The ride to Pittsburgh was the hardest day of my life. No water, no food, nothing. We didn't allow ourselves a rest break for fear that it would put our minds back on our hunger. It worked, sort of.
We followed I-376 into the city. All day, I had struggled with the unreasonable possibility that we would reach Pittsburgh, and it would be just how it was before, untouched by the Event or anything that followed. Maybe we'd be able to park our bikes, find a restaurant, and get a big cup of Coke. Maybe we'd just be able to find a pay phone and call Matt, and we'd hang out with him at a bar. I tried to put them out of my head, but I couldn't. Nothing else to distract me but the ceaseless, linear march of the road's divider paint. I could taste the food already.
The highway took us through the suburbs. It looked as if a massive fire had swept across them. There was no plant life; no trees. Only blackened shells of office buildings, churches, homes. Nobody greeted us. Nobody was there. I was terrified of leaving my bicycle or averting my eyes from the road. I didn't want to see any of it. It wasn't how it was supposed to be.
We rode until downtown Pittsburgh should have been in plain sight. It wasn't Pittsburgh. It was an enormous pile of ruined architecture, collapsed against itself. The road, once completely smooth, grew more and more gravelly, until it was finally unsuitable for riding. We faced our greatest fear, and stopped our bikes.
When you visit a city, you expect to be greeted. Maybe not by the people, but at least by signs. "Welcome to Pittsburgh", maybe, although we would have settled for anything. A sign for a Laundromat. A billboard advertising a law office. Nothing was here. A year earlier, hundreds of thousands of people pulsed through the city like a bloodstream. Now, there was only silence and a giant, ruined rubble.
That silence was certainly not broken by us. Neither of us said a word. The bridges across the rivers were gone. We turned our bikes.