by Guy James
The vegan blanched. “Are you saying that I brought the ghouls down on Sven? I did that?”
Dr. Zamirsky shook his head. “No, no. You shouldn’t worry about such things. The zombies were coming after Sven regardless, by Desi’s design.”
“Maybe it’s my lot to do penance as a mutant…as a mutant whatever I am now, for what I did to Sven and his friends.”
“Randy, trust me, you’re not responsible for what happened to those people, if you even want to characterize it as bad. I’m the one who rerouted the virus there, not you. Originally it was destined for a smaller town…but that would have been less fun, a piddling experiment in comparison. You didn’t do anything to Sven. He and Jane and Lorie—they all became heroes, after all.”
“And now they’re caught in the middle of another outbreak.” The vegan slumped. “You have no idea who this other carrier or mutant or whatever is?”
“None.”
“Could it be someone else we hid in the Wegmans with?”
“It could be, but there’s no proof of that. Why do you suggest it?”
The vegan thought of Milt, and said, “No reason.”
“You know, Randy,” Dr. Zamirsky said, “I like you very much. I like that you have strong opinions. They are misguided in a great many ways, but that is a different story. A man with principles, a man with convictions, that is something that is rare in this world, and such a man is to be admired, whether or not his convictions are objectively correct.”
The vegan looked at Dr. Zamirsky, then down at the bracelet on his wrist. The vegan sighed. He sensed that their discussion was drawing to a close.
“I must confess,” Dr. Zamirsky said, sighing after the manner of the vegan, “that when I brought you here, I was planning to kill you—maybe experiment on you a little before I killed you, but then, ultimately, to kill you. Now I am not so sure. To be completely forthcoming, I already have what I need to satisfy my intellectual curiosity about you, both from what you have described to me, and this.” Dr. Zamirsky pulled a vial filled with a red liquid out of his pocket. He held it out in front of him.
The vegan squinted at the vial. “Is that…is that my blood?”
Dr. Zamirsky nodded. “I extracted it while you were unconscious. It was surprisingly tricky, given how thick your blood is, but that is not important now. The task is done, and I have what I need for further study. There is no real need to subject you to torture…for nothing more than my own inquisitiveness. The plague is upon the world and I am not one to write down the intricate details of minutiae when we have already reached the endgame. So—” Dr. Zamirsky stood up, coughed, and spat into the sink, “—I have no further need to keep you here. Therefore, I have decided to let you go.”
The vegan blinked and looked at the bracelet on his wrist. He didn’t believe a word of what Dr. Zamirsky had said about letting him go.
“This is how it will work,” Dr. Zamirsky said. “I will change the setting of your bracelet so that you are able to move freely around and out of this bunker. The new setting will activate the bracelet if you come within one foot of me, so as long as you stay away from me, you should be able to leave this bunker safely.” Dr. Zamirsky took from his pocket a device that looked like a PDA and pressed a sequence of keys on it. “There, it is done. Once you leave, I will wait thirty minutes, and then I will change the setting again, so that the bracelet will activate if you come within one mile of this bunker. I’m sure you can get outside of the one mile radius within thirty minutes.” He put the PDA-like device back in his pocket. “I think it is a fair tradeoff: your life for my safety and privacy.”
The vegan nodded and touched his cross. “I agree, and I appreciate your kindness in this.”
“What kind of monster would I be if I didn’t let you go? There must be thousands of animals left behind for you to rescue and care for. Someone has to do it. Someone has to help Sven and Jane rebuild, too, assuming they survive this time also.”
The vegan looked at Dr. Zamirsky. “Do you think they will?”
Dr. Zamirsky grinned. “I have a feeling that they will. Maybe you can all be reunited one day…one day soon.” Dr. Zamirsky looked sentimental for a moment, then his face hardened. “So, do you agree? To leave and not come back, and not come looking for me?”
The vegan got up from his chair and stared at Dr. Zamirsky, who remained seated.
“I’m sorry, Vladimir,” the vegan said. “I can’t make that promise.”
