Fallout

by S D Wasley

  “I drove,” he said, not directing his explanation at anyone in particular, “so I’d better take him home. I’ll ... I’ll see you tomorrow.” He hurried away, too.

  There were tears in Liz’s eyes as she brought her gaze to Cain’s face. Jude shook his head in silence.

  “How could they?” Helen voiced what I was thinking. “How could they choose him?”

  “They haven’t chosen anyone,” Jude told her quickly. “Owen’s just driving him home. Don’t jump to conclusions.”

  She clamped her mouth shut but still looked outraged. I didn’t know what to think, bitterly angry at Nadine and Owen but also annoyed with Léon for making his crazy suggestions. He shouldn’t have pushed like that after what had happened today. Didn’t he understand Cain would already be on edge? Admittedly, part of my dismay was nothing to do with the Cain-Léon thing. It was that Léon was my protector, dammit, and the answer to my longing to be part of all this. If he was gone then where did that leave me? I fidgeted, wondering if I could make contact with Léon without hurting Cain even more.

  The incident killed our night. Liz asked Helen softly if she had seen anything else and Helen said she hadn’t. I caught Jude watching the door as though he hoped Owen or Nadine might come back. Cain simply looked defeated. Within an hour Helen said she was tired and wanted to get home, stammering as she explained that her mum had seemed a little unwell earlier and her gran might be trying to get hold of her. Cain told her she’d better go and with obvious relief she departed. He gave Jude and Liz a nod and they also got up to leave. Liz crossed to the sofa to touch his shoulder before she left.

  “We’ll be here tomorrow night,” she said in a steady voice.

  “I know,” Cain replied. “Thanks Liz.”

  But when they’d gone he turned to me. “Francesca, what have I done?”

  I ached for him. “I’m not sure you had a choice.”

  ****

  I dreamed again. In my dream I gazed at a wall, puzzled. What had I heard or seen here before? The rock was flat and grainy, ochre in hue. I stared at it, trying to understand what I was supposed to do.

  “Wall. Talk.” The words came from behind me in a young boy’s voice. “Dad, help me.”

  I turned around to look for Patrick but it wasn’t him. A younger boy stood where I thought I would see the familiar blond head. He had big blue eyes and close-cut hair, his face marred by a pained grimace. He wrapped his arms around himself as if he were cold or hurt.

  “Help,” he said again. “Where are you?”

  I tried to tell the boy I was there for him but couldn’t make any noise. A hand seized mine, and when I turned back arms had come through the wall. Of course that was what I’d been waiting for ... but knowing didn’t reduce my terror. I gasped, trying to wrench myself away but the hands held me tight, gripping with their dirty, bony flesh, trying to pull me through. I made an effort and managed a weak scream, fighting for my freedom. The little boy touched my back and I twisted round to him in terror. He brought his hands up to my face, holding it still.

  “Help me,” he said, his large eyes luminous.

  “Jesus, Frankie, wake up!”

  I blinked awake, heart pounding. Albion pushed back my curtain to get a better look at me and parked on the edge of my bed.

  “That was a doozy. I thought you were getting attacked in here.”

  I rubbed my face and pushed back my hair, too rattled to answer.

  “What was it about?” he asked

  I shook my head. “Just monsters,” I muttered. “You know, usual stupid nightmare stuff.”

  Albion narrowed his eyes. “Was it the recurring dream?”

  “Sort of.” I dragged myself upright and took a shaky sip from the water bottle on my bedside table.

  “Nightmares mean a troubled mind,” he said in his most annoyingly knowledgeable tone.

  I gave a half-hearted roll of my eyes. “Or that you ate too much cheese before you went to bed, right?”

  “You don’t even really like cheese. You certainly didn’t eat any last night.”

  “Maybe I did,” I countered. This was a stupid conversation but I wanted him to shut up and leave me alone.

  “Uh-huh.” He got to his feet and stretched. “Coffee?”

  “Please.”

  “I’ll make you a grilled cheese sandwich, too,” he called, heading for the kitchen. “Since you suddenly love cheese so much.”

