by Sean Platt
Brent stared at Joe, wishing the man would say something, anything else that might part the clouds on some answers. Or hell, even if it didn’t, just hearing Ben speak once more would be enough to feed Brent’s hope that his wife and son might still be out there somewhere.
He pulled Stanley Train from his pocket, stared at the smiling face, then clutched the train as if it were the last connection he had to Ben.
They’d made their way north to the Cross Bronx Expressway, still nearly three hours from East Hampton Docks, when Joe started to murmur again, head down and eyes still closed.
“This is ... ” Joe said, in a man’s voice Brent didn’t recognize.
Luis and Brent waited for the rest of the sentence, but Joe spoke in a woman’s voice instead. “We’re here.”
Luis looked in the rearview, his eyes asking Brent if he recognized the voice.
Brent shrugged his shoulders.
“Where are you?” Brent tried.
“Daddy?” Ben’s voice again.
Brent’s heart leapt into his chest.
“Is that you, Ben?”
“Daddy, I’m scared.”
“Don’t be,” Brent said, tears filling his eyes at the sound of his son in fear. “Where are you?”
Joe murmured something else in a man’s voice, in a language that Brent didn’t understand. Another voice spoke over the first, in unison in what seemed like a Russian dialect.
Brent stared at Joe’s mouth, open and moving, but out of sync with the voices, like a badly dubbed movie. Or ... a radio.
The two voices speaking impossibly at once sent a chill down Brent’s spine even icier than the one he felt hearing his son’s voice.
“Where are you?” Brent asked again.
“Square ... Times Square,” Ben said.
Brent’s eyes widened, his pulse quickened, “Times Square?”
“Square,” another voice said, followed by three more, repeating the word.
Luis looked at Brent, shaking his head. “Don’t even ask.”
“Come on, man, we’ve got to turn around.”
Luis bit his lip. “Do you really think they’re there?”
“I don’t know, but I have to find out. Whether you want to let me out right here, or what, I have to go, alien zombies or not.”
Luis spun the car around, and headed back as Joe continued babbling the word “square” on repeat.
They reached the corner of West 59th Street and 7th Avenue when they ran into their first major obstacle on the roads.
Rows of cars blocked 7th Avenue southbound. More cars blocked 59th Street going east, packed so tight they formed a sea of cars you’d have to climb over to cross. The cars didn’t appear to have been parked so much as placed to create a barrier. Luis spun the BMW around, but found both Broadway and 8th Avenue were every bit as barricaded.
“It’s like someone deliberately blocked all street travel to Times Square,” Brent said.
“So, what do you wanna do?” Luis said, frustrated and driving back to 7th Avenue. “Lookin’ at a mile walk with God knows what out there.”
“I don’t have a choice,” Brent said, “But you guys can wait here. I won’t take offense.”
“Bullshit,” Luis said, “We’re in this shit together, bro.”
“What about him?” Brent asked, nodding toward Joe, passed out and silent.
“He’s probably safer in the car. It is bulletproof after all,” Luis said. “I’ll just park it up next to these others here so it blends in and maybe nobody notices him.”
Brent grabbed a pen and paper from his duffel bag, leaving a note for Joe in the air conditioning vent. The note said not to leave the car; they’d be back soon. Brent was going to write something telling Joe to take the car and leave if they weren’t back by noon, but Luis only had a single set of keys and wasn’t willing to leave them in the car with a half-comatose old man.
They stepped from the car and into the murky city, holding their gun-heavy bags.
Seventh Avenue seemed less like a street than a long hallway with a low ceiling of fog pushing down on them from 20 feet above. A long maze, with all the cars acting as obstacles. Visibility was limited to 20 feet in any direction, giving them little time to see any threats, especially if they came from above again. The only advantage they had, if any, was that the city was still impossibly silent, meaning they’d be able to hear the creatures even if they couldn't see them.
It also meant the creatures would hear them if they weren’t quiet.
They climbed over the first row of cars, careful to make as little sound as possible, watching for anything that might be hiding inside, next to, or near the vehicles. They were vulnerable; at least Brent was as he climbed over each car, awkwardly holding his gun so he could still climb without putting it away, and still managing to hold his bag of guns. Brent’s heart pounded in his chest, as he attempted to keep an eye on everything, in front of, behind, below, and above.
As they climbed over the eighth row of cars, Brent was out of breath and sweaty, wishing he’d been in better shape. He was relieved to see the barricade end. Though he couldn’t see more than 20 feet, it seemed unlikely they’d run into a second wall of cars.
The walk, which should have taken 15 minutes or so under normal circumstances, would likely take an hour at the pace they were going, treading carefully along the right side of the road. Luis stayed in front, alternating his shotgun’s aim straight ahead and above, depending on the sounds around him.
With the city so quiet, natural sounds seemed eerily amplified. Wind, birds in the distance — the first birds Brent could remember hearing, now that he thought about it — and other unfamiliar sounds he tried unsuccessfully to recognize. Sounds were all sinister when you couldn't see their sources.
The duffel bag’s strap dug into his shoulder blade, so Brent stopped to switch shoulders. Ahead, Luis said, “Fuck me.”
