It Falls Apart Series | Book 1 | It Falls Apart

by Napier, Barry

  “Yeah, I am, too.”

  “And I’m traveling with a woman and a very young girl,” Paul added.

  “You think I care?”

  “No…no I guess you don’t. What do you want?”

  The young man seemed to think about this for a moment. “Your money. Your money and some…I need some medicine.”

  “We don’t have meds,” Paul said. “And you’re not getting our money.”

  The young man brought his gun up a bit. He did so with stealth, making Paul quite sure the man had used this gun before. Maybe he hadn’t ever actually shot it, but he’d definitely brandished it as a threat at least a few times in the past.

  But Paul had pulled his gun many more times than this young man; he was much faster, trained for this sort of thing, and drew his Glock with the sort of instinct some might pull their cellphones from their pockets. He did not point it at the man, but just wanted him to know that he wasn’t trying to rob a push-over here. Paul could sense Olivia tensing up beside him. She looked like a statue standing beside him, frozen in the dark streets. He truly hoped he could end this peacefully. The last thing he needed was to shoot a man that was barely an adult right in front of Olivia. A gunshot waking little Joyce wouldn’t be particularly great, either. Something about that angered and scared Paul more than he cared to admit.

  “Son, I need you to put the gun down,” Paul said. “Today has been hell for everyone, and there’s no sense in making it worse. We don’t have any medicine. And I’m trying to get these young ladies to safety, so I can’t let you have my money.”

  “Be a shame if I killed them, huh?” the man said, taking another step forward. Closer now, Paul could see the fear quite plainly. But he also saw that sort of desperate scratch to survive, and that’s what truly scared Paul. This guy could pull the trigger at any second if Paul didn’t figure out a way to diffuse the situation. He was fully prepared to shoot the kid if it came down to it, but he hoped it didn’t get that far.

  “Are you sick?” Paul asked. The question seemed to come out of nowhere. He supposed his own fear had plucked it from the well of tactics he’d learned at the academy. This tactic was all about diffusing potentially violent situations by trying to relate to the offender.

  The question caught the guy off guard for a moment but after a while, he shook his head. The gun stayed where it was, fixed on Paul and just as steady as ever. “No,” he finally said. “Everyone else is. My mom, my two brothers. All dead. And now my pops has it.” He said this through clenched teeth and Paul could see the emotion starting to break through, coming to the surface like some huge monster from the depths. Still, Paul knew this did not make him any less dangerous. If the guy got emotional and twitched the slightest bit, a shot could be fired and Paul would likely get a bullet right in the head.

  “Young man, it’s—”

  “He’s bad,” the man said. “And he’s going to die like everyone else. But me…no. Not sick. But I need something for pops…so you have to help, man.

  And with that, totally unexpected, the young man stepped forward and seemed to push his gun forward, the barrel now no more than six inches from Paul’s face. Paul fought the urge to do the same. If he did that, he was a dead man. Paul relied on his experience in these matters and was pretty sure the guy was not going to shoot. If he intended to kill them, he would have shot them from the darkness of the alley and gone through their bags. The poor guy was scared and in need; he just wanted to be seen and heard. He was looking for some degree of hope.

  With the barrel in his face, Paul became acutely aware of Olivia and Joyce. Olivia had kept her cool this entire time though now he heard her breathing urgently with the gun so close to them. She was relying on him to get her out of this, to get her and Joyce out of the city and he’d be damned if he was going to let this young man ruin that.

  “We don’t have medicine,” Paul said again. “Besides, you’ve seen this thing, right? This virus. You’ve seen how fast it is? You know there’s no medicine for it, right?”

  “You know what it is?” the guy asked. And with that question voiced, the gun seemed nothing more than a shield—maybe even some sort of useless prop in a stage play.

  “No,” Paul said, “But I’m a cop and I’ve seen enough today. Son…look at the bodies on the streets. You and I, for some reason, we’re not among them. Let’s keep it that way, okay? To survive this virus and then blow each other’s heads off would be a waste. You say your dad is sick, right?”

