Time Zero

by Carolyn Cohagan

  “Dekker?” I say.

  “He was going to shoot you. I never . . . That wasn’t the deal,” he says, voice shrill. “He said he was . . . he wanted to marry you. Oh God. What did I do?” He wears the same expression he had the time he accidentally broke some of Mother’s china.

  “You saved my life,” I say, awed. I was sure any feelings he had for me disappeared years ago.

  “Yes,” Dekker says, clearly as surprised as I am. He looks at his pistol, as if it made the decision on its own.

  Damon writhes next to me, shrieking in pain. Dekker shot him in the thigh.

  Rose stands, her cloak covered in Mr. Asher’s blood. “The farmers will have heard the shots.”

  Juda won’t look at her, but I say, “Yes, we have to go.”

  “Help me!” Damon cries. “You can’t leave me like this.”

  “Of course we can,” Juda says, lingering over the body of his father.

  Damon moans, his face a ghostly white. I hate Damon, maybe more than anyone on God’s earth, but seeing his blood pooling on the floor, the tears running down his face, imagining the excruciating pain he must be in . . .

  I remember what Nana said about trying to have sympathy. His whole life, Damon never felt loved. He knew his father preferred Juda, but he never knew why, until today. He isn’t an evil person; he’s just . . . pitiful, and he doesn’t deserve to bleed to death in this kitchen. “Do something,” I tell Juda.

  Juda scowls at me, clenching his jaw in defiance.

  I glare back, saying, “If you leave him here to die, you’ll end up in Hell, battling him for all eternity, unable to feel happiness or pleasure ever again. Is that what you want?”

  He rolls his eyes and says sarcastically, “The Prophet would be proud of you.” When he sees how serious I am, he says reluctantly, “Go downstairs and bring me back some clothes, the cleanest ones you see. Ma, go with her and bring up a bucket of water.”

  I do as he says, rushing into the cellar, barely seeing what I grab. When I return, he tears a shirt into strips and ties a tourniquet around Damon’s thigh, above the wound. He quickly rinses the area around the bullet hole, which I can’t look at without fear of being sick, and then leaves the bucket next to Damon so he can drink the water if he wants.

  “That’s the most I’ll do for him,” Juda says, finality in his voice.

  “Thank you,” Damon whispers, and I suspect he’s about to pass out.

  Dekker stands in the corner, grimly watching the whole process, his expression suggesting life might be easier if Damon didn’t survive to explain his injury.

  “Where’s his rifle?” I ask.

  Grace, who I hadn’t even noticed was missing, walks into the kitchen. “I threw it in the lake.”

  “Good thinking,” says Rose.

  Grace picks her handgun out of the puddle on the floor and places it, dripping, back in her holster. She then picks up the Taser and presses the ON switch. When nothing happens, she looks at me and says, “Sorry.”

  I shrug. The Taser served me well when I needed it.

  Grace then lifts my handgun off the ground, offering it to me, but I shake my head. What’s the point if I can’t use it but someone else can turn it against me?

  To my surprise, Rose reaches out and takes it, raising up her cloak and shoving it into the waistband of her cotton pants. “Time to go, Udi,” she says.

  Juda kneels over Mr. Asher’s body, whispering words I can’t hear. Rose looks one last time at the motionless figure, the father of her child, before putting on her veil and leading Grace out of the kitchen. I couldn’t read the expression on Rose’s face—was she still in love with Mr. Asher after all these years? More and more, I’m astonished by people’s supreme ability to hide their feelings.

  I go to Dekker, touching his back. “You should come with us.”

  “No way,” he says, pulling away as if I’ve pinched him.

  “You just shot the heir of one of the most powerful families on the island!”

  He refuses to budge.

  Then I have a hard time pulling Juda away from the body of Mr. Asher. “This whole thing is . . . Why wouldn’t Ma tell me?” he says. His voice is full of anger and resentment, and I wonder if I’ll ever be able to confess that I knew, even if it was just for a short while.

  “I’m so sorry,” I whisper to him. “But we have to leave.”

