by B. C. Tweedt
The driver had panicked, trying to turn around, but Jarryd had insisted on heading toward the blast to find his friends. She refused but left him back on the roadside, despite her pleas for him to go with her to safety.
Several minutes later he found himself at the edge of the bridge where he stood now, gaping at the mushroom cloud in a trickle of rain.
Eventually the rain stopped completely and a gap opened in the clouds, letting the last gasps of orange-red sunlight glow on the wet grass. Growing tired of standing, and still uncertain of what to do next, Jarryd took a deep sigh and sat down.
“Jarryd?”
A ragged, bruised boy in a red hat emerged from the trees to the left, laboriously hiking up the hill with a shivering girl in tow. It took a few moments for his preoccupied mind to place these frazzled figures as his friends.
“Greyson! Sydney!”
Jarryd jumped up with a grimace and they embraced with tears of joy and moans of pain expressed all around. Finding a grassy spot, they sat and shared haphazard versions of their stories, and Greyson eventually found the courage to share the bad news about Liam.
For several minutes they sat together, mourning, being spectators of the action instead of active participants. Traffic was improving as more police arrived and emergency vehicles were getting through, but the scene was still surreal; helicopters were coming in greater numbers, some news, others police, and even more military. They circled the giant lingering cloud or hovered above the many fires that had broken out in the surrounding neighborhoods. It was a war-zone.
Even a few refugees straggled across the bridge like zombies – burned, limping, dirty, carrying children or belongings. These were the lucky ones who had survived the shockwave, far enough away to be spared the incinerating heat and full power of the blast.
It seemed like everyone’s reactions were different toward the refugees. Some gaped and did nothing, others were too occupied with their angry theories and unanswered questions, accosting the police or anyone they could find for any piece of information. Most, though, were absorbed in their own survival to even notice. Trying their cell phones over and over, honking their horns, smashing their way out of traffic or stealing others’ cars further down the line to escape – to spare their own lives or their loved ones’ lives without regard to others. It was as if the bomb had thrust a giant stick through the spokes of a beautifully efficient dirt bike – a masterfully designed machine. Suddenly the system had jerked to a stop and turned upside down, sending everyone flailing for the lives – grasping at air as if it would somehow help.
None in their own group wanted to answer the unspoken question – what do we do now? Perhaps they were waiting on Greyson, who had disappeared into a troubling daydream, but they were actually thankful for the moment to rest. They were too bruised, too tired, and too cried-out to want to move.
Finally succumbing to his desire to do something – anything, Jarryd sat up with a start and grabbed his aching calves. “Ugh…” Jarryd groaned. “My calves are cramping. I wish I had someone who liked my sexy calves to massage them. Perhaps someone who owes another someone for pushing him out of a moving vehicle.”
“Don’t even,” Sydney warned. “Ask Nick when we see him again.”
Jarryd laughed nervously, descending into thoughts about his brother for only a moment before averting his attention elsewhere. He pulled at the back of his shorts, trying to fix a wedgie, but he moaned. “Man, I’ve been chafing all frickin’ day and…oh.”
“Dude, Jarryd,” Greyson complained as Jarryd reached down his pants from behind as if he was searching for something. “What are you doing?”
Sydney was hiding her eyes.
“Got it!” Jarryd’s hand emerged from the depths of his underwear holding a small, black object.
“Is that?”
“A thumb drive. Yes ‘tis.”
Sydney opened her eyes. “That’s been under there all day?”
“Under where? Haha. Get it? Yeah! It’s still intact,” he began to examine it. “Whoa! But it stinks!”
Greyson laughed. “Dude, put it away. It might come into use later.”
Forgotten memories of Pluribus resurfaced unwelcomed.
“How about in your pack?”
“Don’t even think about it.”
He laughed. “Fine. Back you go, between the cheeks.” He put it back. “Well, it was a relief while it lasted. But seriously, guys, my calves need water. And food. I passed a gas station just a half-mile away.”
Greyson hadn’t even noticed his dry mouth and stinging lips – or the gnawing hunger creeping at his ribs. Suddenly he was famished.
He groaned, pushing himself up to his feet. Helping Sydney up, they made their way into the line of refugees and escaped cars, blending in well with their own bruises, scrapes, and fatigued walk. They all wanted to collapse, to sleep above all – to take on the world in the morning, to find their parents and Nick and Sammy. To make things new. But they were nowhere near their comfortable beds or kitchens. And there were no parents, baby-sitters, or adult counselors to make sure they got enough food and rest. Life and comfort would not be handed to them as usual. The realization hit home like a brick. They had to fend for themselves in this new world.
