We wait for him to continue, and after a minute he does.
“When we finally got there we found that most of the people who’d been there, soldiers or whatever, were sent somewhere else. My brother and his wife and kids were there. They’d gotten there before the roads were clogged. Because, you know, everyone had figured out that this was worse than they were telling us. I mean, how can you tell people there’s no problem when they can look out their window and see the fucking problem wandering around outside? They blew up the bridges to New York. You guys know that?”
His eyes are wide and rimmed with red. He digs his thumb and fingers into them.
“We were in Brooklyn. We got out the night before they blew,” Nelly says.
Brian drops his hand. “Yeah? Well, you’re the lucky ones. If you had seen the footage they were showing of the city—”
“What’s happening there?” interrupts Penny, her face pinched.
“You’re from Brooklyn?”
Penny nods, and motions to Ana. “Our mom…”
Brian nods like he knows what she’s trying to say. Since only the two of them made it here, I have a suspicion he understands completely.
“Manhattan’s burning up. People were running out of buildings right into fucking groups of Eaters. I mean, what can you do? In a fire, you die. Maybe outside you live. If you can climb or run fast, you know? You’ve got to run fast.”
He looks to Jordan for confirmation, but she stares at her feet, arms gripping her sides. “Brooklyn wasn’t as bad. Parts were burning, but nothing like Manhattan. The infection is just as bad, but people, at least the people who don’t have a death wish, are hiding out for now.”
I picture the rows of brownstones in our neighborhood on fire, people spilling out of the apartment buildings straight into the arms of infected. Running across rooftops to avoid the flames and looking to the streets below for a safe spot to escape to.
“Okay,” Penny says, the worry in her eyes unabated.
Ana sits heavily on the bench next to Jordan. I glance at Peter, but he’s looking down at the ground, tracing an O with the toe of his shoe in the soft dirt. He does it over and over, like he’s solving a complex math problem.
“What happened at the high school?” I ask Brian.
His face closes, and I’m positive he’s going to tell me to mind my own fucking business. Then all the fight leaves him, and he sighs, shrinking an inch or two in all directions.
“Well, we were there,” he says, his voice flat. “My brother Chris, his wife, Jess, and my nephews. We got a corner by the bleachers. One lady told me there were power outages in the cities, no phone service, and I’m thinking that three days ago, three fucking days ago, everything was fine. You know?”
His eyes dart around the group for reassurance.
When his eyes meet mine, I nod. “It was fine.” As I say it, I realize it’s not true, it couldn’t have been. “It seemed fine here, on the East Coast, everyone thought so.”
The panic that he might be going insane, on top of everything else, leaves his eyes. “After a while we realized our parents weren’t going to make it out from the suburbs. We decided to wait the night and head to them in the morning. It was getting packed in there, and we could hear tons of noise outside. People caught up in all the traffic, honking. Then the little guy, my nephew, Ty—”
He stifles a sob and removes his baseball cap, then puts it back on and moves it side to side until it’s settled. Then he takes it off again and folds the brim in half, the way you do to make that perfect crease down the middle.
“Tyler. He had to pee, you know? So Jess took the boys to the bathroom. The honking turned into screams and gunshots, and people were running to the doors to see what was happening.
“So Chris tells us to stay there, that he wants to make sure Jess and the boys are okay. The screaming gets louder, and they’re trying to close the doors. But it’s too late, and tons of them, Eaters, are in. We couldn’t see, so we get on the bleachers right as Chris and Jess and the kids come into the gym.”
Brian stares into the trees, but he’s not seeing them. I can see what he sees. The way the lights in every high school gym cast a garish yellow glow, the bleachers that line the tiled walls, the windows covered with grates to protect them from an errant ball. The way everyone must have been running in circles, their screams amplified and echoing.
“I yelled at them to go back. They could’ve hid in the lockers, you know? They were surrounded, so they made a run for us. I wanted to help them, but Jordan held my shirt.” He looks at her accusingly. “She said I was going to get bitten. They—they got Jess first, just took her and Thomas down. Jess got right on top of Thomas and tried to fight them off. But she couldn’t hold them off long.”
