Vacation

1. 76th Precinct, Union Street, Brooklyn

“They gotta be fuckin’ kidding,” Rodriguez said.

Jack Murphy looked at his partner. Rodriguez was holding the latest in protection offered to the cops who did the precinct’s dirty work: a rigid Kevlar body shield that also covered the back and sides of the neck.

“As if I’d ever let one of those animals get anywhere near my neck.” Rodriguez grinned. “How about something a bit stiffer and lower to protect the crown jewels?”

The night desk sergeant, Miller, walked into the locker room.

“Rodriguez, you will wear it. You too, Murphy.”

Jack turned to the sergeant. “Did I say I wouldn’t? I’m for all the protection I can get.”

“Even if it makes you look like a fuckin’ turtle?” Rodriguez asked. “Once a stupid mick, always a stupid mick.”

Jack waited until Miller left the room. “Wear it, don’t wear it. But Rodriguez—do you have to advertise to the world, to the damn desk sergeant, what you’re going to do?”

Jack liked David Rodriguez as a partner. Plenty of experience, but with enough of a rebellious streak that he hadn’t been able to get transferred from this precinct to someplace better.

Though these days, where exactly was better? Did “better” even exist?

“So fire me. I’m an honest cop.” Rodriguez slammed his locker shut and twirled the combination lock.

Billy Thompson walked in. A rookie, barely weeks on the job, and looking as if he didn’t know what the hell to do with his eyeballs.

“Hey,” Jack said.

Thompson nodded, then as if remembering to respond: “Oh, hey.”

Rodriguez took a few steps closer as if smelling fresh meat. “Bad night last night, Billy boy?”

The rookie started working his locker. “Yeah. Pretty bad.”

“Where’s your fucking partner?”

Rodriguez looked over at Jack, probably loving that he had an audience for this.

Which is why I should walk the hell out of here, Jack thought. As if things weren’t bad enough.

“He’ll be here,” Thompson said. “Just running late.”

“Could be, amigo. Could be. But sometimes, you know, one bad night out there on the streets, rolling and strolling with the Can Heads, is enough.” Rodriguez slapped the shaken rookie on his shoulder. “Not to worry, hm? There’s always some other young fool who wants to be part of what’s left of New York’s Finest.”

Jack gave Rodriguez a head tilt in the direction of the door out of the locker room. Hopefully giving his partner the message: give the fucking kid a break.

Rodriguez hesitated, then followed Jack out. Just past the door, he laughed.

“I mean, c’mon Jack. What do you think these kids should hear? That the old days of the boys in blue are still here? ‘To serve and protect.’ Only what’s there to protect with the Can Heads raging—each one looking to take a nice big—”

Jack shook his head. “I got it, Rodriguez. Okay? I’ve been doing this as long as you have.”

“Fair enough, compadre. Fair enough. Let’s hope for a nice quiet night and some leftover spaghetti, hm?”

“Right.”

Some nights it could be quiet.

Some nights, Jack could sit at a desk, shuffle overdue reports, act busy, and there would be no calls. Of course, his partner remembered the days when two cops like them would take the patrol car out just to see what was happening. Catch a few petty dirtbags, get your arrest numbers up.

It wasn’t all that long ago, but by the time Jack joined, those days had ended.

Nobody went out if they didn’t have to.

Video had some of the precinct covered—at least the part deemed the Safe Zone, the area protected by twelve-foot-high fences and electrified razor ribbon. Thing was, those safe parts were growing smaller and smaller.

In parts of the five boroughs they had disappeared completely, all the zones turned red. The number of fully-staffed precincts had been whittled down to a handful.

Manhattan still maintained most of its precincts, though even there, Red Zones dotted lower Manhattan, and giant areas north of Central Park had been totally written off.

And the Bronx? The Yankees and everyone else human were long gone.

It was work keeping the Can Heads out.

And Jack told himself—tried to convince himself—that this was important work.

As every politician never lost a chance to say, this is war.

Us versus them.

Those who tried to live normal human lives.

And then the others, the Can Heads.

When the Great Drought hit, when water became like gold… when the food riots touched every continent… when sheer hunger made whole governments collapse, something else happened.

Some switch got thrown. There were so many explanations, so many theories, and no agreement.

No one knew what had happened.

Had it been a secret experiment gone wrong, a secret superfood created, consumed, designed to end the plague of shortages? And if so, did that food actually carry a new virus that played with the genetic code and undo millions of years of evolution?

And what did he think?

Above my pay grade, Jack thought. They just need people like me, and Rodriguez, and Thompson, to make sure the Can Heads stay away.

And every day, every night, that got harder and harder.

