by James Hunt
A few candles glowed behind the counter of the pharmacy, where most of the prescription drugs were stored. “I’ll give you a few general antibiotics in case that flu turns out to be something bacterial.” He snagged a few bags off the aisle and then shoved them into Kate’s arms. “You can grab some over-the-counter pills on your way out. Aisle three.”
“Thank you,” Kate said, stuffing the pills inside her jacket. “Thank you so much.”
“Do you have any SSRI medications?” Doug asked, eyeing the rows of medicine.
The old man grunted. “Probably gonna be a lot of people down on their luck after all of this.” He stepped backward farther down the aisle. “A particular brand you’re looking for?”
“Celexa, if you have it,” Doug answered.
“Here.” The old man tossed a bag at Doug. “Now get out.”
They retreated down the aisles, and Kate stole a variety of cold medicines and throat lozenges and added them to her stash of antibiotics.
Once outside, Doug took a few steps then stopped. He stared at the medicine clutched in his hand. His expression glowered contempt, and the corner of his eye twitched. It could have been the cold, but his eyes reddened in the anticipation of tears.
“What’s SSRI stand for?” Kate asked.
“Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors,” Doug answered. “It’s for depression.” He looked at her, almost as if he were waiting for her to make a joke at his mother’s expense. “That’s what’s wrong with my mom.”
“I’m sorry.” Kate gave a soft touch to his shoulder. “I can imagine that’s hard.”
“Harder when you’re alone with her.” The tears fell, and Doug turned his head away, wiping at the corner of his eyes quickly. “I’m fine.” He stuffed the medicine into his jacket pocket. “We need to get moving.” Without looking at her, he broke into another jog.
Kate’s body groaned, but she caught up to him easily enough. The knives returned to her side for a moment but didn’t linger as long.
The pair cut through neighborhoods, staying off the main streets where most of the looting and chaos was taking place. But the houses and apartments they passed were calmer, more stable. Kate assumed home had that effect on people. Though there were a few exceptions.
“Danny!” A young woman stepped from a small house, cradling a crying baby in her arms. “Danny!” She had been screaming that name since they’d turned down her street, her voice shrill and panicked. “Danny, come back!”
“Shut it, lady! Danny ain’t here!” The angered voice was thrown from a window in one of the apartment buildings. Kate looked to see where it came from, but the coward had already ducked back inside.
“Oh, god,” the woman said, and the baby let out a high-pitched shriek. She gave her a soothing bounce and kissed the top of her head. “It’s all right, Liddy. Everything is going to be okay.”
Kate locked eyes with the mother briefly as she continued her search for Danny’s whereabouts. Kate assumed it was her husband or boyfriend. She was a young woman, not much older than Doug.
A few hours ago, if the woman had wanted to talk to Danny, all she would have had to do was call his cell phone. It was so easy to talk to people now, and it could be done at any time, from anywhere in the world.
The sight of the woman made Kate grab her phone, but the blank screen was a reminder of just how easily all of that could be taken away. In the blink of an eye Kate, and the rest of the people in the city, had been cast into the stone age. No cars. No phones. No power. And then Kate stopped, a terrible thought freezing her in place.
“What is it?” Doug asked. Then, noticing the phone in Kate’s hand, he lunged forward excitedly. “Did you get it working?”
“If the power went off, how does that affect our phones? They have batteries in them.” Kate lifted her head and saw that the woman with the baby who was screaming for Danny had gone back inside. “And the cars. They’ve all stopped working too.” She frowned. “How is that even possible?”
“I don’t know. Some type of wireless computer virus maybe?” Doug shrugged, shaking his head from the lack of conviction in his own answer. “Everything has computers in it now, right? Or at least some component.”
“Yeah,” Kate answered. “Maybe.” She tucked the phone back in her pocket and then zipped her jacket all the way to her chin. The first few flecks of snow fell and dotted the sidewalk. “Bridge isn’t much farther, right?”
