Autumn in the City of Angels by Kirby Howell Page B

having two in reserve.  Sitting behind the door like they were, it was hard to imagine I could have missed seeing them.  Where did they come from?
    I shook my head, irritated.  “I guess I really am going crazy.”  I pulled the door closed behind me and returned to the couch to think.  So I wasn’t as low on water as I thought, but I would run out of food soon.  I knew I couldn’t keep eating sesame seeds for lunch, but it was still too dangerous to go outside to forage food from what was left of the city.
    From my eagle’s nest perch on the terrace, I had a three hundred and sixty-degree view of the city below.  The Front was running rampant through what was left of the marina, emptying stores, then burning them.  I watched one day last week as Karl oversaw a group siphoning gas from a station across the street.  Even at that distance, I could see the evil and beauty pulsing from him, weakening everyone around him until they were broken enough to submit.  Though I was a good distance away from him, I still felt the urge to get further away from him and was frustrated at my inability to do so.  I reminded myself that for the time being, I was safe in my tower.  Safe, but also trapped like a cat in a tree.
    I sprinkled more sesame seeds onto my tongue.  I would just have to use the closest and safest source to me to replenish my stock: the thirty-six stories of condos below me.  I didn’t relish the thought of what might be awaiting discovery in some of them.  I wasn’t naïve to the fact that the residents hadn’t just disappeared in a puff of smoke after the Crimson Fever claimed their lives.
    I felt slightly sickened and panicked at the thought of entering a dark, unfamiliar apartment, utterly still with secrets.  I unconsciously touched the silver Celtic knot charm I always wore on a necklace.  I heard Mamó, my Irish grandma, say to me, “Ye canna always be brev on the inside, Fòmhair 1 .  But ye ken be bold on the ootside.  " Fortiter 2 ,” she would remind me, shaking her wrinkled fist under my nose until I laughed.  “Boldly,” it meant in Gaelic.
    I loved the sound of my name in Gaelic.  I didn’t know much of the ancient language, but Mamó taught me a few words and “ Fòmhair ” was one.  It was really just the translation of the season, but she said it was close enough.  She lived just outside Dublin with my Grandpa.  Being as Irish as they came, she was incredibly spunky and very superstitious, and it was obvious my mother didn’t drop far from the tree.
    I wondered for a brief moment if my grandparents in Ireland could have survived.  What if my immunity was genetic?  I pushed the idea away.  There was absolutely no way for me to find out.  Ireland was thousands of miles away and across a very large ocean.
    I directed my mind back to the problem before me.  Restocking my food supply from the apartments under me.  Fortiter .  I’d just have to find a way to bear it.
    I sighed and screwed the lid back on the jar of seeds.  How would I even get past the locked doors?  I wasn’t particularly skilled at picking locks.  And I sure didn’t have a crowbar hanging around.  Maybe there was a janitor’s closet in the basement with one I could use.
    Suddenly, a thought popped into my head.  A janitor wouldn’t need a crowbar.  He’d have keys to get into all the units.  He didn’t have a key for our suite, of course, because of the high security for my mother.  But he’d have keys for all the others.  I could help myself and lock up again to keep anything else safe for later use.
    I grabbed my own keys from the table in the entrance hall and left the apartment, locking the door behind me and riding the elevator down thirty-seven stories.
    When the elevator doors slid open, I stepped out and peeked around the corner to the lobby.  It was a mess.  It had obviously been looted.  I shivered, thinking about Karl in my very own building.  I looked out the windows