Adam Baker: Terminus

Liberty watched, impassive, as the roiling blast plume towered above the city, flame and hell-roar ringed by heat strata and an incandescent halo of ionised air.

Three days later.

The Empire Cinema: ‘Brooklyn’s Finest Viewing Experience!’ A sign taped to door glass:

A derelict foyer lit by weak sunlight.

Torn posters.

Scattered popcorn.

Motes of dust drifted through weak sunbeams.

Lupe dived through the main door in an explosion of glass and rain. She brought down an old guy in blue striped pyjamas and a bathrobe. A rotted, skeletal thing, frame barely held together by sinew and cartilage. His eyes were jet black. His skin was threaded with metallic tumours.

They hit the floor and rolled.

Lupe sat on his chest. He snarled. He spat. Hands clawed her face, tore at her coat.

She pulled a tin of beans from her coat pocket and pounded his head. Skull-splintering blows. Brain spilt on blue carpet.

She caught her breath. She wiped sweat from her brow with the back of her hand.

A yellow ribbon of quarantine tape had caught round her neck like a scarf. She tore it free.

She ripped the hem of the pyjama jacket. She towelled rain from her hair. She wiped her hands. She cleaned blood and matted hair from the bean tin and put it back in her pocket.

She searched the bathrobe. Coins. Candy wrappers. A lighter.

Distant engine noise. A gruff rumble. Something big, something powerful heading down the street. Sound of an automobile shunted aside: deep revs, shattering glass and metal shriek.

Lupe tried to stand. She fell to the floor. Glass embedded in bare feet. The soles of each foot were studded with granules of safety glass. Heavy blood drips.

She clenched her teeth and prized chunks of glass from her skin. She tweezed each little sliver-blade with ragged fingernails and cast them aside. She tore pyjama fabric and bandaged each foot.

The engine got louder.

A cop siren whooped a single rise-and-fall.

Feedback whine. An amplified voice echoed from the street outside, reverberated down the row of smashed storefronts:

‘This is the New York Police Department hailing any survivors. Please come out of your homes. We are here to help. We have food and water. We can provide you with shelter and medical assistance. This borough is no longer safe for human habitation. If you can hear me, if you are able to respond, please come out into the street so that we can convey you to safety.’

Engine noise getting closer.

‘This is the New York Police Department. Leave your homes. This is your last chance to evacuate the exclusion zone. Please come out into the street.’

Lupe tried to get to her feet. Stabbing pain. She fell to her knees.

Engine noise reached a crescendo. She lay prone and pulled the body of the old man on top of herself. She played dead.

Diesel roar.

An eight-ton armoured NYPD Emergency Service Vehicle slowly rolled past the cinema entrance. It mounted the sidewalk. The winch fender bulldozed a Lexus aside.

Lupe opened one eye. The vehicle slowly passed in front of the cinema doors. Daylight blocked by a wall of matt black ballistic steel.

The vehicle stopped and idled. A blue haze of exhaust fumes filled the atrium.

White light. She lay still and held her breath as the searchlight washed the foyer walls.

Scattered dollars.

A dead escalator.

A bloody palm print on the ticket booth glass.

The beam scanned the floor. Carpet dusted with scintillating granules of safety glass. Two bodies entwined.

Lupe tried to remain relaxed and impassive, tried not to screw her eyes tight shut as the harsh beam passed over her face.

Maybe they can tell I’m not infected. If I hear a door slam, if I hear boots on the ground, I’ll have to get up, try to run.

The vehicle revved and moved on.

Lupe pushed the body aside. She crawled across the atrium carpet on her hands and knees.

She crawled behind the concession stand.

A corpse. A girl in an Empire Cinemas shirt. She was curled on the floor, surrounded by crushed popcorn buckets like she made a cardboard nest in which to die.

Lupe hauled herself through a doorway into a store room. Darkness. She sat with her back to the wall. She flicked the lighter and held up the flame.

Freezers. Steel food preparation counters. CO 2cylinders and soda syrup. A big metal tub for popping corn.

She took the bean tin from her pocket and hammered it against the door frame, trying to split it open. She gave up and threw the dented tin aside.

A green first aid box and fire blanket on the wall above her head.

She picked up a mop and used the handle to prod the box from its hook. It fell in her lap. She cleaned her wounds with antiseptic wipes and dressed her feet.

Distant, ponderous boot steps. Someone pacing the sidewalk outside the cinema.

Lupe knelt on the mop and snapped the shaft. Muffled, splintering crack. She crawled out the door and crouched behind the concession stand, clutching the jagged spear.

A cop with a shotgun. SWAT body armour. Kevlar helmet, respirator. He wore a prairie coat with the collar turned up. Rainwater dripped from the barrel of his gun.

The cop approached the cinema entrance. He shone a flashlight inside. Lupe ducked behind the counter.

Faint rustle. Lupe turned. The dead girl curled behind the counter slowly came to life. She lifted her head. Half her face was a mess of metallic spines.

Lupe hurriedly backed away. She crawled into the darkness of the storeroom. The putrefied revenant followed.

The girl crouched in darkness, sniffed and looked around.

Lupe pushed the door closed. Weak light through an inch gap.

She kicked the creature in the head, then winced and hopped from the pain.

The infected girl rolled on her back, opened her mouth wide like she was about to deliver a shrill, animal howl. Lupe knelt on her chest and jammed the mop head in her mouth to stifle the scream. The girl thrashed her head side to side and chewed the wad of mop yarn jammed between her jaws. Lupe speared the infected creature’s eye socket with the broken handle shaft, drove it deep into brain. The girl fell limp like someone hit an off switch.

Lupe peered through the door gap.

The cop had gone.

She opened the door. The street was empty. Sodden garbage. Rainwater tainted with ash.

She returned to the storeroom. She took the dead girl’s shoes and laced them onto her own feet. She flapped open the fire blanket and wrapped it over her head like a silver shawl.

She nudged the release bar with her hip and pushed the door ajar.

A narrow side street. Fading light. Burned out cars. Torrential rain.

Lupe edged into the street. A rat-stripped body hung from a yellow cab fifty yards away. A snub revolver clutched in a rotted hand.

She ran to the body. She paused. She circled the corpse, checked for signs of infection, any sign the dead thing would get up and attack.

Blinding light.

‘Freeze. Show me your hands. Show me your fucking hands.’

Lupe shielded her eyes.

‘Hands, or I’ll shoot you in the face.’

Brief moment of decision. Snatch the pistol, or surrender.

She raised her hands and let the fire blanket fall to the ground.

‘On your knees.’

She knelt in pooled rainwater.

An approaching flashlight. Two SWAT cops armed with shotguns.

‘Don’t fucking move.’