The Last Safe Place: A Zombie Novella (3 page)

That one makes me smile. “What’s the problem?”

“There’s food missing from the upper gardens. Again. It’s going to keep on happening until you find and punish the people who are responsible.”

I exhale, will my blood pressure down. “I’m sure you’d love to mandate public executions for starving people, but it’s not going to happen.”

“Don’t say it like that. We have a rationing system in place.”

“One that favors you and everyone else who lives up here.”

Reginald gets up from the chair, says, “That’s simply not true.”

The rook starts to say something but I put up my hand. Not the place for him to talk. “Look, Reg.” He hates when I call him Reg. “I don’t have time for a socio-political debate. I’m not asking. I’m letting you know. Get me?”

He stares at me hard, like maybe he has some hope of intimidating me. I know a couple of my men play on Reginald’s team. And I’m sure if he snapped his fingers I’d fall off the wall of Castle Williams during the next heavy thunderstorm.

But I’m responsible for protecting this island as much as I’m responsible for protecting my wife. I turn to the rook. “Make sure the tank on the personal watercraft is full. Then head down to the armory. I’ll make you a list of what I want…”

Reginald laughs and puts up his hands. The tension disappears from his face, like it was never there. “Fine. Go mainland. Bring back what you can. If you find a bottle of Scotch while you’re there, all the better. I’ll even give you a hand. I’ll gas up the watercraft for you.”

“Very charitable. You’ve got gloves, right? Wouldn’t want you to get those smooth hands dirty.”

He ignores that. “It’s clear I can’t stop you. But we should at least get you back before dark, right?”

He smiles again. Something about his smile makes me wonder if I should check behind his back for a knife, but I nod and he saunters off the porch and toward the docks.

The rook asks, “What’s his deal?”

“His deal is, don’t fucking worry about it.” I rattle off the list of weapons I want him to get from the armory. “Meet me at the docks. I want to be on the water in a half hour.”

“Where are you going?”

“To see the Librarian.”

The rook looks at me with a mix of bewilderment and disgust.

*

I smell the man in the final casemate before I get there.

Castle Williams is round, because supposedly that made it harder for ships to hit during the Revolutionary War. Circled around the inside wall are a series of casemates—domed rooms designed to hold up the walls of the fort and support the huge weight of the cannons pointed out into the harbor. A little like a honeycomb.

Years later they were fitted with bars and used for prisoners. Sometimes up to forty men in a room, so many they’d have to sleep in shifts. Plenty of room for one guy, so I feel less bad about this. When it’s warm out, at least.

When I get to the bars outside the cell I can’t even see him. His latrine bucket is overflowing, spilling onto the floor, but the casemate looks empty otherwise. Then a shadow in the back moves, and he comes shuffling toward me, dragging a chair.

He’s still holding onto some weight, even though rations have been cut. I know the guards aren’t sneaking him food. I’m one of the few people on the island trying to keep him alive. Probably the only one. His skin is pale and ragged, his head bald on top, with long strands of greasy hair hanging from the sides.

He sits in the chair so hard he almost falls out of it. When he’s composed himself he says, “Are you here to kill me?” His voice is high, nasally, and a little hopeful.

“We’ve been over this,” I tell him. “I’m not going to kill you.”

“Then let me out.”

“You know I can’t do that.”

“I’m better.”

“People like you don’t get better.”

“Then why don’t you kill me?”

“Because you’re still useful,” I say. “The main branch of the library. The one near Times Square. You know it?”

He nods. “I remember it well.”

“I need a book on corpse decomposition.” I nod toward the haphazard rows of books that line the back wall of the cell like bricks. “Unless you have anything like that here.”

“I do not. Why so interested?”

“Because the world is full of rotting corpses that are walking around trying to eat us. I’m thinking maybe it would be good to learn a little more about them. Which I guess means I need to find the medical reference books when I get to the library. Where do I go when I get inside?”

“Why that library?”

“More books, better odds. Where do I go?”

“I could say anything right now and you’d have no idea if I was lying.”

“You could. But maybe you won’t.”

He leans back in the chair, looks at the overflowing bucket, stretches his neck and runs his eyes along the dome brick ceiling. “Why do you keep me alive?”

