The Last Safe Place: A Zombie Novella (8 page)
Read The Last Safe Place: A Zombie Novella Online
Authors: Rob W. Hart
It was a solid idea. There wouldn’t be anyone there and we’d be surrounded by water. It was a Revolutionary War outpost before it was a U.S. Army base before it was a Coast Guard installation. It had buildings and amenities. Shelter and supplies. And no people. Not a single living or non-living thing. It would be safe.
The last safe place, June said.
7. NOW
The rotters that cross my path disappear from my field of vision. I kill them but as soon as they’re gone I don’t remember how I did it. There’s a vacuum in my stomach, like a black hole collapsing on itself, sucking me into someplace dark.
There’s no other way this could have ended. When I shot that man at the Seaport, the bullet’s trajectory cut a path to this moment. I don’t believe in god but I believe this is proof a higher force couldn’t let what I did go unpunished. I only wish that force had taken me instead.
Miss Olsen steps out from behind high weeds. Her shoulders jerk like her body is trying to move away from her head. She advances on me. I hold up the SIG but the clip is empty. As she gets closer I consider raising the bat, but instead let it drop to the pavement at my feet.
I should have let June bite me.
What else is there?
Something sharp bursts out of Miss Olsen’s eye. She tumbles to the ground, revealing Sophia, standing with a bow and a quiver of arrows on her back. Another rotter comes at us from the side and Sophia puts an arrow through its gaping mouth.
She runs to me, checks for wounds as I stand there numb to the feeling of her hands on my body. When she gets to my eyes she sees exactly where I’ve been hurt.
She reaches down, picks up the bat and puts it in my hand. “I’m so sorry. But we need you, Sarge.” Then she pulls me toward Castle Williams, where we find a hundred people shoving each other, trying to get inside the gate that can only fit three people across. Sophia pushes us through them. There are shouts about line-cutting. Even in the apocalypse New Yorkers can’t lay off about line-cutting.
The courtyard is buzzing, people running and screaming and trying to situate shaking families and doling out weapons and sleeping bags. At the other end of the courtyard is a pile of rags and broken flesh, cracked and bleeding into the concrete. I nod toward the pile on the pavement. “Who’s that?”
Sophia says, “The Librarian. When the people started coming in they went nuts, didn’t want him locked up in the same place. One of the guards dragged him to the roof and tossed him over.”
“He couldn’t have thrown him outside?”
“It wasn’t a well-planned execution.”
“Who did it?”
Sophia points to a young deputy standing by the stairwell checking his gun, a kid with a harsh face and a blonde buzz cut. I march up to him and throw him against the wall, smash my fist into his mouth. My skin tears on his teeth. He hits the ground and I drive my boot into his stomach.
It’s my voice, I know it is, but the words feel disconnected from me. “He was my responsibility,” I tell him, as I reach back my foot to kick him again. “You had no right.”
Arms wrap around my shoulders, dragging me away. I manage to pull myself free and head back for another round, but Sophia gets between me and the deputy.
I put my hands down for fear of hurting her, kick through the stairwell door and head for the roof, stumbling over my own feet, my vision blurry with tears, until I explode into the open air.
The sky is black overhead. I close my eyes and listen. People down in the courtyard are crying, calling out for help, fighting to get inside.
A short time later, I don’t know how long, Sophia is standing at my side. She asks, “What was that about?”
“I told him I was going to let him go.”
Sophia takes a short, nervous breath. “Why would you do that?”
“Because he tried to help me save June. I think. But that wasn’t even really it. I thought an act of mercy might appease the gods.”
“Sarge, what are you talking about?”
“It doesn’t matter anymore.” I drop the bat.
Sophia comes to me, puts her hands on my shoulders. She’s shorter than me and has to reach up to do it. There’s a tender look in her eyes and I’m afraid she’s going to kiss me. Instead she smashes her open hand against my face. Once, then twice. The cracks ring across the night like gunshots. My cheek throbs.
She speaks through gritted teeth. “I am so sorry about your wife but you need to save whatever this is for later. There are a lot of people on this island who are still alive and it’s our job to keep them that way.”
She reaches back like she’s going to slap me again, but I put my hand up to stop her. The first smack knocked something loose and the second one secured it in place.
There’s a thought that’s been creeping on the edge of my psyche since I shot June, one I was terrified to let in, because it meant acknowledging an abyss inside me. I stop pushing it back, and a sense of relief washes over me like a harsh rain, stripping away the grief and the anger.
We’re in a castle, against things that can’t climb, can’t get through the doors once we shut them. We can clear them out, come up with a new plan.
I’m tired of sitting around, waiting for something to catch up with me. It did catch up, and I’m still alive. There’s nothing left to weigh down my shoulders and push me to my knees. There’s only the job. This place and these people will be safe until I’m dead.
Knowing that might be enough to get me through to sunrise.
I rub my swollen cheek, nod to Sophia. “Thank you. I needed that.”
We walk to the south wall, see the faint outlines of rotters coming up the road, through the tree line. Three dozen, easy, probably more of them behind that.
Sophia asks, “What happened?”
“That’s a broad question.”
“With everything. I thought this would work.”
“We never stood a chance.”
“Why?”
“Because nothing ever changes, kid.” I pull the bat down from my shoulder. “They’re getting close.”
Sophia nods. “Should we head down?”
“Sure,” I tell her. “Task at hand.”
END
ABOUT…
…the author
Rob W. Hart is the website administrator for
MysteriousPress.com
and a senior editor at
LitReactor
. He lives in New York City. You can visit his website at
www.robwhart.com
.
…Governors Island
Governors Island is 172 acres. That might be hard to visualize if you’re not a farmer, so think of it like this: One acre is a little bit smaller than a football field. So Governors Island is a very big place.
When you visit, there’s a wonderful cognitive dissonance to it. There are beautiful homes and massive apartment buildings and administrative facilities, all of them empty and abandoned. This is right in the middle of Upper New York Bay, and Brooklyn is so close it feels like you could reach across the water and touch the shoreline.
The Continental Army raised defensive works on the island in 1776 during the Revolutionary War. In 1783, the island became a post for the United States Army, and later, from 1966 to 1996, the island served as a United States Coast Guard installation.
Castle Williams alone has an incredible history. At one time it housed so many prisoners in the casemates, there wasn’t room for them to all lay down at once. Years later, those same casemates hosted dance classes for children of the Coast Guard families living on the island.
In 2003, the island was transferred to New York State and the Unites States Department of the Interior. Since then, it’s been open to the public on weekends during the summer, accessible by free ferries from Brooklyn and Manhattan. Throughout the season, it hosts food festivals, concerts, craft vendors, and other performances.
The Trust for Governors Island
has kicked off a huge capital program to repair the island’s infrastructure and build a new park and public spaces.
If you have a chance to visit Governors Island, do it. Soon, before some of the older, creepy buildings are knocked down. It’s an important, and hugely underrated, piece of New York City’s history.
THANK YOU…
…to my editors Jon Gingerich, Andrea Taylor, Jason Donnelly, Laura Lorusso, Dave Phillips, Matt Pucci, Dakota Taylor, Laura Campbell, Meredith Alder and Jessica Meddows.
…to
Michelle Cocozza
, for a knockout of a cover.
…to Joseph Nassise, who taught me how to code an eBook.
…to George Romero, because.
…to
OpenStreetMap
, for their groovy open-source mapping system.
…to my wife Amanda, for reading this a million times, and for endless, tireless support.
LEGAL
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental, and would be incredibly disconcerting.
Copyright © 2012 Rob W. Hart
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