Charges (4 page)

And New York City would descend into utter chaos.

He walked to the master bedroom and threw open the doors to the walk-in closet. In the far corner was his hiking gear, or at least the bit of it that he had brought with him. In California, the bag had served double duty, acting as a small cache of emergency supplies should the Big One hit. Vincenzo thought that a bit funny. While he had been scoffing at the possibility that a wave of electrically charged gases might turn out every light on the planet, he’d been
certain
that a massive earthquake would hit California. In fact, that had been a very minor reason behind his moving back to New York.

While he’d had precious little time to see much of New York State since his return, he had thought he would have a few days to get out and see some upstate sights, like the hiking areas around Bear Mountain. As he pulled the green bag toward him, he was both surprised and crestfallen at its weight. The bag was heavy but not heavy enough. He had packed it with almost everything he might need for short hiking trips, but he had never thought he would need to become Joe Survivalist in less than twelve hours.

He carried the bag back into the bedroom, set it on the unmade bed, and tugged open its many zippers. Unpacking the bag, he laid the contents on the rumpled sheets, thinking that Jessie would have a cow if she saw he wasn’t making the bed. He took a quick inventory: a well-stocked first-aid kit full of bandages, creams, salves, and antiseptics; sixteen bags of Datrex emergency water, stuff that had a shelf life of five years; seven Meals Ready to Eat modeled after the military’s MRE, all different varieties of chicken, which was the only prepackaged meal Vincenzo could stomach—beef dishes and ethnic servings tasted like crap; a small roll of duct tape; two Mylar emergency sleeping bags; a rain poncho; a tiny mess kit; waterproof matches and several Bic lighters; two crank-powered flashlights; two small knives; one Leatherman and one entrenching tool; a forty-ounce Hydro Flask; a black StealthGear appendix-carry holster; and a black case that held a well-oiled Beretta 92F, the first and only pistol he had ever owned. He’d bought it not long after seeing the same weapon put to good use in
Lethal Weapon
. Even though the gun was almost thirty years old, it was just as functional as it had been the day he’d bought it. Of course, he had only been twenty-one back then, so while the gun was as good as new, he could hardly say the same about himself. Inside the case were three extra magazines and two boxes of 9x19 millimeter Parabellum rounds, 147-grain hollow points, one of the premier man-killing rounds. Vincenzo had always been a liberal but not so much as to believe he would never have need to defend himself or his family in the sunny lands of Southern California. That philosophy extended to New York City, which, no matter how big the NYPD grew or how invasive the local government became, would always remain a tough place. Vincenzo had driven across the country with the pistol in its case, a huge risk should he have been pulled over. And of course, it was pretty much illegal to own a pistol in Manhattan. He had looked into the possibility of getting a permit, but while it was possible to get one in NYC, the process was so long and inconvenient that he’d never gotten around to it. Judging by what was happening outside, he decided he had made the right choice.

He opened the boxes, loaded the magazines, and slapped one into the pistol. He racked back the slide and chambered a round then ejected the mag and topped it off with one more cartridge. He slid it back inside the grip and thumbed on the safety, which also acted as a de-cocking lever. The pistol’s hammer lowered back into its previous position, so all he had to do was thumb off the safety, make one long trigger pull—the pistol was double-action on the first pull, then a much quicker-firing single action for the rest of the shots, until the mag was exhausted—and he could send rounds downrange. He hoped things wouldn’t come to that, but the time for taking chances was long gone.

He put the pistol back in its case and reached for the landline phone on the nightstand. Again, he tried all of Jessie’s phones then Grant then his parents. Nothing. He dialed again from his Samsung smartphone, failed to get through, then attempted to access his e-mail. That wasn’t happening, either. He threw the phone on the bed, shouting in frustration as it bounced off the mattress and landed on the carpeted floor.

He repacked the bag then went into the kitchen to go through the refrigerator. He had several bottles of water there, and in the pantry, he found another case of Têr water. He ripped open the box and pushed several bottles into the refrigerator and the rest into the freezer. It was more than he would likely carry in his pack, but he figured he might as well have cold water for later. Rummaging through the cabinets, he searched for anything not immediately perishable. He found several bags of Ramen noodles, a bag of cookies he’d bought for Ben, and a bag of popcorn. He put the items on the Silestone counter. His gaze lingered over the cookies.

How is my son? Is he all right?

The bag didn’t answer.

3

Vincenzo discovered he could still tune in to WCBS radio on his clock radio, and he cranked the volume up high as he continued to sort through his possessions. New York City was indeed descending in chaos, and the mayor had ordered a curfew set in place. Instead of eight o’clock, as Danny had said, the curfew was set for six. All the grocery stores, convenience marts, and bodegas were pretty much out of everything that was of any use, and even items that weren’t, such as pantyhose. Vincenzo guessed the hosiery was either going to be used in stick-ups or as barter items should the world truly come to an end.

