The Sudden Star Read Online Free PDF

ran off. Simon and Yola plunged into a crowd of people moving up the street.
    "Where are we?" she shouted at Simon. She clutched his arm. "Is he near here?" A tank rolled by them in the street. The crowd of people around them moved toward a subway entrance. Simon stopped and turned toward Yola as people pushed around them.  
    "We have to take a train," he yelled. "Don't hang onto my arm, and stick close."
    "But—"
    "Come on ." He pushed the woman in front of him as they descended the stairs. They moved onto the platform just as a train rumbled by and screeched deafeningly to a halt. The mass of humans pushed forward. He realized that Yola was no longer with him.
    "Simon!" He turned toward the voice and saw Yola behind him, wedged in among three husky young men. One of them was pulling at her clothes while the other two held her arms. The people near her looked away or continued to push toward the train. Yola began to scream.
    The police would not be on duty in the subway for another three hours.
    Simon, rid of at least one problem, wedged himself into the train. The doors slid shut behind him. As the train began to move, he saw the men drag Yola behind the stairs. One of them seemed to be laughing as he pulled out a knife.
    Simon held his own knife close to his body as he turned from the window to face his fellow passengers. They stared in front of themselves vacantly, swaying slightly as the train shrieked through the underground tunnel. The subways, the streets, the entire city seemed more crowded than ever, though that had to be an illusion; there had been more people in New York when he was a boy. But there had been more of everything then; now everyone crowded around what was left. The old train shook and rattled ominously; it had probably not been repaired for some time. Simon remembered hearing of the cave-in in Boston, and how they had walled off that whole section of subway, leaving the long-dead passengers waiting to arrive at their stations. He wondered how long it would be before there was a cave-in here.
    At the other end of the car, a man began to scream. "I can't breathe!" he shouted. "Let me by, give me some air! I'm smothering, goddamn it, I need air!"
    "Shut up, you bastard!" a woman yelled. The man was silent. Simon peered toward the other end of the car, but couldn't see the man. Someone must have slipped a knife between his ribs, he thought, and good, quick work, too, or there'd be a riot in this car.
    The subway stopped and Simon leaped out. He ran through the crowd on the platform, pushing people aside, took the stairs two at a time, reached the street, and relaxed his stride only when he saw a street patrol of ten armed police officers ahead of him. He walked briskly. When he reached the corner, he saw Sam Karenga standing beside three other armed black men, waiting for him. The police officers passed Karenga and his men without a glance and crossed to the other side of the street.
    "Come on, man," Karenga muttered. "René passed out earlier. He just came to." The five men began to walk up the street. A group of young boys and girls, all of them whores, stood in the street, telling soldiers in a tank where they would be when the soldiers came off duty.
     
    Simon finished giving René an insulin injection and examined him while Karenga stood by with the instruments he had brought.
    The three men who had arrived with them had disappeared. Only two people besides himself and Karenga remained in the room with René. One was an androgynous-looking girl who sat next to René's bed with a book on her lap. Her black woolly hair was clipped close to her head; her lean, undeveloped body slouched gracefully in the chair. Her skin was dark, almost as dark as Karenga's; her face, with its large brown eyes, straight nose, and full lips, was distracting.
    The other person was Kathleen Ortega. René's second- in-command, she had always been present during Simon's visits. Ortega stood behind the young girl, not