Survivor

by James Phelan

  I didn’t like that he called them “contaminants.” They were people. Sick, sure, but they didn’t want to be that way. Their trucks started up again. So loud.

  “But you can’t catch this infection.”

  “What are you? A doctor?” he gave a sideways grin, tipping out the rest of his coffee onto the snow where it melted down to the pavement.

  I was silent. He was right. How the hell was I sure you couldn’t catch this? Because I hadn’t? What if it was transferred from the infected through blood or saliva?

  Plenty of diseases and viruses were passed like that. And maybe I was only safe because I hadn’t been bitten yet. I’d thought the risk was over, that because I’d avoided catching the virus initially, I’d avoided it altogether.

  “Think about it this way,” he said. “No one’s come in to fix this up yet, have they? So as big and serious as the situation is here, must be a lot worse elsewhere, yeah?”

  It felt awful to hear him say what I’d been thinking. I sat there. Watching him leave, again. He wavered this time.

  “You got a gun?” he asked me.

  “Not with me.”

  “Want one?” he asked, showing me a small pistol holstered to his belt.

  I shook my head. “I’ve survived until now, haven’t I?”

  “That you have,” he said. He gave me a half-smile, and I couldn’t help but feel somewhat better seeing it, the first real smile in twelve days.

  I stared at the ground, trying to think of ways to stay talking to him, of somehow convincing him to let me tag along. I wouldn’t be in their way. I could help them.

  “For what it’s worth,” he said, “I knew as soon as I saw you.”

  “Knew what?”

  “You’re a survivor.”

  5

  The weather eased and snow feathered down. I walked warily, always checking behind me, keeping in the middle of the street, clear from dark storefronts and what might hide within them, following the footsteps of the soldiers. For almost half an hour I ambled. The city was silent but for the diminishing hum of the trucks. The clouds grew dark. I passed countless billboards, advertising goods that were no longer for sale. I walked on, falling farther behind them, a lone rear guard.

  The foreign, man-made rumble of engines had been music to my ears; now it was a fading sound and I didn’t want it to end. It was the noise that kept me there in the soldiers’ wake, and stopped me from returning to Central Park to find Felicity. It reminded me of how noisy I thought this city was when I first encountered it, how busy. Now, look: the American dream replaced by a nightmare for anyone left to witness it.

  Starkey was walking out front of his group, scanning the way. Once, he turned around and saw me. He didn’t wave, didn’t threaten, just clocked me and continued on.

  There was gunfire from afar and it made them pause, made them look around all ways and—

  A noise, near, to my right.

  I looked at the row of storefronts—dark open mouths of broken glass and shadows. There was a disturbance coming from the one next to me: the sound of a falling can, the scrape and shuffling of deliberate movement.

  I’d only taken a step backwards, just one, before a face appeared. Dark eyes peered at me from around the doorway, filled with the vacant gaze of the infected. It was a man who’d been reduced to a thirsty shell, with sunken cheeks and cracked lips, dried red blood around his mouth and down his neck.

  A Chaser. The hunter kind.

  He was tall, hunched over, imposing and inquisitive, and as he watched me he became more alert.

  I didn’t move.

  He did.

  He came out of the shop and stood on the sidewalk, watching me. Eyes only for me. I’d almost forgotten what these ones looked like up close. Nothing redeeming. His bare hands were black, hanging by his side, dead weights. His gaze took me in, read me, my fear. Then his expression shifted, as he realized what I had to offer and that he had a chance at it. He zeroed in on me, his intent clear, his decision made.

  He came at me, a few steps and then a sprint. I backed away and slipped, crashing to the ground as the Chaser pounced, literally launching off his feet at me as I lay cowering.

  CRACK! A gunshot rang out loud, echoing about the canyonlike streets.

  The Chaser was blown back a few yards. He hit a wall, dead. His chest displayed a single hole; black-red-brown, so little blood, hollow, empty, dehydrated. He was still, motionless. Graveyard dead.

