Vacation

by Matthew J. Costello

Jack locked his eyes right on Brandt’s.

  “You heard my radio?”

  “Yeah. No response when we pinged you back.” Brandt took a breath. “The guys didn’t know what they’d find. Pretty surprised. You alive, and a whole lot of dead Can Heads.”

  “And Rodriguez.”

  A nod. “Yes. Rodriguez dead, too.”

  “I … I…”

  “Jack. Easy. Let it rest. For now, hm?”

  Now Jack looked away.

  Suppose I should be grateful.

  To be fucking alive.

  He didn’t feel that way.

  Are we losing this fucking war?

  “I guess … I should just say thanks.”

  Brandt nodded, shrugging.

  Finally: “Captain, I know I can’t be out in the streets for a while. But I’d like to get back as soon as possible. Maybe some desk work. You’ll need all the officers you can—”

  Brandt shook his head.

  “Jack, how long has it been since you’ve had any time away from the job?”

  “I don’t need any time. Soon as my leg is good, in a few weeks, I can—”

  “You need a break, Jack. Let psych service see you. Get some counseling. You can’t just shrug this off. You have a lot of time coming.”

  Jack arched his back up, raising his head off the pillow as much as he could.

  “I don’t need any damn time.”

  The nurse came into the room again.

  “Officer, your family is downstairs, coming up now.”

  Another smile from her, but it quickly evaporated as she sensed the tension in the room.

  Brandt pushed his chair back and stood up.

  “Yeah. I want you to take the time. Talk to your wife. A break. A vacation.”

  Jack opened his mouth, but he knew Brandt well enough to know that an order was an order.

  “Talk to Christie. Get away. The Can Heads will be here when you come back.” Another pause. “I need people like you, Jack.”

  A boy’s voice echoed from the hospital hallway.

  His son, Simon.

  Brandt started for the door.

  “Get better, Jack.”

  Then he turned and left.

  5

  Christie

  Christie watched Simon run ahead, down the hospital hallway, Kate walking tentatively beside her. She had worried how they both would react, seeing their dad in a hospital bed.

  She and Jack had agreed to tell them only that he’d had an accident at work.

  Their strong daddy took a nasty fall.

  “Simon,” she said. Then louder, “Wait.”

  Simon stopped. She looked down at Kate, who was three years older than her brother. Christie wondered whether her daughter suspected something more than an accident. There was no way, even in a protected area of Staten Island, that they could keep things from either of their children.

  The times Kate tried to ask questions about his job, Jack changed the subject.

  Eventually she stopped asking questions.

  With Simon stopped, Christie saw Jack’s captain come out of the room. He smiled as she came close.

  “Christie. I think … he’s coming along,” he said quietly.

  “Captain, that’s good. I—”

  “But, can I have a word with you?”

  Christie looked down at the two kids. “Sure. Simon, Kate, you go in to your dad. Just don’t make a lot of noise. I’ll be right there.”

  Simon bolted into the room. After a brief hesitation, Kate followed.

  “I just wanted to tell you…” Brandt said. “I mean, I told Jack that he needs to take some time off. He’s not happy about that.”

  Kate nodded. “I’m not surprised.”

  “Right. He talked about desk duty. Something like that. I told him to do his rehab. Get better. Take some time off.”

  Christie nodded.

  “I said he needed to take a vacation. He has it coming.”

  Christie pushed her hair off her forehead. “Do people still take those?”

  “Yes. And he needs to. Maybe the family needs it. Look…”

  Brandt reached into his back pocket and pulled out a glossy brochure.

  “Look at this. Been posted in the precincts. It may be something he needs. You all need.”

  Christie took the brochure, and stood there for a few minutes reading it.

  * * *

  “Where’s your mom?” Jack asked.

  Kate stood rail straight, a few feet from the bed. Simon showed no such reticence, leaning right on the crisp white bedclothes, his eyes searching his dad’s.

  “She’s talking to some man,” Simon said.

  “Captain Brandt,” Kate added.

  “You kids okay?” Jack said, smiling. “Getting homework done? Helping Mom?”

  “I don’t like homework,” Simon said.

  “When are you coming home?” Kate asked.

  “Soon. Just need my leg to get better.”

  “Mom said you had an accident.”

  Kate. Eyes locked on. Face impassive.

  My daughter isn’t buying any of this, Jack thought.

  “Yeah. Took a bad fall out on patrol.”

  He waited for Kate to say something more. Like: Are you sure it wasn’t some of those people? The ones the other kids talk about.

  The people who eat people.

  But whether it was seeing Jack in the bed or the fact that Simon was here, Kate didn’t go any further.

  “Can I see it?”

  Jack looked down to Simon, his arm on the bed and chin resting on a hand, studying Jack as if he were a museum display.

  “See what, Simon?”

  “Your leg. Where you hurt it.”

  Jack laughed. “I’m afraid they have it wrapped up in a lot of bandages. Nothing to see.”

  “They feed you here?” Simon asked.

  “That’s a dumb question,” Kate shot out.

