by Ivan Turner
It had been almost an hour, which meant he had spent a good deal of time daydreaming and craving cigarettes before making what had amounted to a ten minute call to Heron. Zoe was still strapped to the table, her eyes now closed. There was an IV with a yellowish liquid hooked up to one arm and a big machine with tubes running into the other. Blood flowed freely through the tubes. Other machines were hooked up as well. She looked as if she was at death's door (which is better than being well beyond it). From Naughton's point of view, it looked as if her chest were rising and falling with regular breaths. Ironically, that small detail alerted his brain to the fact that there was a steady beep sounding in the room. He noticed the monitor attached to her and watched the line as it rose and fell with the beating of her heart.
"It worked?" he asked no one in particular. "It really worked?"
Luco was standing by the monitor, checking the readouts, smiling ear to ear. Yuan had moved over to the wall and was leaning up against it. He was breathing heavily.
"Are you okay?" Naughton asked him.
He looked up at the captain and nodded shakily. "I've never seen anything like it."
"What happened?"
"She never even twitched. Not while we put the needles in and not while we set up the monitors. When we flushed the vascular system, she just stared at us. She didn't feel a thing."
"Then we used the paddles," Luco continued. "We shocked her so many times."
Yuan was shaking his head. "She convulsed but the expression on her face never changed until her heart started. Then she started to seize. We pushed some drugs into her and she calmed down. Then she passed out."
"Because she's alive?" Naughton asked. "She passed out because she's alive?"
"She's alive," Luco confirmed. "Can you believe it?"
He looked at the girl on the table. There was some color in her cheeks. Not much. She was very pale. But the grey tone had dissipated. She looked human, now. "What do we do?"
"We wait," Luco said. "Most of her body is still shut down. Her kidneys haven't started working yet, for one. We need to make sure that happens before we move her."
"What if they don't?" Naughton asked.
Luco looked at Zoe and ran a hand across the top of the girl's head. "We'll see."
Naughton didn't like that answer but there was little he could do about it. Taking a chair from inside the room, he left once again. It seemed that guard duty was now more important than ever.
***
Abby had dozed off sitting up against a wall. When she came to, Sam was curled up and asleep by her side. Chantelle was sitting on the stool behind the counter and looking at the computer screen. Vincent was slumped against the front window. The lights had dimmed.
"Is there a brown out?" she asked.
Chantelle shrugged. "They went dim about a half hour ago."
"I read somewhere that brown outs are bad for computers."
Chantelle shrugged again. "If it breaks, the boss can buy a new one."
"Is there anything new?"
"Not really. The police and the army are out in force but they haven't come to our area yet. There's something going on over the Brooklyn Bridge. They don't have any satellite pictures because of the snow."
"Mmmm," Abby mumbled as if she had any idea what the sales lady was talking about. Getting to her feet, she began to work the kinks out of her legs. There was a clock on the wall that read 6:08. It would be dark outside.
"We've got six inches of snow in Central Park already," Chantelle offered. "Some people are speculating that this attack was timed to coincide with the weather."
"Timed?"
"Yeah. Like it's a coordinated attack."
"That's ridiculous. Zombies can't coordinate an attack. They can barely make it down the street."
"I didn't say that I thought it was a coordinated attack. I'm just telling you what I read on the internet."
Abby harrumphed. "What do you think, Vincent?"
Vincent shifted his position but didn't say anything. His face was covered in shadow.
"Vincent?" She approached him, reaching out a hand.
"Don't come near me," he said.
She stopped, hesitating. Behind her, Chantelle had looked away from the computer.
"Are you all right?" Abby asked.
"I'm fine," he said. "Unless you count the fact that we're all going to die and I'm never going to get to see my family again."
"Don't say that, Vincent. We're safe in here and everything will be over within a few hours."
He grunted. "It doesn't matter. If we win this one, we'll lose the next one. No one can stop it. It's the end of the world."
"Vincent…"
"Is there a bathroom?" he asked, cutting Abby off.
"It's in the back," Chantelle said, looking back at her computer.
Abby just shook her head and turned away. She sensed Vincent pass behind her and heard him slam the bathroom door in the back.
"He worries me more than the zombies," Chantelle whispered.
Abby waved her off. "He's just coping in his own way. Do you think we're any better?"
"I don't know. I've heard stories about gloom and doom guys doing crazy things."
"I'm sure he's harmless. He has a family and he doesn't know if they're safe. Meanwhile we're all trapped in here. He feels helpless. Don't we all?"
Chantelle didn't answer that. Apparently, she lost interest in the conversation because went right back to surfing the internet. Abby checked to see if her phone was working. She didn't even have a signal. She wasn't sure if the network was down or the authorities were intentionally blocking calls to keep the lines free. With one glance at the sleeping Sam on the floor, she wandered over to the window. There was nothing to see. With the gate down, she could only imagine what was happening on the street. There was silence so the zombies that had initially been pounding on the gate must have given up.
