The Snow Swept Trilogy

by Derrick Hibbard

  “Mama!” Mae was screaming, and telling her that she was so sorry, but the pounding in her head wouldn't stop.

  Another explosion, and the building swayed as if in slow motion. Black smoke was filling the crumpled hallway where they knelt, and the building teetered and roared. Lilly knew that they had to get away, that the building was coming down.

  She looked around, saw some people on the ground not moving, others going to whatever exit they could find. But no one was going to the elevator. Lilly scooted to the edge and saw that it was an open shaft that had exploded, jagged pieces of concrete and metal bent inward like the gaping mouth of a monster.

  “We have to go,” Lilly said, taking her daughter by the shoulders and shaking her gently. “Think of something else, get your mind off this, or we'll die and all these people will die.”

  “I'm so sorry, Mama,” she said, and the tears on her face broke Lilly's heart.

  “It's not your fault, baby girl, but we've got to get out of this building. We have to hurry. They will be coming soon, looking for you. They won't let you leave, ever. Especially not after this.”

  Mae took a deep breath, wincing at the heavy pounding in her head. Lilly thought she saw weeks and months of being in captivity cross her daughter’s face, of all the countless nights where she'd been alone, stripped of feeling and sensation. A hardness set in on Mae's face, even through the pain that was evident in her eyes. She finally nodded.

  “Okay,” she said, “let’s go.”

  Chapter Eight

  The room was a shambles, with most of the walls either partially or fully blown away, leaving the skeletal remains of the building’s metal framing. Desks, equipment, and computer monitors were overturned, smashed and broken across the floor, littered amongst the bodies that lay motionless. Thick fluid from the tank where Mae had been kept covered the floor and was becoming stickier as it dried. Several wires hung from the broken ceiling, some of them emitting blue sparks from the ends. Smoke from a fire down the hallway entered the room, moving along the ceiling in writhing tendrils, like the tentacles on some hellish beast.

  Dr. Whaler slid through the goop and debris, out from under a section of drywall that had collapsed on top of him. His clothes and face were covered in the liquid that was kept in the tank, and the smell was like rotting fish. When in the tank, the liquid had no taste and smell, and it was surprising to him that now, after being released from the tank and drying, it had taken on such a potent odor. The front part of his body was soaked in the stuff, but he ignored the urge to vomit or cover his nose. He was breathless and his heart pounded crazily as he climbed over the bodies of his colleagues. He didn't think about the dangers that were now present in the building, didn't hear the entire building creaking under its own weight, didn't feel the heat from the raging fire down the hall, didn't notice the smoke clouding the ceiling and filling the room. He had to get to a phone.

  He brushed one of the live wires, and it dropped further from the ceiling, touching a puddle of the syrupy liquid and sputtering with sparks. Whaler got to his feet and stepped around the puddle. He hurried down the hallway, brushing past those individuals, many of whom he'd worked with for years, who were panic stricken and terrified. If he'd been listening, he would have heard the word terrorist, and the phrase I don't want to die over and over again, but his mind was riveted on one goal only. He needed to make a call, and soon. He had to tell them what he'd seen.

  They had to stop Mae from leaving the building.

  Whaler remembered a phone near the back of the laboratory, in the opposite direction from the elevators. He walked quickly down the hallway, oblivious to the bodies on the ground, some pinned beneath fallen sections of ceiling, some screaming for help. He walked through the billowing smoke, coughing but never noticing.

  The tank had exploded, equipment weighing hundreds of pounds toppled, and bodies had been thrown across the room. The images were so vivid in his mind that he couldn't shake them, and the feeling of the girl’s power in his own body was exhilarating and difficult to comprehend, as if each piece of his body had been somehow touched, lifted, and thrown.

  He saw the phone, lifted the receiver, and began to dial a number he'd been compelled to memorize, before he realized that the innards of the telephone had exploded outward. He left the phone hanging from its cord and began to wander further into the laboratory. Cell phones were not permitted outside of the staging room, where most of the employees kept their personal belongings. In the early stages of their observation of Mae Edwards, they'd found that cellular frequency interfered with her thought process, but now, he doubted it. She was much too powerful.

  He reached the staging room, which was more of a vault than anything, and found a woman huddled in the corner, clutching her phone to ear and whispering frantically.

  “Please tell them that I love them,” the woman said, and she was crying.

  This woman thinks she is going to die, Whaler thought and it struck him as odd. It took him a moment, but he finally recognized the woman as one of the scientists who'd been commissioned to Miami for the same task as he was, albeit from a different angle. Whaler couldn't remember her name, but he knew that she was a neurologist specializing in REM cycles and had monitored the girl's sleep patterns in the sensory deprivation chamber.

  Whaler remembered the woman but couldn't understand why she was so upset, and fearful for her life. She should have been just as excited as he was, because what they'd just witnessed was unprecedented.

  godmen

  But why was she so scared? He looked around him, and for the first time since being knocked to the ground, he noticed the destruction, and for a second he felt a fear that must have been similar to what this sobbing woman was feeling, but his excitement was still too much. He snatched the phone away from the woman, and she cried out, reaching for it as if it were a life jacket and she was drowning.

