Kate gives us each ten crackers to start. I place one in my mouth and let it rest on my tongue like Communion. My mouth waters so that it begins to dissolve immediately. I give up and throw back another two when my hunger kicks in with a roar.
At first, the taste is Saltine-like, but that changes quickly into a bitter, fishy, chemical flavor that makes me gag. I swallow them quickly, wondering if it’s just me, when Kate spits hers to the floor. Jorge grimaces but swallows his, and Indy, who hasn’t yet tasted one, warily nibbles at her first before she pops it in.
“It takes a minute,” I say.
Indy coughs and grabs her water from her bag. “There’s something,” she gulps water, gargles, and swallows, “very wrong with those.”
Kate peers into the bag, then inspects the packaging. “They’re over a year expired.”
“I didn’t think crackers went bad like that,” Jorge says. “Maybe stale, but…”
He glugs his own water with a shudder. We’ve eaten a lot of expired food, and nothing that appears fine has ever been that rotten. It’s the kind of taste that promises a return trip up the digestive tract when you least expect it. Or a long, protracted death.
Kate pulls two granola bars from her bag. Sweet and Salty, they say, and my stomach tentatively gurgles, though it’s not sure it can trust me anymore. “We did everyone a favor just now, and we need to get that taste out,” she says. “We’re eating these. Also a year expired, so be warned.”
My half of granola bar has a coating on the bottom—a tan layer that explodes with sweetness in my mouth. The peanuts and almonds are glued together with a sheen of sugar that keeps the stale cardboard taste at bay. A slightly rancid nutty aftertaste follows, but, compared to the oyster crackers, it doesn’t faze me. Nor anyone else.
“A bowl of mashed potatoes,” Kate says decisively, as if we’re midway into a conversation about food. “With butter and cream. It’s my comfort food.”
“My mom’s mac and cheese,” Indy says. “With the bread crumbs on top.”
“A meatball parmesan hero,” Jorge says.
They wait for me. “I’ll have one of each,” I say. “And then a big slice of cake for dessert, followed by a cigarette.”
We never discuss food this way, especially not around Leo, but the lack of warm, filling sustenance is taking its toll. We’re saving what little backpacking stove fuel we have for emergencies, and though the two small solar ovens we built from cardboard boxes supply us with lukewarm food, enough warm water for twelve people to wash up remains out of reach. We found a bunch of teas, and some coffee, in the offices of Chelsea Market. I can’t wait for a scorching hot cup of a caffeinated beverage made on Artie’s heater.
“Isn’t there an apple tree?” I ask. Eric told me about it, though he didn’t mention where it was.
Kate perks up. “I forgot about that. We couldn’t get near it this fall, but some of the apples might still be good to eat. Maybe tomorrow.” She rises to her feet. “We should get ready.”
We drag Lexer bodies out on the terrace, leaving Thumper in the closet until the time comes, since she’s quieted down again. Kate finds a meat tenderizer in the kitchen, along with a garbage bag she wears like a smock, and we stand back as she annihilates one’s head. The thud is disgusting, the bone fragments worse.
“They’re juicy,” Kate says. “That’s good.”
Indy and I use found hammers, and Jorge the dull side of his cleaver, to pulverize foreheads and skulls so the Lexers appear a product of blunt force trauma rather than clean human-made kills. By the time we’re done, my hand is numb and bone shards stick to my glove.
We yank up the bodies, hooking their heads and arms over the waist-high glass wall of the terrace so they’re easy to push when the time comes. “Why are we doing this again?” Indy asks.
“Everyone needs a hobby,” Kate replies.
Once the Lexers hang like a disgusting load of laundry on a line, and we’ve cleaned ourselves as best we can, Indy and I stay on the terrace to watch for StuyTown’s trucks. This high, with the monocular, I can see beyond the United Nations building, under which they’ll have to travel before they reach us.
Once again, I find myself searching the water and have to rip my eyes away. I might spend the rest of my life looking if I don’t stop. Eric would come back. He’d find me, and the fact that he hasn’t answers my question about his fate.
