The Escape

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  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Sneak peek at The Thrust

  YESTERDAY.

  ONE YEAR AFTER THE PULSE

  Jenna watched in horror as the soldiers dragged Taryn in front of Colonel Lanche. The soldiers had kept Jenna and Taryn separated for the past two nights, at the military camp in Grand Central Terminal in what was left of New York City.

  Taryn had been kept somewhere, locked up, awaiting sentencing.

  The survivors looked on, so weak from hunger and loss and the constant barrage of martial law enforced in the camp that they could barely express their concern for the girl. Any disobedience would be quelled immediately, with deadly force. They knew that now.

  No one spoke up to save her, even though every woman who’d prostituted herself on the Tracks of Grand Central just to stay alive had to know that when Taryn killed that soldier in the subway, the truth about what really happened wouldn’t come from the soldiers who found Jenna, Taryn . . . and a dead man.

  Jenna tried to catch her friend’s gaze, to let her feel her support and maybe gain some comfort from it. But the moment Taryn had saved Jenna’s life by shooting Private Andrews with his own gun, Taryn had changed. Changed from a broken, scared girl to the woman standing before them all—not frightened, but angry.

  Angry at the injustice of it all.

  “So you’re the girl who killed my soldier,” Colonel Lanche spat, glowering at Taryn.

  Taryn glared back, staring defiantly. She’d had two long nights of waiting. Jenna imagined it would have been kinder of the army to kill her straight off and get it over with.

  She choked back a sob, wishing she didn’t have to watch. Wishing that her missing roommate from the Tracks, Emily, had never killed Private Andrews’s brother, making Jenna the prime target for vengeance.

  But sometimes soldiers deserved to die. If Emily were still there—and thank God for her she wasn’t—her side of the story would no doubt reveal the real reason behind the other soldier’s murder.

  Lanche turned to the man holding Taryn. “Tell us what happened.”

  “We heard a shot, and came into a subway car to see Private Eric Andrews shot to death on top of a whore.” The soldier found Jenna in the crowd and pointed to her. “That whore. And this whore here,” he said, pushing Taryn forward, “held the smoking gun.”

  Lanche shook his head. He looked into the crowd that had gathered.

  “This is my camp,” he screamed. “Do you really think you can get away with murder?” A vein bulged in his forehead.

  The man was losing it, Jenna realized. Losing the respect of the people who had once deemed him a savior and losing his control over the camp.

  “Were there any witnesses?” he asked.

  The soldier gestured to Jenna. “She saw her friend shoot him.”

  Jenna shook her head, unable to speak. She wouldn’t incriminate Taryn, not if she could help it.

  Taryn looked at Jenna, her red-rimmed eyes calm. The anger was gone, washed away by her tears. She seemed serene now, like she had made peace with what happened.

  “Tell them Jenna,” she said, softly at first, and then louder. “They need to know.” Loud enough for every man, woman and child in the camp to hear her in the silent hall. “Tell them what Emily said about the radio.”

  She heard Lanche make a strangled noise in the back of his throat.

  Jenna looked at her friend and nodded, perspiration beading on her upper lip. She had to speak quickly before she was shut up—permanently.

  But as Jenna opened her mouth to spread the truth, Colonel Lanche lifted his rifle and pointed it at her.

  “Go, Jenna, go!” Taryn cried. “Get out of here—don’t let them catch you too.”

  Jenna didn’t even think; she turned and ran, zigzagging through the crowd.

  She heard Taryn screaming at the top of her lungs, saying, “There’s a better life. There’s a radio, and America is rebuilding.”

  The crowd murmured loudly amongst themselves, repeating what she said. Jenna could hear the wonderment in their voices, echoing behind her as she ran, ran through them all.

  “Get out of Grand Central,” Taryn cried, “and find a better life.”

  A shot rang out, deafening in Jenna’s ears.

  Jenna stopped in her tracks, the front exit from Grand Central just steps away in front of her, a ragged cry torn from her throat.

  Taryn’s tirade had been silenced. No more screams.

  Oh God, Jenna thought. No no no, it couldn’t—

  . . . but she knew it had. Lanche had executed Taryn, right then and there in Grand Central Terminal, under the clock by the information booth where so many other public hearings were done.

  Jenna wanted to turn back—wanted to run back up to Lanche, to shoot him with his own gun. Wanted to see Taryn’s body one last time before it went into a mass grave, an unfitting burial for such a beautiful young woman.

  A woman who tried, in her final moments, to save everyone at the Grand Central military camp. To free them from the tyranny they had been living under for the past year, living like animals. To free the women who prostituted themselves on the Tracks for a meal.

  “Oh Taryn,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

  Jenna looked back over her shoulder toward the main terminal in Grand Central. Taryn’s last words rung in Jenna’s ears, swirling through her mind.

  Get out of Grand Central . . . and find a better life.

  The front door lay unguarded, the heavy brass handles shimmering with invitation. No soldiers blocked her path. It was now or never.

