The Last Safe Place: A Zombie Novella (6 page)

But the thing I found this morning, it could barely move its limbs. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t still dangerous, but it wouldn’t have the dexterity to get up on the rocks and climb the fence.

I’m missing something simple, and when I realize it I am going to be so angry at myself for not noticing it before.

I load my gun, get ready to move. There’s no sound coming from the street. I try and push myself up into a standing position but slip on a thin pile of discarded papers. I get to one knee and look around, at the food wrappers and books and crumbled papers littered around me.

The garbage.

We toss our garbage off the southern tip of the island, where the floor of the harbor inclines up toward the shore.

The northern and western shores have people living there. The eastern shore has the water farm. It had to be the south. All this time, we’ve been tossing trash into the water. And it’s built up, formed a ridge, probably. There’s even an opening in the fence so the workers can get to the water’s edge.

People still complain to me about the garbage. That we shouldn’t be tossing it into the water. I don’t love it but with humanity diminished to maybe just us, our environmental impact is reduced by astronomical levels. Mother Earth would forgive us a little litter, now that we weren’t belching carbon gas into the atmosphere and clear-cutting rain forests.

Except maybe she didn’t.

I’ve seen these things copy each other. I’ve seen them learn and adapt. If one got on the island, there are probably more behind it. The one I killed this morning wandered clear across the island before we found it, proving our security isn’t as tight as I had hoped.

We got too comfortable. All it took was a little carelessness and they found our weaknesses, monkey at a typewriter style.

I stop caring about being unseen. I hit the street, run as fast as I can toward the water. Vaulting over dead cars and avoiding dead bodies.

We moored near a rope ladder leading up onto a concrete dock, but I don’t bother with the formality. I just jump for the watercraft and land on it so hard it knocks the wind out of me, pushes me down a few inches below the water line, and pops up into the air. The bag is still secured to my back.

My hand shakes as I turn the knob to the ‘on’ position and hit the button on the handle.

Nothing happens.

I hit it three more times, check everything to make sure I did it right, it doesn’t start. The duct tape that Reginald used to fix the handlebar obscures the gas gauge. I scratch at it until I can slide a finger underneath, tear it away.

The tank is empty.

Before I can check to see if there’s a problem, something slams into me and knocks me into the harbor.

4. THEN

The radio on my belt exploded with reports of fires and assaults, pouring in so fast the dispatcher couldn’t keep up. His voice growing more urgent with every address.

The bar was empty. Out on the street cops were running with weapons drawn. A paramedic came shuffling from around a parked ambulance. Her eyes the same milky white as the kids’ downstairs. I didn’t give her the chance to get close.

My SIG held twelve rounds but I couldn’t remember how many I had fired. Four or five, maybe. I pulled the radio from my belt and tried to raise the precinct. Nothing but dead air. Someone down the street screamed and the crack of gunshots echoed off buildings that were illuminated by swinging emergency lights. A patch of pavement at my feet exploded into dust.

Panic wrapped a forearm around my throat and squeezed. The ambulance was empty, the paramedics gone, so I climbed in the back and shut the door as another bullet struck the side, a dent pounded in the metal inches from my head.

I should have gotten out of that ambulance, rallied the troops, made for higher ground, figured out a plan.

But the only thing that mattered at that moment was June. I pulled out my cell phone, to tell her to get out of the city, but couldn’t get a signal. Everyone else was trying to call someone at that same moment.

The bridges and ferries would be locked down. The only way to get to her was over the water. I figured if I could get down to the South Street Seaport I could find a boat or a watercraft. Something to get me across, and since we only lived two blocks up from Penny Beach, I wouldn’t need a car when I got to Staten Island.

The keys were still in the ambulance. I climbed to the front and got it going, backed up onto Avenue B and drove. I didn’t get ten feet before there were people running into the street, banging on the hood, asking for help.

I went slow, nudging then out of the way. The things they shouted at me, what they called me for not getting out and helping, I don’t like to think about.

