Vanished (20 page)

The kids, a foolish attempt to undo his work. Bon voyage,
Mr. Sheffield. Your friend has a ticket and will board soon.

Citizens, helping here and there, puffed with pride. You will
all cower again soon.

The fog? Some things even he doesn't know. A nice touch on
the part of those who engineered the event. The strange haze
terrified these fools more than any bomb could. And it proved
the cowardice of these people. With all the armed soldiers,
puffed-up politicians, do-gooder EMTs, doctors and cops and
firefighters this society had to offer, not one had dared pass
through the fog to help.

The mettle of this nation was plastic, as thin as the credit
cards these people loved to wield-as if mortgaging your
future were a sign of power. Sucking off the next generation
like the cowards they were.

He waited at the prearranged meeting spot. In his own time,
his superior stepped out of the shadows. In a hooded sweatshirt, tattooed throat, close-cropped hair, and piercings, he had
his street persona goin' on, passing as a banger called DeLuxe.

DeLuxe was at the very top of the organization, one of the
few who could enflame an entire nation with a whisper. So long
in the war, so many battlefields-had DeLuxe also forgotten
where he was really from and what he was really after? Perhaps not. Then again, perhaps-as for him-the journey had become
sufficient to justify any means, no end required.

"Good work, Luther."

"Thank you." No need to crow. DeLuxe knew the brilliance
of what had gone down in the last few hours.

"What about the next event?"

"I have the second device in place. But I wonder if the location has become irrelevant."

DeLuxe nods. "Perhaps. If I might make a suggestion?"

"Of course. I'm eager to hear anything you have to say."
Nice words, but the truth was that he couldn't stop DeLuxe
if he wanted to.

He wouldn't even dare try.

E'S GONE," LEAH SAID. "You're safe."

Kaya tried to stand, could only manage to stagger
and hold on to Leah. "What happened?"

"Chet came by right after you left. Freaked when he heard
you had gone off alone. He offered to guard the infirmary, so
I came running after you. I saw Stone shooting and you jump
into the mist. He shot at you, I shot at him-hope I took a piece
out of that slime-and he took off. I came up onto the path and
couldn't find you anywhere. Then I heard you singing."

"Singing? I don't remember singing," Kaya said.

"You're not ready for American Idol, I'll say that. You were
in the mist and singing something kinda churchy. I groped
around and found your hand and pulled. And here we are.
Let's check you out."

"I'm OK." OK on the outside, even though it felt like an
elephant had stepped on her. On the inside, Kaya wasn't so
sure. What really happened in that mist?

Leah unstrapped the vest, lifted it off. "The vest is cracked.
Look, here's the bullet."

Kaya ran her hands over her own ribs, sternum, and abdomen.
She had no injury other than a whopping contusion on her side
where the vest had stopped Stone's bullet. "I'm OK," she said.

"You've got blood in your mouth. It might be an internal
injury. We've got to-"

Blood from breathing life into Matthew Lowe, but not a boy's
blood or a hallucination's blood, and certainly not her own blood. This was the blood of the God who protected her in the
mist from Stone's bullet and from something far more devious
and predatory than a madman or even a terrorist's bomb.

Kaya would explain it to Leah when the time was right. For
now, she said, "I bit my tongue, that's all."

Without a single backward glance, Kaya stepped between
the mist and the fire and continued on to South Spire. Fifteen
minutes later they headed back the way they had come, leading
a strange procession of wounded and volunteers.

The worst injury was Natasha. A broken thoracic vertebra,
Kaya guessed, praying it was only severe inflammation and
not a severed spinal cord causing the child's loss of sensation
and movement. With careful help she had slipped a neck collar
on the child, then rolled her onto a backboard. Two men had
carried it as though Natasha were made of glass.

Apart from the little girl who was paralyzed, Kaya was
most concerned about a middle-aged executive type who had
pulled a shard of glass out of his own eye. The glass would
have driven dirt and debris deep into his eye socket. If he
wasn't in a hospital setting in the next few hours, he'd be well
on the way to a septic infection.

Though Damon Johnson's situation was dire-and his eye
destroyed-he had insisted on walking on his own rather
than being pushed along in one of the office chairs they had
commandeered as makeshift wheelchairs.

Kaya brought two open fractures back with her. One was
a slender woman with a broken leg, the other an extremely
obese man with his ulna protruding from his forearm. She
had acquired three more head injuries, including a comatose
woman. So many hurting people, and so little she could do
for them.

She almost wept with relief when they came out of the Circle
and saw Grace Community Church a block away. So close
to the explosion, but only the windows had been blown out. Otherwise, the church stood as it had for over a hundred years,
a classic New England church with white clapboard and black
shutters. Set back from the street, its rolling lawn and stone
wall gave it a real country feel. The bell clock in its steeple had
rung the hours for as long as she could remember.

Kaya led her charges along the fieldstone path and to the
back of the church. Leah took her post again at the door while
Chet came inside. A foul odor wafted throughout the fellowship hall.

"The toilets?" she said.

"The water's out. I told people not to use them unless they
absolutely had to but... " He shrugged. "What am I going to
do? Shoot them?"

"Can we use bottled water to flush?"

"You could. But ... people are using up water like it's ... well,
water. We already used up my stock. I sent a couple kids over
to the convenience store. Pauline gave me half of what she's got.
She's passing out the rest for people on the street."

"What about Donnelly's?"

"Negative on that. My runner came back, said Alexis will
only release water to you. Not to me, because, as only she could
put it, `Tell that man he's the competition.' Oh, and she said the
baby is fine. Sleeping nicely."

