by Joe McKinney
My legs grow weak. These people are dead. They’re dead, and they’re not. If I think about it too much I might go crazy, so I push the thought to the back of my mind. I watch the little boy stagger from a head shot, and it’s only when he drops to the ground, face-first, that I see his shirt wasn’t always brown. Before all the blood, it had been white.
There’s an older woman who looks like an office worker, a doctor still wearing his white coat, a couple of men wearing orange road worker vests. They all fall, but the tide continues as they veer off the road.
There are so many of them. They make it to the fence, where they push and pull and yank. I can hear them through the window, even over the gunshots. It’s a cacophony of low, rasping cries and drawn-out moans. It sounds like hunger, and we’re the food. I fight the urge to cover my ears with my hands and use them to clench my pistol. The gate swings alarmingly, but it holds.
A flash of light out by the main road illuminates the room. The explosion makes us jump. For a few minutes they’re killed as fast as they come. But then Rodriguez points out the window and shouts. I visibly follow his finger, and the sight forces the air out of my lungs. I tighten my sweaty hold on my gun.
A gigantic throng of infected follows the first. They trip and swarm over the road barricades they’ve knocked to the ground. All the noise must have attracted them. Rodriguez, Park and the others have a loud conversation over the gunfire.
Rodriguez turns to us as they run out. “We’ve got to get out there,” he yells. “We’re gonna kill those motherLexers!”
The Lexers at the fence push. Their fingers stretch through the wire, beckoning us. The fence buckles at the joints where the panels meet; the sheer force of hundreds of bodies is not something it’s made to withstand. I back up, right into a wide-eyed Penny.
It sounds like the finale at the Fourth of July fireworks. My heart booms and my stomach pounds like a bass drum. Please, please, I chant along with it. Please. But, when the second group meets the first at the fence, it bends from the top and the bottom scrapes along the pavement. The seam between two panels of fence cracks. A Lexer on the ground slithers through. He’s missing an arm, and his shirt hangs open to reveal shredded skin and coagulated blood.
“No!” Penny whispers.
When she grabs my arm it stops my trembling. I can’t freak out now. She isn’t armed. And if the Army can’t protect us then we’re going to have to protect ourselves.
The Lexer under the fence grasps a soldier’s foot and drags himself toward his ankle with his one good arm. His teeth sink into boot. The soldier cracks his head with the butt of his rifle and fires on the infected who follow.
The bright lights turn their skin a garish white, which contrasts with the dark blood most wear. Some look like they’re hissing, but it isn’t with any real venom. It’s instinct alone. Their eyes are blank, soulless.
The soldiers retreat into the building. Boots clatter and bang as some head to the roof and the shots resume in earnest. The gate bends lower and gives way with the sound of shearing metal. The Lexers pour through and squeeze between the vehicles. Now that the worst has happened, I’m calmer than I thought I could be. There’s only one thing to do.
“We have to go,” Nelly says. “Grab your bags.”
I throw my straps over my shoulders. The others hurl their heavy packs on and look to Nelly.
“Out the back, to the Palisades?” he asks James and me. We nod.
The soldiers in the lobby pile desks and chairs in front of the glass, while others herd the civilians up the stairs. The mother has the boy in her arms, and a soldier carries the screaming little girl.
Grafton intercepts us. “Where are you going?” he yells.
“The Palisades,” James answers.
Grafton nods. “I can’t say when we’re going to get any backup, but I can’t leave them.”
He gestures at the shell-shocked people. The glass of the front door shatters. A pale arm covered in dark brown hair pushes through the furniture. The jagged edges slice the skin, but it doesn’t stop.
“Go now!” Grafton shouts. “We’ll keep them back as long as we can. Take the exit doors at the end of the hall. It’s clear behind us.”
My pack’s waist strap is unbuckled, and it slams into me and throws me forward with every step. A piercing siren wails as the door flies open. Everyone is through except Peter. He hesitates.
