Dark Days

by James Ponti

  I just kept looking off into the distance and nodded. I thought about telling him about the newspaper article that had come in the mail, but before I could decide, someone else joined us.

  “Hey, you guys realize that it’s cold out here, right?” Alex said as he sat across the table from me.

  “Really?” I joked. “I hadn’t noticed.”

  “Vernal equinox,” Grayson said, using the scientific term for the first day of spring. “We’re celebrating.”

  Alex laughed.

  “Speaking of celebrating, we were just talking about my birthday party. It’s in a couple weeks. We’re going to Coney Island. Interested?”

  “In hot dogs and roller coasters? Always.”

  I felt a little stupid. I had worried that we were drifting apart, but neither one of them hesitated before saying they wanted to come to my party. I think I sometimes (okay, maybe always) make stuff like this harder than it should be.

  “And guess what,” he added. “I’ve got an early birthday present.” He unzipped his backpack and pulled out a small catalog. “My uncle Paul brought this over last night, and I thought you might want to look at it.”

  He handed it to me.

  “It’s the uniform catalog for the NYPD,” he continued. “It’s got everything from shirts and jackets to special belts that hold all their gear. In the back is a section with all the different squad patches. You can look to see if you recognize the one the psycho cop who ripped off his ear was wearing.”

  I hesitated. “We’re not supposed to do anything Omega,” I said, unsure if this counted.

  “I don’t think this is Omega,” he said. “Some guy threatened you two and we want to know a little more about him. We’re not on a case and we’re not going to do anything about it. We’re just trying to protect ourselves, which is the point of the lockdown in the first place.”

  I turned to Grayson, who added, “I think he’s right.”

  “Okay,” I said as I started flipping through the pages. The patches were located in the back, and there were more than I would have guessed. There was a fire truck for the emergency squad and an antique car for the auto crime division. My favorite was the patch for the mounted division, which had a horse on it.

  I remembered that the patch I saw that day had a dog on it, but I wasn’t sure if it was one dog or more than one. There was a picture of a German shepherd on the K-9 unit patch and a Labrador retriever on the bomb squad patch, but neither was like the one I had seen.

  Then I turned the page and realized why I had been confused about the number. It’s because the patch had one dog with three heads.

  “That’s it,” I said, pointing and turning the catalog so that they both could see. “The red one with the three-headed dog.”

  Grayson recognized it instantly. “That’s Cerberus.”

  I had no idea what he was talking about. “Who or what is Cerberus?”

  “He’s from Greek mythology,” Grayson said. “Cerberus is the hellhound who guards the entrance to the underworld. He craves living flesh, so only the dead can get past him.”

  “Not exactly one of those feel-good myths, is it?” I said.

  “Hardly any of them are,” he replied.

  Alex took the catalog and looked at it. “It says here that the patch is for the Departmental Emergency Action Deployment Squadron. Sounds like some sort of quick response unit for disasters and emergencies.”

  Grayson practically jumped out of his chair as he figured something out. “That’s what it sounds like,” he said. “Unless you only look at the initials. D-E-A-D. It’s the Dead Squad.”

  We were all quiet for a moment while we thought about this one.

  “And their symbol is the evil creature that protects the underworld from the living,” added Alex. “That’s disturbing.”

  “That would explain so much,” I said. “Remember when I told you about Marek surprising me and Mom?”

  “You mean when you killed those two Level 2s in the boathouse?” asked Grayson. “It would be pretty hard to forget.”

  “Well, the cops that were with him had the same patch. What if there’s a whole Dead Squad made up of zombie cops?”

  I can’t describe the feeling that I had at that moment. We were discussing zombies on the police force, which was terrible. But the conversation was thrilling. This is what we’d been missing. It was the first time I’d felt that kind of excitement since New Year’s.

  “How could Marek possibly pull that off?” asked Grayson. “This is not some secret underground group roaming around abandoned tunnels beneath the city. We’re talking about a squadron within the New York City Police Department. It’s a huge public organization.”

  It did seem far-fetched, and I wondered if maybe we were jumping to conclusions because we wanted there to be some secret we could solve. We wanted it to be thrilling. But then Alex remembered something.

  “Blue Moon,” he said. “Operation Blue Moon had very specific goals. The undead wanted to infect the mayor, the archbishop and . . .”

  “. . . the chief of police,” Grayson and I both said.

  Alex nodded. “If they turned the chief of police into a zombie, he could easily set up a squadron and handpick who was placed on it.”

  The three of us were quiet as we considered the magnitude of what this might mean. My mom was right. Marek was up to something big, and we had no idea what it was.

  Our little puzzle solving session was exhilarating, but it ended with a dull thud. There was nothing we could do about it. There was no one we could tell. I couldn’t even try to get word to my mother, because Marek knew about our secret code on the Delacorte Clock. It did, however, give me something new to talk to Natalie about.

  After school I looked for her among the crowd of students heading toward the Roosevelt Island Tram, which was her typical route home. But she wasn’t with them. Instead I caught a glimpse of her a block away, heading toward the subway station.

