by Jack Hunt
“But we don’t stand a chance against them.”
“So what? You don’t like the odds, so you give up?”
I shifted from one foot to the next. “I’m not saying we give up. I’m just—”
“Just what? I won’t let my brother’s death be in vain and neither should you.”
INFILITRATION
THE UNDEAD WERE no longer the biggest threat, a rogue government was. That only became more evident when we returned from the library. The sound of crying mixed with shouting could be heard long before we arrived. A crowd had gathered; some were shoving each other. Wren did what anyone else would do when faced with a large crowd that seemed out of control. She fired a round into the air. The sudden burst of gunfire startled them enough to get their attention, if only for a brief moment.
“What is going on?” she bellowed.
Rowan stumbled out of the crowd, barely able to stand. His face was bloodied and swollen around his left eye. A bead of crimson trickled down, dripping off his chin. The moment I saw him, my eyes scanned the faces for Jess. The crowd parted as Baja and Izzy squeezed through.
“Where’s Jess?”
“They took her. It happened so fast. We didn’t even see or hear them.”
Rowan was gripping the side of his sister. “They’re coming. We need to get out.”
“What? You led them here?” Annora shouted
“There was nothing we could do. We were lucky to escape with our own lives.”
I was hearing their words but the cogs of my mind were working double-time.
Annora led several members of the group to an arms room.
“We need to get out, Annora,” Rowan said.
“I’m done running,” she said as she loaded and locked an assault rifle.
“No, he’s right,” Ben said. “There’s too many of them.”
She stared at him intently.
Thankfully she listened and began barking orders for them to move out.
“Head for the tunnels. Don’t stop until you get to sector B.”
Men, women, and children moved in every direction like ants fleeing an oncoming disaster.
“Johnny, let’s go.”
“How did they know?” I muttered.
“Does it matter? We need to get out of here.”
I scanned faces for Vinny. He was nowhere to be found. Had he told them? There was no telling how long we had before Hive security would infiltrate. I just knew there were more of them than us. It would have been suicide to stay.
“Johnny,” Ben shouted while tossing an assault rifle to Baja. “We need to go.”
Everyone moved fast but it didn’t matter. They were already in the tunnels. Gunfire erupted and the sound of wailing could be heard as people were mowed down. Some killed, others subdued. For a short while we tried to fight back but it was pointless, they were taking down people faster than we could thin out their numbers. I raced out of the central hub with Wren who knew the underground like the back of her hand. I jumped over one person who had been shocked into submission. It was hard to take it all in. A few months ago I would have held my ground and fought back with everything I had, but something had changed. Now I stared at it all having what felt like an out-of-body experience. I saw a bullet break through a six-year-old girl’s neck. Blood squirted as she collapsed. I crouched down to help but it was too late. The light had gone in her eyes.
“Johnny.” Ben grabbed a hold of me and hauled me out as I stared back at the lifeless body. Life had become nothing. It was pure chaos. No sense of leadership or how to deal with a surprise attack. How had they managed to survive this long without being prepared? My thighs screamed in protest as I pushed forward into the darkness that swallowed us up. Behind us all we could hear were the cries of men, women, and children as they were cut down.
I’d never felt so torn, or helpless as in that moment. I looked down to see I was bleeding. In all the running, the wound had opened back up. Blood soaked through the rag and penetrated my shirt. I gripped my side and kept moving with the others, just a body in motion, and a mind that was lost in the chaos.
It’s said that when people are in shock the world around them keeps moving but everything feels slower and quieter to them. That’s exactly how I felt. It was like my entire body had become numb to the horror. We ran for what seemed like an eternity. My lungs were an inferno as we reached the surface and emerged on Whitehall Street. None of us stopped to look back, I have to wonder if the others felt the same as I did. Wren led us towards a massive architectural building across from Bowling Green. It was the National Museum of the American Indian. On the outside were twelve towering pillars and a vast number of concrete steps leading up to double doors. A portion of the right-hand side of the building was gone. Below it was rubble. History meant nothing now. Only survival.
Inside, the glass cabinets that once held artifacts were shattered. Not much had survived the explosion that had torn one side of the building apart. Murals were cracked and sections lay in pieces on the ground.
We entered the rotunda, a central room that had a spectacular oval skylight, murals, and historic paintings. Everything inside was made of white marble. All of the museum’s exhibit halls and galleries were in ruins. The moans of the dead could be heard inside. We knew we weren’t alone. I pulled my machete but did nothing. I watched as the others cleared the rooms. I felt as if I was in a catatonic state. Perhaps like Dax I had finally reached my breaking point. It was only matter of time before it would happen. How long could a person survive out here without mentally unraveling? The news of Jess being taken by the Hive was the final straw.
I stared up at the skylight beneath a blanket of gunfire. My hands shook every time I heard a gun go off. Beyond the window I could see the stars and I wished I was anywhere but here. Minutes passed then silence.
