by Ginger Booth
Ava blew out between puffed lips. “What system.” She slid into the loan applicant chair and thought it over. “Pick a floor. The guys go in first, knock on the doors. Tell people we’re here to stabilize corpses or something. Flush out anyone likely to shoot us. Figure out which apartments are occupied. Frosty does the talking. Anyone pulls a gun on him, usually Hotwire shoots them.”
“Jesus, Ava!”
Ava blinked. They’d been running this scam for a week. It started innocently enough. She’d forgotten how it might look. A gut check assured her she didn’t feel ashamed of her actions. She scratched her ear. “You kind of need to kill people when they try to kill you.”
Mouth still gaping in horror, Kat began to nod. “So we’re stealing.”
“Are we?” Ava countered. “I don’t think so. We salvage before someone else gets it. Usually. Sometimes we run into a floor where the neighbors already stripped the dead neighbors’ places. That’ll probably happen more and more.”
“OK, go on.”
“Once the floor is secure the guys usually haul out a couple corpses. Then I bring up the kids. We find what’s worth taking. Often we pick up a new recruit or two. Orphans. Then the big kids cover us while we make off with the goods. ”
“And bring it to central storage.”
“Usually everyone takes something to eat today.” A light dawned for both girls at the same moment. Ava voiced it first. “Why defend central stores then? That was stupid. I mean the pharmacy makes sense, and other gang supplies, like tools. But food, everyone should mind their own. Within their own little food clique.”
“But we take a cut.” Kat eagerly elaborated the new scheme. “To support management, people who work guard duty, all that. Say we take a quarter. And we claim the drugs and guns and ammo. Do you make sure the water is safe to drink?”
“The bleach. We put drinking water in gallon bottles, then add 10 drops of bleach. Or the 5-gallon jugs in the dojo –”
“You do that personally? You can offload that on a kid, Panic.”
“Well, not a little kid,” Ava argued. “Bleach eats through your skin. And water is heavy. The guys fill the big jugs. They’re over forty pounds apiece. And slippery. But it isn’t so bad yet. We’ve still got tap water to the 3rd floor, but that won’t last. Just planning ahead.”
Kat nodded, but refocused the conversation. “Salvage.”
“We’ve got a list of top-priority salvage, always grab it if you find it. Including unscented, plain old bleach for the water. And hydrogen peroxide, that works too. But I keep that for cleaning cuts. Well, the list is in my head. So far it’s me running the salvage team.”
Kat thwacked her playfully with the notepad and tossed her the pen. “Write it. And Frosty talks the neighbors into letting us steal them blind?”
Ava snickered. “He has that skill.”
“And you’ve got a brain trust upstairs?”
“Oh, those old bats. Everybody knows something. And you know Frosty. He talks to everyone and finds out what they want, what they’re good for.”
Ava concentrated on her list. It was hard to remember everything. She walked through the apartments of strangers again in her mind, jotting a few choice items for each memory. She’d gleaned enough places by now, though, that they all ran together. Trashcans for the water spouts. Unscented bleach. Seeds! All seeds, even birdseed, were useful, but she really wanted vegetable seeds. Hydroponic growing supplies, too, and potting mix.
“Marijuana grows?” Kat read her work upside-down. “You see a lot of that?”
“A few. They’re usually hidden in a back room or a closet. What I need is the nutrients. This one place had a window farm system for greens. You know, the strong-tasting little salad leaves that aren’t lettuce. I got the seed packets. They grow fast. We need fresh food. She made the hydroponic gear out of 2-liter plastic bottles. Pour nutrients at the top and they drip down. I took them for my apartment. Can’t grow them now, though.”
“Why not?”
Ava glanced up in surprise. City kids! “It’s too cold and dark now. Nothing will grow. But if we have the seeds we can make more setups from plastic bottles in the spring.”
“You think this’ll last that long?”
“Frosty says we plan like it’s forever. If someone comes to save us first, great.”
Kat sat back thoughtfully. “Everything depends on Frosty, doesn’t it. And you. You think you’re up to that?”
“Up to what?”
“Up to Frosty relying on you. If he’s holding up the whole group, and leaning on you, that could get mighty heavy.”
