by James Phelan
I pulled off my backpack, took the lighter from the side pocket, and splashed the gasoline around the door. I kicked over the can at the steps to let the last of the liquid dribble out.
“It’s okay,” said Rachel, giving me permission to do what had to be done. “There’s nothing left I need. The animals are gone.”
So I lit the match, dropped it on the ground and stood well back.
“You two get going,” I said, nodding urgently. “Go out the front way, it’s safer.”
If they argued, I didn’t catch their words. Whoosh! Fire leapt up, spooking them, holding them at bay. I didn’t want to destroy the zoo—I just wanted to put enough distance between us and the Chasers while I ran to the back gate.
To my relief, I could make out the forms of Rachel and Felicity running up ahead on the East Drive, crossing 79th Street. The girls were moving faster than I was. With every few strides I took, I was falling another second behind. They rounded a bend and I lost them again. I gritted through the pain and ran hard. At least all was clear behind me.
There was a noise overhead, a mechanical sound, and I ducked as it appeared to be closing in—but I couldn’t see anything. An aircraft? Another minute of running flat out and it was there again. Getting louder too. I remembered seeing on Bob’s little screen some footage of the initial attack: several shots of blurry high-speed missiles streaming into Manhattan neighborhoods, their red-hot plumes streaking across the winter’s sky.
A louder noise rumbled and shook my bones as it passed—right above me! The whine of an engine screeched overhead. It was a sound I’d heard before. To confirm my suspicion, I looked up through the intertwined branches of the bare trees and saw it. A drone aircraft, the same kind that had attacked the soldiers’ truck.
Its course meant it was headed to where my friends were headed . . .
I ran faster, giving it everything I had.
24
The bottom of Central Park’s recreation reserve was a near-endless white blanket, easily the size of several football fields. It definitely was more vast than I’d given it credit for from up high in 30 Rock. I ran for the far northern tree line, where I was due to rendezvous with the group. Beyond that, another smaller park and then, over 86th, the reservoir and our way out of this city—so close.
I checked behind me. The Chasers were a way off but the distance between them and me was narrowing. I could outrun them. And maybe the size of our group might scare them off. The worst-case scenario would be we’d have to fight. I turned and checked again—still a way off, maybe even falling a little behind.
Yes!
I ran hard.
I was crash-tackled to the ground, a hard and terminal stop, like a truck had hit me. I got to my hands and knees, spluttered for breath, heaving. I was kicked in the ribs, knocked onto my side, winded. Above me, a boot came crashing down towards my head. I ducked aside but felt it graze my nose and tasted blood in an eruption of pain.
As the Chaser above me moved in for another attack, he came into focus.
I knew him.
“Caleb!” I yelled at him with everything I had. “Caleb!”
There was no recognition in his eyes. Had he stalked me from his bookstore?
“Caleb, no—”
My infected friend lunged at me, and I shuffled backwards in the snow, my backpack pulling me down. Before I could make another move he was on me. I went with his momentum and by shifting my weight sideways I flipped him over my leg. I got my arms out of the straps of my pack and felt instantly lighter. I stood as Caleb got to his feet, too. I wiped my bloody nose with the back of my hand.
“Caleb! It’s me! Stop!”
His expression remained vacant, his gaze fixed on my streaming bloody nose. I had no idea if he recognized me or not, if he cared.
Over his shoulder I could see the other Chasers were only maybe sixty seconds away.
He made a move and so did I. I pulled the pistol from my coat pocket and brought it around to fire above him. Caleb smashed into me. The gun fired high into the air and fell from my grip into the snow.
“No, stop!”
All his weight crushed into my chest via his knees and I tried to wriggle free but it was useless; his strong hands pinned down both my wrists. His face closed onto mine and I lifted my head, quick as a flash: my forehead hit him squarely between the eyes and he rolled off me, hands at his face, stunned.
But not for long.
I rolled over and scrambled on hands and knees towards the pistol, a black angle in the ankle-deep snow. I reached out for it . . .
