The City Series (Book 1): Mordacious

  “Don’t do that again!” I yell. “We stay together. It’s really freaking simple!”

  “Sorry,” she gasps. “I just wanted to get—”

  “Killed? Because that’s what almost happened.”

  This is not the time or place for reprimands, but she took off without any regard for her safety, or mine. And maybe I’m hurt that she wanted to get upstairs so badly that she would leave me on the corner without a second thought. It’s an emotion that I want to pretend doesn’t exist. Of course she wanted to get to her husband, and she knows I can handle myself, that I’d be right behind her.

  Grace touches my arm. “I’m sorry. I—”

  “It’s fine. Can we just stay together?”

  “Of course.” She surveys the lady on the floor. “That’s the bitchy woman from the co-op board.”

  “The one who asked Logan if he used that foul-smelling curry?”

  Logan’s father is of Indian descent. Logan stared bitchy co-op lady down until she excused herself from the room while the others apologized. They got the apartment, which they would have anyway, but no one would dare turn them down and risk a discrimination lawsuit after that question.

  Grace nods. “I wish I’d killed her.”

  “Consider it a gift from me to you.”

  “Thanks.”

  We reach the eighth floor in peace. A brief check of the hall shows it’s empty. Blood paints the walls and tile floors, the expensive wall sconces. Our footfalls are loud in the silence. Grace raps three times on her own apartment door and then stands with her fingers splayed against the wood as if she can feel what’s happened inside.

  Finally, she tries the doorknob, and the door swings open to the foyer. Everything is neat and orderly, the hardwood floors shiny. She hurries into the dining area, calling, “Logan?”

  Her footsteps stop abruptly. I rush forward, but she stands at the table with a sheet of paper stiff in her hand. Other sheets are stacked in a pile on the wooden surface.

  “He went to my parents’ house,” she whispers. “He left to check for me, but said he’d be back. He wasn’t sure where I’d go.”

  I look from what must be the latest note to the stack beside it. She starts at the bottom and reads each sheet in order. A tear plops to one and slowly sinks in to make a darker splotch. I want to know what they say, but I don’t ask.

  Finally, she holds out the first paper she read. I take it gently.

  Had to go out for some more food and to check on your parents. I hope you’re there, but if not, I’ll be back.

  I left a bottle of water and a can of food in case you need it. I love you, Gracie.

  Logan

  It’s dated the day after we tried to make it to Brooklyn Heights the first time. We would’ve found him if we hadn’t turned back.

  Grace moves for the kitchen with a sob. I scan each paper quickly. It’s a rundown of Logan’s weeks: He went to her parents’ house. They were there. He and Grace’s father tried to get to the hospital but couldn’t. Logan brought food to the apartment and waited some more, while they stayed at their house to wait. Then he went out for the last time, only weeks ago.

  I set down the papers and move to the kitchen. It smells of urine, with a small ring of yellow that’s collected around the drain in the porcelain sink. Grace runs a finger along the water bottle and a full can of beans, then picks through the empty food wrappers in the garbage can—chocolate bars and chips and opened cans of everything from meat ravioli to carrots at the very top. All are scraped clean.

  “Logan hates carrots,” Grace says. “But he didn’t leave them for me.”

  I nod, although she doesn’t look up. I want to go back in time and arrive before he left. Before he forced himself to eat the carrots he hated in order to give himself more time. Before he was gone for weeks. This might be worse than if he’d been a zombie, than if he hadn’t left a note, because we know he was here, and that we could have been if we’d only pushed on.

  “Let’s go to your parents’ house,” I say. “Maybe they’re all there.”

  “Yeah.” She sounds as if she doesn’t believe it.

  “Do you want to get some of your stuff first?”

  She leaves the kitchen without answering. I hear drawers open in the bedroom and walk to the living room windows. This view of the city was the sole reason they dealt with the bitchy co-op lady. It’s not worth what they paid for it now. Some of the dust has settled, and, now that it’s visible, I see lower Manhattan is severely scorched. Many buildings are black, at least those that still stand. A city of ebony.

