“No, man,” Emilio says. “We wouldn’t do that.” I don’t think Emilio is lying, but he wears a constant air of subtle amusement, like everything is comical to him.
“Where’d you get all those MREs?” Guillermo asks.
“Where were those?” Walt asks Emilio. “Somewhere in Queens, you said?”
“We found trucks full of them. Think they were taking them to a Safe Zone when they were surrounded.”
Emilio’s eyes move to the doorway. Kearney stands in the entrance, watching us with a frown. He makes his way over and comes to a stop a few feet away. “What’s up?”
For that question alone, Sylvie may have punched him. Walt’s shoulders stiffen imperceptibly, and he says, “They came to see you, but I think we answered their questions. They had a run-in with some people and wanted to make sure it wasn’t anyone here.”
Kearney glares. “It wasn’t.”
“Of course it wasn’t! We want to be good neighbors, right?” Walt asks.
Kearney nods once. Walt claps his hands as though Kearney has given a resounding speech on neighborliness, and then shows us small, square teeth. “Like State Farm.”
His eyes dart around, requesting we join in his laugh, but I don’t feel like laughing. Walt may be okay, though turning out to be somewhat spineless and high-strung, but I’d like to wrap Kearney in C-4 and see what happens. The man just rubs me the wrong way. It’s not that difficult to use more than two words at a time.
A short older woman comes to the door and calls, “Joe? Question for you.”
Kearney turns and holds up a finger, spins back to us as though he might speak, then issues a terse nod and departs without a word. Walt watches him move down the hall with the woman. “I know he seems…gruff, but he’s not a bad guy. I owe him my life.”
A boy drinks from a porcelain water fountain in the corner. It’s such an ordinary old-world event that it takes a good five seconds to dawn on me that water is coming out when it shouldn’t be. “You have water?” I ask.
“We turned it on,” Walt says. “If you can find your water mains, you might get water from the water tunnel as long as you’re not supplied by one of the broken pipes. Some of them are so old, we think the explosions cracked them. The water system was well-protected knowledge, but they found blueprints at a city-contracted plumber.”
We stare at him, flabbergasted. Walt’s eyes were as colorless and drab as the rest of him, but now the light brown glows amber and they crinkle at the corners. “How about we try to turn yours on for you? Emilio knows what to do.”
“We could do that,” Emilio offers. “I want to come by anyway.”
“Perfect!” Walt exclaims.
It would be stupid to say no, but I understand Guillermo’s second of hesitation. Until we’re sure they’re friendly, the less anyone here knows about our place, the better. Guillermo holds out a hand. “That’d be great. Appreciate it.”
Emilio promises they’ll be by in the next few days. Jorge has been busy inspecting every face we’ve seen, and he does the same on the return trip to the church entrance. He shakes his head after we pass the last of the people.
At the side entrance door, Walt glances into the empty church at his back. “We’ll keep this business about the water to ourselves for now? Joe wouldn’t be angry, but sometimes he gets a little…” He lifts both hands. “I’m not making him sound good. All I’m saying is that I should be the one to tell him. I guess I’m sort of the ambassador here, better at smoothing relations.”
“You’ve done it before?” Eli asks.
“I’ve tried,” Walt answers. “I was briefly with a group in Queens before I came here. They got into it with Joe and I did my best to defuse the situation. But, you’ll notice, here is where I stayed.”
“Are they near Sunnyside?” I ask, thinking of whomever shot at me.
Walt scratches his head. “Around there. But we don’t know where they are now.” He leans close, blinking slowly. “They’re the kind of people you hope disappear quietly, you know?”
I do know—I was hoping the same for Sacred Heart, although now I’m not sure what to think. We say our goodbyes and ride away. The farther we get, the more I become conscious of how I wanted to leave. But the kids looked happy and the people fed. I have no reason to want to blow it up, though I would almost feel better if there were one.
***
I find Sylvie on a window seat in our bedroom, a book in her lap and Bird basking in the sun while he licks a white paw. “How’d it go?” she asks.
