Everyone Dies in the End #74

Susan

The night got lighter, not darker. Strange, and strange that it was strange, because it was the most normal thing in the world, just not a normality that Susan had witnessed in the past few months. The truck drove into Philadelphia and the night got brighter. There were lights, actual streetlights. And traffic. Not heavy traffic mind, you, but wheeled vehicles on streets. Enough traffic to embolden Susan to switch on the Indian’s headlight. There were some cars, mostly smaller, and even more motorcycles. Made sense, motorcycles took less gas, and this was certainly a world of less gas. The truck exited the turnpike, and drove deeper into the city. It was seven or eight o’clock, Susan guessed. No way to tell for sure, she no longer wore a watch. She didn’t see open stores, but many looked as if they were merely closed for the night, and the streetlights shone brightly.

Deeper into the city, and the sidewalks filled. Cantinas and bars were open, the hot neon blinking in the chill autumn night, and the air smelled almost clean, unlike the foul reek of Charlotte. Not surprising. Charlotte’s decaying corpses were absent here. Deeper in the city, even more traffic flowed beside her; cars, lots of motorcycles, horses, and horse-drawn carts. The pattern was chaotic, boisterous, and unsupervised. There no police. No uniformed police. Most street corners had at least a pair of…well, toughs was the word that popped into Susan’s mind. Mean-looking, rough men, armed to the teeth. It was a carnival atmosphere, dangerous, crazy, but carnival. It struck Susan as an incongruous juxtaposition.

Back at the battle of the roadblock, she learned that humans were penned and fed to monsters. Penned right here, or somewhere near here, yet the loud crowd pulsing through the street didn’t strike her as people living in fear. They struck her as alive, if not thriving, at least surviving.

The throng was so thick that she no longer worried about being spotted from the truck. It was possible, but unlikely. Motorcycles, bikes, pedestrians, wagons, and even the occasional car jockeyed for every open patch of road. Ahead an impressive cathedral towered over the crowd. Many surged through the gothic arches curving above its doors. Guards stood in front—slack, slouchy guards, but guards nevertheless, watching the masses filing through the cathedral’s doors, closely inspecting one or two every few minutes.

The truck turned on a small alley to the side of the church; a pair of guards roughly cleared the alley’s cracked pavement of pedestrians. The truck was apparently expected. The driver down shifted, and smoke puffed from the perforated vertical exhaust beside the cab. The truck rumbled through the guards and rolled down the ally.

The cathedral and its rectory formed the narrow alley’s walls, and at the far end Susan spotted a pair of Dempster-Dumpsters. From the entrance the guards glared sternly at the herd of people streaming by. There was no following the truck, but Susan didn’t need to, the cathedral was its final destination. There was no other reason to enter the alley. She drove by the entrance, the Indian moving at little more than a walking pace, restricted by the sweaty horde of people and vehicles. She’d find somewhere to hide the Indian, and she’d be back.

           If the truck was headed to the cathedral, then it was her link to finding those captives and releasing them, her link to doing something good.