At Houston Street traffic was jammed from beginning to end. No opening in sight. I climbed out of the ambulance, didn’t even bother to turn it off, and people ran up to me, wanting to know what was going on. I told them I was on police business.

I got to the middle of the street, to the island between the east and westbound traffic. A woman screamed behind me. When I turned back there was a man jamming his face into her neck. He arched his head back, ripping out a long, stringy chunk of muscle, blood gushing from the wound.

I shot him. Then I shot her, as a kindness.

That set off the crowd. A man dove for my gun. I pushed him back. Bodies slammed against me as people ran in wild directions. I pushed through to the south end of the thoroughfare. I found myself close to Essex, and I could take that down to the water, follow South Street until I got to the seaport.

I ran up to a man straddling a chrome chopper and told him I needed it. He looked like the kind of guy who lived in bars waiting to punch people, but he relinquished it without a second thought. As I was climbing on he nodded his head and smiled, said, Sure thing, officer.

New Yorkers aren’t all bad. In dark moments I wonder what happened to him.

I drove three blocks, stopped, and stripped off my shirt. I wasn’t a cop anymore.

The ride down to the seaport was a mix of quiet and horror. One block would be empty, the next there’d be flaming vehicles and people screaming. Cars were crashed into storefronts and helicopters circled overhead. I ducked and weaved around the obstacles in front of me.

The seaport was deserted when I rolled in. The shops were closed and dark. I got as close as I could to the docks, and it didn’t take long to find a watercraft. There was a man on it, fiddling with the controls, trying to get it started.

He was wearing a polo shirt with a logo and pressed khakis—probably a waiter from one the nearby restaurants. He wore glasses and had a beard and didn’t look at me when I asked him where he was going. He said ‘away’. I asked where away was and he ignored me. I asked if he could get me to Staten Island, anywhere on Staten Island, and he told me to fuck off.

Something exploded behind us, a ball of flame reaching into the night sky, illuminating our faces. The man couldn’t get the watercraft to start. I asked him if it belonged to him. He told me to fuck off, again.

I told him I was a cop and he didn’t answer.

There were boats but I didn’t know how to drive them. Didn’t even know how to start them. Some of them were just there for show and couldn’t run. But a watercraft I could handle. June and I would rent them when we took long weekends down on Brigantine Beach.

All the guy had to do was share.

Every second I stood there was a second I wasn’t headed to June.

He looked up when I trained the gun on a spot between his eyes. But he didn’t stop moving his hands over the console, and the watercraft roared to life.

I couldn't see his face. The only thing I could see was June, huddled in the house, those milk-eyed thing banging on the doors, breaking through the windows.

More screams behind us. I looked back and there were a dozen dark figures materializing from the gloom under the FDR.

As the man reached down for the throttle, I told him that I was very sorry. I shot him in the forehead, the bullet tearing a dark hole in his right temple. His body jerked back, splashed into the harbor, and disappeared.

5. NOW

When I scream my mouth fills with filthy harbor water.

Something big and heavy wraps itself around me, clawing but unable to get a grip as we tumble and sink. The water is black. I can’t tell which direction is up.

My heart slams into my ribs so hard I fear it may shatter them. I fight to control myself, keep from sucking water into my lungs. The thing on top of me grips my jaw, hooks a thumb into my mouth. It tastes sour and tough, like spoiled meat. Something that feels like bone pokes into my cheek.

I twist my body until I can get my feet against its stomach, then push as hard as I can, manage to launch myself off it. My lungs feel like balloons, overinflated, thin and ready to pop.

As I’m trying to orient myself, a hand grabs my ankle, pulls me further into the dark. The hand feels hard and rough, like stone.

It feels like karma coming to collect on a debt.

I use the bat, work it between the arm and my leg, wrench us apart. I kick for the direction I think will lead me to the surface, burst through the water, suck in huge gulps of air, sputter the dirty river water out of my mouth. The rotter that rushed me earlier has already sank. I’m alone, bobbing in the water.

