Hannah made it a few more steps before her legs would simply not carry her anymore. Her insides felt like they had been incinerated, nothing but smoldering ash. And the pain in her head made her want to die. It was escalating quickly, like some sort of storm reaching its peak inside her skull until the thunder would eventually crack it open.
She let out a scream that felt like it tore her throat apart but had no idea if anyone even heard it. All around her, the world was swirling into a vortex of darkness, a cyclical storm of oblivion drawing her deep inside. At one point, she was pretty sure a car ran off the road not too far from where she had fallen. The sound of a car striking something immovable clanged inside of her already aching head, a bomb within a bomb. Then there were more people screaming, and then came the wailing and shrieking of police and ambulance sirens. She even thought she heard a gunshot nearby.
Before Hannah died, her bowels expelled the very little they still contained. She felt warmth and wetness along her backside but was too weak to feel any shame about it. Hearing screams like the ones filling the streets made it hard to care about anything else. During her last breath, the screams and the growing sounds of chaos all around made her quite sure that in her final moments alive, she was catching a preview of Hell.
Chapter 2
On her way into work, Olivia Foster could sense something slightly different in the air. It wasn’t one particular thing she could pinpoint, but an overall feeling of something just being off. The early morning sky was overcast and the traffic was about typical for the East Village on a Thursday morning. She was not hurried and was not stressed about work, but she still felt pressured in a way she could not explain.
When she parked in the small concrete square behind Little Learners Daycare at 6:15, the feeling amplified. There was nothing different from any other morning, there was simply a feeling—a feeling as if she had maybe left her hair dryer plugged in, or that she’d forgotten to lock the door to her apartment.
Locking her car, Olivia heard horns blaring in the distance—nothing new for Manhattan, really, but there seemed to be more of them. As she made her way to the employee entrance at the back of the building, she heard a whirring drone above. She looked to the sky and saw a helicopter streaking across the morning sky, heading towards Brooklyn.
There was the smallest hint of a frown on her face when she stepped inside Little Learners. Sadly, the place felt more like home than her apartment did. She’d opened Little Learners Daycare nearly two years ago, sinking her heart and soul and all of her savings (plus a small loan from the bank) into it. It was where she spent most of her time and it was where she was happiest. Even this early in the morning.
The smells of wipes and baby powder hung in the air like always. She was convinced that those two smells (and maybe an especially loaded dirty diaper) were scents that somehow never disappeared. No matter how much they cleaned and scrubbed and sanitized the place, those were the smells that always stuck out to her right away whenever she came to work.
Once inside, Olivia started her day like every other one. She washed her hands and prepared four breakfasts for the kids that arrived early. Banana slices, small portions of oatmeal, and sippy cups half-filled with milk. The youngest child she had was close to two years old now, so she didn’t have to worry about formula anymore, thank goodness.
She went into what she’d always referred to as the feeding grounds—a small room aligned with high chairs, the floors covered in brightly-colored removable plastic squares. As she went to the lobby to put on the morning music (this morning’s selection starting with a sped-up rendition of “The Farmer in the Dell”) she heard the back door open—the sound of her business partner and only employee coming in.
“Morning!” Jacki Reese’s sing-song voice called from the back.
“Same to you,” Olivia hollered.
A few seconds later, the women met together in the feeding grounds. Jacki was sipping on her daily Starbucks drink and looking like her usual radiant self. Jacki was twenty-eight and had the figure of a model. Olivia, thirty-four and already battling greys in her dark brown hair, loved Jacki to no end but was a little envious of her figure. They were fierce friends, though, and had been pouring every bit of their heart and soul into Little Learners since the very first day.
“You see the helicopters this morning?” Jacki asked.
“I saw a helicopter,” Olivia said.
“I saw three. In a V-shape. Really booking it.”
“When?”
“Just now, as I was coming in.”