  Juda says a prayer for the dead and then follows me out of the kitchen to join Grace and his mother.

  Looking overwhelmed, Dekker stays behind, hovering over Damon’s semiconscious body.

  Because I’m sure I’ve seen him for the last time, I’m surprised to hear Dekker yelling for us less than five minutes later. We’ve almost reached the wheat fields, when he catches up, saying, “Where do you think you can go, anyway? The whole city is looking for you.”

  “I was just about to explain,” I say.

  THIRTY-THREE

  ALMOST OUT OF THE PARK, TRYING TO STAY IN the shadows, we can’t stop arguing about our plan. Juda and Rose understand that a Convene uprising is inevitable and that the island is no longer safe, but Rose believes the Apostates will murder us, while Juda worries that the subway tunnels are impenetrable. Dekker thinks we’re all nuts and should hide out on Wall Street, where the homeless drug addicts live.

  Grace, of course, tries to be helpful. “People have, uh, made it out before. Ayan once told me that it shows up on the computers from time to time.”

  “See?” I say, hoping I sound confident.

  “The Ashers use the tunnels to smuggle fuel,” Juda says. I’m encouraged the tunnels haven’t been sealed off. “But most are flooded. Have been for decades. So I don’t know how anyone is moving through them.”

  “By motorboat?” Dekker says, lagging behind us.

  “Rising sea levels caused substantial flooding throughout Manhat—” Grace stops walking. “Uh, my helmet alert says bodies have been discovered at the Boathouse.”

  “Nyek,” Juda and I say at the same time.

  “We should hide until dark,” Rose says, quickly turning off the path. She leads us up a small hill into a grove of trees with nice coverage.

  “It stinks,” Dekker says, holding his nose, and he’s right. The air smells like a litter box.

  “We’re above the toilets for the farmers,” Rose says.

  Not immediately visible in the fading light, a dozen brown plastic pods, each the size of my bedroom closet, stand in a ring on the other side of the hill.

  “Great hiding spot,” Dekker says, voice nasal.

  Just then, a tired-looking farmer saunters into the circle of outhouses, prompting us all to step back into the shadows. The man disappears into a pod without looking our way.

  “We shouldn’t be stopping,” Juda says, tense and jumpy. “The longer we’re here, the longer they have to put extra guards at all the Park gates.”

  I’m not sure how we’ll get past one guard. Juda and Rose are covered in blood, I’m wearing a uniform with no helmet, and I’ve just noticed that Dekker’s covered in vomit. He must have gotten sick before he caught up with us.

  Seeing my worried face, Juda says, “We have four guns between us. We’ll be fine, as long as there’s only one guard.”

  “So let’s go,” I say.

  “What’s the point if the subway’s flooded with water?” Dekker says. He doesn’t want to stay and he doesn’t want to go. As usual, there’s no pleasing Dekker.

  “Can’t we build a raft?” says Grace. “Like Huckleberry Finn?”

  “Does this Huckleberry man know how to make a raft out of goats and corn?” Dekker says. “Because those are the only things around for miles.”

  I’m annoyed at Dekker for being rude to Grace, but he’s right. We don’t have any useful materials. Didn’t Nana know that the subways might be flooded? I’m becoming more wary of her plan by the minute.

  “The whole Park is full of trees. Surely we can find some wood somewhere,” Grace says.
/>   “Fetch me an ax and some nails, and I’ll have you a boat by Sunday,” Dekker says with a smirk. I want to slug him and assume everyone else does, too. Even Grace has lost her perpetual smile.

  Rose steps between them. “No time for bickering. We’ll have to think of something else that floats.”

  If only we were closer to the Eleventh Avenue canals, we could find plenty of small boats, but we’re miles away. Rose is right. We have to think of something else that floats.

  “We don’t have time for this. We need to get to the gate,” Juda says.

  I ignore him, thinking about metal and how it sinks, picturing old coins at the bottom of the fountain at Lincoln Center. Trash floats in the gutters after a rain, but that’s mostly paper cups, leaves, wrappers—nothing that’s going to withstand any weight.

  “Who’s going to take care of the guard?” Juda says.