His eyes had shut sometime in the middle of the night.

Cops weren’t supposed to sleep; this wasn’t like the Fire Department. They still maintained that code of “on duty—to serve and protect.”

That meant awake.

Still, it was quiet and he had slept.

The phone on his desk rang, shrill in the middle of the night. Cell service had largely disappeared save for the few satellites services and those that could afford them. Landlines had also grown increasingly undependable—cables cut, telephone poles down. When lines in the supposedly safe areas got damaged, no team would go out to work on them, at least when it was dark.

The desk phone gave out a sharp trilling noise. He saw the time.

2:12 A.M. Christie.

“Hey,” she said.

“Up late again?” he said.

“Just checking on you.”

Jack laughed. “You know if I had a nice warm bed to sleep in, that’s what I’d be doing instead of—”

“It’s so quiet here. Hate it when you do nights.”

“Only a few more days. You should sleep.” A pause. “I would.”

“Yes.”

Jack’s tone did little to take the edge off Christie’s voice. She worried. But more than that, she kept at him about their need to get away from this, to leave the city.

The chats often turned into arguments. Their relationship another casualty of this new world.

Get away? Another job? Go where? Do what?

Supposedly there were opportunities if you traveled deep enough into the country. Factories where things still got made, plants where they struggled to process and stretch the thin food resources.

Jack had resigned himself to this life.

The money wasn’t bad. Sooner or later, he might get posted to Manhattan, a desk job. Just had to hang the hell in there.

But Christie didn’t buy any of it.

“Quiet tonight?” she asked.

“So far. Fingers crossed.”

A longer pause this time. “Okay. Be safe.”

“Always do the best I can. Now you—”

A little laugh from his wife. “I’m going, I’m going.” She took a breath. “Good night.”

“Good night,” Jack said, feeling terribly alone when the line went dead.

He hit the keyboard of the ancient computer on his desk, a true dinosaur, and began scrolling through the still-empty fields of information that had to be filled out.

An hour later.

The screen in front of Jack had long turned into a sleepy blur as he lost the fight to keep his eyes open.

A few minutes… he had told himself.

Everyone did it. As they waited—or hoped that the morning would come without anything happening. But then the alarm began ringing. A door slammed. Jack’s eyes opened. Instantly awake.

He looked up at the precinct map on the station-house wall. One spot glowed bright red.

Rodriguez was already suited up. “Breakthrough, Jackie. Red Hook. Same fuckin’ building as last week.”

Jack stood up, and started for the locker room with Rodriguez at his shoulder.

“Same building? Jeezus.” Jack said.

“Yeah. Sorry man.”

Jack knew the building well. Most of the old Red Hook section of Brooklyn had been fenced off. A few government warehouses sat there, not much else. But there were still a few apartment buildings with people in them, fortified with some security and really the only option for the poor slobs who lived in them.

Nowhere else to put them. And they didn’t have much of a voice in any decision about their fate.

And last week…

It had been a mess. A blocked tunnel, part of the water and sewage system that had been shut down for security’s sake, had been opened. No one saw, no one noticed, until the Can Heads began clawing their way in, rising up from the ground inside the building’s fence.

The Can Heads had been minutes away from getting inside the building. And all those residents sat, waiting—some with guns, some not—all knowing that if the building came under a full-blown Can Head attack, it would take a shitload of cops to save them.

An army of cops.

That night, they got there in time. Killed the few Can Heads who had gotten out. Blew the tunnel opening, sealing it.

Jack clipped on the protective vest and leggings, and then the new Kevlar shield designed to keep the lower head and neck safe.

In case one got too close, jumped on you, and dug its teeth in.

“We got any support from the neighbors? Maybe the Six-three? Been quiet over there. Maybe they’d like some fun.”

“Not tonight. They had two incidents already.” Miller just shook his head. “Captain says you two are all on your own.”

And Jack guessed that the Six-three’s captain didn’t want to leave his precinct low on firepower. Could be the start of a busy night.

You never knew.

Either way, it would be just him and Rodriguez facing whatever the hell was going on in the Van Hove Apartments.

“All set?” Rodriguez asked.

Jack nodded.

Rodriguez clapped a hand on Jack’s back. “Good. I’ll drive. Now let’s go kill some Can Heads.”

2. Red Hook

As they navigated the passable streets of Brooklyn, following a maze of detours made by the security fence, Jack thought of the call from Christie.

When she had called, everything had been quiet.

Now, just past three A.M., they were driving through empty streets. Dead streets, heading to a godforsaken place where—incredibly enough—people lived.

