Arena One: Slaverunners

He nods back. He looks stunned, frightened, but not seriously injured.

“I can’t get out,” he says back in a weak voice. He struggles with the twisted metal of his seatbelt buckle.

I climb in, reach over him, and jab at the buckle. It’s jammed. I check back over my shoulder and see the Crazies are even closer. Fifty yards and closing in. I use both hands, pushing it for all I have, sweating from the exertion. Come on. Come on!

Suddenly, the buckle snaps and the seatbelt whips back. Logan, free, rolls over, banging his head. He begins to pull himself out.

Just as Logan sits up, his eyes suddenly open wide, and he reaches out with one hand and roughly pushes me aside. He raises a gun with the other and takes aim just past my head and fires. The fire is deafening in my ear, which rings badly from it.

I turn and see he’s just killed a Crazy, a few feet away. And the others are only thirty yards behind him.

The Crazies are closing in fast. And there’s no way out.

Twenty Six

I think quickly. An RPG lies in the snow, a few feet away from the dead body of a Crazy. It looks intact, never fired. I run to it, my heart pounding. I only hope it works – and that I can figure out how to use it in the next few seconds.

I kneel down in the snow and scoop it up, my hands freezing, and hold it up against my shoulder. I find the trigger and take aim at the mob, now barely twenty yards away. I close my eyes, pray it works, and squeeze.

I hear a loud whooshing noise, and a moment later I’m knocked backwards off my feet. The force of it sends me about ten feet, landing flat on my back in the snow. There’s an explosion.

I look up and am shocked at the damage I’ve done: I managed a direct hit on the mob, at close range. Where there were dozens of bodies a second ago, there is now nothing but body parts spread over the snow.

But there is no time to revel in my small victory. In the distance, dozens more crazies crawl up from the subway stations. I don’t have any more RPGs to fire, and don’t know what else to do.

Behind me I hear a noise of smashing metal and turn to see Logan standing on the hood of the Humvee. He lifts his leg and kicks at the machine gun mounted to its hood. Finally, it comes off. He picks it up. A chain of ammo dangles from it, which he wraps over his shoulder. The gun is massive, made to be mounted on a car – not carried – and looks like it weighs over fifty pounds. He holds it with both hands, and even as big as he is, I can see it weighing him down. He runs past me and takes aim at the new group of crazies. He fires.

The noise is deafening as the machine gunfire rips through the snow. The impact is remarkable: the huge bullets tear the incoming crowd in half. Bodies drop like flies wherever Logan aims the gun. Eventually he stops shooting, and the world returns to its still, snowy silence. We have killed them all. For now, at least, there are no more Crazies in sight.

I survey this canvas of destruction: there is the destroyed black school bus, taken out by the RPG, the destroyed yellow one, lying on its side, in flames, bodies are everywhere, and our Humvee is a shell beside us. It looks like the scene of an intense military battle.

I follow the tracks from the other bus, the one with Bree on it. They forked left at the Flatiron.

I chose the wrong bus. It’s not fair. It’s just not fair.

As I study the scene, catching my breath, all I can think of is Bree, those tracks. They lead to her. I have to follow them.

“Bree’s on the other bus,” I say, pointing at the tracks. “I have to find her.”

“How?” he asks. “On foot?”

I examine our Humvee and see that it is useless. I have no other choice.

“I guess so,” I say.

“The Seaport’s at least fifty blocks south,” Logan says. “That’s a long walk – and in dangerous territory.”

“You have any other ideas?”

He shrugs.

“There’s no turning back,” I say. “Not for me, anyway.”

He examines me, debating.

“You with me?” I ask.

Finally, he nods.

“Let’s move,” he says.

* * *

We follow the tracks, walking side by side in the snow. Each step is a fresh burst of hell, as my calf, so swollen, is beginning to feel like a separate entity from my body. I hobble, doing my best to keep pace with Logan. He is weighed down by the heavy machine gun and is not walking too quickly himself. The snow is still coming down in sheets, the wind whipping it right into our faces. If anything, the storm feels like it’s getting stronger.

Every few feet another Crazy pops out from behind a building and charges us. Logan fires at them as they come, mowing them down one at a time. They all hit the snow, staining it read.

“Logan!” I scream.

He turns just in time to see the small group of Crazies attacking us from behind and shoots them down. I pray he has enough ammo to get us wherever we need to go. My gun only has a single bullet left; I need to save it for a desperate moment. I feel so helpless and wish I had rounds of ammo myself.

As we pass another block, several Crazies jump out from behind a building and charge us at once. Logan fires, but doesn’t see the other Crazy, attacking from the other side. He’s coming too fast and Logan won’t make it in time.

I pull out the knife from my belt, take aim, and throw it. It lodges in the Crazy’s forehead and he drops to the snow at Logan’s feet.

We continue down Broadway, gaining speed, moving as fast as we can. As we go, the crowd of Crazies seems to thin out. Maybe they see the damage we are doing and are wary of approaching. Or maybe they are just waiting, biding their time. They must know we will run out of ammo and will eventually have nowhere to go.

We pass 19

street, then 18

, then 17

… and suddenly, the sky opens up. Union Square. The square, once so pristine, is now one big, untended park filled with trees and waist-high weeds sprouting up through the snow. The buildings are all in ruin, the glass storefronts shattered and the facades blackened from flames. Several of the buildings have collapsed and are nothing but piles of rubble in the snow.

I look over, checking to see if the Barnes & Noble I once loved is still standing. I remember the days when I would take Bree there, when we would go up the escalator and lose ourselves for hours. Now I am horrified to see there is nothing left. Its old, rusted sign lies face-down on the ground, half covered in snow. There’s not a single book left in the shell of its windows. In fact, there’s no way of knowing what it once was.

We hurry across the square, sidestepping rubble as we follow the bus tracks. All has become eerily quiet. I don’t like it.

We reach the southern side of the square, and I’m saddened to see the huge statue of George Washington mounted on a horse toppled, lying in pieces on its side, half-covered in snow. There is really nothing left. Anything and everything that was good in the city seems to have been ruined. It is astonishing.

I stop, grabbing onto Logan’s shoulder, trying to catch my breath. My leg hurts so bad, I need to rest it.

Logan stops and is about to say something – when we both hear a commotion and turn. Across the square, dozens of Crazies suddenly rise up from the subway entrance, heading right for us. There seems to be a never-ending stream of them.

Worse, Logan takes aim and pulls the trigger, and this time we hear nothing but an empty, horrifying click. His eyes open wide in surprise and fear. Now we have nowhere to turn, nowhere to run. This huge group of Crazies, at least a hundred and growing, are closing in. I turn in every direction, looking frantically for any source of escape, any vehicles, any weapons. Any source of shelter. But I find none.

It seems we have reached the end of our luck.