Grandfather (38 page)

This went on for another
few minutes before I finally lifted my head. The room didn’t spin.
But I still had an inebriated feeling. The twenty people in the
shop had now caught their breath. They all glanced at each other,
but nobody said anything. I guess there wasn’t much to say. We were
all in shock.

Several jars of candy had
fallen onto the floor, leaving pieces of glass scattered. There
were two girls in red uniforms standing behind the counter,
crying.

Outside, the smoke and
dust was just as thick as before. Belladonna stayed in the same
place, still not looking away from the smoke. I wondered what she
was thinking. Ashton was still on the floor in pain. Edgar looked
around the room. “You okay?” he asked when he saw me.

I nodded my head slowly.
My mind replayed everything that had just happened. So much
screaming. So much . . . so much blood . . . scattered body parts
everywhere. The girl who was trying to get her mom to wake up. Oh
no. I hoped somebody got her out of the way before the building
fell.

“This is Grandfather,” a
man whispered behind me. I turned to see him holding a woman
tightly. She didn’t appear injured, but was very startled as the
rest of us.

I had no doubt that
Cornelius was probably watching the scene take place, smiling. It
had never crossed my mind that the explosion would come this
quickly. How was it helping him? I certainly didn’t think the
explosions would be so big. I didn’t even want to imagine the
number of people killed. I thought of the people inside the falling
building and what it must’ve been like. The thought ran shivers
down my spine. I tried thinking of something else, but couldn’t. I
guess that’s impossible when you’re surrounded by
disaster.

“Is everybody okay?” a
woman to my right asked. She was carrying a medicine bag that
matched her white uniform. “I’m a nurse. Is everybody okay? Does
anybody need my help?”

Everybody in the room had
minor cuts, but that was it. Nothing too serious. The nurse took
out a damp cloth of some sort and began wiping my face. I didn’t
resist. I saw blood on it as she threw it away. When did I get cut?
I guess I didn’t feel it because of the shock.

“Boy’s done something to
his ankle,” Edgar told the nurse. The nurse ran to Ashton and
gently touched his ankle. He hissed in pain.

“Broken?” Edgar
asked.

The nurse shook her head.
“No,” she said. “Just twisted pretty badly.”

Edgar let out a breath of
relief. “How long’s it gonna take to heal?”

“Three to seven days,” the
nurse said. She opened up her briefcase and took out a thin, square
piece of . . . I don’t know what it was. It looked like a really
thick piece of blue plastic. “Put this in your mouth and let it
dissolve.”

Ashton did so. “What is
it?” he asked after it had completely dissolved.

“Speeds up the healing
process,” she said. “The tab can heal a cut over night. If you ask
me, it’s the best invention in the past fifteen years.”

Ashton had a weird sour
look. “The after taste is terrible.”

The nurse chuckled.
“Didn’t say it taste the best.” She stood up and glanced at the
others. “Anybody else?” she asked. One of the older ladies had the
nurse look at a cut on her arm. It wasn’t bad, but the nurse put a
small bandage on it. Edgar walked over to Belladonna and placed a
hand on her shoulder.

“Grandfather,” he said,
watching the smoke with her. It had thinned out a little but not
enough for me to see anything that was going on outside. All we had
to go by were the noises, which were gone. No screaming, no crying
for help. Nothing

“If we don’t act quick,”
Belladonna whispered, “we may not get another chance.”

Edgar agreed. “Let’s hope
Robert gets back soon with reinforcement.”

“He will,” Belladonna said
with confidence. “He’ll be back.”

Edgar was quiet for a
second.

“When can we leave?” a
young man asked.

“Well, obviously not right
now,” the nurse replied. “We’re going to wait for the smoke to
clear, and then we’ll look for survivors.” She gave the older woman
she had been nursing one of the tabs Ashton had taken.

“The news was right,” the
same man said. “Grandfather was planning an explosion.”

“This is terrible,”
another woman joined, sobbing quietly. “Everything was fine two
days ago.”

I ignored her. Nothing was
fine two days ago. She was just ignorant then. The explosion had
been planned for a while.

