Forgotten City

by Michael Ford

  It broke into a run.

  Kobi shoved himself away from the tree and took off. He splashed through a muddy gully, ducked under a hanging branch, and then suddenly he was clear of the trees. His sneakers were soaked through, squelching with every step, as he headed up a narrower street. An old traffic signal lay at an angle, collapsed onto the roof of a delivery truck. Kobi ducked beneath it, keeping his stride on the far side. He could run the sixty-yard dash in under seven seconds, but he was pretty sure a Waste wolf could do it faster. In a storefront window he saw the reflection as the wolf flew after him, eating up the ground with its uneven strides. How long could he keep going? Where was he going?

  And what would it do to him if it caught up?

  His breaths were ragged, choked up and near sobbing with fear, but then he saw it ahead.

  Fire escape!

  Its grated metal platform was a story up against the side of a large white building. Fifteen feet until he could grab hold of the lower section. Can I make it? If I don’t . . .

  The wolf snarled, and he could have sworn he smelled its fetid breath.

  Kobi launched himself into the air and knew at once it wasn’t enough. He hit the wall, and reached, fingertips a fraction short. His feet scrambled, and somehow the toes of his sneakers found some grip, giving him an extra push. His fingers closed on metal and held on. He pulled himself up. Then he heard the snap of the wolf’s teeth and his arms screamed out at a sudden extra weight. The creature had its jaws fastened on the sole of Kobi’s sneaker, its front paws reaching up as it reared against the wall, straining. Kobi wailed and yanked up his foot, and the wolf dropped back, the shoe a tiny morsel in its mouth.

  Kobi rolled up onto the fire escape’s platform. Below, the wolf dropped the shoe and launched itself again, but it couldn’t reach. It growled and tried once more, eyes rabid with hunger and mouth drooling. Finally, it settled back, prowling with angry strides up and down below him. The bolt still protruded from its neck, trailing blood over its thick fur.

  Though his pulse was racing, Kobi’s breathing slowly returned to normal. As it did, he began to process. His knapsack was back in the supermarket, and there was no way he was going back there. But he still had his weapons, luckily, and the map.

  Kobi took it from his back pocket, trying not to think of the pacing wolf below, and tried to work out exactly where he was. From his vantage point, there were no landmarks—everything he saw looked like jungle. He traced his finger up the block from the supermarket. Had he taken a left or a right? How far had he run?

  Then he saw the SODO Medical Center, marked with one of his dad’s Ms. It was three blocks from the supermarket. He looked up at the modern building rising above him.

  This could be it.

  The fire escape looped all the way up to the roof, five floors above. Leaving the wolf to its frustrated pacing and snarling, Kobi climbed the ladders and worked his way up two more stories. Blinds were drawn across most of the windows. He chose a window at random and drew his machete. He knew he couldn’t risk heading all the way up to the roof itself. Up there, any Snatchers within ten blocks would spot him.

  He slammed the machete’s hilt into the glass, and it spider-cracked. It felt wrong to be making so much noise, but there was no way around it. A second blow sent the glass fragments tumbling over the frame. A few shards sprinkled three floors down to where the wolf was waiting. Kobi used the blade to knock the remaining pieces out, pulled up the blinds, and looked inside.

  The window opened into an office lined with books and dominated by a large desk. Several old potted plants had burst from their confines and spread up the walls and across the ceiling. Kobi threw his leg inside and climbed in. The computer terminal on the desk was covered in sprouting fungus, as was the back of the tall desk chair.

  A nameplate on the desk read “Dr. Miriam Argento.”

  So this is the hospital.

  Kobi walked toward the door, one foot in just a sock. He was probably safe inside the building, and there was a chance he’d find food somewhere there. He couldn’t stay inside forever, of course, but he might also source some basics like morphine, antiseptics, and bandages. Clean syringes were always a bonus too, for his dad’s anti-Waste shots. Despite everything, Kobi started to feel positive. He could eat, lie low, and then head out again at first light.

