Brad Goldberg

The sun is starting to set. Not quite dusk, but close enough that I'm getting anxious—terrified, in fact. Someone, or something, has gotten into the basement. I'm pretty sure, but not one hundred percent sure, that I sealed off the inside basement stairs. I was in a hurry. Am I thinking of the last building I was in? Even if I did, I'm not sure I want to trust something living down there.

 

I doubt that it's corpsies—zombies, the living dead, walkers, undead, abominations, whatever you want to call them. I call them corpsies. They couldn't figure out how to open a door, which is about as simple a task as you can think of. That means a vee. We've got them too. Not the sexy kind. Not the suave kind. No. These vees lurk in shadows. The have no lore, no traditions. They don't need dirt from the homeland. They haven't carted their gothic coffins around the world. They are homegrown killers. Killers with a capital V. They don't seduce; they pounce. Like bats, they spend the days in darkness wherever they can find it. And I'm thinking that the basement of this building, with few windows, with dark corners and unlit spaces, is the perfect place for a vee to lie in wait. In wait for what? In this case, me. But it's still daylight, so they must have moved in last night. If they did, it's more than one. Probably a lot more because they never travel alone.

 

I know what you want to ask, and I can tell you right now: I have no clue. How did this all happen? I have no clue. How did I end up living in this abandoned apartment building, watching the light dim during the most dangerous part of the day? I have no clue. All I know is that in this place, at this time, I am about to die. I'm always about to die. It's a way of life. I've gotten used to it.     

 

I could ignore the sounds I've been hearing and the signs that the cellar access door has been opened. I could stay holed up in this apartment on the twelfth floor and remain in hiding. With all the locks, I feel like I could survive for at least one night, even knowing that an unknown number of bloodsuckers has infested my basement. My basement! I've been here two days and already I'm feeling possessive. That option—staying put and cowering—has a lot going for it, mainly the part where I don't confront a bunch of those vees in a dark, dank, cramped space. But I didn't survive this long being a coward. Actually, wait—that's exactly how I've survived this long. But the fine line between being a coward that survives and just another dead coward is knowing when you have to take action. Damn! This is one of those times.

 

There's a Maglite flashlight on the kitchen counter. It switches on, but the light is unsteady. I don't think I can count on it. I've really got to find more batteries. I grab one of those hand-crank LED flashlights lying next to it on the counter. I crank it a few times and sure enough, bright, blue-white light. It casts the dilapidation of this apartment in stark shadows. Only remnants of furniture remain. Anything wooden has been taken to burn for heat. Anything metal has been converted to weapons and taken. Anything that could provide warmth has simply been taken. The walls are smudged and grimy from dirty hands and dirty clothes rubbing against them. Laundry and showers are not an option when there's no running water.

 

The light from the hand-crank flashlight only lasts about thirty seconds at a time, but if I give it a few twists every now and then, it'll stay on. The flashlight fits along the gun barrel, and the knob to crank the power is within easy reach. I rush a few turns of duct tape around it.

 

I strap on a couple more side arms, make sure the AR-15 has the safety switched off, and head out. I guess I'm feeling cocky. I only lock one padlock on my apartment door. My thinking is that if I'm rushing back to 12D for safety, I don't want to have to take time to unlock four locks. And if I'm not coming back, what's the point anyway?

 

I don't know this building yet. What I do know is that the steps creak, much louder than I am comfortable with. This was an elegant stairway once, open the entire height of the building. Now, it has been ransacked. The banisters can't be trusted because many of the balusters have been ripped out for firewood. On the eighth floor, the entire railing is gone. There's no electricity and only traces of daylight, meaning it would be easy to trip and take the express route to the first floor. I hug the wall. The flashlight casts angular, moving shadows of the banisters. It makes the long descent feel like I'm climbing down the ribcage of a decaying giant. Each step takes me closer to what I don't want to confront. Each step fills me with more dread. I descend dread by dread by dread.

 

When I get to the first floor, I realize I don't know where the basement stairs are, which means I never secured that door, which means—oh fuck!

