by Hunter Shea
“Past the new apartments. I saw them turn into one of the older buildings on Rathmore. They went in the back, and then I lost sight of them. But they have to be in that building.”
“That makes perfect sense,” Buck said. “Those old buildings are solid as hell. A lot of them have fallout shelters in their basements. Cold War construction and fears. Figures cockroaches like that would be there.”
Daniel held out his hand to Gabby, who helped him from the love seat. “You want to help me get some food for everyone?” He turned to Liz. “We’re going to eat and rest. When the sun goes down, we’re heading to Rathmore and we’re getting Miguel back.”
Elizabeth wanted to go now. Knowing her baby was just a few blocks away brought a leaden weight on her chest.
But Daniel was right. They were in no shape to go anywhere at the moment. Plus, in the light of day, they could be easily spotted.
Buck said, “Miguel is alive and well.”
“How do you know?”
“They basically told us. Called him Little Man. Said they had plans for him.”
“Plans, what kind of plans?”
Buck closed his eyes. “They didn’t say. I was glad to get that much out of them. At that point, I needed to keep them busy so Alexiana could make them realize the error of their ways. The good thing is, I think they’re scared of us now. We’ve taken out a handful of their members. They thought you and Dan were out of the picture. When he showed up, that got them thinking.”
Daniel came back with an armful of cans, placing them on a white-clothed table. “Eat up, everyone.” Gabby brought over forks and napkins.
While Elizabeth chewed on a cold, white potato, she couldn’t keep from thinking this was their last supper. She forced every morsel down, each swallow helped along by one word.
Miguel.
136
As the sun began to set, it was decided by the adults that Gabby would stay in the restaurant when everyone went to find Miguel. The thought of being alone terrified her.
“Mom, Dad, please let me go. I promise I’ll stay out of the way.”
Her father sat on a nearby chair so he could be eye to eye with her. “It’s not a matter of being in the way or not. Where we’re going will be dangerous. I can’t risk having you there.”
She felt the steady burn of tears building up. “But Max is going.”
Her mother said, “What gave you that idea?”
“Because he said he was.”
Her father looked to her brother, frowning. “Max, I need you to stay here with your sister. If something should happen to us, she’ll need you to protect her.”
If something should happen to us.
The words, spoken aloud so matter-of-factly, made her tremble all over. If something did happen and they didn’t come back, what would she and Max do? Keep walking until the next group of animals tore them apart? Stay in here until there was no more food and water and die of starvation and dehydration? Max was strong and brave, but he was still just a kid, her goofy big brother. How could he take on this new and dangerous world with her?
Gabby said, “What if we came with you but hid in a building across the street?”
“We don’t know how secure any of the buildings are on Rathmore. At least here, we know you’ll be safe. We’ll even set up a barricade on the outside when we leave,” her father replied.
She felt her mother’s steady hand stroking her hair from behind. “I know it’s scary, honey, but we have to protect all of our children.”
Gabby turned on her mother. “The way you protected Rey?”
The moment it came out, she wished she’d never said such a horrible thing. What is wrong with you? It wasn’t Mom and Dad’s fault that Rey got sick.
But wasn’t that the point? Even parents couldn’t protect their kids anymore. Every monster in every closet and under every bed had been set loose. Protection was an illusion.
Her mother’s face went cold and still.
“You’ll stay here with Max,” she said, walking away.
She watched Buck whisper something in Max’s ear, and saw him hand her brother a gun, which he quickly placed on the chair next to him, moving it under the table with his foot.
Now the tears did come, and nothing her father said could make things better. Max pushed the love seats against the door as soon as they left with Buck and Alexiana. He went to the window, settling into a chair, propping his feet on another.
“You want to watch them?” he asked. She could tell he was angry, forced to babysit when he knew he could help get Miguel out of the gang’s hideout. She dabbed her tears with the corner of a tablecloth.
“No.”
137
When the man with the missing ear had opened the cage door and yanked him from the mattress, Miguel was sure he was taking him out to hurt him . . . or worse. One side of his head was caked in dried blood, rivers of it snaking down his neck.
“Time to earn your keep,” he’d said, digging his hard fingers into Miguel’s arm and pulling him along.
“You’re hurting me,” Miguel said.
The man pushed him against the wall, and next thing he knew, there was a gun pointed under his chin.
“Do I look like I give a shit?”
Miguel was afraid to shake his head, and terror had made his voice disappear. Something hot bloomed in his pants. The man looked down and smiled, but it wasn’t a happy smile.
“Aren’t you a little too old not to be potty trained?”
He put the gun away and pulled Miguel along, his shoulder blade aching, near the point of dislocation.
Miguel thought it couldn’t get worse than this.
He was wrong.
The one-eared man said he had a job for him to do. Miguel didn’t dare ask. If he said the wrong thing, he’d have a gun back in his face.
They walked up the apartment building’s dark stairs. It smelled of untold ethnic meals, mildew, and something Miguel had only smelled when the wind blew a certain way when he and his family were walking after they left Buck’s shelter. Stopping on the second floor, the man kicked and kicked at an apartment door until it sprang open, slamming into the interior wall, motes of plaster spiraling in the stale air.
