The Last City (Book 1): Last City

by Partner, Kevin

  He turned on a gas lantern, walked over to her, grabbed one of her arms and dragged her upright before inspecting the blanket. "No mess? Good girl. I have food. Would you like to eat?"

  She nodded. She was starving.

  "Remember, if you make a fuss when I take off the gag, then you will be punished, and I won't feed you again. Do you understand? Good." He took a switchblade out of his pocket and opened it in front of her eyes, relishing the fear he saw there. Then he grabbed her knees, smiling as she shuddered, and pulled her feet out before sawing at the rope that bound her ankles.

  That done, he went back to the table and began emptying a cloth grocery store bag.

  "This little piggy went to market." He lifted out a tin can and placed it on the tabletop.

  "This little piggy stayed at home." Another followed it.

  "This little piggy ate roast beef." This time it was a can of corned beef.

  "This little piggy had none." His hand came out of the bag containing nothing.

  "And this little piggy … went squeal, squeal, squeal, but never found her way home." This time, he pulled out a small rectangular object and put it on the table.

  He sat down and began examining it minutely. With a snap he removed the pink case of her cellphone—the one she'd dropped outside the shed—and turned it over. "Ah. Samantha Hickman. From Bay View." Now his malicious eyes swiveled in her direction as she lay in the corner staring up at him. "Pleased to meet you, Samantha. Won't you join me for dinner?"

  He had bound her legs to the table before removing the ties around her wrists and allowing her to take off the gag. She was hungry enough to play the role of dutiful daughter that he so clearly craved of her. She was also hungry enough to eat corned beef, something she'd considered practically dog food until this moment. Cold canned potatoes and processed peas completed the meal.

  He opened a bottle of wine—a cheap German Hock—and poured each of them a glass which they drank by the gaslight of the gently hissing lantern.

  "I need to go to the bathroom," she said, once the food had disappeared. She'd felt her spirits rise a little with her energy: though she knew she was in mortal danger, she felt more able to resist this creep than she had. But right now, she did need the bathroom.

  His face darkened. She'd noticed that about him—he hated any mention of bodily functions. She suspected that when she produced more than a pee, he'd expect her to wash herself in the river again.

  "Please," she said. "Daddy."

  Now suspicion replaced his look of repulsion. He stared into her eyes, and it passed like a summer thundercloud.

  "Okay. Come on." He flourished the knife again, then kneeled to untie her.

  And before he could stand up again, she brought the half-empty wine bottle down on his head with every ounce of her strength.

  He screamed.

  She leaped up and kicked him as he lay on the floor clutching his head, fingers reddening.

  She ran for the door and twisted the handle. It was locked. She hadn't noticed him do it. Crying in panic, she yanked and yanked at it as she heard him struggle to his feet.

  She kicked at the door and, in sheer desperation, tried to shoulder it open.

  "You bitch!" he hissed from the other side of the table.

  Spinning around, she saw him approach, one hand holding the back of his head. He raised the knife in the other and she saw nothing but death in his eyes. Oh, he had planned to make her suffer. He had fantasized all his life about just such a situation as this. To have a girl at his mercy. But now he would show her none as he enjoyed her. Her gender was a curse on humanity. Girls like her. Women like his mother.

  You wet the bed, John! You filthy little pig! What do we do with filthy little pigs?

  Sam screamed and kicked out at him, sending him tumbling back over the table. She pushed it onto him and came down on it, knocking the wind out of him.

  He cried out, cursing her, as he struggled beneath the combined weight of Sam and the table. She fought to keep him pinned down as she looked for a weapon. There. It was just a dinner knife, as blunt as blunt, but it was all she could see.

  She screamed as she plunged sideways, but in that instant, he thrust upwards and the table moved. She fell with a crash, and he was on his knees above her, his switchblade raised and death in his eyes.

  Then, a blur, a crack and he dropped with nothing more than a sigh.

  A shape appeared over her, hand outstretched.

  "Jay?"

  "Sam. I'm sorry! I'm so, so sorry."

