Crowded in the small area by the private entrance, we gathered ourselves up before we took the next step. After what came next, there was no going back. Breaking out of a military quarantine would make us wanted criminals on a level none of us was prepared for, but quite frankly it beat being eaten alive by the worsening group of Bleeders they'd stuck us in with. Even now, with all the distance we'd put between us and the field, we could hear the screams and banging of the crowd as they started tearing the place apart.
I looked back at Alison. "Those fuckers are pissed. I guess it's better they're in here than out there."
"You really think it's any better out there?"
"Even if it's not, there's a few hundred less of them now."
"It doesn't matter."
"Anyone ever tell you you're a real downer," I asked. She didn't answer. I tried the door that led outside- unlocked. "See? It's not all bad."
I swung the door open and stepped forward into the night. Blocking our way out was a group of military vehicles parked up on the sidewalk, with them a scattering of armed soldiers, including Skull-head himself- my old friend, Private Simmons.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I ducked back inside and shut the door in a hurry before Simmons or any of the other soldiers could spot me. Then I looked back at the waiting eyes of Alison and Jeremiah.
"Well," Alison asked.
"It's bad."
Alison shook her head. In the distance, the Bleeders were getting crazier. They sounded like they were on the verge of an all-out riot. For all the noise they were making, you'd think the Red Sox had just won on free beer night. "So we're stuck," Alison said.
"You told me the army pulled out hours ago."
"Well I guess not all of them, huh?"
"Don't do that."
"What?"
"The sarcastic thing. Don't do that. That's my thing."
She rolled her eyes and checked on Jeremiah, who was looking green in the face. We needed to find him somewhere to lay down fast, before his strength and stubbornness ran out.
"We need a distraction," I said. "Something big to draw them away. Maybe if we set up fireworks, you know? On a remote, or a timer?"
Alison looked back at me from looking in Jeremiah's eyes. "What are you talking about? Where are you getting fireworks?"
"This is a stadium, they use fireworks all the time."
"Think of something else."
I scratched my head. "I'm just spit-balling here, alright? I don't see you coming up with anything better."
"Scratch the blood," Jeremiah suddenly said, his bloodshot eyes staring into space. We waited but he said nothing else.
"Thanks," I said, "that's a big help."
As I tried to think of a better plan- though I hadn't totally given up on the fireworks thing- a large crash came from somewhere inside the stadium. It was a mess of glass and metal followed by excited shouts.
"What the fuck was that," I asked. Outside, the soldiers' radios started going off. Someone was shouting for backup, and they weren't using professional language to do it. Without skipping a beat the soldiers ran off in a hurry to help their friends in need.
"I think you got your distraction," Alison said. I peeked out the door and saw the tail end of the group of soldiers disappearing around the bend and out of sight. We couldn't have planned it better if we tried.
"I still like the fireworks idea better," I mumbled.
With Jeremiah's arm over my shoulder we made a break for the vehicles. On the way we decided the humvee was our best choice, since the cabin was enclosed to protect us from Bleeders yet it was, you know...more sensible than a tank. Not that I wouldn't love driving a tank down Grand Concourse, but we didn't have time to figure out how to start it let alone operate it.
I threw open the rear passenger-side door and helped Jeremiah up into the back of the humvee. It wasn't a traditional backseat at all, more of a hard, open space perfect for grunt storage. Alison jumped behind the wheel and looked back at us from the massive driver's seat with its giant stick-shift and mounted laptop.
"You're driving," I asked, admittedly surprised.
"Is that a problem?" She looked ready to engage in one of those battle-of-the-sexes arguments that always go so well.
"Actually it's better for me, my license is suspended." I finished loading up Jeremiah, shut the door behind me and was about to hop into the front when something against the seat caught my attention. "Check it out," I said as I crouch-walked into the passenger seat. Alison looked over at the black assault rifle clutched in my hands.
"Do you know how to use that thing," she asked with raised eyebrows.
"I was about to ask you the same thing." I motioned to the steering wheel.
"If you've driven one minivan, you've driven them all," she said, turning the ignition and firing up the beastly engine. She engaged the clutch and put it into first gear, pulling away from the line of vehicles with a roar of gasoline and rubber.
As she drove around the stadium toward the exit, I casually inspected the weapon. I made it look like I was checking it over but the truth was I was getting used to the thing, figuring out where everything was on the rifle. I had gone to a range a few times back in college with a gun-loving buddy of mine, but with nothing above a few handguns. My experience with assault rifles started and ended with Playstation. My best guess, based solely on videogames, it was an M16.
"Look," Alison said, drawing my attention up from the weapon. Twenty or thirty soldiers were lined up in front of the building with their weapons aimed and ready. Gate Four, where we'd been marched through hours earlier, was alive with motion on the inside. Through the glass doors it looked like game day, but we all knew there was no game today.
"Bleeders," I said.
The crash we heard must have been the blockades giving. They were able to hold up to a few people pushing and pulling on them, but once the stadium was filled with Bleeders their strength became too much.
The doors bulged outward from the weight of the crowd pushing on them from the other side. Alison stopped the humvee, all of us drawn into the insane sight of the screaming faces pressed against the glass. With night outside and the lights on inside, we could see their faces clearly. Blood dripped from their eyes and mouths and down the doors.
"There it goes."
