“We have to move fast,” Guillermo says. “Get to whatever’s left around here before Sacred Heart does.”
“They said they’ll back off, and, if they don’t, we’ll make them,” Eric says. He’s crossed his arms and wears his usual agreeable expression, but his eyes say he won’t necessarily be agreeable if that moment comes. The whole thing is extremely attractive, except for the part where we end up in a turf war and die.
Eli leans back in his chair, fingers loose on his glass of water and legs outstretched. “I second that.”
“Maybe try asking before you kidnap them, though,” I say, reminding him of our first meeting, where he forced me and Eric to the brownstone where he lived with his sister Indy and the teenage boys they’d taken under their care.
Eli lets out a low, long chuckle—he has a sense of humor behind that handsome face and impeccable poise. His twin sister Indy’s laugh is warmer than the spring air. They have the same flawless brown skin, dark eyes set off by curled lashes, and striking bone structure. But where Eli is composed, Indy is outgoing, from the springy black curls on her head to the boots that tap the cement under them.
“I almost wish they would try something, just so we could get rid of them,” Guillermo says. This elicits hearty agreement, mainly from people with a Y chromosome. “All right. So, we do the chips.”
I’m vaguely hungry most of the time, but now my stomach growls. I’m going to stuff my face when we make it into that warehouse. Grace pulls at her lower lip. “We’re going to have to eat potato chips all winter, aren’t we?”
“Yup,” I say.
“God, that’s so unhealthy.” She brightens a bit. “Although nuts are good for you.”
“Would you rather starve to death or eat junk food?” I ask, and she actually looks undecided. “I’m sure they have pretzels and veggie chips, weirdo.”
“There’s always the supermarket in Fort Hamilton,” Eric says. Even the Y chromosomes shake their heads—the food is tempting, but the description of the thousand zombies who surround it is not.
Maria twists a clump of her dark bob. “We need a plan. I’m not risking anyone’s life for potato chips.” I’m used to her overprotective maternal way, and even like it, especially because it’s layered over a don’t-mess-with-me vibe that presently shows itself in the firm expression she aims at Guillermo.
He rises to pace, arms behind his broad back. “I have a plan, but we need a lot of people.”
“I can help move the cars,” Jorge says. His willingness to go is reassuring, since he tends toward the conservative side of getting people killed.
“If we get the food, can we bring some to Brother David?” I ask. Grace and I ran into the priest-slash-monk, literally, on our way to Brooklyn Heights. He won’t leave his flock, most of whom are young or elderly, and until there’s a safe way to transport them to Sunset Park, they have to eat.
“And that monastery in Bay Ridge with the nuns and kids,” Paul says. “They fed Leo when we didn’t have any food. They probably need some, too.”
Guillermo agrees, not that I expected any different; he’d feed everyone if he could. An hour later, the plan is set, and it’s been decided there’s no time like tomorrow.
Chapter 3
It’s only a half mile from our block to where food is tucked away, but what used to be a fifteen-minute walk now requires as much planning and discussion as one of Eric’s climbing expeditions. Today’s segment of Operation Snack Food is to move the cars that block the streets, and, if all goes as planned, tomorrow I will be joyously cramming potato chips into my mouth.
We suit up after a quick breakfast that includes fresh coffee made on the propane stove, because Maria says, and I quote, “No one should die on a day without coffee.”
It’s another lovely spring day in New York City. Winter is cold and windy, autumn is nice but no match for the woods north of us, and summer is horrendously hot and humid, but spring in the city is glorious. All the grime and odors seem to vanish, leaving behind warm breezes and sweet air. This particular spring would smell better without the putrefying flesh and scorched-building aroma, but it’s still gorgeous.
Guillermo has insisted on calling our block, a half mile closer to the chip warehouse, the rendezvous point, and once Sunset Park arrives, the plan is recapped. I take in everyone who’s decided to risk their lives for potato chips and decide I’ve fallen in with the right kind of people.
“You’re going to hate it, I’m telling you,” Grace whispers. “You’re going to get sick of potato chips eventually.”
