Free City of Whispers (City of Whispers #1) by Katherine Sorin

broadcasts had been coming from. Were
they in Washington, D.C.,
or were they right across the river in New
Jersey?
    I don’t know how long I sat there collecting myself,
but after some time Beth came over and sat next to me. Her eyes were red and
her face was splotchy. She had spoken to her parents too. I wasn’t sure what to
say.
    “Is your family okay?” I asked.
    “Yes,” she replied. “Just like your parents, they’d
given me up for dead.” Beth paused. “The man on the radio said our families
would be allowed to send us things.”
    “What are they going to send you?”
    “I couldn’t think of anything to ask for.” Beth smiled
weakly. “I wanted everything and nothing all at once. I just want to go home.”
She looked like she was about to cry again. I wanted to change the subject, but
couldn’t think of another topic, so we sat in silence.
    After a few minutes the guys came over, followed by
Leila. For once she didn’t seem like her usual optimistic self. Scott and James
looked somber. Scott had talked with his brother and James had talked with his
parents. Paulo had no family on the outside to talk to, but had stayed to
operate the radio until everyone had finished talking.
    “Dwayne could have given me another five seconds to
say goodbye,” I grumbled.
    “I know, but he’s a good guy, he was just overwhelmed
at the chance to talk to his mom again,” Scott said. “Weren’t you?”
    “Yeah I know, of course I was,” I sighed. “I wish I
could have told her I wanted one of those French chocolate pies she makes and
maybe a picture of the whole family. I can’t believe I don’t even have one with
me here. I guess most of my pictures are on my laptop and the battery is dead
now.”
    Scott smiled. “Well one, why don’t you ask for a new
laptop battery, and two, I’m sure you’ll get a chance to talk to your mom
again, or at least send her messages.”
    I knew he was probably right so I let it go and
decided I wouldn’t hold it against Dwayne.
    Two days later, before I could even send my mother a
message, I received a package with the supply drop. Inside, packed with cold
packs to keep it cool, was a homemade chocolate pie and a picture of my family
at the beach.
    She included a card with a picture of a sad cat,
saying that she missed me very much and that my grandmothers were preparing
gifts of homemade fudge and sugar cookies. It turned out I hadn’t needed to
tell my family what I wanted. They already knew.
    The same delivery also included several newspapers,
all of which bore similar headlines such as, “New Yorkers Survive Plague of the
Century,” and, “Can the Last New Yorkers Be Saved?” and my personal favorite, “ Manhattanites Fight for Their Lives Against City of 8
Million Vampires.”
    The last one was an obvious exaggeration. First, eight
million was the population of New York City
including all the boroughs, not just Manhattan.
Second, if there had been eight million vampires in Manhattan, there certainly wouldn’t be any
survivors. Unrealistic though the headline was, I liked the idea of a small
group of survivors fighting a city of vampires against all odds.
    The papers included pictures of some of us, from
snapshots donated by our families. The articles also included some background
about us and described the conversations we’d had with our families over the
radio. That made me uncomfortable. Had reporters sat in while we spoke to our
families for the first time? Was the government feeding the stories to the
papers?
    It seemed to me like the plague was something the
government would want to keep hushed up, but they’d probably figured we had
plenty of resources in Manhattan,
and it was only a matter of time before we found a way to contact the outside
world. The government might as well make the first move. I assumed they knew
about the hackers who had already been able to contact us via radio. We hoped
that the hackers would prevent the government from putting