That was good news, though Kaya was ashamed that she
hadn't thought about Angelina or Sarah for a good hour now.
"What do we do, Chet?"

"Clean the johns out manually. Then we spray 'em down
good, give 'em one flush. Tell people they're just for peeing.
People will have to poop in bedpans. I've got plenty of those at
the store. And I'll bring over the one bedside commode I keep
in stock. We'll take the feces out, bury it."

"The Board of Health will love that."

Chet scratched his nose, looked anywhere but at her. The
longer he kept silent, the more goose bumps broke out on her
arms.

"You don't think anyone's coming," she said.

"I don't know what to think, honey. Best to just live in the
moment and see what the next moment brings. I'll head back
over to the store, bring over those bedpans and whatever else I
have that will help."

He left Kaya standing in the middle of the room, trying to
organize her thoughts.

The church's fellowship hall had seemed so big when she
opened it an hour ago. With the influx of the South Spire
wounded and their volunteers, she was running out of room.
The walking injured would have to go up to the sanctuary.
She'd have the nurse's aide-what was her name? Patricia,
that was it.

Patricia could diagnose simple headaches, bumps, and
sprains, and dispense Tylenol and ice as needed. She'd have
to ask Chet to bring her notebook paper or something so they
could chart what they had done for whom.

Bridge Liquors had sent over three bags of ice. How long
would that last? They'd already run out of the dish towels they
used as compresses. She'd have to send a volunteer to canvass
the neighbors and ask for donations of towels and facecloths.
They needed more mattresses, sheets, pillows.

First priorities-taking vitals on everyone. Patricia could
do that, determine those patients well enough to go upstairs
to the sanctuary. Kaya needed to check on Natasha, then wash
out Damon Johnson's eye. Try to figure out what she could
do for the open fractures beyond dose them with OxyContin.
Both she and Chet had passed far over the line on dispensing
hardcore drugs. They could only hope the state Samaritan laws
would protect them against any lawsuits.

What choice did they have? They couldn't leave these
people writhing in pain. She would just pray that no one was
allergic to the medication she dispensed without benefit of
medical records.

Pray someone would come soon and take this off her
shoulders.

Pray that she wouldn't be the one to have to tell Natasha her
mother was dead.

Best to live in the moment, Chet had said. How could Kaya
do that when this moment was so dire? She swallowed, no
longer tasting the blood.

A heavyset woman touched her elbow. Ruth-a waitress at
the Starlight Diner. "I'm praying for you," she whispered.

"I need it."

"You do what you have to do. I'll cover you, hon. Scoot
now.

Natasha had been put in a corner where they could pull a
classroom divider for privacy. Her volunteers had laid the backboard on a table. Kaya was surprised to find a little girl in with
Natasha, chatting away.

"Miz Kaya," Natasha said. "Look! My friend came to visit."

"Hi, honey," Kaya said. "Mind if I sneak in for a moment and
check Natasha?"

The girl-not more than five or six-slid her chair away from
the table.

"On the other side of the curtain, OK?"

She scurried out.

"No!" Natasha cried. "I need her to hold my hand."

"Can you feel her hold your hand?" Kaya kept her voice
even.

"No. She ... feels it for me."

"We'll get her back here as soon as I take a look." Kaya
pressed the stethoscope to Natasha's chest. Elevated heartbeat but strong pulse. She slipped the head of the stethoscope as far
under Natasha's back as she could without moving her.

Was that a whisper of fluid she heard? Not a good sign.

Her pupils were reactive. Her skin was very dry. She should
get some fluids into her, but Murphy's Law decreed the minute
she gave the child some juice, an ambulance would show up
and rush her off to surgery.

"Why are you looking like that?" Natasha said.

"Just thinking, sweetheart."

Natasha frowned. "You're not going to give me a needle,
are you?"

"Not unless you want one."

The child squeezed her eyes shut.

"It's a joke, sweetheart."

Natasha blinked back a tear, mustered another smile. "I
knew that."

"I have to check out some other people, but I'll be back in a
few minutes."

"I'll be here."

Kaya searched for a reply.

"It's a joke," Natasha said.

"Best one I've heard all day." She squeezed Natasha's hand,
devastated to see no response.

"Miz Kaya, can my friend come back in now?"

"Let me go see."

Kaya found the child on the other side of the divider, in
heated whispers with a dark-haired woman. The woman nodded
at Kaya. "I'm sorry, doctor. I told her not to be a nuisance."

"I'm Kaya de los Santos. A nurse practitioner."

"Ah, you're the clinic lady. I'm this one's nanny. She wants to
go see her friend, but I told her not to be in your way."

Recognizing a fellow Latina, Kaya switched into Spanish.
"Her friend has a broken back. She's paralyzed."

The nanny stifled a gasp. "One so young. Shouldn't be."

"These two know each other?"

Still in Spanish: "From kindergarten."

"I don't mind if they stay together, but I don't want to burden
such a little one with that kind of a task."

She laughed. "Don't worry-she's a tough little kid."

As if to illustrate, the little girl tugged at Kaya's shirt. "I know
you're talking about me."

Kaya switched back to English. "Natasha would like you to
keep her company."

The child looked up at her nanny. "I told you."

"Do you understand that she's been injured?"

"She can't move," the child whispered. "I know. That's why I
want to stay with her. To help take care of her until her mommy
comes for her."

Oh, God, Kaya thought. How can I do this?

"I'll let you stay for a few more minutes. OK?"

"OK"

Kaya extended her hand. "I'm Ms. Kaya. What's your name,
honey?"

The child-an adorable blonde with big, blue eyes-shook
her hand with solemnity. "I'm Kimmie. Kimmie Logan."