The twenty-ton armored bus whipped sideways into the flooded intersection of Old Ferry Road and Mill District 9.
Mac Cole hauled the wide Bakelite steering wheel hard to the left and stood on the air-brake treadle with both boots.
CH-CH-CH-SCREEECH!
The heavy dual rear tires locked up tight. Bus #04 skidded thirty feet across the black rainwater, throwing a six-foot curtain of spray over the rusted curb before coming to a bone-jarring halt broadside across the four lanes of the avenue. The forty-foot hull of olive-drab boiler plate formed an instant steel breakwater between the open street and the corner lot.
Julian Vance hit the folding front door before the chassis stopped rocking.
His boots splashed down onto the concrete apron of the forecourt, his hand gripping the strap of his insulated lineman’s satchel. After weeks of hospital basements, subway tunnels, and drowning quarantine islands, the smell of this corner hit him in the chest like an old scar waking up. Fried corn dogs from the roller grill, wet asphalt, and the ozone hum of a forty-year-old neon transformer.
Ahead of him stood Starlight 24-Hour Mart (Store #04).
The low, single-story brick convenience store had anchored this working-class crossroads since 1958. High on its fascia, the familiar green-and-gold neon sign buzzed in the purple-black blackout gloom: OPEN 24 HOURS.
