City of Savages

by Lee Kelly

  Food.

  Rich smells saturated the air—meat, boiling vegetables. Blood and sweat.

  The smells wafted over the Park, through the rows of tents and huts that were built by our invaders.

  “Put your hands in the air,” Mary ordered the crowd.

  We raised our arms, walked slowly, showed our attackers that we were coming in peace. But that didn’t stop the foreign tongues thrashing at the sky, the cocked rifles. The team of soldiers that surrounded us, yelling, barking, thrusting their weapons into our faces.

  “Please,” Mary said. “We come to surrender. Woman. With Child. Please.”

  She took out her Central Park Zoo volunteer keys and dangled them. “Surrender. You lock us up, take care of us.”

  We were ushered into the heart of the Park, to be given to the mercy of those who could make these kinds of decisions. A short man shadowed by a large general’s cap approached us with a thin young interpreter right on his heels.

  The general ran through a litany of foreign syllables, harsh alien words that snapped and bit at our ears.

  Then the interpreter spoke. “The general has heard your plea. He accepts on his terms.”

  Mary gave a choked, nervous laugh. “His terms?”

  The general grabbed the keys from Mary, grunting and smiling at them. He nodded to the team of soldiers behind him.

  “His terms are women and children,” the interpreter said.

  “Wait, I said we have a woman with child—”

  The interpreter interrupted Mary, barked to the platoon behind him in his native tongue, and then we were separated and herded, the women and children pushed to one side, the men to the other.

  The general moved up close to Mary, so that he was inches from her face. “What is your name, woman?”

  Of course he spoke English himself.

  “Mary,” she sputtered. “Mary Rolladin.”

  “Oh my God.” My breath catches as I read over those words, repeat them just as Mary did. Mary. Mary Rolladin.

  Mary is Rolladin.

  “What?” Phee says, frantically grabbing the journal to catch up with me. I watch her eyes move swiftly back and forth, devouring each word. “Wait, that can’t be. Mary Rolladin?”

  “Oh my God,” I say again. My mind shuffles, bends, and bridges my memories of the Park leader like cards in a deck. Rolladin barking orders.

  Rolladin bullying guards and fieldworkers—

  Rolladin protecting Phee in the street-fights.

  Rolladin offering us drinks in her chambers.

  I think of what she said to me, that night we told her we wanted to join her. You’ve always reminded me of your mother.

  Rolladin knows my mother, because she’s our aunt.

  Because she was with our mother.

  “I knew it. I knew there had to be more,” Phee says. “I knew she cared about us—”

  “We just didn’t know why,” I finish for her.

  And she’s right, of course. This news doesn’t surprise me. Instead it completes the picture and clicks everything into place.

  I tug the book back between us, so that it lies across our knees. “This isn’t just Mom’s story.” My head is reeling, overloaded, sputtering from trying to process too much information.

  “This is Rolladin’s story,” Phee’s voice catches as she finishes. She looks at me. “Like you said back at the Carlyle—this is our city’s story.”

  The men were gathered into the center of the Great Lawn as we were pushed towards the sidelines. Soldiers moved quickly, lining us up, lining the men up, counting, running numbers for an equation for which none of us knew the variables.

  “WOA-WA-DIN,” the general repeated back to Mary, smiling. “Women and children, Rolladin. Nothing for free.”

  And then, with a whistle, he called all his gunmen to raise their rifles. They fired on the men in the field.

  One at a time.

  October—Our captors, the Red Allies, are picking New Yorkers off the streets one by one and slowly flushing them out of the subways. They’re storing us in the Central Park zoo houses like it’s some kind of makeshift internment camp.

  Our original 6 train crew, we’re some of the lucky ones. We’re kept in the aviary, a big, greenhouse-looking structure that smells of zoo and manure. We see the stars through the glass roof every night, and every morning, we wake to the sky blooming pink and orange. We’re reminded that there’re still things left to wonder about in the world, and we’re still human enough to wonder.

  But not everything’s so rosy.

