The trek through the city went swiftly and without incident. They encountered no Freaks, no other tribes, and no obstacles that slowed their passage.
The day stayed dark and the air damp. Mist rose from the pavement and clung to the buildings, cloaking everything in gauzy trailers. Before long, the skeleton of the Space Needle came into view over the tops of the buildings, its ragged spire lifting skyward like a torch gone dark. Once, people could take an elevator to its top to an eating place and view deck that looked out over the whole of the city. But that was back in the days before hand-cranked generators and stairs were the best anyone could hope for, when there was citywide electricity and the elevators still worked.
It must have been something to see, he thought suddenly. Not the city—you could still see the city if you climbed to the viewpoints on the hills that surrounded it—but the population that made the city come alive, all the people and the traffic and the movement and color before everything fell apart.
Their destination appeared ahead, a broad two-story building with its plate-glass windows broken out and its facade scorched by fire and scoured by the elements. Hawk had found it by accident on a foraging expedition two years earlier: a storage and distribution center for chemical supplies, including purification tablets. The stock was too extensive to carry out in a single load or to try to store in the limited space of their underground home.
But the tablets were precious and difficult to find in a time when retail outlets had long since been pillaged and emptied of useful goods. So he had taken what he could pack on his back and hidden the rest in the basement behind a cluster of empty packing crates. So far, his secret stash had not been disturbed.
They walked to the front of the building and stood looking through the broken-out windows for a moment.
“So what’s the plan, Bird-Man?” Panther asked in a singsong voice.
Hawk ignored him, casting about the shadows and the mist, listening to the silence and trusting to his instincts. He peered down the streets where they tunneled between the buildings and through the misty haze. Rain dampened the pavement, leaving it slick and oily, and the air smelled of metal and old fish.
He glanced at Candle, who met his gaze and shook her head. No danger so far, she was saying.
He turned to the others. “Fixit, you wait just inside, out of sight, and keep watch. The rest of us will go get the tablets.”
They climbed through one of the window frames, avoiding the door, which was barred and chained. Inside, the building opened through layers of deep shadows and long, hazy streaks of gray light to a jumbled collection of shelves, tables, counters, boxes, and debris of all sorts. Leaving Fixit at the front wall, Hawk took the others toward a half wall that separated the front and back of the store. Inside the half wall, a trapdoor opened onto stairs leading down into the basement. Once again, Hawk hesitated. He didn’t like the feel of the entry, never had. Then, brushing aside his fears, he switched on his solarpowered torch and started down.
The stairs ended in the very center of the basement, which was ink-black and musty and spread away in all directions to walls only faintly visible in the dim light of Hawk’s torch. Packing crates were stacked against the back wall, concealing the supplies they had come for. The wall to their left was partially collapsed, leaving a black hole that opened into the basement of the cavernous adjoining warehouse. The hole was ragged and slick with moisture, and the room beyond so thick with shadows that it was impossible to see anything. A deep, pervasive silence hung over everything.
Right away Candle said, “Something’s down here.” She pointed to the hole in the wall and the impenetrable blackness beyond. “In there.”
Everyone swung about to face the collapsed wall, prods coming up defensively. They stood motionless for a moment, listening. Nothing happened.
No movement, no sounds. The seconds ticked away, and the basement seemed to grow stuffy and warm.
Finally, knowing he had to do something, Hawk started forward to take a closer look.
Candle grasped his arm instantly, pulling him back. “Don’t go in there!”
Hawk looked at her in surprise. “What is it?”
She shook her head. Her face was pale and drawn, and her eyes wide with fear. She could barely make herself answer him. “We have to get out of here. We have to get out right away.”
The way she said it made it clear that she felt there was no room for argument. Hawk looked at the others. “Go back up the stairs, right now.”
“Wait a minute!” Panther was right in his face, his voice an angry hiss.
“We came all the way across town to turn tail and run? You want us to leave the tablets behind?”
“Go back up the stairs,” Hawk repeated.