Surviving New York

Jim threw himself against the wall. The sun was setting on a broken New York skyline. The group of four soldiers walked past absentmindedly, failing to check their surroundings. A scraggler kicked a stone as he walked past. Jim stalked him from behind. A rag was pulled taut as the enemy struggled and gasped for a few moments before collapsing in a heap. Jim pulled the soldier into the alley before the others noticed. He stripped the enemy down taking his armour, knife, ammo and gun. He left the grenades. The enemy was not dead but he would be soon. The other soldiers had returned to find their comrade.

They entered the alley and saw their friend lying on the ground clutching a grenade. As they knelt his grip loosened. Jim stood up and tossed the pin aside, the grenade had done its job.

He cast a glance at the bodies of the dead soldiers. Poor souls, he thought. He moved quickly out of the alley, checking each corner carefully. He headed for his nearest base. He had several throughout the city. He went to round the final corner when a hand shot out and hit him in the stomach. He doubled over, winded by the blow. His attacker grabbed him by the collar, pulling him up from behind. The blade biting his neck.

“I’m going to kill you,” a voice strained.

Jim struggled and rammed his elbow backward. The person gasped, blacking out as they fell. The blade left Jim’s neck, sliding over his shoulder and nicking his skin. Jim whirled around to get a good look at his attacker. It was a girl. She looked about the same age as Jim. A heart shaped locket hung helplessly around her neck. As blood trickled down Jim’s neck the sound of an engine crept through the quiet street.

It was a different sound, he hadn’t heard this engine before. From the sound of the engine he could tell it was a light vehicle, with a small engine, but it would still be carrying enough firepower to gun him and the girl down. Some sort of light tank. He knew how vital an extra pair of hands were, even at the high cost of food and water. He had to get himself and the girl back to his base and fast. The sound grew closer.

Jim repositioned his stolen rifle, pointing the muzzle at the ground. He hoisted the girl onto his shoulders in a sort of fireman’s carry. The vehicle was still a few hundred feet away and moving slowly, but it would soon be upon them. Jim struggled to carry the girl and his provisions, the load was just too heavy. The breeze carried a symphony of gunfire and screams.

Fear coursed through Jim’s veins, filling him with adrenaline. He lifted the girl higher onto his shoulders and started moving. Slowly at first but then getting faster. He raced toward his base. The locket caught on Jim’s gun as he set the girl down, snapping off and landing in the dirt. Jim kicked the wheel locks off a dumpster and pushed it away, revealing a neat, round hole in the wall of a concrete building.

The vehicle rolled into the street as Jim took off his gear and threw it into the hole. The girl’s eyes flickered open and she sat up. She turned, ready to scream. Jim quickly put his hand over her open mouth just as she started to vomit. She was concussed, and they had no time to lose. He helped the girl to her feet as she continued to spew, trampling the locket as they moved. As he helped her climb through the hole he saw that the puddles of vomit lead straight to the entrance. Jim needed an organic way to cover their tracks. He started to pull the dumpster back into place. When there was just enough room left for Jim to squeeze through he pulled a bag of trash out of the bin and threw its contents onto the ground covering the traces of puke. Jim could hear the tank getting closer, time was running out. The locket glinted in the fading light. He snatched it and climbed through the hole and finished pulling the dumpster over it. Jim grabbed his pack and gun and helped the girl deeper into his lair. They crawled through a series of tunnels, pausing every so often so the girl could throw up into a half crushed milk jug Jim had found in the trash bag.

The tunnel opened into a small living space. On the right side of the entrance there was a bed with a pile of blankets at the end. Above it there were seven tallies; an eighth needed to be added. Next to the bed was an old school locker lying on its side. It contained Jim’s weapon stash. In the far right hand corner of the room was a bag of canned food and a wooden box half full of grenades. Along the back wall there was a pile of hiking bags, a pile of ropes and a small water tank. In the left hand corner, by the tank was Jim’s workbench, covered in projects from the past few days. In the corner on the left side of the entrance was a large pile of random things Jim thought might be useful. In the middle of the room was a table and chair with a heap of old radios and batteries beside it.

Jim helped the girl on the bed, an old mattress covered with thin, worn sheets.

“Let me get some food,” Jim said to the girl as he walked to the bag of cans. “I’ve got cold baked beans for dinner and peaches-.” He stopped short, they couldn’t waste food on desserts. The tank drove past and left the street. Jim breathed a sigh of relief.

He pulled the can out of the bag and walked over to the table. He shot a glance at the girl. She was asleep. He shrugged. Leaving the cans on the table, he walked over to the bed. She was the first potentially friendly person he’d seen alive for days. Jim set some blankets on the floor and lay down. He kicked off his boots and went to sleep with his head on his arm.

