Earth's Survivors Apocalypse

Earth's Survivors Apocalypse Page 4

by Dell Sweet

  ~

  The facility stretched for more than five miles underground. Most of that was not finished space, most of that was connector tunnels, and storage space bored from the rock. The facility itself was about three thousand feet under the city of Watertown in a section of old caves that had been enlarged, concrete lined and reinforced. The rest area was one of several entrances that led into the complex. An old farm on the other side of Watertown, an abandoned factory in the industrial park west of the city and a few other places, including direct connections from secure buildings on the nearby base.

  John Pauls and Sammy Black had Alpha clearance. Both were ex-military, but most likely military clearance was no longer a real matter of concern this late in the game, Sammy thought as they made their way down the wide hallway. The word coming down to those in the know was that in the next twenty-four hours the human race would come very close to ceasing to exist at all. No confirmation from anyone official, but regular programming was off air, the news stations were tracking an asteroid that may or may not hit the Earth. The best opinions said it didn't matter if it hit or not, it would be a close enough pass that there would be massive damage. Maybe the human race would be facing extinction. The government was strangely silent on the subject. And that had made him worry even more. The pass was estimated to be right over the tip of south America. So maybe formalities like Alpha clearance weren't all that important any longer, if only Michael Bliss had given that some thought before he had pissed him off.

  The halls were silent, nearly empty. Gloss white panels eight feet high framed it. It had always reminded Black of a maze with its twists and turns. Here and there doors hung open. Empty now. Always closed any other time he had been down here. So it had come this far too, Black thought. He stopped at a door that looked like any other door and a split second later the door rose into the ceiling and Major Weston waved them in.

  Alice, he had never learned her last name, sat at her desk, her eyes on them as they walked past her. One hand rested on the butt of a matte black .45 caliber pistol in a webbed shoulder holster that was far from Army issue, and Sammy had no doubt she would shoot them both before they could even react. Alice was etched into one of those name pins that the Army seemed to like so well, but oddly, just Alice, no last name, rank or anything else. She wore no uniform, just a black coverall. The kind with the elastic ankle and wrist cuffs. No insignia there either. He had noticed that months before. Her eyes remained flat and expressionless as they passed her desk.

  “Alice,” Sammy said politely. She said nothing at all, but she never did.

  “Sit down, boys,” Major Weston told them. He spoke around the cigar in his mouth. Dead, but they were always, and there was never the smell of tobacco in the office. They took the two chairs that fronted the desk.

  The Major was looking over a large monitor on the opposite wall that showed the north American continent. This map showed small areas of red, including the northern section where they were. The rest of the map was covered with green. “Where we are, and where we need to be, “ he said as he pushed a button on his desk. The monitor went blank. He turned to face the two.

  “So here is where we are. You know, as does most of the world, that we are expecting a near miss from DX2379R later on tonight.” He held their eyes.

  John shrugged. “I've been doing a little job, must have missed that. It's not gonna take us out is it?”

  “Saw that on the news a few days back. Guess we dodged a bad one,” Sammy said.

  “Right... Right,” Weston said quietly. “But that cover was nothing but bullshit.”

  “It's going to hit us?” John asked.

  “Maybe... The fact is that we don't know. One group says this, another group says that, but it doesn't matter because it will probably kill us off anyway. Direct hit, near miss, it is going to tip over an already bad situation with the Yellowstone Caldera.” He raised his eyes, “Familiar with that?”

  “Yellowstone park?” Sammy said.

  John nodded in agreement.

  Weston laughed. “Put simply, yes. Yellowstone has always been an anomaly to us. Back in 1930 the Army did an exploratory survey of that area. What we came up with was that there was a section of the Rocky Mountains missing. Looked at from the top of Mount Washburn it was easy for the team to see that the largest crater of an extinct volcano known to exist lay before them.”

  “I guess that's about what I thought,” Sammy agreed.

  “Yeah. We all think that. Except it is not true at all because the Yellowstone caldera is not extinct, it is active. Active and about to pop. There have been several warnings, but we took the recording stations off line quite some time ago, so there has been no mention of it in the news. Budget cuts,” he shrugged. “So everyone is focused on this asteroid that may or may not hit us and instead this volcanic event is going to blow up and when that happens the rest won't matter at all.” He clicked the button on his desk and the monitor came to life. “All the red areas are spots where the surface pressure has increased. There was, at one time, many active volcanoes on the north American continent.” He clicked a button and the map changed to a view of the European continent with many of the same red shaded areas.

  “All over the Earth... Higher pressures. Up until a few days ago the brainiacs were still arguing over whether this could even happen.” He laughed. “It is happening and they are arguing over whether it can happen. Well, we had our little debates and then we realized that history shows clearly that this has happened before. Several times. Call it the Earth's way of cleansing itself.”

  “But it's not an absolute, right?”Sammy asked.

  “Don't start sounding like the scientists.” He reached below his desk and came up with six small silver canisters. Each had a small red button mounted on the top with a protective cap over the button itself. He clicked a button on his desk, and a picture of destruction appeared on the screens. It was obviously an aerial shot, looking down at a chain of islands. Smoke hung over the chain, reaching as high as the plane itself. As the plane dropped lower, rivers of red appeared. “That picture is an hour old. That is... Was, the Hawaiian chain.”

  Sammy twisted further to the side, staring at the monitor. “How can that be... I mean everyone would know about it.” He turned back to Weston.

  Weston nodded. “And that would be true except the satellites are out because of the asteroid. Shut down to avoid damage. That is the official word.” He clicked the button on his desk and the monitor went dead once more. “I started this out saying that none of it matters and that is true. The Yellowstone caldera is going to erupt sometime in the next few days. Not a maybe, not an educated guess, if the satellites were up you would know that the park is closed, it has already started. We have had a few quakes, but the big stuff is on the way. He rolled the canisters across the desktop; Sammy and John caught them.

  “Super volcanoes... Earthquakes that modern civilization has never seen... The last super eruption was responsible for killing off the human population some seventy-four thousand years ago. Reduced it to a few thousand. And that is not the biggest one we have evidence of.” He lifted his palms and spread them open, sighing as he did. “So it is a double whammy. If we survive the asteroid the volcanoes get us, or the earthquakes because of them, or we'll die from injuries. And I think those of us who die outright will be lucky. The rest of us will have a hard time of it... Staying alive with nothing... We will probably all starve to death.” He paused in the silence.

  “Those canisters are a compound developed for the armed forces. Project Super Soldier. SS for short. That kept people from looking too deep, they assumed it was something to do with the Nazi youth movement here and abroad. We let that misconception hold.” He waited a second for his words to sink in. “SS is designed to prolong life past the normal point of termination. It allows a soldier to survive longer without food and more importantly without water. Does something to the cells of the host, I don't pretend to know what. What I do k
now is that the people above me made the decision to release this...” He picked up a mug of coffee from the desk and sipped deeply. His eyes were red road maps, Sammy noticed now. Like he hadn't slept in a few days.

  “So this is it for us. I guess you realize that you probably won't get paid for this. No money is going to show up in your account. I will run it through before I pull the plug, but I truly believe the machinery will be dead by the time payday rolls around. So this is something I'm asking you to do.” He pointed to the canisters that both men were looking over. Sammy held his as though it might bite him.

  “Those babies are really all we have to hope with. Most people will die outright. They will never make it past the quakes, eruptions, and the resulting ash clouds and gases. Up here we should be okay as far as gases go, eruptions, but there are fault lines that crisscross this area. This whole facility is bored from limestone caverns. Probably won't make it through the quakes, although it is a good eighty miles from the closest line,” he shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. My point is there should be a good chance for survivors here.”

  “So we do what with these? Can they harm us?” John asked.

  “Harm you, kill you? No, but you will be infected the minute you push that button. It will protect you the same as anyone else. There is enough in a single canister to infect about five hundred million people,” Weston said quietly.

  “Whoa,” Sammy whistled. “Why infect... Why not inoculate? And why six canisters... Three Billion people?”

  “Minimum three billion. That is before those infected pass it along themselves, after a while it won't matter. As to the question of infected, this is a designer virus. You catch it just like the flu. We infected whole platoons by releasing it in the air over them. One hundred percent infection rate. Be glad they decided on this. They have some others that will kill everybody in the world in a matter of days.” Weston nodded at the raised eyebrows that greeted his remarks. “I don't doubt that the merits of which way to go were debated hotly,” he finished gravely.

  “The virus is designed to live within the host, but it can live outside of the host. It can stay alive in a dead body for days, even if the body is frozen. In fact that just freezes the virus too. Once the body is thawed it will infect any living person that comes along. So those,” he pointed to the silver canisters, “are overkill. Same stuff is being released across the globe. Great Briton... Germany... Australia... West coast just a few hours ago. Manhattan has already been done, all the East coast in fact. I want the two of you to head out from here. One vial here, then one of you head west, the other south. Go for the bigger cities... Water supplies... Reservoirs... Release it in the air or water, it doesn't matter. There are men heading out from the south, the west coast...” He rose from the desk. “I'll see you out.” He turned to Alice. “Alice... Pack us up.” Alice nodded as Sammy and John got to their feet, but her hand remained on the butt of the pistol. Rubber grips, Sammy noticed as he passed her.

  “Alice,” he said.

  “Um hmm,” Alice murmured.

  Sammy nearly stopped in his tracks, but managed to hide his surprise as he passed by into the hallway. The Major fished two sets of keys from his pocket. “Parked in the back lot. A couple of plain Jane Dodge four-bys. Drive 'em like you stole 'em. Leave 'em where you finish up. Hell keep 'em if you want 'em. Nobody is going to care.”

  The three stood in the hallway for a few seconds longer. Sammy's eyes locked with the Major's own, and he nodded. The major walked back into his office, and the door rose from its pocket behind him. Quiet, except the slight buzzing from the fluorescent lights.

  John shrugged as his eyes met Sammy's, waiting.

  Sammy sighed. “You heard the man... West or south?”

  “Flip for it?” John asked. His mouth seemed over dry and he licked his lips nervously.

  Sammy pulled a quarter from his pocket and flipped it into the air. “Call it, Johnny.”

  “Tails,” John said just before the quarter hit the carpet.

  Sammy bent forward. “Tails it is. You got it, Johnny.”

  John looked down at the carpet. “West, I guess.” John said.

  Sammy nodded, looked down once more at the quarter and then both men turned and walked away toward the elevator that would take them back to the surface.

  Watertown Center

  Shop and Save Convenience store: Candace Loi

  1:30 AM

  “Last one,” Neil said.

  Neil was a detective for the Sheriffs department. It was closing in on 2:00 AM and he and his partner Don had just come back from six hours of sleep to get a jump on the day. Yesterday one of the checkout girls had disappeared between the Shop And Save and home. Earlier this morning she had turned up dead in a ditch just a quarter mile from the front door. The techs were still processing the scene, but it was looking personal. Stabbed to death, multiple wounds, no defense wounds, at least none that he or Don had been able to see, and fully clothed. Her purse had been found nearby, wallet and cash inside. They would know more in a few days once the coroner did her magic. It all pointed to someone she knew, and they had no known boyfriend. The trailer park where she lived had turned up nothing, they had questioned some people at the convenience store, but some had been off shift, so here they were back at the store questioning the other employees.

  They had commandeered the night manager's office which was barely larger than a broom closet, but at least it was a place to sit with enough space left over to call in the workers and ask their questions. Free coffee via the same night manager, who had still not gone home, was taking a little of the six hours of sleep sting off, but to Neil free coffee in a convenience store was like a whore offering a free shot of penicillin to the first twenty five customers.

  “Who's next?” Don asked.

  The last half hour they had been interviewing the people who worked the same shifts as Amber Kneeland.

  “Candace loi,” Neil said.

  Don looked up and stopped writing in his little notebook. “How do you,” spell her name, he had meant to ask Neil, but she was right in front of him.

  “EL. OH. EYE,” she said with a smile.

  “Vietnamese?” Don asked. She was obviously mixed race, African American and Asian, he questioned himself.

  “Japanese,” she told him.

  “Nice name,” Neil said, “Candace.”

  Beautiful girl, Don thought. “Did you know Amber Kneeland? Sometimes works this shift?” he asked.

  “Not really,” she answered. “I mean, I met her, but only in passing... I just started here myself.”

  She really is beautiful, Don thought. “You wouldn't know if she had a boyfriend... Other friends?” he asked.

  Candace shook her head. “Sorry,” she said... “What has she done?”

  “Nothing,” Neil supplied.

  “She went missing last night,” Don said. “Turned up dead this morning.”

  Candace shook her head. “Oh my God. That's horrible. She was such a nice girl... Quiet.”

  Neil nodded his head. “So maybe you did know her a little better than you thought?”

  “I just started here a few weeks back, and like I said, I don't really know her... But it might be a girlfriend not a boyfriend.”

  Don looked at her. "You wouldn't know who?"

  “No. It's just a rumor. Someone said it to me... I don't even remember who... But I've never seen her with a guy, and I have seen her with other girls... Maybe also the way she looked at me a few times...”

  “Go out with her?” Don asked.

  “No... Never... I...”

  “Don't swing that way?” Don added.

  Candace frowned slightly before she answered. “I work. I don't swing any way. But if I did she wasn't my type. She never asked me out, I never asked her out.”

  “Didn't mean to offend you,” Don said. He shrugged. “She's dead.”

  “She would probably do the same for you,” Neil said.

  Candace nodded. �
�That really is all I know. I hope you find who did it though. She seemed like a nice girl,” Candace said.

  “You don't seem the type for this... Bagging groceries at 2:00 am,” Don said, changing the subject. “You aren't local or I'd know you... This city really is small despite the base.”

  Candace smiled. “Came here a year back with a boyfriend, Army. He left, forgot all about me, I guess. I had this idea of modeling... Tough to get a foot in a door though.”

  “Wow, if he left you behind he must be a fucking idiot... Any good?” Neil asked.

  Candace laughed.

  “Excuse mister smooth there,” Don told her. Neil feigned a hurt look and Candace laughed. “He meant have you done anything? I know somebody... Might be interested.”

  Candace arched her eyebrows. “I can model. I did a You Jeans ad back in Georgia a few years ago. I just need to prove it to the right person.”

  “Escorting? It's strictly escorting, no funny stuff. Dance clubs... Clothing modeling,” Neil said.

  “Probably start out escorting... Dance a little... Then if he likes you he'll put you into the modeling end of things. He owns a lot of shit... Several car dealerships across the state... Some of the biggest dance clubs, clothing outlets, those bargain places, but still, modeling is modeling, right? Not the big name stuff, but it's a foot in the door,” Don added.

  “I can do that,” she said slowly.

  Neil passed her a white business card with his own name scrawled across the back. “Tell him I sent you... That's my name on the back.”

  “Jimmy Vincioni,” Candace asked.

  “Just V... Jimmy V, good guy,” Neil said.

  Candace nodded and tucked the card into her front jean pocket. “I'll call him... Thanks. Look...” Her voice dropped to a near whisper. “I'm pretty sure she had a girlfriend here... I just don't know who,” Candace added quietly.

  Don finished writing in his notebook, nodded once he met her eyes and then shook the hand she offered. She walked away.

  “Beautiful,” Neil said.

  “Absolutely,” Don agreed. “You ain't getting none of that though.”

  “Yeah? But if Jimmy V hires her? It'll be the next best thing.”

  Don shook his head, but smiled. His eyes rose and watched as Candace walked away. “Guess I'll have to have a few drinks at the club if that happens.”

  Neil chuckled low. “You and me both,” he agreed.

  TWO

  March 1st

  Watertown Center: Robert Dove

  10:00 A.M.

  At a large gravel pit on the outskirts of Watertown, Robert Dove carefully maneuvered the wide mouth of the loader bucket over the dump box of the truck, and pulled back on the lever closest to him to release the load. Ain't this something, he thought as he slowly topped off the dump box, barely 10 AM and we've already sent out twenty-seven truckloads of gravel to the base.

  Six men out sick, and another forty truckloads to deliver before five tonight. What in hell are they doing with all this gravel? He wondered. It was a question he had asked many times before, and still had not gotten an answer to. Uncle Sam paid well though, and on time to boot, so he guessed he probably shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. He signaled the driver, and he pulled away with a whoosh of air as he released the brakes. Another dump truck lumbered up to take his place, and he pushed the questions out of his mind as he began filling the box.

  March 1st

  Watertown NY

  Off Factory Square: Mike Collins

  5:00 PM

  Mike sat at bar and watched football on one of the big screen TV's Mort had just put in. It was a slow game, he was tired, and his mind kept turning to other things. He couldn't concentrate. Part of the allure of the Rusty Nail was the quiet. After a 12 hour shift at the mill with the constant noise from the huge machinery, the quiet had been nice. But that had all changed once the bar had become popular with the nearby base. He needed to go home. The crowd in the bar was starting to build and the noise was giving him the beginnings of a headache. He caught Mort's eye and went back to his thoughts as he waited.

  The Rusty Nail had always been a locals only bar up until a few years back when the economy had taken a nose dive. The nail was wedged up a side street off Factory square. Not exactly easy to find, and that had hurt business too as the old people left and the new people came in.

  Mort, Mortimer to anybody that felt like being tossed out on their ass, had nearly lost the small bar and the building above it to the bank. The building above it had six small apartments that Mort had purposely left empty when he had bought the building fresh out of the service thirty years back. Who wanted to deal with tenants, he had said then. But times changed, and so he had sold his house, moved himself into one of the apartments, and then sold the bank on remortgaging the whole building as well as renovating the other five apartments. The bank had come up with a loan that took all of that into account and added a second income source from the apartments that could pay the monthly mortgage and put a good chunk of change into his pocket too.

  He had signed on the x, taken their money, renovated the building, moved in the tenants and then taken a hard look at the Rusty Nail. He had decided to completely gut the bar and do it over. He had dumped far too much into the renovations though, including being closed for nearly a full month, and then opened it to find that the economy had taken an even deeper nose dive during those nearly thirty days. The third month into the new mortgage and he had found that he was maybe in a bad spot already.

  Mike remembered now that he had sat right at the end of the bar when Mort had talked it over with some others, Moon Calloway, Johnny Barnes, Jim Tibbets, Mike had been welcome to include his two cents which he had declined to do.

  “Well, what you do is put the word out to those cab drivers. Believe me, I've seen it. They will have them soldiers down here in no time, even if you are off the beaten path,” Jim had said. Jim was a school bus driver for the north side district and less than a year away from a fatal car accident on the interstate. Jeff Brown, who had been a local football star, was doing ten years up at Clinton Correctional for hitting Jim's car head on drunk and killing him. But that night Jim had still been alive and had wanted to be a part of the New Rusty Nail that Mort had in mind. Something a little more modern. Modern bought the soldiers, but more importantly it also bought women.

  “I'm not paying no fuckin' cab driver to bring me G.I.'s,” Mort had said. “And I know your game. You're just hoping to get some pussy out of it.”

  They had all laughed at that, except Jim who had turned red. But after a few seconds he had laughed too, and the conversation had plodded forward the way bar conversations do.

  “Well, you ain't got to pay them exactly, give them a couple beers,” Moon threw in.

  “Jesus Christ,” Mort exclaimed. “That's why you boys ain't in business. You think the beer is free.”

  “I know it ain't free, Mort,” Jim said. “But it don't cost you that much. You get it wholesale.”

  “Wholesale? I drive right the fuck out to that wholesale club and buy it by the case most of the time just like everybody else. Cheaper than them beer guys, except draft, of course. That ain't free. You got to pay the yearly fee. You got to pay them taxes to the feds. You got a lot you got to pay for. Some fuck crushes your can you're fucked for that nickle. Jesus... wholesale my ass. It ain't no bargain.”

  “Yeah? ... Let's see,” Moon starting writing in the air with his finger. You get it for let's say six bucks a case, I know that cause that's what I pay out there too. So six bucks divided by 24 is,” he drew in the air for a few moments, erased it, and then started over. “How the fuck do you do that, Mikey... The six goes into the twenty-four? Or times the twenty-four?” Moon asked.

  “Uh, it's a quarter a can,” I had supplied.

  The argument had raged on from there. Once Moon found out he was paying a buck fifty for a can of beer that only cost a quarter he was pissed off.

  In the end
Mort had talked to a couple of cab drivers. Free draft beer one night a week if they bought soldiers by all week long and told as many as possible about the place. Within two weeks Mike hadn't recognized the place when he had come by after shift to have a couple of beers. The soldiers drank a lot of beer, the bank mortgage got paid, and life was fine. Except for the fights, Mike thought, but you can't load young guys up on alcohol and not expect trouble. Especially when those young men were just waiting on the word to go and maybe die in another battle that remained undeclared as a war. High stress levels meant heavy duty unloading. The M.P.'s got to know the place as well as the soldiers did.

  “Mike,” you ready?” Mort asked now.

  Mike smiled. “I was thinking back to last year...” He had to shout to be heard. Tomorrow his voice would be hoarse. “This place was empty! … Yeah... One more then I gotta go,” Mike agreed.

  Mort leaned closer. “Gov'ment tit. I know it, but fuck it. It's all the Gov'ment tit. Road and Bridge projects. Job centers. One way or the other it comes out the same. Even them subsidies so the paper mills can still run. It's all the Gov'ment tit, ain't it, Mike?”

  “Its is,” Mike shouted. He nodded. It was. This town would have dried up years ago without it. Mort left and then came back a few moments later with a fresh beer.

  “Vacation?” Mort yelled.

  Mike nodded. “Two weeks of silence,” He shook his head at the irony and Mort's laughing agreement was drowned out by the noise.

  “If I don't,” Mort said leaning close.

  Mike nodded. “I will.” He raised his glass and then tossed off half of it. A few moments later he was outside on the relatively quiet sidewalk punching numbers into his phone, calling for a cab. The night was cold, but the cold sobered him up. It seemed nearly capable of washing away the smoke and noise from inside the bar. He stood in the shadows beside the door waiting for the phone to ring on the other end. The door bumped open and Johnny Barnes stepped out.

  “You ain't calling for a cab, are you?” Johnny asked when he spotted him.

  Mike laughed and ended the still ringing call. “Not if I can get a free ride from you.” Mike told him.

  “Yeah, you were always a cheap prick,” Johnny agreed. “Hey, I heard you're heading into the southern tier tomorrow?”

  “Two weeks,” Mike agreed as he levered the door handle on Johnny's truck and climbed inside. His breath came in clouds of steam. “Get some heat in here, Johnny.”

  “Coming,” Johnny agreed. “Man, I wish I was you.”

  “Me too,” Mike agreed.

  Johnny laughed. “Asshole, but seriously, man. Have a good time. You gonna hunt?

  “Nothing in season... Maybe snare some rabbits. Not gonna be a lot this time of year.” Mike said.

  “Maybe deer,” Johnny offered. He dropped the truck in drive just as the heat began to come from the vents.

  “Probably, but they'll be out of season. Rabbit, and I got freeze dried stuff. Trucks packed, which is why I didn't drive it down here.”

  The truck drove slowly through the darkening streets as the street lights began to pop on around the small city: The two men laughing and exchanging small talk.

  Seattle: 6:00 P.M.

  Jessie Chambers sat slumped against a wall in another alley off Beechwood Avenue; Seattle's red light district. He had been dead for over six hours. The money from the wallet had allowed him to indulge in his habit for over forty-six hours with no sleep. The last injection had killed him.

  The Cocaine he had purchased to mix with the Heroin had been cut with rat poison, among other things, so that the kid who had sold it to him could stretch it a little further.

  The constant hours of indulging in his habit would have killed him anyway, but the addition of the rat poison was all his overworked heart could stand, and it had simply stopped beating in protest.

  The alleyway seemed to dip and then rise sharply as a sudden, strong vibration shook the area. The shaking lasted for mere seconds. Dust raftered down from the sky, shaken from buildings. In the silence alarms brayed, and glass shattered, falling to the streets below. Gunshots punctuated the silences in between the screams, yelling.

  Billy Jingo found himself rolling across the alley and nearly slamming into the opposite wall. He held himself steady, fingertips outstretched, until the shaking stopped: Unsure where he was or why he was there.

  As his mind began to awake he remembered Jon punching him earlier. Nothing specific besides that, but it was enough to draw some conclusions as to where he was. It didn't explain the shaking that had awakened him. He looked off down the alley where a bum, or maybe a hype was resting against the wall, slumped over. Maybe, Billy thought, the bum had tried to awaken him. He made his feet and staggered past the bum to the mouth of the alley, looking out at the street. The bum was still sleeping when he looked back. The more he looked at the bum the more he thought he might be a crack head, maybe even a heroin addict. Those fuckers could crash out anywhere, oblivious to their surroundings, he reminded himself. He stepped onto the sidewalk, and then glanced back once more, wondering if he should repay the favor and wake up the now sleeping bum, hype, whatever he was.

  No, he decided. He focused his eyes, stretched his arms and legs, flexed his fingers and decided he was pretty much okay. As he started back down the street, he suddenly found himself thrown to the sidewalk as the earth began to shake and heave violently once more.

  Behind him the street began to shake harder, cracks appeared in the alleyway where Jessie's body lay and threaded their way out into the street. Far off in the distance the earthquake shook harder at the epicenter, small booms coming over the sound of destruction as the time wore on. Nearby a building succumbed to the vibration and toppled over into the street clogging it from side to side. Cars rocked on their tires shifting violently from side to side, sometimes bouncing off in one direction or another, or slamming into a nearby car or building.

  This time when the silence came the sounds that it carried were different. Weeping from the piled remains in the street. The zap and crackle of power lines as they danced in the street like charmed snakes without their handlers.

  A harder jolt hit and the cracks opened wider, some swallowing whole sections of rubble as they did. Jessie's body slumped over and then tumbled into a chasm that had opened next to him. Almost as quickly the chasm closed as though it had never really been there at all. The shaking slowed and then stopped and the silence fell once more.

  Billy managed to get to his feet, staggering at first, pulling deep lungfuls of air, but getting his feet under him. Blood ran into his eye from a cut on his forehead, but he was otherwise okay. He waited for his panic to abate, his breathing to slow, and then he moved off at a fast run along the Avenue: Heading for home.

  New York: Harlem 9:00 pm

  Tosh made her way down the sidewalk. It was icy, and so she was careful where she stepped. Adam walked beside her. He seemed to have no trouble walking on the sidewalk, ice or not. He had lessened his stride to stay beside her as they walked.

  “Okay?” he asked now.

  Tosh laughed. “Damn slippery,” she said. Almost as soon as she said it she felt her right foot take off on some black ice ridged up against a subway vent. Almost as quick as that happened Adam had her elbow, holding her safely.

  “Tosh,” Adam told her. “You got to be careful... The baby.” He sounded reverent.

  “I know about the baby, Baby,” She laughed. “And I am being careful. This damn sidewalk is not cooperating. Why doesn't Harlem have heated sidewalks like some of those places over off Park?”

  “Ha,” Adam told her. “We ain't getting no heated sidewalks ever. Are you kidding?”

  “Hey,” Tosh told him. “We got Bill Clinton over here.”

  “Uh huh. And he can fall and crack his white ass too, cause he ain't got no heated sidewalks either.” He shook his head and laughed. It was funny to see a man as big as Adam laugh, or shake his head, or really anything. He was the
sort of man you looked at and saw violent things coming from. Nearly three hundred pounds, over six feet, and muscular from a ten year stint in prison. And he had that way of looking at someone, any someone, but men in particular, that made them walk away from him. With women it did something else, and Tosh watched out for that too, but Adam had no eyes for any other woman. She was it and she knew it; didn't have to question it.

  “The day Harlem gets heated sidewalks is the day that they'll put another black man in the white house.”

  “Baby we got that,” Tosh told him. She had reached a section of walk that was shoveled and clear of ice both. A rarity after a heavy snow fall.

  “And did he get us heated sidewalks?” Adam asked. He looked at her google eyed and she had to laugh.

  Owning a car in New York was a tough proposition, Adam thought. They didn't have one, but it would be nice. That way Tosh could drive home from work instead of the Subway, and a long walk through a bad neighborhood.

  Adam's job was steel work. He was picked up every morning and dropped off again. For him a car or a truck would be a luxury. To her it was really a necessity. A necessity he was trying to work out, but it was tough to do.

  First you had to be able to afford to buy a car. Then you had to pay nearly as much for insurance as you did for the car. Then you had to pay for a place to park it. If you were stupid enough to leave it on the street it would be towed, stripped, stolen, or get so many parking tickets it wouldn't be worth owning. So you needed a parking place, and that would set you back five times what the shit box car you had managed to buy had cost you. Adam knew, he had checked into it. He sighed now thinking about it.

  “Stop worrying about a car,” Tosh told him.

  “I wasn't,” Adam told her.”

  “Oh, so you're going to start lying to me now?” Tosh asked him.

  “No,” Adam admitted. “Just pisses me off. I see these people that are on welfare driving a Cadillac and I got to say, what the fuck! I mean we work hard. We really do. I don't like seeing you have to walk.”

  Tosh laughed. “Baby, it's a handful of blocks.”

  “Uh huh, and you nearly bust your ass walking them,” Adam said.

  She laughed again.

  “Oh that's funny that you might slip and bust your ass?”

  “No,” She giggled. “Adam, God forbid the sidewalk that slapped my ass. I believe you would kill it, but I'm never gonna hit that sidewalk 'cause you're always going to be there to catch me.”

  “Huh,” Adam said. He laughed a little.

  “Well, you will be and I know it. So it doesn't matter,” Tosh said. “And besides, I like this... I like this walk every evening with you.” She slipped her arm further through Adam's own, and huddled closer to him. “And it keeps my ass nice and firm, “ she whispered as she leaned closer to him. She laughed and Adam broke into laughter with her. A skinny kid in a hoody, passing by them shrunk away from them, his eyes suddenly startled wide.

  “Hey it's just laughing, Cousin. Ain't gonna rob you.” Adam told him.

  “Baby,” Tosh said.

  “I know... I know,” Adam told her. He left off and turned away from the kid who seemed about to break into a run.

  “Sometimes it isn't about black and white,” Tosh told him. “Sometimes it's about you're a very big man and when a man as big as you does something as simple as laugh a little loud it scares people.”

  “Well that's funny because it's been about black and white for as long as I can remember,” Adam told her.

  “Baby?” She waited until he looked down at her.

  “It's true... Now stop... This is something I enjoy. Don't spoil it.” She held his eyes until he smiled at her.

  Their combined laughter faded into the gray of the evening as they moved off down the street.

  USGS Alaska:

  10:15 PM GMT March 1st

  “What is that?” Mieka Petre asked. He planted one hand on the back of the chair and then leaned forward, staring at the monitor harder.

  “The Yellowstone Caldera... That's what I've been trying to tell you. It wasn't there when I left for my break... Uh,” he looked up at the clock. “Fifteen minutes ago,” David Jones said.

  “That can't be. Has there been any activity from...” He stopped talking as David called up the log from ten minutes prior. He watched as a small counter measured the sudden change in ground level. He watched the elapsed time. “Christ, Jesus. Eleven inches in twenty-one seconds. That's impossible.”

  “Started about five seconds before that... At least on my readout...” David sighed. “The point is it wasn't there, and it is now.”

  Other people wandered over from where they had been, zoning in on the hurried conversation, and the edge of excitement it carried.

  “I can goddamn well see that, David.” Mieka motioned for David to move, and took his seat, rolling closer to the monitor and watching the counter. “It has to be an error.” He caught a flash from the corner of his eye and turned away from the monitor and faced David. “Who knows?” His eyes rose and took in the half dozen men and women standing around listening to their conversation and watching the monitor. Three of them had their phones in their hands.

  “Did any of you make a phone call, snap a picture? I'm telling you right now, I will personally fire anyone who causes a panic over this. This is a bad sensor... We're working on land line reads, we don't even have satellite. A bad read, it has to be. Ground level rise like that takes years, we all know that. It's fact. There has been nothing in the last few days to indicate anything like that coming up...” He fixed a hard look on his face and met as many eyes with it that would meet his own. “No one is leaving until I check their phone. Nobody!“ His eyes swept the room. The cell phones vanished. “Who has a different set of readings?”

  “I got fifteen,” Joan Allen said in the silence that held the room. Her phone was folded discreetly in one hand, and she slipped it into her front pocket as though she were drying her hands against the fabric of her pocket. Mieka swore under his breath.

  “Jesus, Mieka, I just got a read from Long Valley.” This from Jason Lewis.

  “What? ...When?” Mieka asked as he turned to face him.

  “I was watching it. There was some funny seismic stuff earlier and...”

  “And? Get to it,” Mieka shouted.

  “And it seemed like it was nothing … There was nothing when I got up to see what you guys were doing... Two feet... Two feet in the last minute!”

  Panic gripped the room and voices immediately leapt into hurried conversation.

