The Crashers

by Cubed, Magen

  Clara plucked the folder from Kyle’s hands to flip through the pages, ignoring his beleaguered huff. “And how did you get these?”

  “I know a cop,” he said.

  “Like, what, your parole officer?”

  “No. Well, yes. But I know somebody on the case. I used to be a cop.”

  “But you have a parole officer?”

  “Yes, he has a parole officer,” Bridger recapped. “Can we move on?”

  “Why are we listening to a felon?” asked Clara.

  “Are you a fountain of useful information? No? So, we’re moving on.”

  “All right. So, we died, and then we came back.” Norah tossed a hand in the air. “Anybody care to explain that to me?”

  Adam spoke up. “There has to be a reason for this.” He gave a slow nod to his coffee. “This can’t just be random.”

  “So, what? We just won the cosmic lottery or something?” Norah chuckled.

  “You can’t tell me this didn’t happen to us for a reason,” Clara chimed in. “The likelihood of these events happening to any of us—let alone twice, when we’re all together—is so stupidly, microscopically small it’s not even worth mentioning.”

  “You think we were targeted somehow?” Bridger asked.

  Kyle shook his head. “No, but it’s the same bomber.”

  “But I thought the subway was an accident.”

  “FBI kept it out of the papers to control the public reaction.”

  Norah shook her head. “If it’s the same guy, what does he want with us? How does he know who we are? I mean, I’m a waitress. What the hell is he going to do with me?”

  “We’re not the targets,” Kyle said. “We’re the collateral. Wrong place, wrong time.”

  “That still doesn’t explain what happened to me,” said Adam, looking pointedly across the table.

  Clara studied him for a moment. “What do you mean?”

  He licked his lips and shuffled in his seat. “I was with my brother. A car ran a red light and I just... I reached out and stopped it with my bare hands. I just put my fists through the engine block like it was made of cardboard.”

  “So, it’s not just you,” said Clara.

  “What?” Norah asked. “What’s not just him?”

  “I’ve been running clear across town so fast I have no idea how I got there,” Clara answered. “I don’t even remember moving, I’m just—I’m just there. At first, I thought I was losing time or having a stroke or something, but I think I’m doing it.”

  After a moment, Norah nodded. “The other day, I had this fit or something. I don’t know. It was like I shut off all the gravity in the room. I thought it was just stress, like I’d imagined it somehow, but I could feel everything. It’s like I could taste it—every particle or atom in the air. It was a part of me.”

  “Fucking hell.” From his side of the table, Bridger rubbed his hand across his eyes. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of it until just now.”

  “What?”

  “I did a header down a flight of stairs last week and saw you—all of you—at the bank.”

  “You saw us?” asked Adam. “What, you mean you predicted this would happen to us?”

  “I don’t know. I guess so? My doctor said it was a hallucination or a panic attack, but I saw all of you there. Fat lot of good that did me, though.”

  Kyle scoffed. “What’re you saying? That we all have superpowers now?”

  “I’m just saying we’ve changed,” said Adam. “I don’t know how, but this is happening to us. It’s turning us into something.”

  “Oh my god,” Clara chirped excitedly. “Am I the Flash? Can I please be the Flash?”

  “Turning us into what? What happened to me…” Kyle trailed off with a shake of his head.

  “What is it?” asked Norah.

  “Nothing,” Kyle said. “I didn’t get hurt. Or I thought I didn’t. It’s hard to explain.”

  “We can’t explain a whole lot right now, but that doesn’t change our connection,” Clara said.

  “Connected to what, exactly? So far, all we have is a bunch of people with really shit luck,” said Kyle.

  “But you saw her, didn’t you? On the train and outside the bank?” Clara pressed.

  “Saw who?” asked Bridger.

  “The girl?” asked Norah. “You mean the girl, right? Long brown hair in a white dress?”

  Clara nodded. “So, you saw her. Wasn’t she on the train with us in the crash?”

  “There was no one matching that description pulled from the scene,” Kyle said.

