Gary spreads a map of Brooklyn and Queens on our outdoor table. Eight locations are circled in thick black marker. “Most of them were Safe Zones, but I think they’re our best bet.”
“We send teams to all these places,” Guillermo says. “See what’s out there. I can make three teams, can you guys make the fourth? We check two places each and report back. If it’s too dangerous, you don’t go in.”
It’s nice of him to pretend we have a choice in the matter. It would be easier to wait until the Lexers freeze months from now, but since we don’t know if they’ll freeze, finding food when desperate, hungrier, and cold will make avoiding zombies more difficult.
“You guys will do Kingsborough first.” Guillermo points to the Kingsborough Community College campus, located at the tip of a peninsula-type landmass in the south of Brooklyn. Gary tells us it’s gated, has its own small marina, and sits on about seventy acres of land.
“I’ve been there,” Eli says. “I took College Now courses in high school.”
“Of course you did,” I say, and he snorts.
“It was a Safe Zone,” Guillermo continues. “Couple people came into SPSZ the other day, said they heard they brought in trucks and boats loaded with MREs way back. Don’t know if anyone’s there, but we should tell them about us if they are.”
“Might be a good place to go if the shit hits the fan,” Gary adds.
“We can do a lot of the trip on the subway tracks,” Eric says. He moves a finger along the elevated lines that pass Coney Island before they’d deposit us in Brighton Beach. From there, our possibilities shrink to a few roads, lots of zombies, and possible death, all for the Holy Grail of thousands of MREs.
“It’s six to a team,” Eli says. “Indy and I will be with you.”
“Where is she, anyway?” I ask. “Is she okay?”
“She hasn’t been okay since all that went down at the warehouse. But she’ll come.”
“Tell her we missed her today,” Grace says.
“I will, maybe it’ll help.”
“I have no idea what happened there,” Guillermo says to Eric. “It’s fucked up.”
“What about Joe?” Eric asks. “Could Sacred Heart have been involved?” He was displeased, to put it mildly, to learn that Joe and Kearney are the same person. And to learn that Jayden and Vinnie are dead, which is something I don’t think about—recalling the crunch of Jayden’s skull still makes me queasy.
“We’ve been watching them sometimes. It’s quiet over there. They go out, they come in. They have kids inside.” Guillermo lifts his shoulders. “Besides, why wouldn’t they take it all?”
“Are you sure they’re not watching you, too?”
“As sure as we can be. Listen, if they get close, we’ll know. Otherwise, if they want to hold a stakeout in a building and watch us, there’s nothing we can do.”
“Who wants to go to Kingsborough?” Paul asks.
“Want is kind of a strong word, but I will,” I say.
“I’m going.” Eric glances at me and scratches his chin. “Why six people?”
“In case there’s trouble,” Guillermo says. “Never travel alone if you can help it, right?”
Eric knows exactly why, since he’s pontificated aloud on the subject, and when his eyes dart my way again I pretend not to notice. Someone is getting overprotective—a development that must be nipped in the bud.
Guillermo taps the map. “I’ll leave this here. You guys decide when you want to go.”
“Tomorrow?” Eli asks us.
“Sure,” Grace says. She looks around the table. “Yeah?”
We nod. Eli scrutinizes Grace. “You seem eager.”
“Hardly. But we need food. Our thoughts create our reality, right? So I’m putting out into the universe that we’ll be fine.”
Eli reaches into the bag he wears slung across his chest and hands Grace a gun holster made of leather. “Paul told me which pistol you’ve used, but it should fit a few.” He lifts his eyebrows. “Thoughts are good—a gun is better.”
Grace turns it over in her hands, oohing and aahing. If mine is beautiful, this is exquisite. Flowers have been carved out of a thin reddish leather and set over a darker leather. The craftsmanship is perfect, as befits an overachiever.
“I love it. Thank you!” Grace bites her lip. “Now I have to wear a gun.”
“You said it, not me,” Eli says.
“Fine. You win.”
“I usually do.”