“No,” Doug answered. “One more street, and then it’s down on the right. We’re almost there.”
Kate took the lead the rest of the way. On her run, the mother’s cries of ‘Danny’ replayed in her mind. How many other people were screaming for their loved ones? How many people didn’t know the condition of their friends and family? She looked up to the grey clouds that blanketed the sky. The snow thickened, and she squinted to avoid the snowflakes stinging her eyes. She never wanted to be that woman on the street. She never wanted to have that fear of the unknown.
But the closer they got to the bridge and the more people Kate saw on the street, funneling out of the city and into the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, she also had another thought. How many of these people were leaving friends and family behind? How many of them gave in to the fear and instinct of survival? She’d seen enough of it on the train to guess that those numbers were higher than they should be. The mob mentality had taken control. And despite Grace’s plea that there needed to be more people like her and Doug, Kate had her doubts about how many of those “good people” were still hanging around the city.
Chapter 5
Thousands of people crammed onto the small sidewalk of the Williamsburg bridge, funneling themselves off the island and onto the mainland, desperately trying to get out of the city. Every face carried an expression of hastened panic, and hands clawed forward, people shoving one another aside.
“Looks like we’re the only ones trying to get back in,” Doug said then shook his head. “Power must be out in the city too.” He spun around, unsure of what he was even looking for. “God, how far does this thing go?”
Kate eyed the pedestrian walkways that lined either side of the bridge. Not an inch of space remained. She looked to the road and saw that many people had chosen to climb over the stalled cars that clogged the bridge. “We’ll have to go over the cars.”
“Yeah,” Doug replied, nodding nervously.
Two women passed, clutching one another, muttering to themselves loud enough for the whole neighborhood to hear. “God, who were those people? Why would they do that?”
Kate reached for the woman’s shoulder. “What people?”
The woman spun around, snarling like a rabid dog. “Don’t touch me!” She lunged as she barked, and Kate stepped back with her hands in the air.
The second woman calmed her friend. “We saw one of the attacks.”
“Attacks?” Doug and Kate asked simultaneously.
“You’re talking about the blasts?” Doug asked.
“No. The people with the guns. They came out of nowhere. We were near Times Square when it happened.” She cast her gaze to the ground, and her lips quivered.
“Terrorists,” the other woman blurted out, her expression still rabid. “They’re animals!”
“C’mon, Mary.” The friend pulled the woman forward, but Kate still heard her screaming as they disappeared into the crowds.
“Animals! Rabid animals!”
Kate followed the back of the woman’s head until she couldn’t see her anymore.
“Looks like we can get on the road there.” Doug pointed between a black truck and a red Mercedes sedan. “It’ll be hard crossing all the way over though. Especially with so many people leaving.”
“We’ll just watch our footing.” And just as Kate spoke, she watched a woman fall from the hood of a car, twisting her ankle as a friend tried to help her up before she was smashed to a pulp by the stampede of people behind her. The sight triggered the image of the woman who had fallen off
the walkway of the elevated train tracks and the resounding splat that ended her screams.
“Kate,” Doug said, snapping her out of the daze. “You coming?”
“Yeah.” Kate followed, the pair pushing through the hordes streaming off the bridge. Most looked like they didn’t even know where they were going. They were simply lost and aimlessly following the masses.
The crowd and its madness thickened the closer Doug and Kate got to the road on the bridge. The pair squeezed through, Kate’s shoulders knocking into arms and chests and stomachs as they pushed closer.
Doug glanced behind him twice to make sure Kate was close, but she had latched onto the back of his jacket without him even knowing. That same impulse from before flooded through Kate’s veins. She didn’t want to lose him, a kid she had met less than an hour ago. A kid that she never would have even spoken to had the train not stopped. A kid that was the only person who stepped forward to help when things got bad. A kid who stayed when everyone else ran.
