Grace turns back, but her gaze diverts over my shoulder and her face slackens. I glance in my mirror, though I know what I’ll see—the occasional zombie has become a gigantic group. I remind myself to breathe. On bikes, we’ll leave them in the dust.
Our street ends at a large cemetery and zombies who spring to attention at our arrival. If the cemetery gates were closed a few weeks ago, it’ll be safe inside, but there’s no time to scale the tall fence with bikes. We bump onto the sidewalk and parallel the cemetery to the corner. It seems quiet inside—grass and tombstones and winding roads. The thought of all the dried, decayed corpses underground used to creep me out. Now I wish there were time to travel through a place in which the dead stay where they belong.
Two Lexers block our escape through the traffic jam at the next intersection. One is huge. The Incredible Hulk of zombies. I’ll never reach his head. Neither will Grace, and the numerous zombies behind us and on the opposite corner are worse than this single giant. I grab the chisel from my basket, lower my bike to the ground and dart forward to kick his leg—the only thing I can think to do that will get him to our level. My sneaker hits his kneecap with a solid crunch that bends his knee the wrong way. He slams onto a car hood and topples to the asphalt.
I bend to The Hulk, who should be writhing in pain but instead is dragging himself and his teeth closer, and stab him in the temple. Grace has taken care of the other, and she holds our bikes with no trace of imminent puking. We roll them over Hulk’s body and continue on. We’re both short of breath, both gory, and I know we’re both scared, but we don’t remark upon killing two bodies that got in our way. We don’t even say, “Whew, close call there, huh?”
We’re getting used to this. Just another day at the office.
Chapter 55
I want to marry my bicycle. A simple ceremony, just us proclaiming our love for each other. I never rode a bike around the city. I knew I’d be too lazy to ride home at the end of the workday, and being the person whose bike takes up space on the rush hour train could be worse than being the person bleeding out in the street from a collision with a cab.
But it has officially become my preferred mode of travel. Without bikes, we never would’ve made it to Prospect Park, and we certainly wouldn’t have cut through the park so easily. The entrances were blocked to cars, which made biking a dream on the empty road. The lake had some floaters, the Long Meadow many undead occupants, and we flew past them all.
I’d love to brag that from there we kicked zombie ass, but mainly we’ve managed to outrun them or zigzag from one block to the next in a rambling and erratic journey—but it beats dying. The burned blocks are the best, as they’re vacant, blackened swaths of building façades. I guess most zombies don’t stick around when there’s no food. If I don’t think about the people who lived there either fleeing into zombie arms or burning to death, I can appreciate the break it gives us.
Here and there are signs of life: A ring of rubble that protects a stoop. Empty bottles and food wrappers piled below a high window. A nauseating combination of human waste and toilet paper that appears to have been flung from houses as in medieval times. A parking lot full of dog carcasses suspended from rope with their flesh carved to bone. I want to be angry at the thought of defenseless animals being consumed, but people need to eat. Most animals likely ended up as zombie food anyway. I would want Grace’s family to eat dogs or anything else to stay alive; I’m sure I would eat almost anything when it came down to it, no matter how repugnant.
It makes me wonder how I could have refused, even half-heartedly, Eric and Maria’s request that we return. The city is bombed-out. It’s death and ash and famine. It’s a different place than our yard of sunshine and shadowed house—this is darkness in every sense of the word. I can feel it creeping in, and I remind myself that this isn’t my reality. It doesn’t have to be.
We speak in murmurs. Our bike tires hum on the concrete. I think I hear someone hush a child as we pass an apartment window. Zombies gurgle and moan and grunt. Gone are the horns and voices, the machines and rumblings; New York has become a city of whispers and groans.
And, a few times now, high-pitched and hoarse screams. Raw. Blood-curdling. Desperate. Keening. I can’t find the proper adjective to describe the sounds a person makes while being torn apart, or the arctic chill it sends through you. How you want to help but also run. It can go on for a minute that seems like hours, until you stop wishing for their survival and hope the Lexers hit an artery to put the human out of his misery.
From what I’ve seen on nature shows—and it’s begun to seem as if far too much of my knowledge on a great many subjects comes from movies or TV—predators kill their prey before eating, if only to stop them fighting back. Unlike most predators, zombies don’t care about flailing limbs or shrieks or anything except sinking those dull teeth into flesh.
