The Roaming Lands
The brakes screeched as the school bus fishtailed into an abrupt stop. Izzie’s body was yanked back, her head hitting against the metal plated window behind her. She had been forced to sit sideways on the cracked leather seat as they tried to pile as many bodies onto the bus as possible. The four other women in her seat looked just as dazed as she was, but she wasn’t sure if they had fallen asleep as well. Weeks of sleepless nights won out over her anxiety about their escape into New York City.
She craned her neck, letting her body stretch out of its rigid position. She didn’t expect to see suburbia outside the window.
“Where are we?” she asked, her breath hitched with panic as she sprawled her hand against the cool glass, trying to grasp what she was seeing. It wasn’t the city; they hadn’t escaped anything yet.
“Probably still in Long Island, maybe Queens if we’re lucky. Hard to tell,” the woman next to her responded, rolling her shoulders and testing out the full mobility of her left arm.
The door of the school bus opened, the air whipping around their heads in a cool blast. Lieutenant Celia moved down the squeaky stairs with caution, a knife held taunt in her fist. Private James was up from the driver seat, rummaging through one of two duffel bags that took up the front seat Lt. Celia had been sitting in. He strapped a rifle to his chest, and held onto a pocket knife barely longer than his palm. The private turned to the man sitting on the opposite seat, handing him a black and clunky object before exiting. The man turned it over in his worn tan hands, testing it with his fingers. When he released the magazine, Izzie realized it was a gun.
People started to stand, peering over seats and into the aisle to see what it was the Lieutenant was going after. Izzie could barely see over the other heads from where she was in the back.
“It’s the other bus!” a shrilled voice shouted from the front of the bus.
“The one that went out this morning?” a man yelled close to where Izzie was. She turned to look at him across the aisle. He was standing up in his corner of the seat, so tall that he had to hunch down to avoid hitting his head.
“Bus number 312! I memorized it,” the same shrill voice shouted back.
“Jules, is that it?” the tall man called back. He was wearing a white t-shirt too thin for the chilly October air. It had a worn red logo on it with a slice of pizza in the middle and the name Carmine rounded over top of it.
“It’s on its side, and those things...they’re all over it.”
The dead, or the living, nobody was quite sure what they were. Just that they were ravenous, decrepit creatures out of a bad horror movie, and that if one got too close that was the end.
“Got blood on the windows,” the man from the front seat answered. “Can’t tell if it’s on the inside or not.”
A chorus of questions blended together in one voice of panic. Izzie could feel her stomach pull, as she sat down on her sliver of seat, her back braced against the cold metal behind her.
“What do you think you’re doing?!”
Izzie’s eyes snapped back open, and she lifted up as much as she could to peer over the seat in front of her. The man from the front seat was walking off the bus, the gun Private James handed him expertly aimed in front of him.
“Diego!” someone shouted to him, a younger man that had been sitting behind him. He was tall and thin, with big square glasses and cornrows. He stared at the open door Diego had just disappeared out of, his eyes darting back over to the horde attacking the bus, and Lt. Celia struggling against them. “Shit,” he cursed, jumping out of his seat and following after Diego with a crowbar in his hand.
Some of them had weapons, mostly random blunt objects that they used to survive on their way to the refugee camp at Nassau Coliseum. Izzie had her knapsack, which she held close to her chest, fingers roaming over the roughspun fabric. She had memorized her meager belongings still inside of it: three granola bars, one scratchy blanket, a pair of hand warmers, an empty thermos, one pill bottle.
Sixty pills.
That was all she had left.
The body pushing against her broke Izzie out of her thoughts. Focused back in she looked up to see the woman who had been sitting next to her trying to get out of the seat.
“Scuse me,” she said.
“Honey, you ain’t goin’ out there. Whatchu gonna do?” the older woman next to her huffed as she tried to move past.
“At least I’m helping!” she snapped, loud enough for most of the bus to turn and look at her. “Give me that flashlight, you’re not doing anything with it.” She held her hand out as people sitting on the floor of the aisle tried to move out of the way so she could squeeze by them. The older woman handed it over reluctantly.
“Don’t get blood on that!” the older woman called after. She was halfway through the bus when the Carmine’s guy began to move through the aisle too, saying excuse me with a soft voice that didn’t match his overarching stature. A few others filed out as well, but a majority of them stood still, breathe held in their chests as they waited.
“You tryna go out there too?” the older woman had turned and stared at Izzie.
Without everyone asking panicked questions she could hear the carnage outside. The mewling filled the silence in the bus, punctuated by the raw, guttural sounds Lt. Celia would make as she fought against whatever was out there. It raised the hair on Izzie’s neck as she hugged her arms tighter across her body, holding the knapsack even closer.
The older woman nodded, her mouth growing tighter with each grunt and scream they heard.
The sun had begun to set by time Izzie’s seat mate slumped back onto the bus. Her dark skin was shining with sweat, and bloody smudges marred her green jacket.
“What happened out there?” the older woman asked when she reached their seat. She looked at the tiny spot between the older woman and Izzie wearily, and then pushed her way into it.
“Dolores?” the older woman asked, softened by the defeated expression the woman bore.
Lt. Celia was the last one back on the bus, her shoulders drooped and a lit cigarette hanging from her mouth. Private James shut the door.
“Wasn’t any survivors,” she announced, though no one asked. “Pretty sure all those dead outside were ours—you know, from the bus.” She took a long drag on the cigarette before lifting it away, and talking through wisps of smoke. “Anyway, this roads blocked, gotta find a different way in.”
“She wanted to save them,” Dolores said quietly as Private James backed the bus up. The bus moved slowly, heaving back and forth on the narrow street. Through her window Izzie could see the other bus, flipped on its side and bodies heaped on the street in front of it. One of the dead still stood, swaying on a lawn nearby. She was no bigger than a child, with blond hair bloodied at the top of her head. Her mouth gaped open and she trudged forward, arms outstretched to catch the bus.
