The Last Mayor

Part 2

CHAPTER 8 RIDE

I burst out onto Willis like a bat out of hell, a good half-block ahead of my infected comet trail. Turning south I zip past the right turn onto 143 rd in a blink, briefly glimpsing the mob still flowing away from my apartment, then I'm gone and flying down the silent road, pushing sixty in a thirty zone.

I'm gone and flying down the silent road, pushing sixty in a thirty zone. I whizz through the intersection where the Chevy exploded; it's just a black and burned-out skeleton now. The dark slug-trail of the guy I tore in half is still there but he's gone and so am I.

Wind whips in my hair and I weave in and out of standing traffic. Yesterday this much stimulation would have killed me. I blink dust out of my eyes and focus on the road, already past 140 th and closing fast on the Harlem River. A few gray people are straggling through the intersections limply, a big guy in a Carl jogging suit and a young girl wearing bright red spectacles with her hair up in a 70's bob. I swerve to pass them by. They pick up running after me, falling into my wake like jet skiers behind a speedboat.

I blast through the intersection after the intersection with no red lights to stop me, 139 th , 138 th past the gourmet deli where a food truck has knocked over a fire hydrant and there's a wide pond of brackish water. 137 th , 136 th , the streets pass by like postcards. Jutting out from the gas station on the corner of 135 th a white semi-trailer truck lies halted across most of the road and I veer around it, only to drive almost directly into an old gray-faced lady. I bank hard and nearly throw myself from the moped, pulling to a stop on the hard shoulder.

I pause to catch my breath. Maybe a minute ago I was in the house and now I'm here. A tall building rises to the side and a flash of movement inside catches my eye. There, perhaps on the fifth floor, someone's banging against the glass. I study the building's façade and pick out more of them, trapped like prisoners in hundreds of stacked cells, looking out at me and hammering on the glass.

Can they see me? Seconds later the glass on one of the high-up windows goes out, falling like a spray of twinkling light, followed by a body. I catch flashes of a dark n***d male, then he hits the cement with a disgusting wet thump. A second later he gets up, ruptured and b****y, and with his neck twisted at a hideous angle. He starts shuffling toward me.

More glass smashes. Bodies rain down from above like cats and dogs. The old lady hobbles closer. I rev the moped and race on, up onto the overpass by 134 th. Pulaski Park whizzes by, empty basketball courts baking in the morning sun, and I thump onto the bridge with the Harlem River spread out to either side and the smoking cityscape of uptown New York ahead. No people are milling here now, they're all at my house.

I veer around a tipped delivery truck and a few abandoned cars. Halfway over, with a fresh salty breeze blowing down the river, I come upon the wreckage of the plane fuselage, lying across most of the road. The oval tube of the plane's body is blackened by fire.

A child bursts out from behind a car and I yank the handlebars left. For a moment I think I'll go off the bridge where the railings have been scoured away, but I get the moped under control and race on, leaving the child running behind.

Scattered around the fuselage lies all manner of charred wreckage: narrow food trolleys spitting up plastic ready-meal trays, in-flight magazines like a drift of glossy snow, broken bodies, some of them crawling. There's a bank of seats tipped upside down, and gray hands wave out from underneath like legs on a millipede. For a surreal second, I imagine the bank picking itself up and coming hurtling after me, running on hundreds of undead arms.

I angle for a slim gap between the fuselage and the edge of the bridge. I'm not getting off and creeping through on foot now; there's too many of them behind me. I duck low on the moped, rev the engine, and cut through the gap like Evel Knievel through a ring of fire.

Whoo!

The road is clear beyond. There are a few floaters out there, gray people separated from the ocean of infected, but I'm getting good at the moped now and evade them easily. I take it down off the bridge and onto 1 st Avenue, into Manhattan proper. This is probably the stupidest thing I've ever done, driving into one of the most densely populated urban areas in the world, but whatever, I ride on. I flash briefly on Rick Grimes riding his horse into Atlanta and laugh.

I'm on an iron steed. A lime-green moped. When they make the movie of my life it will look ridiculous.

I squeeze the accelerator and race south. The streets are nearly deserted here, but for a preponderance of stationary eighteen-wheelers. I figure the infection must have hit some time deep in the middle of the night for them to be so many of them, with so few commuters and so many people trapped in their houses still, wearing pajamas.

I speed under the green copper bridges on 125 th and 124 th , past a night bus, a cop car, the wreckage of a downed helicopter lying in a bonfire-like heap of shattered glass and twisted metal pilings, torn from the face of a nearby skyscraper.

Thomas Jefferson Park whizzes by on my left, the Metropolitan Hospital on 99 th on my right, where people wearing white gowns wander in the parking lots. They all pick up my trail and follow along. Around 94 th street, I hit the canyon walls of skyscrapers that will flank both sides of the street down to Coney Island, boxing me in.

There are more of them on the streets now, rising like floodwaters; businessmen and women heading home late or coming into work early, revelers in lurid makeup and skin-tight tops enjoying a walk of shame that could last until their bodies rot into the ground, a fat guy in a sumo diaper, his great gray haunches quivering.

I go around a long stretch limo on 92 nd , quietly ticking in the rising morning heat. Down 87 th street, I glimpse a horde wandering down a beautiful, tree-lined avenue. Everything is so surreal. A KFC near 90 th has its doors wedged open by the husk of a dead dog, its entrails splayed across the sidewalk in a dark inkblot of blood.

Through the 80s and into the 70s I go, through the 70s to the 60s until on 65 th street outside a gorgeous little sandstone church I spy the pale tide of a herd ahead, and pull sharply right. I speed three streets over to Lexington Avenue, clear of the swarm; God knows what they were gathering for. Another survivor?

Down Lexington I put the pedal down, hitting eighty through a school zone, past Bloomingdales with its flags out on a long clear stretch to the sea. I've never seen New York so empty except in movies. The odd floater stumbles along like a latecomer to the party over on 1 st , and I whizz by. The streets are narrower here, three lanes wide and claustrophobic. My knuckles ache from clutching the handlebars so tightly.

Around 56 th street, I catch my first glimpse of the Chrysler building's crenelated top, jutting confidently above the other buildings. It watches over me down to 42 nd street, until on 40 th I hit another horde and swing left to 2 nd Avenue, then juice it the rest of the way down to 23 rd and past the Subway station stairs. There I swing right, racing along my old commute route, and halt the moped bang in front of Sir Carl.

Bullseye.

Carl looks like it always does; all weathered Carl wood and spiral copper designs, with a perplexity of Hard Rock-like literary merchandise pasted to the windows and decoupaged to the walls

I jump off my green steed and stride up to tug on the stout wooden door, only to find it's locked. I tug harder as if that'll make a difference, but it doesn't.

I press my face to one of the windows to look inside, but there's no sign of Talia. Maybe I got here first. I pull my dumbbell bar out of my pack and smash through one of the windows. I can only hope it's high enough that they can't climb through. I scrape the frame clear and drag myself in.

I've reached Sir Carl!

I sit at one of the wooden window seats in my favorite old haunt, which I am doubtless now mayor of for life, and catch my breath, thinking about all the terrible, horrific, disgusting things I just saw and did. It's enough to make a person go mad.

CHAPTER 9 SIR CARL

It is surreal to be here

I look into the shadowy interior, up the stairs to the cozy 'library' area flanked by old books, where I used to sit and dream about zombies and marvel at how nothing has changed. The air still smells of fine-roasted Jamaican beans. If I close my eyes I can hear the clatter of the baristas whacking milk froth off their steamer sieves.

I was here only yesterday. Now there's no one left to govern at all.

And Talia isn't here.

I look at my watch, drifting on a tide of post-shock, post-stress, and horror exhaustion. Nearly three. This time yesterday I was calling Talia for the first time. That's hard to believe. So much has changed already. I feel lightheaded, drifting on a hot cloud of the last twenty-four hours.

It took all the courage I could muster to call her, then, holding my fragile mind in my hands and risking it with every word. It wasn't a baby step. It was an almighty leap.

