She nodded. Nothing else. No tears, no words. Only a nod.
They sat there for a long, long time. Ron didn’t know what to do. The only sound was Davey’s muffled crying.
Slowly Ron realized that the boy was saying a word, one single word over and over again:
“Mommy . . . Mommy . . . Mommy.”
Ron stared at the boy, then at Sylvia. She was rocking Davey now, bending her head low over his and whispering into his ear: “It’s all right, Davey . . . it’s all right . . . I’m here, honey . . . Mommy’s here . . .”
“You’re . . . you’re his mother?” Ron’s voice went high with shock.
She looked up at him. “Didn’t you know? Al was his father.”
And now there were tears in her eyes.
The day was cold. Hiding down in the unheated basement, huddling in the dust and dirt, Ron could feel the cold seeping into his bones. Sylvia was dozing. Davey was asleep at last, still in her lap, clinging to her.
Ron went to the window a dozen times an hour. The bodies were still there. The day looked gray and felt damp, as if snow were coming. Of course, inside the Dome no snow ever fell. But it felt like a snowy winter day.
Davey woke up late in the afternoon.
“I’m hungry,” he whined.
“Shh,” Sylvia said. “We gotta wait a while before we can eat.”
Ron said to her, “I’ll take a look around outside. Maybe I can find something.”
“No!” She looked alarmed. “They’ll be prowlin’ around out there. Wait ’til dark.”
Ron waited. It got colder and darker. Sitting there on the cement basement floor, Ron found himself shaking from the cold. They didn’t even have coats. Davey had started coughing again. Ron got up and paced around the cluttered basement floor.
“It’s dark enough,” he whispered to Sylvia at last. “I’m going out.”
He might as well have saved his energy.
The gang’s main building was completely gutted by the fire. The food supplies, guns, ammo, clothing—all gone. What hadn’t burned had been carried away by the victorious Chelsea warriors. Even the dead bodies had been stripped of anything useful or valuable.
There were no people around. None living, that is. The dead bodies littered the streets. And there were the rats. Ron nearly stepped on one before he realized what it was. In the dark, he heard a chittering sound, the skritch-skritch of clawed feet scurrying across cement pavement. And he saw the tiny, gleaming, wicked eyes.
A chill raced through him. All thought of food vanished. The previous night, the fire had kept both humans and rats terrified and cowering. Now the rats were out to claim their usual, ultimate victory over the humans. Ron raced back to the basement where he had left Sylvia and Davey. In the darkness, he tripped over a body and sprawled face down on the sidewalk. Something furry brushed against his hand.
Ron nearly screamed. He did scream, in his mind. But he managed to keep it silent.
He got to the basement and found them both asleep, untouched.
“Come on, we’re going upstairs,” Ron said as he shook Sylvia awake.
“Wh . . . whassa matter?”
“Rats.”
He could feel the shudder go through her. Silently, they climbed to the top floor of the building and slept on the floor of a bare little room.
But Ron slept very little, only in snatches of a few minutes each. By the time morning started lighting the streets outside, he was wide awake and aching with cold. And he was hungry.
Davey was coughing again. And crying.
“Ron, he feels hot. Like he’s burnin’ up!” Sylvia said.
The child’s face was red. Fever.
“He needs food,” Sylvia said, her voice close to cracking.
“And medicine,” Ron added.
Davey’s eyes were still closed, but he was moaning softly, “It hurts . . . hurts . . .”
Dewey! Dewey will know what to do. He’ll have food. And medicine, too, maybe.
“I’ve got to get to the market,” Ron told her. “I can get food there, and whatever else we need.”
“Th’ market? You’ll never make it that far.”
“Yes I will. I’ve got to.”
She reached for his arm. “Ron, don’t! You’ll get caught. If th’ Chelsea gang don’t getcha some other gang will. They all know Al’s dead by now. They won’t give a damn what they do to you!”
He pulled free of her. “I can’t sit here and let us starve. Davey needs food and medicine. No way to get them except at the market.”
