by Brad Munson
“I’m fine,” he said. “Just take care of Helena, she’s the one who’s hurt.”
She saw that strange, luminous pebbling – that wave – pass over his face and down, into his shirt – to his chest.
“You’re lying,” Lisa said, and put a hand on his shoulder – then snatched it away. It was like touching a live electric line. The pain there …
The man with the waxy, tear-stained face scowled at her. “What the hell do you know? Who–”
“Tell the truth,” she said in that strange, bell-like tone.
The older man’s eyes grew wide. “My chest hurts like hell,” he blurted out, entirely against his will. “I can barely breathe. I’m scared to death. But … Oh, God, but Helena …”
Chamberlain stopped dead and looked at the man as if seeing him for the first time. “God damn it,” he said, then almost leaped to the older man’s side and put his stethoscope to his chest. He listened for only a moment, then spoke urgently. “Possible angina,” he said. “Get me a gurney and put him in Exam 3.”
Lisa looked confused “Gurney …?
“Here, Doctor,” said an entirely new voice behind her. Lisa looked up and dodged to the side as a wheeled bed slid into place, piloted by the silky, severe presence of the mayor’s wife – Miriam Lazenby. Lisa recognized her immediately from their earlier confrontation.
Earlier tonight? she wondered. Could it have been earlier tonight? Still in a daze, she checked her watch … and realized it wasn’t night at all anymore. It was morning. Three a.m. The Lazenby couple had attended that terribly important meeting at the Convention Center, then turned around and come back here to help.
To actually help, Lisa thought, a little dumfounded at the realization.
“Thanks,” Chamberlain said to the mayor's wife, as if she had been there all along. He talked to the gasping man as he helped him onto the gurney and pointed. “What’s your name?” he asked.
“Teller. Anthony Teller.”
“Mr. Teller, you may be having a heart attack. I want you to lie down on this table here and I’ll be right with you – right with you. Just try and be calm, okay? And lie down.” He pointed to a far corner of the curtained maze. “That way,” he told Mrs. Lazenby. “Third space–”
“I can count,” Miriam said loftily. “I’ve been doing it for years.” She artfully reversed the direction of the gurney and piloted it towards Exam Three.
The moment she was on her way, the doctor turned to confront Lisa.
“How did you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Oh, stop it. You did the same thing to me in your room. You knew when I was lying and you made me tell you the truth.”
“I just … I don’t now, Geoff. I … really.”
He waved it away. “Okay,” he said. “Never mind. Obviously I need your help here. Are you staying?”
She gaped at him. “I don’t have any–”
“I can call your husband–”
“Ex-husband.”
“Fine, whatever, I can call him now and have him come get you or you can stay and help. Which is it?”
She looked across the room again. She saw a man bubbling blood out of a broken nose; she saw a bucket overflowing with gauze soaked in red, shiny fluids. She heard a sharp, short shriek as Helena Teller’s arm bumped against the side of the X-ray machine.
“I can stay for a while,” she said. “At least until morning.”
He nodded. “Good enough. I’ll take what I can get.”
A ridiculously thin man with a fringe of wiry black hair above both ears came swaying into sight. He had on a white lab coat that was just as stained and well-worn as Dr. Chamberlain’s. “I need more 4-0 Vicryl on a PS-2,” he said. “Like twenty minutes ago. Where’s Carrie?”
“Playing radiologist,” Chamberlain said. “Dr. Panj, meet Lisa. She’s looking for some clothes, and then she’s going to assist.”
“But what about my–”
“You’re going to have to get your own needle and thread, dude. We’re way past short-handed.”
The Indian doctor looked slightly insulted, then thought about it and nodded his head. “All right, then,” he said, and turned on his heel.
“Wow,” Lisa said, “quite the team you’ve got here. Just like Chicago Med or something.”
“I prefer St. Elsewhere,” he said. “Right down to the autistic kid with the snow globe.”