Cat Lady’s shorts are just as bad from behind, but I feel sorry for her. She did her best. She tried to rescue them, and that’s more than a lot of people did. Bird might be okay, as long as he wasn’t locked in a room with zombies.
“What’s wrong?” Indy asks.
“I was thinking of how I could be a crazy cat lady, which is what I originally planned for my life, but there aren’t any cats.”
“We can be spinsters together. We’ll argue over everything and yell at little kids.”
“Can we call them whippersnappers?”
Indy bends slightly, one hand behind her back. “You won’t be telling me what to call them, Syl-VEE-a,” she says in a freakishly good old lady voice. “And change the channel, would you? It’s time for my programs.”
“You’re deranged. And talented.”
Indy reverts to herself with a doleful sigh. “I miss acting.”
“Why? You get to act every day. You act like you’re full instead of hungry. Happy instead of sad. Fearless instead of scared.”
“You forgot fine instead of murderously angry.”
I glance at her. Her cool composure would convince most people, even me, that she’s fine, but I know she’s not. I lean against the building and raise the monocular again. “Like I said, you’re talented.”
“You’re pretty good yourself.”
The sun glints off a windshield in the distance, and my heart rate soars. “Shit, they’re coming.”
I count their time from one point to the next while Indy calls inside. Jorge’s boots clomp across the floor, on his way to the bedroom, and Kate appears, ducked in a crouch.
“Ten seconds,” I say.
Kate holds a calculator, in which she inputs the numbers Artie gave us. “Okay, when they reach the sign, we start to push.”
It’s not the most exacting of mathematical equations, but, using their speed and what Artie called the acceleration of gravity, we’ll be able to drop our Lexers close to, if not on, the trucks. All we want is to block their passage.
Kate’s radio buzzes twice, which means Louis and the others are unlocking the gate at the entrance ramp that bends out of sight to First Avenue. It’s the same gate Mo used to ambush them that day.
The first truck exits the tunnel beneath the U.N. The other is close behind. I grab Cat Lady’s legs. I’m sure she wouldn’t be quite as enamored of this plan as we are, but maybe she’d appreciate being put to good use in the name of Bird and everyone else.
“Now!” Kate says, and shoves her first body over.
I rise up enough to push Cat Lady’s weight over the rail, and then move to the man on my right. Indy sends one flying, then another. Something growls as it rushes past and plummets to the road, and then Jorge is on the terrace floor beside me, where we can’t be seen.
Tires squeal. The metallic thunk of a crash follows, and the tinkle of shattering glass comes next. It sounds better than we dared hope, and we crawl inside the bedroom to spy from behind a curtain. On the road below, one truck has t-boned the other, which must have swerved when a body crushed its windshield. I never thought the day would come where I’d appreciate a zombie bomb, but here we are.
One guy yells at another. Our lone moving zombie still moves, and she must be hissing up a storm because the first man stomps that way and clobbers her over the head, then continues yelling. A quarter of a mile behind them, a mob of zombies rounds the curve of the ramp, having been allowed entry by Louis.
Two men exit the trucks and move to the first two guys, who continue to argue and point upward. No one has glanced behind t
hem, and now the Lexers have left the ramp for the road, moving at top zombie speed to reach the source of the shouting.
When the Lexers are five hundred feet away, the men spin. They look to the trucks, still t-boned, and then turn back again. I can’t make out what they shout, though their tone screams Run, and they begin to scale the fence that separates the north- and southbound sections of the highway.
The first three are up and over quickly. The fourth watches the Lexers, frozen to the spot. The others scream at him to climb, their voices raw with disbelief that he’s chosen this moment to freeze, while they fire their weapons through the chain-link fence. Anyone else I’d feel sorry for, but satisfaction hits me at the same time the mob hits him.
The accident, the gunshots, and their friend’s screams have attracted zombies from the surrounding streets. Nine Lexers have stumbled up the curve of the southbound exit and are closing in on the three men.
“They don’t know,” Kate says in wonder.