  I hurried to catch up, but just when I was close enough to call out her name, I saw the strangest thing. While she waited to cross the street, a man in a red hoodie walked right up behind her and slipped a folded piece of blue paper into a pocket on her backpack. Then he kept walking in a different direction.

  It was lightning fast and I wouldn’t have noticed it if I hadn’t been focused right on her. Even still I might have doubted my own eyes if the man hadn’t turned for a second, giving me a look at his face.

  It was Liberty.

  There was no way that was a coincidence.

  Liberty was a friend, but he was more than that. He was an Omega and he was undead. More than anyone we knew, he lived in both worlds. On New Year’s Eve he’d been part of my mother’s team, the ones who rescued us. But he also was a part of the undead community, known for giving speeches about zombies’ rights at flatline parties.

  He was being secretive, which made me think he was reaching out to her on Omega business. That made sense, because she was our captain. I was excited, thinking it meant we were being called into action. But then I saw her meet up with a girl I’d never seen before. It was obvious that the girl had been waiting for her.

  They entered the subway station together, and I followed from a safe distance. As she rode down the escalator, Natalie pulled out the piece of paper and read it. Then she showed it to the other girl.

  If it was a communication about Omega, then she only would have shown it to another Omega.

  That’s when I figured out what was happening. There was only one explanation that made sense. Omega was no longer in a lockdown. I was just locked out. Natalie had already moved on to a new team. That would explain why she never had time to meet up after school. I wondered if Grayson and Alex were part of her new team as well, or if they’d been left behind like me.

  I stayed on the upper level of the station and spied on them as they blended in with the crowd on the platform. When everybody else boarded the subway, they lingered behind.

  I stepp
ed behind a pillar so they couldn’t see me. Once they thought the coast was clear, they hopped down by the tracks and started walking into the tunnel toward Manhattan.

  I just stood there and watched, tears forming in my eyes as they disappeared into the darkness. Not only was I losing a friend, but I was also losing Omega.

  The Hollow Men

  The MIST library is a two-story stone building that sits on the quad between the Upper and Lower Schools. It looks like a little church, which is why most students call it “the chapel.” I found Natalie sitting in the back at a big wooden table strewn with papers and books.

  “That looks like a lot of work,” I said.

  “It is.” Natalie seemed genuinely happy to see me. “Do you know anything about the poetry of T. S. Eliot?”

  “No.”

  “That makes two of us,” she replied as she started digging through the piles of paper. “Unfortunately, one of us has a critical analysis of it due on in Ms. Brewer’s class on Thursday. And now I can’t find the paper I need.”

  It had been approximately twenty-one hours since I saw her disappear into the subway tunnel, and I was full of conflicting emotions. Part of me was hurt because I thought she’d dumped me from the Omega team, but part was also hopeful that it was all a big misunderstanding.

  “There’s some theory about his work that I’m supposed to analyze, and I don’t even remotely understand it,” she said.

  “That’s amazing,” I replied. “Because I thought you understood everything.”

  She laughed. “If you think that, then you’ve been fooled.”

  “Well, I have a theory that you might be interested in,” I said.

  “Is it about poetry?”

  “Nope.”

  “I like it already,” she joked.

  “It’s about a squad of zombies on the police force,” I said with just a dash of mystery.

  She stopped her search and looked right at me. “That does sound interesting.”

  I told her what the guys and I had come up with about the Dead Squad. She seemed really into it and at one point even jotted down the full name of the squad. With her interest fully piqued I tried to use it as an opening to talk about Omega. I asked if she thought we might get back into action soon, and suddenly her whole attitude changed.

  “I have no idea,” she said. “Honestly, I’ve been so busy with make-up work I haven’t had time to think about Dead City or Omega.”

  Her smile was sincere, but I knew this was a lie. After all I had seen her enter Dead City the day before. I’m sure my reaction gave me away, because she could tell something was bothering me.

  “What’s wrong?”

  I couldn’t exactly say that I had spied on her, so I decided to tell her the other thing that I wanted to talk about. (And also had me nervous.)

  “It’s just that my birthday is coming up and I was wondering if you’d like to celebrate with us.”

  She laughed. “Judging by your expression I thought it was going to be something bad. Of course I want to celebrate your birthday. I wouldn’t miss it.”

  That response. Her eagerness, made everything else melt away. “Really?”

  “Dinner and a musical, right?” she asked, referring to my traditional celebration. “Which one are we going to see?”

  “Actually, this year we’re having a party,” I told her. “We’re going to Coney Island.”

  Her expression changed instantly and at first I assumed it was because she thought Coney Island was a silly way to celebrate your birthday.

  “What’s wrong with Coney Island?” I asked. “Too kiddie?”

  She paused for a moment at a loss for words. Then she said, “No, it’s just that I’ll have to check with my doctors. I’m not sure I’m allowed to go on roller coasters yet.”

  It had never occurred to me that she might not be able to ride the rides. I apologized and she told me it was no big deal. But I still felt like a total dork.

  I tried to change the subject and be a better friend. “What’s the paper you’re looking for?” I asked. “Let me help.”

  “ ‘The Hollow Men’,” she said.

  “Is that one of Eliot’s poems?”

