We saw the bodies first, floating on the surface, carried by the slow river current. They looked like they died recently. As we cruised three more miles inland, we realized where the bodies were coming from ahead.

The military also shot down Governor Mario M. Cuomo Bridge, a 3-mile span of collapsed trusses, cables, suspenders, and pavement slabs, all the way to its anchorage. It was still burning when we arrived, which meant that it was recent, and from the looks of it, only an hour or so ago. Dozens of vehicles were halfway submerged close to shore, and I reckoned most of them probably had people trapped inside. Both towns the bridge was connected to were on fire.

By the roadways, hundreds of vehicles were abandoned as far back inland until I couldn't see the end of it. I glanced at the map and found that we were getting closer to the town of Sleepy Hollow.

We were not alone in the water.

I counted at least nine other boats on the river, and I surmised they must be coming from the burned-down marina that we passed earlier. Some were as small as a kayak, and some were inflatables, a few were dinghies, while a couple was as big as ours. One motorboat, which spanned fifteen feet, had many people shivering on its small deck.

Up the cliffs, I saw people standing on the edge, staring at the destroyed bridge; their one chance of escape severed. Some of them were families, others had their belongings packed, ready to move, and I reckoned it must be because of the evacuation notice this morning, broadcasted throughout the region.

"Bren! You need to get down here!" Miguel hollered from the cockpit.

I looked over the railing from the flybridge and saw that a man on a 2-person orange kayak was waving at us with both his arms and then paddled closer toward the stern.

"Stop the boat, Logan," I said. Logan immediately lowered the speed to a crawl.

I leaped down onto the cockpit and then dropped to the swim platform.

"Morning, sir!" The kayaker greeted with a wide smile.

"Stop paddling," I said, showing him my shotgun.

"Whoa! Whoa! Easy there, sir!"

He was in his early twenties, sporting a full thick blond beard, wearing a neon-green reflective life-jacket and a NY Giants baseball cap. Over to the empty second seat were a bloodied hatchet, a baseball bat spiked with nails, and his backpack.

The man looked down on my NYPD vest, and his eyes widened. "You a police officer?"

I looked at his blood-drenched jacket and baseball cap. "Are you bitten?"

"No, sir! But I was here when those fighter jets came flying around and blew many people out of that bridge! Can you believe that? We're under attack by North Koreans!"

"The vectors are here, too?"

"Um, well, I don't know what those are, but if you're talking about them eaters, then yeah. It happened last night, ripped poor Bethany to death in front of me! We were supposed to take her kayak, see? Now, she's gone."

"Wait, last night?"

"Yeah, sir. I was almost in bed when the evacuation call came up on TV, and then people just started screaming. I heard people said it came from the city, but the government said they have them locked down tight." He looked at the bridge. "I think not anymore."

"I thought the nearby areas were evacuated a long time ago."

"Them army lot who watched our town said to stay indoors, closed down schools and work and stores. I know nothing about any evacuation. They abandoned us before those eaters started tearing my friends apart."

I glanced in the direction toward New York City, saw the thick billows of smoke rising from the horizon. I realized now why they decided to bomb the city. My hunch was correct. They were losing control fast.

"Should we bring him on board?" Miguel asked, shooting a deathly glare at the kayaker.

"I don't have it, sir! Whatever it is! I think I'm sinking! Bethany got a gun, but she accidentally shot through the kayak when those things got her."

"What's your name?" I asked as I waved for Luke and Yousef to help me down on the swim platform.

"Alfred Fitzgibbon," he said. "But my friends call me Alfie."

He seemed like a nice guy. A bit shook and roughed-up, but he's polite and friendly. I glanced at his kayak, saw that it was slowly taking in water, his khakis soaked already. I then looked at his two weapons, paying close attention to the blood, recognized he had that fighting spine in him.

I stepped closer to the edge of the platform, said, "Look, Alfie, my friends and I are going to ask you to strip down completely, okay? And we'll do this privately, of course. They'll look you over for any rashes or bite marks, understand?"

Alfie nodded without hesitation. "Thank you, officer! I'll do anything. I don't want to drown!"

Luke and I grabbed the bow of the kayak and pulled it up to the swim platform. Yousef reached out and pulled Alfie onto the boat. The man knelt and kissed the wooden platform, smiling; a wash of relief crossed his face. "Thank God. Thank God," he mumbled.