"Hello?" she'd answered, only three rings in. "Is that the zombie mayor?" I could hear the smile in her voice. "Have you got your art ready to show me?" Zombie mayor was not a good nickname, but I was in no shape to protest.

"I have it," I managed. "I have a booking at the French place too, Rien, at 7."

"Great. I can meet you outside, I checked it out. The cat looks fun."

"Yeah, I think so. I'll see you then."

"See you, Ethan."

She hung up. I slumped back.

My heart was hammering, there was sweat on my temples, and my head was starting to twinge hard. Crap, I thought, I'm going to die right here.

I flopped off the chair to the floor, with my eyes throbbing sharply. I draped my video screen goggles on and plugged in my earphones, and logged in to the Darkness, where Carl was waiting.

My avatar popped up by his side in the Darkness. Long, tall shelves stretched away on either side like train track rails, packed with all kinds of products, fading away into the dark.

Carl turned to face me. His character was a giant blue parrot with a little pirate on its shoulder, which was his idea of a joke.

"This is bullshit," he said.

I almost ignored him, sending up a privacy signal that I was too overwhelmed to talk, but just having him there was already helping.

"Hello, Carl," I typed back, with my words popping up as little comical speech bubbles above my head. "What is?"

"This." He pointed at one of the shelves, on which a rack of colorful video game-style mushrooms was glitching through the shelf base. "I spent hours crafting these, and now this. What kind of damn mushrooms are these?"

I chuckled. Carl used to get very upset about the smallest things. It wasn't funny really, more a part of his condition, but still, I had to laugh, and that helped the twinge loosen a little.

"It's just bits," I typed.

"s**t bits," he returned, "shitty little bits."

"Shiny bits," I counseled. "Sweet and tasty."

He gave me a look that would be exasperated if giant blue parrots had that much expressive range but instead looked mostly cute. I made my avatar smile. We both needed to stay within our normal emotional range, even if we weren't feeling it, because, well, we'd both die if we didn't.

"This damn place," Carl huffed and started waddling away down the shelves. "Damn mushrooms. Are you coming?"

I followed.

Together we walked; him a parrot, me a hipster in cargo shorts. We had our diviners synced. We used to do this for hours, most nights, ever since Carl found my world. After a few weeks of glimpsing him hovering constantly just at the edge of my vision, we talked, haltingly at first, but in time the story came out, and we realized we had more in common than just about anyone in the world: we'd both died multiple times.

"So why are you online in the middle of the day?" he'd asked.

"I just got a date."

He stopped his parrot in the act of reaching for some generic Ken doll likes. "What?"

I explained.

For Carl, this was great and juicy gossip, because Carl spent all his days in the Darkness. His coma had been much worse than mine. Unconsciousness hit at the edge of the thirty-foot dive platform and he fell, breaking his back on the pool's edge and half-drowning in the water before anyone could get him out.

It left him much worse off than me, essentially a paraplegic, and far more sensitive to stimulation.

The little pirate stomped excitedly around his avatar's feathery shoulder as I finished explaining.

"That is crazy," he typed. "You became mayor, and got a date?"

"A lot happened today."

"Are you coping OK?"

"No," I said. "I'm in the middle of a twinge. I just called her."

"Just called her!"

The parrot made a shocked face like this was the most unbelievable thing of all. I'd be lying if it didn't make me feel good.

"Yeah."

"Damn. You're a brave man Ethan; I couldn't do that. But maybe it's just what you need."

I laughed. "If I don't die."

"If you don't die," he agreed solemnly. "So let's work. We have a few hours yet to walk it off."

I made my avatar nod, and we started walking again, side by side. Occasionally our synchronized diviners clicked left or right and we followed to collect. It helped. Hours passed in that way, and so the time of the date crept closer. We collected everything through that soothing dark, avoiding Bobby or Hank as they drifted by, not speaking, not doing anything but follow the rhythmic clicking of the diviners, controlling our fates.

After three hours had passed, I noticed Carl had logged off already. He'd left a note in the system for me to read. I guess he thought I might try and back out of the date, try and hide in the Darkness with him instead of facing the music in the real world.

You can do this, Simon. Go get her, tiger.

I stir awake from the reverie and stand. My body aches like I just got out of the gym. I check my watch; nearly five. It'll be dark soon, s**t. Talia might arrive at any minute. It doesn't help to think that she might already be dead. No. I have to imagine she's coming. I have to get this place ready for her to arrive.

First things first.

At the coffee bar, I lift the hinged counter section and go to the door in the back. Inside lies a pokey little office; desk, chair, a few neat gray filing cabinets, and a thumbtack-studded corkboard with all kinds of notifications. It's darker here, lit by only afternoon sunlight from the front windows. I hold up my phone in flashlight mode.

Talia

She's on the work-rota Tuesday through Saturday. Good to know. I rustle in the desk and come up with a roll of duct tape and a few marker chalk pens. An idea pings into my head like a twitter notification, and I bring it up.

Approved.

I climb on top of the coffee bar and find the release clip to pull the menu blackboards out. There are four of them in total, a lovely coincidence. Each is about a meter square, and I lay them out on the floor.

A floater rolls up to the broken window like it's a drive-thru booth, a redhaired lady with crusted blood down her throat.

"We're closed," I tell her. She doesn't listen. I drag one of the big sofas over and upend it in front of her face. It covers the window almost completely

Good enough for me. She thumps against it but doesn't seem smart enough to climb, so I tune her out.

The blackboards are covered in stuff about coffee; gentle boasts, bits of art, prices, wit. I spray the boards down and wipe them clear, leaving a pure black canvas behind. This is my wheelhouse, for sure; I am an artist, after all.

I write my message one huge letter to a board.

L A R A

Four boards for four letters, like panels in a comic. I paint them in bright yellow, which really pops against the black. I add a message to the bottom of the first board.

I'm inside, Talia. It's Simon. If I'm not here when you come, please wait. I'll be back.

Finally, I draw a quick cartoon zombie at the edge of the last panel, all pale-faced and white-eyed, for fun. It's standing at a door and staring at the doorbell with its jaw hanging down, to take the edge off the reality. It's not funny, but it looks, what, poignant? Irreverent?

I put the boards up across the windows. They lean nicely against the wall above the windows, and I fasten them with duct tape. They'll have the added bonus of concealing me from the flow of infected people outside. The lady outside tracks me, her head thumping witlessly against whichever window I'm standing behind.

When all the boards are up it's quite dark inside Sir Clowdesley. I cover the one remaining window with bits of paper, and the lady stops thumping so much. That's good information to have.

I stand and look into the darkness of my favorite coffee shop. I bring up my phone and double-tap it. The craziness has already invited me in, and right now I need to hear another voice.

"What now Io?" I ask my phone.

"To what are you referring, Simon?" she answers like she doesn't have any idea what's going on.

"All this." I spread my arm to take in the dark and empty coffee shop.

"I believe we're in your favorite coffee shop. Aren't you mayor here?"

I chuckle. Io is pretty good at liaising with other apps, even with the Internet down. "I am."

"All hail the mayor," she says puckishly. "You have coffee to hand out today."

I snort a laugh. I have all the coffee in New York.

"I'll get right on that," I say, and pocket the phone.

Next up, I need some more security. I doubt the TALIA boards would stop a throng. Ideas race through my head. I need something sturdy a wall of some kind.

I glance around the dark shop. There are a few shelves here, some tables and chairs, maybe enough to stop the flood at the door, but not enough to properly secure all the windows. Even more importantly, what good will a secure coffee shop do me if Talia arrives and all she can see is a flood of bodies outside?

She won't come near. She probably won't see the sign.

I need to press outward and reclaim the street. Nothing in here can do that, but I have an idea of what might.

I climb the stairs into the dark of the library mezzanine. The familiar smell of old, well-worn paper surrounds me, mingling with the rich aroma of ingrained coffee. It feels like safety. In the corner lies the wood-paneled fire door in the corner. The emergency light above it glows a dull green.

