Team Z

By A. L. Norton

She turned and looked back at the side street she had come from. Churned earth, tilted pavement, the car was now gone. Farther down the short hillside that had appeared, the public square seemed extinguished. Water had formed in the middle of the square and ran away to the north, probably toward the Black River, Pearl thought. To the west, everything appeared to be intact. To the east, Franklin Street stretched away, untouched by the park in the distance. Close by, someone screamed, calling for help. She took a few more calming breaths and then walked toward the screams: The west, angling toward the opposite end of the square.
The screams cut off all at once, and a second after that, the sound of a motor straining came to her. Cycling up and then dropping. She paused in the middle of the road, listening, wondering where the sound came from. As she stood, something ran into her eye, stinging, clouding her vision. She reached one hand up and swiped at it and the back of her hand came back stained with a smear of blood.
She stared at it for a second. The ground seemed to lurch, shift suddenly, and she reached her hands to her knees to brace herself once more, expecting the shaking to start again, but her hands slipped past her knees and she fell, her legs buckling under her. The ground seemed to rise to meet her, and she stared down the length of the roadway, her face flush with the asphalt. The coldness of the ice and slush felt good against her skin. As if she were overheated; ice wrapped inside of a dishrag at the base of her neck on a hot day. She blinked, blinked again, and then her world went dark.
She floated, or seemed to, thinking of London. A hot day. She was a child again: Standing in the second-floor window and looking down at the street far below. The dishrag dripped, but it felt so good against her skin. The memory seemed to float away. She was rushing headlong through a never-ending stream of memories. All suddenly real again. Urgent, flying by so fast, but sharp in every detail.
Pearl had grown up on a council estate in London. When her mother had died, she had come to the United States only to find herself in the Maywood projects on the north side of Watertown. From one pit to another. Just different names, she liked to tell herself. Until a few weeks ago, she had still made the trip back and forth every day, but she had found a place, a small walk-up, near to the mission on the other side of the public square. It seemed extravagant to have her own space, but living in the downtown area suited her.
She seemed to be in both places at once. Back in her childhood, staring at the street below the window, yet hovering over her body, looking down at herself where she lay sprawled on the winter street. She wondered briefly which was real, but nearly as soon as she had the thought, she struggled to rise to her knees from the cold roadway, her eyes slitted, head throbbing.
In front of her, a shadowed figure had appeared staggering through the ice and snow, angling toward her. She blinked, blinked again, and her eyes found their focus. The man from the car, suddenly back from wherever he had been. One hand clutched his side where a bright red flood of blood seeped sluggishly over his clasping fingers. Her eyes swept down to his other hand, which was rising to meet her. A gun was clasped there. Probably, her mind told her, the same gun he had been going to shoot her with before. The gun swept upward as if by magic. She blinked, and realized then that the sound of the motor straining was louder. Closer. Almost roaring in its intensity. The gun was rising, but her eyes swiveled away and watched as a truck from the nearby base skidded to a stop, blocking the road from side to side only ten feet from her. She blinked, and the doors were opening, men yelling, rushing toward her.

• Language: English
• Publisher: A. L. Norton
• Release date: Feb 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215002919

A. L. Norton

I am an Amazon best selling author of 9 books so far. "My Nightmare in Georgia"; books 1 and 2 were number 1 hot new releases. I write fiction, non fiction, romance, erotica, anything that comes to mind. I am a daydreamer. I always have my head in the clouds. I have a great sense of humor, and I am rarely serious, even in serious situations. I believe if you dream it, you can achieve it. I am a drama queen as well. I hope you enjoy my books as much as I love writing them. You can find my books here on Smashwords, and in print on Amazon. Please take the time and leave a review. Reviews are very important for authors. Also, you can click the favorite button if you would like and subscribe to me! Love to you all! Enjoy!

Book preview

Team Z

Team Z is © Copyright 2023 A.L. Norton. All rights reserved.

Additional Copyrights © 2023 by A.L. Norton. All rights reserved.

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.

LEGAL: This is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places or incidents depicted are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual living person’s places, situations or events is purely coincidental.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

NINETEEN

PROLOGUE

A meteorite that was supposed to miss the earth hits and becomes the cap to a series of events that destroy the world as we know it. Police, fire, politicians, military, governments: All gone. Hopes, dreams, tomorrows: All buried in desperate struggle to survive.

From L.A. o Manhattan the cities, governments have toppled and lawlessness is the rule. For a time, the dead lay in the streets while gangs fought for control of what was left, and then the dead rose into some other sort of life. Small groups of the living band together for safety and leave the ravaged cities behind in search of a future that can once again hold promise. This is the story of the OutRunners and how they came to be, start to finish.

~

August 4th

Plague Year One

Adam

We were down along the river checking over some old buildings that were perched on the cliffs there, high above the water. Spring was fading, and we knew we had to get moving, get out of this dead city. We had half the country to cross and find a place before winter came back around again.

We had left the others in our place off the park. An abandoned factory building I had found after I had lost Donita, and struck out looking for food earlier that morning. With the park and its crowds so near to us, the shops and small stores for blocks around us were stripped clean. Another reason to get out of the city. It was time. I remember thinking that as I walked along.

I was thinking back to March as I walked. Not really paying attention to the walk, where I was going. March. Just a few months ago, but the world was still the world then. And for the next little while, we didn't even know about the dead. Dead was still dead. When you closed your eyes for the long eternal sleep, you didn't wake up a short minute later like something else. No. We were ignorant until they came after us. Ignorant. Stupid. Didn't know a thing: Have a clue.

I had been in Central Park a few days after the first earthquakes hit New York. I had left Donita alone and went down on my own to see what the deal was. I found out nothing. No one knew any more than anyone else. There was a lot of speculation, but that was it. There had been earthquakes. It had rained hard for nearly twenty-four hours straight. The really freaky stuff hadn't happened yet. We were just starting down our new path, but thousands of people had died in the city, maybe more than thousands, maybe a million or more. And certainly millions if the damage here was the same across the country or worldwide.

