The Fall

by Michael McBride

  “We’ve got to get Tina to a hospital!” Ray barked.

  “In what?” Rick shouted. “Look at what the hail’s done to—”

  “I don’t care if I have to carry her on foot! We’re going to the hospital right the fu—”

  “Wait!” Jill screamed.

  All eyes focused on her silhouetted form flickering with the blue stain.

  She needed it to be quiet. She could almost see something, but everything around her was too chaotic for her to focus on it. All of the noise and the fear and her own throbbing pulse. The only recognizable image she could steal from her subconscious was of a—

  “You have a hot tub, don’t you?” she yelled.

  “Yeah, but what the hell good is that—?”

  “Come on!” Jill railed, grabbing April by the wrist and yanking her into the kitchen. The window set in the door leading out into the back yard was obliterated, shards of glass scattered on the rain-drenched linoleum. Balls of ice littered the room. The furious wind blew straight through the flimsy curtains, gusting sheets of rain in their faces.

  “I don’t want to go out there!” April screamed, tugging against Jill’s firm grip, but she was through the door before she knew it.

  “Where is it?” Jill shouted, looking quickly from one side of the yard to the other, her bangs already drenched and sapped to her face. She swiped them away with the back of her hand and sprinted to her left toward the large wooden box set atop a slab of concrete.

  The stones hammered them from all directions, battering them as though they were running a gauntlet.

  They splashed through the standing water, already nearly drowning the lawn. Arcs of mud flew from their heels.

  “Get in!” Jill shouted, unfastening the locking mechanism and lifting the closest half of the heavy lid.

  April clambered up over the lip and splashed down into the scalding water, splashing a wave out onto Jill.

  “What do you want me to do?” April sobbed.

  “Scoot back and keep your head down!”

  Jill could barely hold the lid up against the elements.

  “Come on!” she screamed back to Darren who was already halfway across the yard to her. Ray had just passed through the kitchen door, carrying Tina against his chest. She was struggling to remain conscious with her eyes lolling upward.

  Darren scampered past Jill and threw himself into the spa, sloshing water everywhere. He spat out a mouthful of water and scooted back next to April, ducking his head all the way to the surface of the water to squeeze beneath the closed half of the lid.

  “You guys are out of your mind!” Rick yelled from behind where he stood in the doorway. “The last thing you want to do in a storm like this is get into water! Don’t you know lightning will strike the water—” His voice was drowned out by the thunder and banging of hailstones on the hot tub cover.

  “Help me!” Ray shouted right into Jill’s face, but she was already helping to lift Tina out of his arms and guide her into the water. Her head sunk below the surface, but immediately came up as she violently coughed out the water she’d inhaled.

  “Rick!” Jill screamed as Ray scrabbled up to the wooden ledge and dropped into water that felt boiling in contrast to the rain.

  He shook his head and looked up to the sky. Lightning snapped from the belly of one black cloud to the next, every bit as blue as the crackling bug zapper.

  “You guys are out of your minds!” he shouted back, but finally tucked his chin to his chest and sprinted toward her, splashing through the lawn. He pulled up in front of her and hefted the heavy lid. “Go on!”

  Jill threw her left leg up and then splashed down, dragging her right in behind her.

  Rick looked over the fence to the left. Past the side of the house he could see the Kappa Delta house across the street. All of the windows were dark, but he could still see the jagged outlines of shattered glass lining the sills. There was a pile of bodies beside the front walk, the yard appearing as though it was covered with half a foot of snow. A dozen girls packed into the open front doorway, screaming and reaching for their fallen friends without daring to step too far from beneath the safety of the overhang.

  He looked quickly back to Jill, who sloshed right up next to Ray to clear enough room for him to climb in.

  His eyes snapped again to the left. He could barely make out Gina through the slanted storm on all fours, stretching from the porch toward her friends, recoiling quickly every time her bruised arm was struck by one of the enormous chunks of ice.

  “Hurry up, Rick!” Jill screamed.

  He looked back to her with a wan smile adorning his face, water drenching his features. A line of fluid poured from his chin.

  “No, Rick!” Jill screamed.

  “I’ve gotta go,” he said, taking the edge of the lid in both hands.

  “No!” Jill screamed. “You have to get in—”

  He cut her off with the closed lid, patting it a couple of times before dashing to the fence and clambering over it.

  Jill pressed the lid back open a couple of inches, which was all she could manage with the weight of it above her, but immediately let it fall back into place when the night came to life with insects.

  She remembered the vision clearly now. She hadn’t seen Rick through a window like she had thought; she had seen his face as it was at that exact moment when he looked in at her with the hot tub lid above his head and the wooden edge below.

  Heads tilted all the way back, they gasped at what little chlorine-riddled air was contained beneath the closed lid.

  “What’s going on?” Ray spat, doing his best to keep not just his chin above the water, but Tina’s as well. Both had their eyes closed as the chemicals stung fiercely.

  “I don’t know,” Jill said, swallowing a mouthful of water. “All I know is…” she coughed up the fluid, “…that I knew we were all going to die if we didn’t find shelter in here.”

  “From what?” Ray shouted.