  I remembered when I’d shot the Chaser out in front of 30 Rock. The noise of the gun going off had seemed too loud as it echoed around the empty streets of Midtown Manhattan. I’d looked at the Chaser and at the gun in my hand. Then I’d run to the gutter and thrown up.

  A block up the street, my soldier friend coolly brought his rifle down, its barrel smoking. With neither a wave nor a word he turned and walked away.

  Half an hour later when my heart had stopped pounding and the soldiers were long gone, I picked up my backpack from where I’d ditched it the day before: around the corner of West 73rd Street, off Broadway. I retrieved my jacket, too—a big FDNY fireman’s coat—crumpled and stiff with cold. From the backpack I took out a bag of dried fruit and a bottle of juice, then I put the big jacket on over the puffy one I already wore, looped the bag’s straps over my shoulders, clipped the fastener around my stomach, picked up my breakfast and started off, eastward.

  My only clue as to Felicity’s whereabouts was the spot in the park where we’d each seen Chasers around a fire. They may still be there, she may be with them. I imagined finding her and telling her everything I’d just learned from Starkey—it wasn’t much, but it was a hundred percent more information than I’d had since this attack began.

  Across the street, I stopped and turned around. I took it all in. A convenience store, its window cracked. I looked at myself in the reflection of the glass and moved closer, pushing my nose against the cold surface, seeing nothing but myself. I rested my weary head against the window and closed my eyes.

  This was where I’d last seen Anna, Mini, and Dave; that final glance of broken friends through broken glass. It was here I’d said good-bye, taken off my backpack and ran. I hadn’t even bothered to take the gun from my bag—there had been too many Chasers after us and it would only have been good for one thing and I wasn’t interested in that. The gun was still there, I felt it, in a side pocket, next to a little wind-up flashlight. I could reach them both now within a second, if I wanted to. Yesterday I’d stood right here on Broadway and ripped the bandages off my bloodied hands and attracted them, let them chase after me. Now this place was empty of life, not a Chaser to be seen.

  Not even a full day had passed since saying good-bye and yet I struggled to think of what my friends looked like. If this was what just a few hours could do, what would I forget tomorrow? What would I have left by next week? I kept my friends alive in my heart but could no longer conjure their faces.

  I opened my eyes and took a deep breath. The street around me was empty. What did I have now—a life with no one in it? A life with the possibility of finding Felicity, who I knew only from a tiny little video screen? What I wanted was company, what I needed was to get home. My life was about getting off this island—through that roadblock—and the possibility of finding Felicity gave me purpose. Since seeing Felicity’s recording, I knew I’d made the right choice. I knew she would lead me home.

  Inside, the store was dark and most of the shelves were bare. I took some canned food—soups, fruit, creamed rice—a couple of bottles of soft drink, some blocks of chocolate, a small box of cereal and some long-life milk. I zipped up my backpack, slipped it back on, and felt its weight.

  I took the little wind-up flashlight from my backpack’s side pocket, flicked it on and wound it up bright to look around on the floor in the back aisle. There was rotting food on the tiles, melting and stewing, and bags of frozen food ripped apart and plundered where they lay—dogs, maybe rats, had been here. I remembered hearing somewhere
that Manhattan had like seventeen million rats for every person. Maybe it was a joke, but if that were true, it’d now be more like seventeen billion to one. Maybe they were swarming under the city, somewhere warm probably, smarter than me, thriving in this new world . . . I headed for Central Park.

  6

  The friendly Chasers were gone. Where they’d been, the ground was littered with empty plastic bottles—lumps sticking out from the snow, undisturbed since the overnight snowfall. All around me was just white-gray slush, not even a set of telltale footprints.

  Had Felicity made contact with them and followed them somewhere? Or, if she hadn’t, why hadn’t she returned to her home last night? On that little video screen she’d looked fit, healthy, capable. Surely if she was okay she would have gone back home. You’d run through the rain and dust and ash—you’d stop at nothing to be with your friends and family, even if all you had left were the remainders of them in an empty home.

