The streets filled with them and the scrape of a thousand feet covered everything else. Even the hoofbeats went under it, somewhere ahead, lost in the noise.
The cart lurched and settled into a steady rhythm. The bars sang once against my shoulder and went quiet. Above the low roof of the cage the single star held its place and the dark between the street lights stayed dark.
I looked up at the houses as we passed.
Every light off. Every window dark. Curtains drawn. The particular absolute black of rooms that had decided the street no longer belonged to the living and were waiting to see whether the decision would hold until dawn.
And every one of them awake behind the glass, watching this go by.
Faces I couldn't see. Hands on the edges of curtains. The continuous low sound of a thousand infected walking past locked doors while the people behind them held their breath and counted the seconds until the last of the procession cleared their block.
I turned left.
