by JJ Pike
“Dial again. They’ll be inundated given the situation we’re facing.”
The crush on the docks had barely lifted. People seemed to have taken matters into their own hands. Some were walking, others were crammed onto the sidewalk by the taxi stand, bristling with what Christine could only assume was nervous anticipation. It would have been far more sensible if they’d talked to one another and begun to organize ride shares. If one person was willing to use their brain, instead of their bile duct, they might be able to get a great many more people home. Or, if they didn’t live in New Jersey, to a place of some safety.
The busy signal continued for ten, fifteen, twenty minutes.
In the parking lot on the other side of the road, there was a small band of men who seemed to be “casing” the cars. She could tell by the way they jogged from car to car, stopping for only a second, then doing something to the windshield and moving on. It was confusing. What might they be in search of? She examined them for several minutes. They weren’t looking inside the cars, so they weren’t looters, but they were definitely looking for a particular thing. One of the crew—for they were obviously working with one another—made his way to the front of the parking lot, where she had a decent view. He checked the car, then drew a large, white X on the windshield. “That’s their symbol that the car has been reviewed,” she said.
“What?” said Frank.
Christine knew better than to download her impression of what was going on across the road to this unpleasant human being. He was irascible for no discernable reason. They were all in the same boat. She was pleased with herself. It was a metaphor she understood and had the added advantage of being linked to their latest escapade in an actual boat. Getting angry about it was a waste of energy.
Naomi kept dialing the car company and Christine returned to the interesting case of “hard to decipher” human behavior across the street. Ten, perhaps eleven minutes later, there was a “whoop.” That signified excitement. The men converged on a car. She couldn’t see precisely what they were doing, but they’d huddled on the driver’s side. They made no secret of the fact that they were breaking into the car. Soon thereafter they were gunning the engine. The sound the car made was “no muffler” loud. She knew because her husband had been a fan of muscle cars, and the “no muffler” crowd were a particularly vocal sub-culture in the muscle car world. If the thieves were car buffs, looking for a Stingray or a Mustang, they would have noted it on sight. There had to be another variable. As the car, meant for two, but packed with seven grown men, pulled out of the parking lot she understood their goal. They needed a vehicle they could hotwire. They’d been looking for an “old” car. Idiots. They could have jammed a screwdriver or a pair of scissors into the ignition in a modern vehicle and started it just as easily. If they’d done their research, they could have saved themselves a lot of time, to say nothing of the fact that they would have had their pick of all the cars in the parking lot.
“Avanti Car Service.” It was Julia, one of her favorite dispatchers, who’d finally answered the phone. How fortuitous. Julia would go above and beyond to find Vasilli for her.
“Julia, it’s Professor Christine Baxter.”
“Hey, Professor, glad you’re still with us. You had us worried there.”
Christine hiked Angelina up a few inches. She was in no danger of dropping the child, but she didn’t want her to sag too much. Her sheets might come unfurled, which would be hazardous to them both. “Worried how?”
“When K&P went down, we were worried about you.”
“I was clear of the blast,” said Christine. “As were most of my colleagues.” She didn’t want to think about her boss, Jake. Alice said he’d come to a “sticky end” and she didn’t like the sound of that. “Julia, I’m in New Jersey and in need of a car. Might you send Vasilli?”
“Sorry, hon, Vasilli is MIA.”
MIA, that meant “Missing in Action.” Perhaps appropriate given what was happening across the water with the explosions and fire and holes opening in the streets. “Then I’ll take whoever can get here soonest.”
“There’s a seven-hour backup, hon. We have a few drivers, but they’re with our premium clients.”
“I thought I was a premium client.” Christine didn’t bristle. It was a question that sprang from genuine confusion. She’d always tipped generously, given her regular drivers a bottle of scotch each at Christmas. She thought she’d be able to reserve a car without too much delay, in spite of the melee in Manhattan.
“Hon, you’re our favorite client of all time, you know that, but you’ve been MIA yourself for a couple of days. Vasilli waited outside your place for a full twenty-four hours before he headed out on another call.”
“Seven hours? That’s how long I’d have to wait?”
“That’s just an estimate. Drivers aren’t going back into Manhattan once they drop their fares, so when someone gets done in Westchester I might be able to route them down to you in Jersey. You’re in Jersey City, did you say?”
“No, I’m by the docks.”
“And I should use this number?”
Christine felt her stomach tighten. Her plan was falling apart. “I have money. I can pay more.”
“I know, hon, but it’s not about the money. Seventy percent of our drivers were no-shows for the last three days. We’re running a skeleton crew. I’m only here because our call center is in Weehawken.”
Naomi took the phone away from Christine’s mouth. “We’re in Weehawken, by the ferry terminal. If you don’t get someone here, now, I’m going to shoot your so-called Professor in the foot.”
“Who’s this?” Julia’s microphone hissed and buzzed. She’d gotten too close.
“This is the person with a gun trained on the Professor. Get us a vehicle. Do it now.”
Christine prayed Julia would take the threat seriously. She certainly believed it to be no idle threat.
“I’ll send someone immediately,” said Julia and ended the call.
