The Undertakers: End of the World Read Online Free PDF Page A

tonight?”
    “No.”
    “So, you just decided to bring along the only one you had?”
    “Yes,” he replied, looking a bit put out, as if I’d made him repeat himself.
    “You haven’t changed a bit,” I told him.
    He grinned. “Thank you!”
    I rolled my eyes and turned away. Too much, too fast. I had to keep reminding myself that I was in the future—the actual, honest-to-God future —and that these strangers were, in fact, friends. Undertakers. One of them was my freaking sister!
    But where was Steve’s brother, Burt? Or Tom and Sharyn. Or my mom?
    Or Helene?
    Jeez! What’ll it be like to see Helene doing the ‘adult’ thing?
    Emily said, her voice a careful whisper, “I’ll scout out the mouth of the alley. You two hang back. I’ll signal if it’s clear. If I’m spotted … I guess I’ll try to lead them away.”
    “Better let me,” I told her, keeping my voice low.
    She shook her head. “You’ve already taken enough risks. We can’t lose you. There’s too much at stake.”
    I had no idea what that meant. But before I could press the point, my sister headed off, moving lightly down the alley to its dimly visible street exit. Once there, she peered around the corner.
    I waited, my heart in my throat.
    Finally, she waved for us to join her.
    We emerged onto 34th Street, which runs past the hospital before connecting with Civic Center Boulevard. For the moment, at least, there wasn’t a deader in sight. In fact, there wasn’t anyone at all. The night around us felt cool and welcoming. I’d always liked the night; it had shadows and shadows concealed .
    But this unnatural silence unnerved me.
    No traffic. None. We were in Philadelphia, the fifth largest city in the country. Two million people lived here. There were cars, buses, trains, pedestrians—noise. Always, everywhere, noise.
    But not here. Not now.
    Feeling a coldness that had nothing to do with the weather, I took my first hard look at the surrounding buildings. We were in the middle of University City, where no less than three major colleges and two world-class hospitals wrestled for real estate on the western bank of the Schuylkill River. Construction around here was commonplace; they were always putting up some new skyscraper or other. As a result, the buildings all tended to look sleek and modern and new.
    But these were ruins.
    Children’s Hospital, which should have been towering behind us—wasn’t. I’d wondered why the Undertakers had set up their “temporal clean room” on the first floor of such a big building. Now I knew.
    The upper floors were gone. Oh, a little bit of second floor seemed to be there, along with a few scraps of the third. But the rest was simply missing . And University of Pennsylvania Hospital, just across the street, had fared no better. Two entire walls had collapsed, revealing what had once been patient rooms, now long since abandoned. The surrounding roads and sidewalks stood deserted and barren, their tarmac cracked and littered with debris. Every streetlamp was shattered, many of them having toppled over like felled trees. The few cars were nothing but burned out wrecks, and virtually all the glass in every window in sight was either shattered or missing altogether.
    “What …” I stammered, feeling my blood turn cold. “What … happened?”
    Neither of them replied. They both seemed—lost. I hoped it was just for words.
    To the east, past the ruins, I could see the drop-off to the Schuylkill River and, across from there, Center City Philadelphia. It was a site I knew as well as I knew the back of my hand. Yet, despite Emily’s protests, I found myself wandering out into the middle of the deserted street. There I stood, staring in open mouthed horror at the familiar skyline—
    —that wasn’t there.
    Well, some of it was. I could see City Hall well enough, though the huge gothic structure, still topped by its famous William Penn statue, was illuminated only by moonlight, all its windows