by Meg Gardiner
Jo and Gabe counted it off and shoved the wrecked cabinet upright in the hall. Sophie held the flashlight so they could see. Jo ripped long strips of strapping tape, bit them off the roll with her teeth, and bound the doors shut. The coyote howl of car and burglar alarms outside was nerve-racking. Looking out the bay window, Jo saw a neighborhood returned to an earlier time. Candles flickered in windows, an anachronistic amber glow.
She got the broom and began sweeping up broken glass and china. Gabe pressed his cell phone to his ear and walked around lighting candles, trying again to reach the 129th. He gave up.
"Circuits are going nuts."
Jo pointed at her landline. "Give it a try."
Sophie was standing in the kitchen doorway, gripping the flashlight, looking lost. Jo put down the broom.
"Weren't we going to get your costume?" she said.
Sophie raised her shoulders in a tense shrug. Her brown eyes were wide and dark, flowing with candlelight. Her face had a look of deep tension, like a steel cable drawn too taut and asked to secure the world in a stiff wind. Jo felt a moment of sadness. She hated seeing anxiety so overt and constricting in a little kid.
She tossed her shoulder so that her zombie arm swung around. "This way. Do you want to be an old-school slow zombie, or a new-style fast one?"
"I don't know."
Jo headed up the stairs. Reluctantly Sophie followed her.
Upstairs, a hall window was blasted apart. The grasping branch of her neighbor's oak tree filled the far end of the hallway. The house smelled like dust and oak. Glass crunched beneath their feet. Sophie shrank from it when they went past into Jo's room.
"How about a SpongeBob zombie?" What was it Sophie played with? "A Bratz zombie?"
"Maybe." That earned a tiny smile. "Daddy hates Bratz."
"Then you'll be exceptionally terrifying, won't you?"
When they came downstairs ten minutes later, Gabe had the kettle going on the gas stove. He was bent over the kitchen counter talking on the landline, writing on a notepad under candlelight.
Jo moaned. "Sergeant Quintana."
He looked up. Sophie stuck her arms out straight, like a doll, and tilted her head sideways. "Daddy, take me shopping."
Her voice was an eerie high-pitched zombie squeak. He suppressed a smile and raised his hands, as though cowering.
"No, please—not that. Keep away from me."
Sophie staggered stiff-legged across the kitchen toward him. She was dressed in bits and pieces of fashion disasters Jo had exhumed from her closet, including a sparkly spandex top that she'd ripped all along the bottom. She had teased Sophie's hair to a Helena Bonham Carter full-throttle-insanity level, and rubbed black kohl all around her eyes.
The blue glitter eye shadow, left at the house by Tina years ago, she had dribbled from the corner of Sophie's mouth to her chin. It looked as though she'd been gnawing on Miss Teenage America's ball gown.
"Buy me makeup, Daddy." She careened toward him. "Now."
He backed against the counter and threw his hands over his face. "No—it burns. It burns!"
Sophie laughed. Gabe hugged her and smiled at Jo. But he sounded serious.
"I have to go. The unit's shorthanded."
"Damage?" Jo said.
"Still getting a clear picture, but they need me." He knelt down beside Sophie. "Sorry, cricket. I won't be able to take you trick-or-treating." To Jo he said, "Preliminary reports of some road closures."
Jo's transistor radio was reporting fires and building's collapsed south of Market. Streets were blocked by toppled telephone poles. Electrical wires were down in a number of neighborhoods.
He looked momentarily fraught. "I can't get through to Mrs. Montero. The babysitter."
"Sophie can stay with me," Jo said. "If that's okay."
Gabe nodded. He took his daughter's hand and sat down at the kitchen table.
"You scare the neighbors here, okay?"
"Okay," she said halfheartedly.
"Sorry, cricket. This is my job."
She nodded, eyes down. He kissed the top of her head and stood up.
Jo walked to the door with him. "We'll be fine."
"Thank you. For this, and for cheering her up." He reached out and stroked her hair off her forehead with his index finger. "Jo, I—"
She put her fingers against his lips. "We'll talk. But right now, you go to work."
