Aftermath

by LeVar Burton

  She looked around, trying to decide on a hiding place. There were plenty of places to hide along the waterfront: empty buildings, abandoned warehouses, burned-out cars, maybe even a few of the caves beneath the city. She had once hidden in the wrecked remains of a big silver boat called the Admiral, but a couple of old drunks had chased her out. Still, she couldn’t hide forever. Sooner or later she would have to come out to look for food. Even rats had to eat. When she did, the police would grab her and drag her off to jail.

  If she couldn’t hide, then she had to get away. That was it, she had to leave the city. A frown tugged at the corners of her mouth. If she left St. Louis, she would be giving up any hope of ever finding her mother. The people at the shelter bad told Amy that her mother was dead, but she didn’t believe them. Her mother was still alive, somewhere. She just didn’t know where.

  Maybe she could go away for a little while, until the police quit looking for her. Sooner or later they would get tired of searching and give up. Then she could come back and everything would be like it was before. But how would she get out of the city?

  Good question. She didn’t have a car, didn’t know anybody who did. She didn’t even own a bicycle. She looked at the river. If she had a boat she could get away. Or a raft …

  A smile unfolded on her face as she spotted a tugboat pushing a string of coal barges up the river. “A raft!” she said, excited. “A really big raft!”

  Amy studied the barges for a moment and then turned and looked upstream, focusing her attention on the twisted remains of the Eads Bridge. Part of the bridge had been destroyed during the earthquake. What was left of it stuck out over the water like a giant diving board. If she could reach the bridge before the barges passed beneath it, she might be able to jump onto one of them. It was quite a fall, but the piles of coal should cushion her landing and keep her from getting hurt. At least she hoped they would.

  Amy had just formed the plan in her mind when someone shouted, “Hey, you there!”

  She turned and saw a policeman coming down the hill toward her. Her blood went cold.

  Oh no, she thought. He must have died, the rich bald-headed man who tried to rape her. All his blood must have leaked out and he had died. She had killed him. She was a murderer. But how did they know she was the one who did it? How did they find out?

  He must have told someone before he died. Or maybe he had written her name on the wall, carefully spelling each letter with a finger dipped in his own blood. That must be it. Her name was written in dried crimson, amy ladue killed me. Now the policeman was going to arrest her and take her away to jail, where there would be rats and big kids who would punch her if she didn’t do what they said. They were going to put her into the electric chair and fry her until her skin turned black and crispy and her eyes popped out

  “Hold it right there,” the policeman yelled. Amy looked at the policeman, looked at the string of barges, and took off running.

  “Stop!”

  Amy didn’t stop. She ran like a frightened rabbit for the Eads Bridge, pumping her arms as hard as she could. The policeman chased after her.

  Would he shoot her? Did policemen shoot little kids in the back? Amy wasn’t sure, but she thought they did. Why else did they carry guns? She had never been shot and could only imagine what it would feel like: the bullet going in, all hot and smoking, tearing through muscle and bone. It had to hurt, just had to hurt really bad.

  Last summer, she had seen the body of a man who had been shot. He was lying in the weeds, next to the crumbled wall of an abandoned building. His body was swollen from the heat and smelled really bad, and there were flies crawling all over it. He lay on his back, his eyes open and glassy, like the eyes of a dead fish, staring up at the sky as though he could still see. A small round hole was in the center of his forehead. A bullet hole. Blood had oozed from the hole to dry on the man’s face and neck. Just a little hole, smaller than a dime, but it had killed him dead.

  She turned and looked behind her. The policeman was still chasing after her, but he hadn’t drawn his gun. Maybe he only wanted to catch her, saving her for the electric chair. Either way, dead was dead. She didn’t want to be dead and swollen, with glassy fish eyes that couldn’t see. She ran faster.

  Amy reached the bridge and started across. She was well ahead of the policeman, but now she had to slow down and choose her steps carefully. Though part of the bridge still stood, it was in bad shape. Chunks of concrete had broken loose and fallen into the river, leaving behind steel girders and reinforcement rods that stretched across the empty spaces like twisted, frozen snakes.

