by James Phelan
I’m a part of this, I realized; I’m part of this war. I’m a murderer and a thief. I’ve taken possessions and life and I feel more guilt-free than I should.
Good night, Mini whispered into the darkness.
Good night.
20
When the others got up for breakfast the next day, I stayed in bed. Memories from my nightmare still lingered and I burrowed deep under my two comforters, trying to push the images away. Through the small opening near my head I could see that Dave was ready to go, his gun locked and loaded.
Stove’s out of gas, Anna said. Can we use the generator to boil a kettle?
Generator’s out of gas, Dave said.
I don’t understand why you Americans call petrol “gas,” she said. You call gas “gas” but why call petrol “gas”?
They argued for a while, more about her acerbic views of American culture than anything else. The argument ended with Dave saying: Well, at least you don’t have to worry about us Americans anymore. Then he fell silent. I still didn’t get out of bed.
What are we doing? Anna said about an hour later. We’re leaving today, aren’t we?
I guessed that Mini was still asleep because I hadn’t heard her voice. I watched the doors to the kitchen, and for the first time I wished someone other than one of my friends would come through those doors. Even a Chaser would do, someone different, someone—
Are you going to come with us? Anna asked. She was sitting on the end of my bed. We’re going today.
I didn’t reply. I pretended I was still asleep, but I knew she’d know I wasn’t. I was tired and confused and I couldn’t be bothered with the unknown today.
It’s really selfish of you, you know? she said.
I felt heat rise up my neck and it hurt when I swallowed. Maybe I was getting tonsillitis. I felt sweaty, my heart raced, I couldn’t close my eyes tightly enough. Couldn’t help come to me? Couldn’t we stay just a little bit longer?
We’ve got everything planned and ready and now you’re being stupid, she said. This was mostly your idea.
She got up and went into the kitchen but still I lay in bed. I stayed like that all day. I could hear the others moving about and getting ready and occasionally one would come over and try to convince me to get up but I didn’t move. They could go without me for all I cared. I would make my own life without them and who knows, maybe I’d be all right, after all.
Finally, when it was getting dark, I got out of bed. The others weren’t around but their bags were still there so I knew they hadn’t left. I grabbed a Sprite from the bar and headed up to the observation decks still wrapped in my bedding. I wanted to avoid the others. I felt selfish but I didn’t care. My throat felt like it was on fire so maybe I really was sick. Or maybe I was just losing my nerve. I drank my can of soda, looked to the south and west and sat there—watching, waiting, drinking. I could have stayed there like that for days. Maybe I was becoming one of them: a Chaser.
The night sky was clear, the inky black above me full of stars. It reminded me of camping as a kid and sleeping out in the open on hot summer nights and counting shooting stars. The darker it was, the more stars you’d see. And right then I thought that this city was probably the darkest place on earth. The ground that stretched out before me, once full of light and life, was now a dark shadow. It was almost as if things had been inverted, and the carpet of lights in the sky was making up for what had gone from below.
Then, to the west, in what I knew was New Jersey beyond the Hudson River, a number of blocks lit up. Power.
I had never seen something man-made that was as beautiful as that patchwork of streetlights, nor had I cried that hard since I was a kid thinking about my mother.
Beautiful, glorious, deliberate: power.
I was ready to leave.
21
New Jersey, represent! Dave yelled. Yee-ha!
Maps were checked. Decisions were made. We were riding high.
We take a boat across the Hudson and then it’s only a few blocks from the shore to where the lights are on, I said. Imagine—they might all be fine over there!
They might have news.
They might have answers.
They might have airplanes.
We smiled and laughed and ate through a decent chunk of our table-load of fine boxed chocolates. We decided to leave at first light; we’d be in New Jersey by lunchtime. I felt happy to be alive and I didn’t feel guilty for delaying my friends anymore, not one little bit. They treated me like an explorer. I was Cook or Columbus or Polo; I’d discovered something and it wasn’t just a new land, it was proof of life. Our new earth was bigger than just me, bigger than us.
Our conversation jumped all over the place. We were too hyped up to stick to one topic.
I’m going to drive a fire truck around, Mini said and I suspected she was a little bit drunk.
I saw an episode of Cribs on MTV once, Dave said. This rapper had a garage and you expected him to have, like, a collection of Ferraris and Porsches, but all he had in there were fire trucks—just because he could!
I hate MTV and that’s obscene, Anna said. There are kids starving in the world.
Hate’s a strong word, I said.
What, you’ve never hated anything? I thought you Aussies hated us Brits.
I looked at her in shock. If Anna had got the sense that I hated her, she had my intentions all wrong.
We don’t hate you guys at all, I said. We still share the same Queen. It’s Dave here; his countrymen fought you guys for independence. He’s the hater.
Damn straight, Dave said. And we’ll whoop anyone’s ass that tries to come over here and do shit like that again.
What, colonize?
Whatever, he said. You’ve seen the apartments and offices below us, almost everyone in America is carrying. If any other nation tries landing here, there’ll be consequences—three hundred million armed Americans ready to rock.
Imagine what the US would have been like without the Louisiana Purchase? I said. Napoleon may have retreated back here and retooled and rearmed his forces and taken another crack at the Brits.
