All she wanted now was to know Lindsay was safe.
Austin felt a wave of sadness thinking about her, and their last fight. She tried to put it out of her mind as she rode into the brick parking lot of the co-op. The two-level grocery co-op was twenty years old with large glass windows that faced the street and the parking lot. Normally full of activity, but today the parking lot was empty. Austin rode up to the door that would normally automatically open. Part of the glass was broken. A paper sign hung inside the door.
STAY AWAY!
She tried to look through webbed and cracked glass. The produce department was wrecked, it looked picked clean, but what remained was on the floor. She could see legs sticking out from behind the first register. Austin looked for the tattoo of the sparrow in flight on Lindsay’s leg. She sighed with relief when the leg was not hers. She felt that relief, but kept walking along the window. Another sign was drawn in marker and taped to the second large window.
THE EARTH IS GETTING REVENGE!
The second register had a broken computer that was blinking on and off. She stared deeper into the store. The bulk bins were dumped on the floor creating a mess. The shelves looked ransacked. Austin stepped along the window in line with the third cash register. The print on the next sign taped to the window was smaller but still in block letters.
WE KILLED OURSELVES.
Austin walked carefully until she was in line with the last register and large pane of glass. This one was not broken but it still had a hand drawn sign. She was afraid to look inside. The more disasters she saw in the store the more her fear rose. “Don’t be in there, don’t be in there,” she whispered just over her breath. The print on the next sign was faded, as if the marker was dying.
REAP WHAT YOU HAVE SOWN.
Austin looked past the sign and thought she saw movement inside. Finally, someone she could talk to. They could tell her what happened.
“Hello?”
She leaned in so the visor on the gas mask was against the window. Two legs laid past an end cap on the ground by the dairy case built into the back wall. A woman was crouched over the one lying down.
She might know if Lindsay had been there. Austin knocked on the window harder. The older woman leaned back to look in her direction. Austin relaxed a little. She looked sort of familiar at first, but everything happened in seconds. Her face was covered something dark, her long blondish hair was matted with some kind of goo. The woman’s eyes were yellow. Her skin was pale gray.
There was no time to question it, it was just an instant. The woman jumped to her feet and ran unnaturally fast toward the window. Austin jumped back and the woman hit the window like a bird flying into a closed glass door. The woman bounced off of it and fell out of sight on to the floor. The heavy glass cracked a little, a small spider web of cracks formed out in a circle from the impact point. The woman didn’t reappear.
Austin took a nervous step closer to the glass and considered getting on her tip toes to look at the floor. A crate of watermelons obstructed her view. She inched closer again, thinking the woman must have been knocked out.
The mad woman screamed, it sounded awful, like nails across a chalkboard, the desperate sound of something wild dying. The face appeared in the window rising slowly. Austin’s breath got heavier trapped inside the mask. She locked her gaze with the yellow and red eyes.
Everything in her life at that moment felt like a sand castle being pulled away into the tide. Those eyes. They were alien to her now, once the most beautiful shade she had ever seen. The face was not that of an old woman. The skin had grown pale under the mixture of fresh and dried blood. The hair was matted and filthy but she knew that hair, had buried her nose in that hair after making love to her.
A sickly wretched version of her Lindsay stood on the other side of the glass. Lindsay screamed and jumped at the glass. It cracked a little but held. Austin felt tears building. She shook her head and refused to believe. She stepped back. Lindsay banged her head several times into the glass screaming. The glass gave a little each time.
Austin screamed at her. “Stop! Baby, please! Stop!”
The visor on her gas mask filled with steam. A scream echoed outside. Austin turned and looked into a fresh wave of smoke crawling across the parking lot. Another scream in the distance somewhere in the mist. The glass continued to break, as Lindsay mashed her head into the window.
Austin ran for her bike. She grabbed it and headed in the direction of downtown. Robbins was right, this was the end.
***
“We’re not taking visitors at the moment.”
