City of Whispers (City of Whispers #1) (3 page)

James, of course, had to offer to give us back the
shower curtain liner.

Beth declined for the both of us as I considered
staking him. Besides that, I was feeling more and more comfortable around the
guys. If they were the types who were planning to catch us off our guard and
torture us, I doubted they would have been so genial about moving a vampire
corpse from in front of our window.

“Is there anyone else in your building?” Scott asked.

“Not that I know of,” I replied. “Someone was killed
in that apartment just a couple of nights ago.” I gestured toward the open
window next door. “We haven’t been in there so I don’t know what you might
find. There are other apartments you guys could stay in tonight though if you
can get in.”

“Why don’t you guys just stay with us?” Beth
suggested.

What was wrong with her? She was certainly nicer than
I was and, I thought, a little too quick to trust these guys. Although I was
feeling more comfortable around them, I wasn’t ready to invite them to stay
with us.

I turned to Beth and raised my eyebrows. “Can we talk
about this for a minute?”

“Look,” Paulo said, “it would be easier and much safer
for all of us.”

“We don’t bite,” Scott quipped.

“Well maybe
we
do,” I said slowly looking him
in the eye. “I don’t know why you trust us yet. We may have gone crazy living
up here with Stella.”

“Christ, you named it?” James looked horrified.

I think my face must have turned bright red and I was
genuinely embarrassed. Maybe I really had gone crazy. I tried to recover. “And
who the hell wears a dog collar? Seriously?”

“Someone who’s smart and thinks ahead that’s who. Any
vampire that bites me is going to get a spike through the roof of his mouth.”

“That is kind of genius,” Beth chimed in.

Whose side was she on? I was starting to feel like she
was flirting with these guys.

“Please, enough,” Paulo, the voice of reason
interrupted. I could see why he and James made a good team. “The sun is setting
and we need to make a decision.”

Scott was sitting on the couch twirling a stake in his
hand like he didn’t care either way, which annoyed me more than all the
arguing. I felt the need to bring him into the conversation. “Well...”

“Well what?” he said nonchalantly.

This irritated me further. “What do you think?”

“I think it’s your apartment and while property laws
don’t really apply anymore we’ll leave if you want us to. But, if we wanted to
do something to you we could have done it by now and I think you know that
too.”

I glared at him.

“That’s not a threat, it’s just the truth. I think you
also know that it makes zero sense for the two of you to stay in this apartment
with a busted window by yourselves now that you’ve lost your vampire security
blanket. I think you’ll have a hard time boarding up the window while Beth
fights off the vampires trying to get in.”

Apparently I was out-numbered and even worse, Scott
was right. There was no way I was going to stay in that apartment with a busted
window and only Beth to help protect it.

“Fine,” I agreed, “but I’m not sleeping unless Beth is
awake and vice versa.

“Deal,” Paulo agreed. “Now let’s please get to work on
that window, they’re going to start coming out any minute now.”

I had to admit I was no genius with tools, so we were
lucky we had the guys. James was especially handy. Beth made herself busy
putting together a plate of old cheese and crackers and our new bag of
pretzels. I began to feel bad for having been so ornery.

“Did you pick up your construction skills building
theater sets?” I asked James.

“Yep, unfortunately I ended up doing a lot more set
work than acting.”

“Well I really appreciate it. You should have seen the
job we did before, it wasn’t very good. I don’t even know what these walls are
made of. There’s a reason I don’t have any pictures hanging up.”

“Glad to help.”

“You know that dog collar really does look crazy,
James,” Scott said. “I was a little worried when I first ran into you two
yesterday. If it hadn’t been for Paulo I don’t know if I would have stuck
around.”

I was starting to feel better. “But it really isn’t a
terrible idea,” I said. “I don’t know that I’m interested in trying it though,
I think it would restrict my movement.”

“You’ll all change your tune one of these days,” James
assured us.

Beth brought the food in, bringing my mood down a bit.
I felt like I was about to eat a plateful of cardboard. But the guys didn’t say
anything except, “Thank you very much,” as they dug in.

“I have some wine,” I volunteered. “It isn’t cold and
maybe these aren’t the times to be getting drunk, but if whoever is on the
second or third shift wants to have a glass you’re welcome to it.”

“Not a bad idea,” James said. “I volunteer for one of
those shifts.”

“Me too,” Beth said...a little too quickly, I thought.

