“No thanks, although I’m sure it’d be riveting.”
He moves to push my shoulder, and, in doing so, edges into my bubble. He smells good—that indefinable man scent under soap and toothpaste. It’s been a while, if you don’t count that one-night stand a month before Zombie Day, and I don’t count that particular night as anything but an error in judgment and alcohol consumption. I’ll take a guy home, but the reality is I never want to see him again, and I make certain I never do. But I want to see Eric again. I don’t remember ever meeting someone with whom I clicked with this easily, except for Grace. I don’t click. I clash.
“You really should ask me something,” he says. “This is a one-time deal.”
I highly doubt that. I think he is flirting with me and he hasn’t moved out of my bubble, and I don’t mind either of those things. “Oh, really?”
“Yup. Get it while the getting’s good.”
I decide to see if he is a mortal human like the rest of us. “Okay, here’s my question—are you scared?”
“Anyone who isn’t needs to have their head examined.”
If Golden Boy is afraid, then I should be petrified. The distraction of the past few minutes vanishes, and now I am petrified—stomach boiling and chest taut. “I’m terrified,” I whisper.
“That’s because it’s terrifying. Just promise you’ll be careful.”
I nod. But I’m terrified of so much more than zombies. I’m terrified of wanting to be around people, and I’m terrified of the inevitable moment when I’ll find out they don’t want to be around me. And I’m especially terrified of this guy, these people, who make me want to be around people.
“So you’re coming back?” he asks, looking so hopeful that I can’t disappoint.
My smile comes without forethought. It’s impossible to act as blasé as I would like. “Yeah.”
He beams in return and sets the lantern beside me. “Good. I’ll see you in the morning for Operation Find Our Families.”
“I like it. See you in the morning.”
Eric departs for downstairs with a wave. I’m not sure what just happened other than he got me to do what I wanted to do while making it seem it was a favor for him. He gave me my do-over.
He’s good.
Chapter 54
In the morning, I’m filled with so much nervous energy that I can’t eat, even when Maria plops a cupcake in front of me on the kitchen table. Grace touches my shoulder. “Syls, are you sure you want to go?”
Her hair is pulled into a ponytail, emphasizing the flush of excitement on her cheeks. Grace can bend with the wind unless she’s made up her mind, and then nothing will stop her. She’ll go alone if she has to, so I’m going. But I have to get it together. This is what happens when you start to want things. You get afraid of losing them. Of ruining them. And then, in the end, either you ruin them or they ruin you. I zip up my coat and shove the cupcake in my mouth.
“You could give it a few days,” Maria murmurs. “Maybe we could all go when Eric gets back.”
Grace shakes her head.
“So let me come along now,” Jorge says.
“You know how Maria won’t send Eric to die?” Grace says. “It’s the same thing for me.”
Maria’s eye twitches. “That’s not—you can’t use what I said. It’s different.”
“No, it’s not. And if you try to follow, I’ll come back and then sneak out.” Grace’s voice is firm and her eyes flash emerald. “I am not getting anyone killed.”
“Only me,” I say through my cupcake. “Sylvie can be killed, the rest of you are off limits.”
Grace whips around. “Thank God,” she says. “I thought you were losing it on me.”
“Nope.” I wash the sugar down with water. “I’m ready.”
Eric walks in the back door wearing leather hiking boots, a brown jacket with pockets, a knife and a gun. He slides another thin knife from the counter into something on his boot, then pulls his jeans over it.
“You’re a regular Boy Scout,” I say.
“That’s insulting. I’m an Eagle Scout.”
“Ooh, excuse me, Eagle Scout.”
Eric follows me into the living room. He’s a little tense around the eyes but otherwise seems chipper. “Did you sleep?”
“Enough, I guess.”
“Can I see what you have? Your weapons.” All traces of humor have left his expression. “Grace, you too.”
Grace holds up her knife, then pulls Maria’s ice pick from her pack. I show him my screwdriver, knife and the long, thin chisel we found in a basement, which I sharpened with the guidance of a survival book.
