Zone One Part 10

"It's the comms," Fabio said. "You know they're on the fritz."

"It's not the comms," Bozeman said. "I came here to tell you to bring the sweepers in. It's all hands on the wall now."

Fabio inclined his head toward the window. "It doesn't seem that bad from here."

"Come to the roof."

As they hustled to the helipad, the remaining army guys tromped down the halls, weapons ready, anti-skel helmets fastened to their heads. Mark Spitz hadn't seen a mobilization this big in ages. He regretted leaving his pack downtown.

The artillery battered his eardrums again once they gained the roof. The military spots were trained on the wall below; unlocking one's wheels, Bozeman groaned as he steered it to the eastern edge of the building. He adjusted the angle. The light joined those from other rooftops to unveil the horror of Broadway.

The ocean had overtaken the streets, as if the news programs' global warming simulations had finally come to pa.s.s and the computer-generated swells mounted to drown the great metropolis. Except it was not water that flooded the grid but the dead. It was the most mammoth convocation of their kind Mark Spitz had ever had the misfortune to see. The things were shoulder to shoulder across the entire width of the avenue, squeezed up against the buildings, an abhorrent parade that writhed and palsied up Broadway until the light failed. The d.a.m.ned bubbled and frothed on the most famous street in the world, the dead things still proudly indicating, despite their grime and wounds and panoply of leaking orifices, the tribes to which they had belonged, in gray pinstriped suits, cla.s.sic rock T-s.h.i.+rts, cowboy boots, das.h.i.+kis, striped cashmere cardigans, fringed suede vests, plush jogging suits. What they had died in. All the misery of the world channeled through this concrete canyon, the lament into which the human race was being transformed person by person. Every race, color, and creed was represented in this congregation that funneled down the avenue. As it had been before, per the myth of this melting-pot city. The city did not care for your story, the particular narrative of your reinvention; it took them all in, every immigrant in their strivings, regardless of bloodline, the ident.i.ty of their homeland, the number of coins in their pocket. Nor did this plague discriminate; your blood fell instantly or your blood held out longer, but your blood always failed in the end.

They had been young and old, natives and newcomers. No matter the hue of their skins, dark or light, no matter the names of their G.o.ds or the absences they countenanced, they had all strived, struggled, and loved in their small, human fas.h.i.+on. Now they were mostly mouths and fingers, fingers for extracting entrails from soft cavities, and mouths to rend and devour in pieces the distinct human faces they captured, that these faces might become less distinct, de-individuated flaps of masticated flesh, rendered anonymous like them, the dead. Their mouths could no longer manage speech yet they spoke nonetheless, saying what the city had always told its citizens, from the first settlers hundreds of years ago, to the shattered survivors of the garrison. What the plague had always told its hosts, from the first human being to have its blood invaded, to the latest victim out in the wasteland: I am going to eat you up. they were mostly mouths and fingers, fingers for extracting entrails from soft cavities, and mouths to rend and devour in pieces the distinct human faces they captured, that these faces might become less distinct, de-individuated flaps of masticated flesh, rendered anonymous like them, the dead. Their mouths could no longer manage speech yet they spoke nonetheless, saying what the city had always told its citizens, from the first settlers hundreds of years ago, to the shattered survivors of the garrison. What the plague had always told its hosts, from the first human being to have its blood invaded, to the latest victim out in the wasteland: I am going to eat you up.

Mark Spitz's idea of what lay beyond the Zone, the portrait created by the incessant gunfire, was dwarfed by the spectacle before him. The wall had kept this reality from him. It would not hold, it was obvious. He had to get back to Kaitlyn and Gary, and they needed to make a plan. The dead leaked in ma.s.sive piles on the other side of the wall, mounting between the barrier and the buildings on the north side of Ca.n.a.l. It would have been impossible for the cranes to keep up, even in working condition. The dead clambered up the bodies of the fallen and were rent by the artillery, contributing to the heap, and these latest were trampled by the next wave, which was cut down in turn. The corpses entwined and tangled in a mutilated pile half as high as the wall, and dark fluids from their wounds sprayed and gurgled through the seams in the concrete where the broad sections met, the weight of the corpses compressing the interior murk from the carca.s.ses as if they were overripe fruit. The barrier was a dam now, suppressing the roiling torrent of the wasteland. It would not hold.

