The City Series (Book 1): Mordacious (7 page)

Chapter 8

The sheets say HELP, PEOPLE INSIDE. Jorge found a can of paint that we’ll use to write the same words on the roof. Hanging the sheets is easy once Jorge devises a plan that involves broom handles and allows us to stretch the stapled-together sheets from one busted window to the next in a waiting area.

I peer into Manny’s room and zip my lips on our way to the elevator. He does the same, cheeks puffing out, and pats his blanket.

“What was that about?” Grace asks.

“Manny and I have a secret.”

“Really? You hate kids.”

“You know I don’t
hate
kids. I just…don’t always like them.”

It doesn’t sound much better, although I plan to be a great auntie to Grace and Logan’s kids. Kids I know are okay, some are even adorable. Kids who have runny noses and sticky hands and no manners, which seems like the majority, I can do without. I don’t plan to pop out any myself; better to know I’d be a horrible mother than to have them because I think I should. Having had a horrible mother, I’ll die before I become one.

We take the elevator to the top floor and climb to the roof. A droning murmur filters up the stairwell from the lower floors. We’ve been debriefed in what zombies can and can’t do—as much as anyone knows. They like noise and movement. It’s possible they’re attracted by smell. One nurse says they can crawl up the stairs if they have enough impetus, but doorknobs are out of their capabilities. Elevators are not, since they managed to travel via the visitor elevators before they shut them down. It wasn’t deliberate, of course, but if you put a bunch of zombies in an elevator and let them bang around for a while, one of them will manage to press a button or ten.

We step outside, into air that still reeks of electrical fire and smoke, but the commotion is gone. No helicopters, no horns and no bombs. Jorge sets down the paint and points to the huge wooden water tank that stands on metal legs. “We won’t run out of water. There’s thousands of gallons in there.”

It’s a reassuring thought. We have food and water. Our lights will go out and we’ll eat cold food, but we won’t die of thirst.

Craig jogs to the end of the roof that overlooks interior Brooklyn. Grace and I head toward the water. Smoke hangs in clouds from the fires that still burn in both the city and across the water in Jersey. The once sleek and shiny skyscrapers of lower Manhattan are dulled and black. And from what I can see through the haze, the squared edges of some roofs are jagged.

Dust streams into the air where the Brooklyn Bridge meets Manhattan. It’s impossible to see what’s left, but it doesn’t appear to be much. The Statue of Liberty’s head appears for a split second before it’s shrouded once more. Every surface is covered with a layer of ash. The devastation is so complete, so dramatic. I thought I was prepared, but this is a city demolished.

Grace points to the water without a word. It’s possible some boats made it to safety, but most are destroyed and bobbing in the current with countless bodies. They haven’t drifted out to sea the way I expected. I grip the roof edge with both hands. In the middle of a roof, I’m good. At the edge, I’m convinced that either someone will shove me or my body will fling itself off without my consent.

Hundreds of zombies still mill on the street. I move away and put my arm around Grace’s shoulder after she retches. The loss of all these lives, the sheer terror they felt, makes me feel as if I’ve swallowed a tennis ball.

“They’re not alive,” Grace whispers. She wraps her arms around herself, her gaze locked in the direction of Brooklyn Heights, where both she and her parents live. “I know they aren’t.”

“Don’t say that,” I say. “You don’t know that.”

She takes a few uneven breaths and nods. We move to the other end of the roof. Brooklyn is smoky and smoldering in places, but it isn’t blanketed with gloom like Manhattan. Block after block of attached houses made of brick and brownstone and limestone spread into the distance. Taller apartment buildings are sprinkled between these three- and four-story houses, many with water towers on their roofs. If you don’t look down, you could almost pretend nothing’s changed. But the life I’ve made for myself, as unremarkable as it was, is gone. There’s nothing left. Nothing to look forward to. I envision standing on the ledge in the cool breeze. Allowing myself to dive into the crowd below so I won’t have a brain left to turn. No one would blame me.

I shake my head to clear the histrionic thought.
I
would blame me. My only framework for life has been to try to do the opposite of what Mom would do whenever possible. And she would’ve taken a header off the nearest roof once the alcohol and drugs ran out. I squeeze Grace’s good arm. She wouldn’t take a header, either. She’s not the type.

“It didn’t look so bad by Brooklyn Heights, did it?” she asks. And there she is—Optimistic Grace.

