PJ tapped his thumbs on his cell phone keypad. Then, putting the phone to his ear, he once again said a prayer that his call would be answered. After two rings, he gratefully heard his father’s voice.
“PJ?”
“Hi Dad. I’m just calling to see if you and mom are still all right. I… I really miss the two of you.”
“We miss you PJ,” his dad said sadly. “When are you coming home?”
“I don’t know Dad,” PJ admitted. “We discussed it yesterday and we all want to try to get back to New Jersey. But I just don’t know how were going to do it.”
“There’s nothing running?” asked his father.
“No, Dad,” said PJ impatiently, “nothing is running anymore.” Quickly toning down his voice, he continued, “We were thinking about some of the small piers along the Hudson River. Maybe there’s a boat or something. We could sail across, then find a car that we could use.”
“That could work,” his father said. “Although it might be very dangerous.”
Smirking, PJ said, “Going out in your yard is dangerous now.”
There was a brief lull in conversation, so PJ asked, “How are you and mom doing on food?”
Sitting down in his easy chair, his father said, “After Jerry Goldsmith left, he gave us the key to his house. He said we could have anything inside that we needed. Just look after it he said. We took all of the food and water that he had and completely emptied his refrigerator. But that’s almost gone now. Son, I’m ashamed to say it, but yesterday, I broke into Ray Moore’s house.”
“What?” said PJ.
“They took him away because he had the Pandora virus,” Thomas Jordan explained. “I… we needed more food. I know he’s not coming back and we have to eat.”
“Dad, Dad,” said PJ, “it’s okay. I understand. It’s all right. We did the same thing here. Hell, I bet everybody’s doing the same thing. As a matter fact, you should go to the Palumbo’s, the Hanek’s and the Brown’s, also. Take what you can before somebody else does.”
“There are a lot more of those things out there today,” said his father Thomas.
“Why? What happened?”
“You know that young couple that moved down the street a year ago?” Thomas asked. “Well, they took his wife away during the quarantine and he really never got over that. She was pregnant.”
“Oh, Jeez, that’s terrible,” said PJ.
“Yes, it was,” agreed his father. “Yesterday, I guess he just couldn’t take it anymore. He went out on his deck in the backyard. It was late afternoon and he was very drunk. He had his music blaring so loudly and was singing and crying at the top of his lungs. Keith Myers, from down the street, went outside as did I. We were scared. Keith walked toward his house and yelled for him to be quiet. But he started shouting and swearing. God, he was so drunk he could hardly stand. Then, all of this moaning started. It seemed to come from everywhere. I thought I could see figures moving and quickly ran inside. So did Keith. As I watched, these creatures appeared. They came from yards, other streets and from around houses. And they all… all headed straight for that young man’s house. By now their moans had turned ugly. Like snarling. They just converged on that house. I… I could still hear him cursing and yelling on his deck. Then, he started screaming. There was a lot of crashing and then the music stopped. By then, so did the screaming.
“But they’re still here, PJ. Not nearly as many as then, but enough. I can’t walk out the door without being seen.”
“Can you use the backyards?” asked PJ very softly.
His father laughed humorlessly, “Son, I’m not a kid anymore. There are fences. I’m fifty-six years old.”
“That’s not old,” PJ protested.
“Too old to be an action hero,” his father said gently. “And with my old football knee? Ha! I won’t be jumping over anything, let alone a series of five foot fences. I’m afraid I’ll just have to wait them out. We still have some food left. We’ll ration.”
“Dad, I’ll try to be home as quickly as I can.”
“You just be careful, son,” Thomas Jordan said. “I don’t want you to be taking any foolish risks that you don’t have to. Okay? Now your mother just turned the lights on. It’s getting dark and we’re going to have a late dinner. I’ll talk to you. Be safe.”
“Okay, Dad,” PJ said sadly, “you be safe, too.” His father hung up as PJ belatedly gushed out, “I love you, Dad” into the receiver, unheard.
Lying back on the quilt, PJ put his arm over his face and cried.
