From here Pete & Ariel begin their long walk to Manhattan.

Atlanta-Fulton Public Library
1 Margaret Mitchell Sq NW
1 Margaret Mitchell Sq NW, Atlanta, GA 30303-1089
Nobody ever thinks to use a library. Most people feel they’re too busy trying to stay alive to take time to fool around with books. They’re right, to some extent, but libraries have given me books on camping, food storage and preservation; backpacking, arms and armor, self-defense, magic, mythology, and mythological animals — to name but a few. Libraries have probably saved my life a dozen times. Even before I met Ariel I went to them to read books on how to survive, and after she came along I also read books on magic and mythology. I read anything that might help me understand what the world had become.

Atlanta Library to Malachi Lee's House

Malachi Lee's House
We reached Malachi Lee’s house around two-thirty. It was a medium-sized, wooden, two-story house in the middle of a residential block. The yard was small and well-kept — unusual in an age where power mowers wouldn’t work. A black iron fence surrounded the yard. The vertical bars ended in sharp pikes. On six of the pikes at the left side of the fence were six human heads.

Malachi Lee's House to meeting George

Pete & Ariel meet George
Ariel was playing the dumb horse act, head bent to the ground, pretending to chew on grass.
“Her name’s Ariel,” I told him, shooting her a disdainful look. She scratched at the grass and went on munching.
“Ariel.” His voice changed it, put the accent on the first syllable instead of the last. He said it again, the same way. “Ariel. Can I pet her?”
I folded my arms. “Sure, go ahead. If she’ll let you.”
Still sporting that idiot smile he walked to Ariel and ruffled her neck. “Hey, she feels pretty good. You must wash her a lot. We used to have horses at home but Pop had to turn ’em loose when we couldn’t feed them no more.” He walked thin fingers through her mane and patted her high on the neck. “Yeah, you like that, don’t you, girl?”
Ariel raised her head and spat out grass. “This stuff tastes like shit,” she said.

To George's House

George's House
George lived about a half mile west of the highway and three miles south of Greenville proper. His family grew enough vegetables to keep themselves going and then some: there were five or six acres planted with different crops, and George said his family consisted of himself, his mother and father, and his little sister. Their house was an old, two-story, wooden affair, once painted white, now fading gray and dirty. The setting sun highlighted cracks in the wood with shadow. Chickens pecked randomly in the yard.

George's House to Spartanburg

Greenville, South Carolina
We were in Greenville by a little after nine. It was a small town and had that kind of dead look that made me wonder if it had been just as lively before the Change. Probably; there were few cars in the middle of the streets, more in the parking lots of small shopping centers and car lots. Bird shit had made small white explosions on the windshields and helped turn the bodies to rust.

Spartanburg, S Carolina
Spartanburg turned out to be a lot like Greenville, but bigger. I saw a few people moving in the distance as we walked through what seemed the main drag, and once, on the sidewalk, we passed four men and a woman who stared at us openly, not saying a word.

Spartanburg, SC to the Shopping Mall Raid

N. Carolina State Line
NORTH CAROLINA STATE LINE, the sign read. We'd slept a hundred yards south of it.

Shopping Mall Raid
The shopping mall was on the right side of the road. We turned beneath a dead stoplight and walked into the entrance. Scores of cars were in a lot. The glass doors were unlocked. I held one open for Ariel. “Ladies first.” She walked in with a superior air, nose high. My kick at her ass missed.

Shopping Mall Raid to Shaughnessy

Pete & Ariel meet Shaughnessy
At the north end of town we came upon a young woman reading a hardcover book on a bus bench in the bright sunlight. She squinted up at us as we drew near.
I’d dug out Don Quixote and was reading it to Ariel. The woman gave a quiet little gasp and folded her book, marking her place with a finger. She looked at Ariel, looked briefly at me, and back to Ariel. She rose from the bench and stood before us, book dangling at her side. The clear plastic over the cover showed it to be a library book. She opened her mouth to speak, then shook her head as if fully expecting us not to be there when she looked again. Her shoulder-length brown hair fanned out as her head turned from left to right. She watched, mouth open, as we passed. I turned and nodded politely to her, but I don’t think she even saw me. She was staring, of course, at Ariel. Gawkers, everywhere, gawkers. We walked on.

Greensboro, N Carolina
...our eleventh night on the road. We had skirted around Greensboro. I wanted to avoid cities; something bad happened every time we went into one. Cities were where people were, and I didn’t want to be where people were. People either posed threats, demanded to come along, or presented the possibility that news would reach New York that we— Ariel in particular—were on the way. Gossip traveled faster than we could.