  “Don’t look down. Don’t look down,” she told herself, but did anyway. The river wasn’t deep yet, no more than ten or fifteen feet. Jagged chunks of concrete and metal that had fallen from the bridge stuck out of the water like the teeth of a hungry fish. Amy knew she would splatter like an egg if she fell on those pieces.

  She had just taken another step when she heard a groaning, cracking noise, like nails being pulled from a board, and felt the bridge shift beneath her feet. Amy screamed as a crack opened before her and a section of the concrete gave way. She barely had time to grab the bridge’s railing as a four-foot piece of cement fell into the river below.

  Heart pounding, the taste of fear bitter in her mouth, she stood on the base of the railing, clinging to one of the upright steel girders. Her eyes were closed, and she was much too afraid to open them again. Only when she could again breathe normally did she sneak a peak.

  The section of bridge where she had stepped was gone. It had fallen into the river. She too would have fallen had she not jumped when she did. The mere thought of what almost happened made her legs tremble.

  “Don’t move.”

  The voice startled her. Turning, she saw that the policeman had caught up with her. He was only about twenty feet away, carefully working his way across the bridge.

  “Stay where you are,” he ordered. “I’m coming to get you.” He must have seen the fear in her eyes, because he held out his hand and said, “I’m not going to hurt you. I only want to talk.”

  Her muscles tightened. She started to flee from the approaching officer, but something in his voice held her in place. He said he only wanted to talk. Was he telling the truth? She wanted to believe him, but could she? Before Amy could make up her mind, she heard someone else shout: “That’s her, officer! She’s the one! Arrest her!”

  Amy turned to see who was doing all the shouting and spotted the bald-headed rich man standing at the water’s edge, waving his arms and jumping up and down. He still wore the same clothes he had the day before, but a large white bandage now covered the left side of his face.

  Relief flooded through her. She was not a murderer after all, and probably wouldn’t burn in hell for all eternity. She might not even get fried up in the electric chair. Her relief was only temporary, however, for the rich man continued to yell.

  “Arrest her, officer. Arrest that little bitch. She’s the one who did this to me. I demand that you arrest her and throw away the key.”

  She may not be a murderer, but she had cut the man’s face with a bottle and that had to be against the law. The policeman wouldn’t believe that she had been protecting herself, probably wouldn’t even listen to her side of the story. The bald-headed man was rich, powerful. He could buy judges and policemen. Amy, on the other hand, was nothing. A nobody. They would lock her in jail and throw away the key. That’s where they kept all the rats.

  “I only want to talk to you,” the policeman said again.

  “Liar!” she yelled, backing away from him. “I’m just a river rat. You’re going to arrest me and put me in jail!”

  Terrified of being locked up, Amy held on to the railing and hurried the rest of the way across the bridge. The policeman yelled for her to stop, but she didn’t listen.

  She made it to the end of the bridge, but the barges were still too far away. The policeman would catch her before she could jump. Knowing she co
uld not wait, Amy climbed onto the bridge’s railing.

  The police officer stopped dead in his tracks. “You don’t want to do that.”

  Amy looked at him and smiled. “Yes, I do.”

  She took a deep breath and then jumped. Her arms flapping wildly, she plummeted toward the river. The fall seemed to take forever, an eternity in slow motion. She saw the bridge flash past her, the policeman watching her in wide-eyed terror, and was captivated by the jeweled reflection of the river’s surface. She struck the water feetfirst, the impact stinging the bottoms of her feet and stealing her breath away.

  Down, down, down she went, deep within a world of swirling darkness, tumbled and tossed about like a kite in a thunderstorm. She struggled against the current, fighting to get back to the surface, but the river was too strong for her, dragging her deeper into its ebony womb.

