“This street?” Tommy asks.
“No, this city.”
“You think it’s better in other places?”
Jack looks scared. Surely they all do. Including Tommy.
“I just know that standing in a building waiting isn’t going to get us anywhere, you know? I’m not waiting around like this horse.”
The rain is dripping off the animal’s unmoving, sleek side.
“I’m not going to just stand around waiting to be sucked up into the sky and then dropped back down onto the street. Uh-uh.”
Jack keeps walking.
After another moment of looking at the horse in the middle of the street, Tommy follows.
20
IN GOOD TIMES AND BAD
I know before she tells me. Before she begins to weep. Before she begins to make excuses.
“I’m sorry, Allison,” she says.
I know the explanation that’s going to come. Mom and Dad just aren’t making it. There are things. Complicated things. Difficult things. There are simply unexplainable things. Things that a church or a counselor or prayers or even their own daughter can’t help.
“We just think it’s best . . .”
I could recite this speech myself if I wanted.
“Your father and I still love each other. . . .”
Yeah, of course you do, of course ’cause that’s what people in love do; they separate.
“This doesn’t change how we feel about you. . . .”
But maybe it will impact how often we see you or how you feel about yourself or your world or your parents or your everything.
Yeah.
“I didn’t want to cry. . . .”
I want to tell Mom maybe she should’ve thought about that before marrying a man who turned out not to be the one.
“Say something, Allie.”
But I don’t want to say anything because there’s nothing to say. It happens all the time and now it’s happening to me and there’s nothing I can do.
The growing noise of voices in the church makes Allison move away from the bulletin board of faces she’s staring at. They’re pictures of men and women who work with the children at this church. All of them are smiling—couples, elderly folks, all looking into the camera and posing so the parents will recognize who they are. The photos made Allison think of her own parents for a few solitary moments.
She heads back to the sanctuary of the church, where more people have arrived. A man with a beard and disheveled long hair brushed back out of his face stands near the front of the church talking to everyone. She moves closer to hear what he’s saying.
“—to just stay calm. That’s all we have to do right now. There are going to be more people coming; I know that. And for those of us who aren’t hurt, we need to help the people coming in who are.”
He has a calming voice even though he looks a bit rough with his hooded sweatshirt and grimy jeans.
“Where’s everybody coming from?” the man asks the crowd of half a dozen people sitting or standing around the pews.
“We were downtown getting ready to go to our favorite restaurant when all hell broke loose,” a gray-haired man says. He has an arm around a woman who’s surely his wife.
At least they have each other, Allison thinks.
“Half the people around us just . . . they just died—just like that,” the man continues.
Several people start talking at once, basically agreeing and trying to recount their own version.
The man with the beard nods and holds up his hand. “Look, I know you guys have questions, and I know—we’ll figure this out and stay together and help everybody else.”
He sees Allison and directs his full attention to her. “Are you okay, miss?”
“Yes,” she says. “We were in the back—a few people just—it happened to them too—I was with a woman—”
“I’m here,” Beverly says as she walks up behind her. “This is Pastor Shay.”
Allison doesn’t believe her at first but knows there’s no reason for her to lie. She nods and looks at the man, who smiles at her.
“Are you by yourself?” he asks.
“Yes.”
But only for now, hopefully.
“I think more are coming. Even if this isn’t the kind of place they’d normally find themselves.”
If this man really is a pastor, Allison wants to start asking him questions. Real questions. Honest ones. The kind he might not want to answer. The kind that are bubbling and spilling out inside of her.
The kind she’s had for a very long time but just buried and let go.
For a few minutes, he tells them where things are in the church. There are rooms in the nursery area that he wants to set up as places where the sick and injured can be tended. They also need to start stockpiling food and supplies. He wants to know if anybody is willing to volunteer to get more from outside. Allison sits in a pew and hears the tapping of the storm outside the stained-glass windows.
Not sure I’m going to want to set foot back outside anytime soon.
She shivers, then glances down at her dress and remembers she’s still wearing the bridesmaid gown. If this were a movie, it’d be a comedy, because certainly there’s no way someone would make the end of the world occur with her still in this dress and high heels. Her skin feels rough as she rubs her arms to try to get some circulation going again.
“You want me to find you something to cover up with?” Beverly asks her.
“No, I’m fine. Really.”
“Listen, everybody,” the pastor says in a louder voice to get their attention. “Look, I don’t know if you pray, but that’s all we can do for the moment. I don’t know what—well, look, we’re supposed to pray in good times and bad, right? So that’s all I can do. That’s all I’ll ask you to do. And communicate with me and with others. We have to help those who need it, so let us know.”
Allison thinks for a moment about where Pastor Shay paused for a brief second. Not even a second but a millisecond.
“I don’t know what—well, look . . .”
Was he going to say he didn’t know what was happening?
