The City Series (Book 1): Mordacious (42 page)

“A scout?” I ask.

“A small group of people are living in Grace Church. They have food for a few months. The woman from the church said Brooklyn Heights didn’t have as many fires, but it was tricky getting in and out.”

“That’s not so bad,” I say to Grace, whose expression has lightened considerably. “Maybe we can get in.”

“I have a list of names. People who are at Grace Church. Do you want to check it?”

Grace Church isn’t far from Grace’s house—her family could be there. Grace nods and taps her fingers on her knee as he shuffles papers on the desk, then scans the paper he hands her. It quivers before she gives it back with a shake of her head.

“I’m sorry,” Father David says to her, then points at my knee. “I think we should bandage that. You don’t want to smell any more human than you already do. I’m not sure it makes much of a difference, but you shouldn’t take the chance.”

The cut that wasn’t so bad has opened up again. I press gauze to it. Figures that the Catholic Church would trip me up.

Chapter 57

My knee is bandaged and we drink iced tea, sans ice, which I have renamed tepid tea. It’s close to afternoon, and if we don’t make it to the Heights soon, we’ll be heading home in the dark unless we find somewhere safe to stay. I tap my finger on my wrist. Grace nods and says, “Well, I guess we should be going.”

I stand; my knee feels stiffer than the size of the cut would have led me to believe. My hip must be bruised. Twenty minutes of ice would help, but there’s no ice to be found in this world. I haven’t really thought about that, and now that I have, I realize we’re doomed to lives of lukewarm drinks like tepid tea, except in winter when we won’t want cold ones. The apocalypse is the gift that keeps on giving.

“Your leg hurts,” Father David says.

“It’s fine.” I throw him a look that says to shut up. I’m sure once I’m moving it will loosen up, and I am not ruining Grace’s trip.

Grace stops with her hands on the buttons of her jacket. “Can you ride a bike?”

“I’ll be fine.” I walk a few paces. I’m not limping, but I have to get off the leg quick. I open my arms. “Ta-da!”

“You’re limping,” she says. “Just tell me if it hurts too much and we’ll wait.”

“It’s fine.” She looks at me steadily; Grace can tell when I’m lying. “Grace, I was specifically
not
limping.”

“So you admit you want to limp?”

“I admit nothing. Look into my eyes:
I’m fine
.”

Grace opens her jacket slowly, one button at a time, and drops it behind her on the chair. “We’re staying for now.”

“I am not fucking this up for you.” I look to Father David. “Sorry.”

He shrugs off the curse. “It’s one night. Stay here and you’ll have all day tomorrow to travel.”

Grace settles into her chair, which makes me want to cry. “Grace, we can really go. Let’s go.”

She shakes her head, mouth in a line. I plop on the couch and wonder if Eric’s been waylaid by a well-meaning priest or if he sailed right to his friend’s house. I’m sure Golden Boy sailed.

“This is my fault,” Father David says. “I wish I could fix it, but the least we can do is feed you and make you comfortable for the night.”

“We have food,” I say, unable to hide my irritation. “And we had knees and bikes that worked.”

“Well, you’ll save your food for your trip. I can’t do anything for your knee except apologize. And I am very sorry.”

He does look sorry, and tired, and beleaguered by another thing that’s gone wrong. I take a deep breath and let it out slowly to calm the jumping, angry impotence inside, and to stop the tears that sit behind my eyes. Grace’s normally creamy skin looks rough and her eyelids have a pink cast. She turns her head to the side, studying the artistry of the Precious Moments angel.

“It’s okay to hate me,” I say to Grace. “I would.”

“I think I’d be the better choice,” Father David says. He raises his hands. “Don’t be afraid to hate me just because I’m a priest.”

Grace sighs. “I don’t hate anyone. I’m just…really disappointed.”

“Grace doesn’t hate people,” I say. “It’s the Buddhist in her.”

“An admirable quality,” he says. “Grace, how about I give you a tour while Sylvie rests her leg?”

The only thing worse than being trapped in this room is being trapped here by myself with religious icons staring me down. “I’m coming.” They start to argue, but I cut them off, “I’m hardly dying. It’s a scrape and it’s a little stiff. Let me take the tour and I’ll sit if it feels worse.”

They give in. Grace and I follow him through the rectory and into a hall past offices and meeting rooms that contain bedding and the aroma of body odor, and then into the back of the church, where we come out by the altar. The cavernous space smells okay, although close to forty people sit in the pews that have been moved to form areas more like living rooms than spectator benches. Almost half the people are elderly and the rest are families.

