Nightworld

"Isn't the sun coming up?" Bill said, looking out the window. The sky was getting lighter but there was no sun, just a strange yellow light.

"Looks overcast," Jack said, coming up beside him.

"But those aren't clouds up there, or even haze. It's like…I don't know what it's like. Looks like a yellow scum of some sort's been poured over the sky."

"Whatever," Jack said. "We've waited long enough. The boogie beasts have called it a night and it's time to roll. You ready?"

"Soon as I take Carol back home."

"All right. I've got a couple of stops to make, then I'll be back to pick up you and the Amazing Criswell and we'll all head out to the Ashe brothers' airfield."

"Okay. I'll be ready."

"Don't get lost. There's not a lot of time to spare." He turned to go, then turned back. "How you getting there?"

"Glaeken's car."

Jack reached into his belt and pulled out an automatic pistol. He held it out to Bill, grip first.

"Better take this."

Bill stared at the thing. Its dark metal gleamed dully in the diffuse light from the window. It seemed as if some sort of alien creature had invaded the apartment.

"A gun? I wouldn't know what to do with it."

"I'll show you. First you—"

"I couldn't use it, Jack. Really."

"It's bad out there, Bill. People have been calling this city a jungle for years. They thought it was bad before the first hole opened up. They had no idea how bad it could get. There's not much trouble right around here—the creeps are no more anxious to get near that hole than anyone else—but you get too far up- or downtown and you'll run into spots that would make a jungle look like a Sunday afternoon drive. Take the gun. Just for show if nothing else."

"All right," Bill said. He took the pistol and was surprised by how heavy it was. "But what about you?"

Jack smiled. "Plenty more where that came from. Besides, I never carry just one."

As Jack hurried off, Bill slipped the pistol under his belt and pulled his sweater down over it. Then he went to the study where Carol had spent the night. She was on the phone. She hung up when he came in.

"Still busy," she said. "And I still can't get hold of an operator."

"I'll drive you over. I'm sure he's all right."

In the strange, shadowless yellow half-light that was passing for day, Bill skirted the Park to the south and headed east across town. No road blocks and no traffic to speak of. No police to speak of, either, and that concerned him. He came to First Avenue and was about to turn uptown when he glanced at the Queensboro Bridge.

"Carol!" he said as he screeched to a halt. "Look at the bridge."

"Oh, my God!" she whispered.

The center section of the span had broken up and now floated in the air in sections, tethered to the rest of the bridge by the suspension cables.

"A gravity hole," Carol said. "And it was such a beautiful bridge."

"The engineers have been saying for years what poor shape the bridges were in. Now we know how right they were."

He turned up first and drove along the middle of the street. It seemed as if almost every window in the city had been broken—except for those in Glaeken's building; not a pane had been so much as cracked there.

He eased to the left and upped their speed when he spotted a mob clustered around the front of a grocery on their right.

"Hank and I shopped there two days ago," Carol said.

Nobody was shopping now. Pillaging was more like it. People were jumping in and out of the broken door and windows, looking for anything remotely edible. But there didn't seem to be anything left to pillage. The enraged mob was tearing out the empty shelves and hurling them into the street. Three men were brawling over what looked like a can of tuna fish.

Further on, groups of tight-faced people hung about on the glass-bejeweled sidewalks, clustered in tense circles, glancing nervously over their shoulders this way and that with their fear-haunted eyes. He saw three women standing around a doorway sobbing as a sheet-covered body was being carried out. The people on the streets looked like ghosts.

"It's falling apart," Carol said, her arms crossed in front of her chest as if to ward off a chill. "Just like Hank said it would."

As Bill was slowing for a red light at 63rd—habit, pure habit—somebody shot at them. The bullet punched through the rear window and smashed the right rear side pane on its way out. Bill floored the gas pedal and sped uptown, ignoring traffic lights the rest of the way.

He double parked in front of Carol and Hank's apartment building and led her toward the shattered front door.

"The van's gone," she said, looking up and down the street.

"What van?"

"The one Hank rented."

"Maybe he had to move it."

Bill doubted that Carol believed that; he didn't believe it himself. He had a bad feeling about this: Carol was going to get hurt this morning.

They hurried inside. Carol gasped when she saw the body on the floor. Someone had covered it with a drape from one of the ruined windows.

"Do you think it's—?" she said, looking at Bill with terror in her eyes.

"I'll see."

He knelt by the still form and lifted a corner of the sheet. He dropped it quickly when he saw the white, agonized face, open mouth, and dull, staring eyes.

"Not Hank," he said, taking her arm and leading her away.

The elevator ride was slow and rough, as if the motors weren't getting enough power. As soon as the doors opened on her floor, Carol bolted from the car and ran down the hall. Bill noticed some drying brown stains on the carpet and what looked like a trail of the same leading to her apartment but he said nothing. She had her door open by the time Bill caught up with her. He stayed close behind her as she entered.

He bumped up against her back when she stopped dead inside the threshold.

"It's empty!" she cried. "He's gone!"

"Empty?" Bill said.

He glanced about. Hank might have been gone but the place didn't look empty. Except for the cyclone fencing over the windows, everything was just as it had been last time he'd come by. The furniture looked the same, nothing was—

"The food and the rest of his precious hoard. It's gone!" Her voice edged toward a sob. "He'd never leave without it. He's taken it and left me."

Bill did a quick search of the apartment. He found the note on the dresser in the bedroom.

Dear Carol

I've taken our supplies and gone looking for a safer place. I think I know of one. I can't say where it is right now, but when I get set up there, I'll come back for you. Wait for me.