Survivor

by James Phelan

  Stopped. Something, a noise or movement, a presence . . .

  I waited for what was next, my hand searching in the coat pocket for the grip of the pistol. My finger found its way into the trigger guard.

  I pulled the pistol from my pocket.

  Waited.

  Nothing came. Not even a noise.

  At least a couple of minutes passed while I didn’t dare move, frozen in fear and expectation. I was prepared to scream and fight and shoot, but still nothing came. I could hear my heart slowing, my shoulders relaxing just a little—

  There!

  Something moved into the shaft of light; a rat, sniffing, bumping, making the flashlight spin again, giving me a quick 360 snapshot of the scene. Nothing else. Nothing but a rat. I almost laughed. I was alone down here.

  I followed the animal out of the building and through the back door. As I inched it open, I was confronted by dark nothingness. The flashlight beam was lost out in the inky zoo grounds so I twisted it off, my eyes taking a moment to adjust to the night’s gloom.

  Clouds hung low, hiding the stars, but eerily backlit by the moon.

  The animals. The cold wind. The unknown. The creak of a tree and the scurry of a critter. I remained in the impenetrable darkness, and walked a lap around the central pool, itself another level of black nothingness. There were perimeter fences here, made of stone and steel; I could just make out the ones that branched away from the arsenal building, but they were little more than a cursory deterrent. Still, I felt oddly safe out here, as if being surrounded by Rachel’s flock of animals provided some kind of extra security; all those eyes and ears alert, ready to raise the alarm should someone enter their enclosure. But then what?

  No Chasers had come in here yet, over the fences, so why would that change now?

  Because they were getting smarter? Better at hunting? Better at getting at their prey?

  I suddenly felt wide awake and full of purpose. I felt as though I could see better than any other night; farther, clearer, with more confidence.

  I sat down with my back to the rear door of the arsenal building. It was my sentry and I was Rachel’s. The animals too. We were a family, in this together. I pulled on my hood and felt warmth slowly spread around to my frozen face. I sat there for a long time, watching the scene before, waiting for dawn.

  “Up early,” Rachel said as she joined me on the steps, placing a hand on my shoulder.

  “Couldn’t sleep,” I said; another lie. I could sleep, given the chance, forever. My legs and butt were numb from having sat out here for so long, but after all this time listening to the city’s lonely beat, my mind was clear.

  “Noises woke you?”

  I looked up at her, suspicious. “Yeah,” I replied.

  “It’s the building,” she said, adjusting the brightness of her lantern. “It has a life of its own—tormented by branches against the windows, rats in the walls, possums in the ceiling, the heat and cold. And that’s just the usual fare.”

  I nodded wearily.

  “Come on in,” Rachel said, wrapped tight in her blanket and her bed-hair tucked behind her ears. “You’ll freeze to death. I’ve got some water on the boil.”

  I followed her inside. It was just before 7:30 A.M. Inside the bathroom I washed, using a bucket of warm water, savoring the heat and the steam. Through the bathroom window, I could see the bleak beginnings of dawn through the bare trees, whose branches shook in the breeze.

  Rachel was stirring a pot of porridge on the fire.

  “Thanks,” I said, as she put a bowl of porridge with honey on the desk in front of me, juice and tea already laid out. I poured the pot of water into the teapot, jiggled the teabags.

  We ate by the gray glow of the early morning light that spilled through the windows and Rachel sat quite straight while I tried not to slouch too much. The sounds of her sipping coffee, swallowing, her spoon against the bowl; all distractions from what I wanted to say.

  All I wanted to ask right then was what it would take for Rach to leave. But I feared her answer. I’d either have to give her a good reason to leave, or this place would.

  “Look, Rachel . . . let’s leave soon, yeah?”

  “We’ve got enough food for the week,” she said, before reading my expression. “You mean leave New York.”

  I nodded.

  “Jesse . . . you know I can’t do that—I can’t leave them here alone like that.”

