The Space Needle stood up out of the skyline like a thumbtack in a map, telling Tim he had arrived. He was tempted to ask Sasha to drop him off at Pioneer Square so he could see his city one more time.

But no. He had work to do.

She didn’t speak as she hurried them across the Sound. He pointed where he wanted her to go and she steered the little boat easily. Rain chewed at the waves for a while and filled up the bottom of the boat but with just the two of them weighing it down the boat didn’t sit so low in the water, and it was easy for him to bail faster than the water came in.

As they got closer the city revealed itself in stages, blocks of buildings emerging from the mist, streets opening up long vistas to him as he peered down their lengths. He didn’t see any people, not even droolers, but the streets were still clogged with cars, just as he remembered. Of course, these cars weren’t moving, but they reassured him just by their presence. The trees that lined the streets were still green and they still shook and bowed in the wind off the water. The windows of the buildings weren’t broken. The street signs weren’t tilted over to the side. There was so much that looked right, that looked normal. He let himself daydream for a while, let himself imagine what it would be like to land on the waterfront, to walk down those streets, and watch everyone come out to get their newspapers, to run to catch buses headed for work, to see children playing and riding their bikes. He could pretend that it was just before dawn, that the city was just sleeping. Not dead.

He knew better, of course. On CNN, the last time he’d seen CNN, they had called downtown Seattle the White Zone. Not like the white zones at the airport, that were for loading and unloading only, no. White because the map might as well be blank—everything north of Olympia and Fort Lewis was one long Plague Zone where no human being ever went, where civilization had been wiped clean.

The tension between that horror and what he actually saw, the innocence of the city when seen from the water versus what he’d seen happen to his family, left him keyed up and restless. He bailed faster than he needed to, and when the water was all gone he checked his pistol over and over, making sure it was clean, making sure it wouldn’t jam when he shot Phil Nero in the head.

It was a big, heavy gun, a Ruger Blackhawk revolver. He’d picked it because he remembered the name from a detective novel he’d read years earlier and he figured it would probably be a reliable weapon. It had six chambers and he’d pocketed two speed loaders just in case. Just in case. He didn’t expect to have much trouble finding Nero and finishing what he’d come for, but you never knew.

The little boat sped into Elliott Bay and Tim pointed at a narrow channel of water on the east side of Harbor Island. He’d spent a while studying maps of the city, looking for the quickest route through to Seward Park and his old neighborhood. The fastest route, of course, was through the Lake Washington ship canal. He could have taken Sasha’s boat through the city and into Lake Washington, then south almost all the way to his neighborhood. Sasha had put the kibosh on that very quickly—the locks of the canal were closed and there was no one left to open them again. So Tim would have to go overland to get home. He’d chosen a route through the port facilities—which Sasha had agreed would probably be deserted, since they’d been heavily defended during the evacuation. He would head past Safeco Field and then through a couple of miles of residential neighborhoods. That would be the dangerous part but if he stuck to the highways he thought he would be alright.

“There,” he said, pointing at a long boat channel carved into the docklands, just north of Harbor Island. Sasha steered them down inbetween two high walls slick with green algae and toward the end of the channel, where a metal ladder lead up to the top.

She cut the motor and left them bobbing next to the ladder. He turned to speak to her but she was watching the high walls as if expecting droolers to emerge and jump down into the boat.

“I’ll be okay, really,” he said.

She still didn’t look at him. “Twenty-four hours.”

“Sure, sure—”

“Twenty-four hours, starting now.”

He could tell she wasn’t going to say anything more. He shoved the gun in his pack, then hauled it onto his shoulders. It wasn’t easy standing up in the tiny boat but he managed to lean forward and catch himself on the water-slick rungs of the ladder. It felt slippery but he thought he could manage it. He started climbing up, testing each rung with his feet, and almost fell when he heard her backing the boat up. He hung there and watched her go, her face turned away as she watched the channel behind her.

He understood, of course. She didn’t want to waste time worrying about somebody who she must have thought of as suicidal. Okay, he told himself. If that’s how it’s going to be. He climbed up the ladder, taking his time, letting himself rest after every few rungs. It was hard work hauling himself upwards, hand over hand, his knuckles white on the cold, wet metal.

Just a few more. He could see the top, and darkness beyond. He put another hand up, grabbed hard. Another foot, another foot, another hand. He lifted his head up and looked over the side.

A face glistening with black slime looked back down at him.