Wet Work: The Definitive Edition (23 page)

“
Thanks.”

Roger eased the car forward past the military truck stationed at the bridge’s entrance. The lane heading into Manhattan was empty. It was weird; he’d never seen the bridge like this before Even late at night both directions were usually busy.

As he drove over the river, he noticed thick black plumes of smoke drifting over Manhattan. The news had said there was a major fire up in Harlem, and judging by the amount of smoke it must be an inferno.

He slowed as the exit ramp brought him down onto the lower East Side.

He came to another checkpoint, and the guards waved him down.

He explained why he was on the road.

The pale-faced corporal in charge nodded.

“
Keep to the main avenues. I suggest you head up the Bowery to Third. There’s trouble in Alphabet City. Try and steer clear of the area.”

A flurry of gunfire punctuated the soldier’s advice.

“
Thanks,” Roger said, and drove on.

He stopped at the red light at the junction of Delancy, the sudden scream of a fire truck making him jump.

The large red vehicle shot through the intersection, the driver doing at least forty. As Roger looked to the right in the direction of Avenues A, B, C and D, he saw a dense funnel of black, acrid smoke rising over the old buildings. Tenants were looking out their windows.

The light changed and he took his foot off the break.

His attention distracted by the smoke and the sirens, he didn’t see the Mercedes barreling towards him.

The car hit Roger straight on at sixty m.p.h., and the Toyota twisted around like a leaf in a strong wind.

He cried out as his head smashed against the windscreen, and the Camry flipped onto its roof.

Roger briefly registered the world turning upside down before his neck snapped on impact, killing him instantly.

BROOKLYN.

6:31 P.M.

The riot started in the street as Sandy was listening to Dan Rather.

Shots rang out, followed by an explosion.

She ran to the window, Jared following in her wake.

Sandy pulled him back as she saw flames blanket a car parked opposite the house. Then three youths, their features covered by head scarves, ran down the street. One of then halted, turned. Sandy saw him light a Molotov cocktail and throw it up the street as more shots rang out. Gunfire cracked loudly through the windows.

“
Get down!” she snapped.

Jared squirmed in her arms, fighting to see what was happening.

One of the youths dropped suddenly as another volley of bullets flared.

A police car tore down the street. Sandy ducked down as more shots rang out.

Jared began to cry.

“
Shh, it’s okay,” she said, holding him.

“
I want Mommy,” he sobbed.

“
It’s okay, it’s okay,” she continued, rocking him.

She dared to peer up over the window sill and saw more youths running down the street after the police car.

Another explosion came from up the block, and the police car’s siren was cut-off in mid-wail.

“
Come on, let’s get away from the window,” she said, stroking Jared’s head, trying to sound as calm as possible.

As they crawled towards the hallway, a second police car screeched down the street. More shots were fired.

When they reached the hallway, she stood up, pulling Jared with her as she made for the kitchen. The door to the yard was unlocked.

“
Stand here.”

She ran to the door, slipping the bolt in place.

Jared continued to cry.

“
Come on upstairs. It’s okay.”

She took his hand and led him towards the bedroom.

NEW YORK.

6:27 P.M.

Red.

Why’s everything red?

(Dreaming)

No! I’m not dreaming!

(God, no)

Red.

Liz Weldon slipped in and out of consciousness as a veil of blood from a wound on her right temple flowed over her eyes.

Rocking…

(rockabyebaby…)

What?

Red.

(the world’s red, red all over, what’s black and white and red all over?…)

Blood.

(red)

Blood.

Bloo…

The Camry lay on its roof, the windshield a spider’s web of shattered glass through which the fires burning in the buildings of midtown Manhattan pulsed in incandescent rhythms like the beat of Liz’s heart. She opened her eyes to the red haze and blinked, the salty liquid stinging her pupils.

(God…wha…)

Vague shapes moved around the car, shambling, staggering, strobing the red-tinged darkness; screams, shouts, sirens clashing in the hot night air. Smells assailed her nose: burning predominated—burning wood, rubber, pork.

Pork?

(flesh…human flesh is…supposed to…smell like…)

Her awareness faded like a radio tuner slipping between stations.

Until cold hands reached in through the twisted door frame to claw her face.

She screamed as nails broke skin.

“
Roger! What’s happe—”

Rough, callused fingers found her throat.

And for a second she came face to face with—

Elvis.

A gray, unhealthy, dirt-smeared vision of The King grabbing her collar, pulling her pain-racked body against the seat belt which held her suspended upside down in the crushed spider’s web of the trashed car.

And she screamed again.

Screamed as loudly as her weakened lungs would allow.

“
Mine!”

“
No, mine!”

“
Fuck off!”

“
Love me tender, honey,” a rasping voice hissed.

“
Mine!”

“
Fuc—”

Liz’s world rocked suddenly, and exploded into stars as her head bashed against cold metal.

Roger! Where are you! What’s
—

She felt herself pulled from the Camry, tarmac scraping the skin from her back.

So cold…

“
Get the fuck off!”

She sensed rather than saw the figures fighting around her as the final darkness descended.

Then the feeding began in earnest.

ALEXANDRIA.

9:23 P.M.

As soon as he shut the door to the house, Nick collapsed on the couch.

He glanced around the living room, realizing it was probably the last time he would see the inside of his house. Orders had been issued that all officers were to move into their station houses. As each shift came off-duty, they were issued instructions—told to go home to get clean clothes and their loved ones if they had them.

All right for some. All he had to come home to was an empty house.

Then he noticed the red light on the answer machine was flashing. He reached over, pressing the replay button.

It was Sandy. Liz was very ill. Roger had taken her to the hospital, but that had been hours ago and she’d heard nothing. There had been a riot in the street. She was safe, but scared. She’d tried calling the precinct but had gotten the busy signal. She prayed he was safe and would call her.