  As he was passing the desk, he noticed the wastepaper basket and a copy of the Seattle Times. Curious, he picked it out. He’d seen a couple of newspapers before, but years ago, before he could even read properly. His dad had never liked having them around. Kobi guessed that seeing them made him remember the painful stuff. Like Mom. She’d died just a few days after Kobi was born, and his dad never spoke about her. Whenever Kobi tried, his dad just shut down, so in the end Kobi simply stopped asking.

  The print was still clear, and the date across the top was March 19, 2031. Kobi knew from his dad’s history lessons that this was about a month after the outbreak. The headline read: HOSPITALS OVERRUN: POLICE URGE RESIDENTS TO STAY INDOORS.

  Fascinated, eyes scanning the text, Kobi went to sit in the chair. With one hand on the back, he spun it around.

  His heart jumped into his throat as a decomposed body slid off the seat, crumpling at his feet. Kobi leaped back, tripping and crashing into one of the plants. He tried to push himself farther away but found himself pressed against the wall, staring into the eye sockets of a skull.

  4

  DR. ARGENTO WAS STILL wearing a suit, but the parts of the body that Kobi could see were only bone. Spindly wrist and hand joints. One foot still wearing a high-heeled shoe.

  Kobi was panting.

  It’s just a body. It can’t hurt you. She’s dead. . . .

  He dropped the newspaper and stood up, eyes glued to the corpse, then backed out of the door. The hospital corridor was empty, with several glass partitions at regular intervals. Trying to forget what he’d seen, Kobi wandered vacantly over the linoleum floor. There were plants there too, but the overgrowth wasn’t as dense as in some other buildings he’d entered. He guessed it was because the environment in the hospital had been so sterile to start with. Signs above the doors pointed to other departments. Some of the words made no sense to Kobi—endocrinology, oncology, pediatrics. Dad would know what they mean. Through the glass he looked into the forested wards. More skeletons lay on rotting beds, not quite as shocking now that he was ready for it. They looked at peace, with their sagging nightclothes, or moth-eaten blankets pulled up to their chests. He’d seen dead bodies before, but never so many in the same place. Like this, they all looked the same.

  Kobi reached a bank of elevators. Peeling back leaves from a sign attached to the wall, he saw what he was looking for on the second floor: “Cafeteria.” Elevators had long ago ceased to work, as the grid stopped generating power, but he gave the call button a hopeful press anyway, and when it didn’t come he took the stairs. The cafeteria looked like a jungle, the counter and cabinets sprouting giant ferns, tables and chairs like islands of lush shrubs. Kobi heard his dad’s voice in his head, making the same joke he always did when they scavenged a restaurant or diner.

  “The service in here is nonexistent!”

  “Food’s a disappointment too,” muttered Kobi. The menu promised waffles, bacon, eggs done any way, burgers and hot dogs, fresh fruit salads, and a dozen other things that Kobi had never eaten yet still made his mouth water. But in the kitchen the only edible remnants he found were canned sweet corn and maple syrup.

  Better than Barkz dog food, I guess.

  There was still gas in the pipes, so he sterilized water over the stove, taking some to refill his canteen and enjoying some slightly stale chamomile tea with the rest. By the time he had finished, it was getting late in the afternoon. Getting back to the school before dark fell would be possible, if risky, but he hadn’t come this far just to turn back. The labs where his dad had been heading weren’t too far—maybe twenty blocks or so.

  If he ever made it the
re.

  Kobi pushed the doubts away, but they lurked on the edge of his consciousness, threatening to break back in and fill his mind with outright despair. Another night on his own. Another twenty-four hours his dad would have to survive without his medication.

  And what if they’d somehow missed each other, and his dad had made it back to Bill Gates?

  Kobi hadn’t even left a note. How dumb was that?

  “Don’t worry about things you can’t change.”

  He heard his dad’s voice, kind and calm, and it soothed his worries. Still, the idea of sleeping in the hospital, among the dead, freaked Kobi out. He headed back upstairs, this time to the fourth floor, looking for somewhere to bed down in peace. At first, it seemed that most of the floor was operating rooms and offices and a couple labs filled with scanning equipment. There was less vegetation than on the other floors, and there wasn’t a single body. From the window at the back of a waiting room, where puzzle books and magazines sat curling in a stack, Kobi caught a glimpse of the sun setting over the forested Seattle skyline. In the distance, rising taller than anything else around, was the disk-shaped summit of the Space Needle.

