Survivor (4 page)

T
he friendly Chasers were gone. Where they'd been, the ground was littered with empty plastic bottles—lumps sticking out from the snow, undisturbed since the overnight snowfall. All around me was just white-gray slush, not even a set of telltale footprints.

Had Felicity made contact with them and followed them somewhere? Or, if she hadn't, why hadn't she returned to her home last night? On that little video screen she'd looked fit, healthy, capable. Surely if she was okay she would have gone back home. You'd run through the rain and dust and ash—you'd stop at nothing to be with your friends and family, even if all you had left were the remainders of them in an empty home.

A steel drum was overturned. I looked in it—ash. I took off a glove and felt the drum. It was cold, but not freezing cold, like the fire had gone out overnight, just a few hours before. I rolled the burned-out shell a few times, unsettling its black-gray contents, and looked inside at a tiny glowing ember. I thought about taking it out, putting it in my pocket, having its warmth travel with me, but if they returned, they'd need it more than me.

Maybe they'd simply run out of fuel or drink—I could see neither nearby—and gone on a re-supply trip. They could soon be back with more supplies. Or perhaps they'd set up camp at the next spot that provided what they needed, and they'd keep moving on like that. Either way, there was nothing here for me now.

I stood, leaving their things behind with a final look, and began walking east, towards the sun. Exiting the park, I passed thick shrubbery and saw the back of a still figure. Sleeping once, now covered in snow and ice, long lost into a never-ending dream. I approached slowly and retched when I saw the bloodstains. I rolled the body over with my foot. Its head was featureless, its face gnawed away, the miniature work of rats or some other scavenger.

That will never happen to me, no matter what.

 

I followed the tire tracks of the soldiers' trucks, black grooves in the pristine white landscape down to the ash on the blacktop. At the corner of Fifth Avenue, I stopped under the awning of the Plaza Hotel. The tracks turned south and soon became impossible to see. Looking north, the shattered remnants of everything in this street were disappearing in the driving snow. Visibility was no more than a block in either direction.

This was not a day for exploring or being trapped out in the elements. I needed someplace safe, somewhere close.

Across the street, the Pulitzer Fountain was dark, full of black water. Snow was falling hard now. My face was cold, my feet were freezing. The wind around my ears made me feel that at any moment there could be someone coming up behind me. I could never shut out thoughts like that.

The doors of the Plaza were locked, shin-deep snow had drifted up against them. It was dark inside. The only signs of human intervention since the attack were marks on the doors, and on the buildings on the opposite corner. Large spray-painted Xs, with numbers and letters in each quadrant, seemed to record some kind of coded information. I heard a gunshot, far-off, then a few more in quick succession.

A group of people were coming down Fifth Avenue, moving dark silhouettes, barely visible amidst the snow shower. Six of them. I watched them as they neared me. The soldiers? No. Chasers. Time to move away. I stayed low, keeping against the cars and buildings, and moved up Fifth Avenue.

There was a pile of rubble up ahead. The figures had stopped in the street, about where I had been standing. Above them was a building with a ten-story billboard running down its side: a woman dressed in not much, advertising . . . a handbag, I think. Despite its size it was hard to tell for sure; hard to imagine a time when anything about that ad made sense.

I jogged north up Fifth, holding my coat collar tight around my neck to keep the wet out, huddling to the right, sticking close to the buildings for shelter. They were still there behind me, still coming, and matching my speed. I knew they'd not yet seen me, otherwise they'd be chasing hard. They were following my footprints, fresh in the snow. I started to run, flat out, giving everything I had.

The roads here looked no different from the sidewalks—they were all covered in smashed and crashed cars and vans and trucks, everything buried in ice and snow and ash and debris—and now rain. Up ahead was the mountain of rubble strewn across the road, impassable. I was pretty sure I'd watched this very building come down from the observation deck at 30 Rock in those first few days; a cloud of dust and ash in the still air. Ragged, dangerous.

I had three options: go around the rubble and through the likely dangers of Central Park, find my way eastward around the next block or two and probably encounter more of the same impassable ruins, or go back the way I'd come.

I looked back at the figures. They'd stopped momentarily, but started up again no sooner than I'd recounted the six of them. They moved more quickly this time, running hard—then two peeled off down a side street.

I went with my first choice, and ran across the road to the Central Park side. There was a building set inside the park, brick with white timber-framed windows, set down a couple of flights of steps from street level. It was big and regal looking; four or five stories high, with towers at the corners like some sort of castle. It looked undamaged, safe, and secure.

