The Days and Months We Were First Born- the Unraveling (6 page)

“I say we get the hell out of Manhattan while we can! This place is nothing but a death trap without power!” yelled some skinny woman right behind me.

“That’s right,” said Alicia, who was on the opposite side of the semi-circle. “If we go to the mainland, we will stand a better chance. There’s nothing for us here.”

Almir, who was a few paces to my right, didn’t stand for this. His eyes went wide and he shouted, “I say we let the ones who want leave, go! Kick them out of the militia!”

“What? And leave us to die, you selfish asshole?!” Alicia said.

Argument fragmented the gathering, and it was virulent. Almir and Alicia closed in and screamed at each other face to face. Other rivals chose that moment to have it in as well. The bickering soon turned into personal insults. The insults turned into shoving. And within one minute, Eric Wu
was watching us all with disgust.
His
militia was ready to tear itself apart.

Someone threw a punch, and that really did it. Now, we were an all-out Mêlée. David
and I were caught in the middle.
I was doing what I could to keep some Scandinavian man from beating the shit out of this Spanish kid, while David was breaking up a fight between two ladies. Yes, it was a lovely start to the day. Then we heard a shot.

POW!!!

It was loud and powerful. I could feel the sound as it bounced off the buildings and reverberated across the courtyard.
Everyone paused, mid move.
Collectively, we searched for and found the shooter, Eric Wu. Smoke was rising from the barrel of his Dunbar pistol.

“NOW EVERYONE CALM THE FUCK DOWN!”

He had everyone’s sobered attention. And there was a very dangerous look to him. As if he was going to snap, and fire upon us at random.

“I’ve had it with the crying and whining about leaving Manhattan. We’re not going anywhere. We‘re not going
any-fucking-where
! I didn’t form this group to leave New York. This is the
Last Standers
. If you want to go, feel free to grab a weapon and leave. None of you are forced to stay here. None of you are prisoners. So grab your stuff, God speed to you, and leave the real New Yorkers to stay!”

A few people let out a cheer.

“Now as I said, we’re preparing to head to Chelsea, our new home.” His stance had softened, if only a little. “I know. It’s not good. People are still dying.
My
loved ones are still dying. It’s dangerous. Our food is running low, our vehicles will soon run out of charge, and we won’t be as mobile as we used to be. I know—things are stacked against us. But make no mistake about it. We will find resources to survive, we will continue to rescue more people, and we will rebuild this city. If this isn’t your cause, then you’re in the wrong group. Now let’s move out. We have a base to build!”

We were thoroughly pacified. I have to give the man his due.  He was a formidable leader.

Satisfied, Wu jumped to the ground from the box and returned to the building. The fighters apologized to each other and tried to explain their actions. Well, most fighters.

Alicia, Jharna, and a few others
complained bitterly.
They retreated to the building, thoroughly humiliated. And on the other side, Almir and his group were elated. They were practically floating. The case had been settled once and for all in their favor, by the main man himself. And that was the end of it.

***

Our caravan headed south down Broadway at a very slow pace, and we had eight vehicles in total. A deserted East American tank was in our front. Armed men were riding on the top, and they were looking out for any signs of trouble. There were four NYPD
Humvees,
two on each side, which flanked our outer edges. Wu, his lieutenants, and a few of the patrollers rode in those vehicles. In the middle, there were two buses from NYC Transit. The first bus carried non-combat personnel such as David and I, the children, and their care providers. The second bus carried the terminally ill. The seats
were
removed and the ill were laid flat. And the vehicle at our rear was the flatbed truck we had used to carry the bodies. There were more armed men riding in the payload now. They sat in a square with their backs to each other. Their guns were pointed toward the buildings. They were guarding against snipers.

I couldn’t help comparing the Broadway I used to know to the Broadway I saw that day. The Broadway I used to know was a bustling place. There were retail stores and restaurants, and people were on the sidewalks either dining outside or walking with bags in hand. There were buses, and yellow taxis, and handsome cars, and bicyclists, all humming along at a flow. And there were pleasant pedestrian islands where people relaxed and watched the traffic pass.

