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sincerely hopeful that their young ward could make
the world a better place.
    When the madness blossomed all around
them, she had fallen. Her husband David, the portly, brilliant Jimmy Buffet enthusiast
who toiled in the secondary economy so he could take weekend boating trips along
the Intracoastal, had stopped to help his wife regain her footing. Even as the
torrent of humanity pushed Ben forward—even as he clutched Lina’s tiny hand in
his own, helping her navigate the chaos—he watched for a split second as David
stooped to help his wife.
    It was no use. The tide crushed them
under and there they vanished. They were on the concourse one second and then they
were gone, and Ben had held Lina’s hand and screamed for Orin, churning his
legs and pushing against the panicked masses as they streamed for the exits.
    After the Miami detonation, night had
become day throughout the state of Florida. There was a bellowing, rushing
suction as the atmosphere was drawn out of Jacksonville’s stadium while a
shimmering gyre of orange death humped skyward along the southern horizon, like
the first waking throes of some long-slumbering fire god. The chaos ceased for
an instant while terrified football fans studied the sky, the air now whistling
past them as that mountain of poison became Everest, erasing the stars and
feeding itself on oxygen.
    400 miles away, and yet it colonized the
heavens.
    There was a furious concussion; it buffeted
the stadium, knocking every person in attendance to the ground. The jumbotrons
and scoreboards creaked, cracked, splintered and fell, crushing spectators in pools
of sparking electricity. There was a deafening roar—a horrible harmony of the
Miami blast and the raw terror of the thousands in the Gator Bowl.
    The world was reeling, and that was its
cry.
    Ben recalled how the initial impact of
that tainted air had flung him to the ground, and then he was up again and running,
little Lina tucked under his arm. It wasn’t until he had managed to descend the
stairs and was back in the parking lot on State Street that he’d realized Orin—bleeding
from an ugly gash on his forehead but otherwise whole—had also made it out.
    “What do we do?” Ben brayed, hysterical.
Lina was limp in his arms, her face buried in his armpit as the sky roiled and
pitched above them, the cloud of fallout spreading.
    “The van!” Orin shouted. “We’ve got to
get to the van! There’s a key in the dash and we’ll—we’ll go to the shelter!
Hand her over, Ben.”
    “I got her! It’s okay, Orin, let’s just
go!”
    “No way! She’s my sister—my responsibility!
Come on, Lina honey!”
    She perked up at the sound of her
brother’s voice and reached desperately for him, and then they were sprinting again
and it wasn’t until they’d found the van and Orin was behind the wheel and practically
standing on the accelerator that Ben had been able to so much as snatch a
breath.
    “Goddammit!” Orin cursed, slamming his
fist against the steering wheel for emphasis. He threw the van into reverse,
plowing into an SUV. He spun the wheel and put the van through its paces. With
a squealing fishtail they were free and careening through columns of panicked
pedestrians. Ben felt the van buckle, rise slightly, and settle as they hit
something.
    “Jesus—what was that?” Ben said.
    “Who the fuck cares? Lina, honey, put on
your seatbelt,” there was another rugged bump and that sensation of something large
passing beneath the van’s tires “—and buckle it tight! We gotta get home! We
have to get--”
    “What was that? What in the hell happened back there?” Ben shrieked, bouncing around in his seat as Orin piloted the van
through the chaos. It took a moment, but he was finally able to latch his
seatbelt.
    “ That ,” Orin said as he smashed
through some shrubs, popped over a curb and veered straight through a grassy
stretch of park, “was the end of the fucking world. Someone just started a
revolution.”
    Ben