Edge of Apocalypse Read Free Page B

Samaritans. A second cab attempted to veer around the crowds and jumped the curb, this one slamming through the foldout tables where hawkers had been selling Yankees and Mets memorabilia moments before.
    Abigail stared in shock. She couldn't compute the odds. Almost as if orchestrated, vehicles were racing into the no-traffic zone of Times Square. Two taxi drivers had jumped curbs, committing the same insane act in the same place within seconds of each other. What was going on?
    Suddenly cell phones started to ring all around her. For a moment it was as if the world encompassed in that twenty blocks of Times Square had stopped to answer the same communal phone call. Abigail had her cell with her, but it was turned off on purpose. She cherished her alone-time with Deborah.
    Deborah looked as if she was trying hard to figure it all out. Trying to make sense of it. "Something big's going down, Mom."
    Abigail grabbed for her Allfone, the new generation multifunctional cell phone, to turn it on. Every person around her with a cell phone, as if on cue, was moving now--some running, others crying, some screaming wildly. Everyone else simply stood there with bewildered faces.
    Abigail punched the speed dial for her husband. By then Joshua would be up in the chopper high over Manhattan, heading to his office. But a homeless man in a dingy Knicks hoodie stumbled past her and knocked her Allfone out of her hand.
    He was yelling, "It's the end, man; it's the end!"
    Abigail reached down to snatch up the phone, but another reckless vehicle, an airport van, came speeding toward her. She jumped back as it brushed past, but it slammed into the homeless man from behind. He flew over the top of the van and landed several yards behind it in the gutter. The driver never slowed down. More cars and trucks began careening into Times Square at breakneck speed.
    "What's happening?" a woman with shopping bags screamed out to no one in particular. No one stopped to answer. From Abigail's vantage point on the traffic island, people were swirling madly around her, running in all directions. The sidewalks had become deadly speedways for taxis and cars, smashing into anyone and anything, trying to get around the intersection crowded with scrambling pedestrians and out-of-control traffic.
    Abigail could not imagine what chaos had just been loosed. Cars and buses were colliding, creating bottlenecks, forcing more people to spill onto the streets on foot. Subway entrances were jammed with people trying to escape the mayhem above ground. People pushed and shoved, knocking others to the pavement in a mad exodus to nowhere. The plate-glass window at the empty Nike store was shattered by looters who had already grabbed overpriced shoes, jerseys, and anything else they could get their hands on.
    A few confused souls had taken refuge with Abigail and Deborah on the traffic island--a relatively calm eye in the middle of the storm. Most simply stood and watched in horrified confusion. Others cried. Some prayed.
    Deborah was circling around helplessly, watching, and shaking her head. "We've got to do something..."
    But Abigail's mind was whirling. She shouted back. "Have to figure out where it's safe. Where the danger is..."
    Just then she noticed people looking up at the sky, mesmerized, as if waiting for something beyond their control, something catastrophic to fall on them.
    An elderly man behind Abigail pleaded, "I need to get to my granddaughter's. Can anyone tell me what's going on?"
    Then Abigail noticed something on one of the largest of the building-sized electronic billboards. Instead of the usual glitzy ads for the latest designer jeans and blockbuster movie was a simple aerial shot of the sparkling Manhattan skyline, an eerie reflection of the skyscrapers towering around them.
    "I don't understand," said someone in the crowd, pointing to the looming video feed.
    Then Abigail saw it. She pointed down the street to a giant ribbon of digital text wrapping