Bullets fly. I put Thirty-Third Street’s undead to rest.
I pick Helene’s lifeless body off the ground. I cradle her in my arms and cry. Her long blonde hair fall around her face and sways with every step I take.
She’s still warm.
Plissken floats next to me. “She was bitten. She will turn.”
I don’t look at him. “I know.”
“The infection—”
“I know. Help me.”
He descends. I lay her body over Plissken’s frame so that he can move her quickly. And so that I can kill whatever gets in our way.
We head west.
Plissken says, “Where are we going?”
I caress Helene’s head.
I say, “Where would Kong go to die?”
Chapter 20:
A Dead Man’s Tracks in the Dust
Helene reanimates just after we cross the lobby of the Empire State Building.
Two minutes. Maybe less.
Under its golden Art Deco walls, she comes back and attacks me. American flags, fossils from a once-whole nation, flutter spasmodically as her eyes open and her teeth glisten.
I almost can’t do it. I almost let her bite me. I almost let her take me.
Instead, I hold her with care. I clamp one hand around her throat and press my knees against her chest. I pin her down and slide my crowbar through her eye until it punctures her brain and she lies still again.
I don’t want the mess a bullet will bring.
With blood pooling on her face, I close her good eye and carry her.
Plissken welds the doors shut in the lobby. They’ll hold, we figure, for a while. They were designed to withstand whatever riots the city’s populace could hurl at em. So they’ll hold now.
Yeah.
Even with constant pounding and the threat of stilt-walkers, they’ll hold.
We will hold.
* * *
The trek up to the one-hundred and second floor is not easy.
Bang, bang, crowbar, crowbar, bang.
Clearing the building is a job for a small army. Not a job for one dude and a library robot. I take three pills to stay focused and moderately sane. My heart bounces around my chest. Pains pierce my body—blood at once constricted and racing.
Takes the entire day. Ten hours of gunshots and crowbar bludgeoning. Ten hours of blood and pus and excrement.
Ain’t much ammo left when I’m done.
I hear two more bombing runs while we battle for the Empire State Building. I figure it’s more unmanned drones on autopilot.
Thanks, El Presidente.
Nobody from the government responds to Plissken’s communications.
I stink and I swear and I freak right the fuck out.
At the end, Plissken stays chipper and tells me, while the blood of hundreds cakes my tired hands, that the building is clear.
Clear, yeah, for now—until the parasite comes up with a new trick and I have to glide from a hundred stories up.
And the parasite will find a way. Given enough time, I know it’ll find a way. The infection can’t be stopped if it wants something.
I carry Helene’s body up to the observation deck.
And wonder.
Wonder over the cityscape of a dead society.
I need a cigarette and some whiskey.
I set Helene’s body on the cold beige stone of the observation deck. Say, “Plissken, you up for some scrounging?”
“Do I have to?”
“You do. There ain’t anything else for your enormous head to deal with except a marginally psychotic journalist and his cravings. I need a few bottles of whiskey and a carton of American Spirits. Water and beef jerky. Food. Do not fuckin trust anything labeled ‘FRESH.’ I want sealed packages or I want cans.”
Plissken bobs in the air. His engines show his wear and his thrusters pump out just a touch of blue light against the dark sky.
I stick the unused .45 slug in my mouth again, just to taste the metal. To taste something other than blood.
I tell him: “Don’t take too long.”
He buzzes off.
Helene’s body is cool to the touch now. Not cold, but definitely not warm. I wonder how long a body takes to lose its heat. I escape into my head. Think about science, not her. One-point-five degrees Fahrenheit per hour until the body reaches the same temperature as its surroundings.
Does that help?
Not at all. I still ain’t that good at math.
High above, the Empire State Building’s antennae wait vacant and unlit. The original purpose for their existence was to serve as landing dock for airborne dirigibles like the Hindenburg and other blimps.
That hadn’t panned out quite like anyone expected it to.
Now it stands as a reminder of what can be accomplished. Like the unmoving footprints of Apollo Eleven’s men on the cold face of Luna.
Dead men’s tracks in the dust.
The Empire State Building looms over all—proof of the ingenuity that human kind has. Our resourcefulness. Our endeavors. Our intelligence and hard work.
Our good.
Good?
What can we do? What are we capable of?
That hasn’t mattered for a long time.
It’s all past tense.
Humanity’s potential is all past tense.
Now it’s bullshit journalism. Fear mongering. Pills for everything. Therapy that tells you, hey, no, you don’t have to take responsibility for your own shit. Hate. Fuckin reality TV. Remakes. Reboots. Just empty cultural masturbation and politicians that send young people to die.
Well.
Did send.
And yet, the Empire State Building remains a vigilant sentinel.
And it’ll stand for far longer than I’ll live.
Black winds carry the cries of the infected.
I smell another superstorm brewing on the air.
Fires are the only thing that light the Manhattan skyline. If one of the two million remaining humans has power, they’re hiding it.
