Until the End of the World (Book 1) (12 page)

Every so often the woods open up, and we’re treated to a gorgeous view of the Hudson River moving along under the imposing rocky cliffs. It seems like it should have reversed direction or stopped moving entirely on a day like today. I’m surprised that the sun can shine down from such a beautiful blue sky on all this madness.

The city now sports countless columns of twisting black smoke. It looks as if all of New York is on fire.

My chest tightens as I think of the best parts of the city: The gruff, gold-hearted Brooklyn guys who won’t hesitate to help someone out. The way New Yorkers pull together when they need to. The museums I grew up in, where I stared for hours at the mummies or fossils or shrunken heads. Prospect Park. The library. The train cars and neighborhoods full of not only every shade of skin imaginable, but also every country, every language, every dress, every food.

Then there are the worst parts: The cashiers who completely ignore your outstretched hand and throw your change on the counter. The people who think lines are merely suggestions. The hipsters. The grime. The F train. The DMV.

My city, the city I love, the city I sometimes hate, which has both energized and exhausted me since I was born, is going up in smoke. I stop and stare one last time, because it was my home, a place to go back to if I wanted or needed it. But I’m pretty sure it’s gone now, the good and the bad wiped out in one fell swoop. I cry for every last bit of it.

We find a map at another signpost. The wind shakes the empty branches of the trees. It blows the smoke from the city this way, but it’s high enough that it doesn’t touch us. Only the smell of burning makes its way down to where we stand. Booms and sirens and loud noises carry from far off. Some of them I can place: a fire engine, gun shots. Others are guesses: A grenade? Gas line explosion? Godzilla?

There’s a Park Headquarters with a police station several miles ahead. We walk slowly, our packs and fatigue weighing us down. Penny’s face is pale, with dark smudges under her eyes. I match my steps to hers. She watches her feet as we walk, then looks up at me with bloodshot eyes.

“My mom,” she says. She wipes her nose with the back of her hand.

“She’s got the best chance of anyone there,” I say, searching for something that will make her feel better.

“I know.” But we both also know even that better chance is slim.

It’s afternoon when we reach Park Headquarters, a stone building with leaded glass windows and imposing chimneys. We walk around it until we find the well-lighted police station entrance. There’s a tall counter inside, but it’s vacant.

Nelly opens the door and calls, “Hello? Anybody here?”

Silence. James sets his pack down and creeps behind the desk to check the hallway. He comes back shaking his head. A computer monitor sits on the counter, and I walk around to check it out. A cup of coffee and half a sandwich sit in front of the monitor. I feel the side of the mug.

“Well, the mug’s cold,” I say. “Whoever was here has been gone a while.”

“What else, Sherlock?” Nelly asks.

“Well, I can deduce by the various keys hanging under here that we may also have a ride, smart-ass. If we want to steal a police car, that is.” I wave a set of keys at him.

“Which we do, of course,” Penny says. I guess she’s gotten over her whole not-wanting-to-steal-a-car thing.

I nod. “Of course.”

We settle on an SUV with Parkway Police written on the side. If someone sits in the way back behind the cage it might almost be comfortable.

We buy food from the snack machines. I guess we could steal that, too, but we feed money into the machine.

“We can use it in our defense if we’re arrested for stealing the car,” James jokes. “We may need more food if we get waylaid again.”

“Not that you can really call this food,” I say. Our found duffel bag crinkles with chips, cookies and fruit snacks.

He grins through the smudged dirt and tired creases under his eyes. “Hey, speak for yourself. I live on this stuff.”

We take off onto the Palisades with Nelly driving and me in the way back. Unsurprisingly, no one fought me for the honor.

Tracts of suburban houses appear through the trees, and a few cars join us on the road. We’re sticking to the main highways because the smaller roads travel through the main streets of towns along the way, and those may be impassable.

The Palisades turns into the New York State Thruway, and within minutes it’s a sea of brake lights. There’s a toll booth for commercial vehicles ahead but nothing that would block the passage of cars. It must be stopped for miles.

“Well, kids,” Nelly says, “I guess it’s back the other way, once we get to the next exit.”

“I don’t imagine it’s going to get better,” James agrees. “People are getting out, just like us.”

