by Wil Mara
She smiled, then wrote out what she considered the best blog entry of the day and uploaded it. There was a flutter in her stomach as she considered the impact it would have. It reminded her of being in New Orleans to report on Hurricane Katrina, standing on the beach just a few hours before the clouds began gathering. She’d felt the same kind of anticipation then, the same sense of impending doom.
“Done,” she said.
“Good.”
“Is there more?”
Ellerton laughed.
“Ms. Hollis, we’re just getting started.”
17
Reaching the location given by the Silver Lake PD, Emilio recognized the car at once, in spite of the fact that the grand old oak tree had squished it like Play-Doh instead of metal and polycarbonate. Despite the damage, the faded CLINTON ’96 sticker on the front bumper was clearly visible. Emilio had seen it around town hundreds of times and always made a point of waving to the driver.
“Oh, shit,” he said softly, his voice wobbling, “that’s Mr. Kerrick.”
The EMT in the passenger seat—a young kid named Brody that Emilio had worked with a few times before—looked through the rain-blurred windshield and echoed the same sentiment, although for a different reason. The sight of a car smashed under at least six tons of hardwood never failed to astonish.
Kerrick had been his instructor for American History I and II, freshman and sophomore year. Neither of Emilio’s parents were native to the United States, so he was determined to learn as much as he could as a first-generation resident. One of his past teachers, a hammered old hag named Ms. Williams, was a descendant of one of the passengers on the Mayflower and thought anyone of lesser pedigree didn’t deserve to breathe American air. She found Emilio particularly irritating for some reason he never understood and enjoyed humiliating him. Kerrick, however, viewed the young man in precisely the opposite light. To him, Emilio’s immigrant parents were symbolic of exactly the kind of society the forefathers envisioned, and his liking for the boy spurred Emilio’s abiding affection for America’s colorful story.
Emilio brought the ambulance to an abrupt halt and jumped out with Brody close behind, leaving the engine running. His hazmat suit made crumply sounds as he jogged over in awkward, almost leaping strides.
There were four cops on the scene, also in hazmat gear. Sawhorses and flares had been set out. One of the officers even held a lighted baton, ready in case someone motored by. Snapped power lines hung from bent telephone poles like loose strands of hair, one of them spitting sparks from the severed end. The rain continued, coating the street with leaves, small branches, and radioactive toxins.
Kerrick’s car, a 1998 Honda Civic, had once been candy apple red, but over the years the sun had faded it badly. The hood had been particularly cooked and was pitted with bubbles, some of which had split open to reveal rusty scabs beneath.
Emilio didn’t need to be a forensic analyst to figure out what had happened. Kerrick had lost control and skidded—or hydroplaned, more likely—off the road. The tree, suffering in the heavy storm and perhaps weakened by interior rot due to its advanced age, had toppled over at the impact, taking a few power lines with it. The leafy canopy had fallen onto the pavement, but the trunk, which had to be at least a foot and a half in diameter at the base, had landed on the car lengthwise. No match for the combined force of weight and gravity, the Honda’s body had bowed inward, and all six windows had exploded.
Emilio hustled up to the officer in charge.
“Hey, Lisa,” he said loudly through the mask, tapping her on the shoulder. He had known Lisa Schultz for years and had tremendous respect for her abilities as a law-enforcement official. Her tough-as-nails demeanor precluded her from exhibiting much in the way of warmth, so their friendship had remained completely professional.
“Oh, good,” she said, taking him by the arm, “follow me.”
Schultz took him and Brody around to the driver’s side and opened the rear door while explaining that the front one was bent inward and would not budge. Grabbing the inside of the window frame, Schultz dragged it away in a series of jerks, glass crunching and metal screeching with each pull. Emilio stood by in a state of mild shock. He had not been able to see Kerrick’s body before—it was a truncated mass almost unrecognizable as a human form, the face compressed almost to the point of unrecognizability. There was blood everywhere, soaking his polo shirt so thoroughly that it was impossible to discern its original color.
