Lucky flicks on a flashlight to reveal seven people crouched at the brick and bodies scattered on the ground. The seven stand, and a woman says, “Not sure. We’re—”
The flashlight hits the ground rolling as Micah and Lucky pull their triggers, and we’re left with only gunfire and our imaginations. Twenty shots. Thirty. Forty. Then it’s quiet across the way.
Guillermo and I reach the spot at the same time. His flashlight reveals motionless bodies in the bushes and another two on the path. My heart resumes pumping when Lucky groans and pulls his leg to his chest. Micah doesn’t move. I kneel beside him and feel his neck for a pulse I don’t find.
“Micah!” I shake him, but he doesn’t stir. “Guillermo, I need your light!”
Guillermo rushes to my side, illuminating Micah’s blank eyes and a bullet hole in his forehead. My stomach upends, and I swallow hard to keep its contents inside. To keep the tears inside. “Jesus,” Guillermo moans. “What the fuck, Micah?”
As Micah said only minutes ago, we don’t have time to contemplate this. To think about Rissa. Later, if we’re alive, we’ll mourn the way we should. For now, I move to Lucky, who sits up and swallows back his pain. “It’s just my leg. Go do what you need to do.”
“Can you get to the truck?” I ask. He nods, and I squeeze his shoulder. “That was fearless, but your aunt’s going to kill you.”
A terrified laugh escapes as Guillermo helps him up, and he limps toward the truck after he hands me his rifle. “Eric? Guillermo?” Sylvie screams in my ear. “Can you hear me? What’s happening now?”
“Blow the building, Sylvie,” Guillermo says.
“Hang on,” I say.
I run to the Oval path for a view, holding my earpiece. The windows of the café building are alight and filled with people. They call up and down to each other. Yell out commands. They may not notice the bombs we hid, but they’ll be out to fight any minute, and the people in building Eleven will pay. We’ll never get them through the gate in time.
“Blow it,” I say.
“Where’s Paul?” Sylvie asks.
“Shit. I don’t know.” I’d hoped he radioed while I couldn’t hear. I try to pick him out in the dark somewhere. Anywhere. “Fuck. Paul? Paul, where are you?”
The line stays silent. A window above the café cracks open. A man crawls out, lowers himself to hang from the windowsill by his hands, and then drops to the patio in front of the café. I sink to one knee and raise my rifle while he regains his footing. My first shot misses, but my second sends him to the concrete.
“They’re coming out,” I say into the radio. “Blow it now.”
I don’t want to sentence my best friend to death, but he could already be dead. His radio could be dead. I ran into someone—maybe he did, too. Guillermo comes up beside me. “Julie and Joe were hit.”
“They okay?”
“I think so.”
Two more people drop from a second-story window on the side of the building and run for the lobby. It’s a hopeless shot, but I try anyway. I miss.
“Sylvie!” Guillermo shouts into his radio. “Do it now!”
She doesn’t answer.
118
Sylvie
Through my tears, I see people leave by the second-story windows and run inside the café building to release the others. I know they’ll be out soon. I know my job is to stop them. But I also know Micah—sweet, brave, sensitive Micah—died to save us. If I push this button and speak into the radio, Paul will be next.
The deaths started with most of the world. Then most of Sunset Park. Hundreds more followed, whether by Walt’s hand or Lexers’ teeth—at times both. And then the sacrifices began: Debra. Harold. Brother David. Kate. Louis. Micah. Likely Jorge. Even this baby I didn’t want but finally came to desire. All for the greater good.
Now. Blow it now.
Indy listens to their insistent voices while she watches the building, hand forgotten by her mouth. She doesn’t say a word. She doesn’t beg or protest. She waits for her fate, for Paul’s fate, without complaint—because this world has become an endless series of sacrifices, leaving behind kids and friends and lovers to mourn their loss.
Well, I’m not doing it. The greater good can kiss my ass.
