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“We’ll be okay.” His voice had softened somewhat, and after a beat he added, “Tell that dog of yours to keep both eyes on you, understand?” The words were all for Desmond, and he heard them just fine without me passing the message along.
“Over and out,” I concluded, handing the walkie back to Des. “Now can we please get a move on?”
It was a longer walk from Keaty’s house to the 97th Precinct police station than it would have been under normal circumstances. Every block or so we were forced to duck behind cars or trash bins in order to conceal ourselves from the risen. While they mostly had their eyes glued shut, I’d started noticing a few of the older dead, and I didn’t want to test my luck with their senses. They didn’t seem to be moving in large packs anymore. The ones we saw were alone or in pairs, but the larger groups must have begun to split up, which was both a mercy and a problem. Sure, hiding from one was easier than hiding from a dozen, but now that they were on their own, we were seeing them with far more frequency than the packs.
What we hadn’t seen were any living humans.
Either everyone had split, or people were hiding in their homes, but regardless of where they’d gone we weren’t seeing any signs of life. Genie also mentioned, with a somewhat bitter edge to her voice, no one had offered us any help.
Not tha
t we could have accepted it if they had. Lying low until it all blew over wasn’t an option. Things wouldn’t blow over until we dealt with them.
When we finally reached the squat gray building that housed the 97th precinct, my heart stuttered. The front steps were ablaze, and I briefly thought the whole building was on fire.
I squinted into the sudden brightness of the flame, and it took a moment for me to realize several large stacks of cardboard and a bunch of garbage had been placed on the front steps, and those had been lit on fire, not the building. When we got closer, the stink of burning garbage became much more apparent, and I wrinkled my nose, trying to ignore it.
We edged around the flame and made our way into the police station, shutting most of the stink outside when the door closed behind us.
On its best day, the station could hardly be considered welcoming, with almost no windows and the general warmth of a prison. But now, without even fluorescent lights to guide us, it was a truly dismal sight to behold.
More often than not, a pert, bitchy blonde named Barbie would be glowering at me from behind her desk and giving me all sorts of attitude before she let me pass. But today the venomous gatekeeper was nowhere to be seen. I honestly hoped that meant she was okay and hiding somewhere to protect herself. I might not be Barbie’s number-one fan, nor she mine, but it didn’t mean I wanted anything bad to happen to her.
At least nothing worse than an unfortunate haircut.
I certainly didn’t wish death on her or any of the other antagonists I encountered on a day-to-day basis.
I was relieved to see the station was, for the most part, unscathed. A few file folders had been abandoned, their papers strewn across the floor, and someone had abandoned a gym bag on the main stairs, but apart from that the place was untouched.
“You think she’s still here?” Desmond asked, holding his gun at the ready.
“It doesn’t smell abandoned,” Genie offered.
The trouble with places like this, where the public came and went and there were constantly people around, was they never truly smelled abandoned. Everyone left their mark, and over time it could be difficult to tell whether a scent was old or fresh. But Genie was right, even to me the place smelled of activity, which meant there were people around. Living people, thank God, because death had its own distinctive odor.
Climbing up the stairs, we prepared ourselves for anything we might find on the next level, especially armed police officers. Given the amount of looting and violence occurring in the city, they had to be expecting some kind of outside infiltration, yet they’d left their doors unlocked. Were they still trying to provide a safe haven to those who might need it, or were they hoping their own officers on the street would be coming back to them in one piece?
Probably both.
I pressed my back against a wall and waved to Desmond and Genie to do the same. I was not naturally skilled at using hand signals to convey messages, but they seemed to understand what I was telling them without much difficulty. I wasn’t trying to sneak in, but I also didn’t want to get my head blown off if I waltzed into the middle of the room unprepared.
“If there’s anyone there, I’m not here to cause trouble,” I shouted, my voice surprisingly loud. The main office area of the precinct was a wide-open floor with dozens of metal desks spread throughout. Normally the din of ringing phones and loud voices was overwhelming. I’d never heard it this quiet before. “I’m armed, but only for my own protection. I’m looking for Mercedes Castilla.”
The silence stretched long enough I thought I might be talking to an empty room after all, then someone coughed.
“What’s yer name?” a gruff male voice called out.
“Secret. McQueen.” I offered them as two separate statements, thinking after the fact he might want my last name too. “Who are you?”
“Detective Sergeant O’Brian.” I noticed he didn’t get snippy with me for asking, and I appreciated it. “You alone out there, Ms. McQueen?”
“I have two others with me. They’re also armed.”
“All right. Well, you guys c’mon in, and we’ll both stop shoutin’ at each other. Deal?”
“Deal.”
I stepped forward, keeping my gun out but pointed down, in case O’Brian was bullshitting me and planned to put a hole in my head. I held my hand out for Desmond to wait back with Genie and scoured the room for the detective. A moment later a rough-looking middle-aged man with glasses and a graying mustache Tom Selleck would have envied stepped out from behind a desk. He, too, was holding his gun, but he didn’t seem too eager to fire at me.
