Although I’ve never seen it in daylight, I know this room.
The last time I was here a harvest moon was on the rise over Lake Michigan, and I was slumped back against one of these ancient contraptions, drugged out of my mind, staring at a man in a geisha mask who had forced me at gunpoint into the depths of this abandoned power plant.
Staring—though I had no idea at the time—at myself.
I couldn’t have imagined the journey.
The hell that actually awaited me.
The box is situated in a far corner of the generator room, hidden away behind the stairs.
“Well?” Amanda asks.
“I think I did it. This is the last place I saw before waking up in your world.”
—
We make our way back through the derelict power plant.
Outside, the sun is shining.
Descending.
It’s late afternoon, and the only sound is the lonely cry of gulls flying out over the lake.
We hike west into the neighborhoods of South Chicago, walking along the shoulder like a pair of drifters.
The distant skyline is familiar.
It’s the one I know and love.
The sun keeps dropping, and we’ve been walking twenty minutes before it dawns on me that we haven’t seen a single car on the road.
“Kind of quiet, isn’t it?” I ask.
Amanda looks at me.
The silence wasn’t so noticeable out in the industrial wasteland near the lake.
Here it’s startling.
There are no cars out.
No people.
It’s so quiet I can hear the current running through the power lines above us.
The Eighty-Seventh Street CTA station is closed—no buses or trains running.
The only other sign of life is a stray black cat with a corkscrew tail, slinking across the road, a rat in its jaws.
Amanda says, “Maybe we should go back to the box.”
“I want to see my home.”
“The vibe here is wrong, Jason. Can’t you feel it?”
“We’re not going to learn anything about flying the box if we don’t explore where it takes us.”
“Where’s home?”
“Logan Square.”
“Not exactly walking distance.”
“So we’ll borrow a car.”
We cross Eighty-Seventh and walk a residential block of downtrodden row houses. No street sweeper has been by in weeks. There’s trash everywhere. Disgusting, splitting bags of it in huge piles up and down the sidewalk.
Many of the windows have been boarded up.
Some are covered in sheets of plastic.
From most hang pieces of clothing.
Some red.
Some black.
The drone of radios and televisions creeps out of a few houses.
The cry of a child.
But otherwise, the neighborhood stands ominously silent.
Halfway down the sixth block, Amanda calls out, “Found one!”
I cross the street toward a mid-’90s Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera.
White. Rusting around the edges. No hubcaps on the wheels.
Through the dirty glass, I glimpse a pair of keys dangling from the ignition.
Pulling open the driver’s-side door, I slide in behind the steering wheel.
“So we’re really doing this?” Amanda asks.
I crank the engine as she climbs into the passenger side.
There’s a quarter tank of gas remaining.
Should be enough.
The windshield is so filthy, it takes ten seconds of pummeling with wiper fluid to scrape away the grime and the dirt and the plastered-on leaves.
—
The interstate is desolate.
I’ve never seen anything like it.
Empty in both directions as far as I can see.
It’s early evening now, the sun glinting off the Willis Tower.
I speed north, and with each passing mile, the knot in my stomach tightens.
Amanda says, “Let’s go back. Seriously. Something is obviously very wrong.”
“If my family’s here, my place is with them.”
“How do you even know this is your Chicago?”
She turns on the radio and scrolls through static on the FM dial until the familiar warning pings of the Emergency Alert System screech through the speakers.
The following message is transmitted at the request of the Illinois State Police Department. The mandatory twenty-four-hour curfew remains in effect for Cook County. All residents are ordered to stay in their homes until further notice. The National Guard continues to monitor the safety of all neighborhoods, deliver food rations, and provide transport to CDC Quarantine Zones.
In the southbound lanes, a convoy of four camouflaged Humvees speeds by.
The threat of contagion remains high. Initial symptoms include fever, severe headache, and muscle pain. If you believe that you or anyone in your home is infected, display a red piece of cloth in a street-facing window. If anyone in your home is deceased, display a black piece of cloth in a street-facing window.
CDC personnel will assist as soon as they are able.
Stay tuned for further details.
Amanda looks at me.
“Why aren’t you turning around?”
—
There’s nowhere to park on my block, so I leave the car in the middle of the street with the engine running.
“You’re out of your fucking mind,” Amanda says.