by James Phelan
So, tomorrow we head to the Basin—
Oprah, Dave said.
Right, I went on. Dave, you said there are a few cars along the—
Yeah, there’s plenty.
And that they still work and we’ll have our choice of—
Yeah, that’s what I said.
Right. And we can take Eighth Avenue North—it becomes Central Park West at 59th—and we go all the way up to West 79th?
Dave nodded.
Okay, I said.
I looked at the map—it didn’t seem the most direct route but Dave had said the Time Warner Building had collapsed at Columbus Circle, which blocked the way from this direction.
All right, Anna said. So we get a boat and head where? Australia?
Mini laughed.
Boston, Dave said. Hug the coast all the way up. Maybe we’ll even spot some survivors on Long Island or somewhere along the way.
You just reminded me, Dave, I said and packed a small pair of binoculars next to the Glock in the side pocket. They were compact but powerful.
All right, so we go down the Hudson River and out Long Island Sound and—
What if there’re Chasers near the Boat Basin? Mini asked.
Call it Oprah, Min!
Oh, piss off!
She stood up and scratched at her hair and looked at the floor and then at me.
What if they’re there, Jesse? What do we do? I like it here; it’s not so bad here, is it?
Min, Dave said, the way was clear—
That was yesterday!
Her voice was louder than I’d ever heard it, and it felt like the voice of reason.
If the Chasers are already there, where do we go? she asked. Is there a Site C? D? Z? What if we’re out there and the way’s not clear anymore? We need another location like here, a building or something, high above them. Please . . .
I nodded and dipped my hand in the bowl and drew out another little fold of paper. It read “Mayday.”
I showed it to Mini and in spite of everything she laughed.
All right, guys, I said, looking at the map again. We need a Site C, call-sign Mayday. Some place secure. If you could live in the most secure place in New York, where would you go?
You mean Manhattan?
Yeah, Dave.
Top of Trump Tower.
Really?
What’s wrong with that?
Nothing, I said. It’s just that yesterday you said the Stock Exchange or the Federal Reserve.
They’re all safe.
I checked the map and circled the locations of each of the buildings.
The Woolworth building? I asked. I remembered seeing it near City Hall the day after we’d arrived in New York; it was a big old skyscraper, the type you’d imagine had been built to last.
Fair way away . . .
It’d have good views, though, I went on. And it’d be good to have an option in Lower Manhattan.
It’s good, Dave said. Kinda like here.
Fifty-seven stories tall, I read off the tourist map.
Madison Square Garden?
Too open, I said. Too many ways in.
Times Square, Dave said. M&M World. Maybe a toy store—
Barneys. Shopping all day. That would be a dream.
Yeah, Anna, a real dream, Dave said, and he and I rolled our eyes.
We talked like this for ten minutes and in the end had a list of a dozen or so prospects, but we settled on the UN Building. That was Site C; that was our Mayday. It was a fair distance away and in the opposite direction from the Boat Basin, but we decided we might need that kind of escape route.
I looked around at our set-up on the 65th floor and knew that I’d miss this place. I’d miss the quirky areas my friends had created, which showed their different personalities and methods of surviving. It wasn’t so bad living here but I knew we had to leave sooner or later, and better to do it on our own terms than to be forced out with no time to prepare.
Dave looked through the weapons he’d stockpiled. I had no idea what kind of gun control they had in New York but it seemed that lots of the apartments below us had a hidden firearm someplace, even some of the offices. Over the past few days I’d learned how to load, operate and un-jam my Glock until I felt I could do it blindfolded. We’d found manuals with some of the guns and Dave said he’d read them cover to cover, although when I looked through one it was quite different from what Dave had described.
The others followed my example and each packed a bag. They were methodical as I had been. Clothes. Food. Water. Fuel. Matches and lighters. Medical kits. A fat wad of cash—ten grand in hundred-dollar bills and a thousand in Euros. If we did make it up the coast or got rescued, we’d be ready.
Do you think the rain washed it all away? The virus in the air, I mean . . . Mini’s eyes were wide.
Yeah, I guess, I replied. Maybe it can’t live in the cold. But until we know, we shouldn’t eat or drink anything out there that may have been exposed. We have to be careful.
How?
I don’t know, wash anything we find in bottled water or something.
We don’t need anything from outside, Anna said, sitting on the edge of her bed. We’ve got enough food in this building for months, maybe years. We can always come back here and restock.
There was an awkward pause. I wondered if Dave and Mini were thinking the same as me: that once we left here we could never come back.
I’m gonna do a final sweep of the lower levels, I said. Down to the 59th floor, in case we missed something useful.
Why the gun? Dave asked.
I paused and glanced at the pistol hanging heavily in my right hand. I felt my friends watching me but I didn’t bother to justify myself, I just turned and left.
On the 62nd floor there was an apartment owned by a guy called Stuart Hopper; I knew that was his name from the bills lying on his kitchen table. I’d been down here a few times over the past couple of days, helping myself to juice from the fridge and lying on his leather couch reading copies of Esquire and National Geographic.
