We wished the new people good luck as we left and told them about what we heard about the flotilla and they said that they were going to think about the trip and maybe catch the next boat.
We piled on our wagons, DaWayne mounted the back of his horse, and we took the roads that the others suggested. This was the last leg of our journey. We were going to make it. We were almost out.
The Warehouse
The detour that the others suggested took us through a border crossing that consisted of a small wood shack and a gate that had a wooden arm lowered to stop the free flow crossing of cars. DaWayne pushed the arm into the up position and we rode on through. We were back in the United States and in the state of New York.
Upstate New York was so much different than the New York I knew of from the television. It was a beautiful state and I wondered why so many people clustered in the city when there was all this open beauty to be around. I loved camping out under the stars under a patch of oak trees. Things were a lot easier now that we weren't as hungry and we had calories going through our blood. Our aim was better when we encountered zombies and we were more functional. We were alive.
Every sporting goods store we could find we ransacked, finding a box or two of bullets. We stopped at every gun shop and shooting range we could find to beef up our stock. We knew we were going to have to be abundantly stocked if we were going to make it.
After twelve days, the New York City skyline loomed in front of us. It was a ruined, decrepit skyline, one that said tragedy had been a part of its existence. This city was a tomb that the dead could not rest in.
I didn't know what I was expecting, and maybe this was exactly it, but this city was sad. I felt the weight of the town on us. The boat was supposed to be there the day after tomorrow and we made it. All that was left was traveling through the heart of the city to the docks. We didn't have a lot of time left, so that morning, we pushed on. By three in the afternoon we finally reached city limits.
New York was a maze of dizzyingly tall buildings and clogged streets. Everywhere we went, the evidence of the apocalypse was all around us. Broken glass lined the sidewalk like glitter, electronic stores showed signs of looting, and a block later, a broken television covered in long dried blood, showed that at least one of the looters didn't make it out alive.
We saw packs of the dead shuffle down the streets, lost in their path. Many were sitting or lying on the road, in complete energy conservation mode. DaWayne rode ahead of us, keeping an eye out on the dead and pointing us in the direction that had the lowest count of zombies.
I wished that our horses were wearing rubber shoes, because the clomping of their feet were advertisements that we were a complete meals-on-wheels set up.
We had followers, and they weren't there to be friends. We were moving faster than the dead could walk, but not by a whole lot. Everywhere we turned, the dead were there. Their skin sagged on their exposed bones, their eyes were rotting in their sockets, clumps of hair clung to scalp that was torn away from the head. They reached with hands that were missing fingertips, likely lost as they scratched away at barriers.
Drew was 14, and nearly a man, but I still wrapped my arm around him protectively as we sat on the roof of the wagon. I looked over to the lead wagon that Lacey was on and saw her eyes just as wide in horror as my own. She had her three kids inside the wagon, and I knew that she was terrified for them. Jackson and Justin were on top of their wagon behind ours. They wore tough man facades as they kept their rifles on their shoulders, but their eyes mirrored the fear like rest of ours.
Between all the road blocks and dead, the night was fast approaching. We were nowhere near the docks, but we had to stop. We found a fire department that had the doors left open and we decided to use the bays to park our horses in. Once inside, we ran the manual release for the roll up doors and shut ourselves in for the night. We searched the building for the dead and found a few stragglers inside that we disposed of. At least we had some sort of shelter for the night.
The next morning marked the start of our last day in New York, and our last day in the United States. The ship was scheduled for the morning after and we had to make it across the city in the next 24 hours. We weren't sure how we were going to pull this off, but we had to.
We made the hard decision to leave the wagons behind. We were close to our destination, and we weren't going to need everything anymore; however, we were going to close the firehouse doors just as insurance in the event we somehow didn't get on the boat. We decided to pack up the bare essentials into the feed trailer and go with those. We had four horses, so we were going to use three of them as scout horses with DaWayne, Matt, and Lucas as the riders, and have the other pull the trailer. All of the supplies in the trailer were bagged up in twelve back packs, one for each person, in case things grew hairy and we needed to dump the trailer.
