Quarantine (10 page)

“I
tried to lose them,” Bob said to me and the six other guys who had instantly assembled on the roof. “Shit.”

The vehicles came to a screeching halt out front, two big four-wheel drives, each carrying maybe eight men. The guys poured out, dressed in mismatched snow gear. Most had automatic rifles.

“What do we do?” I asked, fingering my pistol and keeping below the parapet of the roof. I saw a couple of our guys had shotguns, another had an old-looking rifle, the rest pistols of some sort. “I don't think we can take them on in a firefight.”

Bob nodded his agreement, though the other guys didn't look sold. Hell, what choice did we have?

“Maybe if we start shooting all at once, it'll scare them off,” I said. I could see them attaching a cable winch from a vehicle to our roller doors.

“We can do better than that,” a voice said. I heard the rattling of glass and looked across.

“This,” the science teacher said. He set down a case of bottles filled with some kind of flammable liquid with rags sticking out. “Light and throw—careful not to drop one around here.”

All eight of us each took a bottle, which I could now see had smaller lidded mini-bar bottles of another liquid inside them. The teacher held out a flaming blowtorch and the fuses lit.

“Now!”

We tossed the firebombs over the lip of the roof.

CRACK CRACK!

A series of gunshots rang out our way. We heard glass shattering and people yelling as flames engulfed the street below. Light and heat filled the sky. Bob looked over the edge.

“They're bugging out!” he said.

I stole a glance. They piled into the other four-wheel drive and tore off down the road as the dark smoke rose.

“Come on, don't breathe the smoke!” the teacher said, and we followed his lead by covering our faces as we ran across the roof and headed downstairs. What little smoke already hit us burned at my eyes.

“What was in there?”

“Trade secret,” the teacher replied as we reached the landing on the terrace below. “But it included chlorine.”

“They're gone,” Tom said, approaching us with another group of armed guys. “But I'm sure they'll be back, and better armed than before.”

“We'd better put that fire out,” the teacher said, moving off with a few of the guys.

Tom looked accusingly at Bob, and part of me relished this turn of events: if there was anyone who needed to be convinced of the increasing dangers of remaining at Chelsea Piers, it was Tom.

“Bob,” I said, “tell us—what did you find out there?”

Daniel joined us, and Bob looked at us all and smiled.

 

Everyone had assembled. Nerves settled. Excitement crackled.

“It's right here,” Bob said, marking a spot on the map of Manhattan spread out on a table in the food hall. “The Central Park access hatch to the relief valve.”

“And?” Daniel asked.

“And it's fine!”

Cheers spread through the room like wildfire. Tom remained silent. People came over and crowded the map.

“How about the park?” I asked.

“Sorry?” Bob replied over the cacophony.

“The park—the reservoir,” I said, motioning to the map that showed his pen mark of the tunnel access, a dot on the northern shoreline. “It's still full of Chasers, right?”

“Around the reservoir, yeah,” he said, “thousands of them.” He added, “By day I only saw the docile ones, hanging around the water supplies. Wasn't until dusk that I saw a few groups of the other kind appear. They picked off the weaker ones at the edges of the groups.”

“Then we move fast, while it's light,” Daniel said. “We can follow this water tunnel all the way out!”

Tom stormed away, but Audrey caught him by the door. Once again, she tried to temper his mood, to persuade him to think more rationally.

“They'll be at it all day,” I said to Paige.

“Yep.”

She looked at her dad sitting there with Audrey, nodding in silence as he read her notes, as if Daniel and Bob's words were finally sinking in.

“What if everyone leaves but us?” she asked.

“Paige, it'll be fine: they'll come around, you'll see.” I put my bandaged hand to her face. “Your dad's just making a show of taking in all the pros and cons to save face.”

She nodded. “What if those guys come back?”

I looked around at all the men here. Despite the attack just now—or maybe, in a way, because of their success in repelling it—they were smiling and going about their tasks with a new sense of optimistic urgency.

“Nothing will crack this spirit of survival,” I said. “You've got plenty of weapons to ward off an attack. The danger would be if the attackers wanted to come back and create a siege and you couldn't get out.” I motioned to the guys who were on weapons duty: they had a couple of trestle tables filed with firearms and makeshift bombs. “But like I said, you've got enough to fight off anything. You'll be fine.”

