I should’ve known. Should’ve expected this. Should’ve assumed things would be this way.
Moments later, Allison glances up at the sky on the empty rooftop deck. The chairs and the floral altar are still there. She leans against the edge of the wall and closes her eyes, picturing a sweet moment from the ceremony.
She sees a father lifting one of the two-year-old ring bearers up to the tree. The young girl holds an envelope in her hand, one that surely contains money. She places it on the tree, where other envelopes hang. A gift for the future. A gift of life. A simple gift.
This makes Allison think of her own father. Her parents divorced when she was sixteen. The term sweet sixteen will always leave a sour taste in her mouth.
“There you are.”
She opens her eyes and sees Jack.
“I’ve been looking for you. Where’d you go?”
“I’ve been pretty easy to find today,” she says.
Jack looks puzzled. “What’s wrong?”
She breathes in, wondering if she’s going to do this right now. She knows it’s not the right place or time.
But there’s never going to be a right place and a right time and a right moment and a right man to ask the right question for the right purpose. Right?
“I gotta go,” she says, looking away from him.
Jack seems not to understand if she’s talking about leaving the outside rooftop or leaving the wedding reception altogether. Frankly, Allison isn’t sure either.
“Why?” he asks. “What happened?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“What? Tell me.”
He moves closer to her, innocent eyes looking down at her. The kind that would melt any girl’s heart. The problem is they’ve melted hers far too many times. And each time it hardens again, it takes a slightly different shape. Now her heart is misshapen and simply worn out.
“I love you, and I show it. But I’m baffled, Jack. Either you don’t love me or you have a really lousy way of letting me know it.”
His shirt is partly unbuttoned, his tie unknotted and hanging there like a noose around his neck. He looks wounded.
“What happened?”
“I saw you roll your eyes.”
Now he gets it.
“Look, I’m sorry—”
He moves to embrace her but she pushes him away. “I don’t want to do this anymore.”
Jack lets out a sigh. “Come on, Allie. I love you. You know that. We’ve been together for five years—”
“Seven.”
He tries again to move closer and touch her. That always works and that’s always her downfall. They’ll argue and they’ll begin to talk about serious things and then he’ll embrace her and settle in for silence. For unspoken words. But not this time. Not anymore. She begins to walk away.
She reaches the doors to head inside when he grabs her hand.
“Don’t leave,” he says.
But she does. She waits for the elevator and when the doors open, Tommy walks out, carrying a grin and his camera. He begins filming without even noticing that they’re arguing.
“Really, Tommy?” Jack asks.
“What? What’s going on?”
Allison slips into the elevator and the doors begin to shut. Jack calls her name but it’s not enough. It’s too late.
She knows the end has finally arrived. Soon enough everybody else will know it too.
9
TAKE A DEEP BREATH
Tommy asks the obvious after Allison is gone. “She upset?”
It’s not the first time Tommy has walked in on something going on between Jack and Allison, but today something feels different.
The thumping bass back in the banquet room is the only thing he can hear for a moment. It seems like Jack is thinking, though Tommy has no idea what he’s thinking about. Jack is seldom lost for words and almost never lost in thought. Jack doesn’t wade in those kinds of deep waters.
“She just needs to cool off a little bit. Then we’ll have a talk. She’s just heated.” He brushes back his hair, the hesitation still there. “C’mon,” he says to Tommy. “Let’s go back.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. I’m sure. Of course I’m sure. This is a party. Let’s go.”
The two friends, looking like twins in their gray suits, head back in to the party. Tommy’s not going to pry any more with Jack even though his buddy sounds doubtful. It sounded like Jack was telling himself that he’s sure, but nothing about his tone made it seem like he really is.
They enter the busy and loud room without Allison. She’ll surely show back up in a while.
“You want something to drink?” Jack asks Tommy.
Tommy nods. “Yeah, whatever you’re having.”
As Jack wanders off toward the bar, Tommy slips out his cell phone. The screen saver shows the movie poster of Apocalypse Now but no text message. As Bruno Mars belts the dancers into shape on the floor in the center of the room, Tommy types out a text. Just to see what’s up with Allison.
He sees Jack waving a beer and goes over to him. Soon enough Jack and Allison will be smiling and hanging all over each other again. This is the pattern like always, with Tommy right in the center of it. Always trying to help out.
The camera is rolling again.
Tommy feels the elevator they’re in moving up as he points the video recorder at Mr. and Mrs. Chapman.
“Thank you for coming to our room to drop off some of the wedding presents,” Skylar’s father says, his gray hair looking as perfect as it did when Tommy saw him a few hours ago.
“No problem. Now that I have you trapped—what’s the secret to staying married all these years?”
“I’m always right,” Mrs. Chapman says.
“That’s actually correct,” Mr. Chapman says quickly with a smile.
They’re a good-looking couple, especially Mrs. Chapman. Tommy can tell Skylar gets her dominant genes from her mother, who looks attractive in her evening dress showing off a trim figure. The Chapmans laugh at each other, and it’s a moment that Tommy loves capturing on video. Tommy knows this is one of the secrets.
