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Chapters (79)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Epigraph
  4. One
  5. Two
  6. Three
  7. Four
  8. Five
  9. Six
  10. Seven
  11. Eight
  12. Nine
  13. Ten
  14. Eleven
  15. Twelve
  16. Thirteen
  17. Fourteen
  18. Fifteen
  19. Sixteen
  20. Seventeen
  21. Eighteen
  22. Nineteen
  23. Twenty
  24. Twenty-One
  25. Twenty-Two
  26. Twenty-Three
  27. Twenty-Four
  28. Twenty-Five
  29. Twenty-Six
  30. Twenty-Seven
  31. Twenty-Eight
  32. Twenty-Nine
  33. Thirty
  34. Thirty-One
  35. Thirty-Two
  36. Thirty-Three
  37. Thirty-Four
  38. Thirty-Five
  39. Thirty-Six
  40. Thirty-Seven
  41. Thirty-Eight
  42. Thirty-Nine
  43. Forty
  44. Forty-One
  45. Forty-Two
  46. Forty-Three
  47. Forty-Four
  48. Forty-Five
  49. Forty-Six
  50. Forty-Seven
  51. Forty-Eight
  52. Forty-Nine
  53. Fifty
  54. Fifty-One
  55. Fifty-Two
  56. Fifty-Three
  57. Fifty-Four
  58. Fifty-Five
  59. Fifty-Six
  60. Fifty-Seven
  61. Fifty-Eight
  62. Fifty-Nine
  63. Sixty
  64. Sixty-One
  65. Sixty-Two
  66. Sixty-Three
  67. Sixty-Four
  68. Sixty-Five
  69. Sixty-Six
  70. Sixty-Seven
  71. Sixty-Eight
  72. Sixty-Nine
  73. Seventy
  74. Acknowledgments
  75. About the Author
  76. Praise for Destroy All Monsters
  77. Books by Sam J. Miller
  78. Back Ad
  79. About the Publisher

That, and a camera. Pop had been a photographer, back in the Waterlands, and I’d inherited his battered old knockoff “Leika.” So when I was ten years old, that’s how I started. I took pictures for tourists in front of landmarks and I took pictures for street gangs of the graffiti in rival territory. Kind of like a spy. I didn’t know what I was doing; I just knew I needed to eat. I was small and quick and I didn’t ask for very much money. Pretty soon I was getting hired by jealous lovers, and taking pictures for business owners, of their competition’s price lists.

One of them thought I had a good eye, and told me to talk to Cass. She often bought shots off street urchins. She took a liking to me. Bought my pictures even when they weren’t very good. Gave me advice. Sent me out on assignments with her actual photographers, so I could see how it was done.

The rest, I guess, is history.

“Have you seen this?” she asked, handing me an eight-by-ten glossy photo. Black and white: a bare white wall with “Destroy All Monsters” spray-painted across it.

“No,” I said. “Where was this taken?”

“Back of the Darkside Cinema Palace,” she said. “But it’s been popping up all over. The same tag—but lots of different handwritings and styles. I think it’s evidence of something new—a movement, a degree of organization that we haven’t seen before. It’s not just a bunch of random assholes anymore. Something scary is on the horizon.”

I remembered the ultramarine armbands in the Underbridge attack. “I think you’re right.”

“Keep an eye out, will you? Anywhere you see this tag, take a picture? And remember where you took it”—she crossed to the giant map of the city on her wall—“because I want to map out the places where this pops up. I’d be in your debt.”

A thousand times Cass had helped me eat when I would have gone hungry, so I was pretty sure she’d never be the one in my debt.

“I’ll do what I can,” I said. “Thanks, Cass.”

And it was then, just when I was starting to feel okay about everything, that I noticed the top item on one of her piles of folders. Attached to the front was a blurry old newspaper photo . . . of Ash.

“What’s this?” I said softly. My heartbeat was so, so loud.