He saw the flaw, where it would break. The marines had maneuvered the concrete T segments into the heart of Ca.n.a.l, and once they stabilized the Zone, they secured them with redoubtable steel brackets two feet wide and two inches thick. The metal scaffolding of the catwalk a.s.sembly provided additional support on the Zone side against the malevolent forces of uptown. But Mark Spitz saw the c.h.i.n.k through now-wastelanded eyes: the brackets were as flimsy as plywood boards nailed into a window frame, in that elemental image of the barricade. That's where every fortification splintered: where the nail pierced the wood, the rivet penetrated the concrete. The prayer met the truth. There is always a place for the dead to find purchase. the Zone side against the malevolent forces of uptown. But Mark Spitz saw the c.h.i.n.k through now-wastelanded eyes: the brackets were as flimsy as plywood boards nailed into a window frame, in that elemental image of the barricade. That's where every fortification splintered: where the nail pierced the wood, the rivet penetrated the concrete. The prayer met the truth. There is always a place for the dead to find purchase.

This night it was not a ravaged, skeletal hand that tore the plank away but the unholy ma.s.s of all the mobilized agony br.i.m.m.i.n.g Broadway. There was a furious blast of machine-gun fire, and more dead fell to the fleshy heap. The bracket at the western edge of the T section athwart the famous boulevard wrenched out of joint, and its brother connecting the next section east ejected from its moorings. It flew across the intersection and pulverized the face of an army clerk who had been gesturing to one of the snipers in her aerie. The tumbling concrete section ripped the catwalk free, and the metal armature halted the descent of the wall for a moment while hurling soldiers into the street; then it gave way. The soldier with the obliterated face fell to his knees at the same time the concrete slab hit the ground, crus.h.i.+ng the Disposal agent who had been steering a load of rotting pets toward the incinerators and a young soldier who had been climbing one of the ladders up the catwalk. The dead sloshed through the gap, clambering over the concrete ramp and the crushed bodies, losing balance on the uneven surface and spinning in ludicrous pratfalls onto Ca.n.a.l. They stepped on one another, impelled one another forward in a current, spread in hungry rivulets east and west and downtown after being penned in for so long. Some of the dead that had been trapped at the bottom of the pile staggered to their feet and joined the advance.

Here they came, the amba.s.sadors of nil. Already the front door of the bank was impa.s.sable, already the dead infiltrated one block south of the shattered barrier to reclaim the Zone as their own. The soldiers on the catwalk were stranded. They fired their a.s.sault rifles down into the maelstrom of skels, but the scaffolding terminated in ramps at either end and the men and women on the wall were cornered. The time to risk a jump disappeared; there was no open s.p.a.ce for a landing, so swiftly had the dead swept into the street. A portion of skels dallied to partake of the stunned soldiers at the foot of the wall, but most coursed down the avenue after other sustenance. The majority of the abominations did not stop to feed, as if being loosed upon the emptied streets was meal enough, as if right now it sufficed for them to walk, to persist beyond death. own. The soldiers on the catwalk were stranded. They fired their a.s.sault rifles down into the maelstrom of skels, but the scaffolding terminated in ramps at either end and the men and women on the wall were cornered. The time to risk a jump disappeared; there was no open s.p.a.ce for a landing, so swiftly had the dead swept into the street. A portion of skels dallied to partake of the stunned soldiers at the foot of the wall, but most coursed down the avenue after other sustenance. The majority of the abominations did not stop to feed, as if being loosed upon the emptied streets was meal enough, as if right now it sufficed for them to walk, to persist beyond death.