The glass cracked and then the first door gave. I'd never seen anything like it. It was like a dam burst as the Bleeders flooded through the broken door, then a second door and a third. Some of them fell but the others stampeded right over them, crushing skulls and snapping spines under uncaring feet.
The soldiers held their ground. They shouted orders and fired on the crowd. For a second it felt wrong- they were shooting at unarmed citizens- but the thought quickly disappeared as we saw the unflinching faces swarming down on the soldiers. Some of the Bleeders went down, the ones who took headshots or hits to the leg, but not all of them.
We watched as the wave of Bleeders reached the soldiers. The men tried to stow their weapons and fight the attackers hand-to-hand, and some of them even took down a few Bleeders, but the numbers were too much for them. The Bleeders washed over them in a biting, tearing, screaming wave of death.
"Time to go," Alison said, and slammed the humvee into first gear. She pulled around slowly, putting the stadium to our backs without attracting attention.
"There's Simmons," I said, pointing out the window to the soldier a hundred yards away running toward us. He must have been at the back of the line, because he'd managed to abandon his post and flee before the Bleeders reached him. He was heading right for us with more than a few on his tail. Alison asked who he was. "Just some asshole," I said.
"So what should I do?"
"About what?
Him?
Fuck that guy, we're not helping him."
"Having a soldier on our side might be a good thing now that we're criminals."
I snorted. "I'll take my chances, thanks." Alison gave me a look. I kept shaking my head, and she kept giving me that look. "Fine," I said, "drive slow, but don't stop."
She kept the humvee rolling as I laid the gun down, opened my door and leaned out. I held steady to the frame and got my bearings. We were nearing the exit, maybe forty yards from the finish line, meanwhile Simmons was about fifteen yards behind us.
And the Bleeders were only five yards behind him.
"Hey, asshole," I shouted, "hurry up!"
Simmons must have gotten a good look at my face, because I saw the unmistakable look of recognition cross his face even as he ran for his life. Before I knew what he was doing, he swung his weapon forward and fired at me.
"Whoa," I shouted as two rounds hit the open door. A third whizzed past my head. I ducked back in and pulled the door closed as another few round went past.
I looked over at Alison.
"Yeah, fuck that guy," she said and floored the gas pedal. I turned in time to see the Bleeders catch up with Simmons. He'd lost some ground from concentrating more on shooting than running, and they were more than willing to take advantage. We pulled out of the stadium lot as Simmons hit the blacktop and six Bleeders fell on top of him, gnashing all the way.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Avoiding the clusterfuck that would be the expressway, Alison turned right onto River Avenue. It was still thick with abandoned cars, fires raging unchecked and an occasional dead body in the road, but otherwise it wasn't so bad. Jeremiah was passed out in the back. He'd held out as long as he could, but the sickness finally caught up with him. I turned forward in my seat. "Stick a fork in him."
"You should consider ditching him before he wakes up," Alison said without hesitating.
"What? What are you talking about?"
"Only a very small number of people don't become one of those things. The odds aren't great that you both happen to be lucky."
"So, what, you want me to kick him out before he wakes up?"
"If he wakes up, it'll probably be as something you won't like."
Even if she was right, hearing her say it pissed me off. "In that case, I wouldn't want to deny you your assisted suicide."
She frowned at me. "That's my choice. If he becomes a- what did you call them, Bleeders? If he becomes a Bleeder, he won't be able to make that choice for himself."
I thought about it a second. Then I shook my head. "Fuck that."
"It's your funeral." She weaved the humvee between abandoned and crashed cars along River Avenue. The city had fallen apart in the time we were locked up in the stadium. Bleeders ran wild in the night, attacking anyone who looked tasty. It was crazy how fast they'd taken over the streets, a trick any gang would have killed their own mothers to pull off. Alison drove around two Bleeders eating a taxi driver inside his own cab. "Why do you care so much about this guy? I don't want to be rude, but he just looks like some homeless guy."
"He is some homeless guy, but he also saved my ass. The least I can do is see if he wakes up before I sentence him to die."
An old Bleeder ran into the side of the humvee, bouncing off the passenger door and down to the ground. More of them came from the left, but Alison kept the humvee moving and we left them behind.
"So where are we going," I asked.
"I thought he told you."
"He said he knew a place we could hide."
"It's just off the Madison Avenue Bridge. You two weren't far from there earlier from what he told me."
"Wow, a lot happened when I was out. What else did you talk about?"
She glanced over at me. "Are you mad we talked?"
"I don't like secrets. I just want to know where I stand."
Alison slammed on the brakes. We screeched to a halt and I had to stop myself from face-planting into the dashboard. I was about to ask what her deal was when I saw what was ahead of us: River Avenue was gridlocked, not with rush hour traffic, but abandoned cars at all angles, even on the sidewalk. Whatever had happened there was long gone, but it had taken every driver along with it. "I'll tell you where you stand," Alison said. "Knee deep in shit. We should go back and find another way around."
"This is New York, it's a miracle we got this far. Did you think we were just going to cruise all the way there?"
She checked her rearview. A few Bleeders were about a block back, moving slowly. "We can't sit here forever," she said.
I scanned the street. To our right the suspended expressway blocked our view, but I knew just past it would be the Harlem River. "You said this place is off the Madison Avenue Bridge? That's the turn for the 145th Street Bridge right there. We can cross on foot and from there it's only a few blocks down." The idea of being so exposed didn't exactly fill me with joy, but at that point it seemed like the only way to reach the place Jeremiah thought was our safest bet.