Arena One: Slaverunners

by Morgan Rice

  Far below I see a snow bank, about eight feet high. The snow is thick, and if we land just right, maybe, just maybe, it can cushion our fall. But it is a far jump, about fifty feet. And it would put us on the Desert side of the wall.

  But I don’t see what choice we have.

  “That snow bank!” I yell, pointing. “We can jump for it!”

  Logan looks down and shakes his head, looking scared.

  I check over our shoulder: the crazies are 30 yards away.

  “We have no choice!” I yell.

  “I’m scared of heights,” he finally admits, looking very pale.

  I reach over and take his hand, and step up on the ledge. He pauses for a second, fear his eyes, but then comes.

  “Close your eyes!” I yell. “Trust me!”

  And then, with the crazies only a few feet away, we jump.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  As we plummet through the air, screaming, I hope my aim is accurate. We rush towards the ground so fast, I know that if we miss, we will surely die.

  A moment later I am immersed in a cloud of snow, as I land dead center in the eight-foot snow bank, Logan right beside me, still holding my hand. I hit it with tremendous speed and sink down into it, all the way to the bottom, until my feet hit hard on the cement. Luckily, the snow is thick, and it cushions most of the impact of the fall. When I hit bottom, it only feels as if I’ve jumped from a few feet high.

  I sit at the bottom, snow piled high above my head, in complete shock. I look up and several feet above me see sunlight poking through the snow. I sit there, frozen, afraid to move, to begin to claw my way out of the mountain of snow, to find out if anything is broken. I feel like I’m on the beach, buried under a pile of sand.

  Slowly, I move a hand, then an arm, then a shoulder…. I begin to gradually pull myself out, free myself from the hole that I’m in. It is awkward, but I manage to claw my way up and out of the pile of snow. I stick my head out, like a gopher coming up from a hole in a lawn. I turn and see Logan doing the same.

  I crane my neck and look up: all the way up there, still standing on the roof, looking down, is the mob of crazies. They are arguing amongst themselves, and it appears they aren’t willing to do the jump we just did. I don’t blame them: I look up at the height and marvel that I had the guts to take such a leap myself. I probably wouldn’t do it again if I stopped to think about it.

  I stand, breaking free of the snow bank, and Logan does, too. I am completely covered in snow and reach up and brush it off. I take a few steps, testing myself, checking to see if anything is broken. My calf still hurts—worse than ever—but otherwise, remarkably, I think I survived relatively intact, with only a few more aches and bruises to show for it.

  I look over at Logan, who’s walking, and am relieved to see he didn’t break anything, either. Just as importantly, I’m relieved to see we are now on this side of the wall. The desert. It might mean a slow death—but at least we’re safe for now.

  I look down the desolate, abandoned University Place: all the stores are burnt out, some of them crumbled to the ground. There is no one and nothing here. As chaotic and violent as the wasteland was, the desert is quiet. Peaceful. Finally, for the first time in a while, I let my guard down.

  But I know that I shouldn’t. If this part of the city really is radiated, then it holds more danger than all the other places combined. Every second here could contaminate us. And who knows who—or what—still survives in the zone. I’d hate to run into it.

  “Let’s move,” Logan says, following the bus tracks, which go straight through the arch in the wall, and continue down University.

  We walk at a quick pace down University, checking over our shoulders as we go. Now more than ever I wish I had a weapon. I see Logan checking his body habitually and can tell he wishes he had one, too. Our only hope now is just to follow these tracks, find Bree, and get out of here as soon as possible.

  We pass 10th Street, then 9th, then 8th, and suddenly the sky opens up on our right. I look over and am shocked to see what was once Washington Square Park. I remember so many nights here, before the war, hanging out with friends, sitting around and watching the skateboarders do their tricks on the cement plaza. Now, as I look at it, I’m aghast: there is nothing left. The huge arch that marked its entrance is toppled, lies on the ground, crumbled, covered in snow. Even worse, where the park once was, there is now nothing but a vast crater, sinking hundreds of feet deep into the earth. It stretches as far as the eye can see. It is as if a whole section of the city has been scooped out.