We make our way through the neighborhood of Boerum Hill, hoping to cross Atlantic Avenue closer to the water, where the streets are quieter and more residential. Court Street used to be your typical Brooklyn thoroughfare, lined with stores on the ground floor of three and four-story brick buildings. Now it’s shattered windows and trash, the same as by us, but worse. Dead—really dead—bodies are almost as plentiful as broken glass, and they cover the concrete for blocks. The stench is unbelievable and the street is impassable by bike. The three zombies that wander nearby haven’t noticed us yet.
The main entrance of a church sits on the opposite corner, with its length running the side street. That zombie-free street is our destination. We take our handlebars and walk our bikes as fast as possible. The three zombies spot us, but they can’t move over obstacles as quickly as we can. I do my best to avoid bodies with my feet, but my bike rolls over legs and torsos and through dried puddles of viscera. The hem of a coat tangles in my spokes and I bend to yank it free. Because of decomposition, it’s impossible to tell if they were men or women unless you inspect their clothes. I raise my eyes. I don’t want to know.
The seafood market behind us adds a rotten ocean odor to the mix that makes me gag along with Grace. It’s in my mouth and nose. It seeps into my pores. I turn at a scuffing sound to see zombies streaming from the market’s open door. They’ll trip over bodies to get to us, but they’re on the move.
“Shit,” I whisper. “Go, go, go.”
We reach the end of the bodies and hop on our bikes. My sneaker is untied, but I can’t stop now. I glance down as I pedal to make sure it won’t tangle in the chain and thud into something solid that wasn’t there before. The world tilts. My hip and knee hit the concrete first, and then I skid along the pavement in a screech of metal. My leg will hurt later, but Ana’s coat has saved my arm.
“Sylvie!” Grace screams.
Whatever sent me down was yielding and human-like. Alive or dead, it’s bad news. I scramble from under my bike and struggle to my knees for a weapon, but there are wide holes in the wicker where my chisel and screwdriver were. Grace swings a man into the church’s iron fence by the hem of his black coat. He lands on his knees, shouting above the oncoming groans. A person.
Grace is doing her best, but I don’t think either of us is a match for a good-sized man with a weapon. I open my bag. Like Eric said, the gun could scare someone. That someone is probably only going to be me, but if you want to kill me, I’ll do my best to kill you first. I don’t remember where the safety is or how to turn it off, but I aim it two-handed at the figure in black.
Grace pulls me to my feet. He staggers up and turns around—a man with a clerical collar and two hands in the air. A priest with raven hair and vibrant blue eyes. “Come inside! It’s not safe.”
We were already aware it’s not safe. I drop the gun in my bag and pick up my bike—I have no intention of going inside—but the chain hangs, the wheel is bent and the zombies have passed the corner. My hip aches and my knee stings.
Grace looks from my bike to the priest, who gestures at the driveway of a narrow brick building attached to the rear of the church. “We have to,” she says.
I hate rectories and I hate convents and the only way I would ever step foot in one again is if zombies were after me. We allow him to lead us into the driveway and latch the gate. He turns and hands me my runaway chisel, maybe as a gesture of good faith.
“Leave your bikes here,” he says. We follow him up brick steps that rise to the second floor and through the open door.
Chapter 56
We stand in a kitchen with old wood cabinets and a gold Formica counter. The priest locks the doors, then draws the chain for good measure. I can barely hear the hissing. Only the jangle of metal makes its way through the thick old wood.
He turns and wipes his face with a handkerchief he produces from somewhere. “I’m sorry. I thought you were looking for help and—”
“We weren’t.” Grace stands with fists at her sides and cheeks striped red. She looks like a volcano about to burst. “We were trying to get home. But now we can’t, thanks to you.”
The priest’s mouth curves down in apology. All the priests I’ve ever known were middle-aged or old. This one is somewhere in his mid-thirties, handsome with his symmetrical face, thick dark eyebrows and a cleft in his chin. His dark hair isn’t short, as I thought, but pulled into a low ponytail. He’s probably one of those priests who attempts hipness in order to lure young people into the fold.
“Sit down, please.” He gestures at the door to a living room furnished in stodgy old-fashioned furniture. When Grace doesn’t move, he walks past and stands at the couch. “Please?”
