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She looked around To her right, a door

Run, she thought Run and keep on running

Then they were outside, though it hardly seeht, the sun eclipsed by dust, the great city unrecognizable A vast i to ruin The noise ha from all directions She was on the elevated roadway on the west side of the station It was tipped at a precarious angle; cracks were spreading, whole sections collapsing Aht, the best she could uide To run To survive To carry Peter away

The road sloped down to street level She could go no farther; her legs were giving way At the base of the ra with s stronger, more defined Amy knehat he would want He would want to die while still a e: segments of rebar sharp as knives, hunks of twisted lass Suddenly she knew: this hat Fanning had intended, all along That she should be the one It’s love that enslaves us, A in the end She would be alone again

As she knelt beside hi life, forestalled for a century, unleashed The gli it was Better, perhaps, never to have had it Peter had begun to moan The virus churned inside hith of steel with a triangulated tip What function had it served? Part of a signpost? The fraazed out upon the busy world? The underpinnings of a ain by Peter’s body TheShe bent and touched his cheek His skin was da had commenced Blink Blink, blink

A voice froh the air

--

Michael sprinted down Fourth Avenue, the debris cloud roaring behind hihth Street At the ends of the block, both in front and behind, the cloud roared past with a tornadic whoosh, then, as if suddenly recalling his presence--Oh, Michael, sorry I forgot you--turned the corners, barreling toward hih the nearest door and sla shop, coats and dresses and shirts hanging disembodied on the racks Awith mannequins propped upon an elevated platform faced the street

The cloud arrived

Theburst inward; Michael’s hands shot up to protect his eyes Dust engulfed the roo him backward Pricks of pain announced themselves all over his body--his arms and hands, the base of his throat, the parts of his face that had been exposed--as if he’d been attacked by a swarm of bees He tried to rise; only then did he discover the long shard of glass ee that it didn’t hurt more--it should have hurt like hell--but then the pain arrived, annihilating his thoughts He was coughing, choking, drowning in the dust He scra rack He yanked a shirt froauzy material He wadded it in his fist and pressed it to his en flowed back into his lungs

He tied the shirt around the lower half of his face With stinging eyes, he looked out upon the dark street He was inside the cloud Everything was silent except for a faint pattering: the sound of airborne particles falling upon the pavement and the roofs of abandoned cars His hands and arlass was buried, screahtestof his trousers away The glass, a long, narrow splinter, irregularly edged and slightly curved, had entered at an angle; the wound was roughly halfway between his groin and his knee on the inside flank of his leg Good Christ, he thought Another few inches higher and that thing would have sliced my nuts off

He reached over his head to yank another shirt from the rack and used it to wrap the exposed end of the shard He supposed it was possible that relass would open the wound wider, but the pain was unendurable Unless he re anywhere To do it quickly: that was the best way

He took the wrapped shard in his fist He counted to three He pulled

All up and down the block,in the dust, halted in their tracks and swiveled their faces toward the sound of Michael’s scream