by Nate Kenyon
The wreck they hid behind created a natural barrier, shielding them from view. But if the person behind the camera had radioed their position, there was nothing they could do.
The car crept closer and rumbled by, no more than ten feet from where they crouched. “Don’t move,” Vasco whispered. “We don’t know if they’re friendly.”
Hanscomb was trembling. “But they’re the police—”
Vasco glanced up at the camera, then motioned at Hawke. “You heard what he said. The cops shot an unarmed man. You want to take that chance?”
As the car passed, Hawke risked another peek around the other side of the van, getting only a glimpse of the driver, who wore a traditional NYPD eight-point cap pulled low over his forehead. He couldn’t tell if these were the same two cops who had shot the man in the street. Bullet holes peppered the car’s right front fender. A bloody handprint marked the rear passenger window, smearing the glass on the inside. There was someone in the backseat, but the glass was too dirty to make out anything other than a vague shape.
Maybe these same cops had shot that man. Maybe they were rogue cops who had cracked under whatever was happening in New York. Or maybe not. Hawke glanced at Hanscomb, who was trembling more violently, her teeth chattering together like she was in a deep freeze. Something seemed to break, and as she went to stand up Young grabbed her arm, pulling her back down. They waited until the car had turned the corner and disappeared from sight. Young finally let go of Hanscomb’s arm. She was sobbing, clutching her knees to her chest.
“We can’t treat the police like the enemy,” she said. “Even if they think we’re some kind of terrorists.” She looked up at Vasco, mascara smeared across her face. “Like you said, they must have had a reason for shooting that man.”
“Did you see the blood?” Vasco said. “The handprint? Someone else got hurt, and hurt bad. Maybe those cops did that, too. Maybe they’re just crazy, or maybe they do want us dead. But there will be a lot of people at Lenox, a lot more cops and emergency responders. They won’t be able to just gun us down like animals there.”
Hanscomb shook her head. “We’re going to die out here anyway. And we just let them go.”
The radio kept droning on from the Toyota:… Mayor Weber has declared a state of emergency.… Please go immediately to your nearest safety checkpoint.…
Hawke glanced at Vasco. His hands were braced on the Toyota’s twisted fender. The finger that had been mangled had stopped bleeding, but the tip was an ugly red mess of meat. The hands splayed against the car looked too delicate for the man’s thick frame, too smooth and soft for a repairman. Hawke’s father had been the opposite: a thin man with big, calloused hands and stubby, gnarled fingers created from a lifetime of tinkering in garages and basements.
The smoke was getting thicker, swirling around them. Somewhere in the distance, a popping sound rang out, several in succession.
“Gunshots,” Price said. “Jesus. What now?”
“We can’t stay here,” Vasco said. “We’re sitting ducks out on the street. There’s no cover. We gotta keep moving.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
1:24 P.M.
WHEN HAWKE GOT HOME, his mother wasn’t there. He parked on the street. Their apartment his senior year was a three-family with their unit on the ground floor, in a neighborhood tough enough for bars on the windows. The owner let Hawke’s father use the basement and his tools in exchange for repairing broken sinks and toilets, rewiring light switches and plastering holes in walls, and he gave the family a break on the rent.
Back when they owned their own place and Hawke’s mother would try to hire a plumber or electrician, it would often escalate into an argument about the division of the working class and the elite, the specialization of America. Why should they hire someone to do it, his father would say, when he was perfectly capable of handling it himself? When he wasn’t writing or drinking too much to see straight, his creative streak urged him to fix or to build things. He would tell Hawke about tree houses and go-carts he’d put together when he was young. Now he built furniture. Or at least he had, until his last book had come out a month earlier and sunk without a ripple and he had hit the bottle harder than ever.
