by JJ Pike
“I’ve got to get by,” said chino-wearing man.
“Keep your place, we’re all trying to get where you’re going.” He was shorter than Chino Guy, but wiry in a way that said he did a fair amount of cardio or boxing. Paul would never mess with him.
“My wife is waiting for me,” said Chino Man.
“Sure. So is mine. Now, fall back and wait your turn.” The challenger placed his hand in the middle of Chino Man’s chest and gave him a light push.
That push was the spark that lit the thinly-veiled tinder box that is at the very heart of New York.
The shorter guy clocked Chinos right in the smacker. He went down hard, but he was on his feet in an instant and ready to go ten rounds.
Paul backed up as fast as he could. One small fracas between two men who didn’t want to yield, and the crowd freaked and punched and kicked and scratched each other, swearing and grunting and trying to get to the sea wall. He and Angelina were buffeted on every side. He looped his hands under her arms and scooped her out of the wheelchair. His muscles twanged and screeched, straining at her tiny weight. There was a gap small enough for them to pass, but also small enough that they might get crushed. He needed to create a passage through the heave and crush of insanity.
The idea came to him unbidden. He knew how to make them move. He’d use her disease as a bargaining chip. It was a gamble akin to shouting “fire!” in a crowded theater, but he had nothing left to lose. He took a deep breath and screamed as loud as he could, “She’s contagious!”
The crowd around them took a step back. He heard the sentence passed from lips to ears, rippling through the mess of humanity that had unspooled before him.
“One touch,” he said, “and your skin will peel, your lungs crisp up, and your brain fry.” He wasn’t clear on the last part, but he wanted to scare the bejesus out of them and it sounded good.
Self-preservation was an amazing force. Paul had seen it in the forest when he was out hunting with his dad, but he’d never seen humans pressed up against their need to survive like this. They were hungry for it, desperate. With death so close, none of them wanted to waltz with the Grim Reaper. They parted, clambering to get away from him, and let him pass.
Once he’d cleared the crowd, he slumped to the sidewalk, his charge in his arms moaning and weeping. She had words now but they weren’t any words he wanted to hear. “Mom.” The sound leaked out of her like a radioactive isotope, polluting Paul’s heart and forcing his eyes to vent. “Mommie,” she said. “Mommie…”
Paul held her as close as he dared. He had to find a way. Had to. He might not have a mother any more, but she did.
“Oh, gross.” A kid close by pointed at the water below. They were directly above a drainage tunnel. Water was gushing from the subway and with it, rats. They swam. They floated. They poured into the river, scores and scores of rats.
“Flooding.” Professor Christine Baxter—genius and head of the MELT team, person his mom said was most able to think her way out of a puzzle—was unusually quiet as the vermin mixed with the bodies that were floating their way. “Manhattan is drowning from the inside out.”
Fran swore up a storm. “What does that mean, ‘Manhattan is drowning?’ They are rats.” She peered into the East River. “There are always rats. This is the city. The rat is pretty much the mascot of NYC. I don’t see how it means much of anything.”
Paul let himself look at the river. The current brought those who’d been crushed by the ferry, around the seaport and along the wall where they stood. Hands and feet, hair and clothes, it billowed and eddied and swirled with the vermin and garbage, all of it mixing together in a potpourri of despair.
Christine took him by the shoulders and turned him around. “Don’t look. You don’t want those pictures in your dreams.”
“What did you mean, Manhattan is drowning?” he whispered.
“Here’s what I think happened. MELT took Klean & Pure down. It created a heaving pit where our headquarters once stood. The pit grew deep and wide. What happened on the surface—buildings falling into that pit—was a direct result of the substrate of the city being eroded by MELT. It ate its way through the infrastructure of all those buildings. Then, when it was done with the buildings, it started on the cables that run under Manhattan. Then the sewer pipes. Then the trains. There’s enough plastic in this city for MELT to gorge itself silly. With all that destruction, there’s no way the streets maintained their structural integrity. If I am right, MELT will have eaten its way out to the Lincoln Tunnel. I think what we’re seeing is the subjugation of Manhattan. The Hudson River is flowing through the subway system and out into the East River.”
Angelina gurgled way in the back of her throat. It wasn’t the same sound as the ones Firefighter Robeson or Briefcase Man had made, but it was close.
Fran put her hand on Paul’s shoulder. “You need to leave her. She’s not going to make it.”
Paul frowned. It was the last thing he’d expected to hear. They’d come so far. How could she even think he’d give up now?
“You’re not going to get a place on a boat unless you leave her.”
“I’m good.” Paul brushed her off. It was the shock, the exhaustion, or just Fran getting to the end of her exceedingly frayed rope.
“Tell him, Professor.” Fran was insistent, almost angry. What was her deal? Why would she suggest they abandon her? “Christine, would you listen to me? Angelina is dying. We need to evacuate. I know you think you can study her or whatever, but are you going to sacrifice your life for a scientific experiment?”
