I’m out of breath from the stairs, but it’s not just that. There’s also a current of excitement in the air. My shoes make no sound on the faded wall-to-wall carpeting, but I can feel my pulse behind my face. I stop just shy of the open door.
“Matt?” My voice echoes in the empty hallway.
“Yeah, I’m up here! C’mon up!”
His voice sounds so normal. Even cheery. Maybe everything is okay? I feel a mixed cocktail of relief and fear. I start up the rickety stairs. The ancient wood is covered with thousands of fly carcasses that crunch beneath my shoes. It’s a clean sound, and there’s something vaguely… comforting about it. I round the last turn in the winding staircase, arriving at the top, the glass bell tower surrounded by darkening sky. Matt stands there, looking out over the surrounding hills, next to a woman in period dress. I give a sharp intake of breath.
They turn around and look at me, smiling.
“Hey, Ann!” Matt says. “Thanks for coming!”
Such a polite Southerner, even standing next to a dead woman.
“You were right. She just wanted some company.” He indicates the woman next to him.
The edges of Anna’s lips spread apart, but it’s just a bit off, a caricature of a smile.
I turn and address her directly. “So… you’re not going to kill anyone else?”
She shakes her head, and I can see flashes of skull beneath her hair, empty sockets behind her face, hear the rattling of what sounds like bones. I want to take a step backwards, but I can’t seem to make my legs move.
“That’s… great. Matt, maybe we should go—”
“Go?” Matt smiles as if I’ve said the silliest thing imaginable.
“Well, yes… I—”
Matt brushes by me and goes down one step. He turns to Anna. “I told you she was a better choice.”
He turns to me then, and I look deep into his eyes. It’s so weird to actually talk to a person close-up, face-to-face after all these long weeks of solitude, but as I gaze at him, I realize I don’t know who this is. This is not my friend. I look back at Anna, and whisper, “What did you do to him?”
The creature next to me continues in Matt’s voice, “I told her, you’d be better company. You’re just hilarious!” It smiles, adds “bless your heart,” and then heads down the stairs.
“Wait! Matt! I’m—”
Anna is suddenly in front of me, blocking the staircase, and I hear the door slam, feel the tower shake with the force.
And then there’s the unmistakable sound of a lock clicking into place.
by Richie Narvaez
They were almost old pros at it by now, this second one. The daughter, Anibel, knew to ration her time on Wi-Fi or else she’d get the yell. Martin Estevez, the father, and his boy did gigantic jigsaw puzzles, which seemed only a little less complex than the first time they’d done them in 2020. Martin and his wife, Nellie, seamlessly took turns parenting and zoning out. She usually took the day shift, he the night. Unless he was on duty—which was a lot more lately. Nellie had learned to be understanding.
But three months into #quarantine2022, anxiety still hung over everything they did. It was a rare night off for Martin, so he and the boy did the cooking. They stretched the last of their eggs, made pancakes for dinner, enough to last a few days. Pancakes held up well, made good snacking heated in the toaster oven. After dinner, the family splayed around the living room, ready to turn in—a routine familiar from the first round of covid, when they had started going to sleep as early as farmers. Anibel texted, the boy softly snored and farted against his father’s leg on the floor, and Nellie scrolled through pictures of stuff that was no longer available. It wouldn’t be unusual for all of them to fall asleep right where they were, in sight of each other.
There was a knock on the door.
“You order anything?” Martin said to his wife.
“Yeah, right,” she said, not moving from her MePad.
He peeped through the door. Beau from the precinct. For a moment, Martin worried he was getting brought in on his night off, that his rare moment of peace with his family was being ripped away. But Beau was in civvies and, of course, his N95+.
Martin slid on his N95+ and opened the door. Beau motioned him outside, away from the door, to the side of the house.
Martin stepped out, closed the door behind him. “It’s almost curfew.”
Beau ignored this. “Our boy woke up.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah. Came out of it couple hours ago.”
“Still at Flushing?”
