Survivor

by James Phelan

  “Yeah, it is.” He looked at his plate, a million-mile stare that suggested maybe the now was indeed affecting him too. He reached for an orange plastic prescription bottle, found the one he was looking for among the few on the table, then shook a couple little white pills loose and swallowed them.

  “For my knee,” Caleb explained. He looked around the room with what may have been either pride or nostalgia. “I like working here. It’s easy, I get to hang with people I like, and I don’t take work home except for advance reading copies of books. I just didn’t want to go straight into more study, especially since I’ve got no idea what I want to do. I mean . . . I was thinking of traveling, but now?”

  I looked around, the shadows of the book stacks disappearing into darkness. “This job here sounds good—I like reading. Quite a few comics. And I just got a copy of Siddhartha.”

  Anna’s book. I remembered her talking about it. I could picture the note she’d inserted for me—something about its being her dad’s favorite. I could see her careful handwriting. But where was the book now? Had she actually given it to me? Pride and Prejudice was another one of hers. When I got home, I’d find a copy. Think of her as I read it.

  “That’s a pretty neat novel,” Caleb said. “Reading, I could do it all day, but I also like writing, when I’ve got the inspiration.”

  “What kind of writing?”

  “Been working on a comic series; might end up being a graphic novel.”

  “About?”

  “It’s a work in progress, but my characters all have heightened natural abilities—kinda tapping into using more of their brains, a higher-evolved type scenario. Most of the stuff on the shelves in here is all soap opera and melodrama in place of a good story that’s well-told. Anyway, my thing’s a long way off, and meantime I have to pay the bills.”

  “Not anymore, hey,” I said, regretting it immediately. What was outside, what was beneath the surface of every line of our conversation, hidden in every minute I’d been here, was what he was shutting off from the outside world. There he was, trying to sound upbeat about it, to have a career in this world. Didn’t he see those desolate streets like I did? Did he think everything would go back to how it was?

  “Thought I might just start my own company for my writing, release it all electronically, for iPads and stuff. What about you?”

  “What do I want to do?” I bounced my balled napkin off the wall and Caleb caught it. I was going to say, Does it matter anymore? but I knew it did—around Caleb, it actually felt like it did, like there’d be a tomorrow that would bring us back to how things were. With him, there was a sense of possibility, more than bleak denial. “Two years ago, I thought about joining the Air Force, becoming a fighter pilot, maybe even going from there into politics.”

  “But now?”

  “I don’t know. I guess now I’ve seen this . . .” I swept my hand around, gesturing outside. “I don’t know. I want to contribute, I know that. I just don’t know what now is . . .”

  Caleb nodded, silent while we watched the candle burn between us.

  “I just want to make something,” Caleb said quietly. “Make something that lasts, you know? Some kind of art that makes people think, raises more questions than it answers.”

  Conversation with Caleb was so normal that it was surreal. I mean, I liked art and stories as much as the next person, but didn’t we need more than that right now? It was clear to me we’d sat here for long enough. We’d talked to that point where it could get into uncomfortable territory, like I’d felt often enough in those first twelve days. If Caleb had a black dog of depression and despair lingering in the shadows of his otherwise Peter Pan–like psyche, I didn’t want to know about it. Couldn’t I have one friend who didn’t need me to give anything? Couldn’t there be one who I could take from, an escape from reality?

  17

  “No!” I screamed, sitting up with a start. Caleb was looking down at me. He had shaken me awake.

  “You okay?” he said.

  I nodded and he walked away.

  I was wet with sweat, hot, could see it was light outside.

  “What time is it?” I called out.

  “Just after ten,” he hollered back.

  “What?!” I found my watch on the floor. Almost eleven. I was too late for Felicity. Again.

  Shit.

  Even if she were alive, even if she’d found my note and bothered turning up when I said I was going to, after two no-shows, she’d not bother turning up again, would she?

