The cooking and washing of dishes seems never-ending. There’s another number: forty-six. Only forty-six more meals to cook, now that we have only First Meal and Second Meal, both of which have gotten smaller. My scrub pants are a drawstring waist, so it’s hard to tell, but I think I’ve already shaved off a pound or two. This wouldn’t be the worst news in Normal World; in Zombie World I wouldn’t mind those extra pounds as a hedge against starvation.
Four more patients have died. We put their bodies on the third floor since the morgue doors still knock back. We have a plan: In the next couple of days, we’ll move everyone to the top floor and hunker down before the generator quits. We’re microwaving up a storm to get things cooked, and the freezer is full of containers of ice we’ll pull out at the last second to keep perishables cold.
It could be so much worse, but close quarters with people, no matter how agreeable, wear me down. Whenever my crankiness intensifies, I visit Manny; he may be a person, but he never wears on my sanity. The lethargic little boy has become a happy, animated boy who gives video game zombies a run for their money. I played yesterday only to find I do better with real zombies.
Grace, Jorge and I bring First Meal up to Pediatrics. We push the cart through the double doors into the corridor. The patient rooms are quiet—the kids spend much of the day in the playroom, virtually killing their diseases. We’ve shut off every light we can reach to conserve fuel, but they won’t have the video games much longer. Even Kearney voted that they be allowed to play until the generator quits. Maybe the apocalypse is turning him into a normal person.
“I’ll get the kids,” Grace says, and leaves for the playroom.
Jorge and I set to work. I’m in Manny’s room when I hear a shriek. I think it’s the kids being rowdy until it comes again, shrill and scared, not the happy yell we normally hear.
I meet Jorge in the hall, and we run for the nurses’ station across from the playroom. Grace stands on the desk, one hand gripping the light that hangs above. She kicks at what were once nurses and the parents who thought themselves lucky to be here. The kids’ hospital gowns hang limp and brown. Their small hands barely reach the high surface and they trip the adults, which is the only reason Grace is alive. They haven’t made it behind the desk yet, but they will, and then she won’t stand a chance.
“Grace!” I scream.
Grace’s eyes dart our way, white all around. I start forward. I don’t have a weapon, but I don’t care. There are people for whom you fight to the finish, and Grace is one of my people. Maybe the only one.
Jorge’s hands clamp on my shoulders. He drags me into a room and throws an IV pole into my hands, then lifts the wooden visitor’s chair. “I’ll get them away. You get her out.”
One end of the pole has two round metal projections for IV bags, the other four casters. The casters are attached to an X-shaped metal brace that might do damage. It’s heavier than I thought, and it’s better than nothing. I run back to Grace, sure we’ll find her in shreds, but all those years of yoga are paying off. As soon as one nears, she slams a foot into its chest and sends it into the others. It keeps their teeth away but doesn’t provide a path of escape.
“We’re coming!” I scream over the hissing.
A few of them turn for us, the more attainable meal. Jorge knocks the first parent out of the way. The little girl with cancer—chunk missing from her scalp and dried streams of blood on her cheeks—is a tiny wisp of a thing. Jorge sends her flying. I smash the casters into a preschool boy’s freckled face and hope whoever is in charge of Heaven will forgive me.
“Hey!” Jorge yells. He lets out the kind of short, loud whistle of which I’ve never been capable.
They turn when he whistles again. Jorge fixes his attention on the coming crowd and tosses the first kid against the wall. Grace moves to the edge of the desk while he draws them away, then she leaps into the opening and snatches up a nearby chair. I push my pole at the ones who’ve edged behind. Jorge and Grace wield their chairs like lion tamers.
Someone hits my back. Arms hug my waist. I look down and see kid-sized hands flaked with dried blood. A head nuzzles the small of my back and tries to burrow through my shirts. I kick, but it hangs on tight. For a little zombie, it’s strong. I wrench away and whirl around with my pole.