“No, family had to come get him, what with all the covids needing beds. They took him home. To the Bronx.”
“Fuck. Of all places.”
“Yeah. Back home for you.”
Outside it was cold and damp. For Martin, it was weird not to have any walls around him. Bayside was a primo neighborhood, quiet, tree-lined streets, a neighborhood his parents would have killed to live in, but he’d barely had a chance to appreciate it in the past two years. He couldn’t remember when he’d walked any farther than the garbage can. Everything they needed was delivered by Amazon now, a habit they’d developed during #covid2020, a habit the government encouraged.
“You gotta do it,” Beau said. “That was the deal.”
“I mean, I guess. But how? Bridge is locked down by state cops. My badge won’t do any good.”
“If you don’t do it, when this thing is over, all our lives won’t be worth shit.”
“Like the way we’re living now is?”
Martin could see Beau was smirking, even with the mask on.
“Big fucking deal,” Beau said. “It’ll disappear just like the last one.”
Martin shook his head. “That one never really went away and they say this one is going to be much, much worse.”
“Ah, don’t listen to them schmucks. They don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about.”
Martin nodded, looking down. He didn’t want Beau to see he was smirking now.
“Listen, it’s easy,” Beau said. “Take the river.”
“The river? You see a boat parked in this driveway?”
“I see two cars and a lovely house, bigger than mine, and I know how you got ’em.”
“You got a nice house out of it, too, Beau.”
“Not a Tudor.” Beau cocked his head. “You said you’d do it when he came out of it. That was the deal. Take the river. It’s your best bet.”
“Christ. How? Swim across?”
“Miller says there’s a guy in College Point, does night drops.”
Martin rocked in place. He felt the night air on his face. So weird.
Beau sensed Martin’s hesitation. “Gotta be tonight,” he said. “Before our boy starts talking in full sentences.”
“Shit.” Martin shook my head. “What the hell am I supposed to tell my wife?”
In order to avoid curfew cops, some he might even know, Martin had jogged four miles over, in a black hoodie, sweatpants, and sneakers, keeping to as many dark spots on the streets as he could. Now he stood, sweating into his mask in a parking lot in front of an out-of-business Dollar Tree. All the parking-lot lights—and cameras—had been knocked out. It was pitch black except for the phone held up to his face.
The man holding the phone wore thick blue gloves and a ventilator that had been converted from a snorkeling mask. Made him look like a fish.
“Miller sent me,” Martin said, trying not to show that he needed to catch his breath. He guessed his home-gym setup wasn’t really working. He handed over three hundred-dollar bills in a sandwich baggie.
“Yeah. You can call me ‘Chief’—” The man said, lowering the phone and switching off the flashlight app.
The lot exploded in light. A parked SUV came alive, shining its high beams at them. Its sirens chirped. The PA system commanded: “Stay where you are.”
Martin froze. He didn’t dare reach for the gun in his underarm holster.
Chief didn’t
budge. “Who is that now?” he yelled at the SUV. “I’m paid up for the month.”
“Down on the ground. Down on the ground.” A cop climbed out of the truck, weapon drawn. Martin knew that, if this guy was like the rest of the force, they’d be very hesitant to shoot. As soon as this pandemic hit, the survivalists bought up every single round of spare ammo, leaving nothing for the cops. The man’s partner emerged from the other side. Martin recognized him. Castellari. Must have transferred to Narcotics.
Shots then, from behind Martin. The lights on top of the truck split into fragments. Martin heard one—maybe both?—of the narcs cry out in pain. Was Castellari hit?
“All aboard, asshole,” Chief said, grabbing his arm. Martin brushed him off.
“Or stay the fuck here.” Chief shrugged and ran, the flash app of his phone still on.
Martin hesitated, said, “Fuck,” then ran, following Chief’s bobbing phone flashlight.
They scampered down a narrow alley behind the store, came to a hole in a fence, and beyond it the top of a ladder. Whoever had done the shooting was already scrambling down.
“Go go go,” Chief said.