The sky had started to grow dark quicker than Lt. Celia would have liked. Despite the coldness outside, the bus was starting to swelter with so many people packed inside of it. They had been stuck on the bus for hours. They were starting to fidget, pulling at their collars and sleeves, trying to stretch and crack their aching joints and muscles.
The bus screeched, lurching them all forward. Izzie put her hand up against the cold brown leather in front of her, the glue from a strip of old, graying tape sticking to her fingers. The bus stopped, and she slammed back against the wall, her knapsack tumbling from her lap and to the floor. She scrambled down to get it, snatching it up by the strap while Dolores eyed her.
“You got gold in there?” the older woman asked next her.
They sat like frightened school children glued to the cracked leather seats. Izzie looked out the window, and through caked on grime saw the sun barely peeking through the buildings, the sky a violent shade of red.
“End of the line,” the lieutenant stood from the front of the bus. Her wistful eyes wandered over the sea of bodies that filled the seats, and they all stared back at her attentively. The private pulled open the folded doors in the front with an awful screech.
“I thought you were getting us out of the city?” Jules asked from her seat in the middle, her piercing voice apprehensive as she stared out the opened doors. Deep worry lines furrowed her brow as she stared wild eyed at the rest of them for some kind of confirmation.
“Not with this bus we ain’t,” Private James drawled, his southern accent out of place amongst the New Yorkers. Izzie lengthened her back and neck so she could see over the seats in front of her and out the front window of the bus. A barricade of road blocks and cop cars were piled in front of them, blocking the only way onto the Williamsburg Bridge.
Lieutenant Celia’s fingers squeezed at the back of the seat she stood next to, holding onto one last grip of reality before she stomped down the metal stairs. The private followed her out, a small duffel bag in hand.
Row by row they followed into the center, filing out of the bus with sullen steps. When it was her row’s turn the older woman stood and then stepped back for Dolores and Izzie to move forward. Izzie stepped out reluctantly, but before she took one stepped heard the slide of vinyl behind her. She looked behind her to see the older woman sitting back down.
“What are you doing?!” Dolores demanded, her head shaking.
“You’re all crazy to go out there. I’m going right back to the camp, they have those Nature’s Valley there!” the older woman said, winking at Izzie in some knowing way that Izzie didn’t quite grasp.
“There’s no supplies left,” Dolores begged, “You need to get out of there eventually and if we can make it across the bridge—”
“We’re all gonna die anyway Dolores, let me die where I damn want to. Back at the amphitheater, with my granola bars.”
“Mama!” Dolores sighed, moving passed Izzie and back into the seat with the older woman. Izzie’s chest caught at the word, and she hurried off the bus, digging the heel of her palm into her eye.
She didn’t realize Private James was at the foot of the steps until he shoved something cold and heavy into her hand. Izzie looked down at the pocket knife in disbelief.
“It’s the last one left,” he said as she stared at its dull metal blade, “One of you needs to take it, you’ll be thankful for it later.”
“Why?” Jules spun around to face Private James, her eyes darting between him and where Lt. Celia stood with her back to them, her hand resting on the rifle slung across her dark shoulders. “Aren’t you taking us across?!”
“We have to go back for the others,” Lt. Celia said without turning to look at them. “But there’s a second patrol on the Manhattan side of the bridge. Make your way across to them and they’ll bring you the rest of the way to Poughkeepsie.”
“What if we run into some of the…the…you know…them?” Carmine asked, unsure what to call the things that plagued them. The half dead creatures that tore down the world as they knew it.
“The bridge is cleared,” Private James said tersely. “But you might want to hurry. Light won’t last much longer.” Lt. Celia turned, reaching to the gun holster on her hips and pulling out the handgun. She held it out to Carmine but he shook his head. She turned holding it out towards the group, until Diego stepped forward. His worn, tanned hands reached out, knuckles cracking before Lt. Celia handed the gun over.
“Just in case,” she said, clapping a hand to Diego’s back. She boarded the bus just as Dolores emerged from it. Private James followed her and without a word pulled the doors shut softly. Mama still sat at the back of the bus, waving as it backed up down the street until it turned and disappeared.
Izzie swung her knapsack forward, tossing the knife into it and felt it bounce into the bottom, weighing the pack down with a jolt.
“You might want to keep that out,” the guy with the cornrows who had gotten off the bus after Diego said to her.
“Right,” she said, plunging her hand back in and feeling the scratch of the blanket as she searched for the knife.
“I’m Isaac, by the way.” He still had his crowbar, and now a flashlight too.
“Izzie.”
She pulled the knife back out, holding it in her hand. He smiled at her, a kind smile that felt out of place. Izzie nodded to him, a swallow stuck in her throat as she closed her fingers around the knife. It hung reluctant in her hand as she followed Isaac into a huddle that had formed at the entrance near the blockade of cars.
Their faces were a sea of blurred features, unfamiliar to her. Pressed up against bodies as they drew closer to each other, she never felt more alone. Izzie had been one of the last to reach the safe encampment at Nassau Coliseum before they had started busing people out of the suburb, through the city, and up to a contained area in Upstate New York. She spent three days sleeping as much as possible before her number was called to board.
“Try to stay single filed,” Diego whispered, the rough edges of his voice grasping at them to stay focused. “It’ll be easier to keep an eye on everyone that way.”
She spotted Dolores in the crowd and moved closer to her. They squeezed between two of the cop cars, one of which Diego stood on the hood of with the gun trained at the unforeseen horizon before them. Izzie was scooped into the line, wedged between a woman that couldn’t be much older than her with box braids, and Dolores behind her.