After the End (5 page)

"I've got to get to my wife and kids." Hector took off his baseball cap and rubbed his forehead. "They're clear out in Brooklyn."

"My sister and me were on our way to our dad's place. He and Mom are going to be freaking out if we don't show up." Following Ari's lead, Derrick had another display rack on its side and was struggling to take it apart.

 "My girlfriend's office is near here," Deb said. "If I can't call her, I'm going to go to her."

Everyone splitting up and running off in different directions the moment they hit the street was exactly what Ari wanted to avoid. "We should stick together until we know what's going on. Work as a unit."

Lila looked up from packing water bottles into one of the tote bags. "It sounds like you have a plan. What do you think we should do?"

Ari considered what he'd learned from hours of playing Gears of War 2. "Recon first. A couple of us should go up to the street and report back on what we find."

"While the rest sit here waiting for those things to attack from below? No. You said it yourself. We should stick together, do everything as a group," Lila said.

She had a point. This place was only safe temporarily. But Ari thought whatever was happening above could be even worse. He didn't like the idea of dragging along Ronnie, Mrs. Scheider or anyone else who might be a hindrance, not until they knew what to expect.

The others started weighing in with opinions, giving ideas or suggestions which felt less like group discussion than a situation crumbling into confusion. One of them had to take control and make a final decision. Might as well be him.

"This recon won't take long. Just a quick scan of the area. Meanwhile, the rest of you gather anything that might be useful to take with us, food and water and anything that could be used as a weapon. For example, lighters and aerosol cans can be makeshift flamethrowers." He wanted to keep them occupied rather than worried and waiting. "Derrick, why don't you come with me? Hector and Joe, guard the others."

"What's with putting the men in charge of the weak womenfolk?" Deb crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow. "We're not useless."

But it was Lila who demanded to go along. She hefted an umbrella in her hand, flourishing it like a fencing sword. "I'm armed. I'm going with you. Mrs. Scheider, lend me your phone, please. I left mine on the train."

"Fine. Let's go." Ari walked from the shop, giving no one else a chance to offer more arguments.

"Aye, aye, captain," Derrick muttered, flanking him on the left and brandishing his metal spindle. Lila fell in on the right with her umbrella-spear clenched in her fist.

Ari motioned them to stay behind him as he went up the stairs toward the street, stepping over mangled body parts that littered the steps. He hugged close to the wall and listened as he neared the entrance. The traffic noise had more than the usual quota of sirens, the wails of emergency vehicles announcing something big was happening.

His pulse raced and his skin was slick with sweat. He gripped his weapon tighter and took another step up just as a fire truck shot past on the street. A few people raced by, their feet pounding the pavement. No one tried to go down the stairs to the subway. Who would want to be underground in the middle of a power outage?

Ari crept up another step then raised his head above the pavement like a small animal poking its head from a burrow to check for predators. The area was complete anarchy and all he could think was "How did things get so fucked up so fast?"

There'd been a car accident on the street. Maybe more than one, it was hard to tell. At least a few cars had collided. Others had been abandoned, their doors left wide open. The one stoplight he could see was dark and there was no cop directing the gridlocked traffic. The flashing lights of the fire truck disappeared around a corner and he realized it had been driving on the sidewalk, plowing past any obstacles that got in the way. People ran in all directions, but not as many as he would have expected. Like in the subway, it seemed the revenants had swept through and moved on, leaving blood, gore and pieces of bodies in their wake.

In the plexi-glass cubicle sheltering the subway entrance only a few feet from Ari lay a face. Not a head, only a face discarded like last year's Halloween mask. After one quick glance, he looked away. He didn't need to see something like that too closely.

"911 has a recorded message about all circuits being busy." Lila reported as she jabbed a number on her phone. "I'm calling my boyfriend—ex-boyfriend. He's an intern at St. Andrews. Maybe he'll know something."

Ari pulled his own phone from his pants pocket and tried to reach his mom, but got her voice mail. Calls to his friends yielded the same results. He felt sick as he imagined why they might not be answering their phones.