“Peter, come on!” I yell.
His eyes are huge and he jumps at a crash from inside. “I said I’d—”
I can’t believe he’s considering staying. We have to go now; there’s no time to argue.
Ana leans in and pulls his sleeve. “Peter!”
His pack throws him off balance, but he rights himself and staggers through the door. I push it closed before following them onto the grass.
James raises his gun and shouts over the alarm. “Over there!”
Three infected have rounded the corner of the building. Nelly and I aim, but before we can fire they land in three thumps on the ground. I look up in confusion.
“We got you covered to the trees. Go!” shouts a dark form on the roof. I can’t be sure, but it sounds like Rodriguez. I’m glad he’s still alive.
Chapter 24
We stumble over tree roots in the dark until we hit the chain-link fence. Penny’s hastily-produced flashlight throws a beam on the southbound lanes of the Palisades. No cars. No infected, either.
Nelly locks his hands together to give me a boost. I straddle the fence and hit the other side with a thud. Penny and Ana drop down. Dead grass crunches under our feet as we move back so the guys can follow. James hushes us, but there are no sounds of pursuit. I think we would hear them; Lexers don’t have the sense to be stealthy.
We race across the grassy median to where the northbound lanes glow in the moonlight. Shots continue to ring out, but they’re slowing. I don’t know whether that’s good or bad. The only other sounds are our breathing and footfalls. My breath is short and my muscles are tight, but I think I could keep walking along this asphalt road and never, ever stop. I’m not sure how long we walk before we see flashing lights ahead.
James reads the map by a light Penny shelters in her cupped hands. “Looks like an entrance ramp. We can make it down to the Hudson Drive here. What do you guys think?”
“Maybe we should,” I say. “The farther away we are, the better.”
We walk single file in the shadows of the trees. There’s nobody in or around the police cars. Maybe they were called away. Maybe they’re dead. Or maybe they’re dead but alive, which still seems impossible. Penny spots a path in the woods, and we follow it until we hit a board with a map a few yards in.
We’re on a trail called The Long Path. It runs along the top of the Palisades all the way to Rockland County. No one says anything. Every decision we make seems monumental, and I don’t want to be the one to steer us wrong. At the thought of the distance ahead of us, of all the things that could go wrong, the energy drains out of me, like my feet have two rubber stoppers that have been left open. The lights flash through the trees. They turn everyone’s faces red, blue, white, red, blue, white. It makes me dizzy.
“We have to get away from the entrance. Why don’t we stay on the trail?” James suggests. He points to the map. “Here, here and here are trails that head down to the river. Let’s just walk.”
It’s hard to believe we’re surrounded by city as we trudge through the woods. Another mile and I want nothing more than to curl up and sleep. Ana stumbles every third step, and the only thing that keeps her upright is Peter holding her elbow.
The path opens up to an overlook with a view of the George Washington Bridge and Manhattan. It’s darker than usual. I can make out the spire shapes of the Empire State and Chrysler Buildings, but the buildings themselves are dark.
“Looks like brownouts, maybe,” Nelly says.
“Or power plants shutting down,” adds James.
Penny shudders. “I’m so
glad we’re not there.” Then she shudders again. Maybe she’s thinking of Maria, or maybe it’s because the breeze off the river is cold, especially now that the adrenaline is long gone.
“Let’s stop here,” Ana pleads. Her hair’s come out of its ponytail and sticks to her face.
I drop my pack to the ground and rub the knots in my shoulder. This tiny park’s not a bad place to stop. The lampposts will allow us to see if anything’s coming, and we can stay out of sight, if we sleep just inside the trees. Everyone sets down their packs in exhaustion and agreement. There are only four sleeping bags; Peter and I were supposed to share one. Before things can get awkward, I unfasten mine and roll it to Peter.
“Here, I’ll share with Nelly.”
Peter thanks me, but lurking beneath his voice is an emotion that’s definitely not pleasure.
