“I call them the assholes,” Kate says.
“Kate is a bit of a delicate flower, as you can see,” Declan says, laughing along with me. “Anyway, they don’t want to believe this is a new world. It may be idealistic to believe people can get along, but I do, especially in a society as small as ours. We modeled this on other egalitarian communities. Flexible labor and credits for jobs done. We vote by consensus. It’s not perfect, and we’re learning as we go, but most people like it.”
Declan’s face has come alive. He’s charismatic, but not in a creepy way, and seems genuinely excited by the idea. Kate has been watching Declan, her cheek resting in her hand and a small smile on her lips. Now she gives me that same smile. “Don’t let the hippie talk fool you. We have more ammo than we know what to do with, and a lot of us know how to use a gun. Louis teaches self-defense classes. The gates are always guarded.”
“That’s good to hear,” I say. “How are you on food? If you don’t mind my asking. That’s our biggest issue.”
Declan glances at Kate, who nods as if giving permission before she stands from the table and gathers the dishes. “I’ll do that,” Declan says.
“I’ve got it,” Kate says, and kisses his cheek. “But tomorrow you cook and clean.”
He smiles as she leaves for the kitchen, then faces me. “Those food drops that never came—we have them. Found them about two weeks into this, still boxed up.”
“There really was food?”
“Some, though we found it uptown, if that tells you who they planned to give it to. We also took boats upriver to Hunts Point. It was the food distribution center for much of the city. We must have made forty trips, total, so far. Altogether, we figure it will feed three hundred people for close to three years. There’s more up there, but it got a little dicey on our last trip.”
It’ll last longer with a garden and raising rabbits and the chickens Kate mentioned. I can’t imagine having years of food. Of security. “Why didn’t you leave the city if you have boats?” I ask.
“Whoever wanted to leave was dropped ashore, but it’s no better on the mainland. Maybe worse.”
“The island is an advantage and a disadvantage.”
“Exactly. We’re limited, for the most part, to the Lexers we have. Manhattan has about a million zombies, I’d say.”
“And on the other side you have every zombie in North America.”
He lays a hand on my shoulder. “It seems you’ve thought about this.”
“I have, but I didn’t have three years of food to sweeten the deal. Or running water.”
Declan squeezes my shoulder before he drops his hand. He couldn’t be more different than my broad, bearded dad in appearance, but he reminds me of him in spirit. “There’s water in the aqueducts. It might run out eventually now that no one mans the reservoirs, but I’d guess a billion gallons or more are in there just waiting to be used.”
A billion gallons would last not quite forever, but close. As long as it can reach the buildings through pipes, though those might burst when they freeze. New York’s water is gravity-fed and needs no added pressure to travel to the sixth floor. Higher than that, you need pumps to carry water to a water tower or individual apartments. And that’s the extent of my knowledge of the water system in the city.
“Do the buildings have water towers or is the water pumped to the higher floors?” I ask.
“It’s pumped up to the water towers and comes down by gravity. Four of them, each holding close to forty-thousand gallons.”
They’re doing more than all right. “So you’re set for a long while as long as there’s water in them.”
“We are. Right now, we only use three of the buildings here. The rest protect our position and hold the other water tanks. Every building has food and weapons in case they get cut off from the others. And we’re planning more walls than what you see.”
“Were you military?”
Dex’s eyes cut toward the sound of running water and clank of dishes from the kitchen. He scrutinizes me for a moment, appears to reach some sort of conclusion, and then says, “Not unless you consider the I.R.A. the military.”
“Wow,” I say. The Irish Republican Army was no joke, especially around the time I would assume, based on his age, that Declan was a part.
“It was a wild time, and every day I’m thankful I didn’t kill any innocent people. I met Kate in Ireland and followed her to The States before I could do anything too stupid. Besides, a half Indian-half Irishman sticks out like a sore thumb when one wants to be inconspicuous.”
I laugh. “The name fits.”
“My mother got a good laugh out of that when we visited her family. Declan O’Neill, Jr. running around with his cousins, Jiya and Bhavin.” Dex smiles. “What I’ve told you—it isn’t common knowledge, so if you could keep it to yourself, I’d be much obliged.”