“Okay, thanks Amy,” said Rick as he stepped into the hallway from her apartment. He just traded a can of peaches for a can of pineapple. It’s not that he didn’t like peaches; it’s just that he loved pineapple. What he really loved was fresh pineapple, but those days are gone now. Rick had just grabbed the doorknob to Israel’s apartment (he really couldn’t call it his) when the dim lights in the hall suddenly went out. He quickly opened the door as Eileen said,
“Rick, what happened to the lights?”
Running to the front bay windows, he banged and scraped his shin on the coffee table. “Shit,” he groaned as he hobbled over to the window. No matter where he looked, everything was black. Eileen came up beside him.
“Is it us or is this all over?” she asked, worried.
He couldn’t see anybody outside, so he exited the apartment and carefully unlocked and opened the front entry door. Stepping outside he looked down the block in both directions. Rick was shocked at how complete the darkness was. It was obvious that this blackout was very widespread. Rick couldn’t see any glow in the sky no matter which direction or how far he looked. I’ll bet this covers a couple of states, he thought.
Walking back inside, he met Amy and Nemeeka in the vestibule.
“Power outage,” Nemeeka stated.
“I think this is a blackout that is at least two or three states wide,” spoke Rick. Eileen then entered the hall.
“With things being what they are,” said Amy, “if this is a blackout, then the power isn’t going to come back on.”
Nodding his head thoughtfully, Rick said, “This puts a whole different spin on things. Things are going to get real ugly now.”
“Things are ugly now,” said Eileen.
“Yes,” he replied, “but now we’re going to see a very different kind of ugly. Now it’s not just the zombies, but people were going to have to watch out for. More than ever.”
Footsteps came down the stairs and the rest of the concerned tenants congregated in front of the door.
“It’s a big blackout, isn’t it?” PJ asked knowingly. Getting the confirming nods he expected, PJ continued his thought. “We are going to have to eat all of the food out of our refrigerators first,” he stated. “With no electricity it’s all going to start going bad. After that…no more fresh produce, meats, cheese, milk, anything. Only canned food. Even crackers and cookies will get stale sitting on the shelves. And forget breads. Whatever we have now will be it. In a couple of weeks, they’ll all have green mold.”
Seeing Mora staring at him, PJ smiled at her and said, “See Mora, and you thought all of this geek stuff I read was all bullshit. Who’s Mr. Survivalist now?”
Shaking her head and grinning, she said, “Okay, Rambo. You sure you didn’t get that from watching the cooking channel? Or should I be calling you Rachael Ray?”
Everyone chuckled at PJs expense, until a moaning started from somewhere. The group quickly ran back inside the front door. All of the tenants wandered fearfully back to their apartments. The congenital fear of darkness ramped up everyone’s paranoia. Now, sitting in the darkened rooms with perhaps only a candle to brighten the pervasive gloom, they all huddled together jumping at the slightest sound. Was that the creak of a 100-year-old building or is it some shambling form with hunger in its eyes creeping up in the dark? This was the start of many a long night.
As Rick turned to go, PJ caught his arm. “We have to talk,” he whispered conspirato
rially.
Guiding him and Mora into their apartment, Rick and Eileen gestured for them to sit as they themselves plopped down on the living room sofa.
“What’s up?” Rick asked puzzled.
Pausing for a second to form his thoughts, PJ began, “Rick, I can’t stay here.” Rick frowned and opened his mouth to speak.
“Hear me out,” continued PJ. “It’s my parents. They’re having a very hard time with this Pandora thing. I really don’t think that they have the mindset to survive this horrible apocalypse. They’re not going to make it on their own. They need me. And they need me now.”
PJ reached for Mora’s hand. “Mora and I have talked about this and she wants to come back with me.” Hesitating, he said, “We don’t live here. This is not our home. Amy and Nemeeka have been wonderful. They really saved our lives. But… it’s time for us to go.”
