Pale Horse (A Project Eden Thriller) (26 page)

It was nearly ten p.m., two hours after he was supposed to be there, when he reached the place he and Kusum had spent the night before. No one was there.

All sorts of thoughts flew through his mind, most ending with something horrible having happened.
No
, he told himself.
Remember how long it took you to get out of Mumbai. It’s the same for them. They’ll be here soon. You just have to wait.

But when midnight came and went, and they had still not shown up, his terrible thoughts returned. Maybe they
had
run into trouble. Maybe they had been shot by the people who shot at him.

Maybe they would never show up at all.

The last, he refused to believe.

I need to find them in case they need help.

He began searching in an ever-widening arc from the spot where they were supposed to meet, but as the sun came up, he was still alone.

His eyes felt like someone had dumped handfuls of sand in each, and it was becoming harder and harder to focus.

Go back to the meeting place,
he thought. Maybe he’d missed them somehow and they were there waiting for him, wondering where
he
was.

He was lucky that he was on the small rough road leading to the rendezvous point when he fell asleep. If he’d still been on the highway, he would have been traveling at a much higher speed and would have most likely died.

The bike veered to the left, the front tire slamming into a rut. He woke in midair, flying over the handlebars. His mind was still trying to figure out what was happening as he slammed into the ground.

Dazed, he lay along the side of the road for several minutes before trying to sit up. That’s when the pain kicked in. His left shoulder was the worst. He touched it with his right hand and realized it was sticking out in a way it was never meant to.

Dislocated.

There were other pains, too, scrapes and bruises on his face and arms.

Then he forgot about it all, even his shoulder.
The vaccine!

He struggled to his feet, his left arm dangling uselessly at his side, and searched for his bike. It had traveled for another fifty feet before spinning off the road.

He could see at first glance that he wouldn’t be using it again. The fork holding the front wheel was bent to the side, while the wheel itself was skewed at an odd angle. The back didn’t look much better. He moved around it, looking for the bag containing the bottles of vaccine, and found it still strapped to the back of the seat where he’d put it.

He fought with the straps with his good hand, until they gave way and he could get the bag off. He sat on the ground and opened the top. Immediately he saw that the boxes holding the vaccine were wet.

“Please, no,” he said as he opened the first lid.

This was the box from which he’d given several bottles to the cooks at the compound, giving the remaining bottles plenty of room to smash into each other. Of the seven that had been there, only two were still intact. He checked the other box, the full one, and sighed in relief. Three bottles along the side had been destroyed, but that was it.

His focus no longer on whether the vaccine was okay, his injuries forced themselves back to the forefront, screaming for attention.  

He knew he had to get his shoulder back in place, otherwise the pain would render him useless. He tentatively pushed at it with his right hand. The pain intensified, but the bone barely moved from its unnatural position.

This wasn’t something he could do with his hand. The angle wasn’t right, so he wouldn’t be able to generate enough strength. But pushing was the logical thing to do.

Once more, he worked his way back onto his feet, and staggered over to the nearest tree. Gingerly, he placed his dislocated shoulder against it.

“Don’t think,” he said out loud. “Just push.”

He took a breath, cleared his mind as best he could, then shoved.

He didn’t realize he’d screamed, nor did he feel it when he hit the ground after he passed out from the spike of pain as his joint slipped back into place.

__________

I
T WAS LIKE
Kusum was a stranger in her own country.

The half-deserted streets were unsettling, of course, but it was the people she
did
see that made her feel this way. Most were in other cars, and while those who usually drove in Mumbai were often creative in the ways they weaved around each other, now even those methods seemed tame.

She and her family had seen over a dozen accidents, nearly half of which happened not far in front of them. They had been rear-ended twice, but neither her father nor the people who had hit them even considered stopping.

It was as if India had gone insane.

