Black Moon

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BIGGS RAN IN BURSTS DOWN THE STREET, wanting to move quickly but without attracting attention. These dark blocks between their building and the ransacked drugstore were sketchy. He moved through the cold corridor of shade, relieved to find the streets empty, except for a few figures, stumbling in the distance like drunks. At the intersection, abandoned cars were stalled in a mad jumble and he had to squeeze through the gaps, pressed against the cool barriers of automotive gloss.

Shops were shuttered. Many had been looted—windows smashed, the shelves inside empty. The sidewalk was gritty with glass shards and spotted with ancient stains of chewing gum. A great splatter of DNA, blackened with urban grime.

He could hear distant wailing and the occasional shout or scream from the offices and apartments above. Protruding from one window five floors up, he saw an elderly man leaning far out over the street, teetering on the brink, his thin arms extended toward the sky. Beyond him, a few floors higher, someone was throwing fistfuls of paper from an open window. The sheets drifted and turned like leaves in the air funneling between the buildings.

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