I know where this is going and wish I hadn’t asked, but I don’t want to make him stop. He’s been watching his own personal horror movie on an endless loop, and now he’s vomiting it back up, trying to get it out of him for good.
“Chris was holding Tyler. He’s bigger than me, and he was throwing the Eaters to the side. Tyler’s arms were around his neck. I thought he was going to make it. So I go to hang off the bleachers and get ready to grab Ty.
“Then he trips. Without even trying, one of those fuckers trips my brother and he goes down. But he gets Ty up on his feet. Yells at him to run to me. Tyler, he tries, he’s pumping his legs. He’s yelling, ‘Uncoo Bri, Uncoo Bri!’ I was about to leap down, I just wanted to get to him, but they were under me. They must have been pouring through the door the whole time. And his fucking eyes. They’re huge and he’s running, and then Tyler, h-he runs right into one’s arms and…”
The baseball cap brim is folded beyond repair. Brian’s eyes are puffy and a worm of snot runs out of his nose. He looks so lost, so like a Little Guy himself, that I put my hand on his shoulder.
“You couldn’t help him,” I say. It was a hopeless situation. “You wouldn’t have made it back in time. You did try.”
He nods, but his eyes say he doesn’t believe it. All he sees is his Little Guy running for help he didn’t give. He raises his arms and I think he’s going to shove me, but he grabs me in a hug that takes my breath away. I hold up all two hundred pounds of him, even though my legs tremble with the effort. His sobs are hoarse and shuddering; they remind me of how I sounded after my parents died, when I would cry alone.
Jordan gets up, her eyes shiny behind the smeared makeup. She rubs his back with a hand that wears a diamond engagement ring.
“Bri,” she says in a gentle voice. She cranes her head around my shoulder. “Brian? She’s right. You couldn’t save him, baby. I know how you… I didn’t mean…”
He catches his breath and his body tenses. He lets go abruptly, and I stumble until James catches me and sets me upright.
“If I’d gone earlier, if you hadn’t argued, I might have. But you held me back. It’s your fault he’s dead. Your fault they got Tyler.” He grimaces like he’s just eaten something disgusting.
Jordan’s eyes overflow and she shakes her head. She’s gone pale under the spray tan. “Brian, no, it just would have been you, too. Don’t you think I wanted Ty safe? I loved him so much. You know—”
He clenches his teeth. “Shut up, Jordan. Just shut the fuck up.”
She runs to their car with a sob and slams the door. We all turn to Brian, who looks after her with a face devoid of emotion. I’m thinking that Brian is cracking up a little, just as he seems to fear.
“Sorry,” he says. “I’ve got to go talk to her.”
He walks away with downcast eyes.
38
We’ve got the beginnings of a plan. We leave at first light. We’ll have to part ways immediately, since we’re heading in different directions. I think the Washingtons have a good chance, since they can wend their way along small, isolated roads. We’re going to cross the Hudson at the base of the park and drive along a network of back roads, also.
Nelly, Henry and James hav
e, after fifteen minutes of manly deliberation, decided on the best placement for kindling and our campfire is ablaze. Dottie insists on sharing what’s left of their now un-frozen burgers with us. When we protest, she reminds us in a don’t-even-argue mom voice that the meat will spoil. I snicker when Nelly murmurs, “Yes, ma’am,” even though she’s not that much older than us.
Hank and Corrine watch the flurry of packing with bleak faces from their spot by the fire. They look like they’ve just seen the world for the first time, and it’s turning out to be a much shittier place than they thought. And they’re right. The world just went from semi-shitty to never before seen levels of shittiness. I get the last of my stuff in my pack and zip it up. Then I pull a couple of things back out before going to sit next to them.
“You guys packed and ready?” I ask.
Corrine shrugs and looks at the fire, biting her lip to stop its trembling. Hank looks up from whittling his new marshmallow stick and gives me a serious smile.