He held her gaze for a moment in the candlelight. He took her hand in his and kissed her palm. Then he was out the door and running down the steps.
The courthouse was a dim warren in the autumn twilight. Perry rushed down the corridor, cut through a fire door, and ran down two flights of stairs. He came out on another hallway. Everything was still dark. How long till the emergency generators kicked in?
People were wandering the halls. He had to get out. Get outside with this blackout, and he was gone. Gone for long and hard and good.
He ran to the far end of the hall, looking for an exit. He wasn't going back to prison. With every step he ran, his lungs filled with fresh air and his mind with more certainty. He wasn't going back to the locked cell by the bay, to the noise and mayhem, where he was voiceless and caged and surrounded by the constant roar of other men's rage.
If he could get out of the building Skunk would pick him up. Then they would track down the people who robbed him, tortured him, and ruined his body. He could finally mete out justice. All he had to do was get away from this fucking courthouse.
He found a set of back stairs and shoved open the fire door. The stairwell was coal black. He heard footsteps below in the dark, tentative, feeling their way. He grabbed the rail and ran down.
Half a flight down the emergency lights blared on. Harsh halogen ghost lighting, it turned everything black and white.
Below him the footsteps picked up pace, sounding assured now. A man was coming up the stairs. Pray put on a severe face and kept jogging down. The man coming up was small and gray and wearing a funereal suit. He looked like an apprehensive chipmunk. He glanced up at Perry and continued climbing.
"Excuse me," he said.
Perry kept going past him. After a moment, he heard footsteps again, this time descending the stairs. Gray Man was coming back down.
"Excuse me. Sir, if you don't mind," the man called.
Perry couldn't answer without using his voice synthesizer. He ignored him.
"Excuse me." The footsteps came faster. "Have you seen any marshals?"
Marshals? He stopped and turned to look at Gray Man. The guy was red in the face and out of breath. He descended the stairs, puffing.
"Did you come from Judge Wilmer's courtroom?" the man said.
Run, or not?
Perry was a good five inches taller than this guy, and had ten years on him. The guy was a mouse, but something in his eyes was mean. He looked Perry up and down. Even though all the man could see was a citizen in a cheap suit, Perry still didn't like it.
Out in the hallway an alarm began ringing. Gray Man's eyes got agitated. He looked at Perry. He looked at Perry's collar, at his neck. His whole face changed.
He turned blood-red. He knew.
Gray Man turned to run, but Pray was faster. Perry caught the man around the legs, clipped him, and watched him go down.
Gray Man hit the concrete stairs facefirst. When Perry leaped down the stairs toward the fallen figure, he already had his cheap blue tie in his hands.
He knew exactly how a garrote worked.
Jo and Sophie came into the house with cold cheeks and fingers. Sophie
reached into her trick-or-treat bag and pulled out a prickly fruit.
"Who gives kiwis for Halloween?" she said.
"Don't eat it. We'll turn it into Mr. Kiwi Head."
"What's that?"
"Like Mr. Potato Head."
Sophie stared at her, perplexed. Jo felt old and square.
Halloween was a bust. Neighbors wanted to know what Jo had heard. Did her phone work? Did she have a radio? How bad was it
? they wanted to know. Were there fatalities, were the bridges okay, how about the Marina, anybody know if it held up this time? The neighborhood was veering between depression and mania, trying to carry on like London in the blitz but having a nervous breakdown.
Alarms were still ringing. A few parked cars were still flashing their lights, coloring the street like some postseizure aura.
The wires were down. The city was cut off from itself.
Jo locked the front door and looked out the bay window. "Hang on a minute. I'm going upstairs."
She jogged up the stairs in the dark. The enormous tree branch in the hallway looked like a dragon's exploded tongue. In her bedroom Jo opened the window. The city seemed to keen at her. It was a nervous sound, too scattered, abnormal. She heard sirens down near Fisherman's Wharf.
Sophie appeared in the bedroom door. "Is something wrong?"
"Wait here," Jo said.
