Blood Red (8 page)

“Does anyone know about the hospital?” Rachel
calls out. “Has anyone been there?”

Most of the crowd doesn’t hear her beneath
the roar of the fire, but a young woman a few yards away calls out,
“I came from there!” She pushes herself from the edge of the crowd
and goes to her. “There’s people there, like here. Trying to make
sense of it. Some injured people making their way there.”

So maybe there’s someone at the hospital who
can help.

“Thank you!” Rachel yells, touching the
woman’s arm, and now she’s running away, back toward the Honda. She
plants her hands against her ears, silencing the screams and the
explosions and the crackling fire and that same insistent keening
over everything. That terrible, constant sound that signals the end
of everything.

With one hand, she grabs the Honda’s door
handle, flings open the door, and falls into the car. She closes
her burning eyes, lets her hands drop to her lap. She’s breathing
heavily, erratically, coughing sour phlegm. After a moment, she
stares blankly toward the wreckage, at the people moving about
frantically at its edge.

The police officer is finished herding a few
people into his flashing cruiser, and now he’s ducking into the
driver’s seat. The vehicle jumps into the motion, hightailing it
down College, right past her, and she shares a glance with the cop.
He appears determined and steely. The instant glance pushes a
little resolve into Rachel’s veins.

Alan speaks up. “Did you learn anything?”

She doesn’t answer for a moment, just
breathes deeply despite the smoke burning her lungs. Sarah is now
murmuring against Alan, sounding close to giving in to sleep.

“Yes,” Rachel says in a faraway voice. “I
think this…this thing? I think it’s happening everywhere.”

Continuing east on Olive and then southeast on
Riverside, they behold wreckage as far their eyes can
see—automobiles askew, angry scrawls of smoke on the horizon, even
occasional survivors wandering the streets. The road is
surprisingly clear for their progress. The majority of the
collisions are out of the way, as if the drifting vehicles, minus
conscious drivers, came to eventual stops wherever their momentum
carried them, usually against a curb to the left or right.

At one point, Alan gestures to the north of
Riverside toward a woman carrying a child in her arms, screaming at
the sky. They move farther away from the dark haze of the FedEx
wreckage in Old Town, and the other fires in the distance became
clearer. Far east of the city, in particular, there are two huge
pillars of black smoke, fires clearly out of control, soot tendrils
snaking across the sky. Are these more airliner disasters? Whatever
they are, the world is like an eerily silent war zone.

Sarah has quieted in Alan’s arms, sleeping
deeply now, and Rachel is grateful for the girl’s ability to escape
the pain, if only for a while.

Rachel maneuvers her way southeast at a low
speed, weaving in and out of frozen traffic, neglected collisions.
Like every crashed vehicle she’s seen, each one of these has a
driver and even passengers slumped over in their seats. In one car,
she saw a whole family inert in their seats, the small children
still strapped into their car seats. At first, she brakes the Honda
to peer into every one of the cars, seeking signs of life, but now
she avoids looking inside, focusing her gaze instead on the
twisting paths before her.

She has seen a few other cars navigating the
roads. There’s an increasing number of them snaking through the
mess, as she is. Near Lemay, some kind of convertible sports car
pulls alongside her Honda. A wildly gesticulating bald man begs her
to stop, reaching out his left arm to slow her car to a stop by
sheer force of will.

“Wait, wait, wait!”

He’s wearing a blue tee-shirt, the neck all
stretched out. He, too, looks like he just stepped out of bed.

She nods at him and comes to a slow stop.

“What’s
happening
to everybody?!” the
man cries. “Do you know anything?!”

Rachel shakes her head. “We probably know as
much as you do.”

“Everyone’s dead?! Why? Why would that
happen
?” His eyes are peeled wide.

“It’s not everyone…” she says, not knowing
how to answer or placate this man.

He glances wildly around, taking in the smoke
and the desolation. “It might as well be! What the hell is going
on?!”

“I think that’s the question on all our minds
right now,” she says as calmly as she can.

“My wife is on the kitchen floor! My son is
in his bed. They’re both dead!” He’s yelling almost belligerently
at her, but Rachel can see tears welling up in his eyes.
“Electricity is out, phone is out, all the fucking neighbors are
dead!”

