Reapers (45 page)

Another couple arrived thirty seconds after Ellie and Dee. After that, five minutes went by with no new additions. Gunfire banged away. The troopers moved together and conferred.

One of them broke away and approached the crowd. "All right, listen up! We're heading into the tunnels. There's nothing to worry about. It's safe, we'll have lights, and I hear the trains just happen to be working on a six-year delay."

"Where are we going?" an old man said.

"Someplace safe."

"This place got a name?"

"I can't leave my home behind," a woman said.

The trooper rolled his lips together and glanced to the side. "Distro came to the park specifically to hurt
you
. The farmers. The breadbasket of the city. My friends are fighting them right now to make sure your homes don't get burned. It's my job to make sure you're kept just as safe as your lands. We'll get you back where you belong as soon as we can."

There was some muttering, but when two soldiers lit lanterns and headed downstairs, the crowd followed. Ellie moved to join them. As she descended the snowy stairs, clinging to the bitterly cold railing, chthonic panic rose in her chest. The last time she'd been in the subway—and while the logistics had differed significantly, the goals were eerily similar—she had very nearly died.

Feet echoed through the enclosed concrete space. Her pulse climbed. By the time the crowd reached the turnstiles, the darkness was complete, combated only by the soldiers' two lanterns. A few of the farmers had thought to bring light sources and they paused to fire them up. Ellie had a lantern in her camping gear, but so far, the Kono troops hadn't paid much mind to the individuals under their charge. Ellie didn't care to do anything to draw attention. For her, the darkness was a friend.

Except when it came time to climb onto the tracks.

Light gleamed from the rails and from water dripping from the ceiling. Standing water pooled between the railway ties. It smelled like minerals and laundry. The soldiers jumped down and lifted their arms to help the children to the tracks. Ellie lowered herself, landing with a jolt to her knee. Dee passed down the packs, dangled her legs over the platform, and dropped.

Lantern light swung crazily through the metal pillars dividing the northbound tracks from the southbound. Once the park residents had reassembled on the tracks, the soldiers continued north. Ellie could hear her breathing echoing down the tunnel.

Dee reached for her hand. "You okay?"

"I'll manage."

"Remembering?"

Ellie was about to brush it off, like always, but the words rushed out in a murmur that only Dee could hear. "I dream about it. A walk just like this. The bodies piled just like they were—but sometimes they move. Faces of the dead watch me from the walls. They tell me to go on, and I can't hear it, but I know they're laughing. Because at the end of the tunnel, he's there with the bodies."

"Dad?" Dee whispered. Ellie nodded. Dee's eyes were sunken. "I dream about it, too. But the tunnel's empty, and no matter how long I walk, I'm always alone."

Ellie squeezed her hand. Feet sloshed in puddles. Small things skittered in the darkness. Rats, mostly, but once, a swinging lantern shined on the suspicious eyes of something larger and white. A chihuahua backed away from the travelers. Its muzzle was stained with blood.

Most of the walk was through tight, stale-smelling tunnels; every five or ten minutes, the walls widened to platforms, advancing from 86th to 96th to 103rd. The tracks were free of trains, but somewhere between 110th and 116th, the foremost lanterns illuminated a bed of white across the tracks. Ellie glanced up, puzzled how the snow had gotten in; she didn't feel a draft.

"Shit." The soldier turned back for a look at the refugees. "Why is this still here?"

He'd meant to hiss it to his partner, but the harsh noise carried down the narrow tunnel. The second soldier scowled at him, then stepped back toward the waiting farmers.

"The next bit isn't going to be a lot of fun," he said. "But I've got strict orders to take the tunnels all the way to the river. A minute of unpleasantness is a whole lot better than Distro scouts catching us in the streets."

He made a stoic line of his mouth and continued forward. The farmers followed. Some of them scooped their children into their arms. They all went deathly silent. Their feet clattered as if walking over scrap wood. It wasn't snow that covered the tracks. It was bones.

Back in the plague days, with the virus overwhelming the world, they'd used the tunnels for catacombs. Stacked the dead by the thousands. At first, it was to keep them hidden from those who weren't sick—so naive—but then it had become a practical matter. More than a million dead had been left on the island. Leaving them scattered across their apartments, cars, sidewalks, and workplaces would have wracked the city with secondary infections. So workers had continued to pile away the dead until the workers died, too.

