My pulse grew fitful as we approached the registration tent. Reid took my hand and held it.
“Mom, I’m thirsty.” Will coughed for effect.
“In a few, honey.”
Luckily, I was first in line. “Name and age?” the woman asked.
“Finnegan. Finn Sinclair, age seven, with my brother, his uncle, Brandon Monahan, age thirty-five.”
The woman, obviously a volunteer in civilian attire, flipped through the pages quickly. “Not here.” Her green and white badge read ERT, Early Response Team. I wondered what organization she hailed from. I distinctly remembered an early response team some members of our church belonged to. Quite often they were the second ones in, after the immediate crew.
“You barely looked. Can you check again?”
She scrubbed a hand over her face with an exaggerated sigh. A line had formed behind us.
“Move along, lady!” a man grumbled.
“Please, check again.” My voice hinged on a precipice. I stood my ground and admonished my blood pressure to stay in check.
She pursed her lips and looked. “Not here.”
“Where are people being brought in from?” Reid asked.
“This isn’t an information booth. Move along!” The man behind us growled. Reid ignored him, but I saw his clenched fist.
The woman sighed. “West, north. Cities in the hardest hit zones.”
“Any people from the bases or Denver Airport?” Reid asked.
She scrunched her brow. “Bases? You mean the army and air near the Springs? Yeah, some, the critical ones that need transport to the hospitals in Kansas and Texas. They bring them here first. Not sure about the airport, hon.”
“Are there any other mobile hospitals like this nearby?” Reid pressed.
“Nothing else in Lamar, except for the hospital. They all come through here first now before being sent over, if necessary, so if they are in that hospital, check in is through here first. There’s one hospital station in Nebraska, a few in New Mexico. Not sure about the western slopes or in eastern Wyoming. Look, I’m tired. I’m a volunteer. The National Guard is overwhelmed…they just got here. Mostly Red Cross and local doctors here,” she said with a random gesture and another sigh, “since the first few days after the eruption. The Guard is working on recovery and transport. We’re understaffed. I’m filling in for now until more soldiers arrive.”
“We came all the way from Maine,” Will said to the woman.
She looked at him, fine wrinkles forming around puckered lips.
“Okay, sweetheart, look.” She spread a nearby map. Will leaned on it. She pointed to areas circled in different colored ink. “There’s a unit north, here. Folks in that blue ring are being sent to a mobile unit in North Platte. People in this green ring are going south to Santa Fe. The red ring is us. Mostly the lower right quadrant of Colorado. That’s all I know right now. If you have more questions, you’ll need to ask the National Guard. There’s an officer over there. He arrived this afternoon.” She pointed to the convoy of Humvees and military vehicles in the church parking lot. The rest of the military and emergency vehicles idled in a line on the street, waiting to be directed to other parking areas. She added, “They’ve also brought the deceased here to be transported elsewhere. Most are going to Texas.”
“Please look again,” I begged.
She lifted a different clipboard which had the words DOA on top and scanned that much longer list. “Physical description?”
My God. I muffled a gasp.
Reid stepped in, his palm on the small of my back. “A skinny boy, blond hair, blue eyes, seven years old. A man, our age, brown hair, orange and blue ballcap with a ski logo.”
I added, “The man, my brother, he has an air force tattoo on his upper right shoulder.”
The woman’s finger stopped toward the bottom. I craned my neck to read the upside-down writing on the dirt and water-splattered pages. Many of the dead lacked names. Scribbles of descriptions only. She paused and turned her face to mine. I noticed every wrinkle in her aged face now. She was about Patsy’s age and stature: fit, with brilliant blue eyes and thinning colored sandy hair. Her scrutiny shone with maternal sadness, her lips turned down. She then waved to a man nearby. “Phil? Can you take these folks to the—” She looked at Will. “To the youth identification area?” A middle-aged man, a medic, stepped closer.
Just then, two National Guard soldiers in full uniforms approached from the parking area. Relief filled the woman’s uncomfortable countenance.