Now what?
He tried to imagine what his drill sergeant, Vogt would command. Climb a wall, do a few sets of pushups. Nothing in the book about responding to a full scale zombie attack.

"What's going on?" Derrick moved past Ari to take a turn looking at the carnage outside their foxhole. He pulled back, pale as a corpse, hugging his skinny arms around his body. "What are we gonna do?"

"Get someplace safe. Find a battery powered radio so we can learn what's going on and what's being done about it. Get better weapons" Ari took another look at the street, ignoring the confusion and concentrating on the layout. There was a large sporting goods store within sight, the perfect place for guns, blades, bats, bows, and other supplies. It should be as safe a place as any to squat while they took stock, and maybe they'd find other people there. Preferably living ones.

The sound of shattering glass and screams came from farther down the street. Ari's gaze swept to the source of the noise. A storefront window had burst out about a block away. He couldn't see what had broken through it until the people scattered to reveal a blood-streaked man staggering to his feet while a revenant lurched disjointedly after him. Running people blocked Ari's view, but he saw the moment when the predator caught her prey and bit down on his shoulder. Her teeth ripped right through the fabric of his shirt. Ari hadn't known blunt human teeth could do that.

He dropped down into the relative safety of the subway entrance, breathing as if he'd run five miles and pressing his body tight against the wall. "We'd better go back down."

Lila held up her hand and continued talking. "Doyle. Doyle! I can't hear you. You're breaking up. Hello? Doyle?" She flipped the phone shut with a curse and handed it back to Ari. "The connection was terrible and Doyle was…in shock I guess, like he'd checked out."

Ari understood that. He felt light-headed and disconnected himself, observing everything as if from a distance.

"He and some others are trapped in a wing of the hospital. He kept saying, 'They're coming. I can hear them coming.'" Lila's voice broke. Ari prayed she wouldn't start crying, he couldn't deal with that. He needed her to keep being strong.

"My mom works at St. Andrews, too." He thought about her bending over the steam press in the laundry and a shambling creature coming up behind her, but slammed his mind shut when the image of gnashing teeth and clawing hands got too graphic.

"The hospital is across town so these attacks must be going on all over the city," Lila said.

Derrick jabbed his finger on the keypad of his cell phone, his acne-sprinkled face contorted in a scowl. "My mom's not there. I'll try my dad."

Ari was nervous. They should go back to the group and get them moving to the new location before the zombies from below made it to the terminal. But first he took one more look at the street, carefully avoiding glimpsing the disembodied face to his left. People still ran in all directions, a few zombies among them, snatching, grabbing and biting. Cars attempted to make it around the jam in the street by driving onto the sidewalk. A cop car crawled through the stalled traffic and finally came to a halt.

Two officers piled out, guns drawn, shouted something then began shooting into the crowd. Ari jerked as the shots popped. A man reeled backward, fell to the sidewalk, then climbed back to his feet. Zombie. The word was becoming less ridiculous now. The man stumbled toward the police like a drunk. Each fired several more rounds but still the thing kept coming.

"Head shot!" Ari muttered. "Has to be a head shot."

His hypothesis was proved wrong as the female cop shot the creature point blank in the forehead. The impact made it teeter backward before resuming its steady course toward the police cruiser. The other cop continued to shoot as he backed toward the car and got in the driver's side. His partner ran toward the other side of the cruiser, but the zombie caught hold of her Kevlar vest and pulled her to him before chomping into her throat. Blood gushed in a fountain as the creature severed an artery, spraying them both in red.

This entire scenario played out within seconds, so fast Ari could hardly process it. Instead his mind focused on the details.
Cop wearing a flak jacket? They at least know there's rioting going on but probably not much else.
If he'd learned one thing during his short stint in the military, it was that people in charge were often as ignorant as everyone else about what was actually happening during a crisis, especially in a bizarre situation like this. These weren't terrorists with guns, but reanimated dead people. When a point black shot to the head didn't take them down, what was a cop to do? Apparently drive away, because that was what the policeman did. The stupid metal pole in Ari's hand seemed more useless than ever.

"Did you see that? Did you fricking
see
that?" Lila was beside him, staring at the chaos.

