As is customary, I'll say thanks for the reviews :) Now on to Chapter 5: Bosco is woken from a dream by a frantic phone-call from Faith ...

You know, I was originally gonna have it work out so Cruz would be the one to get shot by the Army, but I figured people might enjoy that a bit too much ;) Her death-scene should still be fun to write, though ... it's comin' up in Chapter 6 or maybe 7

There is one character death in this chapter; the character can be considered major or minor, depending on your point of view.





Chapter 5

June 25-26

Day 4-5

There is no God up in the sky tonight

- Nine Inch Nails



Bosco took Faith home, and when she asked him to stay with her and her family, he lied and told her that he wanted to go back out alone, see if there was anything he could do.

Instead, he'd gone home himself, not even bothering to take the squad car back to the Five-Five. He went home and lay down on his bed still in full uniform, and for perhaps three hours he simply lay there, staring at the ceiling, listening to the faint gunshots, the faint screams that would occasionally drift through the window.

I have to move, he kept telling himself in the rare moments when his thoughts became coherent. Of course he did. He had to go, check on his mom, check on Cruz, and he was beginning to think he should have stayed with Faith. He kept seeing her, standing in the doorway looking dazed and cadaverous, Fred and the kids huddled in the apartment behind her. He had failed Sully and Davis and Taylor - that couldn't be helped. Now he had to think about the friends who were left.

But he only lay there, and in his mind's eye, all he kept seeing was the afternoon disaster, hearing it, replaying it. The heavy, chunky roar of the .50-caliber. Kim slammed back against her seat just before the bloody curtains were drawn over ambulance's windows. The helicopter opening up on Sawyer's roadblock. Sully screaming at him to pick Taylor up, that Taylor had gotten away and was running, even as Bosco was running himself.

But it was Kim he kept returning to, and new details kept surfacing in his memory like corpses floating to the surface of a lake. He remembered there had been blood running out of the seam at the bottom of the ambulance's door, pooling on the ground under it. He remembered seeing what might have been the vague shape of Kim's body through the streaked red haze of the windows, slumped over the steering wheel ...

I slept with her, he thought suddenly, and sure enough, that was technically true; it had been about two years before, that night outside the bowling alley, in his Mustang. A little bout of unexpected car-sex, spontaneous and fun and delightfully naughty with Jimmy Doherty and Carlos Nieto waiting on them only a few feet away. Kim, pretty and supple and warm and willing, and he enjoyed it, not having the slightest idea that he'd end up watching her be chewed apart by an Army machine-gun-

Now that thought got him moving.

Bosco scrambled up and ran for the bathroom. He didn't quite make it.

He knelt on the floor for another five, perhaps six minutes, holding the edge of the toilet with trembling arms, nose filled with the sour stench of his own vomit. His vision seemed dim and hazy, and he wondered faintly if he might be catching this sickness after all.

Gonna feel sorry for yourself, eh, handsome? Cruz' voice asked. Gonna just sit here and wallow in it like a pig in shit, huh? You know that's all it is, Boscorelli. You fucking coward.

He spat viciously into the bowl, clenched his teeth, and stood up. Wallowing in self-pity. That was exactly what he was doing. Goddamned if it wasn't.

Bosco went to the bedroom closet and took out the rifle. It was the one given to him by Glen Hobart, that crazy ol' ESU buddy of his who had decided to check out via suicide by sniper. He'd kept the rifle though he'd never used it, and it felt strange to load it and sling it over his shoulder after all this time. But it was a damned fine gun, and he had a feeling he might be needing it.

He grabbed an extra box of shells and changed into civvies, keeping back his body armor, gunbelt, the spare handgun in the ankle-holster, and the badge. The rest of the uniform was tossed in a careless heap on the bed. He would never wear it or any other again.

Bosco looked around the apartment for what he believed might be the last time (though it would not; he would return a final time later that evening), and left.