We all sat around, quiet
for the most part. Every once in a while, somebody would mention
how many people they thought were outside and what Cornelius would
say at the arena.

“We need to get to the
arena,” Belladonna told Edgar.

He, of course, wasn’t too
happy by that. But he didn’t argue. “We need to help her look for
survivors, like she said.”

Belladonna didn’t look too
happy about that. She probably wanted to get as far away as
possible from the mess. So, I kind of understood. But there would
be people who’d need our help.

The smoke continued to
thin out. Soon, it revealed yet another horrific site. People in
the shop gasped. Some of them moved closer to get a better look. I
didn’t want a better look.

I squinted, vaguely being
able to make out everything. Then, I saw the alleyway covered in
inches of dust. It was like snow. On the ground were bodies of men
and women of all different ages, all covered in dust. There was no
sign of movement. None. I started to count the bodies but realized
there were just too many to count. I knew I was, unfortunately,
seeing a small fraction of Cornelius’s work. Somehow, he was going
to use the explosion toward his advantage. I just wasn’t sure as to
how yet.

The nurse had us wait
another fifteen minutes before the dust was thin enough to walk
through without causing us to suffocate. Belladonna didn’t move
from where she was sitting. Edgar told her to stay with Ashton. “Me
and Carsyn will go out and help.”

Edgar stood beside me. The
nurse walked out first, slowly followed by others. I took a deep
breath as I exited the shop. The air wasn’t pleasant to breath, but
it was definitely better than earlier. The air smelled of fire,
which I knew came from the buildings close to the road. I heard
sirens in the distance.

We all stopped and glanced
around. Bodies were scattered everywhere. And at the end of the
alley was a huge mound of rubble. That had to be where the top of
the falling skyscraper landed. Man, we barely got out of its
way.

In the opposite direction,
other survivors walked toward the rubble. When they reached us, a
man asked if we would help look for survivors.

I walked amongst the
bodies, hoping to find somebody moving. But none of them did. They
had all suffocated. I looked at the faces of all types of different
people. There was an older man with an older lady wrapped in his
arms. Her eyes were frozen open. I looked deep into the lifeless
pupils. Another dead man had his phone gripped in his hand. I
wondered who he was calling.

Then, I saw a familiar
face. I walked to her, knelt down, and lost my breath.

It was the girl who had
been looking for her mom. Nobody had helped her. My chest and head
ached. I stood up, turned away quickly, and started to run, wanting
to get as far away as possible.

I didn’t get far. I ran
straight into Edgar. I saw his gloomy eyes and started crying. Now,
I must mention that I never cried. I’m sure I did when I was
little, but I don’t remember crying at the orphanage more than
once. I mean, there was no point in crying over things there. It
wasn’t going to solve anything. But this . . . this was too much
for me to handle. Surprisingly, Edgar was comforting and hugged me
tightly. I actually let him. Here I was, knowing the man for only a
few weeks, and letting him hug me. And it was actually helping. He
never said anything. He just stood there, in silence, letting me
get it all out.

“
Cornelius,” I said, moving
away from him and wiping my eyes. “He has to pay for
this.”

Edgar nodded and said
through his teeth, “He best be ready.”

“
I want to know what he
says,” I said. “I want to go to the arena. Please, Edgar. People
won’t recognize me.”

I don’t think he could’ve
said no to me if he tried. In my mind, everybody would be too
focused on the explosions and wouldn’t be paying attention to
others, so I was pretty sure I’d be safe at the arena. At least
that was what I was telling myself. I just really wanted to
go.

Soon, rescue teams in the
hundreds came flooding into the area, demanding us to get out of
the way. Edgar offered to help, but a man said it was best if we
left them alone to follow protocol. It kind of didn’t make sense to
me. I mean, wouldn’t they want as many people as possible to
help?

“
What if we have somebody
injured?” Edgar asked one of them. A man on the rescue squad
pointed behind us. We turned around to see several doctors running
into the area with stretchers and suitcases similar to the nurse’s.
Edgar rushed to one of them. “Got a boy who’s twisted an ankle,” he
told them.

