Kate
Isteal another car.
This one’s a little black sports car that has the keys dangling in the ignition and a glorious tank full of gas. I wonder if the owner was about to turn the car on and then poof, they just vanished. It pisses me off.Why was I left behind? Why did no one take us? Not everyone got sick, most people just vanished.
“Why are all the people gone?” I ask, weaving in and out of lanes slowly. “And which way am I heading?”
“East,” he answers.
“Like, straight into the river?” I snap, gripping my fingers on the wheel.
“Toward the bridge. The big one, near your military base.”
“What military base? What bridge?” I say, jamming my foot down on the brakes. His body propels forward, his arms slamming out against the dashboard. I laugh. “Wearing seatbelts is a law here, dicknibbler, you might want to abide by it. Now, this military base you’re talking about. You mean in Brooklyn, near the Verrazano Bridge?”
He shrugs.Because, well, I don’t truly dislike him enough and he’d like me to dislike him even more.
“There’s a large bridge and water.”
“Thanks, that helps bunches,” I say, pressing my foot down on the gas pedal. “The only base I can think of east of us is Fort Hamilton. I’ll take the tunnel. It’s a bit of a ride without your special flying fucker ability, so answer my question.”
He takes a deep breath and lets it out obnoxiously loud.
“Oh, am I bothering you in any way?”
“Which of the thousands of questions would you like me to answer?” he says.
“Why are all the peoplegone?”
He shakes his head and looks out the window. “I don’t know,” he says quietly. It’s the same answer he’s given me before, but I can’t help thinking that he knows what’s going on and can help me in some way.
I take the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel to the Gowanus Expressway, a route that on the best of days is packed with cars. Now, there’s only a handful. Maybe these alien dweebs came in the middle of the night. I wish I knew.
The Gowanus Expressway is a road I take often. My mother’s family lives,lived, in Brooklyn, but the way now looks surreally unfamiliar. The Verrazano, a double-decked suspension bridge that connects Brooklyn to Staten Island, is concaved in the middle. It’s the gateway to New York Harbor and it certainly doesn’t look welcoming any longer. Chunks of rock and an enormous slab of both decks of the bridge poke out of the water, and its long steel ropes and cables loop into the Narrows below like thick silver strands of spaghetti. On the horizon, smoke billows in long columns and the Statue of Liberty is completely gone. The sky isn’t as thick here; at least I can see some blue. But it’s the only good thing for miles. The rest of the view is a city in ruins, smoldering and disintegrating into soft toxic dust.
At least it’s not snowing anymore.
It’s a struggle to hold back my tears looking at such devastation. I take the first exit I can to shield my eyes from the utter despair and cut through the Dyker Beach Golf Club.
“Stop this thing,” he says, slapping his hands down on the dashboard.
“Thisthingis called a car,” I snap back, unable to keep my emotions in check. The destruction of my home is staggering, and the thought of being here all alone makes it hard to breathe.
“Well, stop it,” he says dryly.
I stop the car. “We’re not even inside Fort Hamilton yet. I think—”
“No. You don’t think. That’s your problem,” he says, yanking open the door. I’m surprised he gets it open on the first attempt, and I want to make fun of him for it, but I’m tongue-tied with anger because he’s calling me stupid.
He slams the door before I can scream at him. I watch him move to the trunk and pull out his pack of metal parts. I’m trying to calm my breathing when he pulls open my door and sticks his face in front of mine. “You do have a brain in there, right? Stop with all your human emotional immaturity. If we go in there with you looking like, well, you…what do you think is going to happen?” He backs up and shifts the bag higher on his shoulder. “I don’t know what’s going on but I can use all the evidence to conclude that your people aren’t welcome.”
I lunge out of the car and shove his chest hard. “No.Yourpeople aren’t welcome. Remember that.”
He doesn’t even stumble back. As a matter of fact, I think he laughs at my attempt to push him away, but I don’t want him to think that might have upset me. No matter howscrawnyI am.
Huffing back my bitterness, I follow him into an empty building with blown-out windows and tall gray vines growing up the sides. Bricks and chunks of rock are missing from the walls, covering the ground in a fine white powder.
Up ahead to our left sits an enormous black cannon with a pile of cannon balls announcing the entrance to the old military grounds.
