Dead City

by James Ponti

  Real sword fights aren’t like you imagine them. And they certainly aren’t like you see in the movies. They’re quick and messy and confusing. There’s no time to think or plan and certainly no time for clever lines.

  And while training had made me a better sword fighter than him, he has an advantage that I cannot overcome. I discover it as I make a great move to run my sword right into his gut, only to have the blade make a clanking sound and bend back at me.

  I stare at it in confusion as he laughs.

  “Oops,” he says with delight. “Is this against the rules?”

  He raps his chest and there’s a loud thwack. Then he undoes a button to reveal a layer of body armor.

  “It’s the kind of thing that . . . how did your friend put it? Oh yeah . . . that freak-show zombies like me buy with our money.”

  I decide my best strategy is to stop fighting and to escape. Long rows of lockers fill the room, and I duck behind one to try to play hide-and-seek with Marek.

  I think back to how Liberty rescued me at the flatline party. He took me deeper when everyone thought I’d go straight for the surface. I use the same logic on Marek. Rather than head for the door, where he expects, I go for the window.

  By the time he figures out what’s happened, I’ve already climbed down to the sidewalk and have a block-and-a-half head start.

  As much as I hate heights, I look desperately for a skyscraper to get away from him. But there aren’t any in this part of town. It turns out skyscrapers are just like cabs. There’s never one around when you need it.

  My only hope is to get off the island. That’s when I see my salvation: Looming high above me, just a few blocks away, is the George Washington Bridge.

  If you’ve never seen it, the GWB is amazing. It’s a suspension bridge that crosses the Hudson River into New Jersey. It’s held up by two massive towers made entirely of exposed steel beams.

  Not until I am running along the walkway, however, do I realize how impressive it is. The bridge is nearly a mile long, and a full day of fencing and zombie fighting is beginning to catch up with me.

  As I reach the first tower, I look over my shoulder and see Marek gaining on me. I don’t know where the magic line is that he cannot cross without losing the power from the Manhattan schist, but he’s still picking up speed and I’m slowing down big-time.

  That’s when I make a drastic decision.

  At the base of the tower I see a maintenance elevator. Actually, calling it an elevator is a stretch. Technically, it’s a cage with a motor and a gear that climbs up a row of teeth leading all the way to the top. I climb in, slam the cage shut, and press the button for up. The motor whines to life, and the gear slowly begins to turn.

  Just as the cage starts to climb, Marek grabs on to the bottom. The engine squeals and strains and then begins to pull him up into the air. I stomp on his fingers as they reach through the links and hear a couple of them snap. Finally, he lets go and I start my climb to the top of the tower.

  As I go higher and higher, I try my best not to hyperventilate. We studied the GWB in a class about how suspension bridges work, and I learned the towers are sixty-five stories high . . . a fact I now wish I had forgotten.

  When I finally reach the top, I step out into a room where all the suspension cables rest. The science geek in me is amazed by these mammoth steel ropes and the fact that they are able to hold so much. The rest of me is just terrified.

  The only thing motivating me is that I am certain Marek won’t risk coming this high. I’m more than six hundred and fifty feet away from the nearest Manhattan schist. I can wait here until I’m rescued by workers or find a way to call for help.

  Just as I start to catch my breath, I hear the engine of the elevator come back to life.

  I don’t know how, but Marek is coming.

  I figure it will take the elevator five minutes to go all the way down and back up again. That gives me five minutes to figure out a plan.

  I step out from the room and onto the top of the tower and cannot believe my eyes. There’s no railing or protection of any kind. Just a knee-high edge and a sixty-five-story drop in every direction.

  I am frozen with fear.

  A strong wind howls around me, and I worry it will knock me over. I gasp and fall to my hands and knees, trying to catch my breath. Even if I wasn’t scared of heights, this would be terrifying. As it is, it might be more than I can handle.

  I hear the elevator returning, and the only plan I can come up with is to wait by the door and hit Marek with everything I’ve got the second he steps through it. If I can knock him down and get back to the elevator first, I can escape.

  Instead of walking, I crawl into position so that I don’t have to look over the edge.

  When he steps through the doorway, I summon every ounce of strength I have left and slam him in the chest with my fist.

  I’m so nervous and focused that I have completely forgotten about the body armor.

  The sickening sound of my bones breaking is quickly followed by my scream. I try to club him with my other fist, but the pain is already radiating through my left arm and spreading. My last effort is a kick into the side of his knee, but the attempt is feeble, and I stumble back and fall on my butt.

  Marek smiles but does not deliver one of his usual wisecracks. I realize why when he starts to walk. Being this high has weakened him considerably. He looks to be at about half his normal strength.