***



Pete Ridge had been a pilot and a damned good one. Earlier that afternoon, at around the time Bosco and his friends were riding around the city spreading their message, Pete had climbed into his beloved little blue-and-white Cessna and started to spread a message of his own. He had about a thousand hastily-prepared leaflets that contained essentially the same information as Alex Taylor's fact sheet, which he proceeded to drop on as much of New York as possible. A thousand leaflets wasn't much in the long run, but Pete felt he was doing his part. His wife and baby son had both died of the superflu, and he was well on his way himself.

About twenty minutes and about six hundred leaflets after he began, Pete Ridge's beloved little blue-and-white Cessna had been brought down with a surface-to-air missile fired from an Army checkpoint not that far from the 55th Precinct police station. The soldiers manning the post, most of them dying on their feet already, then had a mild disagreement over this somewhat harsh tactic. This mild disagreement resulted in almost total slaughter.

Bosco knew none of this, of course, but he did see some of the results; he had to make a detour around the smoking remains Pete Ridge's beloved little blue-and-white Cessna, which sat in the center of the street and still contained the smoking remains of Pete Ridge.

He'd tried his mother's apartment already and found it empty. Her bedroom had been in a state of serious disarray, drawers hanging open, clothes scattered around. That was not a good sign. That, he suspected, was a sign of someone preparing a very speedy suitcase.

Now he was back here, at the bar. His hope of finding her was fading, though. Fast.

It was as inconceivable as it was unnerving; last night, this bar had been more or less alive and humming with people drinking and dancing and having some nice, innocent fun reconnecting with a dead decade. Last night his mother had stood behind the bar, brimming over with good cheer, making the liquor flow with great gusto.

Bosco wove slowly between tables, most of them still littered with empty beer bottles, a few overturned. Most of the booze had been looted already, and broken glass crunched underfoot. He stepped on something that rolled under his foot and almost sent him sprawling; a squat little shot-glass. He kicked it across the room and heard it shatter somewhere in the darkened far corner of the bar, near the fire-exit where he'd seen that woman in the stupid Cindy Lauper-looking getup, the one who had looked like Cruz.

Cruz. It always came rolling back around to Cruz, didn't it?

He'd check on her, in time. She was probably still at her apartment; he didn't think it was in Cruz' nature to go to the hospital. On those occasions where she'd been injured on the job, he knew she resented the medical attention that followed, with its implication that she was subject to the same frailties as the rest of the human race. No, knowing Cruz she would have stayed in bed, getting sicker and sicker, believing that it was just a bad bug, that eventually she'd beat it. After all, she was Sergeant Cruz of Anti-Crime. She could shoot a man in the back and then pretend to hear him condemning his friend with his dying words. What chance did a loathsome little germ have against someone like that?

Bosco was starting to believe that it might just have a pretty good one.

There were two bodies in here with him, he saw; a man was sprawled on a pool table and another was slumped over the bar. The one at the bar looked like the classic caricature of a booze-hound, face-down in his beer. Most of the bar's stock had already been looted, true, but when this guy had died of the superflu he'd managed to do it with a glass in his hand. That man, Bosco thought, had either been very pathetic or very clever.

The body on the pool table had met a more direct end; judging from what still remained above his neck (which wasn't much), Bosco guessed a close-range shotgun blast to the face. And he didn't think it looked much like a suicide.

He drew his sidearm as he went over to the bar, peering over it hesitantly. For a moment he so completely expected to see his mother lying dead on the other side that for about a tenth of a second he actually did see her. His breath caught, and then he saw what it was; a red leather jacket. Just somebody's leftover from Retro Eighties Night. Good ol' Retro Eighties Night. We can dance, we can dance. Everybody pull down your pants.

He went back into the office area, and it was there that he found the last traces of his mother.

There was a note on a desk. Written in large block letters at the top was the word MAURICE. Under that was a simple, quickly scrawled note.



I'm leaving this because I know you'll come back here looking for me. I left one in my apartment too. Don't worry (this was underlined). I'm going to try to leave New York. I don't know where I'm going but I'll try and call you when I get somewhere safe. You were right. Soldiers came around 1:00 AM and made everybody leave. A guy mouthed off to one of them and the soldier hit him with the butt of his gun and broke the guy's nose. It was very scary, but I'm staying calm. I don't know where Mikey is. Please try to find him. And be very careful.

