Dark Days

by James Ponti

  “And that’s all I’m doing right now,” she replied. “I’m trying to be careful.”

  “How is going into Dead City by yourself being careful?” I asked.

  “I’m not going by myself,” she said. “I’m just going without you. I have to go underground and recharge anyway, and there’s a spot close to Worth Street where I can blend in with the other zombies. I can’t do that if you’re with me.”

  As much as it hurt my feelings, this actually made sense. She could dig around much better without me in the way.

  “Will Liberty be there?” I asked. “You should have someone from Omega nearby.”

  “Why? Because Omegas are so trustworthy and reliable? Because an Omega would not hurt me or let me get hurt?”

  That was my breaking point, so I just stormed off. Natalie must have realized that she’d pushed too hard, because she ran up and put a hand on my shoulder to stop me. She didn’t apologize, but she did soften her tone.

  “Liberty will be there,” she said.

  “Good,” I answered. “Be safe.”

  This pattern of her investigating the construction sites without me continued over the next few weeks. We only worked together as a pair when she was helping me explore Revolutionary War locations. She may have been upset with me, but she still put Omega first and she knew that I needed help.

  I was struggling because although there were plenty of places in the city that played a role in the Revolution, I couldn’t see what any of them had anything remotely to do with Marek or RUNY.

  That’s what the two of us were trying to figure out one day up in Washington Heights. At one point during the war the British thought they’d cornered the Continental Army in Brooklyn, but General Washington led a daring escape across the East and Hudson Rivers. If it hadn’t been successful, the British might have won the war right then and there. We were trying to follow the route they took across Manhattan to see if it might somehow be useful to Marek today.

  We were standing in front of a church, checking a map, when I noticed that Natalie kept clenching her jaw and straining the muscles in her neck.

  “Is something wrong?” I asked her.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Because you’re doing that thing with your neck and jaw.”

  She gave me a confused look. “What thing.”

  “Clenching and straining.”

  She obviously had no idea what I was talking about.

  “It’s just your imagination,” she said.

  “No it’s not,” I said. “You just did it again.”

  She still had no idea what I was talking and was about to say something snarky, when she made a sudden convulsion and started to cough. She tried to talk again but then there was another convulsion. Finally, she looked right at me with a pained, almost helpless expression and managed to get a sentence out.

  “What’s happening to me?”

  That’s when the black liquid started to trickle out of the corner of her mouth.

  Help Needed

  I was in total panic mode. Natalie had just convulsed twice and a small trail of black liquid had started to come out of the corner of her mouth. The first thing I thought of was the man my mother killed in the boathouse. Black liquid came out of his mouth right before he died.

  “Have you been underground to recharge today?”

  She tried to talk but she couldn’t. Instead she just shook her head.

  “What about yesterday?” I asked.

  She shook her head again.

  “We need to get you recharged right now,” I said urgently as I tried to think of where we could go. I remembered how the Blockhouse worked as a supercharger. It would be perfect, but we were at the corner of Fort Washington Avenue and West 181st Street, and that was at least five miles away.

  “Let’s get you to the subway station,” I said, pointing toward a metro sign just up the street.

  She had another convulsion as we walked. I put my arm around her and steadied her by holding her shoulder with one hand and her arm with the other.

  “You can make it,” I said, trying to convince myself as much as I was trying to convince her. “You are the toughest, strongest person I know, and you can make it.”

  She was getting weaker, and for the last few steps she staggered and almost fell. Just as we got to the entrance, I realized where we were.

  “I’ve got a better idea,” I said. “You just have to make it one more block to Bennett Park.”

  She gave me a desperate look and managed to force out a single word.

  “Under . . . ground.”

  I thought about the subway station and how hard it would be to get down the stairs to a good location. I was certain I had a better plan.

  “This will be better,” I said looking deep into her eyes. “Trust me.”

  She coughed again, and I worried that she might not be able to make it any farther, but she nodded.

  “I . . . trust . . . you.”

  It didn’t help that Bennett Park has the highest elevation in all of Manhattan. We had to work our way uphill every step, and over the last fifty yards I was practically carrying her. Luckily, my father had taught me the fireman’s carry he learned as a paramedic. I didn’t quite have her all the way up on my back, but it was close.

  I’m sure she thought I was crazy. But then we made it to the park and my thinking became obvious. The reason Bennett Park is the highest point on the island is because the entire park is built on an outcropping of Manhattan schist that was forced upward during the Ice Age.

  We staggered into the park and I gently helped her lie down on the rock formation. An old man was walking his dog and looked over at us to see if we needed any help.

  “She’s just feeling sick and needs to rest,” I said.

  He gave us a suspicious look, but his dog was pulling him in a different direction, so he left the two of us alone. I held her head in my lap and talked to her as calmly as I could.

  “You’re going to be fine,” I told her. “We’ll stay here for as long as you need.”

