“They’re on their way down,” she says into the phone. A couple of minutes pass in tense silence. “Is the door open? Go. I’ll see you upstairs.”
Penny grabs Ana in a hug as soon as she enters. Ana gives her a cursory pat then pulls away and smoothes her long hair. It’s lighter than Penny’s, with hints of gold. She wears brown suede knee-high boots and a long sweater with leggings. The sweater must cost as much as my yearly clothing budget, including my sandals back on the corner. Ana looks a lot like Penny, with her dark eyes and small nose, but she doesn’t have Penny’s curvy softness.
“So, what’s with the crazy guy downstairs?” Ana strides over to the window. He sits slumped against the glass of the door. He’s not moving. I hope he’s dead.
“He tried to attack us on our way here,” James tells Ana. “That’s what the infected people are doing. You get the virus through bodily fluids.”
Ana turns from the window and shrugs. “So, this is that swine flu or whatever? I can’t believe people are going so crazy over it! The bar we were going to go to closed early. Now I get to spend Friday night here.”
Now that she’s safe, I want to put her out there again. “Ana,” I say, in my best stop-being-a-little-shit voice. “Sorry your Friday night is ruined. But did you hear James? The man tried to attack us. Your mother is stuck at the hospital with these people. There may be a hundred thousand infected in New York. And it isn’t swine flu.”
Ana sticks out her bottom lip. “Fine, whatever.”
She picks up her bag and saunters off to her room. I love Ana the way you love a little sister that you also don’t like sometimes. That sweet little girl she’d been must still be in there. One summer at my parents’ cabin she had found an injured rabbit and nursed it back to health. She didn’t trust anyone else to do it. When she and my dad let the healed bunny go, she sobbed and spent the rest of the week looking for more animals to save.
“Whatever, indeed. At least she’s safe,” Penny says, and she raises her eyes to heaven.
Nelly pops the tops off four beers. James puts the TV on a local channel. CNN is still off air. I listen as I dial 911 over and over.
“Buses are filled to capacity with the sick. Family members are being asked to pin a note with the infected person’s information onto their clothing and leave the area, with promises that they will be informed of the patient’s progress. Police say this is to protect family members from being infected. We’re going live to the scene at Lutheran Medical Center in Brooklyn.”
I set the phone down and move closer to the TV. A reporter stands outside of the hospital where Maria works. Penny leans forward like she’s trying to catch a glimpse of her mom. The number of people out there is staggering. They’re lying down, standing up, sitting. They shuffle forward onto a waiting string of buses. As each bus fills up and pulls away, it’s replaced by a new one. City buses, school buses, Greyhound coaches—it looks like anything with more than four seats has been pressed into service.
“They’ve been funneling people onto buses for several hours, but more arrive to take their place. We were just informed we are being moved to an area a few blocks away for our own safety. We will continue to monitor the situation down here. Back to you.”
Nelly lowers the volume as the news anchor lists the treatment centers again.
Penny sighs. “Well, I don’t imagine my mom’s going to be home soon. There must have been five hundred people waiting out there. I just hope they’re giving the nurses the anti-viral medication.”
Penny grabs her phone and walks to the window, trying her mom again. Her beer hits the wood floor in a foamy crash that makes us jump. One hand covers her mouth and the other points to the street.
7
There are four of them in front of an apartment building down the block, bent over on the shady side of the street. One is Half-Neck, astonishingly still alive, his head canted to the left. There’s an old lady wearing a flowered housedress and wispy gray bun, a hipster with off-kilter aviator sunglasses and a Hispanic man wearing a half-tucked shirt and jeans.
The housedress lady stumbles away to reveal something meaty and glistening and pink. Only the hands and feet give any indication that it was once a person. The four of them are coated in fresh blood. It’s smeared around their mouths and drips from their hands. It runs down the concrete into the street. My stomach heaves, and I lean on the windowsill. I want to scream at them to stop, but that would alert them to us, and the person is obviously dead. I run and dial 911. Fast busy. I try again and again as the others stare out the window.
“Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?” a voice asks.
“I’m watching four of the infected on the street. They’re ripping someone apart! I’m on—”
The voice cuts me off. “Ma’am, is the person they’re attacking dead? Can you tell?”
What kind of question is that? “Yes, I think the person’s dead, but—”
“Ma’am, we can’t send any police out now. If you give me your address, they’ll take the infected into custody as soon as possible.”
I give her the address. “Do you know when they’re coming? I’m afraid they’ll hurt someone else.”
“No, ma’am, I don’t.” She has that officially harried voice every civil servant in New York City adopts. “And please stay in your home. The police will be there soon, and they are equipped to handle the situation.”
“Yes, of course. Thanks.” I hang up, adding, “For nothing.”
I move back to the window. “They’re not even coming.”
“Well,” James says, without tearing his eyes away, “at least they answered this time.”
I can’t stop watching either. It’s so horrifying that the minute I stop looking I think there’s no way it can be real, so I look back.
“They aren’t just attacking, they’re eating,” Nelly says, and shakes his head in disbelief.