Looking down at them through the twisting ash, Mark Spitz shuddered. The dead streamed past the building like characters on an electronic ticker in Times Square, abstractions as impenetrable as the Quiet Storm's vehicles. He'd always peered from the skysc.r.a.per windows into the streets, seeking. Close to the ground, almost at their level, he read their inhuman scroll as an argument: I was here, I am here now, I have existed, I exist still. This is our town.

An explosion complicated the darkness in staggered eruptions, dispatching new quakes and tremors to replace the silenced barrage from the artillery. A truck's engine block, traversing s.p.a.ce in a depleted, burning arc, crashed into a fast-food establishment catty-corner to the bank. Mark Spitz had eaten there seven times in his life, across the years. It had never been a destination but was a refuge in the middle of city missions, in between things, to kill time until the rain stopped, it was warm and he'd been there before. It was part of his city.

"That's the diesel going up," Bozeman said. Stray bullet, or the self-immolation of a drowning soldier taking those nibbling monsters in the blast radius with him. The snipers shrunk from their posts to secure a getaway, too late. The entrance to any building in Mark Spitz's vision was already surrounded. He heard Fabio strategize as the three of them scrambled down the stairs to secure the front door of the bank, but Mark Spitz's brain was too embroiled in his survival schemes to comprehend. Just like old times. "Does this mean we stop referring to it as an interregnum, then?" he said. Addressing Omega. But they were not present. He supplied Gary's rejoinder: "'Time out' is more like it." A grenade exploded outside. Fabio strategize as the three of them scrambled down the stairs to secure the front door of the bank, but Mark Spitz's brain was too embroiled in his survival schemes to comprehend. Just like old times. "Does this mean we stop referring to it as an interregnum, then?" he said. Addressing Omega. But they were not present. He supplied Gary's rejoinder: "'Time out' is more like it." A grenade exploded outside.

When he reached the marble landing overlooking the main floor-after equipping himself in the office with an a.s.sault rifle, some clips, and, in a last-minute impulse, an armadillo helmet-the front door had been secured, the handles of the oversize bra.s.s doors swaddled in black cable. Five others remained in the building: Fabio; Bozeman; two rookie-faced army chumps named Chad and Nelson, whom Mark Spitz didn't recognize; and a furious Ms. Macy, who checked and double-checked the clip of a nine-millimeter pistol in muttering debate with herself. If pressed, with a gun to his temple or teeth to his jugular, Mark Spitz would have sworn she was saying, "Knew I should have taken that chopper."

Chad stuttered that they'd secured the south exit-the Lispenard access. Wonton had blown through the back wall of the bank to connect it with the rest of the block, which was shallow for the grid. It was Sunday night. Troops had been deployed to recon Happy Acres, and there had been more soldiers than usual manning the wall and the rooftops to tend to the dead swell, but the majority of the garrison was dispersed throughout the Zone, engaged in their R & R amus.e.m.e.nts and Sunday-night solaces. The A-list snipers and the sweepers, the indispensable clerks, and the doe-eyed engineers. With General Summers off duty, at her quarters, Bozeman was in charge. Summers lived on Greenwich, in a loft owned by a famously dissipated scion of European royalty. Great art, everyone reported. "Should we try to get to her?" Fabio asked.

Bozeman shook his head. "By now she knows the situation. Everyone's on their own." He pointed out that her quarters were half a mile south of Wonton; with luck she was on her way to the rendezvous.

"Which is?" Ms. Macy asked.

The first and last discussion of a fallback position was during the initial sweep, Bozeman explained, when Battery Park was the designated staging area for the op. The Staten Island Ferry Terminal served as the command center in those early days. "From there we can get air support. Rescue. Boats. If people remember that's where we're supposed to go," he added.

"And if there's anyone left to pick us up."

