Wanderers (31 page)

Ramon handed his torch to the boy before bending to unlock a door. Then, squatting with much effort, he grabbed the bottom of the gate and attempted to lift it.

Joseph grew concerned. “Do you need any help?” he offered, but the man waved him off.

“I'm fine, I'm fine,” he wheezed. “I'm not that old.”

Finally, with much groaning and cursing, Ramon succeeded in rolling the metal gate up, which screamed and rattled in its rusty track.

Joseph and Stumpy followed as the older man entered a dusty space filled with one desk and many file cabinets and shelves. Ramon moved to the desk and stuck the torch in a metal bracket. Then he patted the swivel chair before it.

“Take a load off,” he said.

Joseph eventually realized that this meant he should sit down. Meanwhile, Ramon was rummaging through some high shelves, grunting to himself. He returned to dump several flat wire baskets onto the desk. As he leaned over Joseph, the smell of his drink was overpowering.

“Here you go,” Ramon said, with obvious pride. “You can see the kind of thing I've been up to. I'm going to need a little help with putting them in order.”

They were records, and the amount of information they represented was dizzying. Each page was nearly black on both sides with tiny, terse descriptions, numbers, dates, and times:
ounces planted/yield percentage. Six kilograms radishes. Twenty-one kilograms potatoes. Thirty-six liters of water. Compostable remains. Vol. of compost tea in milliliters.

The accounting it represented wasn't just thorough; it was overwhelming. There were eight baskets piled on the desk, as far as Joseph could see, and there were clearly many more, filling up nearly an entire wall. The words and numbers began to swarm in front of his eyes, like ants.

Then Ramon seemed to get inspired.

“Hold on,” he said. “I'll get you the original notes, which were all handwritten and crude. Maybe that would be a good place for you to start.”

Ramon stumbled away. Joseph heard the older man rifle through file cabinets on the far side of the store as the torchlight threw crooked shadows against the wall. Ramon made a lot of noise: closing some drawers, opening others, catching his fingers in one, cursing, slamming it shut.

Utterly confused, Joseph picked up one sheet and then another. Wanting to make a good impression, he seized an entire basket in the impossible hope of skimming its contents before the man returned. In his haste, his finger hooked the one beneath it, causing it to tip and begin to spill its paper. Joseph lunged to save it and, as a result, knocked the entire pile to the floor with a clatter.

Luckily, Ramon was either too groggy or making too much to noise to notice. “Be right there!” he called. He sounded the most jovial he had been since Joseph and the others had arrived.

Filled with fresh panic, Joseph crouched low to the ground, wringing his hands over the mountain of paper. He was about to simply stuff the entire pile into the wire baskets when he realized that they were now completely mixed up. Frantically, he picked up a pile, checked the date, and stuffed it into one of the containers. Then he scooped up another pile, and another, and another, trying to put them into some semblance of order.

Records were still scattered all over the floor and Ramon would be back any second now. Nearly fainting with terror, Joseph began cramming papers into their bins any which way, when his eye fell on one sheet.

He stopped to read it.

Repurposing of visitors . . . Capture and corralling . . . three male, one female . . . thirty-three kilograms. Forty-eight kilograms. Forty-one kilograms . . . Breaking down of carcasses . . .

Joseph's gaze skittered down the page, not making sense of what he saw. Yet as he read, a strange, unpleasant feeling began to steal over him and he could feel the skin of his neck prickle.

Bone racks . . . Maturing chops . . . Slaughtering . . .

“Here we go!”

Ramon was stumbling toward him. He was carrying an unwieldy armful of folders, files, and other bits of paper.

With an impulse that went against everything he believed in—honesty, respecting other people's property, and the sacredness of printed material—Joseph grabbed the sheet of paper and stuffed it into the pocket of his jacket. Then he took the entire remaining stack of records off the floor and hoisted them onto the desk.

Ramon appeared at his shoulder. “Hey,” he said. “What happened here?”

Joseph struggled to come up with an explanation. But Ramon had already opened one of his notebooks on the surface before them.