And my initial estimate turned out to be kind. In the city alone: Collapsed buildings: Fires; exposure to the elements because there was no shelter, there were millions of bodies. It was not so bad in those first few days, but a few days later when the smell of the dead rotting under the rubble began, it was horrible. The diseases started then too. And the diseases took thousands more, and we thought that was the end, but it was not. The dead came next. The same dead, newly risen to some other sort of life. But that day in Central Park I did not know about the dead yet. I did not know what was ahead; what was before me was bad enough.

At six foot three and nearly two hundred ninety pounds I rarely fear much. But that day I did. I realized there are some things you had better fear if you have half a brain in your head. It didn't matter that I could walk through Central Park unmolested. Something was on the wind. Something that didn't care who it touched: Did not respect physical size.

I walked through the park. There were hundreds there already. In the coming days, those same people made the park home. But that day they wandered aimlessly. In shock. The subway was shut down, most of it flooded. The buses parked. You could not find a cab. The same with the cops. Everything that was the same about the city. The things you could depend on to be the same day after day, were gone. A few short days and they were gone. No more. And it had a feeling of permanence to it. A feeling of doom.

I sat down on a bench and watched the people shuffle by. No noisy kids. No babies bawling. No Joggers. No dog walkers. Hopeless people shuffling by. The occasional panicked whack job running around crazily. I saw no one shot that day, but in the coming days, they, the hopeless ones, shot the crazies. Chase them down and kill them. But that was later. That day I sat on the bench and wondered what had happened, and that was when the planes had overflown.

We all heard them from a long way off. Military cargo planes. Slow, sometimes seeming to hang in the sky. That droning sound as they overflew, blocking the sun from the sky. This was no fly over to see how New York was, that much was clear immediately.

I was torn between running and needing to know what this was. Once you start down that path of just reacting to fear, it gets bad fast, so I sat there, as calm as I could be. 'They will not drop bombs,' was my thought. I remember it. And they didn't. What they did was spray the entire city. Trails of blue-tinged vapor drifting down out of the sky. That was the first time.

I finally did give in to the fear and took off through the park, thinking, like nearly everyone else, that it must be some sort of poison. The government solution to whatever was going on in the city.

We didn't know what the blue shit the government planes sprayed us with right after everything went to hell was. And I am still not convinced I know all there is to know, but I suspect things. I have been told things. I met a guy a few weeks back that said he worked at the Army base over in Jersey. He said he knew what it was. He said the planes came from somewhere down south, but stopped there on the way back to re-fuel. What he told me was it strengthened us. Keep us alive a little longer. Strengthen us somehow. Some dip shit scientist's idea.

I suppose it was meant as a boost for us. A help. The world slowed down, fell apart, everything stopped working. They knew they couldn't get to us. We would die. So they sprayed the blue shit on us. And I could suppose further that some of us survived the first few months because of it. I can't prove it, but I suspect it did help us develop.

I don't know. Whatever the hell we are now. I know we're alive? I know our hearts beat. I still feel human and I truly think I am still human: If it changed the living they are tiny changes. At least so far.

But the dead. Oh, the dead, that is a different story. It did something else to the dead.

I walked along now, thinking my thoughts. I was lost in them, I'll admit it. Right back in March for a few seconds. But I came back fast.

We were right in front of a line of cliffs that overhung the river, spread out a little, at least I was. It's funny how you can forget to be careful so goddamn fast. It was somewhere past midday when they came for us.

Adam! Adam!

Cammy from a hundred yards down. The panic and fear in her voice made my heart leap into my throat, and because of her fear, and probably some of my own, I did a really stupid thing right then that cost me time. I was so panicked, that I threw my rifle down and sprinted toward the sound of her voice. I got maybe twenty feet when the realization of what I had done hit me. It would have been comical to see the way I locked my legs up and tried to turn around, before I had even come to a stop, if it had not been so goddamned serious.

I had the rifle back in my hands, the safety off, just a fraction of a second later when Cammy and Madison opened up on the un-dead closing in on them from the mouth of the narrow trail that lead up from the river. I added my fire to theirs before I had run another fifty feet, and their leader, a shambling wreck of a corpse, folded up, and then flopped over the side of the trail and down into the river. I continued to run as I fired and I was shocked to realize that I was screaming at the top of my lungs as I closed in. I am big, but I can move when I have to.

Goddamn-son-of-a-bitching-goddamn-bastards, dead-fuckers! All strung together. Fear words. I did not hear them at first so I did not know when they started, and I could not shut them down once I did hear them, the panic and fear were just too hot.

I watched as, unseen by Cammy and Madison, a zombie crouched on a narrow path above them swiveled his rotting head to me, seemed to take my measure with a wide, yellowed grin, and then dropped from the ledge on to Madison's back.

No! Goddamn-son-of-a-bitches-dead-bastards-bastards! I could not say, Madison Look Out! Or speed up my feet or any other damn thing. Time had slowed, become elastic, strange, too clearly seen. The zombie hit her hard, and she folded like an accordion: Driven into the ground, a few hundred pounds of animated corpse riding her down into the dirt. Clawed hands clutching, mouth already angling to bite. To taste her.

I was still thirty or more yards away. I could not see how that could even be possible. I should have been closer, but I was not. I saw Cammy turn, panicked, take her eyes off the other un-dead, and start towards Madison. Unchallenged, the other zombies closed ground far faster than they should have been able to.