I stride over with the dumbbell bar in my hand. My heart pounds in the silence. A simple twist of the lever in the handle unlocks it, and I jump I stride over with the dumbbell bar in my hand. My heart pounds in the silence. A simple twist of the lever in the handle unlocks it, and I jump

Beyond there's a nondescript stairwell lit by emergency lights. Cold dank air streams over my face. Raw concrete steps spiral upward in a tight oblong. "Hello?" I call.

No answer comes. It makes sense there would have been no one on these steps in the middle of the night.

Across the way are the toilets and the glow of another emergency exit. I walk over, depress the emergency bar, and swing the door open. Light floods in, and I step out onto a tiny, ancient loading dock, about a meter tall above the ground, like a balcony overlooking the inner square of a New York block, fully enclosed by buildings. It strikes me like a peaceful oasis. A cracked and w**d-sprung road leads twenty yards away, overshadowed on all sides, then stops dead at a wall.

It's a remnant, I suppose; a donut block in the middle of New York, with a road that would have once allowed resupply trucks in and out, now sealed up by buildings. I eye the surrounding structures. They all have windows and doors facing this way. There is not a single floater about.

I found an escape route. Through this tiny forgotten access road I can surely enter any building in the block, and exit at any point I like on 23 rd or 24 th , 1 st or 2 nd Avenue. It's a good thing to have.

I duck back inside.

The stairwell takes me up, winding. The air is clammy and cold. The door to the second floor doesn't open. I give it a few desultory hits with the bar, accomplishing nothing but putting tiny dints in the metal handle. I keep on up. The third floor is locked too, but the fourth-floor door opens readily.

It leads to a bright modern office, with glass partition walls lining a gray carpet corridor, leading away parallel to the floor-to-ceiling windows on the left. Fresh light rinses over banks of desks, computers, and the occasional whiteboard to either side of the glass corridor. A fern stands pert in a ceramic pot by the door, a coffee machine and water cooler face me in a tucked-away culvert, and a wooden door chock skitters away when I accidentally kick it

have those in New York? I don't know. Probably they have their logo and a receptionist up at the far end; there must be a lift too that I've never seen, perhaps connected from one of the adjoining buildings.

It looks like the office of a tech firm, or maybe a telesales depot. Do we have those in New York? I don't know. Probably they have their logo and a receptionist up at the far end; there must be a lift too that I've never seen, perhaps connected from one of the adjoining buildings.

I pad along the fuzzy gray carpet, peering left and right into both sides of the office through the glass walls. Cords run everywhere like tangled veins, for phones, computers, printers, all redundant now.

I stop in the middle. There's nobody here, but more building material than I could have hoped for. The desks look solid, and I'm pretty certain I can craft an ocean-proof wall out of them. I start planning the procedure.

Then I hear a shuffle. It's coming from the far end, where a gray partition wall rises flanked by more ferns. I set my feet and slide the pack off my back. Seconds later a fat gray guy emerges.

My heart does a belly flop. He pops out of cover at a lurching run, bouncing lightly off one of the glass walls, his glowing white eyes homed in on me. There's dark blood down his white shirt and staining his navy jacket. His black tie is askew like he's tried to hang himself with it and the rope broke, twisting at a painful angle. His neck is flushed red, his feet slap the floor, and there's a glinting silver shield at his waist.

He's private security, surely got infected while patrolling the floors last night. I spin but there's no time to run to for the stairwell, and I can't cede this building anyway. I need these desks, I need to keep Sir Clowdesley secure. He charges at me like a damn bull charging, probably hungry to eat my brains, but I'm not about to play patty-cake with him either.

I charge right back.

CHAPTER 10 PATTY-CAKE

When we're about ten feet apart I launch myself into the air, feet first. For a second I fly, then I impact the guy's chest full-on and punch him off his feet. My heels catch on his chin and send me somersaulting through the air past him. Before I hit the ground, I have time for just one thought:

I dropkicked the s**t out of this bastard.

Then I hit the friction-burn carpet and c***k my side hard, roll and smack my ankle bizarrely off the flat glass, and wind up lying on my side with my wrist throbbing. What the s**t? That was probably the stupidest thing I've ever done. It was also utterly awesome.

I think this for about two seconds, until I get up and see another security guy coming at me from behind the divider, while his buddy shakes the fall off and starts to run too. s**t, what are they breeding back there?

I bolt up and turn to the glass to my right. One good stab with the bar and jagged clumps of it come down, another smack affords me some clearance, and I leap through seconds before they smack chest-first into each other.

I spring upon an office chair, which then reclines weirdly, like some asshole hasn't even taken the time to set it in a proper position, twisting my ankle. I fall onto the long bank of desks, smacking my knee on the edge and catching myself bodily on a monitor, which then folds back so I smack my face on a keyboard.

My teeth crunch, I bite my lip, my gut and chest spark with pain where the monitor top hit, and a hand grabs at my feet.

"s**t!" I yell and scrabble away with the pain forgotten. I roll into a chair on the other side of the bank and then out of it again, so now I'm standing on a twingeing ankle with two fat mall cops wheezing evilly at me. Finally, to put the cherry on top of the cake, they split up and come for me around either side of the desks.

I look around desperately, remembering how little my computer monitor did to the floater outside my block. There is actually the same brand of the computer here, which seems ironic.

There's one more long bank of desks and I climb up onto it. Monitors are the only thing I can use, and even if they don't kill them, they might buy me some time. I run to the end of the desks, toward the guy I dropkicked. I pick up a screen just as he comes near, and throw it with all my strength. It arcs beautifully towards him, a perfect shot, then catches on its cables with a c***k and spins, swinging hard back toward my feet.

I cry out and leap away, dancing for my balance as it crunches onto the desk and the screen shatters. I get my balance back standing in the middle of the far bank on a keyboard and a mouse-mat, again with nowhere to go. Both of the fat guys are right in front of me now, blocked only from grabbing my legs by a row of wheelie office chairs.

This is utterly stupid.

I snatch up a Bluetooth wireless keyboard and Frisbee it at the nearest of them. It cracks off his mouth and his head recoils but it makes no difference. He stumbles through the chairs blindly, reaching for my feet.

I bring the bar down edge first. It buries in his eye socket with a horrible slurp and a geyser of gray goo. I gag and pull back, but the bar is lodged now and I just tug him closer, pulling myself off balance.

As I'm about to fall into his embrace, I push away, relinquishing the bar. He staggers back with blood and gray matter gushing down his face, but he doesn't go down. The other one is through the chairs now and almost on me.

I run two steps then jump for the aisle between the banks, where I back away tipping chairs over between us. They stumble over them. This is better. I get some clearance and space, and at last, they're both following me the same way. I could do this all day.

At the bank's edge, I grab another monitor, unplug it swiftly, and hurl it at the nearest one. It hits him edge-on in the face and breaks open his nose and his eye-socket. He falls back for a second and the one with my bar in his eye comes on harder. He looks a horrible mess.

I unplug another monitor and throw, but miss. s**t. I run halfway down the other bank, tipping more chairs, and toss the next monitor. It hits him in the neck with a gristly crunch and he goes down, this time staying down to gurgle and spit. OK. I unplug three more monitors in advance of the guy with the broken jaw reaching me, then hurl them at him in fast succession. One misses, one hits his head, and the third time's the charm with another crunch and gurgle in his neck.

He goes down. My arms throb. I stand there and pant. I wipe my hoodie over my face, coming away with blood and gray juice. The office is silent again but for my breath and their palsied, bubbly rasping.

I stand there and wait for it to stop, but it doesn't. I pick my way over cautiously. The bad guy is looking up at me with his one good eye. His fingertips reach toward me, but his arms lie slack.

It is too creepy.

I walk along with the desk to the other one. He's just the same, a caved-in throat and a motionless body, but eyes that track me. It's horrible. I've killed them but they're not dead. Do I have to kill them again?