  Logan must see me staring.

  “That’s where the bomb hit,” he explains. “The first to hit the city.”

  I can’t believe it. It looks like the Grand Canyon. I can see the bomb’s rippling effect, radiating out, building façades melted away in every direction. Everything that I once knew is gone. It now looks more like the surface of Mars.

  “Let’s go,” Logan says impatiently, and I realize that the sight disturbs him, too.

  The bus tracks continue down University until it ends, then go left on West 4th. We follow them as they cut through the Village and turn right on Bowery. This avenue is wider, and it is desolate here, too. There is not a soul in sight.

  I should feel more relaxed, yet oddly enough, I feel more on edge than ever. It is too ominous, too quiet. All I hear is the howling of the wind, the snow whipping into my face. I can’t help feeling that at any moment something might jump out at me.

  But nothing does. Instead, we walk and walk, down block after block, always heading further downtown. I feel like we are crossing a vast desert, with no end in sight. And this, it turns out, is the real danger of this zone. The distance. The cold. The bus tracks never seem to end, and with each step, my leg gets worse, and I grow weaker.

  Slowly, the late afternoon sky, heavy with storm clouds, grows darker. As we cross the huge street that I once knew as Houston, I wonder how much further I can go.

  If Logan is right, if they are really taking her to the South Street Seaport, I know we still have a ways to go. I’m already feeling dizzy, delirious with hunger. My leg feels five times the size, and, ironically, this walking might be the worst trial of all.

  Somehow I continue on, trekking further down Bowery. We hike in silence, hardly saying a word to each other. There is so much I want to say to him. I want to thank him for saving my life; he’s already saved me three times in a single day, and I’m starting to wonder if it’s a debt I can repay. I also want to thank him for giving up his boat, for coming with me. I think of how much he’s sacrificed for me, and it overwhelms me. I want to ask him why he did it.

  I’m impressed by his fighting skills. Logan reminds me of what my Dad must have been like in battle—or, at least, my vision of him. I begin to wonder where Logan is from. If he is from here. If he has family here. Or family alive anywhere. I also want to ask him how he feels about me. Does he like me? Of course, I could never actually ask him. But still, I wonder. Does he have any feelings for me? Why didn’t he escape when he had the chance? Why did he risk his life to follow me? Thinking about it, I feel guilty. I have endangered him. He could be safe somewhere right now.

  And most of all, despite myself, I want to know if he has a girlfriend. Or ever did. I immediately chide myself, feeling disloyal to Ben, who, after all, I just left. But these two guys—Logan and Ben—are so different from each other. They are like two different species. I reflect on the feelings I have for Ben, and I realize they are still there, and still genuine: there is something about him, a sensitivity, a vulnerability, that I really like. When I look into Ben’s large, suffering eyes, there is something I can relate to.

  But when I look at Logan, I feel attracted to him in an entirely different way. Logan is big and strong and silent. He’s noble, a man of action, and he can clearly handle himself. He’s a bit of a mystery to me, and I wish I knew more. But I like that.

  I find myself really liking certain things about Ben, and certain
, different, things about Logan. Somehow my feelings for both seem to be able to co-exist inside, perhaps because they are so different that I don’t feel like they are competing with each other.

  I allow myself to get lost in these thoughts as we trek on, directly into the blizzard. It takes my mind away from the pain, the hunger, the cold.

  The streets narrow again as we pass through a neighborhood I once knew was as Little Italy. I remember coming here with Dad, having an Italian dinner in one of the small, crowded restaurants packed with tourists. Now, nothing remains. All the storefronts are destroyed. There is nothing but waste. Emptiness.

  We trudge on, and walking gets harder as the snow reaches our knees. I am counting the steps now, praying for our arrival. We reach another broad street, and the crooked sign reads “Delancey.” I look to my left, expecting to see the Williamsburg Bridge.

  Incredibly, it is gone.

  The enormous bridge is demolished, clearly destroyed in some battle, its metal entrance twisting up into the sky like some sort of modern sculpture. All that labor, all the design, all the manpower—all destroyed, and probably at a moment’s notice. For what? For nothing.

