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They were ten miles from the city’s central core The last days of travel had been a gah thickets of spiny, insect-infested vegetation In these quarters, nature unveiled its trueyou, swarht andhands, seee entirely They seemed positively made up Who would invent such trees?

Darkness ca The trip had coun to show her irritation Her signs of illness had not abated; rather, the opposite When she thought Greer wasn’t looking, he caught her pressing her pal with slow pain They quartered that night on the top floor of a house that see chandeliers, rooms the size of auditoriu mold A brown line three feet above the marble floor circumscribed the walls where floodwaters had once risen In the massive bedroom where they took shelter, Greer opened the s to clear the air of the ammonic stench: below hioo

All night long, Greer could hear the dopeysin the trees outside They vaulted fro through the foliage, followed by the sharp animal cries of rats and squirrels and other s their de, he dozed fitfully, pistol in hand Just remember Carter’s one of us He prayed it was true

A

"We should wait," he said

Even standing seeth she couldthe flat of her belly, her head bowed in pain He could see the spash her

"We go," she said, speaking through gritted teeth

They continued east The skyscrapers of don eed in their particularity So expanded and contracted over the years to pulverize their foundations; others reclined against each other like drunks stu home from a bar Amy and Greer traced a narrow spit of sand beteed-choked bayous The sun was high and bright Seaborne wreckage had begun to appear: boats, and parts of boats, splayed on their sides in the shallows as if in a swoon of exhaustion When they reached the place where the land ended, Greer dis, and pointed theainst a skyscraper, lay a vast ship, hard aground Her stern rose ih in the air, massive propellers visible above the waterline On it ritten the vessel’s na with rust: CHEVRON MARINER

"That’s where we’ll find him," said Amy

There was no dry path across; they would have to find a boat Luck favored the a quarter mile, they discovered an aluminum rowboat overturned in the weeds The bottoed it to the lagoon’s edge and set it afloat When it failed to sink, he helped Amy down from her mount

"What about the horses?" he asked her

Her face was a mask of barely bottled pain "We should be back before dark, I think"

He stabilized the craft as Amy boarded, then lowered himself onto the middle bench A flat board served as a paddle Seated in the stern, Ao Her eyes were closed, her hands wrapped her waist, sweat dripping froh Greer suspected her silence was for his benefit As the distance narrowed, the ship expanded todimensions Its rusted sides loo to one side; the surrounding water was black with oil Greer paddled their craft into the lobby of the adjacent building and brought them to rest beside a bank ofto need your help"

He assisted her fro her by the waist They found themselves in an atriulass ONE ALLEN CENTER a sign read, with a directory of offices beneath The ascent that lay ahead would be serious; they’d need to climb ten stories at least

"Can you make it?" Greer asked

An for the stairs Greer lit a torch, gripped her at the waist again, and began to climb The trapped air of the stairas poisonous with mold; every few floors they were forced to step out just to clear their lungs At the twelfth floor, they stopped

"I think we’re high enough," said Greer

From the sealed s of a book-lined office they looked down on the tanker’s decking, wedged hard against the building ten feet below An easy drop Greer took the desk chair, hoisted it over his head, and flung it through the

He turned to look at A it before her like a cup A bright red fluid filled her palm It was then that Greer noticed the stain on her tunic More blood was trickling down her legs

"Amy-"

Shewrapped in an infinite softness A blanketing, whole-body sleep

"Oh, daone, and folded to the floor

Chapter 47

Peter and the others entered San Antonio on Highway 90 It was early ht in a hardbox in the city’s outer ring of suburbs, a sprawl of collapsed and scoured houses The room lay beneath a police station, with a fortified ramp at the rear Not a DS hardbox, Hollis explained; one of Tifty’s It was larger than the hardboxes Peter had seen, though no less crude-just a stuffy rooe bay where a fat-tired pickup awaited, cans of fuel in the bed Crates andthe walls What’s in these? Michael asked, to which Hollis said, one eyebrow raised, I don’t know, Michael What do you think?

They drove out at first light beneath a heavy sky, Hollis at the wheel beside Peter, Michael and Lore riding in the truck’s bed Much of the city had burned in the days of the epidemic; little remained of the central core save for a handful of the taller buildings, which stood with forlorn austerity against the backdrop of bleached hills, their scorched facades telegraphing the blackened and collapsed interiors where an army of dopeys now dozed the day away "Just dopeys," people always said, though the truth was the truth: a viral was a viral

Peter aiting for Hollis to turn off, to take them north or south, but instead he drove thehway for narrow surface streets The way had been cleared, cars and trucks hauled to the sides of the roadway As the shadows of the buildings engulfed the truck, Hollis slid the cab’s rearopen "You better weapon up," he cautioned Michael and Lore "You’ll want to watch yourself through here"

"All eyes, hoazed at the destruction It was the cities that always turned his thoughts to what the world had once been The buildings and houses, the cars and streets: all had once tee of the future, that one day history would stop

They an to crowd the roadway as the gaps between the buildings widened

"How er?" he asked Hollis

"Don’t worry It’s not far"

Tena fence line Hollis pulled the vehicle to the gate, relove box of the pickup, and stepped out Peter was struck by a sense of the past: Hollis ate to the power station, all those years ago