The day after he buried his father, he was called to a fire scene in Williamsburg, an old warehouse converted into loft condos. The fire was put out while some people were still trapped in their rooms. Travis was part of the team finding survivors and bodies. He came upon a man alone in his room, lying on the floor, moaning. Smoke came from his body.

“You’re going to be alright,” Travis said.

He took the man’s arms to drag him from the room, and the skin came right off him. Travis fell, and heard the man breathe out one last time.

That had been the worst week of Travis’s life, until this.

Time seemed lost to them. It became night and Travis realized it when he saw the ship’s white strobe lighting like a false full moon on the bottom of a low cloud. He was struck with guilt for being away from Corrina for so long, and for keeping Darren without eating. As they walked back the hallway was dark, there was no emergency lighting along the floor here and the cloudy sky offered little solace for them through the glass wall. Travis could sense the inner wall along his left shoulder and walked straight, never stumbling. The staircase too was dark. He held the railing and they descended.

Corrina sat next to Gerry, but there was a gulf between them. Gerry sat staring, his chin on his fist, his elbow on his knee, looking absolutely frozen. Travis thought of the statue The Thinker.

Corrina was on her feet coming at them, it seemed, without even having looked up to see Darren coming. She took him gently from Travis’s arms. The boy put his arms around her and patted her on the back and they seemed to just drift, as though they were blowing away altogether in a wind. The mother and son were each broken and spilling out, and only together did the leaking stop.

46

 

Lee’s spies were refugees. A third-year student from Fordham College and a grocery store clerk from Yonkers.

They approached the Atrium walking the hallways quickly but not in any way looking suspicious. Colonel Warrant had been described to them in great detail, and they had seen photos of Hesse and Travis from Rick Dumas’ cell phone. They took the long way around, finally approaching the Atrium from forward on the ship and reversing back. Here and there they ran into folks they hadn’t seen in some time.

They had dismissed the idea that they’d be recognized. Before the raid, they had each spent time around the ship, they didn’t feel their faces would seem new to anyone. Yet as they came from the stairs onto the Atrium floor, and the dull grey light of the skylights so far above, they felt their otherness all the same; they seemed healthier, stronger than those they passed by. There was a rotting stench in the air, like the place was dying. The mucousy coughing filled the air at all times, like crickets chirping at night. The spies were scared now, but excited.

They closely examined the first few old men they saw, imagining Colonel Warrant, but the weakness of those they met could not match the description Rick Dumas and Lee Golding had given.

There was the office, where they’d been told it would be. Inside were Hesse and the Colonel.

The student and the clerk paused in a small encampment of several groups about fifty feet from the shop front. That was as close as they dared. The silence in the room was oppressive. The grocery clerk scanned the faces and saw utter resignation. The difference to his own community in the Theater was stark. They had each passed the same amount of time on the Festival, yet those in the Theater were still alive, still spoke to each other, found ways to pass the time. These hundreds were walking dead.

The student was not watching the Atrium, but the office. This was John Hesse, who Lee Golding had railed against. That Hesse who had anointed himself to protect them all and failed, that had allowed a panic, and the loss of the food and fuel with the lifeboats, who had shortchanged the Theater just because they were out of sight and who ultimately hadn’t found an answer to the big question: How would they get off the boat?

The student didn’t see it. There was something in the face of this Hesse that contradicted that history. Hesse had that look, like someone who didn’t make mistakes. Even in the positions each camp was in, the student’s side had the food and the gun, yet he wondered if he wouldn’t feel safer with this Hesse.

Hesse was speaking to Warrant but no sound escaped the office. The face turned and the student could see his eyes. This man did not look starved, scared or resigned.

The student seemed lost in the image and shocked to see Hesse out of his seat and coming through the door into the Atrium floor, their eyes still locked. He was coming towards them fast, getting bigger and more real.

The student turned and ran. The clerk saw his partner go, saw Hesse and Warrant break into a run and turned too, but too late. As he took his first steps, Hesse already was on him bringing him down.

Now there was life in the crowd, the clerk thought as he saw the feet jumping all around him and felt the weight of Hesse pressing down his chest and head into the floor.

The Colonel was after the other, up the stairs.

“Stop him!” Warrant yelled.

A man above them on the stairs reacted confusedly, stopping in his steps as the student burst past him.

Up one flight, two flights, Warrant stayed with the boy, and then without second thought, he gave up the chase. The student looked back and saw Colonel Warrant falling against the wall in exhaustion, grasping his chest. He was gone. He ran until he reached the exterior promenade. It was empty and he continued at a jog around the big bulk of the ship, home to the Theater.

He thought of that Greek guy who ran home to tell his army of some battle somewhere then dropped dead. They named the marathon after him or something. When he finally reached the backstage level and slowed to a walk he broke out in a sweat. Through the security, knocking on Lee Golding’s dressing room, he was soaked. No shirt to change into. Ever.

Lee Golding emerged quickly, wearing his gun. The door was open and the spy could see Lee Golding’s wife watching from inside the room, reclined on the couch but very much alert.

“They got Wells,” the student said. “He knew, Hesse, he just looked out his office and he knew, he came right after us and they got Wells.”

Lee Golding’s face drooped.

“Did you learn anything?” was all he could think to ask.

“No,” he said. “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

Lee Golding’s big hand came over his face and he shook his head. He was getting a sick feeling. He grabbed at the blonde beard that had grown in around the original silver goatee.

Why was there only bad luck, this stupid, useless bad luck to get in the way of everything?

47

Travis left them and went to get food. Colonel Warrant and Hesse were not around, so Travis returned quickly to feed his group. After, he would return with the gun.

Only Travis ate. Some kind of fish stew with bread. There was something wrong with the bread, he thought. They didn’t have the right ingredients anymore. He couldn’t guess what it might be. He didn’t know bread. But it wasn’t right.

He slipped back into the hallway. He found Vera’s stateroom and let himself in. She was asleep on the couch. She didn’t sleep in the bedroom anymore, and she was always sleeping. Travis let himself into the bedroom, finding it quietly in the dark.

When he came back out and shut the stateroom door from the hallway he again had the emergency lights along the floor to give him at least a general sense of his surroundings. Travis sensed someone else standing just by him.

He was punched in the face then thrown against the counter.