Eggsy stepped aside and the next shot missed him completely. He glanced at his companions - at the noseless man and the faceless woman and gestured for them to spread out and find cover. They communicated their inability to do so - they lacked the brainpower to identify what was covered and what wasn't - so he wasted another second telling them mentally to duck down behind abandoned cars. The violence of the moment had sharpened him somehow, thrown everything into high contrast."Kev - I'm reloading - get this one!" a living human shouted. Eggsy swiveled to track the voice and saw a big guy with short curly black hair standing under an awning. The living man worked nervously at the action of a long-barreled hunting rifle that looked like a stick in his enormous hands. He wore a rumpled tan shirt and a nametag that read HELLO MY NAME IS Paul. There were two of them, Gary inferred, this Paul and another one named Kev. Gary stepped closer to the shooter and sent instructions to his compa

Central Park had become a shambles. A sea of mud broken here and there by a pool of stagnant water slick with the rainbow sheen of chemical pollution. Shards of bone, inedible even by the loose standards of the undead had gathered in these ditch-like depressions in the earth. No grass anywhere - the dead would have devoured it by the handful. Countless broken and sagging trees raised dark supplicant limbs to an overcast sky, pulpy and white where the bark had been gnawed right off the wood. Without the root systems of living plants to hold it together the very earth under Central Park had rebelled, surging forward as mud every time it rained. The broad traverses had turned to rivers full of murky, billowing water. The fences that had divided the park into discrete zones of leisure had been overcome by the sweeping power of the water and mud and now lay twisted like long lines of barbed wire rusting in the sun. Here and there there a streetlamp poked out of the dirt at a skewed angle

Long mylar banners flapped wildly between the columns of the façade, their promotional messages bleached to illegibility by the sun. Snapping, snarling as the wind tore at them they were the only moving thing in sight. The Metropolitan Museum of Art stood high and alone in the mud of the Park, its massive doors wide open."I've got better things to do," Eggsy said out loud. Afraid to go in. Noseless and Faceless made no reply to his assertion. "I need to find the girl who shot me. I'm hungry, too." He didn't turn away, though. Too many questions stacked up in his head.Eggsy lead Noseless and Faceless up the long flight of steps to the doors and peered in for a moment, wondering if he really wanted to do this. The massive lobby soared upwards to three filthy skylights that provided a trace of illumination. Enough to see that the place was empty. Eggsy stepped into the cool dead air of the Museum and stared up at its arched and vaulted ceiling, at the grand staircase that lead upward

One of the mummies - a Ptolemy and a cousin of Cleopatra, according to Mael - ran his partially unwrapped hands over the glass of a display case and then started beating on it with his palms. Mael hobbled toward him but couldn't stop him from shattering the glass. It cascaded down his bandaged legs in a torrent of tiny green cubes. Long shards of it stuck into his arms and his hands but he ignored them as he bent to retrieve a clay jar from the exhibit. Hieroglyphs covered its surface and the stopper was carved wood in the shape of a falcon's head. Mael tried to pull the mummy away from the jagged glass but the undead Egyptian refused to be lead. He was far too intent on cradling the jar against his chest.It was the first time Eggsy had seen a dead man motivated by anything but hunger. "What's in that thing that's so important?" he asked.A spectral smile twitched across Mael's leathery lips. His intestines.Eggsy could only grimace in revulsion.They don't understand this place, Egg

"You... you can't be serious," Eggsy said. Mael kept moving deeper into the dark museum, through a sculpture garden lit only indirectly by windows on the outside. "You honestly expect me to believe that you're going to walk out there into the city and start killing survivors?" As the Druid hobbled along the mummies began to emerge from the Egyptian wing, clutching Canopic jars and heart scarabs to themselves. A supremely frustrated Gary called for Noseless and Faceless to come as well - he didn't necessarily want to get outnumbered just then. "Anyway, this isn't where you would do it. There are maybe a handful of people left in this city - "There were over a thousand of them, when last I took a peek.Mael pushed open a door and they stepped through into a spray of colored light. Stained glass windows high overhead showered the radiance down upon them, while massive Gothic arches invited them to press on. Mael stopped and turned to face Gary. The lot of them are in poor shape, lad. St