The City Series (Book 1): Mordacious (17 page)

I like heights. Maybe that’s the answer I could give Cassie if,
when
, I see her: I like the view it affords, the way it makes big things seem small—whether it’s an actual physical thing or a problem that looms so large you can’t find perspective. After we scattered my parents’ ashes at the cabin, I took off for the mountains. I made my peace with their absence; it was easier to do under a wide-open sky, with no one to hear when I cursed and cried. I don’t know that it lessened my grief, but it made it easier to handle. When I’m close to the stars, when my mind is as clear as the breeze that dries my sweaty clothes, I’m sure there’s a Heaven. And even if Heaven on Earth is as close as anyone ever gets, it’s okay—I’ve already been there.

Chapter 24

Who knew I’d ever be so happy to step foot into Jersey? I’m kidding, really, but I have to uphold the old New York-New Jersey beef. I might be the only person left to do it. It sure seems that way—the streets are quiet in this stretch of 1940’s suburban homes. A few standalone businesses dot what was probably once the main thoroughfare, now supplanted by the highway. The grass isn’t yet overgrown and spring flowers are in evidence. The lack of broken windows makes it look as though everyone just up and disappeared. Only a scrap of leaflet—that holds the handwritten message SAFE ZO—is proof that zombies do exist.

That, and the zombie that’s now moving toward me from a driveway between two houses, his tan t-shirt torn and dirty. He trips off the curb with a grunt and raises an arm. It’s because he wants to eat me, but I wave as I roll past and say, “And a good day to you, sir.”

It’s strange to have left a city teeming with them to arrive here. I don’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth, but it seems impossible that this can last. A block later, a low sound overrides the rush of wind in my ears. A crowd. The street ahead is still barren, and the side streets I passed were the same. I don’t stop pedaling, but I tighten my grip on the handlebars, ready to swerve.

Once I pass the trees that block my view, all questions are answered. A rusted chain-link fence encloses the giant green lawn of a warehouse and offices. And it also encloses what could be everyone from the surrounding area. This is the SAFE ZO.
Was
the SAFE ZO.

I reach the intersection. How long have they been waiting for something edible to happen past? I have no idea, but I’ve incited a riot. The fence clangs and metal squeals. The zombies at the rear push against the ones at the fence. The metal bulges. I don’t wait to see what happens next.

The grass turns to a parking lot of tractor trailers with a fence that’s bent to the ground. The entry point for whomever infected these people, possibly, but also the exit point for today. They spill out in front of me at the same time as the fence behind me gives way in a screech of steel. I figure it’s pointless, but I still risk a glance to see if my rear is any better.

The fence is down. Hundreds limp my way. Yup, definitely pointless.

To my right is a factory with an iron fence and a sea of cars in the lot. I don’t see any zombies. That’s about as much as I can ascertain, and it’ll have to be enough—the ones ahead, post-retirement age folks, are closing in. An old lady snatches at air when I pull my bike away just in time.

Up until now, I’ve been calm. But, old folks or not, they’re here to kill me, and every nerve in my body is electrified. I run the bike to the fence and toss it over top. It drops with a clatter that doesn’t sound good. I fit my boot between the slats on a cross rail and yank myself up, and then I’m on the other side.

They hit a second later, but the iron holds. I scurry under their reaching arms for my bike and pedal away. That was close. Too close. The breeze from the bike can’t cool me down. Even my knees and elbows are sweaty. Rachel would’ve freaked. I imagine standing on this side of the fence watching her be eaten. Or her, watching me, because I would’ve sent her over first. It’s a good thing I only have to look out for me, I tell myself, even though me and myself know it’s a blatant lie.

It’s one thing to want to be alone, and an entirely different thing to be cast into a world that’s empty but for you. Part of the fun of a close call is having someone with whom to laugh it off. Alone, it can magnify into something to be feared. Intense fear paralyzes, and I can’t afford paralysis.

I ride through the lot and past the factory building, paralleling the road. I’ll hop the fence again before they get down the street. This lot ends at a chain-link fence, behind which rises a long, high mound of grass. It could be a park, but it doesn’t quite look like one. When it’s time to hit the pavement, I carefully transfer my bike to the road and resume my travels.