  She nodded. “A really depressing one.”

  I started sorting through a different stack of papers.

  “I know there’s a copy in another book,” she said, getting up. “I’ll try to find it in the stacks.”

  “I’ll keep looking here,” I replied.

  I want to be totally honest. I was absolutely one hundred percent looking for the poem. No matter what was going on with Omega, her friendship is what mattered more. But then I noticed that her backpack was open, and I could see a piece of blue paper in the pocket where Liberty had passed her the note. It had to be the same one.

  I knew it was the wrong thing to do, but I couldn’t stop myself. I looked over my shoulder and saw that Natalie was still looking for the book on the shelf. I had a window of about ten to fifteen seconds.

  I reached in with the tip of my fingers and pulled out the note. The message was brief and written in Omega code.

  It read: 107/8/92/34 6/15/18/19

  Which translates to: BhOUSe CpArK.

  I wasn’t sure what that meant. I wondered if it was “B House C Park.” Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to think it through before she came back. I quickly folded the paper and slid it into her backpack.

  “Did you find it?”

  I looked up and saw her right there. Then I realized she was asking about the poem.

  “No,” I said. “I don’t see it anywhere.”

  “That’s all right. I know it’s in here.” She sat down and started flipping through the book to find the other copy.

  “Why are the men ‘hollow’?” I asked her, referring to the title of the poem.

  “I think it has something to do with soldiers feeling empty after the end of World War One,” she said. “But it makes me think of the Unlucky 13, left hollow by the explosion in the subway tunnel and wandering the underground, not really living and not really dead.”

  “That’s pretty deep,” I said. “Too bad you can’t right about that for your paper.”

  “Comparing and contrasting the poems of T. S. Eliot with the undead of New York City,” she said with a laugh. “That would really catch Ms. Brewer’s attention.”

  “You’ve got a lot of work to do,” I said. “I should head to lunch and let you get back to it.”

  “Thanks for looking,” she said. “Maybe we can get together this weekend and do something fun, like pizza.”

  “That would be great,” I replied.

  After seeing her I was even more confused than I had been when the day started. I kept replaying the conversation in my head trying to analyze every word and expression as I rode the B train from Rockefeller Center to Cathedral Parkway. Ultimately, I realized I had no idea what to make of it. That’s why I was headed uptown.

  It took a while to figure out the coded message. I knew that “C Park” probably stood for Central Park. But I had to do an Internet search to find B House. The Blockhouse is an old fort. It’s located in the northwest corner of the park right on the border of Harlem.

  I read about it online as I rode the subway. It’s officially known as Blockhouse #1, and two facts about it instantly caught my attention.

  First of all, it was built during the Revolutionary War, interesting because the zombie we killed in the boathouse was reading a book about defending Manhattan during the Revolutionary War. If Natalie was investigating something for Omega, that might have been the reason she went there.

  Secondly, not only was the fort made mostly out of Manhattan schist, but it was also built on a giant mound of schist. Schist is the rock formation that gives the undead their power. That meant for a zombie, going inside the fort would be an energy boost.

  My relationship with Natalie wasn’t the only thing that had me conflicted. My mother had been firm when she told me not to do anything O
mega unless she got word to me. This was a close call. If I’d had to go underground, I wouldn’t have done it. But the Blockhouse was not in Dead City. It was just in Central Park; that made it okay.

  At least that’s what I told myself.

  Even though the fort is close to the Cathedral Parkway station, it took me about fifteen minutes to find it because it’s hidden in a wooded area. My guess is that hundreds of thousands of people walk by it every day with no idea that a piece of history is right there.

  In addition to being hidden, the fort is also pretty boring. It’s about the size of a small house and has four square walls about twelve feet high that make it look like a gray stone cube.

  I wasn’t sure what I was looking for, just that it had something to do with Natalie and Omega. I hoped that it would be obvious and I would be able to figure out what it was when I saw it.

  I walked up a small flight of stairs to a gate in the wall. There was a chain on the gate, but when I got up close I realized that it wasn’t actually locked. The chain was draped to make it look like it was, but all you had to do was reach through the bars and slide a latch to open it.

  The gate made a loud creaking noise as I entered. It should have signaled something creepy, but the inside of the Blockhouse was just as boring as the out. There was a small square area surrounded by thick walls of Manhattan schist. Each wall had a pair of holes that Revolutionary soldiers could use to stick their rifles through and shoot out during an attack. There was also a flagpole right in the middle.

  “Underwhelming,” I muttered to myself as I tried to figure out what might have brought Natalie here.

  I began to wonder if I was just wrong about the clue. Maybe “B house C Park” referred to something completely different. Maybe (hopefully) I was wrong about everything. That was when I noticed a piece of paper that had blown into the far corner.

  I walked over and knelt down to check it out. It was blank on the side facing me, but when I turned it over I saw that it was a poem.

  “The Hollow Men” by T. S. Eliot.

  I slumped as I realized what this meant. This was where Natalie lost the poem. That meant she had come here because an Omega (Liberty) had told her to. I folded up the poem and slid it into my pocket. As I stood up, I heard the creaking of the gate closing behind me.