The labels beneath the shelves hold the credit amounts, and it’s clear I am too poor for any of the bottles. Even a six-pack of beer is out of my league. I move to the glass counter. “How much for a pack of cigarettes?”
“Nine credits.”
That would leave me with next to nothing, and I’m not sure when I’ll get more credits. “Too rich for my blood. Maybe next time.”
Someone leans on the counter beside me. “You need a cigarette?”
It’s Punk Rock from the café, with an unlit cigarette behind his ear, which he removes and taps filter-down on the counter. If it were anyone else, I’d take it in a hot second, but I find his persona annoying even without the added bonus that he’s a bully.
“No, thanks,” I say, and turn to Artie. “I’m going to check out Jorge’s stuff, but I want to buy some things. Can you tally me up?”
“You can do it,” he says. “Since you asked me to ring you up, I think I can trust you.”
I thank him and retrieve my wanted items—a bag of chips and three chocolate bars—and then I check out myself and Jorge. Indy appears, holding a glass jar of artichoke hearts and a can of tomatoes.
“San Marzano,” she says about the tomatoes. It means nothing to me, but she acts as though she’s won the jackpot.
I tally her up, and we head out the door into the late afternoon. A quick walk on the path and we’ll be home. If you bring your own plate to dinner, you can take the food home with you, and I have no intention of being around people any more than necessary.
“Hey, Sylvie.” Punk Rock walks toward us, holding out a pack of cigarettes. “Artie told me your name. These are for you.”
Artie locks the store door and joins us while Punk Rock wiggles the pack. Though I want a cigarette with every fiber of my being, I don’t move. “Why?”
“Tell Eric that Roger says thanks for the refrigerator.”
Indy takes them from his hand, and Roger strolls off after he salutes me with two fingers. Artie says, “He took those from his own stash.”
“What was that about a refrigerator?” I ask.
“Last year, Eric got the fridge hooked up, and it might’ve saved Roger’s insulin.” Artie straightens his glasses. “He didn’t want anyone to know he was diabetic, but there’s only so long you can keep things a secret here. Every once in a while, Roger does something nice. Be honored you were this year’s recipient.”
I’m not sure if I’m honored, but I’ll gladly take the nicotine.
6
After climbing six thousand flights of stairs, I find Eric on the roof of our building. I drop on the tar paper beside him and pull out the cigarettes.
“Where did you find those?” Eric asks, though he doesn’t look surprised.
“It’s your fault, actually. This guy, Roger—”
“I know Roger.”
“Yeah, well, he knew I wanted them and he gave them to me. He said to tell you thanks for the refrigerator. It turns out he was the person who needed that insulin.”
Eric watches the sky. “Shit. I didn’t know it was him. That explains a lot.”
“Why?”
“He’s kind of a jerk. But when he runs out of insulin, it’s basically a death sentence. Imagine that hanging over your head?”
It’s a terrible thought, though I hope that, if it were me, I’d spend the last years of my life not being an ass. It doesn’t surprise me Eric gives him the benefit of the doubt—he’s like Grace in that way. I pull two cigarettes from the pack. “Want one?”
He digs in his jacket next to him for his lighter and lights mine, then his. “No beer?”
“Maybe next time you do a good deed, I’ll reap the reward in beer. How was your day?” It’s weird to be asking him that. In SPSZ, he was always nearby, or it felt that way.
Eric blows out smoke. “It was a day. How about you?”
“I’m a cashier in a weird store. And I forgot my rule to not do a job I dislike well, so they’re trying to put me on full time.”
“That’s a rule?”
“It works.”
“I bet it does.” He gazes at the Empire State Building, whose undamaged spire soars above the other buildings. It’s once again the tallest in the city, since the Freedom Tower lost its top sometime this winter. “I didn’t want to live in the city ever again. And here I am.”
“Is it that bad?” I keep my voice light not to betray the uneasiness that tumbles in my stomach. I know a mini-city of high-rises is Eric’s idea of Hell, and although it’s not my idea of Heaven, I don’t want him to refuse whatever happiness there is to be found.
