The City Series (Book 1): Mordacious (33 page)

I’m so close. I could stretch out and touch the concrete if not for the gate meant to keep people like me off the bridge. I haul myself to my boots and climb the gate up to the round main cable, then a hop, skip and a jump and I’m at the fence on top of the anchorage, looking at a Brooklyn far less hazy than from a distance.

To my right is Fort Hamilton, where Lexers wander around the brick buildings and between the trees. I ignore the ones on the road and take a long drink of water. The bridge tilts. This time I know it’s me, and I close my eyes to concentrate on the spaces between the waves of nausea. Mouth open. Deep breaths. Cold sweat. I lean forward and let my breakfast up when I lose the fight, then wipe my mouth with my sleeve. I focus on the wavering metal lines of the gate, which should be straight, and swallow repeatedly.

A sharp cramp gurgles and churns in my stomach.
I will not shit my pants up here
. I climb over the gate and sink to the concrete at the next spasm. My intestines are in a vise. Sweat drips from my nose, my chin. I need to lie down right here—curl up, more like—but I inch my way down on my ass as fast as I can manage.

The anchorage is surrounded by a small park. By the time I’ve reached the grassy bottom, the cramps have eased. I’m in my element now. I have three miles to go. I was thinking of going to Paul’s first, but now I think it’s best that I get to the apartment and then check on Paul once I’ve sorted myself out. I climb the fence and stay under the elevated highways, then jog past the handball and basketball courts. The Lexers on the streets to my left follow.

This time the cramps knock the wind out of me. I can run three miles no problem. I can run ten miles no problem. But this, this is a problem. I’m not running anywhere. After a minute, the intensity lessens, but they’ll be back. I turn for a street that’ll take me to the Dyker Beach Golf Course, where I can rest and figure out what’s happening in my body. We used to sneak onto the golf course in high school and have bonfires in the stands of trees. Back then, we knew exactly where the hole in the fence was. Today, I’m going over.

Dozens of Lexers are ahead. A sign labels the buildings as a satellite of Downstate Medical Center. But the right and left are just as bad and behind me is no good now that I have a following. I speed up, feet announcing my arrival to every gowned patient.

I race around an NYPD mobile command center and into the mix. The basic idea is that I’m an unstoppable force, so fast they can’t get a grip. The reality is that I’m pulled in all directions. Faces, hands, teeth come in close and then fall back as I frantically twist and shove. But all the while I move until I burst out the other side in view of the golf course fence.

I get across the street, up and over the fence, and onto the grass. My stomach contracts. I beg it to hold off, but it hits again with a wave that makes my fingers curl through the chain-link. I hang on and watch the Lexers approach, then unclench my fingers and lope doubled over for a stand of trees. Out of sight is out of mind, and enough of them could take down the fence if they have me as inducement.

I fall on a bed of leaves in the trees. It’s as quiet as the real woods now that city noises have been eradicated. A squirrel scratches somewhere for a spring meal. There are enough early leaves on the bushes and brush to keep me hidden. I won’t sleep—I’ll wait it out. I can’t make it any farther; I can’t think. There’s nothing but this excruciating pain. I press my cheek to the ground and close my eyes.

Chapter 45

When I open them again, the shadows have lengthened to late afternoon. I fell asleep. Or, if not asleep, into a dream world of pain and delusional thinking—Rachel was here, but she’d turned. Below my waist is cold and damp. I’ve crapped my pants. I’m slightly disturbed but not as horrified as I should be, or would be under normal circumstances. Whatever this is, it’s one hell of an illness.

My few seconds of peace are interrupted by roiling intestines. I remove my pack and make it to a bathroom tree just in time. My pants are wet but not full of crap—a small victory I’ll gladly take. When I’m done, I pull on a dry pair of jeans from the fort and sink to the ground, then drag my pack closer for my water bottle. It’s empty, which solves the Mystery of the Damp Pants. I didn’t screw it tight enough, and it must have leaked from its pocket onto my clothes as I lay on the ground.

“Fuck,” I mutter.

That leaves another two bottles. I drink half of one to combat the expelling of fluids. My muscles and bones hurt down to my pinky toe. I put my damp jeans under my head and curl up in the silver emergency blanket I traded for my bulky sleeping bag at the fort. I hear the faint rattle of the fence, but I don’t think any zombies are inside. It’s great news because, for the time being, this is all I can do.