“Good, I guess.” I sit on the other side of the window seat and raise a leg beside her. “Did you leave this room at all while I was gone?”
She drops her head against the wood frame. “Yes, unfortunately, I did. And now I’m hiding until I have to go outside and weed the garden at one.”
“Do they know you’ll try to sabotage the vegetables?”
“That was so funny I forgot to laugh.” She pushes me with a foot. “What happened? How was it good?”
“Well, we found out we might be able to turn on the water.”
“Running water? Really?” I nod, and she pounds her feet on the window seat with unbridled joy. “How? No, tell me later. I want to hear the part that’s not good.”
“I didn’t say there was a not good part.”
“You didn’t have to. You have a crease right here,” Sylvie leans to run a finger between my brows, “and here,” her finger moves to the corner of my mouth. “It’s your concerned face.”
I smile to make them disappear. “All gone.”
“On the outside, maybe. Tell me.”
Sylvie sits forward with her arms around her knees, ready to alleviate my concerns or be concerned along with me. I have no doubt she has my back here on the window seat or on a boat out of New York City. It’s what my parents did for each other, and though I always knew they were lucky, I didn’t realize they’d won the lottery.
“It’s—” I begin. “I don’t know.” I tell her about the group in Queens, the MREs, and the water. “Kearney is an asshole, no surprise there. And Walt—he says Kearney’s the greatest thing since sliced bread, but he also looks at him like he’s afraid he’s going to get kicked.”
“Or Kearney’d into a mob of zombies.”
“Exactly. Walt’s trying too hard, and Kearney doesn’t try at all. I know turning on our water is a gesture of goodwill, but I don’t want them anywhere near here. I’m probably overthinking it.”
Sylvie shifts her legs under herself and takes my hand. “Maybe not. Instincts keep us alive, right?”
“That’s what I always say.”
“Well, you are right every now and again. What is it you old guys say? Even a broken clock is right two times—”
I yank her forward. She crashes into me and snakes her arms around my waist. Her weight, her realness, is like a shield against all the intangibles and unknowns outside. I could stay up here, like this, until the zombies die for good.
“Maybe it’s Kearney,” I say. “I don’t like him.”
Sylvie lifts her face to mine, eyes agleam. “You wanted to blow him up, didn’t you?”
“No, I did not want to blow him up.”
“Yes, you did!”
My straight face begins to crack. “Okay, maybe a little.”
“I knew you would,” she says with a happy sigh. “I like that about you.”
I kiss the top of her head. She’s out of her mind, and I love that about her.
Chapter 42
There are a lot of duties at SPSZ, and there are a lot of people to do them. At the brownstone, everything was done by one of us, and it’s unsettling not to be involved in every facet of our wellbeing. I was never accused of being a control freak, but I’m feeling the effects of such a large space over which I have no control. I don’t like it. Six armed men attempting to kill your godson has a way of putting you on your guard.
The rectangle of Sunset Park stretches a third of a mile from Fifth
to Seventh Avenue, and just under a quarter-mile from 41st to 44th Streets. Every intersection is walled, but there’s a weak spot behind our houses, whose yards connect to the houses that face 40th Street outside the park. With only a few of us on this side, those empty homes offer multiple modes of entry for anyone looking to sneak in.
Granted, people man the roofs, but nighttime is dark. I was on a roof last night with Paul, and we couldn’t see shit. When the moon is up, the buildings cast shadows that could hide an elephant. But if we flooded the street with light—something outside our capabilities in any event—we’d attract Lexers like moths to a flame.
Many of the larger buildings behind ours have barred lower windows, but only some of the nineteen connected houses in the center of 40th Street have gates on the first-floor windows. Slightly more have them on basement windows, but not enough, which is why I’m currently in the process of attaching chain-link fencing over the glass. Metal rods are threaded through the top and bottom edges and inserted into an eye bolt on either side of the window frame, then locked with a cotter pin. It’ll allow for fast removal from the inside but be a challenging—and noisy—impediment from the outside.