“This knife is no good,” Eric says, turning Grace’s in his hands. He leaves for the hall without a word.
“What was that about?” Grace asks.
“He knows what he’s doing,” Maria says. “Listen to him.”
Eric returns and pulls a hunting knife from a sheath. His regular knife is on his belt—of course he has a spare. The steel is matte, except for a deadly-looking shiny edge and point. He hands it to Grace. “That other knife you have will probably bend or break. Put it on your belt.”
She gets to work unbuckling her belt. Eric turns to me. “You’re good. The chisel and screwdriver will work. Your knife isn’t the greatest, but it’s full tang.”
“It’s an orange-flavored breakfast drink?” I ask.
He smiles and holds out his hand. After I place my knife in it, he runs a finger along the handle. “See how the metal of the blade is one solid piece all the way to the end? That part is called the tang. Partial tang means it only goes midway into the handle. It isn’t as strong, and when you hit something solid the blade might pop out. You want full tang. Your screwdriver is one. The chisel looks old, so it’s probably well made.”
He hands it back. Grace pulls on her opera gloves. “Where are your gloves?” Eric asks me.
“I haven’t found any leather ones yet. Where are yours?”
He slings on his backpack, which holds far less than it did when he arrived. “I don’t have any either.”
“Hold up.” Jorge heads for the hall and returns with the gloves he wears when we go out, which he hands to Eric. “Here. I didn’t know you didn’t have any. They’re yours anyway.”
Eric thanks him and slides them on, then looks to me. “That doesn’t solve your problem.”
“I was going to wear latex gloves, but we’re out.” I don’t mention we’re out because we used them all to avoid his poop germs.
“My sister doesn’t have any?”
“We can’t find them if she does. Only mittens.”
“She’s always freezing,” he mutters. “Hang on.”
He disappears again, this time to the basement. Things bump and scuffle down below. He reappears five minutes later, purple leather gloves in hand. “Here. These were my mom’s. I thought they were in a bag somewhere. Maria, I left the basement a mess, but I’ll clean it when I get back.”
Maria shushes him. “I’ll get it.”
“Thanks.” He holds out the gloves. I take them hesitantly. If he kept them, they must have meant something.
“Are you sure?” I ask.
“I’m sure. Put them on.”
They fit perfectly. Hands are front and center and probably going to get nipped by a zombie at some point. Having gloves makes the rest of me feel twenty times safer. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He turns for the backyard door and then wheels around. “Wait, we almost forgot our word.”
“We can’t play if we’re not together.”
“Even better. I’ll definitely win,” he says with a wink. I trip down the hall after him, slightly giddy that he likes playing our game as much as I do. He lifts the page to today’s date. “You are not going to believe this word.”
“What is it?”
He holds up the calendar. It reads:
mordacious môr’dāSHes adj 1: (of a person or animal) given to biting
My
mouth drops. It’s a real word, and it’s the perfect adjective for everything that’s wrong with the world. “This has to be a freebie. We both get a point.”
“Deal.” Eric rips off the page and tacks it on the bulletin board. “That one deserves to be ripped out.”
We file into the house closest to the corner. My bike has a popping-over-to-the-farmer’s-market-for-some-fresh-bread basket on the front, and I impale the woven part that faces me with my screwdriver and chisel for easy access. There are some zombies, but pedaling around them will be easy. Jorge and Maria stand at the front door, both so despondent that I want to invite them to be killed along with us, and I can’t help but be a little glad that they care enough to worry.
“I’ll go up the avenues with you,” Eric says. “Then I’ll have to turn the other way.”
Jorge’s mouth moves downward, hands opening and closing by his sides. I wish we’d taken Jorge up on his offer. But Grace is right—it’s a lot to ask. Too much.
“We’ll be fine, Jorge,” Grace says. “We’ll see you tonight, maybe tomorrow.”
He tugs at his ponytail and frowns some more. Maria hugs Eric, then Grace, then me. I return her squeeze—if I don’t, she’ll feel me tremble. “See you when we get back,” I whisper.
