Southern Cross

by Jen Blood

  The first thing I noticed about the office was the smell. It wasn’t a good one: human waste and the underlying, sweet metallic scent of fresh blood. The office was dark, but light filtered in from a window in the upper half of the door. A wash of pale yellow illuminated a tidy, carpeted office with three desks and a coffeemaker in the corner. Two bodies lay slumped together in the corner.

  In the corridor, I could hear footsteps approaching. Doors opened and then slammed shut again. Jenny shouted to me with growing desperation, drawing closer by the second.

  I ignored the bodies in the corner and sought a hiding place, opting for the desk in the furthest corner of the room. I bolted for it, nearly there when my foot caught on something warm and solid and I sprawled forward.

  I got back up on my hands and knees, winded. Beside me, lying on his belly with his eyes vacant and the color gone from his face, was Dr. Munjoy. His arm was up, as though he’d died mid-crawl. His fist was clenched. Jenny’s footsteps were just outside the door. I crawled past the professor and dove under the desk just as Jenny opened the door.

  She flipped the light on. I sat with my knees up to my chin in the narrow space under the desk, my heart beating a rhythm I could feel to my toes. From the small space below the desk, I could see her shoes—boots, actually. Black leather with a low heel, laced to her knee. Perfect for the psychotic dominatrix in your life. She stayed at the door for a minute, surveying the scene.

  “Jenny! If we’re leaving, we gotta go now!” I heard The Giant say.

  “I’ll be right there,” she said. The panic was gone from her voice. I thought she was leaving.

  She wasn’t.

  Instead, I watched as she walked across the floor. She stepped over Munjoy’s body without hesitation, walked around the desk, and pushed the chair out of the way. She leveled her gun directly at my head, her eyes bright.

  “Hello there,” she said softly. There was a grin on her full lips. “I thought I might find you here.”

  “Jenny!” The Giant called from the doorway. Jenny looked at me one more time, lowered her gun, and winked.

  “See ya in hell, slick.”

  She turned on her heel and walked back to the door. Turned out the lights.

  And locked the door behind her when she left.

  00:02:16

  DANNY

  “Now?” Casey asked.

  Danny nodded. He kicked the seat in front of him gently and Biggie turned around. They exchanged a quick smile. “Go,” Danny mouthed to him.

  “Will do,” Biggie mouthed back. “Good luck.”

  That set off a chain reaction as everybody got the cue.

  Zip ties weren’t hard to get out of, it turned out—especially if you weren’t alone. Biggie showed everybody how you just used your thumbnail to shim the locking piece and slide your partner free. Then you returned the favor, and presto, no more plastic tearing into your wrists.

  Danny maneuvered himself back-to Casey and they sat up enough to touch hands over the armrests. He went first, every passing second speeding by like a freight train.

  Reverend Barnel had everybody in their seats praying. All the kids were crying by now, and it seemed to Danny that the reverend’s plan wasn’t as popular as he might have thought. Because as far as Danny could see, about half the congregation was talking about how maybe it wasn’t their time after all, and couldn’t they just get those fellas with the guns to step off and go about this another way?

  “This is the path the Almighty has set for us,” the reverend hollered.

  “This is the path you set for us, you damn fool,” Sally Woodruff hollered back. A few of the people in the congregation hollered back at her, but it didn’t look like everybody thought Sally was so off the mark.

  Danny couldn’t get a grip on the plastic. In front of him, Biggie freed one of the rednecks, who turned in his seat to help him.

  “Now, I want you all to take these cups representing the blood of the lamb,” Reverend Barnel said.

  Only about a quarter of the people did. Everybody in the place was crying and praying. Danny watched a couple of little boys hanging onto their mama, their faces red from wailing. The reverend stayed strong, ignoring everybody’s complaints.

  Danny’s finger finally found the tiny hole locking the zip tie in place. He slid his thumbnail in. They had one minute.