***

The pain is so total that I dream a zombie has ripped into my abdomen with his teeth before I wake soaked with sweat. Appendicitis is my first thought, followed by the thought that if I don’t move quickly, I
will
shit my pants.

I crawl to a tree and hang on. It’s worse than when I got giardia. Worse than any cramps or pains I’ve ever had. I go back to my blanket and shiver until they strike again. And again. I watch the sun rise from my makeshift bathroom. Crapping outdoors is something I’ve had to master and usually doesn’t bother me, but this is in a class all its own. The sun angles under the budding leaves and then, in what seems like five minutes, the stars shine overhead. A day has passed. Maybe two. I can’t be sure.

I know I’m not right. I want to be alarmed when I see the blood on my next tree visit, but all I can do is lie down. I drink water. Half a bottle left. Not enough, but I don’t know how to fix it and don’t care enough to try. In the afternoon, when I vomit blood, I sit on the soft ground and think, chin in hand. My head is so heavy. This is not good. Of course it’s not good. I need a doctor. I need a hospital.

Doctors are at hospitals. I should go to a hospital, but that’s a bad idea. And there’s a really good reason why it is, but I can’t work it out. Sleep reaches into my brain with tiny black fingers that weave their way through my thoughts. Thinking is too fucking hard.

A piercing scream comes from somewhere nearby. I jump when it happens again and doesn’t stop, rising into the sound of absolute terror. The slow thud of footsteps head for the noise. The screaming cuts off. Zombies.

I smack my cheek and whisper, “Get the fuck up.”

I’m venturing into La La Land, and that scares me more than the blood did. Every muscle is exhausted, every bone and joint, but I know how to push through. I force myself to my feet although I can’t straighten up all the way. It takes me five minutes to wrestle my pack onto my back. I’m not breaking any land speed records here. I chew a dry MRE cracker and eye the tube of peanut butter with the remembrance of the taste of peanut butter vomit. I’m not sure I’ll ever eat peanuts again.

After an hour of wandering, I find the reed-bordered pond I remember. I remove my boots and wade into the water without stirring up muck or misdirected golf balls, then scoop some into my bottle and find my UV filter. It takes batteries, and I hate to rely on electronics, but it’s fast and I have a backup. I dip it in my bottle, swish, and wait for the light to go out. I guzzle it all and do it again, then rest in the trees.

I think it’s safe in here. I’ll wait for tomorrow and head out. I’m already improved from the water. Not up to par, no pun intended, but clear-headed. I drink more and wait for the inevitable bathroom break. I’m not disappointed.

***

I’m now officially weaker than a zombie. A development that was made crystal clear when my knife barely pierced the skin of the one who surprised me after I scaled the golf course fence to the street. At this point, I’m only slightly faster than them and, possibly, only marginally smarter. My brain is filled with sludge. The water’s assistance was short-lived, possibly because I expelled it from anywhere water can be expelled along with what I hope was less blood than it appeared.

I jog—if you can call a limp-trot a jog—down the sidewalk, holding on to the brick fences of the narrow semi-detached, two-story homes that line Bay Ridge. A driveway in New York City used to be a dream. A driveway now means I trip on my boots until I fall on the next fence. This neighborhood was always quiet, and it still is. Even the zombies are quiet. These upper avenues are just my speed, and by that I mean no speed.

Two miles to go. Cassie will help. We have medicine. Maybe I need antibiotics. I shouldn’t be out here in this state, but I’m afraid of what will happen if I stay on my own. Being alone means there’s no one to keep you alive. No one to hold your hand while you die. When it comes down to it, that’s all I want—someone to hold my hand while I die.

I concentrate on each milestone. Tree. Next tree. Stucco house. Brick house. Car. Sidewalk square. I make it past one and strive for the next. Paul’s house is closer, but if I make it and he’s not there I don’t know what I’ll do. It’s across avenues and stores and so, so many zombies.

There goes one now. An old guy wearing shorts and white socks pulled to mid-calf. They’re still pretty white, which is quite an achievement. He spins to join the few tagging along at my rear. One more doesn’t matter. That there are any at all means I can’t stop. Stop and I’m dead.