Hawke caught a whiff of smoke in the air. The weather was warm. Many people would be firing up their grills on their tiny patches of lawns or on rear porches. He entered the house, called out for his father and got no answer. Hawke opened the basement door, found the shop dark and empty. When he was a younger boy, he used to sneak down to his father’s woodworking shop and play with the tools, pretending to saw and hammer and glue spare pieces together while ignoring the glinting lines of empty liquor bottles that took up more and more space on the workbench. He used to believe back then that his father could fix anything, build whatever he set his sights on. But he never really seemed to want Hawke there when he was around, and after a while Hawke stopped going down there. As he grew older he realized those were times when his old man had needed to be alone, to drink and try to sort through or avoid whatever disorder was growing inside him. No matter how hard he tried to create order from chaos, he was helpless to do so for his own mind.
Hawke called out again and got no answer. He followed the smell of smoke through the sagging galley kitchen to the back door. His father was outside in the dirt square that stood for their backyard, his back to the house. He was feeding a bonfire that was growing bigger by the moment. Flames licked the air hungrily as he reached down, picked something up and threw it in.
When the back door slammed, the man didn’t even turn around. Hawke came down the short steps to see a box of books sitting at his father’s feet. About twenty of them were already burning, along with chunks of what looked like broken furniture. A can of lighter fluid had been tossed to one side.
“Poison dart frogs,” his father said. “From the family Dendrobatidae, common to Central and South America. One of the most poisonous animals in history. But they’re tiny things, look pretty enough, like you might want to pet them. And did you know that only a few types can kill you? The others are harmless, more or less.”
He took a swig from a bottle of vodka and threw another book into the flames, watching as the pages fluttered through the air like a bird’s wings. “This book was supposed to be a warning to the world,” he said. “But it’s going to kill me, Johnny. It’s the last piece of the puzzle. I’m done.”
Hawke didn’t know what his father was talking about. He glanced at Hawke, bleary-eyed and unable to focus. “You’re going to burn the house down,” Hawke said. He looked at the cover of the book as it curled and blackened in the flames: Socialism from Below: The People’s Revolution.
“It’s coming,” his father said, his words slurring into each other. “Reform from the masses, overthrowing this fucking capitalist system that’s keeping us hostage. Nobody gives a damn what I say, but you wait and see. It might look pretty and harmless on the surface, but we’re going to build and build and build until we create our own end.”
You keep saying it, Hawke thought, as if that’ll make it come true. “We seem to be hanging in there.”
“You and your machines,” his father said. “Locking yourself up in your room all night, staring into the screen. You think that’s a real connection? It’s no substitute for humanity.” He reached down, tossed another book onto the flames. “Look at them,” he said. “Even when they burn, they don’t fight back.”
* * *
Hawke’s thoughts ran in different directions. He couldn’t tell whether the images of his father that filled his mind were accurate or not. But he remembered the heat of the fire, the flames shooting higher as his father had kept throwing in more copies of his books. The fire department had finally shown up to put out the blaze before it caught the house or garage and took up the rest of the block, and he spent the night in jail, sleeping one off.
It had been less than six months before his death.
Hawke watched for the police car as the group kept
going across 79th Street, but it didn’t reappear. Vasco remained about twenty feet ahead.
“You think this is a good idea, letting him take the lead like this?” Price said. He had been backpedaling next to Hawke, looking behind them for any kind of threat, and now he turned and edged closer, keeping his voice little more than a whisper as he nodded at Vasco’s back. “I never even saw the guy before today. He’s an office machine repairman, for Chrissake.”
“I don’t know,” Hawke said. “You don’t know much about me, either.” But he’d been thinking the same thing. Vasco had lied about serving in the military. What else might he lie about?
“I know you better than this guy,” Price said. “Besides, you didn’t start ordering us around like you were running the troops through a drill. Just seems like he’s wound a little tight, that’s all.”
“We all are,” Hawke said. “Not much of a surprise, considering what we’ve been through.”
Smoke wafted from the shattered windows of a bakery up ahead; some kind of explosion inside had scattered debris across the sidewalk. A young woman in a sleeveless white summer dress looked like she had taken the brunt of the blast. She lay sprawled among the shattered glass, blood pooled around her motionless body. Vasco crouched and touched her neck, feeling for a pulse, then looked up at them and shook his head.