“Really? Then forget it.” Grace holds out the holster, frowning, but when Eli reaches for it, she pulls it away with a giggle. “You do win, but only because it’s gorgeous.”
She’s the most animated I’ve seen in weeks, and Eli is the most animated I’ve seen, ever. He has a special smile for Grace, a fact I’ve picked up on today. Eli may like yoga, but he for damn sure likes his yoga teacher. It makes me curious to know what happens in the studio, though not curious enough to actually do yoga.
After they leave, we pack for the morning. Jorge will stay with Maria and Leo, the latter of whom peppers me with questions while I drop nuts, chips, and water into my messenger bag. We cover the essential items and why they exist: water and food, in order to live; the things we could bring if only we had them: rocket launchers, apparently; and how far away we’ll have to travel: ten or more miles.
“That’s far,” Leo says.
“I know,” I say. “But I think we’ll be fine.”
“Pinky swear?” he asks in a tiny, high voice.
He’s doing better, thanks to Grace, but he hates for people to be out of sight, which is why I allow him to yap at me through the outhouse door. As much as I want to, I can’t lie to make him happy. If it turns out we’re not fine, that’s what he’ll remember.
I pull up a chair and sit with my knees touching his. “I can’t pinky swear. That’s reserved for promises you can keep, right?” He nods. “But I can promise I’ll tell you the truth, how about that? It’s not always going to be what you want to hear, but you’ll never wonder if I’m lying.”
“Okay.”
“Then here’s the truth: It’s dangerous and far, but we know what we’re doing and won’t be stupid. I promise we’ll do everything we can to come home, and I’ll watch your dad and help make sure he’s safe. And, if for some reason we don’t come back, you’ll know we tried our very best.”
Leo mulls this over, fist beneath his chin. “I don’t think I like the truth that much.”
“Tell me about it, squirt,” I say with a laugh. “I don’t have to if you don’t want me to.”
“I mean, I do want to know, but it’s not the best answer.”
“Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn’t, but it’s always the real one.”
“Can you pinky swear you’ll try your very best?” he asks. I hold out my pinky in answer, and he wraps his around it. “I love you, Syls.”
It’s said so simply and candidly that my chest pains, though the ache is quickly supplanted by a pure, protective feeling that curls in warm tendrils through my insides. Leo has so much to give and all of us to give it to, and I, for one, am going to take it.
“I love you, too, short stuff,” I say.
“I know that’s true because you won’t lie to me. I’m going to find Bird.” He hops from his chair and saunters off as if he didn’t just shatter my heart into little pieces and then stitch it back together.
“He does, you know,” Paul says, and drops into Leo’s chair. “Leo says he’s going to marry you.”
“Does that mean I get to call you Dad?”
“Nope,” he says. “I would’ve told him everything will be fine.”
“Sorry. Did I mess up?”
“Nah, it’s better this way. If something happens, he knows we tried, like you said.”
“You could stay here,” Eric says from the other table. “Jorge can come.”
Paul leans back in his chair. “Jorge’s all right on a bike, but it’ll be better if I’m there.”
>
“Ah, Paul. Always so modest,” I say.
“Maybe you should stay,” Eric says to me, like the idea has just occurred to him. But since he’s been watching me in a calculating fashion for the past fifteen seconds, I’m not buying it. “We wouldn’t want Leo to lose his fiancée.”
“I’m going.”
“There’s no reason for you to…” He falters at my expression, which is set to I can’t wait to hear your next words so I can kill you.
“To what?” I ask.
“I’m only thinking of how Leo would like you to stay.”
“Leo would like me to stay. Is there anyone else who would like me to stay?”
Paul raises both hands and says, “Can’t wait to ride with you tomorrow, Sylvie. I’m outta here.”
He takes off, and I point at Eric. “As much as I appreciate the fact you don’t want me to be eaten, continuing to do things like assigning my welfare to two nitwits—thanks for that, by the way—or suggesting that I stay to play with a five-year-old, is going to end badly for you.”