I crouch down and lean against the wall opposite the cell, hold the gun in my belt so it doesn’t fall out. He asks me this question every time I visit, ever since the day I put him in here. And I always tell him the same thing. “Because I’m tired of killing people.”

He smiles. The kind of smile that could scar a child for life. “That’s close, but not the whole truth. One day, I hope you tell it to me.”

“The floor plan.”

He closes his eyes and moves his lips, like he’s praying. Without opening his eyes he says, “Go in through the main entrance. The doors flanked by the lion statues. Go up the stairs. At the top of the first set of stairs, next to the display cases, there’ll be a room with the library’s reference texts. Those should help. The stacks are on the floors above that.”

“Good.” I point at the bucket. “How long since someone came and cleaned it?”

“Four days. They drop off food but they don’t always swap out the bucket.” He gets up and winces, doubles over a little, then straightens up fast, like he’s hoping I didn’t see.

“Lift up your shirt,” I tell him.

“If you reprimand them they’ll only make it worse.”

“Lift up your shirt.”

He hesitates, then grabs and pulls. Embedded along his entire side is a bruise running a spectrum of colors, settled mostly around diseased phlegm yellow. I wave my hand for him to lower it, tell him, “I’ll take care of it.”

“You don’t need to.”

“We’re not savages.”

“It would be better for both of us if you just left it.”

I chew on that for a moment. He’s right. Sometimes I am very surprised that no one’s knifed him. Or me, over my decision to keep him alive.

Silence hangs in the air like a sentient being, taunting us. I want to leave but feel compelled to stay. Not that he deserves my company, but the solitude seems cruel. Everything about this is cruel. I ask, “Do you want to die? You ask if I’m going to kill you, but you never ask me to do it.”

He pauses. “I’m undecided, I guess.”

“Sometimes I wonder if keeping you alive in here is the punishment I think you deserve.”

He smiles. “That’s the most honest thing you’ve ever said to me. Still not the whole truth, but better. What’s different about today?”

“Nothing, hopefully. I don’t know. Maybe everything.”

“Is this about your wife?”

I’ve never told him about June. I play it off like it’s nothing but I don’t do a very good job of hiding it, because my fist is clenched and shaking and he sees it. “My wife is not a concern of yours.”

“This isn’t some trick. I overhear things. The way the sound travels in here, it’s amazing. I hear you talking to her, up on the roof. Sophia.” He presses his face through the bars, and they pull his white skin taught. “You’ve been kind to me. Kinder than I have any right to. I want to repay you. I want to help save your wife.”

There’s an odd sincerity to his voice. Enough to drill a little hole in my skepticism. “And in exchange?”

“Let me out. I’ll leave the island.”

“And how do you plan to do that?”

“Do I have your word?”

If I let him out and off the island he’ll die. Whenever I go mainland I’m not convinced I’m coming back alive, and I can still run a mile without breathing too hard. This guy looks like he gets winded taking a piss. He’ll die before he even hits the shore.

And I’ll have my Junebug back.

Seems like a fair trade, even though it doesn’t feel right to make it.

He reaches his hand through the black bars. His other hand is empty, so I’m reasonably certain he’s not going to pull me in and stick something sharp in my throat. I take the proffered hand and shake. It’s clammy, and leaves a thick layer of sweat mine. I wipe it on the back of my pants.

“All you have to do,” he says, “is find a pet store.”

“Are you fucking kidding me? That’s your answer.”

He nods. “Pneumonia, correct? What antibiotics have you been using?”

“Amoxicillin and penicillin.”

“Good ones, but the strain might be resistant. You need to try a different kind, but doubtless the pharmacies have been cleared out. Did you know that fish antibiotics are the same kind as those used on humans, and you can buy them right off the shelf? No prescription necessary.”

“Seriously?”

“Quite. It’s one of those random bits of trivia that you file away and you figure it’ll never be useful, and then the apocalypse happens.” He laughs at himself, a high and unsettling giggle. “On Thirty-Ninth and Tenth there’s a specialty fish store. Not too far from the library. As long as no one else is as clever as us, it’ll have erythromycin and tetracycline and cephalexin.”

