“You’re not sleeping tonight, either,” Blake says, finger to my chest. “No fucking way are you leaving me alone with this.”
“Well, I did get you into it. Who needs sleep?”
Blake punches my arm. “Good man.”
The galley is a circular white room set with windows, which is a nice contrast to the darker halls and rooms. After I’ve settled in a plastic chair at a row of tables, I find the food isn’t bad, either. The meat is fresh, thanks to the generator, but I’m not that hungry. Maybe it’s the thought of tomorrow, or Rachel—both weigh heavily on my mind.
Blake and I discuss his garden plans and his family, most of whom live in Iowa. Or
did
live in Iowa; he’s no longer sure. “If you find your sister,” he says, “give her a big hug from me.”
“I will.”
“You don’t have a girlfriend or anything?”
“No.” I push my plate away. I hate to waste it, but his question has dropped a stone into my stomach. “You want to finish this?”
“Are you kidding? They’re starving us here.” Blake inhales my food in three bites and then stands. “Okay, let’s go, Dr. Forrest. You have a lot of work to do.”
Chapter 44
Blake and I were up late. And the sleep I did get until dawn—a floor with a blanket—did not make for a restful night. I’m tired but not tired enough to call off my trip. I had to force down my breakfast of toast and peanut butter. Maybe it’s nerves.
The Verrazano looks extremely long and high from the top of the concrete anchorage, where I stand with Blake and Jerry. They climbed the rise of the triangle to keep me company and say goodbye. I appreciate feeling as if I’m not entirely alone. Someone, at least, knows I’ve made it this far.
Where only the upper roadway is gone, the lower roadway is covered by rubble, like scree on a mountain, only much more likely to bury me under a mountain of metal and concrete than a talus slope is to bury me under loose rock. I don’t have a solid plan yet. I won’t know until I see the damage close up. Wadsworth blocked off the roads to the bridge to stop what they call Droppers—Lexers that meander onto the bridge roadway and fall to the park below—so I don’t have to worry about being eaten until I get to the other side of the hole in the bridge.
“Have you seen Manhattan?” Jerry asks.
Between helping Blake and the almost-shootout, I haven’t had more than a short look. I saw enough on TV. But I take his binoculars and attempt to see past the haze that shrouds the city. It’s still on fire or is blowing ash. The tops of some buildings are shorn off. Things that were once square are now rounded. We’re upwind, however, so I’m left to imagine the smell. Probably similar to 9/11, times a thousand, with Lexers mixed in. It isn’t as easy to see the effects on Brooklyn, since it lacks skyscrapers, but a haze hangs over it as well.
It’s only concrete and steel, and it goes against the natural order from an environmental standpoint, but it’s
my
city. I took class trips to the World Trade Center and Empire State Building. I roamed the halls of The Met and The Museum of Natural History with my sister. When we weren’t upstate, I grew up among the trees and plants in Prospect Park. I ran there, I played baseball and Frisbee and made out with girls there. It’s one of my most favorite places in the world—an oasis of green in a desert of concrete.
It hurts somewhere deep, maybe because it’ll always be my childhood. I take a breath. Everything else can be burnt to a crisp and I’ll get over it, but I want my sister.
I hand the binoculars to Jerry and shake his hand. “Thank you.”
It’s thanks for the night’s accommodations and the MREs they gave me for the trip, but most of all it’s thanks for his humanity. Just as I thought, people are banding together, and that’s given me more energy than a night’s sleep and food ever could.
“Come back here if you can’t get close,” Jerry says. I nod, and he inspects my face with a frown. “You sure you’re all right? You look tired. Brooklyn will be there tomorrow.”
“It might not be,” I say, and watch the dust clouds. “I’m fine. Your officer had me burning the midnight oil, that’s all.”
Blake slaps my back. “Thanks for the help. You’ve got a job here if you come back—digging.”
“How could I resist that? You’ll do great today. Good luck.”
“Thanks. Be safe.”
