Breathless City Page 7

  Stella fought to get back, twisting against his hold to wrench her way free. She moved with silent ferocity, grappling and kicking out against his grip. Gavin held her as he ran back to the staircase and up the stairs, regretting each loud creak that left behind a trail of breadcrumbs for the infected to follow.

  Gavin turned around when he got to the top of the stairs, swinging the door to the kitchens open. The high-powered industrial lights lit up the basement enough to show the events that were unfolding behind them. The shots had attracted a mob of the infected. They were streaming in. There must have been a hole in the wall where old brick had crumbled or the wooden barricade had rotted away. They converged around Stella’s bag, some ripping into the scattered materials, shoving anything into their mouths that looked edible, while others surrounded the bodies of the fallen infected. Gavin tensed at the sight of the horde eating their own dead.

  The infected at the edge, jostled and pushed away from the food, stopped and straightened. The nearest infected male pointed its nose up in the air, stretching out onto the tips of its toes and pivoting, until it faced the source of a new smell—the direction of the stairway.

  Gavin had seen enough. He slammed the door shut, bracing against the wood. Moments later, the infected hammered against the door from the basement side.

  “Let me go.” Stella tensed in Gavin’s arms, swallowing nervously. “We have to hurry.”

  Gavin released his hold and Stella ran off. Gavin braced both of his arms against the door as the infected slammed against it. He didn’t know how many were behind the door. The flimsy old wood wasn’t going to hold out for long.

  Gavin almost didn’t notice the sound of something heavy rolling across the epoxy flooring until Stella came back into view, pushing an industrial kitchen island. Gavin backed away, allowing the heavy wooden structure to take his place.

  Stella fastened down the wheel locks, immobilizing the metal cart. She snatched Gavin’s hand in her own. “Let’s go.”

  She sprinted out of the kitchens, bursting through the double doors. The two of them were halfway through the dining area, crossing through the rows of tables, when they heard the blasts.

  Three explosions, one after another. Gavin felt the vibrations straight through the soles of his boots.

  Stella slowed to a halt, gritting her teeth. “They got to the grenades.”

  “That’s what you were looking for?” Gavin asked.

  Stella nodded, swallowing heavily. “That’s going to wake them up. It’s going to wake them all up, for miles in every direction.”

  Gavin could imagine them, all of them, stretching from their sleep and opening up their blind eyes. He pictured them coming out of broken-down stores, crawling out of smashed windows. Every one of them had just been invited to the hunt. Here he and Stella still stood, mere moments from the blast site, their new fresh prey.

  “Run!” Stella cried.

  7

  It was stupid of Stella to come back here.

  The city held too many memories for her. She’d gone to this restaurant too many times, back when she’d lived here. Back when things were different—the last time she had ever felt safe. The layout was familiar, almost comforting. But memories were a distraction from reality. She never should have come back.

  Stella and Gavin burst out of Carmine’s and into the street. They were alone for now, but not for long.

  The infected had gotten her bag, filled with all their food rations and most of the weapons. She hadn’t wanted to put Gavin at risk and assumed she’d be better prepared to defend the supplies.

  Now the grenade blasts were a wake-up call to the hundreds of thousands of infected in the city. It no longer mattered if they were well fed, or that they were in the safe hours.

  The infected were coming. All of them.

  Even now, the first of them stepped out of buildings, cautiously making their way out into the sun. She and Gavin ran past one that yawned wide, showing teeth chipped into points and browned, as it rubbed at sightless eyes. With the infected awakened, when they needed it the most, they had less than half of their supplies.

  “The bridge is the other way,” Gavin panted out as they took off, straight in the middle of the street.

  He was right; the George Washington Bridge had to be their best bet for safety. The two of them could just leave the city, find safety for the night, and try again tomorrow. The muscles in her legs were screaming with strain, and she didn’t even want to think about what this run was doing to her oxygen pill. Even at the pace they were going, there was no way they could outrun all the infected—they would either be taken down en route, or while they were running across the bridge.

  “We aren’t going to make it back to the bridge,” Stella replied. “Look for a bank. TD, Bank of America, Citi, Wells Fargo, Chase. They’ve got reinforced glass windows.”

  The buildings lining the street had fading words on awnings and half-destroyed signs. Gavin had probably never seen a bank before, but it was something to focus on besides the infected stepping out into the open all around them.

  Most of the infected wandered toward the sound of the blast. If enough of the creatures died in the explosion, it would feed the others, distracting them. However, some of those newly woken heads turned in the direction of their footsteps.

  The Chase bank was sturdy enough and three blocks away. If they could make it there.

  Somewhere behind them, Stella heard one of the infected let out a hunting cry. Adrenaline rushed through her as she realized that they had run out of time. Footsteps shadowed their own.

  Stella had seen firsthand the aftermath when a pack of infected hunted for humans. More than once she had seen the chase, the desperation of the victims. They screamed out for help, unwittingly attracting more, like flies to honey. Every time Stella had seen this, from when she was a toddler peering out windows at her father’s side, to now with the infected running at her back, she always made the same vow. That wasn’t going to happen to her.

  Abruptly, Stella cut sideways and down a street.

