Quarantine

by James Phelan

  “I’m sorry,” Paige said, reading from the pad those two words that her stepmother had written, and since we’d bonded over this, since it had been such an intimate session of storytelling, we all felt it hit home.

  6

  Sensing that Paige and her stepmother needed to be alone to reflect on the people they’d loved and lost, to say nothing of the new facts I’d burdened them with, I headed up to the top level of the complex.

  Everyone in this place had work to do; they’d settled in for the long haul. They had formed into groups, little cells designed to accomplish tasks or else just to hang around with, seek companionship and consolation. Each had their delegated tasks down pat, and I felt pretty useless being the new kid on the block. People seemed content—happy even—doing their jobs. Did I want to feel that, as long as I was here? Doing something each day to merely survive? Hadn’t I had enough of all that? Even back in the pre-attack world, I knew that, no matter what, when I finished high school I was not going to embark on a career where I “lived to work” like that. I mean, where was the freedom, the choice, in such an existence? If I was going to do such work all day, every day, I’d much rather do it back at the Central Park Zoo with Rachel and Felicity. They had more on their plate than merely seeing out each new day; they had many mouths to feed, living creatures that needed their help, a purpose that transcended selfishness.

  Bob was up on the roof, doing a final security sweep of the area while the sun was still up. The smell of smoke and ash hung in the wet air. Dark water swirled and eddied in the Hudson. A few overturned hulls of broken boats floated about. Across on the street side there were good views up and down Eleventh Avenue: smashed and burned-out wrecks of vehicles were dotted all the way up and down it, blotches against the white-gray streetscape.

  “Looks like a war zone, doesn’t it?” said Bob.

  “It is,” I said.

  “Yeah. And once again, this is the front line.”

  “Once again?”

  “Like 9/11,” he said. His words hung there for a while. “All this out here reminds me of some pictures I saw in a book about the first US–Iraq war. Some highway in the desert, littered with thousands of destroyed vehicles, all burned-out wrecks melted into the road and sand.”

  He scanned the darkening streets with his small binoculars.

  “Have they ever attacked here? The infected, I mean.”

  He looked at me. He had a face that could go real hard real quick.

  “The infected—Chasers you called them earlier today, right?”

  I nodded.

  “No.” He shook his head. “But we’ve been hit twice, by people.”

  “People?”

  “Shootin’ at us, at first, and then, the second time, a group of guys drove by and firebombed the storefront down there. Sons of bitches even landed one up on the roof here. Look.”

  He pointed to scorch marks on the concrete roof; an area the size of a tennis court was blackened and charred and it seemed the snow no longer liked to settle there.

  “What people?”

  “Survivors like us. Last week.”

  “Shit!” I said, thinking about all the families downstairs, all those survivors, being attacked by their own. I thought about those fresh corpses I’d seen lying on the snow—victims of their need to escape. And I thought about who might have attacked them. There are always people who’ll exploit a situation, no matter how desperate life is, even if it means turning on the only other people they might rely upon. Maybe they’re thinking that when there’s no civilization to be a part of, what’s the point in being civilized? We’re all killers, potentially; it’s inescapable, an instinct that will consume you if you’re not careful.

  Time was running out. I had to get out of this city. So why was I hesitant about asking him if he’d leave here with me and any other survivors who wanted to tag along? It just didn’t feel right to blurt straight into it. I realized that although we’d shared stories, I still knew very little about him.

  So I asked, “You live in New York?”

  “Only for a bit.”

  “Tourist?”

  “Nah. I’m more of a drifter, never spend too long in one place,” he said, kicking some snow off the edge of the roof. “Bit of work for the military, bit of work in prisons, couple of rigs out in the Gulf, always someplace different. Worked here way back, returned a few weeks ago.”

  He took out a small bottle of bourbon, unscrewed the top, took a swig and passed it to me. I had a small sip; it tasted like bitter fire, made me cough.

  “Never really put down any roots, you know? You could say I had nothing to lose when all this happened, but it doesn’t make it any easier to take.”

