by Lahey, Tyler
The cashier regarded Harley curiously, as if she were an interesting antique. Then her eyes flicked back up to the screen. She continued to move with painful sluggishness. Harley felt her lip twitch. She could hear the voices blaring over the TV speakers- “And here we see even a regiment of tanks heading into the blackout zone. Our sources have confirmed there is an infection of some sort inside Manhattan.”
“HEY! BAG! A! LITTLE! QUICKER!” With each word, Harley ripped the contents from the conveyor belt and thrust them into her waiting shopping cart. The cashier’s face turned into a scowl, and she called over a supervisor.
“Hey, she’s right. Lets get this moving!” A blustering white man with quivering jowls stood behind Harley, wagging a pudgy finger at the cashier. A murmur of annoyed assent rose from the four other people in line. Each had a big cart stuffed with medicine, snacks, cleaning supplies, and toiletries. The store’s stocks had already been half empty when she and had Elvis arrived.
A young manager approached the scene, smiling nervously. “Ok everyone, lets just keep calm here. Cindy, what seems to be the issue?”
The cashier leaned on one hip and dropped her hand to her waist, so that she suddenly became instantly more irritable to Harley’s furious hazel eyes. “Ummm, this girl just stole some toothpaste, and ummm, some mouthwash.”
“Your worker is taking forever to bag this stuff!” Harley shrieked, her voice capturing the attention of every sweating cashier in the line.
Suddenly, a hooded man burst through an empty lane, his arms stuffed with cleaning supplies and magazines.
“Hey! Hey wait!” The sweaty manager raised a little hand in protest, her tiny body barely visible over the register.
Harley looked down to another register. A chubby woman in a ridiculously patterned sweater snarled and snatched her final items from the belt, before charging towards the exit.
“No! Stop!”
Harley felt herself being pushed from behind by the pudgy sweating man. She heard a baby crying desperately. “Move. Just go!” the man whispered feverishly. Harley’s mind revolted in panic. He began pushing harder, his bulging gut pressing violently against the bare skin of her lower back. “Go!” She saw blurry shapes rushing for the exit, little toothbrushes and floss boxes scattering to the floor.
“Harley!” Elvis shouldered his way to the front, clutching a few more boxes of multivitamins. He stood a full foot shorter than the fat man behind her, but his eyes were all fire. Elvis dropped his shoulder and heaved into the fat man. Despite the man’s obvious size, he was caught totally off guard. The creature shrieked like some overweight harpy, and tumbled down the aisle, knocking over two-dozen boxes of gum. Elvis’s eyes swept over the scene. The manager had already bolted off to try and chase someone down. The cashier backed slowly away as more and more people made for the exit in a mad dash. Elvis shook his head angrily. “Go. Ok, just go. Go!” He gritted his teeth and applied a little pressure on the small of her back. Harley felt a wave of gratitude as she looked at the shorter man guiding her away. Where had that fire been all this time? They snatched whatever items remained on the belt and made for the doors in a hurry.
Liam peered at his phone, reading as they walked. “The school is urging us to remain in contact with our parents and not to panic. They say...it’s better to remain here than to make any rash decisions before we all know what’s going on….Sounds like they have no idea.”
“Sounds like a bad idea, is what it sounds like.” Jaxton said. They had filled an entire shopping cart with canned foods and then stolen it. It clattered on the sidewalk. People stared as they passed, but no one said a word. He struggled for a second to turn the heavy cart around a group of students screaming and arguing. Jaxton frowned. Nerves were only fraying further.
“What do you mean? What else is there?”
“If this shit keeps on spiraling out of control, we need to leave.”
“Jax. And go where?” Tessa’s voice had no mockery in it.
Jax looked at Liam with his eyebrows raised.
“Home? Are you crazy?”
“How many of us have houses there? Know the terrain? Where else would our families expect to find us?”
Liam scoffed. “Here!”
Jax continued, his mind working effortlessly despite the feverish exhaustion that consumed them all. “If this gets any worse, they’ll evacuate this entire area. And then we might never see our families! Who knows how bad this is going to get.”
“We don’t even know what it is, Jax,” Liam argued earnestly.