There was little word on Los Angeles, only mention that several neighborhoods were on fire and that the LAPD and LA Sheriff’s Department were working together to clamp down on the paroxysm of violence that shuddered through the entirety of Los Angeles County. Of the Sunset District, which was pretty much where Jessie and Benny were, there was no concrete word. Florida, where his parents lived, was also swept up in some violent turmoil but nothing like NYC. Curiously, the big cities in Texas were still operating in a more-or-less normal condition. Vincenzo guessed that, in the end, an armed society was a polite one, after all.

With nothing else to do, he began cooking. He went through his kitchen and pulled out everything that he felt he could reasonably make in the next couple of hours, in the event the power grid truly failed. He decided on pumpkin cinnamon muffins and cinnamon Danishes, along with two Cornish game hens, one of which he would toss into the freezer for later. At worst, he wouldn’t have to worry about thawing it out; that would happen all by itself.

His smartphone rang, and for a moment, he couldn’t find it. He ran down the hall to the bedroom and snatched the phone off the night stand.

He checked the screen then answered, “Grant!”

“Hey, buddy. Listen, we—”

The line went dead.

“Fuck!” Vincenzo redialed Grant but got another fast busy signal.

He went down his contact list with the same result. Halfway through it, a Service Unavailable window popped up, and it kept appearing every time he tried to make a call. Vincenzo sank to the bed, near tears. All he wanted was to talk with his family. All the vast communications technology he’d held in his hands was, for the moment, worthless. Worry and dread consumed him, and there was no way to get past the almost overwhelming sense of doom weighing him down like a wet cloak.

Like when Sophia had come along.

Their daughter had been born prematurely. She had been only twenty weeks old at delivery, and the doctors said she had less than a twenty percent chance of survival. After six weeks in intensive care under the watchful gaze of a battalion of the best pediatric surgeons and diagnosticians that Vincenzo could buy, little Sophia passed away early one morning. Both Vincenzo and Jessie were there when she took her last breath. Vincenzo had spent the nights reading to her, at first silly little children’s books then richer fare, starting with the first volume of Harry Potter. He had just finished the first one the night before her death and was looking forward to treating her to
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
, but that was simply not to be.

The loss had been staggering, but deep down, Vincenzo was also somewhat relieved, which disgusted him. The endless suffering, never-ending worry, and the eternal steeling against what might be the final outcome had taken an incredible toll on him. He had taken every step available to try to avoid that fateful set of circumstances, even bringing in a
feng shui
expert to analyze the room in a bid to give fate a run for its money. As a hard-core New Yorker, Vincenzo usually had little time to entertain such foolishness, but with his daughter’s life on the line, he had no problem honoring his wife’s almost-frantic appeals.

But Vincenzo found he had no talent to endure suffering. Jessie was dying from the inside out, her usually sharp blue eyes drained and bleary, her normally firm, tanned skin pale and lax around the planes of her face, her blond hair lank and lifeless as she directed every ounce of energy she had toward trying to secure her too-soon child’s survival. Their son, Benny, was in pain as well, even though he was too young to recognize the massive obstacles that lay ahead of his sister. He saw the ruthless toll the episode took on his parents, and it filled him with fear and dread.

One night as Vincenzo was tucking his son into bed, Benny said that God could take him and let little Sophia live. Vincenzo shushed him immediately, but later, when he stopped by his son’s door and listened in the still of the night, he heard Benny crying and praying to God that he let his sister live so both his parents could come home. For weeks, Benny rarely got to see his mom. With the dire situation at the hospital, Jessie’s parents had come up from Palm Springs to take care of the boy. Suffering colored every minute of Vincenzo’s day. He could no longer concentrate on work, and even though Grant had tried to bar him from the office, he went anyway. He needed the respite from all the anguish that surrounded Sophia and her premature arrival.

But worst of all was what Sophia had to go through. She existed in the center of a spiderweb of tubes that delivered oxygen, nutrients, and medications. Her intestines had ruptured, and she was doubtless in great pain, if not from the infection that spread through her lower GI tract then from the three rounds of surgeries that had left her skin puckered and angry looking beneath her tiny diaper. She seemed to fight for every breath, despite the assistance of a ventilator that ran endlessly. And her eyes hadn’t opened. The scans didn’t show any significant brain damage, but one of the neurosurgeons advised the Vincenzos that Sophia’s brain was still forming and that any deviation in its formation could have drastic consequences. Even if she lived, Sophia might be diagnosed with severe autism, a debilitating palsy, or incessant convulsions that would prevent her from living a normal life. And then there were the chances of blindness, deafness, or a host of maladies that could leave her requiring substantial medical care for the rest of her life.

When she had finally passed away that morning, Vincenzo wept, as any father who had lost a child would. He felt a numbing sense of loss, and for months, he was off balance. The bottom of his life had dropped out, and he was scrabbling at slick walls trying to hold it together. And in the midst of all of that, there was the relief, the shameful, revolting relief that all the suffering would one day end once time had done what it was supposed to do.

But Jessie never healed, not fully. The sparkle was gone from her eyes, and her post-Sophia existence was barely a faded monochrome image of what she had once been. She still loved Ben—lavished love on the boy, actually—but for Vincenzo, there was almost nothing left. She had given everything to Sophia, and what little remained went to Benny. Vincenzo felt that she was a phantom in his life. At night, it was almost like lying next to a moldering corpse, and he had awoken many times to find her sitting in one of the two lounge chairs in their bedroom, looking down at the constellation of lights formed by the city of Los Angeles.

