by Brian Parker
“I never made it to Staten Island,” Grady admitted. “But I spent quite a long time in the city, including a week of counter surveillance training and stealth shadowing operations in a dense urban environment. I wasn’t overly impressed with the parts of the city that our instructors had us train in, though.”
“That container ship over there is like something right out of a post-apocalyptic movie or something.”
Grady laughed. “Hell, sir. Life is like a post-apocalyptic movie these days.”
The lieutenant pointed to his gunner, Corporal Jones, who stood behind the steering wheel of the boat. “Jones is from New Jersey. Grew up on the water and came to New York City a lot as a kid. He says there’s a big harbor about halfway up Manhattan in Hell’s Kitchen that’ll be our best point of insertion. After that, we’ll have to go overland through the city to Columbia University, where the internet rumors say the CDC is working on a cure.”
Grady had come along on the mission, practically planned most of it, so he knew about the labs in the university’s biology department, but he’d done some research of his own on one of the Campbell girls’ cell phones using the intermittent internet connection. He was willing to bet that the CDC information was a ruse in case anyone in the city decided to hit the place. His money was that they’d show up at Columbia’s main campus and be shit out of luck. The real work was going to be happening up in the biochemistry and molecular biophysics labs at Columbia’s Irving Medical Center about three miles north of the main campus. But they had to go to each of them to be sure.
“These people look very friendly to you, Harper?” the lieutenant asked, again gesturing toward the capsized ship with his chin. Grady knew it was to avoid making an overt pointing motion in the direction of the scavengers going through the containers in case they were trigger happy, but he had to laugh because it looked incredibly stupid. Must’ve been one of those dumb shit things they taught these kids at West Point, he thought.
“I don’t know, L.T. The ones that I’ve seen clearly didn’t seem too bad. More like they want to know if we’ve come to save them from this hellhole and if not, just what the fuck we’re doing here. Food’s gotta be scarce, forty more mouths to feed isn’t gonna sit well with anyone.”
Jake nodded. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
Once they passed the container ship, a macabre scene greeted them on the shoreline. A long row of crosses dotted the sand. A person was nailed to each of them. The shouts of alarm from the other soldiers in the boat made Grady raise his arms. “Calm down, everyone. Those people may have been infected or murderers, or rapists. We have no idea what’s going on here.”
Jake tapped Jones on the shoulder. “And we’re not about to find out, Harper. Speed up, Jones. We need to put this place behind us.”
The corporal nodded and pushed the throttle down a little lower. The boat actually leveled out the faster they went, allowing the soldier to sit in the chair instead of stand behind the wheel. Grady turned to make sure the other two boats followed suit, which they did. Then he brought up his rifle, peering through the scope at the crosses.
There must have been thirty or forty of them. The few that he scoped held dead men and women. None of them had a severe amount of blood on them or the telltale red stain on their chests where they’d thrown up that nasty shit, so he believed they’d been human, not infected. He had no way of knowing whether they’d been dead when they were put there or if they died on the crosses, but he imagined that if they were there as a punishment and a warning to others not to do the same things, then they were probably nailed there when they were alive.
“Hell of a way to get your point across,” he muttered, dropping his rifle.
“What’s that?” Jake asked.
“Nothing, L.T.,” he replied. “I’m just thinking out loud about what we’ve gotten ourselves into.”
The lieutenant looked him in the eyes. “We’re doing the right thing here, Harper. We can’t fight against these things forever. Sooner or later, we’re gonna run out of ammo or food, then people have to leave their shelters. I don’t think there’s a way to cure the infected. A vaccine to keep the disease from spreading is about the only way I can see humanity surviving this.”
Grady set his jaw. The way the kid talked about a vaccine was akin to when religious zealots talked about their deity. It wasn’t healthy. Jake had taken Grady’s idea to find a lab to figure out what the hell those scientists had done to him and created an entire world-saving scenario in his mind.
