Survival Instincts, page 12
Barely a hundred feet after the crumpled overhead road they’d been tracking turned west, they passed one of the many defensive barriers the Old Worlders had constructed before society’s complete collapse. It was a haphazard affair of upturned cars, barbed wire, tanks, and turrets. Every rusty firing nozzle pointed at the sky in eternal vigilance for a threat that would never come again.
The wide-open swing gates revealed a strip of leveled buildings, but then houses and shops rose up as pristine as possible after centuries of exposure to Mother Nature’s insatiable desire to reclaim what humanity had taken from her. Among them stood—as if planted there by grace herself—an overgrown gas station. Its telltale pumps had survived, somewhat protected by a faded canopy, which had once been multi-colored.
Lynn’s heart stumbled. “Dani.” She inclined her head. “Over there.”
Dani frowned as she surveyed the general area Lynn’s nod had indicated. Then her eyes widened. “Unbelievable.”
Lynn grinned. “Come on. Let’s have a look.”
Skeever swerved to catch up with a few seconds’ delay.
Lynn pressed her face to the glass and held her hand over her eyes to shield them as she peered inside.
Intact. All of it. The shelving units were empty except for a toppled can or two. Everything was caked with the dust of ages.
Dani reached past her to check the door handle. “Locked.”
“Step back.” Lynn bashed the glass in with her tomahawk. It splintered into thick cubes that tumbled over the floor on both sides of the door. Like a flock of cooped-up pigeons, stale air that smelled vaguely of rot rushed past.
Skeever whined.
The corner of Dani’s mouth curled downward into a grimace. “Gross.”
“Uh-huh.” Lynn settled her gaze on Skeever. “You stay out here. Stay.”
Skeever tilted his head. Big eyes examined her. He planted his butt.
Dani entered the gas station.
Lynn followed Dani in and zeroed in on her back. What if Dani found a map and destroyed it?
Dani leisurely strolled past the shelves in the left aisle. She didn’t look like a woman hell-bent on getting rid of vital evidence.
Lynn exhaled slowly and diverted her gaze to take in the rest of the shop. Glass crunched underfoot. The scent of death seemed to have seeped into the walls and was ever-present. She went around the shop counterclockwise, and kept her eyes open for a map as well as anything else of use. There wasn’t much to salvage here; whatever had been left behind had spoiled and dehydrated in their containers, leaving them caked and mangled. Magazines lay scattered and curled across the floor. When she stepped on them, they flaked like autumn leaves. Lynn scoured the newspaper stands for a map.
“Oh no.” Dani stood in the doorframe to the back room.
Lynn’s chest constricted. “What?” She hurried over.
Dani stepped back to let her pass. She’d gone a little pale.
They lay side by side on a blanket that had once been red. It had soaked up the waste of decomposition as best it could before the blackened slosh had spread across the tiles. Well, that explains the smell. Dani seemed to find the sight off-putting, but Lynn looked beyond them and zeroed in on a desk against the opposite wall, a sturdy gray metal thing with drawers. Her mouth went dry. “Come on.” She hooked her fingers around Dani’s upper arm and turned her around. “Let’s find a map.”
Dani shook herself out and focused on the shop instead. “I don’t think there are any here.”
Lynn scrutinized the floor plan. Had she missed an aisle? Any of the racks?
“Maybe we should just go? Flint said to cross the bridges and then take the exit east. We could figure out how to go from there from the signs.” Dani walked over to the counter and lifted up a magazine, which crumpled under her touch. She wiped the flakes from her hand.
Lynn glanced into the back room again. “I’m going to have a look in there, then I’ll be right out.”
Dani’s fingers twitched. “Do you need help?” Her voice was light. Deceptively light, perhaps.
“Nah.” Casual, casual. “Go another round through the shop, see if you can find anything useful. I’ll be right back.”
Dani hesitated, then nodded. “Okay.” Whatever swirled in the depth of her eyes was undefinable to Lynn.