  “You see?” Adam said. “We all saw her. That has to mean something.”

  “So, what do we do now?” Clara asked.

  At that, Kyle shrugged and took his folder back. “Nothing. We go home. Go back to our lives.”

  “What, so that’s it?” Norah looked at Kyle incredulously. “And what am I supposed to tell my kid? Sorry, Hannah, Mommy’s death-prone with crazy, bullshit powers, but I’m pretty sure it’ll work itself out?”

  “There has to be someone we can contact, right?” Adam offered. “We can’t be the only people this happened to. Someone has to know something.”

  “Life’s not a comic book.” Kyle stood and tucked his folder back into his pocket. He turned for the door. “We’re not vigilantes. We have no leads, no way of tracking this guy down. Do yourselves a favor—leave it to the cops and let things go back to normal.”

  “Yeah, because we’re the poster children for normality these days,” Bridger said.

  “What do you expect me to do about it?”

  “Nothing,” said Norah. “But I figured you’d like to stick around until we find out what’s happening.”

  “This isn’t my expertise, and it isn’t yours, either. Go home.”

  “You’re an asshole,” Clara said to Kyle.

  “And you’re a child,” Kyle said over his shoulder. “I’m being practical. Get over yourself.”

  Clara got to her feet, eyes trained on him furiously. “I died, okay? Somebody killed us—he killed me—but we came back. Out of everybody that died, we’re the ones who came back. That has to mean something, because if it doesn’t, I don’t know what to do. And you just want to walk away from that?”

  Stopping, Kyle sighed. “Sorry, but I don’t know what to tell you, and I can’t do anything to help you.”

  The front door shut behind Kyle with a jingle of the bell. Clara sat down to dig the tears out of her eyes before anyone saw them. Left at the table in silence, Bridger sighed.

  “Look, I don’t mean to be a dick, but he’s probably right.”

  “No, he’s not,” Clara said.

  “Okay, but still. We have no idea what’s happening and we’re not prepared for this. All I know for sure is that I have a tumor the size of a dime in my left lung, and now you’re telling me I can’t even die properly anymore. This shit is way above my pay grade.”

  “I can’t even pretend to know you, but we can’t just act like nothing happened,” Norah told him. “Too much has changed for all of us.”

  “And before I ran into you guys, I was standing on a bridge thinking of jumping,” Bridger said. “Not much has changed yet. You want to sit here and ponder the mysteries of the universe? Fine, but I’m not sure I’m down for that right now.”

  As Bridger got up to collect his jacket, Adam’s hand grabbed his shoulder.

  “It doesn’t have to be like that,” Adam said.

  “Like what?”

  “Like killing yourself. You’re not alone. Maybe we can talk or something.”

  “Maybe I’m tired of talking.”

  “Just—just don’t do anything reckless, okay? We still don’t know how any of this works.”

  “Nobody asked me if I wanted to come back,” Bridger said. “I think I should get a say whether I live or die.”

  Adam sank away as though scolded. “Sorry.”

  Bridger paused, then slid his jacket. “Look, you do what you feel
you have to. I’m going home.”

  Once Bridger was gone, Norah looked to her watch. “I’ve got to pick my kid up from school. Sorry, guys.”

  “Is that it?” Clara asked Adam once they were alone at the table.

  He nodded toward his half empty cup. “I guess so.”

  “This is stupid.”

  “Yeah, it is.”

  He drove her home once the traffic cleared outside and the barricade shrank enough to make it down the street. On their way to the campus, he said nothing of the tears creeping from the corners of her eyes or the knuckle she used to push them away. She was grateful for such measures of kindness. As she got out of the car, he smiled stupidly and promised things would get better. He didn’t believe it, but she chose to.

  III.

  The city wasn’t ready for the bombing at Darrington Square. Neither was Amanda, standing amid the burnt, split husk of the transit bus. Metal still smoked in the afternoon sun. Plastics from car parts and debris fused together. The meaty smell of the forty-five people inside the Welsh Regional Bank hung in the air. Amanda knew that smell would never come out of her clothes after getting into the fibers. There were no survivors inside; outside, people had already been taken to hospitals for treatment for burns and shrapnel injuries. Eight bystanders were already pronounced dead at the scene. Six more weren’t expected to make it through the night.

