"One, two, three… one, two three… one, two—hey, why'd ya stop?"

Swifty rolled his eyes and turned toward Jake. "Because it's getting on my nerves."

"Just wanted to see how many o' my steps it takes to match one o' yours," Jake said in defense, rubbing his upturned nose self-consciously.

"Well… do it in your head." Swifty continued to walk as before, and Jake quickly followed.

"Now I see how ya got yer nickname. Swifty. Ya sure are, alright. Swift as lightnin'. That's how ya got yer nickname, right? Ya can run as fast as lightnin'?"

"Yes," Swifty answered, with a hint of exasperation in his voice. "That's how I got my name. How many times have we sold together?"

"About…" Jake stuck out his tongue a little and screwed up his face in concentration. "…If I had to guess, that is, I'd say, about, roughly, twenty-three times this year so far, and it's spring, and I've known ya about three and a half years, so…"

"Care to buy a pape, miss?" Swifty asked a young woman carrying a basket of clothes. His voice and expression softened and he held his papers almost out if her line of vision, as if they weren't worthy of her attention.

She looked uncertain. "Well, I…"

"And might I say how lovely you're looking this morning, although that's improper of me because no doubt you're engaged, probably to a gentleman of real standing…" Swifty cast his eyes down to the ground and kicked an imaginary stone. "Not a street rat like myself, of course."

She turned a bright shade of crimson and handed him a penny. "Th-thank you, I… I'll take one."

"I'm much obliged to you, ma'am." He gave her a paper, pocketed the penny and called over his shoulder as he and Jake resumed their walk, "Stay beautiful." He overheard her emit a tiny squeak in embarrassment and scuttle off, skirt swishing along the ground.

Jake whistled, impressed by the transaction. "You sure is good wit' the ladies," he said. "And wit' words."

"So we've sold together a lot, according to you," Swifty continued, as if the conversation hadn't been interrupted at all, "and you're only just figuring out now that I'm called Swifty because I'm fast and, perhaps, smart."

"So I was right?" Jake smiled proudly. "Gosh, I'm good at this stuff. How'd you learn all that fancy talk?"

"My father had a lot of money when we came over here from China." Swifty's tone indicated he didn't want to stick to this topic for much longer. "I learned English quickly by hanging around a lot of well-off business men."

Jake seemed distracted; his attention tended to flutter from subject to subject without warning. "I wish I had a nickname."

For the first time during the discussion, Swifty sounded mildly interested. "Yeah, why don't you have one? I never understood that. All of us have one, except Dave, but he doesn't really count."

"And Jack."

"No, Jack's name is a nickname. Weren't you paying attention during The Strike?"

"Ya mean… Jack's name ain't really Jack?" Jake looked completely taken aback.

"What? No, it's Francis Sullivan." Swifty stared at his selling partner with a mixture of disbelief and disdain. "That doesn't ring any bells?"

"Uh… no. Not a one."

He bit back a remark. "Well, anyway, why don't you have a nickname?"

Jake removed his bowler hat, scratched his head for a few seconds, then put it back on and shrugged. "Nobody could think o' nothin', I guess."

"You don't have any talents or special interests?" Negative. "You're not known for anything in particular, like eating pies or going to one place all the time?" Negative. "You're just sort of boring and empty?"

Jake shrugged.

"Then I think the name Jake is a fine nickname," Swifty said. He tucked his papers under one arm and jammed his hands in his pockets, quickening his pace.

"Say, so you was rich?" Jake whistled again, and Swifty mused to himself that perhaps his nickname should've been Whistler. "I didn't know that. What happened to your pop?"

"I'd rather not talk about it, if it's all the same to you."

Jake already looked like he was counting Swifty's steps again, this time in his head as requested, so the topic didn't continue.

"Hey. Swifty. Hey. Swifty. Hey, Swifty—"

"WHAT!" The boy whose name he himself was getting sick of hearing whirled on Jake in frustration.

"I just wanted to know why yer in such a bad mood today, is all. Ya just seem so… snappy."

Swifty sighed. "Look, Jake. Can we please just do what we're here to do and sell some damned papes? I'm not out here for my health."

"I think yer not tellin' me somethin' and just usin' our job as a way to cover it up," Jake said with a surprising amount of insight. "And anyway, look around! Ain't no one to sell to, exactly, is there?"

Swifty realized with a sinking feeling of dread in his stomach that he was right: there was no one around anymore. His fingers began to fidget nervously in his pockets.

"O-okay, you win," he said, in an attempt to stave off the silence of the city, "I am feeling kinda down, and there is a reason why."

Jake smiled and adjusted his hat proudly. "Thought so. I got a special sense about these sorta things. So what's wrong then?"

Swifty's eyes were darting quickly from the sky (no incoming storms) to every alleyway they passed by (no gang wars or criminals), looking out for trouble. "Well, I… I have a lady, y'know."

The boy's eyes widened in admiration. "Ya do?"