Keep laughing together. Keep the humor coming.
Mr. Chapman clears his throat and looks directly into the camera.
“Skylar, if you are watching this right now, your wedding was absolutely beautiful.”
“You know your daughter wouldn’t have it any other way,” Tommy adds.
“It should have been at the church,” Mrs. Chapman says.
“It was her choice,” Mr. Chapman gently assures. “Even if it’s not what we wanted.”
“And we all know Skylar gets what she wants,” Tommy jokes.
“Like mother like—”
Mr. Chapman pauses. Tommy blinks several times, thinking he’s not seeing the right image on the camera screen.
It looks like I can see their breath. As if we’re standing outside on a cold winter day.
The elevator seems to be stopped. Just like Tommy’s breathing. Just like his pulse.
He glances at the couple he’s facing and sees something awful. Noticing their breath is one thing. It’s odd, but it’s not just that. They both suddenly look pale as ghosts, as if they’ve both seen something horrific.
“Did you feel that?” Mr. Chapman asks his wife.
“It just got so cold,” she says.
Tommy is confused; he doesn’t feel any change. What is happening here?
Mr. Chapman turns to look at Tommy and his camera. The look is empty. As if any feeling or emotion or love or anything is all gone. Absent. Boom. Just vanished. And something else—his pupils suddenly start getting smaller.
Tommy is about to say something when he’s interrupted. The elevator jolts as Skylar’s parents fall to the carpeted floor and land in awkward poses with loud thuds.
This is not happening this has gotta be a joke right right?
Tommy tilts the camera down and sees their lifeless faces looking up at him. He knows in a
n instant this isn’t a joke. They’re dead, both of them, just like that. He can just feel it. He knows.
The camera drops to the floor and lands near Mrs. Chapman’s head as Tommy leans over and calls out their names and tries to revive them. They’re so cold, both of them. The temperature hasn’t changed, but they feel like they’ve been stored in an ice locker for a week.
A rush of searing, shaking terror fills Tommy.
“Mr. Chapman, Mrs. Chapman. You guys. Come on.”
He moves them, then jerks them, then actually slaps them but he gets nothing. As he picks up his camera, he sees the whitewashed, empty face of Skylar’s mother. Her pupils are the size of pinpricks, as if she’s just been staring into some bright light for a long time.
He screams for help and keeps screaming, the sound of his voice actually assuring him that he’s not dead or losing his mind. This isn’t a joke. Even the fun-loving Chapmans wouldn’t do something like this. They look and feel dead.
And I’m trapped with them.
“Somebody help me,” he cries out as he feels the elevator moving again.
His arms and legs are shivering as the door finally opens. For a second Tommy wonders what to do with the bodies sprawled out on the floor.
Then he hears the screams coming from the wedding reception.
He doesn’t hesitate. He bolts out of the elevator and down the hall.
He has no idea what kind of nightmare he’s about to see. But it sounds worse than the terror he just witnessed.
As he rushes toward the horrible sounds, he thinks of one thing.
Allison.
10
SANCTUARY
Allison wants to pray but can’t. She sits in the pew in a silent and empty church with the glowing colors of the stained-glass windows on each side filling the room with a sky-blue sort of light. This place gives her a modicum of hope. It’s a bit like going window shopping and seeing the amazing and expensive fashions all nearly within reach. If-onlys fill her soul. If only she had the money to buy that dress. If only she had the motivation to blurt out the prayer she’s held for some time.
If only.
This isn’t the first time she’s come to Rivertown Community Church. Since living around Wilmington the last few years, she’s occasionally found herself walking back from a bar or a night out and then wandering in here. There was the time Jack had too much to drink and she left him being obnoxious with the rest of their friends. Another time was on a night when he was supposed to meet her but ended up canceling because of work. There was even the evening after Skylar’s bridal shower when Allison just slipped inside here to think.
There’s a calm here that’s comforting. She has her phone silenced and she’s not checking Facebook or Twitter or Instagram. The news of the day isn’t getting to her. Nobody from the wedding party is intruding with their witty comments or deep thoughts or probing questions.
It’s just her and . . .
God?
She can’t say that exactly. She thinks maybe it’s something like that but it’s not like she comes here to pray. She’s not at that point. She’s warming up to the concept. Getting the seat in the pew warm. Getting used to the idea of staring at a cross and looking upward.
All she can think is what she should do now. And how she’s wasted all these years. And how she needs to start fresh.
Tomorrow can be a better day.
A hundred different ideas and thoughts flood her. Then she hears a violent crash outside that jerks her up out of the padded pew. A car alarm goes off and she hears a scream.
Another scream, this time from somewhere back in the church. It’s a large church that extends for a whole block.
“Help me!”
This is a woman’s voice from outside.
Another alarm sounds. Another crash. A door slamming. The ground underneath her shaking.
What is happening?