  I lay back, holding my head in my hands. I drifted from my disappointment in myself for oversleeping to thinking about the nightmare. I tried to shut out the visions but they remained fresh and vivid. Caleb was in it, the girls too—both Rachel and Felicity. We were running, but not from Chasers. We were up the top of Manhattan somewhere, up north, trying to get out, and soldiers were following us, hunting us; four of them, on horseback.

  I sat up, caught my breath and calmed my heart rate. I got dressed fast.

  I found Caleb upstairs on the terrace. He stood on the roof of the bookstore, glassing the city with powerful binoculars. The day was clear and the sun was nearing its lonely peak.

  “You seen Dawn of the Dead?” he asked me.

  I watched him, thinking about the way he made jokes whenever he could, because the alternative was—what—to be scared out of his wits? “The zombie movie?”

  “Yeah,” Caleb said, looking down at a group of docile Chasers drinking from a large flooded crater on Park Avenue. “Remember that scene when they’re on the roof in the mall? There’s that gun-shop owner across the parking lot?”

  “Yeah,” I said and laughed. “They picked out lookalikes in the crowd.”

  “And the gun store dude sniped them off—pop!” Caleb laughed. “Check out down there.”

  He pointed, passed the binoculars, and I tried my best to zoom in on the spot.

  “Bill Clinton.”

  “No way!” I said. It may well have been him. “Looks a bit skinny, though.”

  “Couple of weeks of this liquids-only diet will do that.”

  “Next to him; blue jacket.” I passed the binoculars over.

  “Yeah?” he replied, scanning left. “Ha, no way!”

  “Way,” I said. “That’s Lady Gaga.”

  “Good eye.” He put down the glasses, took a big breath, looked around at what was left of his town. There were a couple of fires burning to the north, Harlem maybe, tall plumes of black smoke twisting into the air. “You look at this too much, gets you angry.”

  “Who do you think did this?” I asked.

  “If I had to guess . . .” Caleb said, scratching his chin, “I’d say it probably had something to do with the DHARMA Initiative.”

  “Okay . . .” I laughed, remembering it from one of my favorite American TV shows. “So, what, we’re gonna realize we’re all dead in the finale?”

  As soon as I said the words I felt sick. But Caleb only saw it as a joke.

  “Yeah, something lame like that,” he replied. “What I do know is that if this infection were a zombie plague, it would be classified as a Class Four outbreak.”

  “A what?”

  “Doomsday event—the worst kind of outbreak.”

  “And you know that because . . .”

  “Look around.”

  “I mean, you know the classification number?”

  “Read it in a book about surviving zombie attacks.”

  “I don’t want to know,” I said as we went indoors. “Seriously, I’ve done all right so far, all alone, so to start reading fictional survival guides . . .”

  “It’s actually been pretty useful,” Caleb said as he led the way downstairs. “You know, stories of zombies came from Voodoo. A bunch of stuff happened in Haiti way back in the day—”

  “But these aren’t zombies.”

  “Zombie-vampire hybrids, whatever. This is some kind of killer virus, though,” he said as we descended the stairs into the bookst
ore. He scanned around with his beanbag shotgun, listened until he was satisfied the coast was clear. “And they might as well be un-dead. But anyway, there’s even this book written by a Harvard professor—yeah, one of those smug crimson guys—who went to Haiti and studied the toxins they used to transform people—”

  “I really don’t want to know,” I said. “Listen, Caleb, that food down there—I’ve got to get it to Rach.”

  “In the park?”

  I nodded.

  “With the thousands of infected hanging around the ponds and whatnot.”

  “It’s where Rachel is.”

  “And you’ve got to deliver that food.”

  “Yep.”

  “Come on, then,” Caleb said, getting his snow gear on. “I’ll walk you to the corner of the park. Don’t want you getting attacked outside my place so I gotta see your sorry ass all frozen there until some rat king carries you off.”