Nelly points a finger at me. “No wiggling, woman. And no funny business.”
The world could be ending, the world may be doing just that, and Nelly wouldn’t be able to pass up the opportunity to make a joke. It may be the number one reason I love him.
“I don’t know if I’ll be able to restrain myself,” I say, thankful he’s saved the moment. “But I’ll have to try, seeing as how we have first watch.” He groans and yawns. “Only forty-five minutes. We all need some sleep.”
Penny and James agree to share next watch. Nelly and I lean against a tree with an emergency blanket under us and the sleeping bag unzipped over top. I snuggle against him. Nelly always smells like the outdoors, like clothes that have dried in the sunshine. Maybe it soaked into him when he was a kid. We stare into the dark long enough for my heart to resume its regular rate.
“You know how we talked about what we would do if the world ended?” he asks.
“Of course.”
It’s fun to discuss over a beer in a warm bar, to imagine that it would be an adventure. And now here we are. I’m exhausted. I’m scared out of my mind. I already feel filthy and despairing.
“I’m glad we were all together. I knew working with you would pay off one day, even if you never let me get anything done.” He pinches me, and I can make out his smile in the pre-dawn light before his face turns grim. “I feel like we’ve been thrust into a horror movie midway, you know? But we didn’t do so badly.”
“Well, it’s certainly not as much fun as it’s cracked up to be. But at least we’re out of there.”
I watch Manhattan’s dark skyline and think about all of those people waiting for help. People who don’t deserve what they’re going to get. People, like Maria, who we love.
The time goes fast. James and Penny practically leap out of their sleeping bag with fright when I touch them. We zip ourselves into their warm nest, and I fall asleep wrapped in Nelly’s arms.
Chapter 25
I awaken to the sound of thunder in the distance, but my face is warm with sunshine. I crack an eye. It’s tired and grainy and begs me to let it rest, but I force it open and see blue sky overhead. I sit up quickly, having forgotten that I’m in a sleeping bag with another human being, and get thrown back down. Nelly grunts but doesn’t wake as I ease myself out. Ana and Peter are fast asleep against the tree. Not that I can really blame them, it’s been a rough night.
Plumes of smoke rise into the air over Manhattan. I move to the edge of the lookout in awe. It looks like a war zone. A louder roll of what I now know isn’t thunder booms. Another plume joins the others to linger like smog over the city. There are exclamations as everyone wakes and joins me. Ana and Peter share a guilty look that they’ve literally fallen asleep on the job.
James leans on the rock wall that lines the cliff and peers into the distance. “The bridges. They’re really doing it, aren’t they?”
As if in answer to his question, a helicopter zooms from the New Jersey side to the middle of the George Washington Bridge, then swoops away and hovers at a distance. The middle of the bridge becomes a blur from the explosion. It thuds in my chest and up through my feet.
We all cry out. Nine million people are about to find out they’ve been left to the wolves. Terror seizes my insides, along with a breathless relief. We’re safe. Safer than them, at least. The suspension cables of the bridge are still there when the smoke clears. They’ve only blown up the roadway. The helicopter retreats back into Jersey.
“Maybe they’re thinking they might need to fix the bridge at some point,” Nelly says icily. “Maybe some poor bastards will be able to walk across what’s left.”
I know what he’s feeling. That could be us in there. That is us in there, people just like us. Peter’s mouth hangs open. He doesn’t think things like this can happen. I touch his hand. I’m so used to touching him that it doesn’t feel strange until he moves his hand away. I want to say it’ll be okay, but I don’t think it will be. I think that’s what’s shocking him most of all.
James roots around in his pack for his iPad. He hasn’t been able to get onto his internet all night, and our phones are useless. I try to send Eric a psychic message. We’re okay. I’m heading to the house. He must be going crazy.