“I’m not sure if those doctors up here will be able to find a way to reproduce what was done to me—if there’s anyone even at the campus anymore.”
Jake ducked his chin, ceding the point. “We have to try though. Otherwise, what’s the point of staying alive if you know you’re guaranteed to become an insane killing machine eventually?”
Grady grinned. “Uncle Sam turned me into an insane killing machine a long time ago, L.T. A damn fine sexy one, too.”
Jake rolled his eyes. “God, have you been drinking?”
They passed under a bridge and a plume of water appeared next to the boat, then another, followed by several more. Grady looked up at the bridge where people were throwing large cinder blocks and bricks from above. “Mother fucker!” he screamed as he brought his rifle up.
“No!” Jake shouted. “We don’t know what they’re doing.”
Grady broke his cheek-to-stock and looked at the lieutenant. “They’re trying to hit our boat, that’s what they’re fucking doing.”
“But we don’t know why. They may just be—”
The second boat took a cinder block right to the bow where a soldier lay. The heavy block punched through the flimsy fiberglass and threw the soldier overboard. The driver slowed and the boat began to take on water immediately.
“No. No. No,” Grady mumbled. Stopping was exactly what the marauders on the bridge wanted. From two hundred feet above, people began to jump and he thought they would surely die from the fall until he saw that they had ropes attached to their chest and midsection. He brought up his rifle. Each of the four men who’d jumped carried large spears that looked like pitchforks and canvas bags hung low from their belts.
“They thought we were fishermen and they’re trying to steal our catch,” he stated aloud as the men were lowered quickly by others standing at the railings. “Well, fuck them.”
By the time he’d shot the third man, the people holding the ropes above abandoned the fourth would-be thief. He fell the remaining hundred and fifty feet, screaming. The whole thing took less than ten seconds. “Gettin’ slow in my old age,” Grady grumbled.
Jake stared wide-eyed at him for a moment, then shouted, “Bring the boat around. Let’s help them.” He looked up at the bridge, adding, “Everyone else, shoot anyone who even peeks over the edge of that bridge.”
They circled back to the second boat. The third was already beside it. “How bad is it?” Jake asked.
Grady appraised the damage in between scanning for targets above. There was a two-foot wide hole through the bow. He couldn’t see from his vantage point how extensive the damage was, but the boat was definitely taking on water. The front was sitting lower in the water than the stern.
Sergeant Turner, who’d been driving the boat, pointed toward the far shoreline. “We’re gonna be lucky if we make it to shore before we sink.”
“Okay. Let’s head for shore and hope you make it,” Jake said. “Not Staten Island, that other side. I don’t want to have to cross that bridge if we don’t have to.”
Grady grunted in approval. Beaching the boats and staying together, even if it meant they had to go overland through the city, was the right call. They couldn’t afford to abandon fifteen men.
Turner’s boat began limping toward the shore while the third boat stayed back to pull the soldier from the water before following behind the second and then alongside the damaged craft. Grady’s boat pulled smoothly into line on the opposite side of Turn
er’s.
“Where are we headed, Jones?” Grady asked.
“I think that’s the Verrazano-Narrows,” the gunner replied, pointing at the massive grey bridge they’d passed underneath. “Which means we’re headed into Brooklyn.”
“How far is that from Columbia University?”
“A long way, man. I don’t even have a guess off the top of my head. It’s at least fifteen miles. Some pretty shitty neighborhoods in between here and there if I remember right, but I’m not an expert on the city.”
Grady glanced over his shoulder back at Staten Island where the crosses were still visible on the beach, and then at the bridge where they’d been attacked from above. They hadn’t even stepped foot into the city yet and he knew it would be the toughest mission of his life. Fifteen miles on foot through neighborhoods that were bad before the end of the world seemed like some pretty shitty odds that they wouldn’t make it to the university where the labs were supposed to be.
As they neared the shoreline, he saw that a paved path ran along the water’s edge, bounded by a waist-high guardrail for as far as he could see. Jake steered the little flotilla toward the gentlest slope where they could beach their boats and hopefully avoid getting completely soaked when they jumped out.