“I’m happy to do whatever,” Paulo said.

“Do you still feel more comfortable with one of you
girls—or ladies rather—on every shift?” Scott asked.

“Yes, I do. Beth and I usually take turns doing three
hour shifts. We do it even after the sun comes up because of the looters.”

“That’s more work for you, but I get it.” Scott looked
at his watch. “It’s 10 now, so it’ll be about 10:30 or so when the first shift
starts. The sun comes up a little after 6, but since you’re still worried about
looters let’s keep the shifts going until 8:30 so we all get enough sleep. I’m
exhausted so I need to sleep now if Paulo doesn’t mind taking the first shift.”

Paulo nodded.

“Since we’re all tired we’ll make the first shift the
shortest,” Scott said. “Can you stay awake until 1:30 or so? Then wake me up
and I’ll join Ailis for however long she plans to stay awake before waking
Beth. James, you’re on at 5.”

“I want to talk to Beth alone about our shifts,” I
said.

Scott shrugged his shoulders and Beth and I went into
the bedroom. Our three hour sleep shift didn’t make a lot of sense with this
setup, so I suggested splitting the night 50/50.

Beth begged for the last shift. I was exhausted, but I
agreed.

I secretly wondered whether she was just trying to be
on the same shift with James. I thought she had been flirting with him earlier,
even though we had only just met him. Was this some kind of modern day,
damsel-in-distress scenario?

“One more thing,” I told her. “You’re sleeping on the
sofa. The guys can have the bed. We have to keep an eye on each other, at least
for this first night.”

The guys looked shocked when I told them they could
share the bed and Beth and I would sleep shifts on the sofa. They protested at
first, saying they couldn’t kick us out of our own bed. They were so nice about
it that it made me feel awkward after telling them so many times that I didn’t
trust them.

Scott must have known where I was coming from because
he rescued me. “It makes more sense anyway to have two of us in the bed.
Otherwise it would be a girl in the bed, a guy on the couch, and someone would
get the floor. If one of you wants to volunteer to sleep on the floor, be my
guest.” The conversation ended there.

Everyone but Paulo and I had a glass of wine and went
to bed. Then, Paulo and I dragged two chairs out into the foyer so we could see
both the door and the window to the fire escape. Even though the sofa was far
from the boarded-up window, Beth insisted that she would never be able to sleep
there. The hallway was too narrow for the sofa so I told her it was either the
living room or the floor in the hallway. I was tired and grumpy already so I
gave her another half glass of wine and she went to sleep on the sofa in only a
few minutes.

Although we had the window boarded up, I didn’t want
to light a candle or a flashlight that might keep Beth awake on the couch.

Paulo and I sat in silence for a while, listening to
the building settle and Beth breathe.

Finally he began to whisper, “Where are you from?”

“Virginia.”

“How’d you end up in New York?”

“It was the only place I could get a job that would
pay my loans after law school. I regretted it from the beginning, but that was
nothing compared to now. What about you?”

“I’m from Colombia. My father made the
mistake of joining a teachers’ union and was killed by the one of the
paramilitaries when I was a kid. My mom emptied their bank account and bribed
her way and mine to the United
States.”

“Wow, is she still here?”

“No. She barely spoke English when we got to New York, but she worked
hard all her life to make sure I had everything. When I graduated high school
she kept pestering me to go to college. I messed around for three of four years
then finally gave in. She was ecstatic. She had already set up a college
savings account so I could go to school at NYU. After I started my freshman
year she told me ‘Paulo, I am Colombian, I’m going back to help Colombia.’ So
she went back.”

“That’s pretty amazing, but sucks for us. She sounds
like a tough lady. I’d like to have her with us here in New York.”

Paulo continued. “After she had been there two and a
half months, my aunt called me frantic, saying Mamma hadn’t come home. I threw
a few things into a bag and got in a cab to LaGuardia where I booked the first
flight to Bogotá. I called my aunt to tell her when to pick me up, but as soon
as I heard her voice I knew what she was going to tell me. She said they had
found my Mamma shot six times at close range. They dumped her on the side of a
road like garbage.”

What does one say to something like that? “My God, I’m
so sorry.”

“That was right after Thanksgiving last year. They
show all these commercials now about how Colombia is safe and the
politicians like to say the FARC and the paramilitaries are gone. It’s not
true. That’s when I decided to be a journalist. There are too many dishonest
people out there, we don’t need a dishonest media too.”

