by JJ Pike
The West Side of Manhattan was a mish-mash mix of industrial and residential housing, he had to keep that in mind. The fire department would have turned off the gas and electricity long before Alice’s building came down, but that didn’t mean he was safe from domestic toxins. People kept crazy chemicals in their homes, to say nothing of what was lurking in the 50-year-old fridge some grandpa had in his crusty old apartment. The policy wonks at the EPA could outlaw Freon until they were blue in the face, but there was always going to be that New Yorker who’d die a millionaire because they’d been counting their pennies and had a boatload of ancient appliances that weren’t up to code, but were chock-full of deadly poisons, socked away in their 700-square-foot apartment.
Bill fumbled with the Velcro on his breast pocket, determined to get to his mirror and investigate the damage to his cheek. The nature of the wound would tell him what he was dealing with. Had he been splashed with acid or cut himself on a shattered window pane or been sprayed with polychlorinated biphenyls? He sighed. PCBs wouldn’t have injured him. Not that fast and not like this. There were going to be carcinogens in the mix. No question. There’d be a hundred deaths, perhaps more, later on down the line. Firefighters with unexplained cancers and EMTs with tumors the size of baseballs. He’d read the reports. He knew what had happened to first responders after the World Trade Center went down.
“Does that help you right this very minute, Dad? Stay with it. Focus.”
Thanks, Aggie. He caught sight of the blood on his glove again. It looked pretty real from where he was crouching. Could be something else, but it wasn’t looking likely. If he’d been hallucinating, the image would have morphed by now, wouldn’t it? The nausea rose up in his esophagus. He couldn’t afford to hurl. Not into his mask. He needed to hold it together. If he fell apart now, or if he was stupid enough to permit himself to pass out, he’d be no use to anyone.
The pocket flap gave, finally. He was definitely compromised. The flap was all gluey; stringy and sticky and pulling away from his fishing vest. He found the mirror and held it up to his face. He started, scrambling backwards, sliding on the rubble and landing on his rear. “What in the…?”
He held the mirror back up to take inventory. The straps that held his ventilator in place were wedged into his skin. The mask itself dripped down his chin. The whole thing was a mess. He grabbed what was left of the mask and eased it off his face. It was as if a hundred tiny scalpels sliced into his dermis, through the fat and fascia into the muscle below. It was impossible he hadn’t felt that dig right into his skin before now, though perhaps it had been cauterizing his wounds as it went? The blood said no. The blood said he was in big trouble. He kept pulling at the mask in spite of the pain. The front snapped off, leaving the straps behind.
“Daddy, you need to focus. Concentrate on the data. What do you see? What does it mean?” Aggie. Aggie would be his salvation. He’d trained her and now she was keeping him on his toes.
“The mask is affixed to my hand,” he said.
“Good, what else?”
“The straps are affixed to my face.”
“What does that mean, Daddy?”
“I don’t know, honey. It means your mother was right. Something terrible has been unleashed on the world.” What were the ramifications of his wife’s warning? Alice knew where they lived. It wasn’t as if she was in the city and they were in the country and she didn’t know that. She’d told them to get rid of all their plastics, even though they were miles and miles and miles upstate. Did that mean this thing was airborne? Had she instructed them to get rid of all mod-cons because she had inside intel she couldn’t share on an unsecured phone?
His face was a mass of raging itches, as if a posse of giant, vengeful mosquitoes had landed on him and were feasting, but he didn’t care. He’d failed his children. He’d heard Alice—tracking her every word in the impeccable English she’d cultivated over the years—but he hadn’t understood. Not fully. He’d been serious about the mandate to rid themselves of plastic, but not deadly serious. He’d put his family in danger. If anything happened to his kids, he’d die of shame. He couldn’t let anything bad happen to them. He needed to tell Aggie what to do, now. She’d get them clear of the house. She’d understand.
He reached for his phone and hit speed dial. It went straight to voicemail. Didn’t it always with teenagers? None of them liked to talk. It was all text all the time with them. He waited for the beep, then talked as fast as he could. “I was wrong, Agatha. You need to get clear. Get clear of all plastics. Don’t do a half-assed job. Don’t be me. Be you, Aggie. Be you.”
