City of Savages

by Lee Kelly

  Sky nudges the glass away with her foot, and we settle down against the shelves. I hold the torch as she whips the journal out from the elastic of her shimmery stretch pants. Sky’s pajamas put all my outfits to shame.

  “We finish this tonight,” Sky says as she cracks open the journal. I lean the grip of the torch against my knee and the journal comes alive, firelight breathing into the old words. And for the first time since she woke me up, we’re on the same page.

  “Without a doubt.”

  We pick up with Mom and her sister-in-law, Mary, walking through the tunnels.

  But before we reached Grand Central, we felt a rip, a jolt so powerful it seemed like the world’s carpet was being pulled out from under us. I leaned against the raised subway platform and pulled Sky close to me. She started wailing, like she was being tortured in the dark.

  “We need to get out of here,” a woman dressed far too nicely for the subway on a Saturday implored, once the earth had stopped trembling. “Now.”

  I could feel a new undercurrent to our group, a collective, breathless panic. We all started scrambling, throwing elbows and grunts as we moved towards freedom. The teenager from our train, Bronwyn, started sobbing behind me, moaning that she wasn’t ready to die.

  Mary dropped her voice an octave, even as the murmurs and the cries began to bubble and rise around us. “Whatever happens,” she said to me, “we stick together, okay?”

  Her voice was shaking, and it scared the shit out of me.

  “Mary—”

  “Just promise me,” she said.

  I told her of course.

  The crowd began clambering its way up the stairs to the terminal. The lighters were extinguished by the rush, and then we were blind, a thicket of hands pawing our way through the dark. We jumped one by one over the turnstiles into the station. But there was no sunlight to greet us. Instead we combed through a thick, dusty fog. We heard brittle rounds of machine guns, the barking of foreign tongues. Wails.

  We were lost, lab rats in a maze of fog, and I wanted to scream, just sit down and scream, I was so panicked. But instead I clutched Sky and prayed. For her, for her dad. Where was Tom? Was he safe? Were he and Robert at the studio, or were they somewhere underground?

  I felt a hand on my waist, and Mary was at my side. “Everyone back to the subways,” she told us. “Now!”

  Mary herded us back down the stairs, to the hungry, empty belly of the city. We descended the stairs carefully, and by that point, Sky was shrieking. Hungry, tired, sitting in her own filth. I promised her I would get her home. But maybe I was full of shit. Maybe the world was falling apart.

  “Wait a minute.” Sky yanks the book from me and then leans over it so close, it’s like she’s trying to hear it whisper. “Wails . . . foreign tongues. Machine guns.” She looks at me, her eyes wide and spooky under the torchlight. “Do you realize what this is?”

  “What? What are you talking about?”

  She starts flipping Mom’s journal pages so fast, the ink starts to blur together. “This isn’t . . . some slice-of-life journal about Mom before the attacks.” Sky’s words are practically tripping over one another, they’re so excited to come out. “This is the story of the attacks. It’s happening right here, in these pages. Maybe all the secrets, all the missing links . . . about Mom . . . and Dad . . . even me and you, they could be in here. Phee, this could explain everything.”

  I peer over the journal and think about all we don’t know. All the times Sky would ask about Mom’s life Before, or even After, and Mom’s face would just cloud over.

  I don’t want to tell Sky that it feels like spying, like we’ve broken Mom open and are just dumping all her secrets out.

  ’Cause right now, I’m having trouble breathing.

  Right now, the idea of figuring out what happened to Mom, to our family, is so huge and heavy, it almost knocks me over.

  “Everything we don’t know about our family could be in there?”

  “More than just our family, Phee.” Sky shakes her head. “Everything we don’t know about this city. About Manhattan.”

  March 8—We lived through another day. We camped out in the dark just shy of where the 7 train pulled into Times Square. In the process, we freed the passengers of two other subways.

  No one knew what was going on at the surface. No cell phones, no computers, no television. Those who had gadgets with power left bounced and roamed for service like stumbling drunks.

  “We need to send a team of scouts to the surface.” Mary finally broke the silence.