A high, thready scream began, shrill and endless, from Exam One. “My cue,” he said. “Check the supply closet back there, by the door to Reception. You’ll find fresh scrubs.”
“Thanks,” she said.
He shook his head, looking ten years older than the man she had met just hours earlier. “Don’t thank me,” he said. “You’ll just have to take it back later.”
He dived through the curtains, and Lisa went to look for something to wear.
THE SECOND DAY
Sixteen
Kerianne was awake and drawing again before there was enough light to see. She sat at her desk, shoulders hunched against the cold, the rain mumbling against her one window as the sky slowly turned from black to gray.
I heard this voice come out of the drawing when I was dreaming last night. It was big and wide and filled both my ears. It wants to drink everything. It wants to wash us all away so it can grow and grow. I want to tell Mom but I know it would make her scared, and I don’t want that. I just want to
She couldn’t use words anymore. All she could do was draw.
The first picture that came out of her hands was almost a man. At least he had a man’s arms and sort-of chest, but his head was all blocky and full of holes, and grew right out of his shoulders without a neck. Below its waist it wasn’t a man at all, just a twisted bunch of sticks and spikes and broken bits that went all the way down into the water. It didn’t have a mouth or eyes, but she knew it was looking at something – no, wait, looking for something.
That was when she heard Momma moving around. She was awake now. Getting ready for work.
A minute later she was drawing a pretty blonde girl carrying a big stick. This was what the other monster, the half-man monster, was looking for. But she could hear the whispers at the back of her head very clearly now. He hadn’t found her yet. He was still looking.
“I hope you never do,” she whispered into the drawing. “I hope you never get her.”
“Kerianne?”
It was her Momma, at the door. She pounded sharply on it, three times: bang-bang-bang!
“Kerianne, I know you’re drawing in there. I can feel it.”
Kerianne forced her head up. “I’m sleeping, Momma. I’m tired. Can I stay home from school today?”
The pictures weren’t going to stop. She could tell.
The door behind her swept open. She could feel her mother standing there, glaring at her. She wondered why Momma hadn’t just come in to wake her like she usually did. It was like she wanted to catch her drawing, wanted to make her lie. That didn’t seem fair.
“Absolutely not,” her mother said, and it sounded like she was spitting out something bad. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but this is not a good time, not at all.”
It never is, she thought, but she kept her mouth shut like she always did.
“We’re leaving for school in five minutes,” Momma said. “I’m going to stop for a few supplies after that and then I’ll be back here. You might take the bus home, I might pick you up, I don’t know, but you are going to school. And if you’re not dressed when I’m ready, you’ll go in your pajamas.”
She pulled the door shut, harder than she needed to. Kerianne knew that tone of voice. Momma wasn’t kidding.
The picture of the pretty girl was done now. It was kind of a relief to draw somebody who was all human. And she could already feel the next picture in her fingers. It wasn’t nearly as pretty. It might never be again.
She pushed herself up and away from the table and grabbed a pair of jeans and a shirt,
quick as she could. If she was lucky, she could get dressed and her shoes on before she had to draw again. If she sat on her hands in the car, actually sat on them, she could probably get all the way to school before it hurt too much.
There was so much that wanted out, and she couldn’t do anything to stop it.
Seventeen
The parking lot of Dos Hermanos School looked like a little ocean all its own. The rain made its surface dance and sizzle; the wind actually gave it waves that broke against the shore of the athletic field on one end and the curbs outside the classrooms on the other. Cars and minivans formed a lurching line that edged across the sea to stop, exhausted, as close to the buildings as they could get. The children who bolted from the vehicles, wrapped in a crazed variety of impromptu rain gear, looked like they were dodging bullets as they dashed for shelter inside the school.
Two of their hardy volunteer monitors split the children into one of two groups: kindergarten through fifth, into the K-3 Play Room, the older kids into the Cafetorium. Three teachers were waiting for the little ones, staring out at the chaos through the long strip of high windows that faced the parking lot.