He grasped her arm and pulled. "Come on. Let's go."

Ari started downstairs, tugging Lila along with him. Derrick followed with the cell phone still clutched in his hand. "Why won't anybody answer?"

Ari's foot skidded on a slick of red goo. He half fell down a couple of steps, dropping his makeshift weapon. The pole rolled down the rest of the stairs with a loud clanging.

Lila grabbed his arm and hauled him up off his ass. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah." He rubbed his elbow which had whacked the concrete steps sharply and continued on his way. He picked up his club at the bottom of the steps and jogged down the short hallway toward the terminal with Derrick and Lila on either side of him.

Deb waited there, smoking a cigarette. "What took you guys so long? What's happening?"

Ari glanced at his watch. They'd been gone less than five minutes. "Chaos. The cops don't have any control. People are running all over the place and there are more"—he forced out the word—"zombies."

Deb exhaled a puff of smoke. "Jesus Christ. I've got to get to Julie."

"I know you're worried," Lila said. "We're all worried about someone, but going off alone is a bad idea."

"There's a sporting goods store nearby. We should try to get there, gather some gear and arm ourselves," Ari added. "After that we'll discuss where to go next, and if anyone wants to split, they can."

Just then a little girl's piercing shriek echoed through the corridor. The wail made the hair rise on Ari's neck. He hefted his metal pole in one hand like a javelin and raced toward the sound. With the others pounding behind him.

* * * * *

Chapter Four

Lila's heart nearly stopped at Ronnie's horrifying wail coming from the station. Ari took off like a shot with Derrick right behind him. Deb cursed and tossed her cigarette to the floor. Lila gripped her ridiculous umbrella and followed, mentally preparing for the slaughterhouse they might find.

As she raced over the cement, her breath hitched in and out as if she'd run a few miles instead of several yards. Her mind felt disconnected from her body and from this never-ending nightmare. There was no way to comprehend what was happening. The best a person could do was react to it with at least a little courage and common sense.

They rounded the corner to the platform. Lila couldn't see anything wrong—other than the bits of carrion which had already been there. There were no zombies and after one piercing shriek, Ronnie hadn't screamed again. The group was clustered inside the shop, people Lila already felt strangely bonded with although they'd only just met. Joe argued with Hector, while Ann and Mrs. Scheider crouched on the floor beside Ronnie.

Derrick barreled past the others. "What happened? Is she all right?"

Ronnie's arms were wrapped tight around Ann's neck and the woman held her close, rubbing her back and murmuring something.

"She saw something that frightened her," Mrs. Scheider said.

Hardly surprising given the circumstances, Lila thought as she crowded into the store along with Ari and Deb.

"Damn it, Ronnie! You scared the crap out of us." Derrick knelt by her.

The girl lifted her blotchy, tear-streaked face from the blond woman's shoulder. "I couldn't help it. I saw a spider, a big one. It was huge! I had to scream." She glared at the two older men. "And then
he
yelled at me. He shook me."

 "I didn't," Joe said. "I grabbed her arm and told her to be quiet. I didn't mean to frighten her."

"You don't yell at scared little kids. That's no way to calm them down." Hector glared then spoke soothingly to Ronnie. "It's okay,
hija
."

"God, Ronnie. You're such a big baby." Derrick shook his head and set his weapon on the floor.

"We're all in danger. We can't have kids screaming. That's all I'm saying," Joe muttered.

 "He's right. It's bad up there and we sure as hell don't want to draw any attention down here. Seems the whole city's in crisis that's not likely to break any time soon, but we can't stay here either." Ari jerked a thumb toward the subway tunnel. "Not with what's still down there."

He described what they'd witnessed and told about the sporting goods shop. "I think we can make it there, and I'll feel a lot better after we're armed."

"What good does it do when a shot to the head doesn't even kill them?" Hector asked.

"Do you have a better idea, Mr. Rodriguez?" Mrs. Scheider sounded cool and composed even if her coiffure and couture were considerably less crisp than they'd been on the train. "Taking any action is better than taking none at all."