She took off her zombie doctor coat. Pushing open the sash as far as it would go, she swung a leg over the sill and grabbed hold of the downspout.
"Where are you going?" Sophie said.
"On the roof. To see what's going on."
She pressed her hand against the recessed frame of the window, stood up on the sill, balanced carefully, and reached up for the edge of the roof.
She counted to three, wedged her foot against the top sash of the window, and boosted herself up. She swung a leg over the eaves and pushed her way onto the roof.
The view up here was the best on the street. She could see over rooftops and all the way from the Golden Gate to the Bay Bridge.
"Oh, man."
The entire bay was dark.
Pray pushed open the doors of the courthouse and headed down the steps into the darkened plaza. The Civic Center was as lightless as postwar Berlin. The city looked eerie, with dark blue dusk suspended in the western sky, all the streetlights off, trams stopped randomly in intersections, powerless without the electric grid. Only the streets were lit—by car headlights. Traffic was snarled. All the traffic lights were out, and drivers were inching their way into a jumble. Pedestrians were ghostly black silhouettes.
He walked away from the courthouse. Half a block up the street he turned the corner, headed up Van Ness, and knew he was away. He shot a look back. The city streets were full of people, all of them worried about themselves. Nobody was charging after him.
He picked up his pace, striding confidently along the avenue. He inhaled the cold air. Gasoline exhaust, city grime, dog shit. What a wondrous perfume. He lifted his face. It was the smell of freedom.
This was an unbelievable opportunity. O Fortuna, smiling on him. He didn't know how long the blackout would last, but every minute the city remained cut off was a minute he could use to get what he needed—and to get away.
He took his voice synthesizer and slid the phone SIM card from inside it. Then he took the cell phone from his pocket. Finally, he had a phone he could keep, not one he had to borrow and return to lawyers or kitchen staff at the prison. He had taken the phone off Gray Man before he dumped his body at the bottom of the stairwell. He loved modern technology.
He looked around. It had been more than a year since he'd walked free along a city street. He felt elated, euphoric, and ready to eat the world.
He had to hurry. The lights would be coming back on again. Unless the state was a colossal disaster zone, unless the governor called out the National Guard to impose a curfew. Unless thousands were dead—in which case he could steal an ID. But this didn't look like a mass-graves disaster. He didn't think he'd get quite that lucky. But he knew there was going to be so much confusion tonight he could become almost anybody, do almost anything.
He had to contact Skunk.
Skunk had the names. It was beyond vital that he get them. First, because he was going to torture these people. Of course he was. Justice would be served. Second, he needed the names because his attackers knew what had become of his money.
It had been a bad idea from the beginning, doing business with them. He should have known he couldn't trust the Dirty Secrets Club. The rich and infamous, selfish bastards interested only in playing games. Setting up an executive poker game. Sure. Ha-ha. They sent dishonorable people to the meet. He could tell it in their jumpiness and paranoia, especially the porn chick in the rubber mask.
He should have seen the robbery coming.
That's what he told himself now, but it was too late to go back.
Too late to tell himself he should have gotten their names back then, so he wouldn't have to track them down now.
The goons who attacked him, of course, weren't the ones running the show. Those people hid behind the veneer of fancy businesses and shell corporations. They were the type who passed for normal society.
They were the type who invested money, even stolen gambling money—in businesses, start-ups, the stock market, real estate. They weren't the type who would keep briefcases full of cash lying around. They'd put it into bonds or money market funds or a cash account. But they'd be concerned about liquidity. That meant they would have instant access to the money he was owed.
And they would definitely have the funds, and the ability to make an overnight electronic funds transfer to an account Perry designated. Especially if he took their families hostage and started injecting them with fentanyl, or holding a kid's face underwater in a bathtub.
They had no idea how much time he had spent thinking of ways to even the scales. Turnabout? Not even close. They had taken his money, his voice, his freedom. He would make them pay everything.
Then he would fly away.
He powered up Gray Man's phone. He knew there was almost no chance of a voice call getting through in the wake of a big earthquake, but a text might make it. He squeezed the phone in his hand and waited.