  “I’m trying to cut back,” I called after him and he cackled.

  “You coming next week?” he asked, delivering my coffee after a couple of minutes of banging around with the machine. “To the Marie-Celeste thing?”

  “What thing?” I asked.

  “Grand opening.”

  I shrugged, non-committal. “Maybe.”

  Albion adopted the look that meant he thought Frankie was too wrapped up in her own crazy life. Sitting there with my cup I knew all of a sudden that I had to talk to Léon. I was supposed to go to campus that day but I could skip. I’d been good for this term, perfect attendance except for my sick day, and I could afford to cut classes just this once. I messaged Léon and he immediately responded, making plans to meet me at ten a.m. He suggested Market Lake which was an odd choice but I figured it was somewhere he knew. While texting I noticed an unsent draft message to Cain. It was from yesterday, the one interrupted by Léon’s phone call. Cain said he’d received it but I’d never sent it. I remembered him scrolling on his phone to try to find it afterwards. That was strange. Perhaps my phone had glitched and sent it but somehow recalled it. I didn’t think phones could even do that.

  I caught the bus to Market Lake and waited for Léon. Threatening rain meant the park was empty except for a couple of diehards jogging on the path around the lake. I was early so I made my way over to the kiosk where the attendant sat reading the newspaper. It was the same attendant from the day of the rescue.

  “Coffee, please.”

  “Sugar?”

  “No, thanks.”

  The little boys Léon had saved popped into my head as I stared at the slushie machine, whirring bright blue and red behind the woman. As she finished pouring the milk Léon pulled up in Owen’s van. I asked her to make it two coffees and went to meet him, holding out a takeaway cup.

  “Thank you.” He gave me a smile out of proportion to getting a free coffee, his green eyes sparkling with pleasure. I got flustered again and fidgeted with my jacket. Léon led the way to a nearby bench where he sat and looked over at the kiosk area.

  “It is wonderful what happened here that day,” he murmured. “We are capable of so much good.” He turned to me with unexpected excitement. “Do you not want to find better ways to help?”

  “Yes, within reason. But what do you mean ‘better’ ways? Cain and the others already do it pretty well.”

  “If we can intervene even earlier, like we did with the boys here, then we can reduce uncertainty. Find ways to break the strands of fate. If the incident here had been allowed to proceed, if the boy had thieved the drink and run, it would have been pure luck if we were able to prevent the injury for which he seemed destined.”

  “No, not luck. Cain, Jude, Nadine, and Owen have all done this before. They have practice. Experience. They work together to make sure they stop whatever’s going to happen.”

  Léon hardly waited for me to finish before he spoke. “I have an idea for us. Will you hear it?”

  “Of course.” I tried to keep the doubt from my voice and sipped my coffee.

  “We should all come together intermittently to concentrate our power, either here or near my home in Québec. I believe being together accelerates our visions and capacity.”

  “Wait, what makes you believe that?”

  “Since I’ve been in your midst I have felt a new strength surging through me. Nadine says she feels it, too.” He looked at me closely. “What about you? Do you feel it?”

  I stared. “No. And what about Owen? What does he say?”


  His face fell slightly. “Owen is unsure.” He didn’t seem to enjoy admitting this to me but knowing his ‘kind’ was incapable of lying, I could be sure it was the truth. “He says he hasn’t noticed any increase in power but he will keep his mind open, wait and see.” He regarded me. “How long was Liz one of Cain’s group before she transformed?”

  “I’m not too sure. Over a year, I think. Why?”

  “Do you think it’s an accident she has just now transformed after I have come amongst the group?”

  His arrogance irritated me. “It had to happen sometime.”

  “And then her very first full premonition allowed us to intervene much earlier and secure the safety of those boys well in advance of the inciting moment. Is that not also out of the ordinary?”

  I couldn’t deny that. “Well, yes, but only because you chose to get involved. They still would have been saved.” I disliked the waver in my own voice. I was never completely confident in the success of a rescue until it was over. Even so, I was reasonably sure I spoke the truth.