He heads into the kitchen and sits at the table. I follow him to get paper towels to clean up the spill. He’s as pale as I’ve ever seen him, but his mouth is set in a firm line. “I know you promised Eric you’d leave if it was bad.” I nod. “I thought that was a little over the top. But now I don’t know. What do you think?”
What we just saw wasn’t simply someone a little ill and violent. I don’t want to sound like a maniac, but I’m scared. And I promised Eric. “I want to go upstate,” I say.
James comes to the doorway with his arm around Penny’s shoulders. “They don’t have this under control,” he says. “I mean, there are people eating someone on the corner and it’s not even a fucking priority. They’re not telling us the truth. People still think it’s safe.”
It’s true; I can hear music and the sounds of happy shouting blocks away.
“Okay,” Nelly says, his hands fisted on the table. His expression is incredulous, but his nod is firm. “Then we should leave. I can’t believe this, this is insane.”
I’ve always thought it would be great to have Nelly’s total belief, just once, in my and James’ crazy imaginings. But I find that this is one time I really, truly want to be wrong.
8
A yell from the street snaps us out of our silence. Five young guys grip baseball bats and pieces of rebar and move in on the infected, who are so busy with their meal they don’t notice.
A length of rebar connects with Aviator Glasses’ head, while the owner of the rebar yells with the effort. It splits his head open with a crack that carries down the block and through the window glass. There’s surprisingly little blood, although my stomach lurches at the sight. Another bludgeons the older man. Half Neck and the old lady turn toward the three men left.
“Now!” yells the biggest guy.
Half Neck and Old Lady don’t stand a chance. They’re down in seconds and bashed repeatedly until their heads are just a memory. The big guy straightens up and wipes his forehead with a bandanna from his back pocket. Before I can stop myself I throw the kitchen window wide open.
&n
bsp; “Hey, thanks!” I call.
They look up and around until they see me and move to stand under us. Penny leans out of the living room window and waves.
“Oh, hey. You Maria Diaz’s girl, right?” the leader asks. Penny nods. “Listen, you need to stay inside. They’re everywhere.” He gives us a stern big brother look.
“Are they all like this? So violent?” I ask. “They said they were attacking people, but it looked like they were eating—”
“Oh, they’re eating.” He grimaces. “Make no mistake. And you have to get their heads or they don’t go down easy. Cut their necks or something. Crazy shit. You know, like zombies.”
A younger kid wearing a baseball hat chimes in with lit up eyes. “It is, man. They are zombies. It’s just like that game. You know, the one where you—”
“Christ, Carlos,” the leader says. “This is no game. You see that body? That could be you or your moms or your sister.” He looks up at us as Carlos surveys the remains and quiets.
“Sorry. We got to go. I’m picking up my little sister from a friend’s house. Stay inside. Be safe. Tell your moms Guillermo said hi.”
Penny says she will. We watch as they walk down the rest of the block and pause before every doorway.
“Zombies,” James mutters. “Jesus.”
It’s silent. Penny finally speaks. “I’m willing to entertain the idea that this virus is out of control. I’ll leave New York as soon as my mom comes home. She’ll know how bad it is. But, zombies? C’mon.”
She crosses her arms, her face tight. Penny is practical and even-tempered like her mother, but I can see the doubt in her eyes even as she insists it can’t be true. They were eating that person, as hard as it is to believe.
“You just saw them, Pen.” James gestures toward the window, then squeezes her shoulder gently. “I can’t rule anything out, can you?”
Penny shakes her head, arms still crossed. He knocks a cigarette out of his pack. I haven’t smoked since I quit again a year ago, but I think I can break the rule this once. James is smoking out the window, as no one in their right mind would send him outside, so I drag a chair over. He knows what I’m after and hands me his, lighting another for himself.
“Thanks,” I say, and take a deep drag. The nicotine tingles down to the tips of my fingers and toes. “I can smoke if it’s the zombie apocalypse, at least. What’s my life expectancy anyway? One week, maybe two?”
James chokes on his smoke as I grin at him. “You’re sick.”
“Humor is the last refuge of the damned. That’s what my mom used to say.” I take another drag. “I don’t know what else to do.”
James closes his eyes. I stare down to where Half Neck and Old Lady are sprawled on the concrete. The windows of the building across the street are filled with people. A little girl with a ponytail waves at me, and I wave back. I can’t imagine what her parents are telling her about all this.
James’s eyes open suddenly. “Does it really matter?” he asks us. “I mean, I’m sure they’re not really zombies, but they’re acting like them. If this is spreading fast we need to get out of here before the rest of New York figures out the same thing. We can’t afford to sit around waiting.”
He’s right. The trick is to leave before everyone else does.
Ana wanders into the living room. “Zombies?”
I stub out my cigarette and answer. “Yeah, it seems the virus is creating something close to zombies.”
“Ew.” Ana makes a face, not about zombies, but about the cigarette. She waves her hand at the smoke that’s nowhere near her. “So, what are we supposed to do?”
“Leave the city,” Nelly says. He sits next to Penny, who’s chewing on a fingernail, and pats the couch on his other side.
“And go where?” she asks.
“My parents’ house upstate,” I say. “If we can get there.”
