by Chris Pike
“Shut up. You could use some lip gloss.”
We drove the rest of the way in silence, each of us fuming at whatever perceived grievance we had. With us both sulking, the ten minute drive seemed to take forever. I stopped the car in front of the school because I wasn’t about to placate her by driving all the way to the back and out of my way. She could walk the few extra steps. I didn’t care if her perfect hair got messed up by the humidity.
“Don’t let the door hit your big butt on the way out,” I said with a wicked smile. “Hurry up and hit the road before you make me late.”
She glared at me.
Time has muddled all the hurt I felt towards my sister. We were close when we were children. We did all the usual things little girls do like putting makeup on one another, playing dress-up, playing with dolls, riding bikes. Those were the memories I want to cherish. Those were the ones that kept me going when times got tough. Later, in our teenage years, we drifted apart. I was the studious one, always curious why things worked, and if they didn’t, then I worked tirelessly to repair them. Often when I asked my dad what I should do, he told me to figure it out myself. I spent a lot of time with my dad, an engineer and biochemist who introduced me to the wonders of science.
In a normal time, I would like to have gone to college and majored in chemistry or one of the sciences. I would have lived in a dorm, gone to classes, had years to transition from my teenage years to adulthood.
Instead, I had a zero to sixty experience in a different type of schooling, and I liked to think I graduated with a PhD in survival.
As I drove closer to my school, those clouds on the horizon exploded into a huge billowing mass, darkening the sky. They were roiling now, like dirty boiling water. Probably some storm clouds moving in from the Gulf of Mexico. I shrugged it off, thinking it happened all the time. I didn’t pay too much attention to them because my thoughts were about the cutest boy in school. My breathing increased and my hands became clammy thinking about him. I’d had a crush on Tommy ever since he saved me from a bully in third grade.
I wanted him so much it hurt, and it bordered on the obsessive, thinking about him first thing in the morning, and he was the last thing on my mind at night. I had to have him. I had to prove to everybody I could get him and I would do anything to do so. I was stubborn, because when I set my mind on a goal, I achieved it. I guess my dad was right–I am competitive.
I parked my car in a strategic spot in the school parking lot, and sat for a minute listening to the radio. I pretended to be texting on my cell phone, waiting for Tommy. As my languid thumbs nervously worked the keypad, he whipped his car in the spot next to mine. Dust and gravel flew up in the air. Nonchalantly, I waved at him. He had a splash of red hair, and freckles all over his face. He flashed a smile, and I knew he smiled only for me.
“Hey, Ella. What’s going on?” he asked with a confident upwards motion of his head.
We both got out of our cars.
“Hi, Tommy,” I mewed. My gaze naturally fell to my feet, and an expression of fright appeared on my face. I hadn’t trimmed my toenails. The polish was chipped. Surely, he’d notice.
My hair.
It was a tangled mess.
Oh crap.
Surreptitiously, I ran my fingers through my hair to smooth it, then touched my dry, cracked lips.
I should’ve put lip gloss on.
“Did you do the homework for Mrs. Latham’s class?” Tommy asked, impatiently tapping his foot on the gravel lot.
“Yes,” I said coyly, twirling a lock of my long, thick brunette hair with my index finger. I batted my eyelashes at him. I’d seen that in the movies and it always worked.
“Give it to me.”
I stopped twirling my hair. I guess the movies weren’t right after all. I fumbled around in my backpack then handed the homework to Tommy.
His hand brushed against my arm when he snatched the homework away from me. Did he long for me in the way I longed for him? I waited for his eyes to meet mine, but they never did. Perhaps he’d walk me to class, and I imagined him putting his arms around me, bringing me close.
I would have done anything for him. All he had to do was ask.
Tommy was tall and athletic, and captain of the baseball team. His muscles rippled under his uniform when he took a swing at a ball, and a collective sigh came from the stands. All the girls pined for him. I could tell by the way they looked at him, giggling and whispering when he walked by. It made me jealous because we had a deal.