“Now you'll see,” he said, “these records go back several years, when I cleverly went from longhand to a kind of shorthand I devised myself. You see, these symbols over here . . .”

In all the excitement, Joseph hadn't noticed that Stumpy, still hungry, had ambled across the store and out the door.

Silas had drifted away from the dancing, too. Though he couldn't admit it to anyone, if there had been enough girls, he might have given it a chance. But dancing with Joseph? Probably not.

There was nothing to look at in the hallway outside the party; so he, too, headed for the windowless stairwell and descended to the lower levels. There, he walked through the dim floors of the mall, the soles of his new sneakers squeaking on the marble floor. Idly, he peered in at shuttered stores—
CHANEL
,
COACH
,
BURBERRY
,
LULU GUINNESS
—and examined the endless items on display: handbags, watches, scarves, overcoats, wallets. Reaching the street level, he decided to go even farther, down the final set of stairs.

Silas and the others had not yet been shown around this section of the complex. In the scant light, he saw that the basement floor had much the same layout as the ones above: an open area, lit by the waning light from far above and ringed by what looked like restaurants:
PRET A MANGER, JACQUES TORRES CHOCOLATE
,
HARRY
&
DAVID
.

He tried to peer past the metal gate that guarded the giant doorway of one store. He could see a glassed-in counter, a cash register, and what seemed like crude bedding on the floor. But just as he was about to turn away, Silas noticed a reflection in the counter and whirled around.

Joseph's cat was roaming the basement by herself.

It was an unusual sight. The animal was rarely out of her carrier and always stuck close to her owner. Silas thought he ought to at least follow her. If nothing else, he could do Joseph a favor and keep her from getting lost.

“Hey,” he said, snapping his fingers. “Come here.”

Stumpy paid no attention to him. She slunk low to the ground, darting forward and then freezing in place. She was clearly stalking something hiding in the murky shadows.

Silas didn't want to ruin the tabby's hunt by scaring away her prey. Besides, he thought it might be fun to watch her catch something. So he moved after her slowly and kept his distance. Whatever she was pursuing seemed to be heading farther into the darkness, and soon Silas found himself far from the metal staircases.

At last, he saw what she was chasing, sniffing at the foot of two metal doors. He smiled.
Well, what else could it have been?
It was a rat, large and grayish brown.

Silas wondered how there managed to be vermin in such a pristine environment. There had to be food somewhere nearby; the rodent was surprisingly fat. Stumpy was frozen in place with a paw raised in the air, with only the tip of her tail twitching. When the rat nosed the ground, she crept forward two paces, then stopped again.

Silas held his breath as the cat coiled herself like a spring. She shimmied her hindquarters once, twice, three times. But in that moment, the rat glanced up, its beady eyes perceiving the threat. Even as Stumpy launched herself at her prey, claws extended, the rat was scrabbling at the impossibly narrow threshold, flattening itself enough to slide under door and disappear.

Stumpy examined her paws, which had closed on thin air. The appalled expression on her round face seemed almost human, and Silas laughed. Then he glanced up and noticed the doors under which the rat fled.

Unlike the rest of the immaculate building, they were badly dented and scratched. There were letters on one of them, which he sounded out with difficulty:
TO GARAGE
. He pressed the metal bar handle, but it was locked.

Then he heard people approaching.

From the far, dimly lit end of the hall, he saw silhouettes heading his way. Two older men were wheeling a large plastic can on a hand truck and chatting with each other. Even from where he stood, he could see the pistols at their belts.

There was no real reason to fear them. Yet Silas obeyed his instincts, which were overpowering. He grabbed the startled cat, which gave an indignant mew. Then he fled to a shadowy corner across the hall and hid in a doorway.

Sure enough, the guards were headed toward the dented twin doors. When they got there, one took out a huge key ring and fumbled with it until he was able to unlock them.

“Shh,” Silas whispered to the protesting Stumpy.

In the meantime, the other guard had wrenched the lid off the barrel and pulled from it a black plastic bag, knotted securely. He disappeared in the room and when he returned moments later, empty-handed, his partner handed him another bag. Maybe six in all were brought into the room, one by one, before they were done. Then the guards shut the doors and locked them up again.