“This is insane,” James Barrymore said. “We ought to send everybody home.”
David Drucker was standing next to him, squinting at the black and churning sky. “It certainly doesn’t look like it’s stopping, does it?” he said.
“It looks like we’re going to have a build an ark, is what it looks like.”
There were usually fourteen employees at DHS, including teachers, janitors, administrators, and a half-time school nurse. Today only six showed up, and – if Barrymore’s tally was even close to correct – less than half of the students had made it in. Bringing all the young ones together in the Play Room had seemed like a good idea at six-thirty in the morning, at least to Douglas Pratt. It would be easier to hold things together if they were in one place, he had reasoned. It was just your basic crowd control stratagem.
He had been horribly wrong.
By eight forty-five the large, boxy, high-ceilinged room was crowded with anxious, damp children. The air was as humid as the Everglades. The teachers were already short-tempered, and the kids were simultaneously hyper and terrified. Bizarre stories about the storm were flying everywhere, like a twisted game of Telephone.
“My dad got bit on the leg!” little Stephanie from Grade Two said. “There was like this foot with candle eyes and teeth? And it just chomped on him.”
Thunder exploded like a bomb directly over their heads. The adults winced and the children shrieked, diving into each other’s arms to hide from the noise.
“Insane,” Barrymore said again. Trini Garcia laced her fingers in his. They had arrived together at six and hadn’t been apart since. To hell with appearances. “What do you think happened to Carole Ann?” she asked very quietly. “It’s not like her to just not show.”
“I have no idea,” he said, “but I don’t like it.” Carole Ann Johnson was one of the most likeable and trustworthy teachers at the school. He couldn’t believe she would just up and leave without so much as a note or a phone call. If she wasn’t here to help, there was a damn good reason – a serious reason – and he didn’t like to think what that might be.
“These spiky things were all on my patio,” a fourth-grader named Carlos said. “My papa said it was just, like, seed-bods that blowed in from trees somewhere, but when I touched ‘em they stung, you know? Like acid.”
“You don’t know what acid feels like, stupid,” said his best friend Malik.
“I do now,” Carlos shot back indignantly. “It’s ‘zackly like what those seed-bods do.”
A wave of rain, rapid and hard as hail, clattered across the north wall and dashed across the roof. The kids started to chatter, higher and louder, as if their voices could drown out the sound of the storm.
“Well, fuck that noise,” Trini said, almost under her breath, and broke away from Barrymore for the first time. She moved into the middle of the room, all business, clapping her hands sharply to draw attention. “Okay,” she said, warm but firm. “Okay! Group workshops today for everybody.” There was a little groaning – remarkably little, actually, but she refused to hear any of it. “Why don’t we split into reading circles? Shaniqua, LorElle, you go with Malik and Stephanie there – that’s right, fifth with second – and read the first chapter of Island of the Blue Dolphins. Rahne, Willis, you take Jasmine and Tino and Carlos here, they’re a little older, and do Wrinkle in Time.” In three minutes' time she had split the entire group of a hundred or more children into manageable fragments. Barrymore was impressed with her all over again.
Not that it was easy. “But Miss Trini,” one of the older girls whined, “we don’t have–”
“Yes, you do. They’re on the side-table, right under the poster of … of that basketball person.”
“Shaquille O'Neill,” Barrymore called out, amused. The basketball legend had been the subject of a huge “Shoot for Excellence! Get Into Books!” campaign a few months earlier.
“Thank you, Mr. Barrymore. I was just about to say that.” She pointed to the older kids in each group. “Come on, let’s go. Time’s a’wasting.”