The spray carrying the deadly disease was also a problem. At first, the men with the tanks on their backs seemed to be everywhere, swarming the city like the mosquitoes they were supposedly there to kill. But it was clear that some were deserting their jobs when they noticed the city around them behaving unusually. Still, a large number of the men continued their task, no doubt unwilling to do anything that might jeopardize the much-needed money they were promised. They blocked her family’s route so many times, Kusum began to wonder if it would be possible to avoid the virus’s path.

When her father drove them through West Mumbai into Thane, they had no choice but to stop. Traffic was jammed in front of them, perhaps thirty or forty cars deep. Though they could not see the exact cause, they could see a column of black smoke rising above the road.

Kusum’s father turned his head to look out the back window. “Out of the way,” he commanded. “I can’t see.”

The four in the backseat leaned to the sides as he put the taxi into reverse. The car began to move backward, then suddenly stopped.

“Move, move!” he yelled. This time, his words were intended not for those inside the cab, but for the cars Kusum could see arriving behind them. He waved his arm back and forth. “Clear the way!”

But the cars paid no attention. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway. As soon as the new arrivals pulled to a stop, more came behind them, blocking them in, too.

Kusum’s father cursed and shut off the engine. “We walk,” he said.

They grabbed their bags and piled out of the car.

“Stay close,” he told everyone, and started walking toward the smoke.

“There is a problem up there,” his wife said. “Maybe we should go another way.”

“That’s the way we need to go,” he replied without turning around.

Most of the people caught in the jam were heading away from the fire. They pushed and shoved past Kusum’s family, not caring if they hurt anyone. But soon, Kusum and her group were past the bulk of the crowd and were able to pick up their speed.

The cause for the stoppage turned out to be four cars piled into each other, blocking the road. One car had flipped on its side, while the others were all twisted and tangled against each other. That wasn’t the worst of it, though. There were bodies, some still in the cars, and a few on the road. All were bloodied and torn and unmoving.

Though it had been at least ten or fifteen minutes since the accident occurred, there were no police, no ambulances, no emergency personnel at all.

“Don’t look,” Kusum’s mother said, putting a hand over young Panna’s eyes.

Kusum did the same for Darshan.

“I want to see,” her cousin said.

“No,” Kusum told him. “You don’t need to see this.”

“I’ve seen dead bodies on TV.”

“This is not TV.”

Her father led them around the edge farthest from the car that was still on fire. That’s when Kusum heard it—a moan, long and painful, coming from the sedan on its side.

“Keep moving,” her father said.

Kusum looked at her sister. “Take Darshan.”

Jabala kept walking as if she hadn’t heard her.

Kusum grabbed her sister’s arm. “Hold on to Darshan. Make sure he can’t see anything.”

As if in slow motion, Jabala finally looked over. Kusum could see how scared she was.

“Jabala, it will be okay, but I need you to watch him. Can you do that?”

Her sister blinked, her eyes focusing on the boy. “Yes,” she said. “I…I can.”

Kusum pushed Darshan over to her, and headed for the wreckage.

“What are you doing?” her father called out.

“Someone’s hurt,” she yelled back.

“We don’t have time! We need to keep moving!”

She wanted to shout back, “We need to help if we can,” but she knew she would just be wasting her breath. She ignored him and continued on.

The moan was definitely coming from the sedan. She looked through the back window but could see nothing, so she ran around and looked through the front.

There was a woman slumped against the door that was pressed against the ground, blood pasted across her forehead. Kusum could see no movement, and thought it unlikely she was the one making the noise.

“Hello?” she called out. “Is someone in there? Are you hurt?”

The moan started up again, this time becoming a word. “Help.”

It had to be coming from the backseat.

Frowning, Kusum looked around. She thought if she was careful, she should be able to climb on top of the closest wrecked car, and look into the back of the sedan through the passenger window facing the sky.

As she mounted the other car’s hood, her father yelled, “Kusum, get down from there right now!”

“There’s someone who needs help,” she said.

“I don’t care.”