Rick looked at PJ as he spoke and could see how much he really needed to do this. He didn’t blame him one bit. And he was right. This wasn’t their home. They were both living in dead people’s apartments. Looking at Eileen who shrugged slightly and nodded, he turned back to his friend.
With a slight smile, Rick nodded and said softly, “Okay. You’re right. We should be trying to reach our homes. Let’s not overstay our welcome.”
“No one likes guests who don’t know when to go home,” PJ said smiling with relief and gratitude.
Mora turned to her overjoyed boyfriend and barely containing her laughter said, “And this coming from the guy who is always the last freakin’ guy to leave any party. Really?”
PJ hugging Mora and happily fist bumped his best friend. He had a great feeling about this. PJ felt like the cavalry coming to save his folks.
Jermaine just took the final puff of his last cigarette. Holding the precious smoke in his lungs, he wanted to savor the last one. That is, until the lights went out.
From his vantage point on top of the terminal roof, he could see the entire skyline of New York and also the opposite shore of New Jersey. The last of the sun was burnt out and all of the oranges and pinks had turned to a purple streak on the horizon. Just then, as he watched the color fading and the darkness starting to settle, all of the lights in New Jersey winked out. It took several seconds as it seemed to happen in blocks of light. First one section went black, then the one next to it, until all was dark.
Sitting up in panic, Jermaine jerked his head around just says the exact same phenomenon began in New York City. All of the bright lights that were glowing just blinked off. Every last one. Until no matter where he looked, complete blackness had seemed to swallow the world. The darkening sky and its reflection on the river with the brightest things he saw.
Stunned at the totality of the darkness, Jermaine could only mumble, “Oh my God.”
He heard the ladder near him rattle. Austin, Jeff and Leslie climbed up to look.
“Holy shit!”an amazed Austin gasped. The four soldiers stood there like little children, their mouths agape, turning this way and that, not believing what they were looking at.
Leslie finally said, “Let’s go down and have a look through the front gates.”
They carefully climbed down the ladder from the roof and hurried over to the steel gate still intact in front. In the four weeks they had been stuck in the empty quarantine zone, the number of agitated undead in front had dwindled. The soldiers kept a low profile and stayed quiet and out of sight. At last the zombies started to lose interest and wander away from their noisy sentinel at the gate. Now they were all gone. When the zombies had no stimulus, they either roamed the streets ambling aimlessly or they kind of stayed in one small area as if waiting or daydreaming. That is, until the moaning or snarling of other creatures started. Then, they all turned toward the zombie clarion call and started moving toward the origin of the sound. They had a similar reaction to any noise that caught their attention. At first, they picked their head up and waited. If they heard more noises they would wander over toward it, making this low growling noise. The ones that had turned at the beginning of the mutation had lost their speed and agility, such as it was. Now they awkwardly shambled about. A lumbering and graceless quickened walk was the best they were capable of mustering. The problem was that once one of them seemed to sense prey, his vocalizations caught the attention of any undead around him. These then picked up the call and before long a pack of zombies were after you. And, as long as they were aware of you, they pursued. They never tired, never slept and never stopped. The undead perhaps wouldn’t win the fifty yard dash, but they damn sure would win the marathon. If you slowed, they gained. And they did so, until you collapsed in exhaustion, unable to take another step. And then…they killed you.
Nearing the gate, they slowed and checked for any lingering undead. There were none. Walking up they looked of all along 12th Avenue as far as they could see in both directions. With the lack of lights, it was already too dark to make out much detail. The most incongruous sight was the dark traffic signals hanging mute in the uselessness.
Looking very uncomfortable, Austin said, “It looks like were back in the Dark Ages.”
At that moment they could see a lone helicopter circling the city. It looked like one of the Pave Hawks. After taking a couple of lazy circles over the darkened city, it flew back south to where it had come from. They had seen the birds flying over a number of times during the ensuing weeks. Most of the flights had looked like what must have been reconnaissance missions. A couple of times, though, the bird would drop below beneath the buildings. Sometimes there was machine-gun chatter, sometimes not. Austin didn’t know if they were looking for any survivors or not, but they never drew close enough to them to make a sighting.