The weight of Caleb crashed into me again. We tumbled and rolled, then his hands found my neck and tightened, closing around my throat. He was squeezing hard, strangling me from behind.
I reached for the gun, my arms outstretched and my fingers flexing . . .
It was too far away, just beyond me.
I shook and squirmed and tried to wriggle free—
I gained a few inches’ distance and I dragged him forward, my eyes watering. I was nearly out of breath but I kept pushing away from him and suddenly I felt his grip loosen.
My fingers clawed forward in the snow, digging and reaching, but it was still too far and my vision began . . . to . . . blur.
A quick gasp and I sucked in some air.
I lunged forward but he was right on me and pushed my face into the snow, drowning me . . .
I elbowed and squirmed with the last of my energy . . . When I knew I had no other choice, I went limp.
He let go, flipped me over onto my back. I waited less than a second.
I saw his surprise when I opened my eyes.
I reached up and clapped both my hands over his ears, hard. He reeled back. A tiny win, but the other Chasers were now upon us. As I moved for my gun, there was a noise—loud, mechanical—and a vehicle came into view.
The Ford pickup truck—Bob at the wheel—rumbled its way from the top of the reserve. The whole Chelsea Piers group came into view. Not a hundred yards away.
The Chasers held back, weighing up their situation.
“JESSE!” I heard Rachel yell out. “Jesse, over HERE!”
She was standing with Felicity at the opposite topmost corner of the reserve. Everyone was in their place but me.
Behind me, Caleb approached with care. There was no mistaking him. A predator with the desire to hunt, to kill, and no concern about his prey. Step by step, wary, but eyeing only me. Beyond him were more Chasers, holding at just twenty steps away. I looked back for the pistol, but stopped cold.
Again there was a noise in the air—ferocious, man-made, getting really loud, really fast.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up and I prickled with sweat and nausea in anticipation.
THUMP, THUMP, THUMP. Louder than anything I’d ever heard before.
The Chasers reacted too; they started edging back. Caleb still had eyes only for me.
I scanned the white blanket but could no longer see the pistol in the deep powder snow, which was billowing around my ankles in a strong wind. I backed away from Caleb as he came closer. Beyond him, the empty gray Manhattan skyline, and that noise—no longer a deafening thump but a loud and constant whine and roar. The other Chasers neared, their fear appeased by the prospect of a feed in me. There were some familiar faces in their crazed stares, their haunted look so natural to me now.
“Caleb, don’t do this!” I yelled at him, but he didn’t register. He’d fully checked out.
The noise became brutal, unbearable, and the wind as strong as I’d known it. I had to slam my hands against my ears. Finally, even Caleb could do nothing but turn to look for the deafening source.
From the west, there was movement against the low dark clouds; by the time I’d processed what it was, they were practically on top of us. Aircraft. Dozens of them, planes and helicopters, even something that resembled a combination of both, coming in hard and fast from all points of the compass. All painted a dull military gray. Massive prope
llers chewed at the sky, ripping through the freezing winter air, the bigger crafts’ blades tilting skyward on stubby wings. Each aircraft made a vertical landing on the massive rec reserve.
Whoever this was, an invasion or a helping hand, they had no regard for the infected. They started shooting: laser-like beams of machine-gun fire that tore into everyone out in the open. I had no choice but to stand there and take whatever was coming.
“No!” I pushed and shoved—Caleb was on me.
I looked up at his face. We’d talked and laughed—shared dreams and plans and confidences—and now this.
“Stop!” I punched him in the side of the head but he didn’t seem to notice.
His arms were longer than mine and he was heavier and stronger than me; his hands again found my neck and took hold. He’d survived this long on the street, so he’d probably killed like this before.
I think I saw the sun come out, but it could have been my eyes playing tricks as I was choked. I’d imagined what this would be like—imagined it would be epic, brutal, the absolute end for one of us. I knew that, whatever the outcome, I would lose something, my life or part of myself. That it had to be at the hands of my friend seemed so unfair. I tasted blood in my throat and realized I couldn’t fight it anymore. My hands went limp.