  “Drink it down, brothers and sisters,” Reverend Barnel hollered. “Drink it down, and know that our pain has ended.”

  A man in the front row sobbed. About twenty people toward the front tipped their cups up, draining the blood of the lamb.

  Casey’s zip tie came loose. Another dozen people tried to get their kids to drink. A little girl threw hers on the ground and started screaming, her face pink like Ida’s used to get when she was throwing a tantrum.

  Casey’s tie slid off her wrist.

  She was free.

  00:00:20

  DIGGS

  My hands were slick with sweat and blood and shaking as bad as Biggie’s by the time I got the door unlocked and let myself back out into the hallway.

  It was deserted.

  The music from WKRO had long since stopped. In its place, I could hear Barnel talking—shouting, actually, in his best fire-and-brimstone tenor. The source was obvious: It came from behind double doors with a plaque beside them reading KILDEER AUDITORIUM in bold letters. I could hear children crying and people wailing through the walls.

  I looked at my watch:

  Fifteen seconds.

  I thought of Solomon; of all the time I’d wasted that I wasn’t getting back. There were a hundred places I wanted to take her, a thousand things I wanted to say. When she’s pissed, Erin gets this fire in her eye that undoes me in ways I’m almost ashamed to admit to. I would have given anything and everything to see that fire again. I wanted to hear her laugh; watch her sleep... map every curve, every slope, every delicate detail of her body, until night gave way to morning and we slept tangled in one another, oblivious to the world.

  And then I wanted to start all over again.

  It didn’t matter what I wanted, though: I’d officially gotten my last chance to screw things up.

  The end was here.

  00:00:04

  SOLOMON

  “No one’s gotten in there at all?” I asked Juarez. He looked grim. We were flying over Smithfield now. Below, I could see ambulances and flashing lights, fire trucks and cop cars. Rick was hanging onto his seat so hard his knuckles were white.

  My eyes were dry. It felt like I was living in some kind of nightmare—like there was no way to move, nowhere to go. I watched as the clock struck midnight.

  No one said anything.

  Thirty seconds passed.

  Forty-five.

  Juarez held a rosary in his right hand. He looked up. “Maybe they didn’t—”

  And the world exploded.

  The helicopter canted far to the left from the force of the blast, the pilot losing control for a second. Orange balls of flame burst into the air, debris falling in every direction. A second blast followed maybe five seconds later, rocking us again. Rick closed his eyes. Blaze swore softly, her eyes haunted in the way of those who have seen tragedy before, and know all too well what it means.

  I kept my eyes on the ground, watching the chaos below.

  “How soon ‘til we land?” I asked, my voice flat.

  No one answered.

  March 16

  12:05 a.m.

  DIGGS

  The heat was the worst part. I remembered interviewing guys in a burn unit in Fallujah years ago, but I never really understood what they were telling me until the flames were raging just above my head and I could feel my shirt melting into my back. I crawled toward the auditorium, screams splitting the air over the roar of the fire.

  The door was hot to the touch. I took my shirt off, wrapped it around my hands, and pushed.

  Inside was the stuff of nightmares: images that will never leave me. Boy soldiers lay fa
llen by their rifles, some of them already burning. All of them dead, as far as I could see. Children screamed. The auditorium was ablaze. I spotted Barnel seated on the floor of the stage, inert, the flames dancing closer. He sat with his back against the lectern, eyes half open.

  He was smiling.

  I crawled into the fray, searching for a sign of our group, but the smoke was thick and the noise was deafening and the flames were everywhere.

  And then, I spotted a familiar face.

  Three aisles away, George was crawling beside a little girl. I got to my feet, staying low, and ran to him. The left side of his face was burned, but not as badly as I might have expected. And he was alive.

  “Danny says there’s a way out behind the stage,” he rasped. The little girl in his arms was silent, her eyes wide with shock.

  “Where is he?” I shouted.

  “I don’t know,” George said. He looked frail and terrifyingly mortal. I nodded to the girl.