They haven’t yet realized they’re in danger, or that this section of the southbound side is unprotected due to the barriers we considerately removed. The biggest man screams when a Lexer takes him from behind. The other two run for the small park, where Lexers greet them at the fence, and end up eaten front and back simultaneously.
We didn’t mean to kill them all. In fact, we assumed they’d get away. It’s our lucky day.
“This is fucking perfect,” Indy says with no trace of apology.
I was beginning to worry about how not bad I feel, and I match Indy’s grin with one of my own.
Because no one would suspect the men were missing for a while, we had time to move the Lexers and close the gate. The trucks and the men were a treasure trove of weapons, and now everyone has a handgun. We have four rifles. No one would mistake us for the ammo section of an outdoor store, but we have bullets, and the few MREs we acquired will come in handy.
Best of all, we did something constructive. We sit in The Box, which is still freezing, but I’m warm with the glow of success. Indy claps her hands together. “What should we do next?” she asks me.
“Steal the rest of Roger’s stash,” I say.
“Yes!”
Jorge watches us over top of his clasped hands, which he gently bumps against his chin. “What if they’re waiting for us?”
“We’ll just take a peek tomorrow,” I say. “If someone’s watching his apartment, we won’t do anything.”
Jorge tugs his ponytail, which means that wasn’t the right answer. “I promised Maria I’d watch out for all of you, and with…”
Before he can mention Eric, I say, “I promised Maria I’d watch out for you. And you’re the one who’ll be killed on sight until we get rid of Walt. Whom we won’t be able to get rid of if we’re dead of starvation.”
Jorge nods, which is suspect; he never gives in this easily. “Fine, you go tomorrow.”
57
Jorge and Brother David come to breakfast geared up for my and Indy’s trip. I swallow my portion of the canned corn and chicken concoction Casper whipped up. I wouldn’t have touched it a month ago, but now I gobble it down like it’s potato chips. Even a potted meat sandwich sounds strangely appealing.
“Jeans,” I say to Brother David, who’s dressed like us commoners for the occasion. “Going somewhere on this fine day?”
His dark eyebrows rise in a gentle scolding. “Good morning, Sylvia. We thought you might need help carrying things back here.”
I shake my head at Jorge’s satisfied expression, salute Brother David, and then make my way to Paul on the other end of the room. The masonry heater is almost done. They had to shore up the floor to ensure it would hold the weight, and, at six feet long, four feet deep, and taller than me in one spot, it weighs a ton. Possibly literally. A metal griddle from a restaurant has been inserted as a cooktop, and a pizza oven door as the place where one feeds the fire. They plan to start a slow fire in it today, to help cure the mortar, and I can’t wait to be warm.
Paul, clothes covered in yesterday’s mortar mix, says, “If they weren’t going, I would. I promised Eric I’d watch out for you if he wasn’t here. I don’t go back on my word.”
I could be annoyed at all the promises of protection people have made on my behalf, which are trotted out when someone doesn’t approve of my plans, but the alternative would be that no one cared. I know from personal experience which is worse.
“I won’t do anything stupid, Paul. You know he was…” I planned to say overprotective, until my voice failed at the way was slipped out easily. Eric was, and now he isn’t.
Paul stares out the glass at the Hudson, which Eric and I floated down a year ago on our way from upstate. It’s possible the previous residents of the High Line saw us and wondered what we were doing. I want to warn that Sylvie to hold everyone a little tighter, to keep Maria’s ankles covered, and to do away with Walt and Kearney before they can hurt the people she loves.
Indy comes to the window. She put braids in her hair yesterday, took them out this morning, and now her face is framed by a glorious mass of dark curls that makes me want to hide my greasy head. Though she stands with her usual poise, her eyes flick worriedly between me and Paul. “Everything okay?”
“Fine,” I say. “Paul was just telling me to be careful.”
“You, too,” Paul says to Indy, who cocks her head. “You be careful.”
“Oh, okay.” Indy stares at the heater. “It looks nice.”
“Thanks,” he mumbles. “So do you. Your hair, I mean. Looks nice.”
