Pathogen

Sunday Morning

My skin is crawling. We finally made it off the island of Manhattan, but not in a way I ever want to travel again. We walked the tunnel from GCT. I'm not even sure if I can ever take that train again without feeling the need to shower immediately. Let me back up.

We were about to try the Queensboro bridge when Dave got a text message from one of his foraging friends. She said the bridges were all out. National Guard was posted everywhere, refusing to let anyone out of the city. She said anyone who claimed to be homeless could find refuge at Grand Central, so she was going to try to walk the tunnel there to get off the island.

"Absolutely not," I had said to Dave while he pocketed his phone. "I think I'd rather go back to our building."

"Nothing good is going to happen if we stay on the island," he'd said. "When's the last time you heard an ambulance?"

I had tried to remember. I flipped back through the week in this journal. "Well, isn't that good? Maybe things are turning around."

"Not if they won't let us out of Manhattan. Things aren't getting better, Jana. I think we've got to try."

"Do you know filthy that tunnel must be?"

"The city won't be much better. Sewage is already backing up. How long has the trash been out on our curb?"

Long enough to smell of August when it wasn't August. To drench the air in that hot, sweet, rotting odor. "We can try. But if I want to turn back—"

"Fine," Dave had said. He'd taken my hand and we started south, toward Grand Central.

I knew we were in for a long walk. The entrance to the tunnel was midtown, but it wouldn't take us off the island until Harlem. We argued about whether to follow the tracks to Long Island, but Dave contended if we were going to do this, we should try to get to the mainland somehow.

Our walk to Grand Central was uneventful. It was less than twenty blocks. Twice we had to duck down another street or wait in a doorway, breath held, while police rolled by. To see a cruiser, or any car, moving on the street felt strange. I felt like it should have been a Model-T or something, just to make it seem more at home with the otherwise quiet city grid.

All but one set of doors at Grand Central were locked, but we lined up outside the Lexington entrance. A man in a hazmat suit stood in the doorway.

"Are you seeking refuge?" he asked.

I let Dave do the talking. He told him how we'd been living on the lower west side—not a lie—and then had tried to subsist in the park. Dave's tale continued into the realm of fiction though when he said a group of foragers had tried to rob us. We'd fled the park and then the police. Hazmat Suit Man granted us admittance.

Grand Central is normally packed, but I'd never seen it like this. People were organized into lines of blankets and towels. Walls of newspapers and magazines and half-off novels from news stands barricaded one line from the other. The lines for the bathrooms, which I knew were downstairs, snaked all the way through the main concourse, in front of closed ticket windows. The screens that normally showed the arrivals and departures flashed messages warning people to let authorities know if they exhibited any symptoms and assurances they would be cared for. No one looked sick, but everyone looked dirty and exhausted. The place smelled of BO.

Dave and I walked down the stairs and through the main concourse. I heard one woman say they ought to be ashamed of themselves for not getting us all more soap. Another said she was sick of her blanket doubling as her towel. A man remarked how he hadn't seen his sister in a week because she'd gotten sick and the authorities had taken her away.

The whole place felt too close, and I could have sworn the people were inching in around us. I told Dave we had to get out of here. He took my hand and led me toward one of the platforms.

"I used to take this one to Greenwich sometimes," he said. "This tunnel will lead us out."

I kept hold of his hand as we hopped down onto the track. With his free hand, Dave turned on a flashlight and we began to make our way. I was surprised no one stopped us, but maybe the Hazmat guys and the National Guard figured no one would want to take this route out of the city. I worried too that we'd get to the other side and someone would stop us, make us turn around, and walk through the long dark again. I didn't mention this to Dave.

Here's what the tunnel sounds like: chewing and squeaking and scratching. You know the rats are there, but no matter where the flashlight beam lands, you can't see them. The sounds they make bounce off the tunnel walls.

Here's what the tunnel sounds like: If you've ever gotten off the train or subway in the summer in New York, you already know...just multiply that smell by ten. If you haven't, the best way I can describe it is that the smell of decay and garbage is so strong that it overwhelms your nose until you taste it even when your mouth is closed. So you try to breathe through your mouth, and that makes you want to vomit.

I stepped on things that crunched and squished, even though I tried to remember where those formless pieces of refuse sat on the tracks from the beam of the flashlight. I stepped on them anyway. I don't even want to look at the bottom of my shoes.

But the worst part about walking the tunnel wasn't the sounds or smells. It wasn't the length of it. It wasn't the darkness. It was the moment the flashlight hit the ground.

Some guy jumped out at us and another jumped on Dave's back. He dropped the light. Someone grabbed me, tried to pull me back. I didn't know if it was Dave or not. I kicked. I kicked back and I kicked out. I screamed. At the top of my lungs. When I swallow, even now, my throat hurts from screaming before.

A thud. The arms that pulled at me released. Running footsteps. Coughing. Dave croaked out to get my flashlight from my own bag.

The light shone on him. His face was bloodied and swollen. His backpack was gone. He asked if they hurt me. I shook my head, then remembered Dave couldn't see me shake my head. "No. You are."

He dismissed my concern with a wave—at least, I'm sure he thought he did—and got to his feet. His flashlight was broken, cracked into pieces between the tracks. Dave said they stole his bag. We looked at mine; it'd been opened, and some things taken. I zipped it shut and told him we could take inventory on the other side.

The rest of the walk was just us, darkness, and the sounds of rats.

No National Guard waited on the other side to turn us away. No one attacked us again. Dave has a split lip and his nose bled, but it doesn't look broken. At least, it doesn't look like what a broken nose looks like on TV or in the movies. How would I know? I'm an editor, not a doctor. We're resting right now. I'm glad those people who attacked us didn't take this journal.

I know it's not necessary for survival but it seems necessary anyway. I hope Dave and I will only have to spend at most, one more night without a roof over our heads.