  “Even during the rescue itself,” he said, “the power inside me increased. I felt it.” His eyes were shining with the joy of the memory. “Nadine felt it, too. That moment when I spoke to the boy and felt all of the hard, solid fate coming loose from around him as I changed his future ...”

  Léon had the look of an athlete hungry for his next victory, or at least his next endorphin fix. Was this just a game to him? No, I couldn’t believe that. He was as passionate as the rest of us about helping people; that much was clear. So why did his words unsettle me?

  “Uh, Léon, I wanted to meet you to talk about how you saw me.”

  He snapped out of it and focused on me. “Yes, we have work to do, you and I.”

  “What work?”

  “I need you to work harder on deciphering the premonitions of my group. Our opportunity to discuss this was taken from us yesterday. Sara sent me an email last night with yet another premonition.”

  “Okay. Make sure you forward it to me.” This was more familiar territory. I considered for a moment. “You wrote down some of the premonitions for me but you didn’t say much about the one you told me about, the one your friend Yousef had. The boy crying.”

  “No, I didn’t, did I?” Léon recalled, his voice tight. Perhaps he was on bad terms with this Yousef guy. “Yousef said he heard but did not see a child, a boy, perhaps around five or six years of age, crying for help. He was crying Father, Father and weeping in fear. All around is the roaring of flames, the screams of people panicking.”

  A sound that is more like the ocean than a fire, it is so immersive, loud and complete. A heat that bakes the skin on my face. I try to keep my eyes open. The fire muffles the noise of distant screaming. My mouth and nose fill with smoke, making it impossible to breathe or speak. A small, choking cry sounds from right in front of me: Father, father! I reach out and find a small figure with damp skin and close cut hair. He snatches at my hand―

  The squawk of a waterbird nearby broke my reverie. “Francesca!” Léon’s face swam back into focus.

  I blinked at him and gulped for air. “I saw it! The boy from my dream!”

  Chapter 10: Adceleratio

  “Whom did you see?”

  “A little boy with short hair and blue eyes. Caught in a fire, calling for his father.”

  Léon’s face filled with emotion. “It is beginning. You must be transforming. Francesca, can you doubt me now? Can you doubt that we are becoming stronger every moment now that I am among you? Didn’t you feel the power?”

  I shook my head. I hadn’t felt the power. I didn’t know what he was talking about. I was shaking and, if anything, drained. I also had an urgent compulsion to talk to Cain, to be near him. When I reached for my phone to send him a message Léon took my arm. I shook him off.

  “I think I’d better go home,” I mumbled.

  “At least let me drive you.”

  “No. I want to be by myself.”

  He didn’t like that. He observed me for a few moments but in the end nodded. “Go home. Spend time by yourself to reflect upon this momentous thing that has happened.”

  I could hardly look at him, increasingly panicky. I gave him a short nod and he retreated to Owen’s van, checking me over his shoulder two or three times on the way. I sat where I was for a few for moments, trying to muster the strength to walk to the bus stop until my phone beeped in my hand, startling me. It was Cain.

  What’s wrong?

  I think I just had a vision.

  What? Where are you?

  Market Lake. About to go home.

  Should I come over?

  I desperately wanted him to come over―screw the no motorbike at home rule―but I was still so drained. I needed to sleep.

  I have to rest. I’ll come to G.H. early.

  The kiosk caught my eye. Something sweet, that’s what I needed―a soda. I dragged myself over there, still trembling. Weird that Cain had answered my message so quickly when I didn’t even remember messaging him. Could I have done it without thinking about it? I checked my last message but it was still the draft text from yesterday. What the hell? Okay, that wasn’t my phone glitching. I hadn’t even contacted Cain and yet he knew something was wrong ... twice in as many days. I stopped before the kiosk and stared at the menu board without comprehending it. Why was all this stuff happening?

  “What can I get you, hon?” the woman asked.

  “Oh, uh, a Coke, please.”

