“Hello?” I call softly.
I’ve broken into enough houses in the past week that I should be used to it by now, but I can’t shake the feeling that any moment I’ll hear sirens and be arrested for Breaking and Entering. I wish I could be arrested. It would mean the world was still in order.
The living room is full of furniture as dated as the house, but well taken care of. I’m robbing someone’s grandma. But Grandma’s not here. Maybe that woman seven miles back was Grandma, and she wasn’t baking cookies. The foyer has a key rack that says Home Sweet Home above the hooks. I liberate the Jeep keys and check the street—zombie ETA of two minutes—then I’m out the door. The Jeep rumbles to life with a full gas tank, a map, and sucking candies in the glove compartment to boot. Which is why you should always steal a car from Grandma.
Chapter 26
There are a lot of rivers in this world, and we don’t ruminate on them unless the bridge is large or long. Those roads that move seamlessly from one side of a small river to the other are unobtrusive, but they’re important. It wasn’t that long ago that every river required fording or a ferry, no matter how small. Now, every road on the map that crosses a blue line is a spot where I could get caught up. Not only is there the chance they’re destroyed, but there’s also the chance I’ll hit an impediment. They’re bottlenecks. Where before there were numerous streets, I now have four points at which I can cross the next river. One is I-95, possibly the most heavily traveled route in the east, and likely the worst choice. I choose a road that looks big but not too big. The four-lane bridge is crossable with some maneuvering, and I breathe a sigh of relief on the other side.
A promising road starts off suburban-country and, except for gunning it past a high-school-turned-zombie-hangout, I don’t hit much. I relax when it turns to real country, with trees that display their first buds and brown fields waiting for seed that may never come. I pass over a small creek in the blink of an eye. Case in point: If the road hadn’t been built on a culvert pipe, I might be walking right now.
The first abandoned cars aren’t a big deal, until I come to a collision in a stretch bordered by trees and have to turn around. It’s going to be a long backtrack past all those fields to the last road I saw. I brake at the power lines that cross the air above the road and affix to an immense steel utility pole. The woods around the poles are cleared for access, and, I’m thinking, for guys who need to escape in the zombie apocalypse.
The Jeep bounces across the field to the line of poles, where it’s a short trip to a truck depot surrounded by an impassable fence. No go. But tucked away in the corner of this field is an opening in the trees that leads to a field behind. It’ll do, if I don’t mind a few scratches in the paint job. Grandma might, but I don’t.
The next field connects to another, which leads me to the back of an auto parts store, and then I’m on the road again. The question is: What road am I on? The map is not proving useful for small streets and the roads are increasingly crowded and blocked. After I pass the same yellow house for the third time, I pull to the curb in the neighborhood of older homes I feel I’ve come to know well.
The bodies on the lawns and the smashed windows and doors tell me this neighborhood did not fare well in the days immediately following the virus. I thought I saw something move in a house that I passed, but I stopped and idled for a full minute, even called out the window, and there was no response. I’m sure they’re scared. They probably think everyone is out to get them, to take what’s theirs. I don’t blame them for thinking that way, but I refuse to believe it.
My parents were preppers; they stored food and supplies for an emergency, whether it was the loss of job income, a weather-related catastrophe, or—and most improbable—something apocalyptic. But they weren’t the hunker-down-and-shoot-your-neighbors type of preppers. They believed in self-reliance, in gardening and raising animals and sharing what you had with those neighbors. They believed people would work together in times of crisis, that there was an essential goodness in humanity. Of course, that didn’t mean they didn’t have guns—both my liberal-minded parents grew up hunting and were comfortable with weapons. There’s always someone who wants to stir the pot, my mother would say. Better to have a gun and not need it than to need a gun and not have it.
I have two handguns, including Rachel’s. My rifle was lost during a scrape that involved a large group of zombies, a flimsy barn door and Rachel, whose job it was to carry the rifle from the barn while I cleared a path. So far, I don’t miss it—it was too heavy and cumbersome for this type of travel. The sound carries for miles, a radio call broadcasting your location to everything within earshot. I haven’t thought much about using it on a human. I will if I have to, but I can’t even find a damn human, much less someone who deserves a bullet.