The boats crunched as they hit the rocky shallows. “This is where we get off, boys. Make sure you lock up.” A few half-hearted chuckles responded to Grady’s dumb joke. He lifted his pack onto his back and splashed into the water beside the boat. The water poured in over the tops of his boots, soaking his feet and sending an electric shock up his spine.
He maneuvered his way up the bank to the guardrail and then rolled over it until his boots were on the bike path’s solid pavement. Kneeling, he scanned the highway beyond for threats as the rest of the platoon made their way off the boats and up to the road where he was. Several soldiers followed his example, kneeling to keep an eye out for anything that was out of place.
Taavi sat down beside him, not bothering to keep watch. “Happy to be back on land, buddy?” Grady asked.
“You have no idea,” the Iranian said. He pulled up the cuff of his jacket to expose the small compass on his watch. He moved his arm around for a moment until the little ball inside spun freely and he examined it closely. When he was satisfied, Taavi faced eastward and got onto his knees to pray.
When everyone was together, Jake pointed in their original direction of travel along the water. “Jones says if we keep going this way, we can take the path all the way around until we come to the first set of docks that we’d looked at for landing before we found the harbor way up in Manhattan.
“As far as we know, there aren’t any infected in the city,” Jake continued. “So don’t assume that everyone we come across is a threat.”
“But don’t let yourselves get suckered into an ambush,” Grady cautioned. The soldiers nodded in agreement.
Jake gave him a hard look before continuing. “We are US Army soldiers. We will not shoot citizens who don’t pose a direct threat. Understood?” Several people grumbled in acknowledgement. “But, like Mister Harper said, don’t let anyone get the drop on you. Alright, we’ve got a long way to go through some pretty rough neighborhoods. I want to make it at least halfway before we have to find a spot to hole up for the night. Let’s get moving.”
“You heard the lieutenant, men,” Sergeant Turner hissed. He’d seemingly mastered the art of adding a menacing tone of authority to his voice while keeping the sound low enough that it wouldn’t travel far. “We’re walking from here on out. Keep your heads on a swivel and don’t bunch up in case we stumble into some type of goddamned ambush.”
“Come on, Taavi,” Grady said, stepping off behind Jake. “We’ve got miles to go before we sleep.” While he tried to be upbeat with his quote from the famous poem, he was confident that he’d just taken his first step on the road to hell.
EPILOGUE
* * *
LIBERAL, KANSAS
MARCH 1ST
Basir dove behind the truck into the snow piled up alongside the road as bullets pinged off the big vehicle’s hood. Glass from the windows rained down on him. He was confused and scared. They were supposed to take over this country with ease. The population had been wiped out and the Cursed were starving to death, if not already dead.
“Don’t just lay there, you idiot,” Sergeant Dehkordi barked. “Return fire. Kill the infidels.”
Basir looked to his squad leader to see if he was exposing himself to return fire. Of course he wasn’t. The man cowered behind the tire at the rear of the vehicle. “Why are you not shooting?” he asked the older man.
“Do as I say, Private,” Dehkordi ordered.
Basir shook his head. He didn’t want to die in the middle of the United States, his corpse frozen for all time in the icy wastes. How could anyone live here? Why would anyone live here? he amended. He needed more information. Maybe it was all just a misunderstanding.
“Who is shooting at us, Sergeant?”
“Does it matter? Now get up and start firing!”
“What if it’s somebody from the battalion and they are mistakenly firing upon us?” That was a very real possibility. The Cursed made everyone jumpy. They’d killed hundreds of them over the past two weeks, but there were still many thousands more just in the local area. The commander had several teams like this one patrolling the countryside to eliminate the Cursed in the vicinity of the airfield.
