The City Series (Book 1): Mordacious (60 page)

Ted, the doorman who never failed to crack a joke, lies on the lobby floor, his head and once-gleaming wood counter both dented by a blunt object. That’s what I think, anyway, judging by the bashed-in metal vase in the dried puddle of blood. We reach the stairwell past the elevators. Grace throws open the door and starts up. Out on the street, two zombies move toward the awning. There will be more to fight through on our way out, perhaps with Logan to help. But I don’t think the Logan we want will be in the apartment. Either he’ll be dead or turned, or he’s gone. When things burned, when the water vanished, he would’ve had to leave.

Grace’s flashlight wobbles as she scurries up the stairs, illuminating a blood streak here and an abandoned shoe there. A chunk of something like dried-out meat. A dark stain.

“Grace!” My voice is high and screechy. “Wait, there might be a—”

A yelp comes from the flight above, followed by sounds of a scuffle. The flashlight rolls down the steps one by one—
gadunk
,
gadunk
,
gadunk
—like the Slinkys of my childhood never did. I pull myself to the landing and start to mount the next flight, but I can’t see a thing. I only hear hisses from a zombie and grunts from Grace.

I spin for the flashlight and take the stairs in twos and threes. Grace is pinned to the third floor door, arms straight against a woman’s chest to hold back her mouth. I jam my chisel in the base of the woman’s skull, directly under her chignon, and she crashes to the landing. Grace wheezes her thanks and bends over, hands on her knees.

“Don’t do that again!” I yell. “We stay together. It’s really freaking simple!”

“Sorry,” she gasps. “I just wanted to get—”

“Killed? Because that’s what almost happened.”

This is not the time or place for reprimands, but she took off without any regard for her safety, or mine. And maybe I’m hurt that she wanted to get upstairs so badly that she would leave me on the corner without a second thought. It’s an emotion that I want to pretend doesn’t exist. Of course she wanted to get to her husband, and she knows I can handle myself, that I’d be right behind her.

Grace touches my arm. “I’m sorry. I—”

“It’s fine. Can we just stay together?”

“Of course.” She surveys the lady on the floor. “That’s the bitchy woman from the co-op board.”

“The one who asked Logan if he used
that foul-smelling curry
?”

Logan’s father is of Indian descent. Logan stared bitchy co-op lady down until she excused herself from the room while the others apologized. They got the apartment, which they would have anyway, but no one would dare turn them down and risk a discrimination lawsuit after that question.

Grace nods. “I wish I’d killed her.”

“Consider it a gift from me to you.”

“Thanks.”

We reach the eighth floor in peace. A brief check of the hall shows it’s empty. Blood paints the walls and tile floors, the expensive wall sconces. Our footfalls are loud in the silence. Grace raps three times on her own apartment door and then stands with her fingers splayed against the wood as if she can feel what’s happened inside.

Finally, she tries the doorknob, and the door swings open to the foyer. Everything is neat and orderly, the hardwood floors shiny. She hurries into the dining area, calling, “Logan?”

Her footsteps stop abruptly. I rush forward, but she stands at the table with a sheet of paper stiff in her hand. Other sheets are stacked in a pile on the wooden surface.

“He went to my parents’ house,” she whispers. “He left to check for me, but said he’d be back. He wasn’t sure where I’d go.”

I look from what must be the latest note to the stack beside it. She starts at the bottom and reads each sheet in order. A tear plops to one and slowly sinks in to make a darker splotch. I want to know what they say, but I don’t ask.

Finally, she holds out the first paper she read. I take it gently.

Had to go out for some more food and to check on your parents. I hope you’re there, but if not, I’ll be back.

I left a bottle of water and a can of food in case you need it. I love you, Gracie.

Logan

It’s dated the day after we tried to make it to Brooklyn Heights the first time. We would’ve found him if we hadn’t turned back.

Grace moves for the kitchen with a sob. I scan each paper quickly. It’s a rundown of Logan’s weeks: He went to her parents’ house. They were there. He and Grace’s father tried to get to the hospital but couldn’t. Logan brought food to the apartment and waited some more, while they stayed at their house to wait. Then he went out for the last time, only weeks ago.