It seemed to be a dirty, unpleasant task.
And strangely,
thought Silas,
it was one they hadn't asked their guests to do.

The two men walked away, the empty plastic container now rattling before them. Once he heard their footsteps fade, Silas placed the cat down and stepped out.

Silas knew he could go back upstairs and no one would know where he had been. But by now, his curiosity was too strong.

The animal at his heels, Silas stepped toward the locked door. From his sock, he retrieved two of his thieving tools, which were slim pieces of metal. He slid one into the lock, and jiggled it until the tumbler turned. Then he took the other one, a thin yet unbendable steel hook, and inserted it. Patiently, he attempted to tap the lock from inside. It took longer than he expected; after a while, he started to sweat and his hand to shake. Impatient, Stumpy began to cry next to him.

“Okay, okay,” he whispered. “I'll get it.”

At last, he heard a click.

Checking behind him, Silas pushed the metal bar and stepped into darkness. The sound of the door opening echoed, telling him it was a cavernous place, even as the stench of the room hit him. He clamped the crook of his elbow over his nose and tried not to breathe.

Stumpy had her own agenda. Rushing past him, she darted into a black corner. Silas heard a tussle, a squeal, then nothing.

It was impossible to see. Silas reached behind him and pushed the door further open, allowing in more light.

There seemed to be an underground mountain range in the garage. Shadowy, hulking forms surrounded him on every side; immense heaps of garbage sorted by type: empty cans, bottles, discarded clothes. These were dwarfed by piles of black plastic bags, filled with human waste and in some cases spilling their foul contents onto the ground.

All around him were the active sounds of rats: squeaking, battling, tearing open bags. As he picked his way through the mess, Silas was astounded that such squalor existed mere floors below great luxury.

That was when it saw it on the floor.

At first, Silas was not sure what it was. It was small, the size of two fists, and its pale material caught the faint spill of light from the hall. Then as his eyes adjusted, he was able to make out more details. They made his stomach lurch and his blood feel like ice.

Empty sockets. Teeth. Nasal bone.

It was a human skull. And small enough to have belonged to a child.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

O
VERCOMING HIS REVULSION
, S
ILAS MADE A QUICK DECISION AND PICKED
the object up. It was surprisingly lightweight, as dry as a piece of old wood and so small, he could carry it tucked under his shirt. Then he looked around for Stumpy.

She was crouched behind a pile of garbage bags, devouring the remains of a freshly killed rat. He tried to lift her, but when she tensed up and growled, he relented and set her down again. It was, after all, the first real meal she had eaten in days. But Silas was uneasy about remaining much longer; he didn't like the possibility of the guards returning and finding him. He was relieved when the cat finished eating, licking her jaws and letting out a tiny belch.

“Let's go,” he said.

Holding her, Silas picked his way back to the open door. When he pulled it shut after him, he was glad to hear the lock click.

But in his eagerness to get away from the hellish room, Silas did not look to see who might be watching. He bounded up the narrow staircase that led from the basement level, taking two steps at a time. He was halfway up when a harsh voice boomed from above.

“Hey . . . you! What were you doing down there?”

Two adult faces were staring at him over the railing several flights above. Even from that distance, he could tell they were furious.

Moments later, the clatter of their footsteps running down the metal stairs began echoing throughout the marble atrium.

But no one was there to hear.

By the time the men reached the basement level, Silas had already sprinted down the hall to the enclosed stairwell. Still clutching the protesting cat, he raced to the third level before disappearing into the expanse of the mall.

Michal spun in a circle, her dress glinting in the torchlight.

Much to her disappointment, the dancing had ended half an hour earlier. Now, she and Skar were alone in their room, the
SUNGLASS HUT
. As she had been so often lately, Skar seemed preoccupied and thoughtful as she sat on the edge of her cot, chewing her thumbnail. But Michal continued to dance alone, admiring herself in one of the many mirrors that adorned the walls of the store.