Mark Spitz patted his chest for the rea.s.surance of his gear and was reminded that his stuff was in the back room of the fortune-teller's. Happy Acres out of contact, the other camps as well: This was not a local occurrence. Maybe this dark tsunami swallowed the entire star-crossed seaboard, camp by camp, maybe this was what was happening everywhere, all over the world. The patient stabilized for a time but now the final seizures announced themselves, the diminis.h.i.+ng spasms conveying the body's meat to room temperature. Mark Spitz could play along with rescue talk, for the sake of the two army runts at least. The Lieutenant had designated the terminal as the fallback position at that first dumpling-house briefing, he recalled. Or was he inventing that moment, in the manner that you accomplice yourself to the s.h.i.+fting premises of a dream? The other sweeper units, from Alpha on up, were on the move; the wave of the dead would have swept past the dumpling joint by now. He hoped they had weapons with them, hadn't been hitting the sponsored booze all day.

"There's no time," Mark Spitz said.

"For what?"

"To sit here."

They scudded through the guts of Grid 003, Broadway x Ca.n.a.l, Business, pa.s.sing through the termite corridors the Army Corps of Engineers had carved. Outside in the street the dead poured downtown. The wall was breached, but the bottleneck, coupled with the vagaries of skel diffusion patterns, meant they still had a chance of pus.h.i.+ng through this local density. of Engineers had carved. Outside in the street the dead poured downtown. The wall was breached, but the bottleneck, coupled with the vagaries of skel diffusion patterns, meant they still had a chance of pus.h.i.+ng through this local density.

"Walking is bulls.h.i.+t," Ms. Macy said.

"We have trucks," Bozeman said. He took point. The southern end of HQ was a Vietnamese restaurant on Lispenard. They cut the lights in the kitchen, and then Bozeman sent out one of the army guys to do the same in the main dining room. The problem being if one of the dead on the street saw the movement, attracting a covey to block their exit. Nelson made it through, and the band moved to the front of the restaurant, trying to stay out of the streetlight. The dead seeped through the east-west corridor of Lispenard but they preferred the wide avenues of Broadway, from what Mark Spitz could see from his angle. Two trucks were parked across the street, facing west. Depending on the skel distribution on Hudson, they could grind through until they outpaced the wave.

"Keys should be in there," Bozeman said.

Ms. Macy slumped by the coatroom. "I'm supposed to go in that?"

"I said we have trucks," Bozeman said.

We'll need momentum, Mark Spitz thought. These were scooting-around trucks, canvas-topped.

"I a.s.sumed armored," Ms. Macy said. "f.u.c.k am I supposed to do, ride in the back?"

"Beats walking."

"It's useless," Nelson said. He had been weeping. He wept anew. "No one's going to pick us up."

"He's right," Ms. Macy said. "You don't know Buffalo. They're not going to send out a guns.h.i.+p to clean up a public relations stunt when they got camps falling right and left."

"Public relations," Fabio said.

"You have no idea how far we are from normal, do you?" She sneered at their incomprehension, exhaled. "I'm too good at my job." sneered at their incomprehension, exhaled. "I'm too good at my job."

Nelson said, "I'm the last one left of my town. Everybody's dead."

"This is PR," Ms. Macy said. "It'll be years before we're able to resettle this island. We don't even have food for the winter."

Nelson said, "My own hands."

Fabio staggered as if slugged in his gut. "You said the summit."

She peered out through the gla.s.s again, taking the temperature, and shook her head. "Summit. You think he's coming back? If I had a G.o.dd.a.m.ned sub, I wouldn't be coming back to this dump. Look at it out there. Those p.r.i.c.ks are probably trying to figure out which island in the Bahamas to settle on." She checked her pistol. "Why are you smiling?"

She was talking to Mark Spitz. Shame rippled through him, the echo of a civilized self. He put it down. He was smiling because he hadn't felt this alive in months. Ever since he left the fortune-teller's, as the kinetics of the artillery hammered through his boots, shuddered into his bones, and sought synchrony with his heart's thump, he'd entered a state of tremulous euphoria. He was an old tenement radiator sheathed in chipped paint, knocking and whistling in the corner as it filled with steam heat. The sensation peaked the instant the wall collapsed and, in its ebb, he was the owner of a woeful recognition: It was not the dead that pa.s.sed through the barrier but the wasteland itself, the territory he had kept at bay since the farmhouse. It embraced him; he slid inside it. Macy was correct. There would be no rescue at the terminal, no choppers dropping out of the sky at dawn after the longest night in the world. They had lost contact because the black tide had rolled in everywhere, no place was spared this deluge, everyone was drowning. Of course he was smiling. This was where he belonged.