  “Get her out,” I said. “I’ll find Danny.”

  I watched him for only a second before I turned back.

  I found Biggie with two little boys clinging for dear life to a burning chair, trying to get away from him. When he turned to look at me, it was clear why they were terrified. His face and body were black. Charred.

  “Diggs! Help me.” His voice wasn’t even human. “They won’t go. I can’t get ‘em to go.”

  There was a madness to his eyes, borne of failure and pain and imminent death.

  “It’s all right,” I said. “I’ve got them.”

  Biggie let them go. He smiled at me—another image I’ll never escape. “It’s gotta mean somethin’, ain’t it?” he asked me. “A lifetime screwin’ up at every turn...” He lay down, just out of the aisle. “Save them boys, huh, Diggs? Don’t let me down.”

  “I won’t.” When he made no more to go, I hesitated. “Come on, Biggie—it’s not much farther. Get up, and we’ll get you out of here.”

  He just laughed. “I ain’t goin’ nowhere. It’s all done. Now, you get the hell out o’ here with them kids. Save somebody for me.” The boys were screaming in terror now; there wasn’t a choice. Not really. As I was leaving him, Biggie looked at me once more with that mad light shining in his eyes. “Pain, boy,” he said. “It’s all a distraction. Ain’t nothin’ to me.”

  He didn’t get up again.

  I urged the boys forward, making sure they stayed on their hands and knees. When we reached the bottom of the aisle, I prodded them to keep going onto the stage. Which was on fire, so not an entirely easy sell on my part. One of the boys began to cry. I picked him up and took the other by the hand. The stage curtains were ablaze, but I could see movement behind them: people. When the stage door out back was in sight—open, a clear black night shining through—I gave the boys a little push.

  “Go on!” I said. “You’ll be safe there. Somebody will get you.”

  They ran.

  I remained there for a second on hands and knees, thinking of Solomon, and took a steady, burning breath.

  I turned around and went back.

  12:15 a.m.

  SOLOMON

  “We can’t send anyone into that,” a fireman told me. We were surrounded by emergency personnel and at least forty survivors with varying degrees of burns and injuries. George was among them, as well as more than a dozen kids.

  Danny and Casey weren’t. Neither was Diggs.

  The building was engulfed in flames—they rose high into the sky, the smoke so thick it was all but impossible to breathe. I thought of Payson Isle and my father; of Mitch Cameron and Isaac Payson and Reverend Barnel.

  But mostly, I thought of Diggs.

  “Danny’s still in there?” Rick asked. George was on a gurney with an oxygen mask over his mouth and nose. He nodded, eyes haunted. He pulled the mask away from his face.

  “Diggs is looking for ‘em,” he rasped. My heart stuttered.

  “He’s still alive, then?” I asked.

  George nodded. I turned back to the fireman.

  “There are still survivors in there,” I insisted.

  “It’s too unstable. I’m sorry, ma’am, but they did a hell of a job wiring this thing. They must’ve misjudged something because they missed that one exit, but this thing won’t stay up for long. The whole building could come down anytime.”

  “And what the hell are we supposed to do in the meantime—let them burn?”

  He looked genuinely tortured. I didn’t care. He shook his head. “I’ll talk to my men; see what we can do. In the meantime, you might wanna say a prayer.”

  12:25 a.m.

  DANNY

  They did everything right: got themselves untied; found cover; stayed low.

  It didn’t matter, though, because Danny hadn’t expected the pillar beside them to come down. It nailed him in the shoulder, sending him sprawling with pain like he’d never felt before. When he got up, Casey was underneath it, and she wasn’t moving.

  He tried hauling it up; tried pulling Casey out. She still didn’t move, blood on her forehead and flames coming closer and screams from everybody around them filling his ears.

  “C’mon, damn you,” he hollered—or rasped, more like, tears streaming down his face. He couldn’t tell if he was crying or it was just the smoke. He sat down beside Casey, trying to get out of the way of the stampeding people. He picked her hand up and set it on his lap, pushing the hair back from her face.