  Kick. Kick. Kick, she told herself, remembering the swimming lessons she had been given at the shelter. She was a good swimmer, but that had been in the calm waters of an enclosed pool, not in the raging torrents of the Mississippi.

  Water entered her nostrils, bringing with it the smells of the river: the odors of fish, sewerage and slimy, dead things. Amy wanted to cough, but dared not. If she did, water would rush into her mouth and fill her lungs. She would drown and be like the cat she had seen the day before. Maybe that’s what the river wanted. Maybe it wanted to make her part of its cold, watery world; drag her down to the blackness at the bottom and bury her in the soft mud, forever.

  Fighting the sensation to cough, fighting the river’s icy grasp, she swam as hard as she could for the surface. Her lungs ready to burst, her head finally popped above the raging water.

  Amy coughed, gasped for breath, and choked as water entered her mouth. She swallowed, coughed some more and drew in shuddering lungfuls of air. She had made it to the surface, but she still wasn’t out of danger. The river carried her downstream, spinning and tossing her about like a piece of driftwood. Turning, she saw the approaching barges and realized in horror that she was on a collision course with them.

  The river’s current was carrying her straight at the oncoming barges. She would be run over, killed, her body crushed and then chopped into little pieces by the tugboat’s propellers. Fish food.

  She swam harder, fighting the current to get out of the way. She spotted a chain hanging from the side of the lead barge. Amy reached out and grabbed the chain, clung to it for dear life. The little girl was so exhausted she didn’t even feel her body bouncing against the barge’s metal side.

  Her strength slowly returning, she managed to pull herself up the chain and tumble inside the barge, landing on a soft pile of coal. Bruised and battered, she lay there as the barge passed beneath what was left of the Eads Bridge. Above her, the policeman leaned over the bridge’s railing and stared at her in disbelief.

  Amy smiled at the policeman, and then lifted her right hand, extending the middle finger in a gesture of defiance. She was now an official river rat, heading upriver on the world’s largest raft.

  Chapter 13

  Leon Cane stood in the window, feeling the wind upon his face. Cool, caressing, like the kiss of angels. It whispered in his ears, sharing with him secrets of faraway places and times long past. He closed his eyes and imagined himself flying with the wind, soaring like a bird up to the sun. Soaring, soaring, soaring, never falling, sweeping over mountains and deserts, touching ancient temples and forgotten cities of stone. His spirit passed beyond the reach of day, into the cool darkness of the night. Following the path of dead kings, he drank from sacred pools of water, which glowed like jewels in the moonlight.

  He sighed and opened his eyes. Leon was on the twentieth floor of the Atlanta Hilton and Towers, looking out over what had once been the heart of Atlanta. Most of the downtown area had been destroyed during the riots, the once-glittering high-rises looted and burned. The remaining buildings had been pockmarked and scarred by rocket and artillery attacks during the war.

  But Leon hadn’t climbed twenty flights of stairs in a burned-out hotel just to admire the view, not that it was worth admiring. He had come seeking peace for a troubled soul, to rid himself of guilt and anguish. He had come to join his family again, forever.

  His throat tightened as memories of his wife floated through his mind: Vanessa curled up on the sofa, watching television, a bottle of mineral water on the end table beside her. The smell of her hair, the feel of her flesh when they made love, the whisper of her voice late at night when she lay beside him and spoke of her dreams for the two of them and for their daughter.

  Tears slowly trickled down Leon’s cheeks as he thought of Anita, feeling the emptiness that lay within his heart. There was no way to describe how badly he missed his daughter, for it was beyond description. Never again would he be able to hold his little girl on his lap, hug her, listen to her laughter when he playfully tickled her feet, or see her lower lip turn into a pout when she was mad. Words alone could not begin to tell of the loss he felt, or the guilt.

  It was his fault that his wife and daughter had died. His and his alone. Vanessa had begged him not to publish his article about space launches affecting global weather patterns, but he had refused to listen. Leon thought he was doing something important, looking out for the welfare of mankind. Instead he should have been thinking about the safety of his family.

