Coit Tower came within focus of Clement’s binoculars. He scanned up and down the hill for signs of strangers. Petra stood not too far behind him with an unlit cigarette dangling from her mouth. She scoped out the horizon without aid, as she lost the coin toss for the third time in a row. This day was the same as the last, sitting inside the ruins of the Transamerica Pyramid waiting for the next schmuck to try and get close to the old San Francisco landmark. Clement yawned. He missed coffee.

  “Do you think they’ve all given up?” Petra asked out of the blue after twenty minutes of silence. Clement was sick of hearing her complain about how unlikely it would be for her to lose three times in a row. One day she’ll figure out he found a fake coin, but it wasn’t today.

  “There’s always gonna be a guy that tries their luck eventually.” Clement answered without stopping his scan. “Just be patient.”

  After pacing back and forth a couple of times, Petra hoisted herself up on a tipped over desk unit after swiping off a thick layer of dust. “I think we should start just digging around the perimeter, man. I know I heard the tower go off last night.”

  “Petra, Jesus…” Clement started exasperated. “You saw the dustfall on the way here. Any guy buried in there is going to stay there until the wind picks it up. We’ll gather them up later, okay? I don’t see why we should have to go digging around piles if we don’t have to.”

  “Uh, because we don’t know if anyone is going to come? I think we’ve already gone over this.” Petra scoffed.

  “You can go try to find that needle if you want to. I’m not trying to use up all my energy here.”

  “Dude, are you serious? You’re really not going to come? That’s so like you to not listen to my point-“

  “Shut up!”

  “Shut up?!” Petra hopped off the desk. “You’re not going to tell me to shut up, asshole-“

  “This isn’t me silencing you. We got one!” With a wave of his hand, he summoned Petra to his side. He held the binoculars up into the air for her to use.

  With a strange elation, Petra grabbed hold of the field glasses and pressed them deep into her eye sockets. She peered down Montgomery, and she saw the latest foolish soul who dared attempt to approach Coit. It was laughable, the guy was crawling slowly through the dust on his stomach.

  “Look at this stupid asshole. It can still see you!” Petra chuckled. Then her shoulders dropped. Turning around she slumped to the floor. The binoculars kicked up dust as it hit the ground.

  Seeing this, Clement pretended not to. He looked eagerly at the Tower off in the distance with great anticipation. Petra then took a deep breath, “We’re not bad people.”

  “This again?” Clement turned to face Petra, away from Coit Tower’s sight. “We are! Look at us! We are waiting in the ruins of San Francisco for people to die! You want to talk about morality?!”

  “I mean…”

  “Jesus Christ.” Flew out of Clement’s mouth attached to an audible groan. “We’re basically murdering these people!”

  “Are we though?” Petra finally faced Clement to engage in their favorite pastime. Debate. “These people are getting themselves killed. Neither you or I are laying hands on them. We’re not telling them where to go. No, for whatever reason G.I Joe over there is army-crawling his way to his doom. Then we come in after that. Are people who collect dead bodies bad, Clement?”

  “Sure, okay Petra, you know what? Let’s do a thought experiment. Let’s do the Trolley Problem.” With his finger, Clement began to draw two tracks into the dust. Picking up the binoculars, he stood it upright acting as the trolley. “Basic philosophy. Stop me if it gets confusing for you.”

  Folding in her arms, Petra scoffed, “I know what the Trolley Problem is. Stop acting like I’m an idiot…”

  “Let’s just see how this one plays out, okay?” With a whip’s strike, Clement pulled Petra’s cigarette out of her mouth.

  “Give that back!”

  “Are you going to smoke it?” Clement asked while holding it back and out of her reach.

  “It’s my last one!”

  Clement placed her last cigarette into the dusty floor. “This cigarette is us.”

  “Dude, gross…”

  “Just wipe it off later.” Clement placed the makeshift trolley into position on one side of his drawn tracks. “Okay, track A. This one, has a guy on it and the trolley is speeding directly toward him at ramming speed.” As he lectured, he drew a swipe through the track indicating it was a man.

  “Clement, shut the fuck up, you’re doing the expiriment wrong. The first track has multiple dudes on it and you have to choose between hitting one guy or letting it run over a bunch of people.”