Christine had no way of knowing if Julia was telling the truth.
The variables in play were all volatile, because of the human element. There was no way to plot a vector chart that might help her navigate the possible relative outcomes. Frank and Naomi were excitable in ways that meant she couldn’t track their potential movements in the next minute, let alone the next few hours. Julia she’d never met, but she worked the phones at a car service so she wasn’t going to be a strategic mastermind. Christine needed to be the calming agent that neutralized all around her. Though she had, in one sense, a potentially lethal weapon in her arms. No one, as far as she knew, had died of their injuries after touching Angelina, but it had been over twenty-four hours since she’d had an update.
They waited in silence. The crowd streamed around them, hissing and rumbling and threatening to break into violence when they were forced to step around Christine and her charge, approximately three times out of ten. It was a tense fifteen minutes before their ride appeared.
She was shocked to see Fran arrive in a van. Alice always raved about her assistant, but Christine had never imagined it would be Fran to the rescue. How had Julia contacted her? Did she have a direct line to K&P’s New Jersey offices? Had she alerted the authorities? Would the police arrive soon? Absent the law being there to take her blackmailers into custody, Christine was extremely relieved to see a familiar and supremely competent face.
Fran locked eyes with her. Christine had no way of knowing what the prolonged eye contact meant, but she knew better than to ask. She tried to nod without nodding and smile without smiling. Alice had called Fran her “right hand man” and “a life saver.” She’d also lamented the fact that Fran was too smart to stay an executive assistant for long, but was grateful that she got to have a willing pair of hands at her command while Fran worked out what she was going to do with her degree in Philosophy. God bless the humanities’ majors; they stacked Manhattan with over-qualified and under-employable staff. Fran would understa
nd that she was unable to speak about the matter at hand. And if she didn’t, she’d likely stick to safe topics—the weather, the disaster, their river crossing—in the way Normals did when they first made a new acquaintance.
Getting in, while keeping the rabble out, was tiresome and stressful. Frank used his gun, but he didn’t shoot it at anyone. Shots in the air were dissuasive enough.
Christine didn’t know Fran well enough, nor could she read her bland features to understand whether or not the young woman had worked out that she was, in essence, a kidnap victim. Fran remained unruffled when Frank and Naomi bundled themselves into the vehicle and was careful not to touch Angelina or, Christine noted, herself as they piled into the middle seat. Fran closed the car doors without comment and drove through the teeming, screaming crowd with barely a discernable change in her breathing pattern. Either she was neuro-atypical, like her, or she was a consummate actor.
Klean & Pure’s labs were eight miles from the docks, not far unless you have a toxic wasteland in your lap and can’t stop thinking about whether you’ve been infected with a compound that no one knows how to control or treat or beat back. Angelina’s tilapia dressings were peeling. Where there had been pale pink scars there were angry red bumps. Christine had made a point of tracking one large scar. It had changed. She was sure of it. The scientist in her wished she’d been documenting Angelina’s progress, but the survivor in her knew she couldn’t draw more attention to the two of them. Her greatest wish was that the fluid leaking onto her skirt was urine, not Angelina’s blood. Or the new version of MELT that had been unleashed upon Manhattan.
She lifted the corner of the sheet that covered Angelina’s face. The girl was awake. She hadn’t made a sound for at least an hour. She wasn’t complaining or crying or asking for her parents. She was just staring. But she was alive. Christine could feel her breathing. She tried to smile in order to reassure the girl but her face probably spoke of the deep anxiety she felt about what was going to happen next.
The streets were packed. It was unlike anything she had ever seen before. People were milling around aimlessly walking in and out of storefronts. Only half the stores were open. There were a lot of bandages, which meant a lot of contusions. When considered logically they’d come out of a war zone, so the bandages made sense.
Fran was an excellent driver. She didn’t use her horn as so many other cars in the streets did but instead wound her way carefully through the people, many of whom banged on the hood of the van. Christine could hear Naomi and Frank behind her whispering and giggling. They had not comported themselves well. They were opportunists. Not the kind of people she wanted to associate herself with. If her plan worked, she would be glad on two counts: 1) She would be free of them and 2) they would be stripped of their freedom.
K&P was behind steel-slatted gates. There was a security post with a guard and a barrier that would only be opened for people who had the prerequisite credentials. Her wallet was in her pocket, but she couldn’t reach for it with Angelina in her lap. That wouldn’t matter. Fran was driving and the guards all knew her and Fran.
They pulled up at the gates. Roger was there, his uniform was crumpled, his hair greasy. He hadn’t shaved in a couple of days.
“We want cash.” Naomi leaned over the back of the seat and whispered in her ear. “Not a check and not a credit card this time.”
“Afternoon Professor,” said Roger, “glad to see you’re still in the land of the living. Come to save us, have you?”
“Escort my friends to the guest quarters,” said Christine. “Be sure they are shown every courtesy.”
“It would be my pleasure, Ma’am.”
