Feral King

by Ginger Booth

  Frosty stooped and claimed the kid’s gun, same model as Hotwire’s. He engaged the safety and checked it still had ammo. He kicked himself for not arming the whole group. But it was a toss-up, look threatening, or stay nimble.

  “He isn’t the one from upstairs.” Jake and Maz had snuck forward again to see.

  “Outstanding,” Frosty breathed. “Hotwire, not worth it. Back to the dojo.”

  “You got that right. What did we make it, 150 feet? Halfway to the avenue?” Hotwire shook his head in disgust.

  To stay on the safe side, they retreated the same way again, Frosty and Hotwire facing 6th, Maz and Jake running ahead.

  “Any questions?” Frosty asked when they regrouped by the door to the dojo. A couple kids from the gang stood out there by Ava’s water cans. He nodded a greeting to them, and turned his back.

  Jake shook his head in chagrin. “Sorry I challenged you, Frost. You’re doing a building at a time because you have no choice. I get it.”

  Hotwire pointed toward 6th Avenue. “I don’t think we want to rush to either avenue. Use the ends of the block as a buffer. Though no one shoots at us when we tend the corpse pile.”

  “Other groups add corpses,” Frosty noted. “Occasionally we burn them. Found a fuel oil tank we use for that.”

  Jake liked that idea. “Really? Enough to heat a building?”

  “No fire department,” Frosty replied. “And not my building. I’d rather take their oil.” He looked the guys over. “Hotwire, wanna break? How about you and me sleep in our own beds tonight. Let these two watch the dojo.”

  “Hell, yeah. Seeya.” The man took his gun with him.

  Frosty thrust his pickup rifle into Jake’s hands. “Watch out here, or in the dojo. You figure it out. Maz, you owe me a dance.”

  As they slipped in and shed their outerwear, Frosty ordered the milling herd to clear out, salvage teams would resume tomorrow early. Then he put the gang out of mind. He still wore his best gi. He bowed to his partner, icy blue eyes on blue. “You start.”

  “I’m defense only,” Maz countered. “You’re hurt. Give me your best shot.”

  “Asshole.”

  Maz quirked an amused lip.

  Frosty suddenly shot a foot toward his head. Maz blocked with an arm and a sidestep. After a few more attempts to surprise his best friend, Frosty gave up and they simply worked through the standard practice drill of strikes and blocks. To a casual onlooker, this might look like a fight. To the black belts, it amounted to a warmup. They finished out the sequence, then kicked and punched the bags companionably until pleasantly tired, then stretched it out. Within 20 minutes the pair, close as brothers, lay on the mats, heads side by side, sneakered feet stretched in opposite directions.

  “You OK?” Maz asked.

  “No. You?”

  “Intimidated. Lot of work to do. Not sure it’ll be enough.”

  Frosty rolled over to lean his chin on his hands. “It is what it is. We make it as good as we can.”

  “Why the little kids? I think I know. You’re in this to protect Ava. Sorry, Panic. So let’s all be in the same boat. You protect her, I protect Kat, they protect the kids and the other girls. Everybody protects somebody.”

  “Something like that,” Frosty agreed. “It can’t be selfishness. If our own survival is all we’ve got in common, then we’ll turn on each other. We’re just middle class white kids, trying to stay alive. You know?”

  “But we’re better than the gangs are,” Maz suggested. “Because we’re protecting little kids.”

  Frosty arched an eyebrow at him. “We’re better than them anyway.” They both chuckled, until Frosty wiped a tear away. Where did that come from? “Second thoughts? Think you were better off at the brownstone?”

  “Not a chance,” Maz assured him. “You and me. Brothers.” They bopped fists. “Hey, Frost? I think I have a role picked out. Enforcer. Your sidekick. Whatever you want to call it. This is too much. You need someone to lean on.”

  “I’ve got Panic. She’s amazing.”

  “Yeah, but she’s not in your weight class. Too young. Too innocent. You think she can face down Hotwire if he loses it? Jake? You need someone to step in when you need a break, back you against whatever assholes life throws at us. I’m your understudy.”

  “Works for me. God I’m tired. I needed you here.”

  “You got it. You consider heading for Jersey?”

