Clark’s blue eyes moisten. “I will, thank you.”
Kearney declines Maria’s offer. I can’t say I’m disappointed. Dawn sniffles and wipes her nose with her arm. “I don’t want to stay here by myself,” she says.
“You know you can’t stay here,” Maria says, gentle but firm.
Dawn nods as if she’s been waiting for someone to direct her next move. “I have go to my son’s. He didn’t answer the phone, so I don’t know if—” She rubs at her small eyes that have turned to puffy slits. “I don’t want to die.”
Neither do I. We have that in common, if nothing else. She looks so wretched that I can’t remember why I disliked her. She’s human and, in contrast to zombies, that’s pretty great. “We’re not going to die,” I say.
Her eye slits almost close in suspicion. I do my best to look friendly. After another big sniffle, she says, “Okay.”
“We’ll go when it sounds like they’ve moved away from the door,” Bart says.
It’s something to hope for and something to dread at the same time.
***
Bart’s watch says it’s after lunch, but the bathroom is a black hole devoid of time. I’ve finally peed—with the help of a running faucet—and thanked my lucky stars I wasn’t very hungry last night. Pee I can do, but poop is a whole other story. I’m famished now, though. I go through my bag and pull out a bag of chips, the other Twix, a package of gummy bears, and Twizzlers.
I open the chips. “Everyone good with splitting them?”
I sort them onto paper towels I lay out on the bathroom counter. They’re barbecue, my favorite, and we each get the equivalent of a few potato chips. I split the gummy bears evenly, but I make mine all orange flavor. I take my pile and bring Grace hers. The others follow suit.
“Thank you,” Jorge says, his chips already gone. “How much crap do you have in that bag?”
“A lot,” I say. “But, unfortunately, no more food. We can eat the Twix whenever everybody wants.”
“Let’s save it for later.”
Night comes. Dark streets filled with zombies will be next to impossible to traverse, so we settle in for morning and eat the Twix and Twizzlers. Grace swallows the final bite of her Twizzler and whispers, “Well, if we die, at least your last meal was candy.”
I didn’t think I’d find a reason to smile before we made our escape, but one comes anyway. “Sorry I didn’t have any raw nuts or nutritional yeast in there.”
She chuffs and then lays her head beside mine on my bag. “If I die, promise that if you find Logan you’ll tell him I love him.”
I stare up at the lights and will them to stay on for a few more hours. That’s all we need, or we won’t have a shot. “Grace, you’re not dying.”
“Okay, but promise.”
“I promise.”
She breathes out and rolls on her side. “Thanks.”
Every thud or bump or brushing sound makes me stiffen, until my entire body is rigid with tension. I’ve always envied Grace’s ability to sleep. I’ve tossed and turned many a night while Grace snores away. I can tell she’s drifted off when she plants her butt in my side. It’s oddly comforting and I close my eyes, although I’m sure I won’t sleep with what’s outside the door.
***
Maybe all circuits were on overload and I went comatose instead of slept, but when I come to in early morning the banging has tapered off. It’s possible they’ve forgotten about us. Maybe we can get a head start before we remind them with our presence.
Bart presses an ear to the door. “We should go now. While we still have lights.”
My phone is almost dead, not that I would want to depend on my phone to provide the light to escape a dark room full of zombies. I’ll need both hands to push them out of the way or whatever insane thing it is we plan to do. I tell myself I’ve got this. I’ve killed them, so I know to go for the softer spots. They’re slow and can be outrun. They’re stupid and can be faked out. If I get up high, they can’t follow. All helpful bits of information that make me feel no more prepared.
Jorge inspects a stall door. “I can use the door like a shield if we can get it off. A screwdriver would help.”
I go into my bag, find the little pouch that holds lotion and tampons and toiletries, and pull out my Swiss army knife. “Will this help? It’s got a screwdriver on the end of the nail file.”
Jorge takes the two-inch knife and pulls out the file with its tiny flathead tip. “Better than nothing. This isn’t what you were talking about when you said you had a weapon?”
It’s a puny thing, even more so in Jorge’s big hand, and I almost laugh at the idea someone could consider it a weapon. I show him my kitchen knife and he says, “That’s more like it.”