They reached a truck, and Doug climbed into the bed. He turned and offered his hand, which Kate grabbed hold of. Elevated by the truck bed, Kate had a better view of the carnage clogging the bridge and the steady stream of people still trying to escape.
“Holy shit,” Doug said.
Every car on the bridge was wrecked. Piles of metal and tires formed like anthills. And through the wreckage, she saw the lifeless bodies of those still inside, unnoticed by the people that passed over their metal tombs.
“Look at this,” Doug said, sweeping his hand over the chaos. “No cops. No authority anywhere. How the hell are people supposed to get any help?”
“They’re not.” Kate thought about what the pair of women had said about the terrorists with the guns. An old rhyme entered her mind. Like shooting fish in a barrel. “C’mon.”
Hoods and roofs buckled underneath their feet, and more than once Kate was forced to crawl then slide down over the fresh snow that melted against her pants and jacket. After the first dozen cars, her joints ached.
“Holding up okay?” Doug shouted back to her, pausing on the hood of a Chrysler as a fresh wave of New Yorkers passed them on their way to Brooklyn.
“Yeah.” Kate hopped off the front bumper of a jeep and landed on the first open patch of concrete she had seen on the bridge since they had started walking. “Just need a break for a second.” She squatted, letting her muscles stretch, and then stood.
The cold and the exertion chipped away at Kate’s stamina. The skipped breakfast didn’t help either. And despite the cold, she began to sweat. “Do you have any water?”
“Yeah, I think I have some left.” Doug swung his pack around and opened the largest compartment. He rummaged through while Kate glanced to the south.
The Brooklyn Bridge sat on the horizon, the suspension bridge larger than the one Kate currently found herself on. She had taken Holly there the first week they moved. She remembered all the bike locks that people attached on some of the support cables of the walkway. One of them was hanging out all the way over the center of the road, which meant the daredevil who had put it there dangled twenty feet in the air over traffic.
Kate wasn’t sure of the tradition’s origin, but it was one of those small things that made big cities feel like home. And she’d been to enough of them to know New York was unique.
An explosion plumed over the Brooklyn Bridge, tearing apart Kate’s memory as the blast echoed over the river. Kate jerked away from the sound, turning her face as if the blast was close enough to hurt her. Another explosion rumbled in the distance, and this one pulled her attention back to the bridge.
A second plume of smoke rose on the opposite end of the bridge, and Kate watched brick and concrete collapse into the East River, dragging cars and people with it.
The crowd on the Williamsburg Bridge froze at the sight of the horror unfolding to the south. And then, slowly at first and then all at once, screams and the stampede of footsteps replaced shock.
In the explosion of panic, Kate watched three people disappear beneath churning legs and feet. Heavy footfalls stomped over the vehicles like a tidal wave.
People slipped on the slick surfaces fresh with snow and landed hard, shattering windows and denting metal. Everyone clawed and scrambled forward, fleeing toward safety.
“Kate, run!”
Doug’s voice snapped Kate out of the stupor, but she lost him in the crowd. She rocketed herself into the growing projectile of human bodies that fled toward safety. Another explosion rocked the Manhattan Bridge toward the north, two more blasts jettisoned debris into the air, and the bridge joined the Brooklyn in its collapse into the East River.
Kate’s heart hammered wildly. Adrenaline washed over the pain radiating from her knees and hips, and she grew numb against the bodies that rushed past her.
The end of the bridge drew closer, and it was clogged with people sprinting from the city. They came from everywhere, bottlenecking at the bridge. Another blast rumbled, and this one shook the ground beneath her feet. Kate lost her balanced and tumbled forward over the hood of a truck.
Screams replaced the monotonous whine of the blast. Two pairs of feet scurried past Kate’s line of sight, and she pushed herself up, her chest still vibrating in a low hum from the blast. She wobbled once she was upright and sloppily placed one foot in front of the other as she restarted her escape.
Others joined in Kate’s retreat, and then another blast thundered on the bridge, this one closer than before. A wave of heat warmed Kate’s backside, but she didn’t turn around.