“I know.”

The man goes quiet, red-faced. “Is anybody in
charge?”

“There’s a cop in Old Town trying to take
care of that fire—it’s a downed plane.”

“A cop?
One cop?!
” The bald man bites
his lip at this information. “They did it, they fucking did it, the
Arabs, right? It’s gotta be. They finally found a way to get all of
us.”

“I doubt—”

“No, it’s them. Fuck! They got us!”

“Look,” Rachel says, louder, “I’ll admit my
first reaction was terrorism, but it doesn’t add up. I think it’s
something else.”

The man gives her an angry look, ignoring
her. “I need to find my sister,” he says, his tone descending from
hysteria. “She’s up at Terry Lake.”

“Good luck,” Rachel says, then, “Whatever’s
happening inside these bodies, it’s dangerous. That’s one thing I
do know. It hurts you.” She gestures behind her. “It hurt this poor
little girl. We’re taking her to the hospital. Maybe they’ll have
answers there.”

The man wordlessly raises his hands, shows
them to her. They’re pale and damaged, like her palm. A little fear
makes its way onto his features, but he grimaces past it.

“Good luck finding your sister,” Alan
says.

The three of them stare at each other for a
few moments, fear and uncertainty heavy in the space between them.
At Alan’s words, Rachel feels a pang of urgency for her dad. Where
is he? Is he alive? If he was at work when this thing began, surely
he’s no longer there. Where would she possibly begin to look for
him, assuming he was among the living?

The man in the sports car barks out a gruff
“Thanks” and continues driving in the opposite direction.

“Friendly fellow,” Alan says quietly, and
then Rachel is moving again. After what seems an hour of
stress-crazed agony, they’re in sight of the hospital. There’s some
activity there, even a few moving vehicles. As she approaches from
the north, Rachel sees one car barrel up Lemay toward her and take
the sharp right into the emergency lot. Survivors are gravitating
here, seeking help.

Rachel pulls into the south emergency
entrance and parks in the small, tree-lined lot beyond the front
double doors. She shuts off the engine and looks around. There are
two unmanned ambulances parked ahead of her. She turns toward the
double doors, sees commotion there, people moving about. The doors
slide open, and a middle-aged man comes running out to his Subaru
wagon, opens the rear door, and heaves out a heavy, unconscious
teenaged girl in skimpy shorts and a football jersey. He kicks the
door closed with his foot and drags the girl into the hospital.

“Okay, let’s go,” Rachel says, opening her
door. “At least they have power in there.”

She opens the rear door and ducks in. Alan is
there, cradling Sarah. He makes no effort to release her or help
her out. Rachel reaches over.

“Here, let me—”

“There’s no need.”

Sarah’s arms are still wrapped tightly around
Alan’s chest, over his shoulder, and the little girl’s ruined face
is buried against him. She is dead. Alan is weeping, one hand still
caressing her hair, his cheek pressed against her head.

Rachel slumps to her knees next to the car,
hardly aware that she has fallen.

“Not fair,” she whispers. “This isn’t
fair.”

She reaches out numbly to touch Sarah’s leg,
one of the few areas on the girl that was left unmolested by the
red luminescence. Alan’s eyes are closed, but there are tears in
his eyelashes. A thought flutters through Rachel’s mind—
This is
a good man
—and then she’s rising, supporting herself on the
doorjamb, looking around, feeling hopeless again.

Anger rises inside her, and she feels a sneer
taking hold of her mouth. She glares down at Sarah’s corpse, at
this unmoving, gone little girl, and she feels a sharp, empty pain
in her heart, a hatred for the cause of this nightmare. It’s an
inky hatred that feels like a hot stain through her ribcage.

“Fuck!” she yells out. “Fuck! Fuck!”

Her voice catches on the last exclamation,
and her throat constricts with new emotion.

There are more people at the hospital
entrance, and here comes another vehicle, a minivan, into the
parking lot. It parks near a security fence, and the lanky young
male driver locks eyes with her briefly as he steps out. He slides
open the van’s side door and carefully extricates the lifeless body
of an older woman in a nightgown—clearly his mother. Cradling her,
he hurries to the entrance. Rachel can see him pause in the
vestibule, then go further in, out of sight.

