An older woman wearing a flower print dress came out from behind the heavy velvet curtains and nodded a curt hello.
“Maude Harrison.” She said and dared the old man to say different. They had been together for a year and a half, had known each other in the biblical sense and as far as she was concerned, they were husband and wife.
“Well, are you?” she demanded. “If you are, and I don’t think you should, but if you are then you absolutely need to take the stand and keep it inside. It protects it from the air and sunlight. If you just hang it up willy nilly on your wall it’ll be ruined in a year. You’ll destroy one of the greatest works of art and all for nothing, for a little vanity just to say you own it. It doesn’t belong to one man, I say. It belongs to the people.”
“I’m not taking it.” Jessie said holding up both hands to slow her down. “I didn’t know she had protectors and guardians and she’s not who I thought she was anyway.”
Maude was just getting warmed up and stood with her mouth open, ready to continue her admonishments but realized what he’d said.
“You’re not taking it?”
“No.” Jessie said. “I’m not taking it.”
She frowned and started in again. “But others will. If you go back and tell everyone how easy it was to waltz right in here, those retrievers will be lining up to steal everything that isn’t nailed down. That’s not fair. We worked hard to make Manhattan safe to move around in. It took us years of careful work to hem them all in on the circle and now unscrupulous men will destroy everything we’ve preserved.”
“I won’t tell anyone.” Jessie said. “Nobody knows I’m here, I’m not on a job. I came on my own. In fact, I’ll tell everyone I failed, it was too dangerous and massive hordes of zeds are everywhere.”
“You would do that?” she asked.
“Yes.” he said. “If it will get you to calm down and stop wagging that finger at me.”
Her eyes narrowed at his flippant attitude, not unlike some of the unrulier students she’d taught, but shot over to Jonathon when he couldn’t control his snorting laughter.
“Fine.” She said primly. “Thank you. We have worked diligently to preserve what we can.”
“You’ve done a fine job.” Jessie said. “I’m not taking anything and if you need my help before I go, I’d be happy to lend a hand.”
“Honestly?” she asked. “Good. We need some goats.”
44
New York
Dinner was fish from the Jackie Onassis reservoir, the hundred-acre lake at the north end of the park, vegetables from a greenhouse and fresh salad from the garden. Thirty or forty others joined them, added their own food to the table and the impromptu party kicked off when dozens of bottles of wine were brought out. They were three stories below ground and had experimented with what they could and couldn’t do in the new zombie filled world. Music cranked to nearly deafening levels couldn’t be heard outside the building so they weren’t concerned about conversation and a little Chopin coming from the speakers. They were safe and secure in the cozy little world they had spent a year putting together and were happy to share what they had accomplished with the Road Angel.
After the first days of chaos frightened survivors hid in their apartments for weeks. When food and water ran out, some tentatively went to neighbors’ doors, the ones where nothing screeched and tore at the other side when they knocked. Many more were trapped by crowds milling in the hallway, just outside their door and waiting for them to get desperate enough to open it. Months passed and the wandering masses congregated into giant hordes that moved aimlessly down the roads. Many used the massing of the dead as a chance to escape, take any boat or raft they could cobble together. If for any reason the hordes broke up again every street would have them shuffling up and down and they might not get another chance. Some formed small groups and made their away across the bridges, hoping to sneak past unnoticed. None were ever heard from again.
There were nine enormous hundred thousand strong mobs wandering Manhattan. They had the one slowly circling Central Park mostly contained, the others in the different boroughs wandered at will. Those that remained learned to prop open apartment building doors, call to the infected then run. One by one they cleared the halls and stairs of buildings they wanted to sift through for supplies. If they timed it right and had lookouts checking for strays, they could move cars to block streets and channel the dead onto an endless loop that circled Manhattan. They slowly eliminated the crawlers and once they had the road blocks in place, they could set their watch by the circling horde. It was fairly safe to make a little noise breaking down doors when they were miles away. By cutting through Central Park, they could stay hours ahead of the horde. As long as they didn’t get spotted. If they did then all bets were off. It took days for them to settle down and get back into the slow shuffle around the city. Their improvised barriers wouldn’t stop a mob in a frenzy but if they didn’t get riled up, they trudged along the path as regular as clockwork.
They had gotten pretty good at not getting them riled up.
The New Yorkers were an eclectic group that had learned to survive and do it quite nicely. They lived in various places but mostly in the luxury apartments of the Upper East Side. Like everyone else, they had rigged up bicycles to spin alternators and charge batteries. There were rope bridges strung between buildings and they had escape routes for their escape routes if things got dicey and the hordes didn’t behave like they were supposed to. Food and drink were plentiful and
