AT FIRST he thought he was in the east end. The buildings on both sides of the street were long abandoned, their dark windows staring down at him accusingly. There were no people, no traffic. The only sign of life was a small flock of pigeons strutting about the nearest intersection searching for food in the cracks between slabs of buckled asphalt.

Tony walked slowly down the center of the street, flanked on either side by the burned-out remains of cars and trucks and minivans. A glance into one of the cars gave him a pretty good idea of where the people had gone.

Then he nearly tripped over a charred a-frame advertising Italian ice cream and he realized he wasn’t in the east end at all. He was on Robson Street. The abandoned buildings had once been rows of trendy boutiques and high-priced restaurants. He stepped from the street into Robson Square to find the trees dead and a body facedown in the six inches of dirty water filling the skating rink.

He was walking through the establishing shot of every post-apocalyptic move ever made. Could it get any more clichéd?

Behind him, a sign creaked ominously in the breeze and the light began to fade.

Apparently, it could.

Then the hair rose on the back of his neck. Off the back of his neck? Well, it was standing, like it knew something he didn’t and he didn’t like that feeling at all.

There was something behind him.

Of course there was.

Screw it. He’d just keep walking and not give in to it. He wouldn’t turn, he wouldn’t look, he wouldn’t play the game. Two steps, three—on four he felt himself begin to pivot. He hadn’t intended to turn, but he wasn’t driving anymore.

Oh, crap.

He’d just become a passenger in his own body.

Been there. Done that. Didn’t want to do it again.

Robson became Boundary and the thing in his body walked him through the front door of the studio. Amy came toward him, asking him a question through lips the exact same fuchsia as her hair. He could see her lips move, but he couldn’t hear her. He couldn’t hear anything but the pounding of his own heart. And the hard/soft melon on concrete crack of her head hitting the floor as he shoved her out of his way.