by James Ponti
We came out from behind the stairwell and scanned the entire platform. We were all alone.
“How is that even possible?” asked Natalie. “Did they get down onto the track?”
“No way,” Alex said. “We would have still been able to see them.”
“How do six zombies just disappear?” I asked.
“It was not because of my smoothie,” Grayson added defensively.
We walked down to the end of the platform and were surprised to discover a large metal cover in the middle of the concrete floor.
“I don’t believe it,” Alex said, shaking his head.
“Is that some kind of trapdoor?” I asked.
He nodded. “I think it is.”
“If so, we’ll have to wait until after the next train to see,” Natalie pointed out as another wave of commuters soon filled the platform, making it impossible for us to lift the door without being seen.
I looked across the tracks and noticed something interesting. Normally, the northbound and southbound platforms of a subway are directly across from each other, so there’s almost always somebody waiting on one side or the other. But at Times Square, the platforms are staggered a block apart, so when one empties out you get a little privacy before the next crowd comes along.
Sure enough, a few minutes later, everyone but us piled onto the train, and we were all alone for a moment. Alex reached down, flipped up a handle, and pulled.
“It is a trapdoor,” Grayson said as he peered into the darkness below.
We each entered and went down the small flight of stairs. Alex was the last one through, and he closed the door behind him. We stepped into an abandoned station that was laid out with tracks going east and west instead of north and south like the one above.
“I’ve never seen this ghost station before,” Natalie said as she looked around at our surroundings.
“Me neither,” added Grayson. “And I’m kind of wishing I wasn’t seeing it now.”
The first time I’d crashed a flatline party, it was in an ornate ghost station that had beautiful tile mosaics, brass chandeliers, and stained-glass skylights. This one was not like that at all. It was filled with trash and garbage and had graffiti painted on all the walls and floors. In other words, it was downright scary.
“Hear that?” Alex asked, referring to the thumping beat of house music coming from the darkness. “The party is close by.”
Sure enough, we followed the sound and hadn’t walked very far before we came across a small crowd of zombies heading for the party. We slipped right in behind them and acted like we belonged. Pretty soon, we were zigzagging through ancient basement hallways until everything slowed down and we realized we were at the end of a line waiting to get in.
“Check it out,” Grayson said, pointing to the wall where NEW YORK TIMES was painted on a faded metal sign. “We’re still close to Times Square.”
I nodded.
“Why is it so backed up?” Alex asked the man standing in front of us.
“Security,” he said.
We all exchanged confused looks.
“Security?” I asked.
“You know,” the man responded. “They want to make sure no breathers try to get in. There’s been a problem with that lately.”
Suddenly I felt very nervous.
“Relax,” Natalie whispered, sensing my fear. “It’s dark, and your wig and makeup both look good. We’ll be fine.”
This calmed me until we reached the next corner and turned. Ahead of us, we could see the doorway to the party. Two massive Level 3s were standing guard while another two slightly smaller but no less intimidating ones were checking each person’s ear before they were allowed to go in.
“Is that what I think it is?” I asked, referring to the small white object each guard was holding.
Alex looked at it for a moment and nodded. “I’m afraid it is.”
Relaxing was now out of the question.
The guards were holding ear thermometers like the ones doctors use to check your temperature. But, unlike my pediatrician, they weren’t checking to see if anyone had a fever. They were checking to see if anyone had any temperature at all.
The undead have no blood, so they produce no warmth. You’d think the simplest way to tell if someone is living or undead would be to check for body heat. But the problem is that because their sense of touch is so distorted, they can’t feel the heat given off by a living person. That’s why a zombie can touch you and not know you’re still alive. But once those guards put a thermometer into one of our ears, we were bound to be exposed.
My instinct was that we should run. But it was crowded, and there was no way we could without attracting attention. So while I stood there and silently panicked, I gulped. So did Grayson. But his was not so silent.
Slurp.
Natalie snapped her attention toward him, and he cringed.
“Why do you still have that?” Alex asked.
“We got here so quick, I didn’t have time to throw it away,” he said. “I’ll do it now.”
He moved to toss his smoothie on the ground with the other trash, but Natalie reached over and stopped him.
“No,” she said with a sly smile, reaching for it. “Give it to me instead.”
“That’s pretty gross,” I commented. “You don’t know what kind of backwash is in that thing.”
“I’m not going to drink it,” Natalie said as she looked both ways to make sure no one was looking right at her. “Why don’t you guys surround me for a sec?”
We moved in tightly around her to give her as much privacy as we could. Then she put her finger over one end of the straw so that it held some of the smoothie inside as she lifted it out of the cup. Next, she pulled back her hair and put the other end of the straw in her ear. Finally, she released the top of the straw, letting pink goop pour out.
“Okay,” I said. “That’s even grosser than drinking.”
“No, it’s not,” said Alex. “It’s brilliant. You are absolutely brilliant.”