I turned to them, numb, yet flushed with humiliation. Were they all looking at me now?
“What’s the holdup?” one asked, a young man, his face hard-edged with matching chiseled short hair. Not waiting on an answer, he turned to the woman at the table, “Ma’am, we’re here to relieve you.” He then angled toward me. “Ma’am, we need to keep this line moving.”
“Ah, okay. Rob said you’d be over,” the woman said, her voice weary.
I lifted myself from the fog. “Wait! Wait! My son. Is he on that other list?”
The Guard soldier gave the woman a commanding look. She shrugged vaguely. “We have one that meets that description. You’d need to ID him though.”
A gurgled cry escaped my lips, and my knees buckled. I grabbed the table edge to prevent myself from collapsing.
My head spun. My chest tightened.
Reid swooped in. “Her brother? The man? Brown hair, eyes, mid-thirties, my build, baseball cap, the tattoo?” Reid asked, a hand firmly on my back to steady me. “Is he on there, too?”
The woman, whose badge read Barbara, said, “I’m not sure. That’s a general description. But nobody with an air force tattoo. We have many that meet that ID. We don’t have the resources to do full body checks yet, so I don’t even know.”
The other National Guard soldier took her clipboard. He skimmed the DOA list for what seemed like way longer than a short minute.
Prickles raced through all ten fingers, up my wrists, and joined the unrest in my chest.
Barbara bent and helped lift me upright. “I’m sorry. Maybe it’s not your boy.”
The Guard soldier shook his head. “No adult males with that description.”
We turned to follow Phil.
Phil, the Grim Reaper. Not that he looked like death’s escort. I clenched and unclenched my hands. A wave of dizziness hit me.
“No need. This man will relieve you, sir.” The Guard soldier pointed to his companion. Phil offered an apologetic look. Then he was gone before I could say another word.
Barbara gripped my wrist. “Aww, dear, it’s probably not your boy. You said he came with an uncle. Well, Uncle is not on either list. He should be on the survivor list if they came together.”
Unless something had happened to Brandon. Maybe no body was recovered? No. Brandon was okay. He had just called me! My brain could not tell fact from fiction as languid legs drew me away from the registration tent.
I voiced the rational to Reid as we plodded through the crowd toward the church. “Brandon called me this morning. It’s not Finn. It can’t be Finn.”
“Right. It’s not him.”
“Unless…”
Brandon was alive. But what about Finn? What about Finn!
Regardless, I shivered with each excruciatingly slow step to the identification area as we followed the soldier around tents. He led us inside the church.
Seconds felt like hours as we passed through the wooden pews. There were at least two dozen people in the large cathedral-ceilinged sanctuary. Many were praying. A priest glided among them, murmuring prayers and condolences. I willed him to not approach me however much I might have needed God right now.
A modest chapel had been transformed to a morgue and sat next to the larger sanctuary. The pews had been removed. This congregation wasn’t eager churchgoers awaiting forgiveness for their transgressions, but rather the dead, carefully bagged and lined up in rows. I fought the urge to vomit. I couldn’t take my son into
a room with dead bodies.
Reid squeezed my hand harder as we stepped through a stone-carved and arched doorway. “I will look. You stay here, AJ.”
“No. I need you to watch Will.”
Reid gave me a pleading look but then took Will’s hand. “Let’s wait in the sanctuary, Will. Check out the stained glass there, the tall ceiling.”
“Those people are all dead in there?”
“Yes, they are,” I said.
“But Finn’s okay?” He coughed, deep and raspy.
Reid squeezed my hand one more time. Then he took Will to the pews in the large, vaulted sanctuary, while the soldier led me to a row of smaller corpses. Dead children.
Bile tickled my throat. Thank God I hadn’t eaten much today. Dry heaves taunted me.
It couldn’t be him. What were the odds? The first mobile unit we come upon…and my Finn? I shook my head, willing it to cling to reason and odds.
The man reviewed his clipboard page and compared it to the tags on each bag. All the bodies were larger children, except for one, which was Finn’s size. He turned to me, eyes glassy, despite his calm disposition and facial expression. “Ma’am.”