  “But if I could find someone to take over?” Knowing that would be impossible.

  She laughed. “Who? Who would you find?”

  I drank my tea. “How about I bring Caleb here, to help out for a while—he’s pretty handy, I think. Seems to know a lot about survival.”

  “He’s just out of high school!”

  “Well, I’m still in high school, and you’re practically not far out of it.”

  “I mean, what, he’s learned some stuff from computer games? From what you’ve told me he’s a typical well-off New Yorker, probably never got his hands dirty in his life. You expect him to come here and shovel animal crap? Work all day in the freezing cold?”

  “He’d help. I know it.”

  “We’ll see,” Rachel said, eating the remainder of her porridge in half-spoonfuls. “But . . . look, I know how you’re feeling. I feel it too; overwhelmed, freaked, worried—about home, about family. But right now, my home’s here. Maybe this is—you know . . .”

  I stood.

  “Jesse, I’m just being realistic. Have you thought that maybe this is all there is left?”

  “I can’t believe that, not after all that I’ve survived.”

  Her expression said that I should consider it.

  “Somehow, Rach, no matter how I get there or what I find, I’m going to see home again.”

  21

  It felt good to be up so early. I’d always felt so tired back at 30 Rock. Once or twice I’d tried sleeping more, getting up at the crack of noon instead of dawn, but it didn’t help; I’d still felt weary. What helped was people—being around survivors like myself.

  I packed my gear, dressed for outdoors, and took my backpack with me. I’d go to Rockefeller Plaza. I’d be on time, and I’d see if Felicity showed. Had she found my note? Maybe she was like Rachel, afraid now of leaving her home. The idea made heat rush up my neck. If she didn’t show at the rink, I would swing past her apartment on the way back to the zoo. If I found her, maybe I’d ask her to go up into the tower at 30 Rock with me. We could scan the routes north and I’d get a chance to say a proper good-bye to the place, for good this time.

  Caleb would help, I knew it. Maybe he wouldn’t come here and shovel shit in the snow but I couldn’t imagine him not wanting to help me persuade Rachel to leave. Maybe he’d resist the idea at first, for fear of the trek and the risk of venturing into unknown territory, but I had to persuade him so he could help me persuade Rach.

  What else could we do? How long could they sit and wait for someone else to come help them?

  My bag was empty against my back, reassuringly light on my shoulders. Everything about the day felt . . . different. It was the reassuring feeling that came with making choices and deciding my own fate.

  I found Rachel in the Tropical Zone. So warm in here, a few degrees making such a difference. I passed her a walkie-talkie. She took it, looked at it strangely, flicked the switch and heard it crackle to life.

  “I charged them at Caleb’s,” I said. “I’ll take the other one.”

  “Take one?”

  I nodded.

  She knew then that I was leaving. She looked sick, sad, disappointed. She watched the river otters in their shelter. “Range isn’t that far . . .” she said, distant.

  “I know,” I said, “but I’ll take it, just in case. I’ll turn it on each hour, say hi, just to see if you can hear me.”

  “Make it every two,” she said, clipping it onto her belt, more sorrowful than angry, “on every even hour.”

  “I won’t be too long, I just ha
ve to see if Felicity turns up.”

  “And if she doesn’t?”

  I followed her outside and looked at the sky, trying to get a read on the gray weather.

  “Then I’ll just collect some food and come back.”

  Rachel took off her coat, warmed by her work, perhaps signifying she was going to set herself into a higher gear now that it was about to be just her again.

  “It’s dangerous out there.”

  “I’ll be okay,” I said.

  “Weather might get bad—you might get lost.”

  “I know my way around.”

  “You might not come back.” She dumped some full buckets of water down hard and they splashed on the snow.

  “Of course I’ll come back.”

  But that hadn’t been what she meant and we both knew it. She meant I might not make it back, that something might happen.