“That’s odd. I wonder what—”
She paused as the sound of police sirens swept by in front of Little Learners. Not just one car, but two or three. Olivia and Jacki looked to one another, shrugged, and headed to the front of the building. The front of Little Learners was only a small lobby and tiny office space, with the play rooms, nursery, feeding grounds, and bathrooms all tucked away behind the entrance. From the lobby, Olivia and Jacki could see a small fraction of Fleet Avenue through the picture window. While the sirens had already gone past and they could not see police cars, they could see the strobe-like flicker and glow of the bubble lights in the distance.
Neither of them said anything, but an almost tangible worry passed between them. It was a worry all New Yorkers had when they sensed anything out of the ordinary, drawing up ghosts of a September morning not too long ago.
As they looked out of the window, a familiar face appeared at the front door. Olivia opened it up and allowed Maggie Bates to enter. Looking hurried and flustered as usual, Maggie was carrying her four year-old daughter, Joyce on her hip. When Joyce saw Olivia and Jacki, the little girl started clapping her hands.
“Hey!” little Joyce said. “G’morning.”
“And good morning to you, precious,” Olivia said as Joyce came running for her.
Maggie Bates looked more irritated than usual. She was actually a sweet woman, a tiny mouse of a lady, really, but she was always angry about something. Traffic, cold coffee, Joyce having an accident in bed the night before. But today was different. Olivia tried to figure it out but it turned out she didn’t need to. Maggie was talking in her rapid-fire way before the door had fully swung closed behind her. She always seemed in a hurry but also loved to talk.
“Cops are everywhere this morning,” Maggie said. “Pretty sure I saw helicopters, too. Sort of freaky.”
“I saw three choppers,” Jacki said.
“Choppers?” Olivia teased.
“Stuff it. Yes, choppers” she said, rolling her eyes and redirecting the conversation back to Maggie. “Three of them.”
“Something must be up,” Maggie said. “Maybe like a bank robbery?”
“I don’t know,” Olivia said. “The helicopters make me think it might be something out on the coast. They were headed that way…the one I saw, anyway.”
Maggie shrugged it off, as if it were no big deal. Olivia wished she could. All of this new information had her revisiting that anxious feeling again.
“Ladies, I have a board meeting at three that might run late,” Maggie said. “Think you can handle this little muffin until 5:30 if it comes to it?”
“Absolutely,” Olivia said, reaching out for Joyce’s hand. While there were eleven children currently attending Little Learners Day Care, Olivia had no issue admitting to herself that little Joyce Bates was her favorite. The kid was sweet, exceptionally smart for a four year-old, and funny. She was also always willing to help others even when she wasn’t asked.
Olivia and Joyce waved goodbye to Maggie as she headed back out onto the street. Maggie blew her daughter a kiss through the glass and then put some speed into her step as she headed back to her car.
“How about some breakfast, kiddo?” Olivia said.
“O’meal?” Joyce asked, her eyes wide and bright.
“You know it!”
Olivia continued on with her daily routine. Like always, while Joyce ate and bobbed her little head to the fee
ding grounds music, more children were brought in by their parents. It was a varied mix of kids and parents, from a high-profile lawyer to a struggling comic book artist. Two of them made comments about the growing chaos outside but did not seem bothered enough by it all to change up the structure of their days.
By the time Joyce was done with her breakfast and the playlist had started up a pretty awful version of “London Bridge,” four other children had arrived. Only three of them were eating because the fourth was being raised by extreme vegans who did not allow their child to eat breakfast that was not prepared in their home.
During that twenty minute window, Olivia and Jacki heard police sirens two more times. They were all farther away now, as was the slight murmur of what Olivia was pretty sure was another helicopter. Olivia made a mental note to check the local news when she got a chance, probably right after cleaning up from breakfast.
As Olivia was wiping smooshed banana off the side of a child’s face, the phone began to ring. Jacki, currently changing a dirty diaper in the changing room, was clearly unavailable to answer it, so Olivia ran to the right side of the room where one of the center’s two landlines was located.
