When we were trapped, we wore summer clothes. Tank tops and sandals are great when it’s eighty-five degrees and eighty percent humidity. The jeans and boots and leather coat that I now wear meant that the walk from our house to the depot left me covered in a thick film of sweat.
Gary drives the bus of eleven passengers: my housemates, including Maria and excluding Leo, as well as Guillermo, Indy, Eli, Felipe, and Angel. Felipe is wiry and strong, with acne-scarred cheeks and beautiful light eyes. He looks tough at first glance, but he dotes on his wife and two young kids and is friendly as can be. Angel is mid-forties, and his entire family died a few months ago, which is likely why he never smiles.
The Stop Requested sign lights up with a ding. Gary frowns at the titters from behind. Paul sits a few rows back, staring at the street a little too intensely. Indy, stretched out in the row across from him, inclines her head his way with a roll of her eyes.
The stores along the avenue become more numerous, as do cars and Lexers. Gary slows at a small group ahead. “Going through,” he calls.
The crunch as we travel up and over two bodies makes me shiver despite the fact they’re dead, and the ones left standing bang the glass doors as we rumble past. Gary watches in his side mirror for a minute before he relaxes. They can’t keep up.
“Left down here,” Guillermo says from the seats opposite me and Eric. Gary smoothly pulls the bus into a turn.
“Did you used to drive a bus, Gary?” Eric asks.
“You name it, I drove it.” No more is forthcoming, so I assume that’s all Gary has to say on the subject.
“Now to Third,” Guillermo says, and Gary turns again.
The brick buildings along the avenue are burnt shells. To our left is the Gowanus Canal, whose polluted water was the butt of jokes for decades. It was cleaner in recent years, but now it floats with more garbage than ever. Whole Foods Market, once the symbol of gentrification, now looks like everything else—broken windows and dead bodies and what might have been an explosion in the greenhouse roof.
“There are solar panels in the parking lot that might work,” Guillermo says. “But good luck getting through the Lexers.”
“Maybe this winter,” Eric says.
Guillermo taps his temple. “I’ve got a list of places we need to go. If they freeze.”
“We’re kind of close to your apartment,” Grace says to me.
“Do you want to try and get some of your things?” Eric asks.
“It’s still too far,” I say. “And I don’t miss anything. Except maybe my own underwear, but your sister’s is fine.”
“Please don’t remind me that you wear my sister’s underwear.”
“It’s not whose underwear it is, it’s who’s in them, right?”
Eric thinks on that and then lowers a brow. “Possibly. But just do me a favor and never bring it up again.”
I laugh as the bus slows and Guillermo stands to watch the street. “About twelve blocks to the church from here. You guys ready?”
Angel, Felipe, and Gary will stay on the bus to ward off straggler zombies. We brought the radios so we can communicate, though they don’t work as well in the city as they would somewhere open. At the top of Sunset Park, with our good marine radio and a view of the bay, we can speak to Wadsworth fine, but we’ve heard nothing but static on other channels.
Gary shuts off the engine. Two Lexers hit the front folding doors. Indy and Eli exit the back door and move forward on the street. Indy rams her knife into one’s ear. Eli’s long, curved blade is as graceful as he, and it goes up and under the second’s skull. Once the bodies are out of the way, Gary opens the doors.
I almost drop the heavy backpack Paul places in my arms. “Too much?” he asks.
I shake my head. It holds food for Brother David’s congregation in case we can’t relocate them, and I won’t leave any of it on the bus like a weakling. It hangs from my shoulders like wearing two Leos on my back.
Eric clips the waist strap and yanks the shoulder straps until the bag’s weight becomes more a burden than a hazard. “Better?”
I nod, mouth dry. The excitement of a roach-infested bus ride has departed now that I have to travel twelve blocks with seventy-five pounds on my back. I’m heartened when Grace dons her own pack with an oof. I wasn’t in tiptop shape a few months ago, but I think I can hold my own these days. As long as my own isn’t over seventy-five pounds.
“Careful,” Gary says as we file into the street.