The students began to settle into their groups, almost grateful to have something to distract them. The four teachers moved between the groups, answering questions, offering encouragement. Even though it was well past nine o’clock, a few stragglers were still showing up, donations from desperate and bedraggled parents who frankly didn’t know what else to do with them while they struggled with staying afloat – literally. As they arrived, Trini formed new groups or distributed the newcomers among the existing teams. Barrymore hoped she hadn’t given out any of the copies of Lord of the Flies. He didn’t want them getting any ideas.
***
It was past ten a.m. when Dave Drucker came up to Barrymore and tilted his head at the ceiling like a dog encountering a new sound. “Hey,” he said. “Do you hear that?”
Barrymore frowned. “Hear what?” he asked. “You mean something other than the friggin’ rain on the roof?”
The maroon-painted metal door to the outside flew open and Principal Douglas Pratt hurried in. Another figure slipped in behind him, just before the door slammed shut: Flaco Delgadillo, the janitor. He stopped dead five feet inside and stared around the room, back and forth, with the oddest expression on his face. High again, Barrymore thought … but no, it was something else, he knew. Something far stranger.
A gust of wet air and a splash of water had entered with them; it made the children across the room squeal and hoot.
“Settle!” Trini said, still firmly in control. “Settle, now!”
Pratt glared at the children. “Well, at least you’ve got them under control,” he said. The teachers didn’t respond. They didn’t even want to look him straight in the eye.
“I don’t want to read nothin’,” Malik wailed. “It’s too wet in here.”
“Malik,” Trini warned. “Work first, whine later.”
Barrymore tried to move Pratt to a quieter corner of the room, where they could have at least a semi-private conversation. Pratt was having none of it. He planted himself in the middle of the double-sized classroom and had no intention of moving.
Great idea, Barrymore told himself. Let’s get all big and tough.
“We need to get these kids home,” he told Pratt. “If we can choose a few parents to call, the ones who have vans or station wagons, they—”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Pratt said, outraged. “It’s not even lunch time. We’re not going anywhere.”
Trini rounded on him, eyes blazing. Remind me not to make her mad, Barrymore told himself. Ever.
“What the hell are you talking about?” she demanded. “The children can’t stay here all day. It’s not safe!”
Pratt looked even more exasperated and turned away, as if she wasn’t worth bothering with.
“I think there’s something trapped in th
e attic,” David Drucker said to no one in particular. He was still staring at the ceiling, looking very distracted. “Does this place even have an attic?”
“Shaniqua won’t stop crying!” LorElle said from his group on the far side of the room. “And I told her and told her!”
“My feet are wet!” another child said – more of a wail than a report. “All the way through!”
“Mine, too! And I’m cold!”
“Ms. Trini—”
“Please, Ms. Trini!”
“Please—”
“Good God, people,” Pratt snapped, “it’s just a little bit of rain. There’s no need to go off the deep end!”
“Look around you, Mr. Pratt,” James Barrymore said, his deep voice booming in spite of his best efforts to keep it soft, “No matter what the sheriff said last night, the rain isn’t going away.” At least here in the K-3 Play Room, the storm had already won. The walls themselves were beginning to grow soft and puffy. Water was starting to seep in around the window frames. The floorboards were already damp and sweating from the two feet of standing water on the other side of the drywall. Everything was gritty and slick with tracked mud and gravel. “Like Trini said: it’s not safe.”
Pratt was brimming with contempt. “And you think sending these children home to their trailer parks and barrios is better than this?” he hissed. The teachers stared at him, gaping, and he bridled even more. “Well?” he said. “Do you?”
“What did you say?” Trini asked in a hushed, dangerous tone. “What did you say?”
“This is an emergency situation,” he said stubbornly. “I’m not here to kiss ass. I’m here to keep this goddamn school open, and you lot are going to–”
There was a burst of sharp, strange skittering over their head, like a thousand tiny claws scrabbling all at once.
“There!” Drucker said. “I told you!”
An entire line of acoustic tiles along the center of the room suddenly bellied downwards, as if pushed from above. The children heard it, too. They looked up all together –