can stay alive and we can kill the things that want to kill us, but there is no grand solution. We searched for years and never found one, and now our time is up. The world is over. It can't be cured, it can't be salvaged, it can't be saved.'
'Yes it can!' Julie screams at him, losing all composure. 'Who decided life has to be a nightmare? Who wrote that fucking rule? We can fix it, we've just never tried before! We've always been too busy and selfish and scared!'
Grigio grits his teeth. 'You are a dreamer. You are a child. You are your mother.'
'Dad, listen!'
'No.'
Chapter 17
He cocks the gun and presses it against my forehead, directly onto Julie's Band-Aid. Here it comes. Here is M's ever-present irony. My inevitable death, ignoring me all those years when I wished for it daily, arriving only after I've decided I want to live for ever. I close my eyes and brace myself.
A spatter of blood warms my face - but it's not mine. My eyes flash open just in time to see Julie's knife glancing off Grigio's hand. The gun flies out of his grip and fires when it hits the floor, then again and again as the recoil knocks it against the walls of the narrow hall like a ricocheting Superball. Everyone drops for cover, and the gun finally spins to rest touching Nora's toes. In the deafened silence she stares down at it, wide-eyed, then looks at the general. Cradling his gashed hand, he lunges. Nora snatches the gun off the floor and aims it at his face. He freezes. He flexes his jaw and inches forward as if about to pounce anyway. But then Nora pops out the spent ammo clip, whips a fresh one out of her purse, shoves it into the gun and chambers a round, all one liquid motion without ever taking her eyes off his. Grigio steps back.
'Go,' she says, her eyes flicking to Julie. 'Try to get out somehow. Just try.'
Julie grabs my hand. We back out of the room while her dad stands there vibrating with rage.
'Goodbye, Dad,' Julie says softly. We turn and run down the stairs.
'Julie!' Grigio howls, and the sound reminds me so much of another sound, a hollow blast from a broken hunting horn, that I shiver in my damp shirt.
We are running. Julie stays in front, leading us through the cramped streets. Behind us, angry shouts ring out from the direction of Julie's house. Then the squawk of walkie-talkies. We are running, and we are being chased. Julie's leadership is less than decisive. We zigzag and backtrack. We are rodents scrambling in a cage. We run as the looming rooftops spin around us.
Then we hit the wall. A sheer concrete barrier laced with scaffolding, ladders and walkways to nowhere. All the bleachers are gone, but one staircase remains; a dark hallway beckons to us from the top. We run towards it. Everything on either side of the staircase has been stripped away, leaving it floating in space like Jacob's ladder.
A shout flies up from the ground below just as we reach the opening. 'Miss Grigio!'
We turn and look down. Colonel Rosso is at the bottom of the steps, surrounded by a retinue of Security officers. He is the only one without his gun drawn.
'Please don't run!' he calls to Julie.
Julie pulls me into the hallway and we sprint into the dark.
This inner space is clearly under construction, but most of it remains exactly as it was abandoned. Hot-dog stands, souvenir kiosks and overpriced pretzel booths sit cold and lifeless in the shadows. The shouts of the Security team echo behind us. I wait for the dead end that will halt us, that will force me to turn and face the inevitable.
The hallway ends. In the faint light creeping through holes in the concrete, I see a sign on the door:
EMERGENCY EXIT
Julie runs faster, dragging me behind her. We slam into the door and it flies open -
'Oh shhh - ' she gasps and whips around, grabbing onto the door frame as one foot dangles out over an eight-storey drop.
Cold wind whistles around the doorway, where torn stumps of a fire escape protrude from the wall.
Birds flutter past. Below, the city spreads out like a vast cemetery, high-rises like headstones.
'Miss Grigio!'
Rosso and his officers roll to a stop about twenty feet behind us. Rosso is breathing hard, clearly too old for hot pursuit.
I look out the door