“But I love him.” Ava’s face started to heat, so she bent to her list, but she struggled to remember more priority items. She was well into a second column. “I’ll keep this and keep adding things.”
Kat tugged the notepad away from her. “I’ll find you a memo book to jot notes. This is the master list, and I need to learn it. Multivitamins? Where are those stored?”
“Just a few in the pharmacy. Someone usually claims the bottle when we run across them.”
“OK, I need to watch this salvage operation, and learn it from you. People are going to catch on. We need to secure as much food as possible before they get to it first. How much of the block have you fleeced yet?”
“Of the block?” Manhattan blocks were far from square, here in the numbered grid. West 23rd Street from 6th to 7th Avenue stretched around 300 yards long, with the 23rd to 24th distance maybe a quarter of that, 75 yards. With rarely even an alley gap between buildings, the block featured around 30 short to medium-high buildings of radically different widths, perhaps 4 to 20-odd stories high, housing who knew how many apartments and people. A lot of those tenants were dead, but there were still thousands lurking inside those buildings. Some were paranoid and armed.
“We’ve salvaged most of this building and the small one to the left. Just started on Germy’s across the street.”
“That’s nothing,” Kat breathed. “OK, top priority is to scale up. Big-time. We need me and a couple other girls to learn your salvage team job. And someone to take over as water master.”
“We only have one Frosty,” Ava pointed out. “I’m not taking us onto a floor unless he – Hey!”
She jumped up and charged to the hallway. A shaky middle-aged couple walked by with buckets. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“Getting water! From those trash cans!” The man bore obvious signs of a bad case of Ebola. The woman looked like she’d never been ill, but cowered behind him just the same. “I’ve seen what you’re doing, stealing all the building’s water!”
“Stealing? Me?” Ava countered. She yanked the bucket out of his hand. “You’re the one trying to steal! Those water cans outside are mine. Where were you when I was doing the work? When our guys carried out the corpses?”
“I was sick!”
Ava pursed her lips at the wife. “You weren’t sick.”
“Don't you talk to my wife! She was afraid of you delinquents!”
“Yeah? Mister, I'm an honors student at Brooklyn Tech. My boyfriend is headed for the Ivy League. Figure out your own water system.” Her taps still worked on the 3rd floor as of this morning. But they’d cleared out the adults up to the 6th floor by now. The gang held the lower floors.
“There is no other system!” The weak man fumbled at his waistband, trying to pull a gun on them.
But Kat seized his wrist and bent it backward painfully. She confiscated his pistol with her other hand.
“Give that back!”
“I don’t think so.” Kat dropped his hand and relieved the woman of her bucket, too. “Get out.”
“What?” The man blinked stupidly, showcasing his bloody eyes. Ava was glad Frosty’s eyes were turning white again. But a teen athlete healed a lot faster than a 40-something desk worker. This guy’s gathered pants spoke of a sizable gut grown smaller. “You can’t kick us out! We live here!”
Kat grabbed a handful of
his nylon-shell commuter coat and pulled herself into his face. “You tried to pull a gun on me. You’re gone. Capiche?”
Ava eyed the passive creature behind him, now cowering against the wall. Ava wouldn’t have leapt to this level of punishment quite so fast as Kat. Eviction without their stuff was hard core. But she wasn’t tempted to contradict her friend, either. “Try the building across the street. But don’t cross us again. Don’t throw sewage out the window. And our water is off limits. You never helped. Yet you claim a share? No way.”
Kat continued addressing the man. “Or better yet, get off our block.” She shoved and let go of his jacket, leaving a sunburst of wrinkles where she’d grasped it. He stumbled back a few steps. “Try 7th Avenue.”
Ava got behind them and climbed a couple steps on the staircase, blocking it. From two steps up, kicking them in the face would be no trouble at all. “You’re not welcome here. You tried to pull a gun on us. We have children to protect. And water.”
The woman squeaked. “I told you not to bring the gun, Stan!”
Ava glowered at the coward. Sure, she depended on Frosty for protection, but this woman was pathetic. “You’re useless, you know that? Out.”