 

Searching for the door to the cellar gives me a chance to realize how ritzy this building was before it became the antithesis of ritz. Toward the front of the lobby there's a desk where the doorman used to greet the tenants, all of whom he knew by name, I'm sure. Maybe I should ask him if any bloodsuckers have left their calling cards for me. The walls are paneled in marble, cracked marble, because they are no longer protected from the freeze of winter or the heat of summer. I didn't notice how much the first floor smelled of mildew, but now I can't escape the odor. With no cleaning crews, no heat, nobody to make sure feet were properly wiped, multiple seasons of rain and snow have been tracked in and trampled into moldy carpets by desperate people who only cared about survival. One of the elevators has its doors pried half open. Nobody would have been foolish enough to think it would work. Somebody must have been trapped when the power went out. What they found outside the door is anybody's guess, and most of the guesses involve a lot of blood.

     

I find the door to the cellar in the dankest, darkest back corner of the ground floor hallway. Outside, the final glints of daylight are retreating behind the tall buildings for which New York City is known. None of the light makes it to the far shadowed corner where I consider what may be my last final act of utter stupidity. Even if it weren't already dusk, it would be hard to see back here. Now, there's no light. I crank the LEDs to full power. The doorknob takes a forceful and noisy turn to unlatch. The door resists opening. It resists opening with a reluctant groan that echoes off the marbled walls and down into black pit that I am going to willing enter. Maybe the door is telling be to rethink my plans, but it's too late. The noise has announced my presence, and I think I hear movement coming from below. I pull the door fully open and sweep the stairs with the light. There's nothing, just the shadowy staircase with a landing halfway down and a right angle turn that limits my view. The flashlight doesn't illuminate anything past the turn. I take the steps one by one. They are competing for which one can creak the loudest. I try to ignore the acrid reek of wet, moldy cement. About halfway to the landing, I think I hear a very soft scuffle. I swing the barrel of the gun, and the flashlight illuminates the full arc of what I can see, which is nothing but the stairs descending into total, beyond the event horizon, darkness. Then the light goes out and the darkness rushes up the stairs to swallow me. I am relieved that nothing else rushes up the stairs with it.    

 

I crank furiously, and the flashlight beams again. The scuffle came from the back of the cellar. When I get to the landing, the room opens up before me—rows upon rows of storage lockers, their rusted metal surfaces reflecting my LED and casting a dull glow that washes over the floor. I can see all the way around the room now; narrow aisles snaking between the lockers, tight corridors of shadows and silence. The space feels endless, with far too many hiding places. Anything could be down here, and I'd have a hard time seeing it before it saw me, which it probably already has.

 

I crank the light again before it goes out. Shit, has it always been that noisy? It sounds like I'm trying to turn over a rusty Ford Model T.  Though, that might be an exaggeration. My heart is pounding in my ears. Every sound is amplified by fear, and every sound tells a story that ends in an excruciating death. I can see most of the room toward the front. I can't see any signs of anything moving or anything that could move. Behind the stairs is where the storage cages start. It's one dark space after another. As I swing the flashlight around, the shadows crawl over the walls and floor as if the room itself were alive and waiting.

 

I'm tempted to just back quietly up the stairs and do my best to secure the door. But the vees wouldn't let me live the night knowing I was in the building with them. They'd figure out a way to get the door open and come after me. I hear some movement in the back of the room.

 

"Listen, you shit-faced bastards. I'm going to come in there blasting and nothing is getting out except me. You want to negotiate?" I don't know what I would do if anyone answered. I have a lot of firepower, but I still may not have the upper hand.

 

I start the row-by-row search. At each row, I stand with my back to the head locker, crank the light, take a deep breath to try to calm myself, then whip around with gun and flashlight pointing the way. Each time I'm sure I'm going to meet death with greedy fangs lunging for my neck. Each time, I see a mundane, dusty aisle between lockers that are still mostly filled with crap that the tenants didn't need but couldn't part with. The lockers continue all the way to the back of the room.

 

I'm at the last row. I swear I can hear something breathing. I might be hearing myself breathe, but I think I can hear something else. I try to calm my gasps, which spurt like a dying steam engine. I recheck that the safety is off. I take what may be my last deep breath.

 

Here goes.

 

I point the AR-15 and turn the last corner, screaming. It's a war cry, maybe a little pathetic, but it's still a war cry. It's supposed to intimidate the enemy and psych me up. I am not psyched; I'm scared.