I back up and start to shake. I clamber over my own alley of tumbled chairs and around to the hole in the glass. In the corridor, I stand and shudder. I can't believe this s**t. How many times? I start back for the fire door, thinking maybe I'll go down to Sir Clowdesley and get some coffee and wait for Talia, but what am I going to tell her about this?

"Yeah I half-killed two of them upstairs, I just left them lying there like those creepy paintings in a haunted mansion. It was too gross to deal with them, and I couldn't handle using the desks to make a wall with them watching me. What do you mean you'd rather go survive alone than do it with me? It'll be fine, I have moral compunctions."

She flies off on an albatross. She rides a unicorn out of town.

Shit. I rub my eyes and stamp my feet. They haven't moved. I haven't moved. It's between them and me, and it has to be me.

I start back. I go to the one on the edge first, with my bar in his head. 'You can keep it, pal,' I feel like saying, but this is no time for levity.

I nudge his head with my foot. It lolls to the side with no control. I nudge it back the other way. I can't think of a way to make this less disgusting, or less of a horrible memory. I've painted zombie head explosions a hundred times in comics, but it's never so visceral as when they actually look just like regular people, only paler. I can smell the tangy blood and the bitter salt of the brain. I can see it oozing out in live-motion before me.

Maybe use a computer monitor, I think? But I don't like the thought of feeling the weight c***k through his skull and mulch his brain. The fewer senses involved the better.

So, g*n.

I edge around him. I nudge his arm but he doesn't respond. He's like a seed planted in the office, waiting to sprout. I stand on his right hand. I pin his left beneath a chair. I put a chair on top of his face, in case he suddenly rears up. I reach to his waist belt, and unclasp the button on his holster.

The g*n comes out easily and rests in my hand smoothly. It's affixed to his belt by a coiled bit of rubber tubing, but I can deal with that. I stand up over him. I study the g*n. It looks simple enough, though I don't know s**t about guns. It's heavy and gray with no branding anywhere. I look for a safety button and see a little sliding lever with a red inner bit showing.

I'll guess that means the safety is on. I click it over. I kick the chair away and point the g*n at his staring face. It would be so much easier if he weren't looking at me.

"Look away," I tell him.

He doesn't. He stares at me like a dog. His mouth opens and closes. The bar in his face bobs obscenely.

I pull the trigger. The g*n cracks slightly in my hand, the report sounds out with nothing like the bass rumble you see in movies, but more of a piercing tenor pop, amplified by the contained space.

My ears buzz. If any nearby floaters didn't know I was here before, they do now. Maybe Talia heard it too. As for the guy's face, his head, his brain, I don't want to talk about those things. It's a mess. His one good eye is still there, crumpled inward by the force of the shot and the ricochet off the floor, looking like a b****y gray toad, but at least it's not staring at me anymore.

Wait, it is. I feel his hand twitch under my foot. What the…?

I stand there in horrified silence for several minutes, waiting for whatever this is to end. Death throes? It doesn't end though. His brain has been mulched, but he's still trying to reach for me.

I aim the g*n at his throat. I pull the trigger again.

Flash, bang, b****y mess. This time he is dead.

I puke a little. I get my s**t together. I go over and execute the other through the throat. One-shot and done. At least I learned something.

I unfasten his belt while I'm still in shock. I unfasten them both. I take both guns with their cables and blood-spattered belts trailing behind me like empty leashes, until in the gray corridor I put them down, drop to my knees, and have a mental breakdown.

CHAPTER 11 MENTAL BREAKDOWN

In the midst of my mental breakdown, I think about Talia.

With my face pressed roughly against the fuzzy gray carpet, I remember her standing in front of the French restaurant, waiting for me, and all the possibilities that opened up. My heart was booming. Excuses for why I might have to suddenly turn and run away popped into my head, but none sufficed. I was on a course and couldn't change. Orange blossoms from the trees in nearby Madison Square fluttered down around me in slow motion, like I was a samurai heading for war.

I walked up to her with flowers in my hand, bought around the corner. She was wearing a smart cream blouse and twill orange skirt, with her mass of curly black hair condensed and twirled atop her head like a modernist sculpture. A strong twinge began to set in.

She smiled to see me.

"You look beautiful," I said, that truest cliché, all I could come up with. "These are for you."

She took the flowers and laughed. "They're gorgeous, thank you, Simon. You clean up good."

I smiled. "Thanks. They're Caribbean Lilies. I've always liked them."

She lifted the flowers to her nose. They were delicate frondy things, with many weaving purple buds tucked within a bed of long petals.

"This is a good start."

"It can only get better. Shall we?"

I presented my elbow. She took it, sending fireworks up into my brain. I strode us into the restaurant.

Inside it was classical French with a modern twist. Most of the walls and floors are polished concrete, dressed with soft down-lights and oddly placed squares of inset industrial metal, giving the impression there were a dozen hidden alcoves tucked into the walls. The techno cat was a gimmick really, hardly better-looking than those walking dogs of ten years earlier, but the light show was already rippling across LEDs embedded in the screen-wall. They flowed and ebbed like the soothing fake wind in the Darkness.

It took all my concentration to address the maître d'. We sat down at our table. The twinge was already a storm between my temples with Talia at the eye, and everything else was a gray swirl. She was talking, and I caught myself thinking how awful it would be for her if I collapsed and died right then. Would she ever get over it?

I pushed back. In my mind I stepped into the Darkness, and put my mouth on autopilot.

"I'm from Iowa," I told her, answering a question she possibly asked. "My folks have a little farm, they used to raise pigs but now it's just grass for feed. When I was five years old I wanted to be a pig cowboy, riding a pig around the plains. That's actually true. Then I wanted to be a football player, then an artist, and that's what I've been doing ever since."

"I can imagine you riding a pig," she said. "Painting zombies from pigback."

I chuckled. "It's not only zombies. I do book covers too, all kinds. I used to have this great idea for a graphic novel about a graffiti artist like Banksy who becomes a superhero. Maybe I'll do it one day."

She nodded along. "Who doesn't like Banksy? I think that'd be fun. He'd fight crime and leave social justice tags at the crime scenes."

I laughed again. My left temple felt like it was going to pop, but at least it was only the left. "What about you? Where are you from?"

She tapped the flowers in their vase. I hadn't noticed the waiter bring a vase to put them in, but I guess that happened. "You were pretty close with these. I'm from St. Kitts in the Caribbean originally, but I barely remember that we left when I was just a kid. My mom was the French Caribbean, my dad was in the navy, so I'm a navy brat and I grew up all over. As for childhood dreams, I wanted to be a princess, then an astronaut, then a lawyer. Now I'm a barista. I'm sort of floating along."

My eyes prickled and my brain stewed. "It sounds nice."

"It is. I went to law school for four years, passed the bar, but the stress burned me out. I took a coffee course and ended up at Sir Clowdesley, and I haven't looked back since."

I nodded. "I know something about burning out. I was hospitalized for a while, and the doctor said I might be allergic to art."

She laughed. "That's not even a thing."

I shrugged. "For about six months I couldn't paint a thing without migraines. I can't watch movies now because they're too much art. It's getting better though."

She studied me appraisingly. "So you really do suffer for your art."

I laughed. "I suppose. I hadn't thought about it that way. Anyway, give me your hand."

"What? Why?"

I wanted to change the conversation's direction, that was why, but I couldn't say that. "Can I see it just a second?"

She frowned, then cautiously extended her arm across the table. "You're not going to read my palm are you?"

"Better than that." I took her hand. More fireworks shot in my head, rising to a crescendo. Her nutty skin was warm and smooth. What was I doing? I didn't really know. Crashing and burning, most likely. Somewhere in the back of my head, a little Hank was calling from the Darkness about the Immutable Laws of Attraction.

"This skin tone is a half-shade between Fawn and Isabelline," I said, tapping the back of her hand. "I know that because I'm an artist. Have you ever heard of those colors?"

She shook her head. I winked. "They're both kinds of Carl." Before she could pull her hand back I turned it over and tapped her palm gently. Classic Hank move. "This is between Ecru and Fallow. Have you heard of those?"

"Are they kinds of Carl?" The sarcasm dripped off her.

