by Amy Cross
"For your brother. Are you gonna wait 'til it's almost too late? Longer? Are you just gonna stick it out in New York forever, hoping he'll realize he's being an ass? Are you gonna wait and wait until you end up dying?"
"I'll be okay," I say, glancing over at the pitch-black park and realizing that I really might end up sitting here alone tomorrow. The city's already creepy, and I genuinely don't know what I'd do if I was left alone. I know that everything Mallory is saying is technically correct, and the logical choice would be to join these people and leave. I mean, it's pretty clear that my parents aren't coming back. At the same time, there's no way I can leave Henry behind; despite everything he's done and said over the past couple of days, he's still my flesh and blood, and he's the only family left in my life. I should leave, but I won't.
"I'm gonna be blunt with you," Mallory continues. "I get why you'd think you have to stay here and keep track of your brother. But at the same time, this fucking city is gonna become a hellhole real fast, and if you stay here, you're gonna die. Not just you, but him too. So you've got to leave at some point. Why not now? I mean, all that brother shit and the family tie stuff, that's from the old world. It doesn't count anymore. It's every man for himself."
"He's my brother," I remind her.
"And you're his sister," she says, "but that doesn't give either of you the right to force the other one to do something that's gonna get you killed." She pauses for a moment. "What about your parents?"
"What about them?"
"You still waiting for them to show up?"
I sigh. "No," I say eventually, feeling a strange tightening sensation in my chest. The truth is, I realized as I walked here tonight that I have to stop hoping that my parents are going to come back, but it still feels strange to say the words out loud. "They're not coming," I continue after a moment. I can feel tears behind my eyes, but something's preventing me from crying.
"You think they're dead?" Mallory asks.
I nod.
"Mine too. Hopefully, anyway." She smiles. "I had a bad relationship with them. But the point is, if you can accept that your parents aren't around anymore, why can't you just do the same thing with your brother?"
I shake my head. "You really don't get it, do you? He's family."
"So what?"
"So I can't just abandon him."
"Even if it means that you'll die?" She pauses. "Even if it means that you'll let him keep you here when you know it's a mistake? Are you really willing to follow him straight into your grave, Elizabeth?"
"I just..." I take a deep breath, and I realize that there's no way I can explain my decision. It's just that on an emotional level, I can't bring myself to abandon Henry. I still feel like there's some way I can get him away from Bob and make him see sense. I just can't do it in time for us to leave with Mallory and the others.
"It's suicide," Mallory says after a moment. "You know that, right? If you come with us, you'll be with people who have a plan. It's a long shot, but I think we've actually got a chance of making it work. If you stay here, you're basically killing yourself. I mean, what are you gonna do? Are you gonna just sit around outside your building, hoping that one day they'll let you back in? Isn't that kind of pathetic?"
I nod. She's right. Everything she's saying is right, and I can't argue at all. Looking over at the dark buildings that rise up from the street, I realize that by staying in the city for Henry, I'm making it almost certain that I'll die. But I can't leave. Not without Henry.
Chapter Four
Oklahoma
The three of us stand in the parking lot, staring at the truck. It's been five days since my father packed up some stuff and drove off to Scottsville, promising he'd be back within twenty-four hours. He never came back, of course, and after waiting a few days, we started to accept that he'd got caught up in whatever was happening. By the time we reached Scottsville ourselves, I'd given up any hope that we might find him, and now suddenly he's here. Or rather, his truck's here, parked up ominously by the side of the diner.
One thing's for sure: whatever prevented him from coming home, it must have been something big. He was the kind of guy who usually stayed well out of trouble, and it's hard to believe that he'd have allowed himself to get mixed up in anything dangerous. I don't get why he wouldn't have just turned around and headed straight home as soon as he saw that there was trouble in Scottsville, although he had a tendency to be a little nosy. He probably parked up and thought he could help out, and then he got busy and suddenly it was too late to get away.