  We’d been debating for hours about what was happening up there, arguing, hundreds of voices reaching a fever pitch until Lauren, the well-dressed woman, finally pointed out that regardless of what was going on, we were in hiding and should be quiet.

  “Mary, are you insane? We don’t know who—or what—is up there,” Bronwyn said from the corner. The alpha teen’s mask of confidence from the subway car had faded, right along with her makeup. And now I saw only a pale, lonely girl drowning in a sea of strangers—somebody’s daughter lost in the dark. “The police’ll find us, they have to,” Bronwyn said, and shivered. “Someone will save us.”

  “Don’t be a fool,” Mary said. “We can’t just sit here forever. We need to save ourselves.”

  Of course Mary looked to me for support, and even though I was exhausted, I mustered my conviction and said, “Absolutely. Yes, we need to do something.” Then I clutched Sky tighter, dropped my voice, and whispered to Bronwyn, “This will be okay.”

  The crowd started murmuring in agreement, and soon we were making plans, selecting scouts to send into Times Square station. The cyclists from our subway car volunteered, and we gave them careful instructions, used our collective knowledge, and drew a map in someone’s notebook of the various hallways and passages of the subway stop. We started a collection and sent them along with money, a lighter, and hope.

  “Be quick about it,” Mary warned them as they jumped the subway turnstiles. “We’re all down here, waiting for you.”

  It was then that I finally saw that fire behind Mary’s eyes, the power that Tom often told me was there, ready to burn him to the ground. But I was grateful for it. I was starting to think that without Mary, I would go insane down here. Might run until the blackness enveloped me, claimed me as its own.

  The cyclists never returned.

  March 20—It’s been weeks. Or maybe it’s been a lifetime. I can’t be sure. I’ve divided my mind into two—the anxious, fully conscious part of me has been put to sleep. There’s only my animal left, which roams this dark labyrinth. I breathe, eat, and care for Sky. I don’t think. I can’t think.

  We’re just lost migrants at the city’s mercy, survivors scavenging for a second chance. We camp out at different subway stops, swapping tales from our past lives like trading cards. Lauren has shared stories about her overachieving fifth grader. Bronwyn’s told me about her “perfect” boyfriend, some arrogant freshman at NYU . . . then more quietly, as she played with Sky, about her little sisters back home.

  A few of our doomed pack have volunteered to scout and loot on the surface. Many of them haven’t returned. Some have with food, clothing. Flashlights and candles. And of course, images.

  “New York is under fire,” they said. “We’re at war. The streets are filled with corpses. There are soldiers on every corner. There’s nothing left.”

  I don’t believe it. I can’t believe it. I stay in my dark cocoon, taking rations for Sky and me, keeping an eye on Bronwyn, clinging to Mary. I feel so sick these days.

  April 1—Our numbers are dwindling. The brave ones are dying faster, one by one volunteering or being chosen for a near-certain suicide mission. Those who are left are young or old, scared or sick. We get by on looted goods from abandoned corner stores and restaurants. We ration. We want to give up. But Mary keeps us focused and
moving. There’s really no one else to lead this pitiful crew.

  Most days we spend wandering or cowering in corners, speculating. We’ve compiled a collective mental montage of the surface, from the few who have made it back with supplies. Our theories start out each morning as a slow simmer, building throughout the day into a boil, until by evening we’re whistling louder than a teakettle.

  “It was China.”

  “I met survivors from the N line on the surface. It’s definitely the Middle East.”

  “I heard Brooklyn’s bombed out.”

  “No, it’s Queens. And it started with Japan.”

  “You idiots, it’s a land invasion. No one dropped a nuke.”

  But no one knows for sure.

  April 15—The pain has gotten unbearable. I feel like my insides are trying to crawl out of me, and recently it hurts to even walk. Where is Tom?

  Some days I picture him hunting through the dark, looking for me. I hear creaks, noises underground, and I think he and Robert are around the corner, coming for us.

  We hear a frustrated rattle of chains from the other side of the bar. An angry door trying to break from its hinges. I jump and nearly burn the journal. Sky’s eyes are wild under the firelight. She quickly tucks the journal back into her stretch pants, then motions for me to blow out the flame.