  Shushing her with his hand, Clement tutted, “Let me finish. In this case, the second track has no other guys at all. In fact, the one guy on Track A is not even tied up or anything. He’s just standing there listening to music on his phone facing away from the train. Us, the cigarette, have a clear line of sight to him, him to us. He’s wearing a T-shirt that says, ‘I’ll believe anyone implicitly.’ So, all we have to do is save this guy’s life is to wave him off the track. The question for this thought experiment is: "Do you do it?”

  Petra’s eyes rolled away, “Yes, obviously I would. What are you talking about?”

  “Oh yeah, Petra? Is that your final answer?” Dust puffed up into the air as Clement pounded his fist into the ground. “That’s not what you’ve done the last thirty something times!”

  “Look, man, I just think it’s good on us that we’ve spent all this time at the end of days and we haven’t hurt anyone. We should be proud of ourselves for the stance we’re taking. The fact that we can stick to our principles? Doesn’t that make you feel even a little bit good?”

  Taking two fingers, Clement pinched the bridge of his nose. “You haven’t been listening to me at all, have you? Who cares about ‘principles’?”

  “Grocery carts.”

  “Grocery carts?”

  “Grocery carts.” She lifted the cigarette out of the dust, wiped it off and placed it back in her mouth. “Do you put the grocery cart back?”

  “What? No. We transport the bodies with a grocery cart we nicked from Andronico’s.”

  “It’s about doing something good, even when you don’t have to. That you and I are staying above it all. That army crawler down there? He probably kills people any chance he can get. Don’t you think he has ulterior motives for trying to get up Telegraph Hill?”

  “He probably does. Because we don’t know what anyone is thinking, everyone’s motives are ulterior.”

  Petra started to feel a headache coming on. “Shut the fuck up, Clement! You know what I mean! Think about it. Everyone living within Coit’s territory are probably the best people in the whole world. There may not have been a rapture, but that is probably the next best thing. So, Clement, you will admit that those people are the holiness benchmark.”

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Hmm.” Clement scratched his chin. “They could have gotten lucky.”

  “Shut up. What did you say earlier? We’ve done this thirty times?”

  “Something like thirty, surely.”

  “Fine. So, if that is a holy tower of some sort, protecting a small group of good people-“

  “So you claim.” Clement replied with a wave of his hand.

  “-Protecting a small group of good people from…say it with me…” Clement said nothing. “Bad people, that’s right!” Petra continued.

  “You’re arguing as if this probably doesn’t happen to everybody who gets within striking distance.”

  “Can I make my point on this without your input, please? Can I? Clement crossed his arms, giving Petra the floor. Petra nodded. “We only know all the times the tower smites someone, but not the times it doesn’t. So, if that were true then God himself is striking down sinners who are not worthy to live with Him on Telegraph Hill. So, by doing nothing, we are simply letting the scales of justice do their thing. Whatever happens to the corpse after that doesn’t matter.” Pulling a lighter from her pocket, Petra lit her cigarette. She took a massive, satisfying drag.

  “Okay.” Clement began. “You know what, let's talk about that. You’re seriously going to tell me right now that-“

  The two bickering shuddered at the thunderous boom off in the distance. Knowing that sound all too well, they whooped with triumph. The tower got him. As the two rose from cover, they were barely able to see the radiant energy dissipate from Coit’s observation deck.

  The dust slid off the binoculars as Clement fumbled them in his hands. Petra yanked them from his trembling fingers. Her magnified gaze pointed right at Broadway. There he was. Coit had smote the desperate crawler. His head and left hand popped like cherries. Blood poured out onto the surrounding dustfall. Right at the invisible border of the Sinner’s Gate. Collection will be cake. “We better hurry!”

  Leaping up onto his feet, Clement dashed toward their makeshift elevator. Untying the ropes with an intense hunger. Following close behind, Petra grabbed onto their grocery cart for stability. The vultures made their rickety descent down the pyramid. They were eager, itching to collect. Petra’s stomach rumbled. Reaching into her waistband, she produced her bulletless gun. She shared a glance of excitement with Clement.

  With a mighty thunk, the two finally reached the bottom of the Transamerica Pyramid. They darted off with intense swiftness, pushing the cart through the flaking layers of dust. Clouds splattered across their covered faces, which they wiped off as necessary. As they ran, they hooped and hollered with vigor.