I scoff at her declaration. Guillermo finishes his spiel, and Paul puts his arms around my and Grace’s shoulders. He was a complete jackass before, but now he’s a gruff, humorous jackass who takes far too much pleasure in making fun of people to their faces. Also my kind of person.
“We’re on interference team A,” he says.
“Does that mean we’re the A-team?” Eric asks.
“Why did Guillermo put us with them?” I ask Grace.
Paul smashes me and Grace together, annoying older brother-style, then ducks out of reach. Leo attempts to tackle his dad, but Paul tosses him into the air and sets him back on his feet with a grin. “Be good for Maria, buddy. Don’t try to get any junk food out of her, either.”
Maria pinches Leo’s cheek. “He’s always good.”
There’s no doubt in my mind they’ll be ripping into something sweet the minute we leave. Maria is a doting grandma where Leo is concerned. I had a doting grandma once, and I know how great it is, especially when it comes to sugar.
“Are you ready?” Maria asks. “Are you sure the plan is good? There’s nothing wrong with waiting a few days if it’s not. You shouldn’t go—”
“Mimi, I wouldn’t let them go if it wasn’t good,” Jorge says.
His curly hair is pulled back in its usual low ponytail, and his cheeks plump in response to her frown. Jorge’s the only person wholly unafraid of Maria’s bluster, and definitely the only person who can get away with calling her Mimi.
“It’s just so danger—” Maria cuts herself off and smiles at Leo. “You’ll be fine. We’ll see you when you get back.”
“You’re the one who needs to be careful,” I say to Jorge.
Our job is to attract as many Lexers as possible and keep their attention, which isn’t how I’d prefer to spend any given day, but it’s better than moving cars in the thick of it. Jorge knows how to get under a locked car and move it into gear and, he says, is good at it. He can take care of himself, but Jorge’s the guy who goes back when no one else will in order to save someone’s life. I should know—he’s saved mine twice.
“Don’t worry about me. You sound like Mimi over there.”
Maria glares but gives up when Jorge shows no sign of distress. “How do you know what to do with the cars, anyway?” she asks.
“You don’t want to know,” Jorge says, swinging his cleaver.
“A misspent youth?” I ask.
“You know it.”
Even Maria laughs, though she reminds us to be careful six times before Paul, Eric, Grace, and I depart for the side streets. Leo takes our leaving as well as a five-year-old can be expected to take the news that his dad has to head out into millions of zombies or else he’ll die of starvation. Not exactly bedtime story material.
Rather than risk our lives any more than necessary, we travel nearby blocks through the houses and yards we’ve emptied of Lexers. There’s the old lady’s house with its assortment of old lady adornments like doilies, the house full of toys, the messy houses, the clean houses, the modern and old-fashioned and furnished-with-whatever-was-cheapest houses. Some still retain the distinctive aroma of their occupants. It hasn’t been long enough to erase that aspect of the people who lived in them, even if the people themselves have been erased.
We cross the final backyards to Fourth Avenue, which brings the sensible part of the plan to an end. After a glance out the windows of the last house on the
block, Paul lifts his Halligan—a steel bar with a curved fork on one end, and the other end a point and adze that jut out at crazy angles like a confused pickaxe. In the firefighting world, it’s used for prying doors and things, and it weighs a ton.
“Let’s do it,” he says.
We exit the vinyl-sided house. The breeze carries the occasional groan from the avenue, which will become frequent once we show ourselves—the part of the plan that leaves much to be desired. We skirt around the broken glass of a bodega’s windows and slink to the corner laundromat.
Fourth Avenue’s six lanes are full of cars, zombies, and dead bodies. Guillermo’s advance teams have lowered the fire escape ladder of an apartment building on the next block, and our job is to make ourselves known before we ascend it to safety. We need to be loud but not too loud, to avoid attracting far-off Lexers. Hence, the plan to have them follow us rather than shoot guns from the safety of a fire escape, as I would prefer. Once up there, all we have to do is keep them interested until we get the all-clear flare, then make our way through the apartments and travel home.
