Earth's Survivors Apocalypse (16 page)

Billy nodded, realized she couldn't see it, and then spoke. “We can get one tomorrow.”

She brushed against him as she squeezed past and walked toward the gate. His arm felt on fire from the softness of her breast as she had slipped past him. She turned and looked back at him. “They almost got in.” She shone the light on the steel collapsible burglar door. It had been there for as long as she could remember, and she had lived in the building for several years. The top was nearly separated from the steel bracket that held the hinge mechanism. Billy got his feet moving, walked over and examined the top of the door.

They had hit it with the sledge hammer repeatedly. The steel had finally split, and it looked as though they had been trying to use sheer force to rip the rest of the bracket away from the wall where it was mounted. Billy stepped back.

“I think,” he began, and that was when two more stepped through the shattered aluminum door frame and stared in at the steel gate.

“Oh, hey, man,” one began. The other didn't even try for pretense, but just lifted her rifle and began to fire into the narrow hallway.

It lasted less than a full second as both Billy's and Beth’s weapons roared. The woman's head blew apart in the narrow hallway, black blood running down the walls in the flickering light of the penlight where it had fallen to the floor. Beth squatted and picked the flashlight back up.

“Got you?
Got you?”
Beth asked.

“No... No... No, I …” Billy couldn't find the words. Something moved outside the door, and he opened up on it. A second later the sound of running came through the door. None of them made it to the gate, tripping over the other dead, and both Billy and Beth were firing immediately. One made it back out the door, his hand gone, the rifle he had been carrying clattered to the floor. Billy could not believe he was still able to move, he was sure he had shot him in the chest as well as the hand. He ran once he hit the sidewalk, canted to one side, one leg dragging as he ran, causing him to lurch from side to side. He disappeared into the darkness before either of them could get another shot in. The silence came back full.

“You have got to get your shit together,”
Beth said quietly.

“I
got
my shit together,” Billy shot back.

“You never saw that guy coming through the door: If I hadn't shot him...”

“Well, fuck!
If you hadn't...
Never mind...
Okay... I'll get my shit together.”

She said nothing.

“Okay...
Okay...
Does us no good to get on each other... None at all... We can fix this tomorrow.” He looked around the lobby.

“Help me for a moment?” he asked. He headed for a length of chain they had bought back to use for something. It was about to be re-purposed, he thought. As Beth held the light he wound the chain through the separated sections of the gate, pulled it tight and ran a short length of nylon rope through the eyes, tying it tightly.

He stepped back and looked it over. It would have to do until morning, her flashlight was dimming faster, causing shadows to jump and fall on the walls. Batteries were getting tougher and tougher to find. He looked at his wrist and cursed low. Old habits died hard. Watches were worthless now. He hadn't worn one in a few days.

“I don't know either... I think a few hours 'til dawn,” Beth said. “That should hold for a few hours, at least slow them down enough to shoot them if they do try to get through it.”

“Well I'll sit here and wait for it... All we can do,” Billy said. “Go on back up and get some sleep. I got this.” He settled back onto the step, sitting with his back to the upstairs.

Beth stayed silent for a moment and then came and sat next to him. “Got it with you,” she said. She sat next to him, and he immediately lost his words. Her arm pressed against his own. The flashlight snapped off, and the heat of her arm became everything.

“Billy?”
His name whispered from the upstairs hallway: Jamie.

“I'm here until daybreak,” Billy whispered back.

Silence. And then... “It's safe?”

“They won't get past us,” Billy said.

She said nothing, but a few seconds later the door slammed upstairs. Billy sighed.

“Sorry,” Beth said. She was aware how Jamie felt about her. Jamie and Billy were not really together, but Jamie felt she owned him. Billy didn't help matters by staying with her,
sleeping with her,
yet not making it official, and Jamie knew Billy was hung up on her too, Beth knew. For that matter, so was Scotty. She wasn't interested in either of them. She didn't feel like she absolutely had to have a man to protect her, define her. Yet ironically, she reminded herself, she was doing the same thing with Scotty. Staying when she didn't feel the same,
couldn't
feel the same. “I better go up... keep the peace.” Beth said quietly.

“Yeah... I'm good here,” Billy said. He wasn't though. He wanted her to stay; he just didn't know what he could do to get her to stay. Nothing, he supposed. “I'll be good. Morning's not far away.” Her arm pulled away, and a moment later he heard her soft footfalls on the stairs as she ascended them. Billy sat quietly, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, his machine pistol in his hands.

New York: Park Avenue

March 9th: 618 Park Avenue: Seventh floor. 2B

Tosh's Notebook. March 9th (Afternoon):
Warming up, days longer. Nothing works, so I can't track the hours, but I know the days are longer.

Tosh folded the cover back on her notebook and slipped it into her pocket. She stood on the balcony that overlooked the city, watching the fires that still burned here and there. It was ironic to her that the balcony faced west. Like she had never really left that world, only acquired a different view of it.

This was so much different from their own place. The west side, even the other side of the river over in Jersey, was almost entirely in flames now. Across the river, the same west side she was looking over at now, still burned brightly. And Harlem was strange. The gangs had taken over. First fighting among themselves, then taking over the streets. The drug infested blocks just off the  interchanges where the white folks had sometimes driven down into, pretending to be lost so they could buy their shit, take it back to their cozy, safe neighborhoods - probably a place just like this, Tosh thought - and get high with their friends, closed down. The whole area blocked off, city buses pulled across the streets. They had tried to go there. She knew first hand what it was like.

