Olivia was about to ask another question but was cut off when she heard the toilet flushing. The last thing she wanted was for Joyce to hear their conversation.
“Officer Gault, I need—”
“I think we’re beyond this officer nonsense,” he interrupted. “I haven’t felt much like an officer most of the day. So just Paul, please.”
“Agreed. And Olivia to you.”
“Agreed. Now, you were saying?”
“Well, we now have little ears listening.” Joyce came out of the bathroom and seemed quite confused that Olivia was standing by the back door and apparently speaking to it. She hoped Paul would understand what she was trying to say as Joyce slowly walked toward her.
“Who you talking to?” Joyce asked.
“Just a friend, standing outside the door,” Olivia said. “He’s a policeman.”
“Ooh,” Joyce said, her eyes lighting up. She went to the door and practically placed her forehead against it. “You got a gun?”
“I do,” Paul said, trying to put some cheer in his voice. But Olivia could tell the man was not only tired, but pretty close to his breaking point.
“If he’s your friend,” Joyce said, casting an accusatory stare Olivia’s way, “why don’t you let him in?”
“Well, it’s not really safe right now,” Olivia said. “I mean, he is a cop. He might be chasing a bad guy.”
“That’s right,” Paul said from the other side. “Can’t be too sure what might come in there after you if we open this door.”
Olivia thought the comment might have been a bit scary for Joyce, but she gave him the benefit of the doubt. She looked to Olivia and took her hands. “Can you do me a favor? Can you go in the playroom and make sure all the toys are picked up? And then, you know what? You can scrub down the mats with some Clorox wipes.”
Joyce’s eyes got very big. Olivia knew that most girls of this age thought cleaning was, for some bizarre reason, both fun and wildly revered by parents. “For real?”
“Yes. But don’t use more than six wipes, okay? You know where they are, right?”
Joyce had already turned on her heel, running towards the playroom, when she yelled, “Yeah!”
Olivia waited until she heard the sound of toys being placed into the little toybox before she started talking again. “So, as a cop, I need your advice,” she said. “I know you said you don’t feel like one, but I need you to try. Is that okay?”
“Of course.”
Olivia leaned her head as close to the door as possible and lowered her voice to a near whisper. “Can you hear me?”
“Just barely.”
“Her name is Joyce and I learned earlier today that her mother is dead. Her father is in Minnesota and has asked me to care for her until he can make it back to the city. I need you to be straight with me here. What are the chances of anyone coming into the city anytime soon?”
“Not good. Olivia, it’s…it’s grim out here. This little parking lot behind your place is the most peaceful place I‘ve seen today. No dead bodies, no screaming…nice and tucked away from everything. But I don’t think anyone is going to be coming to New York City anytime soon. Even if you could get into the city, any attempts at cleaning up this mess have been derailed as more and more people get sick.” It was what Olivia had been expecting to hear, but it broke her heart all the same. She bit back a gasp that would have surely become a bout of weeping if she would have let it out. “Okay,” she said, the sorrow coming out in her voice anyway. “So what would you do if you were me?”
“I don’t know that I can answer that for you.”
“Then talk it out with me. Please…as an adult. As a cop that had seen the state of the city today…tell me.”
“You have food and water in there, right?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“How much? How long would it last the two of you?”
Olivia pictured the food they had in the fridge and freezer—all of the veggies, the milk, the bottled waters, the chicken nuggets, the pasta, juice boxes and crackers. They usually kept enough so that they only needed to go shopping every two weeks. And that was for up to ten kids.
“I don’t know. Six to eight weeks.” Saying it, Olivia felt like the sky was falling. Without actually saying as much, she realized that she and Paul were talking about what it might be like to shelter in place in Little Learners for a prolonged period of time.
“That’s good,” he said. “In that amount of time, maybe the military or some branch of the World Health Organization will get a grasp on what has happened and you could be rescued. But on the other hand, you’d be holed up in there for however long. Just you and the girl. And everything out here, past this door and outside of your parking lot…it’s like one big open tomb.”
Olivia weighed her options and once again felt that sort of slippage into what she feared might be insanity. Was she really having to make this decision not only for herself but for a four year-old girl as well?
“I don’t know,” she said, her voice coming out in a whine. “I just don’t know what to do and…I mean, is there even a way out? All the streets are blocked, right?”
“Seems that way. But I’ve been wondering the same thing. All the roads, all the ways in and out, there should be some way. I’ve got a bag packed and I’m thinking of heading out, trying to leave the city.”
Selfishly, Olivia hated the idea of this. Even though there was a door between them, she felt safer than she had since she and Joyce had been left here together. “Where will you go?”
“My grandfather has a place in West Virginia, up in the mountains.”
“You don’t think this stuff is already there?” she asked. “I read that it’s already in Pennsylvania. Maybe Connecticut, too.”
“I don’t know. But I feel like staying here in the city with all of this…all of this death…I feel like I’d lose my mind. So I’m going to try.”