“I hear you there,” I said lamely. I was never good
with moments like that, probably because I myself had lived such a sheltered
life up until then.

It made me realize how much I still had. After all, I
had no family in New York
and I worked so much I didn’t even have that many friends. As far as I knew, my
family was still safe in the outside world.

“Thank you for telling me about yourself.” I still
felt uncomfortable and wished I knew the correct response. I thought Beth would
know. She was more of a people-person than I was.

Paulo shrugged. “I understand your distrust of people.
When there’s nothing to stop them, people do horrible things to each other. I
appreciate that you gave us a chance.”

Here he was telling me he appreciated
me.

“I know this sounds lame and I’m awkward when it comes
to this kind of thing, but if there’s ever anything I can do for you, I’ve got
your back.” I told him.

He smiled. “Thanks. We’re in this together. We’ve all
got each others’ backs.”

He looked at his watch. “After 1:30 already, time to
wake Scott.”

He went into the bedroom and Scott came out rubbing
his eyes. “Do you have any gum? Otherwise you’re not going to want to talk to
me tonight.” Charming.

“No, but there’s some toothpaste in the bathroom.
Brush with your finger or something.”

“Thanks.” He gave me a sleepy smile. Why was I being
so rude? Maybe I just needed some sleep.

After using the toothpaste, Scott came in and sat
down. “Sure you don’t want to take a break? You look exhausted.”

“I’m fine.”

We exchanged niceties. Scott was from California. His dad was
an entertainment lawyer in L.A.
His parents divorced when he was in middle school and his mom moved him to San Diego where she
regularly dated naval officers. He surfed, a fact that made me jealous.

I had tried surfing once, and while I loved the
feeling of standing on the board and catching a wave, I had also gained a new
appreciation for the energy and stamina it took just to paddle out to where the
waves broke.

Finding that he was versed in a topic that interested
me, I asked him to tell me more about surfing. Scott obliged, and told me about
learning to surf and some of the crazy surfers he knew who would go out in the
worst weather to catch the most dangerous waves. He swore he had never been
that stupid.

I felt my eyes getting heavy, but I vowed to stay
awake until Beth’s shift.

The last thing I remembered, Scott was telling me
about bonfires on the beach as I drifted off to sleep.

5

I woke up the next morning on the sofa with sunlight streaming through the
window. The guys had removed some of the boards they had put up the night
before and were holding them at different angles and talking quietly. James
turned and looked at me. “Looks like you survived the night with us after all.”

“Ugh, I’m really sorry, Scott and I didn’t both fall
asleep did we?”

“Nope,” Scott replied. “I guess my conversation really
is that boring. That’s what happens in finance.”

“No, no I was just so tired...how did I get to the
sofa?”

“I waited until James’s shift and then woke Beth and
we helped you stumble to the couch. I guess you don’t remember.”

I felt a little childish. “Thanks for letting me
sleep.”

“No worries.” Scott turned back to his work. They were
working out a way to create a protective door over the window so that we could
use the fire escape during the day or in case of an emergency, but could still
board it up securely at night. I felt it was something I should have learned
from
Little House on the Prairie
.

The guys decided they had the makeshift door fixed
enough that we could go out for the day, but made us promise to keep an eye out
for large hinges they could use to make the door even more practical.

We started to head down to the Village where Paulo and
James lived. I felt that everyone had reached a silent understanding that we
were all going to stick together and we needed to decide which building we were
going to stay in and who was going to have to move.

We were walking and talking and keeping an eye out for
anything useful when Paulo stopped. “Listen.”

I heard the distant humming. It sounded like a rapidly
approaching helicopter. At first it was a shock to remember that there was an
outside world. It had only been a couple of weeks since we were quarantined,
but it felt like a lifetime.

My next thought was of rescue. I thought they had
probably waited for everything to calm down so it would be safe for a rescue
team to come in and evacuate the survivors.

We moved toward the sound, craning our necks and
trying to find the helicopter among the silent skyscrapers. We found it, flying
low over the city, and it seemed like the people in the helicopter spotted us
as well because the helicopter moved toward us and dropped several leaflets
over our heads.

Surely they weren’t here to remind us not to cross the
river again.

James reached a leaflet first. “It’s news from the
outside.”
Thank you Captain Obvious.
“It says the virus has been
quarantined in Manhattan
and all survivors are to meet in Bryant Park today at noon for more
information.”