  They crossed Washington Street. Off in the distance they could see the stirring of the great Leviathan. The colossal wurm’s movements gave pause to the scavengers. They had hoped for everyone’s sake that the sound of Coit’s thunderous punishment did not disturb its peaceful slumber. Clement and Petra bore witness to its initial rampage when it first rose from the sea. Both stopped running entirely, watching to see if it would be the end. It spawned and they closed their eyes, ready for the worst. Then the portion of the body they could see banked on the Embarcadero settled once more. The two exchanged mutual sighs of relief.

  “Do you think he’d come for us first?” Petra asked.

  Clement shook his head, “How would it know?”

  A chill ran up Petra’s spine, “Come on, man. Let’s just get what we came for.” Petra continued on with Clement pushing on behind her. They both did a cautionary double take at the dormant Leviathan before resuming their howling.

  A trail of dust kicked up behind them as they honed in on their corpse. Petra’s eyes furled. Someone was already messing with it. Her fingers tightened around the stock of the gun. A teenaged girl was attempting to pull the body away from Coit’s territory. She struggled to make progress, her arms thin and weak from hunger. Noticing the approaching dust cloud she jumped back without passing the borders of the Sinner’s Gate.

  First on the scene, Petra raised her useless firearm against the atrophied girl. “Back off, now!”

  “Please!” The hungry girl begged. “I-I don’t have anything to give you! My brother…he might have something you want…”

  “You know we want him.” Petra said as she took another step forward.

  “No! He doesn’t deserve this! We…we just wanted to be happy like them…” The girl looked wistfully off toward Telegraph Hill. Toga clad people stood and stared at the three sinners with disdain within the comfort of Coit Tower’s vigil. Shaking their heads, they went about their business. The citizens paid them no further mind.

  “Sorry, hey, we’ve already beat this conversation to death.” Clement began. “They got lucky.”

  “No.” Petra retorted. “We didn’t agree to that.” She turned back to the weakling, “We’re giving you a chance here. Fuck off and we’ll take what we came for.”

  “I won’t let you!” The girl made herself as big as she could, making a barrier between her brother and the vultures. Tears began to stream down her face as she defended what remained of her brother.

  “Back off, dude!” Petra lurched forward with the gun with false aggression. “I’ll blow your goddamn brains out! You’ll end up just like him! Is that what you want?!”

  “Do it then!! I don’t care!” The girl screamed. “Shoot me or go!”

  Petra was thrown off by her resolve. Her grip loosened on the gun. Her eyes softened. “You don’t understand…”

  “No! Don’t give me that! What’s there to get? You two wait around for people like us to try for a better life. When it doesn’t work you scoop up what’s left. You’re both sick. Deplorable, evil, people. You’re the worst of us.”

  “Shut the fuck up, Clement.” Petra whispered to herself.

  “Okay, I didn’t even say anything.”

  “You were about to!” Petra turned to scream at him. Clement nodded in affirmation. “We’re doing what anyone else would do.” Petra continued as she turned back to the young girl.

  “What’s that? Eat people?! Go to Hell.”

  Clement raised his hands, “I’m 80% sure we don’t eat people.”

  “We’re not hurting anybody.” Petra told herself.

  “That’s funny.” The girl grew emboldened. “My brother tried his best to find a better life for us. He didn’t hurt anybody either. I know he was a good man. You? No, not so much.”

  “We’re good people, I’m telling you-“

  Despite her shaking legs, the girl stood up to her full height. “Walk through then.”

  “What…?” Petra stumbled back.

  “Walk. Through.”

  Clement laughed aloud, “You know what, I should have thought of that.”

  “Clement-“

  “You can prove it, right? You can put your money where your mouth is and walk through in peace. You won’t explode, right? Because you’re such a good person.”

  “Clement…” Petra repeated.

  “She and I are saying the same thing. We’re bad. It’s fine. What are you holding onto?”

  Petra’s eyes began to water. “If things go back to normal, don’t you want to say you rose above it?”

  “Well?” The girl asked, pointing off toward Coit Tower.

  Mist clouding her vision, Petra looked back and forth to the body and the tower several times. She let her gun arm fall to the side. “Who am I kidding?”

  “I thought so.” The girl snarled. “Get lost. I’m going to bury my brother.” She leaned down to try and roll him away from paradise’s border.

  Petra turned around, briefly moving her goggles further up her face to wipe her eyes. “What’s the point, Clement?”