Forcing themselves along, they passed an ambulance that had already gathered several people on blankets on the wet grass and one on a stretcher. Two EMTs were scurrying about bringing them water, bandaging wounds, and speaking words of comfort.
One of their patients was turned away from them, and an EMT was busily attending to his bloodied back.
“Sam? Is that you?”
Sam turned and immediately leapt to his feet. He ran to Sydney first in a wet hug, but gave one to Greyson and Jarryd as well. “You’re alive! Thank goodness! How did you do it? How did you stop it?”
Greyson looked at the other two in confusion. “We…we didn’t. We fell off into the river. It kept going.”
Sam thought to himself, just as confused. “But…but I didn’t…I couldn’t call my dad. He wouldn’t answer. I was calling on someone else’s phone and I figured he wouldn’t answer a call he didn’t recognize in a crisis anyway…so how’d he know he could take it out?”
Jarryd cocked his head. “They stopped it? But it went off. The explosion is right over…”
“But it was well outside the city. They shot it down. I saw the jets shoot…” A sudden change washed over Sam’s face. He paused, thinking it through, and his face paled. “He shot it down…when he thought I was still in there…”
A shock reverberated through the group. The familiar feeling of despair gurgled in their stomachs. Greyson felt horrible for Sam. He had been betrayed and left for dead by two people today. One a friend. One a father.
“Maybe he found out somehow,” Sydney suggested.
“Or maybe he was trying to rescue you before the truck got into the city,” Jarryd added.
Sam’s downcast face didn’t change. “Missiles aren’t meant to rescue. And who would have told him?” He turned from his friends, muttering to himself. “The government did what needed to be done for the best of the country.”
Greyson recognized the quote. It was something the governor had said earlier – about the quarantine, about killing its own civilians to protect others. It had come out of the governor’s mouth. Perhaps he had ordered it.
He meant to kill his own son to save the city.
Suddenly, Jarryd gasped, eyeing Sam’s back. “Dude. It says something.”
Sam turned toward them, but Jarryd turned him back around so that they could look at the cuts on his back. He tried to read them aloud.
“Ex molo bonum. Ah, come one! Frickin’ Latin again? Any Latino people around to interpret?”
Sydney and Greyson shook their heads. They didn’t have Nick to interpret.
“Well, my guess is that they were making fun of your mole,” Jarryd said. “That’s low.”
Sam turned to give him a hint of a glare, bu
t the sadness was too great for him to muster much of one.
“No, it’s not molo. It’s malo. That’s an ‘a’,” Sydney corrected.
The EMT who had been working on Sam returned with antiseptic and a roll of white gauze. There was great urgency, yet kindness to his voice. “I’m going to wrap him up now guys. And if you wouldn’t mind, we could use some help getting these guys taken care of before the fallout blows our way. Then I could take a look at your eye and your lip.” He pointed at Greyson.
Greyson touched at his tender, swollen eye and then his lip. He’d barely noticed, but now the pain started radiating through his whole body. “Sure, we’ll help.”
Sydney and Jarryd glanced in his direction. They were about to collapse themselves, and he wanted to help?
“Thanks. Grab some water yourselves. I’ll tell you what to do in a moment.”
He started dabbing at Sam’s wounds.
“Yo. Are you Latino? Can you read what that says?” Jarryd asked out of the blue with wishful thinking.
The EMT turned to them with grave concern in his eyes. “You know who did this to him?”
They looked at each other. “Yeah. He was messed up,” Jarryd said, being their voice.
“You’re right. He was. And if there weren’t bigger things going on, I would hunt this sicko down and put him in jail for life for child abuse. Or kill him.”
The kids smiled at the thought.
“What’s it say?”
The man looked at it again. “Well, I’m definitely rusty from med school, but I believe it’s Latin for ‘out of evil comes good.’”
The kids let the words bounce around, attaching them to all they knew about Emory. This was the message he was sending the governor. He had wanted him to see the message scrawled in the flesh of his son if he took the ransom. But why that message?
With a surge of energy and a reluctance to think after so much thinking in one day, Greyson gave up on the interpretation, grabbed a bottled water and passed it to his friends. They each took a few swigs and then passed it back. He relished the last few gulps and then threw the bottle away.