Caleb’s grip tightened. I turned my head from him and saw groups of people, watching from the tree line. They were Chasers. A scant few had blood around their mouths: hunters. Most were the weak ones, but they watched just the same. A hundred of them, maybe, all up. Familiar faces. A boy, thin and tired. He looked from me to those around him.
I didn’t fight. This Chaser was helping me: Caleb was sending me home. I tasted blood in my throat as it was being crushed. This may be my last taste, my last breath. I’m going home . . .
I am floating above the ground. I’ve dreamed of this, of flying through the city. I see the buildings as if I’m lying flat on my back and looking up, backstroking my way around, light as air, effortless, the feeling of any and all kind of possibility. It’s cold.
I feel hands on me. I picture that image from one of Caleb’s art books, that photo of a ceiling from the Sistine Chapel. I saw it with my grandmother six years ago. I feel time, I feel motion, and I feel cold. I am not alone, and I am not going home or anyplace I know. I fall.
I’m on the ground. I see faces. Expressions of concern. They look at me and I smile because I know where I am now. I am among friends. People. Chasers. All indistinguishable now, all little versions of reality, all offering different meanings of the word home, ready to take me.
I didn’t hear the gunfire.
I felt the hands around my throat ease, then let go. Caleb was still on top of me. I could clearly see his face lit against the dull afternoon sky. He looked down at me and I’ll never forget this: there was recognition . He knew who I was and in that final moment he smiled. Then, he was gone.
“When I die,” he said, “I want to go on living.”
I nodded.
“You will.”
He smiled.
“Take my journals. Keep them. No one can kill my words. You understand?”
We sat there. The gray-blue sky. The bare branches of the trees. The brief flight of a seagull. The breeze. I was wondering what to say to him. I had nothing . . .
When I woke, I was lying on my side in the snow, my cheek pressing into the cold, a film of frost over my damaged eyebrow. I could see soldiers running from the aircraft. Shooting. I remembered: They killed that group of Chasers. I heard screaming too—yelling, but also stern commands. I felt hands on me and I looked up, to a vision I had never expected to see again.
Rachel, Felicity, Paige, and Bob. They were all there, by my side. I wanted a moment alone with them, to check that each and every one of them was real, was okay. I wanted them to be friends and to support one another. I wanted them to tell me we were safe, that it was all over. But there was no time. Almost straightaway, the soldiers came up to them. My hearing was coming back online but I couldn’t make out what they were saying.
I didn’t need to. I could tell that things had been worked out: we were alive, and the soldiers were not going to shoot us. I saw Bob there, the camera in his hands, filming away. Next to me, no sign of Caleb. At last, had he got what he’d asked for? Or had he vanished, alone out there for one final act? I sucked at the cold air, smaller and smaller gasps, until my breathing stopped.
25
I drifted in and out of consciousness . . . I was aware of it, but whether this was the end or another part of something, I had no idea. It was nice, to go with it, to float away . . .
Summer heat, blue sky, the smell of cut grass—I am home. Laughs, jeers, hanging with mates . . . I remember this. It’s the school holidays, before I enter my final year of high school. Homework and classes are still a few weeks away, so it’s nothing but eating and sleeping and mucking about.
The sound of the basketball off the backboard. The cry for the rebound. Legs a blur as I’m knocked over—the slide long, the heat of the polished court on the way through. Playing this game today I’m in a combat situation. My mind is functioning but I’m not thinking in a normal way. My memory isn’t even working normally. I’m so hyped up, amped. My field of view changed. My capabilities changed. I am under the influence of adrenaline. Makes you respond quickly, think faster. Speed is key.
I get to my feet. Time is called and we have a drink.
The day is hot. Flies circle around me, silently flying back and forth on never-tired wings. Dust blows into the school gym through the open doors from the field that hasn’t seen rain in about fifteen years. Least there’s a breeze. Without that, this place would be unbearable.
