Family Page 5

  And then, an odd thought. The old DVD set she and Jack had watched. He was always a history buff and, with her being a history teacher, it was that subject that brought them together.

  Had to be unusual for an NYPD cop.

  And they watched the mammoth series on the Roosevelts.

  But they were most engrossed by the incredible story of FDR, his battle against a crippling disease that should have eliminated him from any chance of being president.

  Immobilized by polio, and yet he would be the leader to rally the nation to act to stop what seemed the inevitable Nazi Empire.

  They told him he’d never walk again.

  Just like she had just been told: You will never run again.

  And yet, in a fashion, with difficulty, he walked.

  To inspire a nation, never yielding to his disease, not when the world needed all he could give.

  Just like my kids, she thought.

  They need so much from me.

  They may need to hear what she has just learned. But they will also need to know that she will do whatever she can to overcome that challenge.

  Whatever it would take.

  It was a discussion that would have to happen. But not today, not tomorrow. But eventually.

  Because, she thought, not having that speed to run could force terrible choices on all of them.

  With that thought, she shivered.

  “Cold?” the doctor said.

  She shook her head even as she pulled the blanket closer to her neck.

  “I’m okay. And thank you for telling me. It’s something I needed to know.”

  The doctor smiled. “And it’s nothing you need to deal with—or think about—until you get much better. Just want you to…”

  He stood up.

  “…continue the good work you’ve been doing here, hmm?”

  She heard in his voice that the idea of them leaving lay in some distant future.

  She’d have to tell the kids that. They’d have to be patient.

  They’d simply have to give her and her wound a little more time.

  At least… that’s what she thought she’d be telling them.

  But plans, she had learned, could always change.

  “Rest up,” Dr. Martin said, leaving the room.

  And with serious things to consider, to weigh, Christie shut her eyes.

  Dinner soon, and then, coming so early, a wintry darkness. A moonless night.

  And that fact seemed important.

  And it was.

  CHAPTER 9

  Night—Part One

  “Let’s get out of here,” Simon said.

  Kate saw that her brother had hardly put a dent in whatever glop constituted dinner tonight.

  She leaned forward so she’d only be heard by him, though no one had even tried to sit near them.

  But Kate certainly felt the eyes of some of the men—all different ages—on her as she slowly spooned the soupy dinner into her mouth.

  “Simon, you need to finish that.”

  Simon looked down at his plate.

  “This stuff sucks.”

  It was actually funny the way he said it. But his boldness, and the fact that he was not whispering, also worried her.

  “Simon, they won’t be happy if you don’t finish it all. Food’s precious. If we waste it, then…”

  He used his spoon to make a rounded pile float in the air, then with a tilt, let it slip off the spoon onto the larger mound on the plate.

  “This is food?”

  She grinned at that.

  Except… now was not the time.

  “Please, just eat it, then we can see Mom.”

  “Right. And try to stay out of everyone’s way.” Then he looked around. “I hate this place.”

  “We’ve talked about this. You know—”

  “Okay, okay.” And he dug his spoon into the food and with dopey grin began eating it as fast as he could. “Yum!”

  *

  A man walked into Christie’s room without knocking.

  “Here for the tray,” he said.

  He had a gun slung over his shoulder. Rumpled jeans, stained flannel shirt.

  Guess everyone pitches in here.

  Which is what she would need do as well.

  That is, if they ended up staying.

  “Thanks,” she said, to which the man said nothing. He just grabbed the tray and walked out.

  Nice talking to you as well.

  She felt a bit of what her kids must be experiencing.

  Such a cutting coldness.

  And then Kate and Simon came in, Simon plopping on the bed with a thump that showed that he wasn’t terribly aware of her healing wound.

  Kate stood by the bed.

  “Ate all my dinner!” Simon said. “Isn’t that right, Kate?”

  She saw her daughter nod, then roll her eyes. Kate these days being sister, stand-in mom, and maybe—Christie guessed—guardian.

  “That he did. Though not before saying pretty loudly that it ‘sucks.’”

  “’Cause it did. You have that same stuff, Mom? Gross.”

  Actually, Christie didn’t think it was much worse than the meals she patched together back in their home on Staten Island.

  “Was filling at least,” she said.

  Simon patted his belly. “Yup, sure is. I’m full of the gloppy stuff now.”

  And then—amazing moment—all three of them laughed.

  Looking at each other, laughing.

  As if that was somehow impossible.

  And when the laughing stopped, they talked—not about anything important, not about the future. But about the people here, how long and boring the days were… before Christie suggested checking out the room’s TV that, in the evening, showed DVDs.

  Tonight, it was E.T.

  Perfect, Christie thought. Especially when they sat close and got lost in the plight of a little alien gardener who just…

  And this would always make her cry at the end. How could it not?

  …just… wanted to go home.