Always know I love you, Maurice.

Bosco swallowed the lump that was forming in his throat and absently stuffed the note into his pocket. He must have overlooked the one she'd left at her apartment. Find Mikey? Christ, he hadn't even thought of Mikey. He had to admit to himself that Mikey came in relatively low on his list of priorities at the moment. Sad but true. He'd look for Mikey eventually, but he had a lot to do first.

And there was that last line to consider - Always know I love you, Maurice. Not just I love you or her more common Luv Ya. No, it was Always know I love you, Maurice. So formal, so final.

As if she never really expected to see him again.

And that was probably likely; if she was going to attempt to leave the city, she might have some trouble. Traffic was jammed solid for blocks, and it was becoming clear that a lot of people were simply dying in their cars. Worse still, the rumors of Army machine-gun posts were no longer rumors; it was clear that the posts were there, and in many places still operative.

So when you cut right down to it, he was too late. He could try to look for her, but how the hell would he even begin to start? There were no specifics in the note, no idea what route she was planning to take. She could be anywhere by now. Anywhere. Why the hell would she write such a pissy, airheaded note? She was smarter than that.

She was in a hurry, idiot. And she has this thing, this superflu. Not bad yet, but she must know that's what she has. That couldn't have helped her concentration much, could it?

He left the office and looked helplessly around the bar, shaking his head. No, there was nothing he could do about his mother, probably nothing he could do about Mikey, either. Rose had the disease, and he supposed Mikey did as well. Was he really the only person who wasn't incubating this little bastard?

Well, maybe he was.

Bosco felt suddenly very cold. Now that was a happy thought, wasn't it? What if he was the only human being who was immune to this?

"No," he muttered, and in the spooky quiet of the bar a murmur could be very loud. "No. There have to be others. Have to be."

Oh, that's great logic, Cruz' voice growled somewhere in the back of his head. He pushed it away.

He took a long breath and sat down at a table. It suddenly occurred to him that there was a sly, vaguely noticeable rankness in the air; the two dead bodies in here with him were already starting to decompose. And he guessed that neither of them had smelled very good to begin with.

Listen, Maurice.

Oh God. It was his mother's voice in his head now. At the same time he knew it wasn't, not really; just his own overtaxed mind taking on different personae. But even so, this was surely a sign of insanity, wasn't it?

You'd better not start feeling all sorry for yourself again, Rose Boscorelli said in the center of his mind. Ma's a lost cause. Mikey's a lost cause. No shame in admitting it. You're better off worrying about Cruz and Faith now. After all, Faith's your partner and your best friend, and Cruz is the closest thing you have to a woman in your life. In her way.

But first, sleep. Go back home and rest. Not just lay around; actually sleep. You've been up for nearly twelve hours and you've seen a lot. You're witnessing history. More than that; you're witnessing the END of history. You're watching Faith physically fall apart and you can't do a damned thing about it. You've watched a bunch of Army renegades gun down an unarmed paramedic who was also your friend. You think you have to keep moving, do something, but you know what? There's nothing you can do, and you're only hurting yourself.

Go back home, Maurice. Get a few hours' sleep, at least. Lay low for a while.

Bosco drew another long breath and stood up. He decided he would go home and get some sleep.

After all, he was a good boy. He could never go against his mother.



***



As he lay in the darkness and the silence (which was still punctuated by the occasional gunshot, and at one point something that sounded like an enormous explosion several blocks over), he found that sleep came with unsettling ease.

As he slipped gratefully into its warm grip, he found himself thinking of the crow again. Two days ago, that had been. The crow on the streetlight, and that one bizarre millisecond where he thought it was a man. There had been something else there, as well; a very clear feeling of that sly ol' deja vu. It made no sense.

Bosco slept. And as he slept, he dreamed.

