34

 

DAYBREAK CREEPS FORWARD with agonizing slowness. The waterspouts finally turn off. The swirling, frothy surface quickly gives way to a windowed stillness. We do not worry about being seen. The floating corpses now drift across the fountain pool and offer us cover under a blanket of death. We watch the sky yield from tar black to light gray.

When the dawn siren sounds, it is to us the ringing bells of heaven.

Not a minute too soon. Especially for Sissy. Her skin has gone pale and marble cold. For hours now, she’s been trembling almost incessantly. I’ve wrapped my body around hers as best I could, but my own body is numb with cold. It’s been ice on ice.

But we force ourselves to stay submerged for a few ticks yet. We haven’t suffered in this watery purgatory for hours only to throw it all away by surfacing a few minutes too soon. Finally, finally, when streaks of dawn rays shoot across the skies and cause the floating bodies to smoke, Sissy and I finally bring our heads, shoulders, chests above water.

Our bodies weigh a ton. The force of gravity seems to have grown tenfold. Sissy leans into me, collapsing.

“Sissy?”

She doesn’t respond. Her body sags and I pick her up. I carry her to the edge of the pool, pushing aside floating corpses. Wisps of smoke twirl up from these drowned bodies, and the sour-rotten stench of their sun decomposition fills my nostrils. I lay Sissy down on the concrete edge, brush her wet hair from her face.

“Sissy?”

She mumbles incoherently. Her chest arches up and she heaves, face turned to the side. White bile vomits out, turning yellow, then back to white. Eight hours underwater, she’s been holding it inside all that time.

“Oh, Sissy,” I whisper, stroking her face.

She murmurs, mumbles.

I look about. The glass entrance of the Convention Center is busted wide-open, shards of glass spit out in front. Metal frames and columns inside the lobby twisted out of shape, everything jutting outward as if by an explosion from within the lobby. The streets are a complete mess. Jackets, broken shades, hats, shoes scattered in every direction. Evidence everywhere of the wreckage left in the wake of the rampage.

Hazy beams of light slant between skyscrapers, spilling across the empty streets. The only movements are those of unclaimed horses, trotting aimlessly about. Theirs the only sound that punctures the dawn’s quiet. A pair of horses, still harnessed to a carriage, waiting dutifully at the corner.

Sissy is not doing well. Even after I move her into the sunshine, her skin only grows colder, her body stiffer. I gather clothing strewn on the streets, sweatshirts and pants. Peeling off her sopping clothes, I flinch when I touch her back. Her skin cold and turgid. I hurry to dress her, my own hands trembling with cold. Her eyelids struggle to open, fluttering.

“Gene,” she murmurs.

“It’s okay,” I say. “We survived. We did it. Gonna take care of you now, okay, Sissy?”

“Epap. Find Epap.” And then her eyelids stop fluttering. She fades into merciful sleep.

I reach into my pocket, take out the TextTrans. Moisture has seeped into it, garbling the screen. I press a few buttons. Nothing. It’s wrecked. Let it dry, I think to myself. I place it next to Sissy in the sun. It may yet be operable once dried.

As with Sissy. Give her sunshine, give her warmth, give her time, and her cold bones may yet arise. Most of all, give her food, nourishment.

“I’ll be right back, Sissy,” I say even though she’s out. Putting a jacket under her head as a pillow, I steal back into the Convention Center. I’m cautious at first, worried about people who might be sheltering inside from daylight. But rays of sun, pouring through the smashed opening of the glass roof, are streaming through every floor. No one’s going to be sheltering in here.

But there’s no food here, either, not anymore. All the concession stands and food stalls are little more than mangled frames of metal. Food, whatever is left of it, is smeared onto the floor and walls, the raw meat already giving off the stench of spoilage. At every level, it’s the same devastation. And everywhere I go, on every floor, I call out for Epap.

Only silence returns my cries.

Up in the luxury suites, I stare down into the arena, beams of sunlight falling on the twisted seat backs and ripped flooring. Nothing moves. I briefly stop by the Palace suite and retrieve my backpack. I didn’t think it’d still be there, but it’s right where I left it under the sofa. The handguns clink together when I sling the backpack over my shoulder.

I head back outside. The sun is higher and stronger now, stippling the surface of the water. Sissy is still lying where I left her. I feel a pang of guilt for leaving her but I know I’m only doing what’s necessary. We need food. I’m about to rush headlong into another building when I stop. I realize something unsettling. Unlike the Convention Center with sunlight pouring inside, these buildings are dark within, possible sanctuaries for the many thousands who, roaming the streets all night, were likely caught by surprise by the dawn siren.

And not just the buildings on this street. But, with so many thousands roaming the streets last night, probably every building in the business district is a black cave of stranded sleepers. I place my hand on the glass of the revolving door in front of me, hesitating. I push forward. The revolving door scoops me up, revolves me inside.

I never leave the inside of the revolving door. As it opens up into the dark lobby, I hear the sleep sounds of many hundreds, their raspy, grating scrit-scrits, their gnashing teeth. I make out the faint cluster of bodies dangling upside down from the lobby ceiling, a colony of stalactites. I stay between glass walls of the revolving door until I am outside again, backing away.

The buildings around us. They are not sanctuaries of food and recovery. They are fangs and claws jutting up into the sky.

Sissy is murmuring. I pick her up and hold her close, hoping to warm her. I pocket the TextTrans. We can’t stay here. This place offers us nothing. No food, water that is quickly spoiling with the rot of melted flesh and only temporal safety until nightfall. And there’s no sign of Epap. We need to leave. Sissy will hate me when she comes to, will accuse me of abandoning Epap. But I have little choice.

As I’m carrying her to the carriage with the two harnessed horses, it dawns on me. I know where to go. A place not so far away where there is safety and sunshine and, most important, nourishment. I lay her upon the plush velvet seating inside the carriage and tuck her snugly beneath a soft carriage blanket. Then I’m checking the harnesses, securing the horse collars and traces before grabbing the reins. One more wishful look into the lobby for Epap, then I snap the reins. The horses, perhaps glad for direction and order after the night’s pandemonium, canter, then gallop, obediently away.