Jessie moved closer and stared for long moments. It was little, surprisingly little, for being such a famous image known around the world. It wasn’t much bigger than a laptop computer, it would easily fit in his backpack. She was encased in thick glass and solidly affixed to the floor but he could see how to unbolt the two pieces to get the painting out. It shouldn’t be hard to find some tools. He took her in as the soft afternoon light filtered through the dome. He stared at the smile, her enigmatic little smile that made her look like she was getting ready to laugh or maybe she was hiding a secret. It was an elusive smile that might disappear in an instant or slowly spread across her face. He tried to remember Scarlet smiling like that, small and quiet. Secretive and serene.
He couldn’t. It was her eyes that he remembered most. Those fathomless emerald eyes. Her smiles were fast and bright and her laughter was contagious. She giggled and snorted and guffawed but she didn’t smile small. Everything she did was big like her heart.
Jessie dropped his pack to the floor and sat heavily in the chair, his knees almost buckling. He leaned back, considered the woman in the portrait and wondered how he had been so wrong for so long. It was Maddy. It was her hesitant and unsure smile.
He sighed heavily. He screwed up everything he touched. It all started with Gary and Sheila, his friends from school he’d gotten killed. They were the first in a long line of mistakes he’d made. He didn’t remember the good he’d done, the lives he’d saved. Their faces didn’t haunt him. The ones he’d failed did. Maddy was just the latest. Once he stopped blocking them, once he allowed the thoughts to form, the memories rushed in.
He’d been so obsessed with getting back he hadn’t considered her as anything but a machine, a piece of equipment to be used to help him. Sometimes she got him to slow down, take a break from the jumps but his mind was rarely with her, he was obsessing on getting back, on trying again. He hadn’t considered what it had been like for her as she waited for centuries to only see him for a few hours. Tiny snatches of barely remembered instances surfaced. Her running cool fingers over his forehead after terrible dreams. Kneading his shoulders after a failed jump and telling him he could do it; he would succeed. Rushing him to the medical tank when he came back with broken bones or a spear through his belly. She always made his favorite foods and he would repay her kindness by snapping at her when he was angry at himself. He had told her you’re not Scarlet and pushed her away more than once. Had her hesitant smile been masking pain?
When had he started confusing the two? When did missing one girl slip over into missing another?
After you sent him back. He told himself. When they were together and she was irretrievably lost to you.
He shook himself out of a waking doze when he heard the faint squeak of shoes and tapping of a staff on the marble. He made sure his guns were easy to reach but didn’t bother moving. The light had faded, the room was in shadows and he had so much self-loathing roiling through him he wasn’t even sure he would fight back. The blackness was threatening to swallow him again.
“Beautiful, isn’t she?” and old man said as he came in to the room, made his way up beside the chair and rested both hands on his cane.
“She is.” Jessie said and they both stared at the painting in the waning light.
“You know, people used to leave her offerings. Flowers and letters, little trinkets, things like that.” The man said. “For a time, it was fashionable for women to pluck their eyebrows to be more like her, you notice she has none. Men have killed themselves for her, committed suicide on a few occasions.”
Jessie said nothing.
“We can offer you dinner and a bed if you don’t want to go back to your boat.” He said after a time.
“That’s kind of you.” Jessie said and looked over at the man. “But I could be someone dangerous.”
The old man chuckled, his bushy white mustache quivering.
“Yes, Mr. Meadows. I imagine you could be.”
“Don’t look so shocked.” He continued. “We recognized you when you crossed Broadway. We have radios and Radio Lakota comes in pretty good after eight o’clock. The Tower station is hit or miss though, depends on cloud cover. If you could get a message to them, we’d appreciate it you asked them to play the football games late at night.”
“I wasn’t expecting to find any survivors.” Jessie said. “We thought everyone was dead.”
“Most of us are.” He said. “By the way, I’m Jonathon Harrison. I was a custodian here before things fell apart.”
“Did he come to steal it?” a woman’s voice asked from the hallway as she peeked around the corner.
“Not sure, Maude. We were still having pleasantries. Come on out and say hello and you can ask him yourself.”
An older woman wearing a flower print dress came out from behind the heavy velvet curtains and nodded a curt hello.
“Maude Harrison.” She said and dared the old man to say different. They had been together for a year and a half, had known each other in the biblical sense and as far as she was concerned, they were husband and wife.
“Well, are you?” she demanded. “If you are, and I don’t think you should, but if you are then you absolutely need to take the stand and keep it inside. It protects it from the air and sunlight. If you just hang it up willy nilly on your wall it’ll be ruined in a year. You’ll destroy one of the greatest works of art and all for nothing, for a little vanity just to say you own it. It doesn’t belong to one man, I say. It belongs to the people.”
“I’m not taking it.” Jessie said holding up both hands to slow her down. “I didn’t know she had protectors and guardians and she’s not who I thought she was anyway.”
Maude was just getting warmed up and stood with her mouth open, ready to continue her admonishments but realized what he’d said.
“You’re not taking it?”
“No.” Jessie said. “I’m not taking it.”