“Where do you think that bird is coming from?” asked Jeff.
“With all that shooting we heard a couple of weeks ago,” Leslie pointed out, “I doubt it’s Battery Park.”
“Roger that,” said Jermaine, “but where did they go? It has to be somewhere close though. They wouldn’t have completely left. Would they?”
Austin shook his head, “No. Not if they’re doing so many flyovers.”
“Where do you think they went?” asked Jermaine.
“Could’ve gone to Jersey,” Leslie said, “it’s right over the river. Or Brooklyn. They’re both in that direction.”
“I doubt it,” mused Austin. “Brooklyn is still too crowded. Too many zombies there also. Jersey? I don’t know.”
Jeff looked over and said, “Well, they could’ve moved to Liberty Park in Jersey City. They got a lot of area there.”
“True,” said Jermaine, “but they would still need to fence the entire park in to prevent the zombies from overwhelming the area like they probably did in Battery Park. There’d never be able to accomplish that. Not now.”
“Maybe they retreated to one of the islands?” pondered Leslie.
Snorting humorously, Jeff barked out, “Yeah, the Bahamas or Antigua.”
Austin grinned, too. “That’s where I’d go.”
“No guys,” Leslie insisted, “I mean like Liberty Island, Governors Island or Ellis Island. No zombies there.”
“She’s right,” said Jermaine, nodding rapidly in agreement. “That would be perfect.”
Austin stood in thought. Scratching his unshaven chin, he said, “With New York in a blackout that will last for who knows how long, you do realize that they’re not coming back to Manhattan, or anywhere else until the power is back on.”
“Why not?” asked Jeff.
Smiling grimly, Austin stated, “With all of the apartment buildings, tenements and brownstones here, the only way to eliminate the undead is by a house to house, or apartment by apartment search. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t want to be in a dark, unlit building trying to find if there were any zombies inside. You’re not gonna be able to see shit in there.”
Everyone looked on glumly as they visualized that nightmare scenario. Pausing for that reality to sink in, Austin then said, “
Which begs the question… what are we going to do?”
As they all looked at each other in question, Austin snapped his fingers in realization.
“Hey,” he said, “I wonder if there are any more boats anchored at the piers? If so, perhaps we can take one. Sail to wherever the rest of the Army is stationed. Or even New Jersey.”
Jermaine looked at him. “Sail it?” he laughed. “What are you, a pirate? Where the fuck did you learn to sail? What did you do… binge watch the Pirates of the Caribbean series?”
Jeff joined in chortling, “Avast there, matey. Har, har, har.”
Chuckling along with them, Leslie said, “I had an old boyfriend that had a boat docked in the Marina uptown. We used to go out on weekends. There were a bunch of private boats docked there.”
“Think you’ll be any boats left unused?” Austin wandered.
If the owners are dead, probably,” she answered.
“Listen,” Austin said, looking at the rest of them in excitement, “what if we went back and fixed the tire on the Humvee we left. If the zombies have thinned out enough, we could change the tire and then vamoose out of there before they could swarm us. This way, if there aren’t any boats left, we be could still have wheels and protection to go somewhere else. Maybe try to reach the George Washington Bridge.”
“I like it,” grinned Jeff.
Looking at the nodding heads around him, Austin said, “Okay! Tomorrow morning we’ll go to the vehicle, fix the tire and go.” Jermaine and Leslie high-fived. “Done deal,” he said.
When Rick and PJ told Amy and Nemeeka of their decision to leave the next morning, Amy suggested having a tenant meeting. The two guys shrugged and said okay. A half hour later everyone in the building was inside Amy and Nemeeka’s living room. Rick had just finished explaining his group’s coming departure.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” asked Kelvin.
“Yes,” said Rick. “We have to get back to our families.”
Eileen, who was seated next to him added, “You know, if anybody feels uncomfortable about staying in the city, you’re more than welcome to come with us. Strength in numbers, so to speak.”
Quarantine: A Pandora Novel Page 15