“My lips are sealed,” I say.
“Good man. I’ll talk your ear off if you’re not careful.”
Chapter 16
I sleep soundly in the spare room, though I wake at dawn. Dex and Kate are already up, and hot coffee and a cold sandwich await me on the table.
“You guys should open a bed and breakfast,” I say to Kate.
“You’d check out by the second night. That’s when I get lazy.”
I take a bite of my sandwich. It tastes like chicken salad. Or maybe it’s more rabbit, but whatever the meat, it’s a nice change from pre-packaged fare.
I say so, and Kate pats my hand. “Come see us again when you can. And bring some of your friends—maybe Sylvie?” She winks. Last night, she asked about any girlfriends, and I spilled the beans. “Roger and Louis will take you and your bike up the FDR.”
“I can ride there myself.”
“Duh,” Kate says with an eye roll, like a way-overgrown teenager. “But now you won’t have to.”
I smile. Kate is silly and kind, and I don’t blame Declan for the way he watches her as though she’s made of something other than flesh and bone. She must keep him on his toes the way Sylvie keeps me on my mine, and he seems to like it as much as I do.
Louis waits in the garage under an outer building. Several parking spots are filled with food and ammo boxes. The last five are trucks. To the left, in a few empty parking spaces, are shelves that hold a large number of weapons and an assortment of sharp things.
Declan shrugs. “Could be overkill, but why let them sit out on the street?”
“True,” I say. Roger throws my bike into the back of a Humvee, and I shake Declan’s hand. “Thanks. Tell Kate I said thank you again.”
“Will do,” he says. “Good luck.”
I sit in the passenger seat, Louis in the backseat, and we head out with Roger behind the wheel. Once we’ve opened the gates and are cruising up the FDR, Roger asks, “What’d you think of our place?”
“It’s great,” I say.
“A little too peace, love, and harmony, but it’s not bad.” He gives me a cool smile from behind his aviator sunglasses. “It’s hard living with people.”
I think it might be hard living with Roger. The road descends and he veers to avoid a Lexer standing on the center line. “Whoa, how’d you get here, buddy?”
He pulls to a stop, grabs a machete from beside his seat and hops to the road. Louis does the same, so I step out, too.
Roger yells, “En garde!” He smashes the zombie in the head and turns back with a grin. “We’ve got to figure out how it got in. Could be a—” He breaks off at Louis’ finger, which points to a fallen section of chain-link fence on the ground ahead. “Right.”
Louis is already on his way. I take a look around to be sure we’re safe and then meet him at the opening. He inspects the edges of the section and points to frayed metal wire attached to the upright fencing. “We had a batch of wire that was defective. I have some good wire in the truck.”
I help him position the fencing properly and hold it in place as he walks to the Humvee and returns with a ro
ll of thick wire and wire cutters. He carefully cuts pieces and weaves them around edges until it’s firmly attached.
“Have you been to Flatbush?” he asks in his accented voice. It’s a neighborhood in Brooklyn, named for the avenue that runs through it.
“Briefly,” I say. “It didn’t look so hot.”
“I have friends there. I may take a ride over one day on a boat. Do you know of a place to dock?”
“I’d go to the Brooklyn Navy Yard. There might be a good spot around there, and you could follow Flatbush up. Brooklyn’s pretty bad, though.”
“Everywhere is bad,” he says, his lips quirking.
I laugh. It was pretty asinine to think I needed to remind him of that. “True enough.”
We head back to the truck, where Roger surveys the land while taking a hefty drag of a cigarette. He blows out a cloud of smoke. “Done?”
“Good as new,” Louis says.
“You have another one of those?” I ask Roger, and thank him when he hands me one.
“Nice to see another smoker around here,” he says.
“Only every once in a while,” I say, and light it with my pocket lighter as we continue on our way.