The chaos appeared to have no end. He’d thought that Sandy might be safer in New York than in Washington, but now with news of rioting there, too, he was no longer sure. No one could see the big picture. Word at the precinct was that the Government had censored the news media, that they were trying to downplay the real situation so the population didn’t panic. But he doubted that any urban area could be safe. Maybe out in the countryside…

The countryside.
Yes, that was where she should be, not the city. Where they both should be.

He picked up the phone and dialed Liz’s number. It was the first opportunity he’d had to call Sandy since last night.

Yes, she should get the hell out of New York and head for Maryland to her brother’s farm. Which was probably easier said than done with the curfew in force.

The receiver at the other end rang and rang.

By the fifteenth ring he began to worry.

BROOKLYN.

9:23 P.M.

Sandy sat on the bedroom floor and stared at the bedroom wall.

The rococo patterns in the pale blue wallpaper faded in and out of focus as images swirled, blurred, faded, coalesced. It was soothing. When she looked at anything else, she saw the faces of the people she’d seen shot in the street. So she kept looking at the wallpaper, trying not to think.

Somewhere a telephone was ringing.

The phone is ringing.

Her eyes flicked away from the wallpaper to Jared sleeping on the bed. Poor kid, he was scared senseless and—

The phone’s ringing!

Sandy snapped out of her benumbed state, pushed herself up from the floor and made for the barricaded door.

“
Damn.”

She pushed against the dresser, but it hardly budged. It had taken her nearly five minutes to maneuver it into place, and her back muscles still aching from the weight.

“
Move, you bastard.”

The dresser shifted an inch.

The phone continued to ring as she paused again, breaking a nail on her left hand.

Another inch.

Nick. It had to be Nick.
Please let it be Nick!

“
Move!’

The dresser shifted another inch.

And the phone cut off in mid-ring.

“
Dammit!”

She sagged against the wall, close to tears.

Why hadn’t she brought the phone up from downstairs? She’d been in shock—was still in shock, goddamn it! —and hadn’t thought things through.

The call had to be Nick responding to the message she’d left earlier. She sniffed back her tears. She would get the phone.

Sandy pushed against the dresser. It inched over slightly.

She pushed again, starting to sweat.

BROOKLYN.

9:25 P.M.

Dick Austin gazed out the window at the full moon shining in the night sky. It looked beautiful, but cold. As cold as Ruthie and little Michael’s bodies lying in the next room.

It was over. His life had disappeared into someone else’s nightmare.

The dead were walking, and his family were dead.

Would they, too, get up and walk?

He didn’t know. He didn’t know about anything anymore. It was all just an endless nightmare.

There was no point in going on. New York had stolen his dreams. And now his wife and son were gone because of some weird illness.

Michael was the first to die. Poor kid had come down with measles over the weekend, and Ruthie already had a cold.

How could you die from measles and a cold? Didn’t make sense. You couldn’t die from a cold, unless you had AIDS and the cold turned to pneumonia.

Dick looked at the moon, unconsciously humming a song—”Goodbye, Ruby Tuesday”—to himself.

Suicide. There was no point living anymore. He’d kill himself; yes, that seemed the only sensible thing left to do.

If Ruthie and Michael came back, then maybe he’d come back, too, and they could all be happy and dead together. And if he didn’t revive and they did…Well, never mind. He wouldn’t know, he’d just be worm food.

He picked up the straight razor from the kitchen table and went to unlock the door to the yard. If he was going to end it, he might as well do it sitting on the grass under the beautiful, emotionless moon. At least he’d see something untainted by death while his life leaked out onto the grass.

He sat down, crossing his legs. In the distance he could hear sirens. At least they weren’t right outside the house like they’d been for most of the evening. The gunfire and explosions had died, too. Not that he really cared. He hadn’t even watched much of the riot from his grandstand seat at the front of the house. It didn’t matter.

Nothing mattered.

Except running the blade over his wrists.

Dick held the razor over the veins in his left arm.

Then a scream tore out from the house next door.

He didn’t care, he just wanted to die.

A woman’s scream—long and loud.

No! There was too much death.

Dick hurled himself upright and ran for the fence.

BROOKLYN.

9:28 P.M.

Sandy screamed again as the unshaven man slammed her against the wall.

“
Shut up bitch!” he bellowed as he backhanded her.

The force of the blow knocked her to the ground. Light exploded behind her eyes as her head hit the corner of the refrigerator. The man dived on her, tearing at her clothes.

Her right hand clawed his face. He screamed as one of her fingernails ripped his lower eyelid, partially blinding him.

He punched her stomach, winding her.

“
My eye!”

His fist glanced off the side of her head as she tried to roll away from his blows. Another punch caught her on the back of the neck.

As she twisted across the floor she saw a second man appear behind her attacker. Her assailant sensed rather than saw the new invader. But before he could react, he froze as he looked like he was about to throw a punch at the intruder.

A gargling sound suddenly erupted from her attacker’s throat. Warm liquid splashed her face. Sandy blinked the blood out of her eyes as the second man slashed at her attacker, the kitchen light glinting off the blade in his hand.

Dick. His name’s Dick
, flickered through her mind before blackness claimed her.

ALEXANDRIA.

9:30 P.M.

Nick packed the last of his clean clothes in the suitcase. He paused as he caught sight of himself in the bedroom mirror.

The Nick that stared back at him looked older than his twenty-five years. Hardened, bitter. He was starting to look like his father. The thought disgusted him.

Was the old man alive or dead? He didn’t care. Nick hadn’t spoken to his father in over six months. Will Packard never called his son, and Nick made no attempt to contact his father. They had nothing to say to each other. But he hoped the old man died a lonely death. It was what he deserved for the years of suffering the bastard had put his wife through.