She caught Fran smiling in the rearview mirror. She turned her head to the left, so the soon-to-be jailed criminals wouldn’t sniff out her ruse. There were no guest quarters at K&P. For the first time in her life, Christine Baxter had concocted a coded message and asked that her abductors and blackmailers be arrested. For a woman who allegedly had “no imagination” it was a triumph of the highest order. She smiled until her dimples showed, which was a once-in-a-decade kind of smile.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Barb wanted to think about anything other than the pink froth on the red river that was trickling down the street. There had to be a perfectly rational explanation. She kept her eyes on the sky, not the terror that crept towards her from the sewers. Her plan was simple: she was going to feed the baby then drive on.
She checked Charlotte’s diaper. All clear. The poor darling must have had nothing to eat for so long she wasn’t digesting anything yet. It’d come soon enough.
KC nudged the baby with her enormous muzzle. She was protective, like any good mama. “Did you have pups, KC?” She was a show dog, so she wouldn’t have been spayed. Her owner might have allowed her to have a litter. If she was a champion there was every chance she’d be bred with a champion. Barb was clutching at straws. She had to keep busy rather than letting her brain take over and spin out of control. She had a child to take care of now. She had to be double, triple, quadrupally careful about her own mental health.
She’d never paid much notice to the people who complained about her moments of absence or the fact that she had a tendency to ramble. She liked how it felt when she was a little high on her own chemistry. The meds they gave her to keep her “even” made her flat and boring. It didn’t matter that she didn’t “have a career” or couldn’t “hold down a job” or “retain a relationship for more than a few months.” She was fine being the flaky, spacy, mercurial beast that God had intended her to be. She had no idea why He’d made her this way, but He had and she’d come to terms with it.
But this was different. Charlotte made everything different. She had to keep it together, make sure the child was safe, procure food and clothes and, later, college. Her baby would have all the good things.
Which took her back to her question: should she let Alice and Bill make their own way off Manhattan? If it were the other way around, would they come back for her? Had anyone ever come back for her? If only she had stayed at The Avalond, she could have been half way to Vermont or New Hampshire or the deepest reaches of rural New Jersey by now. When they landed, Charles would have his staff take care of them. There would be hot water, fresh towels, hot food, a place to sleep. She was a fool to turn that down.
She should at least have been kinder to Charlotte than she was to herself. The sweet breath of a sleeping child had lulled her into a fantasy world where she was the tiger momma whom nothing and no one could stop. She’d been reckless, thinking she could make it 20 blocks south when the worst attack on Manhattan was still unfolding.
She’d heard no news since she stumbled up the stairs with Pete thrown over one shoulder. Neither had she interrogated Neal when she had the chance. She’d been coasting on a cottony cloud of dreams and wishes, blocking out the ridiculousness of her goals with the stubborn determination of a Missouri mule. She should have handed Charlotte over to Deirdre and told her she’d come and get her later. Now she was stranded in a van with two dogs, a small child, and the plague waters rising.
He would never abandon her. She need only quiet her fears and He would tell her which way to go, what to do, how to save Charlotte from any more heartache.
She closed her eyes and opened up that place where she heard His word most clearly. It was impossible to describe, though she’d tried countless times. There was space and no space, language and no language, freedom from all her fears and woes. In this place, she saw the glory of His hand in the straggly trees that lined the streets, the glass that glittered on the sidewalk, the smudged sky that spoke not only of raging fires, but of the blessed night to come. Here was peace and wholeness and harmony. Here was His plan for her. Would that she remembered to go there more often.
“We are what we do, not what we say.”
The message was so clear and simple she wept, the tears streaming down her face and onto the baby’s blanket. She repeated His message, her voice
soft and her heart full. “We are what we do, Charlotte. We must always do our best.” Being a mother wasn’t only about providing for her little one, but leading by example.
She kissed Charlotte and strapped her back into the baby seat. She would press on. If the water was red, what of it? If this was His wrath, they must have done something to deserve it. She would be judged by her acts. She did not want to be found wanting. “Matthew, 25:40, ‘Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto me.’”
She couldn’t think about the person she’d mowed down, back by Bryant Park. She’d answer for that, just as she’d answer for all her sins. She made no excuses and asked not that she be relieved of her bad feeling. She deserved to feel bad. She’d panicked and let her baser instincts dictate her actions.
The water was rising. Whatever red had bubbled up ten minutes ago was being diluted so it had more of a Pink jello hue. That was good. Think of it as Pink Lady Salad with jello, cream cheese, whipped cream, walnuts, strawberries, canned pineapple, canned mandarin oranges, and marshmallows. Everyone around the table for Thanksgiving, holding hands, Grandpa saying the blessing, Dad making corny jokes, everyone watching the game afterwards, even though they didn’t care about football. Saying goodbye for an hour or more because there was always one more thing to say. Dad didn’t even get up from his chair when Mom said it was time to go. She and her Nan would be yakking away, “cousin this” and “great aunt that” and “did you know whatever.” She hadn’t known how lucky she was until she got to the city and found all these people who didn’t like their folks and only had tales of loneliness and bullying to draw on. At least she’d had a few years when the world was right. Charlotte would have that: a world in which good people did their best and the wicked got their due.