  Jack gave her a look; she could be so quick to dump on Simon. Normal for a brother and sister, he guessed. Still, it always sounded harsh to him.

  “Yes. Hospital food. Nothing you’d like.”

  Funny, Jack thought, food was never far from anyone’s thoughts. All the synthetic nutrient substitutes, the soy-based products, the pretend PB&J sandwiches couldn’t hide the fact that food—the way it used to be—was hard to come by. For some, impossible.

  Most of what was once common had turned into rarities.

  And then Christie walked in.

  * * *

  Christie turned around and saw Simon poking at the balloons on the windowsill.

  Kate looked down at the bed.

  She saw Jack look at the kids and nod.

  Back to Christie.

  “So, what did Brandt tell you?”

  She had her fingers interlocked with Jack’s. Jack wasn’t normally one for handholding, the random unexpected kiss. Not his style. She accepted that.

  Just like she had accepted how strange life had become for both of them.

  She gave his hand a gentle squeeze.

  “To make sure you did your exercises. Get to physical therapy. He likes you, Jack. Wants you back as soon as you’re better.”

  “And what else? What’s that in your back pocket? The department’s guide to dealing with recovering disgruntled spouses?” He took a breath. “Psych information?”

  She reached into her pocket and took out the brochure.

  “Psych is part of your rehab. You know that. But this…”

  She handed it to Jack. For a minute, he thought it was a joke.

  Jack read from the front of the brochure: “‘Paterville Family Camp. The place for a secure and safe family vacation in the beautiful Adirondacks!’”

  He laughed. “You’re kidding me. ‘Safe and secure’?”

  “Captain Brandt says you should—we should take a vacation. Get away from the city. Things aren’t so bad up there.”

  “Says who?”

  “Can you listen? I
t says: ‘Families visiting Paterville Family Camp will have the luxury of staying in one of our traditional log cabins, all with breathtaking views overlooking our crystalline lake.’ Crystalline … that’s good. Gotta love a crystalline lake.”

  She watched Jack flip open the folded brochure. The first inner page was all about security.

  “Look,” she said. “See—it’s reached only by one road, has two fences, an inner one, and then an outer electrified fence with twenty-four/seven guards.”

  “Show me a place these days that doesn’t have fences.”

  “And look—tons to do. Swimming, boats, hiking, fireworks.”

  “Cookouts?”

  “I knew you’d ask that. Families eat communally, and the camp has been able to grow its own produce. Has a mini-farm right on the property.”

  “Really? No blight or drought? They should tell the damn government how they pulled off that trick.”

  He glanced at the kids.

  Tone it down, he told himself.

  Christie felt her forced smile and cheerful attitude fading. Jack could be a rock when his mind was made up. Probably what made him such a good cop. But as a father, a husband …

  She leaned close. “Look at your kids. Tell me, have they even seen a lake, a real lake for swimming? Walked on a trail, seen a mountain, gone to a beach? None of it. This could be their chance, Jack. A week away from this—”

  She stifled the word goddamned.

  “—world to have a few days in summer like kids and families used to. They deserve that. You do. I do.”

  Jack looked up from the brochure that he had found so amusing.

  He waited. Part of his process. No quick answers out of Jack. He’d think things through and then think some more.

  “Okay—here’s what I’ll do. I’ll see how the Highway Authority program has been working. Adirondacks, that’s way up there, Christie. Way up there.”

  She gave his hand another squeeze.

  “I’ll check it out. And, if it’s legit, we’ll talk about it again.”

  Now Christie leaned forward. She gave Jack a kiss, his lips dry and cracked. She stayed close to his face.

  “Thank you.” Then a look back. “For them.”

  Jack reached up with his right hand and brushed some stray blond hair away from her face.

  “A vacation, hm? I guess … that really would be something.”

  To seal the deal, Christie gave him another kiss.

  And then it was time for them to leave.

  one day before

  6

  Recovery

  Jack raised his left leg slowly, feeling the dead pull of a massive weight working hard to pull the leg down.

  From the start, he had quickly ignored the cautious advice of his physical therapy team, and pushed his rehab work. And his undamaged leg … he would push it to the limit.

  If I have only one good leg, it’ll have to get as strong as it can be.

  I may not run again. But one way or the other, I’ll be able to move.

  The leg reached its full horizontal extension, and then he resisted the always present temptation to rush lowering it. That thought, that urge only promoted him to make the descent even slower, even more torturous.

  Until it was time to work with the other leg.

  The damaged leg, the bum leg. The bad leg.

  Weeks after the attack, the bandages had finally come off.

  And now, though he could still see the indentation where he had lost some muscle mass, it didn’t look too bad. Nothing that would scare anyone, even his kids, who had been so curious about what the leg would look like when all the surgeries were done and the bandages finally came off for good.

  “See,” he said to Kate and Simon, “not so bad.”

  But he quickly looked at their eyes, and that had told him the truth of the situation.

  They weren’t used to seeing their dad wounded or damaged in any way. He was never anything less than their protector. Whatever their idea of police work was in this world, they always saw him as the best and the strongest.