It takes a little while, but with the help of my dinky screwdriver, two stall doors are off their hinges. Bart agrees to carry the other, and we all move to the bathroom door.
“Stay close,” Jorge says. “We’ll get up on the tables on the right wall ‘til we get near the registers, then we run for the kitchen. Everyone got that?”
“Stay with me,” Maria murmurs to me and Grace.
She’s given us the address of our destination, but I don’t plan to stray from her side. I loop my bag across my chest and clutch my knife. Calming breaths elude me. Calming anything eludes me. Living out the rest of my life in the bathroom with Dawn is beginning to sound like a truly delightful state of affairs.
Jorge and Bart step into the hall first. The rest of us stick close to their backs, with Clark and Kearney bringing up the rear. Jorge swings his door on a woman in a torn blue dress. The thwack of metal on meat is necessary, but the hallway fills with hoarse sounds in seconds. Most are in our path to the cafeteria, a few are behind us, and all are moving this way.
Bart and Jorge pick up speed, though it’s not as fast as I’d like. My heart drums in time to the way my feet itch to pound the floor. The noises ramp up. There’s a bump here and there when Bart or Jorge uses a door to shove a zombie away. Fifteen feet later, multiple bodies ping against our defense.
“Here they come!” Jorge yells.
A wave hits. Dirty hands reach over the metal and grope their way around the sides. Capillaries and veins run like black rivers up pasty forearms. Bart and Jorge steamroll forward with matching grunts, and the downed zombies grab at my ankles. I jump to narrowly escape a rising mouth, come down two-footed on another’s stomach and use it as a springboard. I skid in entrails on the smooth tile. Grace leaps them two at a time. I don’t use my knife. That would involve stopping, and I’m not stopping, ever.
One of our former patients—a mid-sixties post-surgical bowel obstruction with grandkids and a golf habit—slips past our improvised wall with an unsteady gait. Her torso sags to one side above the missing half of her abdomen. A second wave blasts a space between the doors. Dawn screams. Clark shouts. A plan is good until it isn’t, and this one isn’t anymore.
“Go!” Jorge yells, and throws his door at the crowd.
I pull Grace after him. We can make it if we stay in his shadow. In the cafeteria, Prisha, now a small, gnashing zombie, blocks our way. Jorge tosses her aside and motions us onto a table, just out of reach of rotted fingers. We shuffle sideways, backs against the wall. They moved these tables to make room for the gurneys, and now it’s saving our lives. But only five more tables and then we’ll have to cross the floor of the serving area.
At the end of the line, Jorge points at the twenty or more infected between us and the kitchen. They’re gathering, becoming denser, and the ones from the hall will join them. We have to move. Jorge jumps into the throng. One meaty arm shoots out and sends three to the floor. His cleaver takes down Igor. He’s clearing a space.
“Now!” he shouts.
Grace jumps down. I leap before I can think better of it and push at one coming on my left. It tangles with another and they land on the floor. There’s no time for my knife. If I stop for anything, I’ll be cut off.
Jus
t ahead, Jorge doesn’t bother with his cleaver. He grapples with arms and kicks out legs and throws one into the next. He’s the reason we make any headway. Maria grunts behind me, Grace shoves to my right, and I push at anything that gets close. A hand grips my shoulder and I’m eye to eye with Nancy. Her neck is torn open and abdomen a hole. I rear my leg back and crunch her brittle knee with my sneaker, then push her down with a ferocity that might have once scared me. But I want to live. I’ll fight like a panicked animal in a trap; I’ll chew off my own leg to be free.
We make it behind the food counter, disheveled and panting but alive. Jorge pushes a metal rack into the open space, enters the kitchen and leaves the door swinging behind him. I know Jorge well enough to know he didn’t leave us to fend for ourselves. Sure enough, by the time we catch up, he stands over two bloody heads.
“No more,” he says, chest heaving. He hurries to the knife block and hands Grace a long, thin blade. Maria grabs what looks to be an ice pick.
Bart, Clark and Kearney burst through the swinging door. “Is everyone here?” Bart asks, and then answers his own question with, “Where’s Dawn?”
All eyes shift to the cafeteria door.