  Because of that cursed article his home had been firebombed and his family murdered. The joys of being a husband and a father had been taken away from him. There would be no more quiet walks along the beach, no more casual conversations at the dinner table. He and Vanessa would not grow old together; Anita would not grow up, fall in love, and get married. She would never even have a boyfriend, or ride a bicycle. Gone, gone, gone, all of it gone; a world of hopes and dreams destroyed forever in a fiery blaze. A blaze he had brought upon them.

  Leon wiped his eyes and looked down. The street below was deserted. There was no noise, only the sound of the wind as it blew through the concrete canyons of the city. The air was almost clean—almost, for it carried upon it the all-too-familiar fragrance of burning shit. Even this high up he could not escape the noxious odor.

  With a shortage of electricity, natural gas and fuel oil, many residents of the city had resorted to using dried human excrement as a means of cooking meals and providing warmth on cold winter nights. It was an odor Leon could never get used to, no matter how often he smelled it.

  Help me.

  The voice was loud and came so unexpectedly that he nearly fell out the window. He hung on, barely, teetering high above the street. A stick figure, dressed in baggy clothes, dancing with the pigeons.

  Vanessa called to him, needed him. He had failed her once before, but he would not fail her now. He would go to her, crossing over to the other side. There was nothing keeping him in this world, nothing at all. He was just a homeless refugee, living from day to day, sleeping in a box, trying to survive. There was no real reason to continue living.

  The street looked like a tiny black river. Just one step was all it took. Just one. Would he feel the impact? How bad would it hurt? He shook his head. What difference did it make? What was one brief second of pain compared to the lonely agony that haunted his every waking minute? One brief second was all it took for everlasting peace.

  Leon took a deep breath and looked up. He focused his attention on the sky as he tightened the muscles in his legs. Gripping the window’s edge, he prepared to step off into space.

  Please help me.

  The voice came again to fill his mind, this time carrying with it an image of the person who called him. The face of a young black woman. Not his wife.

  Leon suddenly realized that the voice he heard was not Vanessa’s. It was the voice of a woman he did not know.

  “Who are you?” he asked aloud. “How can I hear you?” There was something vaguely familiar about the woman’s face, as though he had seen her someplace before. He concentrated on the mental image, racking his b
rain to come up with a name to go along with the face. A few moments passed, and then everything clicked into place.

  The woman in the alley! It was her face, her voice that he heard. But how? A chill danced up his spine. Had she been killed? Murdered? Was it her ghost who called him, haunting him?

  Leon thought about it. He believed in the existence of ghostly spirits, a belief passed on to him from his mother and grandmother. At holidays, and other gatherings, the family members would talk about having “seen” or “heard from” his aunt Gertie—a relative who apparently drowned at the ripe old age of eleven. Once during such an occasion, the whole room had been silenced by the laughter of a child who could be heard but not seen.

  Even though Leon believed in the existence of spirits, he was certain the voice he heard did not belong to a ghost. For some strange reason, he felt the woman was still very much alive. But if the woman was alive, how was she getting inside his head? There had to be a rational explanation for what he was experiencing. Maybe he was just tired. It could be fatigue. Perhaps it was guilt for not helping the woman. Or maybe after all the years of living alone, all the heartaches and sorrows, he had finally gone crazy.

  Help me.

  “Leave me alone!” he yelled, cupping his hands over his ears. The sudden movement caused him to lose his balance and tumble backward into the room. He landed on his butt, jumped up and yelled again. “Go away, I tell you. Get the hell out of here!”

  Help me. Help me. Help me.

  “Go away. I cannot help you. I can’t even help myself.” He was talking to thin air, talking to himself like a crazy man. “Go away and leave me alone.”

  Help me. Help me. Help me …

  He looked around the room, hoping to find someone hiding, playing a trick on him. No one was there. Except for a few pieces of broken furniture, the room was empty.

  “Why me?” he yelled, angry. “I don’t even know you. I don’t want to know you. Choose someone else.”