  I think of Logan’s notes and wonder what happened when they found our note at the house in Sunset Park. If they’re worried. If it was clear I never would have left on my own. Another broad-shouldered man wanders the street. A Logan. I press my forehead to the window, my breath fogging the glass, but it’s not him—this one’s hair shines blond under the grime.

  “Let’s go,” Grace says. She wears her own clothes and boots, and her pack is full.

  “Okay. I’m sure they’re—”

  She raises a hand. Shut up, Sylvie. I do.

  We leave from a first floor apartment’s window and make it to our bikes while the crowd that’s formed at the building’s entrance watches the doors. By the time they turn, we’re gone. Grace’s legs pump, her head is down. I follow behind praying, Please let them be there. Let them be home.

  In high school, Grace’s house was like another world. Not only because of its occupants, but also because of its graceful, curved brownstone stoop and its floor-to-ceiling windows, its mantels and glowing wood floors and small backyard in which ivy grew rampant and green. Everything, down to shower curtain rings, the spoon that stirred a pot and the cup in the bathroom had been chosen with care. There was an intent to make things beautiful in a way I’d never experienced. To me, a spoon was a spoon, and if it stirred a pot, then it was good. But Grace’s mother, Lorraine, is an artist, and she made things special without seeming ostentatious.

  It takes only a few minutes to get to the narrow street. Lexers loiter down the block. Grace stops short, her eyes trained on the remains of her parents’ brownstone and a few on either side. They’re charred black as Manhattan. Gone. All of her mother’s lovely things are gone. The people are gone, whether they were inside or escaped, and they might as well be dead with all the hope we have of finding them.

  “Mom!” Grace screams. “Dad!”

  The zombies start forward. She screams again, her eyes skimming the windows of the unburned houses. The brown boots she’s changed into dent the hood of an SUV as she climbs to its roof. She spins in a circle above my head.

  “Logan! Mom! Dad!” It’s throaty and frantic and hurts to hear. Like she’s ripping apart inside.

  I watch the street. More zombies make their way from the corner, trapping us in the middle with the first group. One is coal come to life, features melted by fire and hair gone, but it still manages to trail behind the others. I’ll never convince her to leave in time. I climb up and stand beside Grace. I can’t find my voice, but she screams for the both of us. The houses remain quiet. Every door is ajar, a few windows smashed. The air is heavy with the scent of fire and death.

  I felt as though I breathed a different kind of oxygen in that house—clean and soft and quiet. I envied Grace, never enough that it poisoned me, but with a longing that made me feel awkward and out of place. Once I moved in, I’d make up reasons to stay out after school. Did they really want me there—the dark, brooding girl who their sunny daughter liked so much? I was sure I didn’t fit into the peaceful landscape, like a roach that had wandered onto the butcher block counters in the immaculate kitchen.

  I was there less than a year, and in that time Lorraine almost managed to convince me that she’d chosen me. As if I were another beautiful thing she’d taken into her house and treated with care. I thanked her, but I never told her that. I fought the temptation to ask if she truly felt that way; she would have said y
es, and I was scared I’d see the lie in her eyes if it wasn’t true. I never revealed how often I’d considered opening a bottle of my mother’s illegally obtained prescription drugs and taking them one by one until it was empty. I never told her that when I felt like that roach, I would think of her and imagine myself as something valuable: something simple like that hand-carved wooden spoon, or maybe something flawed like the blown glass bathroom cup with the uneven edges. Valuable even with my imperfections. Every so often I’d believe it might be true.

  The SUV shifts when the bodies hit. Grace doesn’t care. Maybe I should, but I feel responsible for this. It was my mother who put us here, and I’ll do whatever Grace wants, even if it’s to stand screaming until we’re surrounded by every zombie in Brooklyn. I owe her that much. I owed it to Lorraine to come here the first chance I got, to push on, because she was valuable enough that I should have.

  Hands slap on the roof. Black smears and blood. Fresh blood, maybe. Grace stops screaming, shoulders wilted. The SUV rocks, and we clutch each other so as not to fall.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper in her ear.