 

If she had been standing up, I would have shot her out of terror-stricken reflex. My gun barrel is aimed about chest high and that's where all my focus is. Fortunately, she is trembling on the floor in the far corner of the row. Having to look down gives me a millisecond before I spray the room with bullets to realize that it is a little girl. She's not a corpsie little girl. She's not a bloodsucking vee little girl. She's just a little girl, about ten, sobbing on the floor, on the dusty concrete, looking at me through tears, knowing that I'm going to kill her because I just shouted it from the stairs.

 

"It's okay. I'm not going to hurt you." I think I mean it. My heart is still pounding in my throat. Adrenaline has me keyed for action, and I can feel my temples pulsing. But I think I've calmed down enough to know I don't need to shoot a ten-year-old girl.

 

"You said you were going to blast me."

 

"I thought you were someone else, something else." 

 

"You thought I was one of them?" And then she starts to cry. I don't know how long she's been down here, but I know she's been scared to death of me for the last half hour. Me. I'm the bringer of death.

 

"Yeah. I thought you were one of them. But you're not. So, it's okay." I doubt if she heard me very well, because I've never heard anyone cry like that. She must have been letting out everything she's been feeling since this crap started.

 

Here's the picture. I'm holding a semi-automatic weapon. I've got Glocks strapped to both thighs and a third Glock holstered in the middle of my lower back. I've got a military-looking backpack filled with survival gear, and I'm carrying tons of tools made for killing. I haven't bathed or shaved in months. I still have on the bandana that I wear to stave off the stench of decomposing bodies, and I'm trying to comfort a little girl who's scared to death—mostly of me.

 

She's sitting in the corner clutching her knees with her face buried in her arms. She's got on knee-length shorts that hang halfway down her calves. People can't be picky about a perfect fit these days. They may have been khaki once. Now they're a dingy grey, like almost everything else that used to be colorful. Her t-shirt has some fantasy scene on it, maybe a unicorn, maybe butterflies, maybe last night's dinner. Hard to tell. She also has a backpack decorated with cartoon characters from an animated kids show. You can still see all the bright colors through the grime that coats it.

 

I kneel, and she pushes harder into the corner. "Honey, it's going to be all right," I lie. I didn't believe that even when life was normal. I certainly don't now. That's when the flashlight goes out. I feel her slip past me and rush to the end of the aisle. It's pitch, pitch black, so I also hear her banging into the lockers. I crank up the light and go after her. I don't want to scare her more, but I really don't want her to open the access door to the street.

 

She's almost to the front stairs. Opening that door to the sidewalk is one of the worst ideas I can think of. I keep trying to reassure her, but she's not buying it. Nor should she. Back when there were still enough survivors to form tribes and clans, we all learned not to trust anyone.

 

As we both get close to the front of the building, I see shadows moving around that end of the room. I nearly freeze. Is something in here with us? How did I miss it? Elongated shadows creep across the walls. They crawl up and down the stairs. I audibly exhale when I identify the source. It's moonlight coming through a couple of the basement windows. The shadows are being cast by corpsies shuffling along 11th street.

 

"Don't open that door!" I shout. She was just about to start pushing it open to get away from me. My voice attracts attention. Here's the thing about corpsies, they're out there day and night, but they're incredibly clumsy. Their eyesight is bad, particularly at night. So, they bump into things a lot. They trip, frequently over each other. One of the corpsies moves toward the sound and falls into the window well. His face is scrunched up against the glass and he's beating at it. The pus from his rotting skin streaks the glass. His clawed hands scratch against the window.

 

There are also several metallic bangs. Some of the corpsies heard the sound coming through the metal doors and start tripping and piling up on the doors as they moved toward my voice. At least there's no way the girl can open that door now, but she's pushing hard.

 

I grab her leg. She starts kicking at me. I just want to get her away from the door, but she's still pretty sure I want to hurt her. Finally, I manage to pull her down the stairs. I just pull her to me and hug her as tight as I can. "It's okay. It's okay. I'm not going to hurt you. It's okay."

 

She's sobbing again. I can feel her relax and let me hug her. Oh my god. Another human being. I'm holding another living, human being. I can feel her heart beating. I can hear her sobs. I can feel her breath coming in gulps and spurts as she tries to get control of herself. And I can feel how hot the tears of a terrified little girl can be.

