by Various
“Oh, no! Oh, no!” the woman, whom Emily did not recognize, gasped repeatedly. The pretty young girl’s voice was tinged with a growing tone of panic, and Emily felt the woman’s grasp on her hand tighten as tears began to stream down her face. “Is that going to happen to me?” she bleated, her voice barely audible as she clutched at her own crimson-stained blouse with her free hand. “Am I going to die?”
Emily squeezed the woman’s hand back as firmly as she could. “No, of course not,” she said, although she could hear the lack of conviction in her own voice. “We’re going to be just fine,” Emily reassured her, mustering as much faith to her voice as she was able and reinforcing her weak words with a forced smile.
Sven pulled Emily aside. “Do you believe this shit? Jesus Christ!”
“What about the other news outlets? What are they saying?” Emily asked.
“The same: first the red rain comes and then people die. There’s been no news from anywhere east of Germany for hours. It looks like the whole of Europe’s fucking dead.”
• • •
“So, just what are we supposed to do exactly?” asked Frank Embry, one of the crime-beat reporters. Embry was in his late sixties and looked as though he had been plucked right out of the pages of a Raymond Chandler novel. His hair was always slicked back and he would never be found without his gray raincoat—Frank insisted on calling it a mack—that he wore in winter and slung over his arm in summer. He’d always carry a rolled-up copy of the previous day’s Tribune in his free hand. “It adds to the mystique,” he would tell anyone who asked why he chose to dress like that. Most every other reporter thought he was a little nuts, but Emily thought it was quite charming.
The full staff of the Tribune crammed into the lower-floor meeting room. Senior editorial management had decided to call a conference and pulled everyone in twenty minutes after Emily arrived back at the office. A feeling of dread permeated the little meeting room, not helped by the overbearing smell of sweat as too many people crowded into too small a space. Senior staff members were already seated around the eight-person conference table when Emily joined the meeting. The rest of the paper’s employees were either standing or leaning against the walls.
“It’s really up to you guys,” said Konkoly. “On any other day, I’d say we stay at our posts. I mean, shit, everyone remembers 9/11; we didn’t leave for three days. But this? This is a whole other bucket of fish.”
Under other circumstances, Emily—along with the majority of the staff—would have laughed aloud at Konkoly’s unintentional slip of the tongue. He had a habit of mangling idioms when he was nervous, which was endearing and often hilarious, but his mistake went unnoticed today.
“I’ve spoken with both the senior editor and the publisher,” Konkoly continued, “and, while they would obviously like to see today’s paper go out, they’re watching the TV too. They told me to tell you it was your choice whether we stay or we go.”
“You got that right,” a voice piped up from the far side of the room.
Konkoly looked around the room at the grim faces staring back at him. “I’m pretty sure I know what the result will be already, but let’s see a show of hands for those who want to call it a day and get out of here.” All except Frank raised their hands. He continued to lean against the wall, his hands folded in front of him. He’d left his mack at his desk.
“Frank?” The assistant editor’s voice was tinged with concern for the eccentric crime reporter.
“I’m staying,” Frank replied stubbornly. “I’ve been with this paper for almost thirty years and I’ll be damned if I’m leaving now.”
“Jesus, Frank, were you watching the TV? You saw what’s happening in Europe. What do you think this town’s going to be like if that happens here?” Emily couldn’t see who had spoken, but judging by the thick Brooklyn accent it was probably Janice, one of the paper’s legion of proofreaders. “You have to go home. Who knows how long this is going to last. It could be days before everything gets back to normal.”
“This is my home,” replied Frank. “Besides, there’s no one for me to go home to. At least if I’m here I can do some good. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. And when this all blows over, I’ll be the first to tell you ‘I told ya so.’” He added a halfhearted smile to his last statement that seemed to convince everyone he was resolute about staying put.
“All right, people. It’s decided: this paper is officially closed until this all blows over. I’ll see you all then. Keep your cell phones close; we’ll call you when we need you. In the meantime… don’t you all have homes to go to?”
The paper’s staff began filing out of the meeting; what little conversation there was continued in hushed, subdued voices. Emily stopped at her cubicle and waited, pretending to check through her mail while the rest of the staff grabbed their belongings and headed toward the exit. Finally, when only Frank and Sven were left, she walked over to them. Frank’s back was to Emily as he talked with Sven. She pulled the elbow of his tweed jacket to get his attention.
“Emily, my dear,” he said, turning to look at her. “I thought I saw your beautiful face in the meeting room. What a day, eh? What a day.”
“It truly sucks, Frank. Listen, why don’t you come home and stay with me? I’ve got the room. There’s no need to stay here alone.”
Frank smiled at her, his gray eyes twinkling, “While I appreciate the offer, I’m going to man my post. Besides, I won’t be alone; Mr. Konkoly here has decided to keep me company, haven’t you?”
Konkoly just nodded, and while his mouth smiled, his eyes were unconvinced. “Yeah, someone’s got to make sure this old coot doesn’t run off with the computers.”
“You’re sure? The both of you are more than welcome to stay with me.”
