“Hey, I just want to thank you for pulling me out of that situation back there,” Smith said to me quietly. “You could have just left me to die.”
I shrugged. He was right but all thoughts of debt collecting and threats were now over as far as I was concerned. Smith knew how to use a pistol and could handle himself, which made him a vital survival commodity.
I was surprised when my cell phone chimed the Rolling Stones’ ‘Satisfaction’ ringtone in my pocket. I’d wondered if the signals were down permanently. I felt even more surprised when the caller I.D. was my dad in New York City.
“Hey, Dad.” My emotion nearly spilled over to hear a member of my family was still alive.
“Hey, Brett. Are you okay?” It was good to hear his voice again, even though we’d never been close.
My father was one of life’s duckers and divers, tiring of most people and situations very quickly, including family life. Michael Wilde spent most of his time traveling across America and Europe, where he met my mother in Ireland. They settled in London, England for a while, until Dad was off again, trading in diamonds and other valuable stones. We moved back to Brynston in the States when my parents tried to make another go of things but the reunion was short lived. My mother moved back to England, my father went off on his travels again, my sister went to University in San Francisco and I stayed put. For some strange reason, I remained in Brynston and wasted my life.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Where are you?”
“I’ve managed to escape the City…well kind of. I’m on a yacht anchored off the Esplanade by Battery Park City. There’s a few of us onboard here, it’s safe. You’re welcome to join us if you can make it here.”
“Dad, there’s six of us. Is that going to be a problem?”
“No problem, son. There’s enough room on here. Just don’t bring anyone who’s been bitten or infected, okay?”
“Nobody is bitten here, Dad.”
“That’s good news, son. I called your sister, Vicky. She’s gone to Alcatraz Island with some of her pals so I think she’s going to be okay.”
“That’s good news, we’ll try and…” my phone bleeped and cut off the connection. I tried to redial but the information panel told me no signal was available. Rosenberg suggested he take my number and keyed it into his own cell list of contacts.
I relayed the message to everybody in the VW van and asked if they wanted to go to New York City, some eighty miles to the east. I saw doubt and apprehension etched on their faces. I knew where they were coming from. Navigating our way through the small town of Brynston had been tricky enough but traveling through one of the biggest cities in the world was going to be like climbing a mountain in a swimsuit.
“Well, I’m up for it,” Smith agreed. “I’m from the city so I can plan our route through to the harbor and besides I might find a few of my associates who are still alive and maybe willing to help us.”
I sensed the tension ease slightly. Smith plotting the route was better than stumbling through the city without a clue which direction we were traveling. Nobody thought about the route between Brynston and New York.
Everyone reluctantly agreed to go to New York. Nobody thought of any positive alternatives. Being onboard a ship made some kind of sense amongst all this madness. I wasn’t sure how long they’d stay anchored out of the harbor. I didn’t know if the infected were able to swim or crawl along the bottom of the sea bed. One thing I did know was if the shit got too heavy onboard, they wouldn’t hang around waiting for us for too long, no matter what old man Wilde said.
Everyone in the van tried to contact their families and people they knew on their cell phones with no success. I attempted to go online to check my various social networking accounts but kept receiving an “unable to connect to the server” message.
I asked Batfish if she’d stop by my apartment so I could grab a few things. I didn’t think I’d ever be returning to Brynston so I wanted to make sure I took all my valuables with me. I explained about the traffic bottle neck and if we encountered any sign of a jam, we’d forget about going to my apartment.
I directed Batfish around the back streets. She drove slowly by abandoned vehicles and clusters of zombies, who momentarily chased the VW. The roads were full of trash and discarded possessions, as people dropped them while attempting to flee the town.
The traffic around my apartment block had thinned enough so we were able to steer around the streams of dumped vehicles. I pointed out the apartment block and told Batfish to park on the sidewalk. She bumped the VW up the curb and pulled up outside the front entrance. I looked up at the building I’d called home for the past five years with a different outlook. It looked like a giant concrete coffin and I felt glad this probably was the last time I’d ever enter the building.
