by Steve Wands
“Just stop it, okay?” Keith said, growing angry with the young woman. “It’s not fucking fair, we get it. We know it. Just deal with it okay?”
“Someone will come looking for us,” Davis said, “there has to be someone left. There has to be…”
36 THROUGH THE WRECKAGE
(back to top)
“Okay, kids,” Scott said, “This is the part where you need to be big and strong, okay? We need you to stick together and stay close. Don’t go running off, don’t touch anything, understand?”
They nodded in unison. They understood the drill, or at least the speech, but listening and doing what they were asked of were usually very different things.
Alexis took Stacey by the hand. Janice held Yussef’s. Abdul kept Chris on his shoulders. Judy, Dawn, and Jon-Jon agreed to look after Leela and Nick. Jon-Jon walked behind them while Judy took Nick’s hand, and Dawn took Leela’s. In Leela’s other hand she still clung to her small stuffed lion.
Chuck and Chung-Hee continued to stay at the tail end of the group, while Frankie, Eddie, and Joseph led them forward.
“Hang back a little,” Eddie called back as they approached the tollbooths.
The three of them walked forward cautiously, observing every open door and blood trail on the way to the cash only lane. The windows of the booths were all smeared in blood and the waning sunlight made it look like liquid rust.
Frankie stepped ahead in eager fashion, hoping to find something to hit. Eddie stuck close, but knew it best to stay two steps behind and make sure there weren’t any surprises to be had by speeding up.
They were now at the coin toss and all was quiet. The amount of abandoned cars was staggering and the scene before them was surreal and disconcerting. It reminded them of how quickly the world turned to shit in those first few days. Walking through the aftermath painted a detailed picture for them. A picture so clear they could almost hear the screams and cries of panic and pain twisting and crashing and burning like so much rubber and steel on the blood soaked asphalt.
Joseph waived the group to come forward—Abdul led them, being careful to check his surroundings as he moved, but not so much to jostle and make nauseous his little human passenger, Chris. The tiny blond haired boy had been through so much that he appeared more like a ghost than a child. A wafer-thin boy with the haunted eyes of and old dying man. He’d gotten carsick a time or two, and didn’t do to well while eating straight from the can, so the last thing Abdul wanted was for the boy to vomit all over the both of them.
As the rest of the group started moving along, Frankie, Eddie, and Joseph moved forward once again. The bridge almost immediately began to incline.
“My legs are going to be jelly by the time we get over this bitch.”
“Yeah man, I can already feel it. Maybe we can just roll down the other side?”
“Guys,” Scott called over, “What about the boats? Can we see anything from here?” Scott asked as he hurried over to the side of the bridge.
“Let’s look.”
“Damn. They’re pretty far away,” Joseph noted.
“I figured they would’ve been closer.”
“Not at all. Shit.”
“It looks like it would take us just as much time to get to one of them as it would to cross this thing.”
As the rest of the group caught up, Jon-Jon picked up on what they were talking about and joined in, “I know the Tarrytown Marina isn’t that far once we cross over. But we’d be moving northwest to get there and that would take us away from Connetiticut.”
“It might be worth it. We can move faster on the water. We would have to go southeast around Manhattan and Long Island and then back up.”
Frankie started walking away, “First we gotta get over this fucking thing, right? So let’s get it over with.”
Eddie started moving as well, “Jon, can we see the marina from the other side of the bridge?”
“Not sure. If we can during the day, doesn’t mean it’ll be visible by the time we cross over either.”
“Yeah, daylights burning up fast. Let’s get going then.”
Frankie, Eddie, and Joseph took the lead once again, trying to move fast up the bridge while they still had sunlight.
“You hear that?”
“Yeah,” Eddie turned to the group, holding up his hand for them to wait.
They kept moving, the sound getting louder.
Skkkkurrrrtch.
Skkkkurrrrrrrtch.
Skkkkuuuuurrrrrrrtch.
Frankie held the pry-bar out to his side, half cocked and ready to swing. Eddie pulled a bat from his backpack and held it with both hands. Joseph stood at the ready with a tire iron, positioning himself to be able to move quickly in any direction.
Skkkkuuuuurrrrrrrtch.
The sound was upon them, but they couldn’t see anything. Eddie looked around inside the cars—nothing. Joseph could see nothing over them either.
“I can smell the fucker, but where is it?”
As Frankie asked the question something grabbed his ankle and pulled.
“Fuck!”
Frankie tugged away, but the slithering upper half of what was once a very heavy woman didn’t let go. Frankie fell to the ground. Eddie ran to him, tire iron held high, and smashed it into the woman’s head, smashing her face into the street.
She was wedged in between and underneath two cars that were bumper to bumper. Her intestines trailed behind her and there was no sight of her lower half. Yellow chunks of fatty tissue decorated the street around her and behind her.
Eddie hit her again as Frankie pulled his foot away. Joseph helped him get to his feet.
“One of your old girlfriends?”
“What can I say? I like ‘em big.”
Joseph smiled and patted off his back.