Call me Fate, call me Karma, but I refuse to let Paul—unapologetic jackass, purveyor of vitamins, and exceptional human being—become another offering. I will not watch Indy mourn, and I won’t tell Leo his dad died for him. It stops right the fuck now.
There’s only one way Roger could’ve known Paul wouldn’t call in before he arrived: he hurt him. Maybe he killed him, but Paul wouldn’t go down that easily. I ignore Eric and Guillermo and scream into the radio, “Paul, get your ass up! Paul, do you hear me? Answer me, Paul!”
It seems like forever, but it can’t be more than a few moments before I hear, “Okay, okay.” Paul’s voice is so faint I think I imagined it, but Indy seizes the radio in both hands and brings it to her face.
“I will murder you if you don’t get your ass out of there,” she says, her voice choked with tears. “Please, Paul. Please.”
“Okay.” He’s hurt, breathing hard, but his voice has strengthened. “Coming.”
I pray to everything and everyone I can think of. I even say a Hail Mary. Indy cries out when a broad body trips through the café doors. He stumbles, goes down on one knee, and fights to rise.
“I have him,” Eric says, his short breaths indicating he’s already on the move.
He reaches Paul, hauls him up by his armpits, and drags him into the dark. Seconds later, three people exit the building’s side door, then two more, then a dozen. They move in front of the café and look to where they last heard gunshots. Regina and Walt are with them, holding rifles in their arms.
Regina points across the Oval. Walt follows the line of her finger to our window, where our silhouettes might be visible in the dim light. I wish I could see his face up close, to know if he’s aware these are his final moments on Earth, to tell if he regrets what he’s done. He had his chance. He made his choice. Maybe now he recognizes he made the wrong one.
“We’re good,” Eric says. “Now.”
I know exactly what I want to say, and I press the radio button without hesitation. “Vete pa’l carajo, motherfuckers.”
It starts as faint rumbles beneath our feet. It sounds like distant thunder. A storm blowing in from the bay. A fault line under the city. Walt, Regina, and the others look up and around as everything behind the café’s glass bursts outward and takes them down. The lights in the windows wink out, and the dark shape of the structure seems to tremble.
The next explosions shake the room. Brick, plaster, and glass fly into the Oval. Fire billows up and out, possibly propelled by gas that remains in the lines or something flammable in the basement. Or maybe it’s entirely the product of our chemistry. This is one explosive ending for which I’m proud to take credit.
Brother David once said the word consume can mean to immerse. I said it also means to destroy. And, as the dancing orange flames consume the building, they destroy the hate and the killing and the lies, and they restore some sorely-needed justice to the world.
Even destruction can be beautiful.
Epilogue
The word of the day is reunion. For that reason, and despite the fact that I want to die, I continue climbing the stairs. Eric turns, face lit by our lantern. “Need another rest stop?”
“No.” I smile at the small face that peers over his shoulder. “Lucky you. I’d make Daddy carry me, too, if I could fit in there.”
Tiny white teeth show. Her small hand pats Eric’s head too hard, causing him to screw up his face. “Daddy’s good.”
“He’s all right,” I say with a wink. “But he’d be even better if he could carry me.”
Eric’s smile is as bright as ever, no matter if he stands in the sun or in dim light on the eightieth floor of the Empire State Building. “They used to hold a race on these stairs every year. The
Empire State Building Run-Up. I always thought it’d be fun.”
“You have a terrible notion of fun.”
“You’re fun.”
“Like I said, a terrible notion.”
He starts up the stairs again. “Move it, woman.”
I do, but only because there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for Eric, including drag myself up these godforsaken stairs for the second time in a week to make this moment happen. Usually, shifts up here last for days because of the climb. No one would trust their life to an uninspected elevator cable even if we had fuel for the generators that once ran them.
In the 86th floor observatory, predawn light floods through the glass and gleams on the Art Deco details. Farina’s radios still sit in the center of it all, powered by solar-charged batteries and connected to the building’s antenna by a system of electronics I barely understand. It’s our lifeline to the rest of the world. What’s left of it.
“S’up?” Paul asks from his chair, where he rests with his feet on the table.