The man turned, as though to gauge whether to rush tiny Ava, but weaving on his feet. Kat clarified his options with a sharp kick to the knee. His strength was so rickety that he fell spread-eagled on the linoleum, then curled up his offended leg.
“You first.” Ava hopped down. She grabbed the woman’s elbow, and dragged her to the door. Her husband scrabbled backward on the floor, away from Kat, who crowded him along. Ava flung the woman out and held the door as the man finally rolled over, lurched onto his feet, and sprang through.
“Give us our buckets!” he demanded.
Ava countered, “So you can steal my water? Fuck off.”
Kat lurched into his personal space again and shoved him. “Move!” She shoved again, toward 7th.
The timid woman attempted, “I’d like the apartment –”
Ava shoved her toward 7th. “Not offering anymore.”
“This is a death sentence!” the guy howled. “What gives you the right?”
“Nobody gave it to me,” Ava replied. “I took it. Get a clue.”
“Grab us some jackets, would you, Panic?” Kat requested, hugging her shoulders against the bitter wind. “Or I know! We could take theirs.”
This lit a fire under the couple, who quit arguing and fled.
Instead of coats, Ava fetched a couple kids to guard the water cans for a while. They could make sure the newly evicted didn’t return, while she and Kat got back to work.
They resumed their seats at the loan desk, and Kat flicked her pen against the legal pad. Her nimble fingers moved slowly after their visit to the street’s arctic blast. “You’re right. Inventory is low priority. Assign bookkeepers for the oddball stuff and the armory. Food and pharmacy – we collect taxes, dispense when we need to. More salvage teams, water mistress, security. Maybe Maz can learn Frosty’s job on the salvage teams. How many jobs are we up to?”
Ava grimaced at the thought of playboy Maz as an equivalent to her classy Frosty. But he could probably predict what his best friend would do. She sighed tiredly. The work seemed endless. And her conscience twinged about throwing Mr. and Mrs. Useless into the street without even a chance to grab their food stash.
A shame she didn’t ask which apartment was theirs.
But Kat’s approach was a relief, to define and assign jobs to other kids instead of piling more chores on Ava. Her resentment began to thaw into gratitude, that the older girl could take charge of some of her problems, which seemed to breed like rabbits. “Need more people. How big do you think we’ll get?”
9
January 1, E-day plus 24.
“Hotwire, with us,” Frosty invited, as the guys exited the dojo. “Let’s take a look toward 6th Avenue. We’ve been piling the corpses at 7th.” He felt a little anxious that he hadn’t checked the other end of the block yet in daylight. He and Ava passed that way Christmas Eve in the dark, but he was dead on his feet by then.
Maz blanched. “That’s what the barrier is made of? Bodies?” They’d walked past the blackened heap last night. Frosty hadn’t been in an explaining sort of mood. Besides, the slashing rain made conversation awkward. Yelling over the noise risked drawing attention, the way he and Panic had at Penn Station.
“But we’re closer to 6th,” Jake argued.
“Yeah, the neighbors told me the worst looters come from 7th.” Frosty led the way, hugging the wall side of the sidewalk. Jake tried to walk beside him, but Frosty shot a hand out, and pulled him behind. “Stay alert.”
“Why cower by the wall?”
“No one can shoot us from above. Or pour their toilet bowls on us.” Frosty pointed to some freshly strewn ‘night soil.’ The sidewalk was relatively clean today due to the ferocious nor’easter. They’d already scavenged the first building past the dojo, and carted away the broken bodies hurled from above. But by the next building they threaded through body parts. Few wasted their strength to carry down the dead or sewage when gravity could do the work.
“This looks a lot worse in daylight.” Maz paused to retch his stomach dry.
“Keep your voice down,” Frosty directed. “And next time, barf in a storm sewer. We live here, Maz. Keep it clean.”
“Is that a joke?” Maz asked.
“No.” Frosty strode past another couple buildings, keeping a wary eye across the street. Jake quizzed him on his salvage operation as they passed an unbroken storefront. Laconically Frosty described the drill, and the few buildings they’d gleaned so far.