Tommy was dyslexic. He got numbers and letters all mixed up in his head. But he was smart. He could recount, word for word, the Constitution of the United States and the first Ten Amendments. I could barely get through the preamble. In exchange for me helping him with his homework, he’d take me to dances and movies.
We’d sit together in class, and during tests I would give him the answers by using a secret code. A wiggle here, or a tap of the foot might mean answer C for question two. Sometimes I scratched my head, or twirled my hair. Left hand meant odd numbered pages, right hand even numbered. People thought I was twitchy, but it wasn’t the case. One time someone asked me if I had Tourettes. I told them I had a mild case and it spread like wildfire throughout the school.
“Thanks, Ella. I appreciate it. You even forged my name. It’s exactly like mine,” Tommy said, inspecting the paper. “You sure all the math problems are correct?”
“I think so.”
“They better be. Graduation is right around the corner, and the scholarship I applied for depends on it.”
“I promise I did them all correctly.” I hated that I was being reduced to a blubbering schoolgirl.
“Okay,” he said.
“I can tutor you this Saturday,” I said hopefully.
“Can’t. I’m going out with friends.”
I didn’t even respond.
“See you later.” He trotted off to class leaving me behind.
I sighed and slumped my shoulders. Right when I thought he didn’t care, he turned back around to wink at me, and a wide, crinkly smile crept over my face. The cutest boy in class winked at me, and I felt like the prettiest girl in the world.
My school was located a few blocks from the freeway. Even the concrete sound barrier didn’t prevent us from hearing the roar of the cars in the classroom, especially the big eighteen wheelers. Those were the noisiest. They made the windows shake too. I had started to walk across the gravel parking lot when the crashes on the freeway occurred, one after another, metal crunching against metal, making unnatural sounds.
In the distance, the soft wailing of ambulances sliced through the humid morning air, and I noticed an odd smell. The cloud from the Gulf was enormous, and in the middle of it was a strange green bubbling mass.
Must be from pollution, I thought.
We were close to the oil refineries near the coast, and when the wind blew right, I could smell the toxic odor of chemicals.
I shivered in the morning dampness.
All sorts of thoughts went through my head. Perhaps there had been an oil refinery fire, or a ship had blown up in the channel, resulting in smoke blowing inland.
It started to rain a bit. Perhaps a late season tropical storm had blown in from the Gulf, and the rain had caused the roads to become slick. I didn’t remember my dad talking about the weather the night before. Every evening he stayed glued to the six o’clock news and the weather. He hailed from a ranching family where weather was all important. It was more important than the farm animals, or the death of a family member. Too much rain and the crops would be destroyed; too little and they would dry up and wither away into dry, crunchy nothingness.
Amazingly, my dad still owned the family ranch. When he didn’t work overtime at the lab, we went to the ranch on weekends. It was a beautiful place, nestled in the fertile Hill Country of Central Texas. A branch lined with pecan trees ran through our land, and pools of spring fed water teemed with perch and bullfrogs. Many times we ate a meal o
f fried perch my dad and I caught in one of those pools.
I watched squirrels jumping from tree to tree, a canopy so thick the squirrels never had to set foot on the ground. Good crops could still be grown too. My mother canned fruits and vegetables from the garden, and stacked them in the cellar where it was cool for later use. The cellar was damp and dark, and full of spindly, harmless daddy longleg spiders.
Some days at the ranch my dad would take me hunting. May couldn’t be bothered, which was fine by me because I had my dad all to myself, and we bonded on those cherished walks through the woods. He showed me the edible plants, and which ones had medicinal purposes, pointed out the best places to hunt, how to track game, and taught me how to handle a firearm.
When I was little, my dad built a treehouse at the ranch, deep in the woods. He positioned it high in a century-old oak tree near the creek bottom. He said it was my special hiding place, and we never told anyone about it. The thick dark green foliage hid it from prying eyes, especially on the ground, but if I stood on my toes in the treehouse, I had a marvelous view of the surrounding valley and woods where the cedar trees created a natural windbreak. The area teemed with deer, turkeys, wild hogs, doves, and quail.
