Chapter 3 Sirens’ Shriek #2
The next clip we saw was aerial footage of Times Square.
A helmeted squadron of soldiers in its centre seemed nothing but an insignificant blob of army green in an onrushing sea of dark, blood-covered figures.
Like a juicy caterpillar in a red fire ant nest. The caption at the bottom of the screen read ‘New York City overrun’.
I let out a strangled gasp.
“Are they shooting them? Just like that?” Petr asked, aghast.
“Not here, not yet anyways, but in the US they are. Only in the overrun areas where containment isn’t possible, mostly large cities.
But it’s not the best idea. Any noise draws them like a magnet.
” This time, the tall, gangly black man with a cinnamon-tinged afro spoke, and I realised that I had been wrong in assuming they were all British because he talked with a distinctly American twang.
“You shoot one, and ten others appear. This footage is from this morning. New York City has fallen since then. It’s just gone. Lost to them.”
The TV showed a few bombs dropped at the infected, but the impact seemed minimal as more and more bodies poured out of buildings and towards the soldiers. The caption at the bottom of the screen now read: ‘US Army almost out of explosives’.
I stood frozen to the spot, unable to find anything to say. Petr moaned and backed against the wall for support, rubbing his face with his hands. Then he proceeded to grasp his own hair tightly, as if to pull it out. He opened and closed his mouth several times like a fish, his face blank.
My reaction to the shock was quite different.
I felt an unhinged urge to laugh. I would have liked to attribute it to hysteria alone were it not for the fact that horror was not all that I felt.
I could not deny the small measure of excitement that was stirring up inside me, shaking its wings like a moth before flight.
Something monumental and historical was taking place, and we were to be a part of it.
Our lives would change completely and irrevocably, never to be the same.
The grief for all the lives lost glowed inside me like a flame, but the moth flew around it, not caring the least that it burned.
After a moment, I became aware again of the many voices ringing in my ears and of the somewhat demented milling of the angry mob in the reception hall.
“I’m Dave, by the way,” the tawny-haired Englishman said, shaking mine and Petr’s hands with a Cheshire grin. “It’s nice to meet you here at the end of the world as we know it.”
“Kevin,” the pasty, bespectacled one introduced himself next.
The gangly black American with an overbite was Josh.
That left Amit, a slight man with caramel skin and dark doe-like eyes.
We then exchanged some trivia about ourselves and learnt that they were all medical students at Bristol University.
I was just telling them about the year I had spent in London when we heard loud sobs—the poor, young Polish receptionist finally broke down in tears and was crying uncontrollably with her face buried in her nimble hands.
“I doubt we’ll learn anything more tonight,” Dave said. “How about a nightcap, everyone? I have some bottles of rum in my suitcase that seem just perfect for the occasion.”
“Don’t mind if I do,” I said as others around me nodded vigorously. “But first I simply cannot watch the lynching anymore, if you’ll excuse me for just a moment.”
It was true that I tended to avoid crowds as much as possible.
But it was also true that, being a petite woman, I was obliged to devise strategies for safely passing through them.
And when avoidance was not an option, aggression had to be.
As hard as my strength allowed, I jabbed my braced elbows into the ribs of taller, larger people in my way, part of me feeling delinquent but another part pleased by the ‘Ooofs’ and ‘Oooows’ I managed to elicit.
I reached the reception desk and walked around it to stand by the desolate Polish girl, more than a little surprised that nobody else had thought of doing the same with less well-meaning intentions.
Her eyes widened in shock when she saw me, but I tried to smile at her reassuringly.
Then I proceeded to bang my fist hard on the desk.
“Shut up!” I roared from the bottom of my lungs.
The hall went silent, bar the sound of the television that could finally be heard. A wide-eyed reporter was on the screen, rambling away in quick Italian.
“You’re all wasting your time, you morons!
” I told the onlookers emphatically, my face hot from being flooded with blood.
“No amount of yelling at her will make this girl, this child, know things she doesn’t know.
Return to your rooms. Or stay here and pick someone your own size to bully.
Or go out and get yourselves arrested for all I care. But you will not harass her anymore.”
Stunned silence ensued as I became painfully embarrassed by the fact that I must have been barely visible over the reception desk, which reached almost to my shoulders.
I knew that I could not possibly hope to be taken seriously.
Persons of my size rarely possess any semblance of authority, and I was further disadvantaged by being a young woman with the ‘face of a doll and tits of a porn star’, as Petr was a little too fond of saying.
All I really hoped to do was give the angry mob someone else, namely myself, to tear apart.
“Who the hell are you?!” a larger black man with horn-rimmed glasses enquired, one beefy arm wrapped protectively around the waist of a beautiful, pregnant woman.
“She must have a way to get more information!” said a pale, elderly man. “She ought to at least try, it’s her job.”
“I t-t-tried to call owners but t-they don’t p-pick up,” sobbed the girl.
“Her job is to give you keys to your room and to make you some coffee, you idiot,” I told him heatedly. “She already did more than she had to. I’m taking her away now. Save your questions for when someone from the military comes to drop our supplies off tomorrow.”
I put a hand around the girl’s shoulder, awkwardly so since she was taller than I.
I led her away towards Petr and the Englishmen.
To my astonishment, nobody tried to stop us, and no one was yelling anymore.
The room was filled only with the rambling of the Italian reporter on the screen and the disgruntled but pacified murmurs of people deciding what to do next.
Some of them were already retreating back upstairs.
Petr was repeatedly trying to call someone on his mobile phone, only to get disconnected immediately.
I was sure he was anxious to reach his family back in Prague.
“T-t-tsank you.” The girl gave me a timid smile despite the tears that continued to roll down her freckled face. “That vas r-r-really kind.”
“What’s your name, honey?” I asked her.
“Monika.”
“Tell me, Monika, do you drink? Because as far as I understand, these kind gentlemen have some rum they need help disposing of ...”