Survivor

by James Phelan

  I vaulted an overturned vending machine, almost at the glow of daylight that shone down the snowed-in stairs out of here.

  The sound of my pursuer behind me, back in the chase.

  I took to the stairwell as fast as I could, panting my way through the thigh-high snow drift. I looked back and he was there, five paces behind, and behind him—all those Chasers. Some watching, some not, so many eyes witnessing this hunt, so many haunted gazes about to see more brutality. My hand stung and I looked down at it. Red blood dripping freely onto white snow.

  I was almost at the top, and my legs burned from the effort.

  I looked up. Icy snow covered most of the exit, but there was a small hole leading out. I held my bloodied fist out in front of me like a battering ram—a warm stream of fluid flowed through my knuckles as I clenched it.

  I smashed through, almost tripped on the final step at street level and scrambled across the road.

  The Chaser emerged. Those eyes. Only for me.

  I ran for my life. Stumbling through the street gridlocked with smashed cars, sliding over a cab’s bumper, the crash-bang of the Chaser shadowing me.

  Around the corner, I turned immediately into the dark interior of a convenience store. I scanned my surroundings and rushed to a spot in the store where I could see the front door through the smashed windows. I slid down in the aisle and squatted on the floor, my head resting against a shelf, staring into middle-distance at the doorway, a bright rectangle of gray-white daylight.

  A silhouette filled the space.

  I inched backwards. Enclosed by darkness, my pulse chattered my teeth as I tried to calm my breathing.

  He came into the store. Short and wiry, alert. Hunting.

  I reached behind my back to the side pocket of my pack. Silent movements by me, the uneven rhythm of his gait as he treaded the aisles looking for me. The Glock pistol was in my hands and it shook—my whole body was shaking. My shoulders were tight, and I couldn’t breathe properly.

  I remembered holding this gun the first time. As my finger had slipped into the trigger guard, it’d felt both dangerous and comfortable. But part of me had wanted to be rid of it, to throw it away. Then I’d become more nervous as my target approached, as if I were invisible. I remembered pointing it at a boy, gaunt and tired, no less a victim and refugee than I was.

  Now, I put the pistol into my coat pocket. I didn’t want to shoot anyone, not now, never again. I stayed there and watched him for three seconds that dragged on like three hours. I had to move. I visually measured the number of strides to the front door, and ran for it.

  The Chaser appeared at the end of the aisle in front of me—caught me by the backpack, dragged me right off my feet.

  “No!” I yelled and reached into my pocket, swinging up my gun hand as his head bent down to mine—the heavy butt of the loaded pistol connected with the side of his head.

  He fell on top of me—a dead weight—and lay there, motionless but for the tiny in-and-out motions of air as his chest rose and fell. He’d live, for now. I squirmed and wriggled my way out from under him.

  When I left the store I clung close to the outside of the buildings, hugging one facade and then the next. That hole in the intersection was a dark mouth into hell, another reminder that this city could eat me alive at any second.

  13

  Rockefeller Plaza looked as I remembered it: the snow-covered fire engines, the massive crater where the ice rink used to be.

  I walked around taking in the familiar surroundings, and seeking out someone undeniably real. A new piece to this puzzle that I was sure would somehow lead me home: Felicity.

  I checked my watch: almost 11 A.M. If Felicity had shown when I’d said I would, then I was too late. The only movement now was the flapping of flags, the only thing I could feel was the cold of the wind cutting through my layers and whipping around the buildings.

  There were some footprints in the snow. I followed them, lost in the pattern that led me across the street to the NBC News studio where they merged with other sets—large, haphazard in their direction. My ears pricked as a far-off explosion echoed around the buildings, but then it was gone as quickly as it had come.

  As I stood just inside the entrance of 30 Rock I recognized the smell: so comforting, like coming home. All seemed as I’d left it. I thought about making a quick trip upstairs, to pack some gear, but the clothes and food and whatever else I’d stockpiled up there I could find anywhere, far closer to street level. But the thought of being high above this city, in a place I knew well, seemed so tempting. Just a quick look . . .

