The Ghosts in Their Boroughs

Chapter 6

At last Madsen said, “You’re dead wrong, you know. About strength not being enough. And you’re wrong about preparedness; I mean, you saw those pitiful souls back at Rockefeller Plaza—well, but for my planning, ‘there but for the grace of God goes you.’ All of you.”

He looked at me through the rear-view mirror. “No. Whatever it is they let loose in this park; whatever it is they did to that car—preparation was, is, everything.” He stared through the windshield at the restaurant. “Prediction is everything. Knowing your enemy is everything.” He tittered a little. “You might even say it’s my religion.”

He breathed deeply and let it out, changed tack. “Fry oil—that’s right. Okay. Sylvia, you’re getaway. We need someone at the wheel. Lou, Doc, you’re with me.” He held up a gloved hand, arrogantly, imperiously. “Give me an AR—the one on the top rack. Let’s move.”

I twisted to face the gunrack but paused, thinking about my inability to hit any of the creatures. Pratt must have been watching me, because he said, “And what of you, Mr. Reese? What’s your religion?”

I glanced at Madsen’s reflection in the rear window, or at least the back of his head. “I don’t trust anyone or anything. That’s my religion.”

And I handed out the weapons.

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The thing of it is; I hadn’t actually known—not for sure—which is why I hesitated when Madsen pointed his rifle at us. (The only thing I really knew was that the back door to the kitchen was open—it had been open when we entered the room—and that someone, something, was moving around out there ... several somethings, if the sound of patio furniture scraping about was any indication.) No, Pratt was the hero—and stone-cold killer, who knew?—who raised his own weapon and squeezed the trigger (even as Madsen squeezed his) before I finally realized I’d been right.

Because they were both still standing. Somehow.

“Well, f**k me,” I said, and raised my rifle. “Guess I wasn’t such a bad shot, after all.” I pressed the end of the barrel against his cheek and tried to force him back. “Now ... explain it to me.”

But Madsen didn’t move, didn’t budge. “What’s to explain? I gave you blanks—obviously. And then you switched the rifles.” He jolted as something snarled—something right outside the door. “Probably because you knew, as I did, that you were just so much baggage for me to tote around; so much dead weight—and that my only real interest was Sylvia. I mean, I had myself and I had Eve; what use was a f*****g college professor and some crooner from the village?” He looked me up and down quickly. “Nice mullet, by the way.”

I eased off the safety. “I don’t croon.”

“And those specs!” He laughed. “Yellow as their wearer, no doubt.” He shook his head. “Well. You certainly do cut a figure; I’ll give you that. I mean, you’ve got Aging Rockstar from the Village down to a—”

And then he was lunging; lunging and grabbing for the g*n, which I fired. Then he was falling to the floor as the creatures, the cassowaries, the f*****g dinosaurs began spilling into the room, slipping on the grease. As we bolted outside and straight into the truck—for she’d brought the vehicle around; and Madsen, having picked up my rifle, propped himself on an elbow and began firing—hitting some of the animals but also the truck’s bulletproof windshield.

“Get some! Come on, get some, get some!”

During which we got into the truck and Sylvia put it in reverse—though not before we saw him sinking beneath their backs, drowning amidst their bodies ... rising, briefly, only to get pulled back down. Not before we saw his blood spreading toward us like a cloud, like a storm. Like the squall that had made the city what it was, which was a place for winds and the souls of winds—like the bleeding of the ghosts in their boroughs.

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“I have to say, when that gigantasaurus showed up, I thought we were finished.” I looked beyond the Jersey shore at Manhattan, which looked surprisingly underwhelming from where we were at, probably because it was so dark. “That was some Aces driving.”

We’d already gone over the possibilities—none of which made any sense: We were in an alternate reality—one in which we shared the planet with dinosaurs. There’d been some kind of time-storm (in which most the population had ceased to exist, and we shared the planet with dinosaurs). We were dead. And shared the planet with dinosaurs. It was pointless to even speculate.

Sylvia shrugged. “Girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.” She looked across at Pratt. “What about you? Did you think we were goners?”

Pratt tittered as he looked at the water. “Yes. And no. I’ve had you as a student, after all—so I know what you’re capable of.” He lifted his gaze to the stars. “No, the only one I ever really doubted was Madsen—mostly because of that damn certitude.”

Nobody said anything as we leaned against the rail of the ship.

At last I said, “What do you suppose happened to him, made him c***k?”

Pratt seemed to think about it, still looking at the stars. “Who knows. He may have been cracked for a long time—ever since he was a child. Sometimes it’s too terrible for them ... too traumatic. Birth itself, I mean. The existential nature of our abandonment.”