ever. It is an effort to sit up. I turn and set my sights on our Humvee. It sits there in the distance, at the base of the Flatiron building, on its side, like a dead beast, two of its tires blown off.
Logan. I wonder if he is alive.
I claw myself to my feet with my last ounce of strength, and manage to hobble his way. He is a good fifty yards away, and it feels like I am crossing a desert to reach him.
As I get close, another manhole opens up, and a crazy suddenly sprints right for me, holding out a knife. I reach down and raise my gun, take aim, and shoot him in the head. He lands on his back, dead. I reach down and take his knife, and put it in my belt.
I check over my shoulder as I run, and several hundred yards back I spot a group of crazies charging right towards me. There must be at least fifty of them. And all around them I see more manholes open up, more crazies crawl up from the ground, and come running out of the subway stations, scurrying up from the steps. I wonder if they live in the subway tunnels. I wonder if any subways are even still running.
But there is no time to think about that now. I race for the Humvee and as I reach it, I realize it’s destroyed, useless. I climb up on it and open the driver side door. I brace myself as I look in, praying I don’t see Logan dead.
Luckily, I don’t. He is still sitting in the driver’s seat, buckled, unconscious. There’s blood splattered on the windshield and he’s bleeding from his forehead, but at least he’s breathing. He’s alive. Thank God he’s alive.
I hear a distant noise, and turn to see the crazies getting closer. I need to get Logan out of here-and fast.
I reach in, grab his shirt, and begin to yank him up. But he is heavier than I can manage.
“LOGAN!” I scream.
I pull harder, shaking him, afraid the Humvee will blow any minute. Slowly, he begins to wake. He blinks and looks around. He realizes.
“You OK?” I ask.
He nods back. He looked stunned, frightened, but not seriously injured.
“I can’t get out,” he says back in a weak voice. I see him struggling, and look over and see the twisted metal of his seatbelt buckle.
I climb in, reach over him, and jab at the buckle. It’s jammed. I check back over my shoulder and see the crazies are even closer. Fifty yards, and closing in. I use both hands, pushing it for all I have, sweating from the exertion.
Suddenly I get it. The buckle snaps and the seatbelt goes flying back. Logan, free, rolls over, banging his head. He then begins to pull himself out.
Just as Logan sits up, his eyes suddenly open wide, and he reaches out with one hand and roughly pushes me aside. He raises a gun with the other and takes aim just past my head and fires. The fire is deafening in my ear, which rings badly from it.
I turn and see he’s just killed a crazy, a few feet away. And the others are only thirty yards behind him.
The crazies are closing in fast. And there’s no way out.
TWENTY-SIX
I think quick. I see an RPG lying in the snow, a few feet away from the dead body of a crazy. It looks intact, never fired. I run to it, my heart pounding as I run right towards the mob. I only hope that it works-and that I can figure out how to use it in the next few seconds.
I kneel down in the snow and scoop it up, my hands freezing, and hold it up against my shoulder. I find the trigger and take aim at the mob, now barely twenty yards away. I close my eyes, praying that it works, as I squeeze the trigger.
I hear a loud whooshing noise, and a moment later I’m knocked backwards off my feet. The force of it sends me flying about ten feet, landing flat on my back in the snow. I hear an explosion.
I look up and am shocked at the damage I’ve done: I managed a direct hit on the mob, at close range. Where there were dozens of bodies a second ago, there is now nothing but body parts spread over the snow.
But there is no time to revel in my small victory. In the distance, dozens more crazies crawl up from the subway stations. I don’t have any more RPGs to fire, and don’t know what else to do.
Behind me I hear a noise of smashing metal and turn to see Logan standing on the hood of the Humvee. He lifts his leg and kicks at the machine gun mounted to its hood. Finally, it comes flying off. He picks it up, and a chain of ammo dangles from it, which he wraps over his shoulder. The gun is massive, made to be mounted on a car-not carried-and looks like it weighs over fifty pounds. He holds it with both hands, and even as big as he is, I can see it weighing him down. He runs past me and takes aim at the new group of crazies. He fires.
The noise is deafening, as the machine gunfire rips through the snow. The impact is tremendous: the huge bullets tear the incoming crowd in half. Bodies drop like flies wherever Logan aims the gun. Slowly, finally, the gunfire stops, and the world returns to its still, snowy silence. We have killed them all. For now, at least, there are no more crazies in sight.
I look around, survey this canvas of destruction: there is the destroyed black school bus, taken out by the RPG, the destroyed yellow one, lying on its side, in flames, bodies are everywhere, and our Humvee is a shell beside us. It looks like the scene of an intense military battle.
I look down and follow the tracks where the other bus went, the one with Bree on it. They forked left at the Flatiron.
I chose the wrong bus. It’s not fair. It’s just not fair.
As I study the scene, catching my breath, all I can think of is Bree, those tracks. They lead to her. I have to follow them.
“Bree’s on the other bus,” I say, pointing at the tracks. “I have to find her.”
“How?” he asks. “On foot?”
I examine our Humvee and see that it is useless. I have no other choice.
“I guess so,” I say.
“The Seaport’s at least fifty blocks south,” Logan says. “That’s a long walk-and in dangerous territory.”
“You have any other ideas?”
He shrugs.
“There’s no turning back,” I say. “Not for me, anyway.”
He examines me, debating.
“You with me?” I ask.
Finally, he nods.
“Let’s move,” he says.
*
We follow the tracks, walking side by side in the snow. Each step is a fresh burst of hell, as my calf, so swollen, is beginning to feel like a separate entity from my body. I hobble, doing my best to keep pace with Logan. Luckily, he is weighed down by the heavy machine gun, and is not walking too fast himself. The snow is still coming down in sheets, the wind whipping it right into our faces. If anything, the storm feels like it’s getting stronger.
Every few feet another crazy pops out from behind a building, charges us. Logan fires at them as they come, mowing them down one at a time. They all hit the snow, staining it read.
“Logan!” I scream.
He turns just in time to see the small group of crazies charging us from behind. He mows them down at the last second. I pray that he has enough ammo to get us wherever it is we need to go. My gun only has a single bullet left, and I feel I need to save it for a desperate moment. I feel so helpless, and wish I had rounds of ammo myself.
As we pass another block, several crazies jump out from behind a building and charge us at once. Logan fires, but doesn’t see the other crazy, charging us from the other side. He’s charging too fast, and Logan won’t make it in time.
I pull out the knife from my belt, take aim, and throw it. It lodges in the crazy’s forehead, and he drops to the