“While the offer is tempting,” said Frank, “we’re staying. You’ll find us right here when you come back. Don’t worry.”
Konkoly simply smiled and shrugged. Both men looked at her reassuringly and she knew they wouldn’t budge.
“Take care, you two,” she said over her shoulder as she turned and walked back to collect her belongings from her desk. “You know where I am if you change your mind. Just give me a call and let me know you’re on your way if you change your mind. Okay?”
She smiled as she caught Frank’s whispered words to Sven, “Oh, if only I were thirty years younger, I might just take her up on that offer. Life is just so damn unfair.”
• • •
Emily pushed through the Tribune’s revolving doors and stepped out onto the street. The day seemed just like any other, the streets filled with people and vehicles intent on getting wherever it was they were headed. She couldn’t detect any hint of panic or even an undercurrent of unease as she stood for a moment watching. It looked like the news of the deaths in Europe had not yet reached the majority of the city’s occupants. Everything looked and sounded so normal. Down the street, near the intersection, Emily heard the screech of brakes followed by a burst of profanity. While the world was falling apart around them, the people of New York continued with their day, either oblivious or uncaring of what was happening across the ocean in Europe.
Occasionally, some would pass her with a look of worry fixed to their faces, cell phones pushed firmly against their ears as they spoke in low concerned tones to those on the other end of the line, maneuvering their way through the crowd and on to some unknown destination. Emily thought she was probably witnessing the slow dissemination of the news as it gradually filtered down to the city’s inhabitants.
At some point the spread of information would reach a tipping point among the city’s inhabitants, a critical mass that Emily knew would turn this city inside out and upside down. As news of the deaths across the Atlantic became common knowledge, people would panic, and then New York would become a very dangerous place to be caught out in the open. It was imperative she got home as quickly as possible. She needed to prepare for whatever was heading her way. Emily had seen enoug
h disaster movies in her time to know whatever came next was not going to be pretty.
She moved out into the crowd, cutting diagonally against the flow of pedestrians so she could reach the bike. She released the lock and unthreaded the chain from between the bike’s wheels, stowed the chain in her backpack, checked there were no taxis using the bike lane as a shortcut, and, when she saw it was clear, began pedaling toward home.
• • •
Forty minutes after leaving the Tribune offices, Emily pulled up outside her apartment block. She locked her bike to the security stand out front and headed inside.
The lobby was busier than it should have been at this time of day, a sure sign, she thought, that news of the deaths sweeping across Europe had finally begun to filter onto the general populace’s radar. A group of five people waited nervously in front of the elevator. They looked scared, more scared than she had seen anyone since leaving the Tribune’s newsroom. She wondered how much information had actually trickled down in the time it had taken her to get home.
Emily recognized a couple of the tenants waiting in front of the elevator and almost said hello, but she noticed stains from the red rain on their clothes and thought better of it, choosing instead to simply nod, smile, and keep what was hopefully a safe distance between them and her. She had managed to keep herself free of any contact with the red rain so far. She did not know if that would matter in the long run, but it was probably better not to take any chances and to remain as far away as possible from those who had been caught in the deluge.
She had no way to tell how the agent or pathogen or whatever this red rain turned out to be had killed those people in Europe, or how it was spread. For all she knew, it could be airborne and simply breathing the same air or touching a doorknob used by an infected person could mean the difference between living and dying. In fact, it was probably a good idea to avoid enclosed spaces like the cabin of the elevator and avoid any contact with possibly contaminated people, period.
“Jesus!” she said aloud, surprised at how little time it had taken her survival instincts to label everyone a potential threat to her life. She felt shitty for thinking that way, but how else was she supposed to think? Less than two hours ago, she had witnessed a man die horribly, live on TV. And if that was what lay in store for the people of New York, well, she was sure as hell going to do whatever it took to guarantee it didn’t happen to her.
With that thought still burning brightly in her mind, Emily opened the door to the emergency stairwell and began climbing the stairs up to her apartment.
Chapter Three
EMILY KNEW how lucky she was to have snagged her apartment. Perfectly placed on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, it was just a stone’s throw from the Hudson River and some of the most amazing restaurants in the area. It was also handy for the Sixty-Sixth Street and Lincoln Center subway station, if she needed it, which was rare, but sometimes her stories took her outside of her comfortable biking range.
The kind of rent her apartment usually went for was well outside what Emily would normally be able to afford on a journalist’s salary, but she’d landed it for an unbelievable price after she’d written a flattering piece for the owner of the complex. Her article had helped him fill vacant units and he’d been very happy with her. To show his appreciation he had given her a sweet discount; that’s how it worked out sometimes, just one of the perks of the job. Who was she to complain?
The apartment was a one-bedroom, one-bath studio on the seventeenth of twenty-five floors. She knew a couple of the other tenants on her floor; most were single professionals, but there was a married couple in one of the apartments and a single mom with a eight-month-old little boy—his name was Ben and he was just so adorable—a few apartments down from Emily’s. While the majority of her neighbors were friendly, she knew them on nodding terms only; everyone kept to themselves for the most part, which was fine by her.