  Now? With his leg so obviously damaged, their eyes said—what?

  Fear?

  Worry?

  And that drove his rehabilitation.

  Besides working the machines they had installed in his basement, Jack started walking again, way ahead of schedule. He ignored the pull of the healed, tight skin, and the pain that was always there.

  And if it didn’t go away, fair enough. He’d deal with it.

  He walked around their community on Staten Island, past rows of neat and boring suburban houses, all encircled by a fence.

  Everywhere, fences.

  Even here, far from the “real” boroughs of New York.

  Gradually, he was able to suppress the urge to limp, and the need to always favor the right leg.

  Despite the warning of the surgeon, Dr. Kleiner, and his rehabilitation team, he didn’t slip backward. The wounded leg grew stronger. The shock of each step grew less.

  His walks grew and grew, and eventually, until when he returned home, he started to see a flicker of worry in Christie’s eyes. Concern. Why are you out there so long? Why are you away for hours?

  The few times they had talked about it hadn’t gone well.

  Now he just did what he did. They didn’t talk about it.

  While his family simply watched.

  He looked at his right leg. The padded bar pressed against his lower shin.

  He’d begin slowly, with only a few pounds of weight.

  And then, with each slow up-and-down movement, he’d add more weight, staring at his damaged leg, wishing it stronger, better.

  He took a breath, and began to raise the bar.

  * * *

  Jack heard Christie’s steps coming down the stairs.

  He let his right leg slide off the bar. Not bad, he thought. Not anywhere as strong as the left leg, but all things considered …

  He grabbed a towel dangling from the weight machine and turned to Christie.

  “How’s it going?” she said.

  They had fought over that question during those first weeks. How are you? How’s the leg? Are the dreams over? Did you sleep through the night?

  They’d had fights.

  He wished she would stop asking.

  Until he realized that Christie was scared and worried. He forced himself not to react.

  Now, with weeks of rehab behind him, he could hear her question, and answer it. No problem.

  “Good.” He smiled. “In fact, I’m pretty damn impressed. All things considered, my leg seems to be doing really well.”

  She took a few steps closer.

  The exposed lightbulb caught her face. “That’s good. Real good. Though at the risk of sounding critical—”

  Jack rubbed his face, mopping up the beads of sweat. The floor around him was dotted with the drops.

  “It stinks down here. You really need a hot shower, my friend.”

  Jack laughed. The rough patches they had gone through were fading. He never told her everything about that night. He knew—and she knew—he never would.

  The attack. Rodriguez. Shooting him because it had to be done. Then, being stuck here, working his ass off to get better, to get back to being a cop.

  “I hear you, boss. I’ll hit the showers ASAP.”

  Christie took another step closer to his machine. Only then did Jack notice that she had her hair pinned back. It always made her look like the teenager he’d dated in Bay Ridge.

  “You done doing the school-thing with the kids?”

  “You mean trying to teach them? Not sure I’m much of a teacher. Think we should reconsider some of the families getting together, getting our kids together—”

  He started shaking his head before she finished.

  “No. It’s better they stay here. Better that than bounce around to other people’s houses.”

  “You mean trapped here.”

  He heard the edge in her voice.
It was an edge that he had grown used to. Perhaps it was his recuperation, perhaps the world she was forced to live in, perhaps it was his paranoia. Whatever, it was getting too easy for them to snap at each other.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I just wish we could think about it.”

  He took a breath.

  “Okay. I’ll think about it.”

  “Right. Sure.”

  Then a shrug, and he watched her walk up and out of the basement.

  * * *

  Jack let the weights drop with a loud clang to the base of the machine. And he sat there, sweating in the shadows. Thinking …

  He knew he looked at things differently than most people. Most people could block out the realities of this new world that they lived in.

  With enough fences, enough guards, enough safe sectors, life could almost seem normal.

  But even some safe sectors in the city’s outer borough were no longer safe. Chunks of infrastructure—water, electricity, government—fell apart. Power failures, sabotage to the city’s water supply.

  Chaos—always close, always one attack away.

  The pressure from the Can Heads always there, always mounting.

  Jack got up and moved through the hallway to the door that led to the basement and the adjoining garage. Like most houses, the door to the basement had been reinforced. Double locks, and on the interior side, metal plating. Every house was vulnerable.

  Not so different from when he grew up in Brooklyn, and their house suddenly had rats. His father saw the telltale signs—the small caches of food that the rats dug out off the basement shelves and planted behind furniture, the electrical wires chewed through.

  Then his dad found a sea of their pellet-sized scat under a radiator, revealing that a tribe of rats, with their lousy vision but incredible gnawing teeth, had found a new home.

  And his father, a veteran of twenty years as a street cop, took on the rats.

  Rat traps with the poison appeared. Any opening to the outside, the slightest crack, was lined with a thick wire mesh that would dig into any rat even as they elongated their flexible bodies to sneak in.

  Dead bodies appeared both in and out of the house. One went undiscovered until everyone got a whiff of the overwhelming stench.

  Now on the job like his old man, years later, Jack had smelled far worse.