  18

  I descended the stone stairs to the zoo, dragging one bag at a time down the slippery surface. Caleb had walked me to the corner of the park as he’d promised and then disappeared. He’d said he’d not been to the zoo since his parents took him when he was a kid. He’d trailed off and looked longingly to the northeast, turned, and walked away.

  Maybe he didn’t want to meet Rachel. That’d have to change fast if I stood any chance of getting the pair of them to try leaving Manhattan with me.

  If he wanted space, I understood that: we all still needed our space, however lonely we’d become. In just two nights I’d grown used to that concept. At home it had always been that way for me; I was an only child who had moved around a bit, changing school a few times, and had always somehow adapted, always found my own center. I learned I could survive anywhere, that I’d be accepted as myself wherever we landed. I saw that possibility in New York, as though we all belonged there, wherever we were from, but didn’t get the time to live it that way.

  Looking up at the Arsenal’s front doors my world changed again: the glass in the doors was broken, there was blood on the doorframes, blood down the handrail.

  At the top of the stairs I shook the doors—they were still locked shut. That was a good sign. The break-in had cracked every pane of the laminated glass and there was a hole big enough to put my head through, dried blood coating the shards and staining the snow at my feet. I knocked hard on the brass frame, waited and listened, knocked again. All was quiet. I looked through the glass, cupping my hands against my face as I had done before. It was dark in there, I could see no movement.

  “Rachel!” I called, as loudly as I dared.

  My voice echoed inside the building and rattled around. Still no answer. I looked up to street level. Nothing sinister. The tiny thought at the back of my brain crept forward and developed into: maybe I should leave, go back to Caleb, forget about this place? I didn’t want to find Rachel gone or worse . . . I paced the courtyard. The building, the street, the trees around me, everything was bare and barren. I heard the bark or yelp of an animal, a sea lion maybe. I had to see, I had to know.

  I climbed a side fence, repeating my entry of the zoo from the other day. Everything seemed the same, although there had been a fresh coat of snow overnight. I scanned it for footprints. Nothing. That was good. I hoped that was good. The back doors were locked. That was definitely good.

  I looked around the grounds, did a lap around the central pool, then ran over to the cafeteria.

  “Rachel!” I called again. Into the cafeteria. Empty. The Zoo shop—more locked doors. “Ra—”

  Rachel emerged from an equipment room. She looked spooked and stayed where she was; I ran over to her.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner. I met this guy, Caleb—”

  “Are they still out there?”

  “The Chasers? No, I didn’t see anyone,” I said, talking fast. “I meant to come straight back, but he’s a good guy and we’re all about the same age, and I was thinking how we’d be so much better off as a group. You know, safer.”

  She stood there, silent.

  “Rachel?” Maybe it was too soon to mention the plan that was forming in my mind. Maybe I had more to do to earn her trust.

  “You’re sure they’re not still there?”

  “There’re no Chasers. Rachel, I’m sorry I took so long. Are you okay?”

  She replied with a half-nod. “Were you followed?”

  “Just now? No.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes,” I replied. She looked like she’d been awake all night; my guilt amplified. “Why, what happened?”

  “They came back.”

  “Came back?”

  “The ones that followed you here the first time.”

  “You’re sure it was them?”

  “I saw them,” she said. Her body and face looked tense, her eyes taking in every detail.

  She looked so scared that I promised myself that I’d be there for her from now on, that I’d be more reliable. She might not be as fun as Caleb, but she needed me around. Sure, I’d come back with food before she’d run out, but I could see what mattered to her more was my being there, my keeping my word. If I had to do another food trip, I’d be better at it next time. And right now I’d prepare this place better, for her.

  “The front doors are still locked,” I said.

  “They smashed at the glass with a steel pipe,” she said. “I watched them beating on it until it started to break through, then I ran out here.”

  She looked back into the room. There was a little burner set up with a pot of water. In the dim light from the equipment room behind her there was a stack of blankets where she must have slept, or at least sat, listening.