“I do!” The words slipped out of her mouth before she even realized it. Talking back to her father was something she had never done until today. But running for her life was something she had never done, either. Maybe she had gone just as crazy as the rest of the country, but there was no way she could just ignore someone in need.

She half crawled onto the top of the car, and moved over to the edge where it had slammed against the perpendicular sedan. Getting onto her toes, she leaned over the sedan’s roof and looked in through the half rolled-down, rear passenger window.

At first, all she saw was a jumble of cloth and bags and baskets. Then she realized that within the chaos was an old woman.

“I’m here,” Kusum said. “How badly are you hurt?”

The old woman’s head turned, and her eyes flicked open. “Help,” she said, her voice weak. “Nipa.”

Is that her, or the woman up front?
Kusum wondered.

“Don’t move. I’ll come down and help you.” Though how she would do that, Kusum wasn’t sure yet.

“Nipa,” the woman said again. “Help Nipa.”

So it was the name of the woman in front. Kusum had no way of knowing for certain, but she had a strong feeling the other woman was dead.

“Let me help you first,” she said. “Then I will do what I can for…Nipa.”

“No. Nipa first.”

With great effort, the old woman pushed out of the way some of the items that had fallen around her.

Kusum stared down in surprise. Nipa was not the driver, either. She was a child, no more than a year old, tucked against the old woman’s side. The baby was awake and looked scared to death.

Kusum looked over to where the others had stopped to watch.

“Get down! Now!” her father yelled. “You’re putting the rest of us in danger.”

“I need help,” she said. “There’s a baby here.”

“What?” her mother said, stepping out from the group. Without waiting for a response, she turned back to the others. “Jabala, come with me.”

“But Darshan,” Jabala said.

“Leave him. Darshan, Panna, you stay with
masi.
”

The two children nodded.

As Kusum’s mother and sister passed her father, he said, “Where do you think you’re going?”

“To help,” her mother said. “And you’re coming, too.”

Knowing they were on the way, Kusum climbed onto the side of the sedan, reached through the half-open window, and found the handle. Quickly, she rolled the glass the rest of the way down.

The opening was now more than large enough for her to fit through. The trick now was to do it without dropping onto the old woman and the baby. She slipped her legs in first, and eased herself down until only her shoulders and head were not inside the car. She stretched out her foot, caught the top of the front seat, and used it to guide her all the way down.

Kneeling, she found herself closer to the woman behind the wheel than the older one in back. Not really wanting to, but knowing it had to be done, she put her fingers against the driver’s neck. She wasn’t really sure about the right spot to check for a pulse, so when she didn’t feel one, she moved her fingers around, but still found nothing. She looked at the woman’s chest. It wasn’t moving. If the driver was still alive, it was by the thinnest of threads, and there was nothing Kusum could do for her.

As she moved over into the back part of the car, the child, Nipa, looked up at her and tightened her grip on the old woman.

“It’s okay,” Kusum said. “I’m here to help you.”

“Save her,” the old woman whispered. “Please.”

“I will save both of you.”

The woman tried to smile, but ended up coughing. This caused Nipa to start crying.

“It’s okay,” Kusum said, touching the girl’s cheek. “Everything will be fine.”

“Nipa first,” the woman managed to say between coughs. She moved like she wanted to hand the girl to Kusum, but she had little strength.

Kusum reached out and put her hands under the baby’s arms. As she started to lift the girl away, Nipa panicked and tried to grab the old woman again.

“Don’t worry,” Kusum said, pulling the girl to her. “I won’t hurt you.”

She hugged the baby to her chest, but Nipa turned her head so she could look at the old woman and continued to cry.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Kusum said over and over.

After several seconds, she heard a noise above, and her father’s head appeared in the open window.

“Hand her up,” he said, once he’d taken a look at the situation.

Kusum stood as best she could and raised the girl toward his outstretched hands. Nipa screamed in protest.