“I’m ready. You?”
I smile. “As ready as I’ll ever be. But I thought that you guys might need something to help you out in the woods, so I want give you these.”
I hold out the wilderness survival book and the bow drill set.
Hank’s eyes gleam and he takes the pouch with reverence. “Really? We can have this?”
“No, Hank,” Corrine says. She takes it from him and holds it out to me. “We can’t take it. Her dad gave it to her, it’s special.”
“That’s why I’m giving it to you. It’s special, yeah, but so are you guys. I want you to have it. There’s another set at the house, along with lots of lighters and matches. You may need it, so it belongs with you. And the book, too. I’ll be totally offended if you don’t take them.”
Corrine laughs at my pout and takes the book before she leans forward and hugs me. “I wish we were going with you,” she whispers.
I hug her tight. “Me too, honey.”
39
The hamburgers hold absolutely no resemblance to Alpo, much to my delight. Peter, now answering me with grunts and monosyllables instead of icy stares, rouses himself enough to thank Dorothy. Jordan and Brian appear at the edge of the firelight. They’ve spent the last few hours in the car, and we’ve spent the last few hours trying not to be nosy.
Brian looks repentant. “Hey, you guys. I’m really sorry about earlier. And I was way out of line and apologized to Jordan, just so you know. I don’t want you guys to think I’m a dick or anything, I’m not. Well, most of the time, anyway.”
He smiles tentatively and gives Jordan’s hand a squeeze.
Jordan squeezes back. “He’s not. It’s been hard. Just…horrible.”
Penny gestures at an empty spot on the blankets. We offer them burgers, and they eat a little. Dottie tells us a few stories about growing up in the Caribbean, and Penny talks about living in Puerto Rico. I wonder if the islands have fared any better than the mainland. I’m thinking dreamily of warm sun and fresh mangoes and no infected when James clears his throat.
“I know we’re trying to keep it light, but I was doing some calculations today and it looks pretty bad. Okay, today is Monday. This all started, as far as we know, on Friday. On Saturday they took out the bridges, and by then there was something like fifteen percent infected. That means that it took a day for the virus to spread that rapidly. The Midwestern states were already somewhere around sixty percent then, and I’ll bet they’re somewhere up around eighty or so now.
“Worst case scenario, in cities and big towns we’re going to see sixty percent starting tomorrow. The smaller towns and rural places have a bit more time. From what Brian said, most people are stuck in traffic jams. That doesn’t mean they’re going to give up, but they’ll have to walk to reach those places. And at least some infected-but-still-alive will make it there, too. And then they’ll turn.
“The infection will be everywhere eventually. I think it’ll hover at eighty percent for a while, as those people who’ve found safe places or have provisions hold out. But, depending on how long the infected live, the majority of people will have to leave their homes at some point for food or water. And that’s when they’ll get infected. Our best chance is what we’re doing: going somewhere remote and hunkering down until this blows over.”
Ana and Peter’s faces are closed, and when he finishes they murmur something to each other. I don’t think they believe him.
“When will it blow over, do you think?” Jordan asks, her face eager.
James’s face, which has been animated as he speaks, falls. “That’s the thing. No one knows. Maybe they won’t die until they decompose. Maybe they won’t rot as fast as, well, any meat would. It sounds impossible, but so does everything else. So I’m counting on it and planning to be pleasantly surprised if I’m wrong.”
Something passes between Brian and Jordan. She gives him a small nod and rests her head on his shoulder as he strokes her hair.
“What are your plans?” I ask them.
“We’re heading out tomorrow, too,” Brian says into the fire. “Maybe find our parents. We plan on being gone before you guys, while it’s still dark.”
Jordan twists her engagement ring around and around on her finger, and he puts a gentle hand over hers to stop it. “It’ll be okay. We’ll be together, right?”
She smiles tearfully and nods. I wonder how he can be so calm, so sure. If he, who saw half his family eaten in front of him, thinks it will be okay, then maybe it will be.