Grace looks as panicked as I feel when we step onto Fourth Avenue. Paul starts off at a slow trot. Eric walks, head rotating. We want to make noise, so I shouldn’t try to keep my feet quiet, but my legs know this is insane and they’re having no part of it.
Midway way down the block, with the safety of the corner in sight, Paul jumps to the roof of a car. “Come and get us, motherfuckers!”
The three of us who don’t have a death wish stay on the sidewalk, prepared to bolt. Heads raise and bodies shuffle from two blocks away. Our feet pound past the bank on the corner, straight for a four-story apartment building on the side street where the fire escape ladder is down, as promised.
Grace and I fly up the ladder to the first balcony. The metal vibrates at Paul and Eric’s ascent, and I grab the rusty, flaking rail that, in theory, is supposed to keep me from plummeting to my death. It settles some at Paul and Eric’s arrival, but I don’t trust it.
“Too late, assholes!” Paul calls down.
We climb the metal stairs to the second-floor balcony to be more visible, as well as to get farther from the stench. Within minutes, over a hundred Lexers trip over each other and garbage while the rest of Fourth Avenue shambles to join them. The crowd is the typical multicultural variety of our city, but they’ve become one gray clan of open sores and missing flesh. One language of hisses and groans. The great melting pot is ashen and bloody—it’s a heartwarming thought.
Although maybe it has an upside: There are so few people left that being a decent human makes you valuable, which is how it always should’ve been but never truly was. It’s a sunshiny, Grace-like thought to have while standing above hundreds of disgusting creatures, but I don’t roll my eyes at the optimism it brings. Grace is usually right about this kind of stuff—you just can’t tell her that or she’ll never shut up.
We climb to the fourth and topmost balcony, where Paul leans against a window and whacks his Halligan against the fire escape every so often. There’s no space in which to move with four adults up here. Grace sinks down, knees to her chest. I work myself into the far corner and grip the vertical bars on the side. I can’t dispel the horrible notion that the entire structure will dislodge and send us into the crowd.
Eric leans against the brick on the other side of Grace, his legs dangling into the rectangular center hole where stairs descend to the third-floor balcony. “And now we wai—”
Rotted hands shoot through the open window and yank the hem of Paul’s leather coat hard enough to bring him down, Halligan clattering to the metal and one leg through the hole. A man’s head follows the hands, lipless teeth exposed in a chilling grin, and chomps inches from Paul’s neck. Paul yanks himself forward using the railing while Eric spears the Lexer’s eye. The body collapses half out the window, and Paul drops his head on his outstretched arms, gasping for air.
Grace and I get to our feet in time to see a shadowy figure pass the window off our side. “Another one coming!” I yell.
Eric curses and yanks Paul up by his coat. Seconds later, a woman leans out over the first body and gets Eric’s knife in her temple. Paul hauls the dead woman up by her shirt and tosses her over the balcony. The man quickly follows with a resounding thud.
Eric strikes inside the window a third time. Paul retrieves the body of a boy no more than eleven and dumps it over the rail more delicately than he did the first two. Another shadow passes our window, this one just a head. A little kid. Eric drops to one knee and thrusts his knife. He pulls the smaller body from the apartment and lifts it over the rail before anyone, including him, gets a good look.
All the ruckus has worked the zombies on the sidewalk into a frenzy. “I thought this place was cleared out!” Paul yells over the din.
“That’s what Guillermo said,” Eric shouts.
A shadow blocks the sun. We look up. Fifteen feet above on the roof, a Lexer hangs over the ledge. I see the moment when gravity wins, but there’s no time to move, so I cover my head and hope for the best. An arm or leg grazes my back before it slams through the hole to the balcony below.
Paul points to the roof. “More! Get inside!”
Eric enters the window to clear a way for me and Grace, and then he extends a hand. I glance up and wish I hadn’t. At least five Lexers, one of whom is teetering so far over it won’t be long until it drops.