  Gavin pivoted, throwing off the infected just behind him. The infected mob chasing them was cut in half—one group blindly continued down the main road, while the others ran down 173rd Street after them.

  Stella ran to the steel-framed door of a brick building, under the placard “Fresh Meadow School.” She tugged the handle of the door, but it was locked. She slashed her dagger against her palm, making a small cut, and smeared it against the metal. She clenched her fist, hiding the scent of blood on her, as she turned and leaped down the stairs.

  While running, she listened. Behind them, another group of the infected broke off from the rest of the hunt, distracted by the scent of fresh blood. They smacked and tore against the door, mindlessly attempting to break in.

  She had thrown off some, but not enough of them.

  They needed shelter. Anything. The surrounding buildings had broken glass and doors ripped off hinges. In between a row of cars with smashed windows sat a van. Stella veered straight toward it. She pulled open the back double-door of the van, revealing boxes stacked high.

  “Get in.” Stella watched Gavin clamber into the tight space before leaping in after him. She reached down—as the horde ran straight after them with their arms outstretched and their mouths opened wide—and slammed the door shut.

  The infected crashed into the van. The force of their collision dented the metal and jostled everything inside. All around them, the metal screeched as the infected grated at their enclosure with nails and teeth. Their hunting bellows mixed in with frustrated screams and fists pounding.

  Stella pulled her Glock from its holster, locking it into position. She stared down the sight of the barrel, her finger on the trigger.

  Stella lay on top of the boxes, poised and ready.

  If any of the infected managed to snag its hand on the handle, exposing them, if one ripped through the metal, she was their last line of defense.

  There
were too many of them, but it might be enough to give Gavin a chance to escape.

  If this was the end of her, so be it. She’d watched so many others die already.

  The attack slowed down.

  After ten minutes, the majority of them drifted away. Maybe to turn back to their broken buildings to go back to sleep, or to find an easier meal.

  Stella kept her hand ready on the trigger. Ten minutes turned into twenty, then twenty-five, and Stella still did not take her eyes away from the back of the van. She waited, even after the sounds of attack disintegrated into silence. The minutes stretched on, and Stella did not waver. Not to wipe the sweat off her brows and out of her eyes. Not to reposition herself on the boxes, even as hard edges pressed against her. From outside the van came the frustrated snort and the soft pad of footsteps as the last infected left them. Finally, she lowered the gun and exhaled a sigh of relief.

  Gavin watched her, frowning. She whispered to him, “What is it?”

  “What were you looking for in your bag, besides the grenades?”

  The question surprised her. They had just been chased by hundreds of the infected. Today was the closest Stella had gotten to death in years. She had gone through worse encounters, but never with so many, when so much could have gone wrong.

  “Nothing that can hurt us now,” Stella said. There were no more explosives to bring all the infected denizens of New York down upon them. What she lost was nothing like that.

  “But it was important?” Gavin asked.

  “Just to me,” Stella said simply.

  His gray eyes were soft with concern. Gavin’s worry filled Stella with guilt. Compared to their lives, to their safety, she hadn’t lost much.

  “What was it?” Gavin asked.

  Stella paused.

  Would he understand? People didn’t tend to ask her personal questions. None of the others in her gang, not even her close friends Xander and Sam, would fight for what she lost today. Neither of them would agree that it was worth it. Stella suspected that Gavin would; he wasn’t anything like the others.

  “A picture of my parents,” Stella sighed. “It was all I had left of them.”

  She had lost them all over again. Never to see their faces again. How long did she have until her memories of them faded completely? Grief settled over her heart like a well-worn cloak.

  Surrounded by abandoned houses, filled with pearls, diamonds and trinkets which fetched high prices underground, that picture had been her only possession of any value. For as long as she lived, every day the infected were going to attack her. She would have plenty of opportunities to be killed by them. But all that remained of her mother and her father was one four-by-six-inch photograph. Now it was gone.

  Xander would call it another distraction, and he was right. Stella had thought of the pictures first, before remembering herself and searching for the explosives.

  “Also,” Stella added, wanting Gavin to know what they were up against, “there was the ammunition. More than half was lost with my bag. It’s tough enough surviving with ammo and now we don’t have enough.”

  “I’m sorry,” Gavin whispered. “If I hadn’t pulled you out of that basement, we’d have the ammunition and you’d have that photo.”

  Stella shook her head. He was overestimating her. “What are you talking about? If you hadn’t gotten me out of there, I would have been eaten.”

  Gavin held his face in his hand, looking at the dents in the van. The brief moment of confidence Gavin had shown in the basement was gone. Why did he look so uncertain? He needed to trust himself.

  “Look at me.” Stella waited until those gray eyes nervously met her own. “You trusted your instincts there, and you saved my life. I don’t know why you doubt yourself. I will never come back to this city again. Never. Unless it’s with you. I wouldn’t want anyone else beside me.”

  Stella was suddenly aware of how close Gavin was. She couldn’t help but look down at his lips, wondering what they would taste like.

  She blinked. Where had that thought come from? She definitely wasn’t in the habit of kissing handsome men in the back of vans, surrounded by creatures that wanted to kill her. She looked away from Gavin’s mouth, stopping herself. Things had gotten bad enough already without Stella finding a new way to distract them.

