It’s the Southern belle he was talking to at the bar. He notices the cross pendant hanging around her neck, then sees the blank expression similar to the one the Chapmans had.
She’s not moving, not breathing, not alive in any way.
“What the—?” He can’t say more.
A funny and sad and weird thought comes to him. He thinks of the last episode of The Walking Dead he saw and for a second he wonders if he needs to grab some kind of weapon. But that’s why it’s funny and sad. This isn’t a zombie movie, and these people aren’t coming back from the dead.
“Dan? Sky?” Tommy’s eyes scan through the blurry motion and then see the white bridal dress moving around. Skylar is up and moving and that’s a good thing. She’s hovering over someone, trying to revive them.
Then Tommy sees Jack nearby and darts over to him.
“Jack—man—Skylar’s parents in the elevator—they just fell down dead—and this—what just happened?”
His mind is moving so fast he can’t even finish whole sentences. Jack looks like he’s in a slow-motion daze himself.
“I don’t know, Tommy,” Jack says as his eyes look all around them. “I don’t know. . . .”
Two voices rush up to them. Tommy sees Dan’s pale face and Skylar’s wide eyes.
“Lauren’s dead,” are the only words he hears Skylar say.
She’s dead?
He thinks of the figure Skylar was just hovering over and knows it has to be Lauren.
She can’t be gone.
“I’m looking for my mom and dad,” Skylar says through tears.
Tommy thinks of his own parents and his sister. Then of Lauren and of the end of last summer when she told him she thought something bad was going to happen, how she kept dreaming about it.
“Have you seen my parents?”
Tommy hears Skylar but can’t answer, can’t even look at her.
“I can’t find them anywhere.”
He feels numb and just wants to close his eyes to this and to everything.
“Tommy?”
Jack is looking at him. Skylar’s waiting for an answer. Dan looks scared.
“Come on, man,” Jack says.
It seems like only five seconds ago Dan and Skylar were saying their vows. It seems like they were only another five seconds away from leaving to go on their honeymoon. But now this.
Now Tommy has to tell her the truth.
“I’m so sorry, Sky. I was with them in the elevator and they just—”
The bride crumbles to the floor, ignoring her dress and her makeup and anything else as she bursts into fresh tears. Dan goes to her side, cradling her with his arm.
“I just want to go see them,” she cries out between sobs. “Now.”
Jack looks at Tommy and seems to realize something. “Allison,” he says.
Skylar is on her feet again and sprints out of the room with Dan following. Jack pulls out his phone as an elderly woman behind them starts screaming at a high pitch.
“Cell service is busy,” Jack says.
An explosion shakes the building and causes both Jack and Tommy to hunker down as if it’s in the room. Audible gasps and moans are heard as everybody realizes the boom came from outside.
“That sounded like a missile,” Tommy says to Jack. “Come on; let’s see what’s happening outside.”
Nothing in him wants to go out and see where the blast came from, but then again, nothing in him wants to remain in this open grave of a room.
Tommy and Jack head toward the glass doors of the balcony, unsure what awaits them.
The air outside feels thick while the sky looks even thicker. Angry clouds cover it only moments after it was a clear, open window up to heaven. Tommy feels a gust of wind and sees figures already scattered on the rooftop deck, looking out at the chaos around them. He pushes past a couple he saw talking to the Chapmans. The woman is crying while the man consoles her. Tommy walks up to the edge of the rooftop and stares out over the city.
Columns of smoke rise from the buildings below. Dozens of different noises try to tackle him down. Sirens and car horns and muffled voices and screams sound from everywhere. Tommy watches in disbelief. There’s nothing he can think. It’s all too real, too horrible, too raw.
He sees a balding man with an arm around a woman who might be his wife on a rooftop across from him. Tommy can see their expressions. Bleak, scared, empty. They look his way as if waiting to see how he can help.
They all seem so helpless. So alone. Is that how he looks too?
Behind the couple, something explodes, followed by a large smoke plume resembling a thought bubble. Tommy can imagine the words that would fill it.
Many of them would be curse words.
Tommy looks down at the street and sees the jam of cars. People are running everywhere like ants fleeing a boot pounding down on them.
This can’t be happening.
A scary droning sound comes from the sky, and Tommy looks up, half expecting to find alien invaders. Yet it’s only a plane flying.
Only a plane. Flying dangerously low. Flying—
The plane slams into the rooftop across the way that held the huddled elderly couple. A series of groans and cries and curses follow. Tommy ducks and dives to the floor and hears yet another booming sound.
For a second he’s kneeling and about to get up when the whole world starts to shake. His camera slides as he tries to grab onto something but there’s nothing around.
The violent jerking lasts a few moments, then stops. And then the panicked chaos really commences.
12
STRANGERS
For a moment, Allison steps out of time and finds herself wading in a pool full of memories.
The cold water of the creek against bone-white feet. The trail through the woods. The log cabin.
She still remembers.
The tiny church on the corner with the endless steeple and the cross on top. The smiles. The pastor with the round, bald head. The coffee cakes after the sermon.
She still sees them.