"He said he was coming to the diner," Joe says eventually, a hint of fear in his voice. "It's almost the last thing I remember him saying. He said he was gonna come here and..." His voices trails off.
"This is where he always came when he was in Scottsville," I reply, keeping my eyes fixed on the truck. I remember the days when he used to bring me along for the ride, and we'd end up sitting in the diner for hours. My father was the kind of guy who could walk into pretty much any room and always find someone he knew; I'd sit and listen to him chatting on and on to whoever else he happened to run into. It used to get pretty boring, most of the time, and I'd stare out the window and wish I could be somewhere else. Those days seem so long ago now, even though the last time was probably just a couple of months back.
"At least we know he made it, then," Joe says.
We stand in silence a little longer. I know I sure as hell don't wanna go and look in the truck, or look in the diner, and I'm guessing Joe feels the same way. I mean, the odds are that our father's either in the truck or in the diner, and either way he's probably not in the best shape. Then again, we need to know what happened, and we can't stand here like gawking idiots forever. At some point, one of us is gonna have to go and take a look.
"You see that?" Clyde asks, pointing over at the diner.
Squinting, I finally spot what he means: there's a figure in the diner, slumped in a booth by the window. With a thick shock of white hair, he's clearly not my father, but he's proof that people are dying around here. There's just something about the way his head is resting against the glass, as if he's exhausted.
"That's not him," I say after a moment.
"Just some old fuck," Joe adds, as if he feels the need to make some kind of obnoxious comment whenever he gets the opportunity.
"This whole place is fucked," I say quietly, under my breath.
"He's probably in the truck," Joe says coldly.
"You want me to go take a look?" Clyde asks.
"No," Joe says, swallowing hard. "No, I'm gonna do it." He takes a deep breath, psyching himself up for the moment. "Thomas," he says after a moment. "You've gotta wait here, okay? Just... wait right here." He starts walking slowly toward the truck, taking a kind of circular path that leads him around the vehicle, as if he's checking that there's nothing hiding anywhere. It's almost as if he expects something to jump out from the other side.
"Are you sure it's your Dad's truck?" Clyde whispers to me.
I nod.
"He's probably fine," he continues. "He probably just left it to..." His voice trails off, and thankfully he keeps quiet as we watch Joe getting closer to the driver's side window. Eventually, he peers in through the glass, and then he just kind of stands there for a while, not saying anything. He's obviously seen something.
"Do you think he's found anything?" Clyde whispers.
I turn and shoot him a dark, angry look.
"I was just wondering," he replies, looking down at the ground.
"He's here," Joe says simply.
"What?" I call out to him.
He clears his throat. "I said, he's here. What are you, fucking deaf?"
I pause, my heart pounding in my chest. "What do you mean?" I ask.
"I mean he's here. In the truck. Down on the seats. It's him."
I close my eyes for a moment. "How is he?"
Silence.
Opening my eyes, I see that Joe hasn't moved. He's still just standing there
, staring into the truck as if he can't quite believe what he's seeing. "Joe?" I call out. He still doesn't reply, and I start walking over to join him.
"Don't come any closer!" Joe calls out to me.
I stop in my tracks. "What do you see?" I ask, even though I'm pretty sure I can guess. It takes a lot to make Joe go so quiet, and right now there's only one thing that could do the job.
"He's in there," he replies."He's, kind of, slumped over, and he's..." He pauses for a moment. "The sickness," he continues after a moment. "How's that look again?"
I take a deep breath. "Like, kind of, yellow and gray skin," I tell him. "And I think... like, a swollen belly sometimes, stuff like that. And blood and pus, coughed up and..." I pause, thinking back to how Lydia looked when I found her body, and how my mother looked when I found her sitting in the kitchen yesterday morning, and the cop. A shiver passes through my body as I realize that already, in just a week, I've seen three dead people. I really don't wanna add a fourth to that list.
"Seems about right," Joe says.
"Is that what he looks like?"