  “You don’t have to go,” she said, looking down at the wet ground. “You can stay here, with me.”

  “Or . . . maybe you could come with me?” I countered, knowing she’d refuse but hoping otherwise. “Just a couple hours away from here?”

  We stood there for a moment, the rhetorical question hanging.

  “I’ve got work to do.” She turned away and started preparing fruit and vegetables for the animals, her eyes wet.

  At the synagogue on 62nd I turned off Fifth, walked east a couple of blocks and then south. It was nearing ten o’clock. I’d go to the ice rink then come back to the zoo. I’d bring more food; I’d cook for Rachel again—find a recipe and make her something good, work on convincing her to leave with us. She would love it.

  I heard the distinctive flutter of birds in flight as I passed a smashed-in storefront. Pigeons, flapping out. The ceiling in the shop had collapsed, the hole going up through several stories. Remnants of what was.

  A light dusting of snow covered Park Avenue. I walked faster, wide awake with hope and purpose, but knowing this feeling would fade. How it sapped you, this destruction, seeing death up close, always being on edge. Hope was a hard thing to maintain in the face of all that.

  I stopped at East 59th to catch my breath and noticed footprints in the snow. I examined them closely. They were varying in size, and had obviously been left here earlier today. I counted them: at least a dozen people had traveled through here. They were divided into three distinct groups and seemed to be heading east. Maybe there was some kind of refuge, hundreds or thousands of people packed into the Bloomingdale’s department store? I squinted against the sun, so bright against the snow, watching and waiting. I couldn’t see anyone. I couldn’t explore today; I had enough to do.

  “. . . stay here with me . . . you might not come back . . . ”

  Rachel’s words and their meaning rattled around in my head, with a kind of amplified guilt that came from thinking about her when not in proximity to her. It made me wonder if it were almost easier not knowing anyone. There was a burden in that kind of obligation. My mom had felt that, which was why she’d left Dad and me.

  I pushed on, south, aware that if it really came to it, I may have to make a call on whether to try for the north on my own.

  22

  It was right on ten o’clock.

  I rounded Fifth Avenue, past St. Patrick’s Cathedral, between the buildings of Rockefeller Plaza, past the big statue of Atlas holding the world up on his shoulders.

  I waited, catching my breath, at the eastern edge of the ice rink, or what was left of it. My hands firmly on my knees, my breath fogging, the sun bright behind me. I walked around, looked, watched, waited.

  Is she here somewhere? Is she standing out in the open like me, or is she waiting, watching from afar, judging me before making contact?

  I thought about calling out, but the sun went back behind dark clouds and it got colder, and then I remembered. I reached into my coat pocket for my gloves.

  A figure approached from the shadows, becoming more distinct as it moved towards me, haltingly, and stopped.

  Someone was standing there, a sole totem of another survivor here in Rockefeller Plaza. Alone. The person walked closer, and the sun peeked through the clouds for just a moment. I sucked in cold sharp air.

  It was a girl, with the same blond hair and pretty face from the recording.

  I’ll be outside 30 Rock’s entrance at the ice rink at ten o’clock every morning.

  I paused, nervous. Was this is? Finally, we were both here. First Rachel, then Caleb, now Felicity. How many of us were left, here in Manhattan?

  She walked closer. There was no doubt; this was the girl from the camcorder footage I’d found at 15 Central Park West—Felicity. She must have got my note and at last, I was here when I had said I’d be. She stood and looked at me, still uncertain. I waved and she smiled.

  “Jesse?”

  I loved her voice, the same voice from the recording. It was feminine and real and I wanted her to keep talking, to not stop. I hadn’t felt that way about Rachel, which made me feel a little guilty.