  Our light disappears just as we hear a series of keys click into the door’s padlocks. The chains fall one by one, clang to the floor, and then a team of voices stampedes the roof.

  “This is ridiculous. We should be at the zoo, or the castle.”

  I close my eyes. I’ll never forget that voice. The one that taunted me before my 65th Street fight. The one that promised I wouldn’t walk away from it. Cass.

  “Fieldworkers are like sheep. They know to stay in their pens,” Cass adds. “We don’t need to be at this shitty hotel missing all the action.”

  Her voice grows louder, and I hear a few footsteps moving towards us. Beside me, Sky starts breathing heavy, so I reach out to hold her hand. Our palms, slick with fear, slip together.

  “Sheep, huh?” Another voice, a deeper one, male, answers Cass. “Then why’d you call me up from the lobby?”

  “Darren, Lory called you up. Not me.”

  “Enough bickering,” a third voice chimes in. How many of them are there? “Cass, for being low lord on the totem pole, you’ve got an awful lot to say. As Council member, I make the calls here. And I saw a flame in the stairwell.”

  A flame in the stairwell. A flame. My flame. My stomach does a backflip and lands on the glass-covered floor.

  “Darren’s squad was guarding the lobby. Yours was on two, Clara’s was on three, and I was patrolling four. So if not for the sheep, then who the hell was on the stairwell?” The third speaker, which by now I’d bet a ration is Lory, pauses for dramatic effect. Then I hear a groan and a gasp—like there’s some sort of power play happening on the other side of the bar.

  “Now shut the fuck up and do what you’re told,” Lory says. “This is the last place we have to look.”

  Sky lets go of my hand and moves up my wrist with her fingers, then ever so slightly digs her nails into my skin. A bona fide Told you so. Damn it, I hate it when she’s right. I should never have lit that torch.

  I’m wondering how pissed she’d be if she knew I had the gun.

  I take a small breath and look around at the bottles and glass that barricade us in. If we don’t move, we’re surely caught. If we move in the middle of all this glass, we’ll make noise, and we’re caught. I close my eyes and briefly consider shooting our way out of this. How many bullets are there? Four? Probably not enough. Assuming I have the guts to pull the trigger.

  The footsteps are splitting up and shuffling around us in all directions. The whorelords must be checking under couches and in corners, looking for the rogue sheep.

  “Lory, there’s no one up here,” Cass whines. “Come on, can’t we go back to the castle? You promised I could see the trial.”

  And for one short, amazing moment, I think we might be safe. Sky takes my hand again, and we squeeze. Yes, yes, yes, go back to that whore’s den of a castle.

  “They must’ve snuck back to their rooms,” Lory says with a sigh. “I guess the other lords can handle babysitting for the night. Just check the bar and then let’s get the hell out of here.”

  The bar.

  Sky and I look at each other, mirrors of panic. Footsteps start pacing towards us from the opposite side of the roof.

  Half-baked ideas start bumbling around in my brain. The whorelords. Lockdown. The castle. Rolladin. Street-fighting.

  Think, think, think.

  The ideas finally roll up their sleeves and start working together to build the beginnings of a plan.

  I put one hand on my chest, like I can actually keep my heart on lockdown, and with the other, lean on Sky’s shoulder for support. Then I dislodge the small gun and bullets from my pocket and shove them into the seat of my long underwear. Sky watches me in horror.

  You brought your gun? she mouths. Moron.

  She’s right, of course. Again. There’s no precedent for getting caught on the roof during lockdown, let alone with a weapon.

  But I don’t admit this, and instead just whisper, “Do what I do.”

  I scan the bottles. Out of the lot of booze, Jim Beam looks like a solid, rational guy—a real straight shooter in a jam like this. His cap is crusted over from years of disuse, but he finally cracks open and I pour the caramel-colored liquid onto my hands, rub it behind my ears, take a long, deep swig of the gag-worthy stuff and pass it over to Sky before I stand.