“No worse than the rest. Didn’t you tell Craig to envision it? That’s what you need to do.”

She turns her face to the smog-filled sky and inhales the horribly-scented air. “I know,” she says with a sigh.

“So do that shit. Practice what you preach, woman. That vision board isn’t going to Mod Podge itself.”

She laughs and gives me a shove. “You are an asshole.”

“I know, let’s go paint.”

We grab brushes and get to work painting our plea for help on the roof.

Chapter 9

“It’s a bad idea,” Bart answers when I ask if it’s possible to get to a dialysis machine. I haven’t told Grace my plan, knowing she’ll say the same thing, especially since her arm prevents her from coming. But I thought Bart would be fine with it. All he has to lose is another mouth to feed.

He sits at his table in the corner, overseeing the gurneys and his useless communication devices. Bart is a nice guy. He works in the kitchen and checks on everybody twice a day. He’s doing his best and has the circles under his eyes to prove it, but at the moment he’s a pain in my ass.

“We can’t let him die,” I argue. I should have gone straight to Jorge, Keeper of the Keys.

Bart strokes his beard. “Even if you did take the chance, once the elevator doors open, you’d have nowhere to go if they’re right outside.”

“They haven’t made it to the service elevator on the other floors. If it’s the same layout, it’s away from the main corridors.”

“It’s too dangerous. You can’t go alone, and I don’t know that anyone’s going to go with you.”

“How about the fourth floor? That’s empty by the elevators. Someone could take me up and I could walk down the stairs and get the machine.”

“You can’t carry it back upstairs.”

Here I am, trying to do something heroic, and Bart is making it as difficult as he possibly can. I grind my teeth. “Okay, if it’s safe, I’ll move it to the third floor elevators. Then I’ll run back upstairs and we’ll take the elevator down and roll it inside.”

“What if it doesn’t have wheels? How will you move it? Do you even know what you’re looking for?”

I shrug. I’ll find the renal department and go from there. In the movies, dialysis machines look like a medical version of an old-fashioned tape recorder. It probably has a name like Kidney Saver 3000.

“I know where they are,” Maria’s voice comes from behind. “And they do have wheels. I’ll go with her.”

I turn, more than a little relieved to have support with this mission. “Really?”

“I’m not letting a little boy die if we can save him. That’s bullshit.” Maria leans close to Bart’s face with pursed lips. Her accent has deepened. Up until now, I thought she was soft-spoken, but in front of me is someone with a backbone of steel. And she’s on my side. “Figure it out, Capra, because we’re going.”

I stifle my laugh when Bart sinks a few inches in his chair. “All right. Give me thirty minutes.”

He leaves, muttering to himself under the rustle of his FEMA windbreaker, and Maria winks. “I’ve worked with doctors for almost thirty years. Sometimes you let them come to a decision themselves, and sometimes you make it for them.”

Jorge and Clark insist on coming once Bart lets them in on the plan. Jorge has his cleaver and Clark his gun and baton, so Maria and I visit the kitchen, where we choose sturdy knives over Dawn’s protests.

“We’ll bleach them,” Maria says curtly. Dawn backs down.

Now that I hold a thick, shiny knife in my latex-gloved hand, I realize this has gone too far. I’ve gotten everyone hopped up on playing Hero when most likely we’ll be playing Recently Turned Zombies. I find Grace by our plastic mattresses—they brought some down for those of us without gurneys. “Why the knife and gloves?” she asks.

“I’m going upstairs.”

“Where upstairs?”

“We have to get a dialysis machine for that kid, Manny.”

She stands, her face pinched. “Sylvie, no.”

“Grace, he’s going to die. He can make thirty days if he has one. Without it, he’s dead in a week.”

“Really?” she asks. I nod, and she frowns. “I’m coming, then.”

“Um, no you’re not. You need both arms for this.”

“I can go. I’m not staying here while you go up there.”

Grace removed her sling yesterday, but her arm is still tender and the bruise has turned a purple-yellow. I get it. I would want to go, too. But if she dies because of me, I’ll never forgive myself. And Logan will murder me.

“Let me see your arm,” I say.

She holds it out. I poke her elbow with my finger. “Ow!” she hisses.

“Looks like you’re only good enough to get bossed around by Dawn.”

“God, no.” She bangs her head against the wall. “Anything but Dawn.”