  She pulls away and wipes her cheek, leaving behind a streak of brown. “We have to go.”

  Between thirty and forty surround us, our bikes stuck in their midst. It’ll take a while, but we can kill them one by one, the same way you’d down pills in a bottle. I kneel at the edge of the roof and Grace drops to her knees on the other side.

  I raise the chisel above the charred one’s head. I was afraid it was Lorraine, but it’s tall and broad. A man. It still wears a gold chain from which dangles a cornicello—the twisted horn-shaped charm Italians wear to ward off the evil eye. My father had one. I suppose this could be him. I bring down the chisel and fell it in one stroke.

  Chapter 75

  Eric

  Sylvie isn’t on the parlor floor when I wake. I figure she’s gone out to see Cat, but a quick look out the window tells me she’s not in the yard. I head downstairs. I like our early morning time, where we make coffee and read and talk at the kitchen table. I sneak peeks at her while she’s intent on her book. Her face relaxes, her shoulders come down and, if I say something, she looks up with an open expression. Her guard is dropping even when her nose isn’t in a book: she asked for help. She didn’t need to—had I known Grace’s plan, I would’ve offered in a heartbeat. That Sylvie didn’t realize makes me think she doesn’t know how I feel about her, and I think that needs to change.

  Paul and Sylvie are getting along like a house on fire, and all it took was a punch. Which, for the record, he deserved a week ago. Maybe weeks ago. I told Sylvie that Paul and I didn’t say anything important afterward, but that isn’t true.

  “Fucking third time you’ve punched me, bro,” Paul said, hand to his cheek.

  “Maybe third time’s the charm,” I said. “Don’t make me choose here, Paul.”

  Paul raised his brows. “She’s no Rachel.”

  “You hated Rachel.”

  He put his arm around me. “I know. It’s a point in Sylvie’s favor. You really like her?”

  “I do. And so will you, if you stop being an asshole. I really need you to do this for me, man.”

  “You in love with her?”

  I shook my head and shrugged. I don’t know what I am with Sylvie, except certain I want more than sex, to which I’m also amenable. I’m following Maria’s orders—friends first—not because I’m scared to defy an order from Maria, which I absolutely am, but because she was right: Sylvie needs friends.

  “You will be,” he said. I must have looked surprised, and he smirked. “I know you, bro, and I’m happy for you. Sorry I was a dick about it. I just couldn’t…” His mouth screwed sideways and he looked away.

  I knew what he wanted to say. He and Hannah were the couple no one thought would last, but they did, and now she’s gone. Gone and still wandering around somewhere, which is worse. Paul was jealous and angry, but, mainly, he was sad. Paul doesn’t do sad well, so he gave the other emotions free rein.

  “I heard what Sylvie said,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”

  “I knew.” His voice cracked, and I pulled him in for a hug. He held on tight for a moment then clapped my back. “All right, go get her for me. I want to apologize.”

  “Paul Maloney wants to apologize?”

  “Just go get her, bro. Don’t be an asshole.”

  Paul is not known for his apologies, and he did it twice in one day—a record. They were for her, but the punch was for me and I love him for it.

  Downstairs, the bedroom door is open and the room is unoccupied. I pad into the kitchen to find it empty as well. A note sits on the table:

  Hi everyone,

  I went to Brooklyn Heights. I promise if they’re there I’ll bring them back. Or I’ll be back myself. I hope you’re not too mad. I’m sorry I did it this way, but I don’t want anyone to die because of me.

  Love, Grace

  Down in the bottom corner, scrawled so quickly it’s almost illegible, is:

  She’s leaving now. Had to go. –S

  Just once, I want a note to give me good news. I sit in a chair to reread it, my brain trying to work its way around the words and my chest already pained at their meaning. Sylvie didn’t want this—her relief when I agreed to go was plain to see—but Sylvie would never let Grace go alone. It’s one of the things I admire about her.