Natalie smiled proudly, and I suddenly realized what she was doing. She was lowering the temperature inside her ear. Luckily, it was dark and crowded and we were each able to secretly fill our ears with Caribbean Delight. It felt disgusting and made it hard to hear clearly, but when the guards put the thermometers in our ears they only measured the ice.
Each one of us was waved in.
“So yay me for buying the smoothie,” Grayson said once we’d cleared the entrance and were all trying to clean the gunk out of our ears.
Alex shook his head and laughed. “You got lucky on that one.”
The party was being held in a cavernous room the size of a football field. It was filled with the hulking remains of printing presses that stood thirty feet tall and were connected by twisting chutes and conveyors.
“This must have been where they used to print the New York Times,” Grayson said, marveling at the massive machines.
“Very impressive,” Natalie commented. “Now they look kind of like . . .”
“Dinosaurs,” I said. “They look like giant metal dinosaurs on display at the Museum of Natural History.”
She smiled. “That’s exactly right. That’s just what they look like.”
As we looked for Liberty, we couldn’t help but notice that this party had a different vibe than the other ones we’d been to.
“Is it me or does this not seem very party-ish?” asked Grayson.
“It’s certainly not you,” Natalie said. “The music’s dark, the lighting’s dark . . . everything is dark.”
There was something else very different about this one. Normally, the Level 3s stay off to the side and out of the way, but on this night they were everywhere. Because of the giant printing presses, there was no single main area for the party to take place. Instead, it wrapped in between and around them, making it feel like a maze with Level 3s standing guard at almost every turn.
Despite these differences there were still some thin
gs that were just like the other parties. Betty’s Beauty Balms were on sale in one corner of the room, and Liberty was giving a speech in another. As usual, most of the people were ignoring him, but (also as usual) he didn’t seem to mind. Liberty was determined to get his point across even if he had to do it one zombie at a time.
We waited for the speech to end before we walked up to him.
“Molly?”
“Like my wig?” I joked.
“Not particularly,” he said. “What are you doing here? Wasn’t last time bad enough?”
“I know,” I answered. “But we have to ask you some questions. They’re important.”
He quickly began to look around. “I can’t be seen with you all. Did you notice the security? Things are changing down here. If they think I’m talking to breathers, they’ll finish me off.”
“See, I told you guys this was a bad idea,” Alex said. “Let’s get out of here.”
Natalie shot him a look and turned to Liberty.
“We need to ask you about the Baker’s Dozen,” she said.
This caught Liberty off guard, and he wasn’t sure what to say. “I . . . I just can’t talk about that. . . . Not here.”
I followed his gaze and saw that he was looking at a pair of Level 3s who were eyeing us suspiciously.
“Then we’ll talk somewhere else,” I said. “At the waterfall. Meet us there in an hour.”
When he had rescued me at the last flatline party, we’d escaped in the aqueduct, all the way to Morningside Park, where there’s a waterfall. He thought it over for a moment before answering.
“Two hours,” he said. “I’ll get there if I can.”
He didn’t give us a chance to disagree. He just stormed past us, making a point to push Grayson out of the way as he did.
“Hey,” Grayson complained, turning toward him. “What was that for?”
“Them,” I whispered as I nodded toward the Level 3s who’d been watching us. They seemed satisfied and finally turned away.
“I don’t know about you guys,” Natalie said. “But I want to get out of here. Right now.”
No one disagreed.
A Walk in the Park
The question came from out of the blue, but it tells you everything you need to know about Alex.
The four of us were standing on the heights that overlook Morningside Park because, despite my many assurances, he still didn’t trust Liberty. It was five minutes before we were supposed to meet him, and Alex was still worried. He wanted us high enough to see the entire area around the waterfall so that we could make sure Liberty was alone when he got there.
“I can’t stress how dangerous it is for Omegas to arrive anywhere according to a schedule,” he reminded me as he scanned the park. “That’s especially true at night in an area surrounded by trees. There are so many potential dangers.”
I didn’t know how Grayson and Natalie felt about it all, but I was frustrated. And to be honest, I was a little offended. We were the ones who had asked Liberty to help us, and yet I felt like we were treating him like the enemy.
“Liberty doesn’t have any friends waiting in the bushes to jump us,” I said with some attitude. “I don’t even think he has any friends. You know, the fact that someone’s a zombie doesn’t automatically make them evil. The sooner you realize that, the better.”
“Hey . . .” Natalie started to protest.
I instantly regretted what I said, and when I saw the hurt look on Alex’s face, I wished I could take it all back. This was a sensitive issue for him. Sometimes we kid him about his attitude toward the undead, but I think he worries that we think he’s prejudiced.
“I’m sorry,” I said, starting to apologize. “I shouldn’t have . . .”
He held his hand up to stop me. That’s when he asked me the question.
“If we were a rock band,” he said, “who would I be?”
I’m sure the bewildered look on my face hinted that I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. I looked to Natalie and Grayson, and they seemed equally perplexed.
“If the four of us were in a rock band,” he said, motioning to us all, “which band member do you think I’d be?”