  I took out my flashlight, wound the plastic handle for a minute and flicked it on. My hands shook with the prospect of what was ahead, a balanced mixture of excitement and fear. The LEDs were very bright, but did not penetrate far into the darkness of the lobby, nor spread out wide. The stark white-blue light sucked the life colors from everything that I scanned the beam over. Back in that subway station, it had turned those pale faces of the Chasers into something even more frightening, as if their skin were translucent, their eyes black beetles, their shadows darker than they ought to be.

  I entered the gloom of the fire escape, the pistol in my other hand, and looked around. Two nights away from here and nothing seemed to have been disturbed. I shut the door behind me. The silence was so familiar. But this wasn’t home. This was empty fear far outweighing any excitement.

  I left the ink-black stairwell and sucked in the cold air of the bright winter’s day around me. This shattered lobby wasn’t comfortable. That journey upstairs in the pitch dark was no longer a choice for a better time. I backed out the door of the lobby and took in deep breaths, sinking to the cold paved ground. I couldn’t go up those stairs again. I didn’t want to know what I might find.

  I remembered seeing an overturned postal truck on the block past 49th Street. It was still there, lying on its side, the mail that had spilled into the street from its rear doors long since covered with water, snow, and ash. I squatted down and shone my flashlight inside the truck—nothing, no living thing. I pulled out a couple of massive bags of mail, then tipped them out and folded the empty canvas bags into my backpack.

  I headed back along 49th the way I’d come, trying to work out my next move. I could radiate out from here and search for signs of Felicity. I looked back to 30 Rock, looming large behind me, the low winter sun hitting its zenith to the south; it would be warm up there in that tower, behind the glass, in that sun.

  “Which way?” I said out loud, shuffling through the snow and kicking an empty Coke can. “Which way do I go?”

  Like I expected an answer. The mind draws conclusions from anything and everything, and I knew my own answer was what my gut was telling me: head south. Was that the pull of home? The lure of more sun in the day? Or did I need to head someplace else to get to where I really needed to go—check out places below Midtown I’d yet to see, look for easy routes off this island. But I resisted the call of the south—today I had to meet my promise, which was to bring food back to the zoo. Tomorrow was a different day.

  I walked into a darkened grocery store, the way lit by my flashlight alone. The dim daylight filtering through the front windows only penetrated so far. There were a dozen or so mobile phones on the front counter, their boxes and packaging ripped open and scattered around the floor, like someone had been searching for something. I tried a few—some dead, some missing their batteries, one working and showing no network. The landline phone was smashed, its pieces on the floor. The cash register was open and empty but for small coins.

  The first thing I did was to find some antiseptic and dressing, and some new gloves, and wash my newly cut hand by the light of the window, the wound not as bad as the bleeding suggested. I undid my pack, pulled out the two canvas postal bags and began to fill them with a mix of canned goods.

  A shuffling noise, coming towards me, made me want to run. My flashlight wouldn’t reach the entire length of the aisle. I wound the charge ha
ndle—the loudest thing I’d ever heard—and the beam grew brighter. I could just see—

  A dog. A Labrador cross. His big sad eyes shone back at me, ears down, face friendly.

  “Hey, boy . . .”

  He didn’t respond, just watched me.

  I reached out to him and he growled, showing his teeth. He was lean but not skeletal; he’d been scavenging all these days. I looked through the shelves of tinned food, popped several cans of cat food and tipped them near him on the floor. He edged closer, wary, sniffing the air, his eyes never leaving mine as I backed away and left the store.

  After a few blocks dragging the bags behind me, I found a well-stocked deli. Its windows were blown in, and snow had drifted inside the broken glass and through the open door, filling the front half of the shop. I made my way through it slowly, carefully, until it was just a dusting on the tiled floor. The display counters were all dry goods, grains, and pastas, along with jars of pickles and preserves.