  “So, what’s so personal about a bank?” Amanda asked no one in particular, looking at the new shapes formed by twisted metal. “Who’s supposed to be watching?”

  “Sidhari. Hey, Sidhari.”

  Hearing her name, Amanda popped out of the wreckage. She dug her foot into what was left of a bench and levered herself back up the remains of the square.

  Collin jogged to her side and knocked the dust from her jacket. “You having fun in there?”

  “Just trying to get some perspective,” she said. “What’s up?”

  “CC footage from the bank. All security footage is wired back to the main office upstate to be filed away in case of a robbery.’”

  “Can we get ahold of those tapes?”

  “Durocher already requested them. Should be up here by tomorrow morning.”

  She nodded. “Good. Keep me posted.”

  “Will do. Bomb squad’s not getting much from the scene. The tapes might be as solid a lead as we’re going to get. Maybe we’ll get lucky. Maybe the guy was dumb enough to show his face.”

  “Yeah.” She knew better than to hold her breath. “Here’s hoping.”

  IV.

  After the bank, Kyle went home and tried not to think of Clara standing in the coffee shop. He tried not to think about the smell of burnt skin and asphalt, and the way it hovered in the air. He didn’t have time for fantasies and make-believe, let alone four wounded people following him around for answers. He operated in a world of facts, observations, and proof. That was what had propelled him to the top of his classes at the academy and into vice. He didn’t get distracted and he didn’t waver in the face of ugly choices. It was how he survived three years in Saint Angelo after people stopped visiting and Amanda stopped returning his letters. It was just the way things worked.

  Climbing the stairs to his apartment on the fifth floor, Kyle knew something was wrong. He found his doormat slightly skewed with its corners kicked over. He fit his key into the deadbolt but found it already unlocked. Pushing the door open, he rounded the corner with his keys between his fingers. His training kicked in to override the baseline of dread and anger at the invasion. Immediately, his hand went to his side and he cursed; his gun was in a fake drawer in the bottom of his dresser. Having the weapon was both illegal and a violation of his release, but it was better to be safe than sorry. He waited at the door to listen for signs of life. When he heard none, readied his fists for a fight. He was almost disappointed when there was none to be had.

  The apartment was just as he had left it that morning: his meager furnishings stood angled toward the television displayed against the wall of his living room. His kitchen was empty but for the coffeemaker on the counter and the two-seat kitchenette in the center. Everything was the same except for the dimples in the carpet surrounding the legs of his secondhand sofa and ragged armchair. In relation to the rest of the room’s layout, the dimples’ slant was slightly off. Kyle surveyed the altered scene, and his startle melted into a quiet, angry resignation. Someone had been there. This person had violated his privacy, moved his furniture, and touched his belongings with unknowable intentions, leaving only questions behind. There would be no staying in Koreatown that night or any other. Now that someone knew where he lived—and presumably knew what he knew—he was no longer safe.

  Chapter Six

  I.

  Clara didn’t go to her 9:30 class or any of her classes. There was no use in sleeping, eating, or even thinking anymore. Instead she stayed up and watched the news just in time for the eyewitness accounts and police-approved security camera footage to pour in. Sensitive viewers, be advised: the images could be disturbing. Plastic-faced anchors reported the excuses coming out of the mayor’s office about natural gas leaks in Welsh Regional. She didn’t call her mother or Abuelita, and she certainly didn’t say anything to Padma when she stumbled home for bed.