  Her skin was pale, but her eyes looked sharp and I considered that a huge plus. She kept eye contact and I smiled at her.

  “I know you’re still mad at me and I understand that,” I said. “If it helps, you should know that I’m pretty mad at myself too.”

  She closed her eyes for a moment and I panicked, but when she opened them back up she smiled. “It helps a little,” she said in a faint voice.

  “Don’t talk,” I told her. “Just rest.”

  After about twenty minutes she was strong enough to sit up and talk, and after an hour she regained almost all of her strength.

  “You can’t do that,” I said. “You can’t go a whole day without going underground. That’s not an option.”

  “I know,” she said. “Although, when I wanted to go underground, you took me here to the highest spot on the island.”

  We both laughed.

  “Well, as you’ve pointed out, I stick out like a sore thumb down there and I knew this rock would help out.”

  “You and the parks,” she said with a chuckle. “You know them so well.”

  “Well, this isn’t just any park,” I told her. “This was the site of Fort Washington, where the father of our country tried to save New York.”

  “Just like you saved me,” she said. “You’re my George Washington.”

  I laughed. It’s amazing how much that lifted the guilt I had been carrying around.

  “Considering how many times you’ve saved my life, I figured it was the least I could do.”

  She reached over and squeezed my hand. “Thank you, Molly.”

  I still felt guilty about accusing her of being a Level 2, but from that moment on, things were good between Natalie and me.

  The next day we were at lunch, telling Alex about Washington’s escape across Manhattan (and leaving out the part about Natalie’s near death experience), when Grayson showed up excited about something.

>   “What’s up with you?” asked Natalie. “Did some new comic book come out today?”

  He gave her a look. “Today is Tuesday. Comic books come out on Wednesdays. If you’re going to make sarcastic comments about someone’s legitimate interests, you should get your basic facts right.”

  We all laughed, Natalie loudest of all. “You don’t know how much I truly love you, Grayson. You are one of a kind.”

  “Well, you’re about to love me more,” he said, “because I think we may have gotten the break we’ve been looking for.”

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Empire State Tungsten needs help.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Alex.

  “I found a ‘help wanted’ listing that they are looking to hire a new data entry person,” he said. “That would get us inside the office. That would get us access to data. I’d be able to find out what they’re doing with all of the tungsten they’re buying.”

  The three of us exchanged confused looks. “Are you saying that one of us should apply for the job?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “You get the part that Ulysses Blackwell runs the company,” I said. “That’s the same Ulysses Blackwell who we fought against in hand to hand combat on New Year’s Eve. I’m pretty sure he’d recognize any one of us.”

  This snag frustrated him.

  “I get that,” he said. “I’m not saying that we should just walk right in there. But we can put on a disguise and some makeup. We’ve snuck into flatline parties before. How is this different?”

  “For one, it’s not a darkened tunnel filled with people trying to get away from a world that despises them,” Natalie said.

  I hated to think that’s how she saw her condition.

  “And if you remember, we barely made it out of a couple of those parties as it is. Now you’re talking about going into a professional situation at a time when the undead are ready to launch a war against us if they get the slightest hint we’re causing problems. When it comes to acting, we’re not that good.”

  He slumped as he realized she was right. He was so close to reaching something that had eluded him for weeks. But it was still out of reach.

  Or was it?

  “You know who is that good at acting?” Alex asked.

  Grayson thought about it for a moment and smiled. “You’re absolutely right.”

  “Who?” asked Natalie.

  “Molly’s sister,” said Alex.

  “Beth?” I asked. “Now you guys really have gone nuts.”

  “Have we?” asked Grayson. “She’s super talented. Remember all those voices she did at your party. She’d be amazing.”

  “And, Ulysses doesn’t know her at all. None of the undead know her. They can’t recognize somebody they’ve never seen before.”

  Natalie and I exchanged a look. “And the part about her not being an Omega,” I said. “What’s your solution for that?”

  “I don’t know,” said Grayson. “But Milton said it himself. If we can figure out how Marek’s paying for this, then we have a good chance of figuring out why he’s doing what he’s doing. I’ve tried everything I can to find out what this company is up to, and I’ve come up dry. This may be our only real chance.”

  “You want my sister to get a job at Empire State Tungsten?”

  “I don’t want her to get the job,” he said. “I just want her to apply for it. That way she can go in there and get a look around. The smallest piece of information might be all we need.”

  It seemed utterly impossible, but I also knew that he might be right about one thing. It might be the only way for us to find what we were looking for. So even though the idea was totally bananas, that night I knocked on the door of Beth’s room.

  “Come in,” she said.

  She was at her desk, doing homework, when she looked up at me.

  “I have a question I want to ask you,” I said.

  “It must be important if you knocked,” she said. “You never knock.”

  “It is important,” I said. “But it’s also . . . confusing.”

  Beth laughed. “Sometimes you really are strange, you know that?”