It felt dangerous being so exposed. We were wandering the streets of New York, the biggest hot zone, with no shielding from the dead. We wore the leather jackets we brought along with us, some found in the houses of Wilsall, others acquired in trades before we left. We put them on despite the late June heat to protect ourselves from contact with zombies, theorizing we would be safer with the thicker layers. We hadn't worn them since that cold storm a while back, and none of us were happy about wearing them now. All of us wore a head wrap to keep our hair out of grabby hands and to keep sweat against our heads to keep us cooler, and every once in a while we added water to it to get more relief from the heat. Our shirts also were doused under the jackets and while it felt nice, it didn't really do much to cool us down. Heat stroke was a huge risk and it was the second to last thing we needed. The absolute last thing we needed was a swarm of zombies, and every passing moment, we were closer to that happening.
We were fresh meat. We were fresh meat that willingly walked into the lion's den wearing pork chops and 'eat me' signs written in bacon. We might as well have been banging coconuts together to announce our arrival with the horses.
The guys on the horses fanned out to see if there was a less congested path, and while we didn't ever go very far away from them, we were always in fear that the next blind corner they turned was going to be the last time we saw them. Matt and Lucas came back to the group with intense faces. They said that there was no way to move around the packs that they found. When DaWayne made his way back to us he said that there were more than a couple of zombies in his route, but after hearing what Matt and Lucas had to say, it was at least a chance. We talked about the risks, and talked about staying together as a group. This was scary.
We took that chance. We came so far and we weren't going to be able to go back, no matter what. There wasn't really another option.
I kept reminding myself that there really wasn't an alternative when the snarling monsters closed in on us. There wasn't an option when we needed to distract them by letting the horses go.
We weren't being stealth as we trekked through the concrete jungle and the sounds of the hoof beats echoed against the buildings. If we let the horses go, they would make noises in other directions and maybe we would have a chance to slip by. We took our bags out of the trailer and put them on, then unhooked the horse from the trailer. We all said goodbye to our horses and sent them in opposite directions, and I felt sick knowing that they would be pursued by the dead. Right before we let them go I told them to run fast, and I prayed that they would. I hated feeling like I was offering them up as bait, because I knew that was exactly what I was doing. I wanted to convince myself that we all had better chances apart, they weren't being weighed down and forced to go slow for us, and we weren't going to be as obvious. When we didn't hear them anymore, we started walking, with DaWayne in the lead as he took us down the path that he found the most hopeful.
It was DaWayne that took the risk of scouting ahead, checking the blind corners as the rest of us stayed on point checking for threats that were possibly coming up from the other sides. The kids stayed inside the circle created by the adults that were on guard. We had our crossbows out and our guns in easy reach, ready for the horde of undead if they were to become too close. We crept along in silence. We made it several blocks undetected before we came to a dead end in the road. We were going to be able to slide through a pair of tall buildings, but we had no idea what we were going to encounter as we did. DaWayne jogged ahead of the group and turned to give us a smile right before we came to the end of the alley.
He stepped up to the end of the building and leaned to check the path.
It was not clear. There were a few zombies that were standing right against the building, and as soon as he leaned in to check if there was a clear path, they grabbed him. From our perspective, he was jerked away from the alley quickly, and before he could fire off the crossbow in his hands, he yelled out in pain. Trent and Matt took off running to where DaWayne was, discarding the bows for their guns that would fire faster, and soon were opening up fire on the zombies that were tearing him up.
I was running right behind them, and as I ran, I pulled off my backpack and grabbed the first thing that I could find to try to stanch the blood that was pouring from the bite in the right side of DaWayne's shoulder. When he was tangled up with the zombies, his unzipped jacket was pulled off of him, leaving him exposed to the gnashing teeth which then gained purchase in his flesh. His eyes were wide in pain and fear as I pressed a tank top against the hole that was left by the serious bite. I looked over the rest of him and saw that there was another deep wound on his left forearm that went to the bone and another that was in his side. He was bleeding to death in front of me as he groaned in pain.