Do you know what’s happening, Pastor? And if so, are you going to tell us?
She glances again at the colorful windows in the church. She wonders exactly what’s out there and what the night is going to hold.
She’s afraid to really find out those answers.
21
STORM AND SILENCE
The rain doesn’t merely fall. It batters the small group moving in the darkness. Jack has been leading them down this street, acting as if he knows where he’s going. Tommy is close behind. Dan and Skylar did decide to follow them after all.
The sky is an angry dark gray and very few people can be seen on the sidewalks or road. Every now and then, they pass a car, some empty and some not. Tommy has stopped looking to see the difference.
There is a dip in the road where it starts to decline below an overpass. Perhaps they’ll be able to dry off. His suit is stuck to him, his boxers giving him a nice wedgie that’s starting to burn. As if it’s not enough that the world is suddenly ending right in front of him.
None of them talk as they follow Jack. Occasionally Tommy looks behind and sees Dan and Skylar trying to keep up. He also spots Sam following them, a reality he didn’t want but obviously must deal with now. Skylar looks like a sopping mess, with wet hair and running makeup. It’s hard to picture the bride and groom as they appeared a few hours ago.
Jack stops once he’s beneath the overpass and clear of the rain.
Tommy catches up to him and lets out a sigh. “Are we going the right way?”
“You know a better way to go?” Jack snaps back.
“No—I have no idea where we are.”
Tommy takes the video camera from where it was hanging under his shoulder and coat.
“What are you going to do with that?” Jack asks.
“With what?”
“Why are you st
ill filming?”
“Do you see what’s happening around us?”
“So are you going to send it to America’s Funniest Home Videos?”
Tommy can detect the anger inside of Jack. “I don’t know.”
“The rest of the country might be gone.”
“We don’t know that.”
Jack lets out a curse and heads to the edge of the overpass where the rain is falling before him in a blurry, wet wall of motion. Tommy leaves him alone. Soon Dan and Skylar are standing close by, shivering and huddling together. Sam stands next to Tommy.
“What are you doing?” he asks her.
“I’m going this way.”
The girl certainly has nerve even though she’s only a teen.
“I think it’s safer back at the library,” Tommy suggests.
“I don’t.”
Sam moves forward, closer to Jack, closer to the wet world waiting for them.
Tommy looks at the short figure with hair that’s still spiked despite the rain. I’m not taking care of her.
This is what he tells himself. But he already knows he’s going to have to.
Ten minutes later, they see a streak of fire on the street. It’s a startling sight, this burning trail that looks like car parts scattered on the road. Nobody can be seen, just this fiery arrow that they have to walk around to continue down the road.
“What do you think happened here?” Dan asks.
“Whatever it is must’ve happened recently,” Tommy says.
He wonders if it’s too soon to be wary of strangers setting up traps. He’s seen end-of-the-world movies. The zombie shows. When things like this happen, people start losing their minds. They start battling and killing one another. They fight each other over cans of beans. They aim guns at one another even though they’ve never fired one in their lives.
But it’s not like they have anything on them to steal. And surely people haven’t resorted to that kind of insanity just yet. The craziness is happening to them and around them. People haven’t lost their minds.
Not yet.
The street begins to turn to the right, heading toward another bridge. Jack lets out a loud “Look at that!”
More flames are waving to them from the bridge in the distance. A long, sleek wing of a plane sticks out over the cement railing, the rest of the plane burning brightly.
They all stop and marvel at the sight. Judging by the wing, it’s not a small plane but one of those big ones, like a 747 or something. Tommy can’t believe the bridge is still intact.
“No wonder everybody is gone,” Tommy says.
It must have happened very recently, possibly the last time somebody decided to take the world and dribble it around for a few moments.
Tommy thinks of all the dead bodies on the plane.
If the virus-death-thing didn’t kill ’em then the crash certainly did.
He wonders if the plane is all there or if it is missing pieces. Perhaps half of the plane is on the other side of the city. Or maybe it’s on some island where the survivors will be lost for a while and wondering what’s going on.
But in this case you’re not gonna want to make it back home because home isn’t there anymore.
The sound of the rain falling is suddenly replaced by a strange sucking sound that makes Tommy’s cold, wet skin prickle with bumps. A sound coming from everywhere once again. Like a massive water-flushing system of some kind. Or a monster Godzilla toddler coming out of nowhere with its massive sucking straw ready to slurp them all—
Tommy’s flying.
Blown back in the air.
Ten, twenty, thirty yards.
He lands on the side of the road on some wet grass and dirt, his head planted a few inches in the mud, his eyes looking upward and seeing debris floating around him. Someone screams. Someone curses. The wind and the rain and everything suddenly . . . stop.
Just like that.
Silence.
What just happened?