“More information?” Beth asked. “What does that even
mean? Are they going to evacuate us or what?”

“It doesn’t say.” James frowned. “Do you think they
can have any idea what we’re going through down here? How can that be all the
information they give us?”

“I guess the only thing to do is to go,” Beth said.

Paulo furrowed his eyebrows. “I don’t like it. Why
would they ask us to meet in Bryant Park without even telling us why?”

“You think they would hurt us?” Scott asked.

“Maybe it’s my background, but I don’t trust them.”
Paulo shook his head. “They’ll do what’s best and easiest for them politically.
End of story.”

“And you think it might be easiest just to sweep us
all under the rug and start fresh with New
York?” I asked.

“Probably not likely,” Paulo sighed. “But you can
understand my paranoia, and you never know. People like to think it can never
happen to them, not in their country. But it can and it does. We have to go
though.”

He was right. There was really no question of us not
going. Any chance of rescue or news from the outside world was worth the risk.
As it was already close to noon we put off going to the Village and headed back
toward Midtown and Bryant Park.

Unlike some of the other parks in the city, Bryant
Park had not been used to burn bodies. Bryant Park remained relatively clean
with only some litter and a few mangled bodies around the edges.

When we arrived, I saw small groups of people huddled
in different corners of the park. It was surreal. I had already become used to
being isolated and I’d forgotten there were probably more people like me,
hiding in their apartments for the past two weeks.

By the time the helicopter came to Bryant Park there
were about three dozen people there. I saw only two children: a little boy who
looked about four, and a little girl who looked about six or seven. They were
standing with a man who I assumed was their father.

The helicopter circled a few times as if it might
land. I thought it would land, but instead it dropped a large package strapped
to a parachute. The package landed neatly near the center of the park. Then
another package strapped to a parachute was dropped and landed near the first.
After the packages landed, the helicopter flew away.

At first no one stepped forward.

Scott finally started to move toward the packages, but
then another man came striding confidently across the grass from the south side
of the park. He walked right up to the first package. Scott paused and then he,
James, and Paulo walked over. Slowly, the rest of us followed.

The first package contained water bottles and packages
of dried fruit and nuts. People began snatching at them and arguing.

I ignored them because I saw Scott and the new guy had
opened something even more wonderful: two radios. The new guy began fidgeting
with one of them and it made a hissing noise, then squealed loudly. Everyone
who had been fighting over the food grew quiet.

The new guy kept fidgeting with the radio but couldn’t
get it to work. “Can I help?” Paulo asked. “I think I can make it work.”

“I know how to do this,” the man snapped.

We all looked at each other. Just the kind of person
we wanted to be stuck on an island with.

The man appeared to be in his late 30s and had dirty
blond hair. It appeared he had even been taking the time to shave lately. I
didn’t have time for his ego.

“What’s your name?” I asked the man.

He looked startled that I had spoken to him so nicely.
“Seth.”

“I’m Ailis, this is Paulo.” I picked up the second
radio and handed it to Paulo. “Whoever makes contact first wins a bag of trail
mix.” I had stopped smiling.

Paulo had the radio working immediately.

“Must be something wrong with mine,” Seth mumbled.

We heard a male voice over the radio, breaking through
static. “Manhattan, Manhattan, do you read?” He sounded very
serious. “Manhattan, Manhattan, come in.”

Paulo answered, “Yes, this is Manhattan. We’re the plague survivors, can
you hear me?”

“Manhattan
is that you?”

Everyone was craning to hear. “Yes, yes!” Paulo said
excitedly. “We’re in Bryant Park in Manhattan,
is someone coming for us?”

“Manhattan,
how many survivors do you have?”

Paulo looked around. “Looks like about forty or so.”

There was a long silence.

“Only forty?”

Paulo surveyed the area again. “Yeah, more or less.”

Another long silence. “Is anyone infected?”

“No, no. If you’ve been infected you can’t come out in
the sun. The vampires are all underground or inside right now. It’s safe to
land in the daylight, there’s no danger at all to the rescuers.”

Another man came on the radio. His voice carried more
authority. “Manhattan,
what supplies do you need? Over.”

I felt my heart drop. I hoped against hope, but I
suspected I knew where this was going. I could tell by the look on his face
that Paulo did too, but most of the people looked puzzled.