I search my bag. Tear out flares. I lay em along Helene’s body to prepare a funeral pyre, thinking I can burn out any lingering disease.
There’s no sound of traffic. There’s nothing except the incessant desire of the parasites.
I see lights strobe on the wings of high-altitude aircraft. Planes. Maybe commercial.
They’re gonna get a rude slap from reality when they land.
What an awful nightmare to have at 20,000 feet.
Soon those planes will either land to greet death or tumble from the sky when the fuel goes bye-bye.
Rotten way to go.
Red floods the observation deck. I hold the fiery end of the flare out away from myself and watch the shadow of Helene’s corpse as light bounces around her.
I set the flame to her feet.
I let the licking tongue of the flare caress her and engulf her in hot fire. Her clothes catch quickly. Burn. Eager fingers of orange and yellow and red dance. The winds keep the scent of her burning flesh from reaching my nostrils.
No infection for you, Momma Bear. Not anymore.
I watch her burn. The skin over her muscles splits.
Her skin changes shade from pale white to deep black.
I know I can’t keep her charred corpse on the observation deck. To do so invites too many problems. The smell and the, let’s say, “natural” parasites won’t be good for me or the time I have left.
When the fire on Helene’s flesh dies out and her feminine frame becomes charcoal, I pull her still-smoking body up and work it over the observation deck fence.
She’s hot now. Gravity embraces her. Embers from her clothes spark as gravity takes her to the street. The sparks are a million shooting stars.
I turn around and pretend acceleration isn’t taking place. I pretend I can’t remember her body’s speed is just a matter of distance over time. I try to forget how fast her body’s gonna be going when it hits the ground.
She’ll become ash. Nothingness.
I saw to that.
I hope Plissken gets back soon. I need something else to focus on and I wanna drink. A lot. I wanna drink until I can’t move or think. I wanna drink until I piss myself.
Actually, no, fuck that.
I wanna drink until the only thing I can do is piss a constant, filthy stream from a hundred floors up and coat the parasites below with urine.
In the darkness, I can still make out vicious flailing throngs of the undead. A massive carpet of infection that shudders and undulates in the streets of Manhattan.
This ain’t my city anymore.
I’m just a tourist.
I’ve become a goddamn motherfuckin tourist.
Holy shit.
Is there a point to staying alive?
This couldn’t have gotten farther than North America already, could it?
Sure it could’ve. No reason why not.
I think quickly. Happy for a distraction. I run scenarios through my head.
The idea that infected corpses could simply ride the ocean currents till they hit land isn’t wholly implausible. It’s certainly no more implausible than the circumstances that created the parasite. And the parasite just needs to plant a few seeds elsewhere for that place to be totally fucked.
Germination. Adaptation.
Adaptation is this thing’s calling card.
Sure, why not, this is a totally healthy train of thought.
Europe and Asia will fall fast. All those countries squished together with interlocking borders. North Korea might do okay, though its survival won’t be any fun at all for the rest of us.
But...
But.
The UK will probably fare a little better. They have the benefit of being isolated by water. Granted, that won’t matter if the parasite goes cross-species and infects marine animals. And, again, there’s the issue of germinated seedling corpses.
But... Maybe they’ll be prepared...
Prepared by whom?
Sean said the plague isn’t ready to absorb non-human life yet. But does that mean they’ll be ready to absorb human life at some point?
There’s a timeline here I’m not comfortable with.
You’re talking like it’s the end of all human life...
It is.
Mammoth whales whistling through the water, their songs becoming cries for meat. Giant squid several school buses long with razor sharp beaks and tentacles evolved explicitly for rending flesh.
I bite into the .45 bullet. I’m desperate for a cigarette.
What’ll happen if the Earth’s largest creatures become infected and turn the oceans into bloody soup? What’ll happen if they get bored of the water and find a way to crawl up the shores?
The idea of an enormous squid tearing through NYCZ makes me wanna drink even more. What about those ancient things from Emergence Day. Where the fuck are they? Can they be infected? What’re they doing now?
Fighting? Hibernating? Already dead?
I sigh. Rub my temples.
Every species can smell its extinction.
“Fuckin dogs!” Plissken squeals at full volume as he floats over the Empire State Building’s deck fence. “And fuckin cats! Working together to attack me! What kind of world is it where dogs and cats work together?”
I sit on the ground and arch my back to stretch out the tension. For the first time, blood doesn’t trickle along my back from the wound. My fingers reach up and caress my broken nose. It doesn’t hurt as bad as it used to.
That’s a pretty fast recovery.
I say, “You got the booze and smokes?”
Plissken deposits four big bottles of Evan Williams, two cartons of American Spirits, seven packets of beef jerky, and two cases of Red Bull—as if I need more stimulants in my body.
I say, “Good boy.” I wrap my hands around a bottle of Evan Williams and a can of Red Bull. I spin the cap of the booze off. Let it roll along the length of the observation deck. I can’t see it that well, but I hear its trek.