I walked through his stainless steel kitchen and went straight to the fish tank. I changed some of the water, cupping out the old and topping it up with bottled. The fish messed around for a while and then I gave them some food, about twice what I’d given them previously. It was all I could do not to make a scene about saying goodbye so I left Stuart Hopper’s apartment and headed downstairs.
At the front door of 59C I stood and waited. Waited . . . for what, I don’t know. The Glock was in my hand but I couldn’t bring myself to pull back the slide and chamber a round. It felt like giving in or something. Giving in to fear, to the stupid, cold, irrational fear that made my arms and shoulders tense up. When a bead of sweat ran down my temple, I decided I’d had enough and pushed open the door with my foot. As it swung inwards I had eyes only for the axed-in area around the handle. I half expected to see the old man who’d lived there standing in the hallway.
But there was nothing unusual. Nothing, until I stepped over the threshold and had the worst case of déjà vu. I had been here before; there was no doubt. I’d seen this room and walked across this floor. Seen the stuffed animals. The layout.
I walked to the study and looked at the desk with the green leather top. There was a typed piece of paper in the typewriter.
We are all storytellers.
We write our stories where and when we can.
This is mine.
I have nothing.
I have everything.
I am alone.
This was the place that had haunted my dream. This was the apartment Dave had said he’d cleared and told me about and warned me to leave alone. I ran a finger along the desk as I scanned the frames on the wall. Newspaper clippings, pictures of politicians, a scene of a coastline, all from an earlier time.
My finger came away dusty; the desk was thick with it. I looked more closely at the typewriter and realized from the fingerprints on the dusty keys that it had recently b
een used. I had half a memory as I turned and walked down the hallway.
I stood before the door that a couple of days earlier had been locked from the inside. It was almost fully closed but someone had damaged the handle. I reached for it—
Don’t.
Dave’s voice came from behind me.
Why not? I said.
Because you don’t want to go in there.
I want to see it.
You’ve seen it.
What?
You’ve seen it. Leave it alone, Jesse.
I looked at Dave closely, then back at the door.
What did I see?
Nothing that you want to see again. Leave it alone.
I want to see for myself.
You don’t need to do that.
I want to know.
I want to forget.
You can remember?
I can’t forget. It’s the tunnel all over again, Jesse. You don’t want to see in there. Come on, leave it be.
I turned to Dave but he’d already moved back down the hall. I looked again at the door that screened so much and I knew Dave was right; I had to leave it be. I followed my friend, hoping that all my bad memories would stay behind closed doors once we left this place.
19
How long do you think it’ll be before help arrives?
The words were written in thick permanent marker on a window in the Rainbow Room. One of us had written it during those first days after we arrived, when we’d expected to see an airlift or convoy heading our way every time we looked at the horizon. I stared beyond the words at the dark clouds rolling in from the east, wondering if it was wrong to hope that Dave’s family went in the blink of an eye and were spared any pain when the bombs rained down.
Dave’s obsession with survival had moved up a notch with our impending departure from 30 Rock. It was something that was a bit worrying but also kind of funny. That afternoon he trained us how to shoot—we went up to the roof and blasted off hundreds of rounds from the two Glock pistols. At one point I switched to a shotgun but the recoil nearly popped my shoulder out. It did sharpen us up to what we might expect the next day, though. Point, shoot, reload. I didn’t flinch at all anymore; I practiced until it became almost an automatic response. Point, shoot, reload.
As we left the roof I watched Anna intently. I wanted to be closer to her than I knew I ever could be. My heart was broken and hers wasn’t, but I didn’t blame her at all.
Guns won’t make you safe, you know, she said to no one in particular after we were back in the Rainbow Room. She was obviously still hung up on our target practice.
You think you can kill a hundred of them when they’re coming at you? she said. A gun’s only good for one thing. It’s a way out for the person who’s holding it.
I put down my Glock and picked up a comic. I lay on my bed flicking though Bluntman and Chronic, wondering why she’d say such a random thing. Was the comment directed at me? Maybe she was reading something deep, some serious piece of literature and it made her imagine the worst. I didn’t really want a way out, did I? Or did I subconsciously want her to talk me out of it, to pull me back when I got in too deep?
We’re gonna find people when we’re in the boat, Dave said. I know it. As soon as we get out of this area, we’ll find people.
Maybe we could make it across the Atlantic, Anna said, sounding more optimistic.
Point it home, you mean, I said. Take you all the way back to England in a little boat?
Anna ignored my comment. Did you read that book yet? she asked.
I thought about my answer before speaking.
I’ve read it before, I said, which was kind of a lie as Dad had read it to me when I was a kid. It was about a boy who was on a lifeboat for months after the ship his family were on sank.
Wasn’t the US president going to be in New York the day we were on the subway? Mini asked.
Yeah, so what? Dave said
Wonder if he was here when . . . ?
Doubt it.
What about the rest of the government?
What about it?