Olivia let out a nervous laugh. She hated the sound of it. It was almost like a cackle, like something better suited for haunted houses. “I don’t guess you’ve got some remote family property in Minnesota, do you?”
“No, sorry.”
They fell into silence again, and it chilled her. She feared that any silence might indicate he had died on the other side of the door—that he’d been sick all along but played it off.
“And you’re still healthy?” she asked.
“As far as I can tell.”
“Have you been wearing a mask?”
“All day. I only took it off twice. Once to shower when I went back to my apartment and again when—”
When he stopped here, she thought she could hear him softly weeping.
“You okay, Paul?”
“Yeah,” he said. She could clearly hear him sniffling through a voice he was clearly trying to make much stronger. “Look…I’m going to West Virginia. And between the two of us, I don’t know that I can stay here, in this mess, at night. Even if I went back to my apartment and locked myself up there, I’d know what was outside my window. I can’t stay here. And I know it’s not Minnesota, but West Virginia is closer to Minnesota than here.”
She knew where he was going with this and she was both overjoyed and terrified in equal measure. All she knew about him was that he was a cop. And she’d lived in New York long enough to know that being a cop really meant nothing in terms of morals or conscience. The only reason she even found herself considering it before he said it out loud was because of the thick stirring of emotions she could hear in his voice as he spoke.
“When would you leave?” she asked.
“As soon as possible.”
“Do you have a route planned? How are you going to get out?”
“Still working on that,” he admitted. “I know a few ways that might work, but it’s nothing concrete.”
“I don’t know…” she said. The decision was tearing at her heart, the hope and the terror pulling in opposite directions.
“I’ll say t
his much,” Paul said. “I do believe you will have a much easier time getting in touch with the girl’s father once you get out of the city. I’m sure you’ve noticed that the phone lines are basically shot. Phones, internet, access to the news…it’s all going to be easier if we can get out of New York.”
And just like that, the decision was made. Am I crazy? she wondered. Is it foolish to leave certain shelter and food behind in the hopes of just getting out of this hell?
She recalled the footage she’d seen outside of the Coast Guard station and at the Lincoln Tunnel. Maybe, she thought. But I’m going to do it anyway.
“You’re sure you wouldn’t mind taking us?” she asked. With the question out of her mouth, she realized it was the right decision. She felt no hesitancy at all now that the decision had been made.
“Not at all. If I can help you out of the city and to get that little girl to her father, then yes. I’m all for it.”
“Okay, then,” Olivia said. She got to her feet and took a moment to re-orient herself. “Just give me some time to pack some food and scrounge up some spare clothes for Joyce.”
“Take about an hour if you need it,” Paul said. “The way I figure it, we’ve got about another two hours of daylight. I’m going to run off and check on a few things. I’ll do my best to be back in an hour, but I can’t promise it.”
“What are you going to do?” she asked. She had placed her hand on the door, almost as if willing him not to leave.
“I’m going to go over the city maps and see if I can find a way out of here. And I guess we need a car, too, right?”
She nodded to the door and let out a shaky “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet. Sit tight. Give me an hour or so. I’ll knock here again.”
Olivia could hear his footsteps hurrying away from the door. She stood there a moment longer, trying to understand the weight of the decision she’d just made. She still felt it was the right decision, but it made her uneasy to know she’d also made it for Joyce.
“’Livia?”
The little girl’s voice nearly made her scream. She wheeled around, her hand on her chest, and saw Joyce standing at the entrance to the playroom. She was holding the container of Clorox Wipes with pride.
“All done!” Joyce said.
“Great job,” Olivia said. She approached Joyce and hunkered down on her knees to look the little girl in the eyes. “Hey, you’re a very brave girl, right?”
“Yup.” But there was something in her eyes that told another truth—a childlike sort of fear, wondering why she was being asked such a question.
“Well, I think we may go on an adventure with my cop friend. Would that be okay?”
Joyce’s eyes got wide again as she nodded her head and gave a very emphatic:“Yeah!”
“Good,” Olivia said. And still, there was a small part of her that was crippled in cowardice, a part that begged over and over for the girl to not start asking questions about her mother. Before that part of her could grow any bigger, she said, “So let’s start packing, what do you say?”
Joyce, as always, was agreeable. If she was at all worried about her mother, she did not show it. And though she tried to ignore it, something about this made Olivia feel like an absolutely wretched human being.
Chapter 12
Olivia had checked her watch when she and Joyce had started packing and saw that it was 6:33. Because Paul had asked for at least an hour, Olivia thought nothing of it when he had not returned to the back door by 7:35. To keep herself busy, she made something of a game out of it with Joyce as she double-checked all that they had packed.
She had Joyce count out things in groups of three as they looked over what Joyce was referring to simply as their “adventure stuff.” They had two backpacks crammed full of stuff and though Olivia hated to take it all back out, it kept Joyce occupied and helped Olivia ensure they hadn’t forgotten anything.
“One…two…three,” Joyce said as she slid three miniature sleeves of crackers into a tidy pile. “Three crackers!”