Through clenched teeth, DaWayne groaned, "Let go." I shook my head vehemently, my brain instantly remembered when Joey told me the same thing in the complex, and I didn't want to lose him the same way. "Please, Cali. Please. It hurts. Let go so I'll bleed to death faster."
I watched DaWayne grow up in the years that we lived in the complex before the zombies came. I watched him turn into a man that would protect his friends at all costs, a man that fell in love with his wife, and go through hell when he lost her. I promised his mother and his father that I would watch out for him and keep him safe and instead, I was sitting on the dirty New York roads after he was torn apart by a bunch of zombies.
I took a deep breath, and realized that no matter what, he was going to turn into a zombie. He was bit and no matter what, he was going to turn; whether I prolonged his life right now, or if I let go. Having finally reached that realization, I let go of the pressure I put on his wound and grabbed his right hand.
"Aww, DaWayne. This wasn't supposed to happen." I held on to him tightly as he gripped my hand back.
"I'm sorry, Cali. I should have looked closer."
"No hon, I shouldn't have let you get so far ahead."
"Tell my mom I'm sorry. Tell her I love her." He groaned as he tried to lift his head to get more comfortable. "Part of me really wishes she was here. I'm a grown man who wants my mom." His breaths came faster and he started to whimper. "I wanted to go to Ireland, but now, all I want is to be home."
DaWayne's eyes grew distant and he looked like he was going to pass out, but right before he did, he whispered, "Am I going to see Shayla and Charity now?"
"Yeah, baby, you're going to see them really soon."
"Good. I miss them." As soon as the words were out of his mouth, his eyes rolled back in his head and his lids closed. His hand went weak in mine and he stopped breathing.
I stood back up from where I was crouched down next to DaWayne. My head was spinning as I stumbled backwards from his body. I knew what was next, that he was going to reanimate and I needed to put him down, but I could hardly stand the idea. I had watched this boy turn into a man; he had become my friend. I couldn’t get myself to do what needed to be done. My eyes were blinded by the tears that were streaming out of them and my breaths came in quick jagged gasps. I stumbled as I stepped backwards and tripped over the zombie that was lying on the ground behind me with a bullet hole between its eyes. Trent caught me before I fell and I felt his arms wrap around me.
Matt was on the ground next to DaWayne with his knife out. In a low voice, I barely made out the words, "I'm sorry kid," as he covered up DaWayne's face with the discarded shirt on the ground. He pushed the knife through the temple of DaWayne's head, making sure that he wouldn't come back as a monster.
We didn't have any time to mourn the loss of our friend. The smell of blood combined with the sounds of gunfire drew the zombies to our location. I pulled the hem of my shirt up over my face and wiped the tears and snot off before I tried to look for my back pack. Drew handed it to me and I took it from him. I wrapped my arms around my son and the flood of tears started again. He reminded me that we needed to go and I nodded. After a quick head count we all started a light run while we could.
Night was falling and we needed to find shelter. We found a sign that said we were still one more mile from the dock. A mile wasn't far, but traveling in the dark wasn't a safe idea. There was a gas station that had roll up doors, with one of the doors half way open. We decided that was the best place we could come across and we ducked inside, clearing it quickly. Once we were sure there were no zombies inside, we rolled the door all the way down and found a metal chunk to wedge in the track so it would stay shut. The room was dark. Very little of the last daylight passed through the grimy windows, so we pulled our flashlights out to see if there was anything left in the gas station's convenience store. There was warm soda and stale potato chips, so we ate them in the stuffy room. We talked about the days where the chips weren't stale and the sodas were so cold it made our throats hurt. We tried to remember the good times from the past and we talked about stupid things like slushed ice to distract from the hurt of the losses.