The Last Mayor Box Set

by Michael John Grist

  I laugh. It's just like my comic. They climb up each other.

  I throw the keys out at them, like I'm dispensing free coffee to my constituents.

  "Free latte," I shout. I get my phone ready to throw and shout, "Free espresso," but I hold back at the last minute. It still has all my music on, my apps, my mayorhood, if I can just get some power. They have battery chargers in any convenience store.

  "No espresso," I shout down instead. "Make do with black coffee."

  Their unblinking ice-white eyes show how intent they are on my every word.

  I pocket my phone and hold out my hand. A few of them reach upward, like man reaching toward God in Michelangelo's painting. Suddenly I get angry.

  "Do you want this?" I shout at them. I pat my head. "Do you want what's in here? You're not getting it! All of you listen up!"

  I look over the throng bustling left and right on 23rd. It's an ocean wave carrying undead jetsam wherever I go. I'm like the moon, drawing them in with my gravitational waves.

  "You're not getting one bite. And you don't get to keep Sir Clowdesley! I am the mayor of this coffee shop, and I'll fight you to the death for it. Is that clear?"

  Their stares tell me it is.

  "Let's establish some ground rules," I go on. I don't know why I'm saying this, the words are just coming out, but the more noise I make the braver and more righteous I feel. "I'm waiting for Lara. You will not mess with Lara! Mess with her and you mess with me. Second, you will not climb up my building. You climb up my building, I'll do something about it. Third, you do not come into Sir Clowdesley again, ever, and certainly not at night. That is right out of line. You can have everything north of 24th street if you want, or south of 22nd, but this bit is mine. Do you understand?"

  They shuffle to indicate that they do.

  "Good! So get lost or suffer the consequences."

  I walk away from the window. My stiff body is loosening up. I go to the water cooler, and like a civilized person I push the little tappet to pour myself a paper cupful. I drink it, then do it again. Three more cups and I'm stuffed. I notice my hands. They look like I'm wearing gloves, covered in old crusted blood and other fluids.

  Ugh. I ate a sandwich with these things.

  I pick up the cooler and carry it to the window, into the warming sunlight. I strip off my sweaty, filthy clothes and hand wash them with cups of 'Pure Spring Water'. I lay them out to dry. I take a shower using cups of cold water. Dirt and crud peels off me, staining the carpet. My skin emerges. I tousle my dark hair. I rub my eyes. I stand at the window naked and look down at them.

  No words, now. This is a kind of dominion. This is how I'm going to go out, if I must. They have messed with the wrong hombre.

  I scour the office for a weapon but I don't find anything, except for ballpoint pens, yellow legal pads, and a few old-fashioned telephone handles behind the reception desk. I don't like the idea of using any of them to fight off a floater. I threw everything else out of the window.

  OK, so I have another idea. I go to the fire door to the stairwell, open it, and lurch back. On the other side is a little old guy, wraith-thin, dressed in an oil-stained blue overall that says 'Janitor' on the lapel. He comes for me, and I jog back through the office, leading him on. I go stand at the open window, and at the last minute I spring to the side and push him through.

  He tumbles out to join his fellows.

  The stairwell is empty otherwise. I suppose he crawled up out of some nether zone to reach me. I head down.

  On the Clowdesley floor I glance at the door to the library. They're probably packed in completely now, like my apartment, but it's a metal door in a concrete frame and I don't think they can get through.

  I go out the other way, into the sunlight of the inner-block donut. I pick a brown stone building to the north, and smash a window through using a loose paving slab. I climb in and walk the corridor until it releases me into a spacious, empty lobby, decked out in dark mosaic tile and the old opulence of carved wooden arches. It's dim but light spills in from the street.

  I smash through the revolving doors to get out. Now I'm standing on 24th street facing a 7-11. A few rags of newspaper scatter noisily before me, chased by a whirling plastic bag caught on a spring zephyr. There are no drifting floaters here, carried by the tide. I can hear them though, a rustling tide just one block south.