  At 3:00 a.m. the following morning, long after Padma had gone to sleep and the campus had emptied, Clara put on the black skinny jeans and hoodie in the back of her closet and left her apartment. A quick jog brought her to the track on the other side of campus. She hopped the fence and stayed out of the floodlights to avoid being seen by the night patrolman. The track consisted of one half mile of pavement edged by freshly-cut grass. There was no one around to accidentally maim if her concentration slipped. She stopped and held her breath. She could do this, she told herself. She wasn’t afraid. Fear was just a shadow, and she could outrun shadows now. Ahead, she envisioned her path in the framework of a mathematical equation and broke it into the variables of velocity, gravity and wind resistance.

  Stopwatch at the ready on her phone, she sighed and just let go. One foot in front of the other. There was no sound—just the elastic tautness of her field of vision as she accelerated toward the edge of her mental map. She told herself to keep going left. The air was thick as water as she passed through it at terminal speeds. She pressed herself to the edge, and then something went wrong. Her spaghetti-thin world stretched out too far until solid objects reshaped into mere atoms.

  There was no time to correct herself; she stumbled and went off the track. She burst through a wall, bleachers, plaster, wood, the hallways surrounding the track, and the carefully selected athlete portraits that knocked from the walls in a thunderous crash. Dust and fiberglass exploded into the air as she went. There were no more immovable objects.

  When reality snapped back into focus, Clara found herself tumbling into a stack of gymnastic mats tucked away inside the storeroom. Forward momentum came to a halt in a sudden thump, knocking the wind out of her. She got back up to her feet, catching her breath and fumbling to hit the stopwatch on her phone. Behind her, the entire building was punctured. The walls were threaded together with Clara-shaped exit wounds.

  The initial shock soon gave way to adrenaline, which coursed through her every fiber like electricity or air, making her knees weak and her stomach flutter. For the first time in a long time, Clara laughed.

  “I’m awesome.”

  II.

  The gun was last.

  It was by far the dirtiest and most permanent way. Its heavy butt and smooth trigger like an anvil at the end of his right arm. Bullets made messes; they would leave behind an offensive corpse for Caitlin to bury, or at least identify if and when his body was found. The image of his blown skull was an unappealing one. He thought of how he would look on the medical examiner’s table in the dank guts of the morgue where Caitlin would find him with his jaw broken from the force. It felt selfish, but now he had to be absolutely sure. Bridger Levi was nothing if not thorough.

/>   He tried jumping off the bridge first as it seemed like the easiest way to die. When he woke up floating faceup toward East Essex, he knew he would have to get creative. Hanging himself was pointless. The ligature marks around his neck faded before he could get a good look. The handful of sleeping pills made him sick when he woke, and vomiting out chemicals he had just ingested was like the punch line of a bad joke. Slicing his wrists open just made a mess, and walking in front of a commuter bus only served to scare the driver half to death. When he got up, he promised he would keep the hit a secret—just between them. He walked away as the driver fell to her knees and thanked her gods.

  The gun, he decided after some thought, might be the best way after all. Quick and relatively painless. Short of a decapitation, it would leave the most devastation. Surely, his body couldn’t figure a way back from that level of brutality. Acquiring a gun was easier than he thought it would be; dealers at gun shows didn’t ask questions as he quietly stalked the convention floor. Roaming from table to table for the biggest, ugliest weapon he could fire on his own, he had to be discerning. The Smith and Wesson 500 .50-cal Magnum was like a cannon in the palm of his hand. It had a long barrel and an alarmingly delicate trigger. He paid in cash and left the showroom floor feeling a certain desperate satisfaction.

  In his hotel room far from the shiny veneer of Camden, Bridger closed the curtains to East Brighton’s jagged skyline and locked the door. He didn’t write a letter or call his wife. Caitlin would never accept such a useless token anyway. It was beneath her and, by association, beneath him. Instead, he took a deep breath and tried not to think about that sad boy at the bank and on the train: Adam something or other with his vice grip on Bridger’s shoulder and that familiar despair in his big, stupid eyes. It wasn’t fair that his was the face Bridger couldn’t chase away in his final moments, but he had already anguished over Caitlin for as long as he physically could. What would letting down another pretty face really hurt?

  And so, Bridger put the gun in his mouth, closed his eyes, and pulled the trigger.