“We need to get the body out of here,” Schultz said. Her tone wasn’t merely businesslike but also conveyed a touch of annoyance. “We can’t just leave it, even though we’ve got much greater priorities to deal with right n—”
They both jumped when Kerrick groaned and flexed his left hand, which was draped loosely over the bottom of the deformed steering wheel.
“Oh, shit!” Schultz screamed behind her mask, arms flailing wildly. She grabbed Emilio, trying to keep her balance, but went down anyway, landing on her backside like a novice ice-skater.
“Jesus,” Emilio said sharply, all but leaping forward. “Didn’t you guys check his vitals?”
“Of course we did!” Schultz scrambled to her feet. “Do you think we would’ve left him like this if we hadn’t?”
Emilio ripped off the hazmat glove on his right hand, revealing the rubber examination glove beneath. He pressed two fingers against Kerrick’s carotid.
“Yeah, pulse is still there. Okay.…” He sprinted to the ambulance, threw the door open and announced sharply, “The driver’s still alive.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Brody, get an O-mask on him right now.”
“You got it.”
Schultz had gathered the rest of her team by the time Brody returned; all four officers were looking distinctly uneasy. No doubt worried about their asses if the patient doesn’t make it, Emilio thought with no small measure of disgust.
“We have to get this tree off,” he said, patting the trunk. Its solid and unmoving presence was intimidating, so much so that he instantly regretted the bold confidence of his statement.
“How do you suggest we do that?” Schultz said. “It has to weigh several thousand pounds.”
“Okay, then we cut him out. You’ve got the reciprocating saw, don’t you?”
“Yes—it’s in the trunk of the squad car,” Schultz told him.
“Please get it.”
“’Kay.”
She hurried toward one of the blue-and-whites parked in a nearby driveway, engine idling and lights swirling. Meanwhile, Brody arrived with the oxygen mask. Emilio took it from him, wiggled into the backseat, and reached forward to gingerly fit it over Kerrick’s face.
As he got back out, Schultz appeared with the saw in hand.
“The front door,” Emilio said. “That’s the only way.”
“I know. Stand back, please.”
The saw roared to life, and Schultz applied it to the area where the interior hinges would be if the vehicle were intact. She struggled to make accurate, strategic cuts through the mess of crumpled metal.
Unable to stand by and do nothing, Emilio returned to the backseat and monitored Kerrick’s pulse, which was faint but steady. He had seen others survive accidents like this, and much worse. The question always arose in his mind—How on earth is it possible? A guy who eats right and exercises every day drops dead while spooning a wedge from his breakfast grapefruit while a guy in his Honda gets crushed by an oak tree and lives to tell about it.
“Got it!” Schultz yelled, jumping back as the crumpled panel fell to the ground with a clatter. One of her subordinates pulled it out of the way, then Brody moved in with the gurney.
Emilio worked the manual controls on Kerrick’s seat—grateful to find that they were still functional—and managed to lower him about two inches. The injured man groaned as the pressure of the caved-in roof was relieved. They slid him out a little at a time, carefully, guiding him and supporting his neck, lower back, and le
gs. When it was time to lift him, Emilio had to lean against the door frame for leverage.
Once Kerrick was on the gurney and rolling toward the ambulance, barely shielded from the storm by a flapping tarp held by two police officers, Emilio set his fingers to his former teacher’s neck again. Not only was his pulse stronger, but his chest was rising and falling in rhythm.
“As soon as we get him in the back,” Emilio said to his partner, “start wiping him down. And do it gently.”
“Okay.”
They opened the doors, inserted the patient with excruciating delicacy, then Brody jumped in beside him. Emilio shut the doors, slapped them once to confirm that they were sealed tight, and hustled back to the cab. Schultz waved and yelled a barely audible, “Hey, good work!” Emilio responded with a thumbs up and hopped into the driver’s seat.