She frowned and started in again. “But others will. If you go back and tell everyone how easy it was to waltz right in here, those retrievers will be lining up to steal everything that isn’t nailed down. That’s not fair. We worked hard to make Manhattan safe to move around in. It took us years of careful work to hem them all in on the circle and now unscrupulous men will destroy everything we’ve preserved.”
“I won’t tell anyone.” Jessie said. “Nobody knows I’m here, I’m not on a job. I came on my own. In fact, I’ll tell everyone I failed, it was too dangerous and massive hordes of zeds are everywhere.”
“You would do that?” she asked.
“Yes.” he said. “If it will get you to calm down and stop wagging that finger at me.”
Her eyes narrowed at his flippant attitude, not unlike some of the unrulier students she’d taught, but shot over to Jonathon when he couldn’t control his snorting laughter.
“Fine.” She said primly. “Thank you. We have worked diligently to preserve what we can.”
“You’ve done a fine job.” Jessie said. “I’m not taking anything and if you need my help before I go, I’d be happy to lend a hand.”
“Honestly?” she asked. “Good. We need some goats.”
44
New York
Dinner was fish from the Jackie Onassis reservoir, the hundred-acre lake at the north end of the park, vegetables from a greenhouse and fresh salad from the garden. Thirty or forty others joined them, added their own food to the table and the impromptu party kicked off when dozens of bottles of wine were brought out. They were three stories below ground and had experimented with what they could and couldn’t do in the new zombie filled world. Music cranked to nearly deafening levels couldn’t be heard outside the building so they weren’t concerned about conversation and a little Chopin coming from the speakers. They were safe and secure in the cozy little world they had spent a year putting together and were happy to share what they had accomplished with the Road Angel.
After the first days of chaos frightened survivors hid in
their apartments for weeks. When food and water ran out, some tentatively went to neighbors’ doors, the ones where nothing screeched and tore at the other side when they knocked. Many more were trapped by crowds milling in the hallway, just outside their door and waiting for them to get desperate enough to open it. Months passed and the wandering masses congregated into giant hordes that moved aimlessly down the roads. Many used the massing of the dead as a chance to escape, take any boat or raft they could cobble together. If for any reason the hordes broke up again every street would have them shuffling up and down and they might not get another chance. Some formed small groups and made their away across the bridges, hoping to sneak past unnoticed. None were ever heard from again.
There were nine enormous hundred thousand strong mobs wandering Manhattan. They had the one slowly circling Central Park mostly contained, the others in the different boroughs wandered at will. Those that remained learned to prop open apartment building doors, call to the infected then run. One by one they cleared the halls and stairs of buildings they wanted to sift through for supplies. If they timed it right and had lookouts checking for strays, they could move cars to block streets and channel the dead onto an endless loop that circled Manhattan. They slowly eliminated the crawlers and once they had the road blocks in place, they could set their watch by the circling horde. It was fairly safe to make a little noise breaking down doors when they were miles away. By cutting through Central Park, they could stay hours ahead of the horde. As long as they didn’t get spotted. If they did then all bets were off. It took days for them to settle down and get back into the slow shuffle around the city. Their improvised barriers wouldn’t stop a mob in a frenzy but if they didn’t get riled up, they trudged along the path as regular as clockwork.
They had gotten pretty good at not getting them riled up.
The New Yorkers were an eclectic group that had learned to survive and do it quite nicely. They lived in various places but mostly in the luxury apartments of the Upper East Side. Like everyone else, they had rigged up bicycles to spin alternators and charge batteries. There were rope bridges strung between buildings and they had escape routes for their escape routes if things got dicey and the hordes didn’t behave like they were supposed to. Food and drink were plentiful and it was hard for him to stay in a melancholy mood with the beautiful surroundings, the music, laughter and smiles all around him.
There had been nearly two million people living on the island and there were countless restaurants and bars. They had fresh fish whenever they wanted, green houses at the conservatory and gardens in Central Park. They didn’t look forward to winter but there was a lot of New York that was deep underground and the temperatures stayed constant. The worst was over, they hadn’t lost anyone to the undead since early spring when the Bronstein brothers had gotten over confident and careless. They preserved the treasures and art of New York so they would still be there for generations to come. The undead wouldn’t last forever. It would only take a few more harsh winters and a few more years of the rats constantly gnawing on them before they would no longer be a problem.
“We don’t want a bunch of outsiders coming in here and taking everything.” A young Hasidic man with a long beard said when he cornered Jessie at the hors d’oeuvres table. “If they want to move here and help us preserve the heritage, that’s fine. We need all the assistance we can get. We just don’t want them stripping us bare, stealing whatever they want. The Nazi’s did that and some of what they stole has never been recovered.”
“He understands, Jacob.” Maude said, shooed him away then steered Jessie over to a group of women, some of them pregnant.
“Here he is ladies.” She beamed and pushed him forward a little. “Isn’t it wonderful?”
They thanked him and wanted to shake his hands, hold them and tell them how much they appreciated what he was doing. Jessie was a little confused, he wasn’t doing anything other than spreading a few rumors about how impossible it was to get to New York.
