I was in a cold sweat. I had never been more terrified in my life. Yet nothing attacked me. Nothing found me.
I didn’t go all the way to the hills. Instead I found a burned out, unwalled house a few blocks before the end of Meredith Street. Fear of dogs had made me keep an eye open for anything that might provide shelter.
The house was a ruin, a plundered ruin. It wasn’t safe to walk into with or without a light. It was a roofless collection of upright black bones. But it had been built up off the ground. Five concrete steps led up to what had been the front porch. There should be a way under the house.
What if other people were under it?
I walked around it, listening, trying to see. Then, instead of daring to crawl under, I settled in what was left of the attached garage. A corner of it was still standing, and there was enough rubble in front of that corner to conceal me if I didn’t show a light.
Also, if I were surprised, I could get out of the garage faster than I could crawl out from under a house. The concrete floor could not collapse under me as the wooden floor might in what was left of the house proper. It was as good as I was going to get, and I was exhausted. I didn’t know whether I could sleep, but I had to rest.
Morning now. What shall I do? I did sleep a little, but I kept startling awake. Every sound woke me— the wind, rats, insects, then squirrels, and birds… . I don’t feel rested, but I’m a little less exhausted. So what shall I do?
How is it that we had never established an outside meeting place— somewhere where the family could reunite after disaster. I remember suggesting to Dad that we do that, but he had never done anything about it, and I hadn’t pushed the idea as I should have. (Poor Godshaping. Lack of forethought.) What now?
Now, I have to go home. I don’t want to. The idea scares me to death. It’s taken me a long time just to write the word: Home. But I have to know about my brothers, and about Cory and Curtis. I don’t know how I can help if they’re hurt or being held by someone. I don’t know what might be waiting for me back at the neighborhood. More painted faces? The police? I’m in trouble either way. If the police are there, I’ll have to hide my gun before I go in— my gun, and my small amount of money. Carrying a gun can win you a lot of unwanted attention from the police if you catch them in the wrong mood. Yet everyone who has one carries it. The trick, of course, is not to get caught carrying it.
On the other hand, if the painted faces are still there, I can’t go in at all. How long do those people stay high on pyro and fire? Do they hang around after their fun to steal whatever’s left and maybe kill a few more people?
No matter. I have to go and see.
I have to go home.
SATURDAY, JULY 31, 2027
— EVENING
I have to write. I don’t know what else to do. The others are asleep now, but it isn’t dark. I’m on watch because I couldn’t sleep if I tried. I’m jittery and crazed. I can’t cry. I want to get up and just run and run… , Run away from everything. But there isn’t any away.
I have to write. There’s nothing familiar left to me but the writing. God is Change. I hate God. I have to write.
There were no unburned houses back in the neighborhood, although some were burned worse than others. I don’t know whether police or firefighters ever came. If they had come, they were gone when I got there. The neighborhood was wide open and crawling with scavengers.
I stood at the gate, staring in as strangers picked among the black bones of our homes. The ruins were still smoking, but men, women, and children were all over them, digging through them, picking fruit from the trees, stripping our dead, quarreling or fighting over new acquisitions, stashing things away in clothing or bundles… . Who were these people?
I put my hand on the gun in my pocket— it had four rounds left in it— and I went in. I was grimy from lying in dirt and ashes all night. I might not be noticed.
I saw three women from an unwalled part of Durant Road, digging through what was left of the Yannis house. They were laughing and throwing around chunks of wood and plaster.
Where were Shani Yannis and her daughters?
Where were her sisters?
I walked through the neighborhood, looking past the human maggots, trying to find some of the people I had grown up with. I found dead ones. Edwin Dunn lay where he had when I took his gun, but now he was shirtless and shoeless. His pockets had been turned out.
The ground was littered with ash-covered corpses, some burned or half blown apart by automatic weapons fire. Dried or nearly dried blood had pooled in the street. Two men were prying loose our emergency bell. The bright, clear, early morning sunlight made the whole scene less real somehow, more nightmarelike. I stopped in front of our house and stared at the five adults and the child who were picking through the ruins of it. Who were these vultures? Did the fire draw them? Is that what the street poor do? Run to fire and hope to find a corpse to strip?
There was a dead green face on our front porch. I went up the steps and stood looking at him— at her.
The green face was a woman— tall, lean, bald, but female. And what had she died for? What was the point of all this?
“Leave her alone”’ A woman who had a pair of Cory’s shoes in her hand strode up to me. “She died for all of us. Leave her alone.”
I’ve never in my life wanted more to kill another human being. “Get the hell out of my way,” I said. I didn’t raise my voice. I don’t know how I looked, but the thief backed away.
I stepped over the green face and went into the carcass of our home. The other thieves looked at me, but none of them said anything. One pair, I noticed, was a man with a small boy. The man was dressing the boy in a pair of my brother Gregory’s jeans. The jeans were much too big, but the man belted them and rolled them up.
And where was Gregory, my clownish smartass of a baby brother? Where was he? Where was everyone?
The roof of our house had fallen in. Most things had burned— kitchen, living room, dining room, my room.
… The floor wasn’t safe to walk on. I saw one of the scavengers fall through, give a surprised yell, then climb, unhurt, onto a floor joist.