“That’s affirmative,” I say, to which I receive a rare Gary smile.
We’ll make our way to the church on foot. There’s no getting a bus through the cars on the narrow streets, and based on what Guillermo said about Brother David’s food supply, we can’t waste the days it could take to clear the final blocks. Down here, at the end of the Gowanus, the scenery is old industrial buildings and vacant lots, and there isn’t much to avoid except blowing garbage. A couple of blocks later, the street changes to small attached brick homes.
Maria strides along, ice pick in her hand. A few of the elderly at the church weren’t doing so well all those weeks ago, and she insisted on coming in case anyone is ill. I would worry about her if Jorge weren’t at her side, ready to fend off any lurkers in the houses’ front gardens. For all his lighthearted jesting, I suspect Jorge has a thing for her, and the thought of them together makes me want to dance around like Maria. She’ll murder me if I mention it, and I refuse to be one of those relationship people who tries to hook everyone else up. But I can secretly hope.
On the next block, we run into a pack. It’s been a while, but my chisel is as sharp as ever and easily pierces the eyeball of a woman in a ratty spring coat. The moment of puncture is still disgusting, as is the brown fluid that flows down the chisel’s handle, but it makes one fewer zombie in the world. There’s a part of me that likes the black and white, the simplicity of ridding the world of monsters. People aren’t simple, but zombies are: they want to eat us, and we have to stop them from doing so.
Fifty zombies wander the paths in a cluster of apartment buildings. We take careful steps and hit the concrete with a minimum of boot thumps, but the first moan is followed by a louder one, and then the rest join in.
“Fuck,” Paul mutters.
We sprint—in my case, lurch—across the next avenue, down a tree-lined block, and enter a house on the block behind to avoid Lexers at the church’s main doors. Once over the fences, we stand in the church yard, where the outhouse smells to high heaven and the back door of the rectory is unlocked. Eli opens it cautiously, pistol at the ready, but our search finds all floors empty.
In the corridor to the church, we stop at a bang from the large church kitchen. A woman standing at the counter spins slowly enough to be a zombie, but it’s a human Sister Constance in non-nun clothing, with lank brown hair and a haggard, thin face. That two weeks of food must’ve run out long ago, or they’ve rationed it to the point of starvation.
“Thank God,” she whispers.
The bones of a small animal sit on the counter, devoid of flesh, and I don’t want to know what it was. I set my bag on the floor. “It’s food. They all are.”
She lowers her head, hands clasped. I’m glad I didn’t leave an ounce of food on that bus. Guillermo leads her to a chair at the large table. “How bad is it?”
“Not good,” she says. “Father David is in the church with the others.”
Jorge sets his pack on the counter. “Go check on them. I’ll help with this.”
We enter at the side of the altar. The church is still lovely with its white plaster walls, many windows, and the arches that lend the space an airy, open feel, but the stench is oppressive. When Grace and I were here, the pews had been moved to make open seating areas that are now occupied by mattresses, with filthy sheets pulled to the necks of the people who lie in them.
The kids, who’d been lively though quiet, sit in lethargic fashion on the pews. Every last one of them is skinnier than they should be—t
he kind of skinny I hope Leo never is. A thin, bushy-bearded man kneels at one of the beds, his shoulders rounded, and stands at our footsteps. I know it’s Brother David by the brown monk’s habit and the blue eyes in hollowed sockets, but it’s hard to believe this wild-looking man is the charming monk who joked with me a few months ago.
I move down the aisle with Guillermo. Brother David smiles, teeth too large in his skeletal face. “I’m glad you’re well. We weren’t sure.”
He stumbles on his robe, not well in the slightest, and Guillermo takes his arm. “Father, sit down.”
“I can’t.” He points a bony finger at a bed containing an elderly man. “Mr. Corsini needs his medication.”
“Sit down, please,” Maria says. Her face is set in nurse mode, which brooks no argument. “I’m a nurse. Who needs to be seen first?”
She leads him to a pew. He sinks to the wood, hands on knees, and blinks up at her. “What did you ask?”