It reminds me of the cigarettes I occasionally bummed from Cassie after a beer. I was on her to quit smoking again—a habit she resumed after our parents died—and as of a year ago she had, but I’ll never yell at her about smoking again if she’s alive to do it. Hell, I’ll light them for her.
After a dip to street level, where Lexers shake the fencing, the road runs under the overhang of the United Nations building. To our right is the East River, with the Queensboro Bridge crossing Roosevelt Island up ahead. I flick the cherry off my smoke, roll up my window, and put the butt in my pocket. I suppose littering isn’t that scandalous when the entire city is a trashcan, but old habits die hard.
“Is anyone on the island?” I ask.
“Not that we know of,” Roger says. “Columbia University was a Zone, but we think it’s gone. Saint Patrick’s, too.”
“There are people on the roofs uptown,” Louis says. “We’ve seen them from far off, but we haven’t spoken to them.”
I nod—Declan and Kate told me as much. They also relayed how the Lincoln and Holland tunnels flooded behind the debris blocking off the bombed entrances. Not as quickly as the subways did, but without pumps, they’re useless.
Up here, the FDR is separated from inner Manhattan by a high stone wall topped with an iron fence, behind which Lexers watch us pass. “They’ll go crazy on our way back,” Roger says, “but they can’t get down here.”
The road turns to tunnel. Roger slows the Humvee and stops in sunlight at the other end, where two buses are parked crosswise with fencing bolted to their sides. Concrete walls slope down to reach street level just behind the barrier.
“Last stop, East 90th,” Roger says, and we hit the pavement. Louis hands me my bag and walks to the back for my bike. “I’d head west here.”
“Don’t try for Harlem?” I ask. I remember what he said yesterday, but there are so many bridges, and the Harlem River is narrow. On a map, it’s my best chance.
“Gone. They went medieval on Harlem and the Bronx. They bombed the bridges to keep us all in. But, later, they took out the neighborhoods. We think it was to keep the Upper East and West Sides from being overrun.”
I’m not shocked by this bit of news, though I am disgusted. “I’m sure it was. Save the rich and screw the poor. I’d expect nothing less.”
Louis gives a sardonic laugh. “Blessed are the poor, for they shall inherit nothing.”
“I’m surprised Park Avenue didn’t airlift itself out.”
“They tried,” he says. “Most helicopters ended up in flames.”
Anyone with a helicopter at their disposal would’ve tried—people were truly desperate, and with good reason—but the decision-makers who bombed entire neighborhoods based on socioeconomics deserve a special place in Hell.
“Thanks, I appreciate the ride.”
Louis shakes my hand. “Maybe I’ll see you in Brooklyn.”
“Come by Sunset Park if you make it across the river.”
He nods. I shake Roger’s hand. “Catch you later,” he says. “Don’t get eaten.”
“I’ll do my best.”
I climb up the concrete wall, lower my bike over the short fence, and head into the city.
Chapter 17
Sylvie
It’s a good thing we’re busy. Otherwise, I’d wander the yards mooning over Eric. It’s only been one night, and I obsessively picture the map he showed us, following the line his finger traced up New York State in my mind. If he found a motorcycle, he could be at the cabin by now. He wouldn’t turn around the next day, maybe not even for a few days, but he said two weeks at most. He could also never return, and the pit that thought opens in my stomach gives me enough incentive to stop thinking about him at length.
We eat breakfast, mine a bag of corn chips, and get ready to meet Guillermo a block over. Some of Guillermo’s crew are in the process of clearing a route to Brother David’s church in downtown Brooklyn—a long, tedious, and deadly task. But we’re heading to the monastery in Bay Ridge, which, according to Paul, should be an easy trip.
Micah, Carlos, Lucky, Jayden, Eli, and Indy are in the two box trucks, though Micah and Carlos leap to the street when we appear. Guillermo rolls down the window of the SUV. “What are you doing?”
Micah’s dark eyes dart around. “We were going to switch trucks.”
“Why?”
Carlos shrugs. He opens the door of Guillermo’s truck, ushers me into the passenger’s seat and then sits in back. Micah and Grace follow. Paul hops in a box truck, and we set off.