And as he dreamed, it came to him. It was something from the past, a real and tangible memory, something that had happened to him about five years before, as he-



***



-as he sat in the squad car outside Emily Yokas' elementary school, waiting for Faith. Emily, about nine years old at this time, had been punched by an older boy. The boy, however, claimed Emily had punched him first. Or something. Bosco didn't know the specifics, and honestly, he didn't much care. Both kids had been kept after school for punishment, and now Faith felt she had to drop by in person to straighten things out. And maybe use the uniform to throw a nice scare into the boy.

As Bosco waited, Henry Pape, a scrawny little white guy who wore baggy clothes and gold chains and tried to talk the talk (yo-yo-yo and what-up dog and so forth), walked right past the car. Bosco might have missed him completely if Henry had been smart enough to keep his eyes forward and act natural. But Henry eyed the car nervously, even slowing down a bit, maybe trying to see if he knew the cop sitting in the passenger seat. Turned out he did; Bosco had busted Henry once before, for good ol' fashioned purse-snatching.

This time Henry was wanted for a string of daytime burglaries, so naturally Bosco took after him. He chased Henry for several blocks, but the little poseur was too fast and too slippery.

Bosco finally admitted defeat and started to trudge back to the cruiser. Faith would probably be waiting, and she would want to know where he'd disappeared to. She'd probably be pissed off at him, as if he had a choice when a wanted criminal just sashays right past his car. And as if all of that weren't bad enough, he'd also have to tell her that he'd lost the little bastard anyway.

"Jesus Tap-Dancing Christ," he muttered, drawing a few startled glances from passing pedestrians. "Jesus Tap-Dancing Christ in a sidecar." Bosco turned to a young man who was holding an ice-cream cone and smiling slightly. "What, you lookin' at something? You think it's funny?"

The young man shrugged and tried to suppress the smile.

Then Bosco heard the scream.

It was definitely Henry; Bosco knew because the little bastard had squealed like that when the chase had begun. Like a pig. Like an honest-to-God pig. Henry must have doubled back at some point, because the scream came from the direction of the squad car.

Another scream drifted towards him. God, Henry really did sound just like a pig. Bosco smiled and started to run.

He waited for another scream, heard it, and homed in.

Henry Pape turned out to be hanging from a fire escape in an alley; how the hell he'd gotten up there so fast was a mystery to Bosco. At any rate it didn't matter; Henry was now in a fair amount of trouble. He was screaming. His legs were waving in the air comically. Ol' Henry Pape was looking at a three-story fall, albeit into a pile of garbage bags. But a three-story fall was still a three-story fall.

There was someone else up there as well, someone standing on the fire escape above Henry, looking down at him with detached curiosity. Bosco saw the blue, saw the bulky belt around the figure's waist, saw the glint of metal on the figure's chest. Another cop.

"Hey down there!" the cop called down, waving.

Bosco grinned and waved back. The other cop would eventually pull Henry up, of course, but he was apparently gonna let the little shithead dangle a bit first. Here was a man after Bosco's own heart, for sure.

The cop knelt down and seemed to look down at Henry with fatherly disapproval, shaking his head ruefully.

Then, to Bosco's surprise, the cop started to pry Henry's fingers off the fire escape.

"This little piggy went to market!" the cop cried merrily, and plucked two of Henry's fingers away from the fire escape, like a man flipping switches with pizzaz.

Below, Bosco's surprise evaporated and he began to laugh. This was bad, but it wasn't that bad. There were those garbage bags below, of course; Henry would land in them. Might break a leg, but it wouldn't kill him. And it would look very appropriate; oh, Mr. Garbage Man? Here's another big ol' sack of shit for you.

Above, Henry began to shriek.

"This little piggy stayed home!" the cop yelled. Two more fingers were pried away.

Henry began to beg, a sputtering buzzsaw of: "Nopleasenopleasenopleasenoplease!"

The cop continued his surgical burglarectomy on the fire escape, unmoved. And by the time the little piggy went wee-wee-wee all the way home and Henry fell like a fucking stone, Bosco was absolutely howling with laughter. That man up there was a genius. If he'd just done the predictable thing and stepped on Henry's fingers, that would have been funny enough. But this guy was a superb showman as well as a kickass cop. Bosco's hat was truly off to him.

