I don’t believe he’ll let me go this way, without a goodbye. Especially not now, when there’s a chance we’ll never see each other again. I draw out our departure for as long as I can, waiting for him to appear. When he doesn’t, the pain is sharp and real enough that I can’t pretend it’s not the truth. No matter how hurtful we both were, I never thought he’d end things like this, as if I mean nothing to him.
“Be careful,” Guillermo says.
Indy sits in the front of the canoe. I wave to shore as we paddle into deeper water. When they’ve faded into the mist, Indy sets her paddle across her knees and turns heartfelt eyes on me. “I’m sure he…”
“It’s okay,” I say. At the doubt on her face, I add, “Really, it is.”
It isn’t yet, but it will be. I got along without Eric before we met. I lost him, and it didn’t kill me. I survived that, and I can survive this.
I can survive anything.
81
Eric
Within the first week of meeting her, I figured out that if you push Sylvie, she’ll shove back. Yesterday, I came out swinging, and she threw a punch that just about knocked me out. I’ve tried for the past hours to blame her, but I gave that up a half hour ago. I forbade her from going, like I have any fucking say in the matter. I accused her of sleeping with Roger. Her wounded expression made it clear she didn’t do anything of the sort, even if she believed me dead—by any rights a damn good excuse—and I still landed that blow like a jealous teenager.
I watch the water from where I sit on the Verrazano’s anchorage. It hurt getting up here, but I managed. As soon as I reached the top, I should’ve returned to the monastery to apologize. But, like an asshole, I held on to the anger and righteousness until it was too late. There are only two people who would be in a boat on the bay at high tide, and I can see their outline through a break in the mist, heading toward the west side of Manhattan.
Rather than watch her leave me, I left her before she could. It was the one thing I promised never to do, and I can only imagine how Sylvie felt when I was gone this morning. I don’t want to imagine, truthfully, because it’s put me squarely in the camp of the people who’ve let her down her entire life. If I was worried about her being receptive to Roger, I couldn’t have done a better job of pushing her in his direction if I’d tried.
I took Sylvie’s determination to go to StuyTown as an insult, as disloyalty to me. But it’s her loyalty to our extended family, to her own principles, and even to me, that makes her willing to put her life on the line. I should’ve sent her off with a kiss, with a word about her strength, with assurances that I love her until the end of the world.
I add that frustration to the frustration already burning inside. Frustration at my body for betraying me, at Walt for putting us here, but, mainly, frustration with myself. The times in life that I’ve spoken in anger have made me remorseful enough to try to measure my words before I speak. I’m even-keeled Eric. Dependable. Patience of a goddamn saint. I should know—I’ve spent a lot of time with nuns in recent days. Even I bought into it. I thought I had boundless patience. Turns out, I had it easy.
I’ve been tested, but never like this, and I failed. I got scared. I got angry. I lost myself, and I chose the worst possible moment in which to do it. It was a blow to find out I’d missed Cassie. It hurt that life went on without me—was fun without me—even if that’s truly what I would want for Sylvie. I felt weak. Useless. I don’t fault myself for having those feelings, but the blame falls at my feet that, instead of sucking it up, I gave in to them.
My old friend optimism has left the building, replaced by the knowledge that things can and will get more fucked up. Maybe forever. Maybe until Sylvie dies and I die and we’re not so much as a footnote in the history of this new world.
Maybe Walt wins.
I shake my head. My side throbs with my heightened pulse. I refuse to entertain that outcome. Dad said sometimes the battle picks you. Well, this one sucker-punched me, beat me down, and left me for dead. But I’m still here, and I’ll see it through to the end. I’ll do my best to win.
I struggle to my feet, eyes on the remains of the Verrazano. I’ve shown myself to be undependable, and the only way to fix it is to make things right with Sylvie, to fight for the people who are worth fighting for, and to clear this city of garbage—human and otherwise.
And I’m going to start with this fucking bridge.