  “She'll call you back,” Whaler barked into the phone, and then ended the call. He turned his back on the woman and dialed the number. The tone rang in his ear, and then he heard the tiny click when the connection was made. There was no greeting from the other end of the line.

  “Please connect me to Command,” he said. “Clearance 49528xqd.”

  No response, but in a moment, another tone sounded as his call was rerouted and then connected.

  “Whaler?” The voice was tired. Dr. Whaler didn’t recognize the voice, and it could have been any one of a number of people up the leadership chain.

  “Sir,” he said, barely containing himself. Another explosion sounded nearby and the constant creaking and whining in the building's iron supports turned to shrieks as the building began to topple in on itself.

  “Sir, the subject has piqued at a level none of us ever thought possible.” Whaler took a deep breath, steadying himself. “With a level of power that is beyond understanding.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Running.”

  “Harrison?” the voice asked.

  “I’m not sure.” Dr. Whaler said, “injured or maybe dead. Lots of people are dead.”

  Whaler heard a click on the other end of the phone, then the shrieking of twisting metal, breaking glass and crumbling cement, a roar that completely enveloped him. Dr. Whaler smiled a lunatic's smile as the building imploded into itself, crushed under its own weight. As the darkness swallowed the doctor, he thought of the girl.

  Chapter Nine

  Lilly and Mae were in the elevator shaft when the building collapsed, and it probably saved their lives. They'd taken the service ladder that ran along the inside of the shaft, going down hand-over-hand, climbing over the jagged pieces of steel and cement. At first, Lilly had wanted to get to the bridge that led to the parking garage, but she realized that if word had somehow gotten out about what they'd done, they would of course be waiting for them in the garage. Lilly's car was parked there, and of course they would know that. She'd been scanned in when she entered the building, and given a specific p
arking spot. She had to use a pass key with each door she passed through, so if there was anyone left who was monitoring the building, they would know exactly where she was.

  Before, she might have been able to rely on her husband for protection, but not now. She squeezed tears from her eyes, thinking about his crumpled body and how their family had forever been changed in the blink of an eye. He was dead, of that she was sure, and he would provide no protection. Whatever weight he'd carried with the organization before was gone now, and they would want Mae for themselves.

  Lilly had very little understanding of who, exactly, “they” were, but knew that what she'd done in taking her daughter away from them was the cardinal sin. Lilly would pay dearly for it, possibly with her life, and Mae would be taken and forced into another chamber to be alive, but dead.

  No, Lilly said over and over again in her mind. They could not have her daughter, not ever again. She'd been stupid to every allow it in the first place, but it was her husband who'd convinced her that they had needed protection from Mae, and that Mae could ultimately be a valuable resource for those who only wanted to do good in the world.

  How wrong they were.

  Mae noticed the trembling in the building first. She looked up and saw the cloud of smoke and debris falling toward them in the shaft.

  “Mom!” she shouted. Lilly looked up and saw the building coming down on top of them. She looked down and saw that they had at least ten meters to climb before they reached the fallen elevator car, its broken cables coiled on top.

  “Go, faster!” Lilly screamed. Above them the shaft imploded, closing itself off from above and blocking the debris from crushing them. Dust and tiny pieces of cement exploded downward, pelting them as they descended. The weight of the building built against the blockage, and Lilly was sure they didn't have much time before the shaft would fill in completely.

  They climbed down as fast as they could, until they reached the elevator car, which had smashed into the concrete floor and folded into itself like an accordion. Mae climbed around it and squeezed into the tiny crawl space below. Lilly glanced one last time at the collapsing building above before following her.

  “Mae?” Lilly asked as her eyes adjusted to the dark. She found her daughter lying on her back, the palms of her hands pressed hard onto her temples.

  “Mae, are you okay?”

  “I think so,” Mae said, but her voice was strained. “I think ... I think it's going away.”

  Lilly sighed and took her daughter into her arms, rocking her for a few moments as they listened to the building above. The sound was hellish and loud, the noise of a million bricks smashed, of metal bending and breaking under incredible weight.

  “Mom,” the girl said, tears streaming down her face and making little white lines on her skin through the dust and grime.

  “All those people,” Mae cried, her voice barely a whisper.

  “They did this, not you,” Lilly said. “Don't you ever think that this was you.”

  Mae's body racked with sobs, and Lilly held her close. So much time since they'd taken her baby girl from her, so many weeks and months and years when Lilly was not allowed to hold her own daughter.

  Never again, Lilly thought, and vowed that she would die before they took her daughter again. She thought that in the end, it would come to that. They would hunt them down, they would take her life, but they would never again take Mae.

  “We have to go, baby girl.” Lilly helped her trembling daughter to her feet. “They'll be coming soon, looking for you. Looking for me. They will never stop looking for us, baby girl. They will never stop hunting ...”

  Mother and daughter began feeling their way through the crawl space until they came to a large drainage grate in the ground, use for pumping flood waters from the building's basement. They slipped inside and were gone.