I turned to look for the others and squinted at a figure in the distance. I blinked hard, unable to comprehend what was I was seeing.
In an adjoining room I saw Dax. I didn’t think a person could hallucinate without taking drugs but then again I didn’t think anyone could survive a Z’s bite. Dax stood looking at a painting as if he was still alive.
I looked around, and squeezed my eyes shut. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real. Was the virus finally taking control? Maybe it was all a mistake? I considered the thought that there were no immunes. Maybe they had it all wrong. Perhaps the ones they thought were immune just took longer to turn. Was that possible?
I got up from a circular centerpiece that was filled with water and dead pink flowers and walked into the next room. It was called the Collectors Office. It had a high ceiling with a complex design. The walls were oak paneled. At the far end of the room was a fireplace that was used for display. He was looking at a painting of ancient ships in battle on the wall above him.
“Dax?”
He cast a glance at me before looking back at the painting. “These paintings are incredible. Really.” He chuckled. “I mean, why is it that some people have to die before their potential is realized?”
Like TV noise in the background I could hear the others killing what remained of the undead in the building. I was still trying to make sense of what I was seeing. It was impossible. He was dead. I squeezed my eyes shut again, trying to push the image of him from my mind. But I couldn’t. I swallowed hard. What was happening to me?
“Dax, you’re dead.”
He never answered me, he just continued speaking.
“It makes you wonder, doesn’t it… Do you think they ever wanted to give up?”
I glanced at the painting.
“I…” I stammered not knowing how to respond.
“Do you remember that time dad took us backpacking to Mount Houghton? And we woke up the next morning to find him gone?” He chuckled. “The look on your face. It was priceless.”
I smiled remembering it.
“How could I forget it.” Our father was convinced he could make men out of us by taking u
s into the wilderness. We’d hike for like four or five hours until you had no clue where you were. He’d pitch a tent and then try to teach us about being a man. It was all bullshit of course but not to him. Anyway, on the Mount Houghton trip he left us the middle of the night. It had taken us a day to get there from the summit parking area. I was eleven years of age, Dax was fifteen. When I saw the truck gone, I’d never felt so afraid. We had no idea where the hell we were, nothing except a compass, a map, and one bottle of water between us. He’d taken the rest.
“Do you remember what I said when you were griping about those blisters on your feet?”
“Yeah.”
“Pain is weakness leaving the body,” Dax said. It was some U.S. Marine propaganda shit that was used to encourage people to join the marines at one time. Our father was always pulling these one-liners out of his ass as if they held the answer to life’s problems. Of course it worked for Dax, as he joined, but me… it just pissed me off. I laughed thinking about it. It was crazy to remember all that our father had put us through growing up. At the time he seemed so antagonistic towards us. But I had to wonder if that was life’s way of preparing us for this.
Dax turned to me and whether it was just a memory, a figment of my imagination, or me getting close to death, I’m not sure. But the words rang clear in my head.
“Weakness is leaving your body, Johnny. That’s all this is, brother. Weakness leaving your body. Now shake your shit off. Get your ass up and finish this.”
Then, a different voice pulled me back.
“Johnny?”
I blinked hard and Dax was gone. Standing across from me now was Ben.
Had I even had a conversation with him? In that moment I thought I had. It seemed so real.
“Are you okay?” Ben asked, looking at me with his brow knit together.
He gripped my arm and looked me over. I nodded and then everything snapped back, like waking up from a deep sleep and becoming aware of who and where you are.
As each of them returned covered in blood, I found myself aware of what I needed to do. That’s the only way I can describe it. It was a sense that my brother had shown me the road ahead, like when we hiked out of that wilderness. I didn’t think we would survive. I was certain search and rescue would find our decaying bones somewhere in the sand being chewed on by a vulture. But never once did Dax seem scared. He marched us out of that wilderness like he was taking a trip to the store to buy candy. It was nothing to him. Just another challenge.
“Rowan, tell me what happened,” I asked. He was wiping blood from his brow.
“They know about you, Johnny. They want you. That’s why they took her.”
“How could they? We only found out ourselves a short time ago,” Izzy said.
Rowan tossed his bloodied rag on the floor. “I guess there is a mole among us. Someone must have told them.”
Wren shook her head. “No, that’s impossible. Everyone that was at the camp would put their own life in jeopardy before they would do that.”
“Vinny wasn’t there,” I muttered.
“That bastard. I knew we shouldn’t have trusted him.”
“Well, I say we hold up here for a while, then go to sector B and join whoever is left.”
“Then what?” I said.
Wren frowned. “Annora will know.”
“If she’s alive,” Rowan added.
“And if she doesn’t?”
A silence fell over us. They were looking to this woman to solve all of their problems. How often did people do that in society? Look to a president, a prime minster, a religious teacher, or a parent for answers only to realize they didn’t know either. All they were doing was regurgitating what they had been told. A repetitive pattern of living life through a series of actions and consequences. Some that worked and others that didn’t.
