CHAPTER 1
Skeletons of skyscrapers clawed at the brown clouds as they crawled westward. Dust was swept from bent steel beams in waves, but no rain would fall. Far below, the ground remained undisturbed by wind or creature or man, except for one. She crouched examining a footprint in the dust and determined it to be her own. She rose slowly and moved on.
She stepped around broken pieces of pipe, thicker than her arms, heavier than she could lift, around broken piles of concrete that towered far over her head; she breathed in a dust of rust and drywall. She slept huddled in doorways and hollowed out cars and elevator shafts, and built fires from tables and chairs, keeping her back to the smoke. She moved, and was warm, and fragile, and alive, and completely and utterly alone. She did not belong here.
She came down an alley between two crumbling brick walls and swung over a pile of debris at the end. There were piles of white painted chain link that once were a fence. A patch of dirt sat centered in the former backyard garden. Surrounded here by red brick walls in the shadow of looming gray walls she wondered how anything could have ever grown here at all. The light was brown and blotted out now, the dirt hard-packed and salted and covered in dust. Life would not exist here again. She sprinkled the patch with water anyway, almost thought "just in case," but changed her mind to "for old time's sake." Even whatever had died here was long gone. Not a remnant of leaf of stem or seed remained.
On weary feet she climbed the stairs of what was once an office building. The top was wide open, as were many of the floors. Some were gaping completely, and she wondered how the structures above them held together. Four floors gaped wide open before her, piled one on top of another below. Floors still higher remained. No windows were intact. She had to stop and rest every few landings. The stairs were stable, but she didn't trust any of the floors. She took a brief nap on the twentieth, staring out across a field of crooked and fallen cubicles that ended at a deadfall. The wind touched lightly here; the dust shifted.
At the top of another ten flights, the roof had caved in and crushed down two floors. She hesitated but climbed out and up a short ways. She was too light and too small to shake the rest of the building down, to drop the roof another floor or two, to do what the wind had yet to accomplish here. But still she imagined it happening. It wasn't the tallest structure still standing but she had a long view of the dead city. Its buildings, its bones, stood ruined and empty and broken and bent at odd angles. The roads, its veins, lay still. She watched dust rise and swirl and rush at her eyes. She pulled on her goggles, pulled up her scarf. No birds flew as far as her eyes could see. "Did you deserve this?" she asked the city, "Do I?”
She had no food stores up here. Her backpack held few supplies, but it would be enough to spend the night.
+++++
The strange sound shook her from her ghost-like haze. Like continuous thunder. Like a choking tiger. She couldn’t form an image in her head of what it might be, so she rose, throwing back her hood and rubbing her eyes as they adjusted to the sunlight. It streamed into the little room she’d holed up in at the moment, illuminating the dust that rose around her as she moved.
Knowing it was unsafe but drawn by the sound, she crossed the roof, leaving boot prints in the deep layer of dust and ashes. The noise was louder out here. It tickled her brain; she ought to know what it was. She did know. The words just weren’t forming in her head.
She ducked behind the ledge as soon as she spotted him. A man, alive, in her city. Something twinged deep inside her. Something stirred, started to wake up. She pushed the feelings down, mentally willing her heart into a slower pace.
There was no way he’d notice her as far up as she was, as far away - but still, she ducked. When she
Skeletons of skyscrapers clawed at the brown clouds as they crawled westward. Dust was swept from bent steel beams in waves, but no rain would fall. Far below, the ground remained undisturbed by wind or creature or man, except for one. She crouched examining a footprint in the dust and determined it to be her own. She rose slowly and moved on.
She stepped around broken pieces of pipe, thicker than her arms, heavier than she could lift, around broken piles of concrete that towered far over her head; she breathed in a dust of rust and drywall. She slept huddled in doorways and hollowed out cars and elevator shafts, and built fires from tables and chairs, keeping her back to the smoke. She moved, and was warm, and fragile, and alive, and completely and utterly alone. She did not belong here.
She came down an alley between two crumbling brick walls and swung over a pile of debris at the end. There were piles of white painted chain link that once were a fence. A patch of dirt sat centered in the former backyard garden. Surrounded here by red brick walls in the shadow of looming gray walls she wondered how anything could have ever grown here at all. The light was brown and blotted out now, the dirt hard-packed and salted and covered in dust. Life would not exist here again. She sprinkled the patch with water anyway, almost thought "just in case," but changed her mind to "for old time's sake." Even whatever had died here was long gone. Not a remnant of leaf of stem or seed remained.
On weary feet she climbed the stairs of what was once an office building. The top was wide open, as were many of the floors. Some were gaping completely, and she wondered how the structures above them held together. Four floors gaped wide open before her, piled one on top of another below. Floors still higher remained. No windows were intact. She had to stop and rest every few landings. The stairs were stable, but she didn't trust any of the floors. She took a brief nap on the twentieth, staring out across a field of crooked and fallen cubicles that ended at a deadfall. The wind touched lightly here; the dust shifted.
At the top of another ten flights, the roof had caved in and crushed down two floors. She hesitated but climbed out and up a short ways. She was too light and too small to shake the rest of the building down, to drop the roof another floor or two, to do what the wind had yet to accomplish here. But still she imagined it happening. It wasn't the tallest structure still standing but she had a long view of the dead city. Its buildings, its bones, stood ruined and empty and broken and bent at odd angles. The roads, its veins, lay still. She watched dust rise and swirl and rush at her eyes. She pulled on her goggles, pulled up her scarf. No birds flew as far as her eyes could see. "Did you deserve this?" she asked the city, "Do I?”
She had no food stores up here. Her backpack held few supplies, but it would be enough to spend the night.
+++++
The strange sound shook her from her ghost-like haze. Like continuous thunder. Like a choking tiger. She couldn’t form an image in her head of what it might be, so she rose, throwing back her hood and rubbing her eyes as they adjusted to the sunlight. It streamed into the little room she’d holed up in at the moment, illuminating the dust that rose around her as she moved.
Knowing it was unsafe but drawn by the sound, she crossed the roof, leaving boot prints in the deep layer of dust and ashes. The noise was louder out here. It tickled her brain; she ought to know what it was. She did know. The words just weren’t forming in her head.
She ducked behind the ledge as soon as she spotted him. A man, alive, in her city. Something twinged deep inside her. Something stirred, started to wake up. She pushed the feelings down, mentally willing her heart into a slower pace.
There was no way he’d notice her as far up as she was, as far away - but still, she ducked. When she
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