I drink from my water bottle and inspect the street for the house that would most likely contain a detailed road atlas. I’m well aware this is ludicrous—there’s not a specific road atlas-type house. Or maybe there is.
I roll down to a house with both a U.S. and a USMC flag waving proudly in the breeze. The bushes are perfectly symmetrical, the lawn edged to within an inch of its life. This is the house of a person who has all his ducks in a row. Maybe that’s sexist. Maybe she has all her ducks in a row.
The house is pale blue clapboard with a porch and white trim, like a tiny farmhouse. I sit for three minutes and then ease out of the Jeep. After all the hours spent going in circles, my legs are tight. My shoulders ache. It’s afternoon and I feel no closer to Staten Island than I did four hours ago. I am closer, but the distance traveled is discouraging. It’s happened before—I think I should be farther along than I am when hiking or climbing or whatever else. Rachel says it’s because I set impossible goals.
Said.
I take my gun from its holster, which I should have done before I left the Jeep. I’m tired. Thinking about Rachel makes me tired. I push her from my mind because any moment now I’ll see that room in Philly. I walk the path by the driveway and step up the porch’s side entrance to tap on the door. Still nothing. A window is cracked, which means an easy entry. It’s so quiet that I immediately hear the footsteps from across the street.
A zombie couple walks down the driveway of the house directly opposite. I watch them cross the asphalt, step onto the lawn, and head for where I stand. The woman reaches the wooden railing first. Her grimy hand opens and closes. I’m not too concerned—all I have to do is trot down the steps, which they haven’t figured out exist as of yet, and get in the Jeep. I do need an atlas, though. Chances are I’ll run into something no matter where I stop. I could go inside and deal with them on my way out, but they might cause a stir and I’ll find more than I want to deal with by the time I’m done inside.
I set my gun on the wicker table and pull out my knife. They look to be my age. The kind of my age that pays a mortgage and chases kids around, rather than pays tuition and chases adrenaline. The minivan in their driveway has decals stuck to the back window. Five figures, varying in height: Mom, Dad, two kids and a cat, from what I can see. Dad wears a Hawaiian shirt and looks like he’d be good at the grill. Mom has knotted blond hair and a gold heart necklace swings from her neck.
I’m above and they’re below, with a convenient railing in the middle. I move close and plunge my knife into an eye of her upturned face. Her husband steps over her fallen body without a glance. In life, he’d protect her. In death, he doesn’t notice. Maybe he’s the one who bit the chunk out of her shoulder. Another ram of my knife and he falls on her, arms out, as if protecting her now.
I enter through the window. It’s neat as a pin, like the outside, and filled with photos of children and grandchildren. There’s a grinning kid everywhere I turn. I find the car keys and hit pay dirt in the well-maintained car in the garage: a New Jersey road atlas, along with several other maps. I stick New York City in my pocket and tuck the large atlas under my arm. I’m good on water, but I open the fridge—spoiled milk and juice
, as well as a single can of beer. I take it and leave by the front door.
I can’t see the couple I killed, but I can smell them. I ponder whether they ate their kids and the cat as I head for the Jeep. The kids could be in the house, either finally dead or zombies. If the latter, I’d think they’d be outside with their parents. But there’s always the possibility they managed to lock out their parents and are in there now—alive, human, and terrified of what their parents became.
I toss the maps into the Jeep, drop the beer in the cup holder and stand by the open door. It can’t hurt to check. The last thing I need is two kids and a cat, but I have to know or the possibility of two little kids dying of starvation will haunt me. Rachel would shake her head at Steadfast Eric. Or she’d take it as proof I am still human. Maybe, after that last thing she said, she’d urge me on.