I nodded for him to unzip the bag.
Shit, I had done this before.
Harrison.
Except he had been under a sheet on a cold metal slab.
Not Finn, not Finn, not Finn…
The zipper pierced my heart. The bag crinkled in the silent, incense-infused air like nails on a chalkboard.
Don’t be Finn. Don’t be Finn. Please, don’t let it be my child.
I was praying that it was another mother’s child. I hugged my arms to my body, shivers erupting.
Don’t you do this to me again! Not again. I can’t take anymore! I yelled at God. Forget praying. I hollered at Him, as the sound of the zipper penetrated my soul. I screamed at my heavenly Father to let me get a pass here. No more death. No more!
I drew in a breath and looked.
A frail pale-skinned child lay in the bag. A bony clavicle protruded. Long eyelashes covered his eyelids, forever closed. Ear-length blond hair, streaked with dirt and ash and brushed to the side, adorned the little boy’s face. I reached for the boy but stopped myself. My hand hovered for a moment above his face. A hodgepodge of auburn freckles crossed his cheeks. He had a sharp angular face, not the smooth rounded one of Finn’s.
It was not Finn. Finn had no freckles. I couldn’t pull my stare. I looked at the cheek near the right ear. Finn had a light brown dime-sized birthmark there. This boy had none. He also had different-shaped ears.
“Sweet angel, rest now,” was all I could say, and I silently prayed for the mother he might have left behind.
I looked at the soldier. I shook my head. “No.”
When I returned, Reid’s face reflected hope. I shook my head and burst into tears. “No, not him. Not him…” I shuddered violently.
“He’s okay, Mom?”
I nodded. “It was another child,” I mumbled, nearly choking on the words.
Will hugged me. “Look, Mom. The light is shining right through the stained glass. Streaks of red and green and blue, all over the cross.”
I swiped salty tears. Jesus and other indistinguishable Biblical figures stood before us on an intricately carved altar. The beauty and glow of light pierced through their designs and splattered the altar with a rainbow of color. Incense perforated the air, performing a holy purpose, but I suspected it also served to cover any stench from the dead next door.
****
Our convoy was quiet after checking the hospital in town, too.
I pointed toward the police barricade a quarter of a mile ahead of us on Route 50 as we drove west. “Look.”
Reid turned the car into an alley.
I gripped the side handle in reflex as he whipped around the bend. “What are you doing?”
He parked, got out, and pulled his hefty pack from the trunk. “Plan B.”
Still spellbound from the church, I was utterly confused as he first withdrew army fatigues from his pack and then unlaced his boots. With no hesitation, he stripped to his undershirt and boxers in the middle of the alley. He carefully placed his knife into a pocket in his backpack.
“Reid…what is Plan B?”
“Did you actually think we were going to be able to just drive in, AJ?”
Heat flushed my cheeks. I hadn’t planned for this. I’d planned for everything but not this. “I don’t know.”
“Sorry, didn’t mean to snap. But there’s no way they’ll let us just drive in if there are National Guard soldiers present.”
He had it all, and he dressed fast: combat camouflage trousers, embroidered coat, nylon belt, and a cap. He tucked his wayward hair under the cap and put his regular boots on.
“Cool! Do you have a gun?” Will interjected. He hopped out of the car and began rummaging through Reid’s backpack.
I grabbed his hand. “No, Will. Not our stuff. Boundaries, remember?”
“No, I don’t have a gun,” Reid said.
I wouldn’t bet against a pistol being in there somewhere. Philosophical and theological books, knife, United States Army fatigues, tattoos…
I was lost. “Uh, Reid, I didn’t see military at that barricade like there were at the mobile hospital. I saw only police officers. You brought that gear along this entire way?”
“Plan B,” was his response as he tied his boot laces.
“Gosh, I am a moron,” I said.
“No, you’re not. You were thinking with your heart…you had the car, provisions…and everything you needed to get to your son. Heck, you even have bikes in case,” Reid countered.