Maria repeats her question. Brother David scans the room as though it’s an alien environment. “There’s a list. I have a list. It’s hard to keep straight otherwise, and then I’m not sure—” He breaks off and tugs at his beard.
I can’t stand to see him so befuddled, or these starving kids, or these dying people. I spin and stamp past the altar for the kitchen. Nothing is fair in this world. It wasn’t before, but at least dead people didn’t eat you when you tried to find food.
“Hey, mami,” Jorge says. He stacks packages of food and places bags of fresh veggies on the counter. “Everyone okay?”
“They need food. Now.”
Jorge pauses at the frantic pitch to my voice that I didn’t intend. I move to Sister Constance. Her slim hands shake as she lays out trays. I hand her a bag of plain potato chips and a fettucine Alfredo MRE, which is milder than the other meals. “Sit down and eat.”
“The children—”
“Will be eating in five minutes,” I say. “Sit.”
She does, opening the chips, and by the time my back is turned I hear the slow crunch of chewing. It’s nice to boss a nun around for a change. I find a box of powdered soup mix and light the camping stove by the window. Water sits in a giant cooler on the counter, and since it’ll be boiled, I don’t ask about filtration.
I put on another pot of water for instant mashed potatoes. Thankfully, this is food I know how to make—easy, highly-processed comfort food is my specialty. Grace and Eric enter the kitchen and grab armloads of MREs. Once the water is boiling, I dump in the potatoes to sit for a minute, then empty the soup mix into the other pot.
I stir evaporated milk into the potatoes, and, with a request that Jorge watch the soup, I bring the pot and a stack of plastic bowls into the church. Grace kneels in the center of the kids, handing out spoons with packets of cold MREs. They grab them and drop to the floor where they stand. The parents watch hungrily, though none asks for themselves. When Eric supplies them with their own pouches, they fall on the food with frightening need. I’ve been hungry, but never that hungry. Never ravenous enough to not bother to glance at what’s going in my mouth.
I set the pot down on Brother David’s pew and spoon potatoes into a bowl. His eyes are closed and he tilts to one side. I place the bowl in his lap. “Eat this.”
“Feed the others first,” he says, opening his eyes.
The bowl tips when he tries to return it. I guide it back to him. “Everyone’s eating right now. Same as you. No need to be a martyr.” His shoulders quiver with what could be a laugh. “When did you last eat?”
“Maybe a week.”
His eyes roll back to show the whites before he refocuses. It seems he’s been holding out for the cavalry, and now that we’ve arrived, he’s done. But he’s not going out on us now. “Eat,” I command.
I dish potatoes into more bowls, which Eli and Indy bring to the beds. Brother David’s hand trembles on the way to his mouth and ends up in his beard. I help steer the spoon. He chews slowly and swallows with a low moan, as though shitty powdered potatoes are ambrosia. When he makes no move to take another bite, I sit beside him and spoon it in the way I fed Eric his sugar water. I almost laugh—feeding grown men is an unusual activity to have taken up at this point in my life.
Sister Constance enters the church with a tray of water glasses. I take one and hold it to his lips until he drinks, then feed him a few more bites. Finally, he sits upright. “I can finish.”
“Thank God,” I say. “We had a whole Mary Magdalene-Jesus thing happening there. It was kind of bizarre.”
Maybe he smiles under the beard, but his eyes definitely sparkle. “Thank you, Sylvia.”
“No one calls me Sylvia. Just Sylvie.”
“Except me.” He eats the final bites of potatoes and sets the spoon in his bowl. “Saint Sylvia. Pious mother of St. Gregory the Great. Patron saint of pregnant women.”
“It doesn’t sound like we have a lot in common.”
Brother David smiles for sure. He attempts to get to his feet but thumps to the pew.
“Sit down already,” I say. “We brought a nurse and food. Everything is under control. You need to rest.”
“I can’t do that.”
I wave Sister Constance over. “Sister, will you tell Brother David to rest? He won’t listen to me.”