  *

  A small nightlight sat below Christie’s hospital bed.

  But the large flood lights that covered the fence and parking lot outside made the windows—even with blinds closed—glow brightly.

  Each night, she woke a couple of times.

  Parched, she guessed, needing a sip of the now-tepid water. Or maybe tossing in the bed, and triggering a little pull on her right leg, on the bandage, and her eyes would open wide.

  Each night, the same thing.

  Now she woke up, not sure why. She saw the bright, milky light from outside, the small glow below her bed.

  But she noticed something.

  Not thirsty.

  And her leg felt fine.

  She just woke up.

  But this felt familiar.

  Like the way she used to wake up when Jack worked nights, when she was alone with the kids—and suddenly alert as she strained to catch every sound inside and outside the house.

  Alert to anything that… shouldn’t be there.

  This was exactly like that.

  Then, she thought she heard a noise outside. Faint sounds. Movement. Then—just barely heard—a hacking cough.

  Just people outside.

  She closed her eyes.

  Nothing.

  She just woke up for some reason. Who knew why?

  And then—even with her eyes tightly shut, struggling to keep out the glow from the window, the massive floods outside—the light vanished.

  All the light was gone.

  Her eyes shot open again.

  Christie lay in the darkness. A total darkness, nothing from outside now, the big lights dark on this moonless night.

  And the little glow below her bed—also gone.

  Now she easily heard voices, people outside, in the corridor. Not making out the words, but the tone so clear. Excitement, panic, yells.

  Her heart raced. The lights were off.

  Because�
��

  Because…

  The power was down. Had to be! And if the power was down, then the fence was dead. Yes, and could easily be climbed over.

  Christie raised herself up using her elbows, not that she could see anything, do anything.

  The voices outside continued until…

  With a POP, the lights came back on, and her room was again bathed by the brilliant white stripes that cut into the hospital room. The small night light just to the side of the headboard, also on.

  Right. The generator came on. Or maybe the backup. Nothing to worry about.

  But then, she heard other sounds from outside. A howling, an animal sound… then a terrible crackling noise almost as loud as the pained howls.

  She could guess what that was.

  Some of them—the Can Heads who gathered at night—had jumped onto the fence.

  And now, power back on, they were pinned to that fence as the electricity coursed through their bodies, killing them, cooking them.

  Somehow the thought of them being killed wasn’t comforting at all.

  But at least the lights were back on, power restored, and the voices in the corridor suddenly calmed.

  And then—when that thought should have brought peace, should have made her heart stop racing so fast—the lights went off again.

  Only now, they stayed off.

  Christie tried counting.

  Some magical process that might hasten the generator kicking in again. Her slow counting matched to steady breathing that somehow was supposed to bring the power back.

  By the time she got to twenty.

  Then:

  Okay, to thirty.

  Thirty-five… forty.

  Soon.

  The room remained as black as a closet sealed tight.

  She heard gunshots. So many guns firing, over and over.

  Into the darkness, she thought.

  The people out there firing into the pitch-black darkness.

  She knew what she had to do now. Because this wasn’t simply about her being stranded in this dark room.

  My kids are out there somewhere.

  Their brief respite from the madness of this world suddenly over.

  She kicked the covers off, the sheet. Then she slowly swung her legs around. Bare feet touched the chilly linoleum floor. Slippers somewhere, but how could she find them?

  Her hospital gown absurdly cold.

  And as she stuck out her hands to search for the door out of the room, each icy step seemed matched to the gunshots.

  Then yells.

  No. Screams.

  God. Screams.

  She banged into a wall, then with another step her left foot rammed into the leg of a chair.

  But she hurried, stumbling, fast as she could.

  Thinking… screams.

  CHAPTER 10

  Night—Part Two

  “Simon!” Kate said in the darkness.

  His answer steady. Only feet away, but the darkness making his voice seem as though it came from a deep well to nowhere.

  “Simon. You okay?”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “Simon!”

  “Kate. What happened? They said they had—”

  “I know, I know. A backup generator.”

  “We can’t just sit here.”

  She heard movement, Simon out of his bed. The rattle of a belt buckle. Simon getting dressed in the dark.

  Kate didn’t know what to do. The gunshots outside sounded like firecrackers shooting, random, sporadic. Over and over, matched to the voices—men mostly, but also women.

  Yelling, barking words.

  She knew Simon was right.

  She too slid out of bed and started getting dressed, picking up jeans, a sweater, then using a foot to feel around for her sneakers.

  “I’m going out there,” Simon said.

  “No,” Kate said, stupidly shaking her head. “Wait for me. Just a minute.”

  But—in the darkness—the door opened. She felt a draft as she nudged one sneaker, then bent down and began unlacing it so she could put it on.

  Why did I do that? she thought. Should always leave them unlaced. Should always be ready.

