He eased to the left and upped their speed when he spotted a mob clustered around the front of a grocery on their right.
"Hank and I shopped there two days ago," Carol said.
Nobody was shopping now. Pillaging was more like it. People were jumping in and out of the broken door and windows, looking for anything remotely edible. But there didn't seem to be anything left to pillage. The enraged mob was tearing out the empty shelves and hurling them into the street. Three men were brawling over what looked like a can of tuna fish.
Further on, groups of tight-faced people hung about on the glass-bejeweled sidewalks, clustered in tense circles, glancing nervously over their shoulders this way and that with their fear-haunted eyes. He saw three women standing around a doorway sobbing as a sheet-covered body was being carried out. The people on the streets looked like ghosts.
"It's falling apart," Carol said, her arms crossed in front of her chest as if to ward off a chill. "Just like Hank said it would."
As Bill was slowing for a red light at 63rd—habit, pure habit—somebody shot at them. The bullet punched through the rear window and smashed the right rear side pane on its way out. Bill floored the gas pedal and sped uptown, ignoring traffic lights the rest of the way.
He double parked in front of Carol and Hank's apartment building and led her toward the shattered front door.
"The van's gone," she said, looking up and down the street.
"What van?"
"The one Hank rented."
"Maybe he had to move it."
Bill doubted that Carol believed that; he didn't believe it himself. He had a bad feeling about this: Carol was going to get hurt this morning.
They hurried inside. Carol gasped when she saw the body on the floor. Someone had covered it with a drape from one of the ruined windows.
"Do you think it's—?" she said, looking at Bill with terror in her eyes.
"I'll see."
He knelt by the still form and lifted a corner of the sheet. He dropped it quickly when he saw the white, agonized face, open mouth, and dull, staring eyes.
"Not Hank," he said, taking her arm and leading her away.
The elevator ride was slow and rough, as if the motors weren't getting enough power. As soon as the doors opened on her floor, Carol bolted from the car and ran down the hall. Bill noticed some drying brown stains on the carpet and what looked like a trail of the same leading to her apartment but he said nothing. She had her door open by the time Bill caught up with her. He stayed close behind her as she entered.
He bumped up against her back when she stopped dead inside the threshold.
"It's empty!" she cried. "He's gone!"
"Empty?" Bill said.
He glanced about. Hank might have been gone but the place didn't look empty. Except for the cyclone fencing over the windows, everything was just as it had been last time he'd come by. The furniture looked the same, nothing was—
"The food and the rest of his precious hoard. It's gone!" Her voice edged toward a sob. "He'd never leave without it. He's taken it and left me."
Bill did a quick search of the apartment. He found the note on the dresser in the bedroom.
Dear Carol
I've taken our supplies and gone looking for a safer place. I think I know of one. I can't say where it is right now, but when I get set up there, I'll come back for you. Wait for me.
Love,
Hank
Love. Right.
Carol seemed to crumble as she read the note. Bill knew it wasn't because Hank had taken the food and run off. The food didn't matter. It was simply that Hank had shown her without a doubt where she ranked in his scheme of things. Bill put his arms around her quaking shoulders and held her tight against him.
And damn it all, he was glad Hank had taken off. Because it was one less barrier between them. He loathed himself for that. But he wanted her. God, how he wanted her.
He forced himself to pull back and take her arm.
"Come on. We're going back."
"No, Bill. I've got to wait to hear from Hank."
"Hank?" he said, suddenly furious with her, with Hank, with everything. "Hank won't be calling." He went to the sofa and yanked the telephone receiver from under a cushion and dangled it before her. "That's how much Hank wants to talk to you!"
Carol's shoulders slumped. She turned and walked out the door. Bill hurled the receiver to the floor. Now he was angry with himself. He ran after her and caught up with her at the elevator.
"I'm sorry," he said. "That was uncalled for. But I hate him for running out on you. Because he ran out on us too."
Carol stared at him, teary eyed. "Us?"
"All of us. Now's the time when we have to stick together, help each other through this catastrophe. Doing what Hank did, that just makes Rasalom stronger. It's another brick in the walls going up between people. Don't you see what's happening? All the intangibles that link us are being destroyed. Love, trust, brotherhood, community, camaraderie, neighborliness. The simple everyday things that make us human, that make us more than just a collection of organisms, that make us larger than ourselves—they're all going up in smoke."
"It's fear, Bill. Everyone's afraid. Death is everywhere. Up is down, down is up—nothing's sure anymore."
"That's outside," Bill said. "Rasalom's wrecking everything outside. He's calling all the shots out there. But inside"…he pounded on his chest…"inside you've got who you are, and you've got the bonds you've formed with other people. That's where those bonds are anchored. Rasalom can't get inside unless he's allowed in. You let that fear in and it will destroy those bonds. And that's the beginning of the end. For without them we divide up into small, suspicious enclaves, which soon deteriorate into warring packs, which finally degenerate into a bunch of back-stabbing lone wolves."
"Hank would never—"
"Excuse me, Carol, but I believe you've got a knife in your back. One with Hank's fingerprints all over it. As far as I'm concerned, running off like this is aiding and abetting the enemy."
"He'll call, Bill."
Bill didn't trust himself to respond directly to that.
"You'll be safer at Glaeken's," he said. "Hank knows the number. He can reach you there."
Carol didn't argue.
The elevator doors opened. They rode down in silence and they didn't talk much on the ride back. There was more traffic about now, but scattered and fitful. Bill headed west toward the Park on 72nd. As he slowed for a passing truck on Madison, three tough-looking blacks, either high or drunk or both, stepped in front of the car.
"A Mercedes," the biggest of them said, slurring his words. "Always wanted me a Mercedes."
Bill pulled out the pistol and pointed it through the windshield at one of the men, hoping the bluff would work. He knew he couldn't pull the trigger. The big man smiled sheepishly, held up his hands, and the three of them staggered away. Bill glanced at Carol and found her staring at him.
"A pistol, Bill?" she said. "You?"
"Jack's idea," he said. "I don't even know how to fire it."
Carol held out her hand. "I do. I spent fifteen years roaming around the South with Jonah and…that boy."
She took the gun, flicked a little switch on its side, worked the slide back and forth once, then held it up in plain view next to her window.
Speechless, Bill drove on. They had no trouble the rest of the trip back.
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