The ground suddenly buckled, and the foundation of the bridge gave way. Kate kept her pace, the muscles along her legs wobbling like jelly, and she didn’t stop until she tripped and skidded to the pavement, her gloves tearing on the concrete.
Kate heaved for breath and fought the urge to vomit. She turned behind her and saw nothing but grey dust where the bridge once stood. It was like a smog of destruction, and every once in a while, someone ran into the fog, and then someone ran out.
“Doug!” Kate’s voice cracked. It was dry and tired. “Doug!”
Figures darted around Kate as the fog spread, swallowing her up with everything else. Visibility dropped to less than a few feet in front of her face. She clawed at the dust, searching for Doug, but she couldn’t see him. A million thoughts raced through her mind. Had he been trampled? Was he caught in the explosion? Did he fall into the river?
Gunfire broke Kate’s stream of consciousness and jumpstarted her pulse. The gunshots fired in the same hastened rhythm as her heart. Blanketed by grey haze, they seemed to come from every direction. The gunfire chased screams as the slow, huddled masses of people escaping the bridge suddenly returned to their frenzied pace.
Kate finally jumped into the rat race and kept her head low. Gunfire blared to her left. She shuddered and ducked lower. She veered from the road, choosing to head for the cover of buildings, and as she did, she saw them. They were nothing but silhouettes, their arms lengthened by the rifles in their hands. She wasn’t sure if they could see her, but she darted to the corner of a store to escape execution.
Fear clawed the back of her neck, traveling down her spine and invading every cell of her body. The gunfire, the smoke, the screams—it all funneled that primal emotion of survival through her veins. The ability of higher thought ended, and everything was replaced with a single message: run.
Dust trailed off her as she sprinted. Like an extended blur, it followed her until her legs tired and her lungs exploded in her chest. The snowfall lightened, but it had already covered her tracks with fresh powder.
The farther she ran, the more she noticed the faces in the windows of the stores she passed. In turn, they watched her through the glass, clutching their broken and useless phones like some kind of life support.
Kate caught her reflection in the glass, and at first glance, she didn’t recognize herself. The dust-covered monster couldn’t have been her. What she saw now was a frightened anima
l.
Adrenaline propelled her forward, and the more ground her boots chewed up, the faster those sounds of gunshots and the sight of the ruins of the Williamsburg bridge faded. She made it ten blocks before she stopped. She hunched over, wheezing, then hacked and coughed, spitting snot and saliva onto the pavement.
With her motion ended, pain returned. Feet, hips, knees, everything ached. After the stop, she could only limp. And she traveled the next thirty blocks to the street where her apartment building was, fighting the urge to collapse.
Like Queens, Manhattan was in chaos. Screams bellowed from subway entrances. More gunshots thundered to the west. Glass shattered to her east. And while most people had sought shelter, thousands still roamed the streets.
The more she separated herself from the bridge and the fighting, the stranger the expressions became on the people she passed. She had been touched by the madness that had descended on the city, and people recoiled from her. They hadn’t seen the horror yet. They hadn’t experienced the real fear. But once they did, they’d change. It was inevitable.
A city of nine million people would fight. And if this was happening elsewhere in the country, which Kate was beginning to have the sinking suspicion that it was, that meant they could go a long time without receiving any aid.
And as those realizations washed over her and she saw more confused people with their red, cold noses pressed up against the windows of shops and apartments and houses that she passed, Kate knew she had to get off the island. She had to get her family away from the teeming masses that would do anything to survive.
It was like Grace had said: there weren’t enough good people in the city, and even if Kate was able to round up all of them, they’d still be outnumbered one thousand to one. Those were odds that she wasn’t willing to put her family against.
Chapter 6
Thirty stories up, New York looked different. The roads that pumped life and movement into the city had suddenly clotted without warning. Rodney Klatt examined the streets below in a sort of stunned silence from his apartment window.