“She didn’t make it,” Kearney says. Clark opens his mouth but closes it at his partner’s sharp look.
Metal screeches and shadows move at the door window. They’ll be in any second. We race up the sloped hall to the outside door. Jorge rests his hand on the push bar. “Ready?”
No one is, but the door flies open and we fall into daylight.
Chapter 16
Wind blows off the water—the chilling New York City wind that slips through sweaters to reach your bones and whips your hair into your face. The smell is worse than expected. On the roof we were above the masses, but on the concrete it’s a whole new olfactory experience. We’ve come out near dumpsters that reek of spoiled food, into zombies that smell of rotten teeth and shit, and, underneath it all, the fishy, brackish water of the bay.
It takes a moment to get our bearings. An offshoot of the hospital to our left, dumpsters to the right, street straight ahead. If we can get past the zombies in the narrow loading area, we’ll be able to dodge the ones on the street.
Kearney shouts from where he wrestles with two zombies by the dumpsters. Jorge bends one of them, a zombie doctor, by her hair and slams his cleaver in the base of her skull. The other’s hands dig into Kearney’s face from behind. I cover the five feet and yank it away by its filthy jacket.
It turns with a growl. I draw back my knife, but Kearney fires under its chin before I can strike. Chunks of brain rain down. The sound echoes off buildings and ricochets in my skull. The zombies in the street, who were minding their own business, fixate on us, and the closest crank up their speed to form a pack in our narrow exit. Clark moves to one side with his gun. “Go! I’ll keep them over here!”
Kearney jogs forward and shoves his partner between the shoulder blades. Clark stumbles, arms pinwheeling, and hits the first of the pack. A squat woman with short hair drags him in. Jorge moves to help, but the bodies circle around, heads lowered to Clark’s shoulders and neck and arms. His upturned face is open-mouthed agony, and his sharp screams are chilling until they cut off abruptly and the infected follow him down. The sudden silence might be worse.
We watch in shock as Kearney disappears through the gap that formed when they veered for the bait. Maybe he’s headed home or back under his rock, but Clark isn’t going home to his pregnant wife, and Kearney gets off scot-free. Jorge recovers first, motioning to the gap with his hand. They’ll be done eating soon, and a few are already coming. Clark is gone. There’s nothing to do except use his death to our benefit, even if it feels shitty to do so.
We slink past the eating crowd to the asphalt. Bart turns toward Bay Ridge, while Maria, Jorge, Grace and I round the corner for the upper avenues. The first block is empty but for industrial buildings and blown trash. On the next, ten zombies stand outside a vinyl-sided house. We keep low on the other side of the street. The breeze still blows, but I’m immune to its chill. Skin soaked and mouth dry. Lungs burning with every breath.
The overpass of the Gowanus Expressway looms above Third Avenue. Even from below, I can see it’s blocked with cars and crawling with zombies, as is the avenue beneath. I search for a safe route through the sea of metal that reflects back the spring sunlight. Nothing looks promising. We have a few blocks over and almost two avenues up to travel, and as the avenues rise in number, so does the population.
From the hospital roof, the number of zombies was more than a bit worrisome. On the same level, it’s unreal. Pull-a-blanket-over-your-head-and-suck-your-thumb kind of unreal. But reality stands in front of us—lurches in front of us—and a garbage can clangs from behind. Those ten zombies are coming. Our reality is that we have to run.
Our movement gives us away by the time we reach the curb. A dark shape plummets from the overpass and crashes to a car roof only feet ahead. It struggles to drag itself down the windshield into our path. We make it past just as others plunge off the road—a quick succession of thuds and shattering glass. I swallow back my scream. More wait in the shade of the overpass. Our only chance is to stay on the cars.
Adrenaline and fear combine into a thoughtless kind of terror. Grace and I run across one car and leap to the next. An SUV that’s too long a jump forces me to the ground. What I thought was six feet of easy travel is curtailed by the sudden appearance of an old man with a hole chewed in his torso.
I stop short. Grace slams me from behind. The man moves closer. I move closer, although not of my own free will. I hear Grace hit the ground with a gasp. She’s Kearnery’d me, although she didn’t mean to. My arms rise. My knife clatters to the street.