Brent looked up — another wall of cars spanning the street’s width.
Luis went first. Brent followed, hoisting himself on top of the trunk of an old Cadillac and stepping gingerly on the roof, hoping he’d not fall through. The metal dented under his weight. He jumped from the hood. Luis was ahead, climbing the roof of a Hummer. Brent followed, just as Luis hopped down and onto the hood of a red BMW.
A high pitched siren wailed the minute Luis’s feet hit the metal. Startled, Brent raised his gun and fired into the fog above twice before realizing Luis had simply set off an alarm.
“Sorry,” Brent said with a laugh.
Luis laughed, as the alarm continued to wail. “Dumb ass.”
As Brent climbed on top of the Hummer and was about to jump down, he saw Luis’ eyes widen, staring behind Brent.
The alarm! They heard it!
“Run!” Luis screamed, already hopping from car to car. Brent didn’t want to turn back to see what Luis saw, but couldn’t help himself. He glanced over his shoulder and nearly froze on the spot.
Dozens of the creatures came spilling from the wall of fog behind them: running, clicking, and shrieking.
Thirty-Seven
Callie Thompson
Oct. 18
Mid-morning
Pensacola, Florida
Callie woke up feeling as though she’d been kicked in the head by a team of horses.
Dizzy and confused, she stared through the gauze of the faded white curtain blowing softly in the breeze thinking, for just a moment, that she was back home, the world hadn’t vanished, and it had all been a bad dream.
“Oh, you’re up?” a familiar voice said next to her.
She felt thin fabric brushing against her nipples and realized she was naked in bed. Naked and smelling of chlorine. She lifted all hundred pounds of her head, then slowly turned toward the voice. It was Bob, also naked.
She wanted to jump up, run, vomit, anything as long as it was something far, far away. But her body refused to budge. Instead, she fell back on her pillow, trapped by inertia. She closed her e
yes and swallowed, gathering her strength.
She sat up. “What the ... ?” she said, her voice as slurred as her mind felt.
She turned to Bob, who was strobing between full-on asshole and fuzzy blur. “You drugged me?” she asked, her voice somewhere between accusation and confusion.
The last thing she remembered was waking up, looking for Charlie, then drinking beer with Bob. After that, she had no memory at all. Given her state of undress, and sore vagina, she was sure she’d been raped. Rage, hurt, and fear flooded her system as she struggled to keep calm and avoid a full-blown panic attack.
She would have accused him; hell, she would have found something nice and blunt to bash Bob’s fucking face in, but her head was a dumbbell’s worth of hurt and she was far too dizzy (and defenseless) to risk provoking the savage animal he so clearly was.
She’d have to play it cool, bide her time, then escape.
“Drugged?” Bob said, laughing, “Girl, you were down with it. You asked for it. Not gonna say you were begging, but just between me and you, you kinda were.”
It took everything she had, and then some, not to knock the smirk from his face.
“What did you give me?”
“I think the kids call it ‘G,’ it really fucks you up all sorts of good.”
The date-rape drug?
“How ya feeling?” Bob asked, reaching over to cup her breast.
She pulled away, covering herself with the sheet.
“Oh, you’re gonna play shy, now?” Bob asked. His voice was playful. He reached over again with one hand, the other playing Jaws beneath the sheet.
“Not now,” she said, “I feel like I’ve got the worst hangover ever. My head is killing me.”
“Want some water?” he asked, getting up from the bed, his cock pointing straight. She fought the urge to vomit.
“Yeah,” she said, “JUST water.”
Bob laughed.
Asshole.
Callie didn’t wait for the water. She jumped out of bed, head spinning, and stumbled to the bathroom, then shut and locked the door and fell to the toilet and vomited. She took the longest shower of her life, not caring that the water was almost ice.
She sank to the floor of the shower, her bottom on the freezing tile and her head in her palms. She would have given anything if tears would finally fall, but they were trapped, burning her lids in horror and shame.
She hadn’t cried once since the world went to hell.
She thought about everything that had happened since the world went away. Watching as her neighbor was torn to ribbons, missing her mother with a bottomless depth she didn’t even know she could feel, and now getting raped at the hands of a creepy, white trash, old man. She should have been a broken mess. Water from the shower streamed down her face, her mouth opened in anguish, trying to open a spigot of tears that simply refused to flow.
She’d always been strong, had to grow up that way being a mixed girl in a lily-white neighborhood with fat pockets of deep-rooted, if slightly closeted, racism. But she wasn’t heartless, far from it. She loved her mother more than life; so why wasn’t she able to cry for her absence?
What kind of daughter am I?
She wished, not for the first time, that her mother was there for her. But at the same time, she was glad her mother had been spared whatever was happening. Monsters, rapists, and God knows what else. Maybe her mother was lucky, vanishing along with the rest of humanity.
A knock at the door. Bob.
“You want this water or what?”
“I’m good,” she said.
He didn’t respond, so she figured he’d gone off to start his daily boozing. She’d wait until he got good and drunk. That’s when she’d leave. She’d look for Charlie, hope he wasn’t too mad at her for rejecting him, and they’d take off together. She’d have to be careful, though. Bob was a ticking time bomb, and she wasn’t sure how long she’d be able to bury her obvious disgust.