Strangers surrounding us. Prayers. Unfamiliar words full of hope. Words clearly foreign to skeptical parents.
Allison still hears them.
The words. So brief. During a dark period when Mom and Dad needed something else. Something more. But nothing more came. And we never went back.
“Miss?”
Allison turns and sees the older woman from the car accident standing next to her. The look on her face says it all. Eyes almost bulging with disbelief. No color. So grave and hard and anxious.
“Are you okay?” the woman asks her.
Allison is standing by a sink in a small bathroom down the hall from the sanctuary. She’s been standing here for some time, thinking, trying to figure out what’s happening, hearing the noises continuing to go off in the distance. It sounds like a war is happening in the city of Wilmington. Yet she can’t even call out or access Internet on her phone to find out who exactly is fighting whom.
“Yeah.” Allison turns off the bathroom light. “How’s your head?”
“I’m glad you found a bandage. I’m still woozy.”
“You probably shouldn’t be walking around.”
“I didn’t want to be left alone in there,” the woman says. “I keep hearing things.”
“I don’t know what’s going on outside.”
“No . . .” The woman stares at her for a minute, then looks around them. “I’m talking about noises from inside this church.”
Allison nods. She doesn’t know her way around the building. She has only ever stepped foot through the main doors and into the sanctuary.
“Let’s try to find a kitchen, okay? Maybe get you something to drink.”
“I don’t think they have what I want.”
Allison looks at the woman and sees the slight hint of a smile coming on. She chuckles and introduces herself. “I’m Allison.”
“I’m Beverly. Bev. Thank you for helping me.”
> “Of course.”
“You look all pretty and made-up. Were you going somewhere tonight?”
“My best friend got married today.”
“At this church?”
Allison shakes her head. “No. The Plantation Hotel a few blocks away.”
She knows this only fills Beverly with more questions. Before being able to answer any of them, they hear someone crying down the hallway. It’s a manic sort of wailing.
“Come on,” Allison tells Beverly as she heads toward the noise.
“They just dropped dead, all of them, right in the middle of the meeting.”
The bodies in the conference room haven’t been touched. A man is plopped over a long conference table, his head sideways and his mouth open. Another man is lifeless in his chair, staring upward with arms hanging down. A woman is hunched halfway out of her armchair. The eyes—the ones they can see—all have the same blank look.
The guy built like a football player wiping tears off his face hasn’t told them his name or what else happened. When Allison and Beverly found him in the room, standing by the wall looking at the dead bodies and just crying, they made sure he was okay. He can’t seem to leave the room. He’s too scared to do anything but watch the corpses, as if they might come back to life.
“But how did they all die, just like that?” Beverly asks, looking up close at the man resting against the table.
“I don’t know.” The survivor continues his silent crying and they can hear his quick, distraught breaths. “I just don’t know.”
Allison keeps distance between herself and the big guy. She keeps looking for something strange, something that might have been used on these people. Did he kill them? Something just doesn’t make sense. Three people don’t just die on the spot like this. Especially when there’s someone else in the room left alive. That would rule out something like poison or toxic air. Then again she doesn’t know what to rule out. Right now she has to assume anything is possible.
“They’re dead all right,” Beverly says.
The guy wipes sweat from his forehead and keeps rubbing as if doing so will make a genie appear.
“Let’s just leave them here and get some help.”
“I’ve been trying to call but I can’t get anybody,” the man says. “Phones are dead. Do you guys—?”
“I tried mine and same thing,” Allison says.
Beverly shakes her head, the wrinkles on her face standing out in the light. “Mine is in the car. But I assume it’s probably the same. It’s not one of those smartphones, just an old-fashioned cell phone.”
“Let’s just try and see who else we can—”
Everything suddenly starts shaking. Not slowly but fast. Allison sways as the ceiling panels shudder and then drop. The lights go out and she hears Beverly scream and the man say an earthquake is happening.
Allison falls to the ground and covers her head and all she can think is that she’s going to die in this dark room surrounded by strangers.
And there’s nothing she can do about it.
13
TERROR
Sirens are going off, either in the distance or in his head. Tommy isn’t sure. He’s just moving, following Jack, trying to make it down off the rooftop and out of this hotel. Some people are just sitting against the hallway wall, staring in disbelief. Others are howling in grief. It’s complete insanity and Tommy knows they need to get out of here.
The stairwell is full of people heading down. The elevator isn’t working anymore and that’s okay for Tommy because he was planning on taking the stairs anyway. Maybe for the rest of his life, however long that will be. The memory of Mr. and Mrs. Chapman will follow him to his grave.
Let’s just hope you’re not buried in the Plantation Hotel.
“Come on,” Jack calls out to him.
Dan and Skylar are not far behind them.
Tommy hasn’t had time to make sense of anything. The bodies dropping all around them. The plane crashing into a building right in front of them. The earth shaking. Tommy’s not even sure if Wilmington has ever had an earthquake before.
They reach the first floor only to find more confusion and chaos. A woman is behind the desk fielding questions from an unruly crowd. It’s almost funny to see. Tommy accidentally steps on the chest of a guy with his mouth open wide and those dull eyes. Those fishlike eyes devoid of anything staring up at him. He fights a wave of nausea.