He kept walking along a street full of honking cars and rushing people. Only those going by foot were getting anywhere. Geli would never make it out under these conditions. A shame, in a way. She was so devoted, she would do anything for him. Luckily, that meant she knew what to do if she was compromised. She'd take care of herself, to protect him.
The phone vibrated.
He looked, and smiled. It was a name and an address.
Very, very good.
So that's who she was. Johanna Beckett, M.D.
He strode up the dark and disorganized street, sending a text message as he went. Johanna. Come out, come out, wherever you are.
The entire Bay Area was blacked out.
Jo's chest tightened. The Bay Bridge was invisible. Coit Tower, usually brightly lit at the top of Telegraph Hill, was a dark shadow, like a burned-out flare. Headlights marked San Francisco's streets, thin streams of light that ran like ribbons on the roads down the hill, but there were no house lights, no streetlights. The city looked as if a shroud had fallen over it.
And beyond, all around the vast shores of the bay, everything was simply black. Lights usually ringed the bay like a bowl of gold, but the enormous harbor was an empty sink of darkness. Dark water, dark land, dark sky, all blending into one. The Berkeley hills had winked out. A few pockets of light were giving off a glow far to the south, toward San Jose, but they were like a faint promise, a pocket of the twenty-first century amid a land abruptly plunged back to pre-Columbian days. A hundred miles of shoreline, how many megawatts, now black. This was the closest she'd ever get to seeing this land the way Francis Drake did when he sailed into the bay in 1579.
She heard horns carried on the night air. She didn't hear the ringing of the cable car tracks, a constant companion, she realized, until it was gone. It was as if the city had snapped, sinews torn.
More sirens. Several miles to the west, in a dense low-rise neighborhood of what were inevitably wooden Victorian apartment buildings, she saw the roiling orange light of a fire.
They were down but not out. The area had taken a solid blow, but at least for now they were holding together. But in medical terms, it was going to be like they'd suffered
a stroke. Synapses were disrupted. Wires literally down. Communication, movement, all that would be fouled up. She didn't know for how long, but the fact that every place from Sausalito to Oakland was also dark told her the lights weren't going to flip back on in the next few minutes.
From her bedroom, Sophie called, "Jo? What do you see?"
"The lights are out, but California's still standing. We're going to be okay."
She should have felt reassured. Instead she felt uneasy.
She climbed back down and shut the window. Sophie looked at her with a strange admiration.
"How'd you do that?" she said.
"Lots of practice, from rock climbing."
"Can I go up, too?"
"Not to the roof. Maybe to my climbing gym."
"Really?"
Jo took her hand and headed back downstairs. "Really. But I should tell you, some people think I'm crazy."
"All zombies are crazy, right?"
Jo smiled. "Kid, I think we're going to get along great."
They headed into the kitchen. The radio was buzzing. "We have reports of several buildings down in the marina. No confirmation, but listeners are calling in a twelve-car pileup on the approach to the Bay Bridge." Papers rustled. "And we've just received a press release from the SFPD, urging people to stay off the streets. Please don't travel unless absolutely necessary, folks. The city needs to keep the roads clear for emergency vehicles."
She felt a draft. She turned the flashlight around the room. The French doors to the patio were open. She pulled them shut. They wouldn't close.
The door frame was—damn, it had shifted in the quake. She pulled harder. The wood stuck. She braced one foot against the wall and hauled. The wood squeaked, and she managed to close the doors enough to stop the draft.
But not enough to lock them. The frame was only a couple of millimeters off, but the lock wouldn't line up.
She was going to need to take them off the hinges and plane them to fit. And she didn't have a carpenter's plane.
"Come on. We're going to my neighbor's," she said.
Skunk sat behind the wheel of the Cadillac at a strip mall on Van Ness. The lights were out, the stores were dark, and people were still going in and out—through the doors. He couldn't believe it. Nobody had smashed any windows. Nothing had been set fire to. Nobody was running out of Circuit City with television sets. What was wrong with these people?