"Very astute, they both are. According to some ancient peoples, all colors have meaning. If you combine these two colors," I tapped her palm and the back of her hand lightly again, "you get a kind of equation that predicts your personality and your future."

"So what's my future, oh seer of color?"

"Happiness," I said, and smiled sincerely. I looked in her eyes and just kept on making it up. "Everything you want. All good things for you, Talia."

I held her gaze a moment longer than was comfortable, then let her hand go. She gave a little start, like she was waking from hypnosis. It wasn't anything like that though. It felt more like a blessing. I don't know where it even came from.

"Order for me, would you," I said, while she was still looking slightly confused. "I have something in my eye."

I barely managed to get up from the table. The room spun and threatened to wash out in gray. The pain had been mounting since we met on the street, and I felt like a volcano about to blow. I weaved my blurry way between the tables and chairs and into the toilet, where I flipped down the lid and slumped on the seat.

Tears leaked from my eyes. I couldn't take it. It hurt too much. I was out there talking nonsense, and the darkness didn't help. I felt like I was going to throw up. How could I eat like this, when I was so far from hungry?

I drop to my knees on the toilet floor and rested my head against the wall. I squeezed my eyes tightly shut and wished for an angelic host to come beaming down through the roof and airlift me out. That would be awesome.

Then as if in answer to my prayer, my phone buzzed in my pocket. I barely knew what I was doing, but I eased it out. I read the message.

I'm in the Darkness, running. I just stood with Blucy for twenty minutes, doing nothing. The air is cool and the corridors are long. You're here with me, Simon. We're running this thing together. Our diviners are firing off like crazy, and we're getting it all. Potato dolls, plastic mop handles, Leatherman wrenches, whatever it calls for, we get it.

We can't be stopped. We're in this together. Breathe clear and get it done Simon. This thing is not going to take us both down with it. You out there and me in here, we have this.

I sucked in a breath. Of course, it was from Carl, that glorious bastard. I pushed out a breath and tapped on my phone.

Sorely needed that. Thank you. Slumped in the toilet freaking out. I'm going back in!!

The hammer in my head was still clanging and twingeing, but I could face it a little longer. I got up and brushed down my knees, thankfully only dust. I washed my hands thoroughly. I went out.

Talia looked up brightly when I arrived. The mood felt different now; even I could sense it through the fog in my head. She was serious now in the same way she was flippant before.

"I ordered you mushroom spaghetti," she said. "Garlic bread. Are you OK?"

"I'm better now. Thanks for ordering, that sounds great."

We sat in companionable silence for a time, watching the light show. The video jockey played it understated, working ripples of color that threatened to become clear shapes but never quite did. Sometimes the images looked like clay on a potter's kiln rotating, but with bumps bulging in and out in strange organic ways. The cat rumbled over and mewed a Britney Spears song at us. We tossed it scraps from our starter bread, which it hoovered up then continued on its way.

Our food came and we ate, delicate dishes painted with dots and strokes of colorful sauce, more relaxed now. We talked about art and the restaurant's décor, about life in New York, the subway, the orange blossoms, our parents, but there was an undercurrent to everything now, a lovely balance of comfort and tension that made the pain in my head just manageable. This was promise.

She twirled a strand of dark hair idly around her little finger. Her bright white eyes fixed on me a lot, and I liked it. I reached my hand across the table, and after sipping her wine she let hers drop to rest beside mine. I stroked her finger with my thumb. Heat zinged between us, and we were both melting. These were the hormones that I wasn't supposed to have, and they were electrifying.

We talked about ambitions and holidays we'd been on. She liked taking long walks on the beach. I'd like to paint that. She'd make us a cup of coffee from hand-roasted beans when we come back. I'd paint that too. We got through starters and main. It filled me up, but I kept eating. She was looking at me differently now. Perhaps I'd passed a test, but I didn't know what. The bigger test was still coming. She brought it up when we'd finished our bottle of wine.

"Are you going to show me, then?"

I smiled and brought out my laptop, setting it on the table. One of the waiters came to clear away our plates helpfully. I turned the screen around.

"It's not such beautiful fare for dinner," I said. "Forgive that."

"I want to see."

I brought up the penultimate panel again, full-screen, then pointed to the right arrow on the keyboard. "You can click it."

She studied yesterday's panel for a long moment, the tower of zombies seen from high up, the ruined city, then clicked, and studied the final page even longer.

It was another image of the same tower of zombies in Times Square, but seen from a different perspective; not from thirty stories high, floating clean above the fray, but right down in the dirt of rotten bodies.

The angle was tilted sharply, looking up through a frame of zombie flesh to the tower, all the way to the empty sky, where there was a hint of a shape written in the clouds, which might have been the face of the hero's wife. It was a purposely faint resemblance, written in cottony wisps.

She was lost to the infection near the beginning of the book. Even the hero himself succumbed pages earlier, beaten down and chased through the streets of New York, dying in an ignominious alleyway behind the theater showing Cats.

In this final panel we see through his zombie eyes, and what he thinks may be his wife in the clouds. That's what he's reaching for, what they're all climbing towards.

Finally Talia looked up at me.

"I get it," she said. "I like it. It flips things on their head."

She took my hand. I did not expect that, and weirdly, instead of making the burn go up in my head harder, it took a chunk off. I let out a gasp, as the weight started to come loose. A great chunk of it calved away like Arctic ice, terrifying and exhiTaliating.

"You lost someone," she said. "I understand that. I know what that's like, and what it's like to want them back."

I couldn't stop my eyes from welling up. The chunk of my pain fell into the water and was gone, leaving me paralyzingly free. I could breathe again.

I nodded imperceptibly. I didn't just lose someone over a year ago, I lost everyone: my friends who couldn't understand why I was blanking their calls, my girlfriend who couldn't be with me in silence, my parents who stopped treating me like the adult son they were proud of and instead saw me as an invalid child to be treated with kid gloves, but most of all I lost myself. I lost who I was in the face of the twinges and the coma and the fear, but maybe that was somehow changing back, over dinner with Talia.

I took her hand in both of mine.

"It's just zombies," I said.

She laughed. There was emotion in her eyes too. Another chunk of pain and pressure started to fall away. Was this my mind or my suffering, I didn't know, but I dived into it. I lifted her hand to my lips and kissed it gently. She gave a little gasp.

"Let's skip dessert," she said.

I left money on the table. We hurried down the streets together. I didn't know what was happening to me. Everything really was changing.

CHAPTER 12 DESKS

I get up, bleary with the joy and the fear of the memory.

What happened to me? What happened to the world, while the pain in my head came away?

I don't look back at the dead security guards. I don't want to see that now. Instead I lean against the glass and look down on the street below. It's getting dark. It's hard to believe it's still the same day.

A crowd is growing down below, baying for free coffee. They're bashing their heads against Sir Clowdesley. Somehow they know I'm here.

I have to act.

I smash the windows with hurled monitors. Glass rain falls outside and a blast of cool air rushes in. I lean and shout down to them.

"Hey!" They look up at me. "What's up?"

They cluster beneath me, four stories down. The thought of what's coming sickens me, but this has to be done. At least up here the sound and visuals will be muted.

They cluster beneath me, four stories down. The thought of what's coming sickens me, but this has to be done. At least up here the sound and visuals will be muted.

I don't even look to see if I take out any of my groupies. Who cares? They'll get it in the end. This is just the resource-gathering stage of the game, grinding out my tower defense before I set to crafting.

It helps me to think of it in Minecraft terms. There are flloaters in Minecraft too. I'm just building my tower against an invasion. I'm just playing Minecraft.

Dragging the desk up to the edge of the window is a good workout. It just fits through. I push it out halfway until it's on the balance point, like a truck on the edge of a cliff. Outside there are plenty more of the ocean lapping closer, a fresh tide of dead/infected/lost New Yorkers.

I shove the desk. It grates over the edge and dives. There are about seven of them below when it hits, and they all get crushed. A smack, a c***k, and the desk tips away, clearing the impact zone.