At Bozeman's signal they made a break for it, this sad platoon, the army guys providing cover on their Broadway flank, Mark Spitz out in front with Fabio. The gunfire of the Ca.n.a.l engagements couldn't cover the reports as they routed the skels on Lispenard. Mark Spitz willed his rounds into the coordinates above the targets' spinal columns, as if it were possible to mentally steer them; the bullets penetrated their intended destination. Everything above the things' jawlines erupted into jelly. Nelson and Chad may have been green to Wonton but they were old hands at this brand of close fighting; they dropped five hostiles in quick succession, silent save for Nelson's blubbering.

Bozeman started the truck; Macy hopped in the pa.s.senger seat and shut the cab door. Everyone else made it into the back except for Fabio. He was halfway in when the truck lurched forward as Bozeman reacquainted himself with the mechanism. Fabio grasped for balance as if it twisted in the air before him and just as he seized it, four blood-streaked hands s.n.a.t.c.hed him into the vortex. Mark Spitz trained his a.s.sault rifle on the skel in the janitor uniform as it chomped into Fabio's neck to loose a small fountain of blood. As the truck pulled away onto Hudson, he had time to put three rounds into Fabio's chest and terminate the man's screams.

The grisly tide rolled in. The truck rocked as it crunched over the dead. In the back of the truck they heard the tattoo of bodies bouncing off the hood as Bozeman managed to gather speed, the prow smas.h.i.+ng through the breakers. Mark Spitz and Chad drew a bead on the dumb-faced skels in their wake, the ones who stood gaping, following the truck's course down the rapids. Then Mark Spitz realized he'd been cast into scarcity once more; these bullets were going to have to last. He held his fire. Outside the radius of Wonton, the streets had not been cleared of cars and trucks, and he braced himself as Bozeman zigged and zagged around obstructions. At one turn, Chad almost fell out of the back, mouth yawning in panic. Mark Spitz grabbed his arm and reeled him in. back, mouth yawning in panic. Mark Spitz grabbed his arm and reeled him in.

By North Moore Street they had outpaced the inundation. Ms. Macy cursed when the truck halted. The dead surged behind them in the middle of the ave, advancing downtown. Chad and Nelson took a few down before they heard "Hold your fire!" from beyond the canvas. They made room for four soldiers, three of them hoisting an unconscious comrade into the truck. The p.r.o.ne figure was covered in blood, but it didn't appear to be from a bite. A new blossom of explosions colored the uptown sky orange and red, and as they receded, the lights went out. Wonton lost power. Nelson blubbered. The streets were dark. The garrison was completely submerged.

Bozeman started up the truck. Mark Spitz tried to read the street signs, eyes adjusting to the darkness. When he saw the sign he was waiting for, he grabbed Nelson's arm and said, "I have to check on my unit." He hopped out, lost his footing and rolled painfully on the pavement.

He didn't detect movement. The city here was still empty. For now, the moonlight allowed him to lay off the attention-drawing flashlight. He didn't have line of sight, but doubtless the blue moon of his uncle's building was eclipsed when the power cut off. He had seen it for the last time, he was sure. He calculated: The dead fanned from the hole in the wall, but they'd tend to splash down the big avenues. Mark Spitz's mission was a lateral move across the Zone to the fortune-teller's, before the creatures. .h.i.t Chambers. He hadn't taken a step toward Broadway when he heard the truck crash. He kept moving. He'd see them at the rendezvous or he wouldn't. Halfway to Gold Street, he saw that his ash had stopped falling. Not enough memory, with his survival programs running, for his PASD. His past.