I jump to the six lane road. The asphalt is patched and the metal pockmarked with brown rust stains. The bridge’s paint looks more gray than blue now that I see it up close in slow motion. The first of the two towers looms ahead and, close to a mile behind that, is the second. Approximately a third of the distance between the bridge towers is the long stretch of no roadway. But the bridge still stands. I don’t know much about suspension bridges, but I think they’re meant to sway and move; the main cables are the real workhorses. I look over the edge as I walk. Vertical cables connect the swooping main cables to the roadway and attach in groups of four to the short steel beams that jut perpendicular from the bridge. Those perpendicular beams are connected by another beam that runs parallel the length of the bridge. That beam is intact to the Brooklyn anchorage, and it may be my only choice for travel up ahead.
That would make this easy, except the parallel beam sits five or so feet away from the roadway. Where the perpendicular beams attach to the parallel beam, I’ll have a handhold or a way off the bridge. The fifty feet between those points means a tightrope walk on a thick beam hundreds of feet above water. The gentle breeze down below is a strong wind up here. One gust and I could be done.
It’s either along that beam or up onto the thick, round main cables. Those have ropes to facilitate walking, but they also involve a 600 foot climb, where I’ll hit a dead end unless there’s an open door into the tower, which I highly doubt. On the bright side, I’m able to entertain the possible ways I could die without zombie involvement, since the road is barren.
I turn, but Blake and Jerry have gone down to start their day. My footfalls and the wind are the only sounds. Past the first tower, the road is cracked, and I rest a hand on the guardrail. The first missing piece of road comes up, but I make it around the gaping hole on the metal base of the rail. The road is chewed and cratered where it’s not gone entirely. I don’t trust it to hold me.
The water is barely visible beneath the wreckage that floats and bobs a couple hundred feet below. A container ship hit the bridge broadside and beached itself on the base of the tower—lucky it didn’t take the bridge down. Another ship is on its side at the other tower’s base, as stationary as the first and locked into metal that looks a lot like pieces of bridge. Smaller boats, or chunks of them, float around and inside the twisted metal. Some sort of fibrous stuff—rope or sails or fiberglass, maybe—has locked many of the capsized boats into several large islands of debris.
A solid sea of wreckage stretches up the harbor toward Manhattan and Jersey. Small splashes, possibly bodies, flash white and disappear. Maybe the debris islands obstruct it all from washing out to sea. Whatever the case, the open water beyond the bridge is only dotted with wreckage. Crossing the bay by boat looks dangerous if not impossible.
The sun shines on Manhattan, but it must be dark below the smog. Eventually it’ll settle, and I wonder what will remain under that. I look back at the fort, a stone edifice built into the hillside near the water, and wave. I think I see the sentries who stand up top wave back. They may be the last humans I see for a while.
I know it’s coming, but it’s still nerve-wracking when I hit the spot where I’ll have to leave the safety of the road. Ten feet ahead, the guard rails are gone. Some of the cables in the distance appear to have separated from their attachments. I ignore the question of how many have to give before the bridge collapses, step onto the perpendicular beam and force my grip to loosen on the cables. Maybe this part is doable, but the fifty feet of beam I’ll walk along until the next handhold makes my stomach clench. I take a breath and remind myself that I don’t suddenly fall to the side when I walk in a straight line, so why would I do it now, even on a beam hundreds of feet above the water? It’s a reach as far as logical arguments go, but I won’t head back to the fort with my tail between my legs.
I think of Cassie and lift a foot to the other side. Another lunge and I’m looking down at the water while I rest my back against the grouping of cables. The parallel beam is only steps away. Zombies and dead bodies float in the water. I can’t tell which is which from this height, but Jerry said the Lexers wash up on shore and move inland, hence the need for sentries on the old fort. It’s a far enough drop that if I do go down, I’ll be dead before the ones in the water can eat me—a depressing yet comforting thought.
I move forward to test the wind. It’s enough to send me off balance, particularly with my pack. My stomach upends itself. Breakfast is still in there, undigested, and I’d like it to stay in there. I’ll crawl along the beam. It’s not as heroic-sounding or looking, but it’s a hell of a lot safer. I sink down. The rivets of the beam dig into my knees. A hand, a knee, another hand, the other knee, and I’m three feet from the perpendicular beam. I don’t look at the water, only the length of beam to travel.
A gust of wind smacks against my pack and pushes me sideways. I grip the metal edges and fight nature’s attempt to murder me. That would’ve sent me over had I been standing. The wind abates and I move forward thirty feet. Finally, I hit the next perpendicular spot. One down, many more to go. I was planning to stop for a drink, but I want to get this over with. I promise myself water at the next intersection and crawl on.