The muscles in his cheek were screaming and twitching and demanding his immediate attention, but getting this right—letting Aggie know what she needed to do—was far more important than getting the remnants of his mask off. “I’ve been wrong before. Did I tell you, Agatha? About the time I almost screwed up our whole lives?”
“Wake up.” She had him by the shoulders now and was shaking him hard. He’d fazed out. There was no phone and there was no call. Just a stay-at-home dad who loved his kids, crouched on a heap of smashed concrete and twisted rebar and trash, slipping in and out of consciousness.
“I am not going to tell you this again. You do not give up at the first hurdle. Or the second. Or the third. We are the Everlees. We never give up. How many times have you told me this? It seems insurmountable, until you have taken the high ground.” She was shouting. “I’m going to say it again so that you hear me. It seems impossible until you’ve done it. Then you know you were always going to make it. So, buck up and wake up and climb this hill, Dad.”
She was right. He needed to get himself back into reality. Passing out from pain was a luxury for another day. “What do I do now, Aggie?”
“Keep looking, Dad. Keep assessing. Keep learning. And STAY ALIVE.”
“Yes, stay alive. We always stay alive. We always make it. You’re spot on there, chickadee. We are the Everlee Clan. Nothing can stop us.”
“Good,” she sounded like herself again. Less frantic. More in charge. No longer shouting at him. It was a relief. “Tell me what you see.”
“The mirror is affixed to my other hand.” Bill knew he was slurring his words, but it was better than being unconscious.
“Incorrect. Look again.”
She was right. The mirror was floating on top of its housing. It was fine. The mirror was fine. It was the plastic that was in trouble. It was melting over his glove, dripping onto his sneakers. No, dripping through his sneaker and onto his foot.
It was a cliché, not to know where the scream was coming from. He’d never believed it when he’d read it in a book or seen it in a movie, but here he was, his mouth wide open, frantic sounds coming out of him, but with the distinct sense that it wasn’t him making those noises. They weren’t human, they were animal. He was stripped down to his most basic self, screaming in agony, watching his world disintegrate around him.
Chapter Three
There was an ocean of blood in the bed of the Jeep from Midge’s head wound, but Jo had already seen to her so she ignored the sticky mess and crawled to the front of the vehicle to check on Betsy, who was still slumped in the driver’s seat.
What was Arthur’s deal, coming here and shooting the place up? It made no sense. If the militia she had under surveillance out at Wolfjaw Ridge had made an appearance, that wouldn’t have surprised her. Not that the Wolfjaw residents had ever made a single threat against their neighbors or, to her knowledge, opened fire on anything other than a deer. More that she wouldn’t have put it past them, if they’d been provoked.
But Arthur? Four-times married, friend of Bill’s from college, Arthur? He had to have a reason for opening fire on them, though with him lying stone dead on the gravel driveway the chances of them ever knowing what those reasons were had plummeted to nil. Unless they tracked down his accomplice. Man, it was getting nasty already and Manhattan hadn’t even opened the bridges and tunnels. Things were going t
o get a lot worse before they got better.
Jo put her fingers to Betsy’s neck. There was a pulse. It was erratic, but it would have to do. Fast and irregular was better than the alternative. There was a prodigious amount of blood streaming from the wound in Betsy’s chest. Jo couldn’t even begin treat the woman if she left her up front. She dug her arms behind Bets’ back, slid them under her arms and locked her hands together. Then she hauled her up and over the gears, twisting her to get her between the seats, and finally laid her beside Midge in the back. She glanced over her shoulder and waved Aggie in. “Get your butt over here.” She needed another set of hands.