Tessa cut him off. “There’s an infection. Let’s stop pretending everything might be alright. The military blew the fucking bridges into Manhattan. The Army sends wave after wave of soldiers into that blackout zone and nothing ever comes back out. They wanted to trap the people on that island. We have no way of knowing if it worked.”
Jax felt a sudden appreciation for the girl beside him. She was sharp and bold at the same time. Tessa didn’t seem like the type of girl to shirk from choosing a daring course of action. He found himself smiling at her, noticing again her dull eyes.
Liam threw his head back in denial. “We’re not doing anything until we know more. Now let me push the damn cart for a bit.” He shouldered Jaxton out of the way, and pushed his brawny bulk into the bar. Jaxton smirked, breathless, and slapped him on the shoulder.
Jaxton heard Tessa chuckle. He eyed her sideways, “We didn’t forget about you. You’re up next.” They rattled past a city block dedicated to manicured green space: the campus quad. Tessa opened her mouth to reply when a mannish yelp sounded from around the corner.
Tessa shot forward, with Jaxton at her heel. A stream of people was emerging from the dorms and classrooms around them, heading in groups to the student center once more. Through the massive glass walls, Jax could see an unruly crowd gathering in front of the TVs yet again. “What is it now?” he muttered. “Let’s get back to the room!” He cried back to Liam.
Adira continued to unpack the bags, working tirelessly. She ran over the mental checklist again. Had they missed anything? The others would have gotten it if she had, she was sure. She dropped several toothbrushes on the table, next to a pile of dental products. “Eight of those,” she mumbled.
She could hear the TV blaring in the other room, and knew almost everyone was back from their tasks. Adira began to feel her hands quaking as she moved. Her limbs felt weak and her mouth was dry. She swallowed repetitively. As she moved, she started humming a broken tune, but her voice kept cracking. Suddenly a bottle of painkillers flung from her hands, striking the wall. She gripped the table hard, till she could feel her nails bending and she wanted to scream and run.
“You ok?” Troy was standing in the doorway.
Adira forced a smile and tried to laugh. “Oh. I didn’t see you-well, yes. No I am ok…I just needed a minute I think.”
Troy drew closer to her. He smelled like sweat and there were crumbs in his beard. But she felt safer.
“Here, let me help you with that.” She tried to resist, but he was already calmly seeing to another bag, working slowly and making neat little piles. They worked in silence for a minute or so. Sudden laughter spilled out of his lips, deep and genuine.
“You bought six nail clippers?”
Adira stuttered nervously. “Well I…I mean…” She couldn’t help it. She joined his laughter until they were both bright eyed with tears, appreciating the absurdity of the moment.
“Now, what were you thinking about when I came in?” He asked. It seemed like he was trying to speak softly and gently, but it didn’t quite fit him.
“I don’t know. I guess I’m losing my element a bit, you know. I’m starting to feel lost at sea and useless. Like this is becoming a man’s game and I’m getting left behind. I hate it.”
They continued unpacking bags in silence. He sighed, placing a tube of anti-septic ointment on the table. “You know one of the first things I tried to teach myself at boot camp?”
>
She grinned. “No, what would that be?”
“Only fools and the ignorant are unafraid. Fear is the wise man’s reaction to danger.”
She paused, weighing his words. “You don’t seem afraid.” She was surprised; normally she was the one lecturing to others.
Troy shrugged. “Of course I am. Perhaps less so than the others, but I feel it, just like you do. I’ll let you in on a little secret though, if you want.”
Adira leaned closer. “Please do,” she pleaded.
Troy nodded appreciatively, and sighed. “Whatever is going on in New York, the military will handle. In a few weeks, we’ll be back to our daily lives. People have no idea how effective a machine our military can be. They probably think have a jaded view from Afghanistan and Iraq. If there’s some sort of infection, it doesn’t stand a chance against the firepower, the money, and the machines of the United States military. That’s why I’m not really afraid.”
Bennett rapped on the doorframe, his wiry frame filling the space. He looked at the two of them, and unconsciously rustled his own hair. “You guys better see this.”