The rest of them gave the dead woman a wide berth.
Outside the Yorkville Library, a colorful banner imprinted with the profile of a lion and the library’s logo hung from a pole above the door. The lower rope securing it to an iron railing had come loose, and the banner flapped in the breeze, then snapped like a gunshot. Hanscomb let out a short shriek and covered her head, nearly breaking into a wild run. “Stay with us,” Vasco barked at her. “Don’t panic, or you’ll get yourself killed.”
Hawke had the feeling he and the others were being manipulated like puppets, but he didn’t want to think about why. Not yet. That massive jumble of information he’d received was like a shark coming to the surface, the truth circling around this particular group of lies, and he felt like it might just capsize him if he came too close to it. And there was no time to work through it. His senses were heightened, his vision narrowing and sharpening every detail immediately before them.
They turned down Lexington Avenue, passing another bank on the corner. Across the street was a florist’s shop with alarms blaring; Price touched Hawke’s shoulder and pointed to two men in baggy sweatshirts and jeans ducking out from the shattered glass of the front door carrying fistfuls of cash. One of them had a gun.
“Don’t make eye contact,” Hawke said, but it was too late. One of them had spotted the group and nudged his friend, and the two of them sauntered across the street.
“What the fuck you looking at?” the one holding the gun said to Price. He was short, stocky, with the broad shoulders and thick neck of a bodybuilder. A brightly colored tattoo ran around his forearm. The other one, taller and thinner, had the sickly, hollow, twitchy look of a heroin addict. He edged around to flank Price and Hawke but said nothing.
“We don’t want any trouble,” Price said. His voice broke slightly. “We didn’t see anything, okay?”
The gunman grinned. “It’s a fire sale,” he said. “Everything one hundred percent off.” He looked at Hawke. “You see anything, amigo?”
Hawke shrugged, trying to keep his fear from showing. “You want to risk your life for a few bucks, go for it,” he said. “Me, I’d rather get out of the city alive.”
The man’s eyes narrowed, and he took a step closer. “You think you know what the fuck is going down around here, huh? You think this shit matters? My brother’s in Philly, talked to him before the phone went dead. Same thing’s happening there. So where you gonna go at the end of the world?”
A chill ran through Hawke’s body. He had held out hope that the attack had been mainly focused on New York, but if this was true …
“Hey!” Vasco shouted. The others had realized what was going on and circled back, but they stopped short when the man raised the gun. “Whoa,” Vasco said, taking a quick step back. “Take it easy.”
The man pointed the gun at Hawke’s face. “No po po around here,” he said. “Nothing to stop me.” The barrel loomed as he cocked the hammer. “Pow,” he said. Then he glanced at his friend and started backing away, gun still trained on Hawke. “Good luck staying alive,” he said. The two of them turned and ran down 79th, back the way Hawke’s group had come.
“You okay?” Price said.
Hawke realized he’d been holding his breath. He nodded. It had all happened so fast, and now the adrenaline rush was making his knees shake. “You think he’s right about Philly?”
“I don’t know,” Price said. “Maybe so. Sarah said she’d heard something about other attacks on the radio.”
“It’s like the Wild West out here,” Vasco said. “Goddamn punks, taking advantage of this to rip people off.” He scanned the street. “The faster we get to the checkpoint, the better.”
* * *
Hawke had expected to hear the crowd and emergency vehicles long before they reached the hospital checkpoint. But as they neared 77th Street and Lenox loomed over them, a series of connected buildings taking up most of the block, they found an eerily quiet scene.
Nothing moved. They passed the conference center and emergency entrance where the sliding glass doors under the green awning were shut tight. Farther down, the hospital’s main entrance doors stood open, while a second set of interior doors was closed. A bed of flowers had been trampled, dirt spread across the concrete.