Gravity did its work, and sure enough, Henry broke his leg in two places.

Bosco shook his head, still chuckling, and walked over to the little loser.

"You don't run from me," Bosco said amiably, jabbing a finger down at him. "You know that? You don't run from me."

Henry only howled. He now appeared to have an extra knee-joint.

"Hey there, partner."

Bosco turned. The cop had come down through the building and out into the alley with surprising speed, and was now standing behind him.

Bosco's smile faltered a bit. The first thing that went through his mind was that this man was crazy.

But as fast as that thought came, it evaporated and Bosco stuck out his hand. The cop was perhaps a bit older than him (though Bosco found he couldn't guess just how much older) and his most distinguishing feature was the wide, sunny, absolutely gleeful grin that split his face. It wasn't insanity, Bosco saw; it was only an almost rabid love for the job. Pinned to the cop's jacket just to the left of his badge was a yellow smiley-face button. Swersky would have Bosco's ass on a plate if he ever caught him with such a non-reg modification to the uniform, and Bosco had to admire this guy's stones. Here was a man who loved his work as much as Bosco, maybe more.

And it was refreshing. Glen Hobart, Sergeant Cruz ... they were both years in his future, but even if he'd known them at the time, Bosco would still have to admit that he'd rather hang out with this guy. Here was a cop he could admire, maybe even - dare he say it - learn from. He'd never had anyone he could call a mentor before, and before now the very idea would have earned only a derisive laugh.

But there a definite appeal in it now.

"You from the Five-Five?" Bosco asked, noting the number on the cop's collar. "Never seen you before."

The cop shrugged and shook Bosco's hand. The merry grin never wavered. "Officer Richard Farrell at your service," he said jovially. "Used to be First Watch. Switched to Third just last week. Nice to make your acquaintance, partner."

"Absolutely," Bosco said, and he had to admit that Farrell's grin was infectious. Once you got used to it, anyway.

Henry, now apparently forgotten, reminded them he was still there. "My leeeeeeg!!!"

Without ever breaking Bosco's gaze, Farrell's foot shot out with eerie, preternatural speed and landed a kick squarely on Henry's broken leg. The scream this produced was absolutely titanic, and Henry wouldn't be bothering them again; he passed out.

Farrell's grin finally faded (though it didn't entirely disappear), and he leaned in confidentially. "Uh, now, we don't have to tell anyone about this, do we?"

Bosco smiled. "Absolutely not."

"'Absolutely and absolutely not,'" Farrell said wryly. "That about all you can say, son?"

"Absolutely not."

Farrell threw back his head and laughed. It was loud, hearty and right from the belly, and he clapped Bosco on the shoulder almost hard enough to send him staggering. Normally, such a move would have come across as patronizing and would have royally pissed Bosco off, maybe even put him in a fighting mood. It didn't now. No sir. He liked this guy. He respected this guy, right from the jump, and that wasn't something Bosco could say very often.

"That ..." Bosco began, uncharacteristically tongue-tied. "That, just now, it was ... it was pretty funny," he finished lamely.

Farrell nodded. The mirthful grin was on full-power again. "Thanks. I aim to please."

-ringing-

"I mean, I don't think even I'd have had the balls to do that. Not with another cop watchin' me."

Farrell shrugged. "You gotta have faith in your fellow cops, right?"

Faith.

"Oh, shit," Bosco said. "My partner, she's gonna be wondering where-"

-ringing-

"Ah, she can wait," Farrell said with a wave. "She can wait." He studied Bosco as if assessing him, deciding whether ol' Bos was worth his time. "You know, Bosco, you and I really oughtta get together for a beer sometime."

Bosco felt a childish, uncharacteristic twinge of excitement, like some little voice inside him had suddenly started chattering oh-boy-oh-boy-oh-boy. He kept his expression neutral, though. It was important never to appear too eager, too much like a bootlicking flunky. He had to pretend to consider, pretend to decide whether Farrell was worth his time or not, even though he really wanted to get to know this guy better. He had to keep Farrell's respect. At all costs.