Manny stares back. His shy smile is gone. His dark brown eyes are now the color of weak tea. I can’t use the pole on him. Not until he attacks, and then I slam down the metal of the caster end hard enough to peel off half his forehead. He keeps coming, a thick slice of inside-out flesh covering one eye and his visible eye so horribly vacant that I can’t move.
A chair flies through the air and takes Manny down. Jorge drags me down the hall and through the double doors alongside Grace. I look back before the doors close. The mob is coming, Manny at the rear. Jorge propels me into the elevator.
Grace inspects my back and front, frantically pulling at my shirts. “Are you okay?” she practically screams.
I don’t answer. Nothing is okay.
Jorge takes my shoulders. “Sylvie, did he bite you?”
I shake my head dumbly. Grace’s hair is in disarray and her mouth in an O. But she’s alive, unlike Manny. When the elevator bumps to a stop in the basement, Jorge moves straight for Bart’s desk while we hang back at the cafeteria entrance. Maria rushes to them, listens for a moment and then turns to us with her hand to her chest.
Jorge can explain what happened. I can’t. I have to get out of here. Grace calls, but I continue down the hall. The bathroom is blessedly empty. I wash my hands and face methodically in an attempt to block out the last ten minutes. Grace enters and stands at the sink beside mine. Her mouth opens twice, but both times she closes it without a word.
I dry myself off with a paper towel, making sure to get every last drop. I will not cry. I won’t cry over this. What are nineteen more deaths in the grand scheme of things? They’re nothing. I have to believe they’re nothing.
I turn from the garbage can to find Grace a foot away. “Are you okay?” she asks softly. She knows I’m not—she wants to know how not okay I am.
I try to say I’m fine, but a sob breaks through the ache in my throat and the tears follow. Manny is dead, and he’s supposed to be alive. He was going to have a future, to stay alive for his mother—the mother who juggles work and the hospital to keep him healthy at any cost. A good mother. His survival was supposed to be her reward.
But who am I kidding? She’s as dead as he is.
“There was no point,” I manage to get out between gulps and sobs. “In any of it.”
I don’t want to see Manny’s face anymore. I wish I’d never met him. I wish I’d never cared whether he lived or died. But I did, and now I’m paying for it. The crushing weight would send me to the floor if Grace didn’t gather me in her arms.
“The point is that you tried,” Grace says, voice so sure it makes me wish I believed her. “You cared enough to try. You fought for that kid.”
A fuck of a lot that did for him when all was said and done—he got to live a few extra days in a miserable world. I bury my face in her shoulder. The tears won’t quit. This heavy feeling won’t quit, either. “How does that make it any better? I lost.”
“It does.” Grace strokes my hair, our roles reversed for one of the few times in our lives. “It just does, Syls.”
Chapter 13
The next day, I do what’s asked of me and ignore the whispered conversations. No one knows how it happened, and we weren’t up there long enough to figure it out. Maybe one got in through a door someone opened. Maybe it was in a closet, although they did an extensive search after they cleared Pediatrics of infected. Maybe there was infected blood somewhere and one of the two toddlers transferred it to their mouths. In the end, it doesn’t matter how. All that matters is that their futures were stolen.
I cook the frozen stuff that isn’t already cooked and let my rage cook along with it. Tempers have flared throughout the basement, and I’
m leading the charge. Most people take the hint and leave me alone. Those who don’t will live to regret it.
When Dawn screams at me for pulling chicken nuggets out of the fryer thirty seconds too late, I say, “The times, they are a’changing, Dawn. Keep up or die.”
She drops her hands on the counter between us and leans in, ample bosom squished between her arms. “I’m really tired of your smart-ass comments.”
Composure will drive Dawn crazier than outright confrontation, so I give her a sweet smile. “Well, I’m really tired of your everything.”
“I should smack you, talking to me like that.”
I want an excuse to pummel someone, especially Dawn. I crook a finger. “Give it a whirl, Dawn. See what happens.”
“Sylvie!” Maria calls from the kitchen doorway. She doesn’t sound pleased. “Can you come here for a minute?”