  “People! People! Shut up!” Mieka Petre yelled above the din. The silence was instantaneous. He turned to face Jason. “Up two feet?” Sweat ran freely from his brow.

  “Down... Down. It's like it suddenly sunk... Suddenly...”

  Mieka waved him off, and turned to face the room. He swiped at the sweat as it rolled into the corner of one eye, stinging.

  “What else... Anything else?”

  “Seismic... 4.3 … 5.8 … Jesus... Clusters around Yellowstone.” Jane Howe.

  One by one everyone had gone back to their monitors. Alarms began ringing in the silence that had descended. First soft chimes then urgent warbles. All the satellite network was down. They had been reduced to basic land line connections. Slow, they should have had this information sooner, Mieka thought. Much sooner.

  “Japan,” Someone called out. “Off the coast... Chiba... Seismic... It's a big one... A big one... 8.9 … More... More coming...”

  An alarm that was mounted partway up the wall above the huge banks of monitors began to bray. Long, strident calls. Mieka turned to the alarm, frozen for a second. It had never been triggered in the ten years he had worked at the Alaska station, never, he had begun to believe it would never be triggered. He thought of it as the Oh Shit, alarm. It was triggered from the central office on the mainland. It was only set off if there was a catastrophic failure of some sort. With the delay because of the land lines he had
no way of knowing how late the alarm was. What had already, in all probability, occurred.

  He turned to go back to his own chair; there were decisions to make, people to notify. Suddenly the floor dropped from under him, and he found himself falling. Before he could reach the floor it suddenly leapt up to meet him, and he slammed headfirst into the polished concrete, nearly losing consciousness.

  He regained his knees and tried to brace himself as the floor shook harder still. Blood ran from his hairline, and joined a small trickle of blood from one eyebrow. A second later it ran across his cheek to his chin; dripping to the floor.

  He watched the drops hit the concrete; splatter, and he thanked God that he could still see. There was a stabbing pain behind his eyes. He had hit hard, and the shaking building wasn't helping at all.

  Screams and yells mixed with the crash of file cabinets and the splintering of plastic as monitors shook apart or crashed to the floor. The air suddenly became clouded with dust as the concrete the room was made from began to shake apart.

  Mieka watched as Jane Howe bounced across the floor, her eyes wild, and slammed headfirst into the corner of a desk, sliding underneath; her body suddenly loose, shaking like a rag doll as the jolts hit the building: Her legs jumped up and down. Mieka tore his eyes away. He tried to maintain his position on his knees, the palms of his hands flat, grasping at the concrete, but the constant pounding of the floor against his kneecaps was becoming excruciatingly painful. Reluctantly he dropped back down to the floor, trying to control the drop as much as he could, but he went rolling away to slam into a wall: He felt his ribs break as he hit.

  The noise from the earthquake was a constant roar. Screaming, yelling, crying, pleading, the constant rain of concrete chunks, sounding like hail stones as they fell from the ceiling above. The thickening dust. A roar of something else, wind? ... Something beginning to overtake everything else, closing out all other sounds as he sagged against the wall and tried to hang on. His ribs were definitely broken, it hurt to lift his arms. He could feel the bones grinding together. He knew he was crying out each time they were moved, but he could not hear those cries.

  The ribs ground harder, and this time the light dimmed further; he had a harder time opening his eyes. A second later they slipped shut again as the floor suddenly dropped from beneath him once more, causing the splintered ends of his ribs to grind together even harder. He found himself falling as consciousness slipped away from him. The noise increased as he fell and then suddenly it was gone. He fell silently through the darkness.

  THREE

  KATIE

  March 2nd

  Market Place: Old Towne: Early Morning

  “I don't give a fuck what you think, girl. Get that fuckin' money in the bag, and get it in the bag now.” He shifted away, leaning back from Katie, but with the mirrored sun glasses it was hard for her to tell whether he was still looking at her or away from her. The drawer had hesitated opening, the reset from switching to emergency power, just a sticky register, something, she had tried to explain it, but he had taken it personal. Like she had meant to have it happen. Thankfully it had opened immediately the second time. She picked up her cash drawer and dumped it into the green plastic garbage bag he held. The ground trembled a little under her feet causing her to sway, and they both paused, waiting...

  There had been earthquakes. A few aftershocks in between the major jolts, and then the power had gone out. This was, Katie hoped, only a tremor.

  It had been the new assistant manager's bright idea to stay open. To be a gathering place for people in the neighborhood until someone in charge showed up. It was three A.M. and no one in charge had shown up. Twenty minutes ago three people had walked through the front door: All dressed in military fatigues; all wearing the mirrored sunglasses and some sort of scarves or bandannas tied around their heads and below their noses. Hair, eyes, all the features you could look for and remember were gone. They would probably never get caught, there was nothing to remember. Never mind the fact that the alarms were out, the cops hadn't been seen for hours, and they were robbing the market in the middle of some kind of disaster. Katie only hoped they made it fast and didn't hurt anyone. The oldsters, her nickname for the older folks that lived in the area, couldn't handle a lot of shock. Already some of them were overly frightened and shaking.

  Her eyes swept around to the other two. The one guy seemed slightly heavier through the upper body, but the fatigues were out sized, so it was hard to tell. The last had a deep booming voice that he had only used once when they had come into the market, kicked the chocks that held the automatic doors open out of the way, and announced the robbery. None of the three had spoken since then.

  There were twenty-eight people in the market, mostly the oldsters from the Old Towne neighborhood who had come to the market area because the lights were still on, and there were other people there. Old Towne was a far suburb of the city of Manhattan. Some young couples lived here, but getting into and out of the city was sometimes too much and before you knew it a face you had gotten used to seeing was gone. The oldsters with their pensions and fixed incomes stayed. The commute into the city, as rarely as they had to make it, meant nothing to them. Crime was usually low, it wasn't a bad place to live.

  A tremble passed through the floor once more; weaker than the last. It felt like a heavy truck passing over a bridge, no more than that, she thought.

  Three earthquakes had hit so far, each one stronger than the last. Katie herself had watched the lights of Manhattan dim and then wink out. All of those tall buildings that had lit up the sky over Harlem every night for as long as she could remember, gone in the wink of an eye. The flat screens that hung above the checkouts had winked out, and the two televisions at the front of the store that were on every hour of every day blacked out, and then came back with snow and static. The skyline had lit back up, but it was flickering in places.

  Katie had grown up in the Grant projects over in Harlem, and up until a few weeks ago she had still made the trip back and forth every day, but she had found a place, a small walk-up, not far from the market. It was okay for now. And living in Old Towne suited her, or had. She didn't know how this was going to change the equation.

  The power had not come back on in Old Towne. The lights were running by generator. The generator was necessary for the meat department at the back of the store. It wouldn't run forever, but it was on now keeping the meat freezers, and the cold cases working; running the low powered emergency lighting system inside the market.

  The robber that had been in front of her moved down the line to the next register when the shaking stopped, bag in hand. The other two stood silently at the front of the store, some sort of rifles with clips held in their hands, watching, Katie supposed, through their mirrored lenses.

  The man with the bag had reached the end of the line when a much heavier earthquake hit and things began to tumble from the shelves, falling into the aisles. Above her she watched the ceiling lift from the painted cinder block walls, and then slam back down once more. One second she had been looking outside at the massive bare limbs of the oaks that lined the other side of the street, and the next she had been looking at the backside of the corrugated panels that made up the roof of the market. It had happened so fast that she wondered to herself if it had really happened at all. The thin steel roof trusses that held the corrugated panels twisted as the roof slammed back down, squealing as they did. It seemed impossible to her that they could continue to hold the roof.

  Her eyes swept quickly around the inside of the market. Most of the oldsters were screaming, cowering where they stood, trying to melt into the floor, but a few were standing stoically; watching parts of the ceiling begin to fall. Katie held the side of the dead conveyor belt in her checkout lane as the floor rose and shook. The robbers scrambled to stay on their feet, the stock tipped and tumbled, rolling across the floor.

  The looks on some of the oldsters faces said, “I knew this is how it would end,”
and Katie believed in that split second that they really had known all along that the world would come to an end in Old Town's Market Square just like it was right now. They had been children playing in the school yard, young lovers chasing after one another through the tall grass, parents seeing their child off to school on that first day: Pensioners walking to the box to get their check as the little girls that lived next door played hopscotch on the sidewalk; old folks coaxing the cat into the house through the back door, and they had known. They had known all along. Her eyes swiveled back to the front of the market, and that was when the roof at the front of the store collapsed. The robber, the one with the bigger upper body screamed and jumped back, and Katie understood then that he was a she. Her scream seemed like a signal to everyone, and a fraction of a second later they were all, oldsters, employees and robbers, running for the back of the store as the ceiling of the market collapsed onto the tops of the aisle shelving. The lightweight steel girders grinding and screeching as it came down.

  The doors to the back stock room slammed open and the crowd poured into the rear storage area, coming up against the stacks of boxes and crates, and stopping. Just that suddenly the situation had changed. They were no longer running for their lives, they were being herded like cattle by the three and their waving, motioning rifles, holding the doors open, pushing the stragglers, cut and bleeding, into the area as the last of the shaking stopped. Large clips depended in a curve from those rifles, Katie noticed. They were in their hands, but they also had other weapons slung upon their backs by straps that looked every bit as capable as the ones they held in their hands. The one with the thicker chest, the one who at least screamed like a woman, kicked the doors shut and they stood, choking and sneezing as the thick clouds of dust swirled and billowed in the emergency lights.

  Outside:

  The old Chevy began to rock on its springs, lunging first right and then left. It took a harder lunge to the right, and then jumped forward and slammed head on into the side of the building.

  “Fuck, Calvin. Fuck,” the woman driver screamed. She held a rifle with a long banana clip that slammed into the ceiling. Her finger squeezed the trigger tightly for just a brief second and spat a burst of bright white light and noise; a jagged hole appeared in the roof of the car.

  “Bitch, what the fuck?” Calvin screamed as he tried to roll with the shaking car, hanging onto the dashboard. The four in the back added their own comments, and in a second the entire car erupted into cursing and yelling. The ground movement tossed the car once more, picking it up and slamming it sideways into a truck that had slid over three spaces. The screech of grinding metal and breaking glass silenced the screams and yells from the car. The car bounced away from the truck, jiggled from side to side and then settled onto the ground; one tire flat, the nose bent upward.

  “Get out... Get out of this motherfucker,” Calvin screamed. Bricks and pieces of concrete block began to tumble from the roof line as the main wall of the market bulged out and the false roof structure that fronted the store titled backwards and fell into the store space. A few of the huge glass windows that fronted the market cracked with loud audible clicks: Spiderwebs running like bolts of lightening top to bottom, and then shooting off to the sides. Huge walls of glass that were now held together only by the aluminum frames they rested in.

  “Jesus... Jesus, those bitches will go... I know it,” one of the men that had been in the back seat muttered, as he tumbled from the car and staggered away. One tall window groaned, splinters of glass shooting onto the sidewalk, and the front passenger side of the car, and then collapsed in a small pile onto the concrete as if to prove him right. Screams surged out from inside the store mixing with their own. A thick cloud of dust billowed out through the opening. The glass glittered like gemstones in the sparse light from the interior of the market.

  “Out... Out!” Calvin yelled. A small section of brick bonded to concrete block fell over and crushed the nose of the car, pinning it to the ground. Steam erupted from the buried nose of the car and rose into the cold air, mixing with the dust as it did. Calvin skipped backwards, the hard heels of the combat boots he wore getting little purchase on the asphalt. He fell backwards with the momentum, his hands splaying behind him, immediately cut on the glass and other debris that covered the asphalt. He wrenched himself forward and began to pluck at the pieces embedded in his palms. His eyes rose and swept across the others as his fingers worked. Murder, Shitty, Chloe, Tammy, he ticked off the faces mentally. “Who? “ he asked. His quick head count had come up short.

  “Rosie,” Tammy said. She was a thin girl with a shock of kinky pink hair. The name was picked up by the others.

  Rosie had been in the front with him. She had been the one that had shot through the roof of the car. She was nowhere to be seen. Calvin stood, dusted his bleeding palms against his fatigues and walked around the edge of the car. Rosie's boot clad feet protruded from under the car. Not moving. A pool of spreading blood seeping past the wheel that rested partway onto her body, and out into the lot. He stopped. “Rosie's done up,” he said aloud. He raised his eyes from the pavement as a gunshot came from inside the market. He swore to himself. “Better see what's happened inside. Stay right here,” He frowned as a second shot rang out. “Fuck... Listen, if it goes bad, get the fuck out... Just run.” He waited for Murder to nod. Murder was his first. The one he trusted the most. He trotted toward the front entrance, his rifle in his hands, safety off.

  The Stock Room:

  Things moved fast after the doors swung shut. The one with the thick chest tore off her bandanna and shook her head as if to get the dust out of her hair. White-blond hair flew about her face. She bent over a second later and vomited. Katie smelled it on the air instantly, and fought the gag reflex that started in her own throat. A few of the oldsters didn't make it, and the small floor area was covered with sprawled and bent double bodies a second later as more became sick. Katie kept her eyes on the three. A second later the other two tore off their bandannas, and Katie's heart sank.

  The one with the deep voice spoke again: A tall pimple faced white boy, Katie saw. He couldn't be more than fourteen. “Get these,” he said, as he passed long pieces of plastic to the other two. The plastic made no sense until a few seconds later when the other two began slapping the zip ties around one of the oldsters wrists and tugging another through the first before pulling them tight.

  “Oh God. Don't do that to me,” Annie, one of the new clerks screamed. She bolted forward as if making a break for the now closed stock room doors, and Katie watched as the pimple faced white boy raised his rifle. He squeezed the trigger once. Annie collapsed to the floor in mid stride, like a kite that had spilled all of its air at once. One leg spread before her, the other at an angle behind her. Her body skidded along the floor an inch or two and then stopped. She sighed loudly. Her mouth was closed tightly in a grimace as she slowly tipped over to the floor. Her eyes were open, and for a second Katie thought maybe she was seeing, but then something in them shifted, and she knew she was gone. Katie turned away as a few of the oldsters began to mutter between themselves, a few others began to cry. Jason, the new Assistant Manager, stepped forward.

  “Listen,” he began in a loud voice. “I don't know who you people think you are, but you've killed someone now... Killed someone!” He stopped and looked incredulously at the three who stood closer to the doors. His eyes cutting down to Annie and then up once more. The pimple faced boy raised the rifle once more, Jason opened his mouth, and the boy shot him in the chest before he could say another word.

  The blast was amazingly loud in the closed area. Louder than the other shot had been, and a large section of Jason's smock turned instantly red, puffing out behind him. He sank slowly to the floor, his mouth working as though he had one last thing to say, but he said nothing. He reached the floor, tipped sideways, and a flood of dark blood spilled from his mouth. After that no one spoke: The other two went back to tying wrists with the zip ties, an
d time seemed to jump forward in quick little jerks as Katie watched them do her own wrists and then move on.

  They would kill her now, she knew it. Nineteen years of living through the violence of the projects: Making it out; all to die in the back of some market stockroom over a few dollars that didn't even belong to her. And they would do it. There was no reason not to now. They had let them see their faces. No reason to tie them. No reason to remove the bandannas. No reason at all.

  A sharp banging came from the side of the stockroom and Katie twisted her head quickly. The door that lead out to the sidewalk, Katie knew. A voice calling, and the pimple faced white boy raised his own voice in answer; turning toward the sound.

  “We're good... We're good,” he yelled in that voice that didn't seem capable of coming from him. He turned back, his eyes scanning the crowd. They stopped on Katie.

  “Where is that fucking door?” he asked. “Where's it go to?”

  She motioned with her head. “Behind the boxes... There, at the end of the aisle. Goes outside... Out front.”

  “Show me, Bitch.” He moved forward and his rifle barrel dug into her stomach, and then upward, dragging heavily across the edges of her ribs as he lifted the barrel and motioned with it. She stifled the urge to cry out. She could feel blood trickling downward, across the flat of her stomach under the smock she wore. She walked the short distance to the door, and found herself suddenly falling as he shoved her hard to one side, and slammed down on the door width bar; swinging it open.

  Katie's forehead hit the concrete hard, and she slid forward on her chest, rolling into a skid of cereal boxes. She was out cold before the boxes tumbled to the surrounding floor, hiding her body.

  The Padlock Situation:

  “What the fuck? The one called Calvin said as he stepped into the room. The pimple faced kid held up the bag of money as he stepped forward to go through the door, the other two behind him. Calvin caught the edge of his shirt and shoved him backwards hard.

  “Why'd you kill some? Why'd you do that? Didn't we talk about it? Didn't we make it clear? What the fuck?” His eyes swept over the two bodies that lay on the floor, blood running away in small rivulets toward the floor drain near the swinging doors that lead back out into the store area.

  “The cunt on the floor tried to rush us... No choice!” The kids frightened, pale-blue eyes stared up into Calvin's own eyes. A small smile played at the corners of his mouth.

  “The other guy played hero,” the blond said. Her face was slicked with sweat, making it seem even darker than it was. She stepped forward slightly, trying to hold Calvin's eyes with her own. Calvin's hand flashed to his waist, and a second later he bought it up in a sharp thrusting motion. The kid gasped, his mouth opened, and a small trickle of blood ran from the corner and across his cheek. Calvin watched the life begin to bleed from the kids' eyes before he released him. The kid slid to the floor as if in slow motion. Calvin sheathed his knife: The blonde stepped forward as if to catch the kid, and Calvin raised his rifle.

  “You got something to say?” he asked.

  The blond wagged her head. Tears glistened at the corners of her eyes. She stared down at the body on the floor.

  The Parking Lot:

  Chloe looked from Murder to Tammy. She had already started backwards at the shot. It had taken all of her resolve not to run. Tammy stood trembling, her eyes trapped, and unable to stay in one place for long; lighting first on Chloe, then Murder, then back to Chloe.

  “Chloe! Fuck. Chloe!” Tammy hissed. “Let's go... Let's fuckin' go.”

  Far away the scream of an engine came to her, and Chloe's eyes swiveled back to Murder. “You know he'll kill us too... You know it.”

  “Shut up! Shut the fuck up, Bitches. Just let me...” Before he could finish the words, Shitty, who had been standing right next to him, had turned and sprinted a few feet away. He stopped and looked back, sweat trailing down his face, panic bright in his eyes.

  “That fucking engine, Man. It's coming here... Listen, Man. Listen.” They all listened for a second. “It's cops... I ain't fuckin' waitin'.”

  There may have been some hope of Murder holding them together, but at the same instance he had that thought a burst of automatic gunfire came from the market and he found his own feet moving. He followed the other three as they ran for the shadows at the back of the lot.

  The Stockroom:

  Calvin motioned to the blond and the other remaining kid and they stepped through the door out onto the sidewalk and the cold air. The blond started to walk away, but Calvin curled his fist into her hair and dragged her back. She cried out involuntarily as he pulled her around to face back into the stockroom.

  “Can't leave it like this,” he told her. “Your man fucked it up, unless you want to be in there with him you better take care of it.” Her eyes pleaded, but he pushed her away; turned loose of her. He raised his rifle, holding it on her. “Take 'em out,” he said quietly. “Take 'em out.” She turned to him once more, briefly, and then turned back, raised her own rifle, and began to fire into the stockroom. Things happened fast after that.

  Unwelcome company:

  Calvin turned at the sound of tires screeching on the wet pavement. A kind of low grade squalling as the tires slid to a stop, muted by the rain slicked roadway. He turned, fully prepared to flash the rifle, and show whoever this was that it might be smarter to take off. He wasn't prepared for the sight that greeted him.

  A police van had skidded to a stop halfway across both lanes of the street and cops seemed to boil out of it. A half dozen. All armed. All dressed in riot gear, and bulletproof vests, Calvin saw. He fully intended to keep turning, but at nearly the same time he saw them his legs seemed to be pushed out from under him, and he felt himself falling as an eruption of noise and smoke filled the air all around him. He tumbled through the doorway into the dim interior. Just outside he watched as the blonde and the remaining man sprinted for the only shelter, the stockroom, but the cops were on both of them just that fast. They fell even as they made the doorway, sprawling on the heap of bodies just past him. The rapid shots fell off to single blasts, and then stopped. Two heavily armored cops ran forward, flanking the door, hesitated only briefly, and then jumped through the doorway into the room beyond. The silence held for a brief second longer and then one called back. Calvin fought to keep his eyes open, convinced that if he could do just that one small thing everything would be alright.

  “Toast... Done up.”

  The one that had called out turned, light flashing dully from his black body armor. He started for the door when his eyes fell on a thick padlock hanging next to the door. He grasped it as he leapt through the doorway; the other followed. They both bent and picked up the few scattered weapons that lay on the sidewalk; tossing them into the darkness of the stockroom, and then the first one slammed the door shut. He ran the padlock through the welded plates on the door and snapped it shut.

  Calvin heard the click. His vision was lost in the absolute darkness of the space. He had already tried to move. He couldn't. It was useless. It had seemed so important to try to move though. So important just a few moments ago. A few.... He blinked, but he still saw nothing. A buzzing started in one ear, and then that ear seemed to fill up with static, breaking the buzzing sound up into little bursts of confusion that tore away into his brain. He blinked and tried to listen harder, but there was nothing to hear, then...

  “Come on, come on, come on!” This from one of the cops crouched back by the van where it idled on the roadway: Vapor curling from the exhaust pipe and lifting into the air. The two sprinted back, jumped into the rear of the van; holding the doors partially shut with their hands, and the van roared away. It turned two blocks down and disappeared onto one of the side streets. The motor could be heard screaming on the still air for a few moments longer, and then it was gone. Silence held the street, and then snow began to fall lightly. Within a short time the entire street was covered in a coating of snow as lightening fla
shed in the dark skies above Old Towne.

  The darkness began to suddenly take on more weight, and the fear that he might be dying settled in more fully with Calvin's other scattered thoughts. A puppy he had had... So real... It's whole body was wagging right along with its tail. It was … was... When? What? Gone... A birthday party... Not his... He had no gift... The sound of the lock clicking shut... Echoing, and then as suddenly as the light had left with the slamming of the door it flared back into existence. A bright ball up near the ceiling. A light to be sure, but unlike any light he had ever seen. It flared brighter... Brighter still, and then he felt himself rise, confused at first, and then stepping from the shadows of the room and into the bright lights of a hallway. Panic jumped into him... How could he be walking? How could he be?

  He spun, meaning to step back into the darkness, but the darkness was gone. All that remained was the over bright hallway that lead to... Whatever it led to. He couldn't make an answer for it come to him. None at all. He stood briefly, still facing what had been the darkness of the back room, but now was only a smooth white expanse of flat wall, and then he forced himself to turn around... It meant... It meant the end... The end... He slid one foot forward and then the other, forcing himself to walk.

  Katie:

  She came awake in the dark. She was shivering, the cold of the concrete seeping deep into her body. Her head ached, but when she tried to lift her hands to it she remembered that they were still zip tied behind her back. Boxes tumbled away from her. That caused panic to settle into her for a brief moment until she realized that whatever had happened was over. The stockroom was graveyard silent, a thin blueish line of light seeped under the swinging doors about twelve feet away. Shadows began to emerge from the darkness as her eyes adjusted: Bodies, and then the thick smells of coppery blood and vomit came to her. She fought the urge to gag.

  She was convinced she was alone, equally convinced that this was just a trick. She waited, and then waited a little longer, but nothing changed as she watched the line of light under the door. Occasionally it would flicker. Nothing else. She made her decision, carefully got to her feet, and stepped around the bodies to the swinging doors.

  The roof was collapsed onto the tops of the aisles. The steel of the shelving units held it suspended there. Most of the emergency lighting was out, but a few lights were still lit: Some hanging by wires into the aisles. The space in the aisles to the roof was tall enough that she didn't have to stoop over as she made her way to the front of the store. She stopped in the darkness at the mouth of the aisle, and looked out through the shattered front windows in front of her. Snow fell on the street beyond the glass. Lightening flashed sporadically in the skies, the sound of thunder sometimes close, sometimes far away: The lightening blue-white flashes of light on the snow covered street.

  She waited: For what she didn't know, but nothing came, nothing changed. She stood, listening to the clicking and buzzing from the flickering fluorescent lights of the market. She bumped against the sharp edge of an end cap that had partially buckled, jutting out next to her: Blood trickled away from her arm, rolling to her wrists which were still bound, her hands, swollen, were cold and numb. She turned and used the sharp edge as quickly as she could to cut through one of the zip ties that bound her wrists. Rubbing until one tie flew apart, making a plastic clicking sound as it hit the aisle floor and skittered away. She moved her wrists around in front of her and into the light.

  A thin line of blood ran away from the wrist that had been encircled by the tie. Whether from the sharp metal she had used to escape the zip tie, or the zip tie itself she could not tell. A few more seconds of careful rubbing with the sharp metal edge and the other plastic cuff fell to the floor. She stood and rubbed feeling back into her hands. They came alive with sharp pins and needles, nearly making her cry out. She flexed them, working blood back into them, and looked out at the falling snow. The whole world seemed quieted by it.

  She looked around the entire front area of the store. It appeared empty, but it was hard to see anything; there were few lights working. The roof collapse had shortened the entire space, trapping what lights remained working inside the aisles, hanging from their wires. There were no sounds, no movements. She was alone, she decided. She stood for a few moments longer, still rubbing her hands, and then walked past the checkouts, stepped through a shattered front window, and walked off down the street into the falling curtain of snow.

  FOUR

  New York: March 2nd

  New York: Watertown

  Mike and Candace

  Morning

  Mike Collins awoke to the sounds of birds whistling in the early morning pre-dawn. Birds, he thought, usually the sounds from the mills drowned them out.

  He had made it home around 6:00 PM the previous evening. He was working the midnight to eight shift and had stopped into the Rusty Nail after work to have a few drinks with some other guys from the paper mill.

  He had wanted to leave before the bar began to fill up. The Rusty Nail had gotten more than a bit rowdy as of late. Two years before, one of Mike's good friends, Moon Calloway, had been killed in the bar. That had seemed to turn the tide. After that point the bar had become much worse, a proving grounds of sorts for the young GI's from the base. Mike often wondered why he even bothered to hang around there at all. Last night it had seemed as though the rowdy element was showing up even earlier than it usually did, when Johnny Barnes had offered the ride Mike had accepted.

  The house on Linden Street wasn't much, but it was paid for, and Mike knew a lot of guys at the mill who either rented or were damn close to losing their homes to the bank. Times were tough in the old U-S-of-A, and at least he had the place free and clear.

  He had practically fallen into bed once he had gotten home. He hadn't realized how tired he was.

  He'd been working all the short shifts he could get, along with his normal evening shifts, saving the money after he'd paid off the house, and today would be the start of his first real vacation in over twelve years.

  Mike had grown up in the small city of Watertown, and had never left. It suited him, he liked to think. Where else could you see the seasons change so vividly, or take a quiet stroll through the woods anytime you felt, he often wondered. The Adirondacks were close by. The southern tier, where he hoped to be in just a few hours, he reminded himself, stretched away for miles. Forever wild lands, Lake Ontario, wet lands. And if he wanted the big city it was just seventy miles away down route eighty-one.

  This is going to be one great vacation, he thought, as he got out of bed. Despite the damn birds.

  The vacation he had planned was a three week camp out in the State Forest Preserve that started only twenty miles to the east. The preserve was nestled up to the military reservation and stretched from there all the way into Central New York. Mike had no idea exactly where he would camp. He had decided to just hike until he found a spot that suited him.

  As he headed for the bathroom he noticed that the clock on the dresser was off. Not blinking, but off, and he could vaguely recall dreaming of waking during the night to some loud noise.

  It had seemed at first, when he had awakened within the dream, as though the entire house had been shaking. He had passed from that dream into another, but the noise and the shaking had seemed to accompany him into that dream as well. It had to have been the strangest dream he could ever recall having.

  At first he had been in his bedroom; the walls shaking around him, and the next thing he knew he had been standing on a stone pathway that overlooked a wide and deep valley that stretched away for miles before it hooked to the right and disappeared. Its forward path blocked by even higher mountains, with others lifting even higher behind that. He turned to follow the ridge lines back to where he was and the scene had shifted to the bedroom once more. He had found himself sitting up in bed, breathing hard, frightened, the room silent, wondering if this was just more of the dream or an actual waking. As he began trying to figure it out, wai
ting for his head to clear, he had found himself sitting on a bar stool in the Rusty Nail, Moon Calloway beside him holding down the other stool.

  He tried speaking to Moon, but he either couldn't hear him, or he pretended not to. In his dream he had still known Moon was dead, so it made sense to him that he could not speak to him. He turned to Mort to order a beer and Moon had suddenly spoken.

  “It was right here, Mike... Right here. Bad place to die... Used sawdust on the floor... Soaks up the beer... The blood.... You know....”

  He tried to turn as soon as he heard the voice, but by the time he turned the scene had shifted again. Instantly the bar was gone and he found himself standing at the edge of what he took to be a lake at first. The water stretched away as far as he could see. There was a tang of salt on the air; red earth crumbled away as the waves came in, taking more land with it. He could remember the salt smell from a trip to Florida as a kid with his grandparents. The smell of the sea.

  “This is the place,” Moon said from beside him.

  He turned expecting Moon to be gone, but he was standing a few feet away staring out over the water. He turned and looked at Mike. “You see it?” Moon asked.

  “Yeah,” Mike managed. The word was barely audible, lost in the sounds of the sea as it worked to take the red dirt away. “Where,” Mike asked. “Where is it? What place is it?” He turned when Moon didn't answer, but Moon was gone. He blinked and he was back in his bedroom, in bed in his own house on Linden Street, talking to a priest that was sitting on the edge of the bed. He remembered telling the priest that he just wanted to go back to sleep. That had apparently satisfied the priest, as he had shaken his head and seemed to float away.

  Mike shook his head, recalling the dream as he entered the bathroom. He picked up his toothbrush from the small plastic cup that held it, squinted into the mirror, and turned on the cold water tap.

  Nothing happened. No rattle of the old pipes in the wall. Nothing.

  “What the hell,” Mike said aloud, “frigging water out too?” He dropped the brush back into the cup and headed into the kitchen to start the coffee.

  “Shit,” he said as he entered the kitchen and remembered the power was off, and that there was no water with which to make the coffee. “Now what?” He walked back into the bedroom and tugged on the pair of jeans and shirt he had worn the day before; he walked through the house to the front door, shoving his feet into his sneakers as he went, and opened it to retrieve the paper that he knew would be there. The ends of the untied laces clicked and bounced against the old hardwood floors as he walked. At least he could read the paper, maybe even find out what the hell was going on.

  The sun was just beginning to climb into the sky as the door swung open. He bent down.

  “No damn paper either?” he muttered as he stood back up and began to search the lawn.

  His eyes rose from the lawn and fell on the Hubert house across the Street.

  Something seemed oddly out of place, and he puzzled over it for a few seconds before his mind told him what it was. The entire house was leaning to one side. That wasn't all though, the street in between dipped and rose in places, and the lawn over there had large patches of brown dirt. The snow that had been everywhere the night before was nearly gone. His eyes had skipped over it, lending an illusion of straight lines until he had looked closely. His eyes rose to the Hubert house once more and he realized what else was wrong, the lot looked too big: He could see more of the Hubert house because the houses on either side were gone. No trace. Jumbled dirt and clumps of grass filled those lots. A leaning Oak that had been in front of the Schuyler house for two hundred years: Uprooted and on the verge of toppling onto the fresh soil.

  As he left his doorway and started across the street to get a better look, his eyes took in the devastation that had changed most of the street overnight.

  Broken cobbles from the old streets poked through the pavement in places, and the broken pipes below street level bought him the sound of running water somewhere deep below. The reality of it hit him and he stopped and turned to look back at his own house. His mouth fell open wide as he stared. The entire house was leaning from foundation to roof, the gutters had detached and snaked down to meet the ground. Almost seeming as though they were holding the house upright. Small sparrows where pecking through the debris that had fallen from the gutters, and singing in the warming morning air. Mike's mouth snapped shut as he stumbled back into the street and sat down hard.

  “What the hell is this?” he asked aloud to the street.

  “What the hell is going on?”

  Mike believed in the tangible. If it could be touched it must be real, and so believing, he reached down to feel one of the cracks beside him in the road. The road tipped, tilted, had separated, and the other surface had dropped lower. His fingers came away with small chunks of asphalt.

  “Feels real,” he declared aloud, as he stared at the road. He pulled at it and a small piece of the asphalt he held snapped off into his hand. He bought it up to his face to examine it closely; threw it back to the ground, and got up from the street.

