by James Phelan
The first shot Chaser was squirming, twisting on the ground, but looking like he was readying to get up, get back in the chase. The second was on his hands and knees, vomiting blood onto the street where he collapsed again. Caleb slung the shotgun’s strap across his chest and took both canvas bags from me, hefting them clear off the ground. Then we ran.
15
I heard my heart beating inside my ears, and sucked hard at the cold air as we sprinted. One block, two, through a building’s doors and out the other side onto another street, another block north.
Caleb stopped at the next corner, dropped the bags and doubled over, heaving.
“Put one of them over my shoulder,” I said to him.
He nodded, too exhausted to voice a reply, and we were off.
“Hardly—done—exercise,” he said, struggling to get air as we jogged, “since I hurt my knee in high school.”
“What sport?” I asked, barely able to carry this one bag in the half a block we’d traveled.
“Basketball,” he said. “I’m nothin’ now—I used to have game.”
“Mad skizzles, huh?”
“Not LeBron mad,” he said of the NBA player, and we laughed through our exhaustion.
“What position?”
“Power forward,” he replied, smiling at the memory. “They called me the Hebrew Hammer. If my knee had held up, I could’ve gone somewhere with it, but I decided to make college a place for learning instead of playing.”
“Good plan.”
“Yeah, right?” Caleb said. “Except looking around me now, I’m kinda thinking my planned undergrad in literature is a little misplaced. A stint in the Marines would have come in handy about now.”
“Yeah, well, who’d ever predict this.”
Caleb didn’t respond. We crossed the street, weaving between the crashed cars, frozen in time from the moment of the attack.
“Do you have an idea where we’re going?” I asked, looking over my shoulder. I couldn’t see the Chasers, but I knew they weren’t far behind, tracking us.
“57th and Park,” he replied. It got darker like a switch had been thrown and soon it started snowing again.
“What’s at 57th and Park?” I tried to remember the streets that had become familiar to me. There was no time to check my worn Manhattan map.
“My crib,” he said. “It’s safe.”
Caleb’s crib was a bookstore at the corner of Park Avenue and East 57th Street. The Ritz Tower rose above it; the bookshop had the bottom floors of retail space and I stood now, breathless, looking up. My dad would like this building. The three-story limestone base was finely detailed, the imposing tower itself set back at the fourth floor.
“Over here,” Caleb said, pausing at a car. We stashed the bags of food in its unlocked trunk.
I couldn’t see if the Chasers were after us and I didn’t want to wait out in the open to find out. In the few blocks we’d traveled, Caleb had further convinced me with stories of these organized hunting groups, and I was keen to get inside.
“Setting traps?” I said. “Really?”
“Yesterday I saw some setting an ambush on one of the weaker ones.”
“What kind of ambush?”
“They seemed to be herding him with coordinated attacks,” he said as he fumbled with gloved hands with the keys to the bookstore, “from three different directions, before corralling him into a crater in the street. Then they stoned him until he lay still.”
I pictured this image; it was as real as I ever wanted such a scene to be.
Behind us, on the opposite corner of the street, the Citibank building lay in burned-out ruins, a ghost from the past, the charred remains of a stack of hundred dollar bills blowing in the breeze. In the minute or so it took to open the store’s doors, the snowfall became so heavy that I could no longer see across the street. I imagined those chasing us emerging from behind its veil, demons in my view, out of nowhere.
“I’ve seen them hunt, day and night,” he said, holding the door open for me. I dashed through. “Another time, I watched them from a window, a pack of them, as they tracked and sneaked up on a wounded one.”
“One of the other kind of infected?”
“They’re culling them,” he said, locking the door behind us. “Like wolves—killing rivals so that there’s less pressure on the prey.”
Caleb made them out to be hunters, more organized than I’d believed, and I was surprisingly grateful; I craved any information he could share, anything that would help.
Finally inside, with the outside shut out, I felt my heart rate settle. Our surroundings were just visible in the dim light; between the book stacks, the space was crammed with sports gear.
“This place safe?”
“Stores like this are more fortified than apartments,” Caleb said, catching his breath after he locked the doors behind us and then dropping a metal bar into brackets across them; the barrier looked as though it would stop a battering ram. “Far safer from attack, see? Modern commercial spaces like this have toughened laminated glass.” He rapped his knuckles on the door, emphasizing his point, then put down his small pack and shotgun, took off his boots, coat and hat. He was tall and rangy, leaner than I’d expected.
This was a good spot for me—safe, as Caleb said—and I was only two blocks from the Pulitzer Fountain at the corner of Central Park, and it was just a few blocks north from there to the zoo. I could drag those bags and be at Rachel’s in an hour or so; less if I made a decent sled. Meanwhile, I could find out more about my enemy the Chasers—Caleb seemed to have been studying them closely. He also knew a lot more about the city than I did—more places to keep out of harm’s way.
“I spray-painted all these windows black,” he explained, “and left some eye-holes in each, covered with those pieces of black copy paper—so I can look out.”
“Cool. Good idea.” It wasn’t pitch dark, though, with just enough daylight filtering through to see around inside while keeping prying eyes away. I rested against a counter, my breath almost back to normal, my clothes soaked through from our flight across the winter’s ground.