He smiles again, turns and walks toward to back of his cell. “I’m tired. Godspeed.”

I stand there for a little bit wanting to say something, wondering if I should thank him, but finally give up and head downstairs, where I catch one my deputies scurrying across the courtyard. I call him over and tell him, “Get up there and clean out his bucket.”

“Not my job, Sarge.”

I get close to his face. “It is now.”

The deputy shakes his head and goes to say something, clamps his mouth shut instead. “No,” I tell him. “Don’t hold back.”

“After what he did to that kid, why don’t you just put a bullet in his head?”

“He’s just another mouth to feed, right? He’s a threat to the island? Is that what they say when I’m not around?”

Him not responding is answer enough.

“He’s alive because I say he stays alive. And that’s all anyone needs to worry about. Now get up there and clean out the damn cage.”

The deputy makes himself scarce. This won’t win me any friends. Neither will letting him out. That’ll be a fun conversation to have with Reginald.

I’ll just have to do it at night when no one’s looking. Give him a kayak. We have two dozen, and no one would notice if one was missing. And even if I get caught, even if they throw me into his cell, it won’t matter, because June might finally be better. I’d die happy to see her healthy.

*

Doc and Sophia are at the dock to show me off. They both give me deep, long hugs, like it’s the last ones they’ll ever give me. It’s not as comforting as they think it is. Doc says, “Medicine, if you can manage.”

I wink at him. “Don’t worry. I have a plan.”

Sophia says, “Everything’s in place.”

The moored ferries cast a shadow over us. I nod toward them. “You know the back room under Fort Jay where we keep the emergency stock of gas?”

“Yes.”

“Send a crew down to get the barrels up here. If things go south, I want to be able to gas these things up quick.”

She salutes because she knows it annoys me, then dashes off.

The rook has dragged a table to the middle of the roadway and laid out the gear. I pull on the elbow, forearm and neck guards cobbled together from SWAT armor and sports equipment. I strap on a harness, so I can hold my bat at my belt like a sword, pull on my old duty holster for the SIG. I get everything in place, tighten straps and shuffle things around until I can move comfortably.

The rook hands me a lacrosse mask but I push it away. It obscures my vision, makes it hard to turn my head. I’ll take a little risk if it means better mobility.

The rook is suited up nearly the same as I am. He’s not wearing a mask either. He’s got a shotgun tied over his back, a machete strapped to one leg, and a bundle of road flares wrapped to the other.

We go over the plan. We’ll come in just north of the Javits Center, cut across to the fish store, and then to the library. That’s as much as we can figure. The rest we have to play by the crowds.

The rook asks, “Do we really need to hit the library?”

“Being able to make some educated guesses at how long these things are a threat would be helpful. Maybe we’ll learn something that’ll help us fight them. I don’t know. I don’t like not knowing.”

“I miss Google.”

I smack his padded shoulder. “We all miss Google, kid.”

Reginald has his legs swung out, dangling above the green, dingy water. The rope ladder is out, leading down to the watercraft. Seating for three, so it should be enough for me and the rook and the weapons, and then whatever we can bring back.

“All gassed up, Sarge,” he says, hoisting a roll of duct tape. “There are two backpacks in the storage compartment, in case you get enough supplies that you need something to carry them. Like I said, try to get back before nightfall.”

“I’d love that, Reg. More than anything in the world, I’d love that. What’s the duct tape for?”

“Crack in the frame. Shouldn’t be an issue.”

I climb onto the watercraft and the rook straddles me. I sit there for a minute, touch the controls. Every time I get on I expect it to explode, or fall apart, or sink to the bottom. To revolt against me using it. But it’s an inanimate object and it doesn’t have a memory. Thankfully.

Reginald calls down to us. “Everything all right?”

I hit buttons and turn knobs until the thing roars to life. Reginald yells over the sound of the engine. “Have fun, fellas. Don’t be out too late.”

“Fuck off, Reg.”

“What?”

So he can hear me, I yell, “Fuck off, Reg.”

*

The skyline looms before us, the sun shattering across a million windows.

The rook holds onto my waist as we skim over the water. I hate open water. Always have. I don’t like not being able to see what’s beneath me, and wasn’t
Jaws
based on a true story?