- ringing -

Out loud, Bosco heard himself say, "Yeah, man, that'd be great! When?"

Farrell grinned. "Anytime, son. Any old time. I'm gonna be switching again, to Second Watch, but you can still find me. Now, you'd better be getting back to your partner." He nodded at the unconscious Henry. "Mind if I take care of this jagoff? Save you the paperwork."

Bosco shook his head. "No, man. I mean, go right ahead. You were the one who caught him. And like I said, it was a beautiful fall. Perfect ten."

Farrell grinned. They shook hands again, Farrell's grip vice-firm and oddly cold.

Then they parted, and Bosco continued back to the squad car in a far better mood. Faith was there waiting for him, and Faith was mad, but when she saw how cheerful he was, she backed down. She asked what happened, and he told her a half-truth; he told her that he'd chased a guy he thought was Henry Pape, but it turned out to be just some dumb kid who decided to run from the cops even though he hadn't done anything wrong. Bosco told her he'd cut the kid loose. Faith never suspected any of what really happened. Not for a second.

But for some reason Farrell had faded in his mind, becoming lost in the daily concerns of work and life, and when Bosco finally tried to track him down for that beer a week later, he was disappointed. Farrell had been assigned to the Five-Five, but he'd resigned - as it happened, only a few days after Bosco met him. Then he'd disappeared, and he'd left no forwarding address, no clues as to where he had gone on to live or work.

-ringing-

Five years later, Bosco saw Farrell again - or thought he did - sitting up on a streetlight. That was why he'd felt that weird sense of deja vu. The hallucination had been Farrell, of all people.

But it had really just been a crow.

Hadn't it?

And the dream brought something else back, as well; he was sure that, at one point during their conversation, Farrell had called him "Bosco."

But Bosco was also quite sure that during their entire short conversation, he'd never once told Officer Richard Farrell his name ...

-ringing-

***



-ringing-

-ringing-

Ringing. God, what was with all the damned ringing, ringing, ringing?

He awoke in the dark only able to see the fat red numbers on his clock: 12:02 AM. He'd gotten a little over two hours' sleep.

The phone was ringing. He groped blindly for the receiver, pulled it off the cradle, and brought it to his ear ...

... only to be assaulted by the racket on the other end, a broken chorus of high-pitched screaming. Most of it was shrill and unintelligible, but he picked out the words "mommy" and "daddy" and "dead" and somewhere in the middle of the mess an adult voice was trying to get through and be heard, an adult female voice-

"... Bos ... Bosco? ... Bosco, are you there? ... Bos-"

"Faith?"

"Bosco? ... oh Jesus, Bosco ... help me!"

"What? What is it?"

Her voice seemed to fade a bit and she was suddenly no longer talking to him. "Emily, take Charlie ... take him into the living room, now! Oh Jesus, oh dear Jesus ..."

From somewhere in the background, barely coherent: "No! I wanna stay with daddy!"

"JUST GO, EM!" Faith screamed. Then her voice came back clearer again, urgent and desperate and clotted with tears. "Bosco, it's Fred, it's Fred ... I can't wake him up, Bosco! I think ... oh Jesus, Bosco, I think he's dead!"

In the far background, a fresh burst of wails from Emily Yokas.

Still sure that this too must be a dream, Bosco groped for his bedside lamp. "Did you ... did you call 911, Faith?"

Faith screamed louder than he would have thought possible in her condition. "WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK I DID FIRST, YOU DUMB ASSHOLE? THERE'S NO ANSWER! NO ANSWER AT 911!"

Bosco's brain, still about sixty percent asleep, began to gibber: Fred's-dead-Fred's-dead-Fred's-dead-Fred's-

"Okay, Faith," he said mechanically. "I'll be over soon as I can. Okay?"

What the hell does she think I can do about it, anyway? he thought petulantly.

Faith swallowed audibly. "Oh-oh-okay, Bos ... thank you ... God .. I don't ... I ..."