He nods.
I pause for a moment, as this sensation of dread starts to creep through my body. "Is he..." I pause again, feeling stupid for even asking the question. "Is he... I mean, does he look like he's moving at all?"
Joe turns to me with a scowl on his face. "Moving?"
"Like..." I take a deep breath. "Forget it."
"He's dead," he replies. "So, no. He's not moving."
We all stand in silence for a moment, as if none of us has any idea what to do. Joe seems to be just staring through the window of the truck, transfixed by the sight of our father's dead body; although there's a part of me that wants to go over and join him, and look inside to see how things ended up, I can't bring myself to take the handful of steps that would be necessary. I feel like I'm rooted to the spot, struggling to come to terms with the fact that both our parents are now dead. Strangely, after a moment, I start wondering whether this means Joe and I are orphans now. I mean, is there a cut-off point where you're too old to be considered an orphan? For some reason, it's this bizarre procedural question that preoccupies me, as if this is a way to avoid having a more emotional response.
"Let's do this," Joe says suddenly, walking around to the back of the truck.
"Do what?" I ask, shocked by his sudden burst of movement.
"This," he says, grabbing a couple of cans of gasoline. Before I can say anything, he's already opened one of the cans, and he's started dousing the truck. I watch in stunned silence as he covers the entire vehicle, and then he walks over to the side of the parking lot and grabs a small rock.
"Joe?" I ask, as he heads back to the truck.
"Busy," he replies, before using the rock to smash the side window. "Jesus!" he shouts, stepping back.
"What?"
"Fucking stinks," he says, before opening the other gasoline can and pouring its contents through the broken window.
"Joe -" I start to say.
"You got matches?" he asks.
"No, but do you think -"
"We need to burn this fucker," he continues, ignoring me. "We need to fucking incinerate the whole damn thing until it's just a pile of ash."
"I have this," Clyde says, pulling a small cigarette lighter from his pocket. "It's not much, but it -"
"It'll do," Joe says, holding out a hand. "Send it over here."
Clyde throws the lighter, and we watch as Joe flicks it open and gets a small flame burning. He takes off his jacket and then removes his shirt, which he lights and holds close to the truck. "Anyone got anything they wanna say?" he asks. "Thought not." With that, he throws the shirt through the window and steps back as gasoline immediately ignites, quickly covering the entire truck with flames.
"Like a Viking burial," Clyde says, as the heat from the fire reaches us.
"Like a what?" I ask, turning to him.
"Like a Viking burial," he continues. "This is what the Vikings did."
I stare at him for a moment. "The Vikings burned people in trucks in parking lots?"
"No," he says, "but they put their dead on rafts and sent them out to sea, with fires burning so that eventually the raft would burn up and sink."
"That's nothing like this," Joe says, sound a little contemptuous of the whole idea. "Come on," he adds, "we should get going. There might be a load of gas in the tank. It'd be a fucking stupid way to die if the thing explodes and takes us out."
Turning and walking away, we get as far as the street corner before there's a huge explosion behind us. Turning, I see that the truck has been completely destroyed, and all that's left now is a roaring fire that's sending thick black smoke up into the sky. It's hard to believe that our father's dead body is in there, and that we've now burned both our parents in the space of little more than twenty-four hours.
"I'm sure he didn't suffer," Clyde says.
"Of course he fucking suffered," Joe spits back at him. "The guy died in his truck, probably coughing his guts up. Probably a pretty painful way to go, if you ask me." With that, he turns and starts walking away. "Let's get moving, people!" he calls back to us. "We still need to find ourselves a vehicle so we can get out of this shit-hole!"
"Your brother's an interesting guy," Clyde says, turning to me.
"That's one way of putting it," I reply.
"I'm sorry about you father."
I shrug.