  His dad said it used to be an observation tower, with thousands of tourists taking the elevator to the top every day. After the outbreak the military had commandeered it to launch the Snatchers, and after each patrol the seizure drones would return to it like birds to a roost. Kobi saw them now, black shapes circling like vultures.

  He considered settling into one of the chairs to sleep, but they looked a heck of a lot less comfortable than his makeshift cot back in the school gym. He decided to try the top floor instead and took the final flight of stairs. At the top, the moss-covered door had been pushed off its hinges by thick vines streaming through an air vent. He stepped over it.

  Some sort of transparent plastic curtain hung from the ceiling a few yards up the corridor, fixed to the walls on either side to provide a barrier. Everything beyond was blurred, and a sign above read: “Quarantine zone: biohazard suits must be worn beyond this point.”

  Kobi walked toward it. There was a door to the left, and inside he saw the suits themselves hanging on pegs. White overalls with integral hoods and visors. Something about them, hanging there like weird second skins, made him shudder, but he found a pair of sneakers roughly the right size and changed into them.

  Next, he turned his attention back to the sealed area. He unzipped the plastic and stepped through. What he found inside wasn’t at all what he’d expected. The walls were pristine white. No plant life whatsoever. The air tasted warmer, and stale. That at least made sense, if this was a Waste-free zone.

  He found himself looking into some sort of medical lab area filled with computer stations, large dark-screened digital displays, and desks littered with papers. He saw models of molecules that looked a bit like those in the science rooms back at Bill Gates, plus chambers that resembled futuristic coffins. There were shelves filled with lab equipment and what may have been medications. One wall was entirely covered by something like a school whiteboard but ten times the size. Fixed to it were photos of individuals, plus close-ups of anatomy Kobi couldn’t fathom. Long equations had been scrawled down one side.

  They were trying to figure out how to treat the effects of Waste. I wonder if Dad knows about this place.

  Through glass partitions at the back of the room was another ward, with six beds, each surrounded by an array of complex monitoring tech. None of the beds, Kobi was pleased to see, were occupied.

  His stomach didn’t feel great, and he wasn’t sure if it was the odd dinner he’d eaten or just the anxiety chewing at him. This place looked safe; that was the main thing. In the ward, he shut the door and pushed one of the beds up against it.

  Just in case.

  Then he settled onto another, pulled a sheet over him, and tried to ignore all the weird equipment.

  Tomorrow I’ll keep on looking.

  At first light, he’d leave the hospital and continue toward the labs. And this time, he’d be a lot more careful.

  “I’m not quitting, Dad,” he said to the white ceiling.

  And, despite thinking that he’d never be able to sleep, it took only a minute before he drifted off.

  Kobi lay on the bench, gripping the bar above. Chalk dusted his palms. His dad stood above him, watching with a frown. “Just don’t hurt yourself, Son.”

  “I won’t,” said Kobi. He took a deep breath in, then pushed. His pectoral muscles contracted, and he eased the bar off its hooks. His arms straightened, elbows locking. His dad had his hands ready in case he dropped the weight, but Kobi sucked in another breath as he lowered the bar to his chest. Another breath out and he lifted again. His arms were shaking as he slotted the bar back into the hooks. He sat up.

  “Kobi, that was three hundred pounds!” said his dad, shaking his head. “Most full-grown men couldn’t press that.”

  “I think I could lift more,” said Kobi, flushing with pride. “Let’s put another twenty on.”

  His dad was making a note on a clipboard. “Not today,” he said. “You’re making amazing progress, but I don’t want to push you too hard without knowing what’s going on with your physiology. Have you taken your vitamin supplements today?”

  “Of course,” said Kobi. He stared into his dad’s eyes. “We know what’s going on with me. It’s Waste.”

  His dad nodded. “Seems to be.” He looked worried.

