"New York City?!" exclaimed John, "You outta your gourd?"

Derek wiped the sweat from his chin and looked around. He waved his arms in an indication of their surroundings. All around them lay the rubble and ruin of San Nuyammo--a throw-down cluster of shanties and tents holding a desperate vigil against the insects and fungus, the chemical rain, and the cancerous life of the great chemical wastes. As far as they could see, only desolate flatlands stretched to the horizon. The air was acrid and dry, but the scarlet clouds roiling overhead threatened an imminent downpour--they would have to take shelter soon.

"What've we got here?" Derek demanded of his friend. "Hell yeah, I'm sayin' New York! My Pa says the buildings there are still standing!"

"Course they are," John answered tentatively. "The angels wouldn't of touched New York. Not in a million years, they wouldn't have. They wouldn't of dared. Not New York."

"Whatch'you talkin' about?" Derek persisted. "Angels?"

"My Daddy says that it was the angels what rendered the Word--He says they threw their bombs down from Heaven on account of the sins'o man and all. That's why the Word was rendered. Cause of the angels..."

"That's nonsense and you know it," Derek put his hands on his hips in exasperation. "Everybody knows it wun't no angels did this. Shit, my Grandpa even remembered it all, 'fore the water scags done killed 'im. He remembered the Before Times. And he said it was the bugs that done rendered the world. He remembered when the cracks opened up and they's all crawled out. That's how come the buildings are still standing--cause the bugs done ate up all the people then burrowed back down into the ground. Ain't nothin' left but the buildings. And maybe some bones, 'cept they're probably mostly gone now, too. Angels, ha!"

"Was too angels," insisted John. "Why d'you think they dropped the bombs anyway?" Derek shook his head. "To kill all them damn bugs, that's why," John finished triumphantly.

"Well," said Derek, "That's just foolishness, if you ask me. But foolish or not, I'm goin' to New York. There's nothing here but garbage and death, and I've had about enough of it." He folded his arms crossly. When John remained unconvinced, he persisted. "Though, I do suppose we'll probably find quite a trove in the Big Apple. Canned Stew and such, most likely--stuff what the bugs couldn't get at."

"I heard they got razors for teeth," John balked.

"Maybe some bottled water," continued Derek. "Shit--I wouldn't be surprised if we came upon some gasoline."

That did it. John blinked and Derek knew he had him.

"We'd be heroes," he offered. "Bringin' that stuff back here..."

"Yep." Derek grinned smugly. "And it can't be more'n a few days away, could it? A week at the most. How far can it be?"

"I dunno," admitted John.

"Well, I'm off first thing in the morning. You with me?"

John pretended to think it over before agreeing. Derek turned and said, as if in afterthought, "Oh, there's one other thing. I gotta take Teddy with me."

The cave was dark and quiet, but Derek could hear his older brother snoring near the back. "Teddy?" he whispered, "Teddy, wake up."

There was a grumble and a rustling sound from the rear of the cave, in the shadows. Suddenly some leaves were tossed on the glowing embers of the small, nearly dead fire. The hallow was illuminated in the blaze and long shadows were thrown across the walls. Teddy's hulking mass stood up next to the fire, hunched over to keep from hitting his misshapen head on the roof. "Dat yoo, Derek?"

"Yeah, Teddy. It's me."

"I sorry, Derek. I didn't mean to make them dead." Teddy frowned, squeezed his eyes shut, and began to cry. Behind him, tossed haphazardly in the corner, lay the broken remains of his and Derek's parents.

"I know you didn't Teddy, but now we got's to leave before anyone finds out what you done. We're leavin' in the morning, first thing--John's gonna come with us." Derek ruffled his big brother's wild mop of hair. "We're goin' to New York. You remember how Grandaddy used to tell us about New York?"

The malformed giant smiled, and a thin stream of drool descended from his mouth. "The building's are still standing!" he parroted, clapping his hands together in excitement.

The trio left at daybreak, just before the camp stirred awake. Derek didn't want a crowd to see them leaving. He didn't want to answer their inevitable question: "Why you goin'? Ain't gonna be nothin' there." They would call him a fool, but he didn't care about that. Their doubts and their scorn might change John's mind, though. John was a good fella but easily swayed by the pack. This journey would be difficult, and Derek needed John, even with his superstitions.

Then there was Teddy. The camp wouldn't weep to see Teddy go, but a question or two about what his parents might think of such a journey would be all that it would take for Teddy to spill the beans. Then they would stone him, and maybe Derek too, though they'd probably just drive Derek away. So he might as well get on with it himself, and save the camp the trouble of latherin' themselves into a frenzy.