I shove my palms into what were once living muscles and organs. He stumbles backward. I push again, screaming though I know I shouldn’t. I can’t stay silent at the feel of rib bones and cold, spongy tissue on my bare skin. His hands wrestle with mine in an undead version of patty cake, and his bony fingers catch my wrist.
I can’t twist from his grip. I kick him, but I’m too close to garner much force. He’s stronger than I anticipated, probably stronger than when alive. His other hand reels me in by the hem of my shirt. His sunken mouth opens to reveal gums that hold few teeth, but enough to do damage.
He has me. I have to give in to get away. Close up, his mouth becomes my world and avoiding it my sole objective. I duck to slam my shoulder into his torso. He releases my wrist and stumbles a step, but a second later he’s back in my face. Grace pushes me aside and rams him hard enough to send him under the SUV, and then she pulls me to the hood of a sedan.
Jorge and Maria have circled back to help. Now that we’re okay, they wait for us to catch up. When we do, Jorge puts a hand on my shoulder. I nod that I’m fine, but I don’t have the breath to say so or to thank them. It’s every man for himself out here, or I thought it was, and I wouldn’t have blamed them if they left us far behind.
We gallop up the side street, past vinyl-sided houses with flame-licked black holes for windows. A small boy in crusty Transformers pajamas reaches an arm through a front gate. Maria falters for a moment and continues on.
My body is worn out. We have an agreement: Junk food for reasonably good health. It usually does what I ask, but I’ve never asked it to run uphill through zombies in a state of constant terror. Grace, on the other hand, is nowhere near as winded as I am.
Fourth Avenue is next. Six lanes of dead cars and dead people. The aftermath of a collision sits in the intersection. Car doors hang open. Zombies move under store awnings on the sidewalks and gather in front of a stone church like smokers after an AA meeting. This is our final avenue. We’re practically home free, as long as said home hasn’t burned to the ground. I’m not banking on it, based on the previous block, but it’s a distant worry compared to what’s before us.
It starts with a cocked head on one, an interested grunt from another, and becomes a chain reacti
on. The hundred or more zombies weave through cars and trip down sidewalks toward our corner. The only plus is that they don’t fall from the sky.
That collision was a death sentence for people on the road, but the mangled cars surround a space of uninhabited asphalt that could be our savior. If we reach it, we can see what’s behind the truck that blocks our view. I ask my body to do this one last thing. I’ll deluge it with vitamins and minerals if it only gets me through.
We make it up and over a red sedan to the center of the box truck, SUV and multiple other cars. A woman leans across a Jeep with a growl, her fingers squeaking on the shiny hood. Her black suit has seen better days, and it’s more than likely she once had two arms.
Behind the truck, cars are jam-packed to the side street. Safe passage to the corner but for the couple dozen zombies who wait at the end. Jorge climbs atop a Prius and whistles. They stagger forward to join the hundred other zombies who surround our barricade. They’re dressed for work, for hanging out on a spring day, and a few are dressed for a long trek in the wilderness, which may have been their plan had they gotten out.
We run along the cars once our route clears and the noise reaches a crescendo. The zombies trail us, but we make the side street ahead of them. We race past brownstones and brick homes with bay windows, gated front yards and stoops to the parlor floors. Much to my relief, they’re unburned.
Near the top of the block, Maria sweeps through a low iron fence, lifts the mat at the side door in the stoop, and grabs a shiny gold key. I peek from behind the neighboring house’s stoop. Much of Fourth Avenue walks our way. We’ll run if we can’t get in, but Brooklyn Heights is ten times the amount we just traveled. I don’t think we’d make it.
The wrought-iron entry gate swings open, followed by the inner door. We bustle through the tiny vestibule to stand in the foyer of the brownstone’s ground-level garden apartment. I droop against the wall, slick with sweat. The groans grow in volume. Maybe they can’t get past the gate, but they can lead every zombie in Brooklyn to our hiding place. The noises stop close by and linger. Maria dares a look through the door window and then gives a relieved shake of her head. It can’t be possible we’re holding our breaths—I, for one, don’t have any breath to hold, and Jorge is tomato-colored—but the hall fills with our sighs. We made it.