Sister Constance’s brows come together. “She’s right,” she says in her soft voice. “To bed with you.”
He looks from her to me resignedly, although there’s some relief in it. “I’ll stay here.” He stretches out along the hard wooden bench, puts his head on his arm, and is out in five seconds.
“He would hardly eat,” Sister Constance tells me. “Nothing at all, once food was very low.” I see she cares by the tightness around her eyes, and that she also respects him for it. Venerates him, maybe. “I had some broth set aside for when he didn’t have the strength to argue. It was the only way I would get anything into him.”
“He’s a good person,” I say.
“He has…interesting theories, and some said he wasn’t a man of God.” She looks at me, timidity gone and a fire in her eyes, though she sways on her feet. “He would’ve died for everyone here. That’s a man of God.”
“Will you rest, too? We’ll wake you if we have any questions.”
“Yes, I think I have to. I’ll be in the first room in the rectory.” She takes my arm. “He talked about you and Grace and hoped you’d come back for a visit. Thank you for coming now.”
I nod and watch her make her way toward the rectory, then look to where Brother David sleeps. The stained-glass window of the Sacred Heart glows on the wall beyond. A red heart, pierced with a sword and wrapped in thorns, alight with orange and yellow flames. Whatever his beliefs, and whether or not I agree, there’s no doubt in my mind Brother David’s heart burns with that love for mankind.
I find a semi-clean blanket, tuck it around him, and set off to help the others.
Chapter 50
Everything in the church was so gross that Grace threw up twice, and I came close. Their outhouse had flooded with rain and no one had the energy to fix it, which resulted in a horrendous state of affairs. Makeshift bedpans were not washed well, since water is precious if you don’t know when your drinking supply will next be replenished. Starving people expend all their energy on survival, and everything fell by the wayside in the struggle to continue breathing.
A trip to neighboring houses took care of the lack of clean clothing and bedding, a nearby aboveground pool was filled with enough rainwater for a decent scrub down, and a new outhouse is being dug while the old is filled in. We need one with all these people, even if we’re only here a few more days. Gary joined us from the bus once it was obvious no one could travel, and Paul biked home with Felipe to be with Leo and update SPSZ.
Half of the fifty-some people in the church were elderly, and nine of them died in the past few weeks. One child died before we arrived, of an infection they couldn’t cure with their limited antibiotics, and the mother of that ch
ild took her own life the next day. I cried when I heard that, though I left the room to do it. The other residents were weak with hunger, some more than others, but all are recuperating now.
“Do you think we’ll ever live in a clean-smelling world again?” I ask Grace while we make soup. We’ve made lots of soup for the stomachs sensitive from a long bout of hunger.
Grace pushes her hair off her forehead. “I really hope so. I can’t afford to throw up more food.”
“You need a sachet, like they carried in the old days. One whiff and you’d be set.”
“And I wouldn’t have to smell you.”
I flap my arm by her nose. “What do you mean?”
She backs away, laughing. There’s a stinky point even deodorant can’t overcome, and we’ve reached it in the past three days. I’ve had many lustful thoughts of our running water and the barrel Eric rigged on the roof. It warms in the sun and brings hot water to our showerhead through a hose, and I love it more than life itself.
“You want some of this?” I ask Indy, who sits at the table, chopping zucchini from our gardens.
“I will murder you if you put that in my face,” she says agreeably. She stops, raises her knife in the air, and circles it around the room. “Do you notice anything wrong with this scene?”
Grace and I scan the packaged food that’s disappearing at a disturbing rate, the useless stove, the dead refrigerator, and all the bowls set out to contain the coming soup. “Should we?” I ask.
“There are four women in our group, and three of us are in the kitchen. The other one is nursing people. Why aren’t the men in here? Why are we falling into our circumscribed gender roles?”
There’s some truth to that, but I remind her, “They’re cleaning up shit and clearing cars from the streets. Maria is a registered nurse. And you like cooking. I don’t, but I like it better than human feces. I’m sure Jorge would trade with you. Last I saw, he was ankle-deep in poop water.”