Troy nodded, brushing past him. Adira came closer, and Bennett saw the corners of her soft mouth were rising slightly. Unbidden, the memory of her naked body came to his mind as her lithe form brushed against his chest. His mind had superb timing, he mused privately with dripping sarcasm.
“A camera crew snuck to the Hudson River’s West Side. CNN’s showing it.”
“Do you mean the east side? The Manhattan side?
Bennett gulped. “No.”
Jaxton, Tessa, Liam, Harley, Elvis, Bennett, Adira, and Troy all crowded around the tiny 22 inch TV screen. As they drew closer, the picture crystallized on the screen.
A cameraman was trying to focus his lens, as an amateur reporter drew up in front of it. “Do you have it? Larry, do you have it?”
“Got it,” a deep voice crackled. A balding man with pale skin and horn-rimmed glasses eyed the camera skittishly. He jumped at the crack of gunfire, and ducked low behind a berry bush. A young soldier guided them stealthily up the street flanked with brownstones. The man’s overly bulky combat gear and cavalier attitude made him look foolish.
“So you can just cut me out of the picture later, right?”
A deeper voice eased in from behind the lens, “Oh. Yeah man, not a problem. And we’ll have you that cash as soon as we get outta here.”
The trio was up on a hill, hiding on an elevated street a mile or so from what appeared to be the Hudson River. The soldier grinned and cocked an eyebrow triumphantly. “Just stay outta the fuckin way,” the soldier jeered loudly. A gunshot rang out again.
The image froze, and the shot cut back to the news desk. Ted was there again, adamantly cocking his eyebrow and looking impossibly sharp in another blue suit. He looked off-screen, “are we showing this?”
Jaxton could hear shouting voices in the studio, and the camera shook as something hit it. Ted’s eyes were alight. He was following some off-screen struggle with great interest. “Keep rolling!” He roared at the cameraman. The feed continued, and he rose, pointing off-screen. “They deserve to see this! The people deserve to know!” There was more shouting, and a thud. Ted calmly retook his seat, fixing his hair till it was perfectly coiffed. The camera snapped back into focus, and he nodded. “Play the file.”
The amateur recording returned. A series of streets stretched out below the camera. Brownstones hugged the lethargic brown water. In the distance, one could easily make out the soaring skyscrapers of the silent city. The camera zoomed in. There were soldiers. Soldiers on the rooftops, their black barrels pointing at some unseen adversary.
“What are they aiming at?” Harley’s pupils were dilated, her eyes wide with terror. Elvis put his two hands on her slender shoulders, his own face a mask of grit. She relaxed visibly at his touch. Jaxton thought he noticed Liam bristle slightly.
There was confusion among the soldiers. They were shouting at each other from across rooftops, gesturing wildly. “Ohhh, this is about to get good…” The speakers blared with a whiny voice. The pale, balding man motioned forward to the cameraman. His wiry arms moved like slinking creatures. The shiny head was cocked slightly forward, as if he was perpetually straining to hear a soft voice. Peering out from behind a parked car, the camera showed an officer roar an order to his charges.
“Just sit back and watch the action boys.” The clean-cut soldier lumbered down on a fallen tree, looking thoroughly pleased with himself. All atop the roofs of the surrounding brownstones, automatic rifle fire erupted as an alluring crescendo of technological power. Down in the street, an armored personnel carrier burst over a fire hydrant and positioned itself in the middle of the street. Infantry spread out around the parked cars. As water sprayed skyward in a perfect arc, the vehicle’s machine gunner cocked his weapon with a vicious zeal and hammered both fingers down on the triggers, sending a vigorous barrage of lead down the street. The pale, wiry figure squealed with delight. “What did I tell you?! This is guna be huge for us!” His dull excited eyes darted around the action ahead.
The camera darted to the soldier, who now stood up hurriedly and clutched his assault rifle uneasily. The pale man leaned in, indicating the gunfire one hundred yards ahead. “What’s going on, sir?” Jaxton thought he sounded a bit sarcastic. The soldier frowned intensely, unaware he was being mocked. “I…I..”
“Tim. Tim,” the cameraman’s voice quivered, even though it was impressively deep. “Tim we need to back it up.”
“Nonsense!!” The pale fool bleated.