"You're okay now," I said to him.

"Officer, there are also people trapped on a capsized boat. I had been asking many of these boats to let them on board, but they didn't want to do it, and some even tried to shoot me on the head like you were doing a while ago. Can you please help them?"

"A capsized boat?"

"Yes, sir. Where the bridge used to be, they're the Katingers, see. All good people like you, sir, Old Man Steve, and his two grandchildren. When those jets blew up the bridge, they were underneath it, and then a large wake capsized their boat. They can't swim back to shore, and they're clinging on the boat as we speak."

"Okay. Thank you, Alfie. We'll take a look at them."

I asked Alfie to go with Miguel and Margot down to the lower deck, and he complied quickly, still shaken by what happened; his lips quivered, and he was on the verge of tears. Felipe threw a thick blanket around him. Margot turned back to me and gave me a warm smile, nodding.

I recognized the look in Alfie's eyes. The shock of seeing people you knew dying all around you. I experienced it back in New York when it started, and I still couldn't get over it now. If the disease was beginning to spread out here, who knew how far it already expanded. I shivered to think that my home was already affected. The city of Portland received hundreds of thousands of visitors per day, and the international airport was just next door.

I told Logan about the boat Alfie mentioned. We found it floating near one of the fallen bearings through the binoculars where two men clung to the bottom hull of their capsized boat. One was older, Steve, who well past his late sixties, while the other one looked to be in his early thirties, whom Alfie mentioned was Steve's grandson. The last one was a woman close to our age, maybe even in her early twenties, another grandchild of Steve. She looked worse than the other two men, shivering against the cold breeze coming from upriver.

"Damn. They look rough," Logan said.

"Get those people on board. Have Margot checked them up for bites as well," I said.

"Should we be sharing our food with them, Bren? We don't have a lot to last two days."

"West Point is not far from here. We'll get more from town, see what we can find. Besides, there's safety in numbers, and those people need our help."

"Yeah, I guess. But if they start complaining, You know I'm not gonna hold back."

I tried to hide my smile as I climbed down to the cockpit. "Yeah, yeah. Always do what Logan Hardy does best."

He flashed me a grin and winked. "You know it."

I stood close to the stairs leading to the swim platform, getting ready to help the stranded people on the capsized boat.

Aria brought Alfie's belongings to the cockpit, placing the baseball bat and the hatchet next to his backpack. Yousef and Felipe flipped the kayak upside down on the swim platform. Henry tried to touch one of the nails on the bat, but Aria gently swatted his hand away, mentioning that he'd get blood on his hands.

Luke sidled beside me. "Lots of stranded people up there," he said, nodding his head toward the cliff. He fiddled with the straps of his rifle hanging behind his back.

"Too bad we don't have a bigger boat," I said.

"It's spreading. A lot of those people are not going to survive."

"I know. But I can't help but think we can still do something about it, no matter how small. But I can't think of any."

"You've done a lot for strangers, Bren. You took Yousef and me in your group, and now, you're helping this Alfie dude. Sometimes, you'll hit a wall. It happens but look at the good you've done. Your hunch saved us back there."

"But I don't want to hit a wall, Luke. I don't want to feel like everything is fucking hopeless."

"There will come a time that it won't be. Today isn't that day."

"I feel useless today," I said. "I mean, look at us. We have a boat. We have the privilege of watching them up there. We used to be them. Trapped."

"And we still are. Look, you are not useless, Bren, not to me," Luke said. "I owe my life to you many times. Yousef knows that, too."

"You've both done great on your own."

"No. Most of it is all because of you. If you don't have the heart of helping others, we might not be here right now. We'd be in New York, dead like the others."

"Don't get sappy on me. I hate that," I said, hitting him on the shoulder. "What's done is done. We made our decisions, we lived it, and now, all we had to do is learn from them."

"Still. It makes me wonder if I should step up more to your plate."

I let out a low chuckle. "You can't handle my level."

"Hm. Are you sure about that?" Luke glanced up to Logan on the flybridge, still steering the boat toward the stranded passengers of the motorboat. "Are you and Logan still...you know?"

"We're not together," I said quickly. "And we didn't sleep with each other if that's what you're thinking. He's straight."

"Oh. Cool. Cool." Luke rubbed the nape of his neck. "Um, I hope this isn't inappropriate to ask, but since there are limited rooms and beds for tonight..."