Derek was sorry to be making a fugitive out of John, but there would be no pursuit. Why bother? With Teddy gone, trouble was gone too. It took too much energy to put together a tracking party just to bring them back for a killing. He knew what the Judges would say--the wasteland would exact justice for them.

In his heart, though, Derek hoped that John just might return with good things, things to win his place back in camp--foodstuffs, water, tools. And maybe even gasoline. He smiled to think of John returned triumphant, his simple heart bursting with pride as they rode him round the camp on their shoulders. He'd be sure to get his own pulpit, and they might even make him a Judge. If he made it back.

At the edge of camp the trio ran into Leggy, who was pissing on the sunrise. Urine arced from the tarnished wheelchair into the face of the rising sun. The old man spun around as they approached. His legs had been sheared away at the knees by a bug, and the ugly, cauterized stumps poked from the dilapidated wheelchair like an accusation.

"Another piss-ass day," he said, zipping himself up. "How many more before I'm quit of this place?"

"All in God's time," said John.

"God's a cocksucker," said Leggy, inching forward on the battered rims of the chair. John ignored the blasphemy. The old man was famous for it. The Judges let him get away with it because, as they said, he would have to reckon with the Lord when he passed. Derek knew it was because Leggy was the only one who could get the generator working--when they had gas, that is. Otherwise Leggy would have been strung up or pushed into a ditch years ago.

"So where are you fine lads off to this morning?" asked Leggy. "Headin' over to Levittown to catch yourselves some wives? Does this mean somebody's finally takin' my advice about not layin' with your sisters?"

"We're goin' to New York," said John proudly.

"Really now?" said Leggy. He stroked his grizzled chin. "Nice to see some young folk with a little ambition. Too bad you won't make it."

"We'll make it," said Derek, casting a glance at John. The young man had started the journey on his knees, praying for success. Now he was fingering the rough wooden cross that hung around his neck.

"And so what if you do?" asked Leggy. "It ain't gonna be no different than here."

"We believe there might be angels in New York," said John. He lifted up his grandfather's bible. " 'And the angels came to the great cities of the world to render the Word, so that man might know his sin and repent.' They say New York was a great city. So maybe the angels are there."

"It was a great city--'til they nuked it," said Leggy. "But don't let me rain on your parade."

Derek nodded. They hefted their meager gear and walked out of camp. The disc of the sun was fully visible over the horizon now. Behind them, the camp would be stirring. Soon, questions would be asked. Derek moved as a fast clip; he was weary, but they needed to make good time. Last night, he and Teddy had buried his parents' remains in an unmarked grave. He remembered watching Teddy's great back flexing and straining as he filled the crude hole. It was one of the few times he longed for the comfort of religion, for someone to read precious words from a sacred book, assuring him of his mother's and father's entrance into paradise. But there were no words, and only the cold comfort that in death, his mother and father had escaped this hell.

They had gone a few hundred yards--the path led into a decrepit forest of dead cacti, petrified signposts and leaning telephone spires, and long, thorny brambles--when the old man shouted after them. "When you get to the wasteland, you'd better bottle your piss. You'll probably need it." He cackled, turned back to his pissing, and began to sing in a shrill, nasal voice. "You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me haaaaappy..." Then the land dipped, and their home was behind them.

"You hear that?" Derek whispered when they had gone a few more yards into the thorny jungle. He put up his hand and the others stopped to listen. The old man's words still rang in his ears and he was trembling ever so slightly with rage--who was that old legless bastard to cast doubt on their plans? After all, not one of the trio had lost their legs to an ill-tempered bug. There was something in the old man's tone that didn't sit right with Derek.

The boy's face grew red and then purple as he turned the Leggy's word's over and over again in his mind. 'When you get to the wasteland, you'd better bottle your piss,' he had said. 'Nice to see some young folk with a little ambition. Too bad you won't make it.' He was insinuating something--Derek was sure of it. That old fool was trouble--always had been--and what's more, he had a big mouth.

"Thought I heard something," Derek whispered as John and Teddy turned to look at him. John squinted his eyes in consternation, and after a second, Teddy mimicked this action, squeezing his own eyes shut and poking his huge purple tongue from the corner of his mouth. All was still and quiet. The only sound was the wheezing breath of the lumbering giant.

"I'm sure I heard something," Derek said after a moment. "Why don't you two wait here and I'll run back and take a look." He reached out and touched his brother lightly on the elbow. When there was no response he poked him harder. "Teddy, open you eyes," he commanded.

Teddy responded obediently. First one eye popped open and then the next. He grinned sheepishly. "I wuz fallin' sleepy-sleep Der."

"You stay here with John." Derek spoke slowly, making sure his brother understood each word. "Don't go nowhere." With that he turned and began to tread stealthily back in the direction from which they had come.