“You’ve got ten minutes in there. Otherwise we’re out of here, okay?” Batfish gave me stern instructions.
I nodded and opened the sliding camper side door. I was surprised when Smith climbed out behind me.
“I couldn’t let you go in there alone,” Smith gave me a wink. I felt a swelling sense of pride and camaraderie until he added, “an idiot like you would only go and get himself killed. And you’re our ticket to safety onto that yacht.”
I laughed and gestured towards the apartment block. A revolving glass door led to the lobby which was cold and dark. No lights lit the building and the elevator doors stood open. I tried the switch but the power was off. Wails and moans came from somewhere within the building.
“We’ll take the stairs,” I whispered.
Smith nodded and drew his Desert Eagle. He held the baseball bat in his left hand and the pistol in his right. We crept up the steps one at a time, listening for any approaching footsteps. Muffled shouts echoed down the stairway from the rooms above.
I jumped back at the sight of the corpse of a dead man, still dressed in his pajamas, lying on the floor between a set of double doors leading to the first floor. His head was half missing and brown gunk pooled under his torso.
“What floor are you on?” Smith hissed.
“Fifth.” I started to regret returning to my former home. The stairway seemed endless in the semi darkness.
“We need to pick up the pace. We only have ten minutes, remember?”
I nodded and glanced at my watch. Through the dim light, I saw we had already taken between two and three minutes. I quickened the pace up the stairs with Smith following. I stopped when I heard doors banging somewhere on the fourth floor. When silence returned, I carried on up the stairs.
We came to the fifth floor and crept along the passage way. Two dead zombies lay side by side outside an apartment a few doors down from mine. One of the bodies sat up and moaned as we approached my apartment door. Smith ran forward and smashed it square on the forehead with his baseball bat before it had the chance to stand up.
I unlocked the door of my own apartment and felt surprised and shocked at the stink wafting out. I didn’t realize how much the place stunk of unwashed clothes and stale booze. Smith looked around and I knew by his expression he was unimpressed with the state of the place. I found an old camping rucksack which hadn’t been used for years and hurriedly stuffed some spare clothes, my passport and identity papers inside.
“What size shoes are you?” Smith asked, waving his sock at me. I’d forgotten he’d lost a shoe at Buddy’s Bar.
“Err..ten.”
“Shit, I’m eleven.” He thought for a moment. “Carry on.” He disappeared out of the front door of the apartment.
With Smith out of the room, I changed from my blood encrusted rags into some clean, comfortable clothes. I stuffed anything useful into the rucksack; flashlight, kitchen knives, can opener, spare batteries, toothpaste, soap, cell phone charger and all the food in the cupboards which amounted to a block of hard cheese, two cans of soup and a packet of crisp bread. I was never one for grocery shopping. I took some of my favorite CD’s just to fill my bag and hopefully make the return journey a little more bearable.
Smith returned to my apartment wearing a pair of brown loafers and a black leather jacket. I tried to hide my smirk but he noticed.
“Shut your mouth, asshole. It’s all I could find and they were
your
neighbors. And while you’re sitting there laughing your ass off, don’t you think we should get moving?”
I’d forgotten the time. I looked at my watch and saw we had about two minutes to get downstairs. I zipped the rucksack and shook the straps over my shoulders. I took one last look around my apartment and shut the door for the last time. We moved quickly down the stairway. The light was fading fast. I didn’t want to use the flashlight in case the beam attracted unwanted attention.
We reached the lobby on the ground floor and stood still. I saw someone moving in the shadows by the elevator doors. Smith drew his Desert Eagle and took aim at the skulking figure. She lumbered closer into the fading light, murmuring and wailing. The naked female zombie’s lower body was covered with congealed brown liquid, oozing from a wound in her thigh. Her flesh had turned bluish white and quivered and wobbled in time with her movements. I recognized her as the chubby woman I saw attacked on the street earlier in the day.
“Jesus, will you look at that?” Smith whispered and fired a shot hitting the chubby woman in the middle of her forehead. She collapsed on her back letting out a loud fart when she hit the ground. Smith and I couldn’t help a small giggle.