  Clement groaned, “I don’t know, man. I don’t think there needs to be a point. We’re living in the worst timeline. We found a way to make it work and it’s really moral. It’s not going to get better and nothing really matters any more. Probably we’re going to waste away or get killed sooner or later. We’re going to go extinct and demons will hate fuck the world into oblivion. So we either kill ourselves or keep doing what we have been doing. I don’t know about you, I’m just fine with not going hungry.”

  Yeah, I guess.” Petra replied.

  With quick heel spin, Petra lobbed the gun toward the girl’s head. It cracked her skull, sending her body lurching forward into the Sinner’s Gate. The observation deck flashed a blinding light. The scavengers blinked and the girl’s head and torso popped like a blood balloon. The thunderclap rattled in their skulls not long after. Her body slumped by her brother’s, twitching a few times before becoming inert. Her death followed by the dancing radiant light show from the tower.

  “Okay.” Clement broke the silence after ten silent seconds. “I don’t know if I would have done that.”

  “Oh yeah, Clement? Now you’re too good for this? Hypocrite. Help me grab the bodies.”

  Clement shrugged and grabbed onto the girl’s lifeless legs. “I’m just saying, you were really quick to hop off the high horse there.”

  “Ooookay! I’m Clement! I’m always right about everything!” Petra grabbed her gun off the ground. She then began to drag the body of the man away from Broadway. “I’m so smart and Petra is so stupid and wrong about everything.”

  Clement tossed what was left of the girl into the grocery cart. He went around to the handle, tilting the basket to make it easier for Petra to stuff the man’s remains inside. “All of that is true. I don’t really see the problem in you admitting I’m right like a normal person.”

  “You’re such a piece of shit, you know that?”

  “I…think we’ve been over this enough times today to know that we both are.”

  “Can you just eat my whole ass?”

  “Ew.” Clement shuddered as he brought the cart back on four wheels.

  The two continued to bicker this way as they jogged back down Montgomery Street with their haul. Mostly lobbing odd insults back and forth all the way to the entrance to the Muni station. Petra grabbed hold of the front of the basket as Clement hoisted up the back end. They took extra care descending the stairs as they did not normally have one and a half bodies in tow.

  Their conversation ceased completely when they walked through the dark and wet underground. They both knew better than to say anything now, they even pushed the grocery cart as gently as they could manage. Petra reached out to ensure they reached the automated gates of the BART station. She did a rhythmic tapping on the rusted metal as Clement wafted the fresh stench of the corpses toward the darkness.

  “?????? ?? ?????” an eager voice hissed from the depths below.

  “Yes, Sarkratch.” The scavengers said in unison, just as they had been taught to do. With their combined strength they hoisted the cart over the BART gates. They dumped the bodies onto the other side, then they took three quick steps backward.

  A pair of dark hands reached out for their meal. Sickening sounds of chewing echoed from the train platform below. The sounds of massive gnashing of teeth ceased abruptly, the voice of Sarktatch bellowed, “??? ?n?????s ??f? ??? w??????s ?n!”“The entire structure rumbled in its rage.

  Clement face-palmed and whispered, “The goddamn clothes.”

  “We are so sorry, master Sarkratch, beautiful Sarkratch. We knew you were hungry and didn’t want you to wait even a single second more!”

  “??v?n??s, ? w?s. ??s. V??? w???, m? ???s. ??? ??v? ???n?? ???? ??????ns. ?ns??? ???s ??s????? n?v?? ????? m? ???s ????n.” It chided them like they were children.

  “Our deepest gratitude, Lord Sarkratch.” They once again uttered in parallel.

  From the pit below, a darker shadowed hand emerged over the automated ticket feeders. It whisked back from whence it came just as fast. In its place was a small pile of white colored seeds that strangely illuminated even in the unlit station. Their mouths watered as they looked upon their reward. They swooped down on the glowing seeds, drooling for their meal. As they both clambered for the pile, they bounced on the moist tile.

  They crouched like savages as they gathered as many loose seeds as they could. Clement and Petra devoured them like the little rats that they were. The seeds filled them with energy, it made them strong. It was a struggle not to finish them all. It took willpower not to gulp down every last one.

  Once their feast was done, they sat side by side against the wall in silence. Drumming his fingers against his knees, Clement was growing bored. He decided to participate in his favorite pastime, debate. “Hey Petra, you know we never finished our conversation on whether or not what we’re eating is people.”

  “Shut the fuck up, Clement.”