  Chapter Ten

  Humberto heard the building collapsing around him, the crushing downward explosion of massive weight and momentum, but he heard it from a far away place. He was sitting with his brother and sisters at the family table in the cottage where he'd spent his youth. The cottage had no windows and no doors, just open spaces through which the ocean breeze blew. The tin roof was the newest addition, a luxury that few enjoyed in their small village. In the distance, he heard the slow, steady crash of the waves and a group of children running and shouting with the full exuberance that only comes with being a kid. Humberto longed to run and play and shout with the other kids, but his mom was setting a steaming dish of picadillo on the table before him, next to a larger dish of white rice. He smiled at his brother and sister, who were practically licking their lips in anticipation. Picadillo was the family favorite, a dish served only on the most special occasions. Today, it was Humberto's birthday.

  His family smiled and gathered around him as they sang him songs and patted him on the back. Humberto served the picadillo to each of them, but he was allowed the first bite. They laughed and talked over their meal, enjoying the delicacy and each other's company. The children listened as their mother remembered quaint stories about the child Humberto, growing to be such a man. Most of the time the stories were funny, and made the kids laugh, like when the goat had chased three-year-old Humberto through the house, trying to munch on his little shirt. Other stories were more somber, as their mother recounted times when he'd been sick and pulled through, or other times when Humberto had lent a helping hand.

  Humberto had barely remembered the day, but now as he lay in the rubble of the building, he realized it was his favorite day of all his life. He was amazed that he hadn't reflected on that day a million times, enjoying the sweetness that came with each detail.

  “Sir, can you hear me?”

  Someone was shouting at him, then lifting his arm away from his chest to get a clear view of his name tag.

  “Mr. Humberto, can you hear me?” the voice said again, and Humberto quietly woke from his memories and stared at the faded azure of the Miami skies. The sun was shining bright, and Humberto lifted his hand to block the bright light from his sensitive eyes.

  “Sir?” It was a policeman, dressed in his dark blue uniform, but wearing a sweat-stained bandanna tied around his forehead. Dark patches of sweat circled his underarms and neck and chest, and the officer's face was red with sun and hard work. He looked as though he'd been working in the sun for many hours. Humberto wondered how long he'd been asleep, thinking about his childhood. It must have been a very long while, because he'd been on his break with Chad before responding to a work order from the eighth floor. They always took their break in the evening, he and Chad.

  Chad.

  He sat up and felt a pain in his chest and abdomen that was more excruciating than he'd ever experienced in his life. The explosion of white fire in his body almost caused him to pass out again, but he pulled through, fighting the dizzying blackness that ebbed his vision for a moment.

  “Chad?” he asked the officer, “Chad Richards? He was a courier in the building, like me. Is he okay?”

  The officer shook his head gravely, and his shoulders slumped.

  “We have no way of knowing that right now, sir. I'm part of the first response team to look for survivors, and I'm glad to have found you alive. Too many people have died in this accident. Too many victims already, and we're glad to have you still with us, Mr. Humberto.”

  “Just Humberto, please.”

  “Humberto, it looks like you've been hurt badly, and frankly, I'm surprised to see that you pulled through.”

  Humberto smiled and moved his hands down his torso to the source of the brilliant pain he'd felt when trying to sit up. He felt a piece of metal poking through his skin. He followed the piece of debris with his fingers, sticking out a full six inches from his body.

  “Will I live?” Humberto wondered.

  “We'll do our best to make sure that happens, sir.” The officer smiled kindly, and Humberto relaxed. Help would be on the way soon, and shortly after he was attended to, he would
check on Chad. Maybe the boy had made it out before the accident, before...

  His thoughts halted, and he thought about the word he'd just borrowed from the police officer. He looked up at the man who had found him, his rescuer. The officer was pulling a radio from his belt and turning the knob. As he lifted it to his lips and began to speak, Humberto interrupted.

  “Officer,” Humberto said, his mouth very dry. He needed water, something to cool his parched throat and tongue. “Officer, it wasn't an accident. I saw the girl, and she ...”

  Humberto paused, trying to figure out the words he needed to describe exactly what he'd seen. Like pulses from her body. Not a visible pulse, but the destruction flowed away from her like ripples across the surface of a pond when a stone has just been tossed into the water.

  “Excuse me?” The officer had frozen in the act of speaking into the radio, and now he leaned closer to Humberto, so close that the older man could see days worth of stubble on the man's cheek and chin, wetted with sweat.

  “No attack.” Humberto furrowed his brow, struggling for the right words in English. “I saw a girl, and she... she pushed out from her, like waves or ripples.”

  “Humberto,” the officer said directly, “give me your clearance code.”

  The older man stared up at the officer, not comprehending. When he didn't immediately respond, the policeman put his radio back into the holster on his belt, and smiled again. He knelt down and rubbed a droplet of sweat away from the tip of his nose.

  “This girl, did you see where she went?”

  “I saw her leaving a room, and she was wet. Covered in something, not water, I could see that.”

  “No, not then,” the officer said, “after you saw her push, as you say, did you see where she went?”

  “I think I must have passed out, but I'm sure it could not have been an attack. I do not understand these things, but she was in pain.”