Rodriguez dug out a cigarette. The smoke soon filled the interior even with his window cracked. Sometimes Rodriguez would ask Jack if he minded. Tonight he didn’t.

Certain open spots were lit by massive tungsten lamps; other streets were islands of darkness, the high-intensity lamps never installed at all or smashed by the Can Heads.

They liked the dark.

From the outside, their squad car didn’t look all that different than one from a decade ago. Still almost like a normal patrol car, white with blue markings.

But if you looked closer, you could spot the differences.

All the windows were fitted with shatterproof triple-plate glass. And the exposed undercarriage was covered with a solid steel plate designed to protect the car from any explosions or attempts to sabotage it. A second layer of bullet-resistant metal covered the car’s exterior—though it wasn’t too often that bullets were the problem.

Its Achilles’ heel? Had to be the wheels. As puncture proof as they could be, the army-grade, hybrid steel-belted tires could still be rendered useless.

Trick was to keep the thing moving.

Being stopped, giving Can Heads time to figure a way in… that could be real bad.

“Damn quiet,” Rodriguez said.

Of course, nobody would be out, everyone trusting the locks on their doors more than the lamps or the police or the grid of fences to stand between them and the Can Heads.

If there was one thing everyone knew, the Can Heads—whatever made them like that, whatever goddamn switch had been thrown—never gave up.

Not when so nearby, so close, there was fresh meat.

“Always quiet, isn’t it?” Jack said.

“Yeah. Just don’t like it to be so damn quiet when we’ve been called.”

Jack didn’t say anything.

Instead, he looked at the backseat. A powerful arsenal accompanied them. Two M-16 machine guns, army-issue that had become the go-to automatic weapon for police. Beside it, a shotgun and an open case with a foam “egg carton” filled with a variety of explosives, flares and smoke bombs.

They both carried a Glock 22—a cop favorite—and a Smith & Wesson .40, small but accurate.

The rule on a call like this was, scope out the situation and then do what you could on your own. Backup might be available, but only if absolutely necessary.

Once they left the vehicle, they had to bring all the firepower they thought they’d need. Because if you travelled light, getting back to the car, to its portable armory, might be a moot point.

Rodriguez cut the car to the left, heading down a narrow street. No lights. Perfect for a trap, but it was the most direct way to the main entrance of the building.

Rodriguez turned on the squad car’s twin light bars on the roof. The narrow street became bathed in brilliant white light.

Jack saw a lone rat scramble away.

Even they were a rarity.

What a fucking world, Jack thought.

Then they left the narrow street, a turn to the right and the building entrance lay ahead.

“Okay. Looks quiet.”

“Yeah,” Jack answered. In addition to a Safe Zone’s own protective fence, this building—like most apartment buildings—had its own security fence, complete with a guard and video monitoring.

Except most of the guards weren’t worth much.

Terrified rummies, cowering in the shatterproof glass booths, peeing into a bottle, waiting until dawn when some other hapless guard relieved them.

Rodriguez pulled the car up to the gate. He flashed his ID. The guard rubbed his grizzled cheek at the same time as his handheld scanner recognized the ID as genuine.

The man inside the booth communicated with them via a speaker.

In some apartment complexes, there had been cases of finding these guys dead inside their booths. Somehow a Can Head would get in and enjoy feasting on something from the bottom end of the evolutionary spectrum.

And every security guard knew those stories.

“Where’s the problem?” Rodriguez asked.

The guard coughed, a crackle over the speaker.

“A tenant—fourth floor. Said he saw a new hole outside. Another breakthrough. H-he thought they might have gotten into the building. Sounded scared.”

I bet, Jack thought.

Rodriguez: “Christ. In the fucking building? Motherfucker.”

Jack knew that it could simply be a case of someone who had too much home-brewed alcohol. The real stuff was hard to come by, and home brew could have weird side effects. A bottle or two and suddenly you start seeing Can Heads all over the fucking place.

“Where the hell is it?” Rodriguez asked.

“The opening? Ah… way in the back. And the… the… tenant’s name is Tomkins. Guy lives alone. Fourth floor. Four-G.”

Jack leaned forward.

“Can we get back there with the car?” Rodriguez said.

The guard looked as if he didn’t know the layout.

“Close. Over there. See those spaces over there? That’s about as close as you can get.”

Rodriguez turned to look at Jack, his expression saying, We’re fucked. We got to get out and fucking walk to the opening? And if there was indeed an opening, they’d have to go hunt for whatever made it.

Rodriguez’s eyes said it all.

Lucky us.

Back to the guard. “Okay. Thanks. You hear anything more while we’re in there, you let us know. You got that, chief?”

The guard nodded.