To my right there was a stone pillar supporting the steel handrail that led down the stairs. Set into the pillar was a green copper sign that read “To the Zoo and Cafeteria.” I held onto the handrail and walked down the steps, slippery underfoot, icy slick, descending as quickly as I dared. I rushed towards the doors, which were set at the top of a short flight of stone stairs. I was scared and it was raining and I was cold. I shouldn't have come here, not today, not now.

Even if those Chasers overshot me, there might not be time in the daylight to make it somewhere safe to spend the night. I could see the Chasers up at street level, closing in; they were following my tracks just as they had been since the Plaza. Maybe the rain would wash them away just enough . . .

The front doors were brass-framed with clear glass inserts. They were locked. I stood still and listened. I could not hear anything, but I could see the tops of heads walking up the last block on the street up above. I had two minutes, max. Maybe I could smash the glass and unhook a latch or something? I cupped my hands around my eyes and peered through the door, trying to make out details through the glass. It was too dark. I squinted, scanned around, trying to make sense of it.

My own eyes stared into mine, wide, still, spooked. But then they moved. I hadn't moved. The eyes I saw were not mine—someone was there, inside, looking back at me.

H
er name tag read “Rachel.” She looked about my age, but was small and slight. She watched me tap on the doors, pleading to get in. She stared out at me, stunned, but not with the vacant expression that I'd grown so used to seeing on Chasers. I saw fear in her eyes, not thirst: here was another survivor.

I could understand if she was frightened. Maybe I was the first person she'd seen since the attack. Or maybe she was in charge of a group of survivors, and was unwilling to risk their safety by admitting a stranger. I mightn't look like someone you'd want to get close to—hell, I'd been surprised at my own reflection these past few days. I no longer looked like
me
. I was a different me—one who could hold a gun and shoot, one who had mastered the art of self-preservation. The cut on my eyebrow from when I hit my head in the subway carriage after the explosion had healed, but it had left an angry scar. My hair and clothes were sodden from the rain. My skin was pale and drawn across my features.

“Please!” I mouthed to her. “Please, let me in?” I rattled the doors.

Then she moved. Just a little, just enough to give me hope.

“Can I come in?” I called into the crack where the two doors met. I stood back and forced a smile, my hands up in the air to show I was getting wetter and colder out here, that I was harmless.

She did not respond.

“Rachel,” I said, indicating her name badge. “My name's Jesse. Are you—are you okay?”

Her gaze shifted; she was looking over my right shoulder. I turned in that direction.

Up at street level, the group of four Chasers was almost at the top of the stone stairs. I dared not make a sound. A couple were preoccupied with the falling rain, heads tilted skyward, their insatiable thirst being met by the heavens. They walked past the stairs, didn't even look my way. Maybe they'd missed my tracks heading down here? I didn't move until they were out of sight. Wet snow ran down the back of my neck.

I turned back to the door—Rachel was gone. I walked back down the stairs and ran around the side of the building. There was a sign that read “New York State Arsenal, Erected 1848.” No wonder it looked so imposing; a fortress in the middle of the city.

I imagined that there was a refuge inside—that Rachel was one of many survivors here, with the zoo workers and their friends and families. They'd have hot food and answers and laughs. Maybe I could stay here with them until rescuers arrived. I could help with the animals, collect food from nearby abandoned stores and apartments.

Or Rachel could join me in finding Felicity, and the three of us could leave the city together, and head north.

Looking around, I tossed my backpack over a tall metal fence, heaved myself up and over it, and landed heavily on the other side. There were several other brick buildings behind this imposing arsenal, covered and semi-covered walkways linking them, a big pool in the center.

“Hello?” I called, as loud as I dared. I could not see anyone, and I could not hear anything but the icy rain hitting hard surfaces and buildings around me, the snow underfoot turning to slush. “Rachel?”

I opened a door to a building marked as a cafeteria.

“Anyone here?”

No answer. Empty. No sign of life.

I started to feel uneasy. What if there were no group of survivors here, no Felicity to be found nearby, just Rachel? I couldn't help but feel a little stab of disappointment at the thought of having to make do with this unresponsive, cautious girl. But I
had
to give her a chance. Give us both a chance.

I approached another door at the rear of the arsenal building. It was ajar.

“Hello?” I called inside as I pushed it open. Rachel was in the shadows, alone, at the far end of a hallway at the bottom of some stairs. “Hi. Can I please—”

“I don't have anything.” Her voice was squeaky, shaky.