  Frosty was glad of his tact, saying Jersey instead of your father. Dad texted him while stuck in traffic fleeing across the George Washington Bridge, the day Ebola broke out. Didn’t think to drop by and take his son with him. “We’d need an army to reach Jersey. I’ll make my stand here.”

  10

  January 1, E-day plus 24.

  Ava felt like she’d just fallen asleep when a pounding on their door woke her. Granted, the couple went to bed around 8 p.m., after sleeping half the day. Their trip to Maz’s house was a horrifying disaster, but at least they won night shift coverage. Yet here was one of Frosty’s many minions banging on her damned door again.

  “Panic, it’s Brawnda! It’s an emergency!”

  Dammit. Brawnda was her minion, not Frosty’s, her newly appointed water minder. “Coming!” She gasped at the cold as she slipped out of bed. After a brief tug of war with her boyfriend, she won a single blanket from the three they slept under, and wrapped it around herself. Even through her woolen socks, the floor was icy.

  As soon as she shot the deadbolts and opened the door, a tidal wave of words splashed onto her from the distraught water girl. About her own age, Ava estimated that Brawnda outmassed her by 60 pounds not very long ago, and still had a ways to go. She was faintly pretty, especially by the candle-light born in her hand, with dusty copper hair, and pale grey eyes, bloodless lips, and porcelain white skin with a dusting of freckles. Ava made a note to find the girl some lipstick and yawned hard.

  “– hard freeze!”

  Freeze. Water trash cans. Pipes. Dammit! She knew she’d forgotten something before heading to bed tonight. She held up a hand to stop the verbal onslaught. “Let me think.” Could they carry in the trash cans full of water? Would it do them any good? If a 5 gallon jug weighed…round it to 45, so 90 for 10 gallons… “Frosty, could you guys carry in a trash can full of water? Maybe two hundred eighty pounds?”

  “No. The plastic would break. Pour half of it out, then carry it.” He paused audibly for a yawn. The silent stillness of Manhattan at night was still stunning to her. Though tonight she heard an odd assortment of metallic pings and groans. “Time’s up on the water, huh? I’ll get up.”

  Ava turned back to Brawnda. “Wake everybody. They need to fill every water and soda bottle and bucket they can find. It’s important. It could be days, even weeks, before a thaw. Try to fill them from the faucets first, but use the trashcans if they don’t work. You add bleach, like we talked about, OK? Buckets are for cleaning, they don’t need bleach. We’ll be down in a minute. Oh! And all the taps on the third floor! They need to turn on at a drip.”

  Kat stuck her head out of her door down the hall. “I heard. I’ll get the taps besides yours.”

  “Keys!” Ava ducked back inside for the master keys and lobbed them to Kat. She pulled back inside and saw to her taps first, in pitch darkness. The kitchen faucet she turned all the way open, but only a drip escaped. She ran back to the door. “Kat! Second floor!”

  “I noticed! But Ava, we need to turn off the main.”

  “You’ve got the keys. Do the second floor first, then get back to me.”

  By then, Frosty was grumpily pulling clothes on. “Why can’t Jake and Maz deal with this crap?”

  “Because I put Brawnda in charge a couple hours ago. I think. What time is it?”

  “Who cares. Dark.” He threw a sweater at her, followed by a long-sleeved T-shirt and bra.

  Ava pulled on clothes, interrupting herself when she remembered the bathroom faucet. But within a few minutes they headed downstairs. Sle
epy kids were already clogging the ground floor hallway, and along one side of the stairs, clutching empty bottles.

  “What’s the holdup?” Ava asked Germy, who sat on the bottom stair with three empty cube-shaped gallons.

  “Faucets are running slow.”

  “Use the drinking jugs in the dojo,” Ava commanded.

  “Already doing that. Maz told me to.”

  Frosty leaned against the wall, gazing at her.

  “What?”

  He shrugged. “Your lead. I could turn off the water main, but you’re using it. I could fill the big jugs, but they’re not empty. Is someone stirring the trashcans? That might buy time.”