"Is it safe to go out?" Abby asked herself.
"No way," said Chantall. "You should look at these web sites. They are fighting zombies all over New York and New Jersey. Where the hell did they all come from?"
Abby had been wondering that herself. There were eight million people in New York City. In order for there to be one more zombie, there needed to be one less person. Were the streets less crowded? How could all of those people just suddenly disappear unnoticed? And that was the overwhelming tragedy of it all. Just hours before, she had been shopping in FAO Shwartz and Rockefeller center. She had been laughing and smiling and thinking that when Martin came home she just might have some goodies for him. And throughout all of that time and the days before, this army of zombies had been built. Someone had disappeared off of the streets of New York and joined the ranks of the undead. How many people? How often? How had it gone unnoticed?
Was Vincent right? Was this finally the apocalypse?
After a few minutes of mulling this over, Abby turned back and stepped away from the window. As she lifted her foot, she felt resistance, as if she'd stepped in gum. Squatting, she looked closely and saw a small wet spot. In the dim light, it was difficult to see what it was. She reached out to touch it, then thought better of it. Instead, she pulled out her phone and engaged the flashlight app. The white light revealed the substance immediately.
Panicked, she looked up at Chantelle. "Is Vincent still in the bathroom?"
"Yeah. Why?"
Abby looked back at the ground and then back toward the bathroom. "There's blood here, Chantelle. I think he was bitten."
Chantelle dashed away from the counter as quickly as she could. She looked down at the spot but didn't bother to inspect it. "What do we do?"
"I don't know," Abby confessed. "I think it takes a few hours for someone to die and to turn. He didn't seem sick yet."
"Should we kill him?" She appeared not to have heard what Abby'd said. There was a gleam in her eye as if the notion of killing Vincent appealed to her.
"Chantelle!" Abby hissed. "We're not killing anyone
. I'll go see if he's all right."
Again, she looked at Sam as she passed by. She approached the small dark hallway that led to the back of the store cautiously. In the center of this corridor, on the left, was the door to the bathroom. Underneath, Abby could see the light coming through. She pressed her ear to the door. She could hear running water. She knocked.
"Vincent?"
There was no answer.
"Vincent, are you all right?"
There was still no answer. Abby tried the door knob but it was locked. So she knocked again and called out for him again. He still didn't answer and when she looked at Chantelle, the sales lady lifted her shoulders.
"Do you have a key?" Abby asked.
Chantelle shook her head.
Locked door. No key. Infected man. It was a bad combination. At a complete loss, Abby pounded on the door. "Vincent, please answer me."
There was no answer. She didn't know whether he was sick or sulking. It was possible that he didn't even know he had been bitten. He hadn't said anything.
"Should I break it down?" Abby asked Chantelle.
"No," she said and said it as if Abby was the dumbest person alive.
Apparently, Chantelle wasn't concerned for Vincent's well being. Abby turned back to the door, knocked, and rattled the knob again out of frustration. The knob rattled back.
"Vincent? Are you all right?"
Something banged hard against the door and it shook in its frame. Abby jumped back, hitting the wall behind her. The banging came again. Abby looked at Chantelle. The poor girl looked terrified. The door was bashed again. Abby wasn't sure it would hold. It was a decorative door made from wooden splinters. As if in response to her thoughts, a hand came through the door. It was Vincent's hand. It was Vincent's dead hand. There were rough cut trails originating at the bottom of his palm and trailing up his wrist. His sleeve and skin were covered in blood. Like a 1950's horror dame, Abby bit down on the palm of her hand. Never had she seen anything so pathetically gruesome. Even watching the zombies eat people in the Sisters of Charity emergency room hadn't had as much of an impact on her as this.
Poor Vincent.
The arm pulled back inside the bathroom, leaving sleeve and blood and skin on the jagged edge of the hole. Steam poured through in its wake. Then the hand smashed through again and the hole got wider.
"Get away from there!" Chantelle cried.
Abby darted away from the bathroom and back into the store. Heedless of her absence, the Vincent zombie pounded and pounded. More and more pieces of the door came away until he hit a weak spot. A long crack appeared from the bottom of the hole to the base of the door. Two more times he hit it and the crack widened to a fissure until half of the bottom of the door fell away from the frame.
Vincent was free.
Their first look at him would be a sight they would never forget. His arms were torn and bloody. His lap was also covered in blood. He must have been very determined to die. How thoughtless of him. The worst part was his face. Though unmarked, it still held that terrible look of frustrated depression. The dead eyes still held the despondent glaze of a man who knew that his time had come to an end.
"What do we do?" Chantelle cried. And then again.
Abby scooped Sam into her arms and backed toward the door. The boy came awake slowly, not understanding what was happening. When he looked up and saw Vincent, he started to cry.