“Wait. You’re telling me you travel with your retired uniform all the time? You were in New York on business. You flew to New York before the eruption.”
“No, I didn’t travel with all of it. I did keep my jacket and ID in my parents’ old storage unit in upstate New York. Sentimental maybe,” he said wryly.
There had to be more behind his reason.
“I bought the rest of it in an army thrift shop in New York after the eruption.”
“You anticipated this?”
“I didn’t know what to expect, honestly. I suspected it may come to this.” He waved his hand cryptically. “There are also several military bases in Colorado, so I expected a decent military presence. Like I’d said, I need to get to Lily, so the idea came to me in New York.”
I sighed, exasperated. “Will this get you past police officers? I highly doubt they’ll let Will and me through. You saw the sign as we entered Lamar. Travel ban. They won’t let us pass unless we’re all military.”
“We can try, right?”
“Okay, but I really don’t think it will work.”
He was about to get in the car when I tapped him. “Your scruff?”
“Yeah. Smart.” He returned to his pack, withdrew a razor and water bottle and did the world’s fastest shave. “How’s this?”
I touched his chin. “Smooth as a baby’s butt.”
“Ewww,” said Will.
“Good.” Sweet dark eyes shared a look with me, and I withdrew my hand. Fatigue mangled my mind.
“We’re not in uniforms,” Will said. “Do they make kid-sized ones?”
“You have a special job, Will.” Reid turned to him.
Will said, “Oh?”
“I have a favor to ask, and I’m sure your mom will be okay with it.”
I lifted an eyebrow, but I followed his train of thought.
“I need you to hide in the back, and we’ll stow your bike in there somewhere…”
“Hide?”
I didn’t ask why, as the gears chinked in my brain. “Reid has a plan, honey. Can you do that for us? You can play with one of your glow sticks, and it’ll be for only a few minutes.”
“I don’t know…there’s a lot of stuff in there,” Will said, his voice hesitant.
“I have the booster seats, too, Reid. Do we need to hide t
hem?”
“Yeah. This may be the only way.”
We removed the boosters and shuffled my gray storage totes to the back seat. By a great engineering feat, we got Will’s bike tucked in the trunk area as well. Now the totes sat in the back seat and the kid stuff—and the kid—were hidden under blankets in the back space. I was thankful for tinted windows and a large SUV.
I cracked a few glow sticks from Will’s supply and handed them to him. I was about to say “think good thoughts,” but I opted against it. Instead, I handed him his water bottle. “Don’t wiggle and be as quiet as a mouse.”
“Mice squeak.”
“Okay, be as quiet as…” I combed my mind. “A wizard under an invisibility spell?” I tried, weakly. That stuff worked better on Finn.
“Good one, Mom. I got it.” He wedged in, drew the blanket over his head, and was still. “Yuck, it smells like gasoline!”
Reid had moved the spare cans to the back seat. “Sorry, honey. You like hiding though.”
“Yeah, but not in stinky places.”
Once in the front seat, I asked, “Our bikes won’t flag us?”
“Let’s hope not.”
I double-checked our transformed back seat. “Crap. There are stickers on Finn’s window.” Finn’s mishmash of cartoon character stickers was plastered all over his window. Even Will had a few on his window. “It’s tinted, but if they look in the car…”
Reid opened all four windows. “There. The air quality is sort of okay here in town. And it makes for easier inspection.”
“It’ll have to do. And me? I’m not dressed as military.”
“You’ll be okay. You can be civilian. Got any colored tape? Red, specifically?”
“Does masking tape work?”
“Probably not. No bother.”
We joined the lengthening line of angry drivers waiting to continue on Route 50 through Lamar and westward. Each one was being turned around when they reached the barricade that was manned by two police cars. My stomach fluttered. “What is Plan B? You’re killing me here, Reid.”
“Working on it,” he said. “We’re lucky there are only police here and not the National Guard. I saw active army at the mobile hospital, too. I’m sure they will be here soon. We need to get through before they arrive.”
Will Rise from Ashes Page 26