Survivor (11 page)

I
t was right on ten o'clock.

I rounded Fifth Avenue, past St. Patrick's Cathedral, between the buildings of Rockefeller Plaza, past the big statue of Atlas holding the world up on his shoulders.

I waited, catching my breath, at the eastern edge of the ice rink, or what was left of it. My hands firmly on my knees, my breath fogging, the sun bright behind me. I walked around, looked, watched, waited.

I thought about calling out, but the sun went back behind dark clouds and it got colder, and then I remembered. I reached into my coat pocket for my gloves.

A figure approached from the shadows, becoming more distinct as it moved towards me, haltingly, and stopped.

Someone was standing there, a sole totem of another survivor here in Rockefeller Plaza. Alone. The person walked closer, and the sun peeked through the clouds for just a moment. I sucked in cold sharp air.

It was a girl, with the same blond hair and pretty face from the recording.

I paused, nervous. Was this is? Finally, we were both here. First Rachel, then Caleb, now Felicity. How many of us were left, here in Manhattan?

She walked closer. There was no doubt; this was the girl from the camcorder footage I'd found at 15 Central Park West—Felicity. She must have got my note and at last, I was here when I had said I'd be. She stood and looked at me, still uncertain. I waved and she smiled.

“Jesse?”

I loved her voice, the same voice from the recording. It was feminine and real and I wanted her to keep talking, to not stop. I hadn't felt that way about Rachel, which made me feel a little guilty.

I thought about the girls from the UN camp. Mini became my favorite of our group, and I knew that she liked me by the way she looked at me. But what I thought about most was what it had been like to be so close to Anna, the blink of her long, dark eyelashes, her bright red lips, the smell of strawberries. On our way back to the hotel at the start of our first week of camp we'd got caught in a storm. We'd huddled close under the awning of a deli and Anna kissed me and it'd been hot and fast. I'd wanted to be able to kiss her again but she seemed to forget all about the moment, and then it was too late.

“Yeah, it's me,” I said to Felicity now, closing the distance fast. Fifty yards, thirty, ten.

I reached out with my hand, but instead she came in and hugged me. We stayed like that and laughed nervously at the simple joy of it all; a couple of survivors coming together. When she let go of me, she kept a hand on my arm as if I'd run away or disappear given the chance.

She was cold but her breath was warm against my neck. She stood back and I saw she had tears in her eyes. Her eyelashes held the wetness, her blond hair peeking out from under a knitted hat that held frost. Her smile was unbelievable. “And that's my dad's hat you're wearing.”

“Sorry.” I reached for the woolen hat I'd put over the Yankees cap.

“No, it's cool; it's yours now.”

“Thanks.”

She beamed.

“I'm sorry,” I said. “I'm sorry I couldn't get here sooner.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean how I've not showed up here these past few—”

“Serious?”

“What?”

“Me neither!” she said, excited, her hands on mine. “This is my first! I went back home last night for the first time since I'd left—then I saw your note!”

“So you . . . you just got my message?” I was relieved; I hadn't let her down. The orange sunlight that bounced off the glass peaks of partly destroyed tower blocks was in stark contrast to a sky heavy with clouds. Powder snow began to fall and there was nothing but silence around us, two insignificant specks at the bottom of an abyss.

“When did you leave it?” Felicity asked.

I had to think about it. “Three days ago?”

“God, I was afraid of that!” she said. “I thought it might have been straight after I'd left!”

“I tried to find you in the park the day I found your video, but it was empty—that group were gone. And I felt sick coming here today, thinking
I'd
missed you.”

“I must have just missed you at the park earlier that day,” she said. “I saw that group of infected people standing around the fire and drinking from bottles—”

“Chasers, we call them.”

She frowned and looked excited in the same moment. “Who's ‘we'?”

It wasn't the time to talk about Anna, Mini, and Dave, so I told her about Rachel and Caleb.

“You're lucky,” she said, “to have found people already. As for the Chasers, we must have seen that same group at different times.”

“I know,” I said. “So, I saw them right before you did, then you left that message and headed back out.”

She nodded, still holding onto my hands. Hers were smaller, softer, warmer, even through gloves.

“Where have you been?”

“Trying to find other survivors,” she said, “a way to escape this place.”

“And?”

“I've been going out every day since, working my way from home to the Hudson, across through Midtown to the East River . . . I was trying to follow the water, to find a way out, but those people . . . were everywhere, sometimes chasing after me.”

“You outran them?”

“I hid. I was so freaked out. Yesterday I stayed hidden from them in a café, one I used to go to all the time—they had the best doughnuts. I stayed there all night, in the basement. Before that I went to a couple of places I thought might be refuges . . . I was walking back to my apartment, I'd almost given up hope of finding someone, but then I came back and found your note.”