  “Can you make tea?” I asked, wanting to distract her. She nodded, and I could see her slipping into nurturing mode, her comfort zone. “I brought food, I’ll go get it.”

  “Wait! ”

  “They’re not there at the moment,” I said, “but I’ll have another look around, okay?”

  She softened just a little more. “Okay.”

  “Can I have the key to the gate?”

  Rachel took her keys from the lanyard around her neck and placed it over mine. She went inside while I ran back around to the front of the arsenal building to get the food. As I picked up the canvas bag I looked at the snow.

  Footprints.

  My heart skipped a beat before I realized that they were mine, only mine. I did a quick scan of the street, searching for any sign—nothing. Wherever they were, they’d gone before this last snowfall.

  I dragged the bag down from Fifth, and took it through the gate with the other.

  Rachel was busy at her work, as if with my presence and news she’d now hit reset; this was how I’d found her two days ago. I presented her with the food, and she came over and put her gloved hand on my shoulder, then pulled me in for a hug.

  “Thank you for coming back,” Rachel said, holding me. “I was worried. I was worried I’d never see you again.”

  Rachel was so small in my embrace. So fragile, a bird.

  “I can look after myself.”

  I felt her warm tears running down my neck. She let go and sniffed into her sleeve, looked about her, blinking.

  “I know you can,” she said, watching her animals eat. “It’s just . . . I thought maybe you’d not come back . . .”

  “What, you thought I could just forget about you?” I said.

  Sure, I had hopes and desires to get home and find it as I remembered it, but right now, Rachel and her tribe of animals felt like all I had. Caleb was his own guy. Probably needed me around less than we needed him.

  “I could feel useful here,” I continued, “if you’ll let me help out more?”

  She nodded and I followed her on her errands. I took the heavy work and it felt good. She told me about the animals and their needs and I asked about their habits and personalities and I could see clearly why this meant so much to her.

  This was where I felt like my life had a
purpose. This here, somehow, was where I felt closest to being home. As long as I was in this city, this was where I wanted to be. Until I could make it home, I would do what I could to help her.

  19

  Rachel worked at a pace that had me aching all over by sunset. We’d fed every animal, laughed a few times at the antics of the sea lions, and I’d spent a couple of hours clearing away some snow. All the food from the canvas bags was stashed away, and I had a good bearing now on what it would take to feed all these animals over the coming days. Beyond that . . . well, I didn’t really want to think about that, least not today. I could see how easy it was for Rachel to take it a day at a time in this place and have whatever’s going on outside these walls seem as distant as another universe.

  “Yesterday, you got to Rockefeller Plaza on time?”

  “Yeah,” I replied, thinking of sleeping in this morning. “There was no sign she’d been there.”

  “You may have just missed her.”

  “Yeah, maybe.” We collected some firewood from a stack in a storeroom. “Or she hasn’t gone back home since I’d been there.”

  “To find your note.”

  “Yeah—because she would have showed, right?”

  “I suppose. Unless she’s come across a refuge or shelter of other survivors?”

  “Yeah, I hope so.”

  “You’re going to check again tomorrow morning?”

  “I have to.”

  “Do you?”

  Rachel could see in my look that, yeah, I had to.

  Every time I passed a fence or a gate I looked out, expecting to see those Chasers reappear. It was only a matter of time. Rachel noticed me.

  “They know we’re here,” she said. “They’re out there, watching, waiting.”

  I could feel it, but I didn’t want to let my fear of them show. I’d faced them before, up close, and come out alive. I’d do it again for her.

  “They’re probably just waiting for night to fall,” she continued. “Or waiting for you to leave on another food trip.”

  “Then I should test that—head out, soon, see if they follow me.” She looked at me like I was crazy. “That way, I’d know how many of them there are, maybe even see where they came from, how long it took them to make a move on me.”