82
Sylvie
We won’t allow anyone to walk us near StuyTown, partly in case we’re spotted beforehand and partly because we need time to psych ourselves up. Our bags and weapons are ready. Though we know the latter will be confiscated, it would seem suspicious to arrive unarmed.
Mo’s people moved in while Indy and I were gone. They sit on couches and at tables, walk the halls, and provide a steady background buzz in what was once almost painfully quiet. By the time I return, it’ll be an entirely different place. Not worse, necessarily, but different. I’ve always hated change, but I look forward to this one. The more my old life is gone, the less I’ll remember how Eric fit into it.
I’ve left Grace’s holster here, as someone in StuyTown might recognize it, and I stick my pistol into my thigh holster before I hug Jorge. “I love you, mami,” he says.
“I love you, papi. I’m going to do everything I can to get your boy.”
He nods, and I nod, and we both ignore the tear that rolls to his chin. I hug everyone in turn, saving Paul and Leo for last. Paul squeezes me gently, the way he’s treated me for the past twenty-four hours. He understood Eric’s reaction; he hates this plan, too. But when I got to the part about Roger, he was almost as pissed as I was. Though it was clear he was not quite as surprised.
“Don’t die, Rossi,” he says.
“I’ll try my best, Macaroni.”
“Maloney,” Leo says with a giggle.
“I know.” I pick him up and breathe him in one last time. “How do you smell so good?”
“Poop,” he says.
“That must be it.” I set him down. “I love you, squirt. I’ll see you soon.”
Indy crushes him into a hug, then whispers in his ear and kisses Paul. They said goodbye earlier, alone. Going on their reddened eyes, it didn’t make this easier.
“I don’t want you to go,” Leo whines.
Kate bends to him with the shiny wrapper of a Twix in her hand. “How about a candy bar while they leave?”
Leo stares at the Twix, bottom lip slowly jutting into a pout, and then bursts into tears. “Don’t go,” he wails. “I don’t want you to go!”
“Buddy.” Paul stoops to Leo’s height. “Buddy, they have to. I don’t want them to go, either.”
“They don’t have to!” Leo’s face twists. He snatches the Twix from Kate’s hand and chucks it across the room. “Why do they have to?”
Paul chokes on whatever he’d planned to say. Leo grabs my legs, fingers gouging my thighs and his face so anguished I want to promise I’ll never leave. “Don’t go! Please. Please?”
I sink to my knees and pull him into my arms. “I don’t lie to you, right?”
Leo nods, breath coming in gulps on my shoulder. He’s a little boy who’s seen the people he loves die one by one, and there’s no reason for him to believe Indy and I will escape the same fate. Since I can’t promise him we’ll be okay, I won’t tell him he has no right to feel this way. Pretending not to feel is how little boys grow up to be monsters.
“We have to do this because we have people we love in there,” I say. “They need help, and it’s wrong not to help if you can. If you were in there, I’d come for you. That’s how love works.”
“I’d come for you,” Leo says. “I’d bust it all down.”
I raise my head at soft laughter. The entire room has stopped speaking to watch, wearing smiles and tears simultaneously. Mo’s people are a family the same as we are. Maybe, one day, we’ll become family to each other.
“I know you would,” I say. �
�And you know what else? We’re doing it for all the people we don’t love yet because we don’t know them well enough. Someone has to stop this, and Indy and I might be able to do it.”
“That’s not fair,” he mutters. Paul is evident in Leo’s lowered brow and clenched jaw, I’m glad to see. It’ll serve him well if the world continues on this bullshit trajectory.
“I’m angry, too. I don’t know if I’m angry enough to throw a Twix bar, though. That’s Hulk-level mad.”
Leo laughs through his tears, then notices our audience and swipes at his face. I take his soft cheeks in my hands. “It’s okay to be sad, squirt. You cry any time you need to. If anyone calls you a crybaby, punch them in the nose like I taught you.” Leo sniffs and nods. I brush his sweaty bangs off his forehead. “We’ll be back as soon as we can, I promise you that. Okay?”