He pushed the bandanna over his nose and mouth. Miguel wondered why he’d do such a thing until the overpowering odor nearly knocked him over.
“Now, get in there and look for food,” the man said, handing him a supermarket bag. “When you’re done with the kitchen, look in the medicine cabinet and bedrooms for prescriptions. You know what those bottles look like, right?”
Miguel eyed the gun that was back in his hand. He nodded quickly.
The man planted his foot in Miguel’s behind and shoved him into the apartment, slamming the door closed after him.
“Knock when you’re done,” he said from the other side of the door.
The first apartment had been beyond terrible. Miguel couldn’t help throwing up in the hallway. He went to the kitchen on unsteady legs, filling the bag with cans and boxes of cereal. When he came to the living room, he threw up again on an empty rocking chair.
An old man and woman lay on the couch, dead, decaying. There were so many flies on them, it was impossible to see their faces. Miguel ran past the couch, flies buzzing after him. He threw any amber pill bottle he could find into the bag and dashed out of the apartment, careful not to look at the man and woman.
The door flew open when he knocked.
The man eyed the full bag, as well as the vomit on his shirt.
“That’s some sick fucking shit, right, Little Man?”
Miguel was too nauseous to reply. He handed the bag to the man, who pulled another one out of his back pocket.
“One down, a whole lot more to go,” he said, turning to the next apartment and kicking down its door.
And so it went for Miguel, the growing heat intensifying the smell as he raided apartments for supplies, always under the watchful eyes of the dead and the constant hum of feeding fli
es.
138
Each breath felt like a ragged knife was being raked across his chest. Buck volunteered to take the rear and watch their backs, because he knew he couldn’t keep pace with Liz and Dan. Alexiana hung between them, always looking back to make sure he hadn’t dropped to the pavement.
Just do this and you can rest for as long as you like, buddy. No chores, no clocks, no nothing but sleep.
The pessimistic side of him, which had been growing in strength the longer they wandered the city with no sign of hope or help, said, Might as well push it, old man. You’re probably not making it out of here alive, so what’s the point in resting?
Rathmore Street was the demarcation line between the gentrified waterfront and the lost cause. There had been plans to tear this entire neighborhood of crumbling apartment buildings down, but the money dried up and people lost interest. The pavement in the street even changed the moment they stepped onto Rathmore, smooth blacktop giving way to cracks and potholes big enough to bathe a toddler in, the old cobblestones visible in some areas.
It was dark as hell, but Buck remembered it always being this way. When streetlights blew out here, the city didn’t see the need to replace them. The people who lived here preferred the dark.
Daniel and Elizabeth pulled up behind an old Buick with no tires across the street from the apartment building they’d seen the Nine Judges enter. It was five floors, a good number of the windows boarded over. Other windows were open, curtains billowing out with the night breeze. It was hard to believe that people actually called the place home.
“We have to be extra-careful about critters down this way,” Buck wheezed. “Before the animals lost their minds, this area was home to more rats than you could count in a lifetime.”
Dan held his pistol between two hands, studying the building. “Then we’d better not wait out here long.”
Before Buck could tell him it was best to wait a few minutes to make sure they hadn’t been spotted, Daniel and Elizabeth were off and running down the side alley, headed for the rear of the building.
“Damn,” he hissed, grabbing Alexiana’s hand and following them, crouched as low as he could without passing out from the pain in his ribs. Dan held up his hand, ordering them to stop.
Voices filtered through the alley.
“I don’t know how much longer we can stay here, man,” someone said. “I’m gonna go crazy if I don’t get me some pussy.”
“All that shit we had stored inside, we forgot bitches,” another replied. “I hear you. Maybe we should head up to some of those nice hoods, like the ones they got in Briarcliff and shit. It’s a new world, you know what I’m sayin’? We need to step up to high-class bitches.”
The men laughed, their humorless chuckling fading as they walked inside. A door slammed behind them.
Buck wondered how many of the gang members were left. It seemed hopeless to pray for a manageable number. Was anyone even listening anymore?
Alexiana tapped his arm.
The back courtyard of the building looked out on a vacant lot, the high grass sloping to the banks of the Hudson River. The grass moved and sounded as if it were alive. Something was coming—a whole lot of somethings.
“It’s now or never, Dan,” Buck whispered. “Pretty soon, we’re going to have company.”
The old gate separating the properties rattled as what Buck assumed were furry bodies passed through it.
“I guess it’s a sign not to hesitate,” Dan said. He made for the back door, the women on his heels. Buck followed, keeping one eye on the yard. They were all inside the door before he could see what had gotten their scent. He wedged the door closed.
“We’ll have to leave through the front,” he said.
They had enough to contend with. He had no desire to see what would be waiting for them in the back.
139
The gang had left battery-operated lanterns at varying intervals on the floor, trails of light leading to their left and right. They were in a main room right now, a place where the super would have stored things for the building at one time, leading to a laundry room.