I saw the zombie on Madison take a mouthful of her back, just below the curve of her neck, and rip the flesh away from her spine. Cammy's rifle came up and barked, and the zombie blew apart, raining down on Madison, a storm of black blood. Somehow, I switched to full auto, get my rifle up, and spray an entire one hundred round clip into the other zombies where they rushed along the path towards Cammy and the fallen Madison.

Madison screamed. Time leapt back into its proper frame and I found myself five feet away as Madison arched her back, screamed, and tried to stand. Blood ran in a perfect river from her gaping wound, across the white of her T-Shirt and down to the waist of her jeans.

I think... I think... Madison tried.

Baby, Cammy sobbed. She dropped to her knees and pulled Madison to her. Oh, Baby, Cammy sobbed.

I looked back up at the trail: Empty. At least of moving un-dead. Three or four, it was hard to tell with the tangle of legs and arms, lay dead on the pathway. Silence descended. I heard a bird in the trees above calling as if nothing was wrong with the world. Cammy sobbing. Madison crying hysterically. The wind moaning through the empty buildings that were set just back from the cliffs and the river on this side of the city.

That wind is colder. Colder even than when we started out this morning. Maybe the weather will turn back to snow and cold. Maybe winter is not done after all. Or coming sooner. It could be, it's all so screwed up. Maybe, if it does get cold, it will slow those bastards down. Maybe we will be okay. My, God, they bit Madison. They bit Madison!!!' I sagged to the ground my mind full of confusion and numbness.

Cammy was sobbing uncontrollably, Madison had lapsed into shock. I was sitting crossed legged wondering where in Hell this would all end up, my rifle fallen from my hands and laying on the ground next to me. Time spun out: Dragged; seemed elastic once more, sticking in places and jumping ahead from those places to where it should have been had it continued to run properly.

Cammy sobbing, holding Madison up. Kissing her forehead. Telling her how much she loved her. How she was her world.

Madison. Eyes rolled back in her head. Face pale. Fine beads of sweat standing out on her forehead. Her back a bright slick of red, running across Cammy's hands where she held her. Slowing. Slowing. Cammy mouthing words in such slow motion that I could not understand what she said. Madison's body sagging, eyes rolled up to the whites. Bright dots of blood speckled across Cammy's cheeks. Then time jumped, staggered, and came back to normal and Cammy was screaming and screaming.

No! No! Not my love, my Madison. Collapsing to the ground with Madison, crying still. Softer, but continuous.

Cammy. My voice, but I did not know it at first. I actually stopped speaking and looked around, startled, before I realized it was me speaking. I turned my attention back to Cammy. Cammy, it'll be okay.

No! No! She scrambled backward, pulling Madison's unconscious body with her. She wiped one hand across her eyes, trying to stem the flow of tears. No! She's okay. She broke down into sobs, pulled Madison to her and began dragging her away from me.

Cammy, it bit her. Bit her. Cammy, it's just you and me, Cammy, it bit her. It bit her.

She let go of Madison and lunged for her rifle. I sat, still cross-legged, stupidly, as she grabbed it and leveled it at me.

Get out, She said calmly. Much more calmly than I thought she should have been capable of.

Cammy, what are you doing? Cammy?

GET OUT, GET OUT, GET OUT! She screamed. I reared back as the rifle barrel came up and then slashed down across my face. I jumped back, but not fast enough. The steel barrel smashed into my lower lip, through it and then hit my teeth. I immediately tasted blood and machine oil. My tongue ran across my teeth unconsciously. I was sure she had smashed them out, but the barrel edge had come up short or I had moved back far enough. One of those things.

The pain was delayed, but it came never-the-less. Hard, fast, down into my lower jaw and then ricocheted back up into the top of my head. I scrambled backwards, tripped over my own rifle, got it into my hands and then time did that funny slowing, elastic thing again.

The blood dripped from my chin onto the ground. My rifle was pointed squarely at Cammy, safety off, and an empty clip, but Cammy didn't know that. The blood dripped slowly. Cammy's eyes swam in and out of focus, but remained on me. Her rifle barrel dipped and then rose again, leveled on me once more.

She seemed to take a deep breath that went on forever, and then, once more, time sped up. I'll kill you, Cammy told me. If you touch her, I'll kill you. I will, She started out strong, but ended in a doubtful, whining whisper.

I didn't drop my rifle barrel but held one hand out in front of me in a placating gesture. Not touching anyone. I managed through my busted lip and aching jaw. The pain was a live, throbbing thing.

You will. But I know you will. She seemed all at once to realize that she no longer held Madison in her arms. She took a deep shuddering breath and then dropped her rifle to the ground. She collapsed back down to the ground and crawled to Madison’s body.

I stood. Shocked. Not knowing what to do. Time side slipped again. The bird went back to calling out; if it had ever stopped. The wind came back, blowing cold against my face, pushing the flush of heat that the situation had bought with it away, cooling the sweat on my brow. The bird called. Another picked it up and soon all the birds were talking as though nothing at all had happened. It became a perfect storm of noise after the deepness of the silence. Time slipped away again, clouds moving across the cold, blue of the sky.

Cammy sat, Madison pulled up into her lap, a large smear of maroon on her forehead, stroking Madison’s black hair. The birds called. The coldness of the wind seemed to bite at my bones. Nipping. Tasting: An un-dead thing of its own.

I can't tell you why I did it, but I am glad I did. I pushed the button on the rifle butt, dropped the empty clip in to my waiting palm, and slid another up into the rifle where it socketed itself home with a solid click. I did it perfectly. Like I had been doing it all of my life instead of just the last few months since the un-dead disease, epidemic, disorder, plague, whatever-the-fuck it is that has happened. She never looked up. The birds didn't stop singing their birdsong. Just in case, I told myself. Just in case.

