She did. Her head shook with the effort not to turn away, and he saw the veins in her neck press against the slightly chubby flesh above. Another few pounds, he thought, and she would have wattles. "You see that boy?" he asked her, unable to take his eyes off her face. "That's Andy Koser. I knew him when I was a kid. He's been dead twenty-five years."

She looked at him, disbelief in her glare. "Are you . . .” she began, then turned back to the window. Brad put his arm around her shoulders, and she shivered at his touch.

"Recognize anybody?" he said. "Any familiar faces for you out there?"

"What . . . are they, Brad?"

He shook his head and gave a short barking laugh. "How do I know?"

"Oh, G—" She brought a hand to her mouth.

"What?"

"There," she breathed, pointing to a worn green bench that sat under a streetlight. There was something on the bench that had once been human. But now the body from the sternum down looked like raw, oozing meat. Trunk and legs were indistinguishable from one another. The head and face, however, were untouched, and gleamed, as did the lower chaos of mortality, with the same cold blue light the other figures radiated.

"Oh, Jesus," said Brad, a plunging sadness in his tone. Tears welled up in his eyes, and his jaw tightened and trembled as he gritted his teeth, trying to force back the crying.