dark just as well as she could, and the living were far more dangerous than the dead. This, she knew from experience.
There was nothing for her in Detroit; if she found Desmond in his car, or near it, would she move on? If he was dead, he might be one of them, and a part of her denied it.
She was eager to get this over with, but she couldn’t move. She stared at the bridge. At the military barricade in the center. At the wandering shapes drifting among the cars. Wind picked up dust and ash and slammed it into her face; the world was an ashen desert now, and she was a traveler through this wretched wasteland, looking for the man she loved because the search was all she had left. She threw her hood over her face.
Desmond would have told her to get on with it.
Don’t watch the news, he always said.
She had watched the news.
His startup law practice finally had a client.
The last thing he told her.
Every one of his words from that conversation were recorded into her memory. She remembered a lot of things that kept her going forward. She saw a lot of people die in shelters and on television. Her teenage son, Brian, went looking for supplies and never came back. He volunteered to help the group. He was out here too, because he had probably gone looking for Desmond without her.
Everything was quiet now. Everyone was dead now.
Now. The bridge.
Bella carried a backpack full of granola bars and a couple bottles of water that had been boiled over a fire. She had a cooking pot and some knives. A few other odds and ends. All that she carried, and no weapon. The last mistake people often made was trying to fight instead of run. If you were forced to fight, you were fucked anyway. No use carrying extra weight.
Fine. Okay. Take a step. That’s where it all starts. With one step.
She walked toward the bridge. She walked onto the bridge. Was it smarter to walk along one of the edges or down the middle? There was more room to run and scramble in the middle, but she might be surrounded easily.
In the oasis of silence, nobody would hear her scream. Nobody would hear her last words. Nobody would hear the last words of those she had known. Nobody else would bear her burden; the last moments and confessions of survivors she had known, survivors who didn’t last this year.
The blood on the concrete looked like oil stains, unwashed by rain and time. Spider webs had replaced broken car windows. Glass crunched beneath her boots. Flat tires and open hoods with their batteries ripped out indicated a salvage team had been this way. Toddler chairs strapped into back seats. Soda bottles on floor mats. Dangling cell phone charger cords. Shoes. Bloodstained upholstery. Bloodstained concrete. Silence. Silence.
She had looked into hundreds of cars over the past year, thousands of them. There was a Cadillac on this bridge somewhere, Desmond’s Cadillac.
A year ago she would have been able to smell the dead. She would have turned and run. She would have screamed.
They sat on the pavement as if they were nothing more than sleeping gargoyles. They were colorless and fleshless, their mutilations and wounds obscured by decay. Their clothes were tattered. Some of them no longer had eyes. When their arms moved slowly, they bled dust and ash. Bones cracked. A turning head snapped like a tree falling in an invisible forest; the head tumbled over shoulders and rolled along the ground, and the body sagged against a car door.
A dozen of them, maybe more. They used to be people, and now when they moved, they crumbled. They collapsed. Their body structures surrendered.
“Don’t move, nigger.”
A woman’s voice. Bella obeyed.
“Look up.”
Sitting atop a semi truck’s trailer, a woman kneeling behind the sights of a bolt-action rifle. A dark-skinned woman with a silver stud pierced through her right nostril. The gray suburban combat camo the dead soldiers had worn; pants and jacket, an olive green shirt on her thin body riding up, revealing a
There was nothing for her in Detroit; if she found Desmond in his car, or near it, would she move on? If he was dead, he might be one of them, and a part of her denied it.
She was eager to get this over with, but she couldn’t move. She stared at the bridge. At the military barricade in the center. At the wandering shapes drifting among the cars. Wind picked up dust and ash and slammed it into her face; the world was an ashen desert now, and she was a traveler through this wretched wasteland, looking for the man she loved because the search was all she had left. She threw her hood over her face.
Desmond would have told her to get on with it.
Don’t watch the news, he always said.
She had watched the news.
His startup law practice finally had a client.
The last thing he told her.
Every one of his words from that conversation were recorded into her memory. She remembered a lot of things that kept her going forward. She saw a lot of people die in shelters and on television. Her teenage son, Brian, went looking for supplies and never came back. He volunteered to help the group. He was out here too, because he had probably gone looking for Desmond without her.
Everything was quiet now. Everyone was dead now.
Now. The bridge.
Bella carried a backpack full of granola bars and a couple bottles of water that had been boiled over a fire. She had a cooking pot and some knives. A few other odds and ends. All that she carried, and no weapon. The last mistake people often made was trying to fight instead of run. If you were forced to fight, you were fucked anyway. No use carrying extra weight.
Fine. Okay. Take a step. That’s where it all starts. With one step.
She walked toward the bridge. She walked onto the bridge. Was it smarter to walk along one of the edges or down the middle? There was more room to run and scramble in the middle, but she might be surrounded easily.
In the oasis of silence, nobody would hear her scream. Nobody would hear her last words. Nobody would hear the last words of those she had known. Nobody else would bear her burden; the last moments and confessions of survivors she had known, survivors who didn’t last this year.
The blood on the concrete looked like oil stains, unwashed by rain and time. Spider webs had replaced broken car windows. Glass crunched beneath her boots. Flat tires and open hoods with their batteries ripped out indicated a salvage team had been this way. Toddler chairs strapped into back seats. Soda bottles on floor mats. Dangling cell phone charger cords. Shoes. Bloodstained upholstery. Bloodstained concrete. Silence. Silence.
She had looked into hundreds of cars over the past year, thousands of them. There was a Cadillac on this bridge somewhere, Desmond’s Cadillac.
A year ago she would have been able to smell the dead. She would have turned and run. She would have screamed.
They sat on the pavement as if they were nothing more than sleeping gargoyles. They were colorless and fleshless, their mutilations and wounds obscured by decay. Their clothes were tattered. Some of them no longer had eyes. When their arms moved slowly, they bled dust and ash. Bones cracked. A turning head snapped like a tree falling in an invisible forest; the head tumbled over shoulders and rolled along the ground, and the body sagged against a car door.
A dozen of them, maybe more. They used to be people, and now when they moved, they crumbled. They collapsed. Their body structures surrendered.
“Don’t move, nigger.”
A woman’s voice. Bella obeyed.
“Look up.”
Sitting atop a semi truck’s trailer, a woman kneeling behind the sights of a bolt-action rifle. A dark-skinned woman with a silver stud pierced through her right nostril. The gray suburban combat camo the dead soldiers had worn; pants and jacket, an olive green shirt on her thin body riding up, revealing a
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