Jim woke to the smell of acrid smoke. He sat up and looked around. The girl had lit a fire between Jim’s bench and his junk.

“Hey,” he shouted, tripping over his boots as he jumped up. “What do you think you’re doing!”

The girl looked at Jim, confused.

“Are you trying to suffocate us?!” he yelled.

“There was a hole that led outside. I found a sort of cone thing and some cans in the junk pile and made a chimney,” the girl replied. Jim looked up and saw a pipe made of cans that led to a hole in the roof he’d been meaning to fix for a while. He couldn’t really blame her for being resourceful. “I know what I’m doing.”

“You didn’t when you attacked me yesterday and I had to rescue you. What are you doing anyway?” Jim asked.

“Making breakfast. Warmed up baked beans for two,” she said grinning. She held the can in a set of pliers. “Too hot to hold right now. Should be ready to eat in a minute.”

She set the can down on the table next to a blunt knife and a slightly mangled fork.

“I don’t think we introduced ourselves. I’m Faith, Faith Brookes” she said. She held out her hand. He shook it. Her name sounded familiar.

“Jim Evans.”

“You got any bowls?”

Jim went over to the pile of junk and pulled out a plastic container and a spork. He walked over to the tank and rinsed them, then dried them with a cleanish blanket. He walked back over to the table and set them down.

“You’ll need something to sit on,” Faith ambled over to the box of grenades. Jim grimaced as she tipped the grenades onto the ground and kicked them over to the far wall.

“Here you are,” she said as she handed it to him.

“Thanks,” Jim replied.

Faith grabbed the spork off the table and started spooning beans into the container.

“Half-half?” she asked.

“Sure,” Jim answered. She stopped spooning and handed him the container. She sat down and crossed one leg over the other. The locket sat on the table as something nagged at the back of Jim’s mind.

“Right now these beans smell like heaven!” She said, as she shoved beans into her mouth with the fork. Jim watched her in amazement. He had never seen a girl eat like that before. Beans and sauce oozed over her chin. Her blonde shoulder-length hair fell over her face, obscuring it. She turned and looked him in the eyes. They were bright blue, almost an icy blue.

“Are you going to eat those?” Faith asked suddenly, staring at his beans hungrily.

“Huh? Oh, yes,” he said, beginning to eat. She shrugged and continued eating.

They sat there eating quietly for about five minutes before Faith told Jim her story.

She’d been away for the weekend with a few of her friends. The plan was that when they returned to New York she would walk home from a friend’s house. As she walked home she took a detour to the mall. It saved her life. She went into a Gap outlet just to browse but soon found herself in the change rooms with a handful of clothes. The moment she locked the door to her change room the first explosion hit. Faith crawled under a small bench in the change room just before the ceiling caved in. She was trapped there for days. She tried to call her parents, her neighbours, everybody in her phonebook, twice. No one answered. She would have died under that bench if some scavengers hadn’t found her. They helped her out of the rubble, then she ran off toward her neighbourhood, which wasn’t too far away. She didn’t stop till she arrived. Her whole street had been bombed beyond recognition. Sobbing, she vowed to kill every invader she saw. Several bodies lay on the street, one a soldier. Faith saw that the soldier had been stripped of nearly everything except for a small knife. After finding her weapon she went in search of enemy soldiers only to find Jim.

“And I would have killed you if you hadn’t knocked me out,” Faith told Jim. “Really now that I think about it these beans are my first meal for, like, four days.”

“Wow,” It was the only thing Jim could think of. “So you haven’t killed anyone yet?”

“No,” she said, looking at the spork she was twirling between her fingers.

“Well we’d better get the day started. I’m going out to find more food. You can stay here and… clean?”

Faith looked up and glowered at Jim. She slowly rose out of her seat, like a monster out of a horror movie.

“Or you could come with me?” Jim suggested sheepishly.

“I’ll need a gun.”

Jim gestured to the school locker. “Go ahead.”

Faith wandered over and opened the locker. She rummaged through the stockpile of weapons. Eventually she turned around, holding a semi automatic 9mm Beretta made Neos and an AR 15. They were the same weapons Jim had. Jim tossed her a magazine for each. Just then he realised why he recognised Faith.

“Wait, you’re that Faith?”

“Oh my gosh, you just figured that out? I thought that was why you rescued me,” she said incredulously. Jim smiled. The fall of New York had forced some things to the back of his mind. He had found his best friend. The small, heart shaped locket held a picture of them, from another life.

“We have to move,” Jim said.

“Agreed.”