When Sophia died, she had taken her mother’s soul with her, too.

And now, Jessie was trapped in Los Angeles with Benny. How would she be able to manage things, when she was dead on the inside?

Pull it together, you pussy
. Still holding the phone, he returned to the kitchen and went back to his cooking.

Half an hour later, WCBS went off the air.

###

The sun began to settle in the sky, dipping past the twin towers of the Time Warner Building to the west. Vincenzo looked down at the street, a cup of coffee in his hand, watching the shadows lengthen. It was well past six o’clock, and it seemed few people were actually obeying the curfew. The fire in the great One57 tower had been extinguished, but the building was still fronted by an array of fire trucks and squad cars.

Across the street, a woman pressed against the glass of her condo. Her long blond hair was tied back in a ponytail, and she wore tight-fitting black jeans and a long-tailed white shirt. When she looked across the street and seemed to notice him. She had a small workout area set up in the next room, and he’d watched her hit the treadmill, her big tits bouncing beneath a sports bra as she trundled away with her attention rooted to a TV that was always tuned to CNBC. He’d wondered more than once what she would be like in the sack. She was similar in appearance to Jessie but with a much harder edge, despite the straw-blond hair and the crystal-clear blue eyes he’d been able to see even across the expanse of the city street. The woman regarded him for a moment, and he thought about waving, but she turned away from the window and disappeared back inside her apartment. He returned to his examination of the street, watching the pedestrian-filled sidewalks surge around the few NYPD cruisers there. The cops stood next to their cars, and even from his vantage point, he could tell they were nervous, islands of blue trapped in a cascading river of panicking humanity.

Overhead, tendrils of light suddenly writhed about in the darkening sky. Vincenzo moved against the thick glass window so he could get a better view. Brilliant green light coruscated across the twilight sky, shimmering with blue highlights and driving from west to east. The lambent glow intensified, growing brighter and brighter and bathing the city with a luminous radiance that seemed to pulse rapidly. With each pulse, more blue light shot through the green. It was eerie, but at the same time, it was beautiful.

The refrigerator squealed as its compressor sped up, then it stopped with a sudden rattle, grinding to an unceremonious halt. Vincenzo looked over his shoulder just as the kitchen lights brightened. They went dark a moment later, and he heard a distant explosion rip through the night, like a transformer blowing. Then,
all
the lights in the apartment failed, leaving him in a darkness tinged with green and blue.

Vincenzo checked the window. New York City had gone dark. All lights were gone, even those of the vehicles in the street. He could just barely see the people down there, their faces turned upward as they regarded the light show in the sky. In Central Park, beyond the dark One57 Tower, little pinpricks of light blossomed. It took Vincenzo a moment to recognize what they were—people were striking their cigarette lighters.
A good time to click your Bic
.

Something moved in the sky, and Vincenzo pressed against the glass again. An airliner was gliding through the air, nose down. Even though it was twilight, the plane should have been illuminated, but the aircraft was completely dark, no winking anti-collision lights at all. Worse, it was close enough that he should have been able to hear its engines, but instead, he heard nothing other than a faint
whoosh
as the jet dove through the air. It flitted past, zooming out over Central Park and descending toward Harlem. Vincenzo watched in horrified fascination as the aircraft grew smaller and smaller until it finally disappeared behind some buildings on the other side of the park.

A moment later, an orange fireball lit up the area to the north. An angry mushroom cloud of black smoke formed, and Vincenzo realized he had just watched a planeload of people die. Farther out, past the darkened residential buildings of Manhattan’s Upper East Side, two more fireballs surged into the air. He knew what they were: more airplanes out of La Guardia, stricken dead either while landing or taking off. More human lives had been wiped off the slate in an instant.

From the street rose a great furor. The crowd had transformed into something ugly, something primal. In the gloom, he couldn’t see exactly what was going on, but the commotion was loud enough to reach his ears almost seven hundred feet in the air. Gunshots rang out, distant and tinny, and he stepped back from the window. Across the street, he could see the ghostly image of the blond-haired woman with the big tits and frozen eyes. She stood at her window and peered down into the street. He couldn’t see her face, so he had no idea whether her eyes were full of fear or just simple annoyance that humanity had started to turn on itself only a few minutes after the lights died.

Vincenzo reached for his Samsung smartphone. It was dead, the screen black. It had been of remarkably little use to him throughout the day, but now he realized the pictures stored on it—of Benny, of Jessie—were lost to him, possibly forever. He cursed himself for not printing them out.

There was more gunfire from below, some of it sustained for several seconds. Vincenzo moved deeper into the apartment. He could hear everything, it seemed, since the mechanicals that brought the building to life had halted in midstream. There were none of the soft, gentle noises that resided in every building: the whisper of the ventilation system, the soft gurgle of water down pipes, the muted rise and fall of elevators. The big condo was full of the sounds of impromptu warfare in the streets.