That grassy mound runs alongside my route. Fir trees sprout from its top. It stretches on until the road turns up ahead. Not a park, but something familiar that I can’t put my finger on. Finally, I reach a gate with a sign: Sanitary Landfill. Of course. Right in the middle of town.

I laugh and shake my head. Fucking Jersey.

Chapter 25

The bike lasted maybe seven more miles. After an ominous clicking noise began with each rotation of the pedals, I knew it was giving up the ghost. But hope springs eternal, and I pushed it until the chain popped. It’s between 50-60 miles to Staten Island, and then I have two bridge crossings. Blown-up bridge crossings. I try not to think about it as I sit under a tree in the park across from an empty yacht club. Hell yes, I checked—not a single boat.

There are a few zombies in the parking lot past the baseball diamond. They weren’t there before I used the port-a-potty set back in the field and I’m lucky that they didn’t see me and come visit while I used it.

A car would be good. A motorcycle would be even better once I get to the traffic in north Jersey. I saw it on TV before it cut out, and there’s no way all those cars found somewhere to go. Cassie might have been in one of them, if she and her friends managed to find a car, as she said she would if it looked bad. But how bad did it look? Probably not that bad until it was too late.

I heave myself up. All the climbing and running Cassie teased me about is serving me well now. Mentally, I’m exhausted. Physically, I’m okay. I’ll find transportation and go as far as is safe before I find somewhere to sleep for the night.

If I stay within the tree line at the edge of the field, my buddies across the way won’t notice, as they’re now chasing a bird. The bird lands to peck at the grass and, when they get close again, it flaps another ten feet and lands. I think it’s fucking with them.

“Nice work, Bird,” I say, and head down the side street.

Except for the few zombies, whom I avoid by walking faster, it’s a pleasant jaunt around the corner. I stop at the first house I see that’s far enough from tagalong zombies and has a vehicle out front. A Jeep Cherokee. Not great on gas, but I may need the 4X4. I can always trade down, or up, depending. There might come a point when I need a bulldozer. You never know.

The keys are likely inside the house, which is a weird 1960’s combination of pale brick and stucco. Like they ran out of brick and figured they’d finish the top half in whatever was laying around. I prop open the screen door and knock with the hand that doesn’t hold my knife. Nothing answers. I try the knob. Locked. It’ll take a lot of noise to open the door. Less noise to break a window. I head around back and find the back door has a window, which is easily cracked with my knife hilt. One twist of the lock and I stand in a sunny, spotless kitchen with a round oak table and a wooden spice rack on the wall.

“Hello?” I call softly.

I’ve broken into enough houses in the past week that I should be used to it by now, but I can’t shake the feeling that any moment I’ll hear sirens and be arrested for Breaking and Entering. I wish I could be arrested. It would mean the world was still in order.

The living room is full of furniture as dated as the house, but well taken care of. I’m robbing someone’s grandma. But Grandma’s not here. Maybe that woman seven miles back was Grandma, and she wasn’t baking cookies. The foyer has a key rack that says
Home Sweet Home
above the hooks. I liberate the Jeep keys and check the street—zombie ETA of two minutes—then I’m out the door. The Jeep rumbles to life with a full gas tank, a map, and sucking candies in the glove compartment to boot. Which is why you should always steal a car from Grandma.

Chapter 26

There are a lot of rivers in this world, and we don’t ruminate on them unless the bridge is large or long. Those roads that move seamlessly from one side of a small river to the other are unobtrusive, but they’re important. It wasn’t that long ago that every river required fording or a ferry, no matter how small. Now, every road on the map that crosses a blue line is a spot where I could get caught up. Not only is there the chance they’re destroyed, but there’s also the chance I’ll hit an impediment. They’re bottlenecks. Where before there were numerous streets, I now have four points at which I can cross the next river. One is I-95, possibly the most heavily traveled route in the east, and likely the worst choice. I choose a road that looks big but not too big. The four-lane bridge is crossable with some maneuvering, and I breathe a sigh of relief on the other side.

A promising road starts off suburban-country and, except for gunning it past a high-school-turned-zombie-hangout, I don’t hit much. I relax when it turns to real country, with trees that display their first buds and brown fields waiting for seed that may never come. I pass over a small creek in the blink of an eye. Case in point: If the road hadn’t been built on a culvert pipe, I might be walking right now.