I don't look at the bodies too hard. They look just like crushed people, like crushed bugs with their bodies burst. They didn't have to be here. This is my damn tower. I can't have them here when Talia comes.

I start clearing the next desk. I do a quick count. There are thirty-one desks in the office in total. I imagine what kind of ring-fence that can make around the exterior of Sir Clowdesley. If I stack them atop each other and weigh them down with all the rest of the crap I have in here, that will make a wall sixteen long. I envision a semicircle desk-fort-wall around the door and windows, then I expand that vision. I imagine sealing off a whole section of the street.

I'll need hundreds of desks. But this building has about a dozen floors. All of those will have heavy office furniture. I can tip them all out, my raw materials, then go down, clear, and build up my wall.

It's just Deepcraft.

I get to work. I shift desk after desk. At some point I hear frantic barking from below, and watch as a pack of running floaters chase a dog down the street. The dog is lathered with scummy Carl sweat, and the floaters run like Neanderthal man, like they were born to this, their feet slapping the asphalt.

Poor dog. There's nothing I can do for it. Its barks echo away down 23 rd headed for a messy death somewhere.

I don't stop shifting desks until it's well into the evening. They pile up like messy dominos outside, with bodies crushed Simonngst them. They almost reach all the way across the street already. Some of them c***k on impact and the metal frame pulls away from the wood. Each one crushes one or two floaters into the mix.

I look back on the office, empty now but for the two dead security guards and plenty of bits of trailing cable. A company just got downsized. The smell of decay and cooling road-tar blows through the window.

I go over to the guards. I don't look at their pulped heads and necks, I just grab the first one and drag him away by the feet. He's harder to move even than the desks.

Out the window he goes. I don't stop to watch his body smack and roll. I tell myself it's just another desk. The next one goes. I stand at the window and look west along 23 rd . The stink of them is rising up now, a kind of butcher-shop blend of blood and guts. The sun descends below the canyons of the city, and the sky over the buildings is leering toward a blast furnace orange.

I have to do this whether there's enough light or not.

I pick up the two guns and belts and strap both around my waist. I have to buckle them to the tightest notch, never before used by the two fat security guards. I realize I'm thirsty.

The stairwell to Sir Clowdesley is cool and dark. It doesn't know any of the bad things I've just done. I come down and back through the coffee shop, where I pick up a bottle of water from the unrefrigerated fridge section of the bar. It's cool and I drain it.

At the window I'm happy to note my blackboards are still there. I peel away the sofa covering the broken window, my muscles throbbing warmly, and see the redheaded lady still there. Somehow she survived the rain of desks. I point the g*n at her head and pull the trigger.

Bang.

Her head blows open and she is flung off her feet. I peer through the window to see her getting up. I aim one more time and shoot her in the throat. She goes down permanently, gurgling.

More of them come over at a steady lope, drawn by the sound. I climb through the window to meet them: a guy in a black nightclub shirt with b****y stains all down his thighs, a homeless-looking kid without any shoes and filthy blackened feet. They've gotten even grayer already. There's dried blood on their teeth and around their lips, where they've been eating; cats, dogs, at one point I thought I heard a horse whinnying before it fell silent. It must have run across the bridge from Queens. Probably people too. I haven't seen any other real people, though. I guess they got them all.

I shoot the guy in the Carl suit in the neck. After three shots, only two of which hit, he goes down. I get the kid in two.

I start dragging desks. I get a good rhythm going, starting at the left side of Sir Clowdesley and laying them out. The first time that I get blood or some other cold slick liquid on my hands I freak out and rub it away on the desk, leaving b****y finger trails. The second and third times I ignore it.

I press on, running backward at a fast clip pulling each desk behind me, scraping loudly along the road. I tip them over on their sides, so the smooth surface of the desk faces outward. I get four lined up, the first quarter of a semi-circle, and more floaters come. One of them is a cop. When they're all down, I drop rescue the g*n from the cop's holster. Now I have three. At some point I'll have to figure out how to reload.

I get twelve desks done, and it's properly getting dark. It gets harder to pick out the ocean as they wash near, with no streetlights. Still I can hear them clacking and slapping their drunken feet nearer.

Bang bang bang, my guns report. I get sixteen desks out from the pile's periphery, then I have to start salvaging ones buried in the midst of people I crushed. Here there's an arm half-cloven through, emerging through a c***k between two desks, the fingers still twitching toward me. I reach in and shoot the owner in the throat. I do that four or five times.

One of the mall cops' guns clicks emptily as a blood-smeared Goth guy in ripped leather jeans comes charging for me. I panic, drop the g*n and snatch up one of my others. It takes four shots to put him down.

I pile up more desks atop the sixteen. They've heavy but I slide them on top one end at a time. The wall stands high enough that I can't see over it now, only through cracks. It's dark, but I hear them slapping against the impromptu barricade outside. They can't get at me except through the narrow slot I use to drag in the desks.

The last few desks drag wetly, tearing over crushed bodies. Many of these people are still alive, but unable to get up due to broken bones. They grope for me like a nest of octopus tentacles.

I get the last desk out and up. I turn and see one more floater creep through the corral. It's a lady in a low-cut white dress that has slipped to reveal one ample gray breast. She jogs unevenly toward me, one of the heels on her shoes broken away, making an uneven clopping sound. I shoot her in the throat from point blank range, and she lies down like she just got tired, flat on her back, and gurgles wetly to a second death.

I pull her dress back up to cover her chest. I haven't got the energy to pick her up and push her over the wall.

In the darkness I amble the wall's half-circle courtyard with my phone flashlight on, stumbling on bits of broken computers and monitors. I toss them under the desks to weigh them down. Palms slap the desk wall like hail. I'm done though.

I go for Sir Clowdesley, past my moped, and crawl in through the window. I shut it up with the couch.

In the library I hunker down on one of the sofas with lots of pilfered cushions spread around me, in the dark. It's even cozy like this. I eat a packaged BLT sandwich, drink one of the lukewarm banana milkshakes, and drain another bottle of water

Outside their thumping is a low cacophony. Exhaustion creeps up over me and I put my head down and sleep.

CHAPTER 13 NOT A GAME

I wake cold and unrested to silty gray morning light. It takes a moment to realize I'm in Sir Clowdesley, and why. I look around the library; there's no sign of Talia. At least the twinges are still at bay, though my arms and shoulders ache. I lie still for a moment, straining to hear the chop of helicopter blades or the friendly loudspeaker hail of a soldier calling for survivors outside, but there's nothing.

I'm alone in this.

I get up and go groggily down the stairs, with one of the guns and belt wadded in my hand. I pull back the couch and peer out of the drive-thru window.

The redhead is still lying there in a mess, the weak light making her wounds look ghastly. The others I killed are there as well, spotted like strange gray mold risen through the paving slabs. Blood has set in dark puddles like blackcurrant jelly. Looking at them makes me ill.

Overhead the sky is miserable. I bring up my phone and look at the screen blearily. 11:16. I slept right through the alarm. It's fine. I feel sick. I push the sofa to the side, grab a sandwich and a bottle of water, and sit to a desultory breakfast. I keep eating though I don't even feel hungry.

What now?

I hawk and spit out of the window. I think I'm getting sick. I can hear them mumbling away at the desk wall, but it's holding.

I bring up the g*n. I try to un-attach it from the cable, but it seems to be part of the haft's molding, rubbery black plastic encasing the metal. I turn it over, careful to point the muzzle away from my face. I click the safety back and forth, trying to remember if it's on when it shows red or off.

I look for the button to eject the ammo. Ten minutes later the magazine slides out smoothly. I never owned a handgun, but I've fired my friend's, when I was back in Iowa. I pull the slide forward, revealing one coppery dark-nosed bullet in the breach. I tip it out awkwardly, then let the slide roll back.

Now the g*n should be empty. I click safety over, aim out the window, and fire.

Click.

I eject bullets from the magazine and count them; seven shells remain. I feed them in and slot the magazine back, work the slide to feed one into the breach, then put on the safety.

