January Secret Agent #7

TITLE: Ghost Town
GENRE: YA Supernatural

From a distance, say across the river, Detroit was impressive, all stone skyscrapers and city lights, like the dream of a city from an old black and white movie. The best view was from that distance, on the other side of the river, where Windsor, its smaller sister city, dreamed greener, more modest dreams. They were both dying of course, the cities, dying slowly, of similar causes, but each unique as only death can be. Places die in such messy, shuffling ways - there's something dramatic, say a fire, but that doesn't quite do it, and things linger, re-grow even, before the symptoms start up again and a wheezing rattle starts up among the streets. But that didn't mean that the view was any less spectacular. It was only up close after all that you saw scars.

If you could fly unseen through that night, like a particularly determined bird, you'd pass through blocks where restaurants were brightly lit and people walked the sidewalks, laughing and talking. Think of those blocks are islands. Surrounding them are empty streets where no one walks, where only one lone car, as though taking its turn to try out the road, drives along, wondering whether or not to obey the traffic lights. Then there are the empty buildings, sometimes sitting right next to the lively ones, sometimes burnt and gutted with empty windows like staring eyes. Places where the grass and trees go on growing, swallowing up the houses that once ruled their lawns.