The streets narrow again as we pass through a neighborhood I once knew was as Little Italy. I remember coming here with Dad, having an Italian dinner in one of the small, crowded restaurants packed with tourists. Now, nothing remains. All the storefronts are destroyed. There is nothing but waste. Emptiness.
We trudge on, and walking gets harder as the snow reaches our knees. I am counting the steps now, praying for our arrival. We reach another broad street, and the crooked sign reads “Delancey.” I look to my left, expecting to see the Williamsburg Bridge.
Incredibly, it is gone.
The enormous bridge is demolished, clearly destroyed in some battle, its metal entrance twisting up into the sky like some sort of modern sculpture. All that labor, all the design, all the manpower-all destroyed, and probably at a moment’s notice. For what? For nothing.
I look away in disgust.
We continue further downtown, crossing Delancey. After several more blocks we hit the main artery of Canal Street, and I’m almost afraid to look to my left, to look for the Manhattan Bridge. I force myself to. I wish I hadn’t. Like the Williamsburg, this bridge is destroyed, too, nothing but shards of metal left, twisted and torn, leaving a gaping opening over the river.
We push on, my feet and hands so frozen that I wonder if I have frostbite. We pass through what was once Chinatown, with its taller buildings and narrow streets, now unrecognizable. Like every other neighborhood, it is just an abandoned pile of rubble.
Bowery forks to the right, onto Park Row, and I’m breathing hard as we make it a few more blocks and finally reach a huge intersection. I stop and stare, in awe.
To my right lies the structure that was one City Hall, now lying in ruins, a mere pile of rubble. It is awful. This incredible building, once so grand, is now nothing but a memory.
I’m afraid to turn around, to look at the Brooklyn Bridge behind me-that beautiful work of art that I used to walk across with Bree on warm summer days. I pray that it is still there, that at least one beautiful thing remains. I close my eyes and turn slowly.
I am horrified. Like the other two bridges, it is destroyed. Nothing remains, not even the base, leaving a gaping hole over the river. In its place, where it once stood, there are huge piles of twisted metal sticking up out of the river.
Even more startling, lying there, in the midst of the river, sticking up on a crooked angle, are the remnants of a huge military plane, half submerged, its tail sticking up. It looks like it took a nosedive and never came up. It is shocking see such a huge plane sticking up out of the river, as if a child threw his toy into a bath and never bothered to clean it up.
It is darker, almost twilight, and I can’t go any further. Amazingly, the winds and snow only continue to pick up. The snow is past my knees, and I feel as if I’m being slowly swallowed alive. I know the Seaport isn’t far, but it is too painful to take another step.
I reach up and lay a hand on Logan’s shoulder. He looks over at me, surprised.
“My leg,” I say, through clenched teeth. “I can’t walk.”
“Put your arm over my shoulder,” he says.
I do, and he leans over, places a hand behind my back and holds me tight, propping me up.
We walk together, and the pain lessens. I feel embarrassed, self-conscious: I never want to be dependent on a guy. On anyone. But now, I really need it.
We make a left, walking under the structure that once lead to the bridge, and then make a right onto what was once Pearl Street. It is uncanny. After all this journeying, somehow we have ended up back in the neighborhood I grew up in. It is so weird to be back here. On the day I left, I swore I’d never come back. Never. I was sure that Manhattan would be destroyed, and never even imagined I would see it again.
Walking back through here, down these narrow cobblestone streets, this old historic district, once teeming with tourists, with everything I knew, is the most painful of all. Memories come flooding back, places where, in every corner, Bree and I would play. I am flooded with memories of spending time here with Mom and Dad. Memories of when they were actually happy with each other.
Our apartment was in the shopping district, above one of the stores, in a small, historic building. I remember resenting it growing up, all those annoying Saturday nights when the nightlife never seemed to end, when people would talk and smoke under my bedroom window until five in the morning. Now I would do anything for that noise, that activity. I would give anything to be able to walk across the street to a cafe and order breakfast. I get a sharp hunger pang just thinking of it.
As fate would have it, we turn down Water Street-the very block I used to live on. My heart flutters, as I realize we’re going to walk past my very apartment. I can’t help wondering if Dad is looking down, guiding me. Or maybe it’s Mom, if she’s dead. Maybe she’s the one looking down. Maybe, though, she’s taunting me. Reprimanding me. After all, this is the place where I abandoned her, all those years ago. She could have come with me. But she wouldn’t leave. And I knew that. Still, I feel I did what I had to do at the time-for me, and most importantly, for Bree. What else was I supposed to do? Just sit here with her and wait for our deaths?
I can’t help seeing the irony in all of it, though, in all the twists and turns that life has taken. I took Bree and fled to safety, but now she is captured, and right back here, where we started from, and I’ll probably never get her back. And the way I feel now, I can’t imagine surviving more than a few more hours myself. So what good did our leaving do us, after all? If I had just stayed put, with Mom, at least we would have all died together, in peace. Not a long slow, torturous death of starvation. Maybe Mom had it right all along.
We pass my apartment building and I brace myself, wondering what it will look like. And I know it’s ridiculous, but a part of me wonders if Mom is still there, sitting up in a window. Waiting.
I look up, and am shocked: my former building is now just a pile of rubble, covered in snow. High weeds grow up from between the rocks, and it looks like it collapsed long ago. I feel as if someone punched me in the gut. My home is gone. Mom is really gone.
“What’s wrong?” Logan asks.
I realize that I’ve stopped, that I’m standing there, staring. I lower my head, grab his shoulder, and continue on.
“Nothing,” I respond.
We continue into the heart of the shopping district of the South Street Seaport. I remember sitting here, looking at the shining cobblestone, at all the expensive shops, feeling as if I were in the most pristine place in the world. A place impervious to change. Now I look around and see nothing but devastation. There aren’t even any signs, any markers to indicate what it once was.
We turn left on Fulton and in the distance I spot the waterfront. It is twilight now, thick gray clouds gathering on the horizon, and I finally feel a surge of hope as I see the water, just blocks away. I see the bus tracks, turning down this road, coming to an end at the pier. We have made it.
We walk faster and I feel a surge of adrenaline as I wonder if Bree could be there, on the pier. I unconsciously check my belt for weapons, and remember I have none left. No matter. If she’s there, I will find a way to get her back.
We walk out onto the wooden pier of the Seaport, once teeming with tourists, now desolate. The tall, historic sailing ships are still there, bobbing in the water-but now they’re just rotting hulls. At the end of the pier I see the bus, parked. I hurry towards it, my heart pounding, hoping that Bree is somehow still on it.
But of course the bus has been unloaded long ago. I reach the side of the bus and look in to find it empty. I check the snow and see the tracks where the girls were unloaded, led down a ramp to a boat. I look out at the water, and in the distance, I spot a large, rusted barge, maybe half a mile off, docked on Governor’s Island. I see a line of girls being unloaded. Bree is among them. I can feel it.
I feel a surge of determination. But also of hopelessness. We have missed the boat. We’re too late.
“There’s another boat in the morning,” Logan says. “At dawn. There always is, once a day. We just need to wait it out. Find shelter for the night.”
“If you make it through the night,” comes a voice.
I am shocked to hear a strange voice behind us, and I spin around.
Standing there, about ten feet away, I am amazed to see, is a group of about a dozen people, dressed in yellow military fatigues. In their center stands a person who looks like their leader. His face is melted, distorted, as are the faces of the others. He looks even worse than the Biovictims, if that’s possible. Maybe it’s from living in this