Vasco stopped on the sidewalk, waiting for the others to gather. “Something’s wrong,” he said. “This place should be filled with people.” He walked through the first set of doors to the interior set, which remained shut. He cupped his hands against the glass. “Nobody’s home,” he said. “Some checkpoint.” He rapped a fist against the doors, tried to pull them apart, but they were locked tight.
What about all the patients? Hawke glanced up at the tall face of the building. There must be hundreds of patients in there, many too sick to move. Where had they all gone?
A sudden noise made them all jump. It was coming from around the other side of the building, a rattling, clanking sound like metal being dragged across concrete.
They looked at one another as the sound stopped as quickly as it had begun. Young started backpedaling away. “Jim,” she said. “He would have come here. He would be looking for that case.” Before anyone could say anything else, she had turned the corner on Park Avenue and disappeared.
* * *
Closest to the back of the hospital, Young heard the baby first.
The others had followed Young to the wide expanse of Park and around the building, Vasco cursing under his breath. A few feet in on 76th Street, on the backside of Lenox, Young had stopped short, frozen in place, her head up.
Hawke heard it seconds later: the distinctive wail and hitch, furious and plaintive, of a child in distress.
Just ahead of Young was a double-bay loading dock. The first metal door was closed, but the second one was open, the black entrance yawning wide enough to accommodate at least two trucks. The rattling sound they had heard must have been the door going up.
Vasco came up next to him, breathing too hard, Sarah Hanscomb right behind him. “What the fuck is she doing—”
Hawke tilted his head. “Listen,” he said. They all stood quietly as the haunting cry of the infant drifted through the opening. He thought of Thomas as a baby, imagined him abandoned and alone as strangers passed him by on the street. He thought of the unborn child in his wife’s womb. Young glanced back at them with a look that Hawke couldn’t quite read. It might have been fear, but whether it was for herself or for the child he couldn’t tell. “Jim’s not in there,” he said. “Anne, wait a minute.”
Price walked past the loading dock to another entrance a few feet away and yanked the handle of the door. It was locked. The crying
went on and on, constant in its urgency and tone. Young shook her head. She ducked into the darkness without waiting for the rest of them.
Hawke turned to Vasco and Hanscomb. “We can’t leave it there alone,” he said. “I’m going after her.”
Vasco shook his head. “What if it’s not alone?”
“You don’t want to go in, then stay outside. It was your idea to come here in the first place.”
“Goddamn it.” Vasco rubbed his face and sighed. “All right, but any sign of trouble, we’re gone, understand?”
* * *
Hawke followed Young into the dark loading dock, pausing for a moment to let his eyes adjust. The light from the street illuminated dim shapes; a brand-new ambulance was parked on the left, dark and silent, a series of large trash bins along the right wall, packing skids stacked in the back. A short set of stairs led to a concrete loading ledge and a double metal door that was slightly ajar. Light spilled out around the frame.
The wailing was coming from behind the door.
Young was already halfway up the steps. Hawke followed, his stomach beginning to flutter, warning bells going off even as he reached the top of the ledge and Young pulled the door open, standing framed in antiseptic hospital light.
A faint, nearly imperceptible odor wafted over him, slightly acrid and rotten. A hallway loomed beyond, wide and white and empty except for the woman curled in a ball on her side. She was dressed in nurses’ scrubs and looked as if she had decided to lie down and fall asleep. Young knelt by her still form and shook her gently. The woman rolled onto her back, head lolling loosely on her shoulders. Her eyes were open. Young touched the woman’s throat, feeling for a pulse, then stood up and took a step back.
There were no immediate signs of violence, no blood or bruising. The nurse’s skin held a strange, cherry-red flush, mouth slack and crusted with vomit. Hawke stared at her face, blank doll’s eyes reflecting the ceiling lights.
A noise from the steps made him turn. Vasco stood in the doorframe, Price and Hanscomb just behind him. “Is she dead?” Hanscomb said. Hawke didn’t bother to answer. Young looked to where the hallway joined with another in a T. The baby’s cry was coming from the left branch.
