On the ground the smoke lost the sharp definition it had shone from afar. As Tim headed down strip mall-lined Rainier Avenue it still loomed before him but the farther he got the farther it seemed to shrink back. Yet he knew he was entering the plume when wisps of it, black and oily, started curling around his feet. They got caught in the trees, crouching there like half-real giant spiders, or filled up the bright awnings of shops and coffee houses until they were loosed by the wind and spilled free to flash away on the air.

The smell got worse with every step. It filled up the back of Tim’s throat and made him cough. It left a nasty residue he could feel on his skin. As he kept moving south it got thicker above and around him, an oily fog that flapped past the disk of the sun and turned its light green and weak.

After the first few blocks he had to stop and wrap a spare t-shirt around his face to keep from choking. After a few more blocks even that didn’t help. He sat down on the pavement—the air was slightly clearer down by the ground—and took off the shirt. A nasty yellow stain had appeared where it had covered his mouth and nose and he wondered how toxic it might be. Cancer was the least of his worries, though. He was more concerned with smoke inhalation, which could kill him a lot faster. He wetted down the shirt with a little of his rapidly-dwindling water and that seemed to help.

It didn’t keep his eyes from burning, of course. He squinted through the smoke and rubbed and scratched at his eyes with his filthy hands. Tears tracked down through the soot on his cheeks and he constantly had to wipe them away.

He considered finding a car and driving through the smoke. After another few blocks, though, he realized that would be suicidal. The fumes had snuck up on him and now the street was as dark as it might be on a bad cloudy night. He could barely see a few yards ahead of him. On foot that was fine, he could see obstacles before he ran into them, but he knew if he tried to drive through the gloom he would crash into the first abandoned car that got in his way.

There were plenty of them, though they were sparser on the ground than the frozen traffic jam had been up on the overpass. The parking lots that lined either side of the street were almost empty but the streets were full of forgotten collisions and vehicles that had been hastily parked and abandoned, trucks that had been half-filled with suitcases and trash bags full of clothes, and plenty of cars that had just run out of gas.

From time to time he would see one that was still occupied. Corpses lay head first on steering wheels as if they were just taking a quick nap before they got back on the road. Some cars had been torn open by droolers and dry blood splattered their doors and dashboards. He couldn’t help but think of Karen and Jake. Had Karen been heading for the docks when Phil Nero got to her? He wondered if she’d even had that much of a plan. It had happened so quickly—she had been one of the first victims—had the call for the general evacuation even come yet? Or had she been trying to beat the rush, desperately attempting to get out before the onslaught of humanity that she might have sensed would come howling after her?

The bodies in the cars were in pieces, most of them. The skin and flesh had been torn away by human teeth. Tim tried to deny to himself that something similar had happened to Karen and Jake. Then he shook his head and forced himself to face facts. Nero had eaten his wife and child, or at least left them dead for other droolers to snack on. When he got to Seward Park, Tim fully expected to find his wife’s body butchered and mostly consumed.

The thought made him feel ill, of course. It also filled him up with a new resolve. One more crime Nero had to answer for. One more violation to avenge. It put a spring in his step, alright.

There was another possibility, one he wasn’t ready to consider fully. Karen—or more likely Jake—might not have died when Nero attacked. She could be—she could be infected, could be a—a—

A drooler.

A soda can rolled down the street, just one more urban tumbleweed. It was rolling against the wind, though. Tim froze exactly where he stood, his baseball bat clutched in both hands. He tried to open his eyes wider, to listen and smell with all his being. The smoke got in his head and made him want to cough and hack it away but he forced himself to stand stock still while his throat burned and his body surged with the fear.

He could hear footsteps, somewhere nearby. He could hear legs rubbing together, that ridiculous noise corduroy makes when it scratches against its own texture.

He could see nothing through the smoke. Nothing at all.

Then from behind him he heard the can roll to a clattering, rattling stop. Then someone stepped on it with a crunch that made his heart leap.

He was surrounded.