“Got it!” James yells. He sits on one of the benches as we huddle around him. On a news site the headline reads:
Major U.S. Cities Being Abandoned
President, from Undisclosed Location, Calls for Residents to Prepare for Long Siege
Medical Experts Report Infected May Already Be Dead
James reads aloud, “The president announced today that most major cities in the United States were ‘unable to be cleared of infection.’ Every major city in the country reports numbers of sick that are overwhelming and untreatable. Hospitals stand empty. The sick now wander the streets spreading Bornavirus LX.
“The virus, spread through bodily fluids, has torn through the world. All contact with China and much of Europe was lost yesterday. Both were hit with Bornavirus LX only days before the United States.
“Police departments and National Guard units are stretched thin. Many have abandoned their posts to care for their own families, leaving no one to answer calls for help.
“Projections showed that the cities on the East Coast, where the infection was least prevalent, would be fifteen percent infected by this morning, even with curfews in effect. A decision was made to abandon cities and focus efforts on less populated areas.
“ ‘This was not an easy decision,’ the president said this morning. ‘We have not forgotten you. I am sure you all understand the need to keep this infection in check. We ask that you leave your homes only if absolutely necessary. It will only be a matter of days until we can muster our forces to fight the virus. God bless you all.’
“The main arteries out of cities have been barricaded or destroyed. This leaves the president’s detractors to ask how exactly the military plans to come back in after their forces are ‘mustered.’
“ ‘They’re not coming back,’ said a highly-placed government source. ‘Those cities have been written off until the infection dies out on its own.’ When asked how long those infected with Bornavirus live, he replied, ‘That’s the thing. We just don’t know. They aren’t even alive.’
“The rumor that the infected persons may not be alive, even though they appear to be, has been floating around since yesterday. This startling statement was denied by the CDC, but backed up by medical professionals who have been treating patients with the virus. The CDC released a statement last night that read, in part:
There is no known cure for Bornavirus LX. The transmission rate is one hundred percent if you are exposed to the virus and the mortality rate is also one hundred percent. We ask that all citizens take the precautions of staying indoors and not attempting to care for infected loved ones.
“We contacted the CDC to ask how long the infected survive. ‘We have no idea,’ said Marcia Dreyer, a researcher, and the only person who could be reached for comment. ‘Tests have shown that they are not decomposing at the normal rate. Only an injury to the brain, or fire, have killed our test subjects
so far.’ Ms. Dreyer was then ordered to relinquish the phone to a superior, who had no comment.
“Whatever the case may be, it has become clear that Bornavirus LX is rampant and untreatable. The only course of action now is to find somewhere safe and wait out the virus.”
James swigs water from his bottle and clicks on a live audio link. I recognize the voice of the morning anchorman on NY1 news. He has a grin that makes him look like a little kid. Other times, like when he’s reading a particularly ridiculous newspaper headline, he wears an amused smirk that says, Can you believe this shit? What these people are up to?
His normally upbeat voice now sounds exhausted. I imagine the bags that must be under his eyes, how he must finally look his age. The terror he’s trying to keep at bay. I imagine him, possibly at gunpoint, being forced to deliver these lines, to keep people calm.
“…and all access points into New York City have been blocked to make them impassable to infected persons. We are asked to stay indoors until the infection has run its course. FEMA plans food drops for those who need supplies. We will broadcast the drop locations as soon as they are available. All utilities will remain on in the coming days. The president has assured us that help is on the way. Please keep yourselves safe by following these instructions.”
I hear the skeptical tone in his voice and can picture his smile, resigned and bitter, that asks, Can you believe this shit? These lies? And, no. No, I can’t.
Chapter 26
We strap on our packs and walk. I wear my mom’s shoulder holster. I don’t imagine I’m going to get in trouble for carrying a gun in the city right now. When it’s stuck in my waistband I become obsessed with the idea it’s going to shoot me in the butt, however unlikely that may be. I chew an old energy bar until it feels like my jaw is going to give up and die. It’s hard to swallow over the lump in my throat, and I sluice it down with gulps of water.