Eric sets his water filter on the table with a grin. “It was worth a shot?”
“Don’t try to make me laugh.”
He crouches in front of my chair. I keep my arms crossed and glare because although his nod is solemn, there’s a smile hidden in the corners of his mouth. “What happened with Micah and Carlos?” he asks.
“They were literally at my heels. They had to be ordered to go home.” Eric’s laugh is contagious, but I tap his arm to show he’s still in trouble. “Seriously, just don’t do that kind of stuff or my wrath will rain down upon you.”
“I wouldn’t want that.”
“You wouldn’t. It’s not fair to try to keep me here when everyone else is going. And I won’t stay home without Grace. Or you.”
His smile is swapped for a suitable amount of remorse. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think of it that way.” He bats his lashes and his eyes flicker green. “Forgive me?”
“If you promise to behave.”
“Scouts’ honor. Promise you’ll stay close?”
“Like flies on poop,” I say. “Or white on rice. Or, possibly, like paint on a wall. Are there any I didn’t think of?”
He shakes his head slowly. “You are never going to stop with that, are you? Not till the cows come home.”
“Not even then.”
Chapter 32
The elevated tracks will save us nine miles of street travel, and thus far it’s been a great plan. The streets beneath are clear for blocks and then mobbed with bodies. I can tell when we’re coming upon one by the stench that increases from subtle to gross to overpowering as we roll above.
The day is overcast but warm enough that I wouldn’t mind cruising along in summer clothes as opposed to leather coat, jeans, and boots. We’re quiet, as we generally are outside, but up here we can and do make the occasional comment. Excluding Indy, who nodded her hello and hides behind sunglasses and a stone-faced expression. But I think her pissed-off exterior is cover for a guilt-ridden interior. It’s in her rounded shoulders and long breaths and the way she shakes her head every so often as though trying to clear out an intrusive thought.
When we stop for a break on a platform, Indy takes a bag of nuts and sits against the corrugated metal wall twenty feet away. I crunch pretzels while I watch her. After two handfuls, she sets down the bag and stares along the tracks. They seem to go on forever. If they did, we could live up here and view the rotten mess from our safe haven above, only going down when necessary. But there’s no escape from the weather—no walls, no insulation—and no land on which to grow food.
“What are you thinking about?” Grace asks me.
“That it would be great if we could live up here.” Inspiration strikes, and I say, “You know where you could live? The High Line.”
“What’s that?” Eric asks.
“It’s a park,” Paul says. “In Manhattan.”
“How have I never heard of this?”
“Because you took off after high school to climb mountains and do scholarly shit.”
“It’s on the West Side,” I say. “It runs from downtown to thirty-something street. It hasn’t been around that long. I went there on long lunch breaks sometimes.”
“You went into nature for fun?” Eric asks.
I pretend to punch him. “They converted the old elevated tracks to gardens and a path, but there are buildings almost on top of it. You could live in them and travel along the tracks.”
“Nice buildings,” Eli adds. “You know how much an apartment in Chelsea goes for?”
“A freaking lot,” Grace says. “I wonder if anyone is there.”
We gaze in the direction of Manhattan, which we can’t see from here. I’m pleased to find I now look the correct way when someone says north or south. It only took the end of the world for that to happen.
“Ready?” Paul asks.
Grace puts our empty food packaging in the garbage can on the platform that will never be emptied. While Paul and Eric leave to check beyond the bend of the tracks ahead, I walk to Indy and nudge her boot. “Ready to go?”
“Uh huh.” She stands, throws on her school-sized backpack, and starts for her bike.
“Are you all right?”
Her eyes are hidden behind dark lenses but her jaw is locked. “Yeah. Great.”
“Listen, I know—”
“I’m not in the mood for conversation. Can we go?”
Normally, I’d walk away, but I’m trying something new. Different. “I only wanted to say that I know you feel responsible, but what happened to Jayden and Vinnie wasn’t your fault.”
“I sent them down there,” she spits out. “Tell me how that’s not my fault.”