  I cross the road, weaving between stalled vehicles: a bright yellow Humvee, a Yamaha motorbike on its kickstand, a silver BMW. The Yamaha parked in the road intrigues me, another clue perhaps. Up in Mott Haven many of the cars had crashed, as though the infection was instant. Here though, the traffic is frozen neatly. The people got out and turned off their engines before they turned.

  I climb up into the Hummer's cab and find the key still in the ignition. So thoughtful. I turn it and the engine revs to life. I imagine myself ramming into the mass of drifters with this tank. Not bad, but I can do better. I need to clear my whole street.

  In the glove box there's nothing but papers, yet in the trunk I find a tire iron. Good. I use it to smash out the 7-11's glass door and enter. It's empty and stale inside, smelling of wilting Danishes and Big Red gum. I lean over the register and pluck up a sheaf of plastic bags, then I go shopping. I get candy bars first, then I add in bread, beef jerky, bottles of water, apples and oranges, a few chunks of cheese. I snatch up a bunch of newspapers and get two whole trays of New York-branded Zippo lighters. Beside the lighters there's a tray of noxious-smelling gas refill cans. I grab those.

  There are New York-branded hats, shirts and towels, and I bag a bunch of them for bedding. On the back wall there's a range of kid's toys, including a Super Soaker water rifle, which I scoop up and bag. I find the phone chargers and batteries and get plenty, plus there are a row of nifty-looking solar-cell battery chargers. I get those, four stout-looking cheap flashlights, a bag of Skittles, and head out.

  There are a few floaters out in the street now, rounding the corner of 24th. I set my new treasure down in front of the revolving door, then head over to the first drifter. It's a big guy dressed in black like a nightclub bouncer. I clothesline him with the tire iron, crunching his neck. The others are far enough away to ignore for now, and they're not running. It seems some of them run and others don't. Maybe they're winding down.

  There are no gas cans in the Hummer's trunk, but I keep on looking. I find one full two-gallon canister in the back of the BMW, and a little further down a black four-gallon drum in a Mercedes. It's probably enough. I carry them back along with my shopping through the revolving door to the lobby; it looks like the embassy for a third-world country. In two trips I get everything sealed inside the stairwell of my building, and in two more trips carry it up to the fourth floor by the window.

  I munch on the Skittles and sip water while looking out at the gray ocean. Is what I'm about to do evil? Perhaps. I don't care. It's not exactly survival, because I've just proved I'm not trapped, but like I told the ocean out there, this is my coffee shop. I need it to have any chance of contacting Lara.

  It'll be a bitch to clean up. I suppose it's a bit like napalm. I hope it'll reduce them all to slurry, which will drain down into the sewers when a good rain comes.

  I open the four-gallon drum and breathe the heady stink of gas. The liquid sloshes as I heft it. I lean out, bracing myself with one thigh against the window frame, and tip the contents down into the mass of them. They soak it up like sun-dried kelp. Apart from those who've eaten dog brains, they haven't had a slurp to drink for three days.

  I take the second can and pour it carefully into my Super Soaker, then spray it out over them all, repeating the process many times. I toss the lighter refill cans out amidst them, thinking they might blow like grenades if it gets hot enough.

  That's all my fuel spent. I wash my hands off at the water cooler, spark the first Zippo, and think for a moment more about what I'm going to do. Then I dismiss any protest as irrelevant, and toss the lighter down. It bounces off a
gas-drenched shoulder and whuffs into ignition at once. Licks of vapory fire snap all the way up to my eyebrows, singeing them, and then the bonfire catches properly, spreading rapidly to encompass the street. I can barely lean out for the heat.

  The ocean is on fire.

  I toss five more Zippos into the crowd. Some of them catch and others don't. The fire burns hot and smoky. They're tightly packed in like human tallow, and together they burn.

  I gag on the BBQ stench of them. Chewy puffs of human smoke rise up, scalding me. I hear the crackle of their skin popping. At least they don't scream. One of the fuel cans bursts with a massive bang and the nearby bodies blow to the sides. The others burn and melt orange and yellow, though they don't scream at all. They continue to crawl up the pile they've made against the wall.