“Sorry. Besides, it’s a suicide mission. I don’t even know why I suggested it.”

“Because you’re a good person. And you care, even if you try to pretend you don’t.”

“I’m a king among men,” I say with an eye roll. “Promise you’ll kill me when I’m a zombie.”

“Just please be careful.”

“I will. I’m leaving my bag here. You can have the Twix in there if I die.”

“You have a Twix and didn’t tell me? Now I’m not sure whether to hope you die or not.”

I laugh. She’ll spend the entire time we’re gone pacing and dosing herself with Rescue Remedy, but right here is why I love Grace. “I have two. We’ll split one upon my triumphant return.”

She gives me a hug and then pushes me toward the elevator. “Then hurry the fuck up, woman.”

Chapter 10

Kearney catches up to us at the elevator, metal pipe in hand. “Want some help?”

“The more, the merrier,” Jorge says, way too cheerfully in my opinion.

I can’t fathom the reason Kearney’s volunteered. In the past days, all he’s done is stalk the room and cast the evil eye at people. He killed the zombies outside the cafeteria with no shortage of courage, but that was to save his own life. I don’t think he cares all that much about anyone else’s. He doesn’t cook, he doesn’t clean up. He seems to think being a cop in a room full of sick people who can barely stand contributes enough. Clark, on the other hand, is his polar opposite. He doesn’t talk much, but he’s helpful and sociable when he does. I think Olga the nurse has a crush on him even with the wedding ring he wears.

It’s a short ride, but it gives me plenty of time to berate myself for insisting on Operation
Dialysis Machine
, also known as A Sure Way to Die. My mouth is arid; every drop of water in my body has converted into icy perspiration. To call myself shaky is an understatement—I’m vibrating with fear. Maybe I’ll have to face the zombies at some point, learn to kill them before our thirty days are up, but I’m all for putting that moment off as long as possible.

At the fourth floor, we walk down the corridor. The stairway door reveals an unoccupied fourth floor landing that’s almost disappointing. If blocked, we’d be able to say we’d done our best and return to the basement. An image of Manny rises in my mind. I sigh. There’s no way I could look into his puffy face if I didn’t try. I clench the handle of my knife and file into the stairwell.

Clark is first down the stairs. We turn at the landing between the floors, and, at his noticeably shaky thumbs up, tiptoe halfway down the next flight. Kearney takes short breaths. Maria’s eyes are gigantic. I feel better I’m not the only one who’s nervous, but I’m definitely not feeling any smarter for getting us into this in the first place.

There are five silent winces when the third floor door squeaks. We’re ready to bolt until we’re sure nothing has noticed. The door clicks behind us.

“This way,” Maria whispers, knife held in front of her like a serial killer.

We stop at the doors to the main corridors. Unfortunately, these have no windows, and everyone takes a turn pressing an ear against them and shrugging.

“To the left,” Maria says, “then through the waiting area.”

I feel ridiculous when I lunge into the corridor with my knife aloft only to find it empty, although I’m not the only one who does. We creep past doors and stop where the hall widens into a waiting area. Jorge peers around the corner and then turns with a nod that says we’ve reached zombies. His hand comes up, all five fingers extended, and I think
not so bad
. Then he raises all five again, drops them, and adds one more for good luck.

Eleven.

I try for a breath, but my hammering heart takes up all room in my chest. It’s not too late to turn back, but I’ve never backed down from a fight. Not even in eighth grade when Esmeralda, who by all appearances should’ve been in college, called my mother a crackhead. I jumped her after school, and she deserved every bruise she got. I got more than my share, too. Mom didn’t notice my black eye until it’d turned yellow.

We step into the room. Eleven corpses stand among uncomfortable-looking chairs set into square groupings. A U-shaped reception desk sits against the right-hand wall. A man with a long beard, now coagulated into a bloody dreadlock, looks up and grumbles. It prompts all eleven to walk in our direction. Jorge barrels toward the groaning crew, and his cleaver slices into the side of one’s head. Brown liquid sprays into the air. He climbs over a chair and swings again while I circle a group of chairs to avoid the man and woman coming my way.

I can’t take them both at once. Esmeralda had me on height and girth, as do these two. I scramble onto the reception desk much as I did a park bench in eighth grade. The man, wearing only underwear with intestines spilling over top, hits the edge of the desk. His corroded purple lips head straight for my thigh.