The End Has Come

Footsteps echoed more loudly than they should have, like the quality of the air had changed in the absence of people. It was like walking the service corridors at Space Mountain. Amy tried to focus on the comparison. This hospital was just another ride that needed maintenance, allowed to wind down and sit fallow until the people could return. Anthony walked beside her without saying a word, and the soft crackle of voices from his walkie-talkie accompanied them down, down, down into the depths of the hospital.

“We found a maintenance room, but it’s empty — just some tools and a broken boiler.”

“No signs of human habitation in the cafeteria. We got some spices.”

The reports came in one after the other, along with Clover’s calm, impassive recitation of the medical supplies they’d managed to obtain from a locked storeroom — including a substantial supply of Lactaid, which they’d been needing at the Park for quite some time. Amy and Anthony continued to travel downward through the halls, accompanied by their own echoing footsteps.

Finally, Anthony stopped in front of a plain wooden door. It looked just like all the others to Amy, but something about it clearly meant more to him. “Here,” he said, and turned the knob. The door swung open easily, revealing the generator inside.

Amy clasped her hands together, eyes shining. They could save the Park. They could save everyone.

“Clover, we’re on the second basement level; get your team down here. We have visual.” Anthony smiled as he clipped his walkie-talkie back to his belt. “Well, Madame Mayor? Let’s get our hands dirty.”

* * *

It took almost half an hour to free the generator parts they needed, along with a few more that Anthony and Clover insisted on taking “just in case.” Everyone was relaxed and happily burdened down with what they had scavenged as they walked out of the hospital.

Perhaps that was why the ambush was so effective.

Gunmen appeared from behind the cars on either side of the parking lot and opened fire on the startled citizens of Disneyland when they were halfway to their vehicles. In the screaming and chaos that followed, Amy saw four people go down, one with half his face blown away, one with four bleeding bullet holes in her stomach. Anthony grabbed her arm. She put her head down and kept running, forcing her feet to move as terror tried to root them to the spot.

Clover was already at the car. She wrenched the doors open, and the others piled inside, accompanied by a hail of bullets.

“Is anyone hit? Is everyone all right?” demanded Amy, as Anthony shoved the keys into the ignition and the SUV roared to life. She twisted in her seat. Three more vehicles were following, leaving six people dead or dying on the ground. Oh, God. Please don’t let this have been for nothing. Please . . .

“Clover?” said Anthony.

“We’ve got all the parts we need,” said Clover.

“Oh, thank God.” Amy closed her eyes. Now that she wasn’t running for her life, she could feel the dull pain of the gunshot wound in her side. She clasped her hand over it, trying to stop the blood. The SUV roared through the silent streets, chewing up the miles between them and Disneyland. “What do you suppose they wanted, if they weren’t living in the hospital?”

“Some people may be afraid to go into medical facilities,” said Clover. “Letting us go in, and then taking whatever we found, would have been the logical compromise.”

“I hate logic.”

“Sometimes I hate logic, too.”

They drove on.

* * *

The raiders didn’t pursue them to Disneyland, perhaps content to pick over the bodies of the fallen. Anthony drove straight through Downtown Disney to the central plaza. “Security can stop me if they want to,” he said, and laughed — a wild, bitter laugh that was the only real sign of how much the encounter had disturbed him.

Amy opened her eyes when the SUV stopped. Tiffany and Skylar were running toward them across the plaza, the gates of Disneyland standing open. She smiled and opened the door, almost falling out before she caught herself on the frame. Tiffany and Skylar stopped, eyes wide and horrified. Amy looked down at herself.

“Ah,” she said. “I suppose that’s rather a lot of blood.”

“What?” said Anthony, turning to her. He paled. “Oh, God, Amy . . .”

“There wasn’t time. Done is done.” She undid her seatbelt, climbing down from the SUV before her legs buckled and sent her sprawling on the bricks. Tiffany and Skylar moved to help her up. She clung to their arms, distantly sorry about the bloody handprints she was leaving. “We got the parts,” she informed them. “We can fix the generator.”

“Amy . . .” whispered Tiffany.

“Get me inside,” said Amy.

With Tiffany on one side of her and Anthony on the other, the Mayor of Main Street allowed herself to be half-led, half-carried back into the Park that had become her home.

* * *