I nodded. I could see how frightened she'd been all this time; just like me. Stronger than me, if I really thought about it. She looked at me and we seemed to share a moment:
Where do we begin?

The snow picked up, a luminous dusting in the hidden sun's glow.

“Let's go inside someplace,” I said. She nodded, smiled, and I knew then that I'd follow her anywhere. Question was, would she follow me?

I
led us into the bakery I'd gone into the week before to escape from the Chasers. Inside, away from the breeze and the snow, it was warmer, and Felicity took off her scarf and sat at the counter. Everything looked as I'd seen it last, the counters and floor covered in ash and dust, the glass-fronted fridges filled with bottled drinks, the enclosed display cabinets full of moldy breads and cakes.

“Drink?” I asked.

“Water would be great.”

“Water it is,” I said and felt myself go a little red.
Why'd I say that?
It sounded so lame. Maybe I should have taken her to a cool bar, offered her a real drink. That's what Caleb would have done.

I handed over the bottled water, my cheeks flushing as she smiled and held up her bottle.

“Cheers.”

“Cheers,” I said. To be here, sitting next to her, her body heat close enough to be felt, looking out the window together . . .

“So,” I said, “tell me about the Chasers—the ones that made you hide in the café?”

“There were lots of them, all running together. I didn't know what to do, so I just figured I should hide out until they'd gone. It was getting dark and I was scared; I didn't want to stay out there alone, but I knew I'd never make it home before they caught up with me, and I knew that bagel shop was nearby, so I ran down an alley, losing them.”

She shuddered, and I could sense how frightened she'd been.

“They're not all predictable,” I said. “The ones in the park are weaker.”

“That group of them by the fire were leaving—I followed them down to a spot on the Hudson—they're in a building down there. I called out, but they just waved again, and I didn't want to risk getting too close. But it seemed, if they're like the others, that maybe they're getting better?”

“And who knows what's gonna happen after this, if it's the start of something new or the continuation of something old or the end or . . . whatever . . .”

“Jesse . . .”

“That's my name.”
God, why did I say that? I should talk deeper, more—

“It's a cool name. I like it,” she said. “How old are you?”

“Sixteen,” I said.
Should I have said eighteen? Nineteen, even?

“I'm seventeen.”

“Really?”
Damn. Maybe I should have gone with nineteen.

“Yeah, really. What?”

“Nothin'.”

“What is it?” she smiled, punching me lightly on the arm.

“Just . . .” I smiled back. She could punch me like that all she wanted, so long as she smiled. Man, that smile . . . “I thought maybe you'd be, like, early twenties.”

Was that a bad thing to say, that a girl looked five or so years older than she actually was? Not for a seventeen-year-old, right? How the hell would I know? The only seventeen-year-old girls I'd ever spoken to were the older sisters of friends and they seemed to go out of their way to ignore me, all dating twenty-something-year-old idiots with tricked-out cars.

It was crappy being a teenager. Even though I had real company, I was still spending too much time living in my head and thinking too much. I wanted to be older and stronger and have more answers than anyone else. I wouldn't mind skipping a few years if it meant I could wake up tomorrow in my twenties and everything would be back to how things were. But I knew that was unlikely; everything had changed for keeps.

“It's cool, I get that a lot,” she said, smiling more and looking into the middle distance out on the deserted white street. “Comes in handy when I go out with friends.”

Like Caleb, she used the present tense. Maybe because this city was their home and it was too hard to put that kind of talk in the past, like it would never happen again. Whatever, I liked that she was closer to my age than I'd assumed.

“So,” I started, desperately wanting to know everything. “What's your story? Where were you when—”

“The attack happened? I was home, doing some laundry in the basement.” She paused, gathering her thoughts—or maybe pushing the still vivid memory a little farther away to make it bearable. “I thought it was an earthquake. I even braced myself in a doorway until the sounds died down.

“I stayed down there for ages, in that doorway, and when I finally went back upstairs and looked out the windows, well . . . that's when I saw people running. I don't know why I didn't rush outside—I just watched them. It took me nearly an hour to try to phone for help, but none of the phones, not even my cell, worked. TV, radio, all of it—gone. Then the power flickered off for good. All in the space of an hour, everything either destroyed or shut down, leaving me there, all alone. I sat at the window until it got dark, and then I sat on the couch and cried right through the night. I heard screams outside. I couldn't move . . .”

“Where were your parents?”

“They're away, thank God. We have a farm in Connecticut—they're there now, I hope.” She paused, as though wondering about their possible fates, but snapped herself out of it. “My brother lives in Denver; he's in the Air Force, a medic. He's in Afghanistan right now, due back next month.”