Maybe it was a good thing she hadn’t been able to cry. It was as if someone unplugged the weakest part of her, so she could stay strong and do exactly what she needed to do to survive.
“That little fucker stole my shotgun!” Bob said from his spot on the couch, thumbing through porn magazines he’d picked up at a convenience store.
I hope he’s not fueling up for me.
Other than briefly asking where Charlie had gone earlier in the morning, it was the first time Bob had even mentioned Charlie’s absence. When Bob asked if she’d seen him, she was honest, saying Charlie was probably hiding because she’d rejected him. She felt horrible about telling Bob that, and even more awful when Bob couldn’t stop laughing. But better to tell him that than give him more reasons to be mad at Charlie.
No wonder he ran off.
Her only wish was that Charlie had asked her to go with him. Though she rejected him, it wasn’t because she didn’t like him. She did, just not in the way he seemed to like her. He was a nice kid, maybe the nicest she’d ever known, but she wasn’t attracted to him at all. He was too young, too green, and altogether not her type. Besides, love, lust, and sex, none of that was on her mind now. She was in survival mode, barely able to cope with her own feelings, let alone massage another’s. She hadn’t been lying when she said she wasn’t looking for a relationship. The world had changed in a flash, and she had changed right along with it.
“When he gets back here, I’m gonna whip his ass,” Bob said, cracking open another beer.
“Where do you think he went?” she asked, fishing for information. “Does he know anyone here?”
“I doubt it. Though who knows? The little freak sits in his room all day on the fucking Internet. Maybe he had a buncha other geeky computer friends all over the country just waiting to jerk him off. Joke’s on him, though. Ain’t nobody left to pull his pud. He’ll come back when he realizes how bad he needs me.”
Bob downed the beer and crushed the can against his head like some kind of frat boy asshole.
“You want another beer?” Callie asked, purposely making sure she was up when he finished.
“Yeah,” he joked, “About time you make yourself useful.”
She didn’t respond.
“Aw, come on, I’m just messin’ with you. Sheesh, women are so sensitive.”
She went into the kitchen and found the plastic water bottle that was different from the others. For one, it was the only bottle in the fridge which had been opened and was only a quarter full. The bottle’s label was also worn, indicating a lot of re-use. She didn’t know if it was Derek’s G, though she doubted it, or Bob’s personal supply, which seemed all the more likely. She had no idea how much G you’d put in someone’s drink, so she poured what seemed like twice the appropriate amount into Bob’s open beer can.
She brought the can in and handed it to Bob with a smile. “I’m not feeling too good,” she said, putting a hand over her stomach, “I think my friend is coming.”
“Your friend?” Bob said, taking a swig, then realizing, “Oh, your menses. Hell, woman, you did not need to tell me that shit.”
“I’m gonna take a nap,” she said, “Call me if Charlie comes back.”
“Don’t worry, you’ll hear the sound of him begging me to let him in.”
Callie forced a laugh, then went upstairs.
She didn’t know how long the drug took to work or even if it would knock Bob out completely. If it was his supply, maybe he had built up a resistance to it. Maybe it just made him delirious. She thought he’d said something about getting good and fucked up on it. She hoped it would at least impair him long enough for her to get out of the house without him noticing.
She waited 20 minutes, then got out of bed and snuck out of her room and down the hall to his. The door was open and the duffel bags of guns lay on the bed. She found the Glock she’d been practicing with. She grabbed it, along with a box of bullets and went back to her room.
She loaded the gun, grabbed a charcoal jacket from the closet, about thr
ee sizes too big, put the bullets in her pocket and headed out the window to get the hell away from Bob. She hoped she could find Charlie before Bob came looking for her.
Clouds hung low in the sky, as Callie stepped onto the street.
No sign of Charlie or the Toyota he’d taken from Derek’s driveway. She hoped he’d not gone far. Though she didn’t know him well enough to venture an educated guess, she thought he may have stayed relatively close, just to be on the safe side. Far away enough to make a point and hide from Bob, but close enough to run home if necessary.
She needed a car. She wasn’t about to risk taking Bob’s car, or the car in the garage. She went a few doors down on the opposite side of the street where a cute, purple VW bug sat in the driveway.
She knocked on the door on the off chance someone was home. The door was made mostly of etched glass framed in a deep redwood. Seeing no one inside, she tried the doorknob. Locked.
She glanced down, searching for a rock to break the window, then laughed out loud at the planter beside the walkway filled with small round rocks and one large square gray one, so out of place it may as well have had a label on it reading, “fake rock key holder.”
She retrieved the key and let herself inside.
The house was warm, and the smell of cinnamon potpourri made her think of her mom’s craft room. She went to the kitchen and combed the wall for a key rack and the counter for keys. Nothing. She headed back to the doorway to see if she’d missed an obvious spot where people might keep car keys. She found a mail sorter on a ledge, and a small box of random crap, but no keys.
Callie remembered seeing an anime decal on the VW’s rear window, which made her think the car belonged to a teenager, so she went upstairs and found a door with purple letters spelling out “Meghan” on the door.