This was what remained.

Bones turned under her soles. She lowered her weight, terrified of the idea she might lose her balance and plunge into the dunes of dead matter. Her toe knocked a skull across a railroad tie. Something dark fluttered behind it; Ellie yelped. The skull pulled free, leaving the scalp draped over the tracks, its blond hair floating on a dark puddle. She stopped and stared.

"Mom?"

"Just a minute." Others picked past them, carefully paying Ellie no mind. The soldiers' lanterns retreated down the tunnel. The plain white bones grew dim. Beside her, Dee became a silhouette.

"Come on," Dee said. "We can't fall out of the light."

"Don't rush me." Her voice was as hard as the femur under her left heel, but the words were lost in the click and rattle of the people moving ahead. Her feet felt locked down by an incredible weight, as if all the gravity of the ceiling and the buildings above it were resting on the crown of her head. Even if she could move, doing so would bring everything toppling down.

"He's the reason I'm alive—and you are, too." Dee reached for her hand. "Just take one step, Mom. I won't let you fall."

Ellie squeezed her eyes shut and forced her breath through her nose. She took Dee's hand. At the touch, her right foot jerked forward. A spree of ribs bounced away.

"Fuck," Ellie said. She made her left foot move too, and she was walking, bones rocking beneath her feet, grinding into the wooden ties. The farmers' passage had cleared the remains from a few patches of the rails and Ellie stepped in these spots whenever she could. Dee shadowed her, stopping when she stopped, pointing out toeholds in the white rubble. She was wordless but the hold of her hand was firm.

After a couple hundred feet, the bones trickled away. Ellie walked across bare ties and musty puddles. Her breathing returned to normal. She let go of Dee's hand and wiped the sweat of her palm on her hip.

At the 125th St. station, rubble blocked the way forward. The soldiers seemed to be expecting this; they set up next to the platform and helped boost farmers and children up to the concrete. Up at street level, brownstones overlooked a thin river. A single bridge crossed to the Bronx. Up and down the river, the other crossings had been smashed, pylons rising naked from the gray water, floes of broken concrete poking from the surface.

The Kono soldiers stood there a minute, listening. Ellie heard no more shots. The soldiers conferred, then looped up an onramp to the lone bridge. In its middle, two men in urban camo watched from behind a barricade set across the lanes.

One of the Kono raised his hand. The government soldiers beckoned him forward. He crossed the bridge alone, stopping before the barricade. Ellie couldn't make out their words. After a minute, the soldier crunched back through the snow to the refugees.

"You all bring your passports?" he said. The people nodded. He shook his head, smiling. "Told you you'd need them. Feds, man."

The group moved forward. Sections of snow had melted and refrozen on the lanes, leaving sheets of ice as thick and hard as the frozen banks of the pond in the park. Progress was slow. Ellie was grateful for the extra time to think.

The Fed soldiers walked from behind the barricade, hands out. The farmers lined up and fed them their passports. Ellie joined the end of the queue.

"What are we doing?" Dee whispered.

Ellie aimed her palm at the ground and gave a short shake of her head. The Feds jotted names on clipboards and let one family through at a time. Ellie shuffled forward until the last family passed through.

The Fed soldier smiled at her and held out his hand. "Passports?"

"We don't have them," Ellie said.

"We can't let anyone in or out without a passport. This is our national border."

Beside her, the Kono trooper's gaze moved across her face. He frowned. She considered trying the truth, but if they'd tortured Hobson, he may have given up their names.

"We're illegals," Ellie said. "The people who attacked the park—Distro—smuggled us in to work for them. It was awful. They barely fed us. We had no heat." She indicated Dee. "One night, my niece nearly froze. I woke up and her lips had gone blue. When I asked for more blankets, the guards told me to tear up my Bible and stuff the pages in my clothes. They said that's what the homeless used to do."

She gazed bleakly at the river. "What would it have cost them to find us another blanket? Five minutes? That's when I knew it was time to go. Two weeks ago, we escaped and went to stay in Central Park with someone the other workers had told us about."

