The Last Safe Place: A Zombie Novella by Rob W. Hart

1. NOW
     
     
     
    The sky is black overhead, fading to dark purple above the Brooklyn waterfront. I close my eyes and listen. The wind isn’t blowing. I can hear the lapping of waves against the storm walls of the island, the distant chirp of birds, and the groans of the undead carrying across the water.
    People insist it’s my ears playing tricks on me, that the harsh animal noises they make can’t travel this far. I don’t believe them.
    I crouch down on the lip of the storm wall. My shirt is still damp with sweat wrung out by a recurring nightmare. Always the same: A wave explodes against the island and shatters into a stream of bullet casings. They cascade around my legs and push me onto my back, carry me past the shoreline of New York City, out to the middle of the ocean. I wake up when I drown.
    The water here just explodes into white froth.
    Task at hand. I get up, follow the curve of Castle Williams around to the front gate, running my hand along the red sandstone wall. It’s rough under my fingertips, not showing its 200-year age. This building will outlast humanity. Which at this point wouldn’t be that much of an accomplishment.
    Sophia isn’t in the courtyard and I don’t see her on the ramparts. I climb the stairs to the top, pause, bang my aluminum bat against the stone five times to get her attention.
    She’s leaning over the railing, staring off at the skyline of Manhattan, the buildings shrouded in darkness. Her head is freshly shaved, military style. She says long hair can be pulled back to expose the throat. The buzz cut doesn’t work for her face. Not that any of us is trying to impress anyone else lately.
    I take a spot next to her and she inclines her head slightly to acknowledge my presence. We look in the air, for a light, for smoke, something other than a bird. It’s been two years and three months since we saw something in the air, but we keep on looking.
    And we watch the throng of rotters, crowded at the Whitehall Ferry Terminal in Manhattan. We can just barely make them out, a pulsating band in the darkness across the water.
    They move like insects, in quick, unpredictable jerking motions. Sometimes when you look at them they’ll freeze, like a roach when you turn on the kitchen light. Like maybe if it’s not moving you won’t see it.
    But instead of darting away from you like a roach would, it comes right at you, limbs flailing, scuttling over any surface in its way. They’re not fast, but they’re determined.
    The view on the Brooklyn side of the island is the same. They’re lined up on the BQE, on the docks of the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Hundreds of thousands of them, and that may be an optimistic estimate.
    They know we’re here. I don’t know how. Their vision isn’t great. Smell might be a factor. Thankfully, they’re dumb. Epically dumb, or else by now they’d have figured out a way to get us, monkey at a typewriter style.
    It helps that they’re afraid of the water. They reel back from it, sink like stones when the crowds surge and the front lines are pushed into the harbor. Some people think hydrophobia means the epidemic was rabies-based. I think it’s not worth wasting time to think about.
    The wind stirs. It’s getting chilly. Tomorrow I’ll need a light jacket. Winter is hovering just over the horizon, waiting. Food and medical supplies are low. This year will be rough. Not that the past two were easy.
    Sophia taps me on the arm, snapping me from my early-morning haze. She points down Andes Road, at trees and empty roadway.
    I don’t see anything so I shrug at her. She passes me a pair of binoculars and says, “At the top of the road, near the dock for the Manhattan ferry. There’s someone walking around.”
    It’s still dark. Without electricity, it’s not common to see anyone out until the sun is coming up. I stare at the spot where she’s pointing but don’t see anything, tell her, “Could be someone out for a stroll.”
    “They were stumbling. Maybe