Katherine tosses the needle aside, watching Tyler’s body in desperation. Every hope and desire within her begs that they aren’t too late.
Tick….. Tick…………………
Slowly at first, Tyler’s breathing becomes deeper. Even. Faintly, the boy groans. His body moves weakly in her arms.
“That’s my boy,” Katherine whispers. A feeling of immeasurable gratitude and relief floods through her. It fills Kat with an appreciation so deep, so profound, that nothing will ever be the same. She pulls her son tight to her chest.
As the dark clouds break, sunlight begins to pour through the large row of windows beside them. She gives Tyler a long, loving kiss on the forehead. “Let’s get you home,” Kat says. The thought of their Eden forcefully beckons.
Tyler in her arms, Katherine walks through the brilliant rays of light and heads back out through the classroom door. Her daughter soon follows, slowly moving from the shadows and into the sun.
Chapter 17
The survivors from what’s left of Seattle slowly fill the eight-lane I-5, migrating away from the damage one indecisive step at a time. Their clothing is ripped or stained with blood. Walking steadily onward, they clutch what meager possessions are left to them. Sacrifice haunts their eyes. These walking dead bring stories of survival, moving in a daze through the dwindling rain.
Fires continue to burn from remnants of the city all around them. The smell of death is everywhere. A jungle gym sits melted beside what used to be an elementary school. The school itself is now just rubble upon a scorched earth.
Turning from the group of plane crash survivors still standing around a battery-powered radio, Devin watches the growing number of people heading south. An alert tone sounds hollowly behind him. It’s replaced sporadically with static as a weary hand tries to find anything left inside the noise. Only the oppressive tone of dissonance greets them—blaring out across all radio bands.
Taking their cue, the remaining survivors grab what they can off the ground or out of burnt vehicles before joining the exodus. One after another, they leave the clustered pack until only a handful remains. Those left behind stand without purpose. They hope for answers from the box resting mockingly upon the car hood in front of them.
Abd’s eyes dart around. He strides up to the radio and begins moving the dial with his good hand. The Arab shifts through every frequency, compelled to verify for himself that there’s truly nothing left to find.
“You should think about moving on, too,” Devin says, looking over to Chris and Isabel. Terra sits on the ground beside him, staring blankly ahead.
“To where?” Chris asks angrily. Everything he’s ever known is now gone.
“Everyone on this side of Seattle is probably heading south,” Devin says. He points behind him to the people walking along the freeway. “Fallout from whatever just exploded is probably bad news, bloke.” Lightning flickers within the dark clouds above the city. “We need to get away from here.”
“Chris?” Isabel asks. She puts a hand on Chris’s shoulder, but the basketball star continues to stare down at the radio.
“I can’t go south,” Chris finally says. He looks to the broken ground for answers.
“Didn’t you hear me, mate?” Devin asks, his British accent growing more tense.
“My parents,” Chris whispers. “They’re downtown. I need to…”
“Need to what?” Devin interrupts. The fireman takes a step toward him. “There isn’t a downtown left!”
Chris turns on him, his eyes again filling with violence.
“I’m sorry, Chris. But look around you,” Devin says. He holds his arms out, refusing to back down. “The city’s gone!”
Chris is silent. He glances back toward the smoldering remains of Seattle.
“If we leave now, we have a chance.”
“Leave to where?” Chris yells. His insides feel like they’re tearing themselves apart. “Where the hell can we go?!”
“Portland,” Devin says. Thoughts of home and his family bring the firefighter instant comfort. “Anywhere,” he continues in a softer tone. “Just away from all this.”
“He’s right, Chris,” Isabel adds. The flight attendant walks in front of the teenager she helped raise over so many years of friendship with his mother. She stares up into the proud, brown eyes above.
“How can you just leave them?” Chris begs. “You were their friend!”
“I love your mom,” Isabel defends. Her fiery eyes snap at the accusation. “You know that! But I also told her I’d look after you.”