  “Let’s see if it’s safe to leave the van,” Stella said, getting herself back on track. She looked for the exit in the dim light of the windowless vehicle. Light streamed through the perforated van partition that separated the cargo in the back from the passenger section in the front. Stella looked through the holes of the partition, taking in the gruesome sight of what lay on the other side. She had no choice. There was no other exit. She unlatched the partition and slid it open.

  In the front of the van sat two bodies. Even decayed as they were, Stella could clearly see the holes in their foreheads where gunfire had ended both of their lives. Brown splatters were crusted into the suede car seats, the vinyl door panels, the console, and over the dashboard. Even soiled, Stella could recognize the uniforms on the corpses. They were wearing the standard worker’s uniform from the underground city.

  The uniforms gave Stella an idea. She turned back to the cargo hold and opened one of the boxes. It was packed tight, full of cans. Stella picked up one of the cans, reading the Campbell’s Chunky Classic Chicken Noodle label.

  “Looks like these two did our work for us,” Stella said grimly. “We might have gotten away with bringing back just one of these boxes.” She pulled out another can of Del Monte Fresh Cut Sweet Peas and said, “There’s even vegetables here for you. Now you won’t have to starve.”

  “What happened to them?” Gavin asked, causing Stella to give the two another look over. For years she’d seen bodies out in the desert. It was just a fact of existence that not everyone lived. Even in the underground, if she stumbled across a pair of bodies, she wouldn’t question it. But for Gavin, death just wasn’t normal.

  “The bodies are about two weeks gone.” Stella suppressed memories of how she became so acquainted with the length of decay. “They were from the underground at some point. These clothes are for maintenance. Both of them were shot, and they did it to themselves.” Noticing Gavin’s look of surprise, she added, “The infected can’t use guns. Even if their brains could process how it works, they wouldn’t be able to see targets anyway.”

  “Why would these men do something like that?” Gavin asked.

  “One of them probably got infected. He didn’t want to believe it and tried to hide it. Once the infection traveled into his brain, he attacked his partner.” Stella pointed to the corpse in the driver’s seat who was closest to the handgun. “The partner here must have gotten bit before he managed to shoot. He knew what was coming. Chose to end it himself.”

  “What were they doing out of the underground city anyway? If they were still in the human establishment, this wouldn’t have happened,” Gavin said.

  Stella shook her head, saying nothing. He was wrong of course about how things happened underground, but that was a conversation for another time. Gavin was upset enough by these deaths already.

  “They must have escaped,” Stella said. “They had to have gone to Celia’s gang, since I haven’t heard about these two. They probably came here for an initiation. Things just didn’t end well for them.”

  Gavin had gone quiet. Stella waited for a moment to see if he would have anything else to say. But only just a moment. Now that she had been given a way out of the city, she was going to take it.

  “Let’s see if we can finish their last job,” Stella mused. She routed through the dead man’s pockets, fishing out a set of car keys. She leaned over the body to fit the key into the ignition. One quick glance told her that they were alone. She twisted the key, heard a click, click, click, and then nothing.

  Stella tried again, listening to the clicking, waiting for the hum of the engine springing to life. Instead, there was more silence. Stella switched the car back off an
d leaned against the headrest. “After waking up every infected in the city and getting chased by half of them, it would have been too easy if this van would just start and we could drive it back,” she muttered, wondering if there was a way to salvage the situation.

  “Maybe I can fix it,” Gavin said.

  Stella lifted a brow. “All right, I’ll cover you.”

  Could this vehicle even be fixed, or were they just wasting time? She had looked under the hood of a car before and found a maze of wires and metal as intricate as the pathways in the underground city. Unlike the city, she had no way of knowing how everything connected together.

  “Leave him in here,” Stella cautioned as she saw Gavin open the passenger door and almost let one of the bodies drop to the ground outside. “We don’t want to advertise that we’re here.” Gavin stepped over the body gingerly and Stella followed, pulling out her Glock and casting a look around. Now that the infected had been woken up and given a chase, there was no telling what they would do.

  Gavin lifted the hood of the van with a creak, looking inside. His fingers traced the pathways of wires and metal. Had he ever even seen an automobile engine before? What was the use of a car at the bottom of the ocean, and how would those scientists even manage to get one there?

  Stella scanned their surroundings. Her gaze passed over the locked school building doors and flicked to the hollow, burnt-out husks of trees. She scanned the dusty streets and sidewalks, which were empty for now.

  She heard the faint clang and jangle from under the hood, the rustle of the wind, and from deep inside her lungs she heard a warning chime that resonated all the way to her ears. Her oxygen pill would stop working in exactly five minutes. She started to reach for her inner pockets where she kept her pill stash, but she stopped herself. Gavin was distracted right now; he wouldn’t notice.

  Every thirty seconds, Stella heard the ping. She ignored it, concentrating instead on the unchanging landscape as she looked for signs of trouble. Then the pings stopped, and Stella felt a pressure in her lungs and an ache in her nose and throat that let her know that the pill was finished.