  I devise a new strategy. I crawl over to where a giant rope is lying and wind my leg and arm through it. If I hold on with everything I have, I don’t think he’ll be strong enough to lift me.

  Maybe I can wait until all his energy is gone.

  He spits and snarls as he moves toward me, much more like a Level 3 than a cold-blooded killer. He looms over me, looking down at my swelling hand, and smiles.

  Then he lifts his foot and stomps, grinding his heel into the back of my hand as I wail in agony.

  Just as he’s about to do it again, we both hear the elevator come to life.

  I can tell by his expression that he has no idea who is coming. Neither do I.

  I run through the possible scenarios. In my wildest dreams, it will be Natalie, Alex, or Grayson to rescue me once again. But there’s no way they could know where I am. Then I remember Dr. H had said he was going to have past Omegas looking out for us and keeping an eye on Marek. Maybe, just maybe, it’s one of them. But more than likely, it’s one of Marek’s many followers.

  “One of us is about to be very happy,” he says in a halting whisper, unsure of what to expect. Then he grins and grinds his heel into my hand one more time as I writhe in pain.

  The elevator reaches the top, and we hear the cage door opening. When the figure reaches the doorway, my heart sinks. She’s wearing the same yellow jacket and Yankees cap she had on the first time I saw her. It’s the zombie who was watching us on our very first assignment.

  Marek turns to me and grins. It’s frightening because now virtually all his teeth have turned bright yellow and orange.

  “Sorry,” he says with a hoarse cackle. “One of mine.”

  He walks toward her as I try to devise a plan to fight the two of them. I’m drawing a blank. And then I hear it.

  A scream.

  It’s Marek. He screams again as he backs away from her. She wastes no time and hits him with a flurry of kicks and punches. If she is weakened by the height, she doesn’t show it.

  Marek tries one last charge, but she levels him with a fully extended kick, right to the center of the chest. She powers into his body armor and pushes him backward.

  Marek stumbles, and my final images of him are of his arms pinwheeling as he falls over the ledge and disappears, plunging toward the Hudson River sixty-five stories below.

  Now the woman turns to me. I have no idea why she killed Marek—anyone that powerful has to have enemies—but I still assume I am next. I am too much of a loose end.

  As she walks toward me, she stagge
rs and I realize that she is weakening.

  I have a chance.

  I wrap my arm and leg around the rope as tightly as I can. I look up to see her looming above me. She is just a silhouette, but I can tell that she’s studying me. The only sound is her shallow breathing as she tries to keep her strength.

  She looks at my swollen hand, and I’m ready for her to crush it like Marek did. She doesn’t. Instead, she kneels next to me and lifts it gently before placing it on my chest.

  Then she looks at me, and the sunlight catches her face. Her cheeks are hollow and her skin is wrinkled and brown. Nothing about her looks human.

  Except her eyes.

  They still look the way they do in my memories. The way mine look when I check in the mirror.

  One green, one blue.

  Both very much alive.

  She brushes the hair out of my face and looks down at me. Then she gently presses her lips against my forehead and holds them there for a few seconds.

  My mind is racing. My life plays back in my head, and I question everything as I try to make sense of it all.

  She doesn’t talk. She just stands up and staggers to the elevator.

  Finally, I’m able to gather the strength to speak. But as I do, the wind howls over me and I cannot be sure if she hears the single word I call out to her.

  “Mom!”

  JAMES PONTI

  was born in Italy, raised in Florida, and went to college in California. After receiving a degree in screenwriting from the USC School of Cinematic Arts, he began a career writing and producing television shows for the likes of Nickelodeon, Disney Channel, PBS, Spike TV, History Channel, and Golf Channel. James loves writing, travel, and the Boston Red Sox. He is married to his college sweetheart, and they live in Florida with their two sons.

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  ALADDIN

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  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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  First Aladdin hardcover edition October 2012

  Copyright © 2012 by James Ponti

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Ponti, James.

  Dead City / by James Ponti. — 1st Aladdin hardcover ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Seventh-grader Molly has always been an outsider, even at New York City’s elite Metropolitan Institute of Science and Technology, but that changes when she is recruited to join the Omegas, a secret group that polices and protects zombies.

  ISBN 978-1-4424-4129-3

  [1. Zombies—Fiction. 2. Supernatural—Fiction. 3. Mothers and daughters—Fiction. 4. New York (N.Y.)—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.P7726De 2012

  [Fic—dc23]

  2011048445

  ISBN 978-1-4424-4128-6 (eBook)