The sidewalk in front of the fortune-teller's was bereft of illumination. He hoped to find Omega in the back apartment. He crept inside and whispered their names. There was no answer. He locked the door to the shop, relieved to get off the street; he envisioned the dead as they gained velocity on these declivitous downtown streets, gravity yanking them to the bottom of the map. Once the things spread evenly through Zone One-could he call it that anymore?-it would be impossible to pa.s.s. It was probably too late to use the subway as a shortcut. They are dripping down the steps to the platforms by now. crept inside and whispered their names. There was no answer. He locked the door to the shop, relieved to get off the street; he envisioned the dead as they gained velocity on these declivitous downtown streets, gravity yanking them to the bottom of the map. Once the things spread evenly through Zone One-could he call it that anymore?-it would be impossible to pa.s.s. It was probably too late to use the subway as a shortcut. They are dripping down the steps to the platforms by now.

Mark Spitz had never gamed out an escape from the island, but yes, the terminal was a good bet. Especially given the standard traffic on the bridges. The Brooklyn-bound bridges were obstructed but a person could negotiate the barriers, given time. The problem was the legions of dead invariably ma.s.sed there and stretching the entire lamentable length of the span, all the way to the other borough. He'd always thought it strange, the devotion of the congregation there, as if in their fallen state they still hungered for Manhattan. Then as now, they believed the magic of the island would cure them of their sicknesses.

He swept through the shop with alacrity, in case Gary had already turned. Nothing moved. Kaitlyn had mobilized, to check out what was happening at Wonton. By now she understood the situation and he prayed she remembered to beat it to the terminal. Perhaps they'd crossed each other in the darkness, like they used to do in the old days of the living city. Happened all the time that someone you loved moved through the avenues, half a block over, one block over from you as they navigated their day, unaware how close you were. You just missed each other.

He closed the door to the back apartment to hide the light from the trickling dead. He lit a candle, in the wasted steppes once more despite the flimsy promises of architecture. Gary had bled through the blanket Kaitlyn covered him with. How long after Mark Spitz went up to Wonton? When he was a block away? After a farewell chat with Kaitlyn, then deciding after he felt something s.h.i.+ft in his brain? In all likelihood he sent Kaitlyn on a false errand and took the opportunity. s.h.i.+ft in his brain? In all likelihood he sent Kaitlyn on a false errand and took the opportunity.

Mark Spitz lifted the blanket. This was not a job Gary would do half-a.s.sed, but it was necessary to make sure he'd done it proper. From the looks of it Kaitlyn had put two more bullets in him for good measure. He was about to drop the blanket when he saw the paper in Gary's hand.

He pried the fingers, draped his friend again, and sank into the green armchair facing the sofa. Gary had been carrying it for a long time, from the creases and chewed edges, pocket to pocket to pocket. Since when, which asylum, consulted in the dark of how many failed refuges? Maybe he'd carried it since Last Night. It had been carefully ripped from a magazine, a level fur of fibers describing the inside edge. On one side, the island bulged from the blue waters of the Mediterranean, a knuckled lump of rock. It looked like a grenade, he thought. On the opposite, a street scene unraveled: A slim alley pullulated with men and women mid-errand, perhaps around noon. A trinket store hawked postcards on long wire racks, azure rectangles featuring more pictures of the island. A young couple enmeshed fingers at a small table outside a cafe, the red and white and brown logo of the espresso distributor half shadowed on a sign over the entrance. The table, aslant, jabbed its legs into cracks between cobblestones. A matchbox and a wad of napkin, the discarded s.h.i.+ms, lay next to the woman's red sandals.

The thought of Gary smuggling a picture of Corsica, France, in his pocket through the desert all this time, while suffering through his Spanish lessons, almost made Mark Spitz chortle. Gary clearing his throat, marshaling his rehea.r.s.ed patter, the greetings and sweet talk, as he walked across the gangplank off the sub to his longed-for island.

Mark Spitz snuffed the candle and checked out front. The dead teetered down Gold, southward in their hideous procession. Spa.r.s.e right now. Still time to make it past them.