The security guard didn’t look healthy to Robbins. He was sweating through his uniform and his eyes were already showing signs of the infection. The man was Latino with a flag from his home state in Mexico in an old faded tattoo on his forearm. Robbins was big guy, taller but not intimidating to this man at all.
“You are not looking so good, brother.”
“Get the fuck out of my lobby.”
Robbins pulled his paper mask out of his pocket. “You want to be the guy that sent me packing to FOX or CBS?”
The guard laughed. “Everybody has a story.”
Robbins walked backward with his arms out. “Tipping point, buddy. I predicted this, been sounding the alarm for years. You been hearing the gunfire out there?”
“Oh, so you some kind of prophet?”
“You bet your ass I am, and I got to get in there and tell the people not to drink the water! If I don’t, we will have more crazy people out there making a mess. No one believed me, but for years we got our water from the Colorado. That water goes through every industrial farm in eight states before you let it out of your tap. I have to warn people.”
“You dumb ass. The mayor already done that!” The guard held up a water bottle. “Don’t drink no tap water. He said it.”
Robbins couldn’t believe it. He paused half out the door.
“The mayor?”
“Yep, too bad the muthafucker didn’t do it earlier.”
Robbins knew this man drank tap earlier in the day. He could see it. Robbins looked around the building and could see the live studio. He was just going to have to get their attention.
***
“Hey, Julia?”
It was awkward, but Jake knocked on the bathroom door. He knocked softly at first. It had been more than a half an hour since she ran to the bathroom. Jake looked back at the newsroom and all the activity. He didn’t think anyone else was in the women’s room but he couldn’t be sure. He edged open the door a bit and knocked a little harder.
“Julia? It’s me Jake I just want to make sure you are OK?”
He worried about Julia, still didn’t know what to do. There was no aspect of this story that was his wheelhouse. Mitchell from the city had them almost back on-air. The station was a hub of activity as they prepared to go back on-air, even if they would only be available to those with rabbit ears. He looked for a woman who was not busy. Everyone but him was busy. He would have left but he heard that Sky 7 was going to land soon and he wanted to talk to Andrew.
He got up to head to the elevator and passed the weather cubicle. Julia had been gone for a while. He knocked again and pushed the door open a little more.
“OK, I think something is wrong. I am coming in.”
Jake slowly opened the door. He had that moment of realizing how much nicer and cleaner the woman’s room was to the room just across the water fountain. Julia’s shoes had not made it to the stall with her. Jake knocked on the stall door. He pushed the door open with a creak.
Julia laid between the toilet and the stall. The bowl was unflushed and full of a bright, red colored vomit. He expected to see fear or shock in her face but she was breathing heavy like she had just run a sprint. Julia was a darker skinned Latina, with a perfect figure and long black hair that made her one of the most popular women in the local media. Now her skin looked whiter than his.
He wanted to go to her to comfort her. W
hat if she is contagious? Jake involuntarily took a step back. So what? You’re dying already, genius. Jake leaned down closer. Even mixed with the toilet water the vomit smelled like rotten food. She was covered in a thin layer of sweat. She looked up at Jake. Her pupils were yellow and the whites of her eyes were red.
“I’m hungry,” she whispered. She tried to stand but fell back grunting.
“I’ll get help.” Jake ran out into the news room.
Paul Bingham, the young reporter, was on the floor. Two interns were trying to help him up. He had the same red vomit drying on his shirt. Jake looked around the news room and Saw Kendra walking a sick Sally to her office. She could barely stand.
Jake spun in the news room. Those who were not sick were focused on the show. Half the newsroom was sick or getting there. His eyes froze on the water fountain between the bathrooms. It had a spot in the back where you could fill up water bottles. It was just filtered tap water.
There was no one to save Julia or any of them. All his concern for Julia, Sally or anyone else in this building melted away. He had to get home. He had to get his family and get the hell out of here. Not just the station but out of San Diego. He had to be waiting for Andrew when he got back.