"Just stay calm, right?" It sounded incredibly stupid, but he could think of nothing else to say.

"Please hurry," she said weakly. "Please, please hurry."





***



Heart pounding, Bosco reached out and knocked lightly on Faith's door.

"Bosco?" she cried, voice high and shaky. "That you?"

"Yeah, Faith, I'm here."

Several clicks and clacks as she undid the chain and unlocked the door. There was the low, wooden squeal of a piece of furniture being slid out of the way. The door opened and the stench washed over him. The apartment was humid and rank, the smells of sickness and cure both hitting him with equally nauseating force as he stepped inside. The hot, somehow itchy smell of Vick's Vapo-rub dominated.

Faith was in her bathrobe, hair hanging lank and lifeless in her eyes. She was holding her gun at her side. Oddly enough, her appearance had improved somewhat since this afternoon, though not by a whole lot; the swelling in her neck had gone down, but she still looked several hundred miles removed from okay.

"There were looters earlier," she said hoarsely. "They went through the whole building. That's what woke me up. I fired a shot into the wall. Maybe that's why they left. I dunno. They're gone now." She looked at him and saw Hobart's rifle over his shoulder, her eyes wild. "They are gone, right?"

Bosco nodded numbly. "Yeah. I didn't see anybody."

She swallowed and beckoned with her pistol. "Come on."

They passed through the living room. Emily Yokas was sitting on the couch, Charlie lying across her lap. Charlie was either sleeping or unconscious; Bosco could hear him breathing, though it was labored and rattling. Emily was awake and staring emptily at the TV, which showed nothing but the Emergency Broadcast System test pattern and emitted a thin and toneless whine.

"Hey, Em," Bosco said softly.

Emily didn't look up. She blinked once. That was it.

Faith tugged gently at his sleeve. "Bos ..."

Bosco didn't want to go into Faith and Fred's bedroom. He really didn't want to go in there, but that was the whole reason he was here, wasn't it? Faith went ahead of him and stood expectantly by the door, looking like some sallow carny standing next to the sideshow tent. Come on in folks, and see the dead Fred. That wasn't very kind, but it was suddenly all he could see.

"Bosco," she rasped as he brushed past her. She was holding her pistol out to him, butt-first.

"What-?"

"Take it away from me," she said, tears overspilling and running down her cheeks. She shook her head helplessly and looked pointedly towards the living room, where Emily sat with her little brother in her arms. "I thought about it, you know?" she whispered. "One for Em, one for Charlie, one for me. I hate myself for it. I don't want to do that. How would I ever do that? I kept thinking about how I could do it without ... without scaring them, without them knowing what hit them. What if I missed and only ... only wounded ... I don't want to do it. But I don't know ... I don't know how much longer we can ..." She looked at him pleadingly. "You know?"

Bosco only nodded and took the pistol from her, his chest tight and his guts loose. In front of him, the bedroom was dark but for the light spilling in from the hall. The curtains had been pulled and Fred Yokas was just a vague, dark shape in the bed. Bosco reached for the light switch and felt Faith's hand on his.

"No," she said softly. "Please don't."

He shook his head inwardly and went into the darkened room. This was where they'd slept for so many years, though hard times, good times, the place where they'd made love. They'd gotten through it all here. Fred's alcoholism, the money trouble, her abortion, the friction over her job. They'd worked through it all just to have it come down to this. Bosco felt sick, hot anger swell up in his chest, and what made it terrible was that it was anger with no direction, no focal point. He was angry about this whole goddam mess, and yet he didn't have anyone to be angry at. He yearned to be back where he was only a few short days ago, worrying about his career path, worrying about Faith turning on him, worrying about Cruz' behavior. Worrying about Cruz.

Christ, he thought as he neared the bed. I don't have to actually touch him, do I?

Well, of course he did. He could see Fred now, at least partially; he lay face-up, his head tipped back, mouth hanging open. He looked as if he'd died thrashing, gasping for breath, and in his final moments he probably would have looked much like a beached fish. Bosco couldn't hear any breathing, didn't see even the slightest hint of movement.