  "Richie!"

  "Yeah, it's me. C'mon, let's get out of here."

  She took his hand and climbed onto her feet, stumbling on her shaking legs. Now she really did have to go to the bathroom.

  "Shall I tie him up?" Richie asked as she made her way to the door.

  Rage and hatred flashed in her eyes as she looked down at the crumpled man. "He'll follow us if we don't."

  "But if we do, he'll likely die. No one's gonna find him here."

  For the first time in days, Samantha Hickman smiled.

  She only truly relaxed when they were back on Richie's boat, the geriatric knocking of the diesel engine the only thing she could hear as he steered it out onto the vast expanse of Long Island Sound, a cool sea breeze on her face.

  Sam stood beside Richie and watched as the northern shore dropped away, the horizon rising and falling as the little boat battled against the incoming tide. He'd stopped asking her if she was okay as he'd gotten nothing more than a reluctant nod in response every time he asked. But she felt comforted by his presence.

  Finally, as her body and mind relaxed, she sensed the onrushing of the emotional kickback. She briefly hugged his arm as he steered, and then took herself below to change back into her own clothes, which they'd found in one of the boathouse cabinets.

  The tears came as soon as she'd made it into the little cabin she'd last shared with Jay. A black shroud settled over her as she sat rocking in the chair, her hands pressed against her head as if trying to contain the flood of despair. She cried and cried, praying that Richie wouldn't see her like that.

  Then she reached that tipping point where, quite suddenly, she no longer wanted to be alone.

  And there he was, in the doorway.

  "You okay?" he said, almost whispering.

  She wondered how long he'd been standing there and realized she hadn't noticed when the engine had stopped.

  "Where are we?"

  "Tied up to a buoy. I figure there's not gonna be much passing traffic, so I came down to see how you're doing. I'm real sor—"

  "Stop apologizing, Richie! You saved my life!"

  His shoulders sagged, and she cursed herself for snapping. "Look, you came for me. You've got nothing to say sorry for."

  He came in and sat in the chair opposite. "But I do. I saw that man take you. I was just roundin' the bend. Took me a while to find somewhere to land, and when I got to the shed, all I could find was your phone. I was gonna take it, but then I thought you might come back for it if you got away."

  These words tumbled out, and she realized that he needed to make his confession.

  "But then you didn't come back, so next day I fueled up and took the boat back to where we left Jay and I went looking for him cos he'd know what to do. I didn't find him. It was like hell on earth there and I had to run back to the boat. So, I moored up across the river and watched the shed, hoping you'd come back. But it wasn't you, it was that man. I followed him and waited till I heard the shouting. I shouldn't have left you, Sam. I shouldn't have gone after Jay. He's gone. And you were nearly gone too. I'm sorry."

  She took his hand. "Apology accepted. Now, let's plan what we're going to do. We can't be out here when it's dark, can we?"

  "No. Least, we could if we turned on our lights, but that'd make us stand out. I guess this boat ain't the only one still working. I reckon we can make it to the end of Long Island before it starts getting dark."

  Richie got up, stum
bling as a gust of wind caught the boat and pulled an atlas from a locker above her before settling back onto the bench seat. He opened the well-thumbed book to its most dog-eared page and ran his finger along the coast of Long Island. "Plum Island?"

  "What's there?"

  Richie shrugged. "Dunno. I think it's owned by the government. Research or something. Don't suppose that matters much now."

  Sam got up and hugged him, not caring that he stank of stale sweat and panic. "And we're heading to my grandparents' place, like I said?"

  He looked back down at the map. "Somewhere here," he said. "Long Beach Island?"

  "I think so." Sam squinted at where his finger pointed. She'd never bothered to look at where the house on stilts was; as far as she'd been concerned, getting there was a problem for Grandpa. "Yeah. It's near the bridge."

  Richie screwed his face up and sighed. "It's a long way. Maybe a hundred fifty miles."

  "Have we got enough gas?"