See, you do hate us, Anna said, staring out the window.
Anyway, I said, maybe there aren’t starving kids to worry about anymore.
Maybe it’s even worse now.
Yeah, maybe . . . I said and looked out at the lights in New Jersey. But maybe we won’t have to worry about global warming anymore.
We were silent, thinking about the implications of a new time for which none of us had the answers. I hoped we’d soon be with people who knew more than we did, who knew what had been going on around the world. I’d grown up with the Internet; I was used to finding out about things as soon as they happened. To be left in the dark, as we had been for the past ten days, felt surreal. Finding out who was behind this didn’t seem to matter much anymore; it was the consequences of what they’d done that were important. Soon we’d be in New Jersey, talking to real live people, finding out what the future might hold.
I looked at the others around the table, each lost in their own thoughts. No matter what, no matter who we met tomorrow, I’d always be grateful to my three friends. I hoped we’d stay friends. We made a good team, but I wondered whether we would have formed such a strong unit if all this had never happened. I guessed I would never know.
22
We stayed up all night. I tried to sleep at about 3 am, but I couldn’t close my eyes for more than a few seconds for fear the lights of New Jersey would blink out. They stayed on. They stayed on and at 5 am we decided to make our move. I had one last look around the place that had sheltered us, before the others filed out and I shut the door. With my big pack on, I led the way downstairs, a flashlight in each hand to illuminate the dark stairwell. We emerged in the lobby and out onto Rockefeller Plaza, beating the first rays of the sun.
On 47th Street there were still the fire engines and police cars, just as I’d remembered them. The air was biting and I put on
my FDNY jacket against the cold. Rather than heading out towards Eighth Avenue and then north to 79th Street guided only by flashlight, we decided to sit in the cab of one of the fire engines and wait for the sun to come up. The battery was flat so we couldn’t turn the heater on, but we blew into our hands and huddled together to keep warm.
At the first hint of sunrise we got out of the cab and checked the small map I kept folded away in my jacket pocket. We made our way west a couple of blocks and turned right onto Eighth Avenue. I asked Dave a few times if this car or that one were the ones he’d started up when he did his trip, but he just said he couldn’t remember. I started to get annoyed with him; he was the only one who’d taken this route before. I should have told him to lift a wiper or make some other mark on the cars, like I’d done on my trip. We wasted a lot of time trying to get different cars started, with no luck for three blocks. Some were locked, many didn’t have keys, some had flat batteries, and a few had dead people in them.
I sat in an SUV and turned the key in the ignition—nothing.
Gee, Dave, I called out through the window. Lucky we’re not relying on you to—
I stopped and didn’t move. Six Chasers had walked around the corner of the block up ahead. They looked like walking ghosts, sapped of energy, six lonely shells of human beings shuffling along. They stopped at a small crater that was full of water and knelt and drank. They could have been a herd of animals.
I glanced at Dave and the girls who were on the other side of the street. They quickly crouched down behind a taxi. So far we hadn’t been spotted but if they continued this way—
One of the Chasers stood and walked in our direction.
I slid down in my seat and held my breath. When I looked out through the bottom of the windscreen, the Chaser had stopped to pick up some slushy snow. He ate it as he continued on.
Dave motioned to me and mouthed, Gun! but I shook my head.
I looked past the lone figure coming our way and saw that his friends had gotten to their feet and were walking in our direction too. Six Chasers, coming towards us. Some had dried blood on them but they didn’t look injured.
The first guy was now twenty yards away. I stayed still; I was sure if I moved he’d notice and make a beeline for me.
Suddenly one of the Chasers in the group made a noise—a weird high-pitched monkey sound—and the others stopped and responded by making the same sound in unison. Then the one closest to us turned and walked back towards his group but he slipped on some ice and fell hard. His friends watched on with interest.
I was transfixed, and when the fallen man got back to his feet, he half-turned and looked my way and I panicked and moved just a little—
His eyes went wide when he saw me. I noticed that his face was grazed and he had blood dripping from his forehead. He turned to his group but before he could make a noise, they were on him like animals; they pinned him to the ground and drank and drank.
I looked to my friends but they had already made a move. I crawled out of the open door of the SUV and headed back the way we’d come, using the vehicle as cover. When I reached the intersection at the end of the street, I crossed the road on my hands and knees behind a massive pile-up of cars. I hoped and prayed I wasn’t being followed, expecting at any moment to feel a live weight on my back. I crawled as fast as I could across the snow-covered asphalt, grazing my hands, my face and neck flaming with fear. I was going to be attacked, my blood would be drunk, I would die slowly and in pain as mouths closed on me and—
My friends were behind the corner of a building and they waved me towards them like sirens calling a lost seaman to shore. I reached them and sank against the smooth wall of the building, closing my eyes because if the Chasers were coming I didn’t want to see. I felt like throwing up but I took deep breaths through my panic and after a few minutes I was brave enough to open my eyes and look at the world.