The chandeliers are dark, but it’s bright with the windows, white ceiling and gold gothic arches that span the space. I can appreciate the beauty of a church, even the sanctity, if not the dogma, and this one is gorgeous. People look up at our approach, smiling at Father David, who, rather than act all priest-like, jokes with them and describes how he made me crash to the street.

“So, all in all, I really messed up their day by trying to save their lives,” he says, and even I have to smile.

He excuses himself to attend to something while Grace and I wander past the church’s stained glass windows. “I’m sorry,” I say. “If I’d actually been looking where we were going, we wouldn’t be stuck here.”

“And we would have ridden right into zombies on Atlantic Avenue,” Grace says. “That would’ve been a good time.”

“Stop trying to make me feel better.”

“Okay, you suck. Why don’t you look where you’re going next time?” Grace pushes me with her hip. “Stop being a martyr. There aren’t enough in here for you?” I laugh as she points to a window. “That one’s beautiful.”

It’s Mary, surrounded by green vines and leaves that are striking against the blue of her robes, with golden rays at her feet. “It’s the Assumption of Mary into Heaven,” I say.

The next window is Jesus, kneeling beside a boulder with his hands upturned to an angel who offers him comfort. “The Agony in the Garden,” I say. “When Jesus knew the Romans were coming for him. He was afraid, and an angel came to comfort him.”

“You know your stuff,” Father David says from behind us.

“Not really, but I always liked that story. Even Jesus had his human moments.”

His eyes meet mine, shining with a light that could be a reflection of the glass. “Jesus was very human. Some argue that he didn’t fear, but I think he was afraid. He was going to suffer mightily, and he knew it. He went through with it because he was willing to sacrifice himself for the good of mankind.”

Sister Jean Marie screamed at me when I said Jesus was fearful, although I didn’t see it as a weakness. I thought it made the story better—in order to sacrifice, you need to lose something, to hurt in some way. I’m not running out to join the church, but knowing a priest agrees makes me dislike it a little less.

“Wow, what’s going on there?” Grace asks, pointing to a window of a heart on a cross, topped by flames and wearing a crown of thorns. Rays of light burst from behind it, lit bright orange and yellow by the sun.

“The Sacred Heart,” Father David replies.

“I never really got that whole thing,” I say.

“The fire represents Jesus’ love for man, so total his heart burns with it. The cross and blood are how he suffered for us. The thorns how our sins pierce his heart.” I snort, and Father David asks, “Not a believer?”

“I feel guilty enough without worrying about whether or not I’m sticking a thorn into Jesus’ heart.”

His laugh echoes through the arches, and he puts a warm hand on my shoulder. “It’s love. All of that aside, it’s how we should strive to emulate that love for mankind. That’s all.”

I could improve in that department, but I’m still better than Sister Jean Marie, whose heart was a shriveled old ball of hate.

“You don’t want to get into a theological discussion with Sylvie,” Grace says. “She’s not a fan of religion.”

“Is that right?” he asks.

“Catholic school beat it out of me,” I say. “I’m a hybrid—baptized Catholic, Jewish mother, practice nothing.” I’m considering agnostic humanism, if Eric doesn’t mind me joining his sect.

“This is where I’m supposed to talk you back into the Church,” Father David says. He glances at the windows and then cups a hand to his mouth. “But I have more important things to do, like figure out where we’ll get more food.”

“You can’t turn a few loaves of bread into a thousand?” I ask.

Grace makes a
Shut Up Sylvie
cough, but I think Father David will be amused. As expected, he chuckles. “Still working on feeding the multitude.”

“Well, maybe soon. You do have a beautiful church.”

“It’s not my church—I’m not a diocesan priest. I’m a Franciscan monk. Father Brennan is…gone, and I was asked to step in. I was visiting from Boston along with Sister Constance.”

“How much food do you have?”

“About a week. We’ll find more.”

He looks so sure that I don’t argue, although I think he needs a better plan than that.

“Father David—” Grace begins.

“David or Dave, please,” he says. “Or Brother David if you want to be formal, but I’m all for fewer syllables when there are Eaters outside. I was only just ordained, and I can’t quite wrap my mind around the Father thing yet.”

“Why do you call them Eaters?” I ask.