  Jenna opened the door, and stepped out into the bright sunlight.

  Into a brand new world.

  THREE MONTHS AGO.

  Ken Barker stood in line for his morning ration, a piece of bread that had been baked with sawdust to extend the wheat supply. He’d lost twenty pounds in the past year, after the EMP, an electromagnetic pulse from a nuke, hit Manhattan—and the whole United States, from what they could tell—and the lights never came back on.

  The other soldiers in line ahead of him looked the same as he did, all too thin, wearing ill-fitted military fatigues that had been, in most cases, recovered from the bodies of the soldiers who hadn’t made it.

  They’d lost a lot of people within the first few months. Without grocery stores having any way to be restocked, no food coming in on trucks that didn’t run, across bridges that were jammed with broken-down cars and bodies—the shelves were emptied completely within two days.

  And that was with the National Guard shooting looters on the spot.

  The hospitals were overrun. The injured, the sick, they had to help themselves. Everyone on lifesaving medicine was now dead, the medical supplies long since cleaned out. Those healthy men and women who weren’t trampled or shot in the riots that f
ollowed the Pulse went to overcrowded FEMA camps without running water or working toilets, where they soon died of cholera.

  The military encampment at Grand Central was the only place left. The only place in all of Manhattan or the outer boroughs that had some semblance of order, of discipline. The only place with food.

  Central Park had been seized and was converted into a farming area, locked away from the citizens by armed guards. The food was rationed carefully so that every person in the camp could be fed—barely. The meager rations kept everyone in a weak state of near-starvation.

  Unmarried women lived on the Tracks, bunking in the subway cars. Of course, the original idea was for the women to have their own quarters to keep them safe from sexual violence.

  Instead, the Tracks turned into the soldiers’ private harem. The women prostituted themselves nightly for a chance to eat, to survive. Barker refused to go down there, into the bowels of Grand Central.

  He’d been there once, and once was enough.

  The gaunt faces of those women, some with their heads shaved just like the soldiers due to an epidemic of lice, haunted him. How had America fallen so far, so fast?

  Barker wasn’t even a real soldier, never had been. But he was twenty-nine when the Pulse hit, and strong and healthy. The Colonel handed him a gun—a rare treasure in a city where all guns had been banned for ages. After the power went down, the citizens were left defenseless, first against the rioters and the looters and the rapists, then against the new tyranny. Without a gun, few were able to even hunt the pigeons and rats that infested the city.

  But Colonel Lanche had handed him a gun and a uniform with a bloodstain on it and pronounced him a soldier.

  In return for security, in return for his rations, Private Barker’s job was clear: to maintain order in the camp, to help stomp out dissent, to keep people secure and alive until help arrived.

  But people kept dying, and help never came.

  “Watcha thinking about, handsome?”

  The teasing, feminine voice behind him in line surprised him out of his reverie. Barker turned and saw a beautiful young woman with blonde hair—an unusual sight to see now that no one had access to hair dye. This girl was a natural blonde, her pretty face pale, with tired eyes.

  Amazingly blue eyes.

  The tops of her full breasts were exposed, her button-down men’s shirt opened a little too far for modesty. Still, the woman had a genuineness to her, something in her bright smile.

  “Bet you’re thinking about food, huh,” she said, when he didn’t answer. “I know the feeling.”

  Finally, his manners came back to him, and he offered his hand. “Private Barker, ma’am, nice to meet you.”

  “Jenna, down on Track one-oh-five.” She smiled, cocking her head. “It is nice to meet you. Because we haven’t met before, have we? How is that possible?”

  “I stay away from the Tracks.”

  “You should visit me sometime. Save up an extra ration to share, and come say hi.”

  He frowned down at her. “Men aren’t permitted in the women’s sleeping quarters. You know that.”

  Jenna turned quickly, a pretty blush filling her cheeks. She seemed to be scanning the line around them.

  “Wait,” she said. “There aren’t any authorities around. Why the goody-two-shoes act?”

  “It’s not an act.”

  She shrugged. “Okay. Never mind. Sorry to bother you, sir.”

  Shit. Now he felt like a tool. They approached the soldiers on mess hall duty, men who served food with one hand, their other hand on their rifles, ready for trouble. They handed each of them their cup of water and one slice of bread, although calling it bread was being nice to it.

  Jenna started to walk off, but Barker quickly caught up with her. “Hey. Jenna.”

  She looked up at him in surprise. “What’s up?”

  “Sorry for being a prick.”

  She laughed, the sound so sweet and cheery he would have smiled if he weren’t sure she was laughing at him. “If that’s you being a prick, I can’t wait to see what you’re like when you’re being nice. It would probably rock my world.”

  “What if I gave you this?” he asked, offering her his bread.

  She took it quickly, stuffing it inside her brassiere. “Come on, let’s go. My roommate’s still up here, so we’ll have the train car to ourselves.”

  “No—I mean . . .” Barker paused, wondering how to say what he wanted to say without offending her. She was just doing what every other single woman in the camp did to survive. It wasn’t her fault.