Maria pulls away with a stern look, but her lips are pressed to keep from smiling. “You’d better get back.” She opens the door. “Be careful, now. All of you.”
We’re on our bikes and moving before the zombies can assemble. Eric must be holding back in order to stay with me and Grace, who huff and puff up the middle of the street. At least I’m not the only one feeling the burn. Pedaling uphill sucks. Unless you’re Eric.
“Just go,” I call.
He shakes his head. A couple of avenues later, he speeds forward to check out the corner, then stands astride his bike and waves us on.
“Yeah, yeah. We’re coming,” Grace mutters under her breath.
My laugh is more of a gasp. A film of sweat already resides between denim and skin. If this is how hot I get in spring when dressed in full zombie regalia, I’m spending the summer inside. When we reach Eric, I glug down water; I don’t know when I’ll next have a chance for a drink. He says something I don’t hear, and I lower my bottle to find a gun at eye level. It’s pointed at the ground, but I jump anyway.
“One of you take this,” Eric says. We don’t move. He shifts it my way. “Please take it. Use it to scare someone if you have to. It’s a .22, but it’ll hurt.”
“I have no idea what—”
“I’ll show you.” Eric scans the streets. Zombies march up from our starting point, but they’ll be a while. “It’s simple. The magazine is full.”
He shows me a button near the trigger, pops out the magazine—I’ve seen enough movies to know this—and then clicks it back in. He pulls another magazine from his jacket and sticks it under the flap of my bag.
A few zombies amble toward us along the avenue. Eric spares a second to look and says, “Shit. Okay, this is the safety. Back and up to take the safety off.” He slides his thumb forward on the tab. “It’s on again.”
They’re closer. A block away. Grace’s toes tap the ground. I say, “I don’t think this is—”
“Pay attention!” he commands. I try to focus. He pulls back the top and I hear that little cha-chick that, in movies, means you’re fucked. Everything I know about guns I learned from movies. “That was the slide. I chambered a bullet. Turn off the safety, point the gun, and pull the trigger. Pull it again to fire again.” His voice is staccato and sharp. “I should’ve done this at the house. I’m sorry. I know you don’t want it, but you may need it.”
He fits the gun into my palm. Now that it’s not covered by his hand, I see the grippy part of the handle is purple. It matches my gloves. I would ask why he has a purple gun, but I’d rather live. I won’t waste time arguing, either. I’ll stick it in my bag and pretend it doesn’t exist.
“Got it?” he asks. I shake my head. I won’t remember a single thing he said—there are zombies coming, for crying out loud. Eric stoops to my height, eyes firm. “Yeah, you do. I’ll distract them. Go. I’ll see you back at the house.”
He waits for our nods, then rolls in the direction we’ll travel and stops twenty feet from the zombies. They move faster, intent on where he stands. He walks his bike backward steadily and raises a hand when we ride by. I check my mirror to be sure he’s okay and am relieved to see him turn his bike and head on his way.
The store awnings advertise in both Chinese and English, and their windows are shattered the way they are on every other avenue. But the sidewalks are remarkably vacant of everything except many Lexers with bashed-in heads. Someone has taken to the streets with a whole lot of knives and bats and pipes—maybe that Chinatown group. We do our best not to ride on broken glass while swerving around the very occasional walking zombie.
Grace turns back, but her gaze diverts over my shoulder and her face slackens. I glance in my mirror, though I know what I’ll see—the occasional zombie has become a gigantic group. I remind myself to breathe. On bikes, we’ll leave them in the dust.
Our street ends at a large cemetery and zombies who spring to attention at our arrival. If the cemetery gates were closed a few weeks ago, it’ll be safe inside, but there’s no time to scale the tall fence with bikes. We bump onto the sidewalk and parallel the cemetery to the corner. It seems quiet inside—grass and tombstones and winding roads. The thought of all the dried, decayed corpses underground used to creep me out. Now I wish there were time to travel through a place in which the dead stay where they belong.