“It make all de difference in de world.” A Jamaican woman said as she stroked her extended belly. “My mutta raised me on de goat milk, much betta than cow.”
“Do you think you could get us some chickens also?” A bohemian woman asked. “It would be so nice to have big eggs again. What the pigeons lay is so small.”
“That’s the truth.” Maria chimed in. “Manny can eat a dozen of them all by himself and he’s only ten.”
They looked at him expectantly and all he could do was smile his crooked smile and agree. Of course, yes, he could get them a few chickens when he brought the goats. How hard could it be?
Pretty damn hard, as it turned out.
Jessie spent days sailing back up stream to where he’d left his car then a few more searching for a suitable truck he could get running. He hadn’t planned on going back to Iona island and was glad he’d parked it a few miles south of them. Natalie was in a safe place, her and Jeremy were probably already an item and it might be a little awkward to see Wallace again. It wasn’t the same as Sandy, she didn’t hate him and want to throw beer in his face but they’d both been vulnerable that day on the boat. They had both needed something from each other but the moment was gone. She’d been friendly the next morning, had made them breakfast and it wasn’t awkward but she didn’t seem to be in a mood for round two. They kept the rest of the trip strictly business and she disappeared shortly after they’d unloaded.
He heard them as they approached, knew there was no use trying to hide because his car was in plain sight. He quickly stashed the tire pump and dashed for the house, pretending like he was just coming out of it as their horses clomped up the driveway. He doubted he could come up with a plausible excuse for trying to get an old plumber’s van running.
“Hey!” Natalie yelled when she saw him and slid off her horse. “You left me! Why did you do this? Don’t we make a good team?”
“Um, I thought you liked it there.” Jessie said and tried to hide his embarrassment at getting caught. He should have known he was close enough in for the roving patrols.
“I thought you had a thing for what’s his name, Jeremy.”
“No.” she said and her face soured. “He has too many hands.”
Wallace grinned down from her saddle at Jessie’s questioning look. She made kissy faces, mimed someone getting punched in the face and everyone else started laughing.
“Not funny.” Natty said, her face angry, obviously still miffed that a boy would start touching her and not stop until she made him.
Jessie laughed along with them but pulled her into a hug and ruffled her hair to take the sting out of it.
“I’m not going back.” She announced. “I’m going with Jessie.”
“If you’re looking for supplies, we’ve cleaned out these houses.” One of the soldiers said.
“I noticed.” Jessie said.
“If you come back to the island, we can load you up.” Wallace offered. “We never did thank you properly for your help. You were gone before we knew it.”
They made a late lunch of it, sharing what they had and Wallace asked if he’d had any luck.
“Natalie said you needed some component for your power plant in Lakota, were you able to find it? Will it fit?”
“Um, no.” Jessie said, thankful for her small lie. “Manhattan is impossible. There’s a million dead roaming around.”
No amount of cajoling could change Natty’s mind and he didn’t want to flat out tell her she couldn’t come. She lightened his mood and he could really use a little sunshine in his life. The moment of clarity in the museum had helped him remember things he’d forgotten or buried. Some of them never happened, not really. Not in this timeline. Scarlet hadn’t died a dozen times over, He hadn’t found her too late every time, none of that happened. The memories of Maddy were all true, though. All of them had happened. None of them were false. Besides, he’d gotten used to Natty’s nonstop prattling on about anything and everything. Lakota would be a better place for h
er anyway.
“So where to now?” She asked after they said their goodbyes and settled into the Merc. “We’re not really going to New Jersey, are we?”
“Maybe.” Jessie said “I need to find some goats but we need to clear out of Iona’s patrol territory first. I wanted to take that van but I guess we’ll use the car. We can get four or five in the back seat.”
It took a lot more explaining but she got excited and started pointing out likely places.
They stayed on the back roads and stopped at small farms and every time she was sure this one would be the one. They found trapped zombies, feral pigs and some grazing cows but goats were in short supply. The problem he was having in the heavily populated state was there wasn’t much isolated country. Houses were close together; it was unheard of to drive a half hour without seeing another building like he did in the Midwest. A trail of undead followed them and when they stopped, sometimes they caught up. Once Jessie had managed to corner a chicken in a shed but had to let it go and draw his guns when a bunch of the deaders managed to get between them and the car.
They moved on, kept to the rural areas and blasted through towns at eighty miles an hour when they couldn’t avoid them. He was getting frustrated at their lack of progress and the farther away they got the grumpier he became. It was hard to stay mad though when Natty read stupid knock knock jokes from a book or made him hold out his shifting hand so she could practice with the nail polish she’d found.
“There!” he said and pointed, ruining the perfect pink outline she’d been doing on the blue fingernail.
The Billy Goats Gruff Caprine Emporium was jauntily painted on a wooden sign with an arrow pointing down a long driveway.
Got Goat? It asked then above the arrow Goat Cheese, Goat Soap, Goat Butter, Goat Milk
“Finally.” Jessie said and cut the wheel. “Figures we’d have to go all the way to Pennsylvania to find a damn goat.”
Zombie Road | Book 8 | Crossroads of Chaos Page 30