  Ava eyed all the containers in the hallway, with more arriving from above. “Hold for one.” She ducked into the dojo. The current jug was almost out, a girl maybe 12 years old tipping it to pour the last. The bathroom faucets, two of them, ran at about quarter strength, frustrated by the geometry of how to wedge a bottle under them. The bank sinks weren’t any better. She tapped the girl’s shoulder to give up, and they wrestled the jug free. She left Maz setting up the next 5-gallon while she carried out the empty and handed it off to Frosty.

  He called out three names to help him, and they marched outdoors to fill it. By then Kat tossed down the keys, and followed them at a trot.

  Ava was counting buckets and bottles. “Bottles first. Everyone go out to the trashcans. Try to fill two gallons. Then come in here to get bleach from Brawnda.”

  She wasn’t sure they had any more water than that. She had seven trashcans outside, four of the 32-gallon variety and a few tall kitchen wastebaskets. The trash bags that fit the latter said 13 gallons. The building had only two gutter downspouts, but she’d rigged hoses to make the barrels spill over in series. But who knew how many people had tipped out water today. Everyone above the third floor used them, and only the elite claimed the plum spots on the 2nd and 3rd floors. Most of the kids lived on floors 4-6 when they didn’t sleep in a heap on the dojo mats.

  She pushed outside with the throng to get a feel for how much water was left to distribute. But between the inky dark and the fact that not a single bin was full, she had no better idea than when she was calculating.

  “Could use a light,” Frosty prompted her. “Otherwise we’ll spill it. Hey!” He caught a bigger guy by the arm just before he went down. “Careful of the ice!”

  “It’s still liquid?” Ava asked anxiously. “I asked her to stir it.”

  “Brawnda did awesome,” he assured her. “Light.”

  “Right.” Ava hustled in, grateful to be out of that bitter wind. The temperature had fallen off a cliff out there, maybe 10 degrees before the wind chill. Water was crucial. “Who’s got a lantern? Anybody? Flashlight?”

  One of the older girls held up a heavy-duty steel flashlight. “I want it back!”

  “Go outside yourself then, and keep hold of it! And you, too!” The second kid brandishing a flashlight was up to the half-floor landing, and glad to cut ahead in line.

  By now Maz had caught up again and controlled the flow of people out and in, directing traffic. He made everyone flatten against the walls as their biggest dude, Pistol, struggled in with his jug. Ava cleared the space by Brawnda, giving the jug priority. “Bleach drops, 50 for the jugs,” she reminded the girl.

  “I read 8 per gallon,” Brawnda said. “That’s 40 drops for the 5 gallon jugs. I started reading that manual you gave me.”

  “Good work, Brawnda. If it’s fresh bleach,” Ava countered. “This water should be super clean, too. But the bottle of bleach is old. Close enough.”

  Brawnda surrendered on the mental math to follow her reasoning, and resumed counting drops. Ava wished she’d bothered to find another glass dropper. Most were made of plastic, and she didn’t trust them with the caustic bleach.

  Well, the group was assembled. “Anybody have a glass dropper bottle?” No response. “I found this dropper with do-it-yourself vape supplies. Somebody who used e-cigs.”

  One of the medium-sized kids peeled off upstairs to look. Apparently the previous owners of her lair mixed their own.

  Once the 5-gallon jug was out of the way, normal traffic flow resumed. Frosty dropped a kiss on her forehead and claimed the keys to the basement from Kat. When he asked for a light, 5 flashlights thrust out and no one asked for them back, either. Ava wished she knew how he managed that.

  Maz looked to Brawnda, and apparently decided not to interrupt her counting, since she was the bottleneck now. “Panic, you want the empty trash cans inside?”

  “Already got empties, huh? Yeah. Let’s stow them in the bank. Be sure the hoses come with them.” Cutting and sealing the hose was a nuisance, and garden hoses weren’t exactly plentiful around here.

  There was no need to pick up any trash can full. If they were very lucky, they may have squirreled away 120 gallons, max. That wasn’t much for 40 people.

  “Your attention please! Everybody!” Ava’s voice couldn’t carry through all the stomping and chatting between excited and freezing wet kids.

  Maz helped her out. “SHUT UP! ANNOUNCEMENT!”