“I’m sorry,” I said, still confused. “I don’t understand the question.”
“Natalie’s the lead singer,” he said with a nod toward her. “She’s our leader. She’s our voice. The other day at the hearing, she spoke for us, and she was brilliant. That’s because she’s the one who knows the perfect words to express what we’re all about.”
“Thank you,” Natalie said with a pleased smile.
“And me?” I wondered, a bit worried by what he might say.
“That’s easy. You’re the lead guitar.” He answered this as though he had thought through it more than a few times. “You’re the musical prodigy who gives us flair and shreds up the stage. You don’t even need words to speak. And every now and then, you’re the one who gets the huge solo because, quite frankly, we just can’t keep up with you.”
I smiled and may have even blushed a little.
“Please don’t make me the guy who drives the tour bus,” Grayson said, perhaps only half joking.
“No, you’re the bass player.” At this point he pretended to play a little air guitar, coolly slapping the strings of an imaginary bass. “People who aren’t into music don’t get how important the bass is, but it’s essential. You’re underrated and stand off to the side, but you give us our rhythm. You provide our moral center.”
Now Grayson started slapping an imaginary bass too.
“So I’m guessing that makes you the drummer.”
“That’s right,” Alex said proudly. “I’m the drummer. I’m the one who sits in the back and keeps an eye on everyone else. I don’t sing. I don’t do solos. My job is to make sure you all stay on course. I make sure that you don’t get so caught up in the moment that you lose track of the beat. And when some crazed fan tries to mess with one of you, I’m the one who throws the punch that protects you.”
“Hey,” I said with mock indignation. “I can throw a punch for myself.”
“Sure you can,” he answered as he tapped my cast. “And you’ve got the broken bones to prove it.”
That made me laugh.
“We’re not up here because I don’t trust you,” he continued. “And we’re not up here because I don’t trust Liberty. We’re up here because I don’t trust anyone. I can’t risk it. You guys make great music, and it’s my job to make sure you get to keep playing.”
“Well . . . I really am sorry about what I said,” I told him.
“Apology accepted.”
“You know, the really good drummers get solos too,” Natalie pointed out.
He cracked a smile. “Maybe once in a while.”
I looked down at the park and saw Liberty walking toward the waterfall. He wore a hoodie and a leather jacket, but even in the darkness, I could tell it was him.
“And just like I promised, he’s all alone,” I said with an “I’m so proud of myself” smile that lasted the entire ten seconds it took for me to see the four zombies taking their places and hiding in the bushes.
“I don’t believe it,” I said, turning toward Alex. “You were right.”
But just when I expected Alex to say “I told you so,” he did something completely unpredictable. He started to run down the stairs toward the zombies. Instinctively, we chased after him.
Worried that he hadn’t seen the others and was running into an ambush, my voice rang through the park as I called out, “Stop! It’s a trap!”
By this point, Alex was taking two or three steps at a time, and none of us could come close to catching him. The stairs go on forever, and we were only halfway down by the time he reached the ground level and started sprinting toward the waterfall. That’s when I looked up and realized what Alex had already figured out.
The four zombies weren’t with Liberty. They were there to hurt him. I was now close enough to recognize tha
t two of them were the Level 3s who’d been watching us after his speech. And when I’d called out to Alex, it had spooked them into action. They moved from their hiding places and surrounded Liberty. He had a nervous look as he saw that bad guys blocked every escape route.
Well, almost every one.
Realizing he had no chance in a four-on-one fight, Liberty turned around and dived right into the water. The pond at the bottom of the waterfall is small, but it was still big enough to buy him a little time.
More important, it gave Alex some time too. He kept sprinting at full speed while the zombies tried to figure out what to do with Liberty. Two of them jumped into the water at opposite sides so that they could force him back out while the other two waited for him on the bank.
Unfortunately for them, the zombies on the bank were so focused on Liberty, they didn’t see Alex coming until the last second.
Now, before I get to the next part, which I’ll warn you gets a little gross, I want to explain a couple things about martial arts that you may not know. First of all, most martial arts, like judo and karate, come from Asia and are primarily used in sporting competitions. They have rules and long traditions of sportsmanship that celebrate elegance and grace.
But Alex was trained in Krav Maga, which is not used in competitions and has absolutely no rules. It’s a type of street fighting developed by the Israeli Defense Forces. And, judging by what I saw over the next thirty seconds, it’s really effective.
The first zombie turned just in time to throw a punch at Alex, only to have him intercept the fist and snap his wrist with a violent twist. They traded a couple of lightning-quick punches, and out of nowhere, Alex knocked him unconscious with a head butt.
Meanwhile, now that Liberty realized he was going to get some help, he stopped trying to get away from the two zombies that had dived in after him and started fighting one right there in the water.
Natalie, Grayson, and I reached the scene just after Alex had knocked out the first zombie and had been jumped from behind by the second. This is when the “no rules” thing came into play. The whole point of Krav Maga is to end a fight as quickly as possible, even if it means using methods some people might call fighting dirty.