"But--" John began.

"I said stay put," hissed Derek. "I mean it, now!"

John fell back without a word and the contract was sealed--Derek was giving the orders. Derek was in charge. John fumed at the thought of this, but then, hadn't Derek always been the leader of the gangrel pack of children growing up in the camp?

John fingered the cross at his neck. For as long as he could remember, as the tribe migrated from village to village, Derek had been the one to organize the games that the other children obediently played--changing the rules seemingly at a whim to suit himself. And when they were older, it had been Derek who invariable took it upon himself to organize and lead the hunting parties, always unbeknownst to the adults, and always at great personal risk to himself. "Nothing worth winning that ain't worth fighting for," he often said. And Derek was not one to back down from a fight--John had once seen him kill an irradiated mutant rat with his bare hands and teeth, biting and biting at the creature's enormous neck, never losing his grip, and rooting around until at long last he found the fleshy rodent's jugular. Derek had been no older than twelve when he had killed that rad-rat.

John frowned--and besides, it would only take one word from Derek for Teddy to squash John's head between his huge hamfists like just another water gourd. So there it was--like as not, Derek was the leader of this expedition.

Derek crept back to the edge of camp. Leggy was wheeling himself slowly toward the scattered cluster of throwdown scrapwood, tin shanties, and tents that they called home.

The old man was still singing, but he had finished pissing. "Ooyyyy-yoouuuu yeeeeeeeeee!!! Please don't take my sunshine awaaaaaay..." Leggy had turned his back on the sun, which was now a fiery, ultraviolet globe balanced precariously above the horizon (there was not a cloud in the sky, Derek pulled his shades down to shield his eyes from the dangerous rays of the morning sun--he hoped that John would have enough sense to do the same and make sure that Teddy did, too). Leggy's back was to him, making it easier for Derek to sneak up behind the old man.

In a quick motion Derek pulled a long hunting knife from his ankle sheath and lunged forward. Leggy's voiced cracked and his singing abruptly stopped. Derek kept his own voice down to a low, throaty hiss.

"Now you listen to me you legless old fuck. You don't tell nobody that you saw us goin', you got that?" He pressed the blade hard against the man's grizzled throat. "You don't say boo about this to no one!" He pulled the knife away and wheeled the old man roughly around in his chair to face him. A thin line of blood appeared on Leggy's neck. Derek was trembling with rage. "You say one word about this and I'll kill you, you got it? You say one word about this and you're dead." The old man blinked, but remained silent. "You understand me?" Derek spat at him.

Leggy looked up, nonplussed. "Back already?"

Derek shook with fury. The knife trembled in his hand. Without a word he stepped forward, gripped the chair by its tattered rubber handles, and wheeled the old man off into the dead woods.

The wheelchair bumped and rattled as Derek forced it over roots, rocks and age-old remnants of cracked, sun-bleached pavement. Leggy wiped the blood from his neck and cautiously turned around to look at his assailant. He saw the cold malice in the boy's eyes and suddenly knew that he meant to kill him. 'This is a tight situation,' Leggy thought to himself. 'But I've been in tighter.' The stumps above where his knees had been began to throb, as his pounding heart tried to force blood into those cauterized, dead-end capillaries.

If the old man screamed, Derek told himself, he would slit his throat.

Leggy sized up Derek and then turned to face forward. In a calculated voice he declared, "I been through the wasteland. Several times--before my accident."

The wheelchair stopped moving and leggy knew that he had the upper hand--he'd succeeded in capturing the boy's attention. Now if he could just keep it…

"What're you talkin' about you lying old cocksucker?" Derek's cold eyes implored him to go on, dared him to answer. Leggy gulped. This boy was truly dangerous, he thought. He couldn't remember ever having seen such pent up rage in anyone, let alone one so young. Derek scared the hell out of him. He believed that the boy could kill without the slightly provocation, and never regret his actions for a moment. The old man chose his next words very carefully.

"God may be a cocksucker, but Leggy's not."

Derek smirked. "Shit, if you could do it, if you could cross the Wasteland, then why can't we?"

"Because I'm smarter than you all," said Leggy.

A red flush crept up into Derek's cheeks. He wanted to cuff the old man, a hard blow across the temple that would send him sprawling into the dust. Instead he said, "Maybe you want to share some of them smarts with us."

"You lot?" laughed Leggy. "Why should I waste my breath?"

In a quick, fluid motion the hunting knife was back at Leggy's throat. "Tell me how to cross the Wasteland or I'll kill you," said Derek. Leggy looked into the boy's eyes and saw that he meant it.

Leggy pursed his lips. "That's just what I mean about you not bein' too clever. You cut my throat and you'd be doing me a favor," he smirked, "And you'll still be no closer to crossin' the Wasteland."