  He looked slowly off in both directions down the length of Linden Street. As far as he could see in either direction the roads and houses were similar. In fact, he thought, the street doesn't even look like a street anymore. It was still a street because he thought of it as a street. His street. There was now more gravel, dirt and broken asphalt chunks than there was actual street. And in several places it was gone completely. No sign. Wide spots that were wholly devastated.

  Mike closed his eyes and then reopened them. It was all still there. Nothing had changed. He stood and stared for a few minutes longer before he started to walk off down the street in the direction of the downtown area, three blocks to the south.

  He looked over the houses he passed. Most were partly, and some were completely destroyed. He felt as though he were in a bad dream. He knew he wasn't though, as he had closed his eyes to blink away the sights several times to no avail. He had also pinched his left cheek until his eye had begun to water. No good. It was still there. He had done acid once, but only once, back in the seventies, and he had heard about flashbacks, and this could maybe be one, and he had been drinking pretty damn heavily yesterday, and...

  He spotted a young woman sitting on the curb three houses down and walked up to her. She tilted her tear streaked and puffy face up to him as he approached.

  “Is this a dream?” he asked when he stopped.

  “No, it's no dream,” she replied as she slowly shook her head.

  “Where have you been since last night? Didn't you hear the noise? Didn't you feel it?”

  Mike recalled the noise that had awakened him during the night. The noise he had thought was only an extension of the strange dream.

  “Well, I thought it was a dream, you know, but I did hear a storm, or something, but I didn't think it was a big deal... you know, they can get loud sometimes, but... What happened?”

  “Yellowstone blew up,” she said simply. “Didn't you see the TV?”

  Mike shook his head.

  “Well,” the young woman continued, “anyhow that's what happened. They cut in to the TV last night; I was watching... you know, and they cut in and said that the Yellowstone caldera was going to fracture because of how close the meteor came. I came outside to see, and, well there was nothing to see at first, and then the ground started shaking, so I ran to get back inside. But the whole bottom floor of the building was gone.” She shrugged.

  The young woman broke into fresh tears, and buried her face back into her hands.

  Mike sat down beside her and put his arm around her in an attempt to comfort her.

  “Is your husband here?”

  “Not married,” she said, “There was a guy... A few years back. He's stationed somewhere in the Middle East,” she finished, as she looked at Mike.

  “Sorry,” Mike said, “how long have you been out here?”

  “I called this cop that
had given me his card... He said the police would come so I came back out to wait, but they never showed up, so I just sat here. I didn't know where else to go or what to do! I've been here ever since, just watching the street crack.”

  Mike looked around at the street.

  “It happened all at once?”

  “I don't know,” she replied, also staring at the street. “One second it was still whole, the next it wasn't. But it's still going on. Every little while a crack will just appear and then another section will tilt or drop a little. Sometimes there's no noise, other times it's this horrible groaning sound... Like it's alive or something.”

  “Is your power on?” Mike asked changing the subject.

  “No,” she replied, “went off right after the ground started shaking.”

  “Mine's off too,” Mike replied.

  “The power lines fell while I was out here, arcing all over the place. Scared the shit out of me too, and then they just quit... Went dead,” She said.

  “Listen... I'm going to walk downtown... see if the police department is open, or see maybe if everyone is there somewhere. You're the only person I've seen so far... do you want to come with me?”

  “Sure,” she said, as she stood and brushed at her jeans, “no use sticking around here I guess, is there?”

  “I don't think so,” Mike said. “I think... you know that everyone else is probably downtown. Getting organized or something,” his eyes betrayed the worry he felt. He hoped that everyone was downtown as he had said, but he wasn't convinced himself. We have to find someone though, he thought, don't we?

  He stood up and they both walked off down the street toward downtown Watertown.

  “Mike, “ he told her. Talking to you for an hour and didn't even know your name.”

  She laughed, halfhearted, but it instantly lifted the mood. “More like fifteen minutes if that... Candace.” She told him.

  They exchanged small talk as they walked and it seemed to help quell the fear they both felt.

  They wondered about the rising temperature as they walked.

  “I wonder if it’s some sort of fall out from the earthquakes? Can it be radiation, Mike?” Candace questioned.

  “Maybe. I flunked science, so I really don't know. I don't think so though. I mean, if it was, wouldn't we be sick? I think ash is a possibility, maybe if they triggered volcanoes? Makes me wish I had paid attention in science class, or physics, history, one of those.” Mike said.

  She laughed again, this time a little more fully. “No,” she replied. “I don't think so either... I mean the earth shook... like an earthquake. I didn't know we could get an earthquake up here.”

  “Oh yeah... Lived here all of my life. It's more than possible, happens all the time... You from here?”

  “No... Syracuse, before that Texas.”

  “Ah, the big city... Well up here we don't have a hell of a lot to do so they teach us about fault lines, earthquakes. We have a huge fault line that bisects this entire region and continues on south to the Gulf.”

  “All the way to the Gulf?” Candace asked. She patted his arm. “Big city my ass,” She laughed. “ You should see Houston you want to see big city, buster.”

  Mike laughed and nodded. “Seen Houston once... I mean, a long time ago. And then only the Greyhound station downtown.”

  She stopped. ”Get out, really?”

  “Really.” Mike told her. “Very bad place too,” he seemed apologetic.

  “Yeah.” her eyes had suddenly gone sad. “Very.” She started her feet moving again. She had come close to telling him just how well she knew that area of Houston, and had nearly bitten her tongue to stop the words. Emotional situations... You never knew the things that would just jump right out of your mouth, she thought. Leaving you all kinds of vulnerable too.

  They talked back and forth as they continued down the street. When they reached Fourth Street they turned and walked the short block to Main, turned left this time, and headed into the downtown area.

  Old Towne: Katie's diary

  This is not a diary. I have never kept a diary. They say, never say never, but I doubt I will.

  I have never been this scared. The whole world is messed up. Is it ending? I don't know, but it seems like it's ending here.

  It started early this morning while I was still at work. Earthquakes, explosions. And then I was nearly killed by some people who picked that time to rob the store. I'm cut up and bruised, but I made it home.

  I tried to call the cops several times last night once I got my head clear and I was thinking straight again. Nothing. Wah, wah, wah on the phone line, never even rings, and then just before sunrise even that stopped. It's completely dead now.

  When the sun came up this morning I expected to see police, fire or emergency people, but I've seen no one all day. It's nearly night. I think that's a bad sign. I have a Nine Millimeter that used to be my Father's. I've got extra ammo too. I'm staying inside.

  Harlem: Tosh's Notebook

  March 2nd (Last night into today)

  Quakes, at least three. Warmed up fast, and all the dirty snow that was piled along the streets has melted. Torrential rains. Thunder and lightening in the snow storm that came after sunset. Didn't last long; turned back to rain. Parts of the projects are burning. Jersey is burning. The sky is red-orange, like everything across the river is on fire. No one has come.

  Rain 'til noon. Destruction widespread. Then horrific quake just before dark. Started to rain again, very heavy, then later at night it turned to snow. Lightening in the snow storm.

  Night, no moon, no stars. Storms stopped for a while, still no stars. Then the storms came back harder.

  FIVE

  March 2nd

  Mike and Candace

  They both stopped short as they topped the small hill at the crest of Main Street, and stared down at the downtown area on the other side of the river.

  It appeared to be more of a war zone than a city. The buildings that were still standing leaned crazily to the left or right, and only the tallest seemed to have been, as yet, untouched. Candace wondered aloud at that.

  “The taller ones are not that old. Built with federal monies. Earthquake proof.... To an extent. When I was a kid the tallest building was the Baptist church tower.” He pointed to a gray stone spire that reached into the air.

  There was a small crowd of people milling around in the center of what had been the Public Square.

  “It looks bad to me” Mike said softly. He pointed. “City police building?” He met her eyes with his own. “Gone... There should be thousands of people down there...”

  Candace shook her head. “Ought to go down.” She looked up to see what he thought about it.

  Tiny people walked aimlessly around the square or stood, seemingly transfixed, by the huge gray spire of rock that capped the State street end of the square. The sight of the people broke the spell. Mike nodded once and they began the walk down the hill.

  They stopped and looked over the bridge that crossed the Black River. It seemed fine, almost untouched. It was so strange a sight that Mike laughed.

  “What?” Candace asked.

  “Doesn't it seem strange to you? Everything destroyed and the bridge sitting here untouched?” He looked from side to side before he stepped out on the steel decking and began to walk. As they neared the other side they could see that there was a crack that ran from side to side and the road dropped down more than a foot. They leapt easily down.

  “That makes me feel better. It just seemed too weird that it had no damage at all.”

  Candace nodded and they continued to walk into the downtown area.

  The walked up a small rise that had once been the bank of the river just a few hundred years ago, before the dams, mills, and reservoir projects had changed the water flow, Mike thought. The Public Square spread out before them.

  “At least there are other people,” Candace said aloud. “Last night when I was sitting there all alone I was wond
ering whether there were.” She breathed a sigh of relief which was echoed by Mike.

  When they reached the first people at the bottom of the hill, they could tell that many of them were in shock. An older woman wandered by completely naked. Blood ran down one calf from an ugly looking wound, and she was covered with dirt and grime. When Mike attempted to talk to her, she tried to hit him with a baseball bat she had been holding at her side.

  “Leave me alone, you bastard,” she screamed into his face. And then she had run off towards one of the still standing buildings.

  Mike was shaken by the experience and jumped when Candace touched his arm.

  “...think,” he caught as he turned around to face her.

  “Wha-What?”

  “I was saying, I don't think she knew what she was doing,” Candace repeated. “Hey? Are you okay?”

  “Fine,” he answered, in a small voice.

  He was still a little shook up when an older man began to approach them, and he found himself wishing he would turn and head in the other direction. He didn't even recognize him until he was nearly upon them.

  “Bob,” he asked, “is that you?”

  Mike had worked for Bob driving truck at the gravel pit two summers before, when things had slowed down at the mill. Bob Dove owned the gravel pit, and most considered him a hard guy to work for.

  Mike had liked him though. He seemed to be honest; always paid on time, and he always bought Mike a beer when he ran into him. He was forever trying to talk Mike into leaving the mill, and going to work for him fulltime. Today he seemed old and tired. Mike supposed he didn't look much better.

  “How are you, Mike,” Bob asked, “some vacation, huh?”

  Mike had run into Bob just the week before down at the Rusty Nail, and had told him he'd be leaving, but he hadn't given the vacation a second thought since he'd gotten out of bed this morning.

  It seemed odd to think of it now. Wonder what the rest of the world woke up to this morning? He thought. It had only been a short time since he had awakened this morning, but it felt like years had gone by.

  “I guess my vacation got canceled,” he said, trying a grin on his face. “Hell, looks like a lot of vacations got canceled,” he continued, as the grin slipped from his face. “Did you see any of this happen, Bob?”

  “No,” he replied solemnly. “I was out at the pit, and I didn't come into town until this morning. But I saw plenty out there, thank you just the same.”

  “As bad as this?” Mike asked, waving his hands at the damage that surrounded them.

  Bob paused and looked around at the destruction.

  “Pretty damn bad,” Bob said, as he shook his head in agreement. “I was moving the trucks down to the loading area, down the bottom there, and the ground started to shake and the shaking threw me right out of the cab. I jumped down and got the hell out of that pit in a quick hurry, let me tell you. Good damn thing I did too, as about ten minutes after I did the bottom just cracked open and she started to fill. Spent the night in the woods and when I walked out this morning the water was up the top of the pit. Never seen nothing like it.” He paused and looked around the small town square. “So I came down here, but I've been over to city hall, nobody's there. The police department, you know,” he gestured helplessly with his hands.

  “Gone,” Mike agreed.

  “Seen you coming across here and figured to see what you might know,” Bob finished, nodding.

  Mike shook his head. “You can ask Candace,” he said pointing to the young woman beside him, “she saw it on the television last night.”

  Bob looked expectantly towards her.

  “Well... not like I know it all, but I was watching the TV last night, and they said...”

  Mike turned to stare out at the people who stood nearby in small groups, as Candace spoke to Bob.

  “Shit, don't that figure,” Bob exclaimed, when she finished, “So another politician lied to us. All last week they said that meteor would be no problem. Yesterday morning there was some yak attributed to the web about Yellowstone being closed down and already in a bad way and they denied that too,” He swore under his breath. “Figures. Seen any sign of the Guard around, or the Army?”

  “We just got down here ourselves,” Mike answered, “but I expect they'll be here soon, don't you?”

  “That's right!” Candace exclaimed, “They should be coming, shouldn't they? I mean, we're alive, hell of a lot of people are alive, they've got to come, right?”

  “Maybe,” Bob said slowly, looking from one to the other, “but it seems as though they should have been here already, doesn't it? I mean, if they were coming, it ain't that far to the base... Eight miles? I mean, well, hell, it ain't a long way for them to come.”

  Mike nodded his head. “Well, if they aren't here by noon... Anybody got a watch?”

  Candace nodded and held up one hand so he could see the slim silver dial on her wrist, 9:32 he noted.

  “Well, if they ain't here by noon, I vote we go look for them.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Bob said, as Candace nodded her head in agreement.

  They spent the morning wandering between the few remaining buildings and talking to the small groups of people that had formed around the huge church spire in the middle of what was left of the city’s downtown.

  Candace found several other people with similar tales of the destruction they had witnessed the through the night. A few had slightly different takes on what had happened. One woman was convinced the end times had come and spent most of an hour trying to convince Candace to repent of her sins and join her. She had been polite and firm as she told her thanks, but no thanks. She had also stuck closer to Mike after that. Mike was disheveled. He probably hadn't realized he'd forgotten to even comb his hair when he had walked out of his house this morning and witnessed all the destruction. His eyes were a little wild looking. People tended to shy away from him when they saw him.

  She sat at the bus stop bench overlooking the square and wondered what had happened to some of the people. Mike sat quietly beside her, lost in his own thoughts.

  One woman had stopped by the bench and tried to convince them that flying saucers were to blame, and she actually had several people convinced of it. They formed a small protective group around their leader. Candace supposed that with the way things were this morning, that it wasn't as far-fetched as it may have been just yesterday. She listened cautiously, courteously, and they both breathed a sigh of relief when she became distracted by a small after shock and then moved on, her group hovering protectively.

  “Jesus please us,” Mike said.

  “Amen,” Candace agreed.

  They had discovered earlier that though none of their cell phones worked, some phone lines were still working. Well, sort of, Candace amended as she thought about it now. You could call out, but all you got was static or a busy signal. There was a bank of old style pay phones in the Arcade Mall. Mike had tried for over twenty minutes, calling every emergency number in the telephone book. He had finally given up about ten minutes ago, and had ambled back over to sit beside her on the bench.

  “You still want to go out to the base?” he asked now.

  “No.” she replied, as she released a deep sigh. “I really don't see a reason for it... I mean, if they were there, and everything was up and running, they would be here by now. So I just don't see a reason for it. We were fooling ourselves to think that they would come. Let’s face it, they're probably at least in as bad shape as we are.”

  Mike, who had been feeling the same, nodded agreement.

  “So what do we do then?”

  “I don't know, Mike. I don't know what we can do.”

  The conversation ended, and they once again sat staring out over the square, neither knowing what to say.

  Bob wandered back over from a small group of people he had been talking with, and sat down next to them.

  “What did you find out?” Mike asked.

  “Well,” Bob began
, “mainly a lot of strange stuff. For instance, you know Lilly Roberts over there?” he pointed at a tall woman, standing with the group he had just left.

  Mike and Candace both nodded.

  “I know of her,” Mike said, “she ran that little diner out on River Road, didn't she?”

  “Yes,” Candace confirmed, “I worked out there last summer, part-time.”

  “Well,” Bob continued, “she said she was at home with her husband and, well... You guys know him?”

  They both nodded their heads to indicate that they did, and Candace said, “Kind of hard not to know him, or at least to know of him.”

  Earl Roberts, Lilly's husband, had established his own church three years before. The local paper had published numerous stories about him, and the church itself. He had obtained his license through a mail order ministry, and the church was based on the book of revelations; specifically on the principal that the planet Earth was in the last years. Jesus was on his way back, and not the easy going Jesus of the New Testament, a darker, angry Jesus.

  “He's the guy who had the church out in Fort Drum, right?” Mike asked.

  “The same wacko,” Bob said. “Well, anyway, they were at home last night, having an argument about that church of his; she says they were awful close to divorcing over it. So they're arguing and she's telling him how she doesn't feel as she knows him anymore, and bang the first quake hits... She says there were three, at least three,” Bob said and paused.

  “Maybe five,” Candace said... “At least I felt five.”

  “Bob nodded. “Better number. That's what I felt, but I didn't correct her. … So, he just turns away from her and stares at the front door for a few moments and then leaves. She's chasing him down the street, but he's making for the river fast... Snapped.”

  “There's plenty more here that have slipped over the edge,” Candace said.

  Bob nodded. “Well, he did just that. Slipped over the edge. Walked right to the river, and starts talking like there's somebody there. She said at first, she thought maybe he had just gone clean over the edge, you know? A second later he just jumped in. Nothing she could do the water was high, churning. Bad … She never saw him come back up again.”

  “Sometimes Happens,” Mike said as Candace nodded her head.

  “I've heard of that too,” she said.

  “Well there's a couple of others who swear the same sort of thing happened to people they knew. A few others are talking about end times.” Bob paused and looked out over the lake wringing his hands restlessly in his lap.

  “I don't know,” Bob continued. “I guess it makes about as much sense to them as anything else.”

  “You mean they think it is the end times? That it was real?” Candace asked.

  Bob shook his head. “I ain't saying I believe it at all,” he replied. “I'm simply telling you we're going to have to be really goddamn careful who we deal with.” He arched his eyebrows. “Strange winds blowing.”

  “Seen it while we sat here. I can't believe something like this can throw someone that far off. But we've heard a few similar things this morning.” Mike said.

  “And that was strange stuff while we weren't seeking it out... Just sitting here minding our own business.” Candace added.

  “Well,” Bob began, “let’s say that this is the beginning of the end of the world. I ain’t saying it is, but for the sake of argument let’s say it is.”

  “All right,” Candace replied, “let’s say it is.”

  “Well, so let’s say it’s the end of the world. What does that really mean?”

  “I can't say I follow you.” Mike replied calmly. “I think it's self explanatory, right?”

  “That's about how I feel about it too,” Candace said when Mike had finished speaking.

  “You went too deep,” Bob said, as she finished speaking. He laughed lightly. “I meant, what is the end of the Earth? It's obviously not the end of the Earth right now or we wouldn't be here. What it really means to these people, I think.” He raised his hands to gesture at the people milling around everywhere. “Is the end of their way of life. They can't call a cab. Take the train into New York and see a play, fly to the Bahamas for vacation. That is their end. They can't see anything past that, and so when that ceases to exist it is the end of everything for them. They snap... Jump in the river... Sit down in the road and wait for God... Or Moses, or Muhammad to show up. The mother ship... I don't know.” He sighed, leaned forward, cupped his face in his hands and looked out at the devastation. He straightened up, rubbed at the small of his back with both hands. “It's too soon in my life to be the end of anything. I need some more time. And, anyway, when something ends something else begins.”

  Mike was surprised into laughter. “The Mother Ship?”

  “Hey, I talked to that lady earlier... She's pretty much doing just that,” Candace said.

  “I don't know what I believe myself. It's a question that I never felt a need to answer. I mean, I've had a few Bible-thumpers come knocking on my door from time to time. I ain't mean about it, I just listen politely is all, and when they ask me if I want to be saved, or get to their point, I just pass. I just always figured to each his own, you know? I mean they ain't hurting me,” Bob continued, “and if they want to go around knocking on doors, hell, let 'em do it.”

  “I just don't answer the door anymore,” Candace said.

  “Me either,” Mike added, and continued. “I kind of got into the habit of looking through the peephole lately anyway, on account of the crime being what it is, and if it's a Jehovah, or some other Bible people, I just don't answer the door.”

  They all three shook their heads in agreement.

  “I've done that too,” Bob said and then went back to his original argument. “But suppose it is their end? Then what?”

  “Well,” Mike started, “I suppose that you could have a lot of people just waiting for God... Or maybe even the mother ship. Right?”

  Candace just sat quietly, listening to the conversation, as it went back and forth.

  “So you would, but,” Bob continued, “what if there really is a God and a Devil? How does that change things? What if the people that believed in God were taken up?”

  “I've thought of that,” Mike said, “I guess probably it was the first thing that jumped into my head this morning. It seems pretty far-fetched to me. I mean... Would God have a need to be this dramatic? And doesn't God just do things and then, I don't know, after ten thousand years or so the people fall in line and things are okay again?”

  “Yes... God is not known to be really easy on his believers.,” Bob agreed.

  Mike continued. “Take Joanne Hamilton over there for instance,” he said as he waved his hand at a group of people. “I worked with her husband down at the mill, and he's one of the meanest bastards I ever knew. Everybody knows he used to beat the shit out of her, and there was that business a few years back where he got himself caught with a young girl out on Jefferson Road, parked to the side there where the kids hang out. That kind of blows their theory doesn't it? I mean if there was ever a meaner son-of-a-bitch I don't know him, and I can't see what good side there could be to him, do you?”

  Bob seemed to think a second before he shook his head. “I don't see anything good about him either,” he stated flatly. “I knew him myself, and I couldn't stand him, but hear me out a second, Mike.”

  Mike nodded his head, and Candace leaned closer to Bob to listen.

  “I think those people are dead as dead. Swallowed up by the Earth, drowned in the rivers. They're gone and that's that. But what about these others? All I'm saying is, it doesn't matter to us whether we don't think that's what happened, it only matters that they think that's what happened.”

  “Then I guess they try to bring us into their psychosis,” Mike said. He looked around at the crowd.

  “But that doesn't make it so,” Candace said.

  Bob Laughed wryly. “I wasn't looking for truth,” he said softly, “I'm j
ust trying to make sure I live... Both of you too. We have got to be careful with some of these. I have been in war, seen how easy it is for people to turn into primitives just like that.” He snapped his fingers. “I say, we need to think about leaving here. It's only going to get worse.”

  Mike turned from looking over the crowd and nodded. “Makes sense. You have a long way of getting to the point, Bob, but logical... Thought out.”

  “I spent a whole six months in college before I had to leave to help my mother run the gravel pit after my dad died,” Bob continued. “This makes me wish I'd spent a little longer. Maybe I'd know more about it. Whatever it is though, it's natural. Something that just happens. I don't want to get tangled up in someones ideal.” He paused and then began to speak once again, changing the subject slightly.

  “The other thing that's been bothering me is something we can all agree on.”

  “What's that,” Mike asked.

  Candace answered the question for him.

  “I think I know,” she said, “it's the Earthquakes. I mean if we really were hit by that meteor, shouldn't we all be dead by now? What I mean is, when I was outside last night, I didn't see any fall out, but I did feel the earth shaking, it felt like an earthquake too, a big one, but that couldn't have been the Yellowstone one, that's, what, a few thousand miles away anyway, we wouldn't have felt it like that, would we? And still have aftershocks?”

  She stopped and drew a deep breath inward and then continued.

  “The television said that the meteor was sighted inbound, and I could have sworn that, for just a few seconds, there seemed to be a huge glow from the west in the sky. I remember thinking it was where it landed, but when I looked again it was gone. If it was though, why are we still alive?”

  “That wasn't my exact concern,” Bob said, “but it runs along the same lines. I felt the shaking too, and it felt more like a heavy thuds the first couple of times I felt it, something close... Not far away.”

  “...I'll tell you what though, I was talking to Jasper Collins, he fishes Lake Ontario for a living, you know, and he was just docking when it started. He had a pretty good view from there, out across the lake, I mean, and he said he could clearly see a white streak running across the western edge of the sky. He said he was expecting to see a mushroom cloud or something, but the sky glowed for a split-second or two, then the glow just disappeared. But a mans line of sight is only about 3 miles or so, after that the curve of the Earth drops off. So you are looking at something fairly close, or further away but high up in the air.”

  “He also felt the ground shaking after the hit,” Bob continued. “But that's not hard to explain. You may not know this, but there is a fault line that runs all across the Great Lakes basin. Ontario included. The fault line runs all the way across the continent to the gulf coast. Could be that the impact did trigger some sort of earthquake. My point though, is that if that meteor did hit in the west, close enough for Jasper to see, we should be dead.”

  “Mike was telling me about the fault,” Candace said.

  “What else did he say?” Mike asked.

  Candace nodded her head slightly as if to voice the question herself.

  “Well, like I said, he had just brought the boat into the dock and tied it off. That ain't a little boat, I've seen it, forty-five-footer, and the water where he ties it off is damn deep too. Well,” he continued. “He tied it off, and he's standing there and the waves are starting to really build so he hot foots it off the dock. Just as he gets off the whole damn thing just sinks. It took his boat and a couple others with it too. That ain't the end though. As he's standing there, this is the weird part, the lake just drops about five feet, real fast. He knows that lake, and it could be, if that fault line opened up, it could have dropped. If so I'll bet we have one hell of a new river running from here down to the Gulf a Mexico, or at least one hell of a lot of damage.”

  “Jesus,” Mike whistled softly.

  “I don't know... Food for thought though,” Bob concluded and leaned back into the bench.

  Mike recalled the dream of the night before and quickly related it to Candace and Bob. When he finished, Bob turned to Candace.

  “Did you see anything? Maybe dream about anything?”

  “No,” she replied, “nothing at all, except for what I told you. But I was up all night after it happened”

  “I haven't had any myself,” Bob said quietly, “Of course; I was awake all night too in the woods.”

  All three sat back into the bench and stared out over the square, lost in thought.

  “So what does it all mean?” Mike asked to no one in particular, as he continued to stare at the lake.

  “I wish the hell I knew,” Candace said, as she turned her gaze away from the Square and back to the two men on the bench beside her.

  Besides a few guy's from the mill that he would have an occasional drink with, or maybe shoot a game of pool with, Mike was a loner, and he had never married. It was not something he had chosen to be, it was just the way the world was. You really couldn't trust people, he thought, you could never really know what they were like. It was a thing that had bothered him for as long as he could remember.

  He had known men who seemed to be perfect fathers and husbands, but when they were at the bar, and the kids were home with the wife, they were completely different. It was something he had always hated, and something he had constantly fought with whenever he had noticed the same sort of inconsistencies in himself. It was a battle though that he had always won, and would continue to fight. It was one of the main things that had decided him against religion when he was a kid, that and his father.

  His father had been a strict Catholic, and had fought with Mike's mother to get her to agree to let him take Mike to attend the local Catholic Church. Mike had hated it. His father, who was normally drunken, or at least drinking, would sit calmly through mass with all his other drinking buddies every Sunday, then when he got home it was, “Bring me a fucking cold one, woman.”

  He had actually been glad when his father had died, he had never said it aloud, but he had been. He had only wished he had died a lot sooner so that his mother could have had more than the one year she had lived past him, to enjoy life. He pulled his mind reluctantly back to the conversation, when he heard Bob speak his name.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I was just thinking.”

  “That's okay,” Bob smiled, “we all are.”

  Bob continued. “What I think is that the world has changed... That simple. We just need to get on with this different life. I know that's over simplistic, but it beats staying around here waiting for the mother ship to show up. What I was wondering is what you're going to do. Hell, what all of us are going to do now?” He paused as most of the silent crowd that had gravitated to them turned their eyes towards him.

  “Maybe it's time to sacrifice an animal... Pray,” an older woman in the crowd said.

  Bob continued when no one else answered. “I don't think, or maybe I'm just not convinced,” he offered the woman who had just been speaking a small smile, and then continued, “That praying, or a sacrifice, will do us much good. Maybe what we should be doing is trying to figure out what we should be doing. Catch my drift? We can't just stay here and wait for someone to come, it ain't going to happen, and I think we can all agree on that.” He looked around at the faces that surrounded him, and stopped at Mike's.

  Mike nodded.

  “Did any of you notice the temperature?” Bob asked.

  Several people looked expectantly to one corner of the Public Square, where the Watertown Trust Bank had sat with its digital clock, which alternately flashed the time and temperature. They turned quickly back when they realized it was no longer there.

  Many of them had noticed the difference in temperature though. Northern New York, even in the summer months, rarely reached the high seventies, low eighties, on the hottest days. The surrounding air was much hotter and humid.

  They looked back at Bob. />
  “Candace and I noticed it this morning,” Mike said.

  “I picked this up when I went in Samson’s Five and Dime earlier,” Bob said, holding up a small plastic thermometer. The red line on the thermometer hovered just short of one hundred degrees.

  As he looked at the thermometer, Mike recalled how warm it had seemed this morning. When he had first opened the front door he had felt it, but then forgotten it as he had gazed out into the street. As he looked around now he noticed that several people in the small crowd were sweating profusely. In fact, he realized, he was sweating a great deal himself.

  “Anyway, my point is this,” Bob said as he began to speak again, “there may be something to that earthquake theory some of you have been kicking around. It could be that the fault line may have been triggered,” Bob was saying. “If it was, we really ought to be thinking about finding a safer place to be. I remember reading about that fault line, and it seems to me the book I read, said that if the fault were somehow triggered, it could, and probably would, crack the entire Great Lakes Basin. That means that Ontario, along with all the other lakes in the chain, probably would drop. At least a small amount at first, but after they recover from the initial drop, they're probably going to rise... They're probably going to rise, a lot. I don't know what most of you know about this city, but I'll tell you what I know. Got it from the same book,” he paused. “...It’s built on pretty low ground. Now... that river,” he said indicating the bridge that spanned the Black river on the opposite side of the Public Square, “has surely been rising.”

  With that the discussion went back to where they should go, and what they should do once they got there.

  “You're right,” Mike said at last, “We do need to make some decisions,” he paused for a moment and then continued. “When was the last time anyone here ate? I know that sounds a little stupid at a time like this, but if we're going anywhere we should also think about food, and in this heat dehydration could become a factor as well, couldn't it, Bob?” he finished, looking toward him.

  “I should have thought of that myself,” Bob said, “how many of us are there?”

  Candace quickly counted heads and replied. “Twenty-seven, Bob.”

  Bob nodded his head. “Okay... Let’s do this. We do have to eat, so let’s head up Maple Street to Jacobs Superette, get something to eat, and finish this discussion there.”

  Everyone agreed, and the small group left the public square and walked the three blocks to Jacob's Superette in a light rain that had begun to fall.

  Jacob's Superette

  Mike, Candace, Bob and several others were standing by the rear doors that led to the stockroom in Jacob's Superette.

  They had been discussing where they should go. A few others from the small group, were there with them.

  Mike looked around at them as the conversation went back and forth. They seemed solid enough. Terry Jacobs who had worked for Bob, Patty Johnson who was married to a GI from the base who was now stationed overseas, and Ronnie Vincent, a carpenter working on one of the many housing developments in the area. There were others but many of those others that had followed them to Jacobs Superette did not really seem to be doing anything other than following. The ones that had gathered at the back of the store seemed to be on the same page, leaving Watertown.

  Ed Weston and Dave Jackson had joined the small group earlier. Ed had worked for Bob at the gravel pit for over ten years. He was tall with dirty-blonde hair and a slim muscular build, and Mike liked him. He'd grown up right here in Watertown on Fig Street, down by Jackson's Lumber. A piss poor family, but Ed himself was a damn good man. He seemed a little rattled today, but weren't they all? He was a hard worker and would be an asset to the group if he chose to come along.

  Bob and Candace both knew Dave. He owned one of the local lumber mills: A small family mill. He had also driven truck for Bob once or twice when things were slow. Mike had never met him, but he had seen him around: Watertown was a small city. Neither of the men had voiced their opinions, but had been standing quietly as the other three had talked. Dave was younger than Ed, but just as tall, and his dark black hair was tied in a small ponytail that hung down his back.

  The conversation at the market never really got going. The crowd that followed had spread out into the store, taking what they wanted to eat and then split up into smaller groups, discussing their own plans. A few had congregated near the beer coolers. That discussion was sometimes heated, and more than once Mike had caught some nasty looks directed at them from that crowd.

  “I guess not everyone is on the same page,” Mike said now.

  “It was a good idea,” Bob said. “You can't make people see a good idea. Look at cigarettes. People knew for years what they were doing to them and they still smoked. Some of these people haven't hit the wall yet. They still believe the system will save them.”

  “Yeah, except there is no system,” Ronnie said.

  Bob nodded.

  “Listen,” Mike started. He paused until they were all looking at him, not sure if he really wanted to proceed. “Might sound stupid,” he said after a few moments of silence.

  “I don't think anything would sound stupid right now... We're trying to figure this out,” Candace said.