They stared at each other for a few moments, saying nothing. Then Dr. Zamirsky nodded.
“Okay,” Dr. Zamirsky said, and sighed. “I understand. You are very much like I am. Obstinate in your beliefs…willing to die for them. True to yourself to the last.” Dr. Zamirsky smiled. “There are no greater men in this world than you and I.”
The vegan looked into Dr. Zamirsky’s eyes.
Dr. Zamirsky raised the PDA-like device.
“I understand,” Dr. Zamirsky said, “that you see this—our meeting—as the final part of your strange and incredible journey.”
The vegan nodded gravely. “That’s right. This is the end of my journey...and of yours.”
Dr. Zamirsky’s eyes grew wide as the vegan leapt toward him, crossing the fatal boundary.
111
SVEN, JANE, AND LORIE’S APARTMENT, SUTTON PLACE, NEW YORK
Lorie parked the plow outside her building and burst out of it. She saw the shot-up infected in front of the building and recognized Jane’s craft. Suppressing a grin, she ran around the dead undead and into the building. She ran up the fire stairs with Nila the Akita at her heels. When they were at her landing, Lorie stopped at the stairwell door and looked through the single rectangular pane at the hallway.
It was empty.
She waited a few moments longer and listened for any sound. She heard nothing.
“Okay,” she said to Nila. The sitting Akita looked up at her. “We’ve made it this far. Now it’s just across the hallway and you’ll be safe…I mean we’ll be safe.”
But I am safe, Lorie thought, nothing here can harm me.
She shook her head and made herself smile down at Nila. “And Sven and Jane will both be there, and they’ll be safe, too, and you’ll like them, Nila, you’ll like them a lot. And they’ll like you, too.”
You can’t predict these things, Lorie thought, you bring her inside, and the rest is not up to you.
The strangeness of the thought struck her, and she suddenly felt how dry her throat was.
“I’m dehydrated.”
Lorie stared at the door that led out of the landing. No sound drifted in from the hallway. Should there have been more noise? There were no zombie noises, but what about the other residents, what about the other survivors? What if there were no other survivors? Lorie stood, rigid, on the landing, trying to make herself feel something about the possibility that the virus had taken everyone but her, had putrefied their flesh and left only her living, not among the living, but the only living left. The thought stirred no feelings in her.
She blinked and pulled the apartment keys out of her pocket. Nila yapped twice. Lorie looked at the dog, then back at the landing door. She was sure there were neither humans nor zombies in the hallway. She could feel it—she could feel the lack of any presence there.
Lorie yanked the landing door open and strode down the hallway toward the apartment. Nila trotted behind her.
Tears should have been running down Lorie’s cheeks as she worked the keys in the locks. There should have been tears of anxiety and anticipation and hope and fear. The Lorie of two days earlier would have cried, and the current Lorie knew this, and understood it perfectly. But there were no tears. There was purpose, emotionless and clean, a resolve to do and have an effect on the world around her, to impose her will.
Lorie opened the door and walked inside. Nila trotted in after her. Lorie closed and locked the door.
She checked the apartment and confirmed her suspicions: no one was home.
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Lorie went dutifully from room to room, checking the apartment for any signs of life. Jane’s guns and ammo were out. The bags and boxes that had contained them looked like they had been torn open in seconds.
“Okay,” Lorie said, “that’s something. Jane knew what was happening and armed herself. She fought back. That’s something.”
Lorie took a deep breath and said, “Okay, it’s time we go find Jane and Sven…and…Ivan? Where’s Ivan? Ivan?”
She got up and left the den. Nila followed her out, her nails click-clacking on the wood floor.
“Ivan? Where are you?”
Then, as Lorie was walking through the living room she heard the familiar sound of kibble being crunched and flung about. A shadow of relief washed over her and she ran the rest of the way to the corner of the kitchen where Ivan’s food bowl and water dish were.
Ivan stopped eating when he saw Lorie. He noticed the large dog behind Lorie, but made no sign of either fear or hostility.