In the orchard, planted long ago, pecan trees were heavy with nuts, and the peach trees bore delicious fruit which ripened in the early summer. Wild mustang grapes grew on fence posts, and in the pasture, patches of two foot tall wheat still grew.
When I was little I would run through the golden wheat, amber grains blowing in the wind like an incoming wave on the beach. I skipped through the grain, my hands threading through the florets, catching seeds. I’d glance over my shoulders, pretending to be chased by a wild animal. I’d run faster as the imaginary beast closed in on my heels, snapping at me. Right as it was about to catch me, I’d find a tree and scramble up the branches until I was high in the tree, safe.
A gust of wind blew in over the parking lot, and it whooshed all around me. I leaned into it to keep from blowing over. Some sort of fine particles in the wind and rain assaulted me as I hurried towards my classroom. My nose twitched and I sneezed.
What was that smell?
I couldn’t place it; neither would I ever forget it.
The wind pushing me along, I ran to my classroom. My first class of the day was theatre with Mr. Kimble. He was a grumpy old man who had been teaching too long. The plays didn’t excite him any longer, and it showed in his mood. He always yelled at us to be quiet or to sit down. We didn’t pay much attention to him.
I raced alongside the brick building to the outside door of the theatre room, but I was late. The bell rang and the loud clanging noise, like cymbals smashing together, hurt my ears. The wind blew harder and I struggled to open the heavy metal door. Suddenly the vacuum broke and the door flew open. The wind caught it and slammed it against the outer wall, making a huge ruckus.
I stood in the doorway, the wind and rain washing over me. My classmates turned in unison to stare at me. The wind rushed into the room, rustling loose papers off the desks and scattering them. My classmates chased after the papers. I waited for Mr. Kimble to start his tirade. He turned in my direction and his eyebrows furrowed in his annoying way. His lips pursed to hiss my name but before he could utter a sound, confusion overtook him. He clutched his chest and fell to the floor in a silent heap.
He was surely acting, trying to be dramatic. It was a pathetic attempt.
“Cindrella! What have you done?” Tommy yelled, using my full name. He must be mad at me. A breath caught in my throat. Only my mother and father call me by my real name when they are mad at me. My mother insisted on naming me after the fairytale princess, though with a slightly different spelling, and my sister after the cosmetic giant, Maybelline. She must have hoped for a fairytale life for us.
“I didn’t do anything. He’s acting,” I protested.
“Get in here and close the door.” He huffed and crossed his arms.
“Lauren, call the front desk. Mr. Kimble must be sick!” I shouted to my best friend. I stepped into the room and tossed my backpack on a desk.
“There’s no answer!” she screamed from across the room.
“Try again!” I shouted. “Haley, check if Mr. Kimble is okay.”
My classmate bent down to check for a pulse. “He’s not breathing!” she shrieked. “What should I do?”
“Start CPR.”
“What! And put my mouth on his? That would be like kissing him.”
“Then get somebody else to do it.”
In the back of the class someone screamed. It was a real scream, not the fake kind we learned for theatrical plays. Another classmate fainted, then another, and another.
“I’ll go get Mrs. Watkins,” I announced. “She’s been trained in first aid.”
I rushed past the students hovering around Mr. Kimble, racing toward the inside door leading to the hallway. I pushed open the door to find the hallway in absolute chaos. Mrs. Watkins lay sprawled on the floor in an unnatural position with her eyes wide open and her mouth frozen in a horrified grimace. A sea of students ran past her, coughing and gasping for air. Some had fallen, curled into balls on the floor, moaning.
“Mrs. Watkins, are you okay?” I yelled. There was no response. “Mrs. Watkins?” I cried faintly through a strained voice. Her unfocused eyes were glassy, and her skin had taken on the color of old chalk. Then it occurred to me. Oh God, she’s dead! My heart beat so hard I could feel the thumping in my ears. I had never seen a dead person before, and a deep welling of revulsion rose in me. I clutched my stomach and bent over, my hand instinctively going to my mouth. I gagged and almost threw up.