Rachel loved kids. She already heard her biological clock ticking at the ripe old age of twenty-seven. I never disagreed with her prediction that we’d have three of our own, but I said I wasn’t ready and couldn’t say when I would be. She said I needed to grow up and be responsible enough to tie my life to someone else’s. Only after we broke up did I realize it wasn’t tying my life to a kid that had given me pause, it was tying my life to Rachel, though I hadn’t known it at the time.
I step past the minivan. The backyard gate is ajar, and I move through the vacant yard to the open patio door. Dried blood is smeared on the kitchen counters, the table, the walls. Pink sneakers mottled with brown peek out from under the table in the adjoining dining room. They ate enough of her that she didn’t turn, which, in a terrible way, is a blessing.
Tiny footsteps and a barely audible grunt give me an idea of what I’ll see before it arrives, but I hope I’m wrong until a little boy comes into view. Five or six, maybe, with sandy blond hair and a bloodstained mouth. He reminds me so much of Leo that I return to the patio, slide the door shut behind me and walk away. He hits the glass with a bang. I should open it and kill him, but I don’t want to. I stop after another few steps. If he gets out, he might eat someone else’s daughter or son. I’ll be out of here in one minute, so the noise won’t matter, and I really don’t want to use my knife this time. Rachel’s .22 will be enough.
I open the door. It’s finished before he’s out. As I drive away, I tell myself I’m lucky: I could never get two kids across destroyed bridges. I’d have to feed them and protect them. I’d have to tie my life to theirs, and that could prove impossible when sustaining my own life is a major pain in the ass. There are so many reasons it’s better this way. But I’m still disappointed.
Chapter 27
Sylvie
The foyer of Maria’s safe house is littered with random items—a backpack, an empty plastic bin, and discarded clothing. It isn’t a pigsty of epic proportions, but someone left in a hurry. A door on the right leads to a bedroom. The two windows let in enough light to see dark wood furniture, framed prints and close to four thousand pieces of paper tacked to a corkboard. A desk in the corner is covered with more papers, and I assume the hump of clothes that sits before it has a chair somewhere underneath. Whoever lived here was not anal retentive.
The turquoise hutch by the front door holds a stack of unopened mail. Coats hang on a row of hooks beside a radiator. Most brownstones were built as one-family homes, and the foyer narrows to a hallway where the old staircase has been walled-in for privacy between tenants, although an access door is set into the end. If it’s the same as most garden apartments I’ve seen, the basement door will be on the other end of the enclosed stairs, where the hall opens to the remainder of the apartment.
I look over the framed photographs on the walls as we follow Maria down the hallway—a dated one of a brown-haired boy and girl, a family standing in front of a log cabin, school pictures of the same two kids through the years until they wear high school caps and gowns.
Sure enough, we pass the basement door at the far end of the hall. The bathroom is straight ahead and the living room to our right. Colorful throw pillows decorate the couch and chairs, and a striped area rug covers the wood floor. Two bookcases hold so many books they’ve been crammed in at crazy angles. The TV sits in a wood entertainment center whose shelves display various tchotchkes—a candlestick shaped like a gnarled tree, old glass bottles and tins, and another picture of that same family. Despite only one window in the corner, it’s bright and cozy and comfortable.
Pocket doors to the right of the living room lead to a small room inhabited by a desk, an easel and racks of paint tubes and brushes. An artist lives here. I’ve surmised by now that the friend of Maria’s daughter is female. And not doing too badly in the money department. You can’t afford to live alone in an apartment like this, even in the Sunset Park neighborhood, unless you have money to blow on rent. Especially not with the backyard I can see through the window.
“Penny? Ana?” Maria calls softly, although it’s obviously empty. She moves across the living room and into the kitchen at the rear.
Two windows over the sink look out on a small backyard with a shed in the corner, all accessed by a paned glass door on the right wall. A backpack sits in a kitchen chair. A folded sheet of paper is on the table, the word Mama written across the front. Maria wipes her hands on a paper towel and brings the note to the door.