He wipes his nose with his sleeve. “I still don’t want you to leave.”
“Believe me,” I say, “it’s the last thing I want to do.”
I wouldn’t say I’m great, but I’m okay until we make it to the FDR. We hid our bikes on the street and hopped the fence to walk the remainder of the way, but when we come around the curve that puts the brick buildings of StuyTown in view, my legs grow shaky enough that I stop to lean against the concrete median.
“How are you not scared?” I ask Indy.
“I am scared. You just can’t tell.”
“Lies. All lies.”
She strips off her gloves to show me fingernails bitten low enough to draw blood. Her cuticles are frayed and raw. They look worse than my chilblains.
“Geez, woman,” I say. “Stop eating yourself.”
She dons her gloves and puts one hand in the air, finger lifted as if lecturing a class. “Remember to breathe and don’t break character. You have to forget about all those other problems out there. Be here, be Sylvie, who’s been surviving with her friend Indy because they didn’t know if they could come back to StuyTown. But now they’re hungry and tired and Indy wants to see her nephew. They only like a few people, and they don’t need anyone’s bullshit, so they can take it or leave it. All the others—Kate, Eric, Louis, Jorge—didn’t mean a thing to us. We’ve always been about survival, ever since we met in Brooklyn.”
“We sound pretty cold-hearted.”
“You are. I’m the nicer one.”
“Thanks.”
“Can you do warm and fuzzy on command?”
“No,” I admit. I breathe in, imagining how Indy and I scrounged the streets, sisters in arms, until we decided to mooch off StuyTown while we wait for something better to come along. I get to my feet. “Okay, here we go.”
We continue walking. “You handled Leo well before,” Indy says.
“Apparently, the men in my life are prone to throwing tantrums. I’m getting good at it.”
She snickers. “That was perfect. You sound like StuyTown Sylvie.”
“I wasn’t trying to.”
“I know. That’s why it’s perfect. You’re you, just a you who doesn’t care about people. Except me, of course, because I’m ah-mazing.”
I laugh. I was born to play this role; I’ve pretended not to care my entire life.
83
Eric
I returned late last night as the zombies were thawing, and I made sure to avoid people. This morning, I enter the cafeteria for breakfast feeling more than a little ashamed. Guillermo tilts his head at the empty chair beside him.
I grab a cup of coffee and a biscuit-pancake thing before I sit. After a minute, I say, “Guillermo, I don’t know what you heard, but I’m sorry I was a dick. I’ll do whatever it takes to get your sister out. If I can come, I will. If I can’t, I’ll do what I can from here.”
I plan on going if it kills me, but he doesn’t need to know that. Guillermo continues chewing while he watches his plate, then swallows with a shake of his head. “I would’ve flipped if it was my girlfriend. We’re trying to get them out, not send more in, right? Whatever you said, I’m sure you didn’t mean it. You forget that I know you or something?”
I shrug and take a sip of coffee, grateful at how easy he’s made this.
“Sylvie was pretty pissed, though, huh?” he asks.
“You could say that.”
“She’ll get over it.”
I’m glad someone thinks so. I take a bite of my food and find it’s impossible to swallow without coffee. “I was thinking, while we wait, we could try out those explosives on the bridge. See if we can move some of the rubble out of the way.”
“I like that plan,” he says.
It’s one of the only places we can reach when the zombies thaw, since Shore Road is a straight shot to the bridge, and they’ve built up the barricades in recent weeks.
“I want to see what the nitro can do,” Kearney says from across the table.
“All right,” I say. “I’ll be in the lab most of the day.”
They finish eating and rise before I do, though Kearney makes his way back to set a piece of paper by my mug. It’s been crumpled, then flattened out and folded. “Sylvie tossed it in the trash before she left, but I thought you’d want to see it.”
I stare at the paper until the room has cleared, then I open it. I love you. Beneath that, she began to write Sorry and then, rightfully so, thought better of it. The fact that it was in the garbage doesn’t bode well, but I’m going to focus on those three full words. She still loved me when she walked out the door.
