The City Series (Book 1): Mordacious (9 page)

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.”

“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.

“Next stop, Brooklyn Heights,” I say to Grace, and pretend it’s not an alarming thought.

“It’s seventy blocks. Do you really think we can do that?”

Grace’s arm is close to healed. If we stick to the lower avenues, where there might not be as many, we have a chance. Not much of one, but better than nothing. I forcibly remove my tongue from where it sticks to the roof of my mouth. “What else are we going to do?”

Grace chews her cheek. Lucky is beside us, hand tucked in the waistband of his scrub pants. “Are you going to be able to run tomorrow?” I ask him.

“Yeah, I think the last stone passed yesterday. I’m good.” He glances at where Kearney does his usual Sheriff at High Noon impersonation. A muscle in his jaw twitches.

“He likes that gun a little too much,” I say. “He’s an asshole.”

Lucky’s reticent smile breaks through. “Yeah he is. See you later.”

I watch him walk away. There’s something poignant in his tough guy walk. He’s just a kid, maybe alone, and doesn’t seem like the type who’d ask for help. “Lucky,” I call. “Do you have somewhere to go?”

“My aunt lives nearby.”

“Okay. Get yourself a weapon in the kitchen. And remember to get them in the head. Be careful.”

He presses his lips together and dips his head once. “You too, Sylvie.”

We help move the non-refrigerated food to the elevator. I imagine living on the top floor and watching the food supply dwindle. Counting down the days I have left based on the number of calories that remain. There’s a finite lifespan right here. Outside, I could be dead in five minutes or five weeks, but there’s always the chance it’ll be five months. Five years. Five decades.