  A steel drum was overturned. I looked in it—ash. I took off a glove and felt the drum. It was cold, but not freezing cold, like the fire had gone out overnight, just a few hours before. I rolled the burned-out shell a few times, unsettling its black-gray contents, and looked inside at a tiny glowing ember. I thought about taking it out, putting it in my pocket, having its warmth travel with me, but if they returned, they’d need it more than me.

  Maybe they’d simply run out of fuel or drink—I could see neither nearby—and gone on a re-supply trip. They could soon be back with more supplies. Or perhaps they’d set up camp at the next spot that provided what they needed, and they’d keep moving on like that. Either way, there was nothing here for me now.

  I stood, leaving their things behind with a final look, and began walking east, towards the sun. Exiting the park, I passed thick shrubbery and saw the back of a still figure. Sleeping once, now covered in snow and ice, long lost into a never-ending dream. I approached slowly and retched when I saw the bloodstains. I rolled the body over with my foot. Its head was featureless, its face gnawed away, the miniature work of rats or some other scavenger.

  That will never happen to me, no matter what.

  I followed the tire tracks of the soldiers’ trucks, black grooves in the pristine white landscape down to the ash on the blacktop. At the corner of Fifth Avenue, I stopped under the awning of the Plaza Hotel. The tracks turned south and soon became impossible to see. Looking north, the shattered remnants of everything in this street were disappearing in the driving snow. Visibility was no more than a block in either direction.

  This was not a day for exploring or being trapped out in the elements. I needed someplace safe, somewhere close.

  Across the street, the Pulitzer Fountain was dark, full of black water. Snow was falling hard now. My face was cold, my feet were freezing. The wind around my ears made me feel that at any moment there could be someone coming up behind me. I could never shut out thoughts like that.

  The doors of the Plaza were locked, shin-deep snow had drifted up against them. It was dark inside. The only signs of human intervention since the attack were marks on the doors, and on the buildings on the opposite corner. Large spray-painted Xs, with numbers and letters in each quadrant, seemed to record some kind of coded information. I heard a gunshot, far-off, then a few more in quick succession.

  A group of people were coming down Fifth Avenue, moving dark silhouettes, barely visible amidst the snow shower. Six of them. I watched them as they neared me. The soldiers? No. Chasers. Time to move away. I stayed low, keeping against the cars and buildings, and moved up Fifth Avenue.

  There was a pile of rubble up ahead. The figures had stopped in the street, about where I had been standing. Above them was a building with a ten-story billboard running down its side: a woman dressed in not much, advertising . . . a handbag, I think. Despite its size it was hard to tell for sure; hard to imagine a time when anything about that ad made sense.

  I jogged north up Fifth, holding my coat collar tight around my neck to keep the wet out, huddling to the right, sticking close to the buildings for shelter. They were still there behind me, still coming, and matching my speed. I knew they’d not yet seen me, otherwise they’d be chasing hard. They were following my footprints, fresh in the snow. I started to run, flat out, giving everything I had.

  The roads here looked no different from the sidewalks—they were all covered in smashed and crashed cars and vans and trucks, everything buried in ice and snow and ash and debris—and now rain. Up ahead was the mountain of rubble strewn across the road, impassable. I was pretty sure I’d watched this very building come down from the observation deck at 30 Rock in those first few days; a cloud of dust and ash in the still air. Ragged, dangerous.

  I had three options: go around the rubble and through the likely dangers of Central Park, find my way eastward around the next block or two and probably encounter more of the same impassable ruins, or go back the way I’d come.

  I looked back at the figures. They’d stopped momentarily, but started up again no sooner than I’d recounted the six of them. They moved more quickly this time, running hard—then two peeled off down a side street.

  I went with my first choice, and ran across the road to the Central Park side. There was a building set inside the park, brick with white timber-framed windows, set down a couple of flights of steps from street level. It was big and regal looking; four or five stories high, with towers at the corners like some sort of castle. It looked undamaged, safe, and secure.