Reluctantly, he reached out and touched Fred's neck. It was hideous, bulbous, and he found it unlikely he'd ever get a pulse through the bloated, rubbery skin.

He didn't need one anyway; Fred was cold. Bosco winced and held his hand palm-out over Fred's mouth, willing the man to prove him wrong.

But there was nothing.

He turned to Faith, who stood watching in silhouette from the doorway, and shook his head slowly.

She nodded. Then she fell weakly back against the doorframe and slid slowly to the floor, ending up with her knees pulled up under her chin. Her bathrobe and nightgown both rode up, and with horror Bosco saw she had nothing on underneath. He turned away quickly, went over to the window, and all but fell into the chair next to it.

He sat there for a long time, perhaps twenty minutes, listening to Faith cry over her dead husband. Eventually her sobs tapered off and there was only silence, silence but for the faint whine of the Emergency Broadcast System from the living room. He pushed the curtains aside listlessly and looked out. There was a faint orange glow low across the sky as far as he could see, and he knew what it was; fires burning. Fires were burning all across the city, unchecked.

All across America.

All across the world.

No sirens out there tonight, he thought bleakly. No God in that sky, either.

"You know," Faith murmured into the silence, startling him. "I sit here, and all I can keep thinking is, how long was I asleep next to him? ... You know ... how long did I sleep there next to him while he was ..." She broke off and swallowed hard. "I know that's the wrong way to think, but I can't help it."

Bosco was thinking of the Fire-Watchers, of that pretty little rookie, Pattie Wells.

My boyfriend died last night. I woke up this morning and he was dead next to me.

Yeah, he thought bitterly. There seems to be a lot of that going around.

"Bosco?"

Without turning, he sighed. "Yeah?"

"Take us to the hospital?"

He closed his eyes. "Faith ... you don't want to do that. You don't want to take Em and Charlie there, believe me. And the streets are still lousy. I passed a bunch of jagoffs takin' shots at each other on the way here. Saw a crashed plane earlier, right in the middle of the street. Trust me, you don't want to leave here."

"Yes, I do."

"Oh Christ, Faith, why?"

"Please, Bosco."

He turned. Her face was only a white circle in the dim light, her hollow, shadowed eyes making it look like a skull. He was relieved to see that she had righted her bathrobe.

"Faith, don't you want to ... like ... don't you want to stay here ...?"

"Die here, you mean?" she said with a wan smile. "That's what you're asking? Don't I want to die here with my family, at home?"

Bosco shrugged, swallowing the lump in his throat. "Yeah, I guess that's what I'm asking."

"Then no, I don't." She laughed humorlessly, weakly. "You know, I'm actually feeling better right now. Physically, I mean."

Bosco felt a small sliver of hope and smiled thinly. "Told you you were tough, Yokas."

Faith smiled sadly. "You didn't read Alex's paper, did you?"

"Not ... not all the way through, no."

"The docs said periods of temporary recovery weren't uncommon. Like with ... like with Fred this morning. Bos, you should have seen him, he ate breakfast, he was humming, singing. Hymns, I think. But it was only temporary."

Bosco closed his eyes and felt that bright, unfocused rage again, a sudden urge to yell at her, pound his fist against the wall, put it through the window.

"So what do you really want to do, Faith?" was all he said.

"I want to go to the hospital," she said. "I want us to die in the light, I want us to die with other people. I know it's gonna be bad there, but I don't ... I don't want to stay here anymore. This place. This apartment." She sniffed and looked around the bedroom. "This is a bad place to me now, Bosco."

Bosco leaned forward, shoulders sagging. He realized he was exhausted. Not in a physical sense, either. He wanted this to be over. He wanted all of this to be over.

"Okay," he said, getting slowly to his feet. "We'll go. I'll take you over."

"Thank you." She stood up, met his eyes, and said hoarsely, "I love you, Bos."

Bosco nodded, lips trembling. He hugged her for the last time, tightly. "I love you too, Faith."