Not alone underneath it.

I don’t know how deep the water is. Their fingertips could be brushing the bottoms of my boots. Hundreds of them, inches below me, waiting for me to sink another inch, another centimeter, and then they can get a grip, grab hold, pull me back down.

Completely unable to control it, nearly blind with panic, I scream, kick for the dock, pull myself up, muscles groaning with effort. Once I'm over I crawl several feet away from the edge of the water.

I look up and there are three rotters stumbling toward me from the other end of the dock. I roll onto my back, pull the SIG from its holster, fire until the clip is empty. I knock down all three but I have no idea if they’re dead.

Up on the street there are more coming. Too many for me to handle by myself. Normally I would have jumped in the water, swam out and came back around someplace safe, but the water is now and forever off limits.

The dock is full of debris, things left behind by people rushing to get out of the city. There’s got to be something here I can use. I work my way toward the end, watch over my shoulder as the rotters climb down after me.

I find an upended kayak, the remains of a person stuck down inside it. I reach in, pull out what’s inside by the handful. The debris on the dock is slowing the rotters down, but it’s not stopping them.

When I get the kayak clear I bring it down to the water, climb in with absolute care. I make it less than ten feet when the first rotter falls into the water after me. I paddle out toward the middle of the river.

My head spins from short, rapid breaths. I’m far enough away from the shore, the water should be deep enough. But I lean over, watch it, expect the surface to rupture and for a hand to reach up, grab me by the collar.

Any second.

I need to move. The sky is almost dark, the clouds heavy. I won’t have the moon to light my way. The trip to Governors Island is probably eight miles down the western shore of Manhattan, and around the southern tip. If I push myself I can do it in an hour. I reach up to adjust the backpack. It feels lighter. I loosen the straps and pull it around.

It’s torn at the seam, gaping and empty.

It must have happened in the water. The bottles are gone. I look from the bag to the water. Consider it, but I can’t. Can’t go down there. I’ll never come back up. My body deflates like I was pricked by a pin, my muscles sagging and unresponsive.

But only for a moment.

I shatter, scream, smash the paddle against the water, beat my hands against the top of the kayak. Wind and rain roar in like a physical manifestation of my anger, making good on the promise of the lingering storm clouds. Thunder crashes above me and I try to yell louder. I yell until my throat feels filled with rocks.

The rain washes away the filth of the river. It plasters my clothes to my skin and churns up the flat surface of the harbor. I can’t stop myself from shaking.

I bunch up the backpack, hold it close to me. Something curved and hard jabs into my stomach. I reach into the bag and come out with a bottle of tetracycline that managed to stay at the bottom, still sealed.

There’s not a single thing in that moment that could have looked better. I shake it and listen to the rattle, just to make sure it’s real. I still have a shot at this. I take one last look at the rotters lined up on the shore, flip them off, put the paddle in the water, and push toward home.

I make it the equivalent of ten blocks before I realize Reginald must have planned for me to not come back. He checked the level of the gas tank. The duct tape was wrapped around the handle just enough to obscure the gauge, so I couldn’t see that I was running on fumes.

Reg is a jerk. Something somewhere made him think he was entitled to a bigger piece of the pie than everyone else. But him trying to kill me, that one I can’t parse out.

I’ll have to ask him about it when I get back.

*

The rain is just tapering off when I see the island in the distance. The muscles in my arms are torn down to frayed nerves, but I put the pain aside and dig into the water, propel myself forward. Concentrate on the breeze and the peace of the water on a cool night, not on the searing pain between my shoulders.

When I get to the storm wall I don’t bother pushing around to the dock. I get a grip on the top of the wall and pull myself over and fall back, stare at the sky, let it swallow my vision, feel my body loosen and unravel.

Two minutes. I just need two minutes. I’ll rest and I’ll find June. Get her the medicine. I’ve earned two minutes rest.

Gunshots ring out from the sound side of the island, faint cracks against the dark sky. High and sharp, like a wooden ruler smacking against the top of a desk.