No one said a word as they pulled into the housing development in the suburbs. They stared with nervous eyes as they passed the houses, some still under construction and some finished. To Kiba's relief it seemed the cabbie had told the truth. No-one had ever moved in. It was safe. Unpopulated.
The cabbie, breath catching in his throat in little hiccups, let the cab roll up to a small little park. Around the colorful play equipment the grass was verdant green and perfectly mowed, clearly a show-piece to attract future buyers.
The car idled then turned off, leaving only the sound of their ragged breathing. Kiba realized he was shaking uncontrollably, Luna burying her head in his stomach.
Suddenly their cabbie gave out a wail and yanked at his hair, starting to smash his head against the top of the steering wheel.
"Woah, WOAH!" Ghost said, trying to grab his shirt and hold him back. "Dude watch the fucking horn, be careful!"
The man swatted wildly at Ghost's hands, eyes wild. "You think I care about my safety? You think I care about any of your damn safety?" he yelled in his thick Indian accent. "Fuck you!" He fumbled furiously with his seat-belt to climb out of the car, slamming the door shut behind him. They watched from inside as the man started to kick the front tire and swear in another language. At least Kiba assumed it was swearing, it sounded angry enough.
Ghost looked back at Kiba and Gear, confused.
"Oh man..." Kiba said, pointing at the dash. Under a little sign reading "Hello my name is Samir," there was a Polaroid of their cabbie. The thirty-something man looked much the same but bearded, grinning proudly for the camera with two cute little girls beaming and clinging to him.
"Aw shit," Gear said, getting out of the car. "Hey, uh...Samir? It's Samir, right?"
Samir didn't answer, Kiba and Ghost climbing out as well, Kiba holding Luna. Samir stopped kicking to lean against the hood of the taxi, covering his face with his hands.
"Hey man, where were they? Are they someplace we could get too?" Gear asked gently, even though they all knew it was a lost cause.
"My neighbor took them to the park today..." Samir muttered from behind his hands. "They were at the park...she is just an old woman, she can't keep them safe..." He clenched shaking hands into fists, and then spun to them in a rage. "Out! Get your things out of my taxi, I have to go back!"
"You can't, it's suicide!" Gear exclaimed.
"I don't care! I will die! I will go back and die!" Samir shoved by Gear and scrambled for the door, trying to yank it open.
"Samir, listen to me, you can't!" Gear shouted, grabbing him and clumsily grappling with him. "What good'll it do your daughters if you're dead?"
"But what is the point?" Samir wailed, turning to Gear and shoving him back. "I am a coward! I should have gone back, I should have drove straight for them instead of saving you! You are not worth it, you are not worth any of it!"
Samir pounded his palms on his forehead, gritting his teeth in utter distress. He choked out more sobs, Gear and Kiba watching wide-eyed.
"Hey...man, it's ok..." Ghost said awkwardly, taking a hesitant step forward. "Well...like...Muslims go to heaven, right? So, they're with Allah right now, right? They're at peace."
Samir spun on Ghost, eyes bulging. "Muslim? Muslim?" Samir screeched. "I am Hindi, you bastard!"
"Oh, uh..." Ghost backpedaled, blanching. "Ok, well that means they'll be like, reincarnated as beautiful birds or something, right?"
"You think I want my daughters to be birds? Fucking birds?" Ghost seemed to quail and shrink two feet when Samir got in his face. "I want my girls alive! But no! I get you! I get an idiot who should be dead! I wish you were dead!"
Enraged, Samir surged forward, Ghost yelping and running back around the taxi in an attempt to keep a good ten feet between them.
"If I hadn't been driving your stupid taxi I would be with my daughters!"
Ghost made it to the other side of the taxi, but Samir bent down and reappeared with a rock, flinging it at Ghost's head, barely missing and hitting Ghost's shoulder instead.
"Ow, stop! Stop! I thought Hinduists were peaceful!" Ghost ducked down as Samir appeared with another rock.
"I will show you peaceful you stupid hipster bastard!"
Kiba and Gear stood to one side and watched as the man chased Ghost around the taxi, Ghost yelping and trying his best to shield his head.
"Um...think we should stop them?" Kiba whispered to Gear.
Gear sighed. "Seeing Ghost hit with rocks is so refreshing. But yeah, yeah, you're probably right." He stepped forward, getting in the way of Samir, Ghost ducking behind his shoulders.
Samir stopped, panting in fury, eyeing him as Gear raised his hands in appeasement.
"Look...please, listen to me," Gear tried. "I'm so sorry for your loss, man. None of us can understand what you're going through right now, but you need to listen to me. If you want to survive, you can't think about them now. I'm so sorry, but...you need to be like a robot for awhile."
"How am I not supposed to think about them?" Samir wailed. "They are all I have thought about for eight years. They are my life!"
It was too much and he started sobbing relentlessly, flopping to his knees, hands outstretched and shaking.