I stood, my knees screaming, flexed experimentally and then walked a short distance away, leaning up against the cliff face. I reached into my jacket pocket, pulled out my pouch and rolled a cigarette. I felt at my lips, busted up, but I would heal. I had been in fights in my old life where I had been busted up much worse. I lit the cigarette, held it carefully between my lips, smoking as I watched the clouds slip across the sky. Letting the urgency of the situation float away on the wind like the smoke was.

Cammy's voice had fallen to a barely audible whisper as she stroked Madison's hair and held her. Madison's lips, blue tinged, moved. Too quiet to hear her words. A private conversation. A private conversation in the wide open, which thanks to the un-dead was a very private place. No one at all around, alive anyway, and the dead couldn't care less about love, secrets, whispered promises, goodbyes. The un-dead only cared about the hunger that drove them. Flesh, and more flesh. The time turned elastic once more and spun out of control for some unknown length. I only know that when I came back to myself, the sun had moved across the sky. My thoughts were about darkness, zombies, staying alive.

When I think back on it now, I realize a noise had brought me back. Had to be, otherwise there was no reason for me to come back at all. Just stay gone. Let the sun go down and the un-dead take the night, me, Cammy, Madison and whatever else they wanted. But it didn't go that way.

A noise. A sliding foot. A pebble falling from above. I really don't know. I know that this time I reacted fast. My rifle came up, my mind was clear. I focused; two of them dropping from the cliffs above like cats. Like dead, stinking, feral cats. Dragging that stink of death with them. The stench of rotted flesh falling from the sky, enveloping me even as I fired into them.

I had a choice. I couldn't get them both. One falling at me, one falling at Cammy where she sat with Madison cradled in her arms, oblivious to everything around her. My reaction chose for me. The rifle came straight up and spat short, little barks of noise and flame. The zombie came apart before it hit me. A shower of cold, dead blood rained down on me, splattered against my face. The body hit the barrel of the rifle and took me down to the ground, clutching the rifle hard to keep from losing it as the full weight of the zombie came down on it.

I kept it, but only by sheer determination. The zombie had impaled herself into the barrel. Her flesh so rotted that it had simply punched through her breast and out her back. I shoved her off as quickly as I could. One booted foot kicking against her chest. Knocking her apart, pulling the barrel back through the soft flesh and hard bone.

I expected to see Cammy done for. I expected to see her dead or dying, but she had somehow ended up about twenty feet from where the zombie had fallen. She looked herself as if she did not know how that had happened, but when I raised my eyes and they took in the whole scene before them, I saw exactly how it had happened.

Madison must have still been awake. Laying there badly injured, but not gone. Taking the comfort from Cammy that she offered: When the zombie fell she saw it and pushed Cammy away from her and take the attack on herself.

The zombie was no match for her, wounded though she was. She straddled the zombie with a rock easily the size of her own head and brought it down hard. Once. Twice, and then I lost count, and the zombie quit fighting. The un-dead, dead again. This time for good.

The silence came back hard. Like a curtain on the last act of a play, just when the audience isn't expecting it. It crashed down.

Time did its elastic trick and then snapped back before I was ready for it. My senses were shot. At first I could not connect the dots of memory that I needed to connect to make sense of what my eyes were seeing.

Cammy rose to shaky legs and started toward Madison, sobbing once more. Madison’s eyes swiveled to me. A sick look in them and pain riding there too. She slumped forward, one wrist flapping uselessly and lunged for the rifle that Cammy had, had trained on me not so long ago. Time stopped its elastic trickery right around that time. I knew exactly what she intended to do before she did it.

Cammy stopped in mid-stride and nearly fell backwards at the effort of stopping so quickly. I think she believed for a second that Madison intended to shoot her. I really believe she thought that. But that was not the plan, and I knew that was not the plan. Because the plan that had resurfaced in her mind was the one we had talked about, half-seriously, half-jokingly, for as long as we had been traveling together. Before she followed through on that plan I heard her tell it to me in my mind once again, the way she had a week before. When she had been unmolested. Whole. Not about to join the ranks of the un-dead herself.

If I ever fuckin' have to, I won't hesitate, Madison had said, Once I'm dead I don't want to come back. She shuddered and grimaced at the same time.

We had been in an old house over in Harlem. That was before Harlem got crazy, too. We had had gas lanterns for light. The windows were boarded over. The un-dead scratched and cried and pleaded, but they could not get in. The four of us-John had still been alive then, in fact he had died just a few hours later. Fell through a rotted section of floor in that same old house. Impaled himself on a pipe in the basement. Madison had shot him in the head nearly as soon as he had stopped his struggles.

He would have expected it, she had said, and nothing more. But that night. That night, she had said it right out. Like a mantra. Like looking into the future and seeing this day.

If they come for me? If they get me? I'll put a bullet in my own head. I will. I swear I will. If I ever fuckin' have to, I won't hesitate, Madison had said, Once I'm dead I don't want to come back.

And Cammy had cried. Don't say it, Maddie, don't say it. And she hadn't said it again, but it didn't matter. She had already spoke it into truth. I had heard it. I had heard it and I knew she meant it.

And now, time stopped its trick. She jammed the rifle under her chin and squeezed the trigger. Her head exploded in a spray of red and gray. I swear I could hear the sounds of small bits of bone and drops of blood pattering down to the ground. And then the silence was roaring again.

I took a breath, another. And then Cammy screamed once more.

~

It's been three weeks. I thought Cammy would never talk again. I believed she wouldn't, right until she did yesterday.

I just kept us moving. Different places in the city. Not staying in anyone place for more than a day. Walking days, seeking refuge at night. The zombies smell us; you know. They can smell us for miles. So at night it's been strong places. Strong places where they can't get in and then hope like hell that these were not some of the new breed, the ones that don't seem to need to avoid the day, and that they would be gone in the morning.