The fire dies down. I’m in no rush to start tomorrow, but when Henry yawns and says they’d better get to bed, we all stand.
“Thanks, everyone,” Jordan says in a quiet voice. “Thank you for sharing with us. It gives me hope that maybe everything good isn’t completely gone, if people like you guys are here.” It’s the most she’s said all night.
“And you too,” Penny says. “Don’t forget, you made it up here.”
Jordan smiles, but the sadness in her eyes is back. “Yeah. We’ll be okay.”
40
It’s mostly dark when I feel someone shake my shoulder. Penny leaves the lantern behind after she’s sure I’m awake. I roll up the sleeping bag and listen to the rustle of nylon and zipping of zippers outside the tent. I pick up any loose items and try to ignore the hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach. When I emerge from the tent it’s a few shades lighter. Wisps of mist hang in the air, and I can just make out Brian and Jordan’s car parked in their campsite. I guess they’re still sleeping.
The remaining food sits on the table to be divvied up. After brushing my teeth I head over to where Nelly and Henry stand and stare at the five remaining cases of MREs.
“No one wants them, huh?” I joke, and they laugh.
Nelly turns to Henry. “Are you sure you won’t reconsider coming along with us?”
Henry sighs. “You don’t know how badly I want to. But we’ve decided to give the family a month, and then we’ll make our way to you. If that’s still okay?”
“Of course it is,” I say. “If for some reason we’re not there, look for a path to the left of the house. There’s an old maple tree with what’s left of a tree house, not too far in. It’s the Message Tree. In a hole in the trunk there’s a coffee can. I’ll leave where we’ve gone in there.”
Henry nods. “Got it. Now…”
He looks at the table. Nelly, who’s always on the same page as me, takes one case of MREs and pushes the others toward Henry. The sky is bright enough now to see his eyes open in surprise.
“No, man,” he protests. “I can’t take all this. What will you guys do?”
“Henry, we’re heading to where we know we’ll have plenty of food,” I say. “We don’t have two kids to drag around. This won’t even keep you going for that long, so please don’t argue.” I hold out a revolver. “And don’t argue with this, either. I’ll give you boxes of ammo for it, too.”
“I don’t know what to say,” he says, his relief warring with his reluctance. �
�Guns aren’t something to just give away right about now. I…but I can’t say no to that. Thank you.”
“I’m not giving it to you,” I say. I raise an eyebrow and look into his kind face with a small smile. “It’s a loan. You have to return it, that’s the catch. I’ll be expecting it in a couple of months.”
Henry’s cheeks crack into a smile for a second, then his face reverts to its usual serious expression as he hugs me. “I’ll get it back to you. I know it’s only been a couple days, but—” He stops and thumps Nelly on the back.
“Hey,” James says, as he pulls down the second tent, “their car is still here. I thought Brian said they were leaving early.”
Suddenly, I think I know why Brian and Jordan seemed so peaceful last night. I can feel something coming from the car. More like the absence of something.
“Henry, keep the kids away,” I say.
I walk toward the car, heart pounding with trepidation. At first I think I’m wrong, that they’re just sleeping in the backseat. Brian’s got his back against the door and his legs run the length of the seat. Jordan’s snuggled on his lap, and his head rests on hers, like he was taking a last, deep sniff of her shampoo. His arms, which were probably wrapped around her, now rest limply on either side.
I steel myself and open the door, just to make sure they aren’t still alive. I hear footsteps behind me. The others stand there, frozen, until Dottie leans in and feels their wrists.
She shakes her head. “Maybe pills. I don’t know.”
“Should…should we bury them?” Penny asks.
I’m glad to see I’m not the only one who shakes her head, even though I feel callous when I do it.
“We need to go,” Henry says.
“Maybe a prayer,” Dottie says. “Jordan wore a small gold cross. I saw it last night.”
“Of course,” he says. He begins to recite the Lord’s Prayer.
41
Until the End of the World Box Set Page 14