Page 94 of Doomsdate

“What’s with the brooms?” Everett asks, semi-crouched and in fighting stance with his Tasers raised, just like I taught him. I beam.

“To sweep away the rats, what else?” Julio hands us each one. “What’s with the Tasers?”

“If you tase a zombie in the heart, they die immediately,” I supply. “Everett discovered it.”

“No kidding!” Julio’s eyes widen, his smile delighted. “Aww, that’s great news! You won’t believe how hard it is to hand your preteen a loaded .38. The way she slams a door if you look at her wrong? Let me tell you, I’ve aged ten years this past week.”

After a set of shockingly brief instructions, Julio blares the air horn strapped around his waist, and we rip out of the train and race through the station. Despite the repeated air-horn honks, the rats coalesce at the corners of my vision as we near the stairs, but the brooms work a treat. That doesn’t stop Everett from zapping a few tenacious ones as we pound up the concrete stairs to daylight, though, his shrill cursing adorable to me now. On the street, the zombies still stand motionless in place, though not for much longer. It’s almost four now, and their eyes are brightening. Plus, nowhere in the five boroughs is safe from the birds. Julio instructs us to pull our T-shirts over our heads once more, and we dart down the street, arms raised, yelling loudly to ward them off.

“SO WHERE ARE YOU TWO FROM?” Julio bellows as we jog by his side down the wide thoroughfare.

“MOST RECENTLY, NORTH CAROLINA!” Everett yells back. “I USED TO LIVE IN THE EAST VILLAGE, BUT THIS IS MAISIE’S FIRST TIME IN NEW YORK!”

“A TOURIST, EH?” Julio grins at me, panting lightly as we turn down a residential block. “WELCOME TO QUEENS!”

“THANKS!” I bat a swooping death-pigeon away from his head with my broom, then grin right back. “I LOVE IT!” I say, because I do. The buildings aren’t so tall here, more brick than steel, and there’s a homey, lived-in quality to the cracked sidewalks and colorful awnings above mom-and-pop storefronts. It’s the kind of place you could find a sewing-machine repair shop, or an honest-to-god cobbler, and there’s something comforting about living in a place that still needs both.

Julio leads us down an alley and through a fence to a small, winterized community garden, and quickly enters a back door to the building, gesturing for us to follow him into the small vestibule. Everett’s crammed next to a row of metal mailboxes affixed to the wall while Julio buzzes apartment 2R. The interior door swings open, and Julio sighs gladly, tucking his gun into his belt.

“That means the boss is home.” Julio winks at us as he wrests off his helmet. “She meets with everyone first, checks them out before we introduce you to the community. You know.”

“To make sure we’re not bitten?”

“Nah, the long ride takes care of that.” Julio huffs up the stairs, then turns to face us on the landing. “If you were bitten, you’d have turned by the time we arrived.” His cheerful face sags for a minute then, and I know without asking that he’s speaking from experience. How hard it must be for a bright soul like Julio to start with survivors but end with victims. The sharp tang of the train’s disinfectant feels all the sadder now.

“How many have you rescued this week?” I ask instead, and his face lights back up.

“Twenty-eight and counting. We’ve got everyone set up in the hotel next door.” Julio knocks on 2R’s door in a special rat-a-tat-tat pattern, and a few seconds later, two girls wearing matching gun belts and fuck-around-and-find-out expressions open the door. They eye our flight suits, I NY shirts, and Tasers up and down through thick, curly lashes, thoroughly unimpressed.

“What are you, astronauts?” the younger one says, then places her hand menacingly across the gun strapped to her waist, as if she and NASA have long-standing beef.

“No, we robbed a museum.”

This was, apparently, the right answer. The younger one nods, and the girls stand aside to let us in. Her impeccably manicured nails tap idly against the gun’s handle as we pass, though, a reminder.

“See what I mean?” Julio says under his breath, then claps Everett and me on the shoulders. “Girls, this is Maisie and Everett Shenandoah, from North Carolina. Take them back to Mami, okay?”

The younger one sighs forcefully. “All right, then. Come on.”

We leave Julio at the coatrack to disrobe while his daughters, Ayana, the silent teenager, and Beatriz, the intimidating preteen, lead us through the living room to the kitchen, where a small round table sits, crowded with papers and signs of preparation. A harried Black woman in her early fifties sits with her fingers pressed into her temples, deep in thought.

This must be the boss, then. The stress of leadership and responsibility sits neatly on her shoulders. She glances up, her shrewd eyes absorbing our every detail as Beatriz and Ayana escort us to the table. The contrast between her and Connor couldn’t be starker, and I know just from looking at her that this woman isn’t here to sell us on anything, or use us, or trap us against our will. She’s here because she’s strong enough to truly help others and accepts that burden.

“Welcome, and congratulations on making it this far. I’m Corinne. Please sit and tell me your stories.”

So we do, picking up with the decision to leave Durham, what we’ve seen along the way, and all we’ve learned. When Everett continues the ruse that we’re married, Corinne accepts our shared last name without any questions, which is good. I’ve never been to a wedding, and I’m not exactly sure what one entails. Like Julio, she’s particularly overjoyed to learn that a quick jolt of electricity to a zombie’s heart disrupts their reanimated rhythm, and that once disrupted they can’t restart.

“That changes everything,” she says, pressing her mouth against her steepled fingers. “We didn’t even know their hearts still beat.”

“It’s a limited, erratic beat,” Everett says, his eyes pained. He’s probably thinking of Sandeep when he tried to resuscitate him, which he told me all about during our long, cold night in the fort. I rest a hand on his leg, and he takes it into his. “Like a busted car battery jump-started one last time. It doesn’t take much.”

Corinne shakes her head slowly. “This situation gets harder and harder to understand.”

I frown. “You don’t think it’s just the virus?”

“We think that it’s the virus plus something in our food supply,” Corinne says evenly. “The American food supply.”

“What do you mean?” Everett asks.