I keep my eyes on Dawn’s beady ones. “If Dawn can finish up, I can.”
“Dawn?” Maria asks.
Dawn curls her lip but nods, unhappy to finish my work, to say the least. I saunter over to Maria, who takes my arm like I’m a toddler and leads me to a cafeteria table.
“Sit,” she orders.
I may be looking for a fight, but the spark in Maria’s eyes tells me I’d lose. Besides, she’s one of the few people with whom I don’t want to fight. I fold my hands on the table like a good little toddler. She stares at me for a full minute while I gaze back, expressionless. Finally, she sits beside me and exhales.
“You remind me of my younger daughter, Ana,” Maria says.
“Is that a good thing?”
“Sometimes, maybe. Right now? No.” I shrug in answer. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-seven.”
“And she’s younger than you.”
I pretend to ponder the information. “She must be mature for her age?”
Maria’s cheeks redden. I think she’s about to blow, but she falls back in her chair and laughs until she wipes tears from her eyes. “Not quite.” She gives a final snicker and then reverts to her stern expression. “Listen, Sylvie, I can’t have you running around starting fights. You have to stop acting like a teenager. You hear me?”
Finishing Manny off with the IV pole would’ve been terrible, but now all I picture is him roaming the hallway, face flap hanging. I’ll never leave anyone I know in that state again, no matter how hard it is to end it.
I nod in answer and watch Clark talk to the old man with the fedora. He was here visiting his wife, who died two days ago of natural causes, and his face sags as though he wants to join her. I’ve offered him a cup of tea or coffee several times, but he only grasps my hand in his trembling one until I worry he’ll never let go. There’s so much pain in the world, in this very room, that it would be unbearable if you let it all in.
Maria covers my hand. “Sweetie, I get it. I know Manny…and your mom…”
“I told you, we weren’t close.”
Maria waits for me to say more. I resume my blank expression until she sighs. “Fine. I know this is hard, but you’re making my life harder, and I don’t need that. Fighting isn’t going to make it easier.”
“I’m sorry,” I choke out. I suck at apologies. I’ve almost convinced myself that I don’t care if people like me, but I can’t deny I want Maria to. I hate when I want someone to like me. “I’ll be good, I swear.”
“Thank you. We’re done. Take the rest of the afternoon off. Hang out with Grace.” One of her eyebrows arches. “Dawn can cook, since she thinks she’s the only one who knows how.”
She returns my grin before she leaves. I wander over to where Grace sits on our mattresses.
“What were you and Maria talking about?” Grace asks.
“My stunted emotional growth.”
She cocks an eyebrow. “I’m surprised it was such a short conversation, then.”
I kick her shoe and sink beside her as she pulls out her phone. Every day, a few times a day, Grace sits on our mattresses and checks for messages, even though her phone says NO SERVICE where it once said Verizon. After verifying it still doesn’t work, she scrolls through her pictures and texts from Logan. It’s the same every time—she looks hopeful, then despairing, then crushed, one after the other before she shuts off her phone to conserve what little battery is left.
“That’s the first place we’re going,” I say for the hundredth time, after she’s gone through the motions. “Straight to your house.”
Teardrops blink onto her cheeks. I rest my hand on her knee and we stare into space until loud voices come from Bart’s table. Kearney and Clark stand on either side of Jorge, who holds the transistor radio and points to the ceiling.
“Should we see what that’s about?” Grace asks.
We could use some good news. By the time we arrive, a crowd has gathered and Jorge holds the radio to his chest with a downturned mouth. It’s not good news.
“I heard a broadcast,” he says. A little cheer goes up and then peters out at his head shake. “It was someone on the AM band. They said it was all a lie. The infected aren’t dying in thirty days. It could take months or years, no one knows. It spread through the whole world. There’s nowhere safe, except for maybe the Safe Zones.”