Thankfully, the desk drawers weren’t locked. She took a deep breath and started pulling them out. The top drawer was full of small items such as pens and paperclips. Her five-year-old self would have loved to stumble upon this hoard of treasures. Anything Old World had mesmerized her. Now she pulled the entire drawer out and scattered its contents over the desk for easier access. I’m so fucking jaded. The thought brought on a wry smile, but no feelings of guilt or sadness.
The second drawer was disappointingly empty, a single key and a plastic box with small, weird-looking lightbulbs its only contents. She closed the drawer and pulled out another.
It was filled with papers, and her heart rate spiked. She steadied the container on her thigh and slipped it from its rail. Instead of tipping it over, she balanced it on the precarious pile of office supplies from drawer number one and took the contents out one at a time. Her hands trembled a little. She shook them to get them to steady and winced at the stab of pain that coursed up her arm. “Dammit. Idiot.” She rolled her eyes, then focused back on the trove.
Even paper kept in a dark drawer, in a protected space, suffered decay. It wasn’t as abused as the magazines in the shop, but some of the flimsier scraps crumbled under her careful touch. The ink had faded on most of the papers. She scanned barely legible receipts, folders with pages full of numbers, and a magazine with images of naked women that she flipped through without much hope for a map. Then, almost at the bottom, she found a colorful booklet. It took some time for her to sound out the bold, white letters on a faded, blue field and to form them into words that spelled: The Ultimate New York City Bike Guide.
Lynn licked her lips with a tongue that had suddenly gone dry. She lifted the thin book out and cracked it open. The pages held a lot of very small text, intercut with pictures of happy people with helmets on, rushing down roads with backdrops of bridges, pristine architecture, and well-kept parks. She didn’t bother with the words but found herself holding her breath as she studied the pictures for details on the verge of fading forever. Was this what it was like? This…ideal? Perfect families in a perfect world? Something seemed to settle on her chest, making it almost impossible to breathe. For the first time in her life, she felt truly jealous of the Old Worlders.
“Lynn?” Dani hadn’t snuck up on her this time; she’d spoken softly from the doorway.
Lynn turned. “Hey.”
“Did you find anything?”
Lynn hesitated, but the evidence was in her hands, in plain view. “Maybe.”
Careful not to disturb the bones, Dani came over. Despite what she might think about the possibility of a map, she soaked up the pictures as well.
Her closeness made Lynn’s skin crawl, but she resisted the urge to create distance.
Pressed against Lynn’s side, Dani slid her gaze over the pages as Lynn flipped them oh-so-carefully. She didn’t comment.
There were only fourteen pages, and their numbers dwindled down fast. Lynn started out only interested in locating a map, but every page sucked her in more. The pictures were mesmerizing. Clean, happy people, doing things just because they could. All the cars were shiny and new. When Lynn could make out the facial details of the drivers, they were always smiling—waving sometimes. The office fell away as she thumbed through the aged booklet.
She had almost forgotten about the quest for a map when she turned the page and it was suddenly there. It had been printed on pages ten and eleven, with whitish shapes for land, blue strokes for water. Very little of it was labeled. It was a deadly simple map. Hudson River marked the left edge, and something called Eastchester Bay capped the top. Six colored lines ran across a section of the white shape labeled Manhattan. The map would have been useless were it not for the lines marked with little red and blue shields Lynn knew from her journey over many of America’s interstates: the map provided an overview of the major roads. More importantly, dead in the center was the road marked 278, and it led over water, then curved up north—exactly as Flint had told Dani. She swallowed down her nerves. “There.” She pointed. “We’re somewhere there.”
Dani frowned. “You might be right.”
“I am. Look.” She traced the road down south, making sure not to touch the fragile paper. “That’s the fork. I must have come into New York over this bridge.” She pointed at a stretch of white over the field of blue marked Whitestone Bridge. “And we went through this part called Queens to get here.”
Dani nodded. “So where do we go, exactly?”
