“All right, guys. Eyes up, be ready. Let’s do this.”
Chapter Two
It had only taken two hours for all hell to break loose in the streets.
After only a few blocks it became clear not everyone in New York had made a run for it. We started seeing signs of life the farther into the city we moved, and none of them were welcome ones. Since people were given no warning of what was about to hit, stores had been closed haphazardly, and groups of looters were busy smashing in windows and grabbing whatever they could get their hands on.
We passed a small bodega where a gang of thugs wearing bandanas tied around their faces were bagging up the contents of the cash register and collecting all the booze and cigarettes in sight. A few feet away a man in a nice-looking pair of khaki trousers was holding a tire iron and watching the thieves apprehensively.
At first I thought he might be the shop’s owner, waiting to mete out some street justice, but when the gang ran off with their spoils, the man darted in and began loading up a bag with canned food and diapers.
Jesus.
How had my city been reduced to madness this fast?
The deeper into the city we got, the thicker the smoke became, and soon I was thinking the gang had made a smart move with their bandanas. If things continued to get worse, it wouldn’t be long before we were unable to breathe. I didn’t think we could count on Holden to drag all of us to Keaty’s, since he was the only one who didn’t need to use his lungs.
We’d gone about a mile when we saw the first sign of the dead.
I lifted my hand, bringing the whole party to a stop. We were outside a row of apartment complexes, and at the end of the block, near a purple VW bug turned on its side, was a cluster of about six people.
At first I assumed they were looters, checking the car for valuables. But the more they jostled and bumped against each other, I quickly reconsidered my initial assessment. The longer I watched them, more signs of their wrongness became apparent.
All their clothes were tattered and stained with dirt. Their limbs hung loose like they were puppets with no master to guide their movements. In a lot of ways, the movies got it right. They certainly looked like zombies.
But there were things pop culture got terribly wrong.
These corpses had gone through an extensive embalming routine—as a majority of the dead in the city would—leaving their skin waxy and pale. Their eyes were not the eerie milk white I’d seen in dozens of horror movies. In most cases their eyelids had been glued shut, as had their mouths. This gave them the impression of being a group of ghoulish sleepwalkers, rather than flesh-starved zombies.
It was still creepy as hell to see the dead walking around like this.
The only walking dead I was used to was of the vampire variety, and they tended to be a slightly livelier bunch.
A disturbing hum emanated from the mass, and it took me a minute to realize the corpses were groaning, but since most had their mouths sealed shut, the groans were caught in their throats.
It sounded for all the world like a group of chanting monks.
I shoved my sister backwards, ducking us all down the steps of a nearby apartment and keeping hidden next to a garbage can. I had no idea how long it would take for the dead to pass us by, but I wasn’t in any mood to engage with them. Since we had no idea what they were, or what was causing them to move around on their own, I didn’t want to tempt fate by fighting with them.
No matter what I’d said about their bites not transferring some sort of zombie condition, I didn’t know that with a hundred percent certainty. I’d never dealt with anything like this before, which was ninety percent of the reason I wanted to get to Keaty. If anyone would know what the hell was happening, he would. He knew everything.
Genie’s breath hitched up, bordering on hyperventilation. I clapped my hand over her mouth and hugged her against my side, hoping the closeness could give her comfort since I couldn’t provide any with words.
We waited for what seemed like an eternity until finally the throng of dead slowly moved on to the next block, leaving us alone on this one. Keaty’s place was only about another mile away, but I had a feeling things were going to get more difficult for us from this point onward.
“No such thing as zombies, huh?” Desmond grumbled.
“I don’t know what those were, but they weren’t zombies.” I was adamant. In spite of every kind of supernatural being I’d encountered in my life, a handful of myths were just myths. Leprechauns. Unicorns. Zombies. That shit simply did not exist.
Banshees and mermaids—totally legit. I even knew a male siren, a landlocked merman of sorts. There was a lot of stuff I was willing to believe in, but zombies didn’t make the list.
We were back on the main street when my cell began to buzz. I’d assumed I’d have no service within the city, yet somehow it was ringing.
“Hello?”
“Secret, oh my God, you’re okay. Tell me you got my messages. Where are you?” Detective Tyler Nowakowski, also secretly my FBI supervisor, sounded frantic.
“I’m on 57th and 8th.”