He walked toward the elevator and looked out the windows beyond the news room. Out onto the street. A black man was hovering outside the window. He had on one of the paper masks people in Asia wear during outbreaks. He was holding a cardboard sign, it was hand drawn.
I PREDICTED THIS ALL. THE TIPPING POINT. THE END.
Chapter Twelve
No signal.
Victoria slid the phone back into her pocket. She wanted desperately to get any connection. The phone, the internet, and the cable all dead. She picked up the land line every few minutes and got a busy signal. A recorded voice broke in and said all lines were busy. She sent a simple Come home please: text that failed over and over to send. She knew it was pointless but hit re-send again. She waited by the large window at the front of the house and stared at the driveway. It was like watching a pot for the water to boil.
After trying every rational and logical thing to try and talk to her husband she punched the wall. Her hand hurt instantly, making her feel stupid. She had not prayed since she sat at her father’s bedside. Curtis Brown was too young to die like that. She couldn’t face the thought of being without a parent and even though she watched her mother suffer through her disease she couldn’t give up on her father. He would be there for their wedding. Jake agreed to move the wedding up, but her father never made it.
For the last months of his life they focused on that walk down the aisle together. No matter how bleak, she believed he would get better. He would be there even if he was in a wheelchair. She prayed and held his hand as it got more brittle by the hour. The hurt of that day faded but never went away. It was for him as much as her. She spent hours praying that he would make it.
He didn’t make it to the wedding.
Since that day she found it hard to ask God for anything. She needed Jake home, didn’t feel she could protect her children alone. For the first time since they had been married, Victoria closed her eyes and whispered a little prayer.
“Come on Jake,” she whispered and a prayer slipped out. “Please bring him home.”
The smoke outside the house had grown thick and oppressive. It was still daylight out but hard to tell. The orange midnight they had in the morning was impossible to see at this point. Like a fog had rolled in. Walking outside felt like walking into a bar before the smoking ban. It was so thick outside she was just now starting to smell it inside. The old house had cracks under the door, around the windows. This house, although remodeled twice, was built in the 40s.
Car lights moved slowly through the smoke. They were slicing through the haze toward the house. Victoria involuntarily crossed her fingers and felt her heart beating faster.
“Please be Jake,” she whispered and walked to the window. She could barely make out the vehicle as it passed the house. She felt deflated, as if air was released from a balloon. It was a military Humvee. A solider stood on top, shining a spotlight toward the house.
Victoria thought about waving. Did they need to be rescued? She didn’t know why, but something told her not to be seen. The powerful spotlight cut through the smoke and lit up her living room before moving on. It was a feeling she had never felt before. She was trapped inside her own home. She felt helpless. She was always a strong woman, a successful reporter straight out of college. She had walked into crime scenes and ugly stories and never batted an eye. Now, here she was afraid to open her door, waiting for husband, not because she couldn’t handle this, but because she didn’t want to do this alone.
It was strangely quiet outside. They were just a few blocks from four lanes in each direction of the 805 freeway. They constantly heard a near-ambient hum of the freeway in the distance but that sound was gone. Had everyone retreated like the mayor requested? Surely someone was still trying to get home, or escape.
Victoria leaned against the door. She wanted to hear the outside world. She normally hated the roar of the morning rush hour, now she desperately wanted to hear it. She wanted the normal sounds of her city. All she heard were screams. Some distant, some closer. There was no pattern. The screams kept coming. One after another.
“Noooo! Ahhhh!”
She jumped a little. This one was close. Muffled by walls, could have been across the street or next door. Victoria turned the handle and felt a wave of dirty air hit her face. Her eyes and lungs rejected the filthy air immediately. Her block was quiet. With the door open, she heard the sounds of automatic gun fire far off across uptown.
The air was so bad she was already coughing. Victoria backed into the house and closed the door and waved her hands trying to clear the air.
“Mooooom,” Tiffany yelled before she walked to the top of the stairs. Victoria turned to see her daughter still dressed for school looking down at her.
“I’m bored. I read almost a whole book. I can’t even watch Netflix.”