The building shakes again—another tremor. Maybe an aftershock. The sliding doors to the outside are shut. In the street, cars are trying to get through and horns are honking and people are yelling, cursing. It doesn’t look any brighter or more hopeful out there.
Jack stops and looks around.
“This doesn’t make sense,” Tommy says.
“Yeah. People dropping dead. Earthquakes.”
“Hopefully it’s over.”
Jack nods and wipes the sweat off his forehead. “Yeah, the worst is over. Has to be.”
Tommy glances at Dan, who has his arm around Skylar. Tears still fill her eyes.
What are we supposed to do now?
He’s about to turn and talk to Jack but a low tinging sound begins in his ears. It’s the kind that a television might make when you first turn it on, some kind of high-pitched sound you can barely make out.
Until it starts getting louder.
Tommy looks around and can see others noticing the same thing. The ringing quickly becomes more intense until people are wincing and holding their ears as the noise increases to a furious screech.
To Tommy it almost sounds like . . .
Is that a trumpet?
. . . one of those old-fashioned horns blown by military commanders. But louder than any sound he’s ever heard. The blast sends Tommy and those around him to the ground. The building shakes again, and now Tommy wonders whether the incredible, awful noise is actually causing the shaking. The moment stretches out. He can feel the sound against his body. It’s like a wave of terror rushing through and pressing him cowering to the floor.
Suddenly the trumpet blast—if that’s what it was—stops. For a moment all is silent.
Tommy picks himself up and starts to head toward the outside parking lot when Jack yells at him. “Get away from the windows!”
Another aftershock shakes them and the windows. More screaming. More squealing of tires outside. Tommy’s ears still hurt from that loud trumpet sound.
When the aftershock subsides, Tommy looks around. “Everybody okay?”
It’s a stupid question because none of them are okay and probably never will be again but the key is just surviving this. Whatever this happens to be.
“My parents . . . and Lauren . . .”
They all look at Skylar. Her waterproof eyeliner doesn’t seem waterproof anymore. Her wedding-day glow is long gone. Her hair is messed up and her dress is ripped and ruined. She’s about to say something but Tommy gives her a hug to ward off more tears.
“I need to find Allie,” Jack says.
“You don’t even know where she is,” Dan says. He’s talking to Jack but looking at his new wife, still in Tommy’s arms.
Tommy lets Skylar go and faces his two best friends. He doesn’t have any ideas to offer.
“I’ll figure it out,” Jack says. “I’m not leaving her out there alone.”
“Maybe we should just stay here,” Skylar’s weak voice says.
Tommy shakes his head. “We need to get outside. This building could collapse with another aftershock like that.”
“My phone’s dead,” Jack says. “Anyone’s phone work?”
Tommy’s already checked his several times but grabs it to check again.
“Do you have my phone?” Skylar asks Dan. “Maybe she texted me.”
Tommy suddenly remembers he texted Allison just after she left the reception. Maybe she texted back.
As Skylar’s trembling hand tries to check the messages on her phone, Tommy goes through his. Sure enough, he finds the last
message Allison sent him. “She’s at 45 North Street.”
Jack gives him a surprised look. “How long ago did she send that?”
“Half hour ago. Let’s get out of here.”
Tommy starts to head out the front underneath the glass but Jack stops him. “Not under those windows. The side exit.”
They are forced to stop again and cover their ears when another piercing sound cuts through them.
“What was that?” Jack asks.
Another trumpet blast? Tommy thinks but doesn’t say. Ignoring Jack’s warning, he rushes to the wall of glass windows and looks at the darkened sky. A sliver of silver lightning zigzags through the air, so bright it makes Tommy squint. It’s not normal lightning. He can tell by the way it moves, by the way it just stays there in the sky, a bright line of brilliant calligraphy.
Thunder crashes. Tommy barely registers Jack yelling behind him—“Get away from the windows!”—and suddenly the front windows all explode. For a moment Tommy just stands there, dumbfounded and frightened. He’s still mesmerized by the images in the sky, the marvelous streaks of lightning he keeps seeing.
So spooky and glorious . . .
Then someone pounds into him and pulls him away from the falling shards of the atrium. Glass rains down where he was just standing.
More screams and more shouts.
More sirens and more squeals.
More madness.
“Let’s get out of here now,” Jack yells, pulling at Tommy’s coat.
He feels like he’s in a drunken fog or some kind of frenzied nightmare. But Tommy runs. He follows Jack just like Skylar and Dan. They’re running down the padded carpeting of the hallway toward a side exit. Away from more falling glass.
“Jack, slow down,” Dan calls.
“I gotta get going,” Jack says. He’s like a man possessed with one mission on his mind: find Allison.
“Wait up,” Tommy calls out. “Just hang on a second.”
“We’re going with you,” Dan says.
“What are we going to do?” Skylar asks.
“We have to stay together.” Even now Dan speaks with confidence.
“We gotta go,” Jack replies. “Now.”
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