Indy pulls at a curl, lips parted and moving faintly as though she’s lost the power of speech. Paul rubs the back of his neck, looking everywhere but at her. I turn away to hide my smile and see Jorge and Brother David stand from their table.
“Time to leave,” I say, and punch Paul’s arm. If he was the type to scuff the toe of his shoe on the floor, he would be doing it now. I walk to the couch where Leo draws and kiss his forehead. “See you later, squirt.”
“You’ll be back soon?” he asks. “How soon?”
“As soon as possible.” I poke his tummy. “We have to keep you plump so we can eat you.”
He rolls his eyes like a teenager, but he giggles like a kid.
The curtains of Roger’s apartment are drawn, and, in the two hours we’ve watched from a building across the street, there’s been no movement. “I say we do it,” Jorge says.
“Agreed,” Brother David says.
The street is free of zombies, though they lurk on the avenue around the corner. We take the stairs down and dash to the safety of Roger’s car pileup. In the apartment, the couch cushions are scattered on the floor and the contents are missing.
We yank up the mattress in the bedroom. It’s depleted, but there are two bottles of wine, two packs of cigarettes, a couple dozen cans of Chef Boyardee, some ready-to-eat pre-cooked pasta meals, a big bag of gummy bears, and candy bars.
“It’s like he knew you’d be coming,” Indy says to me.
A half-second later, our hands are on our holsters. Brother David rushes to the living room window. “Still clear,” he says quietly.
I shove things into my pack while the others do the same. We tiptoe down the fire escape with our loaded bags and mount our bikes. Three blocks away, we stop with a gang of zombies a block behind us, but no live people appear to follow. Nevertheless, we take a circuitous route home.
The air in The Box is marginally warmer than the outside, and a fire burns behind the glass door. “So far, so good,” Artie says. “We’re raising the temperature slowly, but once the bricks are warm, we’ll be warm, too.”
It’s warmer closer to the heater. I hold my fingers above the cooktop and let the heat soak in. Two weeks of constant cold and damp has been uncomfortable for my fingers, but what I thought was athlete’s foot on my toes has begun to itch and burn in a distressingly unpleasant way. “I think I have chilblains,” I say.
“You do not have chilblains,” Indy re
torts from where she’s pressed her cheek to the brick.
“Do you know what chilblains are?”
“No. But I know you don’t have them,” she says. I untie my boots and peel off my sock to show her the mottled pink patches on my toes and feet, which she inspects. “That’s athlete’s foot.”
“I thought it was, too, but I don’t think it is. It could be trench foot.”
“Okay, it is not trench foot.”
“Gross feet, Rossi,” Paul says. He nudges me out of the way and sticks a few pieces of short lumber into the firebox. The rush of heat from the open door is inviting enough to crawl inside.
“There’s some athlete’s foot medicine in the medical box,” Casper says on his way to the corner where the box is kept. He digs around and brings me a tube. “I get it sometimes. This stuff works.”
“Thank you.” I squeeze out white cream and rub it into the red spots. “See what Casper did there? He helped. Unlike you two.”
Indy and Paul grin at each other, and they keep on grinning until Paul says, “I’ll get some more wood.”
Indy watches him leave, notices my scrutiny, and closes her eyes as though soaking in heat. “Still no luck with Charlie?” I ask Casper.
“I made it to his place on 14th, but he wasn’t there. I left a note asking him to leave a note where he’d be. I’ll check again the day after tomorrow.”
“I’ll come with,” I say. Julie and Chris usually go, but the other day he went alone, which is never a good idea. We’re stretched thin between watching StuyTown, hunting for food, searching for Charlie, and throwing zombies off high-rises.
“Cool.” Casper moves his hair behind his ear. “I’m really sorry, Sylvie. About Eric. He was one of the nicest people I ever met.”
I try to smile, but my already empty stomach turns cavernous. It’s times like these, when the pain swoops in and catches me unprepared, that I wish I’d never met Eric. I swallow back my tears. Warm or not, I have to get out of here.
“Sorry,” Casper says. “I didn’t mean—”
The City Series (Book 3): Instauration Page 40