I started carrying a radio the other day. Clips on the belt. F.M. Picks up a lot of talk during the day. There's a place that a lot of the people I hear from have heard about. Down south somewhere. Nobody seems to know exactly where it is. But others swear they have talked to the people that founded this place. A city, somewhere down south. I had heard of something like that when it was Donita and me back in New York. But the word I keep hearing is that it is a safe place. That it is open to everyone.

So that is where I had been thinking about getting us to. Three days ago we got a truck, it's still just me and Cammy, but it feels safer.

I have been thinking about this place. I don't know who these people are. If they even exist, I only know the entire world is fucked up. I understand that even if I get us as far south as I can, we won’t make it for long. There are only two of us that can fight. The dead are getting smarter. And that is not just my point of view. It's on the radio. They all say it.

L.A. and New York both are barely hanging on. Both! Barely hanging on! Nearly over run! We're right here. I see it every day. The people talking aren't exaggerating at all. If the big cities are truly falling apart, and people can't make it banded together, how can we make it alone?

No. I'm heading for this place. I'm hoping it's real. Today on the radio I caught someone talking, and it sounded like he was talking about the same place I have heard about. Too far away to hear me. Skip. You can never tell where it's coming from. I'm just hoping it's true. That I didn't just imagine it to assuage my mind.

Meantime, I am trying to keep us alive. Find strong places to stay through the nights. There are strong places. Places you can find if you give it some thought. Stairwells in high-rises buildings. Steel and concrete. They can't get through those doors. Deep freezers in grocery stores. Heavy steel doors. The vehicles if we have to and we have had to. They can't get in there to get us either. A little fire at night if I can, because they are afraid of fire. It’s one constant, so far. The zombies don't like the smell of smoke.

Canned stuff to eat. Christ, we'll be eating canned shit until we die. Get up the next day and push on. Get moving again. And that is what I've done. Kept us moving. Kept us safe. And she has come willingly, although silently, like a big, semianimated puppet. And then yesterday she was sitting beside me, silent as she had been since the thing with Madison, and she spoke.

I don't like beans, Adam. Maybe we could find something different tonight? She had lifted her voice at the end and made it into a question. I was winding my way through the middle of an abandoned car and a wrecked, burned out truck. Months old. I looked over at her. She smiled, tentative at first, but then it lit up her face. I had to laugh. I had, had so much pent up inside me.

The beans are a bit much, then? I asked.

A bit, she agreed.

I bought the truck to a dead stop for a second not knowing what to say.

You could say, 'Welcome back,' she whispered.

Welcome back, I repeated every bit as quietly. Welcome back.

THE END BEGINS…

ONE

April 31st

New York: Harlem

9:00 pm

Donita made her way down the sidewalk. It was icy, and so she was careful where she stepped. Adam walked beside her. He seemed to have no trouble walking on the sidewalk, ice or not. He had lessened his stride to stay beside her as they walked.

Okay? he asked now.

Donita laughed. Damn slippery, she said. Almost as soon she felt her right foot take off on some black ice ridged up against a subway vent. Almost as quick as that happened, Adam had her elbow, holding her safely.

Donita, Adam told her. You have got to be careful. The baby. He sounded reverent.

I know about the baby, baby, She laughed. And I am being careful. This damn sidewalk is not cooperating. Why doesn't Harlem have heated sidewalks like some of those places over off Park?

Ha, Adam told her. We ain't getting no heated sidewalks ever. Are you kidding?

Hey, Donita told him. We got Bill Clinton over here.

Uh, huh. And he can fall and crack his white ass too, ‘cause he ain't got no heated sidewalks either. He shook his head and laughed. It was funny to see a man as big as Adam laugh, or shake his head, or really anything. He was the sort of man you looked at and saw violent things coming from. Nearly three hundred pounds, over six feet, and muscular from a ten-year stint in prison. And he had that way of looking at someone, any someone, but men in particular that made them walk away from him. With women, it did something else, and Donita watched out for that too, but Adam had no eyes for any other woman. She was it and she knew it; didn't have to question it.

The day Harlem gets heated sidewalks is the day that they'll put another black man in the white house.

Baby, we got that, Donita told him. She had reached a section of walk that was shoveled and clear of ice both. A rarity after a heavy snow fall.

And did he get us heated sidewalks? Adam asked. He looked at her google eyed and she had to laugh.

Owning a car in New York was a tough proposition, Adam thought. They didn't have one, but it would be nice. That way Donita could drive home from work instead of the subway and a long walk through a bad neighborhood.

Adam's job was steel work. He was picked up every morning and dropped off again. For him, a car or a truck would be a luxury. To her, it was really a necessity. A necessity he was trying to work out, but it was tough to do.

First, you had to afford to buy a car. Then you had to pay nearly as much for insurance as you did for the car. Then you had to pay for a place to park it. If you were stupid enough to leave it on the street, it would be towed, stripped, stolen, or get so many parking tickets it wouldn't be worth owning. So you needed a parking place, and that would set you back five times what the shit box car you had bought had cost you. Adam knew he had checked into it. He sighed, now thinking about it.

Stop worrying about a car, Donita told him.

I wasn't, Adam told her.

Oh, so you're going to lie to me now? Donita asked him.

No, Adam admitted. Just pisses me off. I see these people that are on welfare driving a Cadillac and I got to say, what the fuck! I mean, we work hard. We really do. I don't enjoy seeing you have to walk.

Donita laughed. Baby, it's a handful of blocks.

Uh huh, and you nearly bust your ass walking them, Adam said.

She laughed again.

Oh, that's funny that you might slip and bust your ass?

No, She giggled. Adam, God forbid, the sidewalk that slapped my ass. I believe you would kill it, but I'm never gonna hit that sidewalk because you're always going to be there to catch me.

Huh, Adam said. He laughed a little.