He points to a blue sedan in front of us, with beat-up boxes and bags attached to the roof with double-knotted twine, just as it bumps into the SUV ahead of it. It’s barely a nudge, but the door of the SUV flies open and a man with a graying crew cut jumps out. His chinos and t-shirt stick to him with sweat. He leans into the car and comes out holding a metal flashlight.

“What the fuck!” he screams.

Spit flies from his mouth as he storms the sedan. A small, dark-skinned man hops out. He raises his hands and gestures toward Chinos’ car. Nelly rolls down the window so we can hear.

“Sorry. Hey, I’m sorry,” the guy says in a calm voice, and takes a step back.

Chinos advances, his face well on its way to purple. His hand is white-knuckled as he lifts the flashlight menacingly.

“Look, man, nothing happened to your car. Take a look!” the smaller man says. He points to the SUV.

“You should be looking. Looking at the goddamned road!” Chinos yells. “You should be taking care, goddamn it!”

He lifts the flashlight higher. There’s a dark spot on the underside of his arm. A purple wound with red streaks. Round like a bite mark.

“Did you see that?” I ask. Everyone nods and stares at the scene.

The smaller guy shuts his door and backs around the car as he talks to Chinos. He uses a quiet voice, the voice you would use to soothe a wild animal. He doesn’t realize this guy has nothing to lose. He stops and Chinos moves quickly, the flashlight in the air.

“Oh, fuck,” Nelly says.

He grabs the shotgun he’s placed in the holster of the police truck and steps out. He cocks the gun and points it at Chinos, who freezes at the sound.

“Officer,” he says. He smiles like he’s been waiting for him to show up, instead of planning to beat the other party to death. “We just had a little accident. Nothing to worry about.”

James gets out of the car and stands behind the open door. Suddenly it seems like a really bad idea for someone to be trapped back here. Nelly walks closer to Chinos.

“Drop the light,” he orders. Chinos does and lifts his hands into the air. “Where did you get your wound?”

Chinos looks from side to side and his tongue darts out to wet his lips. He lowers his arms a bit in an effort to hide it.

“Doing some work in the garage. Screwdriver slipped.” He gives a high-pitched laugh. “Not a good time to go to the hospital, as you know, so I figured it’d be fine. Putting lots of ointment on it. Nothing to worry about.” He licks his lips again and takes a step back.

“Sir.” Nelly sounds so official and calm. “You need to be seen by someone. Let’s go to the toll booths right there, and we’ll find you some help.”

“You’re right.” Chinos nods wildly, eyes darting. “You’re exactly right. I should have someone look at this. I—” He jumps the median and gallops across the oncoming lanes. Nelly lowers the shotgun and looks at the wiry man.

“You okay?” he asks. The guy nods mutely and watches Chinos disappear into the trees.

Finally, he speaks. “He was infected?” Nelly nods, and his eyes widen. “Thanks for stepping in.”

He pumps Nelly’s hand and looks him up and down. “Officer?”

Nelly smiles. “No, not quite. We need to get this guy’s car out of the way. Maybe over to the tolls there. We can use the siren.”

“I’ll get it. My wife’ll follow us.”

James switches on the siren. Cars inch and scoot out of the way until we make it to the shoulder. We head to the right of the tolls, into a lot for highway trucks.

The man comes up to our window once he’s parked Chinos’ car. He looks to be in his late thirties, with close-cropped hair and the hands and face of a man accustomed to working long, hard hours. But the weariness disappears when he smiles and thanks Nelly again.

He holds out his hand, and Nelly and he shake. “Name’s Henry. Henry Washington.”

“Nel Everett. No problem, man. Where are you going?”

“North. Doing some long-term camping at a spot we know.” Henry hooks his thumb in the general direction.

“We’re heading back over to the Palisades. Northeast. If you want to follow, you can have a police escort,” Nelly offers, his mouth half lifted.

“I’d appreciate that. I’m just trying to get my kids somewhere safe. Hearing anything on the police band?”

“We didn’t even get a chance to turn it on,” James says, and turns the knob.

A woman’s voice repeats that she needs officers in the vicinity of somewhere. Other voices ask for help. “Shots fired.” “Officer down.” One man screams something I can’t make out, but I understand the rawness in his voice. He sounds like someone who thinks he’s going to die, and it makes my stomach clench. James switches it off, but the screams reverberate even after it’s gone.

