For now, though, they needed to hit their first objective, the Brooklyn Bridge. They’d traveled into a stretch of highway bordered on both sides by fifteen-foot high red brick walls. The terrain was terrible. They were canalized into only being able to move forward or go back the way they’d come. “How much farther, Feliciano?” he asked.
Specialist Kenny Feliciano, a brawny kid from Brooklyn, looked at the surrounding area and then pointed toward the west. “We just passed the exit for the Brooklyn-Battery—uh, I mean, the Carey Tunnel, sir. They changed the name a few years ago. Um… I’d say about two miles, give or take. I mostly took the train into Manhattan as a kid, but my mom drove the Expressway all the time and sometimes I was with her.”
“How much longer are we in this ditch?” Jake asked the native New Yorker.
“The walls?” he asked, laughing.
“Yeah. Whatever. How much longer do these go on?”
“Only a little bit. Probably like less than an eighth of a mile. We need to make sure that we get up on the upper part of the Expressway though. I know how to get to the bridge from there, the lower side is trickier.”
Jake nodded and flexed his fingers on the pistol grip of his rifle. He didn’t like the stretch of road they were on. It was the perfect place for an ambush. The further the platoon walked into the jumbled mess of cars trapped along the Brooklyn—Queens Expressway, the more the hair on the back of his neck stood up. Something was absolutely not right.
A can rattled along the asphalt, causing several of the men to bring their weapons up in response. A shriek echoed down the expressway and a car door slammed.
Soldiers spread out quickly, following Sergeant Turner’s hand gestures to set themselves into a defensive perimeter around Jake and Grady Harper. The platoon’s mission was to get Grady to a scientist who could analyze his blood and determine why the infected avoided him. Keeping him safe was the highest priority.
“Sir!” Sergeant Turner called out.
“Yeah?”
“We got… There’s a kid in this car right here.”
“A kid?” Jake sighed. That’s all they needed was some kid to be the initiator for an ambush. His men wouldn’t fire on children. “Hold on. The rest of you, stay alert, this could be a distraction before an ambush.”
He made his way to where Sergeant Turner and three others stood around an older Ford Expedition. Jake tried the door handle, but it was locked, so he peeked through the windows. A child, probably eight or nine years old, lay on the floorboard behind the driver’s seat. The inside of the vehicle was a mess of discarded food wrappers, soda cans, and other kinds of trash.
“Hey, kid,” Jake said, leaning close to the vehicle. “Come on out of there. We’re not going to hurt you.” He glanced at the door handle and pulled on it again.
“It’s locked, sir,” Sergeant Turner affirmed.
The child appeared to try to huddle down closer to the floorboard. Jake slapped the window with the palm of his hand. “Come on out or we’re gonna break the window,” he warned. “You want that? You want your… You want your home to have a big hole in it where the rain can get in?”
“Go away,” a small, muffled voice responded. “I didn’t steal nuthin’. Just go away.”
“Steal? I didn’t say you stole anything,” Jake responded. “Where are your parents?” He waited for the kid to answer. When he didn’t, Jake tried another route. “We’re from the Army. We’re here to help.”
“The Army?” The child peeked his dirty forehead up, then a pair of brown eyes appeared in the window. “You guys are from the Army?”
“Yeah. We came all this way to try to figure out what’s happening in New York.”
“Crazy people. There are crazy people everywhere.”
The hairs on the back of Jake’s neck stood on end. He’d been under the impression that the infected hadn’t made it to New York. “Crazy people? Like covered in blood and they eat people?”
A small hand reached out toward the door and Jake thought the kid was going to open the door. Instead, he cranked the window knob to lower it slightly. “What?” he asked.
“The crazy people that you said are everywhere… Do they attack people and eat them?”
The kid shrugged. “I don’t know. They attack and beat up people. Then they drag ’em away. I don’t know what happens after they get taken, but they never come back.”
Jake tried to follow the child’s logic, thinking of a way to ask the question that the kid would be able to decipher. Then, he felt a figure step up close beside him. He turned to see that Taavi had walked over to the car.
“Let me try,” the Iranian said. “I have two children.” His voice cracked a little bit and he cleared his throat. “I have two children—Sohail and Yasmin. They aren’t as old as this boy, but maybe I can talk to him.”
Jake nodded and stepped aside. Taavi inched closer. “Hello, little one. My name is Taavi. What’s yours?”
“Are you with the Army too?”
“Yes. We are here together. We traveled all the way from Kansas to come see New York City. It was very exciting.”
The kid shrugged. “People say that all the time. I think it would be cool to see a cow. Did you see any cows?”
“Yes! Lots and lots of cows,” Taavi replied. “What is your name?”
“David,” the boy responded.
“How old are you, David?”
“I’m ten.”
“Ten? Wow, that’s a big age. You are double digits now!”
The