  “Yeah . . .” I took the binoculars, looked at the opposite shoreline. “Any family around here?”

  He shook his head. “Nope. Just a few friends and, like I said, I was passing through—was gonna bug out once I’d put a bit more money in the bank.”

  “Shit happens, huh?”

  “Sure does, little buddy,” he said, his expression wistful as he scanned out across the Hudson. His alert eyes took in everything. “Sure does.”

  We walked the perimeter of the roof. We talked about the weather and what it’d be like elsewhere.

  “How come there are no boats here at the piers?” I asked.

  “We figure that those who got here first, immediately after the attack, bugged out on those that were still seaworthy.”

  It seemed a reasonable answer and reflected what I imagined went on at the 79th Street Boat Basin. I trudged across to the northern side of the snow-covered roof. I pointed up Eleventh, passed him the binoculars, and he checked out a group of Chasers headed south.

  “That kind? They hunt at twilight and into the night,” he said. “They’re smart. Probably smarter than us.”

  I shivered at the thought.

  “Bob, I’ve got to ask you something,” I said, the moment as good as any: “What would it take for you to try and leave this city?”

  “A new dawn,” he said. “Leave here? I’d give it a try in a heartbeat. Wouldn’t want to leave any of these folks behind, though.”

  “Oh.”

  “Look, your friend Caleb?”

  I nodded.

  “When he came here, he got people all amped up about a route clear out of the city.”

  “Which route?” I asked, already knowing the answer—it was something I’d told Caleb during our first proper discussion.

  “He said there was some road clear to the north,” Bob said, glassing the streets again. “Thing was, it got a few guys so excited by the prospect, they said they’d go out and give it a look-see.”

  “And?”

  He looked at me.

  “Next day, I was out, just six blocks north of here, for supplies; found them, the four of them, dead.”

  I felt sick.

  “How—how’d they die?”

  “Gunshot wounds, but the infected had got to them too; had to chase a couple off their carcasses.”

  I did that. I’d told Caleb, Caleb told them, I was responsible for their deaths . . . No, not for their deaths. Crazy people killed them. But it was my news that had put them in harm’s way.

  “Ain’t nothin’ to be done about it,” Bob said. “They were grown men, bigger than you. They knew the risks, and they made that choice themselves.”

  I nodded.

  “Does everyone here know?”

  He nodded.

  “And now they’re too spooked to leave?”

  “Give it time, they’ll all come around.”

  Give it time?

  “Bob, we might not—what if we don’t have time?”

  We passed the charred section of roof on our way to the steel stairs heading down.

  “Don’t need to convince me of that.”

  7

  Bob’s revelations made me sick in my stomach. If they were not going to move, then I was wasting time here. First light, I could leave, b
ack to the zoo, take my chances heading out with the girls—but if it was dangerous for four grown men to head north, what chance for a sixteen-year-old and a couple of girls barely older? Little to none.

  But part of me thought that if I could convince anyone here, it might be Paige. She seemed to like me. Better yet, if I could convince her, get her onboard, that might bring on Audrey, then Tom, and with his reasoning might come the people who were too spooked to leave because of what had happened to those who’d dared venture out.

  I found Paige playing poker with a few others. I made a beeline for her: she’d bathed and was wearing track clothes, pajamas maybe, her hair still wet and wrapped in a towel. I joined in and quickly bet myself out of the game. The same thing happened to Paige and, game over, I followed her out.

  When I looked in on one of the groups, through the glass wall, I saw a middle-aged couple quietly arguing.

  “Kinda surprises me,” I said to Paige, settling on a new thought that had just hit me.

  “What’s that?”

  “That, in there—the arguing. That there’s still anger, there’s still confusion, all that baggage between people.”

  “Baggage?” she said, looking back to the couple.

  “Whatever it is we carry around. Guilt, regrets, anger, all that useless stuff getting in the way of living in the now and surviving.”

