However the policeman, it seemed, had not figured out the last method of seeing and did not notice Tony on the ground. But Logan understood that this would grant him only a short respite. There was no place to hide on this street, so sooner or later this… this thing will manage to see him. And the farther Tony runs, the more likely he is to be seen. He did not know, of course, how accurately the cop in his present condition could shoot… but he had no desire to test it.
Therefore Tony, with a heroic effort, overcame his instinctive desire to get as far as possible from the cadaver. He rushed on all fours directly at it.
Several hours before, even in a ghastly dream, the idea of attacking a policeman would not have come to Logan’s mind. But then even in a ghastly dream he could not imagine such a policeman… And no act in all his previous life had demanded even a tenth of such boldness—and not at all because it was necessary to overcome a taboo of a law-abiding citizen…
Tony had flung himself at the cop’s boots (they were covered either with dirt or blood), still remaining out of its sight. And then he jumped sharply up right before its face, seized its terrible eye, and pulled with all his might, simultaneously clenching his fist. The sphere of cold slime burst in his hand, like a huge rotten grape.
Logan immediately jumped back, at the same moment fastidiously shaking the lumps of the squashed eye from his palm. The cop’s fingers fumbled at Tony’s shirt and scratched his shoulder, but could not hold him. Tony ran down the street towards the nearest crossroads, zigzagging from side to side since he wasn’t sure that he wouldn’t be targeted by sound. But, apparently the blinded cop tried to get back into the car—probably to call for reinforcements—bumped into the half-open door (Logan heard it slam), and then, unable to find the handle, began to punch the glass.
Tony turned at the crossroads and realized that he had already been here, but this time he ran in a new direction.
However, he quickly regretted his choice.
Ahead, blocking the left sidewalk and half of the narrow street, a garbage truck stood. Stood with extinguished lights, without any signs of life. Very recently, of course, such a sight would not have frightened Logan at all and would hardly have drawn his attention. Well, he would have been surprised that the driver had left the truck turned slantwise across the street, abutting its nose against the building at the left and causing an obstruction for both traffic and pedestrians. Though, here and now, there were neither pedestrians nor traffic…
Now Logan trusted no municipal motor vehicles anymore.
However the danger behind him was more real, and there was no way to turn anyway, so Tony continued to run forward. During the next few seconds, he understood that the garbage truck had been abandoned long ago. Its body, once white, was eaten with rust, its cab gaped with the blackness of broken windows, and tires hung on rims like the rotten flesh on bones of a corpse. More surprising was that nobody had moved this wreck out of the way… however, this did not surprise Logan now. And then he saw that, before turning into garbage itself, the truck had spilled its contents out onto the road. Black plastic bags lay behind it on the street and on the right sidewalk. One bag still hung down behind from the truck. The appeal not to litter on a door—one of the few places on the truck body where the paint had escaped the effects of corrosion—looked in this surrounding especially incongruous.
And having run yet some yards more, Tony understood that these were not the usual garbage bags.
They were twice as long as normal and each was bound by rough ropes from outside. And the outlines of the things inside resembled human bodies.
Logan stopped so sharply that he almost fell. And at the same moment he heard the sound of a police siren behind.
In despair he rushed forward again. The only possible path was through the black bags. Logan hoped that he could jump over them, but in one place they lay too densely, and he had to step his unshod right foot on one of them. Under his foot something soft squelched and the bag made an unpleasant sound, similar to an exhalation of a choking asthmatic. Two more jumps—and Tony darted to the left, trying to hide from a probable pursuit from behind the garbage truck.
And understood that he tried in vain.
Ahead, the street came to a dead end at the brick wall of some huge uninhabited structure—either warehouse or factory. On both sides of the street there were only closed doors of offices and shops. There was no place to run anymore.
But that was not what filled Tony with the greatest horror. He was struck dumb looking not at the wall blocking his way, but above and behind it.
The fog was vanishing, its muslin thinned and torn like a decaying shroud. And, appearing from gloom, over a wall, over jagged silhouettes of roofs behind it, over all Downtown there rose two giant pillars of Twin Towers, their windows glowing in dim, unsteady crimson light.
The sound of the siren again howling behind Tony jarred him out of his stupor. His eyes feverishly swept around. Under the truck? No time to hide in its bed… maybe in the cab—but he wouldn’t be well concealed there… But, having darted a glance towards the cab, Logan saw that the truck nose not simply abutted its right corner against a wall, but had pushed through the glass storefront of some shop. And to the right, behind the glass, motionless figures stood and stared straight at Logan.
But Tony wasn’t frightened, since he understood at once that they were mannequins. The idea of standing among them was born instantly. During his university days, he and a fellow student once had had a lot of fun in Madame Tussaud’s New York museum. In a dimly lit room representing a party, where wax figures were not lined up along walls, but settled down in easy poses around the room near visitors, the young men had posed motionlessly. When some visitors began to photograph them, the students suddenly moved and enjoyed the reaction. Probably, this trick would work now, too—the creatures pursuing Tony wouldn’t guess that he stood right before their very eyes. His clothes were not in the proper condition to look like those on a mannequin, but inside the shop it was much darker than in the museum. But the shop door, naturally, was closed. Would it be possible to squeeze through the broken glass storefront, between the garbage truck cab and the rapaciously grinning splinters of glass?
But there was no time to reflect further. He did not hear the siren any more, but the shimmer of police car lights already lit up the street, shining feebly from under the truck. Tony darted to the store’s front window and had time to notice that the broken glass had a thick layer of dust. However, it was no wonder, considering the aged condition of the truck… And only thanks to this dust was Tony able to discern in the dark the sharp glass tooth ready to rip his throat. A wider splinter lower down was ready to stick into his belly, leaving no chance of climbing in through the narrow gap without damaging his intestines.
At this instant, Logan felt the dead fingers on his wrist weakening their grasp. But against the backdrop of the night’s nightmarish events, this movement did not frighten him. On the contrary, he thought with spiteful pleasure, he had been given an opportunity. He seized the wrist of the rigidly frozen hand and used it like a stone to strike the glass splinters blocking his way. Glass collapsed with a wallop on the sidewalk. Tony had the impression that it would be heard not only in the police car, but in the neighboring blocks as well. It was, however, too late to change plans. He slipped into the store display window to the right and stiffened behind the glass between the mannequins of a young girl and a little boy. But that damned hand marked him nearly as much as his torn and dirty clothes… Tony made a new attempt to unclench its fingers and realized that they had no will of their own. Obviously, they had simply begun to thaw, making the grasp weaker… Tony wanted only to unbend them, but they started to break with a crunch, though their skin did not tear anymore. He hardly had time to fling the maimed hand somewhere deep into the dark interior of the shop, because the police car appeared from behind the garbage truck, driving directly on the black bags. And Logan was struck dumb staring at it.