JEREMY ZOMBIE WALKS to the house. Realizes that Nik isn’t following. No one follows, not the tall white dude, not two darker-skinned men Jeremy now realizes are lingering by the side of the house. One is smoking a cigarette. The air smells like pine and fog. Jeremy lets himself sense the world, appreciate it, for a millisecond, this imperiled Earthly existence.
He pulls on a worn brass handle and opens the front door, prompting a creak. He hears a man’s voice say: “Up here.”
Just inside the entrance, a wooden staircase that once would’ve been grand, bordering on majestic, born of a time of hand craftsmanship. But now its wear and tear and nicks and cuts are evident in light that is both dull and powerful, flooding in from the windows that checker the adjoining rooms.
At the top of the stairs, he sees a figure that fills him with fury. It’s the man who broke into his house, the one from the café, the one who wheedled his way into Emily’s life. Jeremy, in spite of himself, starts sprinting up the stairs. And he doesn’t stop even when the man levels some sort of powerful weapon, a machine gun or something.
“If I bark,” the man says seconds before Jeremy reaches him, “they die.”
Jeremy freezes. He’s two steps from the top, face-to-barrel. Behind the man, a hallway and three closed doors: left, right, straight ahead. “Where are they?”
The man gestures with a nod. “Middle. But first empty your pockets.”
Jeremy pulls out his jean pockets, dislodging a dime.
“You looking for some more hair gel?”
“Cell phone.” The guy doesn’t take the bait. The opposite: “We are looking at a larger good and I’m deeply sorry for any trouble we’ve caused.”
“Like killing Harry and Evan. How does it go: thou shalt not kill, unless it could lead to even more killing?”
“Go ahead.”
Jeremy brushes past the man. He can’t think of any productive way to attack, grab the gun, push the man down the stairs. All high-risk roads with no apparent reward. Jeremy reaches the door in the middle, turns back, sees the guy looking at him.
“The lions will die too.”
The man grimaces. “Not in cages.” He pauses. “Stay in the room.” Pauses again. “It won’t be long.”
Jeremy turns back and opens the door. In the corner, beneath a picture window that stretches nearly the length of the wall, sit Emily and Kent; she’s draped over him like a blanket. The pair practically entangled, a mother-and-child pretzel. She looks up. Dazed. Puts her head back down. “It’s okay,” she whispers to Kent.
Jeremy recognizes the invasion of a surprising, unwelcome thought: my mother would’ve been arguing with the guards, trying to escape, not enveloping me.
He sees a blur. Kent running toward him.
“You did this. You did this!”
Fury, tears, arms and fists whirring, half boy, half adolescent. “You hurt her! You hurt Mom . . .” He reaches Jeremy, arms flailing.
“Kent!” It’s Emily.
Jeremy absorbs the modest blows, can’t decide whether to protect himself or put his arms around the boy.
“Kent!” Emily repeats. She pulls her son from Jeremy, glowers at Jeremy, leers. “Don’t say it. Don’t say it.”
“What, I . . .”
“It’s our own fault, right? I should’ve known. I should’ve picked up this guy’s bad intentions, erred on the side of defense, caution. I should put up boundaries and defend them at all costs. Like you.”
Jeremy’s eyes fill with hot tears. This is what she thinks of him. Even in this moment, she expects from him admonition, superiority.
“I’m sorry, I . . . Emily . . .”
“What? What? Did I hear that, right? Kent, did you hear that? Sorry. Sorry? What, is it new-vocabulary day for Jeremy?”
He shakes his head. Almost Nik’s words when Jeremy had used the word “please.”
He puts his head down. The word will end and these will be his final moments. Caged in the world he built.
“The cat’s in the cradle,” he mutters.
“Now some trick. You’re going to make me guess your reference, chess, a setup? Show how superior you are, how inferior we are? I’m not them. I was never them, but to you everyone is a ‘them.’ It’s not us and them. There never was an us. It’s you and the rest of the world. And now you’ve drawn me into one of your wars with everybody else! They, they put a hood over Kent’s head! I . . .”
Kent throws his arms around his mother’s waist. She’s run out of steam. The pair, though standing, seem to recoil in a hug. It dawns on Jeremy that Emily and Kent have no clue about what is happening. They think they’ve been kidnapped. Maybe they’re collateral damage in some conflict that has embroiled Jeremy. That much is true, sort of, but a conflict the likes of which they can’t possibly imagine.
Jeremy looks out the picture window, and he sees what Nik means by the remarkable view. He sees directly onto the Golden Gate Bridge, and beneath it. Especially beneath it. The top of the bridge is, predictably, enveloped by fog. But the bridge itself, and underneath it, clear. He can make out boats.
On one of them, a secret meeting is taking place to save the world. It will be ground zero.
“Please, please, Emily, let me explain.”
She looks up from Kent. Calmly asks: “Can you get us out of here?”
He shakes his head. Allows himself to admit defeat. “No.”
“Then go. Leave us. Get out!”