Julie and I used to frequent a coffee shop on 84
th
Street. She used to read paperback books, usually dealing with art; and I had my e-reader, usually on the
New York E,
or a book dealing with History. The last book I read in that café was:
Empire’s End: The Last Days of the United States of America
by Javier Vasquez. Julie always ordered a blackberry smoothie, even if it was zero degrees outside. And I ordered a coffee, black with two sugars. When we were done, we used to walk down to Columbus Circle. From there, we took a taxi either to her place or to some place downtown.

That was the Broadway I used to know. T
he
Broadway I saw that day, however, was very different.

The glass storefronts
gaped, smashed and ransacked.
Equipment and furniture from the restaurants spilled onto the sidewalks, as if they had been upchucked from a huge, dark mouth. The pedestrian islands were filled with refuse, and toilet tissue strung down from the tree branches like a sick Halloween prank. And there were stalled and abandoned vehicles to the side of the road. When we encountered them, our caravan stopped. A couple of our men had to scan them for improvised explosives before we continued.

There were no people in sight, but to my left, between one of the flanking vehicles, I hap
pened to see a pit
bull emerge from the 96
th
Street subway station. The dog had a severed human hand in its mouth, no doubt from some abandoned cadaver.

Moments later, we passed the coffee shop on 84
th
Street. And as expected, it was destroyed. Someone had set it on fire—and now it was only a blackened hull.

Standing Out

My last day in New York City was Monday,
September 3, 2068. We had been at our base for over a week by that point, and the base itself was nice. It was a luxury apartment building at the corner of 18
th
Street and Tenth Avenue. The building had only six levels; there were a couple of open spaces on the first floor—one space was used as a nursery for the children, and the other was used as an infirmary for the sick. We were assigned only a few people to an apartment, in the comfortable digs of the former residents. It was also a major relief to know where we were going to sleep every night. But other than those perks, things were miserable.

Our food was either running low or spoiling, our vehicles had ran out of charge, our population had dipped below two hundred, and we were losing our resolve. Over thirty of our members, including Alicia and Jharna, had defected. The seeds of their discontent had grown into revolt, and they had decided to take Wu up on his offer:
Leave the real New Yorkers to stay
.

Speaking of our leader, both his wife and
only
child had died on
the
1
st of
September, and that had put him over the edge.
Wu didn’t grieve or become withdrawn. Instead, he yelled at
everyone
, over
ever
y
thing
.
No one wanted to approach him.

And as for the city, well, my beloved city was an impossible mess by that point. Fires were everywhere. They weren’t as severe as Harlem, but they were plentiful enough, and they gave the city a hazy tint. Broken glass littered the streets and crunched under our feet wherever we went. There was a putrid smell to the air as it sweltered with backed up sewage, trash, and death. And some areas were reduced to swamp—the subway system had flooded. The city was a wasteland. Beautiful, majestic, powerful Manhattan had been brought to her knees. And I had the displeasure of seeing it all unfold.

***

It rained that morning. A heavy downpour had begun before sunrise, and it continued into the new day. For breakfast, we were having tough, burnt chicken that hurt our jaws to chew, a paltry portion of oatmeal that was as dry and as tasteless as flour, and glassfuls of rationed rainwater to wash it all down.

Our dining room, an enclosed patio of someone’s penthouse triplex, was dimly lit by a solar torch above the door and the gray sky from outside. The rainfall pelted against the glass roof reinforcing our somber mood.

David and I sat next to each other. There were five of us at the rectangular table in total. After breakfast, a group of us was to go hunting. (We no longer concerned ourselves with burying the dead other than our own.) Our scouts had told us wild animals were already roaming throughout the city, and that there was game to be had in Washington Square Park. Whether we believed it or not, we were certainly going to find out. Our options were slim.

“I only went hunting one time in my life,” I confessed to David.

He looked at me as if I told him I was a forty year-old virgin.

“What?” he said. “How could you go hunting once and never do it again? Hunting is so much fun!” He picked up his fork. “My father and I used to go to Mt. Rainier Park in my country. I killed an eight hundred pound grizzly bear when I was fifteen years old.