"You want me to sleep in yours?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I—um—no, I mean, yes, but I was saying that..."

"I was planning on sleeping out on the couch. The living room seems spacious. The others can have the cabins."

"Oh," Luke's head lowered. Then, he looked up at me again. "Well, would you like some company?"

I narrowed my eyes at him. But then I was surprised, too, when I told him, without hesitating, "I'd like that."

And then thinking a second after, I need to get laid. And if Luke was willing, or if I was reading him right, if he was really coming on to me, if he did swing on my lane, then I welcomed it. Like I said before, I am not a veteran in how people teased and flirted, but based on what I've endured the past week, you only lived once.

I welcomed at least ten minutes of escape, and if Luke's going to deliver that on my platter, then so be it. Anything to get my mind off of this fucked up world.

I saw a small smile crept on the corners of his lips, looked away, and stared out to the shores.

I never had sex before. Peter was my first, but we never made it all the way to the home run, right before he went to a military boarding school somewhere in Virginia, but that was more than a year ago. He'd be in college somewhere, enjoying as much sex as he could want without me on the picture.

Now, I felt extra guilty that I was thinking about getting laid and about sex (and the sex life of my ex) when there were literally people out on the cliffs seeking help. It felt wrong standing up on the deck feeling safe while gawking at the people stranded up there, knowing that the vectors might be nearby.

I looked over the gunwale. We're already getting closer to the capsized boat.

"Luke, why don't you get extra blankets in the storage supply? Four?" I asked.

Luke nodded and took off into the main saloon.

I looked back up to the cliff. Some of the people near the edge began waving at us, others shouted for us to stop and pointed at the shallow waters at the bottom of a cliff, but we're pretty far down, and I couldn't see a nearby dock to make land, let alone have the space to fit in hundreds of them. The shallows especially were rocky outcrops. There was no space to anchor.

I imagined we should've gone for one of those river barge cruises and used that to get out of the city instead; that way, we could help these people. But I knew that was only going to be a pipe dream and that the logistics alone of pulling off that plan would crumble quickly. We didn't even know how to operate a barge. I was already lost with how the engines worked on the boat I was literally standing on.

I had to work with what I have, starting with the three people out on a sinking boat.

I looked over the gunwale again. I could hear Steve, the older man, crying, raising his clasped hands to the heavens as if someone had finally answered his prayers. The younger man held onto the woman for dear life, wrapping his arms around her and rubbing his hands on her shoulders to keep her warm. I could already tell that the woman was suffering from hypothermia or at the onset of it.

Yousef and Aria joined me in the cockpit. Logan stopped the boat and steered to the starboard side, bringing the swim platform closer to them so that they didn't have to swim or jump into the cold river. Felipe waited on the platform, carrying a lifesaver in case someone fell off.

Logan made it look so easy maneuvering the yacht so that the swim platform was barely inches away from hitting the hull. Yousef, Aria, and I went down and joined Felipe below. We helped the Katingers cross, taking extra precautions on getting the woman on board first when I suddenly heard the cries from the cliff.

They were like ants from where I stood, but I could still hear them crying loudly, or was that something else?

No.

Those were screams.

Not people.

Vectors.

The screams grew louder, and I watched as many of the survivors jumped over the cliff, but the river didn't reach that far inland. I could see protruding rocks in the shallow water, and I watched in shock as some of the people who jumped landed on solid ground.

Some who couldn't make the jump, who couldn't find the strength to do it, had a vector on their back. I watched as a woman in a wheelchair desperately tried to get someone to help her, but the others around her had jumped (or ran), and the vectors swarmed around her in an instant.

Gunshots rang out on the cliff.

Those who had weapons started fighting back, but it was futile. Vectors surged from the roads, boxing the survivors on the cliff. There was nowhere left to go but down.

Parents threw their children over the cliff before they were devoured themselves. Many of the vectors jumped over the edge after them.

Those who survived the shallow water, which reached up to their waist, went after the survivors, turning the water a deep murky shade of red. I tried to block the noise, but I found myself unable to peer my eyes away from the carnage.

It was a massacre.

It all happened so fast. One minute there were hundreds of people up there, and now...nothing; Taken away by Mother Nature.

The screams and the gunshots died down, quickly replaced by the familiar shrieks echoing from above the cliff and at the shallows below.