  He shrugged. "Maybe. Best we follow the tide to make it last." He got back up again and pulled out a battered handbook, catching the cover as it fell off. He leafed through until he found the current year. "Right. Tide turns in a couple hours and we can ride it out to Plum Island, then wait for the incoming tide tomorrow. Yeah, I reckon we can make it."

  "Well, look at you, Captain Birdseye. Now, have you got anything I can boil a coffee pot on?"

  He smiled and went to the door of the cabin. "It's called a galley," he said. "Follow me."

  She sat with him at the controls of the boat, sipping her second cup of coffee and watching the shore slipping past in the distance as the day got grayer. As the light died away, she noticed more and more smoldering fires on the mainland and wondered if each represented a group of people trying to stave off the cold. Or could they have been burning for four nights?

  The scale of the landscape—after having been confined to the city and then a boathouse for days—made her think about the wider world again. She'd already decided that whatever happened in New York City must also have affected other places because, otherwise, FEMA would have been sent in. If it still existed. What about the government? She'd paid precisely no attention to politics, but had always regarded the federal government in DC as a reassuring constant. Boring, but always there. It was hard to wrap her brain around, but it seemed at least possible that the government was either gone or so struggling as to be next to useless to them. She and Richie were on their own for now.

  She gazed to the southeast as they passed a headland to cross the short strait to Plum Island. There, in the direction of the summer cottage, a concentrated orange glow lit up the sky. Richie insisted that Cedar Drop was far below the horizon, but she couldn't shake the image in her mind's eye of the house on stilts lit up like a bonfire.

  They moored up in the little harbor of Plum Island. It was entirely intact as far as they could see in the late twilight, but no one challenged them and so they slept, both exhausted. Richie dreamed of the ruin of New York, and Sam saw a ring of fire in her nightmares.

  8: Sunglasses and Red Cap

  "We can't just leave them!"

  Devon sighed. He and Jessie were sorting through the supplies in the back of the CRV as the sky brightened. Neither had slept much the previous night and, in the end, Devon had wrapped himself up and sat at the top of the steps with the handgun on his lap until the sun came up.

  He stopped for a moment to scan the parking lot. A low rectangular building stood on one side, the front door groaning in the breeze as it swung back and forth. It had survived the original firestorm, but had been stripped of anything useful since then. Beyond it, Devon could see the lines of the baseball field, bright white against the frost-tinged grass. And, surrounding the sports park, lay the urban sprawl of West Wendover. From this distance, it looked almost normal, save for one or two thin wisps of dark smoke rising into the clear air, but when he focused, he could see the unmistakable signs of damage. Shapes that had once been rectangular now had chunks cut from their silhouettes, mute witnesses to the inferno.

  Nothing and no one moved except him and Jessie. Coach Lacey had the kids back inside the clubhouse, having woken them before the sun rose to take them outside to the toilet pits he'd dug some distance away. Devon had stood guard while children used to the basic comforts of civilization had been forced to squat over holes in the pre-dawn like their distant ancestors on the plains of Africa. Except here it wasn't lions they were trying to hide from, it was other people.

  "Devon! I said we can't leave them!"

  He looked away from the clubhouse and resumed his rummaging.

  "I know. But we can't take them with us, and we've got a job to do. We've barely started. I mean, even if we could find a working truck or bus to put them on, driving them a couple of thousand miles across country has got to be more dangerous than leaving them here."

  Jessie pulled out a can of dried milk, measured the powder into her aluminum camping bowl and poured warm boiled water from a flask over it. "Good grief, this isn't going to last long with another nine mouths to feed.

  "I'm going to see if I can get some supplies," Devon said. "We can at least leave them better off than they were when we got here."

  Jessie shook her head. "You don't get it. We can't leave them at all. Do you honestly think there's anywhere safe for them to go? They're kids!"

  He didn't know what the answer was, but he needed to be alone right now and finding some extra food couldn't possibly be a bad idea.

  Walking alone and exhausted into a wrecked city, on the other hand, almost certainly was.

