“He was in the bathroom, I could hear him. She must have been with him. I know you got the gun. We gotta go back and get that food on the lifeboat. That lifeboat will work, Travis, ask Gerry.”

“It’ll work,” Gerry said. “We’ve been working on it. It’s all shot up, but the only actual damage was a gas line. We patched and stole some gas from another boat. The davit’s good too. We rigged it so you can drop it right from the door, but it’s gonna be a hell of a drop.”

“There’s just the one boat?” Travis asked.

“There’s one other lifeboat with a working davit, but it won’t start,” Claude said.

“How many people can we get in the boat?” Corrina asked, siting up straight.

“There’s not going to be any other people in that boat,” Claude said. “She sails soon, and there’s not enough in Golding’s stash to spread around. You want to go around and pick who gets on and gets off? And try and keep that quiet?”

“You know how to get it down?” Travis said.

“Yes, we looked at the cards,” Claude said.

“We can’t choose our own lives over others,” Gerry said. “We can have a lottery.”

“I’m the only one who knows where the food is,” Claude said, “and I’ll tell you we aren’t picking any names out of a hat. I already did it, and I picked you. Don’t betray that. We’ve got to get the rest of the food before Golding finds out. We’ve played real nice since this all started, and we’re either damned lucky or just damned to still be alive. This is the only chance we’re gonna get, and sharing it isn’t gonna work. It isn’t gonna happen.”

Travis looked down at the polished table. There was his reflection; a dirty, hairy old man he didn’t recognize.

“I’ll go back with Claude and get the food,” Travis said. “I wish we could all stick together right now but it’s too dangerous with Golding around. Give us a half hour head start, then come meet us at the lifeboat. Gerry, Claude – you both can find it again?”

“Yes.”

“Yes.”

Darren opened his eyes and looked up at Travis with a smile. Travis gave Darren a high-five. He touched Corrina's shoulder for a moment. He took a look around the Atrium. He'd risked his life for weeks for these people. Or had they been incidental all along? They were going to die and he was going to live. There was no way they could all live. If they had another rush on the last lifeboat, it would go as badly as the last one had.

Goodbye.

He and Claude Bettman ascended again into the darkness.

“Is there a piano on the lifeboat?” Travis said.

“No.”

“We’ll have to tell jokes then,” Travis said.

63

The Mighty Lee Golding poured water over his arms, scooped from a toilet’s basin. The ghost of his wife rushed to him, laying her hands forcefully on his body.

“Stop,” the ghost cried.

“I have to get this off,” he whispered.

“That’s good water!” she said.

“I can’t stand it,” he said.

He rubbed at the blood on his arms, Warrant’s, old and dark, smeared with Jessica’s, fresh, red and vibrant.

“I’m getting crazy,” he said. “I can’t stand being cooped up. How could he have escaped the Theater? I tell you, it was the same one! They only have one gun, but he won’t die!”

Her face scrunched as she prepared the words in reply. Lee stopped her.

“What’s that?” he said.

He put up his finger to silence her.

The bathroom door was open just a crack. Lee slowly, quietly pushed it forward. The gun was ready. He stepped out onto the carpet but could not help making a sound, as the floor creaked just enough. Lee threw himself around the corner to a view of the stateroom. There was no one there. He ran to the door and peered into the hall. In the darkness he could not see anyone, but he heard footsteps, running away.

“Someone’s been eating our porridge,” Lee said, regarding the pile of cans, boxes, sacks, and plastic bottles in the kitchen. Something had indeed been disturbed.

He looked at the ghost against the dim light of the drawn drapes of the big windows. He knew she was dead, that she was not here, but he spoke aloud.

“It’s over,” he said. “I can’t keep moving all this food with me. They’ll never let me sleep. They’ll hunt day and night.”

He looked up, where the ghost had been.

“I haven’t enough bullets to kill them all, they’ll win in the end.”

His face went down into his hands.

“They’ve already won. They took you.”

He looked at his hands and still saw the blood. The gun was on the floor at his feet. He stood straight and looked right at those dimly glowing drapes.

“Why fight? I don’t want to stay in character anymore. The winners are picked. The moves are staged. There’s no one watching us battle and scream and pound our chests, play heel and face, good and bad. I can’t care any more. You’re gone. They’ve taken everything from me, and they know it! Each moment I live is a humiliation. I’m lying on the mat, they’re raising their arms above me and mocking me, and they won’t let me leave. I just lie there on the mat.”

He picked up the gun and studied it as if there was a secret in it to decipher.

But for that pistol, they never could come against him. They never would dare dozens of them slaughtered, even with the fire heating the air around them.

The ghost was silent, and he looked at her and ached in his heart at the accusations in her eyes. His heartache turned to rage, as it had all his life.

“I won’t let them gloat over our bodies,” he said. “That can’t be the end. I have enough bullets to kill your murderers. And then I’ll kill the others until my last bullet and when I blow my own brains out, they’ll know what I did everything for, and no one will think they beat us.”

“Yes,” she said.

They went into the darkness. Towards the Atrium. The fire had spread beyond their expectations. He could feel it behind closed doors.

They were close to the end.

64

Two bullets and a sudden hope, that he and Darren and Corrina might live, might see each other off this ship. That he might see Darren grow.

It was an agonizing walk to Lee Golding’s hiding spot, fearful each moment of Lee and of opening the wrong door and finding the blaze. Claude led Travis to a stateroom near the top level, so that it cooled as they got closer.

It was quiet in the dark hall. No emergency lighting. They were silent. The door was closed, but the bolt had been crashed with a kick so it was not secure. Travis motioned Claude to stay back. He put his hand on the door, crouched as low as he could to the side of the door, pushed it very slowly out of the doorframe.

Travis stopped and waited. He slowly pushed the door open. He waited. He heard nothing.

They waited by the door a full two minutes. When they heard no sound, Travis walked in real low. He stayed behind the entryway wall, counted down from five, and spun around the corner, gun held high.

The room was illuminated by sunlight through the open balcony drapes. It was empty. The food was still there.

Silently, they gathered what they could. Travis used his jacket to fashion a sack, holding the bottom band out and flipped up with one arm. He added a few smaller items to his pants pockets and folded some into his elbows and arms.

They were out again. Carrying as much as they were, they could not move so delicately and quietly returning in the darkness, but they met no disaster until the last door revealed the sunlit deck.

The few remaining boats were so damaged, it seemed impossible one could still function. When Travis saw the one Claude stopped at, it seemed the more unlikely. The davits were badly bent, and bullet holes dotted the bow.

“It’ll work,” Claude said. “Why aren’t they here yet?”

Claude opened the door and stepped up and in. He dropped his load of food and water and sat at the controls. He turned a key, and Travis saw the navigation lights switch on. The motor started with a cough as Claude tested that too for just a second before turning it off. Travis heard a mechanical clang, and the davits shook. Claude came back to the door.