She and Adam had left that area after just a few hours of wandering the streets, ducking in and out of the alleys to stay hidden, hearing the gunfire. The dead bodies everywhere were one thing to have to deal with. The living would be the other thing everyone would have to contend with there. Tosh tried to put it into context, but she couldn't. There was no context. It made no sense. Over there, if disease didn't get you, the gangs would. It was a no win situation. Her heart fluttered in her chest, and she took a short breath involuntarily. Little angel wings flapping against her rib cage. It was what always came to mind when it happened, always. It was a heart condition she had had for most of her life. A heart condition that seemed, ironically, as though it would kill her long before the gangs or diseases got her.

She sighed. The smell of fire was everywhere. Not the smell of wood smoke but that smell of house fire, something everyone remembered once they had smelled it once. Burned plastic, hot steel, bodies burning. It was horrible.

Fires burned over on the west side too now. Nothing like Jersey though. There seemed to be a concerted effort, behind those barricades of buses, to get the fires out. It had been just over a week now since the city had collapsed. She and Adam had come here two days before. She thought back on it, playing the scene over in her head as she watched the fires burn across the river. Cliffside, North Bergen, Union City. She couldn't tell where the fires burned and where they left off. Maybe all of Jersey was on fire.

Two days prior...

They had walked right down the middle of the street, looking up at the buildings as they walked. Park Avenue looked bad, but nowhere near as bad as Harlem had looked.

618 rested above the door of this building in two foot tall brass letters. The door had been partly open. They had seen that from the street and walked closer.

The doorman, an elderly white haired man, had been dead, lying in the doorway preventing the door from closing and locking. They had dug in, shifted him outside the door. Adam had dragged him to the gutter as she had held the door. They had used the elevator, taken it to the top of the building. There had still been electric in the building that first day. Now the elevator was dead, wedged open on their floor. There had been an old lady in the apartment across the hall. She had come and stared as Adam had forced the handset and let them into the apartment.

“You know, Amanda Bynes will not care for that at all,” she had told them as she stood in her doorway, clutching her dressing gown to her throat.

“Well, fuck Amanda Bynes,” Adam had told her. He turned to her. “Not to put too fine a point on it,” he added. She had shrunk back.

She blinked. “Well, I don't suppose she'll be back. Do you?” She hadn't waited for an answer, but answered for herself. She lowered her eyes to the floor. “No. I don't suppose she will.” She looked back up. “Well, you're welcome to it, I guess. I guess it doesn't belong to anyone anymore. You just scared me is all.” She stood blinking. Tosh walked across the short distance and stuck out her hand.

“I don't think anyone who isn't here right now will ever be back,“ Tosh had told her. She had held the old woman’s cold, thin hand.

“Alice,” the old woman said as Tosh told her, her name. “Jefferson,” she had added.

Adam chuckled from across the hall. Tosh had turned her eyes to him. “Just found it amusing is all,” Adam had told her.

“I wonder what Mister James might think about all of this,” Alice had said. “We've never had...
trouble
like this,” she had finished quietly.

“Mister James is your husband?” Adam had asked kindly.

He tended to snap at people and then regret it after. He was so big that he scared people when he did that. Six foot three, and at two hundred and ninety, very close to three hundred pounds, but he was really an easy going soul, Tosh knew. He had been trying to make up for snapping at the old woman a few seconds before.

“No, dear, our doorman. He's not supposed to let anyone in at all.” She had clutched at her throat and the collar of her housecoat once more.

Tosh had looked at Adam. He had opened his mouth and then closed it. She had turned her eyes to Alice. “Alice... Alice, they got him. They got your Mister James... I'm sorry,” she had told her.

Alice had blinked. “I see. Well he'll probably lose his job if he's... well if he's
un
able to do it,” she had looked at Tosh. “Do you think he's unable to do it?”

Tosh nodded. “I'm pretty sure,” She had said.

“Well, I wonder who will do it then?”

The silence had held in the hallway for a short time and Adam broke it. “Do you think you might want to come over here with us? We're going to try to ride this out. Can't last forever, right?” He had finished with the lock-set, swung open the door and looked into the gloomy interior of Amanda Bynes' apartment. He turned back to face her.

“No. Thank you, but I have always lived alone, and I can't see changing it now. Have you seen these gangs of people? I saw it on the T.V. before it quit working.” She had peered up at Adam.

“Yeah. We've seen them. Had to fight our way through them.” His hand had come up and scrubbed at his face and the beard that was beginning to grow there.

Alice had nodded. Her long robe lifted at floor level and a small white dog had stuck his head out from under the hem and looked up at Adam and Tosh. Alice followed their eyes down. “Ge-boo,” she had said. The dog looked up at her and then slipped his head back under the hem of the robe once more. He had poked his nose back out a few seconds later, fixed his eyes on Tosh, and then slipped back under the robe for good. It seemed to Tosh as though it hadn't really happened.

“A dog,” Adam had said.

Alice had nodded. “I have been walking him in the daylight. They said...
the T.V. said...
they don't come out in the daylight. Afraid to be seen or something. They haven't bothered Ge-Boo and me. Have you seen them in the daylight?” She had asked.

“No,” Adam had told her.

“No,” Tosh had agreed. “But you shouldn't go out. There are bad people out there... not just the gangs.”

“You mean people that break into people's houses?” Alice had asked. She had looked from Tosh to Adam.

“Yeah, well, okay,” Adam had agreed. “Just be careful... Alice,” He had added her name as an afterthought. “Tosh,” Tosh had nodded at Alice and then stepped into Amanda Bynes' apartment.

Now she looked out over the fires burning in Jersey. The air was full of ash and smoke. It seemed like it was always now. She turned and went back into the apartment, sliding the balcony door shut behind her.

Harlem