No one noticed the rip at the back of his hazmat suit.
* * *
Sarah sat in front of her computer, repeatedly cycling three different browser windows so she could follow three different weather reports. She hoped one of them would offer a ray of hope, but no such luck—the cold front would continue rolling down from Canada for an indeterminate amount of time, with sustained gusts in the Silver Lake area. Aside from the toxic particles that were being liberally distributed throughout the region, she also had to contend with a mounting damage report that was depressing enough without taking the radiation into account. Three older homes had collapsed, one had exploded due to a pierced gas line, and the roof of the Sunoco station had been torn away like tinfoil. Eight phone poles had fallen, two traffic lights had detached from their suspension wires and crashed to the pavement, and one of the railroad gates was lying across the tracks on Nixon Boulevard, its bell clanging away crazily. As if the weather gods wanted to further add a theatrical touch, lightning bolts continued to snap down all over the place.
One of Silver Lake’s two school buses—the newer one, naturally—was now lying on its side in a parking lot. Four automobiles had been abandoned in flooded roadways, their occupants nowhere in sight. Albert Kerrick’s outdated ride was not the only victim of a falling tree; four others now shared that distinction.
What weighed most on Sarah’s conscience was, of course, the human cost. Helicopter search and rescue had spotted the bodies of two elderly residents of the colloquially dubbed “Atlantis” region, floating down the river. Four people had suffered fatal cardiac arrests, and one man had been electrocuted in his basement trying to get to the fuse box just as the rising water reached the live outlets.
There were 137 cases of radiation illness. Walt Kramer, a veteran officer and longtime friend, had dropped off a spare dosimeter so Sarah could monitor the levels in the building. At her last check, fifteen minutes ago, it had read nearly twice what it had been two hours earlier. The demon was finding a way inside regardless of their makeshift efforts to keep it at bay, and that meant they’d have to abandon ship sooner rather than later.
Sarah realized it would be dark in a few hours. That’s just wonderful. This was the very thought marching cheerfully through her mind when the call came; a call that she absolutely had to take but would’ve given a gallon of blood to ignore.
She jumped when the phone rang. The sound seemed louder than usual. In fact, it seemed as if her whole world was jingling and vibrating. She was expecting the call, but somehow that made it worse.
She lifted the receiver.
“Sarah Redmond.”
“This is General Conover.”
She expected the voice to fulfill the stereotype—rough and leathery, as if the man had been smoking cheroots and drinking whiskey since he was six and gargled with battery acid every day. Instead, Conover’s tone was strong and clear. Even through the phone’s tiny speaker, it had a powerful sobriety to it.
“Hello, General. I—”
“This is just a courtesy call, Ms. Redmond, to let you know that I am going to be talking to Harlan Phillips in a moment.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I have to get this evac moving, and I don’t have time for an acting mayor. I need the real one.”
In spite of her immediate dislike of the man, spurred by his dismissal of her as if she hadn’t been dealing with the situation since before the explosion, Sarah understood why he had risen to a position of responsibility. Everything that made him the proverbial force to be reckoned with was present—the sharp tone, the efficient use of language, and the effortless way he made you feel like the smartest thing you could do was obey his every command.
“It’s my job,” he went on, “to assure there are no major clusterfucks.”
“Just hang on a second.”
“What?”
“First off, Harlan Phillips is recovering from heart surgery and is in no condition to manage this situation.”
“The information I have is that he’s doing well.”
“He’s not doing well, he’s telling people he’s doing well. No one that age can bounce out of bed after bypass surgery. So you should not be going to him for anything. And second, I am fully capable of handling this post.”
“I’m sure you’re very capable,” he replied. If sarcasm was a precious commodity, he could’ve made a fortune off the yield from this comment.
“I have managed the crisis thus far, sir, and I will continue managing it until it has passed.”
“I have no doubt about that, but I don’t have time to argue with you.”
The boiling anger surging through her brain sparked a sudden realization—A big part of being a leader is knowing that you’re right and acting with conviction.
