The Last Handful of Clover - Book 3: The Stone in the Stream

3.03 Broken

June 15, 10:20 pm

Richard ran, and Billy followed.

Richard ran as if all he cared about was putting as much distance as possible between him and Keith; as if he feared his will would snap like a rotten branch if he so much as looked back over his shoulder.

Billy wanted to tell him to slow down, or to stop and try to calm himself. But he knew that Richard's only chance of living with the devastating choice he had just made was to get as far away from the source of his anguish as he could. So Billy just ran behind, until Richard finally slowed to a jog, and then to a walk.

Not only did Richard not look back, but he also barely looked around him. And thus he seemed oblivious to the death and devastation that was claiming their city. Richard could sense nothing beyond the loss and the ruin of his own soul, but Billy saw it all, and his heart broke with each fresh horror they passed. The devastation was already numbing, and the nightmare was continuing to unfold—and even accelerate—with every passing moment.

At first, they had headed east, and Billy wondered if Richard was trying to get back to the University—perhaps hoping for a familiar place in which he could hide. But then he turned south, on 7th East, and the pair proceeded past Trolley Square.

The iconic water tower of the old trolley station, now an upscale shopping center, had been toppled at some point earlier in the day. Someone had rammed a delivery truck with a huge and colorful Safeway logo into the supporting struts, perhaps repeatedly, until the tower came down, crushing a VW Beetle and blocking 7th East like a downed alien walker from War of the Worlds.

Trolley Square itself was on fire, and it burned lustily in two separate locations, with no sign of a fire engine or even a police car, anywhere to be seen.

It wasn't that the streets were completely deserted. Billy noticed that small groups of soldiers and police officers were roaming about, looking shell-shocked and terrified, their long guns at their shoulders, and their backs to each other as they crept, like strange and spiky viruses, floating down the veins and arteries of the city. Billy also saw an occasional civilian—a furtive shadow, darting from building to building, or through the penumbras of light cast by the streetlights that had not been shot out or toppled.

But mostly, Billy just saw the bodies.

Old bodies, young bodies; men, women, and even children. Some had suffered incredible violence, and some looked as if they had simply died of fright, or laid down peacefully to close their eyes for a moment. There were bodies in smoking cars and bodies lying alone and in pairs in the streets, some mangled, some burned, and many suffering what looked like knife or gunshot wounds. Some were so obliterated by blunt instruments or vehicles that they scarcely looked human. And then there was the blood. Rivulets running across the streets and the sidewalks, blood splattered against car windows and trees and storefronts. Blood running like thick syrup into storm drains where it would be carried away and forgotten.

Billy paused and looked down at the bodies as they passed, but Richard did not. He stepped over the bodies with barely a glance, and then Billy had to hurry to catch up.

To his surprise, Billy saw far fewer of the Wanderer's angels than he had expected. A half dozen times he saw them, dashing at top speed, as if they were late for appointments, or had urgent tasks to accomplish. He knew they were hurrying from the last deaths they had caused, and rushing headlong toward the next. And although Billy knew there had to be far more innocent ghosts than the Wanderer's dark angels, he saw almost none of them. It was as if they, like the living, had gone into hiding.

Like hibernating bears, or like terrified children fleeing from a raging storm, Billy thought.

Strangest of all was the silence. To Billy's ears, these streets had not been this quiet at night for a century or more. No cars sped by on the roads, and the air was as still as death. The smoke made it hard to see the stars and made even the streetlights and the light thrown by random windows seem as if it was tinged with brimstone. And yet through the murky air Billy could still hear the soft sounds of a city dying: Distant sirens. Explosions. The crackling of a fire two streets away. All punctuated by brief and interrupted screams from houses both near and far.