  After a lengthy argument, Devon allowed Jordan Lacey to come with him. Though it was perfectly rational to have a local guide as he sought out supplies, Devon's desire to be alone and, if he were honest, his sleep-deprived testosterone-fueled monkey brain resisted until he ran out of energy in the face of Jessie's cast-iron logic. She explained in an artificially calm manner that if she was going to have to stay at the sports hut with the kids, the least he could do was to come back in one piece like the antediluvian macho man he was.

  He hoped she was joking, but suspected she wasn't.

  "Where should we head?" he said as Lacey jogged to catch up with him.

  "There's a mobile home park just over there," the young man said, pointing across the sports field. "And the grocery stores are just the other side of it."

  Devon patted his pocket, feeling the reassuring weight of the Glock against his chest. Jordan was armed with a baseball bat, but Devon had told him to run if they got into trouble.

  It was another cold February morning and a white rime had settled on the green patches of vegetation that punctuated the brown and yellow soil. And it was utterly silent save for the rhythmic thunk of their boots on the concrete road surface. Devon pulled his jacket tighter and put his hands in his pockets as they jogged along the fence line, keeping as low as they could and stopping every now and again to look through gaps or peer along narrow alleyways.

  The mobile home park was a desolate place. From a distance, it looked as though a giant had left dominoes scattered across the landscape. Crumbling black boxes, some of them still smoking, others with the remnants of posts that had once held up staircases and canopies, sat one after another in the miserable cold. Devon scanned the ruins, half expecting to see attackers emerge at any moment, but the place was deserted.

  Lacey shook his head in disbelief. "I know … knew folks who lived here. Some of the kids who ran away that night, they came from this park. Jeez, I wonder where they are now.”

  Most of the homes had the wreckage of a car or truck outside, but all were burned and blackened. Outside one mobile home lay two human figures, all black and red, each with hands pointing at an odd angle as if they were in conversation. Frost had formed on their outstretched fingers and stalactites reached for the soil.

  "Hey, that one's okay!" Lacey called, gesturing at a trailer that looked, at first glance, as if it had escaped the fire. "It's Mr. Weppler
's! Good old Mr. Weppler."

  "Wait up, Jordan!"

  But Devon couldn't stop the young man as he ran ahead. His heart sank as he spotted the broken windows and the bullet holes scattered around the wide-open door. The trailer looked old, and poorly kept. A wind turbine with a missing blade moved fitfully in the gentle breeze and a window slap-slapped against its aluminum frame as if warning them not to go inside.

  Too late. He found Lacey in the living room, kneeling. "Somebody kilt him. Why would they do that? He wouldn't harm no one." The body of an old man lay, splayed like a starfish, half on top of the ruins of a coffee table. It looked to Devon as though he'd had his hands up, but had been shot in the stomach before spinning around as he fell. A black, solidified pool had spread around his body and a fetid air hit Devon's nose. It was a pathetic, brutal sight that, somehow, summed up the descent of mankind better than any burned-out building.

  Putting his hand on the boy's shoulder, he said, "I'm sorry, Jordan. The world isn't what it was anymore. Not everyone's kindhearted like you."

  The room was like some sort of museum exhibit. The tiny old-fashioned TV sitting in the corner looked as though it was the newest thing in there.

  "He didn't hold with getting nothin' new. He always said things was made better back in the day. Told the electric company where they could stick their charges and hasn't had main power for years, or so he reckoned. If it didn't work on twelve volts, he didn't have it."

  Devon found nothing in the old man's kitchen so they went back outside, and he cast a glance at the trailer as they walked along the road. Someone would be back to claim it soon enough, body or no body. But there was something to learn here. Just as Hope had survived because it had been cut off from the grid, so had this old man's place. That didn't explain the destruction of all the vehicles, however, but he was sure there was a connection.

  "It's this way," Lacey said from up front. Suddenly, he was acting like this was a walk in the park on a sunny day, but Devon knew he was masking the shock of seeing a familiar neighborhood turned into a graveyard.