They set to work, finding the refugees places to lie, bandaging, petitioning stranded motorists to use their open carseats for beds, consoling those in pain, and doing whatever else the EMTs asked of them. In the background, the mushroom cloud still hovered, though it was dissipating, giving way to more storms clouds that threatened another downpour.
It wasn’t too long before their work was interrupted.
“Everyone get inside! Now!”
The kids turned to the policeman who was threading his way through the traffic, jogging and yelling the warning to get inside. Why? What now?
“They’re saying to find shelter! The rain! It could carry radiation. You – just get in here. Hurry. You! In that car! I don’t care if it’s not yours. Just close the vents. Now!”
The policeman disappeared behind a car and his partner joined him, bellowing the warning at the growing line of traffic.
Greyson turned to his friends, paired with glances toward the storm clouds.
“Radiation in the rain?” Jarryd mused. “That can’t be good.”
The EMTs had already jolted into action, ushering whomever they could fit inside of their ambulance and shouting the same warning with something about radiation poisoning added. After loading the most-injured first, their EMT friend collected them next, perhaps because they were children, and escorted them into the already-packed vehicle.
“And we’re back inside a vehicle…”
“Yeah,” Sydney sighed. “But we actually want to stay in this one.”
Jarryd nodded. “Right. Raindiation sounds horrible. Hear that? I made it up. Raindiation?”
“Yeah yeah.”
As his friends continued their conversation, Greyson eyed the other passengers. A middle-aged Asian woman with a young girl crying and choking on her own sobs, an older African man with greying hair and an arm in a sling, an elderly white man with glazed eyes. Greyson wondered what he looked like – if it was any worse than his company.
Taking in a deep breath, he noticed the gauze wrapped around Sam’s back and chest. Emory’s message again popped into his mind. Out of evil comes good. But what good could come from this? Four kids were mourning the death of a friend, fearing the loss of their families, hiding from raindiation in the back of an ambulance with complete strangers and annoying crying girl.
What good had they accomplished? Sure, they had saved Sam, but they’d lost so much. And what good was Sam?
“Jarryd,” he said suddenly, interrupting their conversation. “Give the flash drive to Sam. He knows computers.”
Jarryd did as he was told and Sam took it gingerly, making a face.
“He’ll know what to do with it the best,” Greyson continued. “And he could give it to his dad. Maybe some good can come from this.”
The EMT ran up to them from the outside, face to the sky, squinting as he hoped not to catch a radiated raindrop to the eye. “Alright. Closing you up. Hold tight and I’ll get you guys to your families.” He grabbed the doors and shut them with a bang.
Maybe it was the bang or what the man had said, but something struck Greyson like a smack to the face. He lit up and leaned in to the man with greying hair.
“Hey, sir. Do you know where Nassau is?”
The man furrowed his brow and let the question linger for a moment as his confusion cleared. “Sure I do. Beautiful place,” he said in a rich, gravely voice. “Took my bride there when we were young and bright-eyed. Palm trees, beaches. Beautiful…beautiful.”
“And where is it?”
“Oh, yes. The Bahamas. The Caribbean. Beautiful islands there.”
A smile of relief and a glimmer of hope shone on Greyson’s face as he leaned back.
“And why do you ask, young man? This place not beautiful enough for you?” he asked with a coy smile.
“Oh, it’s where I’m headed once I find my mom.”
“Ah. I’d agree it’s good time to get out of the country if you ask me. Maybe you could take us all with you.”
Greyson chuckled and Sydney gave him a look, eavesdropping. After a moment, she nudged him.
“You’re going on vacation?” she asked, skeptical.
“No,” he said with a hint of daring in his eyes. “I’m going to find my dad.”
End of Book 2
Continue the adventure with Book 3 of the Greyson Gray Saga.
Greyson Gray:
Deadfall
Coming Soon
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
B.C. Tweedt lives in North Liberty, Iowa with his beautiful wife, Julie. Because he can be a big kid at times, even at the age of 29, he enjoys hanging with other kids. He volunteers at a youth group and mentors boys in his free time. There is nothing he loves more than seeing kids grow in wisdom and character. The characters in the Greyson Gray series are a conglomeration of many of the real personalities and humors he knows and interacts with on a daily basis. Because of this, kids feel the characters are authentic and relatable.
Though Greyson Gray: Fair Game is only the second book published from B.C. Tweedt, he has plans for a fairly long series, following Greyson as he grows up in an increasingly divided and threatening world. B.C. has thoroughly enjoyed brainstorming ideas for this series while running, listening to epic movie soundtracks, and researching in exotic places like the Bahamas.