  His lungs burned, screaming for clean air. He closed his eyes and leaned his back against the wall, waiting for the end. And then, a hand closed around his wrist.

  Casey came to life, coughing. Gasping. He jumped up. The pillar was over her left leg, crushing it so Danny could barely stand to look. But she was alive—that was what mattered.

  It took her only a second before she figured out what happened. She went white.

  “You’ve gotta go,” she said.

  He shook his head. There was no doubt about it now: his tears definitely weren’t just from the smoke. “I’m not leavin’ you here.”

  “You’re not gonna sit here and die with me,” she said, like he was an idiot for even thinking it. Her voice was so calm. “Danny—you gotta go. You’re gonna get your butt out of here, and you’re gonna look after Willa and Dougie.”

  “I’m not leaving you alone,” he insisted. The flames were all around them—he could smell bodies burning, the screams getting worse, people panicked and running in every direction. A man caught fire two rows down and Danny turned away, sick.

  Casey reached out and put her hand on his cheek. “You got too much to do to die today, you hear me? Now you go. Leave me be. I don’t feel nothin’ anyway right now—it’ll all be over and I’ll be okay.” She curled her hand a little around his neck, pulling him closer. He kissed her.

  “Now get outta here,” she whispered.

  Danny hesitated.

  He shook his head, got up, and attacked the pillar again. Teeth clenched, he hauled on the thing with all his might.

  It budged half an inch, no more.

  He tried again, thinking of his daddy. He’d be able to do this. If it was somebody Wyatt Durham loved under this pillar, he’d move heaven and earth to get ‘em out.

  He put his shoulder into it, grunting with the strain.

  Suddenly, it felt lighter. Moved further. Danny opened his eyes and Diggs was beside him. They moved the pillar together, just enough so Danny could slide Casey out.

  “I’ve got her,” Diggs said. “Now you go on ahead. I’m right behind you.” He started to argue, but Diggs wasn’t having any of it. “Go, dammit!”

  Danny turned and ran down the aisle toward the stage exit, keeping low to the ground the whole while.

  The fire was worse on the stage—everything burning, the flames loud like some monster, something alive and hungry. The curtains had fallen, still burning on the ground, and flames licked at the ceiling and along the walls. He watched a woman and three kids make it through the doo
r. Then, there was a massive screech, like the building itself was dying, and a beam came crashing down, sparks flying. The top of the door gave way.

  Their only way out was gone.

  12:30 a.m.

  DIGGS

  The good news—if there was any at all—was that Casey had passed out, which meant she wasn’t in pain. At least I was fairly sure she had passed out; the alternative being that I was killing myself carrying a dead girl to safety. I started down the aisle toward the exit, focused only on putting one foot in front of the other and trying to breathe the poisonous air choking into my lungs.

  George was out. Danny was out. Solomon would be waiting.

  I just had to get through the damn door.

  It was a good plan, in theory—until Danny re-appeared a foot in front of me, his face burned and his clothes scorched.

  “The exit’s gone,” he said. His voice was raw from the smoke. “But I know another way.”

  I didn’t ask questions. Instead, I followed in silence as the kid led us up the aisle, into the belly of the building.

  1:15 a.m.

  SOLOMON

  I watched another ambulance tear away, while firefighters tried to control the blaze and the building continued to cave in on itself. The exit everyone had been coming from had long since vanished. Rick sat beside me, silent. More than forty-five minutes had passed since the last survivor had emerged from the wreckage.

  I felt a hand on my shoulder. “Erin,” Jack said. His voice was soft. I set my jaw, my eyes dry.

  “He’s alive,” I said.

  “They’re trying to evacuate. They’re worried about toxins.”

  “I’m not leaving.” My lungs ached from the smoke; my eyes burned. Rick got up when Juarez told him to, and I sensed more than saw the two of them walking away.