  I watch for a few minutes, simultaneously fascinated and repelled by what I have done. On the one hand it seems like I had no choice. On the other it is a truly disgusting thing for a human being to do. I hope Lara isn't watching.

  15. ALL I CAN DO

  I can't stay and watch this, so I get in my Humvee and drive. It's easy to punch other vehicles out of the way. I go east on 24th to 3rd avenue, then south. I know the Police Academy is this way, and I'm in no big rush. At various points I can see the greasy black smoke rising from Sir Clowdesley over buildings like a bleak cloud, and look away. Probably that was a bad idea. If anything, it'll just draw more of them.

  I go by a police car stuck in traffic, then stop and get out. I have the tire iron and the street is empty. The driver side door is open, and the keys are in the ignition. I pull them out and go to the trunk. I read in the prepper Bible that some of these cars have weapons lockers in the back, where I might find a shotgun or patrol rifle. The trunk opens, and there's a metal box built into the trunk that might be a locker, but the car key doesn't work to open it. I give it a few desultory whacks with the iron, but it just clangs. I try to pick it up but it's built into the trunk. Probably the key is in the pocket of some floater cop roaming the streets.

  Ah well.

  The stink of greasy burning reaches me. It carries on the air. I look up 3rd avenue and see a thick fog of black smoke curdling closer. I get in the police car and start it up. I click buttons until I find the one that starts the siren.

  The lights flash overhead, splashing reflections off the Hummer, and the siren rings. I drive it back up to the fog, and there I wait.

  Soon enough the ocean comes, bringing the whole fire with them. They stagger on crisping legs while their bodies burn, their faces running like the Gestapo-guy in Raiders of the Lost Ark. It is horrific, but I'm in the middle now and I can't stop.

  I wait until they're almost on me and the cloud of their black smoke is everywhere. Then I lead them away. I drive slowly north, with their burning bodies stumbling behind. None of them run now. I drive until they stop following and the trail of oily smoke gives out because they've all burned out. They lie behind me like a long black scar on the city.

  Oh God, what have I done.

  I find a bus facing west and I drive it back down 4th avenue. I don't want to see the slug trail of their bodies, but on 23rd I pull in and see them everywhere. There are myriad charred corpses on the floor and lying atop my scattered desks. There are scorched black carbon marks up all the buildings. The front of Sir Clowdesley has been obliterated with dark grease. You can't see my sign in the window for all the black. It's just a mess, and it reeks of half-cooked meat and gasoline.

  I pull the bus in, and three-point turn it so it's blocking most of the western edge of 23rd where it borders on 4th. I get out and walk through the wreckage to the nearest car. The asphalt is hot underfoot, and my feet come away mired with black sludge, like I'm walking through treacle. A hand with most of the skin peeled away reaches out to me from a bubbly body.

  I get in the car, so dark with tar I can't make out the model, and turn the key. My hands are black just from handling the door. The windscreen wipers work ineffectively to clear the mess from the glass. The engine turns and the wheels slip and skid in the human oil. I pull the car up and slot it lengthwise into the gap between the front of the bus and the nearby building. It's a near perfect fit.

  Can they get past this?

  I study the pattern of blackened desks. They've been pushed through, like a broken levee beneath too much mass.

  I find other working cars nearby, and drive them back to park alongside the bus. They'll add security. In large numbers the ocean could climb over, and even a few floaters might probably squeeze through the gaps, but I'll mortar those in with something. Maybe mortar. I flash on the prepper Bible, and where New York's construction equipment may be kept.

  That would help.

  I pull up about eight more cars to block 23rd to the east where it meets 3rd Avenue. These will serve as ballast for when I get another bus, backing it up. I notice I've left my patrol car inside the barricade, but it doesn't matter now. My lime green moped is still there too, though it's not green anymore, and it's been knocked on its side and crushed by countless feet. There are thick mucusy strands of something glistening around it, like organic padlock chains. Entrails?

  This whole charnel pit stinks of barbeque and offal. This was a mistake.

