So, despite the pain in his shoulder, the aches in his exhausted legs and abused back, he followed them. Through the morning, he followed them with the flagging energy of a zombie and the stubborn determination of a bulldog. He tracked the little band of thugs deeper and deeper into the tsunami destruction zone that once was known as Boston. Under wide plumes of black, acrid smoke that drifted over the dead city, he followed them.
As the midday sun beat down on him and dried the sweat that soaked his shirt, Reese found himself at war once again with the mud that tried to suck his hiking boots off with every step. Though, he had to admit, a week after it had been deposited on the streets, it was a lot easier to walk on than mere hours after the tsunami like the journey to Ellsworth.
Still. The gray-brown muck covered him from the waist down by the time he noticed the kidnappers enter a building just a block away. Grateful for the chance to get out of the sun—though he couldn’t avoid the mind-numbing stink of all that muck dredged up from Boston Harbor—he ducked inside a gutted auto repair shop.
Cautious to avoid the jagged pieces of metal that had been scattered throughout the main office when the tsunami waters had flooded the city, he picked his way through the debris and found a set of still-damp wooden stairs in the back. On the upper floors, the mess gave way—gradually—and he found a suitable apartment on the fourth floor of the squat brown brick building.
One swift kick shattered the doorframe and Reese gained entry into the small studio apartment. He was beyond caring about any noise he made. Reese hadn’t seen a single person other than the kidnappers since the night before. It was as if the tsunami not only killed Boston but erased its inhabitants as well.
“Where is everyone?” Reese breathed as he staggered into the apartment. He almost hoped someone would be there to fight him for the space, just so he could see another human face. Instead he found a ratty card table and three Art Deco wireframe chairs on spindly metal legs in the middle of the open space. The cupboards in the small kitchenette stood open, their contents ransacked and scattered on the floor and countertops. A mattress in the corner by the bathroom lay covered in clothes and discarded duffel bags. Reese quickly surmised someone had fled and didn’t plan to return.
He trudged over to a shattered bay window that overlooked the street. There he found a decent view of the building into which the kidnappers had disappeared, only a block away. The heat had built up stench of rotten food and sewer gas in the apartment brought tears to Reese’s eyes, so he opened any window still intact in the tiny studio and gulped in fresh, salty sea breeze.
Gulls cried overhead in a constant cacophony that he hadn’t noticed while he’d tracked the kidnappers, but as he sat on the bay window seat and rested his back against the wall, he noticed hundreds of the white-winged birds circled high above in the blue skies over Boston. They called, cried, and keened to each other—he’d never seen anything like it.
Reese grimaced as he lowered his gaze to Boston itself. He’d never seen anything like that either. Smoke poured up into the sky in thick black fingers further east—something down by the Bay was on fire, and by the looks of it, had been on fire since the tsunami had retreated. He expected to see planes or rescue helicopters in the skies but found nothing except the massive flocks of shore birds that whirled on the wind.
Where were the rescue workers? Where were the repair crews? The volunteers, the firefighters? Where were the cops? He peered up and down the street. Nothing moved but some trash carried on the breeze.
Every structure up and down the street as far as he could see from his perch above the auto shop had broken windows and water lines that reached the third floor—in some cases, windows on the fourth and fifth floors of some buildings had ruptured as well. Mud covered the street like brown snow and had filled every nook and cranny in buildings, cars, and alleys, up to his knees. It had been only a few inches deep when the sun broke the horizon, but the closer he came to downtown Boston, the thicker the mud had been deposited. He could only imagine what it looked like on the waterfront.
And the vehicles! Reese ran a filthy, mud-caked hand through his salt-grimed hair and marveled at how so many cars had been swept aside and left abandoned like unwanted toys. Some had been stacked up vertically next to buildings—others had been dropped on top of each other, roof to roof. Most had been flipped over or tossed to one side of the street or the other, to collect in tangled piles of twisted metal, rubber, and shattered glass.
Reese sighed, unable to tell which depressed him more: the awful, post-apocalyptic sight that greeted his eyes wherever he turned his gaze, or the realization that it had quickly become his new normal.
He frowned as he peered down the street of nightmares. Am I already desensitized to the apocalypse?
The sound of metal as it scraped against metal reached his ears and made Reese slide out of the window seat and crouch on the floor. The sound had come from downstairs. Someone else had entered the building. He moved as quickly and quietly as he could into the studio’s little kitchen and listened by the ruined front door.
Why’d I kick the door in? May as well hang a sign on it saying, ‘here I am!’ He shook his head and tensed for a fight. Stupid.
Reese’s heart beat faster. Voices—he heard voices.
