Mike McQuay: Escape From New York

And Bob Hauk, God help him, was in charge.

He let his eyes drift over the corpse of the city. It was a blackened shell, a concrete forest of dead, towering trees. Its lifeless towers stretched like monstrous tombstones into the heart of the black night. Occasional fires flickered below him; the animals who now controlled those dead streets were playing out the disease that ruled their minds. But soon it would be winter, and the animals would grow a lot fewer in number. Hauk figured that couldn’t help but be a good thing.

New York City had been the first North American target in the war. It was under siege for three full weeks with fire bombs and gas. When it was over, those who were left alive were crazy. They roamed the streets in large packs, desecrating and cannibalizing what bodies they found. What remains there were got piled in layers up and down Wall Street, and that section of town became known as the boneyard,

Hauk looked over at his pilot. The man was staring intently at his small radar screen, his jaw muscles clenching and unclenching in anticipation. All at once, a tiny light appeared on the screen, flashing brightly each time the sweep passed its position.

“All right,” the pilot sighed, low and sexual. He started breathing heavily, his tongue flicking out to lick dry lips.

Hauk turned away from the man, staring once more at the city. He hated to look at it, hated everything about it. He hated the fates that put him there to begin with.

The war went on, and so did the gas. As the years slipped by, the American economy went to pieces. There were a lot of poor people, who were going crazy with gas madness. To survive they turned to crime. The crime rate doubled, then redoubled and quadrupled as crazies took to the streets, looting and burning-destroying everything that they came in contact with.

And as the wars continued overseas, the soldiers slowly went crazy. The Army, though, had learned to channel the insanity into battle fury. The trouble was, the boys were starting to come home after years on the front with no way to direct their madness.

Then someone had a bright idea. The United States Police Force was formed, its ranks filled exclusively with veterans with a taste for blood. Their uniforms were black, just like their minds. Their justice was swift and fiery.

They took to the streets, trained to mayhem, and fought the urban wars with clipped military precision. When they were done, millions lay dead. Those unlucky enough to be left alive were herded onto Manhattan Island. It was big enough, and uninhabited by anyone sane, and its rivers formed a natural barricade.

They were back over the churning waters again. The pilot was chuckling low. He had the blip centered on his radar screen.

He spoke into his mouthpiece. “North Bay, section seventeen. Object ahead.”

Hauk, from reflex, began looking down, his keen eyes scanning the surface. The copter dipped and began circling, the spiral getting lower and lower, threading the needle.

The pilot flipped on a spot. It stabbed the blackness with an eerie blue shaft of light. Hauk caught sight of the thing on the water before the pilot, but he didn’t say anything. It didn’t matter.

The searchlight found the object soon enough. It was a crude raft of rot wood and telephone poles lashed together. Two thin, tattered prisoners were atop it. They were paddling desperately toward the Jersey Wall. They looked up, startled, when the light found them. But then they went back to their paddling, hurrying the pace even faster.

The pilot’s gloved hand found the toggle for the backfires, and he gently caressed the little knob.

“Got you now,” he said huskily. “Dead meat.”

Hauk reached out and touched the hand on the toggle. The man looked over at him. His face was lined with anger. Hauk gave the look right back to him.

“A warning,” Hauk said. “Give them a warning first”

The man tightened his lips, but didn’t say anything. Moving his hand away from the missiles, he activated the loudspeakers instead.

“You have ten seconds to turn around,” he said, and the words roared out of the external speakers like thunder. “Start back to the penitentiary.”

The prisoners didn’t listen, of course. Hauk knew they wouldn’t. They were crazy anyway.

The pilot put his hand back on the toggle, then looked to Hauk. The Commissioner took a breath, then nodded. The grin came back to the man’s face immediately. He was easy to please. Just give him something to kill.

He got the raft directly below the chopper, then flicked the toggle. There was a whoosh and the copter shuddered. Hauk watched the tracers from the two missiles zig-zag down to the water.

The explosions ripped the night to shreds, ripped away the cover of darkness to reveal the festering heat beneath. When the white hot flashes faded away there was nothing left of the two men and the raft except churning, crackling water.

“Good shooting,” Hauk said without conviction.

The pilot bobbed his head proudly and turned the copter toward Liberty Island. “Control,” he said into his mouthpiece, trying to make his voice sound casual. “Attempted prisoner break has been terminated. Over.”

The voice came back excited. “Nice work, Gotham 4. Is that you, Charly? Over.”

“Yeah, it’s me,” the pilot answered. “And I’ve bagged seventeen. Another month and I’ll have a gold badge.”

“I believe it’s eighteen, Charly,” the static-filled voice returned. “I think you’ve got eighteen.”

“I think you’re right. I think it is eighteen.”

“Well, congratulations. And keep up the good work. Over. Out.”

They were coming up on the Statue of Liberty, command post for the USPF control of the Manhattan prison. The whole island was heavily fortified with artillery and great stone bunkers topped by rolls of barbed wire.

They came in close, right past the great lady’s face. The interior of the crown was brightly lit, and Hauk could see movement within. People manning machines, gazing out the windows with huge binoculars up to their faces. Machinery. Lots of machinery. They flew under the beam of the power searchlights that were set atop the torch. The beam was wide angle, and raked the waters below in long, sweeping patterns.

The landing pad was on the Jersey side of the Statue, right beside the huge wall that they had erected connecting liberty Island with the New Jersey shore.

The wall loomed large beside them as they floated down to the big yellow “X” of a landing zone. It rose far into the sky, its top filled with a long row of red lights that continually flashed a pulsebeat rhythm on and off, on and off.

Troop bunkers were built into the base of the wall and when they got close, Hauk could see black-suited cops drifting in and out of the stone canyons.

Hauk hated the prison, and he hated the killers who called themselves cops. He never came down here unless there was a damn good reason. Tonight he had a reason. Tonight he had come down to meet someone special. Tonight he had come down to meet Snake Plissken.

October 23

7:45 P.M.

The inside of the van was dark like a cave. It was all steel inside, cold and slick. It was going to rain; Plissken could feel it in his eye. But he couldn’t tell otherwise, for he was completely closed in-no light, no warmth and only the air that had been locked in there with him.

They had been riding for a long time, and the suspension on the truck was so bad that Plissken was bruised all over from the jolts. He would have slept since he needed the rest, but the continual bouncing plus the heavy chains they had manacled him down with made it impossible.