“What about your friends?”

“I've been trying to find them, any friends. Some of their buildings were destroyed, or their apartments were all locked up. Then I . . .” she slowed, “then I found one friend . . . her body, at least . . . and that made me stop wanting to look.”

Her pretty face had turned pale and cold.

“Listen to me,” she said, self-consciously, “talking about myself . . .”

“I like it; talk all day if you want.” And it was true.

She blushed. “How about you? Where have you been these last two weeks?”

“The GE building at 30 Rock,” I said. I told her everything that had happened over the past two weeks, the short version.

“These soldiers—what were they doing?” she asked when I'd finished.

“I'm not sure, they just had the two trucks, but said there'd be more. They said things would get worse, and that this virus is more serious where it's warmer.”

“But, I mean, were they here to save people?”

“I don't think so. I don't know.” She looked disappointed, just a little, but it was true: I didn't know and I didn't want to lie to her just to make her happy. “They drove on.”

“And that's it?”

“That's it until this morning, when I headed out and—”

“And here you are.”

“And here I am.”
God, why do I keep repeating what she says? She's going to think I'm a class-A moron.
I was eager to change the subject, to find out what she made of all this. “What do you think we should do? What do you want to do?”

“I'm not sure,” she shrugged. “I didn't even know if anyone else had survived until I met you. I mean, survived and stayed normal.”

I wanted to check something with her. “So do you think the virus was in the air? Do you think that's how the Chasers became infected? They happened to be outside when the virus was released on the city?”

“Must have been that,” she said. “But the air's clear now, because of all that rain we had on day one, and all the snow since.”

“So the only way it can be passed on now is . . .” I hesitated.

“By a Chaser physically infecting a survivor.” She shuddered. “By . . . drinking from them.”

“If that's possible, I haven't seen it—but who knows, right? We've got to be wary of that, of anything to do with them . . .”

“Well, I think heading north sounds like a good plan; maybe up to my parents' farm or something?”

I smiled. I imagined them, their farm, everything being how things were meant to be. How they might have news, real news, about all this. From there, maybe I could plan my way home. But I couldn't leave without Rachel or Caleb knowing. I knew then that whatever happened, I must not choose Felicity over my other friends.

“Is there anything holding you here in the city?” I asked.

She shook her head and sipped her water, but I could sense her despair at the thought of leaving. I could understand her need to be somewhere safe and familiar. I'd felt that way about 30 Rock. The call of home, the safety of the familiar, however misplaced that feeling of sanctuary might be.

“I just want to get to my parents.”

“How about you come to the zoo with me?” I said. “See if we can get Rachel to come too.”

“Sounds like she has her hands full there.”

“But she can't stay forever,” I said. “It's not safe, and it's too big a job. Maybe meeting you and Caleb will change her mind.”

“But what if we can't get either of them to leave?”

“I think they will,” I said. “It might take time, but they've both seen how dangerous these Chasers are.”

“But don't you think Caleb's got so much here? It's his hometown.”

She could have been talking about herself.

I thought about how Caleb spoke of his parents. Maybe he should go to their place to shock some reality into him—what was the likelihood that he'd find something as bad as, or worse, than he'd imagine?

“I think he's smart enough to know what's left, and to leave while he can,” I said. “Rachel's hesitant about leaving the animals, sure. She wants to wait for help—she has to realize that it may never work out that way, and that things look like they're getting worse around here.”

“Yeah.” She knew what I was trying not to think:
Help may never come.

“The hard part might be convincing her that things are getting worse,” she said.

“We'll both need to explain it to her,” I said.

“And if she won't leave?”

“I don't think I could leave her behind.”

“Okay . . .”

“Okay?”

“I'll come and see her, try talking her around,” she said, but the way she rubbed her arm I could tell something was up, something was making her uncomfortable.

“But . . .” I said.

“Huh?”

“What is it?”

She smiled. “I'm that easy to read?”

“You're like the third person I've spoken with in over two weeks,” I said. “I notice everything. What is it?”

“Okay,” she said, sitting forward. “This sounds stupid, I'm sure, but . . . I don't like zoos, never have. Prisons, really, don't you think?”

I was prevented from answering by a noise outside.

“What was that?” I asked, sitting up, alert, distracted from her confession.

“I was saying how I don't—”

“No, listen!” I said, and we sat there, still.

It was a familiar noise, but it took me a second to place it.

Felicity whispered: “What is it?”

“I think it's a truck,” I said, and I was out of my chair, nose to the window, looking down the street. I could see movement and I felt the glass vibrate. “Those soldiers. They're back.”