  I bagged coils of cured sausage and salami, some vacuum-packed portions that still looked good. The next fridge was overpowering in smell and contained cheeses—some wheels looked about as heavy as me. I collected as much as I could stuff into a bag.

  I had so far packed supplies for the zoo’s hungry mouths and plenty that was good for us. The other bag I filled with bagged and boxed grains and cereals, dried and tinned fruits, some staples. I added some containers of honey, long-life milk, and jars and cans of the odd delicacy—artichokes, olives, cheese, pickles; things I guessed Rachel might like. I looked forward to showing her all this food, taking my time to reveal it item by item, to share my spoils with someone, with another person like me.

  This would show Rachel that I was trustworthy, that I was willing to support her and her quest. Question was, would she reciprocate?

  I dragged the bags behind me. Each weighed easily forty pounds. I kept going like that for the rest of the block, then stopped, rested, arms on fire and hands aching. I sat on a cab’s roof looking up and down the street. At this rate, it might take me until nightfall to get back to the zoo. Worse, the bags might spill their contents, damaged by all the scraping against raw asphalt in the patchy snow, or from where they had snagged on sharp debris.

  “New plan,” I said out loud. “Try some cars.”

  Every one of them in the street that looked like it could get moving, I tried. None would start. Some ticked over, and a cab almost caught, only to have the battery die out at the penultimate crank of the starter-motor. I thought of Dad’s old Ford in which he’d taught me to drive, how we had to push-start that sometimes. Maybe I could push one of these, but there was no room to pick up momentum, and with the snow and rubble on the road it was near impossible to shift them beyond rocking back and forth on the spot. After half an hour I’d muscled a little Volkswagen enough to roll two feet in the snow. I’d bagged all this food and I was stuck here, wasting time.

  I needed a truck like the one driven by those army guys. Or maybe I could put something like a metal panel under the bags, something smooth-running if used like a sled, to pull the bags up to the zoo. Even if I had to take one at a time; one today and come back for the other one tomorrow. That could work.

  I walked away from the stuffed mail bags towards some wrecked cars, scanning around for something to use.

  “Stealing mail?” a man’s voice asked.

  14

  He came and stood close to me, constantly looking north. He was about my age, dark unruly hair visible from the edges of his white winter cap, a head taller than me and broader across the shoulders, strong but lean.

  “Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m doing,” I said, “stealing mail.”

  I saw the pump-action shotgun in his hands. He was staring intently, but not at me, his clear blue eyes framed by black-rimmed glasses, scanning Park Avenue. “Seriously, what you got in there, food?”

  “What’s it to you?”

  He looked down at me for a second, and then back to the street, eyes darting around.

  “If it’s food, or something you need, I’ll give you a hand,” he said. “If it’s money or gold or mail or some dude’s used underwear, you’re on your own.”

  Another survivor. I liked the way he talked: serious and funny at the same time, no wasting time with discussions of blame and anger. I sensed something softer beneath his stern exterior.

  “I’m fine on my own,” I said, lifting one bag and dumping it as far as I could reach, then repeating the process with the other. “And yeah, it’s food. I’m not after some dude’s drawers. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”

  “Nothing wrong with that?” he asked, looking at me, the start of a smile on his face.

  “What are we talking about?” I hefted the bags another pace on up the road.

  “Your perverted tendencies,” he said, preoccupied, something changing in him as he looked up Park Avenue—a new stillness—then he ducked down, moved across the footpath in a crouched run and hid behind an overturned newspaper stand.

  “Leave your stuff there,” he whispered.

  “What?”

  “Just leave it,” he said. “Get over here, quick!”

  I rushed to his side, squatting down next to him.

  “They’re coming,” he said. “Keep down. They’re coming.”

  We kept low to the ground. I couldn’t hear anything or anyone, certainly not like the arrival of yesterday’s soldiers with their trucks. “They just rounded the corner up there.”