We moved to the revolving glass door and stopped when we noticed a young, skinny male zombie tangled between the partitions, trying to work out how to get out. Smith and I stood in the same partition, opposite the zombie and slowly shuffled the door around to reach the street outside.
“Hey, watch this,” Smith said, a boyish grin on his face. He caught hold of the door and spun it around with force. The zombie inside the glass partitions was caught like a hamster running inside a wheel and eventually flew out of the doors, collapsing into the lobby. We both laughed out loud.
I soon stopped laughing when I turned and saw Batfish and the camper van were nowhere in sight and a crowd of around thirty zombies lumbered steadily towards us.
Chapter Nine
“Smith, look, they’ve gone,” I hissed.
Smith turned, still smiling at the sight of the incredible spinning zombie. The look of amusement on his face soon turned to anguish.
“Where are they?” Smith looked at his watch. “We were only just over ten minutes. Oh, Jesus, we’re fucking trapped. Those double crossing sacks of shit!”
I noticed a small gap in the zombie ranks, slightly to our left. Smith followed me when I darted through the sparse area of the crowd, knocking over a couple of zombies who were once teenage girls. The throng of zombies changed direction and slowly followed us.
“Where are we going?” Smith asked.
“Anywhere but here,” I said.
I led the way across the street towards the shopping precinct which provided the only clear route. I had no clue where to go. We were on foot in a dangerous area and the sun was dipping. I didn’t want to be around the vicinity after dark.
We trudged on until the lowing crowds of undead were out of sight. I knew some of them would carry on their pursuit but others would lose their sense of direction and wander in different routes. We felt capable of handling a few of the undead but we’d have a struggle on our hands if they came at us in large numbers. I stopped by a store doorway and checked how much breathing space we had. I couldn’t see any zombies in close proximity. I lit a cigarette and offered Smith one.
“Have you still got any bourbon?”
Smith pulled out the bottle from his jacket and handed it to me. I took a long slug and enjoyed the burn as it sunk into my guts. I handed the bottle back and Smith did the same.
“What’s the plan, then, Wilde man?”
“We need to get out of town. We need a vehicle and there are plenty abandoned around here. We can take our pick.”
“I always said never rely on other people. You can never trust them. I can’t believe they just ran out on us like that.” Smith took another slug of bourbon.
I shrugged and didn’t know what to say. Maybe they had their reasons but we probably would never see them again so to my mind, it wasn’t worth worrying about.
Smith changed clips on his Desert Eagle. “Last one,” he sighed.
I thought for a moment. “There’s a gun shop not far from here, near the shopping precinct.”
“Can we get there on foot?”
I nodded. “It’s about ten minutes.”
“In today’s experience, I think we should keep clear of heavily populated areas,” Smith said. “We’ve been in trouble at the hospital and at that bar. Don’t you think a shopping precinct is going to be worse?”
Smith had a point. Previously heavily populated areas were rife with undead like some of their former memories of the locations still remained. They seemed to congregate in areas frequented in their previous lives.
“The gun shop is about a block from the shopping precinct and not in plain sight.”
“Okay, Wilde man, it’s your call,” Smith said. “Lead the way.”
We kept a slow jog, to outpace any zombies who might be lurking in the doorways of buildings we passed. The streets I was used to seeing bustling with shoppers and people on their way home from work were very quiet and deserted. Abandoned cars stood alone with the doors open and alarms bleeping. The occasional zombie noticed us and lurched in our direction but soon fell some way behind. I thought about using one of the discarded vehicles but the noise of their alarms seemed to attract the zombies like flies around cow shit. We could get to the gun shop quieter on foot.
So far, so good. We reached the side street and turned right towards the gun shop. The shopping precinct was located roughly a further four hundred yards down the main road. I couldn’t remember the name of the gun store but remembered Pete was always talking about buying a revolver and we’d been inside for a look around once.
My heart sank when we rounded the street corner. A pickup truck sat with its front half buried in the gun shop window and the back end at an odd angle on the sidewalk.