Rodriguez pulled the car forward as the guard threw a switch. The gate opened, the wall of wire rolling away as they entered the apartment grounds.

Jack looked at his watch.

3:45.

Only about three hours away from finishing his shift.

Shit, he thought.

For all the good that would do.

“What do you want?” he asked Rodriguez.

“The usual. Maybe a few incendiaries, in case there is a hole. We start by sealing that.”

Jack noticed that his partner had already discarded their new lower head/neck covering, an item that had given him the look of a medieval Asian warrior.

“You forgetting something?” Jack said.

“No. I prefer mobility, amigo.”

Out of the car.

Jack knelt down and scanned the opening in the fence while Rodriguez kept up a steady 360-degree scan of the surrounding area.

Jack pulled back on the opening.

“I dunno,” he said. “Barely enough room for someone to wiggle through. Motion sensors should have turned on the big floods. If they even work.”

He looked up at his partner, who kept looking all around, the M-16 held in ready position.

“What you thinking, Jacko? Anything come through here?”

“Someone cut a goddamn hole. I dunno, and—”

“Right. Shit. I hear you. All right, we go talk to the tenant. The eagle eyes who saw something.”

Jack stood back up, shifting his own gun into a ready position.

“Yeah. Maybe we got lucky. False alarm. Some dog.”

Rodriguez looked right at Jack and laughed.

“Yeah. You think there are still dogs in this neighborhood?”

“Well, that hole—”

“Dream on, brother,” Rodriguez said. “Dogs. Shit. Just walking around.” Another big laugh. “Like the good old days? Dream the fuck on.”

They headed to the front door of the building.

3. Inside the Apartments

They took the stairs.

Way too many stories about elevators that just stopped. And then you were truly trapped. All boxed up and waiting for whatever would work its way down the steel cables to you.

Because whatever the Can Heads were, they weren’t completely mindless. They could still think a bit, even when they looked and acted like crazed rabid animals desperate for food.

Only in this case, food meant other people. The ones who hadn’t turned cannibal.

Did they turn on themselves?

Undoubtedly. Hungry enough, they certainly would.

But like any other predator, it was much more efficient for them to hunt weaker prey. Humans.

Jack and Rodriguez took the steps slowly, ears cocked for any sounds from the hallways.

“Seems all quiet,” Rodriguez said.

“Hmm?” Jack said.

Rodriguez turned to him. “See, Jacko? That new stuff around your head. Cuts down on your hearing. Not the best idea.”

Jack pushed the armored flap away from his right ear. “I hear fine. You were just whispering.”

“Riiiight.”

Past the third-floor entrance door, and up one more flight. The steps littered with trash. Kids probably still came here to screw or ingest whatever they could find in hopes that it might get them high. Maybe doing drugs was all the more exciting with the thought that there were dangerous things out there.

These teenagers had grown up with the idea of Can Heads for more than half their lives.

Just part of the wonderful landscape.

Yeah, different world from the one your parents grew up in.

That’s for fucking sure.

“Here we are,” Rodriguez said.

As the senior partner, he’d set up their recon plan.

“Okay, after we’re in, you lay back here. Just watch the hallway, the other apartments, ’kay?”

“Sure.”

“I’ll go talk to our Mr. Tomkins and see what the hell it is he thought he saw. Did the big lights go on outside, then go off? Where did he see them go? Maybe we can be out of here in ten minutes. Shit, maybe even stop for a beer on the way back.”

A local dive, The Hook, stayed open 24/7. Right near the 63rd Precinct, its customers were cops and those who didn’t really have any good place to hide for the night.

Sucking down beers and shots on a stool rather than facing the streets.

“Maybe.”

Rodriguez hesitated at the door to the hallway.

“What? You are so whipped. Don’t want the smell of a brewski on your breath for wifey?” He shook his head. “Better you than me.”

Jack grinned. He doubted there were too many women on the planet who could live with Rodriguez.

Rodriguez grabbed the doorknob.

“Okay. Here we go.”

They walked into the hallway.

Jack stayed twenty feet back from Rodriguez as he went to the apartment door.

The door moved as he knocked. Just an inch. It was open.

Jack kept looking to the rear, down to the other end of the dingy hallway for any signs of movement. Everyone was probably safely locked down and asleep for the night.

After the knock, no reaction.

Rodriguez looked back at Jack and gave a shrug.

Now a small push while at the same time pressing the doorbell.

The bell gave out a raspy shriek, way too loud, as if they had put the ringer on the wrong side of the door.

“Shit. I’m going in,” Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez kicked at the open door, the noise loud, the door banging open. Jack didn’t like making noise. He kept looking around.