“He was charging right for me, and that big bastard was pissed!” David’s face lit up. “I nearly
pissed
on myself. My father was yelling about thirty meters away. He was yelling, ‘Oh God’ this and ‘Oh God’ that, and ‘don’t let him take my boy!’
.
…The rifle trembled in my hand…I have no idea how I was able to steady it. But I did, and I squeezed the trigger. And big boy was less than ten meters away when he fell! I haven’t had a thrill like that since.” David chuckled to himself as he finished.

“I killed a deer in Jersey once,” I began. “I was twelve years old and my father had dragged me along. He felt I wasn’t tough enough as a kid. I always avoided fights and was never into sports. Manhood logic, I suppose…Well, eventually, we found a deer. I aimed. And the creature was looking
right at me
when I pulled the trigger.

“And as we dragged the deer to our truck, three fawns were watching us in the distance. They were standing behind some shrubs. They were watching as we dragged their mother away.

“I was disgusted. Absolutely disgusted. I told my father I hated him. I didn’t talk to him for a week.”

“Did you eat the deer?” David asked.

“Hell no!” I said. “But she did get mounted
on the wall
in
my father’s study.”

David pointed his fork at me. It had meat on it.

“Well, my friend,” he said. “In the world we live in now, we have no other choice. We’re damn near facing extinction as a specie
s. Extinction
. The animals are probably rooting for us to go. If we disappear, that’s one fewer problem they’ll have to deal with. They don’t give a fuck about us. So why should we give a fuck about them?”

David chewed his food, feeling as if he had made a great point. I didn’t bother to give a rebuttal. Instead, I toyed with my god-awful oatmeal. The others at the table were talking about something
—I
have no recollection of what it was. The rain continued its pelting outside. It rumbled against the roof in loud and innumerous
taps.

A
commotion downstairs
interrupted us.

The talking at the table ceased, and we all looked at each other. We abandoned the breakfast, and hurried into the hallway to see what was going on.

On the floor below us, opposite the foot of the staircase, were a dozen people. They were crowded around a solar-powered radio. We hurried down the stairs to join them.

“What is it?” David asked.

Victor, an Argentinean man with a heavy accent, turned to us and said, “They know who did it! T
hey know who caused the virus
. It was some nerds from York Academy!”

We barely understood him, but the expression on his face was as serious as death. We got as close as we could to listen:

“…We all knew Dr. Lin was weird. We all knew he was extreme. But for him to take it this far…unbelievable. In case you missed it, here it is again. It wasn’t enough for him to protest. It wasn’t enough for him to write books. He had to go and construct a virus in his lab at York Academy. And he’s still there, folks! He’s still there with a team of cronies. They are still protecting him after all that he has done!

“I could understand that he wasn’t a fan of smoking. It’s annoying. Ok, that’s a fact. But what this guy did…why…it’s incomprehensible! And he had the nerve to think that his ‘solution’ wouldn’t get out of hand?

“This guy dined with our President in Hartford. This guy received funding from Congress. Millions of dollars in funding from Congress. Yes, that’s right, folks; your tax dollars were used to destroy you! And he’s still there. I don’t know what he’s doing, but he’s still there and you can see for yourselves…”

The man kept rambling on and on about Dr. Lin—a Biogenetics professor at York Academy—and how he destroyed the human race. And instantly, I dismissed this guy on the radio as a crazy. How he was able to find a signal and what was his beef with this professor, I had no idea, but for sure, I wasn’t buying his ridiculous tale. I was ready to grab my gear for the hunt.

But as sure as I was that this man on the radio was a lying nut, others were certain he was telling the truth. The greatest
who done it
in history had a suspect, and that suspect was in Manhattan, on the Upper East Side. It was a rumor. It was an
outlandish
rumor. But that rumor was all that it took.

The word spread fast. Everyone was told of the academy; and blinding, I emphasize, blinding
fury overtook the Last Standers. The caretakers for the sick couldn’t concentrate. The dying had newfound energy. Hunting
for food
was no longer the priority. Protection was no longer the priority. Surviving was no longer the priority. Revenge was the only thing that was to rule this day.