The complex had its own gym in the basement area and a covered community pool on the roof. Not that Emily ever had the time to use either, of course, but it was nice to know they were there if she ever decided to take advantage. One day, maybe when she retired, she’d get to use them, but until that day she was just too busy and far too committed to the job to be bothered with minor distractions like staying healthy. Besides, her daily bicycle commute was more exercise than the majority of people got in a month.
Emily grabbed a diet soda from the fridge and walked into the living room. The far wall was framed by a large bay window that looked out over the nearby rooftops toward the Hudson River and beyond. She was secretly in love with whoever had designed the apartments because they were smart enough to include a seat beneath the window where she could sit and watch the world pass by. Emily called the little area her roost. It was just a wooden bench with a thick layer of padding and a pastel-blue microfiber cover, but it was one of her favorite places to sit and unwind from the many and varied stresses her job threw at her on a daily basis.
Emily kicked off her shoes and sat down on the bench. Pulling her legs up to her chin, she took a long pull of her soda and stared out over the city. While most of her view was blocked by a row of equally tall buildings positioned between her apartment block and the Hudson, she could still see the tree-lined shore of West New York in the distance.
Until today, Emily had always thought of the sprawling metropolis of New York as a microcosm of the US, a multicultural machine with very different parts that, despite their differences, worked together for the common good of all. It was loud, it was brash, and it was unapologetic. It had always seemed too unstoppable in its continual forward movement. That all changed today. Not since the dark days of 9/11 had she seen so much fear on people’s faces.
Emily looked down at the street. The buildings were mainly older office blocks, but sprinkled here and there was the occasional small store. Within walking distance, a hungry office worker could find a coffee shop, a florist, and just across the street from her place, a small corner convenience store that kept a stock of canned goods, newspapers, and candy.
As Emily’s eyes roamed the buildings, she saw a flurry of motion in the street. A group of about twenty people had gathered outside the convenience store. At this distance, there was no way she could hear what the group was saying, but their body language was unmistakable; they were pissed. Fingers were being pointed, fists clenched, and people were being pushed. Most of the anger seemed to be directed at a single man; he stood in the doorway of the store, his hands raised to the side of his head, palms out, as though trying to tell the angry crowd to stay back. The crowd, which seemed one wrong word away from being reclassified to mob status by Emily, apparently wasn’t having any of it.
Emily thought she saw a fist connect with the man’s face and then he disappeared in a mass of flailing arms and bodies as the crowd pushed their way forward, surging through the narrow doorway and into the little store. Seconds later, she watched as people began running from the store, their hands full of the shop’s stock. She watched a man trip and fall, the cans and bottles of water he carried spilling from his hands as he sprawled into the road, narrowly avoiding a speeding SUV that barely managed to swerve around him. The vehicle didn’t even try to brake, Emily noted. By the time the man raised himself to his feet and dusted himself off, others had already grabbed everything he’d stolen. He stood dazed in the middle of the road for a moment, then took off running up the street, quickly disappearing from Emily’s view.
Emily had seen plenty of disturbing incidents during her time at the paper, but there was something uniquely upsetting about the scene she had just watched play out beneath her window. She felt… impotent. It was like watching someone she loved dearly succumb to madness, and there was no one and nothing that could help.
The sound of someone knocking at her apartment door dragged Emily from her thoughts. She wasn’t expecting company so it could only be Konkoly and Frank. They must have changed their minds and decided to take her up on her offer
to stay with her. But if that was true why hadn’t they called ahead to let her know they were on their way?
“Coming,” she called and walked to the front door.
The owner of the building was big on security, so every apartment was equipped with a peephole that gave the occupant a fish-eye view of the corridor directly outside. When Emily placed her eye to the viewer it wasn’t her colleagues from the paper; instead, she saw a police officer standing outside her door.
• • •
Emily unlatched the security chain and opened the front door. The cop was a good six-two, with sandy brown hair cut so short most of it was concealed beneath his cap. A nametag over the left breast pocket of his uniform jacket read “Meadows.”
“Nathan? Thank God you’re here,” she said, giving him a kiss on the cheek. “Have you heard what’s going on? Do you know anything?”
The cop didn’t answer; instead, he pushed past Emily into the apartment entrance then turned to face her.
“Shut the door,” he said brusquely, his usually calm voice laced with an edge of panic she had never heard before.
“Jesus, Nathan. Not even a hello?” she replied, allowing anger to creep into her voice, more to cover her own uneasiness than because she was truly annoyed at him.
“I’m sorry, Em,” he said. He leaned in to kiss her firmly on the mouth. When he finally released her, she took a single step back and stared up into the face of her boyfriend.
“I thought you were on duty today.”
“I’m supposed to be,” he answered as he walked toward the kitchen, “but, Em, it’s crazy out there. I couldn’t even get within ten miles of the precinct. Everyone’s leaving Manhattan and heading out of the city. The roads are jammed, people are going crazy.” He stepped around the counter to the sink, took a glass from the cupboard and filled it from the faucet.