You know, when this kind of stuff happens there’s always government officials hiding out in a bunker or on a plane or something, Mini said.
And how do you know all this? Anna asked.
Dave cut in before Mini could answer: Computer games, books, movies . . .
Perfect training for the apocalypse, I added.
No doubt, Anna said.
Even if there are officials here, so what? I said. So there’s some politicians and military out there under a mountain somewhere, with supplies for a hundred years. How’s that helping us? How’s that keeping us warm when our fuel runs out?
There’s plenty of fuel in cars out there, Anna said and I knew where she was going with this.
I’m sick of lugging it up sixty-five flights of stairs, Anna, I said. Look, if you don’t want to go—
Then we set up in a house, somewhere with just a couple of floors, Anna said. Somewhere here in New York City—we know this place more than we’ll know Boston or wherever we go in a boat. We go to one of those brownstone houses, like in Sex and the City.
That’s avoiding the bigger issue, Dave said.
Which is?
That we have to get off this friggin’ island.
Why, just to take risks?
To see what’s out there. Otherwise what are we gonna do—stay here like this for eternity? We gotta get out there and look.
We are, I said. We’re going to go to the Boat—
Oprah, said Dave.
I sighed. We’re going to Oprah tomorrow. It’s just . . . Can we believe that there’s US government and military people still out there if they haven’t shown up here yet? I mean, it’s not like this is some backwater . . .
Neither was New Orleans.
This is a bit different, don’t you think, Dave? How is it that no one has come along yet?
My dad said governments are good for one thing, Dave said. Taking money and killing people.
Why didn’t they prevent this? Why didn’t we have any warning?
Shit happens.
Great answer, Dave.
I can’t believe they didn’t know about this, Mini spoke up. The most advanced government and military in the world? The richest country in the world? How could this happen without warning?
You going back to the CIA conspiracy again, Min? I asked, but I was smiling and the others smiled too.
What if a mosquito bites a Chaser and then bites us—do we get it?
Jesus, Min, I said and we all laughed a little nervously. Let’s leave those kinds of questions for the government agents who’ve conspired in all this when we see them emerge from their bunkers.
We were quiet then, each alone with our thoughts. I kept thinking about the others and wondering what might change between us after tomorrow. I wondered about my family too. Australia was a long way from here so I still clung to my hope that they were okay. But what if whoever had done this decided Australia would be a nice place to attack as well? I imagined my dad and step-mum moving out of their house and living in the streets while an occupying force sat at our dining table eating our food. Then I thought about us, here, living out of other people’s apartments, wearing their clothes and eating their food and using their things. Were we that different?
Over dinner we talked again about our decision to leave, and while nothing new came of it I think it helped us all feel better about what we were doing. Deep down, I suspected even Anna knew we had to leave—she admitted we could live here like this for months, but we’d end up taking more risks as our supplies started to run out and we’d be forced closer to ground level.
One by one we left the dinner table. Dave pottered about with his weapon stash. The girls played Monopoly. I was reading a novel that Anna had recommended, The Life of Pi. Dad had read it to me when I was about eight or nine. I think it was the final book he’d read to me, the last experience I had of being read
to aloud. By page forty I realized how much I missed the sound of his voice. My mum’s voice too, singing me to sleep.
I think the girls noticed something was up with me because they packed away their game and got into their beds and Anna said: Can you read some to us?
I looked at her and Mini, then over at Dave, who’d stopped reading his own book—Modern Counterinsurgency Techniques and Urban Warfare in the Middle East: Lessons Learned—and I nodded.
Dave poured himself a Coke and went to lounge in his recliner by the windows to the east.
Okay, I said. To set the scene, our young protagonist, the boy named Pi, is adrift in the ocean—
How old is he? asked Dave.
Sixteen.
Like us! Mini said.
Yeah, I replied. Anyway, he’s Indian, like subcontinent or Asian Indian, not Native American Indian. Anyway, his family owned a zoo in India but they sold it to go live in Canada. They were on a ship with some of their animals, heading to their new land, when the ship went down. Pi was the only human to survive.
Only human? Mini asked.
He’s on a lifeboat. There’s also a zebra, a hyena, an orangutan, and a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker.
What’s the ape’s name?
I’m not sure if orangutans are apes, Anna said.
I think they are, Mini said.
Wikipedia would settle this, Dave joked and we laughed.
Anyway, her name is Orange Juice.
I read them fifty pages that night, by which time I was the only one awake. I put the book on the floor, switched off the little battery lamp, and turned over to sleep.
At home when I couldn’t sleep I would think about all the things I’d done that I wished I could take back. Embarrassing things, like making a fool of myself in class, or laughing so hard at my friend’s fifth birthday party that I wet my pants. Stupid things, like crashing Dad’s car into the fence, or stealing a pencil case from a supermarket, or egging my neighbor’s house and getting caught. But those things didn’t worry me anymore. In fact, now I cherished those memories.
I thought about everything that had happened since we’d come to 30 Rock.