  “Come on,” she said, taking his hand.

  Her hand was so small compared to his, so fragile. All of her seemed fragile, her collarbone jutting out sharply beneath her open shirt. The fact that men abused their power over the women in the camp infuriated him. Barker would never stoop so low.

  Fucking bastards.

  He took a deep breath, calming himself. “I mean, I gave you an extra ration. So you don’t have to do that tonight, okay? Don’t do anything. Just go to sleep tonight. Will you do that?”

  “Are you sure you’re a soldier?” She laughed, as if she were joking, but her question seemed genuine.

  “No. I’m not sure at all.”

  Jenna smiled. “Thank you, Private Barker.”

  “You’re just going to sleep, tonight, right? Alone?” He wanted to hear her say it, so he’d know he hadn’t handed her his ration for nothing.

  “And I’ll dream about you.” She blew him a kiss, and she was gone.

  Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Manhattan

  TODAY.

  Jenna was alone in the cathedral, alone for the first time since she had walked in the doors of Grand Central and had been assigned to a subway car on the Tracks. She’d spent last night sleeping on one of the old pews, the wood no longer gleaming—now all covered in a thick layer of dust.

  The water in the marble basin had algae growing in it . . . but she was so thirsty. Plus, even if she wasn’t Catholic, she was pretty sure it was holy water. Surely if she drank holy water, especially cloudy green holy water, she’d die and go to Hell.

  And she’d just escaped from there.

  She sighed, staring at the sludge, her parched mouth reminding her that she needed to move on and find a way to stay alive. All by herself.

  Jenna wasn’t used to doing anything by herself—not since the Pulse, anyway. There had been a time, before the shit hit the fan, when she managed an office in one of the now-abandoned shiny high-rises in midtown. But the only thing she managed at the camp was her body and what she could get in exchange for it.

  Getting to Fifth Avenue between Fiftieth and Fifty-first streets had been harder than she’d expected, and she was still so close to Grand Central, to the soldiers. The city was nothing like it used to be. The streets silent. No traffic, no people.

  And when night started to settle in, the atmosphere of a ghost town really took hold. Ghosts surrounded her, in her mind at least. She could feel them brush against her in the chill of the dark.

  Bodies had been buried everywhere, and burned everywhere. Some graves were marked, most weren’t. There simply wasn’t enough space in New York City to bury all of its citizens.

  The huge bronze doors leading into the cathedral had called out to her, and she couldn’t keep walking. Not in the dark, not with the ghosts. At one time, she imagined, people gathered here to pray—but not anymore.

  She hadn’t prayed in a long time, either.

  God bless Taryn’s soul.

  Okay, that was a good start. But what now?

  She needed water, and food. But first water, or she’d die. When the Pulse had knocked out the grid, she hadn’t been prepared. Her own kitchen was empty within two days since she hadn’t hit the grocery store before it happened. The faucets stopped working shortly a
fter the power went out. She’d drunk all the water from the clean part of her toilet tank.

  Then her thirst, above all else, drove her to stand in line to get into the FEMA shelter set up in Brooklyn. When everyone there died save for a few, she was picked up by the soldiers and sent to Grand Central, the last remaining camp of survivors.

  Hell, she’d made it this far, she could make it a few more days. And she sure as hell wasn’t going to die of dehydration.

  Time to leave the cavernous cathedral and set back out on the open road. But before she did, she had to take what she could to survive. All of the candles had long ago burnt down to the bottom of their glass holder. Jenna picked one up and scooped the holy water into it, like a cup. She wouldn’t be able to drink it just yet, but she’d like to take it with her, just in case she found a way to boil it.

  Matches! A half-empty box was hidden behind the rows of empty candles. She tucked it into her shirt, making sure it was secure.

  Make a fire now, boil it now.

  Damn her thirst. Fine. Daytime, and inside, was probably the safest way for her to make a fire anyway. No bright flames against the night sky for the soldiers to find her by.

  But what to burn? Not the prayer books. She hadn’t fallen that far. Someone would need those books in the future, when things got right again.

  Jenna whirled around looking for something less blasphemous to burn. She walked up and down the pews.

  Come on, God, I really don’t want to burn a Bible, here. Help me out.

  She shook her head and sank down into the pew, her body aching, holding her undrinkable glass of water. Yeah. Like God’s listening now.

  And then she saw it. An old newspaper, laid out next to her—probably someone’s blanket after the cathedral had been closed for security.

  Everything was about security now. But did all those soldiers, all those guns, really make them secure? Maybe. Or not. The most secure place is a prison, after all. That’s where she’d been living. In a prison called Grand Central Terminal.

  Jenna, forget the Tracks and use the stupid newspaper already.

  She laughed, the sound echoing throughout the sanctuary. The paper was dry, and wrinkled, as if it had gotten wet at some point in its beleaguered past. Paper would burn fast, great for kindling, not so great for a fire that would burn long enough to purify water.