“There's that shovel,” I said.

She looked at the makeshift weapon in her hands, then back to me.

I said, “I'm not the enemy.”

“Are you sick?”

“No.”

“You're sure?”

“Yes.”

She looked around to the side of the building, and then back at me.

“Did you just jump the fence?”

“Yeah.”

She almost looked impressed, but didn't say anything more. I recognized she was more than just scared or cautious; she was alone here. Just her and the animals.

I needed a way of breaking the ice, to get her to trust that I meant her no harm.

“Hey, you wouldn't be missing a polar bear, would you?”

She came forward, two, three steps, considering me more now. I could see up close that she was probably only a year or two older than me—there was a young, pretty face under all that grime and exhaustion.

“You saw a polar bear? Where? When?” Her head tilted to the side, her eyes watched me, closely.

“A few nights ago. Near the library, 42nd and Fifth?”

“Oh . . .” she said, seeming disappointed by that, either the timing or the place. “Was he—Did he look okay?”

“Yeah,” I said, trying to sound upbeat. “He was sniffing around in the snow. More interested in finding food than in me. Seemed happy enough.”

“He was alone?”

“Yeah, I just saw one,” I said. “He mooched around then ambled off.”

The memory made me smile. Maybe if I told Rachel more about that unexpected encounter, she would realize I was on her side—on the side of the animals too.

“I was spooked at the noises he was making,” I continued, “but then when I saw him—I felt safe having him around. Like he and I were in this together. I threw him some fruit but he wasn't interested. He seemed to prefer being on his own.”

I remembered thinking that the polar bear might sniff out the Chasers for us, warn us if they were coming. It might even keep them away. But it seemed wrong to say that, to think of using him as a line of defense. I didn't think Rachel would see polar bears like that.

She smiled faintly, more with her eyes than her mouth.

“How many were there?” I asked.

“Two,” she said.

“Well, I'm sure they're both doing fine. So, where's the rest of the zoo staff?” I asked, not wanting to let on that I'd so quickly recognized her solo status.

“You're looking at it,” she said, moving out towards the zoo grounds. I put my backpack down by the back door and followed her at a distance of a few paces. I watched her do her chores. She delivered a bucket of food to the penguins—tiny blurs of black and white that seemed oblivious to everything—then stopped and threw a toy back into the sea lions' enclosure.

“What happened to the others?”

“I wish I knew.” She struggled to heave a sack of grains and wouldn't let me help her.

“You seem young to be—”

“I'm older than you.”

“Okay. I didn't mean . . .” I hadn't meant to offend her. If anything, I'd meant it as a compliment. But maybe she was already tired of being the responsible one, dependable.

“I'm here on an internship, in my second year of vet school, from Boston. And I'm the only one who stayed here after the attack or whatever. That enough of a catch-up for you?”

I nodded. “Like I said, I'm Jesse. It's good to meet you.”

She didn't shake my offered hand, didn't put the shovel down. “What's your accent?” she asked.

“I'm Australian.”

She shrugged, as if she wasn't really interested. Silence as she worked, broken by a sudden banging at the front doors. Hard, rough, rattling.

“Who is it?” she asked. “Friends of yours?”

“I have no friends,” I said, reality hitting me when I said this out loud. No point denying that anymore.

“Did you tell anyone you were coming here?”

“Everyone I know in this city is dead.” That enough of a catch-up for her?

I followed her to the back doors, out of sight from those at the front of the building. “It's the Chasers.”

“The what?” She looked across the doorway at me.

“The
who
. The infected.”

“They don't bang on doors.”

“These ones do more than that,” I said. “These ones hunt.”

That seemed to register. She shook her head, as if in denial, and bent down, moving slowly on her hands and knees into the doorway between us. I followed. The rattling had stopped. We crouched in the shadows, peered around a corner of the stairs to the doors at the end of the hall. Two Chasers were there, standing at the entrance, clearly looking for me. I'd led them here.

“I've put you in danger.”

“Probably,” she whispered. “I haven't seen these ones up close before.”

“I have,” I said. “I've seen them right up close. For keeps.”

“They're . . .”

“They're . . . ”

“Scary?”

“Intriguing.” Rachel seemed genuinely fascinated by the Chasers. As if they were some new species of animal. “They don't seem that dangerous. They can't climb the fences, for one thing.”

“Don't give them the chance to prove otherwise.”

“So what do we do?” she demanded.

“We hope they leave.” It was all I could think to say.