  There are rumors passed like notes from cell to cell, that some of our women are trading themselves for beds. Soon it’s all Bronwyn can whisper about through morning and evening rations: how anything is better than prison. How the loneliness is slowly killing her. How she could make somebody love her.

  I do what I can do from my cell, which is just shy of nothing—I tell her she’ll break, I tell her she’ll hate herself, I beg her to think of her little sisters. But she’s volatile, desperate—just a kid with nothing left in a cruel and apathetic city.

  And then one morning I wake up, and she’s no longer there.

  And the failure I feel cuts so deep, I can’t bandage it.

  There are other rumors too. That soldiers send groups of new captives running across Sheep Meadow, and that only the fastest survive. That at night, troops walk through the reptile house and pick the strongest-looking men, only to have the entire platoon kick the shit out of them on the other side of 65th Street.

  We hear their pleading and groveling each night outside the aviary’s walls: Have pity. Spare us. Show us the Lord’s mercy.

  We don’t speak of them in the morning. Just like we’ve never spoken of the men in the fields, the ones gunned down so we could live. Mary and I cry ourselves to sleep each night as we listen to the begging, thanking God for at least each other. We hold Sky between us, like she belongs to both of us.

  October—In the corner of the aviary, Sky’s sister was born under a full moon. It somehow felt appropriate. I still can’t believe this baby was born at all. She came out wriggling and screaming, thrashing at the world.

  “I think we have a fighter here,” Mary whispered in my ear.

  “What should we name her?” I asked Mary and Sky. Sky just giggled. She has a couple of words now, Mommy and May-May. But these days, she mostly laughs. It’s as if she knows we’ve somehow crossed a threshold and have gotten our second chance.

  “Phoenix,” Mary finally answered me the following night. She pulled me and the girls into her lap as we relaxed in the corner.

  “Phoenix?” I asked her.

  “This little girl pulled us out of the dark,” Mary said. “Let us all rise from the ashes.”

  And immediately, I knew she was right.

  We hear Trevor and Mom coming up the stairs. I quickly take the journal from Phee and fold it closed again, trusting Charlotte once more to keep our secrets. As I do so, Phee springs from the ground, but I manage to catch her wrist.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I need to ask her.” Phee’s face is taut. “I need Mom to tell us all this herself. This is too big. We should have known this.”

  “Phee, you can’t.”

  “Why not?” Phee growls. “Why add secrets to secrets? I’m tired of this. I need to come clean. I need her to come clean. Everything’s getting messed up. Everything’s changing.”

  I tug her forcefully, until she finally stops wriggling and relents. “We will figure this out,” I say. I study her glossy eyes, her brow stitched in confusion, and I soften my grip. “Just you and me. But until then, keep it to yourself. Okay? Promise me.”

  She finally nods, and I let go of her sleeve.

  “Can one of you guys help Trev with the water buckets? I want to pre
pare for today’s meals,” Mom asks cheerfully as we approach, but Phee sprints past her, down the stairs.

  Mom looks at me. “Everything okay?”

  I close my eyes. Focus. Show her nothing. “Yeah it’s fine. I can help,” I tell her. “We’ll bring the buckets up in a second.”

  27 PHEE

  I let the light streaming in from the smeared windows cover me like a sheet. I’m on my back, watching the steady rise and fall of my stomach. Forgotten toys are scattered around me, and shrunken chairs pepper the room. The door says this room’s called DAY CARE. That’s exactly how it feels, like care for today—a safe and secret hideout—and I don’t want to go back upstairs till I calm down.

  It’s not just keeping secrets that’s killing me—although that’s gnawing at me too. It’s all the changes, coming at me one after another, like an army I’m trying to ward off with one sword.

  I used to take this city as a given. Manhattan is where I belong. Of course I thought the war would end one day and we’d be able to leave, but I never really thought about actually going. Now we’re planning to escape the only home I’ve ever known, the only one I’d ever want, for the lame idea of finding something better.

  But it’s not just Manhattan. My family’s becoming unrecognizable. I’ve found things out about Mom that I never thought were possible. That Rolladin’s my aunt, for freaksakes, might have been the reason I was ever born. Christ, she even named me.

