by James Hunt
The broken houses she passed slowly faded into industrial complexes, many of which had been abandoned or shut down. Columns of smoke rose farther down the road, the faint glimmer of flashing red lights fought against the bright afternoon sun, and she hastened her pace.
Streams of water blasted from fire hoses onto rising flames that flickered and waved as high as skyscrapers. The hoses did little to calm the raging inferno as one of the smaller structures to the left collapsed. The flames reflected in Wren’s eyes as she moved past the carnage. Zack wasn’t in there. He wasn’t in there.
“Wren.” The radio under the dash crackled. “Wren, can you hear me?”
Wren fumbled with the receiver, dropping it on the floorboard before scooping it back up. “Nathan? I’m here.” Her fingers clutched the radio like a footing on the side of cliff, her one lifeline as she dangled on the rocks, clinging for dear life.
“One of the cell towers came back online, and I’ve got a better read on Zack’s location. Keep heading north on the road you’re on, and look for a company called Mining Limited. It was shut down a few years ago, but the leasing information says it’s currently empty. That’s where the software narrowed its search.”
“Thank you.” Wren floored the gas pedal, the engine roaring. Her eyes scanned the signage running along fences on the side of the street until she spotted the mining company. The tires screeched to a halt as Wren mounted the curb of the sidewalk. She had half her body already out the door when she remembered the medical bag Nathan had packed. She snatched it from the backseat and sprinted blindly for the old factory’s entrance, which was encased with a rusted fence.
“Zackary!” Wren scaled the old fence, struggling with only one good arm, the metal wiring rough and coarse against her skin, her hands and feet finding what holes they could on her way over, the medical bag slung over her shoulder. She twisted over the top fence railing then landed awkwardly on the cracked parking lot pavement and broke out into a sprint toward the building. Her feet pounded against the concrete, her mind and body pushing beyond the fatigue of the day, past her own limits. She skidded to a stop at the first pair of factory doors she saw, which were chained shut. She pulled, pushed, punched, and kicked but did nothing more than rattle the rusted gatekeeper refusing her entry. She pulled her hair back in frustration, digging her nails into the hard flesh over her skull. “Zaaaaaaaaaack!”
The scream was bloodcurdling, Wren’s throat raw and cracked. She looked up to the broken windows, too high for her to scale. She sprinted to the side, running down the shadowed portion of the building that blocked the hot summer sun, each door she passed locked with steel chains. “Zack!”
“Mom.”
Wren stopped, her feet sliding in the loose, broken gravel. She clutched the chained doors, her ears pressed close to the crack in the middle. “Zack, honey, where are you? Zack!” She patted the walls with her palms, the brick of the building cool from the lack of sun. She jogged to the next pair of doors. Those were locked as well, but the chains sagging around the door handles offered some give. She slid the medical bag in first. She gripped the handle firmly, pulling backward with her right arm, the crack between the two doors widening with each strained pull. She thrust her left shoulder inside, ducking under the chains pulled tight across the narrow opening. Her stomach and back scraped against the sides of the door, and she drew in a breath, her face reddening from the tight space, and with one final push leapt inside, her wounded left arm smacking against the pavement, sending a thousand tiny knives through her body. Wren forced herself off the cold, dirty floor, shoving her pain aside.
“Zack?” The acoustics of the building echoed Wren’s voice high into the ceiling. She squinted into the darkness and stumbled forward, groping for the medical bag. Her fingers found the cloth then the zipper, and she rummaged with her hand to the bottom until she found the flashlight.
One click illuminated the darkness. Wren drifted the oblong orb across the space inside, which revealed large cylinder vats, rusted tables, and overturned chairs. “Zack, where are you?”
“Mom.”
Wren pivoted left, the cast of light following her. She hurried forward, sifting through the darkness, repeating her son’s name over and over. Each time he answered, he sounded weak, tired. She rounded one of the large vats and saw that two had collapsed on each other, their rusted steel twisted, bent in angles that jutted out in every direction. She shined the light underneath, trying to find a way through. “Zack!”