Always fucking bad, he thought. Not knowing if something was about to happen.

Rodriguez took a few steps inside. Then: “Hello?”

Back to Jack.

Gesturing. Two fingers to his eyes. A freaking army move. I go, you stay back.

Like they were in a goddamn war zone. Police as army.

The ear bud in Jack’s left ear was silent. The two-way radios were so damn unreliable. No one from the station house asking how things were going. Everyone dozing. Though Miller undoubtedly had their audio on a speaker somewhere.

Very low.

Wouldn’t want to wake anyone up.

If he could pick them up at all.

Jack took another look behind him and then started moving closer to the open door. If it all looked cool, he’d follow his partner in.

He got to the doorway.

Rodriguez, louder now to an apparently empty apartment. “Hello? Anyone the hell here?”

Nervous.

Not just me, Jack knew. Rodriguez, too. Jack quickly turned around to check the hallway. Then he took a step inside, looking left and right.

His partner was right—the neck protector made head movement hard. And hearing? That sucked, too.

But—

It didn’t cover the front of Jack’s face.

So he could smell.

Then, Rodriguez: “Oh, shit. God. We got—”

Jack took a deep sniff, hoping that whatever scent he just inhaled had been more in his mind than anything else.

The smell was metallic. A smell of decay and blood, so powerful here.

“Rodriguez, hold on there,” Jack said. “We better—”

He shifted on his feet. Rodriguez shouted back, “Motherfucking guy has been shredded, Jack. Christ, come in here.”

Then the sound of movement, steps, feet hurrying. Jack tried to imagine the likely layout. A small kitchen, a dining area to the side, a bathroom down a hallway, bedroom to the left.

The front door behind him slammed.

Stupidly, he turned to see what even his muffled ears already knew had just fucking happened.

Gunfire. The sound of Rodriguez’s gun blasting away. But only a few bursts and then the blasts abruptly ended. Jack’s hand went to his chest and the control for his two-way radio, his lifeline with the station house.

“Officer down!”

He raised his gun just as two of them appeared in the hallway.

Sometimes you saw Can Heads and they didn’t look any worse than homeless guys from decades ago, wearing their tattered clothes, eyes bulging out of drunken sockets, mouths open, teeth brownish, rotten.

These were not like that.

Thin, wiry, the two of them human animals, barely wearing shredded clothes, which made them look even more crazed.

Their eyes opened wide as they looked at Jack, close to being on all fours as they raced toward him.

“Command!” Jack yelled. Then: “Shit!”

There was a response in his ear bud, mostly static and then drowned out by his own gun, now shooting an erratic spray of bullets at the two creatures.

Enough bullets that the Can Heads flew past him, their bodies ripped open.

Nothing from Rodriguez, and as much as Jack didn’t want to… as much as he wanted to get the hell out of there, he ran deeper into the apartment.

A few steps. His handgun out now, too.

Jack passed a short hallway on his left, then the entrance to the kitchen, and arrived at the small living room.

He started firing crazily even before he knew what he was seeing, blinking as he took in the scene. Four Can Heads down on the carpeted floor, the rug turned a wet, bronze red, like the floor of a charnel house. They squatted around Rodriguez, his body armor roughly peeled away in jagged chunks.

Way too fucking late, Jack thought.

In the moments between the last blast of Rodriguez’s gun and now, the Can Heads had made quick work of Jack’s partner. Gaping holes sprouted in his midsection, his upper legs, and a massive one by his neck.

And yet—

And yet…

Fuck. The poor bastard was still alive.

Jack watched Rodriguez’s near-dead eyes land on him. Begging. Hoping.

Not a thought. No question what to do. Jack moved his S&W handgun over toward Rodriguez, aimed, and fired twice.

And then the Can Heads could do no more harm to Rodriguez.

Which is when the Can Heads leapt up from their feast and made a mad rush for Jack.

Jack was on automatic now. Job straightforward. The reward clear.

Kill them before they kill you.

Can Heads coming right at him, inches away, he began firing, holding the M-16’s trigger down so it just kept spitting out bullets. His handgun—only a few shells left.

And they fell.

One down, then another Can Head climbing over it, still trying to get at Jack, and Jack made that one’s head explode. Would they turn on themselves, take the easy pickings, or keep coming at him?

He thought of Christie. Then Simon, Kate.

And he knew that, unlike his partner, there’d be no one to spare him.

No one to help end his horror.

In that moment, the other two had gone to either side of Jack; he looked both ways, trying to decide which posed the biggest danger.

All in seconds.

Choosing the one on the left, he tried to aim his handgun but suddenly felt that Can Head’s arm shoot out and its claw hand grab his throat. But the hand slid off the protective covering, and Jack both fired and awkwardly jabbed the thing with his pistol.