  And of course, the kicker: Sky. The person I trust the most is now on the other side of some wall that never existed before. And the crappy part is, I don’t how to scale it. I don’t even know who built the thing.

  I’m trying to deal, to take it all in stride, to breathe it in, then let it go, like I always do. But I’m really starting to suffocate.

  I hear quick footsteps on the stairs outside the playroom, so I know Ryder and Sam must be back, and with food, most likely. But even that doesn’t cheer me up.

  I flop on my side and stare at the smooth square of green slate hanging on the wall. I focus on it until my eyes start to droop and my breath becomes soft and controlled. And then, what I knew was coming—what I hate anyone seeing—starts happening. Tears fall, one by one, on the thick carpet. My ribs start to shake, but I don’t make any noise. I just lie there.

  Then, when I feel like my eyes have run out of tears and I can’t feel sorry for myself anymore, I pick myself off the ground.

  Maybe all this will sort itself out. Maybe everything will go back to normal, if we just give it more time. And maybe there’s a chance Ryder and Sam can stay with us, right here in this city.

  I realize I need to believe it.

  * * *

  “Where’ve you been?” Trevor’s in my face as soon as I get back to the third floor. “I was looking for you.”

  “I took a walk.” I rub my eyes for good measure, making sure I didn’t leave any evidence of weakness. I look around and realize that we’re the only ones on the workout level. “Where’s everyone else?”

  Trev’s face becomes serious. “Someone’s here. From the outside—from a hotel or something.”

  “What do you mean, from a hotel?” I ask as I follow Trev up a flight to our kitchen.

  “Some guy who knows your mom,” he whispers. A guy who knows my mom? From a hotel? Who does she know who’s not at the Park right now, or in this gym? Mom said all the city’s raiders must be dead.

  But we reach the kitchen before I can sort it all out. And perched around the small table are Sky, Mom, Ryder, Sam . . . and like Trev said, some guy I’ve never seen.

  “What’s going on?” I ask the crowd, which is now dead silent. Like a reflex, I look at Sky, hoping to get a read on her. Her eyes are big, telling, like I’ve missed something important.

  “Phee, sweetheart.” Mom waves me over. She grabs my hand when I approach, and I see that she’s been crying. Then she gives this tight little sigh, like everything she’s got tied up and twisted inside her is loosening.

  “This is a friend,” she says. She does that gasp-hiccup thing again. “Robert Mulaney. He’s been close with your father since we were kids. He found Ryder and Sam while they were hunting along the Hudson.”

  Robert Mulaney. The name sounds weirdly familiar, but I don’t know why.

  I finally look this Robert in the eye. Even sitting down you can tell he’s tall, and thin. He has that tight-as-steel look Mom has, like he’s seen far too much, so he recast himself in iron. And he’s handsome, for an old guy—blue eyes, pale skin. Paler than anyone I’ve ever seen at the Park.

  “A friend of Dad’s?” I say instinctively, my native New Yorker sense kicking in. “How do you know he’s telling the truth?” I wasn’t raised my whole life here to just take someone at their word. We know better.

  “Phee,” Sky says, but she lets my name hang there. When I look at her, I can tell she’s trying to telepath something to me. But I’m not getting it, and I guess it’d be way too weird for her to start signing.

  “You raised them well.” This Robert guy smiles. “This isn’t the kind of world anymore where you can believe something without proof. Phoenix, right?”

  I nod, still not sure what’s going on.

  “Phee, Robert’s a friend of mine, too,” Mom says. “From before the war. He used to work with your father as an artist. We were all close, all friends, in the city. Before.”

  Robert, I rack my brain. Robert.

  Then it comes to me, Mom’s words—not her words from the present, but the ones from the past. Robert and Tom, she had said, over and over again in the journal. Robert and Tom. Robert and Dad.

  Could it be? Robert, the guy with Dad, who Mom and Rolladin were looking for in the tunnels all those months? Mom hoping and praying they’d be just around the corner? This Robert survived, somehow. But if he survived . . .