  Mike frowned. “Okay.” He frowned deeply, and then nodded decisively. “So it's this. I was leaving this morning for the Southern Tier. I'm thinking, the truck is all packed, what are we,” he paused and counted heads, “Eight? I have enough food packed to keep us all fed for a few days... We could head out to the Tug Hill Plateau. Close by. We could pick up some stuff here to take with us too...” He paused again, but no one spoke. “I say let's get another truck or two and get away from the city for a few days. Maybe the Tug Hill Plateau wouldn't be a bad place to be right now. Let things calm down, especially the hot heads.” He paused, his face grim. “We can come back in a few days... Maybe the Guard will be here by then, maybe not, but it would give us a few days to think this out, if it... Well, if it really is as bad as it seems to be...” He looked from face to face as he stopped speaking.

  “Smart,” Ronnie said.

  “Probably for the best,” Bob agreed. He had all been listening to the nearby conversations, some loud and argumentative, and the beer cooler was emptying quickly: That certainly wasn't going to help the problem.

  “Yeah... These guys seem bent on getting drunk and figuring it all out,” Patty said.

  “I've seen that sort of thinking before,” Candace agreed. “I vote go.”

  “I'm on that,” Ronnie agreed.

  Dave Jackson and Ed Weston agreed.

  “I make that all eight?” Mike asked.

  “Only, let's get some trucks and get what we need here before we go. This place is going to get picked over fast,” Candace said.

  “Who do you want to go with you?” Mike asked.

  “I'm open,” Candace replied.

  “I'll go,” Patty said.

  “Me too,” Ronnie added.

  “That's enough... I guess we'll get stuff ready here... Wait on you,” Mike said. He held Candace's eyes until she nodded. A second later she and the others left and the rest of them began to put together some bags of supplies.

  SIX

  March 3rd

  Harlem: Tosh's Notebook

  (Night)

  Rain in the day, but as soon as the sun set, it turned colder. Snow, heavy snow, thunder and lightening throughout the night. No moon or starlight. No stars at all!

  Old Towne: Katie ~ March 3rd

  I lost this yesterday; my little notebook. I left it by the window so I could see to write, but I swear it wasn't there when I went to get it; then I found it again later on by the window right where I left it. Maybe I'm losing my mind.

  There are no police, no firemen, phones, electric. The real world is falling apart. Two days and nothing that I thought I knew is still here. Do you see? The whole world has changed.

  I got my guitar out and played it today.
I played for almost three hours. I played my stuff. I played some blues. Usually blues will bring me out of blues, but it didn't work. It sounded so loud, so out of place, so... I don't know. I just stopped and put it away.

  My wrists are messed up, but I think I kept them from getting infected. My right side is black and blue; stomach, breast, all of it. There is a long scrape too, I made sure I disinfected it. It looks horrible. I don't remember how that happened at all. I barely remember any of it. I thought at first it might be a bullet wound. I remember shooting, my ribs ache pretty good on that side, but the pain worked it's way out and I examined it; it's just a long scrape. I might have done it myself getting out of there. Healing now.

  Late afternoon? Somewhere around there we had a really bad quake. This whole place moved, and I could hear buildings crashing down outside: Glass shattering, metal screaming as it pulled apart. I heard no people, but the noise of an earthquake is not a rumble. I thought that from TV, but it isn't. It's a roar. Made it through, I don't know what tomorrow will bring, or if it's even safe to be here.

  March 4th

  Old Towne: Katie

  Sunrise

  Things are so bad. I'm going out. I have to see, if I don't come back. Well... What good is writing this?

  Mike and Candace

  The Tug Hill Plateau

  Early Morning

  The camp was a makeshift place off an old logging trail. It was dry under the pines where they had set up camp, but the logging road had flooded over, the water had receded, and now the road was a quagmire of mud steaming in the early morning sun.

  They had encountered no major obstacles on the way in. Mike knew the way. The road was cracked in a few places, flooded in a few others, but only a few inches of water. The major stuff had held off until they had arrived and settled in.

  The last few days had bought rain, snow, and what felt like earthquakes or explosions far away. Heavy vibrations they could feel through the pine needle covered ground. No one was sure what they really were, but they were all worried about it.

  They had made up their minds late last night, when the rains had stopped to get out of the woods, but the two new trucks they had driven in would not start. Mike's old truck turned over and started fine. They had spent most of the sunrise checking over the two trucks, but they found nothing wrong with them. The batteries were up, the starters turned over, but they would not fire. There was no spark at the plug. Ronnie and Bob who were both mechanics were puzzled over what could be causing it.

  “If we go, most of you will get stuck in the back of my truck... No other way for it,” Mike said.

  They had spent a great deal of the last few days wondering what was going on in the world. Twice, slow moving cargo planes had overflown them. They had seen no markings on the wings, but they had both been painted the olive drab of army equipment. The battery powered radio they had listened to had stopped working. Their wristwatches, cell phones, the two trucks, all dead. The had wondered about a Nuclear blast, maybe that was what had happened to the electronics.

  Ronnie nodded. “Maybe that is the deal though. Your truck is old, no electronic brain... Maybe we could find another like it... Or two.”

  “If it was a nuke, would it knock out electronics like that? And wouldn't we all be sick right now?” Patty asked.

  “Not necessarily... If it was it wasn't close, so it would just depend on which way the wind was blowing,” Candace said. “Electronics? I have heard that, but I don't know. Makes me wish I paid attention to all of that apocalypse stuff on the internet.”

  “A dirty bomb... I think that's what they called it, but it could have been that meteor... I think I read once that a near miss could be as bad as a direct hit. Mess things up the same as a nuclear bomb.” Bob shrugged.

  “But they said that would miss us completely,” Ed threw in.

  Dave nodded, “Maybe it didn't. Wouldn't be the first time they said something that turned out to be bullshit.”

  “What? You don't trust your own government,” Patty asked in mock surprise.

  “Yeah... Well, either way we're back to sticking it out here or going back to Watertown to see what's going on... Or somewhere else for that matter,” Mike threw out after a few moments of silence.

  “I say we go back... Maybe the guard is there, or has been there.,” Patty said.

  “Can't hide out up here forever,” Ed agreed.

  “We'll run out of food... At the least we have to stock back up,” Ronnie added.

  Bob nodded. “With more too... We don't know how long this is going to be.”

  “Or if it still is,” Candace added.

  “There is that too,” Bob agreed.

  “At the least then we should go back and stock up. I mean if no one is there, we can stock up, come back here if it's bad and decide what to do... Get on with the old life if there is someone there,” Terry said.

  “Who wants the front seat... Two,” Mike asked.

  “Probably the girls,” Dave said.

  “Why is that,” Candace asked.

  “What?” Dave asked.

  “Why the girls,” She shook her head before he answered. “Well, I'm not a girl. I'm a woman. It was a rough road to become a woman, and I don't want to be called a girl.”

  “Hey... Peace. I didn't mean anything by it,” Dave said.

  The silence held for a few minutes.

  “Well, let's get this place picked up... I guess store everything in the other two trucks... Maybe we'll come back for them,” Mike said.

  “Maybe not,” Bob added. “So bring what you want to keep, only make it a small amount.”

  Mike nodded.

  A half hour later Mike drove the old truck down the logging road, sticking to four wheel drive and the sides of the road where he could. Twice he had had to make everyone get out and then take a run at a particularly bad section of road before they all climbed in once more. It was late morning before they found route 177. A short time later they found route 11 and headed back toward the small city of Watertown.

  Billy Jingo: L.A.

  March 4th

  Billy paced the hallway, trying to think it out. Telling himself it was the right thing to do. The problem was that he was not used to doing the right thing. So unused to it, in fact, that he wasn't sure he wanted to try... should try.

  He was living in the same building that Beth lived in. That had happened before the shit had hit the fan, but only a little before. He had walked Beth home one night and had met Beth's neighbor, Jamie, and she had convinced him to move into the building with her. Sleep on the couch. Strictly platonic. He was pretty sure every strictly platonic relationship he had ever had had ended up in the sack. He had stayed to be close to Beth, even though he knew that Jamie thought he was staying for her. Lately though she had become more and more possessive, and when it came to Beth something more than possessive, crazy was a better word.

  That told Billy, or at least it told Beth and Beth told Billy, that Jamie was in love with him. Suspected he was seeing Beth and was angry about it. Feeling played, tricked, something along those lines. And that was making her crazy, and really there was no blame to place except with Billy who was not doing exactly what Jamie expected, but would have been in a second if Beth had given him a green light, a nod, really anything.

  He sighed now. He felt like shit about it. He really did, but what was there he could do? He had tried to leave twice and Jamie had gotten so crazy that it had scared him. Beth had told him that couldn't matter. He had to leave. It was only going to get worse. And she was right, but where would he go? He would have to leave the building and that meant being away from Beth, and he just couldn't do that. He hadn't said any of that to anyone. It was unspoken, but it was still just as true as if he had spoken those words. His little world was turned upside down, that was for sure, and he didn't know how he could ever hope to right it.

  There were things now to take his mind of it though. The whole world had been turned upside d
own for the last few days. The changes spread far behind their little world. There was no official word that anything was wrong at all, but someone had fucked up. Of that he had no doubt at all.

  The police? Gone. Fire department? Ditto. Army? Well, wasn't the National Guard supposed to show up when the shit hit the fan? So far the army had not raised a finger to do anything for them at all. There was a base right over by the airport near the Los Angeles Freeway, but there had been no sign of them.

  The building was on the north side, a high rise that had been new sometime back in the seventies. He had gone up to the roof twice during the day and looked over the city.

  It appeared to be dead. There was a precinct only two blocks away, deserted, doors hanging open. Looters were carrying away cheap computer systems, and who knew what else; a steady stream in and out of the front doors.

  There were fires over past the park. It appeared to be a whole block over by Jordan Downs, but there were other single fires all over the city too. There had been for two days now, and no one had come to put those fires out. And there was more; you could hear gunfire from all over the city all night long. He continued to pace the hall.

  This was not normally a bad neighborhood, but it was no picnic either. There had been a few fires here, but the people that lived nearby had put them out quickly. Dozens of buildings had come down or were now tilted crazily. The looting had started at some point, and now there were armed men prowling the streets in gangs.

  He and Beth had acquired guns from a shop a few blocks over, ransacked, left open to the world. He had loaded his and waited, but the few that had ventured to his door had turned away when they had seen him with the gun.

  Winston, the old man that lived in the back basement apartment, had called them all down to listen to the radio just a short time ago. Not your average radio, a Short Band receiver. They had ended up listening to military talk; military talk that was probably supposed to be restricted. The stories that had come from that radio said the rest of the world was no better off. Explosions or earthquakes, there was a great deal of devastation everywhere.

  A few years before he had watched the end of a documentary about the end of civilization with a few friends. They were tuning in a little early to watch a national football game. The documentary had zeroed in on how all the things that modern civilization took for granted would fail. The police, the politicians, even the news organizations that were always everywhere into everything. Billy and his friends had gotten a good laugh over it. He had been down in Mexico at the time because of some trouble he had gotten into in New York. And he had been living like a king. What sort of trouble could come? What he had listened to on the radio in the last few days had changed his mind completely.

  Washington D.C. was completely overrun, the President gone. They weren’t even sure he had made it into hiding. New York and Atlanta, no word at all. Mexico, absolutely silent. Canada, the same. Millions of people absolutely silent. How could that even be? And right here in Los Angeles there was talk on the radio about gangs running the city too, and probably every city in between L.A. and New York, because if they had taken over the big cities, what kind of chance did the smaller cities and towns have, he asked himself.

  The local CBS affiliate had stopped broadcasting here three days ago, even though what they had been broadcasting had been sketchy because the satellites were out and so they had been dependent upon news delivered by travelers coming out of the east or up from the south. It had apparently not stopped broadcasting soon enough in the east, where T.V. viewers had witnessed the network studios being overrun, and the anchor of the evening news attacked on camera. The United states was under attack by her own people.

  He had spent some time checking the other stations, cable, internet. Univision? Nothing at all. ABC? NBC? Dead air. Cable? Satellite? Frozen pictures on some channels, nothing at all on the others, and not a single channel you could actually watch. The internet was dead. That had seemed worse than all the rest of it. Google didn't load the page for his browser, but it also didn't tell him why. Nothing.

  And it wasn't just the United States, North and South America. Germany had not been heard from in a week. England, France, all the European countries were incommunicado. The radio mans words, not Billy's. Australia had seemed fine up until two days ago. They had been talking about the problems facing America and Great Briton. They seemed to be wondering what was going on the same as everyone else. Then the broadcast had stopped in mid sentence. Shortly after that the few HAM radio operators that had been relaying information from there had gone silent too, since then he had paced the hallways. He should talk to Beth... Jamie... Winston... Scotty, a few others. It might be time to talk about getting out of here. The thing he was concerned about was the non action from the military. That was not military like. For them to be sitting by and allowing this to happen, it must be a serious thing. And he had no doubt that eventually they would get their shit together, or think they had their shit together, and then they would act. And who knew what their remedy might be?

  He stopped his pacing. Who did know, he asked himself again. Nobody. He stood in the hall for a second. Beth was upstairs with Jamie, and a few others. Night was coming. Traveling in the night was not an option, at least not one he wanted to explore, but maybe they should be ready to leave in the morning. Maybe, maybe not.

  “Jesus,” he muttered aloud. The indecision was killing him. He was second guessing his second guesses for Christs sake. Maybe it was not something they should do hastily, but he did believe they should not stay too much longer. He turned back towards the stairs, debated only briefly, then walked back and climbed them to the second floor. He would start with Beth. Let Beth make the decision. She would know what to do.

  Watertown: Mike and Candace

  Late Afternoon

  The city was a mess. Buildings toppled, streets blocked off with debris, no power and no people out on the streets that they had seen. It had taken most of the early afternoon to work their way back to Jacob's Superette. They had all wondered more than once why they were bothering to go back there. A place to start, Mike had finally decided, and everyone had agreed. If they had not left that is probably where they would still be, riding out this disaster.

  Mike had wheeled the truck up next to the closed doors and they had all climbed out of the truck. The doors were closed and reinforced from the inside. Twice they had seen movement behind the stacks and pallets that had been used to barricade the wide and tall front windows, but no one had opened the doors or answered their calls. They had finally decided that even if they did open the doors they didn't want to be there. There were plenty of other places in the city that could offer as much, maybe even more.

  “We need better weapons,” Candace said as Mike drove. She had changed from the back to the front as they were leaving the market. She sat in the center, Bob on the other side of her.

  “Why?” Bob asked.

  “Because that place creeped me out. Who doesn't open up to let someone in? Why did they close it all off? What if they have weapons and decided that not answering us wasn't good enough? What if they had opened up on us? We wouldn't be discussing this now, that's for sure.”

  “Jesus,” Bob said.

  “Yeah,” Candace said.

  “Creeped me out too,” Bob agreed. “Guess we can't pretend the whole thing's going to be fine any longer.”

  “Guess not,” Mike agreed.

  “Candace is right then... Better get ourselves to a place where we can stock up... Get some trucks, guns and get out of here.”

  “What about that wholesale place out across from the mall,” Mike asked.

  “Might be the same, but we can try it. Probably have what we need,” Candace agreed.

  “Better let the others know,” Bob told her. Candace turned, slide the rear window of Mike's truck open and Patty leaned near. A second later she closed the slider and watched as Mike slowly picked his way through the downtown streets and hea
ded for the outskirts of the city.

  The Outskirts of the city: The Mall

  Against all odds the outskirts of the city seemed completely deserted. At least at first glance. The wholesale place was deserted, the doors barred, chained and locked. A little work with the tire iron from Mike's truck freed up the chains and a nudge from the nose of his truck shattered the heavy glass doors. Mike and Ed pulled the doors aside and Mike drove the truck in, crunching over the safety glass.

  “Might be safer inside,” Bob said as Mike turned the truck around, narrowly missing one check out aisle and faced back toward the doors.

  “I think we're stuck here for the night, “ Mike said. Stock up, get whatever else we need in the morning and head out. Little gun shop across the street... Truck dealership over at the mall across the street... Should be easy to get what we need.” He levered the door handle and stepped down to the ground.

  “Company,” Dave said as Mike turned toward the opening.

  “Seven or eight... Came out of that strip mall entranceway across the street,” Terry added.

  Mike turned to Candace. “Shotguns... Rifles in the sporting goods area.” She nodded as she and Patty sprinted toward the middle of the store.

  Company:

  The small crowd of people was armed, Mike saw, long before they actually reached the wide street and crossed over into their parking lot. Behind him, in the store, he had heard the sound of breaking glass several times. Presumably Candace and Patty breaking open display cases.

  “Think they can see us in here?” he asked.

  “Probably too dark,” Bob answered as Candace and Patty came back with their arms loaded down with high powered rifles and shotguns.

  “Careful,” Candace said, her breath coming fast. “These are loaded.” A small line of blood ran away from one knuckle as she passed Mike a rifle that looked like it would be more at home in a war.

  “You're hurt,” Mike said.

  Candace laughed. “Just glass from a case... It's nothing.”

  “Not a girl,” Mike said

  “Or even close,” Candace agreed with a smile. She stepped close to the front of the entranceway, still deep in shadow, but just behind the shattered doors.

  There were a dozen of them when they came to a stop just thirty feet away from the doors. Women and kids, the old man and a younger guy hanging toward the back. The two men and three of the women were armed.

  “We know you're in there,” The lead man shouted out. He was an older man, short silver hair, thin, the ragged remains of a suit hanging from his shoulders. “We don't want trouble... Just company... Safety... The nights are pretty bad now. I guess you know.” He made to step forward again.

  “No... Right there is fine,” Candace said.

  The man stopped. “I told you, we come in peace.” The man said as she stepped from the shadows. Ronnie moved out with her and a second later Patty and Mike joined her. Mike motioned to the rest to stay inside.

  “Every bad alien movie I ever saw started just exactly that way,” Candace said.

  “Is that what you think?” The man asked. “Aliens? Well, I'm no alien... I don't know what happened but I don't think it was alien, or aliens, unless you count the meteor that might or might not have hit us. And I'm obviously not one of the gangs or I wouldn't be out here in the daylight talking to you.”

  The silence held a long time.

  “You hear me?” The older man said.

  “I heard you,” Candace agreed. “What do you mean one of the gangs? Not one of the gangs?”

  The man laughed. A short hard laugh that had nothing to do with amusement at all. “Are you serious?”

  “If I wasn't serious I wouldn't have asked,” Candace told him.

  “But... Okay... Why can't we do this in there? Look at what I have here... A handful of scared mothers with a few children. The young guy at the back is okay. Why don't we do this in there. I don't like being out in the open. It's just the gangs we have to worry about.” He looked off in all directions as he talked.

  Candace looked over the group and then over at Mike. “Nothing we can't deal with,” Mike agreed. Her eye's met Patty's and then Ronnie's. They both nodded. “So you know, there are more of us inside. Don't be stupid.”

  “Wouldn't think of it,” The old man agreed. “John,” he said.

  Candace just nodded and motioned him forward.

  Early evening

  They were all gathered around a small fire that Bob had started for heat and light. The nights were still cold. Bob had built the fire in an empty fifty five gallon drum they had rolled out from the back. It the smoke detectors had still been working they would have had trouble, but as it was the smoke just gathered high up in the steel rafters and found it's way to the outside from there.

  “What do you know,” John asked. “That might be a better place to start.”

  “Practically nothing,” Bob answered. “We all met downtown a few days back... Earth quake... Meteor. Everything wrecked and no answers.”

  John nodded. “Okay,” He rested his head in his hands for a moment, and then looked up. His eyes were red; the bags under his eyes bruised and heavy. “The second. It happened overnight, the first, the end of the first. I don't know what it was, anymore than you do, but I suspect the meteor they said would miss us didn't. Maybe that started a whole chain of events. So, aliens? No. I think our own government did us in though. I can see your view too, because there is something alien about it. About the way we would view it, the way you would view it. Yesterday the planes came over. Big Cargo planes. Sprayed blue stuff over the entire city. We thought for sure we were done right then, but whatever that was it didn't kill us, didn't seem to do anything to us... But I wonder, I really do...” He seemed to zone out for a second.

  “John?” Bob asked quietly.

  He laughed. “Sorry. I need sleep. Sleep is what I need. Gangs,” he took a deep breath. “This city, most of the cities I've been hearing about on the CB are controlled by Gangs now. They're out all night rounding us up. The other survivors...” He frowned heavily. “I'll be straight, not much use for other men... 'Less they think like them. Not much use for the children either. Women, gas, cash,” he laughed again. “They seem to think a day will come when it will all be worth something again.”

  “You don't?” Candace asked.

  “I don't,” John agreed. “I think somebody mucked up badly... I can't believe it was all an accident. Washington? Dead. L.A.? Dead. New York? Dead as well. There have been reports of the President being killed. In the end the Secret Service deserted him. The few that remained fled. The whole thing fell apart. And it's no better in other countries from what I have heard on the CB. Some of it could be exaggerated... Could be fear talking... But I don't think so. I think most of it is absolute truth. I think it all failed and we're on our own. That's what I think.”

  Candace looked over as Patty sprang to her feet and walked away into the darkness of the store. “I'll be back,” Candace said. She got up and followed.

  “I appreciate the truth, John,” Mike said.

  John nodded. “Upset us too. Nothing for it that I can see.”

  “Where are you from,” Mike asked.

  “Rochester... Haven't heard much from it except there is a glow to the west... Could be they still have power there.”

  “Hey inside!” This from the parking lot that was now edging quickly toward twilight.

  “Shit,” Ronnie said. “Forgot all about that.” He jumped to his feet and headed to the opening, Mike right behind him.

  “Guess we'll have to post a guard or something,” Mike agreed. He stared out at two small groups that stood in the darkness looking around at the deepening shadows. Ronnie spoke.

  “What is it you want?” Ronnie asked.

  “What is it we want? Are you kidding me? We want in there, out of the cold, the night.” The guy was tall and dirty looking in the darkening light, but Ronnie supposed they all probably looked a little rough.
“Talking like that ain't gonna get you in here,” Ronnie told him. “In fact it will get you an invitation to hit the road.”

  A woman who was leading the second group, off to the right of the first group spoke up. “Look, man. We're all on edge right now. We just want to share your shelter. Manny is not so good with diplomacy.”

  “Manny?” Ronnie asked.

  She nodded to the other group, “Manuel... Manny.”

  “These groups ain't bad,” John said from beyond the doorway, hidden in the shadows.

  “You vouch for them?' Mike asked.

  “No... I won't go that far. I will say I have seen them around... They are not part of the gangs that are all over the place at night in the city. Not these two.”

  “Good enough for me... Ed? Ronnie? Anyone else have an objection?”

  “We'll just watch them kind of close,” Dave said.”

  “Okay... Well, somebody better go get Patty and Candace... Just to be safe.” He turned back to the parking lot and the two waiting groups. “Slow,” he called out. “Slow and keep those rifles pointed down.”

  Harlem: Tosh

  (Day into Night)

  Electronics stopped working, wristwatches, battery powered clocks. Adam tried to start a truck. Nothing... Dead. Three more quakes, aftershocks. Planes sprayed blue stuff on us too.

  SEVEN

  Harlem: Tosh

  March 5th (Day)

  Tremors. Time seems off; days are longer, I feel it. No way to measure it though. No rain or snow. We will have to do something. We can't just wait and hope someone will show up, obviously no one is going to. I need my meds too, but I hate to bring it up with things like this. Worried about the baby... Worried about life...

  Old Towne: Katie

  March 5th

  The whole city has fallen apart. I spent most of yesterday trying to see how bad this is. I finally realized that it's bad beyond my being able to fix it. It's bad as in there is no authority. It's bad as in there is nothing that is as it used to be. I hear gunshots at night, all night. And screams. There are still tremors. If I had to guess, I would say it's the end of the civilized world, unless things are better somewhere else. I have to believe that. Power, structure, it's all gone here. I mean it's really all gone. This city is torn up. There are huge areas that are ruined. Gullies, ravines, missing streets, damaged bridges. The damage costs have to be in the billions... And that's just here. There's me and my little notebook I'm writing in, and my nine millimeter.

  I've got water, some peanuts and crackers. How long can this go on? What then?

  I've decided to leave. I can't stay here. There was a tremor last night, and not one of the really bad ones, but even so I was sure the building would come down on me. It didn't. Maybe though, that is a sign. Scared or not I have to go. I have to. I can't stay here. Maybe tomorrow.

  The streets are a mess. I've spent too much time hiding inside my apartment. I believed someone would show up and tell me what to do, but no one did. I saw a few people wander by yesterday, probably looking for other people, but I stayed inside. I don't know why, what all my reasons were. A lot of fear, I think.

  There have been more earthquakes, two really bad ones. This building is damaged. I went outside today and really looked at it. It is off the foundation and leaning. I should have gotten out of it the other night when I knew it was bad. It's just dumb luck that it hasn't fallen in on me and killed me.

  It doesn't matter now though. I met a few others today, and I'm leaving with them. I don't know if I'll stay with them. I really don't know what to expect from life anymore.

  I'm taking this and my gun with me and my little notebook. Writing this made me feel alive. I don't know how better to say it.

  I'll write more here I think. I just don't know when, or where I'll be.

  March 6th

  Watertown: The Mall

  Mike and Candace

  Morning

  Patty had risen early to the smell of hot food. A few of the women had begun cooking sometime before dawn, and plates were filled with food. Eggs, sausages, toast made over the fire. Burgers, canned ham and more. The store was stocked with all sorts of food. Some of it was going bad, but much of it had stayed preserved in the freezers and coolers. No one had been inside so the cold air had lasted longer without doors opening and closing every two minutes. When would she have a chance to eat real eggs again, Patty asked herself as she devoured the food. She looked over at Candace who was eating as fast as she was.

  “Pigs,” Candace agreed. She laughed. “I had no idea how hungry I was.”

  “Man oh man. Me either,” Patty agreed.

  “It is good,” Manny grinned from nearby. Patty gave him a smile and went back to eating. The conversation ebbed and swelled around them. What to do, where to go.

  They had posted guards all night long, and although there were gunshots further away, and a few fires they could see burning back in the city, the night had passed uneventfully.

  Their small group had finally decided to go towards Rochester, New York. Bob had said that he felt that it may be their best bet, due to the fact that there were no large military bases very close to it, and the lake levels would be low for a while, so there should be no flooding.

  “It's probably dead center of the two major fault lines, and it's further away from the Saint Lawrence,” he had ventured.

  They had discussed Syracuse, which was much closer, but rejected it when Terry had pointed out that the finger lakes could easily flood the whole area.

  Bob had agreed, and recalled several articles that had been written about the supposed newly discovered fault lines that crisscrossed the finger lakes.

  Candace had pointed out that Watertown had its own military base and reminded them of the new facility that had been under construction in the old caves under the city. More reason to wonder why the military wasn't here.

  “That whole complex is probably under water by now,” Bob opinioned.

  “I agree,” Ronnie had thrown in. “I worked there last year. It's nowhere completely sealed up, couldn't be. There are parts that might be okay, but if there was anyone other than a small staff down there I would be surprised. I don't see how they could get out of there if they are there. Fort Drum would be a better bet for help.”

  “And that didn't happen,” Mike reminded, bringing the conversation full circle.

  Bob said that he felt the facility was probably destroyed, and had gone on to explain his own belief that anyone in there was either dead or trapped permanently.

  “The Black River runs through that entire series of caves, even under most of the city itself. I can't say for a fact, but I think what most likely would happen is that at least part of the cave system would collapse. They're done for, if they're there at all,” he had said.

  In the end they had finally decided on Rochester, and they were now discussing how to get there. They had decided, at Terry's suggestion, to use four wheel drive vehicles of some sort, and Candace had suggested that she and Mike check out the Jeep dealership across the street at the mall to see what they had on the lot.

  She had also pointed out that there were several other car dealers in the same area, and if they couldn't find what they wanted there, they would only have a short walk to another lot to find something suitable.

  “If any of it runs,” Ronnie had added.

  “Running as of yesterday,” Manny threw in. “I drove one back into the city to get my family.”

  “Didn't run for us the other day,” Mike added.

  “Didn't for me either,” Manny agreed. “CB said they thought some sort of nuclear bomb, or the meteor.”

  “The meteor could have done it?” Patty asked.

  “I don't know, but they seem to think so... CB, they all think they are gods of knowledge.”

  They were now discussing how many vehicles they would need, and how many people Mike and Candace would need to drive them back.

  “I'm sure,” Terry continued, “t
hat I can get a couple of the others guys to go with us.”

  Bob spoke up. “I really think then, that we ought to approach everyone else and find out who wants to go. They may not want to. We have to accept that you know.”

  “He's right,” Mike agreed, “they may not. How many of them do you know?” he asked of the small group.

  “It's a fairly tight community,” Candace said. “I'm not from here. I mean, the city seems big, the locals not so much. Very small tight knit community.”

  “She's right,” Bob added. “I'll go... Terry?” He turned back to Mike. “You too. Let's go see who we got. “

  “I don't know that they'll all want to go. I've already seen a few leave, and we lost a couple of people this morning,” Patty added.

  “She's right about that,” Bob agreed, “I saw a couple of people hanging back talking together and they ended up leaving. I guess they aren't convinced that we should leave. I can't say I blame them really, the whole thing probably hasn't even sunk in yet.”

  “Well, let’s go see who's left, and who wants to go then,” Mike decided. “No sense deciding this until we know for sure.”

  “You mean if they don't want to go, you're not going?” Terry asked.

  “No,” Mike said calmly. “I'm going, period.”

  “Maybe we should decide right now if all of us want to go,” Bob said. He looked around at the small assembled group, letting his eyes stop on Ed Weston.

  “Ed, Dave?” Bob asked.

  “I'm in,” Ed replied, “I can't see any reason to stay here, and I think you may be right, Bob. I'm not so sure this is a safe place to be.” He seemed to be slightly out of sync, Bob thought, but he answered quickly, and decisively nonetheless.

  “I'm in too,” Dave said. “But what if we get to Rochester and it's the same as here?”

  “That's a chance we'll have to take,” Bob replied. “In fact, I wouldn't doubt that there is damage. My only argument is that it may be safer than here. It's built on higher ground. It's also a much larger city, and I think that would increase our chances of finding other people. Maybe it would allow us to get a little more insight, or information, on what happened. Who knows, they may still have power, or some form of police, hell, maybe the television stations there are still working. We don't know, and the only way we will know is to go and find out. One thing is for certain though, Rochester is definitely built on higher ground than Watertown is. If that lake does rise, I would rather be there than here.”

  Bob looked around at the small group, and then continued.

  “So, if we're all in agreement, I guess we better go talk to the others and see how many of them are going with us, agreed” he asked turning to Candace. “You and Mike will have an idea of how many trucks we are going to need; get some drivers... How long you figure, an hour or so? I mean to get ready to go.”

  “It will probably be a good three hours before we get what we need and get back,” Candace replied after a quick look at Mike who nodded.

  “I think you better do the talking, Bob,” Mike said, “They know you better than they know me, and if we're going to get out of here today we better get our asses in gear too.”

  With that the small group walked to the front of the store, where the other people had congregated by the shattered doors.

  “Folks,” Bob said as he held his hands over his head to get them to quiet down, “I'd like to talk to you.”

  Most of the people there either knew Bob, or knew of him, and they had an idea of what was coming, as most of them had been standing around listening when the conversation had first turned to leaving. They turned expectantly towards Bob now, and waited for him to begin to speak.

  “As most of you know,” Bob began, “I'm in favor of leaving Watertown. I think you've all heard my reasons so I won't go into them, but what I would like to let you know, is that if we're going to go, and the eight of us are,” Bob lowered his hands and gestured to include the group of people that stood around and near him, “we need to know if any of you are going to come along.”

  No one answered for a few seconds. Bob was about to begin speaking, if only to break the oppressive silence, when someone finally did. It was not what he had expected however.

  “Hey? Who died and left you the boss,” a young teenager in the small group yelled out.

  The young man stepped forward. His long stringy, dirty hair hung into his eyes, and he pushed it away with the back of his hand as he glared at Bob.

  “I never said I was the boss of anything,” Bob replied quietly. “At least I don't recall saying it.” Bob stared calmly back at the young man.

  “Well you're the ones been doing all the talking. Who are you to say what we should or shouldn't be doing? And how come I never heard about no fuckin' fault line, huh?”

  “Maybe if you could read,” a young man said from behind him, as he also stepped out of the small group, “you would know. It was in the paper just a few weeks ago. And if you went to school you probably would have learned about it there too. I never heard him say anything about being in charge either, but they were the ones who decided to at least do something. We were all standing around out here with our fingers up our asses before they showed up. What is it; do you still think somebody is going to show up and save us?”

  The two young men were now facing each other, and the small group around them seemed to be waiting to see what would happen next.