  “Who’s ‘they’?” I asked, sitting there on the ground looking up at him. Chasers? Soldiers? Other survivors?

  “Them,” he said, pointing.

  I peered cautiously around the edge of the newspaper stand.

  Down Park Avenue, appearing around the corner from 53rd Street, were three Chasers. The deranged, hunt-you-down-for-what’s-in-your-veins kind. It was so very easy to pick them from the other kind now: those who just drank whatever water they could find were now shells after thirteen days of no nutrients.

  “This is what they do now,” he whispered to me.

  They moved with purpose, alert, on the hunt, blood on their chins and around their mouths, glistening as if they’d just had a fresh taste.

  “I’ve seen them—”

  “No, this is new. They’re a scout team.” He shifted position a little, readying for action, not taking his eyes off them. “Part of a bigger hunting party.”

  Watching the Chasers near, I pulled the Glock from my coat pocket and saw his eyes widen at the sight.

  “You don’t need that,” he said. He motioned to his own gun, pulled a shell from his jacket pocket and passed it to me—a funny plastic cartridge the size of an asthma ventilator. “I got this from a cop station—it’s a riot gun; shoots rubber bullets and little beanbags like that. It’ll put them down for a bit, nonlethal.”

  I went to pass it back.

  “You keep it,” he said. “Souvenir.”

  “But if they come—”

  “If they come close, even right up to us, we’re not gonna go killing them,” his look was full of disappointment or disgust. “These are people—they’re sick, but they’re Americans, yeah? You wanna do that? Kill?”

  “No, but—”

  “You wanna kill them, that’s your show. I’ll split and leave them to you.”

  He paused like he was actually giving me this opportunity to murder. Was it some kind of test? I’d set out, looking for people, for community, so maybe he was doing the same. Was I the kind of company he wanted to keep? I no longer knew who to trust—why wouldn’t he be the same?

  “No,” I said, looking at the loaded gun in my hand, not for the first time wanting to give it away. “I don’t want to kill them.”

  “Good,” he replied, pumping a round in his shotgun. “I’ll drop them, then we double around 52nd to Lexington, got it?”

  “I’ve got to take that food with me.”

  “You’re tripping, we gotta leave!”

&nbs
p; “I have to—” I started to protest.

  “We can’t.”

  “Then count me out.”

  He looked at me, measured my resolve.

  “Fine,” he said. “One bag each.”

  I nodded.

  “But if it comes to it,” he said, “I’m not gonna get killed for a bag of food, so I’ll ditch it—and you—if I have to.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay. I’ll count down, you make it to the bags and I’ll drop these guys. We leave once the third is down. You’ll follow me, got it? And put that pistol away before you shoot someone with it.”

  I pocketed the Glock and the beanbag shotgun cartridge.

  With his gloved left hand, he counted down from five, first his thumb, then a finger extending in time with each stride the Chasers took towards us.

  “I’m Caleb,” he said, matter-of-factly.

  “Jesse.”

  His counting hand moved to the pump-action handle and he walked out to the street. The three Chasers looked up from the snow and saw him. I rushed over to the canvas bags.

  Caleb took aim. They started running straight for us, while I began dragging the bags down Park Avenue. Caleb fired a shot—a Chaser collapsed. Oblivious to their fallen comrade the other two continued towards us, picking up pace with each stride, thirst in their eyes. Caleb loaded a new round and fired again, the boom deafening, another Chaser down. He pumped, reloaded and fired, but this time the Chaser slipped so the round was off-target. He pumped again—

  Click.

  “No way!” He pulled some rubber bullets from his coat pocket and started hurriedly feeding them into the breech of the shotgun.

  The Chaser was on his feet again and sprinting from the mark.

  “Hurry!” I yelled to Caleb, the Chaser seconds from him.

  Caleb pumped to reload, aimed, and the Chaser was blown onto his back, yelling and writhing in pain.