Then he wheeled to face the last Can Head.

His handgun clicked. Empty. And not a chance of being reloaded. He backed up against a wall of the living room. Now only one gun to keep the Can Head at bay.

Still a chance to get out of this.

Unless there were more of them, already drawn by the noise, the gunfire…

The machine gun jammed. Or maybe it was out of ammo too. How long had he been madly firing, his finger locked on the trigger?

The thoughts again.

Christie, Kate, Simon.

The neck protector reduced the sound around him. The grunts, the near-human sounds they made. The Can Head nearly hopping toward him seemed to flash on the fact that the gun had stopped firing.

The thing opened its animal-like mouth, screamed, and leapt forward boldly.

Jack stood his ground.

Not from bravery on his part.

He stood his ground. There was nothing else he could do.

The Can Head grabbed at Jack’s face but Jack turned away, the clawing fingers only inches away, now pawing at his armored body.

Those protective layers needed to be peeled away.

If he was to be eaten.

Another squeeze of the trigger. Still jammed.

The tugs threatening to rip Jack’s arms and his legs right out of their sockets.

The Can Head held Jack’s right leg fast. Armor roughly peeled off. Then it bit down hard.

Jack screamed, kicking at it with his other leg, pounding the useless gun against the thing’s head.

The pain—a white heat that made the apartment vanish.

Instinctively, he pulled the useless trigger again.

And now the gun responded with the oh-so-beautiful rat-a-tat-tat burp of fire.

“Fuck you,” Jack said, pressing the automatic rifle’s muzzle right against the head of the thing eating him. He watched the head explode into a fireworks display of bone and blood and smoke.

A look over his shoulder.

More could come.

He hacked out the words: “Command!”

He locked his eyes on the door and hallway outside.

Telling himself amidst the pain and blindness of his seeping wound, Can’t pass out… have to stay awake… there may be more of them…

But the white electric light of the apartment, of blood and bullets and bodies, gave way to a blackness that Jack, for once, could do nothing about.

4. Kings County Hospital

Jack woke up to the sound of someone’s voice, speaking low, but still it made him open his eyes.

He saw Captain Brandt talking to a nurse, hushed tones, unaware that they had already awakened the patient.

“Thank you,” Brandt said to the nurse. Then he looked over at Jack. A big smile, and he came to the bedside.

“Jack. Sorry. Did I wake you?”

Jack forced a small smile. “All I do is sleep, so it doesn’t take much, Captain.”

Brandt’s hand went out as if to pat Jack, then hesitated, as if any spot on Jack’s battered body might hold a painful wound hidden under dressing and bedclothes.

“Looking good, Jack. They say your recovery is going great. They even have your rehab scheduled.”

“Terrific. Can’t wait.”

Jack regretted the sarcasm as soon as the words passed his lips.

Least I’m alive, he thought. No room for any bullshit sarcasm when you’re alive and your partner was turned into roadkill.

Too easy to beat himself up these sleepy days in the hospital. Replaying the way things went down, what he could have done different.

Maybe I should have been the point man, Jack thought.

Maybe I would have seen the trap faster.

We’d both be alive.

“Did they say when rehab would start?” Jack said.

Brandt pulled up a chair and sat close to the head of the bed. Jack gave the bed controls a push and elevated his head a bit.

“Work begins tomorrow. In bed. Then depending on how the leg does, you’ll start the real work with physical therapy.”

“Guess I won’t be running any time soon.”

Captain Brandt hesitated. He probably knew the prognosis better than Jack. “Running? Might be a while for that.” Brandt took a breath, then dared some honesty. “Think your running days may be down the road a bit.”

Down the road a bit.

As in never.

Jack nodded as best he could.

Then: “I’ll run. Might be a bit lopsided. Might have a bit of limp. But I’ll run.”

Captain smiled back.

“I bet you will.”

Running.

It was about more than just exercise. Things happened fast out on the streets. Fast. And running, as if some primal ability resurrected from our cave and jungle days, could be the difference between life and death.

“You’re eating well?”

Another nod. Both of them avoiding talk of that day. The first time Brandt visited, Jack had been so doped up, the captain had been a blur, drifting in and out of focus, the sound of his voice echoing from miles away.

Today was better.

That was good.

Today, Jack wanted to ask a few questions.

“Captain, I wanted to thank the guys who got me. I mean, I was gone. How long before—”

Brandt patted Jack’s shoulder.

“Jack, we can review everything later. I don’t think now’s the time.”