Outside the window, on 40th Street, a Lexer wanders past, probably on his way to the wall at Sixth. They zero in on the noise and stand on the other side of the foot-thick brick, moaning pitifully.
I turn from the window and jump at a hulking shape watching me from the doorway. “Jesus!”
“I prefer Paul, but Jesus is fine.” He lifts his chin. “What are you doing?”
I haven’t shared my morning activities with anyone but Guillermo. When I checked with him about using the chain-link fencing, I feared he’d take it as a slight on his security measures, but he not only loved the idea, he insisted we safeguard every uninhabited house in the park.
“Closing off these windows in a way we can get out quickly, but no one can get in easily. Testing it out for now, but thinking of doing all the houses if I can get it to work.”
Paul nods. “Good plan. I’ll help later.”
“I figured you’d think it was excessive.”
“Bro, nothing’s excessive when it comes to Leo, though you do worry like an old lady. C’mon, we have laundry. Grace and Sylvie left a while ago.”
We head through the yards and onto 41st. It’s a quick trip through the park, and while I don’t want to be late for work on our third day here, I am not in a hurry to get to laundry. When I griped they’d signed us up for the worst job, Paul and Sylvie smiled as if they had an inside joke. I don’t mind—it beats the Paul-Rachel mutual hate dynamic by a mile.
“So, you like Sylvie?” I ask.
Paul groans. “Are we really going to discuss my feelings about your girlfriend?”
“Yes, Paul, I want to have a two-hour discussion about it, and I thought maybe later we’d paint each other’s nails and gossip about cute boys. You didn’t like her not so long ago, you know. If something happens to me, I just worry that—forget it.”
“Okay, Grandma,” Paul mutters.
“Like I said, forget it.”
I don’t particularly enjoy discussing my insecurities, but after a morning spent contemplating all the ways humans and zombies could hurt us, I wanted a little reassurance he’ll look out for her. Cassie also has the Worry Gene, passed down by our dad, who was tough as nails, solid as a rock, and worried like an old lady himself. I’m trying hard not to smother Sylvie with overprotectiveness, and I think only Dad would understand how much effort it’s taking. My mother used to say that the world might stop spinning if the three of us weren’t around to make sure it stayed on its axis. Mom was a regular comedian.
We reach the wrought iron and glass awning of the co-op building. Apparently, the apartments are in perfect condition and full of amenities that made them well over half a million dollars, though the majority of those amenities are now inoperable.
Paul takes my shoulder. His eyes are candid in a way they rarely are, though they don’t make contact for any length of time. “Sylvie threatened to beat up an eight-year-old for Leo. Which, yes, is insane, but makes me like her more. If I could only save one of you from the zombies, I’d save her. That good enough?” He pats my cheek condescendingly. “Don’t fuck it up, Forrest.”
Then he’s through the lobby, chuckling on his way down a dark staircase to the basement. That was practically an ode where Paul is concerned, and it had its intended effect: I’m positive he’ll watch over her. As we descend, a faint jumble of noises grows louder—the agitation of washing machines, but also a shriek or two, and, unexpectedly, music.
The sounds grow louder once we’re through the basement door and in a corridor lit by an overhead fluorescent. Partway down, Paul throws open another door and yells, “What the hell is going on in here?”
There’s dead silence, quickly traded for laughter. The noises resume and someone yells, “Damn, nobody’d better fuck with Grace!”
Washers and dryers line white walls. The lights are on, though the narrow rectangular window near the ceiling lets in some daylight and provides entry for extension cords attached to the giant generator rumbling in the yard—a find at a nearby construction site.
Sylvie sits on one of the folding tables pushed to the side of the laundry room. Grace is in front of a monitor on a table against the far wall, cursing as her video game car is chased by police cars and helicopters. She’s surrounded by teenagers cheering her on. A surge protector strip has an assortment of phones plugged into a tangle of cords. The washing machines spin like an afterthought.
I perch beside Sylvie. “So this is laundry?”
“This is laundry. Home of teenage hijinks.” She moves her mouth to my ear. “You can’t tell any grownups what happens here. They’ll try to turn us into adults.”