Well, you will be, and I know it. So it doesn't matter, Donita said. And besides, I like this. I like this walk every evening with you. She slipped her arm further through Adam's own and huddled closer to him. And it keeps my ass nice and firm, she whispered as she leaned closer to him. She laughed and Adam broke into laughter with her. A skinny kid in a hoody, passing by them, shrunk away from them, his eyes suddenly startled wide.

Hey it's just laughing, cousin. Ain't gonna rob you. Adam told him.

Baby, Donita said.

I know, Adam told her. He left off and turned away from the kid, who seemed about to break into a run.

Sometimes it isn't about black and white, Donita told him. Sometimes it's about you're an enormous man and when a man as big as you do something as simple as laugh a little loud, it scares people.

Well, that's funny because it's been about black and white for as long as I can remember, Adam told her.

Baby? She waited until he looked down at her.

It's true. Now stop. This is something I enjoy. Don't spoil it. She held his eyes until he smiled at her.

Their combined laughter faded into the gray of the evening as they moved off down the street.

March 1st 12:06 am.

L.A.

Billy Jingo & Beth

Billy knocked back the tequila and waved off Beth as she motioned to the back bar for another. She came over, smiling.

A man that knows when to quit. I like that, Beth said.

Billy laughed. A recently gained habit, I assure you. Shit will bite you if you don't set your limits, He smiled at her, hesitated and then spoke again. So it's almost over for tonight. Thought you would be singing? He raised his voice at the end to make it into a question. He knew it was what she wanted. He had heard her sing. There wasn't an act in the place that could hang with her. She was it, except something wasn't clicking between her and Jimmy, or maybe it went all the way up the ladder to Harry. Whatever it was, Billy was curious about it.

Curiosity killed the cat, Beth said with a wide smile, as if reading his thoughts.

Damn, Billy said. It's as if…

I read your thoughts? She laughed. It's been written all over your face since you came in. I saw you looking at the stage, back at me, back to the stage. It's easy to figure it out.

Hey, it's not like I'm some wacko fan, Beth. I just think you are way too good for...

If you say it, I'll smack you stupid, Beth told him. Her eyes were slitted, narrowed and focused. Her right hand had doubled into a fist. Billy knew she meant what she said.

Peace, Billy said.

Not that it really matters, Beth said with a sigh. Jimmy knows, and that means Harry knows, and they don't care. That's not it. I'd feel for the lame ass that came in here if I was doing a set and had anything to say about my time on the streets. We've all been there. At least the interesting ones.

Billy nodded. So what is it?

Beth shrugged. I don't know, but I'm hoping Harry will be around later on.

Hey, baby, what the fuck with the drink? A big guy, belly straining at the buttons of his shirt. He smiled, but the smile was only a rough semblance of a smile. Billy tried to burn him with his eyes, but Beth reached nearly into his face and said. So you're done here?

Her eyes said don't, he didn't, but he would have liked to say something to the guy. Instead, he nodded a yes and picked up the change she had laid on the bar. She was talking to the fat guy before he got his change in his pocket.

See that big guy over by the door? she asked nicely.

Billy watched the fat guy turn to the door and then back to Beth. Yeah? The guy said. There was a sarcastic edge to his voice that made Billy slow down. He wanted to see the outcome.

Don, the big guy on the door, had that bouncer six senses and looked over at Beth and shrugged as if to ask if there was a problem. She rolled her eyes, and Don left the door and headed for the bar.

I told you no more, Beth told the guy.

And I said I don't take no orders from no bitch, The fat guy said. He puffed up, but a line of sweat trickled from under his too black hair and streaked his forehead with whatever he had sprayed on his hair to get the color. He swiped at it angrily. And blustered a little more when Don's heavy hand fell on his shoulder.

And I missed my workout today, Don told him as he easily spun him around, unless you're it? Don finished.

This is a private matter, The fat guy told him, but there was a quiver in his voice that Billy heard clearly.

Tried to grab Jill's breast when she went past him. Jill laughed it off. Said he'd been a perfect gentleman all the rest of the night. I said cool, a little fuck up, he's had too much to drink and so I cut him off.

Gentleman was a code word for a creep that had been hanging around getting way too friendly with the dancers.

That so, Don asked. He had stepped back to give himself some room, just in case things took a physical turn.

The guy noted the movement and then he set his empty glass on the bar and put his hands in front of him, palms up. No interest in trouble at all, he told Don.

Don nodded at the door. Time to go home and sleep it off, Don told him.

Billy watched the guy walk to the door and leave. He looked back to see Don and Beth looking at him.

You know, this guy is becoming a pain in the ass, Beth told Don.

Ha, ha, Billy said.

Beat it Jingo. Leave the honey alone. It's off limits. You ain't getting none of it. Billy watched the cloud come over Beth just that fast. She had been teasing, Don probably knew that, but Don had a thing for her and he hated Billy, who sometimes did small things for Harry. He didn't wait for Billy to leave, but headed back to the door, opened it quickly and looked out into the lot.

Probably making sure the guy ain't fucking up his car, Billy said under his breath.

Sorry, Billy. I keep forgetting Don isn't human, Beth told him. That made Billy laugh.

Anyway, I'll see you around. I'll be late tonight.

Billy nodded. Good luck, Beth. He turned and walked to the door at the other end of the club. The one that let out onto the front sidewalk.

~

The night was beautiful, Billy thought as he walked along. He knew pretty much everyone he passed. He had been here for a little over six months, having made his way up from Mexico when things had gone bad for him there. Technically, he was on the run. Warrants out of New York. Somebody had put two and two together and dug up some prints from a crime Billy had been involved with. He had only found out about it because he had been away from the house when the Feds showed up. His neck of the woods had no municipal police, but even if it had, they wouldn't have come with shotguns and armor.