  I look away in disgust.

  We continue further downtown, crossing Delancey. After several more blocks we hit the main artery of Canal Street, and I’m almost afraid to look to my left, to look for the Manhattan Bridge. I force myself to. I wish I hadn’t. Like the Williamsburg, this bridge is destroyed, too, nothing but shards of metal left, twisted and torn, leaving a gaping opening over the river.

  We push on, my feet and hands so frozen that I wonder if I have frostbite. We pass through what was once Chinatown, with its taller buildings and narrow streets, now unrecognizable. Like every other neighborhood, it is just an abandoned pile of rubble.

  Bowery forks to the right, onto Park Row, and I’m breathing hard as we make it a few more blocks and finally reach a huge intersection. I stop and stare, in awe.

  To my right lies the structure that was one City Hall, now lying in ruins, a mere pile of rubble. It is awful. This incredible building, once so grand, is now nothing but a memory.

  I’m afraid to turn around, to look at the Brooklyn Bridge behind me—that beautiful work of art that I used to walk across with Bree on warm summer days. I pray that it is still there, that at least one beautiful thing remains. I close my eyes and turn slowly.

  I am horrified. Like the other two bridges, it is destroyed. Nothing remains, not even the base, leaving a gaping hole over the river. In its place, where it once stood, there are huge piles of twisted metal sticking up out of the river.

  Even more startling, lying there, in the midst of the river, sticking up on a crooked angle, are the remnants of a huge military plane, half submerged, its tail sticking up. It looks like it took a nosedive and never came up. It is shocking see such a huge plane sticking up out of the river, as if a child threw his toy into a bath and never bothered to clean it up.

  It is darker, almost twilight, and I can’t go any further. Amazingly, the winds and snow only continue to pick up. The snow is past my knees, and I feel as if I’m being slowly swallowed alive. I know the Seaport isn’t far, but it is too painful to take another step.

  I reach up and lay a hand on Logan’s shoulder. He looks over at me, surprised.

  “My leg,” I say, through clenched teeth. “I can’t walk.”

  “Put your arm over my shoulder,” he says.

  I do, and he leans over, places a hand behind my back and holds me tight, propping me up.

  We walk together, and the pain lessens. I feel embarrassed, self-conscious: I never want to be dependent on a guy. On anyone. But now, I really need it.

  We make a left, walking under the structure that once lead to the bridge, and then make a right onto what was once Pearl Street. It is uncanny. After all this journeying, somehow we have ended up back in the neighborhood I grew up in. It is so weird to be back here. On the day I left, I swore I’d never come back. Never. I was sure that Manhattan would be destroyed, and never even imagined I would see it again.

  Walking back through here, down these narrow cobblestone streets, this old historic district, once teeming with tourists, with everything I knew, is the most painful of all. Memories come flooding back, places where, in every corner, Bree and I would play. I am flooded with memories of spending time here with Mom and Dad. Memories of when they were actually happy with each other.

  Our apartment was in the shopping district, above one of the stores, in a small, historic building. I remember resenting it growing up, all those annoying Saturday nights when the nightlife never seemed to end, when people would talk and smoke under my bedroom window until five in the morning. Now I would do anything for that noise, that activity. I would give anything to be able to walk across the street to a café and order breakfast. I get a sharp hunger pang just thinking of it.

  As fate would have it, we turn down Water Street—the very block I used to live on. My heart flutters, as I realize we’re going to walk past my very apartment. I can’t help wondering if Dad is looking down, guiding me. Or maybe it’s Mom, if she’s dead. Maybe she’s the one looking down. Maybe, though, she’s taunting me. Reprimanding me. After all, this is the place where I abandoned her, all those years ago. She could have come with me. But she wouldn’t leave. And I knew that. Still, I feel I did what I had to do at the time—for me, and most importantly, for Bree. What else was I supposed to do? Just sit here with her and wait for our deaths?

  I can’t help seeing the irony in all of it, though, in all the twists and turns that life has taken. I took Bree and fled to safety, but now she is captured, and right back here, where we started from, and I’ll probably never get her back. And the way I feel now, I can’t imagine surviving more than a few more hours myself. So what good did our leaving do us, after all? If I had just stayed put, with Mom, at least we would have all died together, in peace. Not a long slow, torturous death of starvation. Maybe Mom had it right all along.