He returned to the back room. He retrieved his flashlight from his pack. No way to date the photograph of the alley. It might as well have been the last afternoon in the world, a scene to be inserted in the montage sequence of the disaster movie. The oblivious citizens drift on the anvil of this mundane afternoon, unaware of the bomb, the meteor, the fateful chunk of rock from outer s.p.a.ce entering the atmosphere. In thirty seconds they will cease to exist, but for now they live in their moment of safety. Snug in sunlight, their lover's hand warm and true and solid in theirs.

The Lieutenant had asked Kaitlyn and him to picture a world where the stragglers were the dead majority, not an aberrant fraction. This photograph is what that would look like, Mark Spitz thought. The entire population snared in bygone moments, entranced by the world that no longer existed. Mesmerized by the outline of a shadow cast by a phantom that had made them happy once.

He had the forbidden thought. He didn't push it away.

It was the second time in three days, the most close together since his farmhouse rescue. It was happening again: the end of the world. The last months had been a pause, a breather before the recommitment to annihilation. This time we cannot delude ourselves that we will make it out alive.

When was the last time someone had taken his picture? Rhode Island. It was a month before he was picked up in Northampton, during a two-week stint at a hot-sheet hotel. The national budget-hotel chain had purchased an even cheaper chain and was refurbis.h.i.+ng and renovating the universally dilapidated properties, installing the high-definition television screens on their tilting arms, tearing out the cigarette-burned and bodily-fluid-soiled carpets to replace them with the futuristic stain-impervious fibers. The franchise Mark Spitz stumbled on had been surrounded by chain-link fencing during construction, rea.s.suringly anti-skel. One appreciated the chime of chain links these days, that perimeter-definer and alarm system.

Survivors came and went. He staked out Room 12, which was a musty box of umber and gray. The other survivors were harmless. Tired, like him, on a becalmed plateau of the interregnum. He was at a wedding, in a discounted block for members of the party. Strangers to one another but connected all this time even if they didn't know it, until thrown together in this little pocket of time outside their normal lives to bear witness. Except the ceremony kept being postponed. They extended their stays multiple times, rang the front-desk void, made the necessary excuses into the dead phones. Past complaining now, though.

Most nights, if people were up for it, they shared provisions in the tiny breakfast room off Reception, lentils or jam, and it was there he met the Simons. They were that rare thing in the wasteland, an intact family unit. Or they pretended to be. Rob and Lonnie, their kids Harold and Jennie. How they made it this far, he could not imagine. He was past curiosity, and at any rate Mom and Dad packed serious heat, ammo belts traversing their chests, tense hands never straying far from the holsters at their hips, explanation enough. Harold and Jennie were eleven and thirteen, respectively. They favored their father, especially in the eyes, and rarely spoke.

They stayed two nights. The second night they joined the small feast in Reception. Over stringy game-bird chili, Lonnie told the group they were headed to Buffalo. They had heard good things, met real soldiers who'd been there and spoke of putting it all back together. No one believed them. The Simons didn't care. They contributed five chocolate chip cookies, if he remembered correctly, which were broken into quarters and distributed around.

Before returning to their room they asked Mark Spitz to take their picture. "We like to keep a record," Rob said, placing the camera in his hands. It must have been a ha.s.sle to keep the device charged up; it was one of the last models, a b.u.t.tonless cube out of j.a.pan that did everything. The family posed by the dingy coffee machine, arranging themselves into what he took to be their standard pose, not smiling but not put out or melancholic, either. Then they asked if they could take Mark Spitz's picture. out of j.a.pan that did everything. The family posed by the dingy coffee machine, arranging themselves into what he took to be their standard pose, not smiling but not put out or melancholic, either. Then they asked if they could take Mark Spitz's picture.

"What for?"

"So we can remember what you look like," Lonnie said.