Indy, his partner for the radio shift and everything else, sits beside him. “They’re a little excited,” she says. “They called in last night to confirm again that they’ll call today. About an hour from now.”
“That might be enough time to catch my breath.” I sink to the floor on my back. I’m covered with sweat and already achy. It could be I’ll regret every stair tomorrow, but I doubt it.
The child carrier hits the floor and then dainty footsteps near my head. My own eyes watch me from six inches away. She didn’t win the chromosomal lottery, though Eric insists, both to her and to me, that brown eyes are prettier.
“Mommy, are you sleeping?”
“Yes.”
Gracie laughs, the way she laughs at most things. She’s smart and sweet and funny. She has so much love to give and so many people to give it to. I can’t get enough of it.
“Come here, monkey,” Eric says. “Give your mother some sustenance. She’s dog-tired.”
Gracie moves to her dad and then patters back to me. I assume the dark brown thing in her hand is jerky or some honey-sweetened excuse for a dessert, but, when she places it on my chest, the familiar but now foreign smell of chocolate is unmistakable.
I sit up, single Twix bar in my hand. “Where did you—”
“I have my ways,” Eric says. “You can have the other half later, if you’re good.”
“Oh well, one is better than none,” I say. Gracie crouches beside me, head tilted, and I hold it up for her inspection. “This is a chocolate bar. It has cookie and caramel inside.”
“It’s good?” she asks.
“You tell me.”
I break off an end and hand her the bite. She sticks it in her mouth and chews. A moment later, she plops to her bottom in ecstasy.
“I know,” I sigh. “It tastes like heaven. Processed sugar heaven.”
“She’s your daughter, no doubt,” Indy says.
“You should be honored,” Eric says to Gracie. “Mommy doesn’t share her candy with just anyone.”
The radio crackles. It’s earlier than expected, but maybe she can’t wait. “Empire State?” a distant voice asks. “This is Talkeetna.”
It’s a voice I’ve spoken to once before. A voice Eric hasn’t heard in years. Paul and Indy rise, and Paul claps Eric’s shoulder before they head out to the observation deck.
Eric leaps into a chair. His hand fumbles on the radio’s speaker, but he finally gets the button pressed. “Cassie?” His tone is soft, disbelieving.
“Eric?” Her tinny voice sounds as far-off as she is, over three thousand miles, but the elation in that single word is crystal clear.
Eric rests his forehead on the hand that holds the speaker. His shoulders shake. I pick up Gracie, who wraps her arms around my neck and eyes her dad with astonishment.
“Eric? Hello?”
He raises his head and takes a breath. “I’m here. I just can’t believe you’re there.”
A buoyant laugh comes across the line. “Me neither. When I spoke to Sylvie, I gave her the third-degree to make sure it was really you. Once she said you were annoyingly good at everything, I was sure.”
She snorts, and I laugh. The signals fade in and out, whether bounced off the ionosphere or sent through a series of repeaters the remaining Safe Zones have erected, and I have the utmost respect for someone who uses that time to give her brother a dig after years of no communication.
Eric shakes his head. If only Cassie could see his smile. “I think you and Sylvie would get along just fine.”
“We already do. Penny sends her love, and she wanted me to thank Sylvie for being with Maria until…” There’s a long pause, then, “Over.”
Eric turns to me. “Sylvie loved her so much,” he says. I smile, something I can do now where Maria is concerned. “They loved each other. I think Penny would like to know that.”
“I could hear it when we spoke.” Her voice breaks, and a sniffle sounds before she says, “Tell me everything.”
Eric takes a breath. “Okay. Hang on a second.” There’s so much to tell, so many things that can’t be relayed properly over radio, but the opportunity to try is more than most people get.
I touch his shoulder, then motion to the observation deck. He takes my hand and presses it to his cheek, and his eyes say thank you better than words ever could. I kiss the top of his head and move for outside.
“I came into Brooklyn to find you, and…” Eric’s voice fades as the door closes behind me.