Victoria stood up and stared at her daughter. So much of Victoria’s childhood was spent in poverty. He father didn’t finish college or make real money until she was almost done with middle school. Her parents fought about money until the day her mother got sick. They ate dinner for six months in a row at the Perkins down the street from the hospital because kids ate for free.
Victoria got great joy out of sheltering and spoiling her kids. She wanted that for her children even if she had to suppress the urge to scream at them to deal.
“Come get a DVD from your dad’s collection.”
Tiffany rolled her eyes. “I’m hungry,” she said before disappearing.
It wasn’t quite dinner time, but she hoped cooking would take her mind off watching for Jake.
***
She rode her bike across the center line. It was the only part of the road she could see past a few feet. It looked as if she was riding into a cloud. On a normal day this ride would have been impossible. Nimitz Blvd was a major street that connected the peninsula that included Point Loma and Ocean Beach with downtown.
Austin biked slowly, listening to the sound of her breathing inside the gas mask. The lack of traffic and the near silence of this normally busy part of the city made her nervous. She turned off her music, wanting to hear better. The occasional scream and sound of gunfire would break it up. The gun-fire was loud but distant like a thunderstorm across the plains.
She pedaled and kept the bike going away from Ocean Beach. She pushed up the first hill away from the co-op on pure adrenaline. Flashes in her memory of the look on Lindsay’s face, the bone crushing sound of her head hitting the window over and over. She tried to tell herself that wasn’t really her, not really her Lindsay. It was a broken and crazed monster and not Lindsay. It just looked like her. It couldn’t be her.
The tough exterior she had built around herself being homeless for her entire young adult life was cracking just like
that glass. Inside, she knew what she had seen. It wasn’t just the dead fish in the water, the dead woman that no one seemed to care about, the gunfire she heard in the arena, or even her lover gone crazy. The mask protected her lungs, but her exposed skin was crusty with ash. The air was getting worse, feeling like a noose tightening around her neck. Lindsay had been her hope for somewhere to go.
Even when her mother was gone she had never had this feeling. There was always a bridge to sleep under, a spot for her tent or sleeping bag. In the summer she loved to sleep right on the beach. There was always somewhere to go.
The first few minutes she just wanted to get away. She headed downtown, the only person who seemed to have a clue what was happening was Robbins. She had to admit he was correct. Robbins had gone downtown to talk to the news, maybe she could find him there. She knew his spot in East Village, the giant concrete abandoned pipe might be shelter enough.
In the distance, Austin saw a flashing red light hanging up off the ground. It was a stoplight, a major intersection. She slowed down the bike seeing the sign of a Ralph’s grocery store. A soldier walked from the store, his rifle was slung on his back. He carried five beers by one finger hooked on an empty ring of plastic.
Austin stopped her bike and watched the faint image of the soldier disappear in the mist. The soldier never saw her. She heard the voices muffled by gas masks. They cheered the delivery of the beer. She couldn’t see them, but she could hear them. Several of them. They were waiting at the stoplight. A checkpoint.
Austin turned her bike to go around the grocery store. She thought about going up to the checkpoint and asking for help. She couldn’t do it. The sounds of the screams and gunfire in the arena or in the distance throughout the city combined with a lifetime of being raised to question authority. Austin made her way around. She held her breath in the mask and pedaled softly hoping they didn’t hear her.
***
Martin leaned back in his chair under the city seal at the back of the conference table. They had long ago rolled up the screen since they were unable to project the latest fire maps. Martin stared at the last map they got more than an hour ago. They all knew that the fire had grown bigger. Not knowing somehow made it feel more dangerous. A major crisis was building around the city and they were completely blind. Chuck and a few guys had gone up to the roof with one of the FEMA guys. They couldn’t see a thing. The smoke crawling through downtown only got thicker by the minute. Agent Shea of FEMA had a radio. He was talking to the command center, but was working out of Chuck’s office.
Ring of Fire Page 13