I say, “Some light, Plissken?”
White-blue light erupts onto the roof.
I suck down a mouthful of whiskey and light a cigarette.
It burns. Burns so well. So pleasantly.
Plissken says, “You won’t believe what I saw down there.”
I keep the bottle to my lips. “I might.”
Booze. Smokes. Caffeine.
Regular party here.
I say, “Show me.”
Plissken’s paneling slides open. Out emerges the mini projector he used to show off the microscopic parasite which now runs rampant through New York.
Inside an illuminated square on the wall of the observation deck plays Plissken’s horrific journey.
He spins and weaves through bodegas. Department stores. A bloody school.
New forms of the infection take center stage.
The first liquor store he sweeps contains two mutated canines. Each’s taken, to some degree, hints from the stilt-walkers. Their abdomens are vacant of any fat or organs. Their limbs have been refitted to accommodate expedited movement.
One’s lower jaw is broken off. It leaps from point to point. Uses its upper jaw as a sharpened bludgeon.
In another store, a former feline uses skinless paws to pierce plaster and cling to soft surfaces. It never hisses at Plissken. Instead, it coughs and leaks bile while running up a wall.
The camera zips through the streets. The carnage below shows the toll the infection has taken. Nothing normal exists. The undead and stilt-walkers prowl everywhere. They cry out and moan.
Then—
There’s something enormous. It’s taller and fatter than the stilt-walkers. It fuckin waltzes through one shot. I can’t even guess what it used to be. It has multiple limbs cobbled together in a fashion that seems to defy physics. Mouths that yawn and scream and chew.
A flesh tower.
From Amalgamated Horror, Inc.
I say, “That’s enough, man. Turn it off.”
“I have accessed some USC satellites. It’s getting worse.”
I grunt. Lift the whiskey bottle. “Sorta figured it would be. Stay linked into those sky eyes, though.” I toss my cigarette over the fence and watch it spark. “How many humans left in NYCZ now?”
“About five hundred thousand.”
“Where are the survivors holed up?”
Plissken’s whirs. “One concentration in Brooklyn, near Fort Hamilton. There’s a small one on Ellis Island. Another camp on Governors Island. One on Rikers Island inside and around the prison. One inside the Con Ed power plant in Queens. Most of the population is scattered, but those are the centers at the moment.”
I perk up a little. People are managing to stay alive. The islands make sense.
“Correction, Rikers Island has been invaded. It will likely fall inside the hour. New NYCZ human population will stand at four hundred thousand—give or take, of course.”
“Well of course.” I roll my eyes. “Anyone left in Manhattan?”
“Just fading dots.”
I’m the only rational mind in Manhattan. And I’m surrounded by an ocean of the ultimate in irrational congregations.
It seems stupidly familiar.
Plissken floats down next to me.
I sit on the ground and resume drinking.
In a poor attempt to comfort me, he hovers at my side. Says, “It is possible that my readings are slightly inaccurate, or that I’ve missed something.”
I light another cigarette. “Just...shut up for now
, okay?”
The drone obliges.
What do we do now?
I have the craziest story ever imagined, but no readers to enjoy it. I have headlines falling from my tongue, but no editor to check em.
Fred’s gone. Killed by religion. Ben’s gone. Killed himself in spite of religion. Sean’s gone cuz of dumb fuckin bad luck. And my Momma Bear is gone, along with a child I’ll never know, cuz I couldn’t protect her.
Why am I alive?
Why?
Plissken says, “In destinies sad or merry, true men can but try.”
“Shut the fuck up.”
I drink more. And more. My throat becomes numb to the burning whiskey.
Plissken plays old cartoons on the wall. Classic Warner Brothers stuff. Chuck Jones hits like “What’s Opera Doc?” Tons of Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote.
Doesn’t make me feel better.
I finish a bottle of Evan Williams and opened another.
I stagger. I down a few cans of Red Bull. Stagger. Eat three bags of beef jerky. Stagger. I smoked a pack of cigarettes. I stagger and cough something nasty up.
I get sick.
I collapse.
Plissken nudges my side like a concerned puppy.
I don’t wave him off. I don’t yell at him.
We both know I’m in bad shape. I just let him settle down next to me and wind down.
He’s warm.
His CPU might be overheating.
His aged steel covering barely reflects any light. It’s dull. Tired. I put my head against his feverish little body and listen to the buzzing his insides make.
It blocks out the sound of the dead down below if I concentrate hard enough.
I think about Helene.
I close my dead eyes.
I think about headlines.
I TRIED.
About the Author
William Vitka is a writer and journalist. He’s written for The New York Post, CBS News, Stuff Magazine, GameSpy, On Spec Magazine and The Red Penny Papers to name a few. He is currently a writer for Permuted Press, Post Hill Press and Curiosity Quills. He doesn’t think any politician can be trusted and believes there is always more blood for the blood god.
Live, From the End of the World Page 21