Lorie knelt down and petted Ivan and scratched behind his ears. He began to purr.
Nila click-clacked over and took a few tentative sniffs at Ivan, who stood his ground.
“Good cat,” Lorie said. “If you’re here, that means Sven is okay, and I bet he and Jane aren’t far.”
Ivan meowed.
“That’s right,” Lorie said, and smiled. “This is Nila, by the way. Ivan, meet Nila. Nila, meet Ivan. I hope you two get along…”
After Nila was done acquainting herself with Ivan, she click-clacked over to the kitchen threshold and sat down. After a minute or two, Ivan lost interest in his visitors and refocused on his food bowl.
“Okay,” Lorie said, patting Ivan’s head, “you be a good cat for a while.”
Lorie went to the cupboard and found two protein bars for herself. She tore one open and was two-thirds of the way through it before she noticed Nila watching her, licking her chops.
“What’s wrong with me?” Lorie said.
She found a clean soup bowl, filled it with water, and set it down in front of Nila. The Akita began slurping up the water.
Then Lorie crept past Ivan and took his bag of kibble down from a shelf. He watched her take down the bag, get another soup bowl, and carry the bag and bowl to the end of the kitchen where Nila was drinking. Lorie poured a generous helping of cat kibble into the bowl and set it next to Nila’s impromptu water bowl.
Nila’s eyes widened as she sniffed at the air. She stopped slurping up water, stuck her nose in the kibble, and began to crunch and gobble away at it.
Ivan watched the dog eat the kibble for a moment, then turned back to his own food bowl.
“Cat food, dog food, whatever,” Lorie said. “Meat is meat.”
She finished the protein bar she had started, had one more, and then drank close to a full liter of water. The wind’s howl reached Lorie through the multi-paned glass of the sole kitchen window. The howl seemed ominous to her, and she remembered that she had to go outside again. She left the eating animals in the kitchen and went back into the den, where she opened the case of apocalypse cell phones. She took one out, activated it, and, as she walked back to the kitchen, started trying the numbers of the phones that were missing from the case.
The first number she dialed connected her with an automated message. She began to feel something akin to panic grip her. It wasn’t the complete feeling that humans experience as panic, but something dull and shade-like, a poorly executed imitation of the original. Then Lorie realized that the number may have belonged to her own phone, which, under the circumstances of the previous day, she had forgotten in her locker.
She dialed the next number and got a dial tone. Each tone summoned a twinge of the panic-like feeling, but Lorie could feel no emotional turmoil at the thought of losing Sven and Jane. There was that half-empty feeling, and nothing more.
“Hello?” Lorie heard someone say. It was a woman’s voice, slightly garbled in the transmission. Something pushed itself forward from the back of Lorie’s mind: the voice belonged to Jane. It was Jane. Jane was on the phone. Jane was alright.
A box in a checklist in Lorie’s mind filled with a checkmark. Lorie searched for the feelings that should have accompanied learning that Jane was okay. She squeezed her eyes shut and reached backward with her awareness. It was like trying to catch tiny, highly alert, quick-moving fish in a shallow pool of water. By the time her hands were near the surface, the fish were gone. The words “relief,” “happiness,” and “hope,” formed within the pool and floated up to the surface. They were only words, hollow and without meaning. They stirred nothing in Lorie. One by one, the words dissolved.
“Hello?” Jane said again. “Hello? Is someone there?”
“Yeah,” Lorie said, “it’s me. It’s Lorie.” Her own name sounded foreign to her, as if she were pronouncing the two syllable combination for the first time in her life.
“Lorie! Lorie, are you okay? Sven it’s Lorie. Lorie, how are you?”
“Yeah, I’m okay. I’m back at the apartment, I… Where are you?”
“Sven and I, we’re just a few blocks away, on the river.”
“What are you doing over there?” Lorie asked.
“We’re just…we had to step out, we’re coming back now.”
“What are you doing over there?” Lorie asked again. “Why did you leave the apartment?” Lorie’s mind shifted into gear, clicking away faster and faster as she ran through the possibilities.