“By the time those Chasers were back on their feet, we’d turned off the block and with the snow covering our tracks there’s no way they’d know where we are now,” I said to Caleb, trying to sound convinced by my own words.
There was a bang on the glass.
I froze, looked to Caleb. He rushed over to the far corner and peered out beneath the taped-up paper flap, jumping back at another bang on the window near him. Neither of us spoke or moved for a full minute, then he peered through the peephole again.
“They’ve gone,” he said. There was a final bang farther away, and then it was quiet. “They went down the wrong street—and you’re right, the snow would have covered our tracks by now.”
I nodded.
“Take a load off, have a rest and catch your breath,” Caleb said, as he climbed some stairs and disappeared into a room out the back.
I checked my watch. It was 1 P.M. Plenty of daylight left, if the snowstorm cleared. I’d stay an hour. Two, tops. See what he knew. See if he was planning to leave. He could be useful to us.
Already I was thinking of us as a group—me, Felicity, Rachel, and Caleb. None of them had met—it would be my job to bring them together. How hard could it be? Dave, Mini, Anna and I had had hardly anything in common, least of all our backgrounds. Dave and I hadn’t really got on at the start of the camp, but we’d formed a bond by the time we made that final subway journey. Wouldn’t it be so much easier to bond with the living, especially if everyone wanted the same thing? Escape. Survival. In whichever order we could manage. But could I assume we all wanted the same thing? Would I even find Felicity?
“Come up and grab a drink,” Caleb said, hanging over the railing and showing some cans of soft drink. “Promise I don’t bite.”
I dumped my backpack and wet shoes by the sales counter, hung my coat over the end of a bookshelf and trudged upstairs
. The next level up had a café where chairs and tables were scattered around; it felt good to be above street level with what would be, on a clear day, long views out over 57th and Park Avenue through the arched windows.
“Up here,” he said, “show you my chill zone.”
Caleb passed me a can of drink and I followed him up another flight of stairs to a smaller space with curtained windows. I collapsed into a beanbag and settled in.
“This is the shiz, huh?” he said, cracking open his Sprite.
He flicked a switch on a power-board, and the room was lit by clear hoses of LED tube lighting, jerry-rigged around the whole mezzanine. This level was set up with all kinds of gear, a more extravagant version of what I’d had at 30 Rock: two massive LCD screens with game consoles, beanbags, couches, and some big plastic tubs stuffed with packets of junk food.
“The only thing you’re missing is a foosball table,” I said, popping my can and drinking fast.
“I tried; it was too heavy to get up here,” he said, slopping down into a beanbag and flicking on the TV and Xbox. “Come have a crack at this, I’ve been waiting for someone’s butt to kick.”
We cranked out a few rounds of games, basketball mainly, until I had to retire because my beat-up hands were aching.
“Generator’s good.”
“Got a couple of them, just in case,” Caleb said. “Just run the one at a time in daylight hours when I’m here, gas it up each night.”
I told him about my set-up in 30 Rock—how I’d dragged a generator all the way up sixty-five flights of stairs. He laughed at that for a few minutes and then passed over a couple of chocolate cookies from the stash beside him. I told him about the soldiers.
“So they got into Manhattan via road?”
“Which means there’s a way out,” I said.
“Somewhere up north . . .” Caleb said, thoughtfully, plowing through a row of Oreos dipped in coffee. “If they had a couple of trucks as big as you say, means they could use them as muscle.”
“Exactly!” I said. “They drove in, pushing their way clear—they must have cleared a path. A path we could use.”
“We?”
“Yeah, you know, to get out of here.”
He paused, thinking about it. “And get through these roadblocks how?”
“They got through.”
“Armed dudes, maybe they were National Guard or something official,” he said. “I don’t think it’d be that easy, for me or you or whoever.”
I nodded, and said as convincingly as I could: “Bet there’s people congregated up there. Whole towns and cities unaffected.”
“For sure or maybe?”
I hesitated. “Maybe.”
“Maybe,” he said, picking absently at the top of a can of drink. “Look, yeah, there’s likely places unaffected even if all the major cities have been hit. There might be quarantine stations and stuff at roadblocks or checkpoints. But those guys you saw—it seems weird it was so few soldiers.”
“I know.”
“Could be they came to steal gold or something. That’s what always happens in times like this.”
“Looting?”
“Wars, disasters, whatever—soon as there’s no law and order there’s always opportunists.” Caleb looked up at me. “And how about how one of them told you to head to where it’s colder . . . I guess that makes sense, but it was weird that he would give you that info, if he was here just lootin’ or whatever.”
“What do you mean ‘makes sense’? That it’s worse in a warmer climate?”
“Yeah, I mean, if this was an aerosol weapon, in the air, heat makes stuff like that more effective,” he said and nodded, as though he was thinking about it. “Or was he saying the effects are worse? Like the differences in the infected? Like if only a small percentage here are deranged hunters, maybe there’s a greater proportion of them like that where it’s warmer and the infection makes them more screwed up?” He smiled. “Hungry?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Starving.”