  Earlier on, all I’d seen was these people’s cheerful acceptance of their situation. But there was division here. Maybe that was something I could use to get people to come with me. Leaving this city with half this group was a better prospect for me and Felicity and Rach than no one leaving but us.

  All I had to go on was my few days of UN camp training before the attack. We’d sat in on talks and lectures about negotiating skills, delegation, and second-guessing the decision making of others. We’d participated in mock scenarios that made us confront what the facilitator called “the ugly reality of diplomacy.” I’d never have guessed that, two weeks on, I’d be dealing with real-life situations fraught with all these issues and more. Would Paige or the others believe me that the risk involved in seeking out a better, safer existence was worth it?

  I wanted to take her someplace quiet, but she led us to the adjoining room, an office now set up as a makeshift chapel. “I want you to see this,” she said.

  Paige and I watched as Daniel led about twenty people in prayer before bed. Bob entered and moved up front, a happy little preacher’s boy inside the body of a pro wrestler. He was wearing a T-shirt that exposed the tattoos on his neck and arms, the crude monotone type that spoke of time spent inside.

  Bob filmed everything. I sat next to Paige, on the periphery.

  “In being a priest, Daniel is a symbol of hope to so many here,” she whispered to me. “Are you religious?”

  “Not especially,” I replied. “I went to a Catholic school for a bit, but then we moved, and dad was cool with all that kind of stuff, never really into it. Tell me about your parents.”

  “Dad’s a plastic surgeon. He and Mom divorced about ten years ago when I was—Jesse, how old are you?”

  “Sixteen.”

  “Yeah, me too. Everyone else here’s either heaps old, or a kid. Where’s your mom?”

  “I’ve got a stepmom too,” I said. “She’s not like Audrey though, mine’s a dragon—and not a cool Harry Potter dragon.”

  “I don’t think Harry Potter’s cool.”

  “Me neither,” I whispered back. “Third book was okay, though.”

  She smiled. “Did your mom live close by?”

  “Don’t know,” I replied. “I’ve been wondering about finding her—lately. Since all this happened. I’ve had plenty of time to think, you know? What about yours?”

  “San Fran,” she said. “I visit her every two weeks. It’s a short trip now—she used to live in Phoenix, which was harder. Moves around a lot.”

  I caught her look of doubt, as if she were questioning her own use of the present tense, so I shifted the conversation. “Do you like L.A.?”

  “Where we are, yeah, I like it,” she said. “Good friends, awesome weather, and we’ve got, like, the best beaches.”

  Her eyes . . . it was hard to look her in the eyes, harder still to choose which color iris to focus on.

  “Mom’s seeing a guy, he’s okay,” Paige said, a little distant in thought. “Audrey didn’t used to be so cool. Actually, I kind of hated her, until all this happened. She’s changed. I’ve changed. Hell, everything’s changed, right?”

  I nodded. The rest of the room was listening to Tom read from the Bible, his voice low and resonant, his flock nodding and believing.

  “We go to church sometimes,” I said to Paige, and I felt her look at me as I watched the flickering of the candles on our table. “Dad and me. No special occasion, we just might be driving by one or whatever. We go in, light candles for those who aren’t with us anymore.”

  For a moment I could clearly see a mental slide show of all the faces of the departed. There were not enough candles in the world right now.

  “That’s nice,” she said. Her hand under the table squeezed my leg. “We should do that, tonight—light some candles for the friends you lost.”

  I nodded. Was now the right time, while we were talking close like this, to ask her to leave? I want you to leave here with me. I went to take her hand in mine but she moved it. I looked away, at Daniel.

  “You know, we’re lucky here,” she said. “We’ve got good shelter, and just about everything we need—things that might be scarce out there on the road. That’s what you’re dying to ask me, isn’t it? Will I leave?”

  “Well—”

  “We have a couple of badly wounded people who can’t walk—what’s supposed to happen to them?”

  “You could use the truck—”

  “What if we can’t drive it in this weather? On those choked roads?”

  We watched the black clouds rolling in for the night’s snow dump, the strong frozen wind fast behind it.