  “Yeah.” The young man’s voice was shaky, near tears now.

  “Go be with him. If he’s not going to make it, don’t make him be alone.”

  The young man swayed on his feet a moment, looking between Olivia and Paul. When his eyes settled on Joyce, his eyes blinked furiously and he seemed to project himself into some other state of mind. It was almost as if he was just now realizing there were other people with Paul.

  “Is she dead?” he asked, nodding to Joyce.

  “No, just sleeping,” Olivia said. Her voice was thin and wavering, but she sounded put together. It clued Paul in to just how strong she was.

  “And I’m sorry,” Paul said, “but if you don’t lower that gun and get her out of harm’s way, I’m going to have to put you down. Back at home, with your father…do you have water? Food?”

  “Yeah…”

  “Hold on,” Olivia said. “Paul…in my pack…the pocket in the back. There’s a bottle of Ibuprofen. Let him have it.”

  Paul knew just as well as Olivia did that Ibuprofen would do nothing at all for this man’s father. But he also knew that in the moment, that did not matter. The guy wanted help and wanted to be seen; this was Olivia’s way of appeasing both needs. Paul went behind her, unzipped the small pocket along the bottom of the pack, and took out an unopened box of children’s liquid Ibuprofen. The kid kept the gun on him the entire time, but the arm with which he held it up was shaking. As Paul grabbed the medicine, he saw two other boxes there as well. Olivia had packed and planned well, it seemed.

  Paul held the box up and showed it to the armed man in front of them. “I doubt it will help, but it might ease his pain a bit,” Paul said.

  The young man seemed to have forgotten he had a gun at all. It now hung by his side, held in his right hand. When Paul approached with the Ibuprofen held out, the man stepped forward quickly and took it. It looked like he meant to run off back into the alley but before he did, he turned back to Paul and Olivia. He was clutching the medicine with more of a grip than the gun now.

  “Is it like this everywhere?” he asked.

  “Seems that way,” Paul said. “The news says there may be no way to stop it.”

  “Even outside the city? One of our neighbors…they said it was out in Pennsylvania, too.”

  “That’s what I hear,” Paul answered.

  The young man thought about this for a moment and then made his way back into the alley from which he’d come. When he disappeared from sight, it looked like the darkness within the alley came to life and literally swallowed him up.

  Paul looked to Olivia and, without saying anything, they managed to start walking again. As they headed forward under streetlights just as dead as the population they had once shone light down upon, Paul kept his gun out and kept his eyes on each and every dark corner they passed.

  With the stand-off over, the streets were eerily silent once again. The only sounds came from their tired feet as they continued on through the dark, waiting for the shape of the George Washington Bridge to rise up out of the darkness.

  Chapter 17

  “Every little thing…gonna be al…”

  Olivia could hear Joyce singing softly while she slept in her arms. The sleepy and slurred line seemed almost fitting coming out of the girl’s mouth as they crossed 178th Street and stood before the entrance to the bridge. The suspension towers rose up almost like royal castle columns in the darkness. Olivia had crossed the bridge a few times during her years in New York so it was no
t a new sight to her. But it still felt like an accomplishment to see it. They’d set a monumental goal before themselves and they had achieved it. They had crossed almost one hundred New York City blocks to get here, among the dead and thousands of crashed cars, and they had made it. They were alive and there was still hope—despite what the condition of the city behind them seemed to suggest.

  She smelled exhaust and could hear the faint hum of a few engines. It was a sound she’d heard over the past few hours as they’d cut their way through the streets of Manhattan. Many of the sick had died in their cars on the way to the hospital or safety elsewhere, the engines to their cars were running. Those that had not run out of gas or had been turned off in the drivers’ dying moments continued to run. For some reason, the engine noise and the smell of exhaust seemed stronger on the bridge—maybe because she was so tired that her mind was starting to hyper-focus to make sure she did not endanger herself.

  She stared at the upper deck of the bridge—eight lanes of traffic all stalled and useless, bookended by rails and suspension towers.