Grace ducks into the apartment. I grasp the building while I crab-walk across the narrow edge by the center hole. The world goes dim again. I press my cheek against the rough brick, brace myself for a collision, and try not to scream.
It slams my shoulder on its way down. A layer of skin sloughs off my cheek, and I dig my fingers between bricks in an attempt to fight gravity. If one hits and I don’t have a solid grip, I’ll fall through the hole, go down the stairs, and land in their arms. The next Dropper misses, the wind from its passage ruffling my hair. Grace screams my name, but I can’t move. If I move, I’ll die.
Eric starts out the window. “I got her,” Paul calls. His hand gathers the back of my coat. “C’mon, Sylvie. Couple steps now.”
His voice is steady. I turn my head and lock on calm blue eyes. His expression is grave but with no trace of panic, as though it’s not raining zombies and he has no urge to tell me to hurry it the fuck up. I shuffle a step, then another. Maybe he’s rescued crazed people from burning buildings. If this is what they saw, I’m sure they moved as I’m doing now.
Two more steps, and then Paul and I stand in a quiet living room. A Lexer hits where I clung to the brick and slithers down the stairs to the third level. Two land on our balcony. Eric shoves them through the hole onto the ones who struggle to drag themselves up. Another Dropper sends them all sliding back down, where they wind up in a disastrous game of Twister.
“I’ll check for more in here,” Eric says, and disappears into the short hall of the apartment.
Paul sticks his head out the window to view the roof, then nudges me. “I think that’s it. You okay?”
“Yeah. Thank you.” The terror has passed and now I feel extraordinarily stupid. “Sorry about that.”
“Don’t like heights?”
“You could say that. Or you could say they make me shit my pants.”
He throws his head back with a bellow, and my cheek stings when I join in. Grace hugs me. “I thought you were going to fall.”
“That’s funny, I didn’t think that at all. I’m sure you could tell by the way I was so calm.”
She gives me the first real smile I’ve seen in a week and her gloved hand nears my cheek. “You’re bleeding. Maybe there’s something in the bathroom.”
“I have Band-Aids in my bag.”
Eric returns holding a first aid kit. “I found some stuff. Keep them occupied out there?” He motions Paul and Grace to the window and sits on the couch’s armrest. “Let me see.”
I cross the carpet to stand in front of him. He turns my head to the sid
e with ungloved fingers. “Nice scrape.”
“Thanks. I was hoping to get disfigured today.”
“It’ll heal okay, I think. Does it hurt?”
“Only when I smile.”
Eric brings his solemn face inches from mine, eyes round. “Then, whatever you do, don’t smile.”
I laugh. “Ouch.”
He uses his water bottle to dampen a washcloth and dabs at my cheek. “It probably doesn’t need to be covered once we’re home, but we should keep germs out for now.”
I look around the living room as he doctors my wound, at the inexpensive furniture and the school pictures of two boys and all the hopes and dreams of the family that now lies on the sidewalk. I have no idea why I’m here and they’re not. I can’t get off a fire escape, literally, to save my own life.
“Sorry I froze out there,” I say. My uninjured cheek burns along with the other. “I should’ve taken another job in this operation. I knew we’d be up high, but I thought I’d be fine.”
“You were fine,” Eric says. “Until zombies started falling on your head.”
“Remember when you asked if I’m scared of heights? Yes, I’m scared of heights.”
“Everyone is scared of something.”
“What are you scared of?”
“I meant everyone except me,” he says with a wink. “I thought that was obvious.”
“When I asked if you were scared to go to Paul’s that time, you said you were.”
“No, I said anyone who wasn’t scared needed to have their head examined. What you didn’t know is that I need to have my head examined.”
I wince. “Stop making me smile.”
“Can’t. I’m naturally amusing.”
He is. And funny is my kryptonite. I would marry a rock if it made me laugh hard enough. Add in the rest of Eric—hot, kind, and smart—and I don’t care that my cheek is shredded because he has one hand on my shoulder and the other on my face. He could kiss me right now. I could kiss him.
“Thanks for patching me up,” I say.
The City Series (Book 2): Peripeteia Page 2