My friends were silent, watching me. Why hadn’t they waited? They didn’t try to explain or console me, maybe because they didn’t know what to say. Dave stared at his feet. Mini looked like she was someplace else, and Anna looked from one to the other, like she was appealing to them to help me. My hands were bloody and raw and cold and I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought to wear gloves. I clenched my fists and stood up and led the way west, towards Tenth Avenue.
My friends kept watching me as we walked. I couldn’t look at them, couldn’t meet their eyes. I led them into a cafe, entering through the smashed remnants of a window. I took off my backpack and found the medical kit. I washed my hands with bottled water, then applied antiseptic and wrapped each hand in a bandage. It reminded me of being in the arcade when Anna had tended the cut on my forehead, but she didn’t offer to help this time, just watched. They were all watching me, waiting for a sign. Waiting for me to show them the way.
When my hands were bandaged I put on my pack and led them back out to the street. It was snowing and the light powder coated my head and shoulders as we turned north onto Tenth.
We stopped at each intersection and looked carefully around corners. There were more pile-ups here and the streets at West 54th and Tenth were impassable. The Glock was heavy in my jacket pocket and my pack weighed me down as I trudged on, weaving though the stationary gridlock of smashed and abandoned vehicles. We headed east and then left onto Ninth Avenue.
The others were still following me and I was drawn into a building near the junction of West 59th Street, where smoke was billowing from one of the windows. We went slowly, leaving our backpacks at the door. It was dark inside so I retrieved the flashlight and flicked it on. Its weak beam lit the space but there was nothing to see; the building ended where it began. Inside there were piles of rubble and not much else—it was like the place had been gutted by a demolition team, like a bomb had gone off leaving only the outer shell.
There was no one there but I didn’t want to find anyone. The smoke we’d seen from outside was coming from a few small fires among the piles of rubble, remnants of upper levels that were now open to the sky; an artificial atrium.
I went back to the doorway where I could sit and watch the street while remaining hidden. None of us said anything. Whether we were in shock or it was something else, I didn’t know. We were alone in our own minds.
Screw this town! Screw this town and what’s left of it!
Anna and Mini looked at me. They had tears on their cheeks.
You didn’t go to the Boat Basin, did you, Dave.
He didn’t answer. Didn’t have to. It wasn’t a question.
I know you didn’t, and if you say you did but you can’t remember anything about the journey then you’re a liar, you hear me? You understand?
He nodded, slowly. Tears.
I don’t care if we part ways here, I said. I really don’t. I’ll make it to the Boat Basin on my own and you three can do whatever you want. I never asked you to stay with me all this time. I never said I didn’t want to be alone. I’m used to being alone. I’ve been alone most of my life. It’s nothing new, so believe me, you three can leave and I won’t blame you or waste time wondering why.
I left them at the doorway and walked back inside, among the rubble, scratching myself on the fractured concrete walls. I saw some bloated bodies in the wreckage and felt nothing. I didn’t know who I was anymore. I was tired and none of my friends could help me and I wanted to be alone. I leaned against a wall and cried until snot was streaming from my nose. I stayed there, sobbing, until I couldn’t cry any longer; I could only make pathetic whimpering noises. The sound made me angry and I squeezed my fists and kicked the wall, kicked it with all the strength I had left.
When I finally walked back to the doorway, my friends were gone. I felt numb. I picked up my backpack as if on autopilot and strapped it on, fastening the waistband so it wouldn’t rattle around if I had to run. I put the flashlight away and held my Glock and walked out onto the street.
Mini, Anna and Dave were standing there. They looked strong, confide
nt; they looked how I wanted to feel.
I chambered a round in the Glock.
I’m going, I said. We’re going to make it to the Boat Basin, no matter what. Whatever it takes, I will be in a boat and in New Jersey by the end of today. Whatever it takes.
23
Dave walked ahead this time and I felt more confident now, like he was shouldering some of the burden. Navigating the deserted streets was still frightening; every corner held an unseen threat and the dark shopfronts looked menacing.
When we were a block south of Central Park, we hid out in an empty cafe while about two dozen Chasers walked past at a snail’s pace. They looked weaker than the previous group and were all ages, from early teens to old men. Like the others we’d seen that day, they were dressed for the cold and I guessed they must have been caught outdoors when the city was attacked. It made me sad to think that the only difference between us and them was that we’d been underground at the right time. The group moved like they had no energy and their faces were without hope; it was all I could do not to go out and give them bottles of soda from the cafe’s fridges. But I stayed hidden. I was only sixteen. Self-preservation is the downside of being in a position of advantage.
Looks like they’ve gone, Dave said, peering out of the cafe’s windows.
Can’t we stay and rest for a bit more? Mini asked. Just for a bit?
Sure, I replied and we did. We sat there and stretched out and I drank a Coke and enjoyed the sugar rush. We’d walked only a half a mile. Maybe a mile. I felt like I’d run a marathon. Every step had been like navigating a war zone, where someone could kill you at any moment. We’d had to dogleg east and north, then west and then north again, close to Central Park, the place we wanted to avoid.
New Jersey, huh . . . I said, and Dave replied: Yeah, New Jersey.
No one seemed to want to talk but I felt we needed to so I said: I’m looking forward to a shower. A long, hot shower.
To have a proper hair wash, Anna agreed.
