Breakers by Edward W. Robertson

rat crouched on the pinned man's corpse, eating his nose. From his window, Walt took this for a sign. The ultimate metaphor for what happened when you tried to do good.
    It rained that night, a steady beat that washed the blood and debris into the drains. Maybe the fish would get sick, too. Gunshots popped every few minutes, dampened by the mist. On the sidewalk below, a man shuffled forward, dropped his umbrella, and collapsed to his knees, phlegmy blood dangling from his mouth in strands.
    Jets rattled his windows that morning, jarring him awake. The pain of his hangover felt right—the stabbing temples, the slow crush of his stomach, the sluggishness that made everything look less real than it already did. Heavy squeals and metallic shudders echoed between the buildings. Walt leaned out the window. Upstreet, a platoon of camo-wearing, rifle-swinging soldiers jogged across the intersection. With a rumbling, ear-wrenching shriek, a tank followed them down the street, pluming exhaust.
    They came for him the next day.
    The door pounded. His head did, too; he sat up from his blanket-nest on the couch, gum-eyed, parch-mouthed. "What?"
    Quick, muffled talk from behind the door. "Open up! U.S. Army!"
    Walt rose, naked except his underwear, and draped a sheet over his shoulders. He leaned his mouth against the door. "What can I do for you?"
    "We're here to take you to a safe place."
    "I'm pretty safe in here."
    "What about your family? Any roommates?"
    "I think they're pretty much dead. Let me check." Walt sniffed, gazing dumbly at the floor. "Yeah, all dead."
    "Sir, I need you to step outside and come with me. In the event of noncompliance, we are authorized to break down your door."
    "Authorized by who?" He unbolted the bolts, unlocked the locks. A pair of armed soldiers stood in the doorway, helmeted and vested, protected by gas masks and rubber gloves. "I appreciate your belief that you can keep me safer than I can keep myself, but I'm doing fine here."
    The taller soldier shook his head. "We're authorized to round up all the survivors."
    "The fact we are survivors might just imply we don't need your help."
    "Sir, we don't have time for this. Come with us or we'll drag you down the stairs."
    "Doesn't sound like either of us would enjoy that," Walt said. "Just tell them nobody was here."
    The shorter soldier passed his rifle to his partner, grabbed Walt's wrist, and twisted until the bones rubbed each other sideways. Walt wilted to his knees. Stitches tugged his gut. The soldier clamped his wrists together, tying them tight with a plastic strip-cuff.
    "Drag him out."
    "I'm in my underwear here," Walt said from his knees.
    "There's no time."
    "At least put on my shoes. You expect me to walk through fucking New York City barefoot? People were shitting, bleeding, and puking in the street. And that's before the Panhandler."
    The soldiers exchanged gas-masked glances. The one who'd hogtied him swore. "Where are your shoes?"
    They let him pull on some pants and his Converse, then draped his coat around his shoulders and fitted him with a surgical mask and thin, transparent gloves.
    "What's this about?" he asked on the way down the cold stairwell.
    "Rounding up the survivors to keep you safe," said the soldier who'd cuffed him.
    "Brilliant, gather us all together. The best way to guarantee that if we can get sick, we will ."
    "Has anyone told you you stink like whiskey, sir?"
    They exited the building to an overcast noon. The streets smelled of smoke and blood and sour biology. Walt thought about running—he doubted they knew New York any more than he knew whatever non-New York backwater they'd coagulated in, and if they truly intended to scour the entire goddamn city for survivors, there was a fair chance they wouldn't waste time coming after him—but then again, they had guns. And tanks. And troops on the corners. Helicopters ruffled the clouds overhead. The soldier led him to a high-roofed truck and gestured him up a ramp.