Two Lexers block our escape through the traffic jam at the next intersection. One is huge. The Incredible Hulk of zombies. I’ll never reach his head. Neither will Grace, and the numerous zombies behind us and on the opposite corner are worse than this single giant. I grab the chisel from my basket, lower my bike to the ground and dart forward to kick his leg—the only thing I can think to do that will get him to our level. My sneaker hits his kneecap with a solid crunch that bends his knee the wrong way. He slams onto a car hood and topples to the asphalt.
I bend to The Hulk, who should be writhing in pain but instead is dragging himself and his teeth closer, and stab him in the temple. Grace has taken care of the other, and she holds our bikes with no trace of imminent puking. We roll them over Hulk’s body and continue on. We’re both short of breath, both gory, and I know we’re both scared, but we don’t remark upon killing two bodies that got in our way. We don’t even say, “Whew, close call there, huh?”
We’re getting used to this. Just another day at the office.
Chapter 55
I want to marry my bicycle. A simple ceremony, just us proclaiming our love for each other. I never rode a bike around the city. I knew I’d be too lazy to ride home at the end of the workday, and being the person whose bike takes up space on the rush hour train could be worse than being the person bleeding out in the street from a collision with a cab.
But it has officially become my preferred mode of travel. Without bikes, we never would’ve made it to Prospect Park, and we certainly wouldn’t have cut through the park so easily. The entrances were blocked to cars, which made biking a dream on the empty road. The lake had some floaters, the Long Meadow many undead occupants, and we flew past them all.
I’d love to brag that from there we kicked zombie ass, but mainly we’ve managed to outrun them or zigzag from one block to the next in a rambling and erratic journey—but it beats dying. The burned blocks are the best, as they’re vacant, blackened swaths of building façades. I guess most zombies don’t stick around when there’s no food. If I don’t think about the people who lived there either fleeing into zombie arms or burning to death, I can appreciate the break it gives us.
Here and there are signs of life: A ring of rubble that protects a stoop. Empty bottles and food wrappers piled below a high window. A nauseating combination of human waste and toilet paper that appears to have
been flung from houses as in medieval times. A parking lot full of dog carcasses suspended from rope with their flesh carved to bone. I want to be angry at the thought of defenseless animals being consumed, but people need to eat. Most animals likely ended up as zombie food anyway. I would want Grace’s family to eat dogs or anything else to stay alive; I’m sure I would eat almost anything when it came down to it, no matter how repugnant.
It makes me wonder how I could have refused, even half-heartedly, Eric and Maria’s request that we return. The city is bombed-out. It’s death and ash and famine. It’s a different place than our yard of sunshine and shadowed house—this is darkness in every sense of the word. I can feel it creeping in, and I remind myself that this isn’t my reality. It doesn’t have to be.
We speak in murmurs. Our bike tires hum on the concrete. I think I hear someone hush a child as we pass an apartment window. Zombies gurgle and moan and grunt. Gone are the horns and voices, the machines and rumblings; New York has become a city of whispers and groans.
And, a few times now, high-pitched and hoarse screams. Raw. Blood-curdling. Desperate. Keening. I can’t find the proper adjective to describe the sounds a person makes while being torn apart, or the arctic chill it sends through you. How you want to help but also run. It can go on for a minute that seems like hours, until you stop wishing for their survival and hope the Lexers hit an artery to put the human out of his misery.
From what I’ve seen on nature shows—and it’s begun to seem as if far too much of my knowledge on a great many subjects comes from movies or TV—predators kill their prey before eating, if only to stop them fighting back. Unlike most predators, zombies don’t care about flailing limbs or shrieks or anything except sinking those dull teeth into flesh.
We make our way through the neighborhood of Boerum Hill, hoping to cross Atlantic Avenue closer to the water, where the streets are quieter and more residential. Court Street used to be your typical Brooklyn thoroughfare, lined with stores on the ground floor of three and four-story brick buildings. Now it’s shattered windows and trash, the same as by us, but worse. Dead—really dead—bodies are almost as plentiful as broken glass, and they cover the concrete for blocks. The stench is unbelievable and the street is impassable by bike. The three zombies that wander nearby haven’t noticed us yet.