“Little Learners,” she said. “This is Olivia.”
“Olivia, hey. It’s Miranda Lee.”
“Oh, hey. How are you this morning?”
Miranda Lee was the mother of Ethan Lee, a three year-old that had a very bad habit of picking his nose and wiping his findings on other kids.
“I’m sort of scared, to be honest,” Miranda Lee said. “All the stuff on the news, you know? I’m staying home today, so I’ll have Ethan with me. He won’t be coming in.”
“I’m going to sound like a dunce here,” Olivia said, “but what’s on the news?”
Even before the question was out of her mouth, she thought of the helicopters and the abundance of police sirens. A little knot of worry started to form in her stomach.
“They won’t say just yet,” Miranda said. “But you can see it on the reporters’ faces…they’re scared and have no idea what’s going on. I think…I think it could be bad.”
“Thanks for the heads up, then. I’ll check the news right now. You and Ethan be safe, okay?”
“Same to you.”
They ended the call and Olivia grabbed the laptop from the welcome desk in the lobby. Things felt too real now; she couldn’t wait until after breakfast clean-up. She carried the laptop back into the feeding grounds, happily stopped the music, and pulled up her preferred news website. As the page came up, Jacki entered the room again. “Aww, Miss Olivia, sorry you had to miss that blowout,” Jacki said in a high-pitched baby voice, placing a two year-old named Jasper into his high chair. Jasper wriggled a bit, enjoying a freshly changed diaper.
“Who was on the phone?” Jacki asked.
“Miranda Lee. She’s keeping Ethan home. She said the news is…”
But before Olivia could finish, the page was loaded and live footage was being streamed. A very confused reporter was standing in front of a small mob of people. Her hair was a mess and it was clear she’d been forced to skip makeup touch-ups. Behind the reporter, Olivia could barely make out several police cars. It was impossible to tell where the report was coming from but she thought she saw the shimmer of light reflecting off of the sea in the distance.
“…the result of an explosion at sea in the early morning hours, less than two miles away from land,” the reporter was saying. “There is no definite connection between what occurred during that routine Coast Guard response call and the deaths being reported this morning, though the speculation is high. From what we are being told, the first death on land was reported around 5:55 this morning. Since then, there have been another eighteen deaths, and more than thirty are being treated for an illness that—”
The reporter was interrupted by a man in a Coast Guard jacket. Two policeman accompanied him and without warning, the reporter was hauled off, away from the camera. The people surrounding them objected to this sternly, rushing towards them. Seconds later, the camera tilted, was jostled, and then went black.
“Oh my God,” Jacki said, a hand going to her mouth. “What’s going on?”
Olivia knew that in today’s world, the media could only be so reliable. In response, she took out her phone and opened up Facebook. As she started scrolling through her feed to see what she could learn, the front door to Little Learners opened again. Olivia peered through the small hallway connecting the feeding grounds to the front lobby and spotted the father of nineteen month-old Xavier Nelson.
“Things are nuts out there right now,” he said, his voice wavering. He was the first parent to come in that looked legitimately worried. “You ladies have any idea what is going on?”
Olivia said nothing at first. The more she scrolled, the more she saw. The more she saw, the more aware she became of what was happening out there. It was surreal to read about it as she stood in front of so many tiny faces.
She looked around to the children currently in her care and started to feel very scared.
Chapter 3
Paul Gault saw the accident before it even happened; he knew there was no way the ambulance driver was going to see the man on the bicycle coming around the corner. But Paul could do nothing. He was behind the wheel of his police car, about three car lengths away from the ambulance. He slammed on his horn, hoping to alert the bicyclist or the ambulance, but it went unheard. There were just too many other horns to contend with—not to mention the ambulance sirens, more approaching sirens in the distance, and all the screaming.