For the remaining infected who were still marching toward their demise, for the immune mothers who had to see their children die, for the surviving sons and daughters who had to bury their parents, for the fathers who had to see the only ones they had worked and lived for perish, this was an opportunity for redemption. No one could stop the deaths. No one could bring back their loved ones. But that damn academy was going to fall, and there was to be no mercy shown to those inside.

***

Around 11am, we all were summoned to 18
th
Street. Everyone who could stand on his or her own feet was there—over a hundred and eighty men, women, and adolescent children. The crowd was unrecognizable. The fury was intense. I had never seen anything like it. Depression had turned into anger. Dignity had turned into anger. Hopelessness and hope, one in the same, had turned into anger. And this crowd was ready. They were ready to march as one monstrous creature, bent on total destruction.

Wu emerged from the building alone this time. His lieutenants were already in the crowd, including the newly promoted Almir. Wu quickly made way to a car that was parked on the street, an abandoned, silver colored two-seater that had been in the same spot since we arrived.

Wu climbed on top of the car with the loudspeaker in his hand, and we all gathered closer. The crowd rumbled in angry anticipation. Once we were close enough, Wu raised his right hand to silence us. The crowd hushed as if someone had pressed a mute button.

“As you all know by now, we have a name and an institution that might have caused our hardships.”

Wu paused and looked us over. Someone behind me yelled, “Let’s kill em, Wu!” This was followed by a raucous cheer. Wu continued.

“Well, we sent some scouts ahead to this York Academy, and they have returned with news. I was told that there
are
scientists still there. They
are
preparing a doomsday device. They
are
protected by soldiers. And these soldiers have killed
scores
of people in their defense.”

Wu paused again. There were gasps of astonishment followed by howls of outrage. It was one thing to hear a man on the radio; it was another thing entirely to have it confirmed by our leader.

“Well, I’m not afraid of any soldiers. I’m not afraid to die today if it comes to that. We-have-to-fight! We’re going to that academy, people. We’re going to that academy and we’re-going- to-
stop-them
! We’re going to stop them before they destroy us
any more
!”

The crowd was rabid with agreement.

“Alright!” Wu concluded. “Weapons will be distributed in the back. We need everyone who is able. Let’s move out!”

And with that, the mob was established. If Wu would have come at any other angle, such as keep calm and stay the course, he would have lost his militia, right then and there. However, he did lose me, right then and there. I was disgusted. Disgusted by what I was seeing. It was the dark side of human nature. Blind hatred. Not driven by logic or reasoning, but driven by raw emotion.

It’s hard to explain the vigor of my opposition that day. Fate I suppose. But I wanted no part of this—not one bit. It didn’t seem right to me. I lost my family and way of life just like the people around me, but still, I couldn’t help but think things through. First, why would scientists stay holed inside a building in a dying city; second, possibly neglect their families at such a time of need; and third, fight and kill over some device when the virus has already done its damage? It didn’t make any sense. My militia, what was left of it, was going to march into a disaster. And I had to do something.

“Stop!” I yelled. “Stop! You’re all making a mistake!”

No one listened. The crowd was on its way, and half were already gone. David tried to stop me. “Marty! Marty! Get your ass back here!” But I wasn’t having it. I rushed toward Wu. He was stepping down from the car and barking orders to his lieutenants when I approached him.

“Sir, you’re making a mistake,” I said. “Innocent people are going to die for nothing, sir!”

Wu turned to me as I continued my plea. “Sir, whatever is going on at the academy, I
highly
doubt that it has
anything
to do with the
pandemic
. That guy on the radio, he was probably some nut who has a grudge. Sir, please! Don’t risk everyone’s life over a rumor.”

I had no idea where I was finding the courage to say this.

Wu raised his hand to silence me. He took three quiet steps to close in on where I was standing, and then we stood face to face. He and I were the same height, and he had to have doubled me in age. But he had a husky build, and he was very imposing up close.

“What’s your name, son?” he asked.

“My name is Martin. Martin Jacob, sir.”