“It’s different. SPSZ felt like home. This doesn’t.” His hand covers where mine fiddles with my boot buckle. “Hey, it’s fine. Really. As long as I have you, I’m okay.”
I take a final drag of my cigarette, which is giving me a head rush, and carefully put it out to save for later. Eric watches me with soft eyes, and there’s no doubt in my mind he meant what he said.
“Okay?” I ask. “I thought I merited a good. Maybe even a stupendous.”
“Nah, just okay.”
I elbow him and lie down with my head in his lap, closing my eyes when he brushes my hair off my forehead with warm fingers. Up here, I can pretend it’s a different world below.
“Remember how we said we’d leave if we weren’t happy?” I ask, and open my eyes in time to see his nod. “I meant it. If we’re not happy, we go. Upstate, or to a Safe Zone out of the city, or The Crybaby House, or wherever.”
“We also said we’d kill Walt.”
It’s phrased as a statement, but it’s really a question, and he keeps his gaze trained on the city. We haven’t discussed it, since it’s a moot point at the moment. Or because we’re both afraid of what the other will say.
“We did,” I say. “We said if it was possible. But it’s not. If we leave, he’ll be that much farther away.”
The words feel alien coming from my mouth. Normally, I want to track Walt down and rip him limb from limb. But, at this moment, when faced with the reality of losing Eric, or the few people left, my need for vengeance has faltered. I don’t back down from fights—or I didn’t—and I’m not sure how I feel about this new development.
Eric turns his head. He’s done more of that in the last weeks. More blank stares, hunched shoulders, and a marked deficiency of whatever it was that once made him hop out of bed in the morning. If there’s anyone this world shouldn’t beat down, it’s Eric. But it has, to some extent. If it does him in, there’s no hope for any of us.
Eric’s chest rises and falls with his final drag. He stubs his cigarette out on the roof and tosses it to the side. The hand on my hair gets heavier, tugging the strands, before it goes limp. “I’m going to Central Park in a day or two,” he says. The change of subject isn’t lost on me. “If it’s okay with you.”
“Don’t you have to Qualify?”
“Apparently, I already did last year.”
“You suck,” I say, and he smiles. “How’d you manage to get on the guest list?”
“We need soil, they need seeds.” Eric shrugs. “I have seeds, and I offered to give them to Central Park in exchange for soil.”
“You have seeds? Since when?”
“Since always. They were in my BOB. Clarence has some, too. I tucked a bag of envelopes all the way at the bottom. But we’re keeping the existence of those to ourselves for now.”
I haven’t fully unpacked Clarence, my bug-out bag, and everything I did use has been repacked. It’s no longer something I might need one day. I did need it, and it’ll be ready in case I do again. I warm at the knowledge Eric cares for me in these quiet ways he doesn’t think to mention. It’s a new thing—a lovely thing—to be cared for like that.
“It’s okay with you if I go?” he asks.
“You’re a free man. I don’t have a say in what you do with your free self.”
“In things like this, you do have a say.”
Giving me veto power ove
r something like this is big. I’m tempted to use it, but I don’t want to be that girlfriend. “Does this mean I’m the boss of you?”
Eric taps my nose. “Let’s not get carried away with ourselves.”
“It’s safe?”
“As safe as it can be.”
“Then you should go. But you’d better come back. You can’t leave me alone with all these people.” I am teasing, was teasing, but the words make my eyes sting and my chest smart.
He strokes my hair again. “I will never leave you on purpose.”
He’s made this promise before, and though it’s not anywhere near enough assurance that I won’t lose him anyway, it makes me feel better.
7
Eric
Sylvie stands behind Leo, hands on his shoulders. He’s going on day five of playing hooky, and Sylvie has agreed to entertain him. “We’ll be fine,” she says, in answer to Paul’s fourth inquiry on whether she’s sure. He hasn’t officially Qualified, but he got a special dispensation to come to Central Park.
“Sylvie’s teaching me ammunition at the store,” Leo says.
“Addition,” Sylvie says. “Kid, you need some school.”