We’re playing a group of big guys. Leading their team is the older brother of the guy I’d beaten for the one spot to represent Australia at a UN camp. This other guy really wanted to go but I beat him. I reckon the poor guy probably spent all year on his essay. I’d written mine in an afternoon. Now his brother is out for revenge.
Back out on the court. Looks are exchanged. They think they’ve got us licked.
Yesterday’s friendly shooting of hoops is now a fight to use this court. If we don’t beat these guys, we’re off this court for good. We lose, I’ll get pushed around some more. They say this school wasn’t always like this.
When the school year starts, I’ll have to perform—to get as good a score as I can with subjects I don’t really like and teachers I don’t rate. I’ll be at the bottom. My locker will get smashed to shit and pissed in. My bag will be stolen. I’ll be pushed around.
On my feet I run to intercept the pass—too slow.
The guy blows by the big brother for a left-handed lay-up. He hits a thirty-footer. They’re four up. Seconds to go.
“Jesse!” my captain yells. He’s grabbed a rebound and uses his elbows to get defenders off him. Big Brother—BB, he likes to be called—fouls him hard and I stare at him. BB makes a twenty-foot turnaround. One of his guys gets through me, I catch up but I’m blocked out, he pump-fakes three times and uses the glass for a deuce. It’s shifting back down our end. Captain advances on a three on two and dunks it. We’re on it again as our captain drives the lane and dishes towards me at the last minute for a bucket. They all stare at me and time stands still as I go for the long shot, knowing if I miss I’ll embarrass us all.
I’m on the ground and our ref for the morning calls time and there’s shouting going on.
“Jesse, you alive?” my captain says, grinning down at me.
I nod. My vision clears. I taste blood.
I ask, “What happened?”
“That idiot clocked you on the way through,” he says, helping me up. I’m wobbly on my feet. I hear the other team laughing. Our captain says something, Big Brother replies with a gesture and:
“You got a big mouth, fat kid.”
“I’ll take this idiot down,” Cap says, but I hold him back by his shirt.
“You can’t take a crap,�
�� I say, my voice different through my swollen lip. “Come on, we can’t lose this. Let him worry about putting me down again if that’s all he wants to do. Let’s win the game.”
We start up.
Cap’s our power forward. He dribbles beautifully up the court—I lead our teammates in clearing out the key. Defensively, BB’s guys are solid with their blocks. Just as fast as us but with extra bulk. I try to get past BB but their defense is stifling. I pass under, it’s rebounded, and I pass backwards. Happens like this again until it’s deflected out. I check the ball in. Cap dribbles up top, makes a one-eighty spin with the ball, and pulls up for a three-pointer. BB reads it perfectly and rejects it.
I’m there and I snatch the ball off the fast break and pass behind to Cap—who dunks it! Everybody courtside goes nuts. BB walks to the sideline, ignoring all the fist-bumps being offered. He talks to his team. Seems everyone of them is now riveted on me. Great.
Back in play I take a pass and turn to—BB puts his elbow into my face, sending me to the court’s floor. My world spins.
Cap yells: “Come on, ref! He’s throwin’ elbows—call offense!”
Time is called. For keeps this time. We lose by a point.
“That’s crap,” I say to my mates as they help me up.
“You guys wanna play on?” ref asks. I see Cap’s holding a swollen eye of his own, can’t think straight. Ref turns to the other team, busy high-fiving one another. “Extra time?”
“Bullshit,” BB says. “He was movin’ his feet!”
Ref looks to Cap who shrugs—neither of them exactly sure what happened. Maybe Cap doesn’t want to escalate things, or drag out our humiliation or injuries.
I sure know what happened. If innocence were a commodity BB and his young brother would be bankrupt.
I shoot a look to the other team. I shout for all to hear:
“Shut up and listen. I got a new bet. If you’re game.”
BB stares at me.