With effort, Rachel swallows down her angry
grief.

“Let’s at least get her inside,” she says.
“We can show them what happened.”

Alan doesn’t speak for a moment, then, “All
right.”

They bring Sarah out of the car almost
reverently, handling her gently between them. Alan stands and takes
the girl fully into his arms again.

“You got her?”

He nods, and they make their way to the
sliding doors of the emergency entrance. Alan is slow, shuffling
with the burden that he has claimed as his own, but she lets him
take his time. They step through and see perhaps a dozen people
attending to various situations. Two of them hover over a mewling
woman who is sitting in the waiting room; the woman’s face is pale
and subtly disfigured, obviously suffering from the same kind of
affliction that claimed Sarah. There’s almost a melted quality to
the flesh, as if it has been superheated and left to cool too
quickly. The two people help her into a wheelchair. The woman is
drugged, and now Rachel can see the hypodermic needle that one of
the two apparent volunteers—a nervous, scared-looking young man—has
used to calm her.

It’s terribly hot in here already, sticky and
foul-smelling, no movement to the air. The main waiting room to the
right of the administration area is filled with people, half of
them stationary in rows of plastic seats, a bunch more standing
against the walls talking in small groups. The ones standing are
restless, moving in and out of a set of double doors to the left.
Rachel assumes that the bodies of their loved ones have been taken
back there. The large waiting area is loud and humid, a
pressure-cooker if Rachel ever saw one.

There are a multitude of voices coming from
beyond the scuffed-metal inner doors that lead further into the
treatment area. She watches the doors, getting occasional glimpses
of gurneys and bodies beyond them, and notices Alan heading to the
reception desk, where several people seem to be arguing. Rachel is
about to accompany him, when—

“Rachel?” The voice comes from her right.

She turns her head and sees a familiar face.
It takes her a moment to place her. The young woman’s dark-rooted
blond hair is flat and disheveled—again, straight from bed—and
she’s without makeup. The girl’s glasses throw her off, too.
Planted in one of the green, plastic waiting-room chairs, the young
woman immediately rises when Rachel turns, and then it’s clear, the
way she moves her body. It’s Jenny from her history class at Front
Range Community College, a class she shares with both her and Tony.
Rachel feels a kind of elation recognizing her. She’s known Jenny
in passing since grade school, but now she seems like the closest
friend she’s ever had in her life. Her heart swells with
emotion.

“Jenny!” she says, feeling a grateful smile
come to her lips. Jenny seems to share the elation, and her
expression melts into tears upon seeing Rachel. They move to each
other around the seats of the waiting room and embrace, holding
tightly to each other.

The simple fact of finding someone she knows,
even slightly, grounds Rachel in the real. It has the effect of
bringing immense calm to her nerves but also reinforcing the fact
that she’s not imagining anything. She finds herself clutching
Jenny tightly, welcoming that sense of calm even as new tears begin
flowing from her eyes. Soon, both young women are sobbing, and they
fumble down into seats and hold each other.

“Are you okay?” Jenny asks, finally pushing
away. “Are you with the little girl?”

Rachel nods. “I was. She died on the way
here.”

Jenny’s hands fly to her mouth, and behind
her glasses, her eyes fill with grief. “Oh my god. Is she your
sister?”

“No, no, a neighbor, but…terrible.”

Jenny appears confused. “But I thought…I
mean, I haven’t talked to my parents, they’re in Boston, and there
are no goddamn phones working, but people here thought whatever
happened, it happened all at once. Like, in the night.”

“This was different.” She nods toward the
woman in the wheelchair, now being pushed, dazed, into the
corridor. “Like her.”

Jenny follows Rachel’s gesture. “What do you
mean?”

Rachel tells her what she believes to be
Sarah’s tragic story, of a little girl wanting desperately for her
parents to wake up, even as her proximity to them was killing her.
Tells her what happened with Susanna this morning, when Rachel
first encountered the red glow. She shows her the scaly skin of her
own palm.