Sure enough, the man on the bike came barreling around the corner, not expecting the ambulance to be partially up on the sidewalk in an attempt to get around the stalled traffic. Paul saw the briefest look of shock on the man’s face before he slammed into the side of the ambulance. His left shoulder connected squarely with the rearview mirror, pushing it back at a sick angle. He then went flying backwards in an almost graceful sort of spin, striking a parked car and landing in the street.
From the passenger seat, Paul’s partner let out a little moan of distress. His name was Devon Ogden, and he was habitually rubbing at his chin. As far as nervous tics went, it was a strange one. But Paul was glad he didn’t have a partner that chewed his nails or chomped on gum all day long. If nervous chin rubbing was the worst thing Devon did, that was fine by Paul. Especially on a day like this.
“This is getting out of hand,” Devon said. “Paul, what are we supposed to do?”
“Exactly what we were asked to do,” Paul said. “Keep the peace.”
That was literally the mission he and Devon were given fifteen minutes ago—along with more than twenty other NYPD units. “Keep the peace.”
Of course, they’d been sitting in the precinct then, around other men wearing blue uniforms and sipping on their morning coffee. But now, just fifteen minutes later, it was like another world. Paul had lost count of how many bodies he’d seen in the street, of how many car accidents they’d passed by.
“I’m gonna park right there,” Paul said, pointing to the place where the ambulance had come to a stop. “See if the idiot on the bike is still alive.”
Devon had nothing to say to that. Devon had only been on the force for a year and a half. Until today, the roughest call he’d been part of had been a domestic disturbance that resulted in having to draw his sidearm, but not shoot. He was clearly trying to process the nightmare on the other side of the windshield, struggling to accept it all as real. Truth be told, Paul was, too. But at the age of fifty-two, he’d seen enough to be able to accept the worst when he saw it.
And this was by far the worst. He’d never seen anything like this. No build-up of any kind, and no alarms. He’d arrived at work at seven in the morning, not knowing that calls about the illness had already started coming in. Half an hour later, though, his world had been very different as cluster after cluster of calls had overloaded the lines. People dying—people that had been healthy when they we
nt to sleep, waking up only to puke their guts out and then die within thirty to forty minutes. And they’d all been calling because the hospital lines had been flooded and they had no idea who else to call for such an emergency.
Then the panic had set in and the city of New York seemed to have gone absolutely nuts. Things had been reasonably quiet when his alarm stirred him awake at 5:50 but by 7:40, the city had quickly given way to chaos. News crews had gone out like worker bees defending the queen and some of the footage and reports they were broadcasting only made matters worse.
But Paul could not focus on that right now. Somehow, he had to try to keep the peace. He pulled the car to the sidewalk, the passenger side tires going up on the curb. He flipped the bubble lights on and it seemed to jar Devon out of his fugue.
“Officer Ogden, are you okay?” Paul liked to call the younger guys by their officer titles because it seemed to help with morale and encouragement.
Devon nodded, though it was clear he was not at all okay.
“You have to—”
Paul was interrupted as another car collided with the backside of the patrol car. It was not a terrible crash, but enough to send the car forward another foot or so, both Paul and Devon pushed forward and restrained by their seatbelts. The hollow sound of impact seemed to stab Paul right in the center of his head for a moment.
“Crazy, man,” Devon said. His eyes were wide and constantly on the move, looking for any and all potential threats. He looked terrified, like a man about to lose his mind. He reached for his door and nearly opened it before Paul grabbed his shoulder.
“Officer Ogden!” Paul barked. “Mask!”
Devon’s eyes went wide, realizing the blunder he’d nearly made. One of the first things the Chief had told them this morning was to wear masks when they were in open air. As of now, it seemed no one knew what was happening in New York City—or, if someone did know, they weren’t telling. Given the reports of excessive vomiting and crippling headaches, it was assumed the madness erupting in the streets was the result of a virus of some kind. Looking at what was going on outside the patrol car, it seemed ridiculous to think a little medical facemask would help. But it was the order they’d been given, so Paul would obey it.
It Falls Apart Series | Book 1 | It Falls Apart Page 2