"He's bad, Mommy. He's so bad!"
Vincent approached them slowly. As a newborn undead, he was still unsure of how to use his legs and his arms. Though the racks in the store were placed sparsely, he seemed to have trouble negotiating his way through them. He tipped over a jewelry display and then managed to get himself wrapped up in a sari. Abby frantically looked around for a weapon but there was nothing. Her best option was a tall hat rack, but she knew she would never be able to lift it. With a sense of utter finality, she knew that there was no escape. Unlike the ER at Sisters of Charity, there were no little rooms that could provide sanctuary. It was them and the zombie and nothing in between. She thought of the fights, of the people who had gone into the ring with no weapons and fought three, four, and five zombies. Vincent was just one zombie. He was gruesome and terrifying but she would not stand by and watch him take her son. If he bit her then so be it.
Putting Sam down, she took his arm and put it into Chantelle's hand. Both of them looked up at her as if wondering why Abby had chosen this mismatch.
"Whatever you do," she said to Chantelle, "don't let go of him. His father's name is Martin Benjamin and I'm making it your responsibility to bring them back together."
Chantelle understood and she nodded.
Abby moved in.
As the two squared off, she tried to focus only on her opponent. Visions of Red Rover, the successful fighter from several weeks before, flooded her thoughts. What had she noticed about the way he had fought? For one, he had never engaged the zombies on their own terms. He’d danced around them patiently until an opening presented itself. Then he'd struck. She remembered seeing him crush a zombie's head with the heel of his boot. She would be able to do no such thing. It wasn’t about squeamishness. Two minutes before, she had made up her mind about what she had to do and it would get done no matter what. But her twenty dollar flats were hardly the tool for the job. So be it. If it was his head that had to be damaged, and she knew that it was, then she would find some other way to make it happen.
Vincent was just finally freeing himself from the sari when he noticed her approach. He tilted his chin into the air and she thought she caught him sniffing. She worked her way around the display, putting him between her and her two companions. If he charged her, and she dodged, she didn't want him running headlong into Chantelle and Sam. He turned with her, following her every movement. Retreating further, she backed herself against the counter. Feeling around for a weapon, she found the computer mouse. It wasn't much, but she ripped it free of the computer and wrapped the USB end around her left hand for a firm grip. He came at her as she was reaffirming her hold on the mouse itself and she slid away from his awkward charge. Taking advantage of his imbalance, she got the mouse cord over his head and pulled it tight around his neck.
If a person is being strangled, his or her first instinct is to reach up and try to pull the offending strangulation device away. Though zombies did move air into and out of their bodies, asphyxiation was of no danger to them. Vincent had no regard for his own well being. He was still only interested in the food clinging to his back. Trying to grab at Abby, he flailed his arms awkwardly over his shoulders. Though he was bigger and stronger, he tipped himself off balance. Abby pressed the advantage, pushing against him and knocking him to the ground. He hit the floor with a thud and she directed her forearm at the back of his head in the hopes that she could force a deadly impact with the floor. The maneuver backfired. Vincent's head bounced harmlessly against the industrial carpet while her arm exploded in pain. For a moment, she lost all sensation in her fingers. The cord went slack and Vincent tried to wriggle free. If he had been anything but the stumbling cadaver that he was, he would have certainly succeeded. But Abby caught hold in time, pressing her hand into a fist by sheer force of will. The cord went taught again as she pulled with all of her strength.
"Chantelle," she cried. "Get something sharp." Chantelle hesitated, then let go of Sam and made for the counter. But Sam wanted his mommy. He took two steps toward her before Chantelle yanked him back, her fingers pressing firmly into his arm. He began to cry. She was just about to lose total control when she heard something. Turning, she saw the gate rattling. Someone or something was on the other side banging.
“Chantelle!” Abby cried.
Chantelle ignored Abby, focused on the pounding on the other side of the gate. Then she watched in alarm as, slowly, it started to rise.
***
The city on the Manhattan side of the Brooklyn Bridge was covered in a blanket of white snow. Even the trail of the zombie army had be
en almost entirely covered up. All that remained were indentations in the snow where it wasn’t quite as deep as in other places. The trees in the park stood tall and snow capped, crying white water onto the ground at their bases. The streets and the park were completely empty. The people had fled and it seemed that the zombies had moved on to whiter pastures.
Deion pulled out ahead of Luke, spilling out to the right on Centre Street. Martin checked his phone and told him that Abby was back the other way. It would have been too difficult to maneuver the plows into a U-turn so Deion cut to the right on Chambers. He pushed the snow ahead of them to the left and scraped his way down the block. At the other edge of the park was Broadway. There he made a left. The way down was treacherous. They had to cover the length of the park and there were a few cars in the way, those that had been left behind by people who’d thought it would be quicker to run from the zombies on foot. Deion maneuvered deftly around them and hung a left on Park Row.