“She fucking stinks. Either of you hear anything else?”
They paused, listening.
“Nothing.”
Eddie waived them forward and the three of them continued to lead the way through the wreckage.
37 ENDURANCE TEST
(back to top)
Abdul was starting to sweat now. The incline of the bridge coupled with the additional forty or so pounds on his shoulders was starting to take its toll, but Abdul refused to give in to his weakness. He would push on and block out the urge to slow down or take Chris off his shoulders. He would endure, and in the end he and Chris, and even the others would be better for it. If Abdul didn’t carry the burden, someone else would have to. That was weakness. Abdul wasn’t weak.
“Close your eyes,” he told Chris as he approached the dead whale of a woman.
Chris cupped his hands around his eyes.
“Can I open them now?”
“Yes, but keep looking ahead.”
Scott held Judy’s hand and she gripped it back fiercely, “How you doing?”
“Okay,” she said. “Just absolutely terrified.”
“We’re doing good. Just stay positive.”
“I don’t want to die on this bridge. Remember when I was working in Manhattan?”
“Of course.”
“Well, I never really said anything then, but I was always afraid I’d die on my commute. It seemed like everyday there was an accident. Not usually fatal, but you know, with my anxiety I always thought it would be my turn.”
“I thought you liked commuting.”
“I hated it. The only thing I liked was being able to read on the bus, but half the time I just stared out the window biting my nails.”
“Well, you don’t work in the city anymore and we’re not going to die on this bridge, if anything I’ll throw you over the side and you can drown in the Hudson.”
“Already considered it. Suicide fencing.”
“Shit, I didn’t even notice that. Looks like we could climb it though.”
“What the hell are you guys talking about?”
“Double suicide. Want in?”
“Are you fucking serious?”
“No, actual
ly if you jumped with us, it would be a triple.”
Jon-Jon stared at them disbelievingly.
“We’re not considering it. Relax, we just noticed the fencing—in case, you know, we had to jump.”
“There’s something wrong with you two.”
“We know,” Judy smiled.
“Hey, what do you think the cause of death was with the fat lady?”
“In my expert opinion, I think she ran faster than she ever did in her life, and when she stopped, her upper half had gained so much momentum that it kept going. Essentially she ripped herself in half.”
“See what I mean? You’re twisted.”
“No, what’s twisted is that we still have yet to see her legs.”
Before the group had realized it, the fading sunlight was gone. The sky was black and blue once again, but pierced with the pinpricks of starlight, grey clouds, and the thick sliver of moon that sat in the sky, shimmering on the water.
It didn’t fully register till they were at the peak of the bridge, when the rest of their journey would be shrouded in darkness and slashed by deep obsidian shadows. There were no beacons of light. No streetlights in the distance. No lit buildings. Just darkness and dim moonlit forms.
“Let’s be careful,” Eddie said as he began to walk down the decline.
“Legs like jelly yet?”
“Not too bad, you?”
“Starting to feel it. I’ll probably collapse as soon as we can.”
“No shit. How you holding up Frank?”
“I’m jelly. Feel like my legs are wobbling.”
“Want to take a break?”
“Fuck no. We need to get off this bridge as soon as possible. The longer it takes us the longer we’re putting ourselves at a huge risk.”
Eddie understood. He didn’t want to take a break either, but if people needed to catch their breath while there was a moment to do it, he saw no reason not to oblige them.
Alexis turned to Stacey, “You okay, little lady?”
Stacey looked at her with wide terrified eyes, “I’m scared.”
“Me too, but we’ve gone through worse, right? Just hang in there. We’re almost done. Then maybe we can get on a boat. Wouldn’t that be cool?”
“I don’t know how to swim.”
“We don’t need to swim. See Chuck over there. He knows how to drive a boat, so all we have to do is find one.”
“Okay.”
Alexis and Dawn shared a look. They were both as scared as Stacey, but they knew they had to be strong for them. Janice walked with a renewed vigor. Her maternal instincts took over and she walked with Yussef, making him feel safe in her company. She let him know she was there for him and would protect him. As much as it hurt her heart to hold a child’s hand that wasn’t hers she held firm and kept repeating to herself that she’d want someone else to safeguard her children had she lost her life and not theirs.
The world had become a scary place. Scary for adults, scary for children. Jon-Jon couldn’t decide who had more to fear. He felt that at least the children were too young to really grasp the entirety of the situation. Being a child and having no parents, essentially being raised on the road by a group of strangers was an awful way to live. Realizing that humanity was on the brink of extinction, however, was an entirely different kind of awful. One that made him think if any of this even mattered.
Cancer killed his mother and father. She fought it till the bitter end. His father tried to kill himself slowly with alcohol after that, and when he was diagnosed himself many years after his wife died, he fully gave himself over to it and longed for its final embrace. He’d given some consideration as to what he would do had he ever have to face the same demon—fight like his mother, or go quietly like his father. In the end it didn’t matter. Not in any way that Jon could see. How was this world not like cancer?
38 THE CELL
(back to top)
“What time is it?”
