The End Is Now

He’d had the idea that the Army could move through the city block by block with non-lethal weapons, finding and detaining every zombie they came across. That had been a great idea—until soldiers started getting bitten. After that, nobody talked about detaining zombies. After that, the real guns started coming out.

He’d had the idea that three of the outer boroughs of New York City—Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx—were expendable. The idea that there was plenty of room in Manhattan for all the healthy people, if they crowded together. The idea Staten Island made a great place for a quarantine facility. Those ideas had come thick and fast, when it became clear that his original ideas just weren’t working. That there were a lot more zombies than they’d thought, and that most of the city was already a lost cause.

He’d had the idea that if he could just save Manhattan . . . then . . . something. Something good would happen and the tide would turn.

He’d had another idea, his best, but he refused to think about that. To accept he’d been responsible for it.

He’d had the idea that he was very tired.

He’d had the idea that he had bad information, and it was going to ruin everything.

He’d had the idea he was the wrong man for the job.

And then, when the call had come in from Atlanta, when Whitman’s own name showed up on the database of potential infections—well, then, he’d thrown away every idea he’d ever had, except one.

The idea to run away.

* * *

He braked the truck to a stop. “You drive for a while,” he told her.

“What are you doing?” Angie asked. But she took the wheel, her baby still in her right arm, while Whitman moved through the back of the truck. It had been a transport, originally, a CDC vehicle meant for moving squads of clean-suited technicians around. There were benches in the back, and it could comfortably hold about a dozen people and all their gear.

Now about fifty potentially infected people were jammed inside, sitting on each other’s laps, curled up on the floorboards. More held on to the rear end, clutching to the fender so they didn’t fall off. Nobody complained about being crowded.

None of them had gone symptomatic since he’d picked them up. He supposed it was just a matter of time, though. And with even one zombie inside the truck, every single person back there would be at risk. Whitman had no idea how to solve that problem—he’d started coming around to Angie’s plan, which seemed to be to just hope for the best.

After the army doctor had put the plus sign on Whitman’s hand, after they’d told him he was headed for Staten Island and the hell of the camps there, he had just gone crazy for a while. Fought his way free, gotten back to a CDC mobile command center somehow. There’d been nobody there. He’d found the truck and he’d just driven away, with no idea where to go next.

He’d found Angie in the Boerum Hill neighborhood, along with about a third of these people. They’d been standing behind a wrought iron gate that fronted an apartment complex, watching their world go up in smoke.

He’d known right away he’d found his next move. Whitman had never been a doctor, but he’d devoted his life to helping people. To protecting them from deadly epidemics.

So they’d picked up everybody they could find, everybody with a plus sign and nowhere to go. Now those people looked up at him as he checked on them, looked up at him with hungry faces. Hungry for information, or just for somebody to tell them things were going to be okay.

“We’re headed for Brighton Beach,” he told them. “Angie thinks there will be boats there to evacuate us.”

“I heard we was supposed to get to La Guardia, man. You know, the airport?” someone called out.

Whitman shook his head. Both airports—La Guardia and JFK—had been taken over by the military. There would be nothing for them there. “No, the airports are out of the question. And I don’t think there are any boats, either.”

The truck erupted with people asking angry questions. A man wearing a pair of coveralls stood up and pointed at Whitman.

“Angie said there’s boats. So there’s boats.”

Whitman smiled at the man. “You’ve known her long?”

“She’s our neighbor,” someone else volunteered, a young woman with a shaved head.

“Just to talk to, but she always seemed nice,” an old lady replied. “I think she works on Wall Street.”

“Nah, she’s a doctor,” the guy in the coveralls insisted. “She basically runs that college hospital, you know—”

“If anybody knows what’s going on, it’s Angie,” her neighbor said. He nodded happily to himself. “Angie’ll know what to do. She’ll get us some place safe.”

“Why don’t we take a vote?” Whitman asked. “I’m telling you right now there are no boats. How many people want to go and look for boats anyway, just because Angie heard a rumor?”

He was not prepared to see all those hands go up.

“Do you have a better idea?” the old lady asked.

He opened his mouth and realized he had no answer for her. Shaking his head, he climbed back into the truck’s cab, into the passenger seat.