“I’m here.”
The light reflected off a shoe to Wren’s left. She sprinted farther around, seeing an outstretched hand, fingers wiggling in the flashlight’s beam. Wren dropped to the floor, smooshing her cheeks against the dirtied concrete, shining the light on Zack’s squinting face. Zack’s face, hair, and clothes were covered in dust, the whites of his eyes shining back at her brightly. Wren ran the light down his body and saw his leg was pinned behind him under a load of steel. It looked broken, but he was alive. “Are you hurt?”
“I can’t move my right leg.” Tears formed in his eyes. “Mom, my friends are under there, and I can’t hear them.” His words grew thick toward the end, and tears burst from the corners of his eyes, darkening the dust on his cheeks as he rested his head on the floor, sobbing.
Wren shifted the light to the wreckage behind her son, knowing that anyone underneath the tons of steel was already gone. “It’s okay. Let’s just focus on trying to get you out first, okay? One thing at a time. I’m going to take a look at the damage. I’ll be right back.”
Both vats had collapsed in on themselves, and the cylindrical structures weren’t as much of a problem as the supporting beams that had twisted and tangled underneath, forming a jungle gym of rusty, broken steel. Toward the back, she saw a puddle of blood seeping out from under the heart of the collapse.
“Mom?” Zack asked, his voice still thickly coated with the glaze of fear.
“I’m here, Zack.” Wren shut her eyes, fighting the cold shiver running down her back. Just get him out. Her spine stiffened, and she shined the light on every portion of the wreckage that she could spy. It was a mess. Any time she thought she would be able to move a piece of steel to give Zack the space he needed to crawl out, she found another bar tangled with it that she knew, if moved, would only worsen her son’s predicament. So don’t remove it. She shined the light on a path to Zack’s leg. It was tight, but she could reach it.
Wren flattened herself against the floor, Zack squinting into the light. “I’m gonna get you out of here, honey. Just hang tight. I’m going to be right back.”
“Mom, hurry.” Zack’s words were strained, the panic of the situation finally settling in. “I don’t want to die.”
“I won’t let that happen.” Wren grabbed his hand, her son clutching back like he did when he was boy. “I’m getting you out.” She gave a squeeze then exited the building, barely wedging through the chained door, and sprinted for the truck.
The flames down the street still roared, with the firefighters doing their best to keep the inferno from spreading. She flung the trunk of the SUV open and peeled off the floor cover, exposing a spare tire, tire iron, and jack. She ripped the jack from its casing, leaving the trunk open in her haste.
Wren was squeezing through the doors when she saw a group of trucks and SUVs speeding down the roadway. She squinted, expecting the flashing lights of police and emergency vehicles, but saw none. Instead, the closer the caravan approached, the more she could make out some of the men in the back of the truck, wielding rifles and wearing black masks.
Wren disappeared inside the factory, the jack clanking against the concrete as she flopped to the floor next to it, the doors swinging shut behind her. Her fingers fumbled over the cool chunk of iron and she tucked it under her arm, the flashlight jerking in all directions as she sprinted back to where Zack lay trapped.
“Hang on, baby.” Wren’s hands shook as she set the flashlight down, angling it to illuminate her pa
th along the metal death trap. She lifted her leg, stepping over the first beam, then was forced to immediately duck below a second. When her foot hit the floor, she had to twist her ankle awkwardly as the jack tucked under her right arm knocked against one of the mangled beams.
The trek was slow going, Wren’s body contorting in the same extreme angles as the twisted wreckage. The cloth of her pants and shirt tore on the sharper edges, and more than once she felt the sharp pinch of tearing flesh, quickly followed by a warm trickle of blood.
Zack’s leg was finally within reach, along with the beam that pinned it down. Wren’s legs trembled as she struggled to keep the strength to steady herself while shoving the jack under the beam. “Zack, once I get this up and off of you, crawl forward as fast as you can.” She looked to the thick beams that crisscrossed all around her, praying that her calculation of the shift in weight wouldn’t bring the entire structure down upon her head.