  And when she had both sneakers on, feet sockless since the socks seemed to have rolled away into nowhere, she started toward the open door now tinged with a bit of reflective light.

  Flashlights outside.

  Just enough to see.

  She thought of Simon. And then her mother.

  Thinking: What should I do?

  *

  Simon stopped as soon as he got to the hallway. He could see the entrance lobby down at the other end.

  And the people there had flashlights all pointed out at the door and windows, just a bit of light outlining the people crouched there.

  But enough light, so that Simon could see the cloud of smoke hanging over them as they kept on firing.

  Then two dark shadows ran toward Simon.

  For a moment he thought that they were coming for him. But after nearly smashing into him, at the last moment one cut left, the other to Simon’s right, racing down the hallway.

  I know where they’re going, thought Simon.

  To the wall, to the far end of the long corridor.

  Where that wall of junk was supposed to stop them.

  But with the fence down, with all this darkness, could they be stopped?

  Then he had the strangest thought.

  Only months ago it would have seemed so… crazy. Now, it made perfect sense.

  That thought…

  I need to get my gun from them.

  He started walking down the hallway, his eyes locked on the barely lit mass of people shooting and shooting and shooting.

  *

  Kate hit the corridor and didn’t see her brother. Her mother’s room was down in the other direction, farther into the darkness.

  Is that where he went?

  Too dark to see anything.

  Or did Simon go up there, where everyone was fighting…

  The invasion?

  For a moment she was paralyzed, unable to decide.

  And then, she spun around, and—arms out to her side so she could feel a wall if she got close—she slowly made her way to her mother’s room.

  *

  Christie turned around, staring into the darkness of the hallway. Gunshots echoed from down there as well.

  Both ends of this corridor under siege.

  And all she could think about were her kids. But even with that driving her, it took only a few steps, holding on to the nearest wall, for the pain in her leg to intensify.

  The walker had been left behind, forgotten in her panic.

  She thought of yelling, calling out their names, but the explosive echo of the gunshots would make that pointless.

  Another painful step in the dark, toward the distant light of the lobby area with flashes of the gunshots and the reflection of flashlights, both pointed at the enemy outside.

  Then, another step, eyes watering.

  Only this time someone fell into her, and Christie reeled back, starting to tumble to the ground.

  When that same person grabbed her and stopped the fall.

  “Mom!”

  Despite the pain, Christie felt as if she had just been given a gift.

  “Kate! Kate, you’re okay. What’s going on?”

  Such a stupid question. Silly. It was obvious what was going on.

  “They’re attacking. Something happened to the electricity, the fence.”

  Which now meant, Christie knew, that this building had just turned into a terrible trap.

  Then, even as she was so glad to have her daughter helping her stand, supporting her, “Simon? Where’s Simon?”

  “I-I don’t know!”

  Christie’s voice turned harsh. She asked so much of Kate, but that was the way it had to be.

  “You don’t know where your brother is?”

  “It was so dark. He left the room. I thou
ght he came down here to you.”

  Christie felt as if she was about to bark at her daughter again. But she knew that was the fear now coursing through her.

  She took a breath, as much to calm herself as for the pain.

  “Okay, we… we have to find him. He didn’t come to me, so he must have… gone down there.”

  She couldn’t see her daughter’s face, just felt her arms helping her stand, Kate’s voice close.

  “I know. But you shouldn’t walk down there.”

  Christie was about to argue, to demand that Kate get her the hell down there.

  But then—another breath, another thought—and she knew she was right.

  “All right. You’re right. But you have to—”

  “I will, Mom, I’ll get him, bring him back to you. But you should stay in your room.”

  And Christie had another thought.

  My gun.

  Taken in the frantic minutes when they came into the hospital. Now leaving her even more defenseless than her weakened leg.

  Kate had pivoted her and started the walk back to the room.

  “Kate, you need to get a gun. Somehow. Ask someone…”

  Though Christie knew that the people here—like people everywhere—would be reluctant to return a weapon. Weapons, ammunition. As important as air and water.

  So sick, she thought.

  “I will, Mom. I’ll find Simon, get a weapon, come back.”

  They reached the door to the room, the only open door, the door’s outline barely visible due to the light outside made by the battery of flashlights trained on the attackers.

  As Christie hobbled back to the bed, her eyes were on the window.

  Just a window, she thought

  An ordinary window that could break, could be smashed.

  She’d be sitting here, alone, hoping Kate would be okay, hoping that she’d find Simon, and somehow—what, like magic?—get a weapon for them.

  Kate eased her down.

  “Go,” she said. “I’m fine. Just go now.”

  “Yes,” Kate said.

  And then Christie felt that terrible moment when her daughter’s hands came off her, that human contact with her child, now a woman… gone.

  But Christie thought only one thing.

  Hurry, Kate, Hurry.

  CHAPTER 11

  Night Ends

  Kate ran down the hallway.