"They are so beautiful...little Shilpa...just six years old...and Sati...almost eight...they...they just moved here a few years ago...they were going to grow up, and go to school, and speak the English, and have...have beautiful weddings...I was saving for their weddings..." Samir broke down entirely and buried his face in his hands, blubbering as the other three stood awkwardly nearby. "I want to die...my babies..."
Kiba pulled at Gear's arm. "Um...scratch that...maybe give him some time?" he said quietly. "I think it's safe here, we can wait."
Gear sighed miserably, watching Samir roll on the ground with his head wrapped in his arms while he wailed. "Yeah, maybe you're right." He followed Kiba to the picnic table and sat on the top, feet on the bench. Ghost, after eying Samir a bit more, walked their way.
"I hope my family's ok," Kiba said quietly, placing Luna down on the ground and holding her leash.
"They're in the boondocks, so there's a good chance they had time to get somewhere safe," Gear said reassuringly. "You get in touch with them?"
"I sent them a text saying I'm ok," Kiba said nervously. "They didn't text back though."
"Well, check, see if they did," Gear responded
Kiba's dad had made him buy a disposable cell phone phone before leaving for New York, something he appreciated now. He pulled it out, thumbing through the inbox. "Hey, there's a text from Reggie!"
"Ooh, a text from you boyfriend?" Ghost asked tauntingly.
"Shut up, Ghost," Gear said. "If there's one time in your life to be serious, don't you think this might be it?"
Ghost groused, but did shut up.
"It says he got his family out, that they took a taxi out past the Jersey Turnpike." Kiba scrolled down. "He says it's safe about ten miles east of there, lots of men with guns."
"Think we should try and go there?" Ghost asked.
"I dunno, seems like a bad idea to me," Gear said. "We should do everything we can to avoid population centers."
"Oh come on man, that's good intelligence, like a tip!" Ghost argued. "Hell, maybe the government has automatic weapons and shit, I bet it's easy to mow down all those infected people from a distance. Haven't you see all those Michael Crichton movies? They could've set up barricades and have a quarantine. "
"In those movies the quarantine never works!" Gear argued. "There's always a breach and then they have to bomb the place with napalm."
"That's just so they have drama for the action and stuff, in real life I bet it works," Ghost said.
Gear sighed. "I dunno, maybe. If we tried it we'd have to stay away from the highways, bet it's gridlock. Kiba, what do you think?"
"I'd rather have men with guns protecting me than an empty housing development," Kiba said quietly.
Ghost frowned, and hunching his shoulders leaned forward, which Kiba knew was his thinking position. "Well, if news gets out about this place they'll probably get swamped with refugees, so the longer we wait the harder it'll be to get in. They might close off the walls when they think there isn't enough capacity. It's just such a damn risk!"
Kiba shrugged. "Samir seems to know all the roads, maybe he knows a safe way to get there."
"Yeah, good point. Hey, Samir!" Gear said, standing and walking over. "We heard there's a safe zone near the Jersey Turnpike, do you know a good way to get there? Like by back-roads?"
Samir, sitting behind the taxi with his head on his knees, didn't answer.
"Samir? Samir, please."
"I don't care what you say. Leave me alone," Samir snarled, hiccuping.
"We need you man, please, you have to drive for us."
"There are cars everywhere. Steal one and drive it yourself."
"I can't man, not like you. I've lived in New York for two decades, I can't even parallel park anymore," Gear argued in distress. "And Ghost here, Ghost is a spazz, he couldn't keep up alive if he tried."
"Hey!" Ghost argued. "I'm a badass with a car!"
"Shut your trap, Ghost."
"Yes, shut your trap," Samir said, lifting his tear-stained face to glare at Ghost. "You have all the intelligence of that Butthead boy from the cartoon, no one cares what you say."
"Drop it," Gear said to Ghost, shutting him up before he could open his mouth to argue. He turned back to Samir. "Please man, we need you. We owe our lives to you."
"And now go do something else with them. I am not your personal magic carpet guide."
"Are you serious? After all that effort you're just gonna throw us to the dogs?"
"You deserve to be fed to the dogs. I don't care what happens to you," Samir snarled.
"Look," Gear said in a heated voice, "if you want to leave me behind, fine, I'm just some average asshole. And if you want to leave scarecrow here, whatever." He pointed at Kiba. "But Kiba is 17 fucking years old, he's a kid, you're going to leave a kid?"
"So? I was driving pedi-cabs in Delhi at 14 years old, he is not a little boy!"
"Come on man, look at him," Gear said earnestly. "He hasn't even had his first kiss yet."
"Hey!" Kiba protested, blushing bright red, Ghost perking up at the news.
But it seemed to work for Samir, who looked at Kiba with a sort of shocked pity. Then Samir scowled in exasperation, mumbling more choice phrases in that language of his. "Fine! Fine, I will drive your stupid asses to this place. But only because I am an idiot, and I deserve to be dead anyways."