Shaughnessy to Richmond, VA

Here There Be Dragons

Dragons
We had to settle for a lousy campsite that night; apparently somebody had been careless with a campfire, or maybe dropped a cigarette, and the woods had burned for miles. Not knowing how much farther we’d have to travel to find unburned ground, I decided to make camp where we were. Getting a fire going was difficult but I managed it after several false starts, and we used the remainder of our water to cook our freeze-dried dinner. I hoped to find more on the way to Durham tomorrow, possibly in Durham if we hadn’t found any by then.
We adjusted to the bitter stench of burned wood, but it was always there in the background, and Shaughnessy complained it gave her a headache There was also something else, some underlying aroma I couldn’t identify: heavy, musky.

4 Armed Scouts
Shaughnessy nudged me awake. “People,” she told me, stopping me in mid-stretch and yawn. “Over there.” She nodded toward the overpass. Four men stood at the guardrail on the near side, all armed and wearing backpacks. As I watched, they stepped over the guardrail and started down the bank, keeping their knees bent to avoid slipping on the slope of dew-soaked grass.

Richmond to Woodrow Wilson Bridge

4 Scouts' Remains
Three bodies sprawled on the road. A small grave had been dug in the grass nearby. Flies buzzed a summertime drone A severed hand still clutched a cutlass. A double-bladed axe had been cut cleanly in two through the handle. Dried blood darkened the asphalt in a huge patch. A white Impala in the left lane had been discolored by a streak of red on the left front fender. It had dripped as if from a sloppy paint job.
These were the remains of three of the four men who’d been after Malachi. Judging from the dismemberment, disembowelment, and decapitation, they had found him.

Griffin Sentry
Half a mile from the Interstate junction Ariel called a halt. She craned her neck forward, looking down the car—littered road, her head cocked to the right as though she were straining to catch stray sounds. “Up ahead,” she said. “At the junction—” She broke off. “Get behind a car, fast.”

Woodrow Wilson Bridge
Woodrow Wilson Bridge, Maryland 20745
We were at the Woodrow Wilson Bridge. It made me nervous: no place to go except toward an opponent or back the way you came—by which time, if they were even moderately smart, there’d be a greeting party there, too Unless you wanted to dive over the side. I looked at the massive concrete of the car-filled bridge and wondered. In the cars? Possible.
“How ’bout it, Ariel?”
“Feels okay. Which is why it feels wrong.”

Woodrow Wilson Bridge to Chesapeake Bay

The Lady Woof
Its name was "Lady Woof" and it hung twelve feet above the water. It was at least forty feet long and held from a crane by steel cables.
“Good-looking boat,” remarked Shaughnessy. “How do we get it from there to there?” She pointed from the crane to the water.

Sandy Hook Lighthouse
Sandy Hook Lighthouse The Sandy Hook Lighthouse, located about one and...

Sandy Hook Lighthouse
I frolicked in the water with the dolphins and Shaughnessy until the sight of an object poking up from the distant sliver of coast made me ask to be brought back to the boat. Shaughnessy followed. Ariel came up to me as I clambered aboard. “Something wrong, Pete?”
“Look landward — see where the land ends, there?” She nodded. “What’s that white thing sticking up a little bit?”
She peered forward. “I don’t know what you call it. A tall cylinder, tapering toward the top The topmost section is darker than the rest.”
“A lighthouse,” I said, and told her what that was. I went dripping back to the cabin and got out the road atlas. My finger traced up the coast until I found the only lighthouse marker corresponding to the lighthouse on the outcropping of land in the distance. The small red print beside my finger read "Sandy Hook Light/National Historical Landmark."
About an inch above that were bold, black letters which spelled out NEW YORK.

Chesapeake Bay to Liberty Island Ferry, NYC

Battery Park Memorial
The monument to American military seamen killed in the service was just ahead of us. It was a small granite court [...] with four tall granite slabs on either side. Names were carved on both sides of all eight silent monoliths, thousands and thousands of names.

Battery Park Eagle
At the far end of the court, between the last two slabs, was a statue—the Battery Park Eagle. It was the classic American Eagle, head arched forward and wings raked back, frozen in the midst of a killing dive with claws clenched. It was about a third the size of Shai-tan and with time and weather had gone the same pale green as the Statue of Liberty. Something was carved into the black marble of its base, but I couldn’t read it from where I stood. I asked Ariel what it said.
“‘Erected by the United States of America in proud and grateful remembrance of her sons who gave their lives in her service and who sleep in the coastal waters of the Atlantic Ocean. Into Thy hands, O Lord.’”
I started up the short flight of steps and froze as someone injected Freon into my veins with a chilled needle.
“Yes,” said a familiar voice, “straight into our hands.”