The Fed soldier looked up from his pad. "And that was?"

"Nora Ryan. She lives in the boathouse on the lake."

"Why isn't she here?"

Ellie shook her head and bit her tongue until her eyes went bright with pain and the suggestion of tears. "She was ice fishing with her kids. I went to look for them, but they were gone. When the Kono told us they were evacuating the park..." She put her arm around Dee's shoulders. "My sister didn't make it through the Panhandler. I promised I'd always take care of her daughter."

"It's okay," the watching Kono trooper said. "I'm sure our people got your friend out of harm's way."

The government soldier tapped his pad with his pen. "Entering Manhattan illegally is a federal crime."

"Oh no," Ellie said. "What's the penalty?"

The man's mouth twitched. "Deportation."

"We won't try to come back," Dee said. "We promise. I just want to go home."

The soldier turned to his partner. The Kono trooper put his hands on his hips. "She
wants
to leave. Are you going to stop her because that's normally the punishment?"

"Get on over." The soldier stepped aside. "And do not let me see you back on this island without documentation."

Ellie nodded. Dee touched the man's arm as they walked past. "Thank you."

The refugees moved slowly across the bridge into the Bronx, helping each other over the slick patches of ice. They gathered in the wide street on the other side. The Kono stopped to confer. The one who'd helped Ellie talk her way past the bridge walked up and pulled her aside.

"You got food? Water?"

"Enough for a couple days," Ellie said.

"Hate to do this, but we can't take you any further. The camp is citizens-only."

"It's already been a long day," Ellie said. "Maybe we could just sleep there tonight."

The man wouldn't meet her eyes. "You said you worked for Distro. I can't compromise the security of our people."

Dee moved beside Ellie, taking her wrist in both hands. "What are we going to do?"

"It's okay," Ellie said. Dee's performance had her on the verge of a smile. She turned it on the soldier. "Thank you for getting us this far."

He smiled back. "Thanks for understanding."

Ellie shifted her pack's straps and walked to the highway crossing Third Avenue. It swept along the shore of the Bronx, hooking north. Within a couple blocks, banks of low apartments cut off line of sight to the evacuated farmers.

"How long until we double back?" Dee said.

"Oh, do you think we should follow them?"

"Unless you're getting bored."

"Of running down deadbeat leads in a hostile, icebound city?" Ellie said. "I don't think 'bored' is the word. But think, Dee. If they catch us following them after telling us to get lost, they'll lock us up."

Dee's shoulders swayed as she ground through the snow. "We'll follow their tracks."

"There's at least one advantage to this ridiculous winter."

After a quarter mile, Ellie left the highway and entered a bodega. The glass refrigerator doors had been smashed long ago and the aisles were plastered with a hard, cement-like layer of flour, sugar, melted ice, and ice cream. Tufts of the bags that had once contained these goods poked from the fossilized spill. Seeing this, Ellie didn't have high hopes they'd find anything useful, but she checked out of habit. After a pass through the store, she sat on a stool behind the counter, glad to be off her feet.

Despite all the fighting, chaos, and travel, it was hardly noon. Ellie let them decompress a while. They nibbled on dried fruit, drank water, repacked their canteens with snow. She wasn't sure if that was hygienic, but nobody had gotten sick so far. Rested, fed, and watered, she left the bodega and they doubled back. As they neared, Ellie cut dead east, keeping a couple blocks between themselves and the government soldiers on the bridge.

The Kono-led farmers were long gone. But their tracks stamped a blazing trail. One that continued to 138th, hung a sharp left, then continued north straight up the boulevard of Grand Concourse.

"Of course," Ellie said.

"What?"

"You'll see."

Back when she'd lived in lower Manhattan with Chip, she'd only been up this way a handful of times, and it was a longer walk than she remembered. The South Bronx looked the same to her as all the outer boroughs: row after row of dull-colored walkups over ground floor sandwich shops and bars and diners. Everything was gray and worn, patinaed by decades of millions of lives. As they walked along a blocks-long park, the subway tracks swooped up from the ground to their left, running brazenly above the middle of the street. Behind the train tracks, the coliseum soared into the sky. At the next intersection, the tracks of the farmers turned to approach it.