  “What’s wrong?”

  His dad set down the clipboard and laid a hand on Kobi’s shoulder. “We already know your body can handle the contamination, and we know it’s made you stronger and faster than a normal kid. But knowing it isn’t the same as understanding it. I need more blood for the lab tests.”

  “Sure,” said Kobi. He stretched out his arm, and his dad opened a clean syringe. Kobi turned away.

  “Even after all this time, you still don’t like it, huh?”

  Kobi nodded, closing his eyes. His dad took blood every few days to monitor changes. He’d done it a thousand times, but there was something about seeing the needle go in . . .

  But it didn’t. And when he tried to lift his arms, there were leather straps over his wrists, pinning him down. His head was held in place by something out of sight. He strained his neck but couldn’t move at all. He wasn’t on the bench anymore, but a gurney.

  “Dad? What’s happening?”

  But his dad had gone too. And the gym. A hooded figure in a white suit leaned over him, then another, their faces hidden behind shining visors. Kobi tried to kick with his legs, but they were strapped down as well. He tried to scream, but there was something down his throat. He couldn’t breathe. One of the scientists stooped lower, and in his hand Kobi saw a gleaming scalpel.

  No . . . please!

  “Don’t be afraid,” said a voice. A boy’s voice.

  But he was afraid. He was terrified. The scalpel neared his face, and behind the mask he saw the scientist’s cold, dispassionate eyes.

  Oh god oh god oh god.

  He felt the cold steel touch his skin, then the edge pressed down, biting . . .

  Kobi opened his eyes to semidarkness and saw the shadows of the hospital ward. He wasn’t sure, but he wondered if his ears were picking up the dying notes of a wolf’s howl. He glanced around.

  Alone.

  No scientists, no scalpel.

  Of course not. Everyone’s gone.

  His head throbbed. It wasn’t like a normal headache. It felt like the inside of his skull prickled with something like a static charge, and the backs of his eyes felt hot and heavy. He threw off the blanket, breathing hard, then remembered where he was—the quarantine zone on the fifth floor of the SODO Medical Center. He’d never spent a night out of the school, and maybe he was feeling the effects. Should have taken those vitamins . . . he thought wryly. He reached for the flashlight on the cabinet and flicked it on. Something had changed. It took him a few seconds to realize what it was. Green threads of moss la
ced the inside of the door and a few shoots were coming up from the mattresses, even the one he sat on.

  He’d forgotten to zip the hatch behind him. Waste spores must have found their way in. It never took long. Didn’t matter though—he wasn’t staying.

  Kobi crossed the room, toward the window, and looked out over the dark city. Still night, but what time was it? He wondered whether the wolf was really out there, waiting, or if that howl had been part of the dream too. He killed the flashlight and stared, letting his eyes adjust, as the sweat dried on his skin.

  What the heck was the dream about, anyway? The stuff with his dad was just a memory, but what about the second part—the doctors, or scientists, or whatever they were? The voice that sounded like a boy’s. Some nightmare brought about by seeing the biohazard suits, maybe?

  There was no way he could go back to sleep now.

  He saw something outside—an arc of light shining in the darkness across the roof of a building a block away.

  Kobi’s whole body seemed to seize up, heart thundering, the unease from the dream immediately swept away by a roaring hope. “Dad!” he said, his breath clouding on the window.

  In a moment, his excitement melted into fear. Why is he on the roof? The Snatchers will—

  Another flashlight joined the first. Then a third.

  Kobi gasped and pressed his hands against the glass.

  Impossible . . .

  The lights vanished, but Kobi knew he hadn’t imagined it. The flashlights, the way they’d moved . . . it could only mean one thing. People. Actual living people. Kobi’s insides felt like they were being squeezed. His dad was certain that everyone in America had been wiped out, and if other survivors existed, that they were out of reach. Trying to find them was a lost cause. Kobi had never thought his father could be wrong about anything, but he was. Entirely wrong.

  Kobi tried to control himself, think rationally. If his dad were here he would tell Kobi to be wary. Stick to the rules. But what if these people could help Kobi find him?