The crowd’s noisy replies grow distant as my brain kicks into high gear. The creatures outside are here to stay. The plan was to leave when there were no zombies, and that’s no longer an option. It never was. Locked upstairs, we’ll starve to death. It’s possible the broadcast is wrong, but I don’t doubt that thirty days was a lie to keep the masses calm. We have to leave, even if we die trying.
“No one’s coming,” Jorge says. “We’re on our own.”
Craig, who’s been even quieter since the last trip to the roof, falls to his knees. The Russian guy, Igor, yells from his bed. His wife attempts to soothe him, but his yells drown out Bart’s voice.
“Shut up, man!” the kid Lucky calls from where he’s perched on the edge of his gurney, legs dangling.
Igor throws back his covers and lumbers toward Lucky. “You tell me to shut up? You shut up!”
“Settle the fuck down!” Kearney yells. He’s leapt to a chair, gun in his hands. Igor stops. Kearney swings on Lucky with a snarl. “Don’t say another word.”
Lucky raises his hands resignedly. “I’m not the one screaming.”
“Watch your mouth,” Kearney warns.
Lucky doesn’t argue, probably because he has a gun on him. Kearney sneers under his mustache like the jerk that he is. The cop we all know and love has returned. I hate Kearney’s face, the way he thinks his gun gives him power. Maybe it does, but that he likes that power so much is the number one reason it should be taken away.
“Put down your gun,” Bart orders Kearney. “This isn’t necessary.”
“Lucky didn’t do anything,” I say. “He didn’t even get off his bed.”
Kearney scowls at me. “I didn’t ask you.”
“Oh, I didn’t realize I could only speak when spoken to.”
Prisha laughs, as do a few others. Kearney’s lips flatten. There aren’t enough bullets for all of us. Grace nudges me, but what I said before holds true: let someone get away with this kind of shit, and, before you know it, they’ll be running the world.
“Just put it away,” Clark says. He rests a hand on Kearney’s arm.
“Get your fucking hand off me.” Kearney stares until Clark backs away, deferring to him as he has the whole week. They have the good cop-asshole cop thing down pat, although it’s not deliberate. Kearney holsters his gun and scans the room with narrowed eyes before he steps from his chair. “Just settle down.”
Bart lifts his hands. “All right, everyone take a breath. This is bad news, we all got a little upset. But we have to discuss what we want to do. I think it’s safe to say that if we go upstairs, we might not be able to come down again.”
“There aren’t as many outside,” Jorge says, casting a glance toward the kitchen. “We might be able to run it.” br />
“What about the patients?” Olga asks.
Those of us who were well to begin with and the now-mobile patients turn to the beds. The eight bedridden patients wear varying degrees of desperate expressions. Except for Nancy, whose blissful smile makes me think dementia might not be such a bad way to go.
“I’ll stay,” Bart says. “They’ll be taken care of. Anyone who wants to leave, please come and speak with me now.”
Craig is there in an instant. Most everyone follows, including me and Grace. The suggestions thrown out are all modified forms of Open the Door and Run. Simple and, truthfully, our only option. How to feed out the door calmly and with equal opportunity to remain uneaten is the tough part. Our working theory is that the first people out have the element of surprise—before the zombies can converge—and the last ones will be zombie snacks.
The discussion goes no further once most people clamor to be first. Bart digs his fingers into his eyes. “We shouldn’t leave until the morning, anyway. We’ll work out a system tonight.”
“I need to get home,” Craig says. He has one arm in a coat sleeve, as if we plan to stroll out the door posthaste.
“You will,” Bart says. “Tomorrow, I promise.”
Craig nods unhappily and walks to his mattress, where he mutters to himself.
“We’ll sleep down here tonight and move the last of the food and the patients to the top floor in the morning,” Bart says. “Then we’ll open the door down here.”
I’ve killed zombies. I know their weaknesses, at least more so than others in the basement. Brooklyn has a population of 2.5 million, though, and their weaknesses don’t seem all that great when one is confronted with sheer numbers. Add in the population of Queens, and starving to death upstairs starts to become an attractive option.