I fasten the holster-belt around my waist. I put the sofa back.

There's more work to do.

The fifth, sixth, and seventh floors are all offices, and their doors to the stairwell are open; a cubicle farm for a travel agency, a call center, and the admin hub for an upscale bridal service. In the travel agency I find tourist maps of New York and pocket one. On desks I see personal thingamajigs; here a Jessie doll from Toy Story, there a Totoro, pictures of family in fun stylized frames, faces that are all gone now.

I smash out the windows and send their desks raining down. Today I'll aim to reinforce and expand the space I have. Across the street there's a 7-11 which will have all kinds of canned food and drink. They'll have a lighter so I can warm the night with a fire. I don't know what I'll use for a brazier, but whatever. Maybe I can shell one of the milk steamers and use that. I'll make a chimney out of rolled plastic picnic tarps. I have lots of ideas.

Desks rain down all through the gray day. I throw them out in the midst of the crowd around my existing wall, clustered three-deep now. The offices empty out and the furniture piles up outside. I look down on my wall, and at the angry ocean of gray bodies beyond it, thrashing like storm-tossed waves. They stretch back almost to the intersection with 2 nd Avenue.

On the street, standing in my semi-circle courtyard, I think about how to do this. It's tricky. There are too many of the ocean out there now to kill them all; I don't have enough bullets, but if I try to push the desks back without killing them, they'll breach the gaps.

I delay that problem for later. For now I stack more desks to reinforce what I have.

Back in the library I take out my USBs and bring up the prepper Bible on my laptop. While it gets dark outside I surf through screen after screen, advising me on guns, traps, pulleys and power. How to hot-wire a car intrigues me. How to filter and boil water. How to siphon gas, how to leech energy off a building's emergency power, how to jump current and voltage up and down to match appliances, where to find weapons and ammo in the city. I mark a few potential targets on my tourist map: the Police Academy a few blocks over, all major banks, certain police cars and vans, police officers themselves, obviously, even most bars and convenience stores.

My head blurs with it. There's a lot to take in. In woozy moments I remember the family I left behind; the guy with his broken collarbones, the daughter in the box, the mom and daughter tangled up in chairs and tables. I wonder what they're doing right now. Do the ocean sleep?

I'm alone. I get cold. I bring up my phone and look at the battery, more than halfway down. I'll deal with that soon. I double-click it.

"Hello Simon," Io says.

"Do you think I'm the last human alive?" I ask her.

She thinks for a moment. She's noticing there's no Internet connection, no databank to scour answers from, and then scanning her own limited memory.

"I don't think I can answer that question, Simon."

I chuckle, but hearing the sound makes me aware of how foolish I sound. Talking to a phone.

I turn it off. It's not amusing, not really. Probably it's an early sign of madness. It's weakness and I can't afford to be weak.

I try to snuggle into the sofa deeper against the cold, pile more cushions on, but they don't do much. It's gone fully black outside, and now I hear the shushing breath of the people out there, like a harbor tide lapping away at my desk breakers. I feel ill and strange. There were a lot of things I meant to do today, but they stopped me. I couldn't even get a lighter, so now I can't have a fire.

Will tomorrow be the same? I don't know how I'm going to expand the semi-circle wider. Probably I need more signs to tell Talia I'm here, more widely spread. If Talia's alive and she even thinks to come to Sir Clowdesley, she would barely get onto 23 rd street for the horde that's gathering now.

There must be millions of them in Manhattan alone. That thought takes me to fitful sleep.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

I wake to footfalls like thunder. It's pitch black and the darkness is churning. I roll up and snatch at my phone, scrolling for the flashlight. It blinks alight and I hold it out; the weak beam picks out chairs, tables, the balcony down to the bar below, and in the midst of it, the ocean.

Sir Clowdesley is flooded with them. Their flat white eyes reflect the light and their gray faces look like ghouls reanimated to life. They shamble through the space toward me, knocking over furniture and sprawling awkwardly against the steps.

I dart to my feet, instantly flushed with adrenaline. At the top of the stairs I see some of them have started crawling up, several are almost at the top.

I haven't got my guns, they're at the sofa and there's no time. I set the phone on a bookshelf, taking a second to aim the beam where it illuminates, then snatch up a wooden chair. I hold it ahead like a lion tamer, stride three steps down, and slam its feet into the shoulders and face of the nearest two crawlers. A cheek buckles percussively, the impact jolts up my arms, and they both slither a step or two back.

Others crawl over them though, enlivened by the light, by the motion, by the sound.

"s**t," I curse, and throw the chair. It doesn't do a damn thing. One of them seems to have the stairs figured out and comes bounding up for me, b****y lips champing. There is no damn time.

I turn and run, grabbing my phone and pulling the rough wood bookshelf down behind me. I hit the emergency fire door, yank it open, and get through into the dark quiet of the stairwell a second before they hit. The catch clicks, I can't lock it from here, but I don't think they can turn a knob-handle.

I lean panting against the metal door while they thump on it, like an uncanny pulse, matching my erratic heartbeat. My breaths are ragged and I feel sick.

I just almost died. Not even Sir Clowdesley is safe. I don't know how they got through my desk wall, how they climbed through my window, but they did, and it's no safe place for Talia or me.

Shit.

It's cold in this drafty vertical corridor. My phone lights my feet in sterile white, picking out the spots and blots of blood and oil. Then the flashlight dies. I lift it up and thumb the button and screen, but the battery is dead. It's pitch black in here.

Something cold touches my back.

I freak the hell out, whirling and lashing out. My elbow hits something frail and sends it careening into the darkness. I run and grab for the railing and almost go over it. A body is shuffling behind me, and I take the railing with both hands and run as fast and hard as I can along it and up to the fourth floor.

I feel my way to the fire door and lurch through it terrified and gasping with a deep burn in my legs. I slam it behind me and turn the lock.

The office is lit by pale bluish moonlight. It is utterly barren but for the snaky coils of cables, the snail drag-marks of the security guards I killed, the water cooler, the gray partitions, and me. I trail out into the cold pale light, and it hits me like a dumbbell bar in the eye, perhaps for the first time.

This isn't a game.

This isn't for fun, or a dream, or a chance to prove what a hero I can be. I'm cold and I'm scared and I'm tired. I'm alone. I don't have a blanket, bedding, or a g*n. I don't have a damn thing. From below I can hear them, their bodies pushing, pattering and packing in to the coffee shop I thought I was mayor of. Now it belongs to them.

I go to the window edge and look down. In the grayscale starlight the concrete below writhes with thousands of bodies pressed tightly together, more than in Mott Haven, more people than I've ever seen before except in stadiums or parades. They have flowed over and through my wall of desks like an incoming tide. They have poured in to Sir Clowdesley up a ramp of their own crushed bodies. Now they're looking up at me, so many white eyes like freakish stars in the sky.

I can't save Talia like this. I couldn't save Carl. I probably can't even save myself.

I retreat to the receptionist's desk. It is cold and barren, looking out on a bay of elevators from which a cold draft blows. The company name is Medisco. It's meaningless. I lay down the receptionist's chair on the gray carpet, use the padded backrest as a pillow, and try to convince my aching, freezing body that sleep is going to come.

CHAPTER 14 ULTIMATUM

I wake from a Deepcraft dream. Carl and I are running the Darkness, but we can never find the things we need. Each time the diviner tells us where to go, we arrive a second too late because some other picker has already come and taken it away.

"Sorry Simon," Carl says. "We just didn't make the grade."

He breaks apart into pieces that become Deepcraft resource blocks. With them I know I can build an excellent weapon, but I don't have the crafting pattern to do it.

I wake up with this thought in my head, afraid. I can't even use the things Carl did for me, moments before he died. I pat my pocket and find the comforting hard wodge of USBs still there. I pat the other pocket and find my phone and keys.

I take the keys out and walk to the office edge. I look down through the broken window and see the tide has started to bank up. There is a definite incline, bringing the heads of the ocean horde below me up to the second floor.