Daniel’s senses recoiled. There were soiled, threadbare mattresses everywhere. The smell alone told him this was a place where people came to get high and screw. The Nine Judges were obviously not fans of Home and Garden TV. They heard more people talking, but it wasn’t possible to tell where the voices were coming from.
“Do you want to split up?” Elizabeth said.
“No,” Daniel replied, his voice as low as it could go. “We need to stay together. I think we should go where we don’t think the gang will be. If we’re lucky, we can find Miguel without confrontation.”
“We’re due for a splash of good luck,” Buck said. “So, which way do we go?”
Daniel chewed on his lower lip. His nerves were tingling so much, he wanted to jump out of his own skin. He was a software developer and web designer, for Christ’s sake. Rambo he was not. But Rambo he would be if that’s what was necessary to get his son back.
“Left,” he said. “I think the ones talking are to the right.”
He could see how this was a perfect fallout shelter. It was like being in an underground tunnel system, like the vast catacombs under Grand Central Terminal. He’d gotten a tour of them many years ago from a friend who worked for the MTA. They carried bats. When Daniel asked why, his friend simply said, “Rats.”
“How big do they get down here?” Daniel had asked.
“Fucking huge. The people down here can be worse. Some of them haven’t seen the outside for years. When they see the bats, they back off.”
Luckily, they had seen neither rats nor underground dwelling people. But the strangeness of the day had never left him.
As they carefully made their way down the hallway, various rooms opened up, dark and piled with junk. Some of the rooms were barred with locked cage doors. They must have been places where residents stored things like their bicycles, baby carriages, and other outdoor items.
They came to the end of the long hallway. Daniel looked through the grimy window in a door that had been rusted shut, spying a crumbling staircase. If any gang members went through here, they had to be strong as an ox to get the door to budge.
The path of least resistance was not in the cards for them.
“Buck and I will take the lead,” he said. “If you shoot, be careful and know exactly who you’re shooting at. We don’t want to hit Miguel by accident.”
Holding him back for a second, Buck said, “The only way we get Miguel back is if we take them hard and fast. Don’t give them time to react.”
Daniel’s gut clenched into a burning knot.
“Trust me, I won’t.”
He led the way down the hall. One of the rooms ahead glowed brightly. They could see shadows cast on the wall of people moving about. They crept to the edge of the wide door frame. He looked back at Elizabeth. She was surprisingly calm.
This is what we’ve become, Daniel thought.
He held up his hand, counting down from five. Buck, Elizabeth, and Alexiana nodded.
Taking a breath, Daniel swung into the room. There were a half dozen of the Nine Judges, drinking warm bottles of beer, sitting on overturned plastic crates. Several lanterns and boxes of Slim Jims were on a folding card table in the center of the room.
“Where’s my son?” Daniel demanded, his gun wavering between two of the gang members who had risen from their crates only to take a few wary steps back. The air was hazy, smelling of skunk weed.
“Hey, man, don’t shoot, all right?” one of them said, glassy eyes wide and unfocused.
“The boy you took, where the fuck is he?” Buck said.
“We don’t know nothing about no boy.”
Elizabeth shouted, “Bullshit! You tell me where my son is right now or I’ll shoot you in the stomach. You know how long it takes to die from a gut shot? The pain will make it feel like forever.”
Suddenly, one of the gang member
s, a man in a dirty white T-shirt with a scraggly, wiry beard, smiled.
“Oh, you mean the little kid we got doing corpse duty?” he said.
Daniel was almost overcome by an urge to shoot him in his grinning face.
“Where . . . is . . . he?” he said, his finger tensed on the trigger. Maybe they should just shoot them all and search the building for his son without having to worry about interference.
The gang member pointed to a spot over his shoulder.
Daniel slowly turned around, his gun still trained on the bearded bastard.
The man with the lumpy head stood in the doorway, holding Miguel by his shirt collar, practically lifting him off the floor.
He wasn’t alone.
140
Elizabeth screamed for a variety of reasons. There was her son, his shimmering eyes filled with dread. Beside him were four heavily armed gang members, rendering their surge impotent. She didn’t dare shoot, lest everyone follow suit. No one would survive in the cramped space, least of all Miguel, the only innocent among them.
“Give me my son,” she said.
“Put your guns down,” the strange-looking man with one ear grunted, lifting Miguel higher. She saw the red burn where the shirt cut into her son’s neck. She desperately wanted to run to him.
Everyone was too stunned to move.
“It wasn’t a question. I said to put your motherfucking guns down. If you don’t want to do what I say, I can always choke Little Man right here until you get the point.”
Elizabeth let the Beretta clatter to the ground. Daniel and Buck did the same. When Alexiana saw what was happening, she followed suit.
“That’s more like it. Now, I think we should all be honest with each other. Like, for instance, I tell you the truth when I say you’re not getting out of here. Not alive, anyway. But not until we’ve had a chance to let off . . . a little steam. Besides, we’ve got a little unfinished business to tend to.”
He eyed Elizabeth and Alexiana hungrily.
“Y’all could use a little washing up, but that’s what we have Little Man for. Shit, we’ll even let your men watch. I see that shit all the time on YouPorn. Middle-aged white men gettin’ off on watching their wives with a black man.”