“Zombies killed them,” I say. “It’s not your fau—”
“Thanks, Sylvia.” Indy’s tone is cutting. “Is this our Good Will Hunting moment? Now I break down and cry and then everything’s fine?”
My hands settle on my hips. I can do just as much attitude as she can. “No, India, but you don’t get to decide when to hear you’re being a dumbass. I decide, as your friend—if we actually are friends. What happened was horrible, but it’s still not your fault. Sorry for trying to make you feel better.”
I stomp for my bike and see her stalk to hers out of the corner of my eye. Eli wheels his beside me. “You can’t talk to her once she gets an idea in her head.”
“You don’t say. She probably hates me now, since I told her to stop being a dumbass.”
“If she didn’t punch you for that, she doesn’t hate you.”
“That’s heartening,” I say. Eli takes my bike and lowers it to the tracks. He does the same with his own, lands gracefully beside it, and offers me a hand. I hit the rails less gracefully. “Thanks. Aren’t you quite the gentleman?”
“I do what I can,” he says.
He’s kidding, but he’s so smooth it’s no wonder he fought off women. I watch Grace roll her bike toward us and cut my eyes to him. “But I hope you know when to stop.”
“Come on now, Sylvie,” he says, forehead furrowed. “It’s not like that.”
“Honestly, Eli, whatever it’s like is fine with me, as long as it’s fine with her. I just don’t want her to get hurt.”
Grace arrives. Eli set her bike on the rails, catches her by the waist, and places her beside me. Her eyes shift between us. “You guys look so serious.”
“We are riding into a zillion zombies soon,” I say. “Should we be yukking it up?”
“Yes. That’s exactly when you would yuk it up.”
“True. All right, how many zombies does it take to change a lightbulb?”
“How many?” she asks.
“Zombies are dead, Grace. They don’t do shit like that.” A strangled sound comes from where Indy stands astride her bike. “You like that one?” I ask. She looks away, lips pursed, but I’m pretty sure that was a laugh.
Eric and Paul wave us forward. Just before I pedal after Grac
e, Eli touches my arm. “She’s a good friend, that’s all,” he says.
“I only care that she’s happy. Want to hear a story about Grace? She lived in a ground floor apartment in college, and every night a homeless person would sleep outside her window. She would hear him settling in and then going to sleep. Everyone said to call the cops or have someone ask him to leave, but even though she was freaked out, she wouldn’t. She said he needed a safe place to sleep and wasn’t hurting anyone.” I nod in agreement with Eli’s incredulous raised eyebrow. “She’s special. Insane, obviously, but an insanely kind person, you know?”
His eyes flick down the tracks to the petite blond girl on her bike. “I do know.”
“Then it’s all good. Plus, you don’t want to start with me. I throw a mean punch, just ask Paul.”
Eli chuckles. “I believe it.”
Chapter 33
The tracks curve to run alongside Coney Island. The briny air is an improvement over rotting flesh, and the sea wind whips my hair into my face. We dismount our bikes to view the amusement park, where Lexers wade in trash between brightly-painted rides and carnival booths. The Wonder Wheel is stationary and the Cyclone has made its last cycle around its wooden tracks. Beyond it all, the ocean is a pale blue-gray that meets the gray sky.
Eric’s arms circle my waist and his chin rests on my shoulder. “Why do I find that so depressing?”
I sink into him, all the while marveling that the boyfriend-type things he does don’t annoy me. “Because Coney Island was always there. And it was fun, and now fun is dead.”
“Wouldn’t it be great to go to the beach?”
I push my hair out of my face for the hundredth time. Chin-length hair may not give zombies much to grab, but it’s a pain in the ass when it can’t be tied back, which is enough incentive to grow it out again. “I don’t like the beach. Sand in your food, sticky saltwater, and don’t even get me started on the wind. I hate wind.”
“You’re kind of high maintenance.”
I jab him with my elbow. “Maybe, but I maintain myself. It only counts if you ask other people to maintain you. I just know what I like.”