  “Not me,” says Dekker.

  “Styrofoam floats,” Grace says. “And cork.”

  When I was a little girl, my mother used to wash me in a shallow bath of warm water. She’d scrub my head while I played with soap or a washrag. I’d knock a shampoo bottle into the soapy water and watch it floating on its side, imagining it was a ship on the Hudson surrounded by squawking seagulls.

  Plastic floats.

  I study the toilet pods at the base of the hill. Aren’t they made of plastic?

  The farmer emerges from his pod, door swinging behind him, creating an instant silence among us. Check-ing my utility belt for a screwdriver, I whisper, “Juda, I have an idea.”

  THE GATE AT FIFTH AVENUE LOOKS DIFFERENT from the others, with a huge, modern fence curving inward and iron doors in the middle.

  Crouching behind some thick bushes, I watch as Juda strolls toward the guard. The man is short but beefy, and his thin hair sticks straight up, as if he’s just pulled a shirt over his head.

  Startled, the man raises his shotgun, but his face relaxes when Juda waves, saying, “Peace.”

  “Peace,” says the guard. Dried blood coats Juda’s uniform, but twilight makes it difficult to see on the black fabric.

  “I’m the backup,” Juda says.

  “Wha . . . Why?” the man asks.

  “You haven’t heard? There’s been a murder.” Juda walks to the man’s left, causing him to turn away from our hiding spot. “Maxwell Asher—shot over by the reservoir.”

  I can’t see the guard’s reaction, but I hear his voice register surprise. Next to me, Dekker springs out of the shrubbery, and in no time he has his pistol in the small of the man’s back. The man stops speaking as his body goes taut, his hair seeming to grow even taller in alarm.

  After Juda has taken the guard’s gun, the rest of us leave our hiding spot and Rose opens the gate with her pass. Juda uses handcuffs from Grace’s utility belt to secure the guard to a tree, throwing the shotgun out of reach. Then we all go racing out the gate.

  Both Grace and I carry large brown plastic doors (tomorrow a few farmers will find their outhouses are lack-ing in privacy). My door is unwieldy, threatening to trip me, but I’m determined to hold on to it. Seeing me struggle, Juda takes one end and we carry it between us like a massive serving tray.

  I’ve removed my boots, abandoning them under a tree and convincing Grace to do the same. Finally free of their colossal weight, despite the hulking door, I feel light and fast as the wind. We’re headed for the subway at Fifth and 59th and the entrance—thick stone columns topped by broken lamps—is only a hundred yards away.

  Running, Rose rips off her veil and lets it fall to the sidewalk. I spot a few pedestrians on the street, but no Twitchers. The men and women quickly turn away from us, wanting no part of whatever we’re involved in.

  Darkness falls as we reach the entrance and run down the steps. We pass under a crumbling mural of birds and monkeys, and I know if Grace weren’t so out of breath she’d tell me a story about it.

  To my left, the derelict remains of a machine that says METROCARD sag against a wall covered in white tiles that, miraculously, still shine. Orange rust coats pillars that look like they’ve been holding up this station for millennia.

  We reach some sort of gate, but it’s strange-looking, with parts that poke out like a coat rack. It looks much more secure than it is, because Juda and Dekker yank out a rotted section in no time.

  Juda says, “Grace, let me help you.” He holds her plastic door as she wiggles through the small space. He then does the same for me. When it’s Rose’s turn, he supervises to make sure she’s safe, but says nothing and doesn’t offer her a hand.

  We reach another set of stairs, but before I can get upset about going even deeper into the earth, I see that Juda was right. Water, brown and murky, waits at the base of the steps.

  The tunnel is flooded.

  I keep running, heading down the stairs with my door as if I’ve seen nothing, not because I’m brave, but because I don’t have any other plan. When I reach the bottom, I splash straight in and keep going until the water hits my waist.

  I’m woozy at the thought of my head going under, since I don’t know how to swim. I haven’t prayed for days, but I start now, placing the plastic door on the surface of the water.

  It floats.

  Thank you, God. Thank you, Prophet.

  I smile back at the others. “C’mon!”

