“I’m hungry,” she said.
They lingered long over a dinner in Graben’s–he in his battered jacket, she in her sweater that hung at the tails and elbows: the spectral patrons were in far better clothes, and stared at them, and they were set in a corner nearest the door, where they would be less visible. There was cracked crystal and broken china on insubstantial tables, and the stars winked coldly in gaping ruin above the wan glittering of the broken chandeliers. Ruins, cold, peaceful ruin.
Alis looked about her calmly. One could live in ruins, only so the fires were gone.
And there was Jim, who smiled at her without any touch of pity, only a wild, fey desperation that she understood who spent more than he could afford in Graben’s, the inside of which she had never hoped to see–and told her–predictably–that she was beautiful. Others had said it. Vaguely she resented such triteness from him, from him whom she had decided to trust. She smiled sadly, when he said it, and gave it up for a frown and, fearful of offending him with her melancholies, made it a smile again.
Crazy Alis. He would learn and leave tonight if she were not careful. She tried to put on gaiety, tried to laugh.
And then the music stopped in the restaurant, and the noise of the other diners went dead, and the speaker was giving an inane announcement.
Shelters . . . shelters . . . shelters.
Screams broke out. Chairs overturned.
Alis went limp in her chair, felt Jim’s cold, solid hand tugging at hers, saw his frightened face mouthing her name as he took her up into his arms, pulled her with him, started running.
The cold air outside hit her, shocked her into sight of the ruins again, wraith figures pelting toward that chaos where the fires had been worst.
And she knew.
“No!” she cried, pulling at his arm. “No!” she insisted, and bodies half-seen buffeted them in a rush to destruction. He yielded to her sudden certainty, gripped her hand and fled with her against the crowds as the sirens wailed mad ness through the night fled with her as she ran her sighted way through the ruin.
And into Kingsley’s, where cafe tables stood abandoned with food still on them, doors ajar, chairs overturned. Back they went into the kitchens and down and down into the cellar, the dark, the cold safety from the flames.
No others found them there. At last the earth shook, too deep for sound. The sirens ceased and did not come on again.
They lay in the dark and clutched each other and shivered, and above them for hours raged the sound of fire, smoke sometimes drifting in to sting their eyes and noses. There was the distant crash of brick, rumblings that shook the ground, that came near, but never touched their refuge.
And in the morning, with the scent of fire still in the air, they crept up into the murky daylight.
The ruins were still and hushed. The ghost-buildings were solid now, mere shells. The wraiths were gone. It was the fires themselves that were strange, some true, some not, playing above dark, cold brick, and most were fading.
Jim swore softly, over and over again, and wept.
When she looked at him she was dry-eyed, for she had done her crying already.
And she listened as he began to talk about food, about leaving the city, the two of them. “All right,” she said.
Then clamped her lips, shut her eyes against what she saw in his face. When she opened them it was still true, the sudden transparency, the wash of blood. She trembled, and he shook at her, his ghost-face distraught.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”
She could not tell him, would not. She remembered the boy who had drowned, remembered the other ghosts. Of a sudden she tore from his hands and ran, dodging the maze of debris that, this morning, was solid.
“Alis!” he cried and came after her.
“No!” she cried suddenly, turning, seeing the unstable wall, the cascading brick. She started back and stopped, unable to force herself. She held out her hands to warn him back, saw them solid.