  Here. Goes. Nothing.

  “We’re over here,” I fake slur across the roof terrace. I try to remember all the nights of watching the sloppier whorelords stumble around the Park, and channel them. “Cele-bra-ting.”

  I look down at Sky, plead with her. Drink it, bathe in it, and get up. Please.

  She debates whether to hide the journal on her, but then thinks better of it, weasels it into a cabinet, and camouflages it with a few bottles. Then she takes a long pull from the Jim and, choking on it, pats some on her face before she stands.

  “What the hell are you two doing up here?” Lory demands. “Getting wasted? On our stash?”

  She stomps over to us and grabs the half-empty bottle from Sky. The other three whorelords converge on us.

  “Ugh, you lemmings reek.”

  Lory and Clara begin searching Sky as Darren drags me out to the center of the roof-deck lounge. He holds my arms behind my back with one hand and does a quick check of my sweatpants pockets with the other, scouting for booze or weapons or God knows what else. I buckle my knees a bit. I squeeze my thighs together and pray he can’t see or feel the gun poking out from my sweats. Moron, I repeat silently. Moron.

  But he backs away, satisfied I’ve got nothing. The cold lead of the gun slides between my legs uncomfortably, but it’s nothing compared with the shit I’d be facing for holding a weapon.

  “Well, if it isn’t the famous Miller kids, cel-e-brating,” Cass spits into my ear as Lory brings Sky around the bar. “What, now you think you can do anything you want, just ’cause Rolladin didn’t let me finish you on Sixty-Fifth Street?”

  The smell of Cass’s breath is layered—meat and booze and a heavy, smoky smell—and I cringe and angle my face away from her. The fur of her lame little squirrel cloak scratches me in the eye.

  “Don’t think I’ll ever forget you cut me. Bitch.”

  “Cass,” Lory snaps, pushing Sky forward as she does so, like my sister’s just a puppet on a string. Sky looks at me, her eyes wide and hollow, and I can tell she’s scared shitless. I am too. I close my eyes and breathe. Come on, just trust in the plan.

  “What?” Cass answers Lory. “I’m just having a little fun with her.”

 
; Cass grabs my hair and pulls my head backward, and I have to bite my lip to keep from yelping. My ribs are still sore from the fight, and Cass is standing so close, she’s crushing into me.

  Darren reaches across the back of my body, and for a second, I’m sure that he’s going to touch me again and find the gun, and this will be all over. I close my eyes—

  But his hand just grabs Cass’s wrist.

  “Cass,” he says quietly. “Let’s not do anything we’ll regret.”

  Cass releases her death grip on my hair. She straightens herself out and clears her throat. “Fine. We’re taking them to the zoo prisons, right? Then let’s go. We don’t have that much time before the trial.”

  “Not the zoo,” Lory answers. “The castle.”

  “The castle? These two lemmings were found drinking the lords’ booze. After curfew. On lockdown. And we need Rolladin to weigh in on whether we lock them in the zoo?” Cass’s eyes inch up and down my features. “I don’t get it,” she adds, her hot mess of breath crawling across my face. “What’s so special about you? Why does she even care?”

  “What did I tell you about that mouth, Cass? Don’t forget your place.” Lory pushes my sister towards the door and the puddles of chains. “Now shut your fat face and get moving.”

  As we feel our way down the stairs, I keep my thighs locked, hugging the gun.

  “Can we at least tell our mom we’re being taken?” Sky calls out over the stampede of footsteps. “If she wakes up and we’re not there . . . Please.”

  The whorelords get a good laugh out of that but don’t even bother answering.

  Sky’s right. Mom’s going to be totally spooked if we’re not there when she wakes up. I pray that she stays asleep through all of this. That somehow we get back by morning. But if things go according to my plan, it’s pretty doubtful.

  “Clara,” Lory barks back to my street-fight referee, now flanked between Lory and Sky, and me and my captors. “Stay behind and let the squads know we’re taking these fools to the castle. They’re on their posts until told otherwise.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Clara drops behind as the rest of us burst into the slick-floored lobby, and then out into the midnight air.