  To my right there was a stone pillar supporting the steel handrail that led down the stairs. Set into the pillar was a green copper sign that read “To the Zoo and Cafeteria.” I held onto the handrail and walked down the steps, slippery underfoot, icy slick, descending as quickly as I dared. I rushed towards the doors, which were set at the top of a short flight of stone stairs. I was scared and it was raining and I was cold. I shouldn’t have come here, not today, not now.

  Even if those Chasers overshot me, there might not be time in the daylight to make it somewhere safe to spend the night. I could see the Chasers up at street level, closing in; they were following my tracks just as they had been since the Plaza. Maybe the rain would wash them away just enough . . .

  The front doors were brass-framed with clear glass inserts. They were locked. I stood still and listened. I could not hear anything, but I could see the tops of heads walking up the last block on the street up above. I had two minutes, max. Maybe I could smash the glass and unhook a latch or something? I cupped my hands around my eyes and peered through the door, trying to make out details through the glass. It was too dark. I squinted, scanned around, trying to make sense of it.

  My own eyes stared into mine, wide, still, spooked. But then they moved. I hadn’t moved. The eyes I saw were not mine—someone was there, inside, looking back at me.

  7

  Her name tag read “Rachel.” She looked about my age, but was small and slight. She watched me tap on the doors, pleading to get in. She stared out at me, stunned, but not with the vacant expression that I’d grown so used to seeing on Chasers. I saw fear in her eyes, not thirst: here was another survivor.

  I could understand if she was frightened. Maybe I was the first person she’d seen since the attack. Or maybe she was in charge of a group of survivors, and was unwilling to risk their safety by admitting a stranger. I mightn’t look like someone you’d want to get close to—hell, I’d been surprised at my own reflection these past few days. I no longer looked like me. I was a different me—one who could hold a gun and shoot, one who had mastered the art of self-preservation. The cut on my eyebrow from when I hit my head in the subway carriage after the explosion had healed, but it had left an angry scar. My hair and clothes were sodden from the rain. My skin was pale and drawn across my features.

  “Please!” I mouthed to her. “Please, let me in?” I rattled the doors.

  Then she moved. Just a little, just enough to give me hope.

  “Can I come in?” I called into the
crack where the two doors met. I stood back and forced a smile, my hands up in the air to show I was getting wetter and colder out here, that I was harmless.

  She did not respond.

  “Rachel,” I said, indicating her name badge. “My name’s Jesse. Are you—are you okay?”

  Her gaze shifted; she was looking over my right shoulder. I turned in that direction.

  Up at street level, the group of four Chasers was almost at the top of the stone stairs. I dared not make a sound. A couple were preoccupied with the falling rain, heads tilted skyward, their insatiable thirst being met by the heavens. They walked past the stairs, didn’t even look my way. Maybe they’d missed my tracks heading down here? I didn’t move until they were out of sight. Wet snow ran down the back of my neck.

  I turned back to the door—Rachel was gone. I walked back down the stairs and ran around the side of the building. There was a sign that read “New York State Arsenal, Erected 1848.” No wonder it looked so imposing; a fortress in the middle of the city.

  I imagined that there was a refuge inside—that Rachel was one of many survivors here, with the zoo workers and their friends and families. They’d have hot food and answers and laughs. Maybe I could stay here with them until rescuers arrived. I could help with the animals, collect food from nearby abandoned stores and apartments.

  Or Rachel could join me in finding Felicity, and the three of us could leave the city together, and head north.

  Looking around, I tossed my backpack over a tall metal fence, heaved myself up and over it, and landed heavily on the other side. There were several other brick buildings behind this imposing arsenal, covered and semi-covered walkways linking them, a big pool in the center.

  “Hello?” I called, as loud as I dared. I could not see anyone, and I could not hear anything but the icy rain hitting hard surfaces and buildings around me, the snow underfoot turning to slush. “Rachel?”