I tuck it in my coat pocket with her picture, grab my crutches, and get to work.
“Careful!” Guillermo yells for the fourth time.
Dennis, already driving the pickup at five miles per hour, asks, “G, you want to get out and push instead of using the gas pedal?”
Guillermo mutters and crosses himself for the tenth time. I turn to him in the backseat. “You sure you want to do this?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. I just don’t want to die.”
“You won’t die as long as you’re out of the way when it blows.”
“Bro, I’m gonna run so fast I’ll be in Queens when it blows.”
I can’t run, but I might’ve found a way to be useful. I’ve hardly slept in three days, mainly because I can’t sleep, but I have a shitload of explosives to show for it. Yesterday, the four of us came down to the bridge, where they walked out onto the metal and used torches to cut through the web of cables that we think hold the detached roadway in place. Our hope is that a blast will send it on its way. The amount of pressure against the bridge is considerable, between garbage and low tide, and it might be enough.
Last winter did a number on the bridge. Part of the roadway between the anchorage and bent tower finally detached, and it now sits partially submerged in the water. I’m thankful it fell. It allowed Kearney to reach me, and it provides a path to the center of the downed bridge—the section we want to remove.
Once we’re parked, Dennis opens the tailgate. We survey the boxes of plastic soda bottles filled with nitro and corked with a detonator. It’s a rainy day, though not raining at the moment, and the sporadic thunder will provide cover for any noise we make.
“You sure this’ll work?” Guillermo asks.
“Nope,” I say.
“Holy Mary, Mother of God, protect us.”
“You get pretty religious when you think you’re going to die.”
“I said goodbye to Kenneth, just in case,” Dennis says.
“Fuck, man.” Guillermo turns a lighter shade of tan. The air is cold, but sweat beads on his forehead. “That’s harsh. Okay, here we go.”
He lifts a spool of wire and a box containing four of the bottles, tiptoes down the slope of grass to the water, and climbs onto the remains of the bridge. “Did you really say goodbye to Kenneth?” I ask Dennis. I feel bad sending him out there. I’d go if I could, but crutches and explosives are a bad combination.
“Nah, I just like messing with Guillermo.”
A bark of laughter comes from behind. Joe’s shoulder
s shake. He wipes at an eye, grabs his load of explosives, and heads off chuckling. I still have no idea what to make of the man, but I’ve progressed to calling him Joe instead of Kearney in my head some of the time.
Dennis takes the remaining box and spool. The three of them pick their way past the first tower in the mess of metal and debris. Guillermo travels farthest and tucks his load into a few separate spots. He bends to attach the spooled wire to the wires in the bottles, then walks to Joe. They do the same to his, then Dennis’. By the time they return, they’ve used over a thousand feet of wire. The hardware stores have plenty, but remote detonation would be more practical.
Sylvie left us with extensive information about explosives, but she couldn’t tell us what she didn’t know, and I’ve been left to guess at the amounts needed for this job. I went with the more, the better. After all, we’re talking about a lot of steel and concrete.
We attach the wire to the cord coming from the generator in the truck bed. “I hope I made enough,” I say. “You want to do the honors, Guillermo?”
Guillermo switches on the generator at the count of three. When nothing happens, he sighs. “All that for—”
He’s interrupted by a boom similar to a large caliber rifle shot. A geyser shoots hundreds of feet into the air, followed by another and another. The blasts may be muffled by water, but they’re loud enough to echo for miles.
Debris hits the ground nearby, though we’re far away. I drop my crutches and jump into the backseat with Guillermo while Joe climbs through to the passenger’s side. Chunks of concrete, pieces of Lexers, and metal shards rain down. Dennis slams the driver’s side door as something heavy bounces off the windshield, leaving a web of cracks in its wake, and a multitude of smaller items ping and ding the truck’s roof and sides. The garbage storm ends abruptly, and the only sound is our heavy breathing.
The City Series (Book 3): Instauration Page 56