“You don’t want to know,” Keith said.
“How long has it been?”
“We’ve been in here at least two days, now,” Davis noted.
“It doesn’t look like any of them have lost interest,” Topher said, as he looked about the room.
“I think I’m losing my fucking mind. They just keep looking at us, reaching for us…”
“Easy Keith, it’s better if you don’t look at them,” Davis suggested, keeping his eyes toward the ground.
“How can you not?”
“Just stare at the floor.”
“Oh, and the smell, and the sounds will just go away? How about the fact that we’re all going to fucking die in here? How about that Bruce?”
“There is nothing we can do about that now is there? What we can do is try to stay calm, and bide our time. Hope that someone will find us…that something will get the attention of these friggin’ things and maybe we’ll get out of here.”
“You’re asking for a lot of hope.”
“That I am, but if we don’t stay calm we’ll just end up killing ourselves in here.”
Clem looked at Davis, “Sheriff, if it came to that, do you…do you have enough bullets for all of us.”
“Clem…no…”
“It’s okay. I’m good with dying. Here is just as good as anywhere else. My soul will go on.
“Old timer, if you’re asking me what I think you’re asking me, I just don’t know if I could.”
“I’d do it. I’ll do it for any of you,” Keith said.
“Well, this conversation just got about as dark as it could get. Tell you the truth I thought about offing myself early on, before you found me Mr. Sheriff,” Topher said, recalling his days squirrelled away in his musky Control Room.
“I think we can stop calling me Sheriff, now.”
“Okay, Bruce. Well, the only reason I didn’t do it was because what was the rush? It looked like my days were numbered anyway. So I just kind of hung out, made my piece with dying and now I’m here—making piece with it all over again.”
“So what the hell are you saying?”
“What I’m saying is you can put that gun up to your chin and pull the trigger, or you can sit back and think about some of the good things you’ve had in your life and let whatever happens happen. Just let it go, if you die you die, but what’s the rush?”
“What’s the rush? Look around you?”
“Don’t look around. Think about a good moment, a good memory--”
“That’s enough just shut the fuck up already.”
“Keith, please.”
“Topher, I’ll give it a shot,” Clem said.
Too afraid to say any more Topher simply nodded at Clem and then closed his eyes. He pictured himself sitting by a fire drinking a hot chocolate. His ex-wife was sitting on his lap. She was sorry for being such a bitch.
Clem closed his eyes and thought of Lorraine.
Davis, Danni, and Keith looked around the cell. Cement walls on two sides, bars on the other, with the dead desperately trying to grasp at them from the other side with no loss of vigor and no lack of effort.
Danni tried to close her eyes and think of something good, but everything she thought about just made her hurt more.
Bruce turned to Keith, “Want to go fishing tomorrow?”
Keith smiled and closed his eyes. The water was still. Cold beers were in the cooler. The fish were biting.
39 DON’T LOOK IN THE CAR
(back to top)
There was a patch on the bridge where it looked like all the vehicles tried to move to one side of the lane and as the group took advantage of this opening by moving quickly through it, they found out why the vehicles were pushed over. An ambulance was in the distance; it’s reflective surfaces standing out in the moonlight. Its back doors were open and the front of it was smashed into another vehicle.
Frankie led them to the ambulance. They slowed on approaching it to examine the interior and after seeing the gurney covered in dried blood they moved away. The ambula
nce had caused such a jam that the group had to climb over a car in order to continue moving.
The bridge grew congested. The cars and trucks were inches apart, many bumper to bumper, and others adorned with damage from ramming into each other.
There were noises in the distance that sounded like gunfire. Single shots with a steady pace, like someone with a rifle.
“Think that’s a sniper?” Jon asked.
“Could be. Could be a hunter.”
“I can’t tell where it’s coming from.”
“Could be anywhere.”
“Maybe it’s good for us, if someone is shooting, don’t you think?”
“I was just thinking that. If anything is nearby, maybe the sounds would draw attention away from us.”
Frankie ran his fingers along the cars. Feeling the cool steel on his fingertips.
Thump.
Frankie jumped.
“What? What is it?”
Thump.
“A noise…”
Thump.
Joseph signaled for the others to hold up. Eddie and Frankie tried to pinpoint the sound. It was coming from inside one of the cars.
“There’s got to be one of them trapped inside a car.”
“Poor bastard.”
“Fuck them.”
Thump.
“There. It’s got to be one of these.”
Thump.
Frankie peered into a car.
Thump.
He had the right car. He could hear the thumping as clear as day, but he didn’t see anything. It was dark inside, and the windows were smeared with blood and grime.
Thump.
“See anything?”
He did. His eyes found what was making the sound and he wished he didn’t. He wished they never even gave it a thought. “Wish I didn’t man. Don’t look--”
Too late. Eddie began to wretch, throwing up the canned food he fought so hard to gulp down to begin with. It was warmer going out than it was going in.
“Fuck man. That’s horrible. That’s so fucking horrible,” he said, wiping the spit from his lip.