Her shoulders quiver as she reads, then she refolds the paper and lets out a sob. Grace moves to touch Maria’s shoulder. “It’s from your daughters? Did they leave?”
“She said the streets were okay,” Maria whispers. “They got a van and were leaving right away.” She lifts a hand to her mouth, then appears to think better of it when she sees the filth on every finger. “I think they got out.”
“I’m so glad,” Grace says with a soft smile.
Maria’s expression shifts from relief to grief and back again. She’s overjoyed her daughters may be safe, but I think there must be a part of her that wishes she could hold them. Her knees buckle and she buries her face in Grace’s brown-speckled hair.
This is always the part where I take off. Ostensibly to give the person privacy, but really because the more broken-down someone is, the more awkward I become, until I’m cracking jokes and invariably insulting someone. I inch into the living room, past where Jorge stands watching with damp eyes. A black, gooey string of something dangles from his collar. My fingers are coated in the dried contents of that zombie’s abdomen, and my scrubs are streaked with blood and brown chunks. I carefully pull the shirt over my head. My long-sleeved shirt beneath is damp with sweat and possibly zombie fluid, but it doesn’t have actual pieces of entrails clinging to it.
I stink. We all stink. I walk to the bathroom and turn the tap. It’s dry, and my relief that we’re here turns to fear. I return to the kitchen, where Maria and Grace stand with their arms around each other’s waists, catharsis complete.
“How will we get water?” I ask Maria. I don’t mean it to sound accusatory and attempt to soften it with, “I tried the bathroom but the water is off.”
“There should be water in the basement, but I know there’s a barrel out back from when they had a garden.”
“Let’s clean this off before we touch anything.” Jorge inspects his hands and then uses a crusty finger to point to the yard. “You think anyone’s out there?”
It isn’t a revelation, but seeing Kearney in action has brought home the fact that zombies aren’t the only thing to fear. When cops are feeding innocent people to zombies, who do you call? Especially when there are no phones. And no cops.
A basement hatch is set into the concrete outside the kitchen door. Two steps lead up to where the yard widens into a concrete patio with outdoor furniture and, beyond that, a grassy area and the blue shed. A wooden fence encloses the yard, and the trees in neighboring yards promise more privacy once their leaves open. It’s impossible to see anything but the windowed backs of the three-story brownstones across the yards.
“We have to go out there sooner or later,” Maria says. r />
“All right, let me go first,” Jorge says. He opens the glass door and the screen door behind it, cranes his neck around, and then steps outside with a shrug. After a peek under the lid of the barrel beside the basement hatch, he turns with a round-cheeked grin.
Water. Maybe fifty glorious gallons, based on the size of the barrel. I don’t care who’s out there, we have water. Life-giving water. Maybe a week’s worth, two weeks’ worth. I have no idea how much water we need to live, but it has to rain soon. It always does in the spring. I leave Maria rummaging in a cabinet and meet Jorge outside.
“It’s not the cleanest water I’ve ever seen,” Jorge says, “but it’s water.”
“I don’t care if it’s swamp water,” I say, and he laughs.
Maria and Grace come out bearing bowls, hand soap and dish towels. We each get a bowl of water to clean up. I lather the lavender-scented soap and wash my face and hands, soap up the grossest parts of my hair and then rinse everything off over the yard drain. I might happily sacrifice someone to the zombies for a hot shower, but a clean face and hands feels wonderful.
I do my best to wash the brown gunk out of Grace’s hair. She towel dries it and sniffs the ends. “It’s better. Thanks.”
That black string still hangs from Jorge’s collar below the freshly-scrubbed skin of his neck. “You’ve got a…thing on you there,” I say.
He looks down with a grimace, then plucks it off with two fingertips and drops it in the outside drain. Using water to wash has made me thirstier. I’ve acquired a bad case of cotton mouth, and with it comes the realization that I have to ask for water, that my continued existence is dependent on the generosity of others. “Do you think we can drink that? I’m a little thirsty.”