I don’t trust the clergy for the most part, but he gives off a benevolent vibe. Grace stalks into the room and perches at the edge of an armchair. I lower myself to the couch slowly; the sting on my knee has become fiery. My jeans are ripped and the hole edged with blood. I can’t remember the last time I scraped a knee—on the playground, maybe.
He folds into the chair opposite, elbows on his knees and eyebrows curved like apostrophes. His pants are shredded up one leg from Grace tossing him to the sidewalk. “I really am sorry. I’m David, the priest here. We’ve been trying to rescue anyone who passes by the church. That was the first time we’ve had to rescue someone from ourselves, though.”
Grace glares, unmoved by his joke and the small laugh that accompanies it. Father David’s eyebrows move up and down in distress. “If it’s only the bike, we can replace it. Are you hurt?” His gaze lands on my knee. “Oh. Let me get something for that.”
He leaves quickly for the hall that connects this room to somewhere else. I take in the fireplace, old writing desk and pictures on the wall—a pastoral landscape, the Virgin Mary, and Jesus with Sacred Heart, amongst others.
Minutes pass with the ticking of a clock, Grace’s barely controlled breathing and the steady throb of my scrape. Rivulets of blood tickle my shin. Jesus’ Sacred Heart is on fire, and mine burns with resentment we’re here. Father David returns with an older woman who wears a nubby brown and white habit instead of the black and white of Sister Jean Marie. She kneels at my feet without a word and opens a first aid kit.
“This is Sister Constance. She’ll clean you up,” Father David says and disappears.
“Remove your pants, please,” Sister Constance says in a voice barely above a whisper.
“I can do it myself,” I say in a tone that could stand to be a little nicer.
The nun hands me the kit, stands with a nod, and leaves the room as quietly as she entered. I pull up the leg of my jeans, tear open a cleansing wipe and place it on my scrape. “Christ!” I yell at the burn.
Grace giggles. I look up to find her pointing at Jesus on the wall. “Yes, right here. Now you’re in trouble. Maybe you should add in the others so they don’t think you took his name in vain.”
I laugh, dab at my scrape and point to the image of the Virgin Mary. “Holy Mary, Mother of God!” Then I point to the landscape and add, “Bucolic landscape!”
Grace belly laughs. “Decorative plates!” she says, while pointing at some very hideous biblical plates, then gestures to a painting of a robed man with a long beard. “Bearded dude who…isn’t Jesus?”
I lose it. I don’t care if the zombies outside hear. The absurdity of this happenstance and the tension of the dead city and the disappointment at where we’ve found ourselves have combined into a jumble of emotions that have to come out somehow. I point at a small frame on the desk—a Precious Moments drawing of a creepy, big-eyed angel and puppy on a pink cloud, but I can’t speak through my laughter. Grace howls. The wipe slips from my hand and I put my head to my knees to stifle my hysterics. We quiet at a loud, deep laugh from the hall and stare at each other, wide-eyed.
“The bearded dude who isn’t Jesus is Saint Paul,” Father David’s voice comes from out of sight. “Are you decent? May I come in?” We say he can, and I brace myself for disapproval, but he strides in smiling. He’s changed into a brown monk’s habit with a rope knotted around his waist.
“Decent,” I say, “but, obviously, not decorous. Sorry.”
“I used to curse like a sailor. No one was safe, not even Jesus. I’ve had to get creative these days.” He turns to Grace. “I am truly sorry. I have another bike being brought up now. You can leave as long as it’s safe.”
Grace slumps—she’s terrible at holding a grudge. “It’s okay. You thought you were helping.”
He bows his head in gratitude and lowers himself into a chair. “Like I said, I’m David, and you are?”
“I’m Grace. That’s Sylvie.”
“Nice to meet you both, although I’m sure the pleasure is all mine,” he says. I laugh and the cleft in his chin deepens. He must lure the girls in, at least. “Where were you heading?”
“We’re trying to get to my family in Brooklyn Heights,” Grace says.
“I’m not sure you can get near there right now. It’s full of Eaters from the hospital.”
Grace looks away. My heart sinks. If her parents and Logan are surrounded, we’ll never get in and they’ll never get out.
“But you could try going around,” he says. “No one here has tried it, but a scout came from Grace Church in the Heights, said she got past okay.”