Ronni froze.
There!
Lights!
Mere flickering pinpricks — but against a background of such total blackness that they shone out like beacons.
They had to be at least three or four miles away — but where, exactly? With her pulse racing Ronni hurried along the platfrom until she came to a framed map, displayed for the benefit of tourists so that they would know which parts of the city they were looking at. It was difficult to read in the darkness, and she was half terrified that if she took her eyes off the lights they would be gone by the time she looked back. She finally stabbed her finger down on to the glass. There — Battery Park! That's where they were!
Survivors!
Ronni heard the music first, booming out of the darkness, rhythmic, almost hypnotic, and it filled her with elation.
She'd found a bicycle not far from the Empire State — somewhat squeamishly wresting it from a dead man's hands — and was now able to fly along at considerable speed. Luckily New York was designed in such a way that long avenues like Broadway could take her straight to a destination without her having to remember complex directions.
As she erupted from the avenue into Battery Park itself and got her first real taste of the sea air and spotted the flames flickering ahead of her, she couldn't help but let out a yelp of joy. Just ahead she could see the silhouettes of hundreds of people dancing to the music around half a dozen bonfires! Hundreds!
Ronni leaped from her bike, allowing it to crash away into bushes, and charged forward.
Spits had been erected over the flames and whole animals were being roasted! Fresh food! Huge black pots bubbled away! Ronni's taste buds watered as they never had before. Civilisation!
Just as she reached the edge of the party the people all began to turn in one direction, cheering and clapping excitedly. Ronni wanted to be part of it, she wanted to dance and sing and hug everyone! She ducked down and began to wriggle her way through to the front of the crowd, her whole body tingling with excitement. Then she caught her first glimpse of. . .
... a woman, her hair dank and bedraggled, her clothes torn, being dragged out of a metal cage mounted on a trailer. She had what looked like a dog's collar around her neck, attached to a chain which was being pulled by a burly, heavily muscled man wearing . . . a wolf's head! He gave the chain a hard yank and the woman stumbled down a slanted wooden walkway on to the grass and fell to her knees. The wolf-headed man stood behind her and drew out a long, jagged knife from a sheath on his belt.
The crowd began to chant: 'Kill! Kill! Kill!'
Ronni knew she should have screamed at them to stop. But she couldn't do anything. As she looked around the faces of the people watching she saw a kind of madness in their eyes. They weren't happy survivors of a desperate plague — they were frightened people driven crazy by it. Ronni was suddenly more scared than she ever had been in her life. She began to back away through the crowd as the chanting continued to grow in intensity all around her. 'Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill!'
Ronni emerged by one of the bonfires, which was being tended by a solitary old man, slowly rotating a crackling animal on a spit. But then as the creature's head turned towards her she saw with total and absolute horror that it wasn't an animal at all.
It was a human being.
Ronni screamed. She couldn't help it. She screamed hogh and loud and piercing.
The chanting faded.
All eyes turned towards her.
She wasn't one of them.
Ronni ran for her life.
And then so did they.
The chase was on!
1
Pig
It all started with Babe the pig.
If Lucky Jimmy Armstrong and Claire Stanford hadn't been fighting over her, then they wouldn't have become separated, and if they hadn't become separated then the nightmare that followed — you know, with the Cannibals, the President's Train, the Quest and the Murdering Minister — well, it probably wouldn't have happened.
So, really, it was the pig's fault.
Pigs are like that. Always causing trouble.
Never trust a pig. Pigs have no sense of humour, and they can't juggle.
Yet the way Claire talked about Babe, you'd think Babe could tell a joke while keeping six balls in the air with her mucky little hooves.
Or trotters.
It started after they left Reunion Gap.
You won't find Reunion Gap on any map. Suffice to say it was one of hundreds of settlements that had sprung up along the eastern seaboard since the Red Death had struck. It was little more than a gathering place for survivors, a crossroads where two RVs had stopped and set up camp one night, and by next morning there were half a dozen other vehicles parked right beside them. Then there were twenty, then eighty six, then several hundreds of them, all shapes and sizes. Some had just a solitary driver; others were packed with family members or complete strangers, all intent on exchanging news, swapping or bartering food, drinking beer and wailing about the state of this new world. You've heard of that old saying — safety in numbers? This is what people thought: that if they all got together, they'd be OK. But it wasn't strictly true. People were frightened by what had happened, they were scared, horrified, panicky so little communities like Reunion Gap were really quite dangerous places. People were short tempered, and although they craved other human company, they also armed themselves with whatever weapons they could lay their hands on in case they didn't like that company. In communities like Reunion Gap violence exploded quite regularly
The Titanic's Captain Smith, First Officer Jeffers, and the rest of the crew — and at least some of the passengers — were aware that they had a good, secure, modern home, and while there were occasional shortages of food, and lapses in power, and outbreaks of disease, and short rebellions and noisy protests, they had it better than most. Partly because of this, and partly because it was his duty, Captain Smith endeavoured to lend assistance to people in settlements like Reunion Gap. The ship would drop anchor up to a mile off shore and Dr Hill would land with a team of nurses to set up a clinic, treating those that he could there and then, and ferrying more serious cases back to the ship for surgery. First Officer Jeffers would escort ashore those who wished to leave the ship to search for relatives; and then he would vet those who sought to join the Titanic for transportation further up the coast (as most roads were still blocked, and those that were open were invariably dangerous). Chief Engineer Jonas Jones' task was to search for those with particular skills who might wish to join up as crewmen; the Titanic was a huge ship and had been left shorthanded both by the plague and the recent mutiny.[1] Jimmy and Claire usually went ashore as reporter and photographer, recording the (usually) sad stories of the survivors. There was also a pressing need for a regular supply of fresh food on board, which meant that often on their return journeys the speedboats and motor launches which served the ship were packed with livestock. The pig that would shortly become known as Babe came on board at Reunion Gap in the company of twelve other pigs, sixteen cows and perhaps a hundred chickens.