  “Listen,” Mike said as he stepped towards them. “This isn't the time or place for this sort of crap: If you don't want to be here fine. Nobody said you had to go anywhere. Bob simply asked you if you wanted to go.” Mike paused as he stared at the two young men. “Sounds more as if you've got some sort of problem with authority. If so, that's something you'll have to deal with on your own time. The fact is that we can't stay here, and we've decided we're going. It's an invitation for you to join us, but you can stay right here for all I care.”

  “Oh yeah?” the kid glared at Mike.

  “Look,” Mike replied, staring back, “If you have some real objections state them: Otherwise shut up, listen, or hit the road.”

  “I'm outta here. Screw you people,” the young man said as he glared at Mike, and the others from the small group that had moved up beside him. “You guys do what you want, I'm leaving,” he finished. He pushed his dirty hair from his eyes once more as he turned and walked out of the store.

  “Listen!” Mike said, raising his voice. “I don't think we all have to start acting like a bunch of morons. We're all in this together, why don't you just listen to what Bob has to say, and then you can decide.”

  The other young man lowered the hands he had raised, and turned back towards Bob expectantly. The rest of the crowd, realizing that the confrontation was over, and they weren't going to see a fight, turned their attention back to Bob. Bob waited for them to quiet before he resumed talking.

  “Let me make this clear,” Bob said as he began to speak quietly. “I don't want to lead anyone. All I really care about is getting out of here, same as most of you.”

  Candace watched as Bob spoke, and thought, kind of late for that, Bob. She had noticed that everyone had seemed to gravitate to Bob earlier when he had begun to speak. He had that kind of personality, she supposed. They also seemed to be drawn to Mike, and more than a few had asked her what her feelings were about the situation. Are we leading? She asked herself, as she turned her attention back to Bob.

  “What we have to know,” Bob was saying, “is who wants to come with us.”

  “Where will we go?” an older man asked as Bob paused. Bob explained their choice, and why they had made it as the group listened.

  “Now, there are eight of us, and we need to know how many cars we're going to need to get us all there. Mike and Candace are going over to the Jeep dealership and try to find us some four wheelers that will fit the bill. New if they will run, older ones if they won't.”

  “Ain't that stealing?” someone asked.

  “N
ot as I see it,” Bob replied. “As I see it, they don't belong to anyone anymore. I mean... Anyone see any police? Or really, if you think of it, has anyone seen anybody at all in authority?” he waited briefly, before continuing, half expecting the young kid to pop back in the door and say, Nobody 'cept you, you old bastard. When he didn't Bob was relieved, and once again began speaking.

  “No, I think being arrested for car theft is the least of our problems. I ain't saying it wasn't a good thought to bring up, but I'm not too worried about that at all. What I am worried about... The main thing right now anyway, is to get this show on the road before it gets much later,” Bob said, and paused. “So, if no one has any real objections, I'd like a show of hands so we can figure out who's going and who's staying.”

  With no discussion, five members of the dwindling group, among them the young man who had been involved in the earlier argument, turned and walked to the far side of the wide double front doors, shaking their heads as they went. The remaining people began, slowly at first, with glances at their neighbors, to raise their hands.

  “Don't just raise your hand if you're not sure, or just because the guy standing next to you did,” Bob said. “You have to be sure, and you should know that we may not make it. We don't have the slightest idea what we're going to run into on the way, or even if we'll get there. So you better be sure, because once we go we ain't coming back. So who's positive?”

  Several hands that had been up went down, and their owners quickly gravitated to the smaller group that had begun to form by the front doors.

  Bob looked at the young dark-haired kid he had been sure would end up with them, and then at Mike, who shrugged his shoulders and said, “Go figure.”

  Four remained waiting.

  “Okay then,” Mike said, “I guess we'll only need three cars. Who wants to go with Candace and me?” There were two women and the older man who had spoken earlier.

  “I'll go,” one of the young women said, stepping forward. The older man stepped forward as well and volunteered.

  “I don't think we need both of you,” Candace said. “Jan,” she said speaking to the woman who had stepped forward first, “if you want to come, let’s get going.”

  The woman followed Candace and Mike out the front doors, as the older man walked over to Bob.

  “Let's go back to the rear” Bob said in a low voice as he leaned closer to Ronnie. “I'm not so sure I want to stand up here and discuss our plans, if you catch my drift.”

  “My thought exactly,” Ronnie said, as they walked towards the rear of the store.

  Ronnie, Bob, and Dave, rested up against a wide cooler at the back of the store as Bob spoke. The two young women, Lilly and Gina, both of whom were in their late teens, stood nearby with the older man who Bob knew as John Bolton, a retired city Councilman from the Rochester area. He had been leading one of the groups that had come in yesterday. Bolton had retired and moved to Watertown to escape the crime in Rochester. He would definitely be an asset, Bob thought.

  “Ed?” Bob asked. “We're going to need some other things before we go. I think maybe a couple more rifles, some camping gear, you know, things like that. If I make up a quick list, I was thinking maybe you and Gina might not mind getting it together, would you?”

  “Sure,” Ed replied, “you a little concerned about that group up front?”

  Bob leveled his eyes at Ed. “Them and any others like them. I'm not so sure they can be trusted. I saw Brad Saser in the crowd there, and he had a gun of some sort stuffed into his waist band.”

  “I saw that too,” Dave said, and then went on. “Did you see the way he tensed up when it looked like those two kids were going to get into it?” Dave finished.

  “Yes,” Bob replied, “I did, and it's something I thought of earlier. I saw some others carrying guns, when we were down to the Square. I don't much like it, but I think we have to have our own, even if only to play it safe. I mean rifles and shotguns are fine, but it doesn't appear it's just the gangs we have to worry about. Looks like the good guys ain't all good guys.”

  “I agree,” John said. “I spent a good deal of time in Rochester, and I took to carrying a gun with me wherever I went. I think, especially now, since we don't seem to have any police to protect us, it's the only smart thing to do.”

  “I agree,” Ronnie said.

  The others in the small group murmured their agreement along with him.

  “Dave?” Bob said, as he looked at him, “We’re also going to need some canned goods. Maybe some bottled water, soda, canned meats. How about you and Lilly start getting that together. Be sure to stick to the canned stuff, and toss in some basic medical stuff, you know aspirin, bandage, whatever you think we might need.” Dave nodded his head and left with Lilly. Bob scrawled a quick list for Ed and Gina, and sent them on their way. The three remaining men watched them walk off, and then Bob said,

  “Ronnie? Did you see any state maps up front, at the checkouts?”

  “I believe I did,” he replied, as he walked away to get one.

  Ronnie glanced over at the group of people, who were still huddled by the front doors, as he picked up several maps and headed back to the rear of the store. They were all huddled together to one side of the front doors, talking in low whispers, and more than a few of them had turned his way as he picked up the maps.

  Bob and John were sitting on the rail of a long meat counter, talking, and drinking a couple of beers when Ronnie returned.

  “They're still cold if you get 'em from the back,” Bob said as Ronnie approached.

  Ronnie reached into the cooler and snagged one of the beers from the back of the cooler, where ice had formed on the condenser unit. It hadn't completely melted in the cool interior of the store. He took a long drink of the cool liquid. Probably won't be drinking too many cold beers anymore, he thought. He reached into the cooler fished out a six pack from the back, and carried it over to the two men who were still talking. Bob and John both helped themselves to another beer as Ronnie spoke.

  “Group up front is still there, and they eyeballed me pretty good when I went up to get the maps.”

  “It's probably a good thing we're leaving,” John said. John had been in the crowd at the front of the store earlier and hadn't liked the way the conversation had been going. “There's a couple of loony's in that crowd, and I'm just as glad they're not with us.”

  “I feel about the same,” Bob said.

  Ronnie opened one of the maps, and spread it over the glass top of the meat case.

  “John thinks the best way is probably Route 3,” Bob said.

  “It cuts around the lake,” John explained, picking up the conversation. “If it's true, what Bob suspects about the fault line, it may be a tough way to go. But you've got to consider the other route, and I don't think that's a good choice at all. If we don't go 3, we're stuck with Route 81 to Syracuse, and the Thruway west from there. I think we all made up our minds to avoid Syracuse, so that leaves Route 3. That will take us into Route 104, and if we take that west it will bring us into Rochester. Of course there's still the lake to contend with.”

  “I don't think the lake is a problem,” Bob said, “the fault line runs across the basin of the Great lakes. If it did shift, it would be a problem we might have to face down the line, but that would only be if we try to go farther west.”

  “If it shifted, let’s say it did for the sake of argument, there's no real way to know at this point anyway, we could have one hell of a big river splitting the whole eastern end of the continent, from Canada, all the way down to the Gulf coast somewhere. I know, I already been beatin' on that horse, but I think it's the most likely explanation. I read about it, what could happen if the fault were somehow triggered, in an article in the paper a few years back. It may seem a bit far-fetched, but there's a lot of fact to back it up. The lakes would drop at first, and then they would level out as the new river fills up, and begin to rise again. That's a basic way of putting it I guess, but that's t
he gist of it. Right now though, if that lake really is dropping, we shouldn't have too much trouble getting into Rochester.”

  “You don't think the road will be busted up, or flooded?” Ronnie asked.

  “I doubt it'll be flooded,” John replied, “if the lake is dropping, that should keep the road dry. I'm not so sure it won't be broken up some though, and we may run into some stalled traffic I suppose, but being as it was night time, the traffic shouldn't be too awful bad, and Four Wheel Drive should get us around the worst of it anyhow.”

  “I'd say it's a much better bet than Route 81 and the Thruway,” Bob said. “The traffic is pretty damn heavy there all the time.”

  “Tell me about it.” Ronnie said, “I came down eighty-one on my way here the day I met you guys. I was out in Adams working that day, just happened to come in to the city. Nothing but Army trucks and traffic bumper to bumper.”

  “Well then,” Bob said, “that decides that. John, what do you think our chances are, when we get there, of finding it still standing?”

  John shrugged his shoulders as he replied. “Good as any, I guess, there's no real way to tell. I don't think the damage here was caused by the meteor, I think we all agree it was most likely an earthquake, but that doesn't mean Rochester's still standing. And it says nothing about what's beyond Rochester.”

  The other two men nodded in agreement. He was right, Ronnie realized, as he pulled another beer from the plastic collar that held it. They would simply have to get there before they knew. He sat beside them on the small rail drinking the semi-cold beer.

  A short time later a loud commotion at the front of the store, caught their attention.

  “Shit,” Ronnie said as the three of them hurried in the direction of the front of the store, “What the hell's up now?”

  Candace was standing over the young man with the long greasy hair who had caused the earlier argument, with her fists clenched. Mike and Jan were standing in front of her trying to hold back the small group of people.

  “What the hell's going on here?” Bob shouted as he came up the aisle with Ronnie and John.

  “This ass-hole,” Candace said, waving her hand to indicate the young man on the floor, “and his buddy over there,” she pointed towards Brad Saser, who was standing in the crowd. “Tried to jump us when we walked in the front door.”

  Dave and Lilly emerged from one of the other aisles and stood next to Candace and Terry, as the kid picked himself up off the floor, and retreated to the safety of the other group. The two groups stared at each other across the small space for a few seconds, and then Brad Saser stepped out of the small group with a pistol gripped in one hand.

  “Don't have to be nobody killed,” he said, as he waved the pistol in their direction. “We want them Jeep's, that's all.”

  Mike returned the man’s icy stare. “If you want one, why don't you go get one? If I recall correctly, you didn't want to come along in the first place, and if you want to leave now there are plenty more cars just lying around waiting to be taken. Take one and go for Christ's sake.”

  “Oh, I want to go. In fact we all do,” he replied, as he waved the gun around to include the group behind him. “We will too, but since you already got three good Four-Bys all gassed up and ready, it'll save us the trouble of bothering, and this gun says we'll be takin' em. Now give me the keys, Bitch,” he snarled, glaring at Candace.

  “You want them?” she asked sweetly, “You come and get them.”

  “I swear I'll blow your brains right out the back of your fuckin' head,” he said as he started towards her.

  Mike took two steps, and placed himself between them.

  “Buddy, I don't give a fuck about you at all,” Brad said, and pointed the gun at Mike's head, “I'd just as soon...”

  Before Brad Saser could finish what he had been about to say, a voice from the front of the store broke in.

  “You got two seconds to drop that gun, Brad, or I swear I'll put a bullet right through you.”

  Ed was standing in the doorway with Gina, and both of them had high powered deer rifles pointed at Brad.

  “I shit you not, Brad, I'll shoot you like a woodchuck and leave you laying there, Man,” Ed said, as Brad turned around.

  Brad looked back at the group of people behind him for help, but no one moved. Mike reached out quickly and grabbed the gun from his grip, and with one meaty hand shoved the man to the floor.

  “I believe we'll be leaving,” he said, first to Brad, and then lifting his eyes to include the group of people behind him. “And if you know what's good for you, you'll stay the hell out of our way.”

  Dave retreated down one aisle, and returned within a few minutes pushing a large steel stocking cart.

  “I'd watch them kind of close,” Bob whispered, as he moved up to Mike's side, “that may not have been the only gun they had.”

  Mike held the pistol in his hand, pointed towards the silent group of people as the others left the store through the wide front doors. Bob waited with him.

  “I'd like to say it's been nice, but it hasn't,” Mike said to the crowd of people.

  “You really should give some thought to coming with us,” Bob said, “I ain't so sure you picked yourselves a very good horse if you're counting on him,” Bob finished, pointing at Brad, who was still on the floor. The small group of people remained silent.

  “Suit yourselves,” Bob finished. He followed Mike out the front doors and into the parking lot.

  The two men paused outside, waiting in the drizzle falling from the rapidly darkening skies, as Dave and a couple of the others loaded the Jeeps. “You think,” Mike asked, “that there will be others like them?”

  “I hate to say it, but yes.” Bob replied as they slowly walked across the lot towards the three Cherokee's that sat idling, “I'd like to think a little better of the human race, but we are what we are. I expect we'll run in to a whole shit load of those types.”

  “It's a good thing Ed and Gina picked up guns then,” Mike replied thoughtfully. “No telling what kind of animals we'll run into and I don't necessarily mean the furry kind.”

  Once the vehicles were loaded, Mike and Bob climbed into the open rear door of one of the Jeep's with John.

  Candace was in the front driver’s seat with Patty beside her. The second Jeep, with Ronnie driving and Jan in the passenger seat, Lilly in the back, pulled in behind them. Ed drove the last Jeep, with Dave riding beside him, A shotgun was resting between his knees. Gina in the back seat with her own rifle, a wire stock model that looked wildly military to Mike when he had seen it. Terry on the other back window, a heavy shotgun resting between his legs, and two 45 caliber pistols on a wide belt at his waist. There were a few more of guns scattered among them, Mike knew: He, Candace, Ronnie, Patty, a few others, but a few had stuck to rifles or shotguns.

  The rain that had been threatening began to fall hard as the small caravan pulled out of the parking lot, turned right on the crowded street, and began to weave through the stalled traffic heading out Route 3.

  Harlem: Tosh

  Tosh sat on a stool in the kitchen writing in her little notebook. Something was going on out in the world. Something, and the news was covering it up. The local news had been canceled. First at noon and now again at five. There had been no strange weather today, but the time was still off. Really off. The days were longer, no doubt about it at all.

  There were fires burning out of control in the projects. No firemen had come. No cops. Nobody at all. There had been Earthquakes, or at least the ground had shaken. Explosions somewhere? Was it Earthquakes? It seemed like no one knew.

  Tosh didn't know anyone who owned a phone. A real phone. Real phones were a thing of the past, but a real phone would have been good now, because something had happened to all the cell phones. The bars had dropped to nothing. How could that even be, she had asked Adam. There were towers all over the place! Nevertheless, they had ceased to function, and she now found herself wishing for a real phone.


  Adam had rigged up a C.B. radio and they had listened to that for a while. Twice a voice bled through claiming to be from somewhere in Jersey, warning everyone to stay away. The voice claimed the city was on fire. Union City? North Bergen? Edgewater? They didn't say, but it looked like all of Jersey was burning, just like parts of New York. There were gangs fighting for control of what was left here, probably the same there.

  A few minuets later the C.B. went dead. When it came back a few seconds after that, there was a man identifying himself as Commander Roberts, telling them to keep the channel clear. Tosh looked up at Adam. He pulled her closer and watched the night come down outside the windows.

  EIGHT

  Old Towne: Conner

  March 8th

  I debated with myself about how to start this. Isn’t that stupid? Not whether I should start it. I guess that means that I have some hope that I am not the only one.

  Actually, I know that I’m not the only one. I’ve heard gunshots more than once. I’ve heard a dog barking as well. And I’ve seen a few dogs, cats, squirrels. I’ve also heard what sounded like a car or a truck, but I couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. Everything is so quiet that what sounds there are, are distorted; it could be anywhere.

  The sound of the river drowns things out. Even so, I haven’t seen any other people. None. And I’m getting ahead of myself again.

  I have no idea what has happened, even here in Old Towne. It doesn’t really matter either, except to tell you, whoever you may end up being, what happened from my point of view, I guess. Maybe it’s the same for you. Maybe writing this out is a waste of time, but it keeps my mind off shit, you know?

  So I wondered where to start? Today? Last week? Just start, I guess...

  I have heat, food, fire. And I’ve finally gotten myself moved into this old factory so my mind is more at ease, but again, I’m getting ahead of myself. It started for me last week on the 1st of March. Only seven days, but everything here has changed.

  I was having a few beers that night, watching the coverage of the world countdown party; hey, it was supposed to be a joke, right? The asteroid was supposed to miss us. And we had a few hours to go before we hit zero, zero. It was supposed to be one long countdown party. It was late and I was about to call it a day myself. One minute everything was fine, and the next the power was out.

  Then the first quake hit...

  I made it through that night and… two more quakes? Aftershocks? Who knows? I was just trying to get through to the morning. Phones were out; Internet down; Sirens everywhere; No power, but the closer it got to dawn of the 2nd the less noise there was. The sirens fell off. It began to snow at first, but as dawn started the rain came hard, and then the lightning. A thunder and lightning storm in the middle of winter!

  It was spooky, and when morning finally came it didn’t make sense at all. Almost everything I could see in every direction was flattened. The streets had cracked open and had become rivers. The temperature was higher than it should have been too, but that didn’t last.

  By noon the rain stopped, and I kept expecting to see someone. Emergency workers… Cops... Power Company… Somebody. Even a neighbor, but I saw no one at all that day.

  I guess as serious as it was, I wasn’t taking it seriously. At least not that first day. I was still thinking rescue, help, it’s on the way. This is the most powerful country in the entire world. Help is coming. So I sat on my ass and drank beer and ate bologna sandwiches and chips, staring out at the street from my front porch, which was now perched on the edge of a twenty foot rain gully.

  Just before dark the real quake hit. It had to have been stronger than the previous ones. It felt like it anyway.

  I barely jumped off the porch before it fell into the gully. Scared the hell out of me. It wasn’t long after that when darkness settled in and I knew I was in trouble. Something in the whole structure of the house was damaged. Every aftershock made it dance and sway around me. It was also now a two foot drop down to the ground since my porch was gone. And I didn’t dare leave because I had no idea what it was like outside. No Streetlights. No Moon. No starlight. No starlight, none! Then the storms came back, and the air turned back to cold.

  Every time the lightning flashed I could see the street, or what had been the street. There was no more street, not really. It was a river - wide, and it looked pretty deep too. All the opposite side of the street was gone now. No houses, cars, telephone poles, satellite dishes. Nothing. It seemed like the entire side of the street had washed away right down to the river. The water roared past me - just a few feet from where my porch had been - flattened out, and then turned into rapids breaking away to crash into the Hudson river further down the hill. That was when I realized it wasn’t just the other side of the street that was gone. The other two blocks that had been between me and the river were also gone.

  Later on the rain turned back to snow, but the lightning kept up. Lightning in a snow storm. How crazy is that? By the morning of March 4th, the river running past my house was down to a trickle, but the snow was piling up. Down the hill the Hudson was over her banks. There was nothing else to see, a few solitary houses still standing as my own was, but there was no one around anywhere. Even Manhattan, outlined against the gray sky, seemed deserted. No towers with their blinking lights. No noise. Nothing. That’s when I got into the hard stuff.

  I drank myself to sleep, and when I woke up I looked at my watch and realized I’d lost several hours: My watch still worked at that point. I walked to the front door, and when I looked out the first thing I noticed were footprints in the snow. Three sets, two small, maybe kids or women, one big, going just past my house, no more than three feet from my house, where once upon a time in some other world my porch had been, and I had slept through it. I yelled and screamed for a half hour hoping that someone would hear me, but no one came. No one yelled back and told me to shut up either. Just absolute silence. No birds, just the roar of the swollen Hudson. Nothing else.

  I’ve thought about that day, the fourth, a couple of times. Was it the fourth? The fifth? Did I sleep more than a few hours? I don’t know. And that was the day my watch stopped working so I don’t know. One minute it was working, the next it wasn’t. The face was blank.

  There were a couple of more aftershocks that day, and I began to wonder if my house would be standing much longer, after all nearly everything around me was destroyed already. And I thought, what if that was an aftershock? Like I had thought the first quake was the real one and then the one the next day was so much stronger. It made me realize how stupid I was to still be in that house. And I thought, no wonder no one is answering when I yell. They were all smart enough to get away from the buildings. Leave. And if I left also, I reasoned, I’d most likely catch up to them, whoever they were, wherever they had gone. I looked at the buildings still standing in Manhattan. They were still standing. It looked odd to me, but maybe just seeing those buildings silhouetted against the sky when nearly everything around me was flattened. Were there buildings missing from the skyline? Buildings I had always taken for granted? Buildings that my eyes just skipped over? I couldn't tell. If they had skipped over those buildings, taken them for granted, they were still doing it. That was when I had glanced at my watch and noticed that it had stopped working.

  I had been in the habit of looking at my watch all day. Just nervous, I guess. I was positive that I had just looked at it and it had been working, but when had that been? What time had it been? And when had it been exactly that I had looked at it? How long ago? All I could remember for sure was that the last aftershock that had started me wondering had been at 2:57 P.M. I wasn’t sure of anything after that. Even when I thought back on it later, wondering what day it was, I wondered why I had never thought to push the little date button to see what the date had been. Or had I? Had I and then forgotten that I had? Had I only remembered subconsciously that it was the fourth? Anyway the watch was dead. And what time was it? And where shoul
d I go? And how soon would it be dark? After wasting time wondering about things like that, things that were absolute bullshit in light of everything else, I just jumped down into the snow and headed off toward Old Towne.

  There were a few buildings standing in that direction. It was still snowing pretty hard, but I could see the outlines of the buildings through the snow.

  Normally it’s no more than a fifteen minute walk to the Square. Old Towne has an old New England style Public Square that is the center of downtown. I figured that if anyone was still alive that was where they would be.

  In fact, I told myself, they probably would have some buildings open for shelter. Fire Department passing out blankets, bottled water, hot soup. I could see it so clearly in my head. I was wrong of course, but that’s a story for tomorrow. My fingers are shot. Hey it would be easy to write this on my computer keyboard, but computers are a thing of the past now.

  I’m warm. I’m dry. I’m pretty much okay. I survived the day the world ended, but my fingers are sore and I’m tired, so I’ll pick this up tomorrow.

  Old Towne: Katie

  March 8th

  Fresh snow today. The whole world is covered in clean, white snow. It makes it look like nothing ever happened here.

  I'm with a man named Jake. He's crazy about me. I just can't feel the same. I could fake it, but I told myself I'm not going to do that, but I can't keep on this way either. It is too hard on him; too hard on me.

  James and Jan Adams are also with us. I don't know what I would do without Jan. She is level headed where I am impulsive, a thinker where I tend to just act. A good balance. James has an idea of rebuilding his peoples' lands. He's Native American, and so is Jan. It sounded crazy when he first said it, but after I thought about it, it began to make sense to me.

  Lydia is the other member of our party. She hates me. That's because Jake wants me, and she wants Jake. Maybe that will fix itself before I have to fix it by leaving and going out on my own. I had thought that finding people, and being a part of that again would be the answer to my being on my own, but I forgot that it brings troubles of its own.

  Today we decided to see if the city was any better on the other side of the river. It isn't. We crossed the river, the Hudson river, on a railroad trestle. There is a traffic bridge, and it looks passable, but it's clogged with cars and some of those cars look purposely placed to block it off. That creeped me out.

  We walked across the trestle carefully, and went up State street. The market where I worked is there, and we found tracks in the snow. One person. A man I would guess from the boot tread.

  I can not tell you what that was like. Seeing a footprint left by someone else. Someone else alive in this whole mess. I felt connected to him. I can't say it or explain it any better than that. Like a connection existed forever and I only had to find it. I tried to explain it to Lydia but she just shrugged. We have this thing with Jake between us though. She wants him; he wants me. I don't want him. It could be so goddamn simple, but it isn't.

  Except the footprints. Maybe the footprints are the answer. I think they are. I believe they are. We just need to find the person, the man, that goes with those footprints and... And I don't know. I really don't, but I think he'll know.

  The only bad thing today, we came across a dead man laying crumpled by the side of the road. I could have sworn he moved, so I hurried to him, but as I got closer, I could see that he was dead. Long dead. We stood for a moment and then walked on. Later when we came back he was gone, and I thought, was he dead? Was he? But I know that he was. I suppose that wild dogs or something got him. We didn't talk about it, but it bothered all of us.

  Harlem: Tosh's Notebook:

  (Morning): Fresh snow. Made it all look like it never happened... Clean.

  Mexico NY: Mike and Candace

  Late Afternoon

  “So, what do you think?” Mike asked Bob.

  Mike, as well as Candace, stood facing the road along with Bob and John: They both shrugged.

  The group had stopped just ten minutes before, when they had come to the turn off for Route 104 in the tiny town of Mexico, New York. The road was so bad in places that the Jeep vehicles bounced roughly over them no matter how slow they drove.

  For nearly ten miles they had been reduced to a crawl as they crept slowly forward down the broken road, passing over the thick chunks of asphalt that tilted crazily into the air. In some places the drops from surface to surface was more than six inches. Nothing the vehicles couldn't handle, but the driving had turned into a slow crawl for long stretches.

  They had spent the last two days bogged down just a few miles outside of Watertown. Torrential rains, thunder and lightening. They had spent two miserable nights in the Jeeps trying to get some sleep. They had started out early this morning with high hopes. In the last three days combined they had moved no more than forty miles tops. The rain had finally stopped. They were hopeful.

  They had maps, but the roads and small villages were so torn up that it was hard to find landmarks that could tell them where they were. The occasional highway marker, Village Limits sign, even business signs that listed the name of the town or village, was nearly all they had to go by. By mid morning the rain was back and their spirits had plummeted.

  The trees had been winter brown three days ago when they left Watertown, but as they drove through the steady rain more and more green came into view. To the small group of people trying to negotiate the road it had sometimes felt like driving through a jungle. The road steamed where the asphalt had been warmed by the sun earlier in the morning before the rain had come back. The trees, seemingly bent on shedding their winter grays and browns and covering the landscape in green. They had finally stopped to move a fallen tree out of the roadway and then Bob had wondered aloud if the road would get any worse. They had all stared at the overgrown landscape for a few moments longer, but there was no way to see what may lay ahead, and backtracking now was out of the question. After a short discussion they had returned to the Jeeps and once again set out on the cracked pavement toward the west.

  Noon, or what they judged to be noon, found them parked under the tilted remains of a gas pump island: The rain was back, beating on the steel panels above them. The convenience store that had anchored the gas pumps was gone. Churned up earth marked the most likely spot. The air reeked of raw gasoline despite the rain.

  Bob was bent over a map which was spread across the hood of one of the Cherokees. The other two Jeeps were parked beside it, tailgates down as the rest of the group sat eating a lunch of cold, canned-meat sandwiches they had made. Mike and the others stood talking and studying the map. They sipped at warm sodas and ate, talking between mouthfuls.

  “This,” Bob said, “leads straight into Rochester.” He pointed with one finger down the roadway as he spoke. “Of course...” he said, pausing to swallow, “there's no real way to know what shape it's in, or how much traffic we'll run into.”

  They had decided farther back not to take either of the turnoffs that could have shortened their trip, because of the traffic they contained. They seemed to have been more popular, and therefor much more heavily traveled.

  Both of the turnoffs had been built after the main route, and had been designed to bypass the small towns, offering a more direct route, and both had been blocked with large tractor-trailers, several of which had been involved in accidents.

  They had stopped momentarily to gaze at the scene, walking quietly through the twisted and blackened steel shells. They had expected to find bodies, but none of the trucks had any passengers, dead or alive. They seemed to have been driven by no one at all, wrecked, and then abandoned.

  As far as they could see down the road they were now on, there was no traffic at all. The road on the other hand was buckled and twisted for as far as they could see so there would be little time that could be made up. A trip that would take three hours at the outside just a few days before looked as though it would now take three or four days.<
br />
  In fact the entire small town seemed to be completely deserted. They had met no one as yet, and had begun to wonder aloud to one another whether they were completely alone.

  It felt that way. It seemed as though everyone had simply decided to leave at the same time. Perhaps a mass exodus of some sort had occurred. Even so the feeling of being watched was pervasive. Creeping up on nearly everyone one, making them stop what they were doing, quickly lift their heads and look around, only to find no one there.

  “It can't be any worse than the alternate routes we've stopped at,” Mike said, staring down the empty road.

  “No,” Bob said, and then continued after taking a deep drink from the warm can of soda he held. “This tastes horrible,” he said, making a grimace. “Anyway, I would bet that we're going to hit some of that truck traffic again before we get to Oswego. The last alternate we passed, 104 B, comes back into 104 just before we get there, at...” he paused as one finger traced the route on the map, “...New Haven. Have you been there, John?”

  “It's the gas fumes,” Mike said. “Messes your taste buds up.”

  Bob nodded.

  “Wide place in the road is all it is,” John replied, looking at the map as well. “Problem I'm concerned about is Oswego. Mighty damn close to the lake.”

  “True,” Bob said, “but I don't think we have too much to worry about. It's a good twenty-seven feet above lake level, according to the map. I guess the big worry would be damage from the quake though. Road might be all busted to hell, maybe some buildings down, no way to tell 'till we get there, for sure anyway, but I think we ought to count on a tough time getting through there...”

  “...All that truck traffic will be back, and they do a lot of container shipments from the Oswego docks, mostly by train, but a good portion by truck, so that'll add even more traffic. It's also a college town, and even though most of the kids there would've been gone on break, they do run classes’ year around.”

  “There's another problem too,” John said. “Although the map doesn't show it, there are two bridges that we have to cross... dead downtown too. I think one's a canal of some sort, and the other spans the Oswego River. You think the quake took them out?” he finished, looking at Bob.

  “It's possible I suppose, but like I said, there's no real way to know till we get there,” Bob replied, frowning.

  “What about a boat?” Candace asked.

  “No good,” John replied, “good idea, but the banks are too high. It might be something to keep in mind though. If we have to we can take to the lake and skim around the roads. There are quite a few marinas all along 104, so if we had to go a way before we could get back in, it would at least get us back somewhere down the line, even if the water's still down.”

  “You think it is?” Mike asked, looking at Bob.

  “Well, it was farther back. A lot depends on whether the locks in the Sea Way held or not...”

  “Hey!” Patty shouted. “Hey don't run off!”

  Mike looked over to see what she had yelled about, but she was standing on the edge of the protected pump area staring back down the road. He caught Candace's eye, but she only shrugged as she walked over to her.

  “Something?” Bob asked.

  “Don't think so,” Mike said... “Maybe a mutt or something... Go on, Bob.”

  “Okay, So... Oh yeah, the Locks, I don't imagine they could have all been down. I'm not positive, but I think it drops somewhere around twenty-two feet from the Atlantic to Ontario, and the levels of all the lakes are different too. Most people don't know that, unless you live up here of course. I'd bet though that they held, at least so far, or at least the ones that were closed: If not I think the lake level might have already started to rise again, unless... Well, could be like I said before. There could be a whole new river cutting through the middle of the country, and if so I wouldn't want to bet on anything.” Bob drew a short breath and then continued after looking over to where Candace and Patty were talking.

  “I got side tracked with that damn fault line right after I read the article about it. You know, one of those things that sort of grabs your attention. Hell, until I read it I wasn't even aware we had any fault lines up here. You hear earthquake, you think California, not northern New York.”

  “But I thought you said you read about it in school?” Candace said as she walked back over.

  “No... What I said was you could read about it in school. I checked it out at the library. You know, I just couldn't believe it, and I learned a long time ago not to always believe what you read in the paper, so I went to the library and asked,” Bob said grinning. “Everything okay, Candace? With Patty?”

  “Oh yeah... Thought she saw someone across the road in that wreck of a diner. Ran as soon as they saw her.” Candace shrugged.