“What happens in laundry stays in laundry?”
“Yup.” She jumps from the table when the washers stop, then motions over her shoulder. “Get your ass in gear. This isn’t Vegas.”
I help move the wet laundry to waiting baskets. Grace joins us, having been busted by the cops in her game. “I could’ve done so much better,” she says sadly.
“You’ll evade the police next time,” Sylvie says. “Maybe you’ll get to kill a few innocent civilians.” Grace pumps a fist.
A wipe-off board on each machine is labeled with the owner of the clothing, and the board goes into the basket with the laundry. And then, I assume, onto the clotheslines in the yards. The dryers run on natural gas, which we don’t have.
“We should find some electric dryers,” I say. “It’ll be better for drying clothes in the win—”
“What is going on in here?” a voice rings out.
We spin to see Maria, hands on hips and head cocked. Jorge stands behind her, bright eyes the only sign he finds this humorous. Paul stops mid-laugh in conversation with Harold, one of Indy’s kids, who’s almost out of his teens and the least immature of the bunch. The others stand stock-still.
The game continues to play as Maria moves into the room. She reaches the console and shuts it off. “Is this what you’re supposed to be doing?”
Rissa folds her hands at her chest. “Maria, please don’t tell my mother. She’ll kill me and then everyone else.”
Maria turns our way without answering. “Guillermo wanted us to tell you Emilio is here. They left to turn on the water, but he wants you on the roofs.”
“He didn’t want us to come?” I ask.
“I volunteered us to stay here,” Jorge says. His eyes roam over Maria, Sylvie and Grace before they return to me. I nod. Jorge can hold his own in the worrying department.
Sylvie grabs her messenger bag, waves at the teenagers, and follows Jorge into the hall. Grace, Paul, and I are right behind her.
“Keep that noise off,” Maria admonishes the rest of the room. “You need to be able to hear what’s going on out there. You can finish up for them, no?”
The teenagers nod, eyes huge. Maria is walking our way
when Rissa says, “Please, please don’t tell. We just want to have some fun. We do all our work, I swear.”
Maria stops with her back to Rissa and winks at us, then does an about-face once her features have reverted to strictness. “I won’t tell, but the next time I come, you’d better have some Hector Lavoe to play for me.” She points to the boombox on the table.
“Hector Lavoe? Where am I going to find that? I don’t listen to…” Maria lifts her chin and crosses her arms. Rissa licks her lips. “We’ll find it, Maria.”
Maria nods like she expected nothing less. She walks toward us, smiling, and we hurry down the hall before the teenagers hear our laughs. It’s only when we hit the stairs that we hear relieved gasps echo from the laundry room.
“Hector Lavoe?” Jorge asks Maria in the lobby.
“What do you have against Hector?” Her tone implies that no one should have anything against Hector, whoever he is.
“Hey, I have nothing but respect for Hector. Looking forward to a dance with you, Mimi.”
Maria waves a hand dismissively, and he chuckles.
“Where’s Leo?” Paul asks.
“He’s with Indy, but she’s going to the roofs,” Maria says. “I’m heading back to her now.”
“Thanks.”
“No problem. We’ll be in the house.”
The streets are quiet, with a pensive feeling in the air. People sit at the benches where the park levels out, watching the lower avenues and the city across the water. Sylvie digs in her bag and pulls out the .22 as we walk up to Seventh Avenue, where Jorge says we’re assigned.
“Glad to see you’re carrying it,” I say. “Soon we’ll have it on your belt.”
She smiles, though her eyes are tense. “Where’s yours?” she asks Grace.
“Eli has it,” Jorge says. “He’s on the school roof waiting for you and Grace. Eric, you’re with them. Paul’s with me and Indy.”
We arrive at the brick elementary school that spans an entire block of Seventh, climb the stairs to the fifth floor, then take a short staircase to the roof. Eli waits for us outside the door, holding Grace’s holster in his outstretched hand. “Thought you were going to wear this.”