  After the crowd quieted, she called out, “Guard your water! You need that to last until it rains again. And it doesn’t rain much in January. It snows. And do not, repeat, DO NOT use the toilets! From here in, our bathroom is the storm sewers. We’ll work that out tomorrow.”

  Rather than acknowledge what she said, the throng set to muttering more loudly than before.

  Then Frosty pushed through from the back and vaulted over the banister onto the staircase. And he started to applaud, hands overhead. The karate team, including Germy, followed his lead, and the clapping spread. “Well done! I’m impressed! Brawnda! Brand new job and handled a crisis – well done!”

  He made sure poor Brawnda got a full standing ovation. She came out from behind her bleaching table and took a curtsy, blushing with pride. Ava and Kat traded high-fives with her.

  “Panic! Set up our water barrels! Well done, baby!” Frosty worked through offering appreciation for Kat, Maz, Pistol, and everyone else for their fine jobs in the emergency. “Oh, and watch your step on the ice when you go out for a leak. Let’s get some sleep. Stay warm tonight!” He beckoned Ava to come upstairs.

  “We could strew some cat litter out there,” Kat suggested to Ava.

  Ava countered, “We must have ice melt –”

  Frosty’s step stomped behind her and his hand landed on her shoulder. “Take the hint, baby. Bedtime.” He tucked her under his arm to drag up the stairs. “Proud of you.”

  That’s how he does it, Ava thought. Flattery.

  11

  January 2, E-day plus 25.

  Ava woke feeling like roadkill. Her body ached from the attack, and she shivered. She shouldn’t be cold, with the two of them under a hefty down blanket. No Frosty. She reluctantly hooked a finger to pull some goose feathers out of her view.

  Frosty knelt by her bedside, hands clasped and forehead resting on them, murky in the pewter light of early dawn.

  Alarmed, Ava levered up on one arm. Was he praying? She hadn’t bargained on a religious boyfriend. Perhaps she should have taken that Jesuit high school more seriously. “Aren’t you freezing?”

  “Yes.” He enunciated clearly, without raising his head.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Something Maz’s dad told us. When he’s overwhelmed, he prays, ‘I can’t, God can, and I think I’ll let Him.’ Seemed worth a shot.”

  Ava could think of too many possibilities. “What’s overwhelming you?”

  He whispered, “Everything. But nightmares about… It’s like my subconscious regurgitates it in a blender. Keeps serving it up all these different ways. Mom kisses me goodnight, and rapists break in. Skating at Rockefeller Center, and then I’m watching you get raped on the rink. Want fries with that? One variation after another.”

  “Same,” Ava offered haltingly. “Before, I had these daydreams of my first time with you. We’
d make love in this swanky hotel, in a four-poster bed, surrounded by roses. I dream about that, and then the rapists break through the curtains. Or I go for a walk with Tata and Deda, then get raped. Until I want to scream.” She hazarded a hand out to pet his bleached top hair. This room was shockingly frigid. “Frosty… Are you disgusted by me?”

  His head shot up at that, eyes wide. “No! Are you, with me?”

  “No! I see those stitches and I want to cuddle you and…”

  “Move over.” He slipped into bed to hold her. She shrieked as his icy hands touched her. He recoiled in horror.

  She grabbed one of his hands and chafed it. “Not that. You’re an ice cube.”

  He blew out in relief. “Warm me up.” He hugged her to him, head to foot. Gradually his taut muscles relaxed against her, and her shivers abated. “It’s weird. So much happened yesterday, and I thought, ‘Good. Then the attack will seem like months ago.’ Hit the sack and slept like the dead, too. And then…the dreams came. We should get up.”

  The thought of organizing latrines made her warm blanket cocoon seem irresistible. “I’m not leaving this bed. It’s a horrible, cold, no-good day out there. With potty training.”

  That surprised a chuckle out of him. “Delegate.”

  Ava tried and failed to imagine anyone taking orders from her, to literally deal with shit. “Frosty, are you religious?”

  He thought for a few worrisome moments before replying. “Um, no atheists in foxholes, kind of thing. I loved our religious studies teacher at school, Father Tanis. But that was about ethics and philosophy. How to decide what’s right. Maz is Catholic. I’m not. You?”

  “Not at all.”

  He chuckled and poked her. “Scared you, did I?”