Chapter 28 #2
I can feel the heat of Maverick’s gaze on the side of my face as I speak to Chase. “Hey. Let’s call us even, okay? You gave up your antidote for me back in East Jersey.“
“I had to. And, I’ll tell you what… I’d do it again, baby.”
Same, Chase, same.
New York City.
Travel was slow-going the last few days. We already knew that there would be a much heavier lurker presence the closer we got to the nest, but I don’t think we realized what that really meant.
We blew past fifty the night before, and none of us got any sleep once we made it to the New Jersey side of the George Washington Bridge.
It was dark out, and though the mile-and-a-half long suspension bridge was clear enough that we could see lurkers approaching from either side, we were basically sitting ducks.
Each one of us carried a handmade torch, choosing to continue the march.
On the plus side, we’re faster than lurkers.
The bridge wasn’t wide enough for them to overwhelm us, especially since the portable fire had them hesitate long enough for us to engage the stare.
By the time we fought our way across, there were forty more piles of ash to be blown away into the Hudson River, and we landed in the Washington Heights area of New York.
It’s been close to a week since Chase was attacked.
You’d never know he was bit at all, though I do notice he’s part of the reason why it took so long for us to go from Skyway Park to Fort Lee where we reached the GWB.
After his recovery, I told him about Maverick’s plan.
I needed to give him the choice to still come along; knowing Mav’s true motivations behind this hunt, Chase needed to decide if that’s what he wanted to do.
I should’ve known better than to doubt him.
Of course he’s going—as long as I’m going, that is—though his determination to get to New York so we can finally start the return trip to the Grave has wavered some.
I could tell that Maverick was disappointed that I laid out all of his cards for Chase. Too bad. He should just be lucky that, for now at least, I decided to keep the fact that he took the Injection to myself.
If his eyes get any worse, or he pales more notably, or gets even hungrier… I’ll have to tell Chase. Until then, I don’t want to worry him.
And if I tell myself that instead of admitting it’s because I know he’ll drag me off this crazy mission the instant I give me a reason to, well… I’ve come all this way. Maverick might be targeting the science lab responsible for creating the lurkers.
Me? My intentions have always been clear. I’m going to kill as many lurkers as I can or die trying.
Washington Heights is a good hundred blocks from the NRI.
In the before times, that might’ve given me a pause.
Why walk when there are taxis, rideshares, and public transportation like buses and subways?
Now? After we’ve walked a million miles just to get to this point, I laugh.
A hundred blocks? I can do that in about an hour-and-a-half so long as the roads aren’t too damaged.
To my surprise, they’re not that bad. It still stings to see the dried blood and char marks everywhere, the bones, the empty cars, and torn asphalt, but there are stretches in front of us that are almost…
normal. It’s spooky as hell because New York City isn’t made to be vacant, and it seems like one big graveyard, but with Maverick carrying his primed IEDs in that duffel bag, I’m looking forward to the coming explosions.
Too bad we never get the chance to take them out of the bag.
It’s late morning. We should have had hours to engage the bombs, place them where Maverick wants, then stand back and watch the NRI implode.
Should have had.
We don’t.
The NRI is positioned on 63rd street. When there were only six blocks to go, a sound from our old lives rips through the silence, catching our attention.
A car.
No.
An SUV.
The big, shiny, black vehicle comes speeding down a side street, taking a wide turn, careening down the cross street. My hand goes to my pocket, reaching for my knife. Chase jumps in front of me.
Maverick howls in rage.
The SUV stops maybe twenty feet ahead of us, spitting out six near-identical men. White skin. Dark hair. Black suits. Black shades.
Holy fuck, we’ve summoned the Men in Black.
One of them—the driver—takes the lead. He’s a little taller, a little thinner, and I notice that he has a red tie while all the others have a grey one.
The leader, I’m betting.
“Seize them,” he orders.
The five remaining men surge forward in unison, moving impossibly faster than any human should. Two each for Maverick and Chase, one to grab my arm, breaking my hold on my knife. Already they’re underestimating me. I immediately promise myself that, if I can get out of this, they’ll so regret it.
Maverick starts to buck and fight their hold, but the two silent agents—because they have got to be some sort of agents—standing on each side of him barely pay him any attention.
Their eyes are locked on the man in front, and when he nods one time, the agent on the left releases Maverick’s upper arm, grabbing his forearm instead.
A single powerful squeeze, then a sickening crack, and we all know it’s broken.
Maverick doesn’t scream, but his face—already so pale, even after so many days spent in the sun as the Injection goes to work on him—is suddenly ashen. He sags in the other agent’s hold, all the fight in him gone.
“That’s better. We’d hoped to offer you our hospitality without a fight, but if you insist…”
Hospitality again. We escaped Darryl and East Jersey only to get caught by a SUV full of government spooks who might not have threatened to feed us to lurkers—yet—but they speak in violence all the same.
“Fuck you,” I snap, rage roaring through me like a gasoline-soaked fire. “Who do you think you are?”
The man in front whips off his sunglasses. I shrink back in horror, and I know I’m not alone.
His eyes are solid black.
Lurker eyes.
Pale skin.
Extraordinary strength…
“You’re some of them?”
Chase says them like it’s a dirty word, and I don’t blame him.
I’m fucking stunned. I can’t believe that we’ve been face to face with nearly a half-dozen lurkers in the sunlight and not a single one of them is trying to eat us. And then I realize something else—
“You can talk? If you’re a lurker… how can you talk?”
And that’s when it hits me.
The suits. The building. The car… the eyes.
They’re not lurkers.
They’re the people who created them.