Derek searched the old man's face. He saw fear, but he saw truth too. He cursed himself. He wanted to cut up the old man for his impertinence, for his casual insults. His brain began to cloud over with hot rage, like a clump of flies on the carcass of a rat. It was the same feeling he used to get when his father tried to work him through a math problem. His breathing would get heavy, his head begin to pound.

His father's voice echoed in his memory. "Just take a deep breath, Derek. Relax. Don't get mad at the problem. Let your mind work around it like water around stone in a river." But his mind never cooperated. His father had been a learned man but, like his son, lacked patience. "What're you, stupid? Are you an idiot, boy?" Good intentions invariably gave way to bitter impatience, and finally intolerance. "Good, then--be a retard. Just like your brother. See where it gets you." Inevitably Derek would fling the book aside--his father's precious book--and run out of the shack, blind with shame and rage.

Now he'd worked himself into another mental corner. He needed Leggy's knowledge but he couldn't bully it out of him. Suddenly an idea came to him. He sheathed his knife and pulled a hank of twine from his knapsack. He roped it around Leggy's torso and pulled it tight.

"What the hell are you doing?" demanded Leggy.

"Takin' you with me," said Derek, removing his head scarf.

Leggy laughed. "You mean I'm being kidnapped? By a kid? I knew it was gonna be a fucked up day, but not like this."

Derek gagged Leggy with the scarf, then forced the wheelchair around and headed back toward his companions. It was rough going and the wheelchair seemed heavier with each passing minute, dragging and catching on tangle roots and rusting debris.

By the time he'd reached the copse of tanglewood where he'd left John and Teddy, Derek was breathing hard and he felt dizzy. The wheels on the chair had lost their rubber ages ago, and while the steel frame was sturdy, it wasn't meant for stony ground. Derek had to heave and shove with every step. Leggy must have more strength in those scrawny arms than he'd realized, but the old bastard wouldn't lend a hand. Derek grinned. He supposed it was unreasonable to expect his victim to cooperate.

John and Teddy were nowhere to be seen. Derek shook his head and cursed under his breath. He left Leggy at the edge of the tanglewood, then pushed his way inside to find the others. He must've been more blown than he thought, because he tripped on a root and went down hard, his sunshades skittering away into the dust. His eyes flooded with the dangerous rays of the noon-time sun. Behind him, he heard the muffled cackle of Leggy laughing behind his gag.

He blinked and raised a hand to shield his eyes. A tall figure emerged from behind a tangle of dead cacti--it was larger than life, too big to be a man, and it seemed to be glowing from within, radiating a dazzling, preternatural light. The figure loomed over him and seemed to fill the world--golden flame seemed to envelope it, a pillar of holy fire stretching from the earth up towards the sky, taking the blasphemous form of a man. Derek was still on his knees as he cringed and tried to back away from the creature.

'It's and angel,' he thought, wildly, 'It's one of John's damned angels come all the way from New York to get me for what Teddy done to Ma and Pa. To avenge their unceremonious burial. To rat me out to the Judges…'

He threw his hands up defensively. The angel lumbered closer, reaching for him, a golden five-fingered aura. Derek closed his eyes to the burning light of that outstretched hand. Suddenly he felt his sunshades being put clumsily back over his eyes.

"You praying, Derek?" Teddy asked. "That why you kneeling? You getting' ready for sleepy-sleep?" The behemoth kneeled down beside his older brother and clasped his own huge fists together. "Now I lay me down to sleep…" he began, but stopped as Derek opened his eyes and clipped him roughly on the side of the head with his own clenched fist.

"I thought I done told you to stay put!" he said angrily.

The giant said nothing. Behind him, John emerged from the cactus patch, a glowing silhouette eclipsing the rising sun behind him. "You did," he said, "But you were gone a long time, so we went looking for you."

"Well you shouldn'tve," said Derek, rising to his feet. "Come on, I got something to show you."

The trio marched out of the copse. John blinked in surprise to see the old man, bound and gagged. He eyed Derek suspiciously. "What's up?"

"He's coming with us," said Derek. "He's going to help us."

"That grizzled old coyote? What's he going to help us with, our curse words?"

"He used to run the Wasteland, back when he could run, that is. He knows how to get through. He'll help us get to New York," said Derek.

"This trip is starting to turn out crazy," said John.

"You want to go back?" asked Derek. "If you do, now's your chance. Home ain't but a couple miles back that way." He held out his arm, knowing full well John knew the direction. "I'll be sure to tell the angels you said hi."

"I'm going forward, not back," said John.

"Good. Then let's get this show on the road. Teddy, you push the chair."

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