  “It’s a little over a mile long, right?” Olivia asked, staring at the tangle of cars stretching out across the bridge.

  “A little less, actually.”

  “I hate to say it, but I don’t know if I can walk anymore. I’m tired and scared and I can’t even feel my arms.”

  She looked to Joyce, somehow sleeping peacefully in her arms. She badly wanted Paul to take her back, but after the encounter with the man that had tried holding them up at gunpoint, she also wanted Paul to keep the gun in his hands.

  “I won’t lie to you,” Paul said. “I’m tired, too. Maybe as tired as I’ve ever been in my life. I wonder if we can find a hotel or something on the other side. If New Jersey is in the same shape as New York City, we’ll likely have to break in, but I’m fine with that. You think you can make it one more mile? I can take Joyce. It might not be so hard if we go on the pedestrian and bike sidewalk.”

  Olivia shook her head sleepily. “I’d rather you be able to use the gun as quickly as possible.” She felt a sort of broiling in her stomach as adrenaline and fatigue fought for control. She also felt that she needed water, but if she stopped and went digging in one of her bags for a bottle, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to get started again.

  She could tell that Paul was deeply worried, looking to her and then out to the bridge. She could also see, though, that he was just as anxious as her to get on the bridge and across it. But she was so tired…so worn down and just ready to stop moving.

  “Hey, how about that?” Paul asked, nodding up ahead.

  She followed the direction of his nod but didn’t see what he was talking about. When he started walking forward, she almost protested. She knew there was no way she’d make it across the bridge. She’d probably pass out or collapse, and then both she and Joyce would fall sprawling to the ground.

  She opened her mouth to say as much but then, as she started following behind Paul, she saw what he’d been nodding to. About forty yards away from the entrance of the bridge, a large pickup truck was caught in traffic. It was not the truck that interested Paul, though; it was the camper it was hauling behind it.

  She continued following behind him, doing her best to ignore the pain in her arms, upper back, and knees. She could only imagine the hell this man had been through today, and she did not want to start whining about how much the two and a half hours of walking had taken out of her. She was grateful that he was even helping to get them out of the city at all. The last thing she wanted was for him to regret his decision.

  They came to the camper, and she watched as Paul tried to open the thin door along the side. Unsurprisingly, it was locked. Paul stared at it for a moment and then cupped his eyes to the tinted oval-shaped window to the right of the door. He then did the same for the small look-out window in the center of the door.

  “Hold on,” he said. He walked to the front of the truck and hesitated for a moment before checking the interior. He kept a respectable distance from the window as he looked inside. Olivia was happy to stay back several feet to let him do the investigating. She saw his face dissolve into a frown before he looked away and came back next to her.

  “Your call,” he said. “There are two people up front—a man and a woman, both looking to be around sixty or so. Both dead. I’m honestly not sure what the hell they were thinking, trying to get a camper out of the city during all of this. I’m surprised they made it this far. I have no qualms about breaking in. We can rest, get some sleep, and cross the bridge in the morning.”

  “That sounds good,” Olivia said. Her arms seemed to thrum with the idea of releasing the cargo they’d been carrying for the last two and a half hours. She felt a small pang of guilt, not wanting to break into the dead people’s camper, but she dashed it quickly.

  When Paul stepped up to the camper door, Olivia backed away to allow him space. He tried the handle one more time. It was built into the door, a pop-up handle that allowed users to pull the door out. Paul grabbed it, pulling up and out. She could hear the door groaning, but it didn’t come open. Paul then planted his foot on the side of the camper and grabbed the handle again. This time the door actually buckled forward and Olivia could hear one of the hinges snapping but it still would not come off.

  “Stand back a second,” Paul said. He gave her a second to take a few steps back, her legs bumping into the car behind the camper. She then watched as he took his gun out of its holster again. He used the butt of it as a crude sort of battering ram and though it took three strikes, the window shattered. He knocked the loose fragments out of the frame and then, stepping up on his tiptoes to do so, he reached his arm in carefully. It took about thirty seconds for him to find the lock but when he did, Olivia could hear a dry, audible click. When Paul removed his arm, the door opened easily. There was a little rivulet on Paul’s arm where a stubborn piece of stray glass had nicked him, but he seemed to not even notice.