She points to the flattened horizon where skyscrapers should be. “There’s nothing back there but destruction and death,” Isabel says. “We’re all we’ve got right now, Chris. I need you.” She takes his hand and lays it on her stomach. “We need you.”
The 17-year-old’s eyes go wide, feeling the life inside push against him. “Alright?” Isabel presses. The crack in his armor shines as brightly as hammered steel. “Let’s just go with them farther south. We can try to contact your folks from there.”
Devin gently touches Terra’s shoulder. He follows the beautiful young woman’s unblinking gaze down the freeway towards the burning plane. The teenager’s pallid face looks on without expression. Her black hair casts deep shadows across her eyes.
“We need to go, Terra,” he says, kneeling.
The words are like crackling in her ears. She stares into the flames as they ravenously feed upon the fuselage.
“My name is Devin,” he says. The fireman slowly moves between her and the wreckage of their plane. “I have two kids of my own, and I think your mom would want someone to look after you. I need you to come with us so I can do that. Okay, love? We’ll get you back to whatever family we can.”
Terra blinks, finally looking up to meet his gaze. The sky-blue color of her eyes gradually returns, shifting at the edges from a cool gray to a paling sapphire.
“Come on,” Devin says, helping her up. The two begin walking alongside Isabel and Chris. They look out at hundreds of other troubled souls moving ahead of them into the devastation.
“In my religion,” a coarse voice says from behind them, “if you save a life, you become responsible for it.”
Abd tucks the small black radio into his sling and quickens his pace.
“Excuse me?” Devin asks.
“Helping others is one of the supreme acts in life,” Abd continues. He circles around so Devin separates him from Chris. Abd’s eyes glance worriedly up at the huge teenager. His split lip tries meekly to smile.
“What does an Arab know about helping?” Chris says. “You just want to see the whole world burn.”
“No. Islam is a religion of peace,” Abd defends. “True followers of Allah would never do something like this.”
“But bringing down airplanes on 9-11 and cutting up people is alright,” Chris continues, showing the blood-stained shirt over his stomach.
“Those people twisted my religion to fit their perverted goals,” Abd says. He shakes his head, his tone hardening. “I thought you were going to kill me. I would have done nothing to you otherwise.”
“Whatever.”
“This is all very interesting,” Devin says, looking skeptically at the Arab. “But I don’t quite understand why we’re having this little conversation.”
“I…” Abd mumbles. His black eyes drift to the ground, unable to meet the firefighter’s. “I need to get back to Portland, too. And I just thought…”
“Are you kidding me?! Find your own way,” Chris blurts. He turns to Devin. “You can’t trust his kind. What if he gets all crazy again? Or decides to carve you up in your sleep? Greasy little son of a…”
“Hey,” Devin cuts him off. “We don’t know who did this. Or why. Skin color aside, all I see is a bunch of people in the same bloody situation we’re all in.” The firefighter looks back at Abd’s scrawny frame. The white sling and gangly shoulders might as well have been a bull’s-eye. He sighs, pushing down t
he warnings in his head. “Well, come on then, mate. You best not slow us down.”
* * *
On the northbound side of the freeway, they pass a massive pileup of vehicles. Among the mangled metal and fiberglass is a blistered, red Porsche Boxster. Only the crumpled tail of the sports car is still visible, its vanity plate sticking out from under the discarded load of a multi-ton semi-truck.
Chris continues angrily on, walking as far from the Arab as he can. He passes just a hundred yards from the body of his mother as she lies entombed within the wreckage.
Chapter 18
Two stories under the street, Jean Barlow and her remaining team sit on the metal floor of KOMO’s news van. The open sliding door casts a dim light along the garage’s concrete flooring. Kevin Green sits just inside, his legs hanging out of the rectangular opening. A stick mic lies across his lap. He stares down at the last update KOMO 4 News will ever receive.
Dave’s stubbled face glows from the audio levels of the alert tone overlaid on his waveform monitor. The lines that had continued so boldly across are now weakening. He brings the master slider on the small audio board all the way up until it pegs the top, but the audio just keeps fading as the signal strength wanes.