No one knew what to say. All of this had come at us so fast. I could see that what remained of society was holding on by a thread. Whoever thought they knew what to do was immediately placed on a pedestal. But really... How much did they know more than anyone else? They were in the same predicament. It wasn’t like anyone had been through this scenario. This wasn’t a war as much as it was a house that had collapsed in on itself. And how does a house rebuild itself when those who governed it were the ones responsible for its demise?
For the next few hours we didn’t leave that museum. Outside in the distance we could still hear the sound of gunfire. For a while we thought we would be safe there. How wrong we were. The double doors didn’t fully close, a steady trickle of Z’s found their way in. At first it was the slow ones then the fast ones that shuffled like apes.
We each crouched down and took a corner. Positioned ourselves in a way that no matter how they got in, we could take them out with a bullet before they got close enough to cause any real damage. Rowan was across from me, his back pressed against the wall. His eyes would flick from the door to me and back again.
“You know what you need to do, right?”
I readjusted my assault rifle. “What?”
“Hand yourself in. It just makes sense.”
I slung him a look. “How so?”
“If you care about your girl, you are the only who has anything that could be used as a bargaining chip to get her back. That’s what I would do.”
My eyes went back to the door as a Z came in. His head turned slowly. Milky eyes swept the corridor for flesh. I positioned him in my sight and took the head shot. He slumped to the floor.
“You… have a girl?” I asked.
“Had is the word you are looking for.” He fired off a round bringing another one down. “She’s dead.”
“How come you haven’t asked about Birdy?”
“What?” he said.
“Since we’ve been here. You’ve never asked us about him.”
“Yeah, I have. Just not you.”
“Why do I get the sense you don’t like me?”
“Is it that obvious?”
I pulled twice on the trigger taking out two more Z’s.
“So?”
“I don’t trust you,” Rowan said.
He didn’t expand upon that. At least I didn’t feel alone with my trust issues. I watched him get up and move position. He wasn’t exactly a big talker. Then again neither was I. All of us had been affected by the apocalypse in different ways.
FAUX FAÇADE
SECTOR B WAS BASED in Brooklyn, hence the letter B. What I didn’t know was that one of the Coalition’s bases was located below a house that was fake. On a street close to the East River was a row of historic Greek Revival houses. All of them were situated nine stories above the fourth and fifth subway tracks that carried passengers from Manhattan to Brooklyn. One however was different to the others. For decades it had been used as a ventilator shaft for the subway system. It was the strangest thing I had ever seen. Unless you knew, you would have walked right by it. Steps led up to a stoop, beyond that was a black metal, bunker-style door. The windows either side were sleek and blacked out. Apparently it had been a house back in the 1800s. Sometime in the 1900s as the first tunnel was created below the river, the MTA had bought it, gutted it, and turned it into a ventilator shaft with metal steps that led down to the tracks.
It was some time in the early hours of the morning when we arrived at the base, which was situated between the house on Joralemon Street in Brooklyn and Borough Hall station. They used both the station and the house as a means to exit in the event that the Hive discovered them.
The group in Brooklyn was vastly smaller than the one we had come from. However, its function was similar. It was like a small village underground. Most of the people looked weathered by the grime. Most wore bandanas over their faces to block out the underground dust.
When we arrived Annora was already there. Several people who knew Wren and Rowan ran up and greeted them with hugs while they looked at us with skeptical eyes. I could smell meat cooking, some kind of stew. Children were running around obl
ivious to the threat.
“You made it.”
“The others?” Wren asked.
Annora shook her head. We came to learn that the resistance originally was about eight hundred strong spread out in different areas around New York. However, that number had dwindled down to about four hundred and twenty after several of their camps had been infiltrated and many had been snatched off the streets by Hive security that came out at night and flew over the city by day in helicopters.
Discussion immediately turned to who might have given up the location. Vinny’s name was dropped and Annora placed a hand to her mouth and turned towards a group of children playing.
“I say we go in,” Wren said. “There might not be many of us but it’s something.”
“That’s suicide, Wren,” Rowan said. “Do you want to die?”
“No. But this is not living. Running from place to place, killing the Hive’s men as they come in to get us. How long can we keep this up? It doesn’t matter how many of them we kill out here, they will keep bringing more men to the Hive unless we take it.”
“Why do you even want to get in there?” I asked.
Annora turned around. “It’s the only place that has the equipment that we need for testing.”
I scoffed. “You want to use the same equipment that’s being used to kill people?”
“The same. But differently. I explained this to you, Johnny.”
“Right. You have a different motive than your father. Excuse me if I’m a little skeptical.”
She studied my face. “I understand you have lost your trust in government but what is government? Except a governing body of people like you and me who have rallied together to oversee a community.”
“Control, you mean.”
“I’m not looking to control people like my father, Johnny. I want to liberate them.” She paced around the room, lost in thought.