Wren flattened the jack as low as it would allow her and rolled it under the beam, the two pieces of metal scraping against one another, each offering their own whining disdain of the other. She gave the jack a few more good shoves, making sure it was secure, then twisted the handle into place and pumped.
The iron handle could only move a few inches up and down in the narrow space, smacking against the metal bars, Wren banging her knuckles bloody with each hastened pump. But slowly, the steel beam lifted off her son’s leg.
Zack moaned, and Wren wasn’t sure if it was from pain or release. The beams cast shadows all around her from the flashlight, and it was hard to see the extent of the wound as the steel lifted, but once it was high enough, she watched the mangled leg wiggle forward and heard the scrape of Zack’s clothes and body against the floor. “I’m out!”
The beams around Wren gave a dissatisfied creak, and she quickly slithered through the narrow openings and harshly angled gaps, feeling the shift of the unstable metals around her. The first steel beam gave way toward the middle, a sharp din ringing through the factory when she was only a few feet away from escape. Her hands clawed at the beams around her for support, her feet frantically slipping off of the angled steel, her elbows, knees, and head smacking against the metals on her manic escape.
The harsh din of collapse echoed louder, and through the ringing collision of steel, she heard Zack screaming, telling her to hurry. The beams shifted, but safety was less than a foot away now. Just as one of the steel rods to her right jerked sharply toward her head but stopped less than an inch from her eye, she used what strength was left in her legs through the opening, a sharp tear opening on her right thigh as she collapsed to safety on the floor next to the flashlight, which illuminated the mangled structure’s destruction.
Wren lay back on the ground, her right hand fingering the warm blood fresh on her thigh. Any movement triggered a hot burn that rippled through her leg, but she forced herself to stand. “Zack?” She grabbed the flashlight and saw her son, red-faced, dirty, sweating, and staring at the mangled carnage that was his shin.
She collapsed to the floor next to Zack, each of them squeezing one another tightly, their light sobs echoing off one another. When she pulled his head back, her anger toward his situation returned. “What were you doing here? Do you know what’s happening?”
“I’m sorry, Mom. We used to come here all the time to hang out. I didn’t know this was going to happen. None of us did. I’m sorry.” Zack leaned his wet, sobbing face into her shoulder. “I’m so sorry.” He clawed at her arm, his body shaking with every wave of grief that ran through him.
Wren brushed her fingers through his hair, hushing him, glad for the simple fact that he was alive. “It’s okay. But we need to get out of here and get your leg taken care of.” Wren had never excelled in her biology classes but knew that they needed to take care of the injury quickly. He could be bleeding internally or god knew what else. Priority one was getting him out of there.
Zack lifted his arm over Wren’s shoulder and let out a cry as they pushed him off the floor together, his right leg dangling limply between them. Her son was taller than she was now and had a good thirty pounds on her, and with her own leg still dripping blood, each step forward forced her to extend what little energy remained in her body.
The flashlight wobbled back and forth in her hand with the sling, the shaky spotlight guiding them back to the doors she had managed to squeeze through.
“Wait, wait, wait.” Zack stopped them. “Where are we going?”
Wren motioned the light over to the doors. “Out of here.”
Zack gestured behind them. “There’s already an open door in the back. It’s covered up by some old equipment, but it’s there.”
The pair of doors that were chained together rattled loudly, sunlight breaking through the cracks and flooding the factory floor, accompanied by the thick foreign tongue that Wren had heard at the hospital.
Wren flicked the light off, casting the two of them back into darkness. “We need to move. Hurry!” She kept her voice a whisper. She turned them around and limped forward as fast as they could move together.
“Mom, what’s going on? Who is that?” The panic in Zack’s voice returned, and the banging doors and rattling chains grew louder with every step.
“Just keep moving, baby. And keep quiet.” Wren found the wall, and they used it to guide them to the rear of the building where Zack and his friends had snuck in. His friends. And what’s left of them will rot under that steel. Their parents will never see them again, never hear them speak, never feel the warmth of their faces.