Aggie was frozen, her eyes on her little sister who was still sprawled in the back of the Jeep, motionless. Jo had come to think of Aggie as an adult, but she was only 15 for crying out loud. She was a kid herself. The immobile cast of her face and rigidity of her body said she was in deep shock. And not because her baby sister was a mess. Aggie had just killed a man at close range. Deliberately. As in, walked clear through the oncoming gunfire without getting hit and put one bullet in Arthur’s chest and another in his skull. There was blood on her hands. Literally. Small wonder she couldn’t move. They could deal with that later. They had to. For now, all that mattered was getting Betsy and Midge stable and to the hospital.
Jo did a check of their lips and fingertips. They were not cyanotic, though they’d been shot so recently she didn’t really expect them to blue-up just yet. She was going at this ass-backwards. She did a quick ABC assessment. Airways, breathing, circulation. They were both breathing, though Bets’ breath sounds were shallow interspersed with crackles, like salt dropped into boiling oil. She knew what that meant. Hospital. Now.
“Field conditions, soldier. Focus on the basics.” Her Army instructor had never truly left her brain. He was in there, barking at her, making her do her job faster and better. “No room for error. This is life and death. Your squadron is counting on you. There are no doctors in the field. Your medic just had his leg blown off by an IED. You didn’t see it buried in the road ahead. You thought it was a rock or a branch or bump in the damned road. Your bad. Your medic is bleeding out because of YOU.”
The movies got a lot of details about being in the Army wrong, but they got this one thing right. Your instructors got up in your face and screamed blue murder. It was a calculated effort to bring as much pressure to bear as possible. No point promoting someone up the chain if they were going to fall apart as soon as they were under fire. She needed to be Army Tough, Devil Dog strong, frickin’ indestructible.
“Come on, come on. What do you do? He has no leg. The arterial spray is showering you like a fire hose in a burning building. Hear his screams, soldier. Hear him yell and holler and bring the wrath of Almighty God down on your head. You’re his only hope. He knows what’s coming. He’s begging you to get a tourniquet on that thigh. You’re fumbling the pass, Morgan. You’re up to your armpits in blood. His blood. More’s on the way. All twelve pints. Do you know what a pint of blood looks like, soldier? Do you?” He’d produced a pint glass, filled with fake blood, and poured it over her and the dummy. She hadn’t seen that coming. “Get to it. Come on. You’ve got this. Now the blood’s coming up his airways. Listen to that sound. It’s getting louder. You know what it means. Do you treat the leg or the lungs? Come on, Morgan, get your ass in gear. What do you do? Ahhhhhh….” The memory of her instructor mocking her would never go away. He’d drawn that sound out as long as he could. A descending scale of scorn and derision. It went on and on and on. “You bite big time, soldier.” She could still feel Sergeant Haliwell’s spit landing on her cheek as he screamed “big time” in her ear. “He’s asking for his mommy. He’s gurgling. And now he’s dead.”
Jo had been recruited from the regular Army into the Marines because she’d tested through the roof, but her training was a damned sight harder than she thought it would be, and she had never figured on failing. Certainly not failing this hard and in front of her entire class. It was only week three and she had allowed her squad’s “medic” to die in their first hands-on test. She had sat back on her heels, sweating. So much for being thoroughly prepared. She’d always been at the top of her class; an A-grade student, all the way, until it came to this practical, hands-on test. She’d blown it, seized up, lost the plot, and as a direct consequence the dummy had exsanguinated, pumping several pints of fake blood out all over the gym mat. She knew exactly where she’d gone wrong. She was precise, analytical, smart, but she allowed that to get in the way of making a decision. Weigh the data and act. That was her Achilles heel. She needed to act.
Her sergeant was back at her side, eyes wide, veins in his neck bulging, mouth less than two inches from her ear. “You’re the medic now, Morgan. You! You! You! You let that man die which means you have to take his place. Time’s not up. Get to it. There are three more soldiers in need of your attention. What are you going to do? Are you going to freeze again? Send them home in body bags? Tell their mommas you did your best when you’re nothing more than a sorry sack, looking for a medal? What do you do now? Now, Morgan, NOW! Show me what you’re made of.”
