Dog Blood

was sitting on the floor inside it, his back pressed against the door to prevent anyone else from getting in. Mark counted up to floor seven of the office building, then worked his way along to the window nearest to where he used to sit. There were people living up there now. Even from down here he could see them, hundreds of them packed in together, desperate for space. Around the base of the building, in a low-walled, rectangular area that had once been an exclusive parking lot reserved for company executives and senior managers, was an enormous pile of redundant computer equipment-hundreds of unneeded screens, keyboards, and tower units thrown out as the floors above had been emptied to make room.
    Mark looked down at the man in the phone booth again. He hadn’t moved. Was he just sleeping? He casually tapped the glass with his knuckles, but the man didn’t react, so he did it again. Then, moving slowly, he shook the door. Still no reaction. Was he dead? Whatever it was that was wrong with him, Mark saw that he had a plastic grocery bag tucked inside his filthy raincoat. It had to be food. Other than weapons and drugs, food was the only thing worth hiding now. He kicked the glass again, this time cringing inwardly as a couple of other people either turned around or glanced up before remembering themselves and looking away again.
    The appearance of a small boy walking along the wall around the base of his old work building distracted him. The poor kid looked hopelessly lost and exhausted, all life and energy drained out of him. It said something about this crisis that even the kids were affected to such an extent. He’d seen film of children playing resiliently around the ruins of their homes in World War II bombsites before now, and other footage of kids laughing and running through disease-ridden subcontinent slums, but this… this was different. Even the most innocent and naive members of society knew how dire this situation was becoming. The boy shouldn’t have been on his own. Who was he with? Was he lost? Abandoned? Orphaned? He’d adopted the same safe, emotionless, and almost vacant gaze as everyone else, trying to separate himself from the rest of the world but unable to escape its close confines. Mark had no way of knowing if this kid was okay or if he was sick or… He forced himself to stop. He had to look away and block him out. He couldn’t afford to care.
    This morning, before he’d left the hotel, Mark had argued with Kate. Neither of them had meant for it to happen, but once they’d started shouting, weeks of pent-up frustrations meant neither of them could stop. Kate was becoming increasingly claustrophobic in the hotel room, and the lack of privacy was driving her insane.
    “What am I supposed to do?” he’d said to her. “Until things change, this is all we’ve got. There are no hospitals or clinics or-”
    “So what happens when the baby comes?”
    “We deal with it.”
    “How?”
    “I don’t know… we get some towels and water like they said and-”
    “What towels? Where’s the water going to come from? Christ, Mark, I won’t even be able to wash the kid. We don’t have enough water to drink, let alone-”
    “Calm down, Katie. You’re just-”
    “Calm down! Jesus Christ, why should I? I’m fucking terrified, and you’re expecting me to give birth to our baby on the floor of a hotel room in front of my parents.”
    “It’s months away yet. Four months. Think how much might change in another four months-”
    “Think how much worse it might get.”
    “Now you’re just being stupid.”
    “I’m scared.”
    “We’re all scared.”
    “I’m scared about the baby.”
    “Millions of women give birth every year, don’t they? And they used to manage before hospitals and-”
    “It’s not that-”
    “What, then?”
    “I’m scared about what our baby might be. What if it’s not like us? What if it’s one of them and it…?”
    “Don’t be stupid. I’m normal and you’re normal. Our baby will be normal, too.”
    “But what if it isn’t? You don’t know that for sure, do you? No one knows why we’re like we are and why they’re different…”
    She was right, of course, but he kept on trying to persuade her that everything would be okay, doing his best to keep up the bullshit and pretense because it was all he could do.
    A sudden noise nearby diverted Mark’s attention back to the present. There was a disturbance deep in a crowd of people on the other