Penny points. “Oh, God. They’re here.”

A few dozen Lexers come out of the tree line and disperse between the cars down the road. They have different wounds, different clothes, different faces, yet they all look the same with their slack-jawed hunger and shuffling gait. Two of them pound on the windows of a gold hatchback, and the mouths of the couple inside open with screams I can see but not hear.

The occasional honk becomes a chorus of blaring horns and screams. But there’s nowhere to go. One man leans out of his truck and yells at the traffic to move. He rolls up his window when the only response is for the infected to move his way. A heavyset woman throws her car door open and leaps over the median to the other side of the highway. And in that instant an entire lane becomes useless. A car bumps over the shoulder and heads for where we sit. The truck behind it follows. This lot is going to be as jammed up as the road in a minute.

“I know a back way to Bear Mountain,” Henry says. “Follow me?”

Nelly nods, and Henry jumps into his car. He straddles the curb to fit past the posts that block cars from entering from the street. We follow him onto a street of suburban homes.

A Lexer, his bloody abdomen scooped out like a bowl, stands on one of the neat lawns and watches us pass. The houses all look the same; I don’t know how Henry knows where to go in this maze. But he must, because we hit a main road and make another left.

A few Lexers move down one block, and a tense group of men armed with pipes and bats rushes to meet them. I watch out the back, but a turn throws me off balance, and then they’re out of sight. I pick myself up and hang on to the hatch. I hope this guy knows where he’s going.

We follow Henry to two adjacent campsites in the back of the empty campground. There’s a picnic table and metal fire pit at each site. Penny releases me from the cargo area, and I walk on the packed dirt to work the cramps out of my legs. A woman and two kids jump out of the sedan and follow Henry to where we stand.

“This is my wife, Dorothy. Dottie.”

Dottie is petite, and her eyes are a striking light brown against her dark skin. Her smile is warm. When she speaks I hear the soft lilt of the Caribbean in her voice.

“I can’t thank you enough for helping us. I was sure—” She stops and looks at the children.

“This is Corinne, she’s twelve,” Henry continues. He places his hand on the shoulder of a slight, pretty girl who resembles her mother, down to the eyes. She gives us a small smile. “And this is Henry Junior, we call him Hank. He’s nine.”

If there’s ever been a child who looks less like a Hank, I haven’t met him. He’s small, like the rest of his family, but he lacks the compact strength of his father and the vitality of his mother and sister. His hair is short, which makes his glasses and the eyes they magnify look even larger. At first glance he looks frail, but when he says hello he looks me in the eye. I get the feeling he doesn’t miss much.

“Thank you for leading us here,” I say. “We wouldn’t have made it without you.”

“No problem,” Henry says. “A couple of times there I thought I was lost, but I helped run the electric in those houses, so I gave it a shot.”

He’s so relieved that he beams at me, and I can’t help but smile back. After the last twelve hours of jaw clenching, it almost hurts. We decide to stay the night and figure out a route in the morning. Our two tiny tents set up quickly. I’m not sure how all six of us are going to fit into them. I head to the water spigot a few campsites over, but it’s too early in the season for the water to be on.

“Dry?” Henry asks from behind me. I nod. “There’s a stream over on the other side of the campground. We should go before it’s too dark to see.”

“I’ve got a hiking filter,” I say.

We grab every bottle and his two collapsible containers. It’s a small creek, but he heads right for a spot where it widens into a swimming hole. I sit down on a rock beside it and dangle the filter in the water.

“I take it you’ve been here before?” I ask.

“We camp here every summer. Swim in this very creek. It’s strange to be here this time of year.”

It’s still a winter landscape, minus the snow. It’s getting cold, too. The creek water is freezing.

“Why did you decide to leave today?” I ask him.

He crouches next to me and wipes a hand across his forehead. “I went in to work. I didn’t know how bad it had gotten. I figured I’d be just as safe in that building as at home. The curfew was only in effect until dawn, and I left just before the sun came up. I didn’t get the paper. Dottie called me at work—it’s a big job and the electric guys are getting double time for weekends—and said we had to leave. She told me about the bridges and that some of the neighbors were infected. That there were people who looked like they were out of their heads.