“That was then,” she muttered. “This is now. I can do this. No one dies on my watch.” She’d treated so many wounds in so many combat zones since then. Why was it her failures replayed on a continuous loop, while all her triumphs were silent? Didn’t matter how loud and obnoxious and bullying her sergeant was in her memory, she wasn’t going to fumble it this time. Neither would she allow her brain to dwell on her ultimate failure. That was totally off limits. “Stay in the present. You’re needed here and now. Bring everything you’ve learned into the back of this Jeep and save this woman.”
Midge had been nicked on the side of her head. Hell of a place to catch some lead, even in passing, but there was more blood than damage. Betsy was another matter altogether. She’d been hit in the chest. Jo pressed one hand against the wound to staunch the flow of blood and grabbed the med kit with the other. Excellent. They’d gone with the STOMP Kit from the Army Navy Store. She knew every compartment, inside and out, which made for quick work. She flattened the bag and snapped on a pair of latex gloves. She had to take her hand off the wound in order to get both gloves on, which was sub-optimal.
“Get in here, Aggie. I really need you. I’m not kidding.” She heard no movement behind her. Aggie wasn’t coming. Wasn’t that always the way? Training meant you prepared for the worst but hoped for the best. Hoping wasn’t going to amount to a hill of beans. One gal injured, the other down and counting. No help on the horizon. She couldn’t bellyache about it to Aggie or get her to move her ass and put pressure on this fountain of blood. Nope, Aggie was too far gone. It was going to take her forever to come to terms with what she’d done. You don’t kill a man at close range and walk away from it unscathed. Jo knew this save was down to her now.
Shears in hand, she sliced through Betsy’s teddy bear print scrubs to reveal the wound. The flesh was ragged around the edges. Blood oozed up and spilled down Betsy’s ribs, pooling on the floor by Jo’s knees. No time to stop and stare. No matter which way she evaluated Betsy’s prognosis, it wasn’t good.
“What are you waiting for? Check for an exit wound.” Sergeant Haliwell wanted her to succeed. All the shouting and bullying and humiliation was for one reason only: to make her the best Marine she could be. “Pile on, Sarge,” she said, using her forearm to swipe her hair out of her eyes. “Punish me. Scream at me. Belittle and berate me. Push me to the limit. Heck, break me if that’s what you need to do. I’m not going to fail. I am Jo Morgan and I’m going to succeed.” She had meant it then and she meant it a hundred times over now. Because training was a cinch compared to what happened in the field, when there were no dummies and no fake blood and only your buddies out there, losing their lives because you didn’t bring your A-game.
She rolled Betsy onto her side. No exit wound. Jo swore under her breath. A bullet in the chest cavity was serious business. Bets’ heart was
still pumping, but if the bullet had bounced around inside her, there was no telling what it had shredded or nicked.
“What are you waiting for, Morgan? Are we looking at a hemothorax, pneumothorax, rupture of the diaphragm, subcutaneous emphysema, tearing of the thoracic wall? What?” It was a trick question. She wasn’t a real medic. She couldn’t treat most of those things. Her job was to get Betsy as stable as possible and get her to a hospital.
She turned back to the med kit and dug out a couple of rolls of bandages. Unopened. Good. Sterile. Her gloves were slick with blood. Did it matter if she got Midge’s blood in Betsy’s wound? Midge was a universal donor after all and what communicable disease does a 7-year-old kid have that Betsy would be worried about? Too much thought, not enough action. There was schmutz all over the floor of the Jeep. No way her hands were even close to sterile. She tore off her gloves and tossed them to one side. Good thing the advanced med kit had several pairs.
She ran her finger through the pocket where the blood clotting spray should have been. All out. Dang. What was she thinking? She didn’t need the spray, the STOMP kit had Israeli combat gauze. Plant cellulose for the win. It’d absorb 2,500% more fluid than its own weight and form a coagulating gel membrane with platelets from the blood in the open wound. War was good for medical innovation, if nothing else. She covered Betsy’s wound with the blood clotting gauze, making sure she had a seal around the edges, and turned her attention to Midge again. All good. Pulse strong, kid possibly concussed but nothing worse.