The second fifty feet is easier, and I don’t even entertain the idea of water. The third expanse is a piece of cake. Still, my stomach is not enjoying the ride, which is ridiculous—it’s impossible to fall when crawling, for God’s sake. I’ve stood at the edge of higher cliffs and not batted an eye.
I take a quick drink at the next beam crossing and stand to survey the bridge. Approximately twenty more beam lengths before I can walk on solid road. They pass quickly until I reach the end of beam seventeen, where I lean against the cables and pull my water from my pack’s side pocket. I think I’ve sweated out every ounce of water in my body; my mouth is desiccated.
I’m a little dizzy, and I don’t get dizzy. When the hand I swipe across my forehead comes away soaked, I know something isn’t right. But only three more beams to go. I glance down at The Narrows. Still zombies and debris. My stomach heaves when the bridge sways, and my upper body swings out over the open water for one terrifying moment.
“Fuck!” My yell is ripped away by the wind. I grip the steel under me with both hands, back against the cables. It sways again, rocking in time to the water beneath. I close my eyes and the bridge spins. The bridge can’t spin. It’s my head.
I open my eyes. The smoky city and the blue sky tilt before righting themselves. The bridge isn’t swaying, either. My stomach is somewhere up near my throat, threatening to send peanut butter toast spewing. I have to hold it the fuck together for three more beams. The road here hasn’t been blown away entirely, but if I came all this way only to fall through some broken asphalt, it would be pretty stupid.
A chorus of moans comes from the bridge. Lexers, maybe fifteen of them, reaching over the guardrail. I get back to crawling, but my fastest is slow enough that they can follow along. This won’t work at all. I reach the intersection where I planned to rejoin the road, get to my feet and peer around the cables.
A woman who reminds me of Cassie, hair a greasy blond instead of brown, opens her mouth wider than I thought possible. I take my knife from my belt and stab into one of the greenish-gold irises in the sunken black circles of her eyes, then twist her shirt in my fist and pull. Nothing. I lean closer for the loop of her jeans and yank, but the ones behind have her pressed to the rail. I’ll never get her out of the way.
The next one’s face is a mess of fresh blood around shriveled lips. He grabs my arm at my attempt to get my knife in his mouth. I can’t build up enough speed to get through skull at this distance, so I wrest it free and crouch to check the lower roadway—same deal. I’ll have to crawl the beam the whole way to Brooklyn. It wasn’t a completely unanticipated turn of events, but it is very much an unwelcome one. I get back on my hands and knees. How many more beams until the bridge ends? A lot. What if the beam ends before I find a safe spot? With the way the crowd follows, cheering me along, I’m dead or heading back to Wadsworth.
I stop counting at twenty more beams because it’s too discouraging. The distance I have left doesn’t seem to have changed in length. This is the longest suspension bridge in America, a fact proudly touted by people whose teeth I’d love to kick in right about now. The sun is hidden behind the clouds and my teeth chatter. I’m cold even with all this exertion. Bent over this way, my breakfast will make an appearance any second now.
I sit up with a leg on either side of the beam to let my internal organs rest in their correct positions for a few minutes. It might be exhilarating to be up here on any other day, but the constant noises from the road are enough to drive me batty. Every once in a while, they get so excited that one falls over the side and slams into the metal on its way to the water.
“Will you shut the fuck up,” I mutter at them, which only sends them into a tizzy but is still satisfying. I turn back to where half of a giant ship bobs in the distance. They really did a number on the harbor and it didn’t stop anything on the mainland. I can attest to that.
With my stomach resettled, I move on. My hands are sore from the rough metal. I forgot my climbing gloves at home—a stupid as shit move—which would have been useful for both this and keeping zombie germs off my hands. Antibacterial gel has worked so far, but when I find a pair of gloves big enough, they’re mine.
By afternoon, the Brooklyn anchorage is six beams away. It’s the twin of the one I climbed in Fort Wadsworth to get on this godawful bridge, and the beams head straight into the anchorage same as on the Staten Island side. The Lexers are noisy as ever and nowhere near as tired as I. My neck and knees hurt and my stomach is back to its old tricks.