The general went on. “So, as I said, I’m going to call Harlan—”
“No,” Sarah said flatly.
“Pardon?”
“You’re not going to call Harlan Phillips, General. In fact,” she said calmly, “I’m texting him right now to tell him he is not to speak with you.”
“Are you crazy?”
“As you said before, time is precious, so I recommend you refocus on the situation as it stands rather than how you wished it stood.”
There was nothing but silence from the other end, and for an uneasy moment she thought Conover had hung up. Her imagination spun: the general would tell the governor that she was on a power trip and needed to be dethroned, which Kent would do in a heartbeat just to get the PR double shot of stepping in to save the day while cleaning more “political cancer” out of the state body. Her career would be finished, and she and Emilio would have to move to the other side of the country.
But Conover hadn’t gone anywhere, and now he said, “I hope you know what you’re doing.” He practically growled this.
“I hope so, too, General,” she said. “But one thing I’m absolutely certain of is that I know this town better than you ever will. Looking at the preliminary evac plans your office sent, you need to listen to me very carefully before you’re the one who causes a major clusterfuck. Do you understand?”
There was another pause, and then, “Yes, ma’am.”
18
“What about that kid who works at the gas station?” Pete said from where he sat on the bed. He was making a list on a sheet from the pad on the refrigerator, “The one who moved here last year? I think his name is Chris? Chris Morris or something?”
Kate, seated on the opposite side, looked over her own list. Cary was folded up cross-legged at the foot of the bed with a small spiral-bound notebook in his lap, keeping busy.
“I don’t think I know him,” Kate said.
“He’s got kind of scraggly brown hair that comes down to his shoulders,” Pete said, tapping his own shoulders for emphasis. “Lots of acne. And he always wears a knit cap, even in the summer.”
Kate shook her head. “I just don’t know.”
“Yeah, me either.”
“Mark has lots of friends, being as social as he is. We know some, but not all. He doesn’t always bring them home for us to meet.”
“Yeah�
��” Pete said. “I guess it’s because we’re such awful people.” He looked at the cordless phone he was holding, then hit the redial button. He waited for a moment with it against his ear, then killed the call and tossed it down.
“Busy, of course. Thank God we pay the taxes we do so the lines of communication in this town can be clogged during an emergency.”
He let out a long sigh and got to his feet. The three of them were sequestered in the first-floor bedroom because it was centermost in the house, per Sarah Redmond’s instructions. Pete had sealed all the cracks and crannies he could find and was now awaiting word on the evacuation plan. He didn’t really believe there was any great risk in venturing through the rest of the house, and neither did Kate. Both had gone to the bathroom a few times, and Kate took a quick shower. They even allowed Cary to run up to his room to get a few things.
“I’m going to try the Clarkes again,” Pete said as he opened the door, checking his watch. Six hours since the explosion now—I wonder how that translates into quantities of escaped radioactivity.… “Please keep trying the people on your lists, too, wouldja?”
“Sure,” Cary said, which earned a sincere “thanks, kiddo” from his dad and a smile from his mom.
* * *
Pete closed the door behind him and went to the room at the back of the house; the den with the little desk and the computer and the fireplace and the hideous plaid love seat. He checked the list and tried Randy Clarke’s cellphone again. Randy didn’t hang around with Mark as often as some of the others, but often enough to rate a call. He was a quiet kid, and nice enough. Pete specifically remembered him saying thank-you when a group of the boys were over one night and Pete ordered Chinese food for everyone.
Pete didn’t remember how Randy’s cell number had gotten into his contacts list, but he was glad he had it. It rang a few times—he felt grateful that the call went though at all, then disgusted at being grateful—before going to voice mail. Yeah, I’m not around right now, so leave a message and I’ll get back to you. Randy sounded dull, weary. Stoned, perhaps. But it was still a better message than some that Pete heard when Mark had his own phone on speaker.