  “We could go check it out,” Mike said.

  “If someone doesn't want to be found, goes through the trouble of avoiding us, maybe it's best to let them be,” John said.

  Bob chuckled.

  “Library,” Mike prompted.

  Bob nodded.

  “I am sorry, “John said and smiled heartily.

  “Me too, Bob,” Candace agreed.

  “Library,” Mike prompted again.

  Bob laughed. “Okay, library; as it turned out I wasn't the only one interested in that fault line. I had to wait better than a week to get the book I wanted. It was worth the wait though. The book was written by a fellow name of Jack Frederick. Guess he was living somewhere up here at the time. I haven’t ever heard of him though. He told all about the fault line, and the locks. Got into a lot of boring shit, and used a lot of fancy words, but the gist of the whole thing was that he felt the thing was getting ready to go at any time. Course he wrote it back in the fifties, and I suppose when nothing happened right away people just forgot it. Till the article in the paper anyway...”

  “...He thought it was more likely to go before the big one ever hit California, and I guess writing that book was his way to call attention to it. I'm running at the mouth here, but bear with me and I'll try to get to the point. See, he thought the whole damn continent would crack right down the middle, with a hard enough quake. The newspaper article was aimed at that side of it too. He also thought that it would eventually drift apart, course that goes back to the theory that the continents are not finished moving yet. But he thought it would move pretty quickly initially, leaving a huge gap more than three or four miles wide and running from north to south. If that's true then it'll probably be even worse through the middle states, as the land's all low to begin with.”

  “So,” Bob continued, after a brief pause, “you'd have one hell of a big river, and then almost an inland sea in the middle of the country. In effect it would pretty much cut the country in half, I guess. Of course, who knows? Science ain't based entirely on fact like most people think it is. It's just a bunch of theories, and whoever gets the most people to believe their particular theory comes out on top, I guess. Thing is a lot of people forget it's just theory and start to believe everything they say. I remember in school being taught about dinosaurs and people living at the same time. Hard science,” he laughed.

  “This guy though, he did a lot of research on it, and I think the reason no one wanted to believe him was because it's a scary thing to think about. So, I guess that's it. It still boils down to the same thing. Maybe, maybe not. We'll never know till we get there, and we ain't going to get there if I keep running my mouth, are we?” Bob smiled, as he finished.

  “You do talk up a storm,” Mike agreed, “but at least it’s interesting stuff. I've read about it too, not to that extent, but I have to agree with a lot of what you said. Hell, I'm a skeptic. I rarely believe anything I read,” he laughed as he finished.

  “I think that's everyone,” John said. “You get bamboozled a few times and that's it. You think it's all garbage. And,” He chuckled a little, “The sad thing is a lot of it still is junk.”

  Candace nodded. Her eyes cut
to Patty who was still watching the wrecked diner on the other side of the road. Shading her eyes to see better.

  “Seriously though,” Mike continued, the smile leaving his face. “I still don't know what the hell was going on in those caves back in Watertown, not entirely anyway, and it bugs the hell out of me. Makes me wonder if that had anything to do with this.”

  “Not likely,” John said. “If the damage was not so wide spread, say just localized, I would say hell yes, it probably did. But this thing is nationwide, so no. One secret whisper-the-name military base isn't gonna get my vote. I'd say this was a natural event. A meteor and a bad set of circumstances of where it hit at an active volcano site. We might find, once we get to Rochester that this thing is confined to the U.S. Maybe Canada and Mexico, parts of South America, but it doesn't seem it could have affected Europe... Australia. We may be able to expect help from those countries.”

  “I would like to think that, John. I surely would, but I'll need to see it proved,” Bob said.

  They had talked a little about the base as they had driven. They had all known that something had been going on. The Army had kept Bob's gravel pit running day and night, and he had sent so many truck loads to the base that he had lost his own personal count more than once. “The thing was,” he had said, “we off-loaded right into their trucks, and off they went right back into the city with it. It was pretty clear they didn't want us there, and when they ordered concrete mix they sent their own trucks out to get it.” Bob had been forced to invest in a new computer system just to keep track of things, and had been hiring as much extra help as he could get just to keep up.

  They all agreed that something was going on, but they had no idea what. “It makes no difference anymore,” Bob had said. “The whole downtown section of Watertown is pretty much destroyed. Those caves are right under that. That river will probably keep rising, and that complex they built can't be far below, probably no more than eighty feet or so, it'll flood.”

  “Here,” John said, walking back from the rear of the Jeep. He held a warm six-pack of beer in his hand. “Stole this for us, to wash down the taste of that orange soda.”

  “Aren't you afraid we'll get pulled over for drinking and driving?” Mike said, smiling as he opened one of the cans.

  “Hell no,” John said, smiling back. “Of course I ain't the one driving, you are. Don't worry though; we'll post bail if you get arrested.”

  “Ha, Ha,” Mike said, as he climbed in behind the wheel of the Cherokee, “you'd probably let me sit there.”

  Lightening forked across the sky and Candace jumped. Patty laughed and put one hand on her arm. “Easy, Candy,” she told her. “I thought I was spooked.”

  “Why,” Candace asked. “The people that might be across the road?”

  “Yeah... It was really weird though... I thought,” she laughed, “Don't laugh at me. Well, the person sort of lurched across the doorway, like a horror movie Frankenstein or something.” She screwed her face up, but she wore no smile at all.

  “Yeah?” Candace asked. “Maybe it was just the rain... Or sniffing this gasoline, that will make you see things for sure.”

  “Yeah... Yeah, what I told myself. Just the way they moved... Maybe they were injured.”

  “Yeah... Probably were, Pats,” Candace agreed.

  “Funny though that they would run away if they were hurt.” Patty finished. She climbed into the back seat.

  Candace had also grabbed one of the warm beers and grimaced at the taste as she climbed in beside Mike, and said, “So, you going to keep this buggy? I mean this was supposed to be a short test drive, and I don't know how I'm going to explain the scratches to my boss.”

  Mike reached over and picked up the factory sticker from the floor boards where he had tossed it, after tearing it off the rear window back in Watertown. They had been playing this little game most of the day. After what had happened they were all attempting to lighten one another's moods, and it seemed to be working, at least most of the time, except with Ed. Ed had simply withdrawn into himself, and no one seemed to be able to draw him out.

  Mike let out a long whistle as he looked at the sticker price at the bottom. “I haven't made up my mind yet, lady, do you suppose your boss would mind if I kept it awhile longer?”

  “No, I guess not,” she replied, “but you'll have to keep me along with it,” she finished, laughing.

  “Oh,” Patty said from the backseat.

  “Well, okay,” Mike said, playing along. “I guess that kind of makes the sticker price worth it. What did you say those payments would be?”

  They joked back and forth as they drove along the road, and Bob and John joined in from the back seat. It helped to take their minds off their situation a great deal of the time, and Mike was actually growing to like Candace. After she had decked the young kid back in Watertown, he had immediately liked her. Not because she hit the kid, although the kid had deserved it, but because she seemed to have her wits together, and wasn't afraid to do whatever she had to, to protect herself and stay alive. She had seemed pretty shaken at first, and he had wondered whether she would be able to get past it and go forward. She was trying to see past it. That was all any of them could do, Mike thought, just try to get past it to whatever was in front of them.

  The whole group had begun to tighten up, he realized. The others had all gravitated towards Bob, himself, John and Candace. They had discussed that. It had made Bob especially nervous. While it was true he was used to taking charge, this was not the same thing as running a business, he had pointed out, and he wasn't so sure he liked it. He accepted it though, as did the others, although it was a reluctant acceptance.

  Eventually the subject turned towards the more serious topic of Rochester, and what to expect when they got there.

  “I can't tell you everything about it,” John said, and then continued. “Most of what I know about it is a couple of years out of date anyway,” he said pausing.

  “Well, anything you know is more than we know now. For instance, when we get there what's the best way to get into the city? Or should we stay out of it?” Candace asked.

  “Well, it's a big city. I think we should go in, but I think we'll probably have to give up the Jeeps, due to traffic. The best thing to do would be to get off 104 when we get to Fairport.”

  “Fairport?” Bob asked, looking at the map once more.

  “It's a long way around, sort of, but I think it might be the best way in. I think we have to get down in the city, at least at first anyway, just to see what there is. Like Bob said, who knows? Could be that the police are still there, or at least someone in authority.”

  “Nice pipe dream,” Bob returned.

  “You're probably right,” John answered, “but I would bet that glow we could see across the lake last night was Rochester, and if it was, that means the power is at least still on. They just gave the okay last year to Rochester Gas and Electric to fire up that new nuclear plant out in Livingston County.”

  “Where's that,” Mike asked.

  “Well, Rochester is in Monroe county, Livingston county starts out past Henrietta, which is a small suburb of Rochester. It's maybe fifteen miles or so away from the city itself, I guess. There was a lott'a bitching when they first proposed it, but it ended up being built anyway. Anyway, I'm starting to sound like Bob now, I guess. The whole thing's computerized from top to bottom. Oh they have people working there, but they're only there in case something goes wrong, not to run the place. Even if something does go wrong, the computer shuts the whole thing down, not people. They supply electric for the entire city with it, with some to spare. All the excess power that the place produces gets sold to New York City. They built a new plant to handle it downtown, on Broad Street. It's a way from the lake, so if that was Rochester we saw last night, the plant must still be up and running. That means there may still be some sort of control there, you know, police, or something, at least other people I would guess anyway...”

  �
��...You know, I think I am becoming a Bob clone. I guess I should get back to what I was saying before I started running at the mouth. Fairport looks like the best route in. We can get off at Webster and shoot across 250 straight into Fairport, and from there we have several routes to choose from. There are quite a few loops that surround the city, Can-of-Worms it's called. Most of the traffic would be there. They rebuilt the whole system just a few years back so it would be easier to get around the city. Almost all the old routes in and out were pretty much secondary after that, you know, really light traffic, but all of those routes in should be pretty well open.”

  Bob traced the route on the map as John spoke. “Looks good to me too,” he said. “Looks like we can get pretty much anywhere on the east side of the city from there.”

  “We can,” John agreed, “but don't let that map fool you. It's not as straight forward as it appears. I think we'll head out on East Avenue from Fairport. Try that first, and see.” Bob looked for East Avenue on the map, but couldn't find it.

  “Thirty-one,” John said.

  “Route 31?” Bob asked.

  “Yes, straight out of Fairport. It's really East Avenue still to me, but I think they list it as Route 31 on the map,” John said.

  “Got it,” Bob replied.

  “It doesn't go straight in anymore like the map shows,” John warned, “They changed it, but it goes far enough to hit Winton road.”

  “According to the map,” Bob said, “it'll take us north or south, and that opens a lot of ways in to the city.”

  “Sounds like a done deal,” Mike said, as he turned on the heater in the Jeep.

  “Hey,” Bob said, “don't you feel a little guilty driving around in a stolen Jeep?”

  “Nope, If you're gonna steal something make it something nice, I always say,” Mike replied, with a smug look on his face. “Besides, it's getting colder out again, isn't it?” he asked, turning the conversation back to something more serious. “I mean I'm from Watertown of course, and you never know what it's going to be like there. Cold in the mornings, usually, this time of year. Summer doesn't last for long, and I guess I expected it to stay cooler here too.”

  “It does stay cooler, or at least it did,” Bob said. “It can get hot in the summers, maybe edge up to the eighties, even low nineties on very rare occasions, but not as high as it was earlier. I really gotta believe that there's another reason for it. It seems to be swinging back to cold again though. Of course it's right back to the friggin' scientists you know,” he continued, “only time will tell on that one, I guess. Remember that Japanese island that had the quake about thirty, thirty five years ago?”

  Mike said. “Moved it, right?”

  “About six feet,” John said, “and that was just a quake, not a meteor blast. Who's to say what a large blast like that, coupled with a super quake, or whatever it was, would have caused? Or several large quakes, volcanoes for that matter? I don't pretend to know.”

  “I don't guess we'll be finding that out right away,” Candace said.

  “No... More wait and see,” Bob said. “I'd sure like to get my hands on a compass though, but who knows if a compass could tell us much? Probably not anymore, I'd guess. Shit, where the hell can you find a good scientist when you need one?” Everyone laughed, breaking the tension that had been building, as it always did, when the conversation turned serious.

  “Hey,” Mike said, as he thrust his open hand over the seat back, towards the rear. “You guys hogging all the beer back there? No wonder you're both starting to sound like a couple of fifth grade scientists.” Bob laughed as he passed Mike another beer. “Your license,” he said.

  “Guy's?” Candace asked. She waited until they looked at her. “Well, I was wondering, if, well... When we get to Oswego, if we could stop and get some clean clothes? I've been in these for two days now, and if there's no one there, in Oswego I mean, I'd like to stop and get some clean ones.”

  Mike looked down at his dirty shirt; he could use some clean clothes too. He had jumped into the same clothes he had been wearing the day before, everything started. That meant the same stuff for three days now, and he looked it. Come to think of it, he thought, we could all use some clean clothes. And a shower wouldn't be bad either. Aloud, he said, “I vote yes, does anyone know where there's a shopping center, a mall?”

  “There are a couple just inside the city limits,” John said, “They should have just about anything you'd want.”

  “It would probably be a good idea to stop,” Bob said. “It would give us all a chance to clean up too. Of course that's if there's running water.”

  “Even if there isn't,” Candace said, “there's the lake, right?”

  “True enough,” Bob replied, “but we may not be able to get close to it. I'll hope for running water myself.” A chorus of 'Me too' greeted Bob's last statement.

  Mike spread his fingers apart and looked from face to face. “Well, let's get this show on the road.”

  L.A: Billy Jingo

  Evening: March 9th

  He came up from sleep fast, Jamie's face above him, her voice a low, panicked whisper.

  “Wha... What... What?”

  “Downstairs... It's downstairs, people...” she didn't finish but she didn't need to. A crash came to his ears, but he could not tell if it was from the downstairs hallway. At least he hoped it was the downstairs hallway, not the stairs outside of their apartment, or, God forbid, even closer.

  He jumped from the tangle of blankets, started to pull his shoes on, and then reached for his machine pistol instead as another noise came from the hallway. This time it did sound like the downstairs hallway; the steel gate that closed off the lobby. Billy thumbed the safety off the machine pistol and ran for the apartment door.

  The hallway was nearly completely black. The hallway windows let in the light from outside, but it was very little. No more streetlights, safety, just roving gangs of rapists and murderers. He slowed and felt his way to the staircase. He sensed her before his hand brushed against her.

  “Don't you fuckin' shoot me, Billy Jingo.” Beth whispered tightly. A small penlight clicked on and he could see her leaning against the wall from the upstairs apartment.

  “No,” Billy said. It was stupid, but he could think of nothing else to say. “Going down,” he told her. He made the stairs and headed down toward the lobby. Behind him Beth had turned out the light, but he could feel her following behind him.

  The noise became louder as they made their way downward. Billy tried to count the steps as he went. Fifteen to the landing, turn to the right, feel for the banister. Fifteen more to the bottom, but he missed the last step. He had made himself count the steps just earlier that day in case he had to navigate them in the blackness.

  He nearly fell before his foot found the floor and he regained his balance. He could hear them breathing now though, smell them. Just fifteen or so feet across the lobby. He felt Beth’s hand brush against his back. A second later she pressed up against him and whispered in his ear.

  “When I flick the light on them, just shoot!”

  “But what if...”

  “Fuck 'What if'... Just shoot. Who do you think it would be, the fuckin' Avon lady?” Silence fell. The noise stopped. “Goddammit,” Beth muttered.

  A second later the penlight came on. It was like a floodlight in the narrow hallway. The gate was broken, forced part way open at the top. Another few minutes and they would have been through. Six men and one woman were illuminated by the beam. Two turned to run, the others seemed transfixed in the beam from the penlight, then three of them suddenly went for their rifles where they had left them by the door, one simply raised his pistol and pointed it at Billy.

  His rifle was in his hands, but it was like the beam had frozen him too. He did not begin to fire until after Beth's pistol began to fire. The noise was huge, everything in the closed in space. All six of the men fell, thrashing on the floor, one began yelling, but a quick burst from Billy's rifle silenced the
yelling. It was over fast. So fast that Billy had not even thought to breath.

  He stood frozen, looking at the dead. Two still moved. He walked forward and shot both of them in the head, one by one. The beam left them and moved to the doorway.

  The aluminum door frame was buckled in the doorway. The safety glass had been smashed out and lay on the floor in one spider webbed sheet. Two heavy sledge hammers lay just outside the doorway. Another three were scattered among the dead by the steel gate.

  “Son of a bitch,” Beth breathed.

  “Jesus. You don't think they would've gotten in, do you?”

  “Are you fuckin' kidding me?” Beth asked. She shone the light up and down the door frame. “We'll need a steel door and a welder to fix that,” She said.

  Billy nodded, realized she couldn't see it, and then spoke. “We can get one tomorrow.”

  She brushed against him as she squeezed past and walked toward the gate. His arm felt on fire from the softness of her breast as she had slipped past him. She turned and looked back at him. “They almost got in.” She shone the light on the steel collapsible burglar door. It had been there for as long as she could remember, and she had lived in the building for several years. The top was nearly separated from the steel bracket that held the hinge mechanism. Billy got his feet moving, walked over and examined the top of the door.

  They had hit it with the sledge hammer repeatedly. The steel had finally split, and it looked as though they had been trying to use sheer force to rip the rest of the bracket away from the wall where it was mounted. Billy stepped back.

  “I think,” he began, and that was when two more stepped through the shattered aluminum door frame and stared in at the steel gate.

  “Oh, hey, man,” one began. The other didn't even try for pretense, but just lifted her rifle and began to fire into the narrow hallway.

  It lasted less than a full second as both Billy's and Beth’s weapons roared. The woman's head blew apart in the narrow hallway, black blood running down the walls in the flickering light of the penlight where it had fallen to the floor. Beth squatted and picked the flashlight back up.

  “Got you? Got you?” Beth asked.

  “No... No... No, I …” Billy couldn't find the words. Something moved outside the door, and he opened up on it. A second later the sound of running came through the door. None of them made it to the gate, tripping over the other dead, and both Billy and Beth were firing immediately. One made it back out the door, his hand gone, the rifle he had been carrying clattered to the floor. Billy could not believe he was still able to move, he was sure he had shot him in the chest as well as the hand. He ran once he hit the sidewalk, canted to one side, one leg dragging as he ran, causing him to lurch from side to side. He disappeared into the darkness before either of them could get another shot in. The silence came back full.

  “You have got to get your shit together,” Beth said quietly.

  “I got my shit together,” Billy shot back.

  “You never saw that guy coming through the door: If I hadn't shot him...”

  “Well, fuck! If you hadn't... Never mind... Okay... I'll get my shit together.”

  She said nothing.

  “Okay... Okay... Does us no good to get on each other... None at all... We can fix this tomorrow.” He looked around the lobby.

  “Help me for a moment?” he asked. He headed for a length of chain they had bought back to use for something. It was about to be re-purposed, he thought. As Beth held the light he wound the chain through the separated sections of the gate, pulled it tight and ran a short length of nylon rope through the eyes, tying it tightly.

  He stepped back and looked it over. It would have to do until morning, her flashlight was dimming faster, causing shadows to jump and fall on the walls. Batteries were getting tougher and tougher to find. He looked at his wrist and cursed low. Old habits died hard. Watches were worthless now. He hadn't worn one in a few days.

  “I don't know either... I think a few hours 'til dawn,” Beth said. “That should hold for a few hours, at least slow them down enough to shoot them if they do try to get through it.”

  “Well I'll sit here and wait for it... All we can do,” Billy said. “Go on back up and get some sleep. I got this.” He settled back onto the step, sitting with his back to the upstairs.

  Beth stayed silent for a moment and then came and sat next to him. “Got it with you,” she said. She sat next to him, and he immediately lost his words. Her arm pressed against his own. The flashlight snapped off, and the heat of her arm became everything.

  “Billy?” His name whispered from the upstairs hallway: Jamie.

  “I'm here until daybreak,” Billy whispered back.

  Silence. And then... “It's safe?”

  “They won't get past us,” Billy said.

  She said nothing, but a few seconds later the door slammed upstairs. Billy sighed.

  “Sorry,” Beth said. She was aware how Jamie felt about her. Jamie and Billy were not really together, but Jamie felt she owned him. Billy didn't help matters by staying with her, sleeping with her, yet not making it official, and Jamie knew Billy was hung up on her too, Beth knew. For that matter, so was Scotty. She wasn't interested in either of them. She didn't feel like she absolutely had to have a man to protect her, define her. Yet ironically, she reminded herself, she was doing the same thing with Scotty. Staying when she didn't feel the same, couldn't feel the same. “I better go up... keep the peace.” Beth said quietly.

  “Yeah... I'm good here,” Billy said. He wasn't though. He wanted her to stay; he just didn't know what he could do to get her to stay. Nothing, he supposed. “I'll be good. Morning's not far away.” Her arm pulled away, and a moment later he heard her soft footfalls on the stairs as she ascended them. Billy sat quietly, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, his machine pistol in his hands.

  New York: Park Avenue

  March 9th: 618 Park Avenue: Seventh floor. 2B

  Tosh's Notebook. March 9th (Afternoon): Warming up, days longer. Nothing works, so I can't track the hours, but I know the days are longer.

  Tosh folded the cover back on her notebook and slipped it into her pocket. She stood on the balcony that overlooked the city, watching the fires that still burned here and there. It was ironic to her that the balcony faced west. Like she had never really left that world, only acquired a different view of it.

  This was so much different from their own place. The west side, even the other side of the river over in Jersey, was almost entirely in flames now. Across the river, the same west side she was looking over at now, still burned brightly. And Harlem was strange. The gangs had taken over. First fighting among themselves, then taking over the streets. The drug infested blocks just off the interchanges where the white folks had sometimes driven down into, pretending to be lost so they could buy their shit, take it back to their cozy, safe neighborhoods - probably a place just like this, Tosh thought - and get high with their friends, closed down. The whole area blocked off, city buses pulled across the streets. They had tried to go there. She knew first hand what it was like.

  She and Adam had left that area after just a few hours of wandering the streets, ducking in and out of the alleys to stay hidden, hearing the gunfire. The dead bodies everywhere were one thing to have to deal with. The living would be the other thing everyone would have to contend with there. Tosh tried to put it into context, but she couldn't. There was no context. It made no sense. Over there, if disease didn't get you, the gangs would. It was a no win situation. Her heart fluttered in her chest, and she took a short breath involuntarily. Little angel wings flapping against her rib cage. It was what always came to mind when it happened, always. It was a heart condition she had had for most of her life. A heart condition that seemed, ironically, as though it would kill her long before the gangs or diseases got her.

  She sighed. The smell of fire was everywhere. Not the smell of wood smoke but that smell of house fire, something everyone remembe
red once they had smelled it once. Burned plastic, hot steel, bodies burning. It was horrible.

  Fires burned over on the west side too now. Nothing like Jersey though. There seemed to be a concerted effort, behind those barricades of buses, to get the fires out. It had been just over a week now since the city had collapsed. She and Adam had come here two days before. She thought back on it, playing the scene over in her head as she watched the fires burn across the river. Cliffside, North Bergen, Union City. She couldn't tell where the fires burned and where they left off. Maybe all of Jersey was on fire.

  Two days prior...

  They had walked right down the middle of the street, looking up at the buildings as they walked. Park Avenue looked bad, but nowhere near as bad as Harlem had looked.

  618 rested above the door of this building in two foot tall brass letters. The door had been partly open. They had seen that from the street and walked closer.

  The doorman, an elderly white haired man, had been dead, lying in the doorway preventing the door from closing and locking. They had dug in, shifted him outside the door. Adam had dragged him to the gutter as she had held the door. They had used the elevator, taken it to the top of the building. There had still been electric in the building that first day. Now the elevator was dead, wedged open on their floor. There had been an old lady in the apartment across the hall. She had come and stared as Adam had forced the handset and let them into the apartment.

  “You know, Amanda Bynes will not care for that at all,” she had told them as she stood in her doorway, clutching her dressing gown to her throat.

  “Well, fuck Amanda Bynes,” Adam had told her. He turned to her. “Not to put too fine a point on it,” he added. She had shrunk back.

  She blinked. “Well, I don't suppose she'll be back. Do you?” She hadn't waited for an answer, but answered for herself. She lowered her eyes to the floor. “No. I don't suppose she will.” She looked back up. “Well, you're welcome to it, I guess. I guess it doesn't belong to anyone anymore. You just scared me is all.” She stood blinking. Tosh walked across the short distance and stuck out her hand.

  “I don't think anyone who isn't here right now will ever be back,“ Tosh had told her. She had held the old woman’s cold, thin hand.

  “Alice,” the old woman said as Tosh told her, her name. “Jefferson,” she had added.

  Adam chuckled from across the hall. Tosh had turned her eyes to him. “Just found it amusing is all,” Adam had told her.

  “I wonder what Mister James might think about all of this,” Alice had said. “We've never had... trouble like this,” she had finished quietly.

  “Mister James is your husband?” Adam had asked kindly.

  He tended to snap at people and then regret it after. He was so big that he scared people when he did that. Six foot three, and at two hundred and ninety, very close to three hundred pounds, but he was really an easy going soul, Tosh knew. He had been trying to make up for snapping at the old woman a few seconds before.

  “No, dear, our doorman. He's not supposed to let anyone in at all.” She had clutched at her throat and the collar of her housecoat once more.

  Tosh had looked at Adam. He had opened his mouth and then closed it. She had turned her eyes to Alice. “Alice... Alice, they got him. They got your Mister James... I'm sorry,” she had told her.

  Alice had blinked. “I see. Well he'll probably lose his job if he's... well if he's unable to do it,” she had looked at Tosh. “Do you think he's unable to do it?”

  Tosh nodded. “I'm pretty sure,” She had said.

  “Well, I wonder who will do it then?”

  The silence had held in the hallway for a short time and Adam broke it. “Do you think you might want to come over here with us? We're going to try to ride this out. Can't last forever, right?” He had finished with the lock-set, swung open the door and looked into the gloomy interior of Amanda Bynes' apartment. He turned back to face her.

  “No. Thank you, but I have always lived alone, and I can't see changing it now. Have you seen these gangs of people? I saw it on the T.V. before it quit working.” She had peered up at Adam.

  “Yeah. We've seen them. Had to fight our way through them.” His hand had come up and scrubbed at his face and the beard that was beginning to grow there.

  Alice had nodded. Her long robe lifted at floor level and a small white dog had stuck his head out from under the hem and looked up at Adam and Tosh. Alice followed their eyes down. “Ge-boo,” she had said. The dog looked up at her and then slipped his head back under the hem of the robe once more. He had poked his nose back out a few seconds later, fixed his eyes on Tosh, and then slipped back under the robe for good. It seemed to Tosh as though it hadn't really happened.

  “A dog,” Adam had said.

  Alice had nodded. “I have been walking him in the daylight. They said... the T.V. said... they don't come out in the daylight. Afraid to be seen or something. They haven't bothered Ge-Boo and me. Have you seen them in the daylight?” She had asked.

  “No,” Adam had told her.

  “No,” Tosh had agreed. “But you shouldn't go out. There are bad people out there... not just the gangs.”

  “You mean people that break into people's houses?” Alice had asked. She had looked from Tosh to Adam.

  “Yeah, well, okay,” Adam had agreed. “Just be careful... Alice,” He had added her name as an afterthought. “Tosh,” Tosh had nodded at Alice and then stepped into Amanda Bynes' apartment.

  Now she looked out over the fires burning in Jersey. The air was full of ash and smoke. It seemed like it was always now. She turned and went back into the apartment, sliding the balcony door shut behind her.

  Harlem

  Madison and Cammy

  The street was empty. Madison went first, taking her time, then called to the others. Cammy and Mickey came around the corner a few seconds later. Cammy stopped, watching Madison where she waited. Mickey came slowly, trying to look everywhere at once, holding the machine pistol he carried pointed up at the sky.

  Harlem was crazy. There were dead everywhere, because the gangs were running all the sick and elderly out of the neighborhoods. They had watched from the safety of a rooftop that overlooked the projects, as some gang members had gone apartment to apartment in the projects, running the people there out into the street.

  They had lined them up in the middle of the road and run them out of the projects, past the buses. Three different times one of the oldsters had turned to argue, or maybe just to make a point and they had clubbed them down, dragging them unconscious, out past the buses, and then shooting them in the head. After that they had begun going house to house looking for any other old people, sick, injured. Yeah, it was crazy in Harlem. They had decided to get out. There was no telling what might happen if they stayed.

  Mickey finally lowered the machine pistol he carried to the ground, took one more look around, and then his eyes came back to Madison as he walked.

  The shot rang out, and they all flinched. Madison went into a crouch. She had reached out and grabbed Cammy, pulling her low too, so she did not see Mickey begin to fall. Did not look that way until he was crumpled on the ground like a small pile of dirty clothes. Her eyes shot up toward the buildings quickly, but they dropped as a voice spoke.

  "Get the fuck up, bitches." A tall, dark-skinned kid - a kid, no more than that - walked from the darkened doorway of a building across the street. "I said, get the fuck up," he repeated as he walked toward them.

  Cammy stood from her crouch and Madison stood with her. "You don't have to hurt us," Madison began.

  "Good... Good. You bitches just get your asses moving and it'll be cool then." He motioned back the way they had come with his gun. Madison looked down at Mickey crumpled in the street, blood pooling around him, and got her feet moving. She held Cammy close as they walked slowly back into Harlem.

  Old Towne: Conner

  March 9th

  Maybe it’s March ninth. I guess I really don
’t know, but that’s what I think it is, so that’s what I’m going with.

  It’s late. I spent today getting food, canned stuff mostly. It was rough. Almost everything is flattened, and what isn’t flattened is badly damaged. I spent about five hours a few days ago digging my way into a market in Old Towne. The roof was down, but held up by the tops of the aisle stacks, so I was able to make my way through. I just had to be really careful of broken glass. That was where I went back to today.

  I had no flashlight at first, but I managed to get a small flashlight and batteries. I had to take so much stuff out of the front area of the store, that all the impulse stuff they sell was right there, candy, little radios, and of course flashlights and batteries. I tried a small portable radio. Nothing but static on the A.M. and F.M. bands both. I brought it back with me along with some extra batteries. I listened to it a short while ago; still nothing. Maybe tomorrow.

  I spent the day at the market digging out canned goods and bringing them back here.

  Here is an old factory. The building is down in back of the square, Towne Square as it’s called. I knew about it from growing up here. I was worried about the factory itself collapsing, but it seems to be fine, solid, and it's huge.

  I don't know what it once was, but it has been there for as long as I can remember back into my own childhood. I think it had a short life as a warehouse or a storage building. I remember trucks coming and going. Holding my mother's hand and walking to the market. The same market I was gathering supplies from now. Watching the men load and unload the trucks. They bricked it up to keep kids just like me from playing in it when it was shut down. The bricks are in a pile, scattered around the entrance. I guess the quake took care of that.

  It’s only about a mile and a half from here to the market, but with no vehicle it’s slow going. I’ve been piling stuff up on a large sled I found, and making trips back and forth.

  I found several cars and trucks, snowmobiles, but none of them will run. Most of them have no juice, but even the ones that do just turn over and over and won’t fire up. Maybe if I was a mechanic I could do something, but I’m not. So it’s the sled and a lot of muscle work.

  I did notice today, after not going there for two days, that no one else had been there either. No tracks in the fresh snow. It’s depressing. No way can I be the only guy here, right? And that made me wonder, what the hell am I writing this for? I mean, if there’s no one left who will read it? I guess those are questions for another day. Another day because, truly, I don’t want to deal with them today.

  So I spent my day getting food. There are maybe two dozen buildings still standing in the square. And that’s where I was when I left off writing yesterday, heading for downtown, so I’ll pick it up from there.

  When I got downtown there was no one there, only the handful of buildings standing as I mentioned, and two of those went down a short time later from an aftershock. The Police department... Gone. The Fire department out Washington Street… Gone. I know I walked out there. Ditto the high school. All the old houses, the newspaper, the museum. Really, it’s all gone.

  There were some tracks, but how old were they? I couldn’t tell. And I couldn’t tell where they were headed either. I got pretty down about it and ended up walking back down to the square and then down towards the river in back of the square. There was a porn shop, still there. It seemed like the dirtiest place I’d ever seen. I mean, why would a place like that still be there, still be standing when almost nothing else was? Is that a statement or what? Hey, maybe it is, but since I was down that far, I thought I’d take a look at the river, and that made me think about the factory.