  “Ray…” April said, hoping to assuage his tone.

  “No! I want to know why the hell we’re out here in this closed hot tub in the middle of a storm when we should be halfway to the hospital by now!”

  “I’m fine,” Tina whispered softly.

  He couldn’t see her in the absolute darkness—even trying to made his eyes burn—but he felt a swell of relief when her hand closed over his.

  “Are you sure, baby? I don’t know what I’d do if anything ever happened to—”

  She silenced him with a soft kiss on the lips. He could taste her blood in his mouth, but he wasn’t about to tear away for anything in the world.

  “What aren’t you telling us, Jill?” Darren asked. Until that moment he hadn’t noticed that April’s fingers were laced between his. He sucked in a deep breath to battle the swelling feeling of claustrophobia.

  “I…I don’t know.” That was the honest truth. All she knew with any sort of surety was that when she had really strong feelings like she did right now, it was best to heed them.

  The banging of the hail above them slowed like the last few popcorn kernels in a microwave, while the rain still pattered the vinyl surface, the sound now almost soothing.

  “I can’t stay in here any longer,” Ray said, though his voice sounded almost resigned.

  Before Jill could stop him, Ray shoved open the lid and stood up, tossing it back onto the half above April and Darren.

  “No!” she screamed, reaching to try to stop him.

  “What?” Ray barked, staring down at her as she tugged at his shirt.

  All Jill could see past him was the driving rain sparkling with the electric glow of lightning.

  “You can let go now,” he said, offering his hand to Tina and bringing her to her feet. “Jill?”

  Letting his wet shirt slip from her fingers, Jill leaned back with a confused look washing over her face. Maybe she’d been wrong about the whole thing. But there had been the girls strewn all over the lawn across the street…
<
br />   She looked around, the rain massaging her scalp with miniature fingers.

  The back yard was completely empty, save for the shadows that managed to cling to the shrubbery and ferns in spite of the lightshow overhead. The insects she thought she had seen swarming around the hot tub were obviously no longer there, which made complete sense considering bugs generally bedded down during the storms and waited for it to lift before coming back out.

  She rubbed her stinging eyes.

  “Come on, Jill,” April said softly, slipping out from beneath the back half of the lid and extending her free hand. “Let’s go back inside.”

  “Okay,” Jill whispered, allowing herself to be pulled to her feet. She plopped her rear end on the ledge and swung her legs over, dropping down into the grass with a splash. Ray and Tina were already ducking through the kitchen door. “I don’t understand…”

  April and Darren followed, neither wanting to break the seal formed by their hands.

  Jill walked straight through the kitchen and into the living room, water pouring from her saturated form into the carpet, steam billowing from her shoulders and head. The heat was only now starting to dissipate, the cold slithering in beneath her clothing and prickling her flesh.

  She stood there a moment, surveying the damage. Glass covered the floor in a million shards while enormous balls of ice slowly began to melt into the carpet. The couch beneath the window was drenched and pocked with clumps of juniper torn from the hedge out front. Car alarms droned out in the night outside while somewhere in the distance a siren wailed.

  “It’s okay,” April whispered, setting a hand on her shoulder. “It wasn’t your fault.”

  Jill turned and looked her friend in the eyes, unable to make her mouth form words. She simply turned back to the front door and opened it, stepping out onto the porch. It looked like someone had taken a hammer to the wooden slab. Chunks of ice covered the porch from where the large stones had shattered on the concrete. The front lawn was white.

  Feet slapping the wet pavement, she walked toward the street.

  Across the street, it appeared as though the pile of humanity had grown beside the front doorway.

  The rain softened, pattering away to nothingness.

  Something blew down the center of the road beyond what remained of the parallel-parked cars, tumbling over shattered glass and the accumulation of hail. It wasn’t until the wind took a deep breath, allowing the object to remain still for a moment, that she recognized what it was. The Seahawks logo adorned the front of the hat, which headed back down the street at the wind’s urging.

  “Oh God,” Jill gasped, staggering onto the street. She passed between the bumpers of a pair of cars that now looked more like salvage, oblivious to the computerized epithets of the security system draining the battery, and crossed the street.

  The bodies littering the lawn didn’t move, and even from the distance, Jill could tell that their faces were beneath the level of the standing water on the grass. The hair trailing beside them in the mire looked like so many used mops. When she reached the curb and passed between another pair of cars, she was able to see eight different bodies lying prone in the yard. Not one of them moved, not even a slight elevation of the shoulders to draw in a breath.

  “Are they alright?” someone called over her shoulder, but the words never permeated Jill’s ears as she crept forward across the sidewalk to where the hill sloped upward to the yard beside the cracked trio of cement stairs.

  A pair of feet dangled over the top step, one still wearing a muddy Nike while a long sopping sock hung from the toes of the second. As she climbed the slope, she could see black legs running from the socks up into a pair of khaki shorts. The shirt was ripped to shreds, exposing the deep black back beneath. The man’s arms were reached straight out in front of him, the four fingers of his left hand curled into the soft earth and the bloodied tips torn from those on his right as though trying to drag him forward. His hair looked like a ravaged bird’s nest.

  Jill knelt beside him, tapping him gently on the shoulder.