“
Take me to him,” one of
the female doctors said, unable to take her eyes off of the
scattered bodies. “Hurry,” she then said. ”Others with more serious
injuries will need my help in a few minutes.”

Edgar was quick in taking
her to the candy shop. I followed them. We walked in to find
Belladonna and Ashton in the same place we had left them.
Belladonna’s facial expression hadn’t changed. I was glad she
didn’t have to see what I saw. The doctor walked to Ashton and felt
his ankle.

She immediately opened her
briefcase and took out a roll of white fabric of some sort. She
unrolled a large piece and squirted some sort of gel all the way
down it. She then proceeded to wrap up the ankle. Edgar told the
doctor about the tab the nurse had given him.

“
Good,”
she said. “This gel will speed up the healing process, too. It’ll
take away the pain too.” The doctor placed everything back in her
medicine bag and stood up. She looked at Ashton. “You’re
lucky.
Fifteen years ago, you would’ve had
to wait weeks to heal. You still won’t be able to walk.” She turned
to look at Edgar. “When you get out of here, go to the nearest
hospital and get some crutches.”

“
Okay,” Edgar
said.

“
But I’m warning you,” the
doctor said, rushing toward the door as several people outside were
yelling out for some doctors. She looked outside at the doctors
running by. Glancing at Edgar one last time, she said, “The
hospitals are going to be rather crowded.”

Edgar nodded and the
doctor rushed outside to join the others.

“
Let’s go,” Edgar said,
helping Ashton up.

“
It hurt?” I asked as he
wrapped his arm around Edgar’s shoulders.

“
Nah,” he said. “That gel
and tab works well.”

“
Yeah,” Edgar said. “They
won’t last forever though. Pain will come back.”

Ashton didn’t look happy
to hear that.

“
I know you don’t want to
hear this, Belladonna,” Edgar started. “But I don’t think we can
make it to the arena.”

“
No,” Ashton said
immediately, not allowing time for Belladonna to argue back. “After
this, I want to see what Cornelius has to say about this
explosion,”

“Ya can’t make it,” Edgar
argued. “Look at ya.”

“Don’t tell me that,”
Ashton snapped back. “I can make it. We’re going.”

Belladonna smiled at him.
“He’s a tough one,” she said.

“Hell, how we gonna get
there? It’ll be a damn task to get a cab right now.”

“We have to try, Edgar,”
Belladonna said. She looked down at her dress and wiped some of the
dust off. Once realizing that was an impossible task, she said,
“Let’s go.”

There was nothing else
Edgar could say. He wasn’t going to be able to change anybody’s
mind. I just wanted to get there, hope nobody recognized me, and
get out of the city. Every time I went into the city, something bad
happened. It had to be a sign to stay out.

“Let’s go,” Edgar said.
“Help me, Carsyn.” I walked beside Ashton who placed his other arm
around my shoulder. He limped in between us as we left the shop.
Belladonna followed.

“Good thing I can’t feel a
thing,” Ashton said.

“Yeah,” Edgar said. “I’m
worried that you’re gonna twist the damn thing even more. Don’t
move it too much.”

“
Okay,” Ashton
said.

The bandage the doctor had
wrapped around his ankle was pretty thick. I’m sure it cut off a
lot of mobility in his foot, which was good because it would
prevent him from twisting the ankle even more. I felt really bad
for him. But hey, it could’ve been a lot worse. The bodies in the
alley proved that.

We walked away from the
disaster site, trying our best to ignore the bodies lying
everywhere. Soon, we exited the alley, entering another street.
Crowds of people had abandoned their vehicles, looking up at the
smoke in the air in awe. Many of them were on their phones,
recounting everything they had seen to whomever they were talking
to. Some were probably making sure their family and friends weren’t
in the explosion. Most of the people were quiet, not knowing what
to say. Then, there were some who ran to those covered in dust,
making sure they were okay. One man in particular ran to us. “Need
help?” he asked.