  It wasn’t hard to find it. It’s on an old abandoned road below the level of the square, but a good hundred feet or so above the level of the river. Some rock cliffs that towered above it had fallen. The factory itself seemed okay. It's built from what looks like rock from the surrounding area. Not just brick and mortar, or concrete block. It's really solid. Some rock from the cliffs had come down near it, but not much. Most of the rock lying around looked pretty old, like it had been there for some time. Given the buildings in Old Towne, which were still falling, or the factory, I chose the factory. It just seemed to make more sense.

  The open area in front is huge, and dry, more room than I could ever use, so there’s no need for me to go into that darkness, and explore the rest of the building. I have vague memories from childhood of a second story that seemed to be nothing but glass windows the entire length. From the outside those windows are gone. Probably blocked in when the rest of the changes were made. Whatever there is up there, and I suppose I will go look before too much longer, is all dark and dust. Maybe I would need the space someday.

  And that’s funny, isn’t it? What is it that I’ll need? Might need? Could need? I don’t know. I do know I won’t be spending the rest of my life living in a factory, that’s for sure, but it’s winter. I have to stay somewhere for the next few months. Then maybe I’ll head south if no one shows up to rescue me. I guess it would be me, there’s no one else here. It shouldn’t be that way though. There has to be more than me.

  I spent the rest of the day looking around. I walked all the way out to Arsenal Street as well as Washington Street. The mall, or most of it, has collapsed, but I should be able to get some stuff out of it. The turnpike is car wrecks and bodies everywhere. I could see it from an overpass. I didn’t feel a need to go down there to see it in person. I didn’t want to. Same as I don't need to go into Manhattan to know that it is as dead as everything else around here is. There is an odor on the wind that tells me all I need to know about the city.

  I havn’t really seen many bodies. Some at the mall, some at the market, a few others here and there, but there is so much ground, houses, things missing, that I think the other people just got swallowed up by the quake. There is a lot of raw earth. Most of the streets are messed up. The turnpike is like that in places, what I can see any way, but close to Arsenal Street, it’s all wrecks and bodies, wrecked and burned vehicles; and it smells horrible. I could smell it long before I came up on the overpass. I’ve decided it will take a lot to get me to go back out Arsenal Street again.

  There are five entrances to the subway. I walked down into the dark but I couldn't go any further. They aren't flooded. I expected them to be. Dry, from what I can see, but it's what I can't see that will keep me from going down there. The smell of death is there too. Strong, drifting up out of that darkness.

  The market has that smell also, and I found two people up by the checkouts when I first dug it out, but none since then as I’ve dug out other parts of the store. Maybe it’s the meat department at the back of the store that smells like that.

  I spent most of the next day wandering around, trying to start cars and trucks, calling out to the people I had hoped were there. Nothing. I heard something that sounded like an engine running, but it came and went on the wind and I couldn’t tell where it had come from, but I took that as a good sign. It has to be someone, right?

  I can’t imagine being alone.

  I tried to start new cars, old cars, new trucks, you name it. None of them do anything except turn over, but at least the batteries are working.

  That was the day I realized that the daylight seemed to last way too long. My watch wasn’t working, so I can’t say for sure, but the sun just seemed to hang in the sky for hours that I had no way to keep track of, then it sank in the wrong direction once it did set. And I was sick all day. My stomach. And I was light headed.

  The night lasted a long time, and the sun came back up in the wrong place, unless my sense of direction is off. Maybe it is. In any case, I don’t know what happened. Maybe it was the earthquakes? I don’t know. It could’ve been, but it doesn’t seem possible.

  The end of the world people were saying the Earth would stop and then run backwards. Maybe it did, but I didn’t feel weightlessness if it did, or at least I don’t think so. I thought about the vehicles, magnetic po
les. Maybe because everything is electronic now they can’t work? I don’t know. It’s just an idea, but I’m thinking I’ll look for an older vehicle to try out my theory on. Like I said, I wish I were a mechanic then I’d know.

  When I found the factory my mind was pretty much made up: I spent a lot of time clearing out the rock and broken bricks, bringing food in and even some chairs, blankets, things like that. I’ve collected a lot of firewood, and every butane lighter I could find. Paper plates, plastic forks and spoons. And, man oh man, coffee. I found a small metal coffee pot in an aisle with household utensils. Probably something no one would ever use in the old world for anything other than camping. It works pretty damn well. I got some heavy duty pots and pans there too.

  All of that over the last few days, but still no other people. It makes me wonder about the tracks that went past my house. Where did they go? Where is there to go? I turn the radio on every once in a while and give a listen, but nothing. Even so I’m keeping my attitude upbeat. Positive. There has to be other people. Doesn’t that just make sense? Winter can’t last much past May, and then it will be time to get out of here... hopefully with other people.

  Katie

  March 9th

  I saw him! I know there is this other person just across the river. It was while we were on the way back, and I happened to look back across the river from the rail trestle, and there he was by the river bank. Climbing it? I think so, but why? And how can I say it was the same man that belonged to the footprints? I can't. I feel it though. I believe it was him. Who else could it have been?

  I wanted to go back right then, but Jake refused. There was no reason for him to refuse, but he did. We argued about it. I mean really argued. I hadn't realized or really even thought about what it is about Jake that I don't like. Maybe a better way to say that is, what keeps me away from him. Why didn't I, in all this destruction, hopelessness, just fall into his arms, or love, or whatever would pass for love in this world? Isn't that logical? Shouldn't I have? I didn't, and the reason is that he's got this attitude about what place a woman has in his world. It came out today when we argued. I think I picked it up subconsciously before that though, and it kept me away from him.

  Anyway I'm not going to go there. I'm leaving in the morning to go over there and find the man that I saw. I know that sounds crazy. I know it does, but I'm going. I'm getting up at sunrise, and I'm going. Jan and James said they would go with me. If Jake doesn't want to go he doesn't have to. We're not speaking at all. Lydia seems upset by that. She wants him, but not at my expense. I guess that makes me like her a little more than I did.

  I was outside until way after dark looking for firelight on the other side of the river. I didn't see any at all. I don't know that area though. Maybe I wouldn't see a fire over there. Maybe he is being careful. I want to know so much. When will I know it?

  Mexico NY: Mike and Candace

  Early Evening

  Mike had been able to pick up speed once they had left Mexico. The pavement was fairly even, but after the first three or four miles the traffic began to block the highway and they were down to a slow crawl. He could go no faster than ten miles per hour. There were several blind hills, and curves, and there were a lot of abandoned cars and trucks that seemed to be in the least likely places.

  The four wheel drive had come in handy, as several times they had to go over the road and into a field, or someone's yard to get around it. As evening fell they drove partway up the side of a concrete bridge escarpment and set up a camp. They were protected by the trucks, yet high enough to see in all directions.

  NINE

  Old Towne: Conner

  March 10th ? (probably)

  Another long day. More trips back and forth to the market. The days are definitely longer, but so are the nights. I don’t see how that can be, but it is. I have no real way to judge it; it's just a gut feeling. I found several watches by the checkouts. None of them work either, but I know its true. I feel the longer days. I feel the longer nights. That’s all I can say.

  A few days back I became sure that the days were even longer, and that’s changed. They’re not as long as that, but still longer than they used to be.

  I was thinking, who are you? I know that’s kind of dumb, but you’re somebody, right? And you’re reading this, right? How far away is it in time? Place? Do you know who I am, or did you just find this and begin reading it? Have you been through this too? Is it over and explained? For all I know, no one is here to read this. I can’t really believe that though. Man, I really can’t… won’t. It’s the only reason I’m writing this. So that someone, you, will know who I am and that I made it, at least so far. And as I go along, I hope to get some answers. There must be some somewhere. Maybe you have them. Maybe.

  So my name is Conner, Conner Davis. I’m a website designer... Was, I guess. I guess there’s no more internet, right? Hopefully it’ll be back though. I’m twenty-three years old and I live here in Old Towne, have all of my life. Old Towne is one of those sections of the city that you have to live here to know about. New York, I mean. I’m single, and it looks like I might remain single for a while. That’s not funny really. Hopefully I’ll find other people soon. I can’t be the only one left, but if I do, or if I don’t, I’ll have this written record.

  I dragged about fifty sled loads of stuff down here today. The inside of the market is really beginning to smell bad. No, really bad. And I found more bodies also; two today. I’ve been concentrating on canned stuff, trying to make sure I don’t get sick. There is a lot of it, and I have a lot of it here now.

  I heard dogs today and not far away either. And there were paw prints in the supermarket. And something had been at the bodies. The dogs, I suppose. I was kind of leery of going in, but they weren’t there. And had they been, they probably would’ve been as afraid of me as I was of them, but I was also wondering, were they dogs? Wolves? I mean, don’t they sound the same? Leave the same sort of tracks? Maybe not to someone who knows what to look for in the tracks, but to me they look like dog tracks. And the bodies I had found had been partially eaten. Something was eating them. Dogs? Wolves? I didn't know, but I knew I had to be careful.

  That got me thinking about the zoo. Our zoo. Not as big as the one over in the park, but a nice zoo just the same. What happened to all the animals there? So I walked out State Street, but I couldn’t get all the way up to the park entrance. The road’s gone. The whole park area seems to be gone. No trees, just raw earth. I turned back around and came back. I don’t think anything could’ve lived through that, but lions, wolves, bears? There are a few new things to worry about, right? Can a lion survive in the winter? I don’t know, but I walked back from my trip to the park a lot faster than I walked up there.

  But I heard dogs… or wolves. I heard them, and if they lived, other people had to live, right? And a few times now I’ve felt that I was being watched. You know that feeling you get? Well I’ve gotten it a few times in the last few days. And Old Towne is just a close suburb to Manhattan and I can hear plenty from there. Gunshots. Fires seem to be burning everywhere, like all of Manhattan is on fire. I still haven’t seen anyone though. I’ve called out a few times; no one has answered.

  I haven’t seen other footprints, but it’s been a little warmer, and the snow has melted. Not all of it, but a lot of it. And they could also walk where I’ve been walking, in which case I wouldn’t see their tracks, but they should have no trouble finding me. I'm not trying to hide or be careful about the tracks I leave. I don’t know if that’s good or not. I’ve been thinking about that too.

  I’m not much for guns. I’ve never shot a pistol or a rifle or gone hunting, but I’m thinking of walking back out Arsenal Street. There were a few sporting goods stores out there by the interchange. I even took a few things from one of them the other day, but I didn’t think about guns at the time. Maybe I’ll go tomorrow.

  A weird thing did happen today. I was being careful, making sure there were no dogs or wolv
es, or whatever in the store. Looking around. I was up at the front where the payphones are, there was a time when people used things like payphones. These were still here from that time, and one of them rang. As soon as it did, the other two there rang as well. Only a little jangle. It didn’t last more than a second, but it scared the crap out of me. I thought I was dead right there. For some reason, I thought the wolves had sneaked up on me, come up behind me and were about to get me. Don’t ask me how I got wolves from a ringing phone, but I did.

  I calmed down after a few minutes, and so I walked over and picked up the nearest receiver. Static. Scratchy static. Then it cleared for a second and, it was probably just my nerves, but I could swear I heard someone there. Maybe not heard, I don’t know if I heard anything at all. It was more like I knew someone was there: You know what I mean? Like when you get a crank call and the person doesn’t speak, but you know that they are there anyway? Like that. Exactly like that, but then it went right back to scratchy static, and I felt stupid for even thinking it at all. Who could’ve been there? Who would know I was there? It was just nerves. I know it was.

  After I got everything back to this factory, I organized it. I’ve brought back a lot of stuff. Meat, vegetables, bottled water. I have to work my way over to some other aisles. I need rice, pasta, maybe some instant potatoes. I started on that today. I got part way through the end cap, but the whole roof seems to be resting on that part of the aisle stands, and it’s the same way on the other end. That’s when I found the bodies. It was so bad I couldn’t tell what they had been.

  I thought it might be better to go through the aisle dividers. They are solid steel though, and I can’t see any way through them, short of a set of torches. Maybe I could find a set, but it seems as though it would be easier to start from the checkouts and work my way through the piles of stuff until I hit another aisle. I have no idea what each aisle is though.

  Yeah, I’ve been there about a thousand times, and I can tell you where the beer and chips would be, paper plates, disposable forks and spoons, but that’s about it. I’d hate to spend five hours or more of digging just to reach the toilet paper and sanitary napkins in aisle four. That would be my luck, but there’s nothing to do for it except to do it. Or go find a set of torches, and then learn how to use them.

  I know I need carbohydrates. Canned meat and vegetables are good, but very low carbohydrates. It's funny, but I need fat, something I’m burning heavy and need to replace. I have nearly constant exercise. My pants are hanging off me. Who knew it could be this easy to lose weight?

  I’d also like to find supplements, a good selection of first aid stuff, vitamins, band aids, disinfectant, things like that. I guess that’s my next bit of time mapped out for me.

  Other things I’m looking for: A wind up watch (Should work right?).

  An old car or truck without an electronic brain (My hope is that if it’s just a simple distributor/spark arrangement with a carburetor, I should be able to get it to work). I think electronics are shot. They don’t work, that’s for sure, but I could be wrong. Maybe they will in time.

  A battery powered T.V.; maybe there will be a station on. I know it’s a long shot. Everything is digital. Do they even make battery powered digital televisions?

  A C.B. radio. That would let me listen to the state, maybe the world. I should be able to reach someone.

  And last I’m going to check every phone I come across… just in case.

  It's early, but I’m tired. I wish I weren’t alone.

  Old Towne: Katie

  March 10th

  It's late at night. What a difference a day makes. Conner is his name.

  We went back today to see if he had been back to the store. I went there first. I hoped to catch him there early, but he wasn't there. Jake dragged his feet. Like he didn't want to go at all. He didn't say that, but it seemed that way to me. I thought about what I had decided yesterday, just going without Jake, but I waited. Maybe things were just getting to me. Jake's been putting more and more pressure on me to be with him. Lydia's turning up the 'I hate you' attitude. Maybe it's just me, or just was me.

  By the time we did get there this morning the snow was melting, and there was no real way to tell if he had been there at all. We went back to the river and began looking along the banks on that side. I couldn't figure where he had gone.

  I backtracked to the market thinking I must have missed him, missed something anyway. On the way back, I saw him crossing the end of the Town Square. I practically screamed out loud, but he didn't hear me, and by the time we got there he was gone.

  The day just started to slide away. I began to think I wouldn't find him at all. It depressed me. It was James who smelled smoke. All we had to do was follow the smoke, and we found him. James found him. How do you follow smoke? I mean the smell of smoke? Have you ever tried? I mean, if I could see it in the air, sure, but I couldn't. James knew how to follow it though.

  I guess there's a lot more that I could say about today, but I'm not going to say it now. I'll say this though, I want him. I want him, and Jake knows it. It's like Jake knew it would turn out this way. Jan knew how I felt, knew how it would be. She told me that today. She said she could see it in me last night. Like this is the way it's supposed to be for me.

  Lydia knows too. She's happy about it. I saw her face when she figured it out. She looked from me to Conner and back. Then she did it again, this puzzled look on her face, and then she smiled, looked at me and nodded. I think she's just biding her time now. I guess I am too.

  Conner Davis. Conner. I think I already wrote his name. I don't know what happens next. How to make it happen. I'm no good at that sort of thing. I've never done it. And my little notebook here, my only friend through all of this, along with Jan, can't help me with that. I can write it here, look at it, but that doesn't realize it.

  I still have my father's gun. That has also been my friend the last few days, but it can't help me either unless I shoot Jake. I guess that's not funny. Jake never liked my gun. It bothered him. Not ladylike? Something like that, I think. Conner wasn't shocked at all except to say he should have already gotten one and didn't. It didn't intimidate him in other words.

  Tomorrow is March eleventh. Ten days of this new life tomorrow. Maybe one I wasn't meant to start. I feel like... I don't know. To be honest, I feel like I'm just a dumb girl pretending to be a woman, a grown up. Does nineteen know everything? No. I don't want to pretend at this. I want to get things right. I don't know what's next, does anybody?

  618 Park Avenue: Seventh floor. 2B

  Tosh's Notebook:

  March 10th: Warming up; days are longer. It feels like spring. It's early March. No way should it be this warm. My watch is working again, no rhyme or reason.

  Tosh stood now, overlooking the city. It seemed that everything had changed in the last few days. Her watch said it was somewhere past midnight, if it could be trusted. It had quit, started again, and she had set it for 9:00 PM at sunset. The days were longer, but she had no idea how much. It should be close, but so many strange things had happened that she wasn't sure it could be trusted. The days seemed longer. What good was a twenty-four hour watch if the days were all screwed up? Longer? And everything else was bad too. Her own life was falling apart, and she couldn't even bring herself to tell Adam about it, or how much it scared her.

  The old woman, Alice, had taken her dog Ge-Boo out yesterday, and she had not come back. Tosh had opened the door a crack as she had been leaving and warned her again about how bad it was outside, but Alice had simply pretended not to see her, or hear her, when she had spoken. She had walked off down the hallway, smartly dressed, Ge-Boo wearing a small, pink sweater, and Tosh had not seen her since.

  Adam had called the elevator back up a few hours later, locked it down, and then jammed it open with a chair from Amanda Bynes' kitchen. It was clear that if Alice was not back, she would not be back. The streets had suddenly been crawling with people. The late afternoon
daylight meant absolutely nothing to them at all anymore. An hour or two into the darkness the electricity quit, and the building, most of Manhattan with it, had gone dark. Now this.

  Tosh looked out on the city now. The fires were everywhere. Twice, a few days back, the planes had overflown the city. Adam had been down in the park trying to find out what was going on. She had been alone, jumping at every sound. The planes had swooped low, blue-tinged mist spraying from the open cargo holds: military planes. She had seen them clearly from the seventh floor. Soldiers in gas masks stood in the open bay doorways and directed the thick hoses that sprayed the city. Three men crouched in the open cargo holds of each plane.

  She had slid the glass balcony doors closed, fashioned a rag around her mouth and waited for Adam to come back. He had not been long. They had been able to smell something on the air, a thick, cloying smell that reminded Tosh of old perfume. It had left a nasty taste in their mouths, but it didn't seem to do anything to them other than that. A few hours later, they had ventured back out on the balcony, the rags tossed aside. If it had been something to kill them, it would have already done that, they had both reasoned.

  The city had fallen quiet. That night the gangs had not been out at all. They had thought it was over. Hoped it was over, but the next night they were right back out. Even more numerous than they had been. They only good thing was they seemed to be killing each other faster and faster now. The gun battles went back and forth all night long.

  Tosh stood in the blackest shadows of the balcony and looked out over the city. Whatever it had been, it had not killed them, if that had been what it was supposed to do. The gangs were fewer now, the last few nights had left many dead in the streets. The sun would rise to more scattered bodies sprawled in pools of their own blood. She could see them in the streets below now, even if they couldn't see her. They ran purposefully from doorway to doorway, testing the locks, stopping at every shadow. Investigating. A car here, a doorway there, looking up to catch her eyes watching them, as if they really could see her, letting her know that they knew she was still there. And Adam slept behind her in the bed, unaware of it all. Oblivious to it.

  And there was irony here. Irony, because she was dying. She was dying, and she was sure that they knew it. She was sure that was the reason they kept looking up at her where she stood in the shadows.

  She blinked away tears as she looked out over the night darkened city: the fires that burned, the gangs that prowled the streets. She had popped her last nitro the day before. It had taken the pain in her chest down, but it had not stopped it. Too much excitement. Too much damage from the drug use that had ravaged her body. She hadn't touched a thing in two years, but it had still killed her, just as she had known it would. It had just taken its time. Twenty-three and a bad heart. It thundered and trip-hammered in her chest. Out of sync. Out of beat. Out of time. And...

  She wondered about that 'and' as she looked out over the burning city. And what? She would awaken in Heaven? She didn't think so, but she didn't know. She stood brooding, feeling the pressure build in her chest as evening came on and the fires continued to burn.

  She couldn't make Adam have to do for her, she decided at last, and there probably wasn't much more time for her. If she intended to go, she should.

  She turned and looked at Adam's outline on the bed. She couldn't chance waking him either to say goodbye. And that hurt too, but it probably wouldn't hurt for long. He would stop her, possibly read her mind. He had done it before; just seemed to know what she was thinking. She turned a few minutes later, walked quietly across Amanda Bynes' plush carpet, eased open the door and stepped out into the hallway.

  The Docks

  Tosh walked along aimlessly. She had slipped from doorway to doorway herself, working her way to the river. A few blocks off the beaten path and the streets were empty, but for the dead that where everywhere. The smell of the river was heavy on the air, and she was following it. She was unsure what she had in mind. The tears continued as she walked. It wasn't fair, she continued to tell herself, but telling herself it wasn't fair didn't do anything for her situation. And here she was wandering around in the night tempting fate.

  But there were no gang members around, or if they were, she couldn't see them, hear them, feel them. She pressed her hand flat against her chest. The pain was worse. Much worse. And she wondered how much more she could take, how much more her body could handle. She stopped and drew several deep breaths, trying to ease the pain that seemed to close on her chest like a fist.

  When the pain eased a little, she started off down the street once more, heading toward the river.

  NYS Route 104: Mike and Candace

  Late Afternoon

  By the time they reached the outskirts of Oswego the next day, they were ready to stop and rest. John pointed out a large shopping center on their left, and Mike pulled into the mostly empty parking lot and rolled up to the front doors of a large department store. "Thrifty Deal?" he asked John.

  “Chain store,” John replied. “You can find a little of everything.”

  The other two Jeeps pulled in behind them as they were getting out. Mike walked up to the front doors and tried to open them. “Locked,” he said.

  “That's okay,” Bob smiled, reaching back into the Jeep. “I've got the key.” He handed the jack handle in his hand to Mike as he walked up to the glass doors.

  “Well,” Mike said, “I guess here goes.” He swung the jack handle at the door and the glass shattered into millions of green-tinted crystals that skittered across the pavement.

  “It's my first real crime,” Mike said, turning around with a large grin on his face.

  Just then a loud alarm began to whoop from within the store, and a split second later an even louder alarm, mounted in a steel box above the doors, began to bray into the quiet afternoon air. Mike, along with almost everyone else, had turned and began to run back towards the Jeep when it went off. The jack handle clattered to the pavement.

  “Holy shit,” he sputtered.

  Candace was doubled over laughing, leaning up against the Jeep for support. Mike looked at her stupidly for a few seconds and then smiled. Most of the others began to laugh as well, breaking the tension the alarm had caused.

  “Y-Y-You,” she tried to say, but couldn't stop laughing. “I thought you were going to have a heart attack, Mike,” she said, once she had gained some control. She held her stomach and began to laugh again. Mike began to laugh himself, along with everyone else.

  “Well... it scared me at first,” he protested. He hadn't been the only one, he knew. Bob's eyes had looked as though they were going to pop right out of his head, he recalled. He seemed to be all right now though.

  Bob walked forward and picked up the tire iron from the pavement. Standing on tip toe he pried the metal box open. He hit the large siren inside with the jack handle, until it finally screeched and then quit. The other alarm inside was still going off. He disappeared into the store, and a few seconds later that one stopped too. Bob came back outside and peered sheepishly at the small crowd, most of whom had finally stopped laughing.

  “If we're gonna do this on a regular basis,” he said, “we better pick up some real burglar tools while we're here.” Everyone laughed again, but the laughter died down quickly, and once it had they all crunched across the glass and into the store.

  The power was off, it turned out. The alarm had been backed up by battery, and had apparently switched over automatically when the power went off. The mood changed once they had gotten into the store. Just the fact that no one did come when the alarm had gone off would have been enough, but the empty store had also contributed its share to their somber mood. It served as a reminder that they still had met no other people at all. They had traveled over seventy miles and seen no one, and it reinforced what had happened in all their minds. No cashiers at the empty checkouts, no police cars screaming into the parking lot to see who was breaking in, there was nobody, anywhere, it seemed.
r />   Although the power was off, the water was not, and they availed themselves of the employee showers after they had quickly moved through the store and picked out what they needed. They had gone together through the deserted aisles of the store, unwilling, or unable, to split up.

  Mike, his hair still wet from the cold shower; dressed in a faded pair of jeans and a blue chambray work shirt, leaned up against the wall outside the rest room with the other men, and waited for the women to come back out. They talked quietly among themselves as they waited.

  “You think Rochester will be the same as here?” Dave asked. He had seemed especially shaken by the alarm in the parking lot, and still seemed shook up over it.

  Terry stood silently next to Bob, tapping the heel of one work boot against the cinder block wall. “It does sort of seem like everyone is gone,” he said, as he stopped tapping the boot heel and straightened up.

  “Could be,” Bob said, solemnly. “It really could be, but I don't think so. I think there are probably people right here in Oswego. They're scared, is all. I can't say as I blame them either, they don't know any more about what's going on than we do. Even if they saw us come in, I don't think they're about to come running up to say howdy. I wouldn't,” he paused, before continuing. “If I saw a bunch of people come driving in, I'd probably want to stay away. No police means there is no protection, and they don't know who we are, or even where we came from, or what we want for that matter. I think though, that there are people. Maybe it's just going to take some time before we all get back together. I just can't believe we're it, I guess.”

  “I have to agree with you, Bob, "John said. “If we were to stay here awhile, I would bet we would probably see someone. The curiosity would bring them out, I think."

  "I agree,” Mike said. “I was none too keen on approaching you guy's back in Watertown either. I thought about avoiding you, as a matter of fact, just going in the other direction.”

  “Glad you didn't, Mike,” Bob said. The other men nodded agreement as he spoke. "I can see though where a body wouldn't want to. Especially since there was more than a few of us carrying guns, or rifles, at that point. I am glad you did though. I sure as hell wouldn't have wanted to end up with that Brad Saser trying to take charge. He was already pushing it pretty hard. Probably would have shot him myself if he had tried, who in hell knows what a guy like him would do."

  “You don't think they'll follow us do you?” Terry asked.

  “No telling,” Bob said, “but I wouldn't doubt it. Guy's like him are all over though, and I suppose we'll run into a few just like him eventually. Not much we can do except to be careful, I guess.”

  “Think we'll make Rochester tomorrow?” Dave, asked, as Gina and Jan came walking out of the rest room.

  “It's not far, only about another sixty, maybe seventy miles,” John answered, “but I doubt it. We will probably get there tomorrow or the next day sometime, depending on the stalled traffic of course.” He seemed to consider for a second. “Maybe longer. The stalled traffic is even heavier and it might be ten times worse than this once we get closer. I mean they may have also taken to the secondary roads, so there may not be any real way to get there in one straight shot anymore.”

  “That's about what I figure,” Bob chipped in, “at least a few days.”

  Candace and Lilly opened the door and walked out, and the small group prepared to make a meal and settle down for the night.

  Everyone, at Bob's suggestion, had changed into sneakers or boots in case they ended up walking. They had taken the time to pick up extra clothes, as well as some more canned goods to replace what they had eaten, and Mike had found some Quick Cold in one of the side aisles.

  Quick Cold had only become popular in the last couple of years as a retail item. Before that it had only been used by the medical profession, to transport anything that needed to stay cold, or frozen. Organs for transplant, fresh blood, and countless other things. The plastic bags contained a small stick shaped tube. Mike had filled three large coolers with soda and beer, and tossed in several of the bags after snapping the small cylinder within, to activate the chemical the bags contained. They had instantly frosted up and began to cool the warm cans. A few minutes later they rolled the trucks inside the store and built a fire for the night. Mike took the first shift of guard duty with Ronnie. Just inside the main entrance.

  TEN

  Out Of L.A.

  Billy and Beth: March 11th

  Billy was up on the roof. Beth, Jamie, Winston and Scotty were standing at the edge of the building as he was, looking out over the city. Things were crazy, and they seemed to be getting worse as the days rolled by.

  The police precinct was still burning. It had started sometime during the night two days before, and since there was no one to put the fire out, it had been raging for hours now. A few minutes ago, the roof of the building next door to the precinct burst into flames. Maybe the fire had started inside, or the extreme heat from the burning police precinct had caused it to burst into flame, spontaneous combustion, but it was a strange thing to watch. It appeared as though it had simply burst into flames all on its own.

  The animated conversation about whether it had been spontaneous combustion or a fire source from inside the other building that had simply burned through, had kept up for a few moments, and then they had all lapsed back into silence. Beth spoke now.

  “Where would we go?” she asked.

  “I think southeast,” Scotty threw in.

  “Why not north or northeast,” Jamie asked.

  “Makes no difference, I suppose, but this winter it might. That's why I think south or southeast.” Billy said.

  Beth nodded. “What's the radio say?”

  “It's bad everywhere. Different people, different days. Some talk about staying alive, gangs, shit like that, but the big deal is the world. Every major government is gone. In every country. And here every city is done in too... Boston, Hartford, Manhattan, San Fran, Providence, Scranton, Miami... there are more. Every day you hear of more places, and that's bad, but then there are the ones that you don't hear from anymore, and that's even worse,” Billy said.

  “So how is south or southeast better?” Beth asked.

  “Might not be better, as far as the world is concerned... Gangs, whatever else is out there. It might not be, but it will be warmer. I mean, no problem now, but winter isn't really over up north, and it will come again, and we had better be somewhere, with our supplies settled in for it,” Billy answered.

  Beth nodded. “All of us?”

  “A few others,” Winston said. “Emma, down street. She has a baby. Don and Ginny across the street. They got a few friends too.”

  “Babies... I don't know about babies,” Billy said. “Adults, okay: Children are bad enough, but babies? How do we take care of them?”

  “Billy, should we leave them here to die?” Scotty asked.

  “Fuck, Scotty. I didn't say that. Do we invite them along to get killed? I mean we're leaving the safety... Talking about leaving the safety of this building and going on the road.”

  Beth raised her hand. “Scotty misspoke, or you took it the wrong way. Can we agree on that?” Scotty turned away and then turned back and nodded. Billy nodded too. “Tomorrow... Tomorrow we scout it out. We'll need trucks... not a car. Something that can get us over the bad spots. And we'll have to see how far we have to go before we can hope to drive. We sure as hell can't drive here.” She shrugged.

  “Tomorrow,” Billy agreed.

  “Yeah,” Scotty added.

  Beth turned and looked back over the city, watching the building next to the precinct burn.

  New York: Park Avenue

  Adam

  Adam awoke to the early morning light spilling into the bedroom. He turned to hold Tosh, but she was gone, that side of the bed cold. He lay still for a few minuets, incredulous that he had not only fallen asleep in the midst of all of this, but shocked that he had slept through the night. It was a split secon
d later that he launched himself from the bed. Nearly flying up, and landing neatly on the flats of his feet, running down the short hall to the living room in one smooth motion, propelled by fear.

  It was crazy to think that there was anything wrong. He knew about her heart problem. She had told him it was fine, but the panic had already slipped into his brain and pinned his thoughts down. She had just talked to him yesterday. She had just made him promise yesterday that he would... He pushed it out of his head as he slid into the living room. Empty.

  The strength fled from his body as he stared at the back of the door. His hand reached out and plucked the note from the door. The pushpin went flying. He read it slowly, and then read it again as the tears began to slide from his eyes.

  Lenox Avenue

  She slipped from the shadows and ran along from building to building until she reached the end of the block. She had expected to hear gunshots behind her. Expected to find herself falling to the ground dead, a bullet in her back, but the bullet never came. They must have stayed asleep.

  They, were four guys who had come around a few days before. She had opened the door to her apartment. Stupid. If she could have gone back and undone it she would have, but she had been so scared. She had been so alone. The kid at the peephole, Bobby, had seemed so young. Scared himself. All she had done was open the door an inch or two, just slipped the chain, and the other three had slammed into it. The four of them had easily broken the chain and pushed past her into the apartment. She had given in. There had been no sense in fighting them. What could she do?

  Since then she had been their toy, passed from one to the other. Yesterday morning they had come back from someplace with a new girl. She had no idea where they had found her. Sometime in the late afternoon, before dinner, they had killed her.

  Something had occurred. She hadn't been able to tell what, but she had heard the shot, and then they had brought her out from the bedroom and dumped her on the living room floor. Naked. A bullet hole in her head. And she had known it would not be long before it would be her turn to be dead. She had just known it.

  She had been cooking for them, a little grill out on the balcony. They went out and brought things back, canned stuff; she cooked it on the grill in a pot, and they ate it like it was the finest gourmet food available anywhere. She had gone into the bathroom, opened the medicine chest and stared at the sleeping pills she had put there, until one of them, Randy, she thought his name was, had come and yelled through the bathroom door. She had taken the pills and dumped them into her pocket, flushed the toilet and went back out to the kitchen.

  She had put all of them in the food. Mixed them right in with the canned spaghetti, and they had wolfed them right down. Never had a clue. Now they were all out. Maybe dead. There had been an awful lot of pills.