“Good job,” Olivia said while she went through the spare clothes for Joyce one last time. They always kept two spares for each child and then had a reserve closet of clothes that were usually donated by charities. All in all, she had five outfits for Joyce, including a dozen pull-up diapers. Joyce was, of course, potty trained, but Olivia had no idea what to expect on the road once they got out of the city.
“Okay, now count the oatmeal packs. Can you do that?”
As Joyce nodded, digging into the pack for the oatmeal, Olivia could see that the girl was getting tired. But she snagged the oatmeal out of the pack and counted the individual envelopes. She did so quietly to herself then, when she knew she was right, out loud so Olivia could hear her.
“One, two, three brown oatmeals…and one, two, three blue ones. Ugh…but I don’t like the blue ones.”
“I know. But I do.”
“Maybe the cop guy will, too,” Joyce offered.
“Maybe,” Olivia said, checking her watch; it was 7:51. Yes, it was only twenty-one minutes after the time Paul had originally said, but she still could not stop the twinge of fear from spreading through her.
“Okay,” Olivia said. “Now double check the apple sauce and coconut chips.”
Joyce happily did as she was asked, and Olivia took the opportunity to check her phone. It was now fully charged but she didn’t take it off of the plug just yet. She opened Facebook and waited for her page to load but only got what she had always referred to as “the thinking wheel.” She looked to her data bars in the top right and saw that there was only one, where there had been three just an hour and a half ago.
She figured this was just as well. The last thing she needed before venturing out into that madness were more damning mental images. She left her phone where it was and then went to the laptop sitting on the counter. The battery was at eighty-four percent and tended to last a decent amount of time. She fought the urge to check the security camera to catch a glimpse of the state of the street in front of the building, having to push it away even as she slipped the computer into her laptop bag.
As she zipped the bag, she heard a series of soft taps from the back of the building. Her heart leaped and her stomach dropped; it was an incredibly polarizing feeling.
“Hey, is that him?” Joyce asked.
“I think it is,” Olivia said, trying on her best smile.
“I didn’t finish counting!”
“That’s okay. I’m sure we did perfectly fine the first time. Can you zip that bag up for me?”
Joyce zipped up the bag she was working on while Olivia shouldered the laptop bag and picked up the second back pack. As they started for the back door, Olivia realized that with the lobby being locked, she would not be able to cut the front lights off. But really, in the grand scheme of things, she was okay with that.
In fact, she opted to leave all of the lights on as they made their way down the hallway. She wasn’t sure why, but it made her feel safer. It gave her the illusion that one day, they might make it back here and things might once again be normal.
The knocking came again as they neared the door. Joyce rushed towards it at a little gallop. “Coming!”
“Don’t open it just yet,” Olivia warned.
Joyce gave a little pout and stopped short of the door. “Then how are we s’posed to get to him?”
Olivia leaned against the door and said, “Is that you, Paul?”
“Yeah, it’s me. Are you packed up?”
“Yeah, we’re good on our end. How about you?”
“I’m going to try to speak in code here, keeping little ears in mind,” Paul said. “First, I’ve got masks for both of you and I think you have to wear them. I don’t know how effective they are though because I’ve seen some wearing them that…well, they didn’t seem to work. The trick here is that for me to get them to you, we have to open the door first.”
“Well, we have to open the door to leave, so I’m
fine with that. I’ll take the chance.”
“Also, I found a truck we can…use. Or borrow. Or however you want to look at it. But it’s seven blocks away and the walk is going to be a hard one. And not physically. Do you understand what I’m trying to say?”
She did. They were going to have to walk through streets littered with bodies and no telling what else. She looked down to Joyce and wondered how the hell she’d missed this little detail. By venturing out, Joyce was going to see some things that a four year-old should never see—that no one should ever have to see.
“Is the rear parking lot still clear?”
“Yes, All good here.”
Olivia thought quickly, trying to find some way to ease the situation for Joyce. Telling a child to keep their eyes closed for seven blocks just wasn’t going to cut it. No matter how well-behaved Joyce might be, Olivia did not expect her to follow such a strict rule.
“Paul, give me one second, okay?”
She ran halfway down the hall and stopped at the storage closet. A few clothes hung from a beam across the length of the closet and there were large storage bins on the floor. She pulled out the one labelled WINTER and tossed the top aside. She dug through sweatpants and adorable little pullovers that may never get worn before she reached what she was looking for. She pulled out the bright pink scarf and showed it to Joyce.
“I need you to wear this,” she said.
“What? But it’s been hot!”
“I know. It’s the beginning of summer, you’re right. But I don’t need you to wear it like you would if it was cold. I need you to wear it around your eyes, like a blindfold.”
“Like when we play pin the tail on the donkey?”
“Exactly like that!”
“Okay,” Joyce said, smiling. Olivia could not fully comprehend the feeling of heartache that swept through her at the look of joy on the girl’s face. She was taking every instruction with a smile and a nod, excited to go out on what Olivia had so far painted as an adventure with a cop.
It Falls Apart Series | Book 1 | It Falls Apart Page 10