  We pass my apartment building and I brace myself, wondering what it will look like. And I know it’s ridiculous, but a part of me wonders if Mom is still there, sitting up in a window. Waiting.

  I look up, and am shocked: my former building is now just a pile of rubble, covered in snow. High weeds grow up from between the rocks, and it looks like it collapsed long ago. I feel as if someone punched me in the gut. My home is gone. Mom is really gone.

  “What’s wrong?” Logan asks.

  I realize that I’ve stopped, that I’m standing there, staring. I lower my head, grab his shoulder, and continue on.

  “Nothing,” I respond.

  We continue into the heart of the shopping district of the South Street Seaport. I remember sitting here, looking at the shining cobblestone, at all the expensive shops, feeling as if I were in the most pristine place in the world. A place impervious to change. Now I look around and see nothing but devastation. There aren’t even any signs, any markers to indicate what it once was.

  We turn left on Fulton and in the distance I spot the waterfront. It is twilight now, thick gray clouds gathering on the horizon, and I finally feel a surge of hope as I see the water, just blocks away. I see the bus tracks, turning down this road, coming to an end at the pier. We have made it.

  We walk faster and I feel a surge of adrenaline as I wonder if Bree could be there, on the pier. I unconsciously check my belt for weapons, and remember I have none left. No matter. If she’s there, I will find a way to get her back.

  We walk out onto the wooden pier of the Seaport, once teeming with tourists, now desolate. The tall, historic sailing ships are still there, bobbing in the water—but now they’re just rotting hulls. At the end of the pier I see the bus, parked. I hurry towards it, my heart pounding, hoping that Bree is somehow still on it.

  But of course the bus has been unloaded long ago. I reach the side of the bus and look in to find it empty. I check the snow and see the tracks where the girls were unloaded, led down
a ramp to a boat. I look out at the water, and in the distance, I spot a large, rusted barge, maybe half a mile off, docked on Governor’s Island. I see a line of girls being unloaded. Bree is among them. I can feel it.

  I feel a surge of determination. But also of hopelessness. We have missed the boat. We’re too late.

  “There’s another boat in the morning,” Logan says. “At dawn. There always is, once a day. We just need to wait it out. Find shelter for the night.”

  “If you make it through the night,” comes a voice.

  I am shocked to hear a strange voice behind us, and I spin around.

  Standing there, about ten feet away, I am amazed to see, is a group of about a dozen people, dressed in yellow military fatigues. In their center stands a person who looks like their leader. His face is melted, distorted, as are the faces of the others. He looks even worse than the Biovictims, if that’s possible. Maybe it’s from living in this radiated zone.

  Somehow, they have managed to creep on us. We are outnumbered, and I see all the weapons in their belts, the guns in their hands. We have no chance.

  “You’re in our territory now,” he continues. “Why shouldn’t we kill you ourselves?”

  “Please,” I plead. “The slaverunners took my sister. I have to get her back.”

  “We don’t like slaverunners any more than you do. They ride their buses through here like it’s their territory. IT’S MY TERRITORY!” he shrieks, his face distorted, his eyes bulging. “DO YOU HEAR ME? IT’S MINE!”

  I flinch at the sound of his voice, so distorted with rage. I am delirious with exhaustion, with pain, and can hardly even stand.

  I see him take a step towards us, and brace myself for an attack. But before I can even finish the thought, suddenly my world starts to spin. It spins, again and again, and before I know it, I am falling towards the ground.

  And then, everything is black.

  TWENTY-NINE

  I open my eyes with an effort. I’m not sure if I’m dead or alive, but if I’m alive, I didn’t know life could feel this way: every muscle in my body is on fire. I am shaking and shivering and have never been so cold my life—yet at the same time I am also burning up, a cold sweat running down the back of my neck. My hair clings to the side of my face, and every joint in my body hurts more than I can describe. It is like the worst fever I’ve ever had—times a hundred.