He risked a glance underneath the truck to where his squad mates, Piruz and Marzban, lay bleeding in the road. Piruz was certainly dead; the thick mass the color of putty protruding from the back of his head was what was left of his brain. Marzban was probably dead as well. He’d been hit several times and was unmoving. The white of his coveralls had multiple deep red stains across his chest and abdomen.
His friends were not hit by errant fire from Iranian scouts. They were under attack from Americans. Those very same people they’d come here to help were attacking them. The thought infuriated him.
“Allāhu Akbar!” Basir shouted as he surged upward. He fired several rounds from his AK over the hood of the truck in the direction that he thought the ambush had originated.
Suddenly, his vision blurred as he spun around, facing the opposite way than he’d been facing. His knees buckled and he fell to the snow once more. A dull throb in his shoulder made him wonder if he’d dislocated it when he fell. He didn’t understand how that had even happened. Had he slipped?
No. That was unlikely, he’d— Pain rocked his body as the quick burst of adrenaline wore off. Basir looked to his shoulder; a flap of ragged flesh was all that remained of his deltoid muscle. Hot blood poured from the wound, melting the snow and turning it red.
A buzzing in his ears threatened to overtake his ability to hear Sergeant Dehkordi’s insistent shouting. “Private Khadem! Are you injured?”
Basir fought the thickness of his own tongue. His vision was going dark at the edges and he shook his head to clear his mind. “They shot me, Sergeant.”
“How bad is it?”
He tried to bring his hand up, but he was having a hard time fighting through the blackness. When he did manage to lift his hand, he saw that it was covered in blood as well. “Oh…” he muttered, holding it up in front of his eyes. He’d been shot through the back of his hand and his palm was a mass of destroyed flesh.
“I’m bad,” Basir admitted.
He dropped his hand into the snow, allowing the icy coolness to seep into the wound. His head lolled to the side. Sergeant Dehkordi was hyperventilating behind the tire.
“Help me,” Basir pleaded. “Need…bandage.”
“I… I can’t,” Dehkordi said.
“I need help. Gonna bleed out.”
The sergeant glanced at him, and then looked beyond him toward the open field on the opposite side of the road. There was nowhere to hide if he ran. There was no escape in the vast openness of the vacant fields they found themselves near.
“Help,
Sergeant,” Basir said once more. He could feel himself getting weaker and the darkness had returned.
“Okay,” Dehkordi grunted. “I’m coming.”
He dropped to the ground and began crawling toward Basir. The worm had overcome his fear, making the injured man smile. His sergeant would wrap the wounds and then they’d get into the truck and return to the airfield where a doctor could help him. That is what they should have done. They should have fled the moment they came under fire instead of trying to shoot back. Now Marzban and Piruz were dead, their lives wasted. Basir vowed to write their wives a letter once they returned to base.
Sergeant Dehkordi groaned loudly, making Basir focus his eyes. His squad leader was halfway to him, exposed along the vacant space underneath the large truck. As he watched, Dehkordi’s head pushed back in the snow and a thick red mass flew from the new opening in his skull.
The sergeant stopped moving. Basir said a prayer to Allah for him and then remembered that he hadn’t prayed for the others yet. He tried to do that as well, but he found that putting his thoughts into words was becoming increasingly more difficult.
Basir didn’t know how long he lay there beside the truck in the snow. The sound of boots crunching on the frozen surface made him force his eyes open. He tried to turn his head, but the muscles were stiff and he found the action impossible. Several voices, including at least two women, drifted around the bulk of the vehicle.
An icy wetness hit him in the face as a white-clad form stomped up to him, flinging snow and causing his eyes to flutter.
“Hey, this one’s alive,” a boy’s voice said in a language he didn’t understand.
The sound of more boots assaulted his ears and the face of a woman appeared over him. He had a momentary hope that she was a nurse who’d been sent from the airfield to retrieve him so the doctors could operate.
Her features twisted into a sneer as she said, “Not anymore.”
Basir saw the barrel of a rifle elevate toward his head. He started to beg for mercy, but the words never came and his life ended.