Motif · Book 6, The Eye of the Bedlam Bride

The ghosts of Earth

The eighth floor's premise: cities rebuilt from deep-cycle imaging of the surface in the weeks before the collapse, populated by intangible people whose clothes fall off when they pass through a crawler — children at play three weeks before the end, a bloodhound guarding a gas station, a summer afternoon at Carl's father's trailer spliced in for one crawler, and phase-two keys in the homes of people some crawlers knew. 'Remember it's not really them.'

Segment appearances

• Chapter 10 — Pueblo de los Olvidados
• Chapter 22 — Uzi Jesus
• Chapter 25 — The crab trap
• Chapter 27 — Phase two rules
• Chapter 38 — Monroe County
• Chapter 41 — Jola the Yule Cat
• Chapter 45 — Asher
• Chapter 48 — Mass Layoffs
• Chapter 50 — Homestead
• Chapter 51 — Residuals
• Chapter 58 — Amayon
• Chapter 59 — Velma
• Chapter 60 — The last rampart
• Chapter 65 — Graupel
• Chapter 66 — The Missing Piece
• Chapter 67 — The Big O
• Chapter 68 — Raul's moment
• Chapter 70 — Golden Combo
• Epilogue — Homecoming Queen

Progression

Floating heads, clothes that fall away, a saferoom that is a house (ch. 1, ch. 20); children playing three weeks before the end (ch. 20); a Christmas mall in a simulation (ch. 28); phase two's keys in the homes of the people crawlers left (ch. 38); a summer spliced into winter so that one man can watch a murder (ch. 44, ch. 45); live turkeys, the first living things pulled from the past, cooking under their own heaters (ch. 41); a bloodhound guarding a gas station (ch. 50). At the end the world is stripped to its memories, 'going about their daily lives, unaware' (ch. 72).