Free Survivor by James Phelan Page A

her quest. Question was, would she reciprocate?
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    I dragged the bags behind me. Each weighed easily forty pounds. I kept going like that for the rest of the block, then stopped, rested, arms on fire and hands aching. I sat on a cab’s roof looking up and down the street. At this rate, it might take me until nightfall to get back to the zoo. Worse, the bags might spill their contents, damaged by all the scraping against raw asphalt in the patchy snow, or from where they had snagged on sharp debris.
    â€œNew plan,” I said out loud. “Try some cars.”
    Every one of them in the street that looked like it could get moving, I tried. None would start. Some ticked over, and a cab almost caught, only to have the battery die out at the penultimate crank of the starter-motor. I thought of Dad’s old Ford in which he’d taught me to drive, how we had to push-start that sometimes. Maybe I could push one of these, but there was no room to pick up momentum, and with the snow and rubble on the road it was near impossible to shift them beyond rocking back and forth on the spot. After half an hour I’d muscled a little Volkswagen enough to roll two feet in the snow. I’d bagged all this food and I was stuck here, wasting time.
    I needed a truck like the one driven by those army guys. Or maybe I could put something like a metal panel under the bags, something smooth-running if used like a sled, to pull the bags up to the zoo. Even if I had to take one at a time; one today and come back for the other one tomorrow. That could work.
    I walked away from the stuffed mail bags towards some wrecked cars, scanning around for something to use.
    â€œStealing mail?” a man’s voice asked.

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    H e came and stood close to me, constantly looking north. He was about my age, dark unruly hair visible from the edges of his white winter cap, a head taller than me and broader across the shoulders, strong but lean.
    â€œYeah, that’s exactly what I’m doing,” I said, “stealing mail.”
    I saw the pump-action shotgun in his hands. He was staring intently, but not at me, his clear blue eyes framed by black-rimmed glasses, scanning Park Avenue. “Seriously, what you got in there, food?”
    â€œWhat’s it to you?”
    He looked down at me for a second, and then back to the street, eyes darting around.
    â€œIf it’s food, or something you need, I’ll give you a hand,” he said. “If it’s money or gold or mail or some dude’s used underwear, you’re on your own.”
    Another survivor. I liked the way he talked: serious and funny at the same time, no wasting time with discussions of blame and anger. I sensed something softer beneath his stern exterior.
    â€œI’m fine on my own,” I said, lifting one bag and dumping it as far as I could reach, then repeating the process with the other. “And yeah, it’s food. I’m not after some dude’s drawers. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”
    â€œNothing wrong with that?” he asked, looking at me, the start of a smile on his face.
    â€œWhat are we talking about?” I hefted the bags another pace on up the road.
    â€œYour perverted tendencies,” he said, preoccupied, something changing in him as he looked up Park Avenue—a new stillness—then he ducked down, moved across the footpath in a crouched run and hid behind an overturned newspaper stand.
    â€œLeave your stuff there,” he whispered.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œJust leave it,” he said. “Get over here, quick!”
    I rushed to his side, squatting down next to him.
    â€œThey’re coming,” he said. “Keep down. They’re coming.”
    We kept low to the ground. I couldn’t hear anything or anyone, certainly not like the arrival of yesterday’s soldiers with their trucks. “They just rounded the corner up there.”
    â€œWho’s