I open my door at the warehouse block in order to get the gate. “We got it, Sylvie!” Carlos yells, and he and Micah are on the street before I can blink.
“They’ve turned into chivalrous fellows,” I say to Guillermo. Normally, I would assume it’s Carlos’ hormones talking, but he’s not acting in his usual I-hope-to-get-in-your-pants way.
We quickly load pallets onto the truck with the working forklift. Or Paul, Eli, and Guillermo do. The rest of us sit in the shade of the SUV, and I eat potato chips with Micah and Carlos standing on either side.
“Is that your second bag?” Grace asks. I nod.
“I couldn’t eat my third bag yesterday,” Indy says. She sits beside me, arms around her knees. “Not even nuts. I couldn’t stand another grain of salt. Lucien eats his, though.”
She smiles at Lucky, who glares, though it wasn’t meanly said. Lucky is tall and skinny, with eyes that often look sad, and, from what I saw during our time at the hospital, he’s a good kid. But he has zero patience for his aunt today. Or maybe every day. I’m not around them enough to know.
“I can’t do it,” Grace says. “I feel gross when I eat too much junk.”
I lick sour cream and onion dust off my fingers. “I feel like you two are speaking a different language. Right, Jayden?”
Jayden lifts his bag of chips my way, mouth too full to speak. Indy wipes potato chip bits off his cheek and picks a few flakes off his cornrows. “How did you get it in your hair? I think you’ve already had your three bags, and mine.”
Jayden keeps crunching without a word, dimple showing. I know he had a mom and dad, and now has neither, but he’s a cheerful kid for all that. “This is combat pay,” I say to Indy. “You get extra bags when you leave the gates.”
Indy leans her head against the metal side of the truck. “I’d give my left boob for a salad. Like, a real salad, with arugula and frisée.”
Lucky groans. “Auntie, that’s gross.”
“No salad is worth that,” I say.
“That’s because you haven’t had the right salad.”
“There is no right salad for Sylvie,” Grace says.
“Not even freshly picked greens with blue cheese and a fresh vinaigrette? Maybe some nuts sprinkled on top?”
/> “Moldy cheese?” I ask. “No thanks. I’ll stick to my Kraft Singles.”
“Don’t tell me you really ate those. There’s a blue cheese made in Oregon, where they use grass-fed, late-season milk and wrap it in grape leaves macerated with pear brandy.”
“That sounds like a waste of pear brandy.”
Indy rubs her lips together. “I’d sleep with Carlos for a pound of that cheese.”
Grace and I lose it. Lucky gets to his feet with a loud sigh and walks for the warehouse. Carlos is a shade of crimson, and his head rotates wildly, possibly searching for a pound of that cheese. Indy pats his leg. “Sorry, Carlos. But I would. Keep that in mind if we find a cheese shop.”
Indy is turning out to be weirder than I thought. She puts up a normal front, but anyone who would sleep with Carlos for moldy cheese has to be a little kooky. Once the laughter has petered out, I say to Micah, “I heard you and Carlos helped Eric bring those new people to Sunset Park.”
Micah nods and surveys the empty block like an Army Ranger. He needs to relax. This is one of the three places in Brooklyn we know to be safe. “Carlos and I helped get them the last blocks. Oh, we saw Eric yesterday, and he gave us a message for you: What’s up? He said you’d understand.”
I smile. “Thanks. I do.”
“What does it mean?” Indy asks.
“He knows I don’t know what to say when someone says what’s up. Sometimes it only means hello and sometimes it means how are you, and I never know which it is.” They stare at me. “What? It’s confusing.”
Indy lifts her hands. “Just say what’s up back.”
“But that makes no sense. Why even ask? Just say hi and be done with it if you don’t want to know.”
“All right. I’ll only ever ask you what’s up if I want a detailed explanation.”
“Thank you.” I pop a chip in my mouth and stand. “Going to the bathroom.”
I head for the lobby of the old factory building across the street. It has a bathroom we’ve used before, and I like to use a toilet rather than pee on my boots, even if said toilet is dry.