A dead man with gold chains tangled up in the curly hairs on his chest came at us, his arms wide, his legs flailing beneath him as he tried to run. Ayaan readied her weapon but I put one gloved hand on the barrel and shook my head. She hardly needed me to remind her of our agreement-that she should shoot only in dire necessity, for fear of alerting the dead with the noise of her gunshots-but it made me feel better. By steadying her I steadied myself and right then I needed it. I could feel my skin trying to crawl away from the animated corpse as it lumbered ever closer.
He put out one hand and grabbed at my sleeve and I thought it was over, that I had made some kind of critical error. Maybe the dead could sense the life forceGary had spoken of, maybe they could see right through the suits. I braced myself for what surely came next-the grapple, the bite, the sensation of having my flesh torn away from my bones. I closed my eyes and tried to think about Sarah, about her safety.
The dead man pushed me aside and stumbled between myself and Ayaan. We had just been in the way of his true goal-the girls on theArawelo. I listened for a minute or two to the heavy cyclic respiration of my SCBA, just glad to still be alive. Whatever special senses the dead might have they couldn’t see through the suits. My plan actually had a chance of working.
“Dekalb,” Ayaan said, her voice blurred by the layers of plastic between us, “we are breathing borrowed air.” I nodded and together we set off.
We crossed the West Side Highway, weaving carefully in between the abandoned cars so as not to tear the suits and then the buildings ofForty-Second street closed around us like the walls of a maze. I had hoped the street would be clear of vehicles and for once I’d been right, with one exception: a military Armored Personnel Carrier stood at an angle in the middle of the street. It had smashed into a newsstand, spilling glossy copies ofMaxim andTime Out New York everywhere, their pages ruffled by a mild breeze. I wanted to check to see if the APC was drivable but Ayaan suggested, quite rightly, that if her rifle made too much noise then a big diesel engine would be completely unacceptable.
We moved cautiously around open the back of the vehicle, probably both of us remembering the armored riot cops inUnion Square. No former National Guardsmen came out at us but it didn’t take us long to find them. Three of them still dressed in their Interceptor body armor and their ballistic helmets were squabbling over a trash can halfway down the block. It must have been ransacked months ago but still they fought over its contents. One of them grabbed an armful of trash and sat down hard on the curb, busily sniffing and licking the dry yellow newsprint and shiny Styrofoam. Another dug out an old soda can. The red paint on its side had worn off over time leaving it featureless and silver. He stuck his finger deep inside the can perhaps trying to scoop out one last droplet of sugar water but the finger got stuck. He shook his hand violently trying to get it loose but it just wouldn’t come off.
It sounds almost humorous now that I describe it but at the time… well, you just don’t laugh at the dead. It’s not a matter of respect so much as fear. After your first few encounters with animated corpses you never failed to take them seriously. They were too dangerous and too horrible to make light of.