The Simons checked out at first light. The next day, not long after noon, bandits swept through. They executed some of the residents of the motel, tortured others in a long game they'd been working on, testing the logic of the body. Eventually an escape opportunity presented itself and most of the guests made it out intact. They knew the drill, this far into the miseries. But that was the end of the wedding party, and it was on to the next human settlement.

There was no other reality apart from this: move on to the next human settlement, until you find the final one, and that's where you die.

The parable of his journey back to the city. To keep moving, in the Mim sense. He'd always wanted to live in New York but that city didn't exist anymore. He didn't know if the world was doomed or saved, but whatever the next thing was, it would not look like what came before. There were no intersections with the avenues of Buffalo's s.h.i.+mmering reconstructions, its boulevards did not cross their simulations and dioramas of futurity. It refused the shapes Mark Spitz conjured in his visions of reinvention in the big city.

He dropped his new rifle and picked up his old one. It had gotten him through the Zone. It would get him out of it. Why they'd tried to fix this island in the first place, he did not see now. Best to let the broken gla.s.s be broken gla.s.s, let it splinter into smaller pieces and dust and scatter. Let the cracks between things widen until they are no longer cracks but the new places for things. That was where they were now. The world wasn't ending: it had ended and now they were in the new place. They could not recognize it because they had never seen it before. and now they were in the new place. They could not recognize it because they had never seen it before.

Mark Spitz got his gear together. He stripped Gary's pack of what he could use. He tucked Corsica in his back pocket. He waved to his friend and shut the door to the apartment.

In the stream of the street the dead bobbed in their invisible current. These were not the Lieutenant's stragglers, transfixed by their perfect moments, clawing through to some long-gone version of themselves that existed only as its ghost. These were the angry dead, the ruthless chaos of existence made flesh. These were the ones who would resettle the broken city. No one else.

He was ready. He didn't like his chances of making it to the terminal. Who knew how many of the others had made it there, the band from the truck, the sundry personnel of the garrison. Officers, cooks, and clerks. He hoped the sweepers split skel heads as they beat their way downtown, or else contrived the flawless plan that eluded everyone's desperation. Kaitlyn. And if Mark Spitz did somehow blast, bludgeon, and dodge his way to the terminal, what then? It was foolish to dream of rescue.

The music sailed between the buildings, the tinkling bell and the demented melody produced at the animal's every step. Mingled with the dead, Disposal's horse drew his empty cart down the street. The animal clopped across the asphalt, mascot of ruin, without care or master. Even when it withdrew from sight, Mark Spitz heard it, the cheerful jingle insistent before the pitiless rock face of the metropolis. That's how he interpreted the melody: cheerful and undying.

On to the next human settlement, and the one after that, where the barrier holds until you don't need it anymore. He tightened the strap of the armadillo helmet. He strummed his vest pockets one last time and frowned at the density beyond the gla.s.s. They were really coming down out there. No, he didn't like his chances of making it to the terminal at all. The river was closer. Maybe he should swim for it. It was a funny notion, the most ridiculous idea, and he almost laughed aloud but for the creatures. He needed every second, regardless of his unrivaled mediocrity and the advantages this adaptation conferred in a mediocre world. idea, and he almost laughed aloud but for the creatures. He needed every second, regardless of his unrivaled mediocrity and the advantages this adaptation conferred in a mediocre world.

f.u.c.k it, he thought. You have to learn how to swim sometime. He opened the door and walked into the sea of the dead.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Colson Whitehead is the author of the novels The Intuitionist The Intuitionist, John Henry Days John Henry Days, Apex Hides the Hurt Apex Hides the Hurt, and Sag Harbor Sag Harbor. He has also written a book about his hometown, a collection of essays called The Colossus of New York The Colossus of New York. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Granta, Harper's New York Times, Granta, Harper's, and The New Yorker The New Yorker. A recipient of a Whiting Writers' Award, a MacArthur Fellows.h.i.+p, and a fellows.h.i.+p at the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, he lives in New York City.

ALSO BY COLSON WHITEHEAD

The Intuitionist

John Henry Days

The Colossus of New York

Apex Hides the Hurt

Sag Harbor