The emergency lights that straddle the ceiling’s large metal girders begin to dim. Jean looks over at the generator. It shudders several times and finally dies. The parking garage lights immediately dim then pop violently off. Several blow on the circuit’s edges when the power spikes one last time. The electronics in the van go dark, leaving only the interior light and lanterns to illuminate the black garage.
“Well, that’s that,” Dave says. His hands refuse to leave the controls.
Jean sighs. “There’s nothing more you can do?”
“That was all of the generator fuel we had,” Dave says. “Corporate didn’t want us keeping it in the building.” He grins, changing to an officious, just because I wear a suit and tie I know more than you do, tone. “Insurance felt it was a fire risk.”
“Thank you, Corporate,” Jean says. An exaggerated smile spreads across her face.
“Wouldn’t have mattered, though. That tone was still overriding our signal up until the jenny died.”
“Why couldn’t we get around it?” Jean asks.
“It’s coming in over the EAS path,” Dave says. “But here’s the weird part. The signal is so strong it’s covering up everything else on our other pipelines. It’s like the tone is bleeding over into all of our back-up channels on purpose.”
“On purpose? Why?” Kevin asks.
“Why indeed,” Dave nods. His mind races as it analyzes the possibilities. “Maybe to control the flow of information to an attack populace. Or to coordinate messages across a defined target area. Maybe they just want to black out access to unsanctioned news reports. Whatever the why, there really isn’t a reason I can think of with good intentions.”
The three-person department sits silently in the dark garage. Dust rises through shards of light inside the news van. Dave’s words are like knots in their stomachs. The reality of today still seems like a twisted shade of what should be.
“So, how do we patch around it?” Jean asks. The executive producer’s eyes light up at the challenge.
“Hmm,” Dave pauses, rubbing at the growth along his face. “I think we’d have to hardwire in at one of the tower sites. All the metros are probably gone, but maybe the translators up in Ballard or Victory Heights could send out a burst.”
Jean lays her hand lingeringly on the engineer’s shoulder. The EP found out long ago that a pretty girl can wield physical touch like a weapon. “Can you get this thing running?” she asks sweetly. Jean shines her flashlight up at the passenger headrest beside her.
“I went to M.I.T., not Mazda,” Dave scoffs. Color jumps to his cheeks. He glances down at her delicate hand.
She slowly releases his shoulder, staring back at him with a cocked head.
“Look,” Dave begins. His mind tries to simplify the explanation. Touching his fingertips together, the engineer forms a circle with his hands. “A nuclear weapon just detonated over our heads. When that happened, it sent out an electromagnetic pulse. We’re below street level down here, but dispersion is not circular,” he says, extending his fingers up and out to form a ball. “It’s spherical, in all directions.”
He looks back toward the instrument cluster at the front of the van. “If the pulse got to the ignition components, there’s nothing I can do.”
Jean climbs out of the truck. She smooths down the front of her low-cut red blouse and grins flirtatiously back at him. “But you just said you went to M.I.T.”
He stares back at her for a moment. Her eyes dig through his reasoning. “Yeah, but…”
“You kept a major market TV station operating for years on low budgets, Dave.” She lays her hand on his forearm like a grenade. “Fixing a couple of news rigs shouldn’t even be a challenge.”
The young engineer looks back into her mischievous, violet eyes. He knows she’s manipulating him but enjoys it all the same.
Chapter 19
“Bloody hell!” Devin yells. His muscles tighten, his arms straining against the plastic undercarriage of a steering column. Lying on the floorboard of a slightly damaged Lexus SUV, Devin’s legs squirm out from the driver’s side door. He grunts in triumph when the plastic finally snaps in his hands. “There!”
“Is it started yet?” Abd asks, ducking his head into the passenger window.