  I trudge to Maria’s bedroom and slide open a pocket door. Maria sits up in the dim light, blankets clutched in her hands, and takes in my face. “What? What happened?”

  “They’re gone,” I say. She flips on her lantern and reads the note. Her face drains of color.

  “Everything all right?” Jorge asks from the sofa bed.

  The bedsprings creak and then he’s at the door. Maria hands him the paper and runs a hand through her hair. “They’ll be back. Tonight or tomorrow,” she says, but the worry on her face is at odds with her words.

  “Maybe we should go…” I don’t know where to go. I don’t have an address. “Do you know where Grace lives?”

  “They wrote down the addresses when they went the first time, but it’s gone.” Maria’s eyes move in concentration beneath her closed lids. “I know I looked at it, but I can’t remember what it said.”

  Jorge sets the note on Maria’s bed. “Grace wasn’t looking so good the last few days. I didn’t think she’d do this, though. Not after we said we’d go with her.”

  “Why didn’t Sylvie wake us?” Maria asks.

  “It looks like she caught Grace leaving and there wasn’t time.” Jorge puts a hand on her shoulder, and she blinks up at him. They could be two anxious parents discussing their children’s whereabouts. “They’re smart girls. They know what they’re doing. I’m sure they’ll be back soon.”

  At breakfast, I say, “We should go. They might hear us if we ride around the neighborhood and call for them.”

  Paul drops his fork with a piece of pancake still attached. “Bro, that’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard. Let’s scream while we travel through zombies? Brooklyn Heights is too big for that. We’ll end up killing ourselves and them.”

  He’s willing to go. In fact, the minute he heard they were gone, he asked when we were leaving. Even though I want do something, anything, instead of sit and wait, I have to admit that that plan is all kinds of stupid. Waiting is smartest for now.

  We get the last of the plants out of their pots and into the ground before dinner. And now I should start packing my bag to leave for upstate. I want to go, but—and I can barely admit this to myself—I’m not as gung-ho as I was. I want to find Cassie, but I’m worried I won’t make it back. Before, I had nothing to lose. Now I’m afraid I’ll be lost in the void again, and leaving all of this behind makes the void seem that much darker.

  It’s only been a day. Last time they were gone overnight. They could be with Brother David. Sylvie and Grace seemed to like him and, judging by the picture he sent, he likes them back. I think Sylvie’s prob
lem isn’t that she can’t make people like her; it’s that she automatically thinks no one will, so she doesn’t give them the chance. If she could see how we barely eat and sit glumly until the sun goes down with no sign of them, she’d know how wrong she is. Jorge, Maria and I stay on the couch after Paul takes Leo to bed, the only sound the winding of the lantern every fifteen minutes.

  “They’re waiting for tomorrow,” Jorge says confidently. “They won’t come in the dark.”

  I hope he’s right.

  Chapter 76

  Distant gunshots wake me and I sit up, heart racing, and then jump from bed to peer into the pre-dawn gloom. It couldn’t be Sylvie and Grace, since they left Rachel’s .22 here, but it could be someone shooting at them. The shots don’t come again, though I sit with Jorge on the parlor floor until dawn, all the while silently cursing zombies and firearms. I might never have met Sylvie if the world hadn’t ended, but now it’s the very thing that keeps me from finding her.

  Later in the morning, Guillermo stops by. When we tell him they’re gone, he sighs. “You should’ve seen Grace when they got to my place after that other time they went. I thought she would’ve gone back by now, even if it was crazy down there, but I didn’t want to bring it up.”

  Neither did we. We should’ve offered sooner. Made it a priority. Maria must feel the same because she dips her head at his words.

  “They’ll be back,” Guillermo says, and pats her arm. “Did you hear those gunshots earlier?”

  Jorge nods. “They shot at you again?”

  “Nah, over a few blocks, but we went out after them. Found some people and followed them to that church by 60th Street.”

  On another day, the news would be disturbing, but it’s more than distressing today. Sylvie and Grace are out there with murderous people, though they traveled in the other direction. I remember the big church I rode by on my way to Paul’s.