Martin knew there was something at the bottom of the ladder. But he was sightless in the darkness. Then he heard it: a boat knocking against the broken, corrugated wall.
More shots rang out. Martin climbed quickly and, as soon as he felt a surface underneath him, jumped into the boat. Legs shaky on the rocking surface, he looked back up. There was a light—followed by Chief falling right on him.
They dropped into the boat. The phone went out. They were in complete darkness again.
A voice called out: “Stop!”
Martin looked up as Castellari fired into the boat, hitting Chief’s body. Blood spilled on Martin’s face. This was too much, too insane. He wanted to yell, to surrender. He opened his mouth when a single shot rang out from the boat.
Castellari fell back onto the dock.
Someone in the darkness laughed.
The boat’s engine suddenly grumbled and Chief’s body, which was halfway out of the boat, slid into the water.
“Stay low,” said the voice, followed by a giggle. He sounded high. “There might be more cops. Though I doubt it. They can’t be spared.”
The boat sped into the East River. Martin huddled against something squishy that he quickly realized were bales of marijuana.
“Hi, I’m Lance,” the man said.
“Where?”
“Here at the stern. The back. I guess you can’t see either way.” Lance laughed to himself, still sounding high.
As Martin’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, he realized he could see all of Lance’s face. “Where’s your mask?”
“Why do I need a mask if everyone else got one?” Again, the laugh.
Martin didn’t say anything.
“I see you got one of those nicer masks,” Lance said. A rifle with a night vision scope sat against his thigh. “Looks new. You get that from a hospital? Or from a cop. That’s the type they give to all the cops now.”
Martin wanted to give him the finger but didn’t. He didn’t want to antagonize this guy who had a rifle and was driving the boat. He had to get to the Bronx, no matter what.
“I figure you’re not a cop. Not after all that. You wouldn’t let a couple of your own be taken down in front of you, would you? Who knows? The world’s gone to hell. I’m not even going to charge you for this ferry ride. That’s how crazy this is. Keep your hands inside the vehicle at all times.”
Lance started singing the Gilligan’s Island theme. He knew every goddamn word.
Martin looked up to the dark, cloud-filled sky and wished that he had the smallest belief in prayer. Not just for him to survive the night and get back to his family. But also for Lance to shut up.
It had started to rain when they realized there was a hole in the boat.
Nellie could always tell when he was bullshitting. She had not been happy when he left.
Martin was too tired, not just from the stomach full of pancakes and the endless worry of quarantine, but also from years of waiting for this day. He told her everything.
“That’s how we got this house,” she said, “that mysterious thirty-five grand.”
“Yeah.”
“‘My uncle died,’ you told me. I should’ve known. I knew I’d never heard of Uncle Carlos.”
“I’m so sorry I lied to you, baby. There’s no excuse—”
She shook her head. “No, no, you do have one. You had no choice. I know what a boy’s club the police are. A bunch of bullies. And you as an intelligent man of color, what else could you do? They’d never let you rise. You were caught in a trap.”
“I could have said no.”
“Baby, this is the way America works. This is the way it’s always worked. You can’t move up the ladder without going along with the rot, the rot that’s always been part of the country. Play along and, congratulations, here’s your corner Tudor with a wraparound front yard.”
“Nellie!” Martin’s chest was tight. He wanted to make everything right, needed to fix this. “I won’t do it. That’s all there is to it. I’ll… I’ll talk to the DA.”
“Nope. Nope. No, you won’t.” She shook her head, looking at their sleeping children in the dim light of the living room. “You still don’t have a choice, Martin, don’t you see that? You’re going all the way up to the Bronx and you’re going to do what you have to do. Not just for your family, but for every person of color trying to make their way up. You’re going to get your hands even dirtier than they are now, and I know that’s going hurt a man like you.”
“But, baby—”
“But we’ve come this far, we’re not losing the ground we gained. Look at your son. That boy is the light of your life. And our daughter is a year away from college, we have the money that our parents never had—never—to send her to a good one. So you’re going. And you’re coming back to us. Alive.”
