hundreds among the fives and tens.
The damp, rotting carpet squishes beneath my boots. I sweep the room in less than thirty seconds. Clear.
I find the stairway door opposite the elevator and ease it open. I’m down to zero visibility, but I’m not risking light; I might as well scream out my name or yell Hey, bud, here I am! In the stairwell, the door clicks shut behind me, sealing me inside absolute darkness. One step up, pause, straining my ears, another step, pause. Faintly, the building groans around me like an old house settling. The harsh winter, the broken pipes within the walls, water worming its way into the mortar, freezing, expanding, breaking apart the bones and sinews that hold the structure together. If the Others weren’t dropping the bombs in four days, Urbana would crumble on its own. In a thousand years, you could hold the entirety of the city in the palm of your hand.
First landing, second floor. I keep moving up, one hand on the metal railing, step, pause, step. I’ll start on the roof and work my way down. I don’t think he’s nesting up there; Dumbo and I were hunkered by the back counter, and the trajectory from the rooftop into the coffee shop is too sharp. More likely the sniper’s set up on the second floor, but I’m going to be methodical about this. Think through every move before I make it.
I smell it halfway to the second floor, on the landing where the stairs turn: the unmistakable stink of death. I step on something small and soft. Probably a dead rat. In the tight, closed-in space, the stench is overwhelming. My eyes pour water, my stomach rises into my throat. Another good reason to blow up the cities: It’s the fastest way to get rid of the smell.
Above me, a razor-thin bar of golden light shines beneath the door. Holy crap and WTF, he’s a brazen bastard.
I press my ear against the door. Silence. Though it might seem obvious, I’m not sure what to do. The door could be booby-trapped. Or the light could be a ruse—bait to lure me into an ambush. At the very least, the door’s gotta be rigged to make a sound if it’s opened. You don’t have to be a Silencer to take that precaution.
I drop my hand onto the cold metal door handle. I fiddle with the eyepiece, stalling. You don’t ease in, Parish—you bust through.
The worst part isn’t the busting through, though. The worst part is the second before you do.
I throw open the door, whip sharply to my left, then step into the hall and turn back hard to the right. No bell jingled, no stack of empty cans clattered to the floor. The door swings closed silently behind me on well-oiled hinges. My finger twitches on the trigger as a shadow races across the wall, a shadow that’s attached to a small, orange, furry creature with a striped tail.
A cat.
The animal darts through an open doorway halfway down the corridor, out of which pours the golden light that I saw in the stairwell. As I ease toward the light, the smell of decay is overcome by two very different smells: hot soup, maybe beef stew, warring with the unmistakable odor of a dirty litter box. I can hear a high-pitched voice warbling softly:
When through the woods and forest glades I wander
And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees . . .
I’ve heard this song before. Many times. I even remember the refrain:
Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to thee:
How great thou art! How great thou art!
Her voice reminds me of another, thin and scratchy from age, slightly out of tune, singing with fierce determination and the self-assurance that comes with unshakable faith. How many Sundays did I stand beside my grandmother while she sang this hymn? Bored out of my adolescent mind, silently bitching about my itchy collar and uncomfortable shoes, daydreaming about my latest crush and sacrilegiously changing (in my head) the last line to How great thy ass! How great thy ass!
Hearing that song opens a floodgate through which the memories pour, unstoppable. Grandma’s perfume. Her thick legs encased in white stockings and her square-toed black shoes. The way the powder caked in the deep crevices of her face, at the corners of her mouth and her dark, kind eyes. The knobbiness of her arthritic knuckles and how she held the steering wheel of that ancient Mercury like a desperate swimmer clutching a lifesaver. Chocolate chip cookies fresh from the oven and apple pies cooling on racks and her voice in the other room rising in excitement as the latest bombshells were delivered by a lady in her prayer circle.
Stopping just short of the doorway, I pull out one of the stun grenades. I slip my finger into the pin. My hands are shaking. A dribble of sweat courses down the middle of my back. This is how they get you, this is how they crush the spirit right out of you. Out of the blue the past is rammed down your throat, a gut punch of memories of all the things you took for granted, the things that you lost in the blink of an eye, the stupid, trivial, forgettable things you didn’t know could crush you, things like an old woman’s quivery voice, high-pitched and far away, calling you inside for a plate of warm cookies and a glass of ice-cold milk.
Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to thee!
I pull the pin and toss the grenade through the open door. A blinding flash, the terrified chorus of cats screeching, and a human being crying out in pain.
I swing into the doorway, sighting the crumpled figure in the far corner of the room, her face hidden behind the swirl of green fire created by my eyepiece. Take her, Zombie. One shot and done.