A loud clang sounded, and Wren turned around to see sunlight penetrating the dark facility. Two shadowed figures stepped inside, one of them barking at the other like a dog. Wren hastened her son’s pace, practically dragging him deeper into the darkness.
“Right here,” Zack whispered, pointing to a faintly darker rectangle.
The voices of the terrorists echoed louder, and when Wren fumbled for the door, the lights from their flashlights kicked up, sweeping the factory’s landscape. She shouldered the door open, quickly getting both of them inside. “Where now?” The room was pitch black, and Wren feared moving too quickly and triggering a noise that would give away their position.
“Just keep going straight,” Zack said, his voice still a wheezy whisper.
Light shone through the cracks in the doorframe as they shuffled toward freedom. “Hurry, Zack.” They double-timed it, limping forward faster and faster, Wren’s heart beating out of her chest, her mind aware of every pain radiating in her body. Just keep going.
They thudded against the door Zack described, and Wren thrust it open, sunlight blinding both of them. Zack stopped to catch his breath, but Wren pushed him forward. “We can’t stop, baby. Let’s go.”
But when Wren’s vision adjusted to the light, she saw just how bad Zack’s injury was. The jeans were soaked and darkened around the area where the beam had pinned him, and while Zack could bend the knee, she noticed his foot hung loosely from the ankle and that his shin shifted slightly to the left. She looked to his face and could see the pained effort as he gritted his teeth with every step.
Wren stopped at the corner of the factory, knowing they’d have to pass by the exposed doors the terrorists had entered, and made sure the coast was clear. Gunshots sounded toward the emergency vehicles where the fire still raged, but her vehicle remained parked and unharmed.
They were forced to go all the way around the gated entrance, Zack too weak to climb the fence where she had entered. The moment her hand touched the passenger-side handle of the EMS vehicle, a scream pierced the open air behind them.
Wren turned to the sight of two masked men sprinting in their direction. “Hurry, Zack!” She opened the door and threw her son inside. She slammed the door shut, running around the front of the vehicle as gunshots thundered behind her. She jumped inside and started the car, slammed the shifter into drive, and floored the gas pedal as bullets thrummed against the vehicle, shattering the b
ack passenger-side windows. Wren thrust her son’s head down, keeping one hand on the wheel and ducking herself.
Another round of gunfire shattered the rear window, and Wren did her best to keep both eyes on the road, swerving left and right to avoid the machine-gunfire. She blew past stop signs and intersections, the wind whipping through the shattered window, flinging her hair in all directions. The speedometer pushed sixty, but she didn’t slow her pace, putting as much distance as she could between her and the blazing hell behind her.
Chapter 8
The radio in the truck spit sporadic crackles and pops as Wren twisted the dial, trying every channel to get back in touch with Nathan, or anyone. “Hello? Nathan, can you hear me?” But every time she took her hand off the receiver, all that answered was the steady buzz of static.
Wren viciously slammed the receiver against the dashboard and punched the steering wheel as Zack winced from shifting in his seat. She looked from the empty fuel gauge glaring back at her over to her son, who brushed glass from the shattered window off of his lap, and gave his hand a squeeze.
Zack laid his head against the headrest, closing his eyes. His face was slick with sweat, and Wren worried that he may have had a fever, or perhaps he was just delirious with pain. He needed a doctor, and with the seven circles of hell surrounding them, she wasn’t sure if that help could be found.
“Can’t we just go to the hospital?” Zack asked.
“It’s gone, Zack.” Wren wasn’t sure why she told him, but she hoped that he was old enough to take the news, as she was desperate to share the burdens of the world with someone. “What’s happening out there is bad. Your sisters are with Nathan at a fire station, and no one knows when this is all going to be over.”
Zack glanced down at his leg, a quietness overtaking his eyes, his body consumed with stillness, and Wren watched his eyes as he processed her words. She gently grabbed his arm. “Right now there isn’t anywhere that’s safe. I know it’s hard, but you need to understand what’s happening out there. You need to know what we could face. There is nothing more important to me right now than protecting our family, but we have to be smart while we’re out here, okay?”