Jack couldn’t stop thinking about it, remembering. The smells, the Can Heads all over the place. Rodriguez. And somehow he had been able to stop them.

That part—stopping them—no, that still didn’t seem real.

But he had done it.

“Any more trouble there? That building?”

Brandt smiled. “Trouble everywhere these days, Jack.”

Even though Jack got a regular and powerful cocktail of painkillers, he could still see things… notice things.

Now, he locked on his captain’s eyes. He saw Brandt look left, as if the question might be dodged. He blinked.

More of Red Hook abandoned? The circle of Safe Zones tightening?

“Can’t we leave this for later?”

Jack nodded. He couldn’t demand that his captain talk about it.

The doctors must have told Brandt: no shop talk.

A nurse walked in, smiled at the two of them, looked at Jack’s drip, and then walked out again.

Jack locked his eyes right on Brandt’s.

“You heard my radio?”

“Yeah. No response when we pinged you back.” Brandt took a breath. “The guys didn’t know what they’d find. Pretty surprised. You alive, and a whole lot of dead Can Heads.”

“And Rodriguez.”

A nod. “Yes. Rodriguez dead, too.”

“I… I…”

“Jack. Easy. Let it rest. For now, hm?”

Now Jack looked away.

Suppose I should be grateful.

To be fucking alive.

He didn’t feel that way.

Are we losing this fucking war?

“I guess… I should just say thanks.”

Brandt nodded, shrugging.

Finally: “Captain, I know I can’t be out in the streets for a while. But I’d like to get back as soon as possible. Maybe some desk work. You’ll need all the officers you can—”

Brandt shook his head.

“Jack, how long has it been since you’ve had any time away from the job?”

“I don’t need any time. Soon as my leg is good, in a few weeks, I can—”

“You need a break, Jack. Let psych service see you. Get some counseling. You can’t just shrug this off. You have a lot of time coming.”

Jack arched his back up, raising his head off the pillow as much as he could.

“I don’t need any damn time.”

The nurse came into the room again.

“Officer, your family is downstairs, coming up now.”

Another smile from her, but it quickly evaporated as she sensed the tension in the room.

Brandt pushed his chair back and stood up.

“Yeah. I want you to take the time. Talk to your wife. A break. A vacation.”

Jack opened his mouth, but he knew Brandt well enough to know that an order was an order.

“Talk to Christie. Get away. The Can Heads will be here when you come back.” Another pause. “I need people like you, Jack.”

A boy’s voice echoed from the hospital hallway.

His son, Simon.

Brandt started for the door.

“Get better, Jack.”

Then he turned and left.

5. Christie

Christie watched Simon run ahead, down the hospital hallway, Kate walking tentatively beside her. She had worried how they both would react, seeing their dad in a hospital bed.

She and Jack had agreed to tell them only that he’d had an accident at work.

Their strong daddy took a nasty fall.

“Simon,” she said. Then louder, “Wait.”

Simon stopped. She looked down at Kate, who was three years older than her brother. Christie wondered whether her daughter suspected something more than an accident. There was no way, even in a protected area of Staten Island, that they could keep things from either of their children.

The times Kate tried to ask questions about his job, Jack changed the subject.

Eventually she stopped asking questions.

With Simon stopped, Christie saw Jack’s captain come out of the room. He smiled as she came close.

“Christie. I think… he’s coming along,” he said quietly.

“Captain, that’s good. I—”

“But, can I have a word with you?”

Christie looked down at the two kids. “Sure. Simon, Kate, you go in to your dad. Just don’t make a lot of noise. I’ll be right there.”

Simon bolted into the room. After a brief hesitation, Kate followed.

“I just wanted to tell you…” Brandt said. “I mean, I told Jack that he needs to take some time off. He’s not happy about that.”

Kate nodded. “I’m not surprised.”

“Right. He talked about desk duty. Something like that. I told him to do his rehab. Get better. Take some time off.”

Christie nodded.

“I said he needed to take a vacation. He has it coming.”

Christie pushed her hair off her forehead. “Do people still take those?”

“Yes. And he needs to. Maybe the family needs it. Look…”

Brandt reached into his back pocket and pulled out a glossy brochure.

“Look at this. Been posted in the precincts. It may be something he needs. You all need.”

Christie took the brochure, and stood there for a few minutes reading it.

“Where’s your mom?” Jack asked.

Kate stood rail straight, a few feet from the bed. Simon showed no such reticence, leaning right on the crisp white bedclothes, his eyes searching his dad’s.

“She’s talking to some man,” Simon said.

“Captain Brandt,” Kate added.

“You kids okay?” Jack said, smiling. “Getting homework done? Helping Mom?”