“All these cars,” Jake mused. “We could set them up for defensive –”
A shot rang out. Frosty and Hotwire dove across the sidewalk to crouch by the wheels of the closest vehicle, a beat-up white mini-SUV. “Did you see the shooter?” Frosty asked Hotwire, ignoring Jake and Maz, who crowded in between them. They would have been smarter to pick another car.
Hotwire shook his head, then tilted it to indicate across the street.
“Saw that from the concrete spray,” Frosty acknowledged. Jake started to rise, but Frosty tugged him down. “Crawl under if you want a look.”
Jake peeked below the car. He blanched at a shattered head and gnawed arm beneath. Rats feasted on the street offal.
“Get over it, Jake.” Frosty skewered him with his eyes. “The city is full of corpses. Scoot across and tell us where they’re shooting from.”
Maz growled in support. “You’re the one who wanted to lead men in war.”
This caught Hotwire’s attention. “Does he want to do that? I served in the sandbox. Baby officers who think they’re too good to get dirty, they really suck.”
Jake blew out to steel himself, then shimmied into the filth. The reeks wafting back spoke volumes. In the meantime Frosty warily studied the building looming above on his side of the street. The red brick edifice was nearly 30 stories and twice as wide as the dojo building. Upscale, too. Whole lot of privileged people. Clearing this monster out would take time, but worth it. Maybe they should skip a building? No, he didn’t want to risk hostiles at his back.
Jake reported back. “Sixth floor, fifth window from the right side. The dark stone. I don’t see any other windows open. No balconies.”
No one would casually open a window today. After the storm blew through, the sky cleared and temperatures plummeted. The incessant winter wind blew bitter cold, funneled through the deep cross-street canyon. The pot-hole puddles wore a skin of ice, and the wind chill felt down around 10 degrees, a typical January day in Manhattan. No sun reached street level.
They’d presented no threat to this shooter, simply walked by. “Jake, come on out. What do you think, Hotwire? We’re here on recon. Not worth dying over.” Frosty didn’t like leaving a mad dog around, but that wasn’t the task at hand.
Hotwire considered the situation. “I don’t have a good chance at hi
m from here. Maybe back up a few cars, cross the street, try again.”
“Let’s do it.” Once they were moving, Frosty asked the two new arrivals about their experience on the streets. Jake had quite a trek to pick up Kat and reach Maz’s house, nearly 30 blocks, but he managed it during the same ice storm Frosty and Panic used for cover. Maz hazarded out with his tenants a couple times, searching for news or authorities. But he learned little, and then the tenants fell sick. Frosty and Ava tried talking to some cops the day after Ebola broke out, but they offered no information. A gang took out the cops while the teens ran for it.
“But the gangs must have gotten sick, too,” Maz noted. “Most of them, anyway.”
By then they’d crossed the street and reached the dark stone edifice that housed the shooter. A bubble tea shop was the ground floor storefront, broken into. Hotwire took the lead, and peered in cautiously, gun at the ready. Suddenly a shot rang out, exploding a bit of broken window frame where his head used to be. Hotwire squatted down just in time and hosed the empty restaurant with a few bursts, then pulled back.
Frosty looked to him in question, but Hotwire shook his head. He didn’t get the shooter. He pointed back the way they’d come. Frosty shoved Jake thataway and pointed retreat to Maz. Hotwire pranced backward as rear guard, his gun still pointed toward the restaurant. Frosty likewise kept his eyes peeled behind them. When his friends slowed, he impatiently waved for them to hurry it up. But he wasn’t about to leave his older champion on his own.
A head showed only an instant at the restaurant hole. Hotwire fired, and Frosty flattened himself against a wall under a barred apartment window. The opponent reached out again and took a shot. Hotwire managed to hit not him, but his gun. The clatter of it dropping to the street made Frosty jump.
“Guy might have a pistol, Hotwire.”
The older guy wasn’t listening. He rushed forward, gun blasting. Frosty couldn’t tell if there was any return fire, just stayed pressed to the wall.
“Clear!”
Frosty sighed out relief, then joined his man at the restaurant. A brown-skinned teen, maybe Middle Eastern, lay amid the broken glass and fallen furniture littering the bubble tea place. Hard to believe some of these dumb restaurants could cover the rent in Manhattan. Most didn’t last long, but he’d seen this one for a year.