Christine didn’t answer.
“Are you?”
The two women faced one another, both of them blazing. One wanted to leave a child—who could no more fend for herself than a fly in a jam jar—in a place where she couldn’t get help. The other wanted to take her with them, but had no idea how to do that.
“MELT has been my life for eight years,” said the Professor. “Eight whole years. I’ve lived it, dreamed it, worked it 24/7. It was supposed to do good in the world. I need to understand what happened. I need a chance to set it right. Don’t you get it?”
“Does that mean you’re going to let it kill you?” Fran was frothing, she was so worked up. “It’s a simple question. Do you want to survive or do you want to go down with the proverbial ship?”
“MELT has done something none of us anticipated, burned Angelina in ways I cannot explain. The tilapia was a stroke of genius. Because of that, she might make it. I don’t know. But either way, I can’t leave her. I won’t.”
“You’re not hearing me,” said Fran. “It’s not that there’s not going to be a way off this island, it’s that very, very soon there’s going to be no island. You said so yourself. If you don’t get on a boat, you’re going to die.”
Christine dropped her face into her hands. She’d said she couldn’t leave Angelina behind, but Paul could see the wheels turning the other way. She was battling herself, but which self was going to win?
He was not. No battle. No contest. His best self had already won. Nothing could convince him to abandon her. Angelina wasn’t an experiment. She was a child. You were supposed to protect the children. It was the highest calling. Mom would never forgive him if he didn’t save her. “You go. I’ll find a way.”
“There’s one way out of here,” said Fran, “and I’m taking it. If I make it to a boat, I’ll do my best to come back for you. But don’t rely on me because who knows if I will ever be able to pull that off. Do what you can to save yourselves.” She threw one leg over the side of the wall, launching herself into the churning froth and swam like hell.
“She has a point,” said Christine. “Perhaps we brave the water? All together?”
Paul looked north. The bridges were backed up with traffic—human and vehicular—but perhaps they’d have a better chance if they went that route. All they’d have to do would be to go north towards City Hall, then over the Brooklyn Bridge. At this rate, he was goi
ng to circumnavigate the whole of Manhattan in search of a way off.
The jets did another pass, this time lower.
“They have to know something we don’t,” said Christine.
“Everyone outside of Manhattan knows more than we do.” Paul leaned his back against the wall. The sun felt good on his face.
“You stay here. I’m going to jog north. I can move faster on my own. I’ll bring help.” She was gone before he could say anything. He didn’t like her chances.
Paul felt a shadow pass over him, like a blight on his soul—chill, damp, and oppressive. It was followed by the roar of an engine. Jets again.
He loosened the laces on Phillip’s sneakers and eased his phone out of the makeshift pouch that had kept it safe. It had less than 10% of its power left, so he needed to be brief. There were no bars. No signal. Should he write a note or leave a video? A note would take too long. He tapped the camera icon and hit “record.”
“This is a message for Phillip’s mom. He wanted you to know he loved you. He wanted you to remember only the good things. He didn’t die alone and he wasn’t in pain. I promised I would tell you. Um…” He didn’t know what else to say. “Best of luck.” He hit pause. It wouldn’t win any Oscars, but he’d done what he promised.
He turned the phone over in his hand. He should call Petra, who had to be getting antsy. They checked in so regularly, he couldn’t remember a time when they hadn’t talked for this long. It had been hours and hours since he last heard her voice. Literally, the only time they didn’t talk or text for that length of time was when they were asleep. And they still both went to sleep and woke up at exactly the same time, in spite of the fact that he was studying Environmental Law on the Upper West Side and she was doing Earth Sciences at NYU, down in the Village. Even though they were miles apart, they were still in each other’s heads.
They would have gone to the same university if their parents had let them, but there’d been a long discussion about making their own way in the world and why it was good for them, psychologically. Only singletons thought like that. No twin would ever look to separate another set of twins. Because twins got it: what it was like to be linked to another human 24/7. The phone was down to the critical “low battery” red bar. Petra didn’t need a call. He could dial her up on the ether, like the old days. He closed his eyes and thought hard, imagining her hearing his thoughts: “I’m good,” he told her. “Don’t fret.”
There was one last thing he had to do. He had to tell his mom what he thought of her. He flicked open the phone and dialed her number. It went directly to voicemail. “Mom, it’s me.” That was a stupid way to open his last message to his mom. Whatever. She might not hear it. Say the thing. Say the most important thing. His throat closed again. He was going to choke on it if he didn’t say it. The tears rolled down his face. It was impossible, what he’d learned. She’d suffered so much and he hadn’t known. He wanted to tell her that he got it: why she was always on alert, why she thought they had to be ready for disaster at all times; why she couldn’t let go at work. He had to tell her that they were cool, that she could relax now because she’d done all she could.
The phone beeped. His mouth opened but no sounds came out. He didn’t want to say a word about the other thing. He didn’t want that to be the last thing she heard from him.