“Are you ever going?” I ask, to which he shakes his head. I pick him up for a hug and hand him off to Paul. “Maybe next week?”
“Maybe,” Leo says, and then asks his dad, “You’ll do your very best?”
“Of course, Buddy.” Paul hugs Leo’s head to his chest. “Don’t give Sylvie too much trouble. Love you.”
Sylvie presses soft lips to mine, and I graze her waist before she pulls away, smiling. “Be careful. See you tonight.”
“Maybe,” I say. “Don’t get too worried if we’re late.”
She flips a hand. “We’ll be having so much fun we won’t even notice.”
Paul deposits Leo in her arms and turns on his heel. “Okay, bye.”
Sylvie smiles again. She’s smiled more in the last two minutes than in the past two weeks, and all are forced for Leo’s benefit.
Paul and I head for the garage under the buildings on Avenue C. It’s well-lit enough to see racks of guns, boxes of ammo, and plenty of sharp things. And this is only part of it.
I wave to Julie and Chris, then spot Roger across the garage. Paul and I are introduced to two guys, Marshall and Evan, and a woman, Juanita, who will come along today.
Louis stands in an empty spot and clears his throat. “Same as always, we go up north to 79th, then take streets to the entrance. We have some new people today, so be patient while they learn. All right, let’s go.”
We pull out of the garage, Paul and me in the backseat of an SUV, Kate and Roger in front. The others are paired up to drive three Parks Department dump trucks we hope to fill. After a section of the elevated FDR Drive collapsed in the fight last year, they could no longer take the exit directly across Avenue C to travel north, and they’ve created a new route under the roadway using fencing and the steel supports.
Lexers wander here and there on the other side of the fence. A few grip the metal with rotting fingers. There’s less flesh than a year ago, more gaping wounds that expose bone, and even more of that black mold, but they’re still here. I turn my attention out the window while we rise above street level. The three lanes are barren, with the East River on one side and the buildings of Manhattan on the other.
Kate speeds along the asphalt, saying, “We killed as many as we could this winter, but you do the math. We had twenty-seven days of frozen bodies, and we spent most of that time looking for food. We burned some whenever possible, but we might’ve started with a million zombies in Manhattan…”
She shrugs and swerves around a crack in the asphalt. Paul grips his door. Fear for my own life mixes with amusement that Paul, the most lunatic driver I know, is in fear of his as well.
“Big one there,” Kate says about the pothole. “Artie says structurally, the road’s sound, but to expect a lot of cracking and faster deterioration with the spring freeze-thaw cycle in this climate.”
The road dips to street level again. Though the northbound side was fenced off from the city last year, it’s been fortified, and, in places, bricked over. “You added to the fencing,” I say.
Kate looks back while she drives, barely slowing. “Some of it was here—they closed down the FDR when things started, to use it for transport.” She glances at the road, then turns to me. “After the bombs, when the virus got out of hand, they really closed it off. We’ve added to it and kept it—”
“Pothole!” Paul calls.
Kate veers around a giant pothole, then meets my eyes again. “We’ve kept it up, added more.”
I nod in an attempt to end the conversation, if only because Paul has turned a paler shade of Irish. She spins and hums while we pass the Queensboro Bridge. It’s still standing, or half-standing, as it’s been blown where it crosses Roosevelt Island in the middle of the East River.
“Hey,” Roger says. “You asked me last year about Roosevelt Island. We got as close as we could on the bridge this winter, since we don’t have boats.”
“Was there anyone?”
“Nope.” He watches the road, unlike Kate, who whirls and shakes her head. “Looks like everyone turned. We’re not sure when it happened.”
The drab apartment buildings of the island flash past. To our left, Manhattan is a string of newer glass buildings, old brick buildings, and the few lots that managed to escape New York City’s expansion.
Once we exit the highway at a makeshift exit on 79th Street, there are gates at every intersection. Gates we can’t unlock, which results in a drive up and down streets to avoid zombies as we make our way toward Central Park. Kate goes noticeably slower, though that’s likely because Louis has forced his way to the front.