  “I hear what you’re saying . . .” I admitted.

  “But you’re not convinced that we’re doing the right thing, are you?” Paige asked, looking at me.

  I was taken aback by her question. “If it were me in your situation? Yeah, I probably would leave,” I replied. What a choice. Wait until trouble comes knocking on your door here or go out and meet it head on. Who’s to say which is the greater risk?

  “But way out there, Jesse? On the road, like sleeping in abandoned houses or whatnot until, what, we somehow find safety?” Paige threw a golf ball out onto the snow-covered fake plastic turf. When it landed it disappeared, swallowed up by white. “I mean, for you, maybe, but for the women and the younger kids here—it’s not for us.”

  “Yeah, it’s cool,” I said. “I get it.”

  “Totally makes sense to play it safe, yeah? At least while it’s so cold and the days are so short.”

  She asked, “There’s nothing that gives you any doubt about leaving here?”

  “My two friends at the zoo? I can’t leave them behind, and I can’t let them wait around. I want to get them to safety.”

  “Didn’t you say that you had another friend too—a guy?”

  I thought of Caleb, and how I felt must have showed because she put her hand on mine: hers was soft and warm.

  “Why don’t you tell me more about Anna,” she said. “I’d like to hear about her.”

  8

  There was a sleeping hall with cot beds set up in what once had been a conference room. It was warm in here, the warmth of a dozen bodies already at rest. The sound of the snowstorm outside was a constant whirring and whistling. It almost made me nostalgic for the sanctuary of the skyscraper I’d stayed in at 30 Rock—then I remembered the creaky old building that Felicity and Rachel were stuck in right now.

  “It’s mainly the kids and women in here,” Paige said. She went to a corner, lit by a little battery-powered lantern. “The rest are at the other side of the dining
hall.”

  Paige sat down among five kids, two of whom I’d seen arrive that afternoon with their parents. They’d lasted two weeks in their apartment a few blocks from here and ventured out for food and fuel and, like me, decided to try this place out. Their mom was already asleep in a bed nearby, and I could hear relief in her quiet snoring. I sat next to Paige, leaning up against the wall, all the kids in their cot beds, under blankets, looking up at me with sleepily suspicious eyes. I poked my tongue out at the youngest, a five-year-old girl, and she cracked into a smile.

  Paige read them Stuart Little. They were already about thirty pages in. She read the part where Stuart’s doing his sailboat race, and then about Margalo. I really liked that story, how he protected her and his family adopted her; she flees for her life, he goes out to look for her. We don’t know how it ends for the two of them, if they will ever come together again, but I’m confident that Stuart found her. I preferred stories that didn’t provide all the answers.

  The kids soon fell asleep, except for a boy of about eight, who was happy to lie there and watch patterns on the ceiling from the LED strip lights outside in the hall. This warm environment made for a comforting time and place. I felt as tired as I could remember. I drifted off and woke with a start, as if I had tripped.

  “Looks like you need to get some sleep,” Paige said. “I’ve set your bed up, I’ll show you.”

  She took me through a screen of hanging sheets that acted as curtains to a row of beds. A couple of other teenagers were asleep, along with the middle-aged pair I’d seen arguing earlier.

  “My parents sleep in the far corner over there,” she said. “They’ll be a few hours still, they’re always staying up with the others. Yours is over there.” She pointed, and I nodded.

  “Thanks. I’ll go to bed in a sec,” I told her, and watched as she climbed under the quilt, turning away from me.

  I went to the bathroom, washed with some cold water and soap, brushed my teeth, changed T-shirts and put my gear in my pack, which I took with me and plunked at the end of my bed. I hung my coat on the clothes peg further down the hall. I lingered. Hesitation ran through my every fiber. I could slip out now, leave them all, head back to the zoo and figure my own way out of the city. But then I’d be forever wondering what happened to them. I wanted to wait and watch it play out. I’d give it until tomorrow. I wanted Paige to stick with her parents but it was not my place to tell her so—or to persuade her to the point where she would leave them. Was it?