Lynn gestured vaguely above the map. “Somewhere there. It’s not on the map, I think. It took two days to get to the bridge, and we walked from here…” She pointed out their starting point east of Queens. “…to here…” She circled an area to indicate their former camp. “In a day.”
“Okay, makes sense. So, which road did you come down on?”
Lynn glanced at Dani and hesitated. Could it harm her to tell Dani? She couldn’t think of a reason—she wasn’t going that way again; telling Dani might even show some sort of trust, and yet… “The 95.” It stung like an alcohol-soaked wound.
Dani leaned forward a bit more and found the road. “It’s in Bronx. That seems to match with what Flint told me.”
“Yeah.” It snaked up past the Eastchester Bay before disappearing off the map. “If we go up to the 278, it’ll take us to the 95.” She followed the line that said 278 with her finger, drifting to the west for a couple of miles before swinging northeast. Even as she did that, she was already searching the map for something else entirely: her escape route. Her best way out was the 95 in the opposite direction to where Dani thought they were going. The road came down from the north and then curved west to a crossing over Hudson River called George Washington Bridge before eventually turning south.
If she took the 87 exit west, right after an unmarked bridge, instead of following the 278 as Dani thought they would, it would take her to the 95. Even if she missed that exit for some reason or couldn’t manage to shake Dani, there would be three others along their route that would take her to the same point.
“We really went the long way ’round.” Dani straightened and sighed.
“Yep.” Lynn still studied the map. She needed to imprint it, just in case Dani took it away or it fell apart completely. “So let’s get going, hm? We should be able to get here tonight.” The hairs on her arms stood on end as she tempted fate by pointing at a spot just before the split toward the 89, the exit she was going to take.
“Yeah, let’s.” Dani swallowed and searched her face.
Lynn casually closed the booklet, knelt down, and very carefully stored it in her bag. A tingle of excitement buzzed through her as she closed her backpack and hoisted it onto her shoulders. She felt as if she was getting away with something. For a horrible moment, she thought she would giggle, but of course she didn’t. “Okay, ready.” As she stepped outside, reality settled heavily upon her again. Yes, she had a plan now, but she would still have to execute it.
New York’s defenses had achieved what they’d set out to do before they’d fallen: the road up to the bridge had survived. It curved northward and gained elevation until it was level with the crossing. Two gleaming towers peeked over the water, which was a hopeful sign the bridge itself had survived too.
The increasing elevation pushed them above the treetops. A firm wind whipped Lynn’s hair about. It carried scents of an ocean she couldn’t see and the ever-present smell of soil and decomposition. She brushed her hair aside so she could soak in the view. On the right was an almost unbroken field of leaves, but on the left a clump of buildings pierced the uniformity—vestiges of concrete and glass, which almost all bore the burden of ever-climbing ivy.
“Why do you think they built the roads like this? Like…high up?”
Lynn swung her gaze away from the wide-open view with regret. Seeing so much clear sky above her made her feel as if she could breathe again. “I don’t know. Maybe it was easier, or they needed the room below. I guess you could walk and drive there, too. I’m sure it’ll go down eventually.”
Dani kept looking at the left-hand side view. She hesitated. “It’s weird, isn’t it? A few hundred years ago, there were hundreds of people living right here—maybe thousands.”
Lynn shrugged. “More than that, I think. If every house had at least one person living in it, that’s…what? A million or something?” It was a word that had very little meaning, especially in terms of people. Are there even a million people left on the planet? There must be, right?
Dani stepped up to the railing and gripped the wire mesh with one hand.
It groaned and creaked under the sudden force.
Instinctively, Lynn checked her surroundings for anything drawn to the sound even as the wind dispersed it.
“I can’t even imagine a million people.” Dani’s voice barely carried to her ears. “Were they in these cars when the bombs fell?” She didn’t turn her head to look at the metal constructs that lay strewn about like the husks of giant beetles. “Trying to get out of the city?”