  She had been with Bobby a few days before when she had thought to get the pills. Bobby was nice, if there could be anything close to nice with these guys. He had looked her up and down and that had been that. She imagined he had probably never had a woman that looked like her in his entire life. Maybe never had a woman at all. It was clear he was an inexperienced lover. He had no idea what he was doing. He was rough, cruel even. Nice only meant he didn't beat her, he still used her as he pleased.

  He had taken her with him because the others had been out and he had not wanted to leave her alone in the apartment, guessing, correctly, that she would not be there when he came back, but he had been bored, left alone, and he wanted to look through some shops and stores in the neighborhood.

  It had been broad daylight, but there had been no one to stop him or any of the other gangs that roved the streets and did as they pleased. He had broken into a pawn shop and taken several gold chains and a flat black gun with a clip. There was no ammunition for the gun, and so they had set off down the street looking for a gun shop when she had seen the small Korean store.

  She had talked him into going into the medication aisle at the store. And she had picked up the sleeping pills. He had seen her do it. She had told him it was relief for period pain. She had picked up a box of Tampons too. He had turned red and had not asked her about them again. As a bonus, he had left her alone that night also, probably thinking that she had been indisposed. Fine. Whatever. It hadn't mattered any longer.

  It was nearly dark by the time they had finally passed out. That had pissed her off. Pissed her off and scared her too. The gangs were out here somewhere. The dark was their time.

  She wanted to get as far away as she could before the street was completely lost to the night. There were people down the street, two blocks or so down. She had seen them coming and going. Making sport of the gangs. Enticing them into chasing them into the area they controlled and then killing them with the shotguns and automatic weapons they carried; taunting them out into the daylight and running them down with cars, shooting them as they roared by, racing the block from end to end in a souped up car they had gotten from somewhere. They had been out earlier. If she could get down the street, she was sure they would take her in. Positive.

  She stopped at the end of the street, caught her breath leaning against the side of a pickup truck, and then took off once more at a fast walk.

  She was halfway through the block when she realized someone was following her, and her heart sank like a stone. Bobby... Had to be. She stopped and peered back through the shadows and dark. The moonlight was bright, but it was still not easy to see. She thought she saw movement at the corner of a building two buildings back. She screwed up her courage.

  “Bobby... Bobby don't be sore... Don't...” She stopped and squinted into the gloom. Two people had come from around the edge of that house. Two, and neither of them looked anything like Bobby. Both were running as they came. Her heart leapt high in her throat, seeming to clog her airway. A strangled squawk came from her open mouth. She swore under her breath and turned to run.

  They caught her under the arms.

  “Hey... Hey, there's no...” She stopped in mid word and began to scream at the hands that clawed at her clothes. Another hand closed around her throat, closing off her screams. A second later the others joined in, dragging her to the ground and then out into the road. They left her under the street lights, her blood pooling around her head.

  Harlem: Adam

  The morning moved on. He had finally gotten himself up from the floor and went and looked out over the city. His sadness and depression stole away as the sun rose, and was replaced with a steely resolve. She had asked him, made him promise, that he wouldn't try to bury her if anything happened to her. She had a fear of the gangs getting to him while he was doing it. She had made him promise. Promise. Like she had known. Like it was a real thing. And he had thought it was just fear talking, just things you said when you were afraid. Just in case things. Not real things.

  He had known about her heart. He supposed, he admitted to himself now, that he had even known that she could die if she did not have the kind of treatment she needed. Could... He had known too that it was harder for her. He had thought immediately about her heart when she had talked to him, but he had not questioned her. Her eyes had said something to him. Something like, Ask me and I will tell you the truth. All you have to do is ask. And he had not wanted to talk about the truth, did not want to talk about the truth because the truth scared him too badly. So he had not asked. He had pretended he had never seen that permission in her eyes.

  She had talked. She had talked about the things that scared her. She had been worried she would die in the night. He would feel it was the right thing to do. They had talked about it, but only briefly. He had shut the conversation down. He didn't want to believe it, and hearing it only forced him to believe it. He had been selfish. He had given in to his fear when he should have given in to her need to talk to him, tell him, and here he was. It was a real thing now. She would not have left if something had not made her leave. A real thing, he repeated to himself. He could see no other reason why she would have left.

/>   The note had said next to nothing. Just, 'I'm Sorry... I love you.' At least it said that. At least, but why had she gone?

  He took the stairs down to the lobby. The stairwell had been empty, but the lobby had not. The gangs had long before crashed in through the door and taken over the lobby. He had eased open the door to find two of them laying in the shadows sleeping. He stepped quietly out of the stairwell, shoved a piece of broken board into the fire door opening to keep it from closing and locking him out, and then walked quietly to where the two lay, a man and woman.

  They stank of alcohol and unwashed flesh. Their chests rose and fell, but they did not move. Their eyes were partially slitted. It would be easy to believe that they really were harmless. Just two people sleeping in a place of safety, but his eyes took in their blood stained clothing, and then slipped to a stained pillow case nearby, partly open, the contents spilled onto the marble flooring of the lobby. Several fingers, still bearing rings. Coins, wallets. Things that held no value anymore, as far as Adam was concerned, yet they had murdered for them. They both slept with weapons close by. His own gun was in his hand. He had flicked off the safety before he had stepped out into the lobby. He walked up to the first one, turned slightly to take in the second one.

  As soon as he shot the first one, the second would be up and on him. He looked from one to the other, lowered the gun and shot the first one in the head.

  The woman screamed as he turned, a high piercing sound that distracted him for the briefest of seconds. She began to come up off the floor, her eyes wild, her hands fumbling with her pistol, and he nearly let her get him. He became so distracted that she was very close to having him before he finally pulled the trigger and shot her.

  The first shot took her in the chest and flung her back like a rag doll. But that was all it did.

  Body armor, Adam thought as he stepped back quickly. She was scrabbling for her gun where it had been flung from her hand as Adam stepped into her path and pushed the pistol into her head, squeezing the trigger as he did. She flew back this time and didn't rise again. She slid down the wall, her eyes seeming to accuse him as she did.

  Adam stood for a second, his breaths coming in long, ragged pulls. He closed his eyes, slowed his breathing, then turned and went back to the stairwell. His concern was whether he should leave the door open or closed. Open and they might get in, closed and he would have to smash the handle set off himself when he got back so that he could get inside. And that made him wonder if he would be back. If he would find her, take care of her, and then make it back to here. He had no way to know.

  A minute later he kicked the board from the propped open door, and stepped back into the lobby. It closed with a solid steel clunk. If he came back, he would have to bring an ax with him to break in. Better that than leave it open for the gangs if he didn't make it back before nightfall, or if they came looking in the daylight. It was the only safe place he had. He walked across the lobby and stepped out onto the cracked city sidewalk.

  He walked a short distance north before he found a stalled delivery truck at the curb. The keys dangled from the switch. The shattered driver's side window and the blood smeared down the door told the story of what had happened to the driver. Scattered sheets, towels and uniforms had tumbled from the shelves and fallen into the aisle of the truck when the driver had driven it into the curb, but there was no one lurking in the back of the truck.

  The battery was flat. He pushed the truck a few hundred yards before he came to a long slow downgrade. He jumped in, put the truck in second gear, and then popped the clutch out a few seconds later. The motor roared to life. The transmission whined, the truck jerking and bucking, throwing him against the dashboard. A second later he downshifted into first and began to wind his way around the traffic that clogged the intersection at the bottom of the short hill. He began looking for her, convinced that he would find her, be lead to her somehow.

  Oswego NY: Mike and Candace

  Late Morning

  They spent the morning scouring the store for useful items. After they had loaded the Jeeps, they had left the abandoned shopping center and began to work their way through the seemingly empty city, when they reached the first bridge they were forced to stop.

  The bridge was still standing, that was not the problem. The problem was that it was packed bumper to bumper with wrecked and burned out cars and trucks. A large city bus also sat within the wreckage. Dave and Mike scrambled over the cars to see what had caused the huge accident.

  At first it seemed that the wreckage went on forever. But as they neared the second bridge the problem became apparent.

  The bridge, or more properly put, the twisted steel girders and huge chunks of concrete that had been the bridge, lay at the bottom of a deep gorge, partially submerged in the water. Reluctantly they scrambled back over the cars to tell the others that were waiting.

  “Think we could move them?” John asked, as Mike and Dave returned. “I saw a wrecker back up the highway a bit; we could go back and get it.”

  “Wouldn't do any good,” Mike said his voice somber. “The second bridge is nearly gone. Even if it weren't, I don't see this one standing much longer either. We took a look at the underside from the other bridge, and a couple of the pilings are cracked pretty badly. I wouldn't trust it. There is another bridge though, looks like only a couple of blocks over. It's still up, but I can't tell from here whether it has traffic on it, the sides are enclosed.”

  “Which way, Mike?” Bob asked.

  “Looked like down a little way,” Mike said, pointing back the way they had come. “Take the next right, and it should be only a couple of blocks away.”

  “Well,” Candace said, trying to sound positive, “let’s go find out.”

  They piled back into the Jeeps, and after some careful maneuvering, managed to turn them around and head back the way they had come. Mike made the next right and started down the street, while Bob and John, as well as Candace, watched for a bridge on the side Streets that bisected the one they were on. Mike had just slowed to cross a set of rail road tracks, when Candace suddenly yelled out.

  “There!” she shouted, pointing down the tracks.

  Mike looked in the direction she had pointed, which happened to be down the tracks.

  “Shit, that figures,” he said, “a rail road trestle.”

  The trestle was a newer one, and the sides were enclosed steel with concrete reinforcements. Probably why I didn't realize it was a train trestle, he thought, and then said aloud. “Well that blows that, but there ought to be other bridges. This can't be the only one.”

  “Actually,” Bob said, from behind him, “it ain't necessarily bad news.”

  “What do you mean?” Mike said, staring back down the tracks at the bridge.

  “Well, just what I said. It's still a bridge ain't it? It's not a rickety old wooden one either, solid steel and concrete, it'll hold us, and it does cross the river right?”

  Mike looked at the bridge doubtfully. “I suppose so, but... You think we could fit across it?”

  “I've seen cars and trucks both on trains,” Candace exclaimed, “they would have to fit, or else how could they carry them on the trains without smashing the hell out of them?”

  “Good point,” Bob said, “how about you park this buggy, Mike, and we go take a look at the bridge.”

  The other two Jeeps parked, and all of them walked off down the tracks to look the bridge over.

  The wooden ties, and the tracks that lay upon them, were well supported. Heavy steel girders ran the length of the bridge, and were supported by massive concrete pilings sunk into the river bed far below. Mike peered down through the ties at the concrete. It was cracked in a few places, but all the pilings seemed still to be firmly anchored in the river bed. “Do you really think it would hold us?” he asked.

  “If it will hold a train, Mike, it will hold us,” Bob replied.

  “I mean the cracks, wise ass,” Mike said. “The pilings are cra
cked. They seem to still be solid, but... I don't know,” he finished lamely.

  “Tell you what. You drive one, and John and I will drive the other two. Everybody else can walk across. I'll go first even. If it looks the least bit shaky we call it off, and search for something else, okay?” Bob argued.

  Mike thought for a moment before he replied. It might be a good idea after all. Where else were they likely to find a bridge that wasn't blocked off with traffic? The bridge did seem solid, and it couldn't hurt to try he supposed.

  “Okay, but I'll start out. You watch, and you damn well better let me know real quick if she starts to go. I'll be pretty pissed if you dump me and my new truck in the river,” Mike finished, smiling widely.

  “Wouldn't think of it,” Bob said, solemnly.

  “See you on the other side,” Candace said, and before Mike could reply she quickly kissed him. “For luck,” she said, a bit breathless. She turned and along with the others started walking across the bridge.

  Mike watched her go. The kiss had taken him by surprise.

  “Ah, Mike,” Bob said grinning, “better close your mouth before the bugs start flying in.” Mike closed his mouth with a snap, and looking a bit embarrassed, walked off towards the Jeep.

  John threw Bob a wink, and they both walked out onto the bridge to wait. Mike started the Jeep, backed around, and drove slowly over the ties towards the bridge, straddling the rails as he went, and he was still thinking of the kiss as he edged slowly out onto the bridge. He looked across and saw Candace waving from the other side. He waved back and then brought his attention back to the truck.

  “How's she look, Bob,” he asked out the open window, as he inched cautiously out onto the trestle.

  “You might scratch the paint a little, but the deck didn't budge a bit when you eased on to her,” Bob replied. “I don't think they brought too many auto-carriers across this deck though, more like freight cars. You only got a couple of inches on either side.”

  “Well here goes nothing,” he muttered under his breath as he moved further out onto the bridge. “Still okay?” he asked.

  “Good as gold,” Bob replied. Mike was not entirely blocking the bridge, and Bob and John squeezed by on one side of the truck. “We'll be behind you,” Bob said, as he paused at Mike's window. “I'll wait until you're off, and John will wait until I'm off.” Bob looked at both men as they nodded their heads.

  “Let’s do it,” Mike said.

  He eased off the gas and let the Jeep idle its way across the bridge. When he reached the other side he angled off the tracks, parked, and walked back to the bridge. He stood quietly beside Candace and watched until the other two Jeeps were across. As he stood next to her, he noticed how much more aware of her he was. Funny what a little kiss can do, he thought. In fact, he noticed, she seemed to be a little flushed, and with that thought, Mike began to wonder just exactly what the kiss had meant.

  Harlem River: Tosh

  Near Midnight

  She opened her eyes. The moon was high in the sky. A silver, blue-tinged orb. A glow rose up to meet it, brighter than the moonlight. She lay quietly and watched it for some time, content to watch it move slowly across the sky - at least for the time being.

  It occurred to her, after some time, that the man who had shot her - she recalled that now, lying here in the quiet night; one of the men had shot her when they were through with her... after they had raped her... he had bent over her and shot her... - but, the man that shot her must have done a bad job of it. Must have missed her completely, or skinned her, as they used to say when they were kids. Or a flesh wound. She had heard that used in countless movies on television.

  “Bobby! ... Bobby, are you shot bad? Are you?”

  “Naw, John. Naw. It's only a flesh wound. A flesh wound is all.”

  Who hadn't heard that in a movie before, she asked herself. And she had grown up in the projects. She had seen people get shot and live through it, even get shot in the head and live through it. And she had not been shot in the head, she remembered that.

  She tensed for the pain and then sat up all at once. Pain, but it wasn't so terrible that she couldn't handle it. The moonlight was bright, but at the street level she was laying in shadows. She gazed down at her chest. Her shirt was plastered to her chest with dried blood. She sucked in a breath and heard the whistle from the hole in her chest and the pain spiked higher. She groaned and went to one knee. She wondered if she could make it back to the apartment and Adam. Maybe... Maybe...

  She watched as blood dribbled to the pavement from the hole in her chest. It baffled her because the blood on her shirt was dry, and no way could the blood be dry. Why... why the man had just shot her a few minuets ago. She had left the apartment and...

  She couldn't make it all come back. She had left to keep Adam safe. To stop him from taking care of her, having to do that, maybe getting caught by the gangs as he did. It had seemed a crazy thought, but the longer she had thought of it, the less crazy it had seemed. The more it seemed to make sense to her.

  They had come at her down by the river, three blocks... four blocks from the apartment. Surely it had been no more than that. Her heart had begun to skip and beat irregularly. She had hoped she could make the river. She thought if she could throw herself in, it might work, but it was clear she wasn't going to make it. She had stumbled into an alley, slumped against the wall, pulled the pistol Adam had gotten for her from her pocket, and slipped the barrel into her mouth.

  The taste of the steel, and the coldness of the barrel had made her gag, and that had been her mistake. She had not seen them when she stumbled into the alley. As soon as the gun left her mouth, one of them, the same one who had ended up shooting her - shooting her with her own gun as a matter of fact - had stepped from the shadows and snatched the gun from her hands. The others had surged forward then. They had dragged her deeper into the shadows and taken her.

  She stared up at the full bloated moon hanging directly overhead. Except it had been early evening, and now it was not early evening. The moon did not hang in the middle of the sky during the early evening. She touched her chest, felt across the swell of her breast and found the bullet hole.

  A big bullet hole. A scary bullet hole. She tried to suck in a deeper breath and panicked when her vision started to dim. Not being able to breath was not possible. People could not live if they could not breath. The panic rose fast and hot, bright in her thoughts.

  The hole was crusted with blood, but sticky wet towards the center. And she probed it even in her panic. Maybe despite her panic. Her baby finger slid right in up to the second joint. No good.

  She struggled to her feet, fighting the pain, and staggered off down the street. Weaving, she saw. Not surprising, I'm dying.

  She made her way to the water, and she had seen herself reflected back from the water of the harbor. Her hair was a ruined mass of black. Stringy, tangled, plastered to her head like a helmet in places, but it was her eyes that had caused her to stare the longest. They were cloudy marbles in the moonlight.

  She rocked back and forth at the edge of the concrete, balanced precariously over the water.

  The moonlight reflected off the trash strewn water. A drowned cat floated by and transfixed her. A second later she lost the fight and fell into the river. She watched the surface of the water recede as she slowly sank into the depths.

  Leaving

  Billy and Beth: March 12th

  To leave the city with nine people they were going to need a truck, and that was going to have to wait until they made their way out of the city and all the stalled and wrecked vehicles that clogged the main streets.

  They had hoped to cross over the river on the Firestone Boulevard bridge, but after a three hour walk, most of which consisted of crawl-walking over the tops of stalled vehicles, they had been forced to turn back when they reached the beginning of the bridge. The bridge was gone, the pavement ending in a ragged drop into the water below, and the river seemed to be much
deeper than usual, nearing the tops of the concrete side to side, and fast moving.

  They had debated back tracking, and crossing the river to the west instead. Billy had pretty much let Beth decide. She was, after all, more familiar with the city, and he was not. In the end they had decided to continue south toward the freeway where they could hope for a better crossing. That had caused an argument between Billy and Jamie that had only ended because Billy had walked away from her.

  “You want her, not me. Her... Why don't you just say it, Billy... Just say it.” She screamed the last as Billy picked up his pace walking faster still. There was nothing he could say. It was true after all, and the truth couldn't be hidden in these circumstances.

  The light was fading from the day as he found a small shop, the glass covered by steel panels. The panels were dented, even punctured in a few places by something he assumed had been heavy and sharp, possibly an ax, but they had held. He rolled a cigarette and stood, one boot heel resting against the brick wall behind him, the other holding his weight on the cracked concrete. He watched Beth as she walked toward him.

  She smiled. “Roll one for me?”

  Billy rolled one and handed it to her. She fished a lighter from her own pocket and lit it.

  “We have to settle in for the night... Too dark to keep on. Who knows what sort of freaks are waiting for night to make a move on us.”

  Billy nodded. “Dozens... No doubt...” He sighed. “We'll need a place for all of us.” He tapped his free hand against the brick. “Place looks untouched, it will take a little work to get in, but we could spend the night here.”

  Beth inhaled deeply and let the smoke roll slowly out of her mouth. She turned the cigarette around and looked at it. “Killing me, I know it, and I couldn't care less. Tastes so fucking good and calms down that itch in my brain.”

  Billy laughed. “I'm pretty sure it doesn't matter what we do know. I think the life expectancy of the human race just dropped a whole shit load.”

  Beth laughed along with him, took another hard pull on the cigarette, looked at it once more and dropped it to the pavement. She ground it out with her boot heel. She raised her eyes to Billy and the laughter was gone, ground out like the cigarette. He knew the next words she spoke would be serious, but he wasn’t prepared for them when they came a few moments later. “It's just you and me.” She frowned as she finished.

  “What?”

  “What? Come on, Billy, what did you think she was gonna do? You knew this was a problem... Scotty ran you down after you walked away... It took very little to turn them around... They're heading south... Lynwood Park, I think. Scotty thinks there are safe places there and more people too.”

  “And? … What did you say?”

  Beth shrugged. “I said go... If you fall apart after a little tough walking we don't need you...”

  “Jamie?”

  Beth laughed, but the laugh didn't touch her eyes: Instead they narrowed, hurt. “Called me a cunt. Told me I could have you.”

  “Wow... Right to the C word... Must have been pissed...” Billy straightened from the wall. “But you stayed with me.”

  “Yeah... About that.... Nothing's changed, Billy. I don't want us to get off on the wrong foot. I like you... I even like you a great deal, but you're not the guy for me... I don't know where that guy is. Even if I let you be the guy you couldn't handle me, Billy.”

  She had shifted her rifle from her shoulder, she stepped forward now and rested the barrel end against the fat padlock that held the steel shutters on one side. “Better move off a little further,” Beth told him. “I have no idea how this is gonna go.”

  The noise was deafening in the quiet late afternoon. A flock of pigeons startled from a nearby rooftop, lifted into the air. Billy followed them with his eyes as they lifted into the gloom. Suddenly a larger shadow appeared above the pigeons and a split second later a much larger bird dropped into the flock, talons extended, and emerged with a pigeon clasped in those same talons. The bird wheeled, climbing an air current and then began to drop to a nearby roof where it apparently had a nest.

  “Jesus,” Billy breathed.

  Beth chuckled. “Hawk,” she turned her eyes back to the padlock. “Come on, Billy. Let's get down for the night.” She reached down and carefully pulled the jagged metal from the eye holes where it had rested in the bottom of the steel frame. Together they lifted the shutters.

  Oswego NY: Mike and Candace

  Early Afternoon

  Once they were back on the main road again, it was late afternoon, and by the time they finally reached the other side of Oswego, they had all agreed to stop for the day.

  As they entered the small town of Martville, and pulled into a large field, Mike found himself wondering more and more what the kiss had meant.

  They made a half-way decent meal out of the canned goods they carried with them, and once they tired of rehashing the day’s events, one by one they went off to find a place to sleep. They had sleeping bags, and rather than set up the tents they had also brought with them, they all agreed they would rather use the bags.

  Mike watched as Terry walked off in one direction with Gina. Obviously something had sparked with those two, he thought. He sat talking quietly with Bob and John, as well as Candace. When he finally said his goodnights, a few hours later, Candace got up, and saying goodnight, walked away by herself.

  While Mike waited for sleep to come, he found that instead of thinking of all the bad things that had happened, he was thinking of Candace, and all the good things that could happen.

  New York: Old Towne: Conner and Katie

  Things have been really crazy the last few days. I’m not alone anymore. It’s funny because that’s the last thing I wrote in this journal, and two days later it’s like an answer to prayer. It happened later on the evening of the tenth. Oh, and it was the tenth, Katie and Jake have old fashioned wind up watches, so does James, and they’ve kept track: Kept them wound up too.

  In another way it isn’t the twelfth today at all because the days and nights, or the rotation of the Earth that makes the days and nights, isn’t the same at all. It’s much slower. James and Katie have kept track. It’s taking about twenty-eight hours to cycle through, but last week, it was up to almost thirty six hours. And none of us knows why, except it slowed up and it’s now starting to get back to a normal length of time to cycle through a night and day. So it’s not really the twelfth, and they’ve just been keeping track of the days as they pass, same as I’ve been; except for the day I thought I’d lost.

  Anyway, as usual, I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me start from start: I was organizing stuff. There is a warehouse down closer to the river full of wooden pallets. I went down there a few days ago, box, upon box, upon box. I have no idea what’s in them. I figured sometime I’d just open a few up and see. Maybe it would be something useful, maybe not. What’s useful now is radically different from what used to be useful.

  Anyway I noticed all the pallets. Pallets everywhere. Some full, some piled high with stuff, but a lot of empty ones; so I went back down with the sled and made a few trips back and forth to the factory so I could stack the canned stuff on them, so they’re not sitting on the floor. I was putting them in the back of the factory in an old storage area. I was so wrapped up in stacking the canned goods that I never even heard them until Katie cleared her throat, I guess to get my attention.

  It scared me bad. I thought about the gun I had never bothered to go and get, and a lot of other bad stuff. It went through my mind so fast. The first thing in my head was, the wolves got me! They sneaked up on me! Stupid, I know. I knew it was a person, but my head still insisted wolf. It didn’t last though, and my reaction scared them too. Lydia said I had a can of peas in my hand, and she was sure I was going to bean Katie in the head with them. For some reason she found it funny that I would bean someone in the head with a can of peas, and she giggled. I just felt embarrassed, and glad I didn’t throw the can. I set it down on the
stack and took a few deep breaths instead. We all ended up laughing our asses off. Nervous energy. Release, I guess, or something like that. And then we all began to talk at once.

  They had known about me for two days. They had seen that someone was going in and out of the market. They were going out to one on the north side of Old Towne, the other side of the river from where I was. For some reason I hadn’t thought to cross the river. They had already been on the other side to begin with, and even though the main bridges seemed too damaged to be trusted, the railroad trestles seemed solid and unharmed to them, so they crossed over one to get to my side. I was impressed; those are open trestles, a long way down to the water.

  Because the snow on the asphalt was melting, they couldn’t figure out where I was going when I left the market. They were actually going back across the river when Katie happened to look over her shoulder toward the opposite bank, and she just happened to catch me going into the factory. She had thought to yell, but over the sound of the rapids, she couldn’t get anyone around her to hear her, let alone me.

  Once they were across, she talked to Jake; Jake pretty much was their leader (I don’t know if I like that. Do we need leaders?), and they decided to come back the next day (which was two days ago) and see if they could find me. They didn’t know about the factory. Katie had thought I was just climbing the rock above the river. They searched along the back of the Public Square, or what’s left of it, and down towards Coffeen Street. If they had come back down one more road towards the river, they would’ve found the factory then. Maybe they hadn’t realized there was a road there at all; so they just followed the path of the river, thinking I was living in one of the fallen down buildings along the banks.

  They had seen me from quite a way off, crossing the square as they were heading back. It looked to them like I was heading for the north side, maybe crossing one of the bridges, but by the time they got there I was gone. They even began to wonder if I had seen them and hidden on purpose, maybe out of fear. They had searched for a while and then, just when they had been about to quit for the day, James realized that he could smell smoke. As soon as he said it, everyone else realized they had smelled it all along. It didn’t take long after that to find the factory. They just followed the smell of smoke down to the lower road and found it.

  So that was that, and now we are six. Jake, Jake Light, he was their leader as I said. He’s an older guy, in his late thirties. Used to be a truck driver.

  Katie Lee (Don’t call her Honey. I don’t know why, except she made a point of saying that.). She’s nineteen. I thought she was with Jake. I think Jake thought so as well.

  James and Jan Adams. James is a little older than Jan, in his fifties, and he said he is a mechanic. Jan does, did, data processing.

  And Lydia. Her real name is Marcia George. Lydia is her middle name. She said she always liked Lydia better. She was still in school, local college. I guess she's the same age as Katie, nineteen.

  And last but not least, me.

  We spent all of yesterday getting their stuff from across the river and bringing it over to the factory. I thought that was weird. Why go get stuff anyway? You can have anything you want. It’s all free, but in another way I guess I understand. We’ve lost everything. We want to hang on to what little we still do have. We’re all going to stay here. And we talked about what’s next, and what we know about what happened.

  I said I had been kind of planning to leave once spring came. Head south or west, somewhere where I wouldn’t have to worry about winter. Jake said it may be that, where it would normally have been warmer, it won’t be anymore. He said it depends on what happened. None of us really know. He thinks it might be smarter to stay here. We could stock up this factory. We could even hunt. He said he’s sure there are deer around. James agreed with him, at least on there being deer around.

  I told them about the footprints by my house. They said they had seen footprints as well. They had gone out Coffeen Street and saw tracks of three or four people going in and out of a small store there. They had called out, but no one had answered. They had had second thoughts about calling out too. They weren’t armed. What if someone shot at them?

  That brought my original thoughts to mind about a weapon. I mentioned the sporting goods store, and we all agreed to make a trip out there soon.

  We talked about cars and trucks and agreed it would be good to get an SUV or truck of some kind if we could find one that will run, as they might be the only vehicles that could drive around as bad as things are torn up. They have also tried starting a few vehicles with no success. I mentioned my electronic brain idea, and Jake said he had thought of the same thing. Turns out he’s also a mechanic. I guess I can see why they chose him to lead. I feel kind of useless around the guy though. We agreed to try finding an older vehicle. Jake thinks our chances of getting one running are good. We’ll see what we can find.

  The first night together was good. The best I’ve slept since this thing started. Just not being alone, you know?

  I guess I’ll end on that note...

  Conner closed his notebook and stuffed it down into his pack. Looking around the factory floor, he was surprised how different a few more warm bodies could make it. It didn’t seem as cold, so oppressively quiet, so echo filled with any kind of sharp noise, so… so different, but different in a good way.

  Katie had been watching from across the factory floor where she had made a little area for herself away from Jake and the others. A clearly defined space of her own. Jake hadn't liked it at all. She hadn’t wanted to interrupt while Conner was writing, but now that he seemed finished she walked over to him.

  “This was really nice of you,” she said as she walked up. “We were staying in that old school building. None too stable. Last night was the best sleep I’ve had in a while.”

  “Funny,” Conner replied, “I was thinking the same thing. For me it was just having others around. People.”

  Katie smiled.

  She’s beautiful, Conner thought. He wasn’t normally a fan of tattoos, but she had some sort of tribal stuff that snaked up under her shirt sleeve. Just a hint of ink where her shirt didn’t quite meet the top of her Levi's made him wonder just exactly where the ink ended. She caught his eyes and smiled again.

  “Mind?” She asked, gesturing at the ground beside him.

  “No, sit down,” Conner smiled. “I have no manners at all. How long does it take to devolve? I guess a little over a week.” He smiled again.

  She laughed as she sat down. The silence stretched out for a few seconds, each of them looking around the factory floor as the others talked or settled in for the night. They both spoke at once.

  “Sorry,” Katie said and laughed.

  “No, really. It’s that devolved thing again. Go ahead.”

  She fixed her eyes on him. “I was just wondering what you were planning on doing. I mean, have you thought about leaving? I know you spoke a little about it yesterday when you were talking to Jake, but I could see you weren’t quite ready to fall in with the Jake-ites yet.” She lowered her voice for the last.

  Conner looked at her levelly. “Yeah… I guess it does show. I don’t dislike him. I don’t even disagree with what he said. I just… I just don’t know. We don’t click, know what I mean?”

  “Yeah, I do.” Katie answered. “It’s the same with me. I can think. I don’t need someone to do it for me.”

  “Exactly,” Conner agreed. “But it’s a little more too, like Alpha male shit. This is my tribe. Me chief.” Conner finished in a near whisper.

  Katie giggled but quickly clamped a hand over her mouth while nodding her head in agreement.

  Conner continued. “I’m not really an Alpha male type of guy, but I’m not a dumb sheep either.”

  “Me either,” Katie agreed, her giggles under control. She fixed him with her serious eyes once more. “So what will you do?”

  “Probably like I said, like everyone else said, leave, but I don’t
see why the south or the west wouldn’t be a good direction to go in. We’ll all see, I guess, as spring comes on, or as…”

  “What?” Katie asked.

  “Well, as this goes on. It might not be over yet. There might be more changes ahead. The days have slowed down, almost seemed to stop for a while last week when the sun just hung in the sky. Maybe what was supposed to happen happened? Now the sun’s rising in the wrong place in the sky. Did the Earth's spin reverse that fast? Weren’t some people claiming we’d fall off the Earth after the asteroid hit? Something like that?” He took a deep breath.

  “I guess I’m just waiting to see how this goes. What happens next? In a few months, not far into spring, I’ll probably leave. Whatever has happened, is happening, should be over by then,” He smiled. “I guess that was a long drawn out answer.”

  “No. Not really,” Katie answered. “I’m in the same place. I’m not sure what happened either, or if it’s all over, but I don’t think I want to live in a factory forever either.” She looked around, “But who knows; maybe it’s come to that?”

  Conner shrugged his shoulders. “There are caves that dot the river. At least it hasn't come to that.”

  She nodded and then continued. “Anyway, I… I just wanted you to know I’m seeing it the same way as you. I mean… I mean I want to be on your side of it.” She locked her eyes on his and gave a firm nod, then flipped her short, black hair out of her eyes. She firmed her mouth, set her jaw and spoke once more. “I'd like to go get my things... Move over here with you.” Her dark eyes settled on his own. “Be with you... I mean, be together.”

  “Quick,” Conner said.

  She nodded and smiled, “Maybe it’s a quick world now. I’m taking you at face value, I guess. You don’t have a little harem locked away farther back in this factory, do you?” She smiled.

  Conner laughed. “Not hardly.”

  “Well then,” she asked quietly, her eyes serious.

  Conner nodded, which caused a huge smile to spread across her face. His own smile answered it. But, he thought, did she really mean…? He didn’t complete the thought as she stood and walked across the factory floor to where she had put her things and spent her first night. She turned and looked back at him. Conner stood and walked over to help her move her things over to his area. Several pairs of eyes watched the move.

‹ Prev Next ›