"If you want to talk about it -"
"Why would I wanna talk about it?" I ask. "Joe's right. We've gotta get on with finding a truck or something, so we can get moving. This isn't a good place to be." In order to avoid having this conversation drag on any longer, I turn and start walking toward the main street, and after a moment I hear Clyde's footsteps following me. By the time we get to the main street, I can't hear the fire from the parking lot; glancing back, though, I can still see the smoke as it rises into the sky. For a moment, I feel like I want to mark the moment in some way, but then I realize that there's no point. He's dead, and that's all there is to it. Anything else would be a waste of time.
Chapter Five
Manhattan
"You've got one hour to change your mind," Mallory says as she walks past me, carrying one of the backpacks.
It's almost midday, and for the past few hours I've been watching as the others prepare for their journey. They seem to have it all figured out: their provisions are packed away neatly, and they've even managed to get a map from a nearby bookstore. They're organized and efficient, and I feel like a total spare wheel, wandering around behind Mallory, offering to help but generally being rebuffed. I should have left at sunrise, but the thought of being left alone again is too much to handle.
"Having second thoughts?" Kendricks asks as he studies the map.
"No," I reply quickly.
"Then you're even more insane than I thought."
I turn to him.
"You know what I mean," he continues with a smile. "Think about it, Elizabeth. In less than half an hour, we're all gonna start walking out of here, and we're not gonna stop until we get to this spot just north of Chicago." He points to a location on the map. "It's crazy, and it's dangerous, but it's less crazy and less dangerous than just sitting around."
"I know," I say firmly, feeling as if I'm about to get the same lecture I was given by Mallory last night.
"I have a wife," Kendricks says. "We've been married three years. Her name's Debra and she's a teacher over on the west side. She's pregnant, actually. Three months gone. We were gonna let our friends and family know this week, but..." He pauses for a moment. "Last week, she flew to Miami to see her parents and tell them. I was gonna go, but at the last minute work kept me behind. I love her, and I miss her, but I know she's not coming back."
"You don't know that," I say.
He nods. "I do. I really do. The odds of her surviving are almost a million to one, and then the odds of her making it here are even lower, and the odds of me finding her in Mi
ami are tiny. I just keep telling myself that she wouldn't want me to sit around in New York and wait for her while the rats get bigger and the whole fucking place becomes a disease-ridden cess-pit."
"Then why don't you go to Miami and look for her?" I ask.
"Because it'd take years, and because Miami's not gonna be much better than New York in the long-run." He pauses. "To be honest, Elizabeth, I've surprised myself. I've managed to be kinda logical and hard-hearted about the whole thing. I keep thinking I should be irrational, but it's just not in my nature. I'm accepting the situation as it is, and I'm moving on. Does that make me a bad husband? In normal circumstances, yes. But these aren't normal circumstances. We have to do what we can, and I don't believe that any of us has a duty to die just because we feel this need to demonstrate our loyalty to someone else. Do I sound like an asshole?"
I stare at him. "A little," I say eventually. "And logical."
He smiles sadly. "You know the worst thing? I know you're right. But the world has changed, and we have to change with it. Family ties from the old world are irrelevant now. I could head on down to Miami on some crazy junket to find my wife, but do you know what'd happen? I'd die. It's as simple as that. All I can do is try to survive, and try to rebuild, and hope that she's doing the same thing. If you're smart, you'll do the same thing with your brother. He's old enough to make his own decisions. If he wants to stick around in New York with some power-mad nut-job, let him. I just hate to think of you in a couple of weeks, dying on the street while your brother's dying in that building."
"I can't leave," I say.
"He's just your brother," Mallory continues, wandering back over to join us. "Not even a good one, either. He seems like an asshole. I know I shouldn't say that, but it's true. There's a darkness in his eyes, Elizabeth. Maybe you don't see it 'cause you're too close to him, but the way he looked at me while Bob was... You know what I mean. Most people wouldn't be so easily led. There's something wrong with Henry. He's not right in the head, and I don't think you can continue to treat him like he's a normal person. It's not worth dying for him."