Paulo played dumb. “What do you mean what supplies do
we need? We need to get out of here. There are only forty people, so it won’t
take more than a few helicopter trips.”

I thought I heard the man sigh. “Manhattan, we are unable to send a rescue
operation at this time.”

“What do you mean? Did the infection spread? Are
people outside New York
sick?”

“No, thank God.”

There were sighs of relief and even some smiles amongst
the group.

But Paulo wasn’t smiling. “Well then what the hell do
you mean? Say it straight why don’t you?”

“Look buddy, what’s your name?”

“Paulo.”

“Look Paulo.” The man pronounced it more like “Pal-O.”
“Look Pal-O, I know this is tough to hear, but we are going to have to keep you
guys quarantined a little longer.”

A collective wail rose up.

The man with the two kids snatched the radio from
Paulo, “What the hell do you mean quarantined? Quarantined for what? We aren’t
sick.”

“I’m sorry.” The man sounded genuinely sorry. “We
don’t understand this disease yet and we can’t risk infecting the rest of the
country.”

“Holy shit.” The man with the kids practically dropped
the radio. “Holy shit, I can’t believe this.”

“Listen,” the radio man said. “We’re going to take
everyone’s name and contact information for their families so we can notify
next of kin you’re alive.”

I assumed my parents thought I was dead at that point.
They probably had no hope.

“My family is
here
!” the man with the two
children yelled. “I have two kids here
goddamnit
, the
only two kids that survived this thing. And their mother...” he held the radio
up as if to whisper, but the kids were already starting to cry, “...their
mother is probably down in the subway somewhere drinking rat blood.” He started
to choke up and Paulo took the radio back from him as the man grabbed both his
children and hugged them close to him.

Paulo continued. “Why don’t you evacuate us and keep
us quarantined somewhere else?
Anywhere else
. There’s no need to keep us
here.”

“Can’t be done,” the man said.

“Why not?”

“We don’t have the facilities, the resources. Besides,
how would we get you to another location without infecting your rescuers? We
don’t even know whether this is airborne.”

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” I
shouted. “You can blow up bridges and block tunnels and build a bloody wall
along two rivers in just a couple of days, and you can’t find a place to put
forty people who aren’t even sick? If this were airborne we’d all be sick by
now. You can send us to an old leper colony if you want to.”

The man on the radio seemed unsure what to say next.
“Look, it will only be for a short time. Like I said, we just don’t know enough
about the virus. Maybe you all are just lucky enough to be immune. You could
still be carriers.”

“Every vampire I’ve seen has bite marks,” I said
slowly as if talking to a very slow child. “This isn’t airborne.”

“How many vampires have you been that close to…to see
the bite marks I mean?” the man asked. He sounded truly interested.

“Plenty,” I lied. “I’ve seen enough to know it isn’t
airborne.”

“Well that’s very interesting,” the man said, “we’ll
take it under advisement. For now, you must stay the course. This will take
just a little longer.”

“How long?” Paulo snapped. He looked as if he had no
patience left.

“We don’t know, our medical teams are working on it.”

“How long?”

“Maybe a week or so.”

Part of what made me a good lawyer in the real world
is the fact that I can detect even very low quantities of bullshit in people’s
voices, even in their writing. I could detect large quantities of bullshit in
this guy’s voice. I knew we were going to be in this for the long haul.

“You’re a liar and a
sonofabitch
,”
shouted James. I was surprised he hadn’t spoken before that point.

“Look, Pal-O, there’s nothing we can do right now and
there’s certainly nothing
you
can do about your situation, you
understand?” The authority was back in the man’s voice. “So you can either give
us a list of supplies you would like us to drop off—and let me tell you, we’ll
drop supplies for you every day if you need them—or you can bitch and moan and
call me names and we’ll just turn this radio off until tomorrow when you’ve had
time to think about it.” James looked as if he might spit at the radio.

“Thanks dad,” I mumbled, but then just thinking about
my dad made me want to cry. I turned away from the radio and saw that Scott was
looking at me. I was embarrassed, and looked down at the ground.

“Fine,” Paulo said through gritted teeth. “Give us a
few minutes,
buddy
.”

We came up with a list of items, and the man promised
they would be dropped off that very day. We asked for food, water bottles,
flashlights, batteries and the like. I also put in a special request for a
knife sharpener or whatever would best sharpen a hatchet. The strangers gave me
some funny looks for that one, but my little group nodded in approval.