I laugh. It's just like my comic. They climb up each other.

I throw the keys out at them, like I'm dispensing free coffee to my constituents.

"Free latte," I shout. I get my phone ready to throw and shout, "Free espresso," but I hold back at the last minute. It still has all my music on, my apps, my mayorhood, if I can just get some power. They have battery chargers in any convenience store.

"No espresso," I shout down instead. "Make do with black coffee."

Their unblinking ice-white eyes show how intent they are on my every word.

I pocket my phone and hold out my hand. A few of them reach upward, like man reaching toward God in Michelangelo's painting. Suddenly I get angry.

"Do you want this?" I shout at them. I pat my head. "Do you want what's in here? You're not getting it! All of you listen up!"

"Do you want this?" I shout at them. I pat my head. "Do you want what's in here? You're not getting it! All of you listen up!"

"You're not getting one bite. And you don't get to keep Sir Clowdesley! I am the mayor of this coffee shop, and I'll fight you to the death for it. Is that clear?"

Their stares tell me it is.

"Let's establish some ground rules," I go on. I don't know why I'm saying this, the words are just coming out, but the more noise I make the braver and more righteous I feel. "I'm waiting for Talia. You will not mess with Talia! Mess with her and you mess with me. Second, you will not climb up my building. You climb up my building, I'll do something about it. Third, you do not come into Sir Clowdesley again, ever, and certainly not at night. That is right out of line. You can have everything north of 24 th street if you want, or south of 22 nd , but this bit is mine. Do you understand?"

They shuffle to indicate that they do.

"Good! So get lost or suffer the consequences."

I walk away from the window. My stiff body is loosening up. I go to the water cooler, and like a civilized person I push the little tappet to pour myself a paper cupful. I drink it, then do it again. Three more cups and I'm stuffed. I notice my hands. They look like I'm wearing gloves, covered in old crusted blood and other fluids.

Ugh. I ate a sandwich with these things.

I pick up the cooler and carry it to the window, into the warming sunlight. I strip off my sweaty, filthy clothes and hand wash them with cups of 'Pure Spring Water'. I lay them out to dry. I take a shower using cups of cold water. Dirt and crud peels off me, staining the carpet. My skin emerges. I tousle my dark hair. I rub my eyes. I stand at the window n***d and look down at them.

No words, now. This is a kind of dominion. This is how I'm going to go out, if I must. They have messed with the wrong hombre.

I scour the office for a weapon but I don't find anything, except for ballpoint pens, yellow legal pads, and a few old-fashioned telephone handles behind the reception desk. I don't like the idea of using any of them to fight off a floater. I threw everything else out of the window.

OK, so I have another idea. I go to the fire door to the stairwell, open it, and lurch back. On the other side is a little old guy, wraith-thin, dressed in an oil-stained blue overall that says 'Janitor' on the lapel. He comes for me, and I jog back through the office, leading him on. I go stand at the open window, and at the last minute I spring to the side and push him through.

He tumbles out to join his fellows.

The stairwell is empty otherwise. I suppose he crawled up out of some nether zone to reach me. I head down.

On the Clowdesley floor I glance at the door to the library. They're probably packed in completely now, like my apartment, but it's a metal door in a concrete frame and I don't think they can get through.

I go out the other way, into the sunlight of the inner-block donut. I pick a Carl stone building to the north, and smash a window through using a loose paving slab. I climb in and walk the corridor until it releases me into a spacious, empty lobby, decked out in dark mosaic tile and the old opulence of carved wooden arches. It's dim but light spills in from the street.

I smash through the revolving doors to get out. Now I'm standing on 24 th street facing a 7-11. A few rags of newspaper scatter noisily before me, chased by a whirling plastic bag caught on a spring zephyr. There are no drifting floaters here, carried by the tide. I can hear them though, a rustling tide just one block south.

I cross the road, weaving between stalled vehicles: a bright yellow Humvee, a Yamaha motorbike on its kickstand, a silver BMW. The Yamaha parked in the road intrigues me, another clue perhaps. Up in Mott Haven many of the cars had crashed, as though the infection was instant. Here though, the traffic is frozen neatly. The people got out and turned off their engines before they turned.

I climb up into the Hummer's cab and find the key still in the ignition. So thoughtful. I turn it and the engine revs to life. I imagine myself ramming into the mass of drifters with this tank. Not bad, but I can do better. I need to clear my whole street.

In the glove box there's nothing but papers, yet in the trunk I find a tire iron. Good. I use it to smash out the 7-11's glass door and enter. It's empty and stale inside, smelling of wilting Danishes and Big Red gum. I lean over the register and pluck up a sheaf of plastic bags, then I go shopping. I get candy bars first, then I add in bread, beef jerky, bottles of water, apples and oranges, a few chunks of cheese. I snatch up a bunch of newspapers and get two whole trays of New York-branded Zippo lighters. Beside the lighters there's a tray of noxious-smelling gas refill cans. I grab those.

There are New York-branded hats, shirts and towels, and I bag a bunch of them for bedding. On the back wall there's a range of kid's toys, including a Super Soaker water rifle, which I scoop up and bag. I find the phone chargers and batteries and get plenty, plus there are a row of nifty-looking solar-cell battery chargers. I get those, four stout-looking cheap flashlights, a bag of Skittles, and head out.

There are a few floaters out in the street now, rounding the corner of 24 th . I set my new treasure down in front of the revolving door, then head over to the first drifter. It's a big guy dressed in black like a nightclub bouncer. I clothesline him with the tire iron, crunching his neck. The others are far enough away to ignore for now, and they're not running. It seems some of them run and others don't. Maybe they're winding down.

There are no gas cans in the Hummer's trunk, but I keep on looking. I find one full two-gallon canister in the back of the BMW, and a little further down a black four-gallon drum in a Mercedes. It's probably enough. I carry them back along with my shopping through the revolving door to the lobby; it looks like the embassy for a third-world country. In two trips I get everything sealed inside the stairwell of my building, and in two more trips carry it up to the fourth floor by the window.

I munch on the Skittles and sip water while looking out at the gray ocean. Is what I'm about to do evil? Perhaps. I don't care. It's not exactly survival, because I've just proved I'm not trapped, but like I told the ocean out there, this is my coffee shop. I need it to have any chance of contacting Talia.

It'll be a b***h to clean up. I suppose it's a bit like napalm. I hope it'll reduce them all to slurry, which will drain down into the sewers when a good rain comes.

I open the four-gallon drum and breathe the heady stink of gas. The liquid sloshes as I heft it. I lean out, bracing myself with one thigh against the window frame, and tip the contents down into the mass of them. They soak it up like sun-dried kelp. Apart from those who've eaten dog brains, they haven't had a slurp to drink for three days.

I take the second can and pour it carefully into my Super Soaker, then spray it out over them all, repeating the process many times. I toss the lighter refill cans out amidst them, thinking they might blow like grenades if it gets hot enough.

That's all my fuel spent. I wash my hands off at the water cooler, spark the first Zippo, and think for a moment more about what I'm going to do. Then I dismiss any protest as irrelevant, and toss the lighter down. It bounces off a gas-drenched shoulder and whuffs into ignition at once. Licks of vapory fire snap all the way up to my eyebrows, singeing them, and then the bonfire catches properly, spreading rapidly to encompass the street. I can barely lean out for the heat.

The ocean is on fire.

I toss five more Zippos into the crowd. Some of them catch and others don't. The fire burns hot and smoky. They're tightly packed in like human tallow, and together they burn.

I gag on the BBQ stench of them. Chewy puffs of human smoke rise up, scalding me. I hear the crackle of their skin popping. At least they don't scream. One of the fuel cans bursts with a massive bang and the nearby bodies blow to the sides. The others burn and melt orange and yellow, though they don't scream at all. They continue to crawl up the pile they've made against the wall.

I watch for a few minutes, simultaneously fascinated and repelled by what I have done. On the one hand it seems like I had no choice. On the other it is a truly disgusting thing for a human being to do. I hope Talia isn't watching.