She smiled but I could tell from her face that she was not completely sold. That was okay. A bit of nervous doubt, of uncertainty, kept you on your toes.

 

I slipped my pack over my shoulders.

Daniel's last look at me spoke of a fear for his group as well as an acceptance of the worst that might happen. But he knew that there was a fate that befalls people unless they act. It had nothing to do with a belief in a god or otherwise.

Bob shook my hand. His eyes were black orbs peering out of an expression of hope and expectation. He'd seen so much already. Was there any scenario that he couldn't be prepared for? I would have loved some parting words of wisdom from him, but perhaps it was best not to ask. Dwelling on the past would be of no real use to us now.

“Three hours after dawn tomorrow,” he reiterated.

“See you soon,” I said, and left it at that.

Paige walked me out through the roller door, where two armed guys stood guard, watchful over the street outside. The attackers' vehicle was a smoldering wreck covered in fire foam. Several other guys, recruited from among the adults left inside the building, stood sentry on the roof. I waved back at them.

Where were they the other night, those able men at the ready to defend? Were they so gripped by the bystander effect that they stood there and let the attack on Daniel occur, content to let someone else do something about it? Had this city learned nothing after all this time, after all this? Was it too much to hope for a time where we would stand up for one another no matter the cost, just because it was right?

“You'll meet us at the park?” Paige asked.

“Yep, I'll be there,” I replied. I adjusted my coat, looked up and down the empty street, the burn marks on the road still smoking. Before Bob had returned, part of me wanted to say to Paige,
Pack and get dressed, before your father hears us. Follow me.
But I knew that was just sleepless fantasy.

Through the open roller door I could see Bob was fueling up the big Ford pickup truck. They'd pack it full of gear and passengers; they had tried to make the wounded and elderly as comfortable as possible. The rest would walk after it. “Three hours after dawn tomorrow—Bob reckons it'll take you that long to get there.”

“I can't bear to think about you out there on the streets alone,” said Paige.

“I'll be fine,” I replied, a smile full of genuine hope and what tomorrow's dawn would bring. “Done it plenty of times. You just be careful—stick close to the group, and be wary—the sound of that truck will attract attention.”

“I've got over forty people with me.”

“You're right, but don't for a moment fool yourself—it's dangerous out there,” I said, touching her cheek. “No matter what, stay with those who can protect you—” I added, seeing Bob cleaning a shotgun. “See you real soon, okay?”

I gave her a hug and pried myself away quickly.

“Jesse—”

“I'll be there,” I said, my teeth chattering. It was cold today, perhaps clearer and colder than any previous day. There was such a chill. “Just show up. All of you, in one piece. I have to go get my friends prepped and ready. I can't leave them behind.”

“Can't I just come with you now?” she said, looking back into the building. “They won't mind—”

“Paige, I'll see you soon.”

“Can't we—”

“Paige—”

“I don't want you to go alone.”

I hugged her. She cried. She was warm and her body was shaking.

“I need you,” she said.

What could I say to her?

“Look, I'm sorry we have to go separately,” I said. “But it's not for long, I promise.” I hoped she understood. “We have to do this, this way, to find something better.”

She nodded with a small smile as she wiped her nose on her sleeve and said, “I've found something better.”

“Me too,” I said, and I turned and left.

Something beautiful, something rare: I'd found her. But she wasn't mine to have. We didn't belong to each other; we didn't belong to anyone, except ourselves. Had I finally discovered the meaning of home? Was it inside me—did I carry it, wherever I went?

“Jesse. !”

“Jesse!”

I turned.

“Tom?”

He ran over, Paige close behind him, in tears.

“Change of plan,” he said. “If we're going, we go ASAP, before those sons of bitches come back and attack us again.”

“When are you leaving?”

“Two hours.”

I checked my watch. Two hours' head start . . . I was at least twice as quick as them. It'd do. I could make it.

“Then I'll see you at the park soon,” I said. Paige clung to her father's arm.

“Bob says we can be there by 2
P.M.
,” Tom said. He shook my hand, and I turned and ran.

