that billowed behind and to either side of him, across which the green light rippled and shimmered, blue, and Wayne was standing in front of the thing, his head covered by the same blackness, except for his mouth, which was saying something to the thing that scrambled to get at him, and Jackie should have been able to read his lips; she had always been good at that; but she couldn’t believe what she was seeing; violet, and Wayne had reached out arms coated in black, seized the last member of the Pack’s jaws, and torn its head apart, the thing convulsing as blood as dark as whatever it was enshrouded Wayne geysered from its neck—without thinking, Jackie centered the crosshairs on Wayne’s chest, on the darkness that she could swear was undulating across it, that, God help her, was twitching towards the blood misting the air, and time became a room she could walk around in, sorting out the multitude of voices screaming in her head: one of them shouting, “What the fuck!” and another, “What are you doing?” and a third, “How are you going to survive without him?” a fourth, “You owe him,” and a fifth, “What is he?”—her finger light on the trigger; if she were going to do this, it had to be now; in another second, Wayne would notice what she was doing—then the lights went out on the Bridge, plunging her view into shadow, and the baby chose that moment to kick, hard, a blow that made her say, “Oof.” and release the trigger, and then whatever Wayne had set up on the Bridge detonated in a burst of light and sound, a brilliant white CRUMP that had her ducking behind the backpack, hands over her head, the rifle dropped, forgotten—the air around her convulsed with the force of it; the rock behind her shuddered as the surface of the Bridge fell away to the river below, support wires snapping like overtightened guitar strings, shreds of metal, shards of pavement, a steering wheel raining around her as the Bridge groaned—Jackie risked a glance and saw it sagging inwards, its back broken, the forces it had balanced unleashed upon it—the suspension cables trembled, the towers leaned towards each other and she was sure the entire structure was going to twist itself asunder—the baby kicked again, a one-two combination, and she took what shelter she could behind the backpack, while the ledge continued to vibrate and the moan of thousands of tons of metal protesting its end echoed off the hills above her, making the baby squirm, and she covered her stomach with her hands, curling around it as best she could, saying it was all right, everything was all right, and after, Jackie set out north past another trio of cars offering their floral inhabitants the same view day in, day out, she was accompanied by Wayne, who had reappeared while the Bridge was not done complaining (though it didn’t fall: its towers canted crazily; its cables were too taut at the ends and too slack in the middle; and there was no way it was passable; but it still joined one shore to the other), and who was free of his black, what would you call it? costume?—she settled for accompaniment, awkward but accurate—in response to her question, he answered that yes, that was the end of them, but they had better get a move on: Kingston was a long way off, and who knew what this side of the Hudson would be like?—If he knew that Jackie had held him in her sights, cradling his life as she cradled the life of the baby who hadn’t stopped reminding her of its presence these last hours, (which meant that [maybe] she could relax about it), or if he suspected the questions that balanced at the very limit of her tongue, threatening to burst forth with the slightest provocation, or if he guessed that she walked with one hand jammed into the sweat jacket she’d tugged on because she’d hidden the third pistol there, telling him it must have been carried off the ledge by the force of the explosion, Wayne gave no sign of it.
By nightfall, they had traveled far.
Appendix: For Further Reading
What follows is a selected bibliography of post-apocalyptic fiction. The list is not all-inclusive, but is intended merely as a primer for readers looking to better familiarize themselves with the sub-genre.
Like the stories collected in this volume, I’ve focused this bibliography on books in which the post-apocalyptic elements are vital to the story. There are many books, however, that while not “core” post-apocalyptic titles will be of interest to fans of the sub-genre nonetheless. These books—which employ the themes or settings of post- apocalyptic SF but are primarily noteworthy for other reasons—are listed separately to denote their associational relevance to the sub-genre.
To assist you in finding these books, I’ve assembled a series of Listmania lists on Amazon.com listing all of the titles in this bibliography. You’ll find them by following the links below.