I could break into a house. I just passed a good one that had a few stairs up to a metal gate with more stairs up to the door. But I’m not sure I can manage the complexities of a gate right now, forget forced entry, and my gang is only ten feet behind me. The gang that will moan and groan outside any house until I’m completely surrounded and unable to leave. My best bet is to get home. For a place that had a lot of people, I’m lucking out in the zombie department, my rearguard notwithstanding.

The map in my head still works, and now it reminds me that the subway tracks cut off the streets ahead, so I turn left and stay on my feet using the fence along Leif Ericson Park. He was a Norse explorer who landed on something, somewhere. I can’t remember. All brain cells have been diverted to more important operations. Please check back later.

Tennis courts are at the end of the park, but I can’t hang on those fences—they’re full of zombies. They could’ve been put in there. They could’ve gotten infected behind the fence. I don’t know. All I know is that it never fucking ends. The misery is everywhere. Behind fences and on the street, at house windows and inside cars. Every-fucking-where.

I’m thirsty. No time to drink. I still can’t straighten up. The abdominal pain is my constant, zombies my variable. More zombies now that I’ve moved to the lower avenues, but I have no choice. Cars are scattered on the street outside two gas stations, trying to leave before they realized a full tank of gas would get them nowhere.

I have to run now. Stumble-run.
Strunble
. The stores end. So close. Four blocks left. Houses turn to limestone and brick. The little park—what’s its name?—where we played all the time as kids. I trip and the sidewalk comes up fast. My palms rip from the skid along concrete.

Up
.
Get up
.

There’s a hand on my sleeve. Nails that have separated from the nail bed by deep fissures in dead skin. That old man. Didn’t think he had it in him to be head of the pack. I push at him and rise to my knees. Grab the iron fence to get to my feet. Shake off someone else and go through the open gate of the playground. The play structure is different, higher, and that’s good. I bend a knee and pull myself up one level and then up again. A big jump takes the last of my energy, and I collapse on the highest level. I’m surrounded but safe. A spiral slide is the only way up besides the climb.

I pant against the orange bars of my Safe Zone and fumble for water. Maybe Cassie will happen by. I’m sure she’s out for a constitutional right now. I’ll have to wait the night, until just before dawn, and try for the last few blocks.

***

It could always get worse, but, short of dying, I’m not sure how. Water is gone. One bottle rolled right down the slide and into the dark, where a few shadows shuffled after it. I think some have left, since I’ve been quiet as a mouse when not doing stupid shit like rolling bottles down slides. But not enough have left, possibly because they smell the blood. What I had to do up here—let’s just say children should not play on the structure until it’s hosed down.

The sky says almost dawn. Light enough to see shapes. I hold my house keys in one hand and gun in the other. Not just for zombies. For me. If I’m bitten, I’ll blow my head off. I won’t make Cassie do it. I won’t be the zombie brother. One last surge of strength is all I need. It’s getting light fast. I slink down through the blood to the concrete, gather the last of my strength, and push through the bodies to the gate.

One last run. You might not make it, but you’ll die trying
. I want to cry when the familiar brownstone looms ahead. It feels like home—it
is
home. Two tries to fit the key in the lock and open the gate. First try on the second door. It smells like home, too. I push the door closed and drop to my knees. I’m done for.

Chapter 46

Sylvie

I once read that when people lived by sunrise and sunset, there was an in-between time during the night. A first sleep and a second sleep, split by a period of calm wakefulness. In those hours they would talk or read or pray or have sex or even visit their neighbors. The sex part is not happening now. Neither is the wakeful calm. I don’t pray, and my neighbors are zombies. So reading by the light of the windup lantern it is, although every once in a while I do get back to sleep.

I’m floating in that half-asleep point when a noise from the foyer thrusts me into wakefulness. It could be Jorge or Maria, or the tail end of a half-formed dream, but I reach for my newly-sharpened screwdriver on the bedside table. A thump is followed by a low groan. A zombie. There’s a zombie in the house. I resist the urge to hide under the covers and rise from bed, then carefully step on the floor in the spots that by now I know don’t creak.