The first abandoned cars aren’t a big deal, until I come to a collision in a stretch bordered by trees and have to turn around. It’s going to be a long backtrack past all those fields to the last road I saw. I brake at the power lines that cross the air above the road and affix to an immense steel utility pole. The woods around the poles are cleared for access, and, I’m thinking, for guys who need to escape in the zombie apocalypse.

The Jeep bounces across the field to the line of poles, where it’s a short trip to a truck depot surrounded by an impassable fence. No go. But tucked away in the corner of this field is an opening in the trees that leads to a field behind. It’ll do, if I don’t mind a few scratches in the paint job. Grandma might, but I don’t.

The next field connects to another, which leads me to the back of an auto parts store, and then I’m on the road again. The question is: What road am I on? The map is not proving useful for small streets and the roads are increasingly crowded and blocked. After I pass the same yellow house for the third time, I pull to the curb in the neighborhood of older homes I feel I’ve come to know well.

The bodies on the lawns and the smashed windows and doors tell me this neighborhood did not fare well in the days immediately following the virus. I thought I saw something move in a house that I passed, but I stopped and idled for a full minute, even called out the window, and there was no response. I’m sure they’re scared. They probably think everyone is out to get them, to take what’s theirs. I don’t blame them for thinking that way, but I refuse to believe it.

My parents were preppers; they stored food and supplies for an emergency, whether it was the loss of job income, a weather-related catastrophe, or—and most improbable—something apocalyptic. But they weren’t the hunker-down-and-shoot-your-neighbors type of preppers. They believed in self-reliance, in gardening and raising animals and sharing what you had with those neighbors. They believed people would work together in times of crisis, that there was an essential goodness in humanity. Of course, that didn’t mean they didn’t have guns—both my liberal-minded parents grew up hunting and were comfortable with weapons.
There’s always someone who wants to stir the pot
, my mother would say.
Better to have a gun and not need it than to need a gun and not have it
.

I have two handguns, including Rachel’s. My rifle was lost during a scrape that involved a large group of zombies, a flimsy barn door and Rachel, whose job it was to carry the rifle from the barn while I cleared a path. So far, I don’t miss it—it was too heavy and cumbersome for this type of travel. The sound carries for miles, a radio call broadcasting your location to everything within earshot. I haven’t thought much about using it on a human. I will if I have to, but I can’t even
find
a damn human, much less someone who deserves a bullet.

I drink from my water bottle and inspect the street for the house that would most likely contain a detailed road atlas. I’m well aware this is ludicrous—there’s not a specific road atlas-type house. Or maybe there is.

I roll down to a house with both a U.S. and a USMC flag waving proudly in the breeze. The bushes are perfectly symmetrical, the lawn edged to within an inch of its life. This is the house of a person who has all his ducks in a row. Maybe that’s sexist. Maybe
she
has all
her
ducks in a row.

The house is pale blue clapboard with a porch and white trim, like a tiny farmhouse. I sit for three minutes and then ease out of the Jeep. After all the hours spent going in circles, my legs are tight. My shoulders ache. It’s afternoon and I feel no closer to Staten Island than I did four hours ago. I
am
closer, but the distance traveled is discouraging. It’s happened before—I think I should be farther along than I am when hiking or climbing or whatever else. Rachel says it’s because I set impossible goals.

Said
.

I take my gun from its holster, which I should have done before I left the Jeep. I’m tired. Thinking about Rachel makes me tired. I push her from my mind because any moment now I’ll see that room in Philly. I walk the path by the driveway and step up the porch’s side entrance to tap on the door. Still nothing. A window is cracked, which means an easy entry. It’s so quiet that I immediately hear the footsteps from across the street.

A zombie couple walks down the driveway of the house directly opposite. I watch them cross the asphalt, step onto the lawn, and head for where I stand. The woman reaches the wooden railing first. Her grimy hand opens and closes. I’m not too concerned—all I have to do is trot down the steps, which they haven’t figured out exist as of yet, and get in the Jeep. I do need an atlas, though. Chances are I’ll run into something no matter where I stop. I could go inside and deal with them on my way out, but they might cause a stir and I’ll find more than I want to deal with by the time I’m done inside.