He had hid out for three days until the word had trickled down to him that it was him they were looking for to hand over to some federal agents from the U.S. It had taken little to put two and two together. He had got a beat up old Ford pickup truck and then filled-fifty-five gallon drums full of gasoline that rode on the back of it. He set off into the desert.

The rest had been easier. Despite the laws and the changes in the U.S. It was pretty easy to disappear here. He had come with a little money, and that had helped. He had worked a series of meaningless jobs as he worked his way up the west coast. L.A. had looked good and so it had held him. That and Beth had come along.

Beth was out of reach and he knew it, but that didn't stop the fact that he wanted her to be within reach. He had never met a woman like her. So he had stayed. He had watched her arrival of God knew where, some other place in California or Washington, probably. He had watched her struggle to survive on the streets: Watched her work those same streets, doing her act in any place she could get into by day, walking the streets by night, and it was then he had seen something else in her. Something hard, some will he himself had that was hard to define, but that hardness in her pulled him to her like a magnet. It was that simple.

He had been working for Harry by then, and so he had mentioned Beth to him. He didn't know how the details had worked out, but a few weeks later when he had noticed she had disappeared from the avenue, he had found her tending bar at Harry's Palace.

Now, as he walked, he became immune to the world around him. He never heard Don until he was on him, had spun him around and dragged him into an alley.

Hey! Don! What the fuck, Don? Hey! But it did no good. The first punch nearly shut him down. The second did. The rest he never knew about.

Seattle Washington

Bobby

The wind kicked up along Beechwood Avenue in Seattle's red-light district. A paper bag went rolling along the cracked sidewalk: Skipping have to be a million dollars, just. A few hundred, he decided. A few hundred could really fix him up, right? There had to be a way.

He watched the cars slide by and tried to work it out in his head. The problem was he was too far off the edge of down. He needed to be more up, high, wasted to think straight. The brain just didn't work without the sauce. He needed some good shit, and for that, he needed some money. Just enough to get enough good shit to get a good high tonight and maybe a good high tomorrow when it all wore off, and the jingle jangles set in? Maybe, he decided. Maybe. Bobby turned away from watching the cars as the paper bag bounded over his feet and tumbled along the avenue. The diner down the block was calling. Sometimes he had scored in the parking lot. There were truckers, creeps, who knew, but they were in this area and it wasn't the food. All he had to do was find the right guy, and he'd be set. He looked once more at the traffic and then turned and walked off toward the diner.

New York: Rochester

John Simons

The sidewalks below him were crowded. John stood at the apex of the steps that led up to the old court house. It was impressive. He looked down at his hands, shifting the small silver canister from hand to hand, rolling it across his palm, treating it as though it were just a small fascination to occupy his mind, when in fact he knew it was something more. He didn't know what, exactly. He wasn't paid to know what. Maybe someone up the ladder knew what he didn't, and it was likely he never would, but it was something more than just a shiny little object to occupy his mind.

He had done hundreds of these small jobs. Little things. Little things that probably meant nothing in the scheme of things, at least that's what he had always told himself. A little mental salve to prevent an infection of the larger truth. Little things he never heard a single thing about later on. Little things, but he suspected this time, this job was not a little thing at all. He suspected this was a big thing. He suspected he would hear about this one down the road. He suspected this one would come back to bite him in the ass.

The trouble was, in for a penny, in for a pound. It all mattered. He had taken a job after job where he might leave an item on a park bench. Drop off a set of wheels in the middle of the desert. Switch a suitcase at an airport. Little jobs. Little jobs and he had never said no. Never complained about them. Never turned one down. And so here he was about to press the activator on a small, silver canister that might do anything. Anything at all. And was he worried about that? Yes, he was.

It was not so much worry for himself. He didn't really believe the thing would blow up. He didn't truly think they would take him out that way, if there was ever a reason to take him out, that was. He quickly shut down that line of thought. He had too much to worry about right now without starting a whole new avenue of doubt.

So, no, he did not believe it would blow up. He believed it would hiss and release a giant cloud of some sort of toxic gas, gases even, he amended. Waste, poison, something, but if that were the case, how could he safely set it off and not be contaminated himself?

The instructions were to walk to the top of the courthouse steps, depress the red button, and then toss it away. No specific direction, just away. It apparently didn't matter. And, he thought now, wasn't this exactly the way some terrorist would do it? Do an attack? A poison gas attack? An unclassified viral attack? He had seen a few movies. This was the way he would do it if he was writing the script. The girl beside him spoke.

If this is going to take much longer, you're gonna have to pay more. I know I said it would be cool, a fifty, I mean, but standing around here is wasting my time. I got places to be. I got...

He cut her off. And you ain't got no money yet. And if you want the money, then you need to shut the fuck up. He went back to his self-observation. A second later, he looked back at her. Hey, hey, he soothed. She had pouted. Just another street girl with a habit and too much time on her hands to feed it.

Look... He waited for her to look at his hand. He held the small vial upright. Do me a favor, okay? I was looking around because, well because, I want a picture right here. Now all you have to do is push this little red button. Aim at me, it's got a little camera in there. You can't see it, it's one of those new ones, like them spy ones? So all you got to do is point it at me and then press the button. He held the canister and looked around. She tried to take the canister from his hand and he snatched it away.

Goddammit, dude, you want it or not? She stamped her foot exactly like the spoiled child she was and would always be.

Yeah, I do. See that corner over there? The top of the stairs? That little what-do-you-call-it hollow between those two pillars? Wait until I get there and take the picture. He handed her the silver canister and started away.

Hey! How the fuck am I spos'ed to tell? There ain't no screen thingy, what-the-fuck-it-is?

He turned back and smiled. Just face it to me and do it. It's not supposed to have a thing, screen, just do it.

She turned the canister to her face. It was only about four inches long, maybe an inch thick. It didn't look like a camera at all. She turned it back to John and clicked the button. Nothing, not even a click. It didn't work. It was bullshit, just as she had thought.