“Revenants seemed a little pretentious.” We laugh, and he winks. “The elderly folks find
zombies
a bit…jarring.”

I suppose it’s the same as Lexers. More to the point, too. “We’ll call you Brother David.” Maybe it’s the Catholic schoolgirl in me, but I can’t call a priest
David
.

“I’ll leave it up to you,” he says. “How’s the leg?”

“Not too bad.” It really has loosened up, so I turn to Grace. “Honestly, I think I can go. If we leave now, we might have enough time.” Grace scrunches her nose but doesn’t say no. I glance at Father—
Brother
—David. “We can always come back here, right?”

“You know where to find us.”

“C’mon,” I say to Grace. “
C’mooon
. It’ll be fun. Do it for me.”

“You’re sure?” I nod, and Grace’s tentative smile widens.

We say goodbye to Brother David after giving him Guillermo’s location as well as ours. He takes a weapon—a knife that’s been fastened to a short pole with duct tape—and leads the way into a small courtyard, then helps to hoist our bikes over a fence into the yard of a house that will put us a block over from the church.

“You can get through there. Head over and then across Atlantic. After that, I can’t tell you where to go, since I’m not that familiar with this area, but come in this way if you need to. I’ll be in the rectory all night and keep an ear out for you.”

“Thank you,” I say. “It was nice meeting you.” And it was, aside from being knocked from my bicycle. I think Brother David’s heart is burning quite nicely with a love of humanity.

“I’m glad to have met the both of you,” he says. “I hope I see you again. Don’t hesitate to come if you need help, or even if you need company.”

“We can debate the finer points of Christianity,” I joke. Grace throws her head back, eyes closed, as though she’s given up on me forever. I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner.

He grins, ocean-blue eyes alight. I don’t think he’s been having too much fun in recent weeks, even for a priest. “I’m looking forward to it, Sylvia. Godspeed.”

Chapter 58

We have to backtrack and then swing wide to find a promising entry into Brooklyn Heights through the tall buildings of Downtown Brooklyn. The thoroughfare to the Brooklyn Bridge has few cars on its six lanes until we round a bend to find the road packed. Why someone would’ve headed to Manhattan is beyond me, as is why the powers that be blew up the bridges connecting Manhattan and Brooklyn. The exits to Jersey and upstate make sense, as they’d allow nine million people to leave, but all these bridges do is connect two islands full of people who are completely screwed.

We turn at an imposing white marble building to reach Cadman Plaza—an expanse of walkways and grass that, with other small parks, forms a mall from the municipal buildings to the bridge. Brooklyn Heights is edged on one side by the plaza, by the Brooklyn Bridge on another, and Atlantic Avenue on the third. The fourth side, and one farthest from us, is the East River.

Zombies line the flagstone of the mall. The bodies stretch for blocks, ending at the marble columns and tall steps of Borough Hall. They trip on the grass and rustle the bushes that line the flagstone, separated from us by a short two-rail fence that might as well not exist with all the capability it has to keep them penned in.

“Which way?” I whisper as we draw to a stop.

Grace looks ahead, then left and right. I thought if we were motionless we’d have a minute before we were noticed, but the closest fall over the top rail, hit the ground, and rise on the concrete. The walkways don’t have a fence, and both sides of the mall are on the move. Their clamor rebounds off the tall buildings and vibrates in my eardrums. My chest hums along, heart drowned out by the hundreds, if not a thousand, grunts. I’ve never heard it like this.

Grace turns right. I follow, squelching the fear that we’re backing ourselves into a corner. They’ll close in and we’ll be trapped. My bag slaps my hip with every turn of the pedals. I know this neighborhood well; Grace knows it like the back of her hand, and she races two blocks up, turns left under a pedestrian bridge and then down another side street. It ends in zombies. We wheel back the way we came, hit a store-lined street and dodge around a pack.

They’re ahead and behind. We can’t go back to the plaza. We can’t go further in. We’re trapped.

Two high-rise apartment buildings sit above sidewalk level just ahead of the next group. Grace pulls a sharp right after a produce market’s shredded green awning, jumps off her bike and carries it up a short flight of stairs to the buildings’ concrete quadrangle. I’m just behind, sure that any moment something will catch hold of my bike or bag. Two cupcakes and some cookies in a couple weeks is practically a juice fast as far as I’m concerned, but it’s done nothing to ease my breathlessness at the thought of adding my own screams to the ones we’ve heard.