 

"You hungry? I have some Pop-Tarts."

 

"No, you don't. You're lying."

 

"I do. I found them today."

 

I keep the light going. There's no point in trying to hide. Besides, both windows are blocked by corpsies who have fallen ungainly into the window wells only to have others fall on top of them. For now, they are neutralized. I slide the latch to lock the cellar doors. I don't want to go through this again.

 

I lead her up the back stairs. "We have to go up a lot of stairs, but then we can eat." I realize everything I'm saying sounds like a child molester. Holy shit. I hope she's not thinking, Stranger danger! Why would she be thinking anything else given the state of the world?

 

As we get to the landing, she pulls on my arm. "What flavor Pop-Tarts?"

 

#

 

     Strawberry. The Pop-Tarts turned out to be strawberry. We're sitting in the front room eating in the dark. There's enough moonlight coming through the windows that we can see without using any telltale flashlights. We also have a view. The streets seem peaceful from up here. The chaos of the abandoned cars jammed into each other looks almost like normal traffic—without the horns or the lights or cabbies yelling, Fuck me? Fuck you! There's the slow-motion promenade of corpsies shambling along. Every so often a shadow darts from one corner to another. The vees never stay put long enough to get a sense of what they're up to. I'm sure I wouldn't like the answer.

 

Why the twelfth floor? With no electricity for the elevators, it is a long walk up. Part of the reason is that it provides extra security. In case I didn't plug all the ways into the building, like the basement access. I'll have ample warning, from the corpsies at least. They cannot make it up the stairs without tripping three or five times. But it's also the smell of rotting flesh. Not everyone is a vee or a zee. What would they live on? Live might be the wrong word. What would sustain them? This city is filled with corpses. The stench is god-frickin' awful, but the smell only rises so far. Plus, even a chicken-shit coward like me feels relatively safe leaving the windows open on the twelfth floor. God, I miss air conditioning.

 

The girl goes through her two pastries in a hurry, never taking her eyes off me. She's suspicious. Wouldn't you be? Not much good has happened to her for a while. I realize it's not just me that she's eying so warily. It's the Pop-Tart. I scarfed half of mine, but I'm trying to enjoy the rest. They had been dropped and stepped on in the convenience store where I found them. Both packages have been mashed until the contents were turned into fruit covered crumbs—frosted, of course. Fortunately, the packages hadn't ruptured so we can pick our pieces out and munch.

 

"How long has it been since you  ate?"

 

She looks at me like I was speaking Martian. She shrugs and pours the final crumbs into her mouth then stares back at me over the top of the empty wrapper.

 

"A long time, huh?"

 

She nods.

 

I hand over the last hundred calories of food in the place. "Here you go. But if you're going to take my last Pop-Tart, I should know your name."    

 

#

 

Getting her up to the twelfth floor had turned into an ordeal. As we walked up from the building's lobby, it seemed like she was okay at first. But she sure wouldn't answer any questions like, What's your name? I thought it was just fear that kept her quiet. She kept looking up the stairs, which seemed odd. I kept looking back. The real danger was below us.

 

"You don't have to tell me your name if you don't want to. Mine's Kyle. Everybody calls me Ky."  She didn't respond, but I was just trying to keep her distracted. Every floor we went up, she got more reluctant. "Do you want me to carry your backpack? Is it heavy?" She shook her head. "What's in there?"

 

"Stuff my mommy gave me."

 

"Are you getting tired? It's not that much farther." But I could tell it wasn't fatigue. It was fear that was turning into panic. Maybe it really was, Stranger! Danger!

 

We were just about to start up the stairs from the eighth floor to nine, when she started to whimper and pull away like she wanted to go back down. "It's okay. It's safe. I've checked." But she kept looking up at me with horror in her eyes. She was pulling hard to get her arm loose when I realized in one sickening rush why she was overwhelmed by panicked. The face looking up at me, pleading to let her go, was the girl I saw in a locket last night. A few years older, but undoubtedly the same girl. Just a few stories up her mother lay chained in a bathroom. Her brains had been smashed all over the floor. The little girl didn't know that, but she knew that her mom was up there, and she probably knew what she had become. How could I explain that we're not going to the apartment where her mother died without explaining that I'm the one that killed her?