“I don’t like homework,” Simon said.

“When are you coming home?” Kate asked.

“Soon. Just need my leg to get better.”

“Mom said you had an accident.”

Kate. Eyes locked on. Face impassive.

My daughter isn’t buying any of this, Jack thought.

“Yeah. Took a bad fall out on patrol.”

He waited for Kate to say something more. Like: Are you sure it wasn’t some of those people? The ones the other kids talk about.

The people who eat people.

But whether it was seeing Jack in the bed or the fact that Simon was here, Kate didn’t go any further.

“Can I see it?”

Jack looked down to Simon, his arm on the bed and chin resting on a hand, studying Jack as if he were a museum display.

“See what, Simon?”

“Your leg. Where you hurt it.”

Jack laughed. “I’m afraid they have it wrapped up in a lot of bandages. Nothing to see.”

“They feed you here?” Simon asked.

“That’s a dumb question,” Kate shot out.

Jack gave her a look; she could be so quick to dump on Simon. Normal for a brother and sister, he guessed. Still, it always sounded harsh to him.

“Yes. Hospital food. Nothing you’d like.”

Funny, Jack thought, food was never far from anyone’s thoughts. All the synthetic nutrient substitutes, the soy-based products, the pretend PB&J sandwiches couldn’t hide the fact that food—the way it used to be—was hard to come by. For some, impossible.

Most of what was once common had turned into rarities.

And then Christie walked in.

Christie turned around and saw Simon poking at the balloons on the windowsill.

Kate looked down at the bed.

She saw Jack look at the kids and nod.

Back to Christie.

“So, what did Brandt tell you?”

She had her fingers interlocked with Jack’s. Jack wasn’t normally one for handholding, the random unexpected kiss. Not his style. She accepted that.

Just like she had accepted how strange life had become for both of them.

She gave his hand a gentle squeeze.

“To make sure you did your exercises. Get to physical therapy. He likes you, Jack. Wants you back as soon as you’re better.”

“And what else? What’s that in your back pocket? The department’s guide to dealing with recovering disgruntled spouses?” He took a breath. “Psych information?”

She reached into her pocket and took out the brochure.

“Psych is part of your rehab. You know that. But this…”

She handed it to Jack. For a minute, he thought it was a joke.

Jack read from the front of the brochure: “‘Paterville Family Camp. The place for a secure and safe family vacation in the beautiful Adirondacks!’”

He laughed. “You’re kidding me. ‘Safe and secure’?”

“Captain Brandt says you should—we should take a vacation. Get away from the city. Things aren’t so bad up there.”

“Says who?”

“Can you listen? It says: ‘Families visiting Paterville Family Camp will have the luxury of staying in one of our traditional log cabins, all with breathtaking views overlooking our crystalline lake.’ Crystalline… that’s good. Gotta love a crystalline lake.”

She watched Jack flip open the folded brochure. The first inner page was all about security.

“Look,” she said. “See—it’s reached only by one road, has two fences, an inner one, and then an outer electrified fence with twenty-four/seven guards.”

“Show me a place these days that doesn’t have fences.”

“And look—tons to do. Swimming, boats, hiking, fireworks.”

“Cookouts?”

“I knew you’d ask that. Families eat communally, and the camp has been able to grow its own produce. Has a mini-farm right on the property.”

“Really? No blight or drought? They should tell the damn government how they pulled off that trick.”

He glanced at the kids.

Tone it down, he told himself.

Christie felt her forced smile and cheerful attitude fading. Jack could be a rock when his mind was made up. Probably what made him such a good cop. But as a father, a husband…

She leaned close. “Look at your kids. Tell me, have they even seen a lake, a real lake for swimming? Walked on a trail, seen a mountain, gone to a beach? None of it. This could be their chance, Jack. A week away from this—”

She stifled the word goddamned.

“—world to have a few days in summer like kids and families used to. They deserve that. You do. I do.”

Jack looked up from the brochure that he had found so amusing.

He waited. Part of his process. No quick answers out of Jack. He’d think things through and then think some more.

“Okay—here’s what I’ll do. I’ll see how the Highway Authority program has been working. Adirondacks, that’s way up there, Christie. Way up there.”

She gave his hand another squeeze.

“I’ll check it out. And, if it’s legit, we’ll talk about it again.”

Now Christie leaned forward. She gave Jack a kiss, his lips dry and cracked. She stayed close to his face.

“Thank you.” Then a look back. “For them.”

Jack reached up with his right hand and brushed some stray blond hair away from her face.

“A vacation, hm? I guess… that really would be something.”

To seal the deal, Christie gave him another kiss.

And then it was time for them to leave.