  “Rick?” she whispered, tears streaming from her eyes.

  She couldn’t steal her focus from his left ear, which looked like a burnt rind.

  Marbled lines of deep blue rose to the surface of his flesh like worms seeking escape from within. Summoning her courage, Jill slid her hands into the mud beneath his chest, and with a heave, rolled him over.

  With eyes fading to yellow, he stared back at her from the grave. His flimsy mandible bounced, chattering his teeth.

  He’d been screaming so hard when he died that he’d dislocated his own jaw.

  VI

  Near Cliffwood, New Jersey

  SAMUELS TOOK THE LEAD AS THEY MOVED INLAND. ADAM WAS CERTAINLY no ballistics expert, but judging by the size of the weapon Samuels pointed down the path ahead, it could have punched a hole through a concrete wall. These men had certainly undergone a different training regime than Adam had. The first thing all of them had done was smear the soil all over their faces, hands, and in their hair. While Adam had been elated to be back on American soil, these men were preparing for guerilla warfare. It seemed extremely excessive to Adam, but the way things were going, he was content just to let them do their jobs and stay out of their way.

  The forest crowded the small meandering path, the mighty vine-laden sycamores blocking out all but the occasional glimpse of the black sky above, the flickering lightning casting the shadows first one way, then ripping them in the opposite direction. Rounded stones marred the otherwise coarse dirt path, roots poking from the earth at precarious angles like tentacles feeling for their feet.

  Samuels darted from one side of the path to the other, vanishing momentarily into the forest before reappearing a dozen paces down the path. His tread was silent, inaudible over even the rustling of the wind clattering branches together and shuffling the leaves on the ground. The desert camouflage didn’t blend incredibly well with this locale, but the soldiers did an impressive job of disappearing all the same.

  It was all Adam could do to keep up. His legs ached and his throat was parched, but beyond that he was finally beginning to feel like himself again. He tried not to think of the caves or anything that had transpired. It was now simply a dream. One thing still haunted him, though. He was sure he had seen the others emerging from the mountain into the sunlight, but it hadn’t really been them. They’d been changed somehow. Yet he knew it was them. Not just because it had to be, but because he felt so certain.

  Norman walked a stride ahead of him, occasionally looking back over his shoulder to verify that Adam was still there. He didn’t speak, but Adam could see the man’s nerves were on edge in the way his head jerked at even the slightest sound. Though he walked in plain view, his footfalls were silent, keeping far enough back from Samuels that he could only see the man at the farthest extent of his vision ahead.

  Merton was somewhere in the wilderness to the left, keeping pace with Samuels from the thick cover, while Carter did the same thing off to the right. They never saw either man, only the occasional shivering of branches.

  Peckham pulled up the rear, mostly walking backward down the path to ensure that nothing came at them from the rear.

  No one knew what might be lying in wait out there, but all agreed that the forest was too still, too quiet. There were no crows cawing, no deer scampering through the scrub, no rabbits or squirrels scurrying atop the detritus. It was as though every life form had vanished while they were in the air over the Atlantic.

  “Down!” Norman whispered.

  Adam threw himself to the side into a tangle of thistle. He’d been so lost in thought that he hadn’t seen Samuels stop and hold up his fist.

  Looking through the bramble, Adam could see little more than tree trunks and shadows.

  The wind scattered a gust of leaves across the path before the sky spat a handful of raindrops, sizzling on the leaves like grease in a frying pan.

  “Okay,” Norman said
from somewhere to his left.

  Adam rose slowly, peering through the gnarled forest for any sign of movement.

  “Come on,” Norman hissed, breaking into a jog down the center of the path. He kept his waist and knees bent so his head was no higher than the shrubbery surrounding them, but he still moved at a good click.

  Adam kept his head down and followed, watching Norman’s heels kicking up dirt from beneath his lowered brows. He didn’t see the others until he was right upon them and nearly barreled right through them and sprinted out into the clearing. At the last second he caught himself on a trunk and hurriedly dropped to one knee. Merton and Carter had converged from the flanks, kneeling beside Samuels and talking so quietly that Adam was sure they had to be reading each other’s lips.

  Beyond, the path opened up into a large pasture. A stone wall ran the length of the field to the right, little more than enormous rocks stacked atop one another. The weathered roof of what appeared to be a barn stood out over the wall in the midst of a cluster of ancient elms. There was another structure past it, but he couldn’t make out any details other than the top of a slanted roof. A stag was crumpled directly across the field at the distant stand of trees marking the end of the clearing. Its antlers were staked in the ground; its front legs crumpled beneath it, rear legs holding the white patch of fur on its rump aloft as though it had been felled in stride. The wind ruffled the fur on the animal’s back, but it didn’t stir. The hind end of a doe poked out of the shrubbery, legs as stiff as rails.

  At first Adam thought the other men must have been looking at the deer, but after a moment he finally saw what had drawn their attention.

  A man sat against the wall, mostly concealed by the shadows. He wasn’t moving. All Adam could clearly make out was a red and black flannel shirt hanging out from a pair of overalls. The man’s hair flagged on the wind, his head lolling limply against his chest.