  “You have no idea how strange. Anyway, I want to ask you for a favor, but I can’t explain why I need the favor. You just have to trust me that it really is important.”

  I expected her to kick me out right then, but she didn’t. Instead she turned in her seat and looked right at me, a curious look on her face.

  “Does this have something to do with Omega?”

  The Job Interview

  I stared at Beth, totally astounded. “You know about Omega?”

  She smiled. “I guess I do. At least sort of. About a month before Mom died, I was hanging out with her at the hospital. I forget where you and Dad were, but it was just the two of us. And ice cream. Even though she wasn’t supposed to have any, she’d smuggled a quart of Rocky Road into her room and said we had to ‘destroy all the evidence before the nurses came back.’ So we just sat there with two spoons and ate it right out of the carton while we talked.”

  “What did you talk about?” I asked.

  “Boys . . . college . . . you name it. She wanted to cover as many topics as possible, all the things we wouldn’t get the chance to talk about later. She told me some great stories, some embarrassing ones, and gave me advice, a lot of which I’ll pass on to you when the time is right. It was the most perfect hour of my life. In a year filled with so many terrible memories, it’s the only great one.”

  “So what does that have to do with Omega?”

  “We were laughing about something, and then from out of the blue she said that one day you might come to me asking for a favor that didn’t make much sense. Apparently she knew what she was talking about because that’s just what you did. And she said that even if it sounded really strange, before I said no I should ask you if it had to do with Omega.”

  “And if it did?” I asked.

  “Then she told me I should do it, no questions asked.”

  I couldn’t believe it. That is so like my mother to foresee this situation, and even more like Beth to go along with it.

  “Well she was right,” I said. “This favor is for Omega.”

  “Then I’m in,” she replied. “Just tell me what you need.”

  “That’s it? You really aren’t going to ask me why?”

  “I gave my word, little sister,” she said. “If we lose faith and trust, then we’ve lost everything.”

  It sounded just like something Mom would say. It’s funny. People always think that I’m like her because I love science and because I inherited her mismatched eyes. As far as I’m concerned, it’s the biggest compliment in the world. But the truth is, I think that Beth is the one who’s more like her. They both have a blend of confidence and compassion that I could never hope to pull off. I walked over and gave her a hug.

  “Thank you.”

  “I told her I’d do it,” she said.

  “Not about that,” I replied. “Thank you for being such a great sister.”

  She hugged me back, and it took me a moment before I could move on. Finally I let go and we both wiped some tears from our eyes.

  “All right,” she said. “Tell me what I have to do for this favor.”

  “You have to do what you do best,” I said. “You have to act.”

  I gave her the basics about the job opening, and the next day after school Grayson came over and filled her in on some specifics. He wanted her to look for anything she could find out about what was happening to the tungsten the company was buying. He also said it would be great if she could get the names of any of the employees.

  Beth scheduled an interview for the following day. Unfortunately, the only time they had open was at three thirty. Since we didn’t get out of school until three, that didn’t leave us much time to get there and be close by if she needed any help.

  Alex, Grayson, Natalie, and I practically sprinted the moment the bell rang. We didn�
��t have time to come up with an elaborate plan for our trackers, so we just split into pairs and kept away from each other.

  Alex and I took the subway and went to Leonardo’s, the pizza place a block from the Chrysler Building. Meanwhile, Grayson and Natalie rode the Roosevelt Island tram across the river and then took a cab to Grand Central. All of us were close by, but hopefully we weren’t close enough to each other to set off any alarms with the Dead Squad.

  Five minutes before her interview was scheduled Beth and I exchanged texts.

  BETH: Getting on the elevator. Feeling very employable.

  MOLLY: Good luck! Text the moment you’re done.

  And that was it.

  As nerve-wracking as it is to go undercover or do any kind of secret surveillance, it’s far worse when you have to sit and wait while someone else does it. Everything is out of your control, and all you can do is worry. What made this especially bad was that it was all new to Beth and she didn’t really know what she was getting into.

  “Relax,” Alex said when he noticed that I was nervously twisting the straw from my soda. “She’s going to do fine.”

  “What are they saying?” I asked, motioning to the walkie-talkie in his backpack.

  “Nothing unusual,” he said, trying to reassure me. “Everything is okay.”

  In the course of the next five minutes, I must have checked my watch about forty times. I already regretted putting her in this position.

  “Would you like to listen in?” Alex asked, hoping it might calm my nerves if I had something to do.

  “Yeah. That would be good,” I said.

  I moved to the other side of the table and sat next to him in the booth. He only had one pair of earbuds, so we had to sit close together and share, each of us using one from the same set. Their conversations were filled with police lingo, so I didn’t understand a whole lot of what was being said, but there was no sense of urgency or alarm. I took that as a good sign.

  When I checked my phone again, it was 3:55. I figured she would be done at any moment. Then I heard a call on the radio.

  “Advise. Eagle is on the move with full detail.”