I set down the papers and move to the kitchen. It smells of urine, with a small ring of yellow that’s collected around the drain in the porcelain sink. Grace runs a finger along the water bottle and a full can of beans, then picks through the empty food wrappers in the garbage can—chocolate bars and chips and opened cans of everything from meat ravioli to carrots at the very top. All are scraped clean.

“Logan hates carrots,” Grace says. “But he didn’t leave them for me.”

I nod, although she doesn’t look up. I want to go back in time and arrive before he left. Before he forced himself to eat the carrots he hated in order to give himself more time. Before he was gone for weeks. This might be worse than if he’d been a zombie, than if he hadn’t left a note, because we know he was here, and that we could have been if we’d only pushed on.

“Let’s go to your parents’ house,” I say. “Maybe they’re all there.”

“Yeah.” She sounds as if she doesn’t believe it.

“Do you want to get some of your stuff first?”

She leaves the kitchen without answering. I hear drawers open in the bedroom and walk to the living room windows. This view of the city was the sole reason they dealt with the bitchy co-op lady. It’s not worth what they paid for it now. Some of the dust has settled, and, now that it’s visible, I see lower Manhattan is severely scorched. Many buildings are black, at least those that still stand. A city of ebony.

I think of Logan’s notes and wonder what happened when they found our note at the house in Sunset Park. If they’re worried. If it was clear I never would have left on my own. Another broad-shouldered man wanders the street. A Logan. I press my forehead to the window, my breath fogging the glass, but it’s not him—this one’s hair shines blond under the grime.

“Let’s go,” Grace says. She wears her own clothes and boots, and her pack is full.

“Okay. I’m sure they’re—”

She raises a hand.
Shut up, Sylvie
. I do.

We leave from a first floor apartment’s window and make it to our bikes while the crowd that’s formed at the building’s entrance watches the doors. By the time they turn, we’re gone. Grace’s legs pump, her head is down. I follow behind praying,
Please let them be there. Let them be home.

In high school, Grace’s house was like another world. Not only because of its occupants, but also because of its graceful, curved brownstone stoop and its floor-to-ceiling windows, its mantels and glowing wood floors and small backyard in which ivy grew rampant and green. Everything, down to shower curtain rings, the spoon that stirred a pot and the cup in the bathroom had been chosen with care. There was an intent to make things beautiful in a way I’d never experienced. To me, a spoon was a spoon, and if it stirred a pot, then it was good. But Grace’s mother, Lorraine, is an artist, and she made things special without seeming ostentatious.

It takes only a few minutes to get to the narrow street. Lexers loiter down the block. Grace stops short, her eyes trained on the remains of her parents’ brownstone and a few on either side. They’re charred black as Manhattan. Gone. All of her mother’s lovely things are gone. The people are gone, whether they were inside or escaped, and they might as well be dead with all the hope we have of finding them.

“Mom!” Grace screams. “Dad!”

The zombies start forward. She screams again, her eyes skimming the windows of the unburned houses. The brown boots she’s changed into dent the hood of an SUV as she climbs to its roof. She spins in a circle above my head.

“Logan! Mom! Dad!” It’s throaty and frantic and hurts to hear. Like she’s ripping apart inside.

I watch the street. More zombies make their way from the corner, trapping us in the middle with the first group. One is coal come to life, features melted by fire and hair gone, but it still manages to trail behind the others. I’ll never convince her to leave in time. I climb up and stand beside Grace. I can’t find my voice, but she screams for the both of us. The houses remain quiet. Every door is ajar, a few windows smashed. The air is heavy with the scent of fire and death.

I felt as though I breathed a different kind of oxygen in that house—clean and soft and quiet. I envied Grace, never enough that it poisoned me, but with a longing that made me feel awkward and out of place. Once I moved in, I’d make up reasons to stay out after school. Did they really want me there—the dark, brooding girl who their sunny daughter liked so much? I was sure I didn’t fit into the peaceful landscape, like a roach that had wandered onto the butcher block counters in the immaculate kitchen.

