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searched Eugene for an inhaler, found it, and brought it
to his mouth.
    As soon as Eugene could talk he said, “My
wife, my daughter!” but his legs kept him moving forward.
    The group emerged from the Belmont Theater.
Outside, people were running and screaming through the night.
Others were being attacked. Sirens filled the air, and a shop
across the street was going up in flames.
    Stephanie opened the back of the ambulance
and everyone climbed in, then she closed the door and headed to the
front seat.
    “Wait,” Cynthia said, “we’re leaving?”
    “We can’t stay here,” Stephanie said.
    “My family!” Eugene said. Stephanie rounded
on him.
    “I lost my partner in there!”
    For a minute no one said anything. Then
someone slammed into the window on the passenger side of the
ambulance. Stephanie jumped, and as the man outside pounded on the
window until the glass cracked, she reached for her keys.
    “I have to go to them,” Eugene said. He
reached for the door, but the man in the WWE shirt grabbed him.
“Let g-go of m-me!”
    “Sorry, man.”
    The passenger window shattered and the
engine roared to life. Stephanie hit the gas and the ambulance
jerked forward. The man at the window grunted and moaned as he
struggled to hold on. His feet dragged along the ground, leaving
trails of blood in the parking lot. Finally he let go and rolled
along the ground.
    Eugene began to cry.
    “I think you can let him go now,” Cynthia
said.
    “Sorry.” The man in the WWE shirt let go of
Eugene, who sat still, sobbing. “The name’s Jason. Jason Cash.”
    “Look at that,” the plain-looking woman
said. She was pointing out the window. The ambulance weaved in and
out of wrecked vehicles and others perfectly intact, whose drivers
no longer cared about traffic laws.
    “I’m trying not to,” Evan said.
    “We need to get off the streets,” Stephanie
said. “It’s not safe.”
    “Is anywhere safe?” Jason said. Cynthia sat
forward suddenly.
    “I think I know a place.”
     
    9
    In the Air
     
    The plane bobbed suddenly, and Layne gripped
the arm of his seat tightly. Alex giggled.
    “Don’t worry, it’s normal,” she said.
    “I know,” Layne said. He didn’t feel any
better, though. He knew the chances of the plane going down were
low, but he didn’t like high places, and a plane was just about as
high a place as one could get. The plane jerked again, and Layne
had the same reaction.
    “You’re going to rip the arm right off of
the seat.”
    “It’s a natural reaction. I don’t like
heights.”
    “You’re not even at the window.” Alex
laughed.
    “Doesn’t mean I’m not thousands of feet in
the air,” Layne said. Alex’s laughing didn’t annoy him; it had a
sort of calming effect, it let him know how silly he was being.
    The plane jerked harder than before, and
Layne grabbed both arms and shut his eyes.
    “Quit that,” Alex said. “You’re going to be
fine.” She took Layne’s left hand, which startled him. The plane
dipped slightly, and this time, he wasn’t allowed to squeeze.
“See?”
    Layne smiled. His right hand had still
clamped down on the arm of the seat, but at least he was beginning
to appear less afraid. Layne looked at Alex’s hand and noticed a
rainbow-colored bracelet with dice-block letters on it.
    “I like your bracelet,” he said.
    “Thanks. My mother made this for me when I
was young.”
    “What does it say?”
    “It says ‘Hope Perseveres’. She used to say
it a lot, whenever we were having trouble. She used to remind me
that hope would get us through anything.”
    “I like that,” Layne said. The plane shook.
“I can use it right about now, too.”
     
    ****
     
    In the cabin the co-pilot, a young man named
Oliver, was trying to make small talk, but the pilot gave one-word
answers, if he said anything at all. Finally Oliver gave up, and
hoped that the next flight would have a friendlier captain.
    It was dark out, so there was little to look
at other than