“Lorie,” Jane said sternly, “don’t worry. We’ll be back in a few minutes.” There was a pause, then she added, “Please stay put.”
Lorie held the phone to her ear and said nothing.
“Lorie?” Jane said. “Lorie?”
Lorie strained to sort out the background noise, to reconstruct an image of Jane’s position from the sounds of Jane’s surroundings.
“Lorie?” Jane said. “Can you still hear me?”
Lorie hung up. She tightened the straps of her backpack, thinking about whether or not to check the forum before going outside.
I’ll just have Sven and Jane tell me what’s new when I see them, Lorie thought, I’m sure nothing’s changed.
She got a replacement mask, put a filter in it, and put it on.
Then she dashed to the door, flung it open, locked it behind her, and began to make her way out of the building, moving at top speed. As she moved, willing her injured body onward, she realized that she was thirsty, and in dire need of caffeine.
113
EAST RIVER GREENWAY, NEW YORK, NEW YORK
Jane had her arms wrapped around Sven’s middle. He was shaking violently and the spasms reminded Jane of the terrible movements that characterized the infected.
She looked around them at the Greenway as she held him. What she felt at the sight was an equal mixture of shock, disbelief, and fear. She had seen something similar before, at the Wegmans, but there Sven had done it out of necessity, there he had done it to save them…here, Jane wasn’t sure.
Milt’s body lay, conspicuous, among the bodies of the other infected. His body was so visible, so obvious, and so close to the beginning of the Greenway that Jane wasn’t sure why any confrontation between Sven and the remaining infected had been necessary. Hadn’t Sven been able to see, from the top of the ramp that led to the beginning of the Greenway, that Milt, as destroyed as his body was, had already been taken out of the world by the virus that he had spread?
Sven pushed himself away from her. He stumbled backward. The machete dropped from his hand. He looked down at the knife.
“I don’t know why,” he said, as if he had been listening in on Jane’s thoughts. He looked up at her. “I don’t know why I did this. At first I thought I needed to get closer to make sure that Milt was dead—that’s why I came out here in the first place, to make sure—but then it should’ve been so obvious. I mean, look at him.”
Sven turned and his gaze fell on Milt’s body. He looked at the bulk of Milt’s
remains and the smaller bits that were scattered outward around him, as if the infected had caused him to explode.
“But then,” Sven said, looking back at Jane, “I just started hacking, cutting, and hacking, and stabbing, and hacking…and hacking…and hack—” Sven trailed off and began to shake again.
He bent down and reached for the fallen machete.
Jane lunged toward him and grabbed his hand. “No,” she said. “Leave it. Please, let it be.”
Sven looked at her, wavering.
“This…” Jane said, “this part of our lives is over. Please, Sven, let it be over.”
Slowly, Sven straightened.
They stood like that for a while, Jane’s hand clutching Sven, Sven staring at what he had done to the Greenway, Jane watching Sven’s face.
“Come on,” Jane said, after a time, “Let’s—”
In the corner of her eye, Jane saw movement—swift movement.
She turned, and there, half-running and half-limping down the ramp toward them, was Lorie.
“Oh my God,” Sven said. “No!” he yelled at the top of his lungs. His voice cracked and he yelled it again. He had already taken off in a sprint toward Lorie. Jane had heard his shout, felt his hand snap away from hers, and now he was moving away from her so rapidly—she couldn’t believe there was still strength like that left in him after—
Then she saw it, and understood why.
All of the energy left Jane’s body. She sank to her knees, and wept.
Lorie’s mask was halfway off her face. In her hand, she had a can of Coca-Cola, and she was gulping it while she ran.
114
UNDERGROUND BUNKER, UNDISCLOSED LOCATION, U.S.A., 11:43 A.M., SATURDAY, TWO DAYS AFTER THE OUTBREAK
The vegan with the handlebar moustache woke. He felt as if he had been unconscious for a very long time, maybe even on the order of days.
Metal cups were lying upended on the floor in front of him.