“Help!” I coughed out. No one paid any attention to me.
I ran to my theatre class, where the scene inside was just as ghastly. My classmates had fallen on the floor, one on top of another, and a few were gasping for air. Chairs had been knocked over, and papers were strewn around the room. Tommy stood on the stage. His mouth hung open, ready to scream words that wouldn’t form.
“Tommy, what’s happening?” I screamed. There was no answer. He stood there, not moving. “What’s wrong with you? Do something!”
He didn’t move. He stood frozen, his arms at his sides, staring at the lifeless bodies on the floor. I ran over to him, put my hands on his shoulders, and shook him. “Tommy!”
“I…I don’t know,” he stammered. “Something is wrong. Let’s get outta here.” He scowled at me and jerked my arm. “Come on, let’s go!”
“We can’t. We need to call for help.”
“You can stay if you want to, but I’m leaving.”
“Wait,” I pleaded. “Don’t leave me here by myself.” It was no use. He ran out, leaving me behind in the classroom.
There were no more sounds or gurgling noises of people dying, only the silence of escaping souls.
My heart raced and my hands became clammy. Each tick of the clock on the wall was magnified, and my ears thumped with each movement of the second hand. Terrified, I covered my ears with both hands and ran outside.
In the unreal morning darkness, the rain hit me, attacking my skin like a thousand little needles. It took my eyes a few seconds to acclimate to the low light. Then Tommy peeled out of his parking place.
“Tommy!” I shouted, running toward him. “Don’t leave me alone!” He drove past, gesturing wildly for me to leave.
Standing in the dust of his car, I watched him drive away, confused why he wouldn’t help me, especially after all the times I had helped him.
A roaring sound like a train engine barreling down on me caused me to duck. I kneeled and wrapped my arms around my legs. The train running parallel to the interstate wasn’t scheduled for another hour, so the sound confused me. I had grown up with that train, listening to the piercing horn at all times of the day. This was no train.
I looked left and right, trying to find the source of the deafening noise, and finding none I glanced skyward. The underbelly of a huge jet came so close o
verhead the force of the air knocked me over, causing me to tumble several times. My hair blowing around my face, I followed the path of the blue and white jet. I caught a glimpse of the American flag on the tail. It was an enormous plane, bigger than any I had ever been on or seen. United States of America was emblazoned in bold letters on the side.
My mouth dropped open.
Time stopped.
The roar was deafening.
I wasn’t aware of the gravel digging into my legs, or the horrific scene I had witnessed at school, or comprehend what was happening with the plane. All I could think about was the plane was the same one I saw on TV earlier this morning.
It was Air Force One, with the president on board. And it was about to crash.
Chapter 3
The plane sheared off the tops of trees and clipped a building, sending chunks of mortar and concrete tumbling to the ground. A strange object had been ejected, or blown off, and it shot high in the sky. I wasn’t sure what it was. I lost track of it when a deafening crash filled the air with a fireball as tall as a skyscraper exploding into the sky, the flames erupted with billowing clouds of black smoke.
The stink of burning fuel assaulted my senses, and I covered my nose.
Then the shockwave barreled over the land, whipping tree branches like a tornado, and the force of it knocked me to the ground. I curled into a ball, covered my head, and thought this was how I would die. Alone, on a hard, cold parking lot.
Screaming in agony, I rocked back and forth as the pressure on my ears increased. I waited for death, to be released from this torture. Seconds passed, and the pressure finally equalized. When I opened my eyes, the school building was still intact. The trees, the cars too, and checking myself, I determined I was uninjured.
I guess it wasn’t my time to die.
I sprinted to my car and shielded my face with my arm as the stinging rain bit and nipped at my skin. I could still hear the high-pitched sirens from the ambulances.
What the hell was going on?
In the safety of my car, I called my mother. There was no answer, and after a few rings, it went to voicemail. It made no sense why she wouldn’t pick it up. The phone was right beside her on the bed.
