The undead man stared at my bared hand as if uncertain what it could possibly be. I backed away cautiously but he came right after me, his nose wrinkling in his bluish face. His mouth opened wide and I could see his broken teeth slick with drool and then he pounced, his arms swinging shut like a pincers to grab me around the waist. I tried shaking him off but the hazmat suit limited my mobility. I tried bringing my knee up and caught him directly under the chin but if I connected with enough force to hurt him he showed no sign. His teeth snapped shut on a fold of my suit and he shook his head violently trying to rip it away. I was in danger of falling backwards, which would almost surely mean my death - with the heavy SCBA unit on my back it would take me far too long to get back on my feet. The other two dead men from the dumpster were approaching. If I lost my footing now I would have three of the things pinning me down.
Where the hell was Ayaan? I swiveled at the waist and saw her fumbling with her rifle. She couldn't seem to bring it to bear, the bulky suit's shoulders being too thick to let her bring it up to her eye. She could probably shoot from the hip but if she did she'd be as likely to hit me as my attacker. I was on my own until she could figure it out.
My breath made plumes of condensation on the inside of my faceshield, limiting my visibility as I twisted and tore at the undead man clutching my midriff. He held me in a grip of iron as I pried at his arms with my gloved hands. Every time I thought I had a good grip on him a layer of his dead skin would slough off and my hands would slide free. His teeth had failed to puncture the Tyvek of my suit - it was pretty tough stuff - but I knew eventually he would go for my bare hand with his teeth and then it would be over. Even if I got away after being bitten I would be prey for any number of secondary infections. I could still remember the panic in Ifiyah's glassy eyes as her leg swelled up and her heart began to race.
Desperation forced my fingers deep into the dead man's armpit and finally I had some leverage. The bones in my hands felt like they would snap as I clawed him away from me, finally breaking his grapple. I lifted one clumsy leg and kicked him off me, his fingers flickering in the air like scuttling claws. He landed on his back and immediately rolled to all fours again, clearly intent on coming for me once more. Then the top of his head exploded in a powdery puff of vaporized grey matter.
I turned, my lungs heaving, and saw Ayaan. She had managed to unzip her suit down to the waist, freeing her arms so she could use her AK-47 freely. As I stood there staring she lifted the weapon again and fired two quick shots, eliminating the pair of dead men that had been coming up right behind me.
Hurriedly we shed ourselves of the now-useless suits. There were more of the dead coming, a loose crowd of them from the west moving as fast as the undead could. The one in front was missing both arms but his jaw worked hungrily as he advanced on us. There were too many of them to fight off - we had to run.
I grabbed Ayaan's arm and we ran north onto Broadway but they were there, as well, the weakened kind, the kind we had seen licking mold off of stucco walls. Their clothes dangled from their emaciated frames, their withered necks and sparse hair horrible to see. They looked far less pathetic now that we were unprotected. From the south came a dead woman with long black hair in a full bridal gown with a train, her hands covered in blood-stained gloves, her veil back to show us the long sharp teeth exposed by her withered lips. We would have to take our chances, I decided, we would have to gun down the bride and hope there were no more of the dead behind her. I didn't relish meeting the rest of the wedding party.
Ayaan had her rifle up and was merely waiting for my order to shoot when a blur of orange light shot past our feet and straight into the biggest pack of undead with a yowling noise. It was a cat - a tabby, a mangy, half-starved rabid-looking cat. A living cat.
On reflection I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen a live animal. Not so much as a stray dog or even a squirrel loose in the streets of New York. This couldn't be a coincidence but to me it was a startling mystery.
The cat's effect on the undead was electric. Ignoring us completely they turned as one to reach for the running feline, their hands stretching down to grab at its patchwork fur. It dodged left, feinted right and the dead fell over each other - literally - trying to get a handful of the orange streak.
Whether they were successful or not I didn't find out till later. As I stood there mesmerized by the sight Shailesh, one of the survivors from the subway station, came up behind me and grabbed my arm. I shrieked like a child. "Come on already," he said, "we don't have a lot of bait to spare, you know?"
"Bait?" I asked. Sure. The cat. The survivors must have let it loose specifically to distract the undead long enough for Ayaan and myself to get inside. Following hard on the heels of our guide we bolted past the iron gate at the entrance to the station - I heard it clang shut behind us - and down a flight of murky stairs. In the gloom I saw litter boxes everywhere and a few angry-looking cats and dogs sleeping in ungainly heaps. A single incandescent bulb lit up the turnstiles which we proceeded to clamber over, since Shailesh assured us they had frozen in place when the trains stopped running.
Beyond the turnstiles we were met by an earnest-looking survivor wearing a pair of faded but immaculately clean jeans and wire-framed glasses. He held a military shotgun in his hands, the barrel pointed away from us in such a way I knew he had to be Armed Forces. No one else would be that disciplined with a firearm. There was a sticker on his white buttoned-down shirt, one of the increasingly familiar HELLO MY NAME IS labels but the white space below had been left blank.
He turned to Shailesh. "Are we secure?" he asked.
Shailesh laughed. "Dude, it's the first rule of staying alive. They go for the fastest moving object they can see. The faster it goes the more excited they get! You should have seen them, Jack. It was like a Jim Carey movie out there."
Jack didn't raise his voice but what he said next made Shailesh break eye contact. "I asked if we were secure or not," he repeated.
Our guide nodded obediently. "Listen," Shailesh said to me, "Jack will take you inside. I have to, you know, watch the gate. Welcome to the Republic, okay?"
"Sure," I said, not fully understanding. "Thanks."
Jack looked at me for a moment and I knew he was sizing me up. He gave Ayaan the same inspection but said nothing to either of us except, "This way."