  Because there were no steps hanging down from the door, Paul had to stretch his knee way up to find leverage and then climb into the camper. He then turned to Olivia and took Joyce from her. Olivia grabbed the side of the doorframe and entered the camper, her arms starting to thrum with aches now that they could actually bend and move. She looked around at the confined space and saw that it was a very basic camper. There was a low twin bed at the rear of the camper, taking up the entire back wall. The window over it showed the dark shapes of the stalled cars behind them. There was also a small table and a bench seat sitting behind it, occupying most of the right wall. A tiny kitchen area made up the front, as well as one more, much smaller seating area that was little more than a tiny desk.

  Olivia watched how carefully Paul moved with Joyce. With the only light the natural ambience of night coming in through the door, he was little more than a moving shadow. Paul approached the bed in the back and lay Joyce down on it. She instantly curled up, rolled onto her side, and took a deep breath in as she remained asleep.

  “You sleep with her,” Paul said. “I’ll take the bench at the table.”

  “You sure?” Olivia asked.

  “Yeah. It’s got cushions. I’ll be fine. Besides, if I’m being honest…I don’t know that I’ll be able to sleep.”

  Olivia knew what he meant. She was beyond exhausted but the idea of laying down and closing her eyes to this new, strange and death-ridden world was terrifying. Still, she found herself moving towards the bed, her legs begging her to rest. When she sat on the very edge, it was a very brief moment of bliss. When she slid the bags off her shoulders and set them on the floor, it was even better.

  “You think we’ll be safe here?” she asked.

  “No way to be sure,” he said. He made a point to let her watch him as he placed his Glock on the tabletop in front of the bench. “But if someone does try to get in, I’ll be directly facing the door. It’s a pretty good alarm system if you ask me.”

  Olivia nodded. It made her feel safer, but not
as much as she would have liked. That had nothing to do with Paul, though. Based on all she’d seen ever since stepping out of Little Learners about three and a half hours ago, she wasn’t sure she’d ever feel safe again.

  “Do you think there might be help in the morning?” Olivia asked. “Maybe the military? Or maybe someone would have found a cure for this…this mess…?”

  “I just don’t know,” Paul said. He sat down on the bench and reclined his back a bit. Olivia could hear a few popping noises. “But based on how quickly this thing hit and everything I saw today, I wouldn’t count on it. I know that’s not what you want to hear, but I tend to shoot straight with people.”

  “Good. I think in a situation like this, false hope is wasted.”

  They both looked to Joyce as she said this, and then fell into silence. It was so quiet that they could hear Joyce’s breathing, steady in and out as she slept.

  “Lay down, Olivia. Go to sleep. We’re okay for now.”

  She nodded and did as he asked. She was sure finding sleep would be next to impossible, but she felt it tugging at her almost immediately. She slid up next to Joyce and, after a moment of sadness, removed the blindfold. There was no sense in making her wear it while she was asleep and shut off from the horrors of outside. As for the mask, though…well, they just didn’t know enough about the virus yet. Even with the door to the camper closed and locked, she wasn’t quite ready to assume such precautions would keep them safe.

  She lay back and let the final thoughts of her waking mind have a lap or two around her brain before sleep claimed her. She could hear, far away in the back of her mind, her father’s voice—a voice she had not heard in any real physical form in more than fifteen years.

  You’re falling asleep in a camper with an armed man you only met several hours ago. Do you know how dangerous that is?

  She supposed it was a logical question, and a question her father would have certainly asked her before he’d died of a heart attack fifteen years ago. But she had seen the fear in Paul’s eyes all night; she had seen his absolute inability to fully grasp what had happened. More than that, she had seen how quick he’d been to protect them when they’d been threatened at gunpoint. She was fairly certain Paul was safe and that if he had the energy in him, he would indeed get them to relative safety—maybe even to a place where she’d be able to place a call from her cellphone.