Before he left, she made sure he wore a thick sweater and thick socks, along with his thicker raincoat. “It’s always colder on the water,” she said.
Through the light rain and far in the distance, to the right—was that port or starboard?—Martin saw the dimmed lights of Connecticut. Directly ahead was the Boogie Down Bronx. It wouldn’t be much farther. If they didn’t sink.
The bilge pump wasn’t doing such a good job. Martin’s sweatpants were soaked. Lance told him to grab the bucket in the front hold. Martin found it and could tell it had been used as a toilet.
“C’mon,” said Lance. “I drive the boat. You bail.”
Martin started bailing buckets of stanky water out of the boat.
Lance lit a spliff. “Shit, we were supposed to make ten stops tonight. Now this.”
“You don’t seem very broken up over Chief,” Martin said.
“My brother-in-law? Better off without him. We got beach up ahead. You’re doing a shit job. This boat won’t make it unless I patch that hole. Fuck.”
“How far off-course are we?”
“I’m not a fucking GPS. It’s not like Brooklyn or Manhattan, anyway, not ringed with guards and searchlights. It’s just the Bronx. Nobody cares about the Bronx.”
They smelled the bonfire before they saw it.
“Looks like someone’s partying,” Lance said.
Martin followed where he was pointing—a large fire on the beach that was winning against the light rain. He could see figures gathered around the inferno. What time was it anyway? Did these people not care about the curfew? Were the local cops going to shut this gathering down? On a beach, no less.
Then he smelled it.
“That’s not driftwood,” he said.
“Could be barbecue,” Lance said. “I’m hungry.”
No, Martin thought. He remembered responding to a domestic disturbance, back when they had time to do that sort of thing. The husband was known for verbally and physically intimidating the family. Neighbors had worried for years, the inve
stigation revealed later. The bodies were found in the backyard in circle of charred flesh and ash. The horrible smell stayed on him for months.
And Martin was smelling it again now.
“Seriously, guy, we shouldn’t stop here,” Martin said. “Let’s go down aways.”
“Fuck is wrong with you?” Lance said. “Looks like a fun crowd and maybe I can get some new customers.”
Lance beached the boat and splashed into the shallow water.
Martin saw the people at the bonfire, a hundred yards away, react. He got out, grabbed Lance by the collar. “Get back in the boat, now.”
For this, Martin got the butt of the rifle in his gut and, as he bent over in pain, the butt again in his face.
He leapfrogged, grabbed Lance’s slippery-wet calves, brought him down to the sand.
Lance cursed, bringing up the rifle. Martin stood up and reached for his weapon, but Lance swept his legs out from under him and he fell back, hitting his head on the boat.
“You there!” a voice called.
“Hey all!” Lance said, bringing up the rifle. There was a shot, but not from Lance. He hit the ground, and Martin, his face jagged with pain, sunk into blackness.
When he awoke a few minutes later, he was surrounded.
They all stood at least twelve feet away.
First thing he noticed: None of them had masks on. Something else was strange about them. Gray hair. White hair. Wrinkles. They were old—in their sixties, seventies, eighties, maybe even older. He hadn’t seen so many old people gather together since before the first virus. Politicians, sure, but not regular people.
A white-haired woman in jeans spoke up: “What are you doing here? This is a private community.”
“This’s the Bronx,” Martin mumbled, trying to get to his knees. He wasn’t quite sure what part of the Bronx it was. But all these faces seemed familiar, related somehow to all the people he had grown up with. His own face hurt bad—he wondered if his jaw had been broken. Lance’s body remained where it had fallen, but his rifle was gone.
“This is the New Vista Living Facility,” the woman said. “We’re in charge now. The caregivers, the nurses, the doctors, they made the choice or they were forced to leave by their families. They left us here in the first pandemic. Some came back when things started to return to normal. But when this second wave came, with people dying in the thousands the first week, well, we knew we were on our own.”
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