“That was your Aunt Cassie,” I say. “You’ll get to say hello in a little while.”
Gracie casts a worried look over my shoulder. “Why’s Daddy crying?”
“It’s happy crying. Sometimes you feel so happy that all the laughing in the world doesn’t let it out, so you cry, too. You know when else he happy cried?”
She shakes her head.
“When you were born. I said we should return you to the baby store because your hair looked funny, but he convinced me to keep you.”
She throws her head back with a giggle. If there’s one thing this kid recognizes after living with me for her few years of life, it’s a joke. “No, you didn’t!”
I kiss her plump cheek. “You’re right, mamita, I didn’t.”
Roger’s boot left me with what Anaya diagnosed as a subchorionic hemorrhage, for which she prescribed months of bedrest. Fortunately, I rested in a place with a clubhouse, real cheese, and most, though not all, of the people I loved. At the end of it, I added another person, and I love her more than I imagined possible.
Gracie points to the view. “I want to see.”
Even with fencing that stretches above my head, I approach the edge with apprehension. Gracie has no such fear, and she grabs the metal with two hands to stick her face through an opening. She’s like Eric when it comes to this stuff, which will probably send me to an early grave.
But I’m glad she’s not afraid, and that she has no reason to be. Central Park is fenced, and it might remain so for decades, but Manhattan is zombie-free. The rest of the world isn’t as lucky. Not all the Lexers succumbed to time and black mold the way we’d hoped. And, when all it takes is one, a low percentage of billions is pretty high.
I find the bit of green rectangle I can see between buildings, where Central Park Safe Zone now stretches the entire length of the park, full of gardens and orchards and many of Knuckle’s descendants. Carmen and Mo keep it running smoothly and peaceably, and they welcome the few survivors we get every year. The newcomers arrive with stories of wastelands and Lexers and bandits, though they temper them with tales of the kindness of strangers and people who’ve kept their humanity aflame in the face of all odds.
“Look, there’s home,” I say. “I think I see Leo waving.”
Gracie waves a dimpled hand in delight. Leo is her favorite person on Earth. Followed closely by Auntie Indy and Uncle Jorge, on whom Anaya worked her medical magic. He moves a bit slower than he once did, but he chases after
Jin just fine.
Gracie pushes her brown hair—the color I call Forrest Brown—off her face. “Don’t like wind,” she complains.
“Tell me about it,” I say.
The Twix bar is melting in my free hand. I take a bite and offer her the rest while I crunch the cookie and savor the mixture of caramel and chocolate in my mouth. Even years past its sell-by date, it’s gloriously and deliciously bad for you.
I lick my fingers. “That’s all.” Gracie nods sadly, and I give thanks for the short-term memories of small children—she’s not getting a molecule of that second bar, even if I do love her more than life itself.
I walk to the south side of the observation deck and imagine I can see Sunset Park across the water, where Eric is right now in his mind. The buildings of Lower Manhattan crumble more every day. Most of Stuyvesant Town is dark. That fire took on a life of its own, eventually jumping buildings and burning for two days straight.
Indy and Paul come up beside me, hands linked. With his free hand, Paul gestures to the charcoal that was StuyTown. “Again, thanks for not blowing me up.”
Before he came for me, Roger went in for Eric and found Paul in the café. One head wound later, Paul was roused by the radio, a fact for which I’m grateful every day—even on his most jackass of days.
“What was I thinking?” I ask. “I had the perfect chance to get rid of you and didn’t take it.”
Indy puts her arm around me and Gracie. I rest my head against hers. If friendship is measured in years, it hasn’t been that long since the nacho cheese night, but, if I measure by the things we’ve seen each other through, we’ve been friends for a lifetime.
“What’s he saying in there?” she asks. Maybe she’s contemplating what she’d say to Eli. I know what I’d say to him: Thank you. For giving Grace a little joy before this world took her away and for giving me your sister.
“He was starting at the beginning when we came out here.”
“We’re gonna be here all day,” Paul grumbles.
The City Series (Book 3): Instauration Page 80