  Grace scurries down next, placing her door in the water as well. I hope that two rafts will be enough for all of us.

  I take a few more tentative steps downward and soon reach the bottom of the stairs. The water is up to my shoulders. The smell is ripe down here, mildew and urine mixed with gasoline.

  “Don’t think I like this,” Rose says with apprehension as she joins us. She immerses her legs, tightly gripping the handrail. Her voice travels across the water, then bounces off the low ceiling.

  “None of us does,” Juda says. He walks down the stairs and into the water without offering her help.

  “This is repulsive,” Dekker says, wading in. “Do you know how many diseases are floating around in here?”

  I give him what I hope is a withering look.

  “Manhattan receives approximately forty-five inches of rainfall a year, so really, the tunnels should get flushed out pretty regularly,” Grace says, smile back in place.

  Dekker takes a few more steps, submerging himself to the waist. “Does it disgust anyone else that this water is warm?”

  I keep moving, suppressing my terror that the water will become deeper without warning. Poor Rose, the shortest of all of us, has water hitting her chin.

  As I move away from the stairwell, the blackness becomes impenetrable. My joy at the success of our floating doors fizzles. We can’t cross the tunnel if we’re blind. “It’s too dark. We won’t make it,” I say, despondent.

  Dekker leans over to Grace and says, “Unhook your helmet.”

  “Why?” she asks.

  “Just do it,” he says.

  She does, and he snatches it off her head.

  “My glasses!” she screams.

  Dekker’s hand shoots out, catching them just as they’re about to hit the water. “Calm down, kid,” he says, handing them to her.

  She puts them back on, not amused.

  Dekker examines the Twitcher helmet briefly and then hits a button on the side, causing a panel to open on top that reveals a blinding flashlight.

  “You could have just told me about that,” Grace says, irritation growing.

  “But we’ll all see better if the tallest person is wearing it, yeah?” Dekker says, disconnecting the helmet from the wire on Grace’s jacket and plonking it on his own head. As he looks around, he illuminates the entire space.

  He blinds Grace, who says, “Don’t break it. It’s our last one.”

  “Yes, Mother,” he says.

  I can’t believe I left behind my own helmet and the chance for a second flashlight, but at least we don’t have to abandon our plan.

  Dekker turns the headlamp left, whistle
s, and says, “There she is.”

  The tunnel.

  With the paltry light we have, all we can see is a gaping black hole, the toothless mouth of an Apostate devil, ready to swallow us whole. Water drips from a nearby pipe, while a low buzz resonates out of the dark lair, seeming to be the tunnel breathing back at us.

  “Well, what does everyone think?” I say.

  “I think we’ve got people in front of us who probably want to kill us,” Dekker says. “We’ve got people behind us who definitely do. And a tunnel in between that might do the job for them.”

  “Your brother has a way with words,” Juda says.

  “Remind me never to invite him anywhere again,” I say, unable to believe that I’m stuck with Dekker for the foreseeable future.

  Dekker slogs ahead of me, saying, “You’re lucky I—”

  And then he drops into the water, disappearing and leaving us in total darkness.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  “WHERE’D HE GO?!” GRACE SAYS, AS I SHOUT, “Dekker!”

  I hear a second splash. “What was that? What’s happening?” I say, terrified of what might be under the water. “Juda?! Grace?! Rose?!” I reach out a hand, but even with my plastic door, I’m too frightened to move my feet.

  “Here,” says Rose.

  “Me too,” says Grace.

  “Where’s Juda?!” I ask.

  “Just wait,” says Rose, calmer than I feel she should be.

  I hear another splash, bigger this time, and see a flickering light. Juda has burst out of the water, holding my brother, who looks like a giant, flailing newborn.

  The light’s okay! I think, instantly ashamed that I’m more relieved about the headlamp than I am about Dekker.

  “Juda can swim?” Grace says.

  Of course. He probably learned as part of his security training—in case Damon slipped inside his enormous bathtub or something.

  Paddling past me, Juda heads back to the stairwell with Dekker, who grabs the handrail, gasping and coughing.