Caleb got up and I yawned, stretched, and looked out the window; it was almost pitch black outside. I checked my watch: 4:45. My stomach turned. I couldn’t believe how easily I’d lost time like that; so carefree, so selfishly easy. I’d told Rachel I’d be back later today. I’d promised her, as her workmates had done when they’d left.
“Look, I really should get that food delivered . . .” I said, not even convincing myself.
“To who? Your friends need it tonight?”
“Well, not exactly . . .” I told him about Rachel, how most of that food was for the animals and how they were still good for a while.
“She’s survived on her own this long, what’s another night?”
“It’s just—I promised her I’d be back.”
“She’ll understand. It’s a mad world out there, right? No point in risking life and limb just to keep a promise.”
The way he said it, I felt almost stupid for bringing it up in the first place.
“Yeah, I know.”
“Look, you might as well just stay here the night,” he said. “I can help you deliver those bags in the morning, if you like? Safer that way. No sense you getting killed for food when it’s not exactly a case of life and death. Right?”
I nodded, still not sure what to do. It didn’t make sense to trudge all the way to the zoo in the dark. More risk than it was worth. I’d stayed alive so far because I’d been careful. I should stay that way.
And this was a sweet setup. This, I thought, entering the café’s kitchen—this was temptation. This was, as Caleb said, the shiz.
16
We sat at a table, a feast before us. We’d grilled some beef patties, made well-stacked cheese burgers, and I added sliced beetroot and a fried egg. I picked up the hot, dripping burger. I took a bite, savoring it, then thought of Rachel.
What was she eating? Was she okay? Here we were, eating in the café while she was back there alone. The hum of the generator was comforting and accusing.
There was no silence with Caleb, no weary night filled with quiet company. We talked about things I’d talk about with friends back home—sport, movies, games, girls. All of it so normal, transportational even: like I was back home and staying the night at a mate’s place. I realized he was a Peter Pan–like character, residing in fun, using it as a coping mechanism; deep denial, hidden by fun and games. It was easy company to reside in.
“So, why a bookshop?” I asked. “Why hole up here?”
“I work here,” he replied. “Took a year out before starting school at Columbia—an expensive education, and so here I am in Midtown, selling books to people in suits and heels. Means I’m free of my folks, can afford to live with friends, all that.”
“Seems a sweet gig to me.”
“Yeah, it is,” he said with a little laugh. “Least I like it. It’s easy, you know? My mom’s a bit bummed out by it, and Dad hates that I still do it—he works in publishing.”
“Editor?”
“Was. Sales now.”
“So he sells books too?”
“Yeah, I guess,” Caleb said, laughing. “But he’s like a global director for a company that owns the publishing company and other stuff—defense and aerospace industries, paint and carpet factories, the usual evil conglomerate. He spends most of his time synergizing ‘backwards overflow’ or something.”
“Sounds un-American.”
“I know, right?” he said. “Sad thing is, that’s where we’ve got to. There and beyond.”
Did he mean now, after this attack, or before?
“Why doesn’t he like you doing this?”
“My dad? Thinks I could do better or that I’ll get sucked into working here forever instead of going to college,” he said. “Mom, too, but she won’t say it. He always says things like that, while Mom’s busy trying to set me up with so and so’s fugly daughter, so I hardly ever go home for dinner even though they’re not twenty minutes’ walk from where I live . . . You know, this pas
t year I spoke more often to my mom on Facebook than in person. Weird, huh?”
“Seems okay,” I said. I liked that he spoke about them in the present tense. “So you were stuck at home until you finished school or whatever, and since then you’ve just needed some space, yeah?”
He shook his head. “I boarded high school. Same as my dad, his dad, his dad . . .”
“Right.”
Up close, across the table and in this light, I could see he had baggy dark rings under his eyes as though he hadn’t slept well in ages. He seemed like he would have been quiet in his normal life, before all this, probably a pretty isolated guy. He had that kind of look about him. Maybe, in some selfish way, this was some kind of blessing for him, a chance to break the cycle, if only his character would let him.
But what did I know? Maybe he wasn’t like that at all. Maybe he had been an out-there party guy, a family guy, anything but a loner, and that was just what he’d been forced to become.
“So, Aussie Jesse, you like New York?”
“Sure. I mean, I liked it a lot more before all this happened though.”
He laughed. “Ha. But the people; they’re so self-centered a lot of the time. Keep to themselves. Don’t get involved.”
“I hadn’t really got that,” I said. I tried to remember seeing any of that kind of behavior, but everyone I’d met before the attack had been so kind, so helpful, so happy to meet me.
“You haven’t seen it because you weren’t here long enough,” he said. “And because Americans love Aussies.”
“We have followed you into every war you started.”
“Yeah, thanks,” he said. “But seriously, I mean, don’t get me wrong, New York’s the bomb. I’d rather live here than any other city; we got it all and then some. It’s just—take where I live, for instance, just a stop out of Manhattan, on the other side of the East River. It’s like we’re another country away. Doesn’t have that neighborhood feel anymore; before this, I mean.”
Division. Friction. A vision seared into my consciousness. “Funny how the world turns, hey?”