“They’d probably unlock the gates and let us through if they knew we were coming,” Kate says, head swiveling and one finger on the steering wheel, “but there’s no way they’d give us the combinations.”
“Can you radio them?” Paul asks.
“They can’t radio us. Some sort of interference. We can radio ourselves with these handhelds when we’re out, but usually only if we have a clear line of sight. We can’t talk to anyone farther than that. You need repeaters to relay the transmission over long distances, and we don’t know of any. You can do it other ways, but we haven’t been able to make it work. Have you heard the Safe Zones?”
“Heard them, but never spoke to them.”
“Somehow they talk to each other. They know what they’re doing. I know a little about older handheld radios, but we’re talking late Seventies-early Eighties electronics. If you need your VCR programmed, I’m your girl.”
The streets don’t contain the traffic jams of Brooklyn and Queens. Kate tells us there was a curfew on that Friday, and it was soon obvious no one was getting off Manhattan in a wheeled vehicle, so most didn’t try. A few Lexers wander by the brick apartment buildings and genteel townhomes of the Upper East Side, which look a bit less genteel with their broken windows, overgrown landscaping, and interspersed burnt buildings.
“Nice houses up here,” Paul says.
“It had the highest concentration of wealth in Manhattan,” Kate says. “Which means it was filled with assholes. And you’re about to meet two of them.”
We laugh, though that remark doesn’t bode well for acquiring what we need. We roll up to Fifth Avenue and come out across from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The grand stone building stretches for four blocks in front of the park, its wide stone steps empty. Sylvie once mentioned how she always wanted to fondle the art, and, when I say as much, Kate nods. “That’s the first thing I did when we went in there. I think we’re all a bunch of toddlers pretending to be adults.”
“In your case, definitely,” Roger says.
Kate cackles. She doesn’t seem to have changed, even with all the bullshit she has to deal with. I’d like to think I haven’t either, but there’s too much ire trapped beneath the surface. Sometimes I
wish I were more like Sylvie, who, for all her introverted ways, is able to loose her anger on the world.
Kate follows Louis toward 79th Street, where the museum ends and the outer stone walls of Central Park meet the sidewalk. They’d be short enough to climb over but for the fact that a barrier of solid metal stands fifteen feet tall behind them. Kate beeps the horn, a window slides open in the metal, and then, slowly, the metal door slides open.
We follow the first truck onto a park path lined with benches and leafless foliage. The instant the final truck rolls through, the gate slams shut. Louis talks out his window to a muscular woman in a shearling coat, who listens, nodding, and then points into the park. They don’t search us, though the woman’s easy handling of her rifle is a sure deterrent to violence.
Kate waves as we pass. “That’s Carmen. If you want to die, pick a fight with Carmen.”
Only when we’ve rounded a bend in the path and begun to climb the rise does the enormity of the Safe Zone become apparent. The trees in this small section outnumber those in all of Sunset Park. To our left, a path breaks off to another part of the park, though it ends in a gaping hole.
“What happened there?” Paul asks.
“That’s the beauty of this place,” Kate says. “You know Central Park has transverses—the roads that cut across from the east to the west side? Well, those roads sit below the grade of the park, with stone walls higher than your head. One runs along 79th Street, the other at 85th Street, and the only things connecting those north and south sections of the park to this section are the overpasses that cross the transverses.”
I’ve driven through those transverses, where stone walls rise above the narrow road on either side, impossible for Lexers to climb. And, if they’ve added metal walls, also daunting for humans.
We continue along the path, passing tree after tree on gentle grassy rises, until the land ahead flattens. Tiny houses sit in groupings and look to be made of wood pillaged from the surrounding neighborhoods.
Central Park’s Great Lawn, itself larger than Sunset Park, comes into sight. Once a sea of grass covered with sunbathers, picnickers, and baseball players from spring to autumn, it’s now earth that’s been turned over for gardens. Plants already grow, and people dot the landscape, kneeling or digging with shovels. In the distance, on the west side of Manhattan, the tops of a couple tall buildings peek over the trees.
The City Series (Book 3): Instauration Page 5