“See you at two!” I yelled out.

“And Jesse?”

I turned.

Tom said: “Thank you.”

I
t was just 9
A.M.

I looked back before rounding the corner of West 21st. I was alone again; I'd grown so used to walking these streets by myself that I felt more at ease this way than I would with someone tagging along. I wanted to tell Paige not to worry about me but it'd be like trying to tell her not to grow up too fast—I knew that was too little, too late. I wanted to tell her to enjoy and make the most of the time she had, because you never know how long you have left, and you need to live fast—but take time to see everything around you as well. A mantra for being out here on the streets. A mantra for going it alone.

There was a ball of excitement in my gut as I jogged.

I imagined seeing the group this afternoon, amassed at the top of the reservoir; imagined heading down into the bowels of the earth, like some kind of image from
The Hobbit
. Dad had read me the illustrated version he'd had as a boy. I think I was about six or seven. He'd read me Bilbo's adventures and I'd dream so vividly each night that I was entering that world, Middle-earth, that I was part of the fray.

A noise made me turn.

Nothing.

I stopped and listened. Debris settling somewhere in a building, maybe. I was passing the theological seminary, where Daniel had worked. Unlike St. Pat's, this place hadn't been so lucky—maybe a quarter of the structure was still standing, the rest snow-covered rubble.

A life-size poster of a girl in an advertisement, maybe from a bus stop or billboard, was lodged in the snow upright, so that it resembled a person walking by me. It reminded me of Paige. But her fate remained elsewhere, determined by her parents and, if she was lucky, herself.

I kept moving. I turned north at Seventh Avenue. I tried to keep up a steady run, settling in to a rhythm through the ankle-deep snow, slow enough to dodge over and around obstacles.

To see the girls' faces, back at the zoo, when I told them that we'd be leaving—
leaving under the city!
—man, that was going to be awesome. I needed to get back to Rachel—I'd worried about her, even if she did have Felicity there now to help with the animals. How'd she been coping these last couple of days? I looked forward to telling them about all those people at Chelsea Piers.

After stopping to check that the coast was clear, I started to run eastwards along 23rd. I had a slight limp in my right leg, my hands hurt, and the grazes rubbed raw against the material of my black jeans.

I thought about when Tom was beating Daniel. Maybe Paige got it but the rest, about thirty adults, had just stood there and watched, helpless. That's when I had decided for sure:
This group is not me and I want no part in it, no future with them. I'll leave with them as a means to getting a step closer to home
. These people were
not
my future—and Paige was caught up in that.

I paused at an intersection at Fifth, to do my listening and watching routine. All clear. My breath was massive heaving bursts of steam. I walked north. Fifth Avenue, the homestretch. I could hear my heart drum in my ears.

It was cold in these streets. There was a fire burning in a park to my right and there were so many things I wished I had said to Paige; I could have held her longer or run away with her in the night—she might have done it, she was throwing herself at me and clearly seeking salvation from those people, from something I didn't understand the gravity of until that moment of violence, and the inert bystanders.

This was a strange city, as it was, as it remained.

 

In Rockefeller Plaza I stood under an awning and watched the white snow fall. It was light, soft, floating in a windless day. I didn't feel the cold anymore. I leaned against the stone wall. I'd made good time here. Watched and listened to the day unfold as I caught my breath. Still no sign of Chasers, no sign of life out here other than my own.

This was where, almost three weeks ago, during a tour of Manhattan, I had taken shelter with Anna. It was a miserable morning, cold and dark and windy and full of hard rain; we'd rested here while the others ran to the underground mall or whatever, down near the ice-skating rink, and we'd huddled in close.

Her breath smelled of strawberries and she looked at me and we kissed . . .

I thought of that other group. Paige and her stepmother, the preacher. All of them. Bob and his camera. I wondered what someone would someday make of the footage of me. What about last night, the one time there was no video rolling, a blank patch in his recordings? There was one being who perhaps had seen all that, seen all this, seen the past and the present and saw me right now. Had He seen the future and still let it happen? I decided it was time to go find out. Just for a moment. Confront a fear. Lay some blame. Learn something new. I checked my watch. Yes, I had time.