“I love you,” he said. “I love you.”
But the phone’s console was blank. He was talking to dead air.
The jets came in low. Three, no four of them now. The pit of his stomach was a churning mess of acid and anticipation.
The creak and groan of metal rending was unearthly. The steel beams of the Brooklyn Bridge gave way like butter in the sun. There were people falling into the Hudson River; little dolls, barely real. Then cars and trucks and delivery vans, all of them pouring off the side of the bridge.
He’d thought it earlier, but now he was sure. Manhattan was Hell.
Chapter 24
Aggie could not make anyone out. Jim said he was thrilled to have “another guy around the place” and welcomed Michael as a “friend of Alice’s” even though she had no concrete proof that he actually knew Mom for real and told Jim as much. Jo must have gotten to him, told him to play it cool, explained that Michael Rayton was “a person of interest” and “someone they should keep tabs on” until her team came and got him.
She followed Jim into the kitchen, where he stuffed his pipe. “He’s not right,” she said.
“Maybe, but we have to keep him close.”
So, she’d been right. Jo had pitched her case and Jim was on her side now.
“He can help with the digging,” said Jim. “I’m out of commission, so having another guy around is good.”
The house was stifling. Aggie wanted—no, needed—to be outside, away from the sick room with Petra’s brooding and Nurse Betsy’s twice-hourly “vitals check,” and Midge’s incessant humming. She followed Jim and Jo out into the yard where Michael was skulking around their half-dug ditch, probably taking pictures and making plans to undermine their efforts. She ignored him as best she could as the three adults talked about how they were going to connect the underground bunkers and how deep the tunnels needed to be. She wanted to operate the backhoe, but Jim wouldn’t hear of it. She was relegated to animal care—like, duh, hadn’t she been doing that her whole life—and weapons training.
“We have to be prepared,” said Jo.
“That’s right,” said Jim. “They come at you when your pants are down.” He was living in the past. That had been his experience, but this was America in the 21st century. The Vietcong weren’t hiding behind the nearest hill, waiting for them to head to the john.
“You made your point,” she said. She wanted to be away from them, in any case. They were being too fake, smiling at Michael like he was one of them.
“Your daddy always said you were a natural marksman,” said Jim. “Teach Michael what you know and we’ll be good.”
She turned to Michael, cold and business-like. “Come with me.”
Michael fell in behind her. He had the good sense not to try for small talk. Perhaps he could sense that she wanted to bite his head off. They trekked over to her property, skirting the charred remains of the cabin and headed straight for the barn. It looked smaller now that the cabin was gone, and she was faced with the real possibility that they might have to bunk there, with no alternate bedrooms and kitchens and bathrooms to fall back to. Just as well Jim and Betsy were good neighbors. The idea of all of them sleeping down in their house, though, gave her the shivers. Too crowded. Too noisy. Too people-y.
The barn smelled of all the best things—hay and wood and feed and rich, old earth—but it made her gut clench and lurch. The bear had mauled Dad’s hand right inside the main door and then, the very next day, he’d taken an axe to his beloved hydro-farm. She lifted the trap door to the root cellar. Why weren’t the happy memories coming? Her mom and dad were missing and might stay missing for a good long time. She needed the good memories to come back. “Think of birthdays and Christmases and Thanksgiving,” she told herself, “times when we were all together and celebrating.” The image of her dad standing over her when she unwrapped her first shotgun—a Christmas present when she was eight—should have made her light up on the inside, but instead plunged her deeper into despair. One, she’d lost that gun in the fire because it was under her bed and two, she’d never been apart from him for this long. It hurt like hell. She stuffed the feeling down and stepped into the cool of the cellar. She never thought about the stuff that had happened when she was eight. No point. Thinking about it wouldn’t change a thing. It was over. Done with. The past. Think about the good things. Find something. Anything.
Michael was right behind her. She didn’t want him down there. It still had traces of “Dad” all over it: the jars he’d made them buy for restocking, the new pemmican he’d made with Sean, the hanging cabbages and canned beans and bag of marshmallows he thought she hadn’t found.
>
“Stay up here,” she said.
How smart was Mom to make them store a second set of guns in the root cellar? If she hadn’t been such a freak about being prepared, they would have lost everything rather than almost-everything. Aggie found the gun bag and walked it up the stairs, then returned for the crate of ammo. It would have been faster if she’d allowed Michael down there with her, but as far as she was concerned he was not to be trusted. She closed the cellar door, directed him to the crate of ammunition, and trudged out to her chosen gun range.
If only Dad was around. He would have made it fun, rather than a chore. He was a born instructor, never missed the opportunity to share what he knew. She had a lot of years of lessons to draw on to teach this bozo how to load, aim, fire, clean, and care for a gun.
“There are five major gun groups you need to familiarize yourself with if you’re going to make it out alive when the shtf,” she said.