My smile mirrored hers. “It’s the first thing she would’ve done. And the concession stands on the island back then must’ve had hundreds of cases of chocolate.”
“Hundreds,” she agreed. “Plus the hundreds and hundreds more we have stored at the stadium on the mainland, where we have just about everything we store, everything we could possibly need.”
VaVa joined in, but she wasn’t smiling along with us. “Two birds, one stone?”
Flo was already headed to a nearby golf cart. “I’m out of Snickers; our guests need to get to the mainland. As to two birds, good luck finding any.”
“It’s an expression,” glumly replied VaVa, now following close behind, the rest of our posse doing the same.
“So is take us to the mainland or else,” replied Flo as she hefted herself into the passenger seat, Ginger helping me and Dara into the back before joining us.
“That’s not an expression,” said VaVa as she cranked up the engine.
Flo finished her candy bar and smiled. “Wanna make a bet?”
***
After a quick stop inside of Libby, guns soon in our possession, we found ourselves aboard the ferry, which chugged us steadily out into the harbor, our green-tinged, gold-robed friend quickly shrinking into the distance as Manhattan loomed ahead.
“What can we expect out there?” I hazarded to ask Flo, my face pointing ahead.
“Zombies,” came the reply. “Lots and lots of zombies. They probably already smell us; the wind’s carrying our scent their way even as we speak.”
“Any way to sugarcoat it?” asked Dara.
Flo shook her head. “Trust me, that was sugarcoating it. And I do so love things sugarcoated.”
Which was about as duh a comment as I could imagine, but failed to say so, seeing as we were quickly heading into the belly of the beast. “Steer us east,” I said, because I too had a keen sense of smell, and something was telling me that our prey came from that direction.
“Perfect,” said the captain. “That’s where we need to head as well.”
The waterway split, one going up the east side of Manhattan, the other west, with Brooklyn now off to our right side as we headed, as asked, east, the stunning New York skyline on our opposite side. It shimmered in the light of day, magnificent despite the ferocious sounds of moans and groans crescendoing all around us. I would’ve covered my ears if it’d done any good.
“Millions of them,” commented Dara, her voice leery. “Everywhere.”
I nodded. “And every last one of them eager to rip our newfound friends here to bits.” I looked over at Flo and Ginger, who were sitting on a bench in the middle of the boat. They’d smartly retrieved two sets of furry earmuffs from some storage area and were trying their bests to ignore the surrounding ruckus. Again I looked at Dara. “Seems they’re quite popular around these parts.”
She grinned. “Seems their parts are quite popular around these parts.”
My grin mirrored hers. “Still, it explains why they don’t talk about the zombies, why there’s a wall up, a veneer, smiling on the outside, cringing within. I can sense it, even without seeing it.”
“Same with our humans back in Utah,” said Dara.
I nodded. “Exactly. Kindness out of necessity.” My smile flatlined as I stared out at the skyscrapers. “Still, I suppose I understand. It’s like repelling magnets. Life forever fighting against ever-present death, and here we are—”
“Death warmed over.”
And still I nodded. “Heated over. Boiling over. Sizzling.” I looked up at our steering captain. She was pointing into the distance. I squinted but couldn’t as yet make out where we were headed.
Dara and I walked over to Flo and Ginger. They removed their earmuffs, their shoulders instantly bunching up at hearing the piercing din, like millions of mosquitoes buzzing from all sides, the sound carried on the wind. “Where are we headed?” I asked.
At that, they both managed a smile. “Queens,” replied Flo.
“Figures,” said I. “But why there?”
“The stadium is there, just off the water.”
I shrugged and looked over to Dara, the more butch of our pair, if only by a smidge. “Citi Field,” she informed. “Replaced Shea. Home of the Mets.”
I kissed her cheek. “You never cease to amaze me, dearest.”
She kissed me back. “And, luckily, never, as in ever never, is a distinct possibility for the likes of us.”
“Exactly.” I turned to our hostesses. “But how do you get from the boat to there, safely?”
Their smiles widened. “Wait and see,” said Ginger. “Wait and see.”
Dara glanced my way, and the look on her face said it all: these bitches scare me. Which was saying quite a lot, coming from a centuries-dead zombie.
In any case, the waiting part of that didn’t take long, the ferry chugging around the bend all too soon. As to the seeing, well, again I was amazed. And twice in a decade, let alone twice in ten minutes, was something akin to a miracle. Because, though, as I mentioned, our flesh, gray and withered though it was, was fairly water-resistant now, at least to the likes of a toy water gun or a rain shower, it was no match for a water cannon—and take a guess at what the ferry had aboard her.