  She gave me my drink and I handed her the money but she hesitated to put it in her till, looking at me with interest for a few moments. “Are you family? Of the little boy, I mean?” The little boy? I snapped my head up, gazing at her face in shock. “Sorry, I don’t mean to pry,” she hastened to add. “It’s just, I recognised that man who just left, the one you were talking to. He’s related to the little guy, right? I noticed he paid for his slushie a few days ago.”

  I couldn’t make sense of what she was saying in amongst the hurricane of thoughts and questions sweeping my mind. “Uh, no. Léon was just doing them a favour because they lost their money.” I cracked open my Coke and took a sip that turned into a guzzle. Oh God, that was good.

  “Oh, I see.” She frowned. “I thought he must be an uncle or something. So he didn’t even know them?”

  “No.”

  I made to leave.

  “I wish he’d been there to pay for them again yesterday,” she said. “Stupid kids.”

  I turned back.

  “Why?”

  “They didn’t have the money for the bag of chips they wanted. They tried to do a grab-and-run, only the poor little one, Douglas his name is, ran straight out onto the road in front of a car and got himself hit. He’s still in hospital. It’s not looking very good for him, either.”

  I left her there, stumbling to the bus stop in a daze to wait for my ride home. Those poor kids. I remembered the fifty-cent coin on the bedside table. A sad little attempt at retribution: the older brother’s guilt for leading him astray. My gut twisted and the sugary drink suddenly didn’t seem like such a great idea. I couldn’t even cry, paralysed by the weight of this news. Those laughing brown eyes.

  This was too much. This barrage of trouble hadn’t stopped coming since Léon’s announcement yesterday. I climbed into my bus, flashing back to something in one of Dad’s books. Of course it was bullshit, his saint business, but still the lines resonated.

  When you become aware of your divinity you will be amazed at how quickly the Holy Spirit advances your powers of doing good. The effect is that of a ‘quickening’―it may seem that everywhere you look are signs and everything you touch has meaning.

  Exhausted and overwhelmed I almost missed my stop. When I got inside the house I simply fell into bed, not even able to muster the energy to contact Cain and tell him about those little boys. I couldn’t get my eyes to focus on the phone screen. I’d explain as soon as I’d rested I told myself, and immediately fell into a heavy slumb
er. When I woke it was dark.

  Cain had sent some worried text messages asking if I was okay and telling me if he didn’t hear back within an hour he was coming to check on me. I replied hastily to say I would see him soon. Léon had messaged me as well to ask if I’d gotten home safely and say he wished to see me again as soon as possible. I wanted to see him, too. I needed to break the bad news about the kids at Market Lake and quell his wild theories about finding better ways to do the rescues. He was so wrong about it all; and Nadine, too. They would be mortified when they knew the truth.

  I drove out to Gaunt House, past the almost-complete Marie-Celeste café at the old tannery. The sight reminded me of Albion’s invitation to the grand opening next week and I wondered if I would ever do normal life again. At Gaunt House, Cain’s bike and Helen’s car were the only vehicles in the clearing. I checked the time: ten p.m. Liz, Owen, Jude, and Nadine must have all left early. Helen’s spending time alone with my lover now? The thought came from nowhere and I tried to quash it, reasoning with myself. This was normal. They all spent time with Cain, alone and together. Helen emerged from the ruin as I climbed out of my car.

  “Hey, Frankie,” she called. “I’m just leaving. I’m glad you’re here. I didn’t want to leave him on his own after what happened.” She shook her head.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Oh, my gosh ... you don’t know!” She gazed at me, blue eyes round. “Nadine and Owen. They didn’t come tonight.”

  “What?” I felt sick. “Why not?”

  She nodded. “Pretty low of them, huh? Jude and Liz have gone to speak with them. I hope this doesn’t mean we’re down to four. Five, I mean,” she corrected herself and my cheeks heated up. “And oh, yeah, Cain told us you had a vision! I’m so excited you’re like us after all!”

  “I don’t know what it was,” I said. “I’m still trying to work it out.” My voice sounded sharper than I’d intended.