"Fuck!" Hilda said as it caught hold of her thumb with its teeth. She pushed at its face ineffectually, hissing with pain, and Perry finally worked a thumb into the hinge of its jaw and forced it open. The cat sprang away, clawing up his face, leaping back onto the Dumpster. Hilda's thumb was punctured many times, already running free with blood. "I'm going to need rabies shots," she said. "But I'll live." They cuddled, in the blood and the mud, and watched the river swell and run with more odd debris: clothes and coolers, beer bottles and a laptop, cartons of milk and someone's purse. A small palm-tree. A mailbox. Finally, the river began to wane, the rain to falter. "Was that it?" Hilda said. "Maybe," Perry said. He breathed in the moist air. His arms throbbed -- one broken, the other torn open. The rain was petering out fast now, and looking up, he could see blue sky peeking through the dirty, heavy clouds, which were scudding away as fast as they'd rolled in. "Next time, we check the weather before we go to the beach," he said. She laughed and leaned against him and he yelped as she came into contact with his hurt arm. "We got to get you to a hospital," she said. "Get that looked at." "You too," he said, pointing at her thumb. It was all so weird and remote now, as they walked through the Miami streets, back toward the garage. Other shocked people wandered the streets, weirdly friendly, smiling at them like they all shared a secret. The beach-front was in shambles, covered in blown trash and mud, uprooted trees and fallen leaves, broken glass and rolled cars. Perry hit the car radio before they pulled out of the garage. An announcer reported that Tropical Storm Henry had gone about three miles inland before petering out to a mere sun-shower, along with news about the freeways and hospitals being equally jammed. "Huh," Perry said. "Well, what do we do now?" "Let's find a hotel room," Hilda said. "Have showers, get something to eat." It was a weird and funny idea, and Perry liked it. He'd never played tourist in Florida, but what better place to do so? They gathered their snacks from the back of the car and used the first aid kit in the trunk to tape themselves up. They tried to reach Lester but no one answered. "He's probably at the ride," Perry said. "Or balls-deep in reverse-engineering the Disney Box thing. OK, let's find a hotel room." Everything on the beach was fully booked, but as they continued inland for a couple blocks, they came upon coffin hotels stacked four or five capsules high, painted gay Miami deco pastels, installed in rows in old storefronts or stuck in street-parking spots, their silvered windows looking out over the deserted boulevards. "Should we?" Perry said, gesturing at them. "If we can get an empty one? Damn right -- these things are going to be in serious demand in pretty short order."