"Yep. I have lots of ladies."

"Ya do?"

"Yep, I—"

"I'm sorry, but does this story have a point?" Snoddy interrupted rudely. "'Cause there are other things we should be talking about if it doesn't, like, for example, why half of New York is suddenly missing."

Swifty looked at him wildly, not sure how to respond.

"I kinda was enjoyin' it, actually," Racetrack said. "It's nice to hear about the ladies after starin' at you mugs all day." He gave a rather violent TAP of the cards on the table.

"Well I'm sick o' hearin' about your damned girl problems, Swifty," shouted an irritable voice from the back. "Most of us don't even have one girl, and yer complain' when ya got three—"

"Everybody quiet down now!" Jack commanded. The objections ceased immediately. "Swifty, please continue."

"Yes, I have lots of ladies. But right now I'm only having a problem with one of them."

"What's her name?"

"Isabelle." The corners of Swifty's mouth twitched into a small smile. "Isabelle's her name."

Jake sighed, dreamy-eyed. They stopped walking, and he leaned against a wall with his hands behind his head. "Is she real pretty?"

"Yes. Yes, she's very pretty."

"So what's the problem?"

Swifty frowned again. "She doesn't approve of my other ladies."

"Huh?"

"She doesn't like that I see more than one girl. And I can't have a girl telling me what to do and demanding all of my attention like some whiny brat. It's just… too much to deal with."

"Sounds like having more 'an one girl is too much to deal wit'," Jake said, looking at him.

"Well, it is sometimes… but that's my choice. She's not the boss of me." Swifty twisted his mouth into what Jake could have sworn was a pout.

"You really like her, don't ya," he said, for it wasn't a question.

"Regretfully so," Swifty replied. They hung their heads in silence, the knowledge weighing heavy on their hearts that one of them had fallen in love, and the only way out was—

"You've gotta cut it off wit' the rest of them, and go back to her with a present. It's the only way they'll believe yer sorry, these women. Ya should probably make it somethin' soft or sparkly."

Swifty nodded and looked up. Jake wasn't so dumb as he once thought; Jake was a good guy and a good friend.

Jake was standing next to an alley where a gray, decaying hand suddenly emerged and ripped out his left eye. They both screamed.

"Wha—wha—what the hell—!" Swifty cried, breathless, searching around frantically for a weapon of some sort. He found a loose brick falling out of the wall and, with all the strength he could summon, smashed it against the hand, breaking several of its fingers. Jake collapsed to the ground, unconscious, and the eyeball rolled away.

Swifty stepped back quickly and watched in silent horror as a woman stepped out of the shadows, moaning terribly with her slacken mouth. She wasn't nursing her broken hand; she just let it hang loosely by her side as she stumbled forward. Swifty's first instinct of course was to never hit a lady, but as he looked at her more closely he realized there was something different about her. The noises she was making didn't sound human, exactly; they sounded, almost, if it were possible, otherworldly.

Swifty threw the brick at her head, knocking her back a few feet, and grabbed Jake by the back of his shirt, trying to drag him away. But Jake was too heavy, and the woman was coming back. She sunk her teeth into Jake's leg and pulled him roughly toward her. Swifty had never seen someone tear into human flesh like that, with such lifeless hunger; he managed in his frenzied state of mind to notice that her own skin looked faded and dead, like it was rotting off her bones. He didn't know what this meant, but he suspected the devil might be involved.

"Oooooooh… uuuuuuugghhh…"

He whirled to his left and saw, just up the street, a man who had the same graying, dying skin. He too was groaning unnaturally, and what was worse – he was feeding on the arm of a dead old woman beside him.

Swifty did the only thing he knew how to do at that moment, and ran. He ran in the opposite direction, downtown, and didn't ever stop to look behind him. He could run like lightning, some said.

As Skittery and Specs made their way in silence toward Tibby's – noticing with curiosity and relief that every passing block contained more people – terror gnawed away at the back of Skittery's mind. It itched and tingled, tormenting him because he couldn't make heads or tails of it. At one point he even hit himself in the head with his palm, trying to knock it away, but Specs just touched his arm in disapproval and he saw that they were near the restaurant.

But there was something. Something he'd forgotten. Something important.

Esther Jacobs entered her apartment with an arm full of groceries and a heart full of sudden dread. The door was wide open, and her children were missing. Her knees buckled at the thought.

Mind distraught, her body moved mechanically into the kitchen and set the bag down gently (when you became a wife and mother, you developed automatic instincts for these things). She glanced around and tried desperately not to panic, unloading the items and putting them away in the cabinets.

Sarah's note suddenly caught her eye, and she breathed a sigh of relief after reading it over. They must've simply forgotten to close the door, that was all. She was a tad worried about Les going out and about when he was still sick, but she knew Sarah would take good care of him.

What she didn't know was that, thirty seconds after thinking this, she would be attacked from behind and effectively turned into a zombie.