John froze when he saw her push the button, but nothing happened. Nothing at all. She had pushed it just a few inches from his nose. No odor. No vapor he could see. Not anything. He pulled it from her fingers and flipped it back and forth. The red button was depressed now and although he tried to work a thumbnail under it to pull it back up, he couldn't do it. He brought it closer to his nose. Nothing. No odor. He pressed it to his ear. No hissing. It was dead. A dud. Whatever it was, it did nothing at all. Maybe it had even malfunctioned. He hefted it a few times and then let it drop from his fingers. It hit the stone step below him with a small metallic click and then rolled away to the edge. It dropped to the next step, but it didn't have enough momentum to find its way across that step to the next. He turned back to the girl.

You broke my camera, he told her.

Did not, and that ain't no fuckin' camera, anyway. You think I'm just stupid?

I think you're stupid. You broke it. You broke it and so I ain't paying you. Fact, pay me for breaking my camera! Besides which, you pressed it before it was time. You fucked the whole thing up. I shouldn't pay you shit. Not a fuckin' dime.

Yeah? she asked. Her eyes were wet, but they were also hard. She looked around at the crowd. That's okay, because you know what?

What? John asked. He smiled. She was stuck, and he knew it.

What is, I'm fourteen. Fourteen. And I bet you if I was to yell right now, oh, something like rape. If I was to say rape! She raised her voice a little and a nearby couple flashed their eyes at the two and slowed.

John flinched and drew back from her.

Yeah, see? So, now if I was to do that, I bet your tune would be different. I just bet it would.

Twenty, John said. His smile was gone.

You said fifty. Fifty is what you said, and it should be eighty. She picked eighty out of a hat. It was three more dimes, and three more dimes was a lot better than five. It is eighty. It's eighty because you tried to rape me! She raised her voice once more and John's hand plunged quickly into his back pocket. He flipped a fifty and three tens at her from the wallet he quickly pulled free, and she had to scramble to catch the money. Two of the tens fluttered to the stone step below her and she flashed a hard smile at him. The couple that had cut their eyes at them were now stopped and staring at the two of them. A cell phone appeared in the woman's hand and when John met her eyes, there was something there he didn't like at all. The girl scooped up the money, muttering as she did, and John headed down the stairs two at a time. A few minutes later, he had blended into the crowd and was making his way away from the downtown area.

Seattle Washington

Bobby

The prostitutes were just beginning to show up in force, waiting for the early morning traffic. Bobby Chambers sat with his back against the wall of an alley: Needle ready, and a speed-ball cooking over a tin of shoe polish. There was a bum sleeping a little further down the alley. Bobby ignored him, watching the mixture in the blackened spoon bubble melting together.

Two hours before, he had been sitting in the diner waiting for his world to end. He had paid for the bottomless cup of coffee the place advertised, but ten cups had done nothing to improve his situation. He was still sick. He was still broke, and he needed something to take the edge off the real world, which had been sucking pretty hard. A trucker had come in and ate his dinner just two stools away from Bobby, but every time he had worked up the courage to ask him for a couple of bucks, the guy had stared him down so hard that he had changed his mind.

He had just left. Even the server was staring hard every time he asked for more coffee. The cops couldn't be far away when the trucker had reached back for his wallet, pulled it free, took a ten from inside and dropped it on the counter top.

Bobby watched. It was involuntary. One of those things you did when your head was full of sickness and static. Just a place for your ever moving eyes to fall. The wallet was one of those types he had seen bikers use. A long chain connecting it to the wide leather belt he wore. Hard to steal. Hard to even get a chance at. The man stuffed the wallet back into his pocket. Sloppy, Bobby saw, probably because he knew the chain was there and so if it fell out, he would know it. He turned and put his ass nearly in Bobby's face as he got up from the stool. The wallet was right there. Two inches from his nose, bulging from the pocket. The leather where the steel eye slipped through to hold the chain, frayed, ripped, barely connected. The man straightened, and the wallet slipped free. The chain caught on the pocket, slipped down inside, and the wallet came free, the leather holding the steel eye parted like butter, and the wallet fell into Bobby's lap. He nearly called out to the man before he could shut his mouth. His hand closed over the wallet and slipped it under his tattered windbreaker. The server spoke in his ear a second later.

Listen...

Bobby jumped and straightened quickly in his seat, his heart hammering hard against his rib cage. Busted. Busted, and he had shoved the wallet into his wind breaker, double busted.

Listen, the server continued, buy something else of get the fuck out. You hear me? Otherwise, my boss, she turned and waved one fat hand at the serve through window, Says to call the cops.

Bobby stared at her in disbelief. He was sure that everyone in the diner had seen the wallet fall into his lap. He swallowed. Yeah, okay. I'm leaving, he said with his croaky voice. Sometimes, getting high, he didn't speak for weeks. It just wasn't necessary. When he did, he would find his voice rusty, his throat croaking out words like a frog. Sometimes he was right on the edge of not even being able to understand the words. Like they had suddenly become some foreign language. He cleared his throat, picked up the cup of cold coffee and drained it. Going, he said.

He got up from the stool, kept one hand in his pocket, holding the wallet under the windbreaker and walked out the front door.

L.A.: 2:00 am.

Beth

The night wore on. Midnight came and went, and the club shut down for another day. Beth worked at cleaning up the last little area of the bar as two of the dancers finished their drinks and hushed conversations, smiled at her and walked away. A short conversation with Don, probably some crude remark: Beth has seen how both of them had instantly stiffened their backs after he spoke. It wasn't just her. Don was an actual creep. Whatever he had said the two girls ignored it, turning away, making eye contact with Beth, waving as if they had been at the bar talking to her, and when Don looked back to see who they had been waving at they slipped out the door. Don