Another massive trumpet shrieks in the sky and makes him wince and put his hands on his ears. Where is that sound coming from? He looks over and sees Jack getting back to his feet, staring around, looking and wondering.
Tommy doesn’t know how many times this mighty trumpet has sounded. Four or five times?
It’s like they’re in a really nightmarish version of their own dystopian flick with the horns going off every time . . . what? Every time what happens?
Something supernatural and freaky occurs.
The rain has stopped and now the only sound he can hear is the crackling of fire from the crashed jetliner.
“This is unbelievable,” he says.
He thinks of Allison again. Then of Lauren and Mr. and Mrs. Chapman.
We’re never seeing Allie again ever. And you’re an idiot because you let her go didn’t you you moron?
Tommy shuts up the voices in his head as he stands and waits. Will there be more? More fireworks or storms or sucking noises? More earthquakes and trumpet sounds?
None come, thankfully.
22
BURIED AND FORGOTTEN
Cold in the covers. Empty and alone. Frustrated and unfulfilled.
I can feel my body and know the mistake I’ve made.
I want to be warm and full and free.
I want to be happy.
I see the light go off and hear the footsteps and know he’s coming back to this place, to his bed, to his girl.
But all I want to do is run away and wash off the mistake I’ve made.
But I can’t go back.
There’s no way to ever go back.
For some reason Allison finds herself thinking of Mike. The first and last guy in high school she slept with. It wasn’t love and it wasn’t some kind of crazy infatuation. It was more of a curiosity about the actual act. It was more of her acting out to show the world and her parents and anybody else who might care that she wanted to do what she wanted to do. Yet in the end, nobody except the senior named Mike knew.
Him and God.
She didn’t feel guilt at the time. So many girls she knew were doing it and not really even caring about doing it. That’s why she tried it. But nothing about it made her feel better. Nothing about it made the questions inside go away.
Now, for some reason, thinking about it, she feels guilt and shame.
But why?
It’s not like it was that big of a deal. Nothing happened. It just—it just happened and then she went her way. So did Mike.
The deed was done.
So why in the world is she thinking of that now, when there’s so much else to think about?
She’s in the kitchen of the church and can see her hands moving around taking food items and placing them in a box. She’s not talking to anybody; she’s simply in her own little world. Like everybody else. Whether they’re being loud or quiet, everybody around her is in their own world.
Wondering what’s happening.
Wondering where God might be.
And maybe wondering things like she’s wondering.
Thinking about past mistakes that were buried and forgotten. Past misgivings that simply evaporated in the hot breath of the busy day.
There’s no going back.
Allison knows this. There’s no way to go back to the family she was once part of. To the girl she once believed herself to be. To the dreams she carried around in her heart. To the hopes she once harbored but never uttered out loud.
No going back.
She’s tried. She’s done good things and spent time giving and helping and loving and being a good girl.
So why now? Why this? Why here?
Like the confused teenage girl who left a boy and a bedroom with questions and confusion, Allison remains quiet.
Quiet and alone in a church full of so many others.
23
A LITTLE LOST GIRL
The darkness feels thick, not just because of the fog and the lack of streetlights but because of how completely it seem
s to cover everything. There’s very little difference at times between Tommy opening and shutting his eyes. He can see the faint figure of Jack in front of him, moving slowly down the street. The shuffle of feet can be heard behind him.
“Are you lost?” he asks Jack since they can’t see anything like street signs or even much of the surrounding buildings to provide guidance.
“We’re almost there.”
Jack sounds annoyed, distracted, still on a one-man mission to find Allison. Tommy refuses to think about what might happen if she turns out—
No. She’s out there. She’s still there.
Even though it’s cold, his back is damp with sweat. He’s thirsty, too, though he’s not about to ask Jack to find a local coffee shop. His legs keep moving, but his mind and his heart are still back in the hotel, still back in that elevator. A part of him thinks they always will be.
“It just got so cold.”
He hears Mrs. Chapman saying this as if she’s right around the corner.
Tommy still holds the video camera as if he’s planning on filming some more. Who knows? Maybe there will be something worth filming. Maybe they’ll get out of this. Maybe there are other places where this insanity isn’t happening.
Suddenly everything just . . . turns down. Even the sound of their own footsteps seems to have been swallowed.
“You hear that?”
“No,” Jack says.
“Exactly. It just got quiet.”
Jack stops the group for a moment in the middle of the road. Tommy turns his head to look back at the rest of them just as a low booming sound blasts all around them. He feels it in his chest and can’t help but duck a bit, expecting a building or a plane to be landing on his head. But there’s no motion around them, no kind of fiery storm or anything like that.
Then the pulsing begins.
It’s thick and deep and sounds like the biggest drum in the universe being struck over and over again. Tommy looks to see where it’s coming from but it’s just out there, up there, around them all. It’s coming from the dark, and the darkness surrounds them.
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