She glances up at the cross one more time, then heads through the doors at the front of the church, toward where the sound of the crash came from. When she opens the door, she finds a car rammed into another. One of the cars doesn’t seem to have anybody inside it. A woman sits in the other car’s driver’s seat bleeding from her head. The car door hangs open. The woman sees Allison and says something and then tries to get out of the car. She crumples to the street.
Allison rushes over to help her.
She hears screaming in the background. Someone yelling. A man runs past on the sidewalk. There’s the sound of glass breaking. Another car flies by them and nearly crashes as it veers around and keeps tearing down the road.
“What happened?” Allison says as she helps the woman stand.
There is a deep gash in the woman’s forehead that’s gushing blood. The woman holds a hand up to stop it but that’s only smearing it everywhere.
“The car just suddenly started coming toward me. There was no driver. It hit me going thirty miles an hour.”
“Let’s get you to the grass over here,” she tells the woman, who’s probably in her fifties. “Let me see if anybody is in the other car.”
There’s an explosion somewhere nearby that makes Allison duck instinctively. She looks at the sky and it seems different, as if gray clouds were suddenly painted there with the touch of a button like on a phone app.
It didn’t look like that when I entered the church.
She peers into the other car and sees a figure draped across the front seats.
She opens the door slowly. “Hello? Are you okay? Hello, sir?”
It’s a heavyset man in shorts and a T-shirt. She can see the side of his face. She leans over.
Then she touches his skin and feels the cold. His eyes aren’t moving and his profile looks like a wax dummy’s.
He must’ve had a heart attack or something while driving.
Allison goes back over to the woman sitting on the grass looking like she might have a concussion.
A tall black man in khakis and a button-down shirt runs toward them screaming. “They’re dead all of them are dead they’re all dead and we’re next we’re going to be next.”
Allison moves off the sidewalk and expects the terrified man to stop but he doesn’t. He’s sweaty and out of breath but he moves past them yelling and cursing and sprinting toward somewhere.
In the distance something is burning. Allison can see black smoke coming from behind the trees.
“Let’s go back in the church, okay?” she tells the woman.
She checks her phone but there are no new messages. She tries to make a call but there’s no service.
The worst thing she could do is flip out like the guy running past them just did.
Another explosion tears through the afternoon air and makes her wince. She looks around and for a second can’t even think.
Get inside go inside and get away from whatever is happening out here. Help the woman and get back in the church.
Allison starts to say something and then realizes she hasn’t taken a breath in a few moments. She breathes in and clears her throat, then leans over and helps the bleeding woman to her feet.
“Let’s go inside and find something to stop the bleeding. Then we’ll call the police and figure out what’s happening.”
A siren sounds in the distance. There are unfamiliar noises everywhere. She sees a dog scrambling down the road, a bit like the man who just passed them. Frantic, out of breath, going who knows where.
Allison thinks of the gang she left behind at the hotel. Now she wishes she had stayed with them.
I have to get ahold of them somehow. Or get back to the hotel.
She knows this isn’t just something happening on the side of this street. All over Wilmington, some kind of dark chaos is occurring. She pictures Jack and Tommy and Skylar and Dan and Lauren.
Then she thinks of her family.
“Come on,” she finally says, snapping herself out of it.
They head back into the church. Maybe they’ll find some kind of sanctuary i
nside.
11
GONE
Death fills the floor.
The seconds move by like falling sledgehammers dropping against his soul. It’s too much to take in, yet his eyes and his ears are forced to see and hear all of it. Every awful little bit.
Tommy stumbles over a body as he makes his way to the reception room. This looks like a battleground, like some kind of national tragedy just took place on the top floor of the Plantation Hotel. Yet there is no gun-toting crazy person to be found. No bleeding wounds to be seen. No visible remnants of a bomb blast.
But death is all around him.
There are gasps and screams and moans and mumbling. Shouts of all kinds. Too many to make sense of. The music is still playing, making things even worse. The driving dance track by Lady Gaga only adds to the utter hysteria.
I’m never gonna listen to that song again without picturing all of this.
Not that he can afford to worry about ever listening to music again.
He’s gotta survive this right now.
The inside of the banquet room devastates him. Bodies are everywhere, dropped and discarded like a scene from a ransacked mannequin warehouse. Figures are draped over the fallen, crying and calling and freaking out. He sees trays of food and broken glasses littering the floor. As he walks in hoping to find someone he knows, he can hear the crinkle of glass under his dress shoes.
His eyes land on an overturned table near the front that had held a bunch of framed photographs of Dan and Skylar. They’re now all spread over the ground as if they’ve been trampled.
People are running around and the sounds of screams are everywhere.
What kind of hell is happening in front of me?
For a second everything goes on pause, including the sights and the sounds and his brain. He feels like he is moving in slow motion until another voice pokes him awake.
Don’t fade out now just act and react.
He instinctively cries out Jack’s name because he needs some help here. He moves in and sees mangled legs in high heels beside an overturned table. Tommy sees the face and the hair and knows this woman.
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