  “After we searched him and got talking, we found out these two were long-lost mates.” Sam nods at Mom and Robert, interrupting my train of thought. He’s polishing our bow in the corner, and I notice that small bits of squirrel meat are still wrapped around the couple of arrows lying on the table.

  Then I notice the plastic-wrapped hunk of meat beside him—a huge rack of deer or some other big game—definitely not squirrels, unless Sam managed to kill about a hundred of them this morning. I suddenly need to sit down, and pull up a chair next to Ryder.

  Ryder points to the meat sheepishly. “Your mom’s friend is quite generous.”

  Robert laughs and squeezes Mom’s hand. “The least I could do, as we have plenty of it to go around. I spent more than a year with Tom, searching for your mother and Skyler in the tunnels. And sadly, we gave up hope. Never in a million years would I have guessed that you had survived. And brought more life into this world, no less.” He looks up at me with big genuine eyes and gently rubs my arm. “You’re a miracle, Phoenix. A testament to the fact that life persists, despite all things.”

  But I don’t care about testaments. I want to know how this guy found us, why he’s here, and what it means. “How’d you get all that food?” I ask him. “Did you ransack the Park?”

  Robert never breaks his smile, but he looks to Mom. She nods, encouraging him to go on. “Phoenix, I’ve never registered at the Park.”

  I don’t understand. So this guy’s a holdout? “But everyone was ordered to the Park during occupation, right, Mom? They swept the streets.”

  “There were plenty of people who weren’t found, Phoenix. Especially people who didn’t want to be.” Robert leans in, his blue eyes wild and animated. It kind of reminds me of how Sky gets when she’s about to tell me a story, about something so fantastical, it can’t be real.

  “As I was telling your companions here,” Robert says, “Elder Tom . . . rather, your father and I, spent months combing the subways and the streets, desperate to hear of something, anything, that would give us hop
e you girls were alive. It was a dark, dark time for your father.”

  Robert rests his hand on Mom’s shoulder for support. “Most of the people we had been scavenging with were captured, broken, or dying. The two of us were on the brink of death ourselves. Just . . . lost. That’s when angels found us, Phoenix,” Robert says.

  I blink. “Angels.”

  “Yes. Missionaries who were combing the subways, committed to bringing the fallen back to life. They found us and brought us to the Standard Hotel, on the West Side near the water, where a man named Wren was making a home for so many who had lost their own. I’ve been there fifteen years.” Robert looks around the table. “We have more than enough food and provisions for everyone. We’ve been blessed: Our community is home to botanists, and scientists, and pharmacists . . . it’s almost as if the Standard was destined, was made to be the world’s second chance.” Robert’s smile widens so much, I’m half-afraid his face can’t contain it. “We’ve stayed hidden all these years, Phoenix. From the Red Allies, and the war, then from the warlords in the Park. We’re an oasis on this devastated island.”

  “Robert,” Mom says, and rubs her eyes with her hands, hiding her face, then gives one of those gasp-hiccup things again. And I want to hug her, just pull her in, but Robert’s already got his arms around her. “I still can’t believe it’s you.”

  “Like I said, Sarah. Miracles can still happen on this island.”

  I look down at my hands.

  A friend from Mom’s past is alive.

  Alive and well, in an oasis in Manhattan.

  And he found us, right on the brink of leaving. Right on the brink of turning our backs on this city.

  Despite my best attempts to remain doubtful, I feel the tiniest spark of hope inside me.

  I run Robert’s words through my mind again. A home for so many who had lost their own. We’ve been blessed . . . destined . . . the world’s second chance.

  I feel the hope start to grow stronger, until my insides are warm, until I feel my muscles relax, just a little.

  Miracles can still happen, Robert said.

  Maybe he’s right. ’Cause minutes ago I was hyperventilating—about the idea of sailing into the unknown, about leaving home and everyone in it behind. Then Mom’s past jumps right out of her journal and knocks on our door with an answer.