  I climb out of the cesspit over my barricade of cars, boost another car with its key in the ignition, and drive off looking for a bus. I see lost floaters and swerve to hit them. Doing this disgusts me, but I can't stop myself. They rattle up the hood, into the glass and over the roof. When the windscreen cracks so badly that I can't see, I get another car. I find a bus somewhere around 37th and drive it back, crunching the crawlers beneath its ten-ton frame. All of these are mistakes but I can't stop making them. It's like I'm not myself, and all I can do is kill.

  I pull the bus up flush along to the cars and handbrake it.

  It's still not enough. Perhaps they can push them back. Perhaps they can climb over. I need more buses. I know where to find them.

  * * *

  The Port Authority bus terminal in Midtown feels like a dungeon, dark and dingy once I'm through the glass vestibule with its pop-red modern art. I use one of my stolen flashlights to illuminate the way. No floaters come for me, as it's empty inside. I walk through the massive dark interior, bigger even than the Darkness, with only my footsteps as company. Right about now I'd talk to Io, if she still worked. What would I say?

  Forgive me father for I have sinned.

  I smash into a bus at stop C22, where I once took a trip up to summer camp in Boston. I was a camp counselor back then, working with at-risk kids from the inner city. I met a friend from Iowa State University by chance, sitting on a railing waiting for his Greyhound going west. It was bizarre. We talked about how easy it was to get lost in the bus terminal's dark nether halls, and what we both missed about college. We agreed to catch up online, but we never bothered. His bus came and we went our separate ways.

  A different world, now.

  There is no key in the bus. Of course not, that would be too easy. There are a few sleepy floaters though, rousing like this is finally their stop.

  I leave them. I get out. I wander around the maze of buses for a while, feeling lost. Is this the nightmare, I wonder, or the reality? One of the ocean pops up around the edge of the bus alley I'm walking in, and I jab him hard in the throat with the sharp end of the iron. He falls to the ground. I notice as I step over him, he's wearing the gray uniform of a bus driver.

  There must be a room where they keep all the keys. It would be an office for the drivers, probably protected by a pass card, some kind of electronic lock that would be fixed solid now, forever. I'll never find it before nightfall for sure.

  I follow the buses to the exit. Light floods around me, shaping the mouth of this concrete hell with black diesel smoke accretions. I feel sick at myself. I'm already tired of smashing my way into things.

  I smash into a Greyhound bus sitting in the exit, which must've stopped on its way out. The keys are in i
t. I rev it up and drive. It bullies its way roughly down 8th Avenue, plowing other road users aside. On 23rd I turn left and pull it up across the gap where I slotted the car in. I work it back and forth until the flank grinds hard against the brick face of a Lush soap shop, knocking over a lamp-post and striking sparks off the other bus and car. This is my mortar. I get out and look up at my new wall.

  It is impregnable. At first I'm not even sure how I'm going to climb it. Then I remember. I smash a few windows, clear the glass, and climb up them. Atop the bus I look back. My area is clear of floaters still, and grossly filthy still. A few more buses will do it.

  I do the run to Port Authority on 41st and 8th three more times, swapping a stolen car nearby for a bus each time for the trip back. On the last trip back I stop off at the tech store on 44th street and pick twenty laptop batteries off the dark shelves, plus headphones and immersion goggles. I stop at a clothes store and pick up some clothes. I stop at a bed store and pick up sheets and a few duvets.

  I don't have a gun. I don't want one now.

  I climb back in over my bus-blockades, each two thick now. I have the whole street now, and it's disgusting. I traipse through the alien landscape of treacly of burned bodies, numb and barely in control of my legs. Across the street there's a liquor shop and I pick up a bottle of whiskey. I pick up another one. I carry all my stuff to Sir Clowdesley and look inside.

  A few floaters mill in there. It stinks sourly, like old vomit and charcoal that's been pissed on. I see my new bedding has been trailing in the black and I let it drop. I drop all this shit except the batteries in their shopping basket and the whiskeys. I climb in.

  The floaters come for me. I hit them in the brains. They must be dizzy, because they're slow. They let me come in, and up in the library I find my nest, and my cache of guns spread around the floor.

  I shoot the floaters in the throats. I go back to my shitty sofa and stuff tissue paper up my nose to block out the stink. A breeze carries it in from the street and circulates it.