I was there less than a year, and in that time Lorraine almost managed to convince me that she’d chosen me. As if I were another beautiful thing she’d taken into her house and treated with care. I thanked her, but I never told her that. I fought the temptation to ask if she truly felt that way; she would have said yes, and I was scared I’d see the lie in her eyes if it wasn’t true. I never revealed how often I’d considered opening a bottle of my mother’s illegally obtained prescription drugs and taking them one by one until it was empty. I never told her that when I felt like that roach, I would think of her and imagine myself as something valuable: something simple like that hand-carved wooden spoon, or maybe something flawed like the blown glass bathroom cup with the uneven edges. Valuable even with my imperfections. Every so often I’d believe it might be true.

The SUV shifts when the bodies hit. Grace doesn’t care. Maybe I should, but I feel responsible for this. It was my mother who put us here, and I’ll do whatever Grace wants, even if it’s to stand screaming until we’re surrounded by every zombie in Brooklyn. I owe her that much. I owed it to Lorraine to come here the first chance I got, to push on, because she was valuable enough that I should have.

Hands slap on the roof. Black smears and blood. Fresh blood, maybe. Grace stops screaming, shoulders wilted. The SUV rocks, and we clutch each other so as not to fall.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper in her ear.

She pulls away and wipes her cheek, leaving behind a streak of brown. “We have to go.”

Between thirty and forty surround us, our bikes stuck in their midst. It’ll take a while, but we can kill them one by one, the same way you’d down pills in a bottle. I kneel at the edge of the roof and Grace drops to her knees on the other side.

I raise the chisel above the charred one’s head. I was afraid it was Lorraine, but it’s tall and broad. A man. It still wears a gold chain from which dangles a cornicello—the twisted horn-shaped charm Italians wear to ward off the evil eye. My father had one. I suppose this could be him. I bring down the chisel and fell it in one stroke.

Chapter 75

Eric

Sylvie isn’t on the parlor floor when I wake. I figure she’s gone out to see Cat, but a quick look out the window tells me she’s not in the yard. I head downstairs. I like our early morning time, where we make coffee and read and talk at the kitchen table. I sneak peeks at her while she’s intent on her book. Her face relaxes, her shoulders come down and, if I say something, she looks up with an open expression. Her guard is dropping even when her nose isn’t in a book: she asked for help. She didn’t need to—had I known Grace’s plan, I would’ve offered in a heartbeat. That Sylvie didn’t realize makes me think she doesn’t know how I feel about her, and I think that needs to change.

Paul and Sylvie are getting along like a house on fire, and all it took was a punch. Which, for the record, he deserved a week ago. Maybe weeks ago. I told Sylvie that Paul and I didn’t say anything important afterward, but that isn’t true.

“Fucking third time you’ve punched me, bro,” Paul said, hand to his cheek.

“Maybe third time’s the charm,” I said. “Don’t make me choose here, Paul.”

Paul raised his brows. “She’s no Rachel.”

“You hated Rachel.”

He put his arm around me. “I know. It’s a point in Sylvie’s favor. You really like her?”

“I do. And so will you, if you stop being an asshole. I really need you to do this for me, man.”

“You in love with her?”

I shook my head and shrugged. I don’t know what I am with Sylvie, except certain I want more than sex, to which I’m also amenable. I’m following Maria’s orders—friends first—not because I’m scared to defy an order from Maria, which I absolutely am, but because she was right: Sylvie needs friends.

“You will be,” he said. I must have looked surprised, and he smirked. “I know you, bro, and I’m happy for you. Sorry I was a dick about it. I just couldn’t…” His mouth screwed sideways and he looked away.

I knew what he wanted to say. He and Hannah were the couple no one thought would last, but they did, and now she’s gone. Gone and still wandering around somewhere, which is worse. Paul was jealous and angry, but, mainly, he was sad. Paul doesn’t do sad well, so he gave the other emotions free rein.

“I heard what Sylvie said,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”

“I knew.” His voice cracked, and I pulled him in for a hug. He held on tight for a moment then clapped my back. “All right, go get her for me. I want to apologize.”

“Paul Maloney wants to apologize?”

“Just go get her, bro. Don’t be an asshole.”

Paul is not known for his apologies, and he did it twice in one day—a record. They were for her, but the punch was for me and I love him for it.

Downstairs, the bedroom door is open and the room is unoccupied. I pad into the kitchen to find it empty as well. A note sits on the table: