by JJ Pike
She’d given the wild dogs everything she had. And when the food scraps ran out, she’d come up with a plan.
There’s a leader, she knew that. Always a pack leader. Whatever the pack leader says, goes. She needed to study them, see who was in charge, target that dog, take him down with her knife. She peered down from her perch and watched. If she just watched for long enough, she’d see a pattern.
She focused on the knife she had clutched in her sweaty hand. She wasn’t up a tree. She was in her own kitchen. In Upstate New York. In her beautiful house. With her beautiful kids. And her handsome husband. There was the knife again, catching the sun, glinting at her, making suggestions. Use me, it said. Use me for that which I was made. Hold me tight and close and never let me go.
“Mom? Are you even listening?”
“Go get your papa for me.” Her hand was too tight on the knife. She was afraid of what she might do. The kitchen was closing in on her, disappearing into pinprick pictures that weren’t connected. The counter, the squash, the raisins.
The knife, the knife, the knife.
And then, the darkness that would swallow her whole if she didn’t fight back. The darkness that held the unlit sky and overarching canopy and circling dogs.
If Bill didn’t come soon, she’d slip down that terrible slope and bear whatever the dark had to offer. There was no escaping it. The darkness won.
Alice woke, her heart doing the Flight of the Bumblebee, running up and down the staves in impossible trills. Slow, slow, slow, she thought. Slow down, dear heart, and let me get my bearings. I need to figure out where I am. Alice swallowed hard, forcing herself into her body even though it was light as gossamer and willing itself to fly away on the breeze.
I’m eight. I ran away from the bad men. Then I ran away from the dogs. Now I’m up a tree. Alice hovered between waking and sleeping, unsure what was reality and what a phantasm of the mind. It felt real enough: the darkness, the dampness, the dread.
She could see nothing, but her eyes weren’t covered. She blinked and squinted, hoping her pupils would adjust to the night, but they weren’t cooperating. She tilted her head up, searching for the closest branch, but was met with a blanket of black so dense and tight woven it was absolute. Her papa had always told her not to go into the forest at night and this was why. You could lose your way and fall down and slice open your knee and be hunted by a pack of mangy dogs and have to climb a tree and stay there until someone came to get you. He was right. Papa was always right.
“I cannot fall out of this tree,” she thought. “The dogs will eat me alive.”
Her knee pulsed and throbbed, even though she’d treated it immediately. She was no idiot. She knew how to take care of herself. Her best friend Yoselin would have demanded they use ant mandibles to stitch her up, but that would ultimately lead to inflammation and infection. She knew these things. She’d been listening. She ignored the ants and found some yarrow, ripping the leaves and flowers into little pieces before crushing it into her bleeding wound. The blood didn’t stop immediately, but it did stop, so she stuffed more of the weed into her pockets for later.
She flexed her elbow, reaching for her pocket, but her arm was stuck. She flexed it again but met with even more resistance. The more she struggled, the worse it got and the more her breathing sped up. She pulled her arm as hard as she could, but it was fixed, static, immobilized. It wouldn’t bend or stretch or reach or move in any direction. Not the right arm and not the left. She was pinned in place, her arms spread wide like a lab rat that had been splayed open and pinned tight on a board, ready for the student of anatomy to take a scalpel to its major organs.
It wasn’t just her immobility that freaked her out. The smells assaulting her senses were all wrong. Where was the scent of bark and leaves and sap; where the stench of dog pelts and pawed-up dirt? What had happened to the trail? The village? The cinnamon and sugar and rum that was at the heart of her mother’s cooking? Why was there nothing familiar? Had she fallen and hit her head?
Her heart started up again with its quavers and semi-quavers, beating out of sync and far too fast. Why was she tied up and, if so, by whom? She squeezed her eyes shut, hoping her brain would offer up an explanation, but nothing came. She’d hurt her knee and her arms didn’t work. She was surrounded by dogs, but she could neither see nor hear them. Her memory said she was up a tree, hiding from a pack of dogs. The new smells and sounds told her she was not up a tree and there were no dogs for miles around.
Oh, goodness. Was she dead? Had Papa been able to see her future? “You’ll come to a sticky end,” he’d say, but with a laugh and a smile. She never thought he meant for her to stop. He meant for her to go on, keep climbing, keep exploring, keep bringing him leaves and rocks and things she’d found out on her adventures.
She didn’t want to cry, but she had no choice. She was dead and her papa had been right all along. She should have paid him more mind, so she wouldn’t be trapped in a hole in the ground, unable to move. She sobbed until the sobs wore themselves down into hiccups and snot. Which was annoying, because she couldn’t use her sleeve to wipe her nose.
This wasn’t her idea of heaven, but neither was it her idea of hell. There was a lot less in the way of angels or devils and a lot more in the way of snot and tears. Her knee was bleeding, sure, but what else? She took a deep breath and began her investigation. There was just her and these strange smells and impossible sensations, but sensation meant she wasn’t dead and if she wasn’t dead, she was alive and that meant working out where she was and why and then—the most important part of any plan she’d ever made—getting out.
Her back throbbed. Had she slipped on the tree and scraped it up? Her hands from the wrist on down were her own, even though her arms and legs were not but, try as she might, she couldn’t get a grip on anything close by. Her fingers kept fluttering and sliding and doing their own thing. She ordered them to stop their flighty rummaging and do a full inspection of the area. The surface closest to her right hand was hard and jagged, that to her left cold, perhaps metallic.
It didn’t add up.
And then it did, the past colliding with the present and shattering her future. She wasn’t up a fir or a white cedar or a willow. She wasn’t in Guatemala. She wasn’t eight years old. She hadn’t gone out on an adventure or fallen or cut her leg or treated her wounds with staunch weed or woundwort or whatever else yarrow was called. There were no trees or trails or sky or stars and, worst of all, there were no dogs.
Not this time.
This time, there were a million tons of steel and concrete and pipes and wiring and decimated building above her and a maze of train tunnels and sewer lines below.
She was in Manhattan, in the subway system, under Klean & Pure Industries’ headquarters, which had caved in and frozen her in place. She opened her mouth and filled up her lungs and hollered as loud as she could, but the inky blackness crammed itself down her throat and into her heart and blanked out every thought she had of escape.
The last thing she heard was the screech of metal on metal as the pile that held her shifted.
Chapter Two
Bill knew better than to breathe in the toxic grime that swirled around him. He had a 3M respirator on him at all times and had strapped that baby to his face as soon as he’d hit the dust cloud. His chest twanged—pure unadulterated guilt right there—when he thought about abandoning Paul. At least he’d left him with a firefighter a block and a half away from the site of the original collapse, which meant his eldest (indeed his only) son had a better than average chance of escaping Manhattan. That was what Alice would want. For their children to be safe.
Midtown West looked like Godzilla had stormed out of the Hudson River with a gigantic flail mace in one hand and a bundle of TNT in the other. It was a steaming wreck, a gaping hole, a living nightmare. He’d done the right thing, not bringing Paul with him. There was no room for doubt or second-guessing now. He had to move forward, find Alice, make it home to
the kids.
The question of the day was simple: “Do I have a concussion? Is it safe for me to move? No use plowing ahead if I’m a mental cabbage.” He ran through the checklist: no vomiting, dizziness, or sensitivity to light.
“Incorrect.” It was Aggie’s voice he heard, right off the bat.
He smiled. Of course she’d be the one to reprimand him. Nothing went by her. She’d make a great scientist one day. “Sure, Aggmeister. There’s no light to speak of. Visibility is at an all-time low. Happy now?”
He knew what she’d say. “I won’t be truly happy until you’re home, Dad.”
“Working on it, Agg.” He scanned the way ahead, anxious to find a route through the mash-up of street and building and substrate.
“Forget trying to map out the structural integrity of the remaining buildings and thoroughfares. This part of Manhattan has been stripped of all such integrity. (By the way, Dad, no one says ‘thoroughfares’ these days. Call a street a street.)”
Bill grunted and leaned down to test the ground below his feet. Was it rickety? Flimsy? Wobbling? Solid? Could he take another step? He crouched low, his head drooping towards his chest.
“Listen up! HEY! LISTEN TO ME, DAD. DON’T DRIFT OFF! You need a CAT-scan to see if there’s brain swelling. That was a gnarly piece of sheetrock that smacked you upside the head.” Aggie again, this time with her grown-up voice, full of insight and admonition. She was old beyond her years. And right. Nothing was “safe” to step on. Then again, there was no use thinking about brain swelling and CAT-scans when there were none to be had.
He straightened himself out and took a step. All good. He was still upright.
“Hey, Daddy!” It was Midge, grinning and sparkling and mischievous as ever. “Guess what?”
“What?” He had to give her the “what” answer or she wouldn’t go on.
“Dogs can’t operate MRI scanners!” He waited. There was going to be a punchline. There was always a punchline when Midge looked at him like that from behind her chocolate milk. She laughed before she delivered the zinger, which set him off laughing, which set her off laughing.
But there was no Midge, no chocolate milk, no punchline. Just him on a massive pile of rubble with a possible concussion. He blinked hard, forcing himself back into the present. He had to concentrate. See if he was fit to move. He needed to complete a diagnostic checklist:
Name? William Daniel Everlee. “Bill” for short.
Occupation? Former engineer turned full-time dad.
Age: 39. No, 38.
Today’s date? No clue.
Who is President? Bill laughed. How was that going to help him assess his mental alertness?
Bottom line: He might have been hit by falling debris but he hadn’t gone down.
He held his hand up in front of his face. He could still see five fingers. No double vision.
“No.” Aggie was as real as if she were standing right there in front of him, hands on her hips, smile at the ready. “Four fingers and a thumb.”
He laughed. She was a good egg, his Agg. She held him to a high standard and he wouldn’t have it any other way. She was his buddy, his right-hand man, his sidekick. He paused. Was she his sidekick or was he hers? Questions for another day. A happy day. A day he was determined to make it to. He would make it home. No doubt about it.
He had his good hand on a steel beam, the other—throbbing and burning and reminding him of his recent encounter with a bear—reaching for something solid to steady him. He had to keep his gloves on. Couldn’t risk another cut. But damn if it didn’t make for slow going.
The street ahead wasn’t a street. (Happy Aggie? I called it a “street” just for you, even though that’s not technically correct. Because what I see before me is both a road for motorized vehicles and a sidewalk for human traffic.) He knew he was compromised. Talking to his absent daughters as if they were there? Not a good sign. But he had to press on, no matter how addled his brain was. If he was up against such tremendous odds having only been in Manhattan for a matter of hours, what must Alice be facing?
The way before him was a series of concrete and fiberglass mountains, dotted with desk corners and pulverized office equipment. He’d already crawled over an industrial shredder, a bank of vending machines, and a mass of multicolored wires and motherboards. He slid his hand forward. Was it steel or concrete he was feeling? He gave it a squeeze. It was solid. Good. He rapped it with his knuckles. High density. Even better. As long as it wasn’t plastic, he was golden. Alice had told them to get rid of all plastics. That meant plastics were the enemy. But in a new way. Not in the old “six-pack holder makes turtle shell grow into a deformed figure eight” way. There was something new to be afraid of, though he didn’t yet know what that new fear looked like exactly.
The straps around his face had begun to itch. He was sweating. The respirator wasn’t made to withstand an entire building’s worth of filth over a period of hours, but it was all he had, so it would have to do. When he’d been putting together their short-range bug-out bags, Alice had begged him to get the high-end industrial version that filtered out just about everything except oxygen, but he’d pressed back. It was one thing to be “ready for something bad to happen.” It was another to be “fully prepared for a biological or chemical attack or a nuclear event.” He knew where she was coming from, but he didn’t want his kids to grow up to be afraid of the world, to see danger and plotting and conspiracies around every corner. He wanted them to have a life full of adventures and discovery and wonder, not one spent cowering and sheltered and afraid. So, he’d done his homework and met her half way.
“This little miracle of science is endorsed by the National Institutes of Occupational Safety and Health.” He held out his phone so she could check the specs on the respirator for herself. “Says here it’ll filter out ninety-five percent of all particulates.”
She grunted. It wasn’t approval, but it wasn’t a “no” either. They were finally making some real progress. “Show me what else you’ve picked out.”
“Now?”
She shrugged. “Why not now? You have somewhere else you need to be?”
He wanted to be by the lake with Aggie, his waders on, his folding chair on the bank, a cold one in the cooler, the fish biting at every twitch of his rod. Or in a blind with his binoculars and rifle, hunting deer. Or anywhere but facing his stony-faced wife, talking about apocalyptic readiness and how to kit out a “go bag” that he could keep in the car.
She smiled and wrapped her arms around him. “I know you don’t believe me, Bill, but one day…one day you will thank me.”
They’d worked so hard to get it right. And here he was, on a pile of broken concrete, thanking his wife for her insight and preparedness and paranoia. Because of her, he was ready. Because of her, he wasn’t bogged down with stupid equipment that was more flash than substance. He had none of the gadgets that had been designed for wannabe-preppers and weekend warriors. His gear was all lightweight, practical, and no-nonsense; easy to use and even easier to carry.
He fished inside his vest for his flashlight. His fat fingers were having trouble differentiating his flashlight from his Swiss Army Knife. He didn’t want to open a flap and have a piece of equipment fall out. He couldn’t afford to lose anything. He had no clue what lay ahead.
The straps on his ventilator were really starting to bug him. The itch had become a burn. Predictable, given the number of pollutants in the air. No building came down without bringing asbestos, lead, glass, a multitude of fibers, and concrete dust with it. He had no idea whether the respirator could filter all of those out, but it was better than full-on contact with the soot. He scratched his cheek. It was wet. It wasn’t raining. Mains break, maybe? Water gushing up from below as the building came down from above?
He held his hand as close to his face as possible and squinted. The water was red. Not water, then. Also, not good. He ran his hand down the side of his face. The pain was breathtaking. There were furro
ws running from his mouth to his hairline and beyond. His clunky gloves limited the investigation, but there could be no doubt, his face mask had morphed and was cutting into his cheek. He pulled his glove back and inspected it. Red. Bright red. Probably blood. More likely than not, his. Was the freaking elastic from his mask burrowing into his flesh?
He couldn’t take the mask off. That would be suicide. But he couldn’t keep it on either. His face was streaming with blood. When had that happened? How hadn’t he noticed? He had a mirror in his top right-hand pocket, but what would that tell him?
“Imagine for a moment that you are concussed, Daddy. I’m not saying that you are, I’m only asking that you consider that you might be. You could be hallucinating right now. That’s a real possibility. The ‘blood’ on your gloves might be nothing more than water. Or oil. No need to panic. Not yet.”