The deeper voice behind the camera tried again. “What is going on? Tell me right fuckin now.”
The soldier peered back, obviously shaking. His swagger had fallen to the wayside in thirty seconds. “How the hell should I know? I’m National Guard you idiots…we were processing civilians coming out of the city miles back into Jersey.”
“You mean you aren’t even a real soldier?!”
They heard shouting, and some of the gun-fire ceased. A frantic mother clutching her two children by the hands burst around the APC. The soldiers waved her forward, yelling encouragement. Two men and a girl followed closely, looking exhausted and horrified. Their eyes and mouths twitched as they pounded the pavement, looking over their shoulders fitfully. “HELP US!” They screamed in a chorus, seeing the soldiers were near. All of them had tattered, soiled clothing.
“Tim, what the FUCK?”
Tim’s pasty figure froze completely. He rose to his feet, abandoning his cover with his eyes fixed down the road.
A sudden, piercing snarl echoed from brownstone to brownstone. It sounded human in nature, but its sickening primal nature chilled them to the bone. They all heard the soldiers erupt. A lone human peeled around the armored vehicle. As the helmeted gunner swung his barrel to face him, a girl bit his neck from behind. Bullets clanged and rang off the armor of the vehicle. It started forward, smashing into a parked car. The soldiers on the roofs began gathering on the sides, retreating from the fronts nearest the river. Three men with gas masks spread out and forcibly corralled the survivors. As they wailed and screamed, a sergeant indicated the frantic mother’s son. He had a visible bite mark on his left arm, pooling blood where he stood on the hot asphalt.
The sergeant’s mouth shook as he drew his sidearm. The soldier nearest him blocked his way, raising his own weapon. As they screamed at each other, a wave of infected humans tore down the block. They weaved in between broken cars and dead soldiers, moving with a frightening intensity and a disarming ferocity. Jaxton could see people of all shapes and sizes, all colors and former creeds. They ran like crazed animals, eyes wild and mouths dripping with blood. They pushed through the wave of gunfire without a moment’s pause. Bullets ripped into legs and torsos, spraying blood and sending several scattering to the pavement. After they overwhelmed the vehicle in a wave of flesh, the infected charged the line of soldiers in the street. Under a mosaic of blooming spring foliage, t
welve million Americans watched as their sons were eaten to death on live television. Dozens fled, their metal weapons clattering on sidewalks. Jax saw another jam his own pistol in between his teeth before he was blindsided by two children. They tackled him. Snapping canines sunk into his soft flesh and the soldier wailed pathetically in pain before his neck was torn out.
The clean-cut soldier was fumbling with his rifle, cowering behind a fallen garbage can. His lips were lined with spittle as he attempted to load the rifle and bring it to bear. He rose and tried to roar. What came out was more of a squawk than anything as he fired his M-16 wildly. Several infected noticed, and like predators in the wild they came bounding over struggling forms towards him.
A burly hand reached out and grabbed Tim’s frozen pale form. “Go. GO!”
The camera lost focus. All they could hear were screams and gunfire echoing in the background. The camera was lodged in a car, where it faced out the back window. As the vehicle squealed and pulled away, the viewers could see the last of the soldiers being overrun in an orgy of violence.
The feed cut back to the studio. Ted was there, with his jaw set hard. “Now you have seen what we have seen. That was two hours ago, in Hoboken New Jersey. We have reports the army is retreating from the blackout zone as we speak, its units flooding to pre-made barricades at the Newark line. ” Jaxton rose from the couch, deeply moved by the anchor’s courage. “The army tried to stop us from showing you this. Even now they may be on their way to our studios-” The feed inexplicably cut to another CNN desk, where two stunned anchors sat with mouths agape.
“We need to get out of here. Now.” Troy rose, his eyes never leaving the TV screen. The others sat in staggered immobility. Harley raised one quivering hand to point, and covered her mouth abruptly. Her breathing became labored and ragged, a fitful rush into hyperventilation. Elvis reached around her and pulled the sobbing head into his own chest. Bennett clutched Adira’s hand, rubbing it feverishly. Her own chest rose and fell in time with her pounding heartbeat.