“Well…no,” Devin stammers. “I just…” His exultant smile quickly fades. He holds the plastic cover up like a trophy, but the Arab just stares back at him unimpressed. The firefighter sighs. He tosses the cover aside, lowering his voice to an angry mutter. “Give me a flipping second here, bloke. I don’t exactly keep a tool chest in my knickers.”
Chris leans over the open hood to look back at Isabel and Terra. The basketball player’s troubled eyes soften as he watches them. Isabel wraps an arm around Terra’s shivering body, rubbing the silent girl’s back to keep her warm.
Devin touches several exposed wires to one another under the torn-open steering column. Metal graces metal, but there’s no sign of a spark. He moans. Devin pulls himself up with the steering wheel and leans back into the plush leather seat. “Would’ve been nice,” he says to himself. His hands trace along the soft, supple grips of the luxury automobile. Steeling himself for what could be a long journey, he sighs again.
“Looks like we’re walking,” Devin says when he rejoins the others. Disappointment is etched into his face. He puts a hand to his lower back, trying to ease the deep ache spreading up along it.
“What about one of the others?” Isabel points toward a handful of intact vehicles around them on the Interstate.
“I’m guessing none of the cars out here will start, love,” Devin says. “Otherwise they’d probably be gone already. Electronics don’t get along well with big explosions,” he adds with a smile. “Funny thing.”
“Maybe if we get outside the city?” Abd asks.
“We may have to walk a ways,” Devin says. His emerald eyes scan down the freeway’s broken edges, but see no motion. Only a few survivors mill about. “So, you’d all best get used to the company.”
Chris groans, slamming the SUV’s hood. The teenager looks angrily at the southern horizon. His teeth are clenched so tight his jawbones bulge out. Chris stares at the Arab now clinging to them like a disease. His filth is invasive. Dangerous. Just the sight of him makes Chris’s blood boil.
“Chris…” Isabel scolds, her tone sharpening. Yeah, I see you. Her eyebrow shoots up to show she means business.
Chris reluctantly turns. The fierce Latina’s gaze has always kept him in check. But this time is different. He’s different. “What?” Chris shouts at her. The basketball star storms off, his thoughts as black as the poisoned clouds swirling above them.
Isabel watches him go, saddened and unsure. The gentle boy she helped raise is gone. The man now with
them ― so full of rage and violence ― is more a stranger to her than the Arab. The thought terrifies her.
She pulls Terra closer. The girl’s shivering is getting worse. The rain has stopped, but the wind continues to whip into their thin, damp clothes. “You gonna be okay?” Isabel asks. Motherly concern fills her eyes.
Okay? The word shrieks mockingly back within the darkness of Terra’s mind. Her normally pale face is almost pure white, except for the deep shadows cast over her eyes by the curves of her black hair.
“Honey?” Isabel asks. “You’re as pale as a ghost.”
Chris glances back at the two women. He sighs, looking out to the rubble as manners and instincts compete. It doesn’t take long before his mom’s voice echoes the lessons of chivalry in his ears.
“It’s not waterproof,” Chris says. The high schooler holds his huge red, white, and blue letterman’s jacket out. “But it’ll keep you warm.” His deep brown eyes waver, trying hard not to stare at the striking young woman next to Isabel.
Terra looks up at him with surprise. Her haunted blue eyes sparkle in the light. She slowly takes the jacket, holding it to her chest.
Trying desperately, Chris can’t seem to break her exotic gaze. The sky blue color of her eyes is like an ocean of wonder adrift.
Isabel smiles. An uncomfortable look spreads across her high-pressure basketball star’s face. “Here,” she cuts in. The flight attendant takes the jacket and helps put it around Terra’s shoulders. “It’s just the mom in me.”
Isabel laughs as she takes a step back to look at the girl. “Oh, my.” Over a foot shorter than Chris, the small teenager is absolutely lost inside all the material. The red-piped leather arms hang down to Terra’s knees. Isabel immediately sets to work, rolling up the sleeves to fit the young woman’s slender frame. “Very nice,” she says, giving it a final nod of approval.
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