It was an obviously rhetoric question; Lynn didn’t know what had happened here any more than Dani did. Maybe they had left their cars and had walked home to be with their families. Maybe they’d thrown themselves over the edge of the bridge. She shuddered at the thought and turned so abruptly she startled Skeever.
He jumped back, whimpered, and stepped in place nervously until she reached out to pet him.
“We should go, Dani.”
Dani frowned at her.
Lynn could see the questions swimming in her eyes, but what was the use of talking about the Old World? “We don’t have much daylight left.” Lynn didn’t have to look back to know Dani’s gaze was on her as she walked off. After years of hyperawareness in the Wilds, she knew when she was being watched.
The bridge was massive and far more of a death trap than the ramp leading up to it had suggested. It hadn’t survived either the war or the ravages of time entirely intact; large chunks had fallen into the swiftly churning water below. Lynn had to lead them around the gaps and over piles of rubble. Her aching arm had taken a hit, and Dani’s complexion had gone paler and paler. Lynn took her time for safety’s sake.
By the time they reached the other side, the sun had noticeably changed position.
Lynn looked up at it and made an educated guess about the speed of its descent. “We still have some daylight left.” She glanced at Dani. “Wanna try to make a push to get off this island thingy we’re on?” It was going to be tight; the road seemed to stretch out like a snake through grass and the head was nowhere to be seen. If they made it, though—or at least came close—they would be in spitting distance of the 89 exit Lynn had her eye on. If she dared to make a run for it during the night, she would be home free.
“I don’t know.”
A few paces ahead, Skeever came to a halt and looked back. He panted, and his tongue hung out of his mouth. The crawl across the bridge seemed to have tempered his boundless enthusiasm.
Lynn turned her head to Dani. “Why not?”
Dani shrugged. “I just don’t want to risk camping out on the side of the road if we can’t find somewhere secure.” She didn’t meet Lynn’s eyes.
“That’s quite a different tune than yesterday’s.” An icy hand wrapped around Lynn’s spine where it met her skull. Was Dani on to her plan? “What’s going on?”
Dani set her jaw and looked away.
“Earth to Dani. Tick-tock.” Lynn’s insides knotted.
“My feet hurt, okay?” A little smile tugged at her lips. “I just don’t want to walk anymore.”
The hold on her neck lifted. Lynn laughed, as much out of amusement as relief. The tension in her gut lessened. “Well, we could rest for a few minutes, but I think your feet will only hurt worse when you start walking again.”
“I know.” Dani sighed. “I’m going to sit down long enough to get some food out, and then we’ll go on, all right?”
A few minutes can’t hurt. Besides, they were relatively safe here: they had a somewhat clear view over the treetops, and nothing bigger than rabbits moved along the road that wound away from the bridge. “Sure. I could eat.”
Dani sighed when she sank down to the asphalt. “Ohhh, that’s good.”
Skeever beelined back and went straight for Dani’s face, lapping over her cheek before she could open her eyes.
“Skeever, no!” Dani groaned, but her voice held a little laugh. She pushed at the dog. “I was having a moment here!”
Skeever panted even harder and went around her to get close on the other side.
Dani fought him off with a chuckle.
Lynn tested the sturdiness of the railing before she leaned against it. She watched the two and found herself smiling. “Tell you what: if we make it off the island before nightfall, we’ll find a way down to the water so you can soak your feet.”
“Are you dangling a carrot?” Dani squinted up at her, eyes lit. She managed to get Skeever to settle across her lap.
Lynn grinned. “Maybe.”
Dani laughed, then twisted to drag her backpack up to Skeever’s hind legs. “Well, it’s working.” She pulled out a bag and handed Lynn a chunk of bread from it before unwrapping the two-thirds of a small cheese wheel that had remained after yesterday’s lunch. She cut off another third, divided it, and gave Lynn her half. All the while she had to twist and turn to keep the food away from Skeever’s muzzle and wagging tail.
