That settled it—there would be no turning back for Samuel. He was going to Poughkeepsie and nothing was going to stop him now.
Chapter 12
Leaving Agnes’ apartment the following morning was a bittersweet feeling for both Samuel and Austin. They’d slept relatively well despite being in very close quarters on the two couches and were fueled from the oatmeal they’d eaten first thing. Their goal for the day was to get out of the city. While the daylight brought with it some semblance of safety, they were still in a very dangerous part of New York and neither wanted to hang around much longer.
“Are you sure there isn’t anything more we can leave you?” Samuel asked as the two men loitered by the front door, feeling bad about how little Agnes had taken from them. They’d shared the contents of their rucksacks with her and allowed her to take whatever she needed, not wanting the old woman to struggle for food in the coming days. Nothing more than a couple cans of tuna and some refried beans had made it to her countertop though. Agnes was determined that she could fend for herself.
“I’ll be fine,” she replied, shaking her head as she had done when they first offered. “Like I told you, I’ve only got one mouth to feed now. You don’t need to worry about me.”
Samuel looked at Austin sheepishly, unsure how to respond. It was an awkward situation as they could only push so far, and both men knew they would also need the supplies in the coming days.
“Thank you again for letting us stay here last night,” Austin said instead. “And my apologies again for breaking in.”
Agnes smiled. “It was nice to have the company,” she replied. “I hope you reach your family safely.”
“Thank you,” Austin nodded. “Me too.”
Samuel and Austin left the apartment, navigating their way out of the building down the small stairwell and onto the street.
“Do you think she’ll be okay?” Samuel asked as they stood in the morning sunlight, looking both ways up and down the street.
Austin shrugged. “She seems like she can take care of herself. I wouldn’t worry.”
“Fair enough.”
“Come on,” Austin encouraged his friend, not wanting to linger outside anywhere for any length of time. “Let’s go.”
One good thing which had come from their time in Agnes’ apartment was that she had showed them both exactly where she lived on a map Samuel had taken from the sporting goods store. As a result, they’d been able to plan their route out of New York and up to Poughkeepsie, hoping to find a vehicle on the outskirts of the city that they could drive up route nine all the way to Austin’s husband and son. That meant first getting out of The Bronx and into Yonkers, the most dangerous leg of their journey by far.
Agnes lived in an area called Fordham Heights, which was by no means the worst part to find themselves in, but it could certainly have been better. The roads were fairly wide and were blocked up in places by car crashes, vehicles turned over on their sides and burnt out, the drivers nowhere to be seen.
Turning a corner and cutting through what was a marketplace before the crash, Samuel looked around and flinched, seeing a group of rats munching through the forgotten foodstuffs.
“Uhh,” he suddenly wretched. Looking closer and Samuel saw that the rats weren’t just eating through abandoned food from the market, but the former stall owner as well. He doubled over, fighting to hold down the oatmeal he’d eaten that morning. The stall owner was long dead now, the rats feasted on his flesh and left his corpse mangled and ragged. They tore off tiny pieces with their teeth and gulped it down, occasionally fighting over scraps that were thrown further into the stalls.
“Oh jeez,” Austin covered his mouth as he realized what Samuel was reacting too, unable to tear his eyes away from the dead body. “That’s disgusting!”
The rats continued to swarm the dead body, their greasy, black bodies rubbing up against one another as they ate. The sounds they made were equally gruesome, the grinding of teeth and the squelch of flesh being chewed. It was enough to turn anyone’s stomach as Samuel wretched once more and his breakfast splattered all over an abandoned stall.
“Let’s get out of here,” he whimpered as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. That was not how he’d wanted to start the day, his stomach still feeling queasy as they weaved through other stalls and made it back onto the sidewalk.
“You okay, pal?”
Samuel grimaced but forced himself to nod. “I wasn’t expecting that,” he sighed, taking a sip from his water canteen and swilling the liquid around his mouth to try and clean it out. “I’ve never seen rats like that before.”
“Horrible aren’t they,” Austin replied, waiting for Samuel to be ready to start walking again. “I wonder how that guy ended up like that.”
“I don’t want to know,” Samuel shook his head. “Let’s just get out of here.”
Austin glanced up at the street sign above his head and then nodded, the two of them rushing away from the market stall, Samuel swearing he could still hear the sound of rats gnawing on bones in his ears. He shuddered again, picturing the dead man’s gaunt face, one cheek practically hollowed out by the animals. In another couple of days, he would be nothing more than bone, the rats moving on to the next corpse they could find. That was one lifeform that would flourish in New York now, no pest control to keep them in check and no shortage