  I thought about the girls from the UN camp. Mini became my favorite of our group, and I knew that she liked me by the way she looked at me. But what I thought about most was what it had been like to be so close to Anna, the blink of her long, dark eyelashes, her bright red lips, the smell of strawberries. On our way back to the hotel at the start of our first week of camp we’d got caught in a storm. We’d huddled close under the awning of a deli and Anna kissed me and it’d been hot and fast. I’d wanted to be able to kiss her again but she seemed to forget all about the moment, and then it was too late.

  “Yeah, it’s me,” I said to Felicity now, closing the distance fast. Fifty yards, thirty, ten.

  I reached out with my hand, but instead she came in and hugged me. We stayed like that and laughed nervously at the simple joy of it all; a couple of survivors coming together. When she let go of me, she kept a hand on my arm as if I’d run away or disappear given the chance.

  She was cold but her breath was warm against my neck. She stood back and I saw she had tears in her eyes. Her eyelashes held the wetness, her blond hair peeking out from under a knitted hat that held frost. Her smile was unbelievable. “And that’s my dad’s hat you’re wearing.”

  “Sorry.” I reached for the woolen hat I’d put over the Yankees cap.

  “No, it’s cool; it’s yours now.”

  “Thanks.”

  She beamed.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get here sooner.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean how I’ve not showed up here these past few—”

  “Serious?”

  “What?”

  “Me neither!” she said, excited, her hands on mine. “This is my first! I went back home last night for the first time since I’d left—then I saw your note!”

  “So you . . . you just got my message?” I was relieved; I hadn’t let her down. The orange sunlight that bounced off the glass peaks of partly destroyed tower blocks was in stark contrast to a sky heavy with clouds. Powder snow began to fall and there was nothing but silence around us, two insignificant specks at the bottom of an abyss.

  “When did you leave it?” Felicity asked.

  I had to think about it. “Three days ago?”

  “God, I was afraid of that!” she said. “I thought it might have been straight after I’d left!”

  “I tried to find you in the park the day I found your video, but it was empty—that group were gone. And I felt sick coming here today, thinking I’d missed you.”

  “I must have just missed you at the park earlier that day,” she said. “I saw that group of infected people standing around the fire and drinking from bottles—”

  “Chasers, we call them.”

  She frowned and looked excited in the same moment. “Who’s ‘we’?”

  It wasn’t the time to talk about Anna, Mini, and Dave, so I told her about Rachel and Caleb.

  “You’re lucky,” she said, “to have found
people already. As for the Chasers, we must have seen that same group at different times.”

  “I know,” I said. “So, I saw them right before you did, then you left that message and headed back out.”

  She nodded, still holding onto my hands. Hers were smaller, softer, warmer, even through gloves.

  “Where have you been?”

  “Trying to find other survivors,” she said, “a way to escape this place.”

  “And?”

  “I’ve been going out every day since, working my way from home to the Hudson, across through Midtown to the East River . . . I was trying to follow the water, to find a way out, but those people . . . were everywhere, sometimes chasing after me.”

  “You outran them?”

  “I hid. I was so freaked out. Yesterday I stayed hidden from them in a café, one I used to go to all the time—they had the best doughnuts. I stayed there all night, in the basement. Before that I went to a couple of places I thought might be refuges . . . I was walking back to my apartment, I’d almost given up hope of finding someone, but then I came back and found your note.”

  I nodded. I could see how frightened she’d been all this time; just like me. Stronger than me, if I really thought about it. She looked at me and we seemed to share a moment: Where do we begin?

  The snow picked up, a luminous dusting in the hidden sun’s glow.

  “Let’s go inside someplace,” I said. She nodded, smiled, and I knew then that I’d follow her anywhere. Question was, would she follow me?

  23

  I led us into the bakery I’d gone into the week before to escape from the Chasers. Inside, away from the breeze and the snow, it was warmer, and Felicity took off her scarf and sat at the counter. Everything looked as I’d seen it last, the counters and floor covered in ash and dust, the glass-fronted fridges filled with bottled drinks, the enclosed display cabinets full of moldy breads and cakes.