Ana purses her lips. “Seriously?”
“We’ll talk to Mama first, Ana, and bring her too. Don’t worry.” Penny reaches across Nelly and squeezes her hand.
“I’ll try her,” Ana says, and grabs her phone. “Oh, Mama texted. It looks like she texted us both, hours ago, but I’m only getting it now.”
I wonder why no one is panicking when even making a simple phone call is a challenge. But I guess it was the same during 9/11 and the blackout. Maybe we’re used to it now.
Penny checks her phone and shakes her head. “I don’t have it. What’s it say?”
“Virus very bad. Meet you at Cassie’s after work. Bring clothes. We leave city tonight. Explain later. Love you, Mama.”
Penny’s eyes are huge behind her glasses. Ana shakes her head. “No way. Mama’s as bad as the rest of you!”
I’m relieved. Not that it’s turning out to be as bad as James and I thought. But that we’ve gotten permission to follow our instincts. That maybe we’re not so crazy after all.
9
Penny and Ana pack bags for themselves and their mother while we wait. Nelly smiles at me, but the smile doesn’t touch his eyes.
I plop down next to him on the couch. “What’s wrong? That’s a stupid question. I mean, specifically, what’s wrong?”
He looks down at his hands clasped between his knees. It’s been years since he’s worked on a ranch, but they still look like he does. He raises his eyes. “All those people out front of the hospital. If they’re all like those four, then how are they going to control them?”
“I know. It’s still early. Maybe there’s some way…” I change the subject. “Have you spoken to your parents again?”
“My mom emailed before we left work. They’re fine. Just a few sick there. They’re together, so I’m not too worried.”
Nelly’s mom and dad and five siblings live near each other. They have cattle and a lot of guns. On my first visit Nelly had let them swagger around and show the City Girl how to hold a gun. Then I picked up a twenty gauge and blasted a can on a stump. Their mouths hung open until Nelly laughed and explained that my dad had taught me how to shoot when I was a kid.
“Yeah,” I agree. “They’ll be okay.” I rest my head on his shoulder and wish I had parents to call.
My dad was always ready for an emergency. When I was young it had been fun: target practice, pioneer skills, food storage, conspiracy theories. As I got older I’d thought he was wacky in a loveable sort of way. And as life went on with no great emergencies lasting over a three-day snowstorm, I ceased believing that something could go monumentally wrong. It was unimaginable that anything worse than both my parents dying in one moment could happen. There’d been no way to prepare for that.
“So,” James’s voice breaks into my thoughts, “I’m seeing over two hundred thousand estimated infected here. The government has to be stretched pretty thin at this point. Especially since the rest of the country is fighting the same thing.”
My dad always said it was better to be over-prepared than under-prepared. That he wouldn’t feel like a fool if nothing ever happened, and that only in recent decades did people think planning for a lean future was a waste of time.
James taps a finger on his tablet. “The cities that were hit first are at forty percent infection. So that means if infection rates hold true, we could be looking at those numbers in days. Of course, this is all dependent on if they’ve quarantined most of the sick by now.”
That’s almost half of the city. I can’t even fathom what that would be like. Maybe these websites are wrong and the Department of Health is right.
“Maybe they can stop it,” I say. “You would think that they would’ve seen what should have been done in the Midwest and started doing it here.”
James gives a sardonic laugh, and I admit he’s probably right.
I miss my dad. It always seemed like nothing bad could happen if he was there to protect me. I remember standing down in the basement of their apartment as Dad showed me all the organized bins.
He had handed me a heavy backpack. “This is for you.”
“What’s in it, an anvil?”
“Funny. It’s your BOB. Your Bug Out Bag. It has what you need if you have to leave the city quickly.”
I hugged him and laughed. “Okay, nutso.”
He hugged me back, smiling but serious. “Keep it in your closet. I hope you never need it. But when I got to thinking about how you didn’t have one with you, now that you’re out of the house, I couldn’t sleep.”
I patted his bushy hair. He tried to keep it tamed, but it grew in cowlicks and puffs with a life of its own.
“Of course you couldn’t. How could anyone sleep soundly without a backpack full of escape gear?”
He smiled but then shook his head at my levity. “All this,” he motioned at the bins, the cans of food, “is for you and Eric. I hope you never need it. My greatest fear is that I wouldn’t be able to take care of you guys. It’s a nightmare. You’ll understand one day.”
I gave him a kiss. “Well, thank you, Daddy. I do appreciate it. Truly. I’ll keep this handy.”
I knew it gave him a modicum of feeling in control, and it was harmless, really. He wasn’t one of those people who sat around hoping the world would end; he just felt more secure when he was prepared for anything. That bag is in the basement right now, still packed with what he thought would keep me safe. I’ll go through that first.
“So, y’all, it’s great we’re leaving town and all. But just what are we leaving town in?” Nelly asks.
“I was thinking we could take one of the vans from work,” I say.
There are a couple of ten-passenger vans in the lot behind the building. Nelly and I both have driven them in the past.
“I was thinking the same thing,” James says with a nod.
Until the End of the World Box Set Page 4
