“You okay?” he shouted. Neil just shook his head. Dante reached him and Neil could see he was shaky and wan. His jacket sleeve was soaked.
“Gotta go find Tommy. He’ll get trampled. Graziella’s all the way at the end. She won’t know there’s anything wrong until way too late.”
“Okay. I’m coming with you. I need to find Randi too. Joan’s not great at crowds. Harry’s a space cadet when it comes to this kind of thing. He won’t get them out of there in time.”
Dante glanced down and saw the homeless man’s body lying beside them. He leaned heavily against him, closing his eyes. “Just need a second,” he muttered. Neil let go of his injured hand so he could hold his friend upright. “Maybe you should stay here until the paramedics get here. I’ll find Tommy and Randi.”
Dante shook his head. “No, I can do it.” His eyes were still closed. It was a moot point anyway. The ambulances were already pulling to a halt at the edge of the vinyl, their doors flinging open and small knots of people in brightly lettered shirts leaped out and sprinted toward the balloon. A woman knelt near the homeless man and checked his pulse. Another darted past her and pulled Dante and Neil apart. Neil found himself in the hands of a third, even as Dante was protesting.
“Need to go find my kid. I can drive myself to the hospital after—”
“Take it easy, fella,” said one of the EMTs, “Security’s already on it.”
“It’ll be hours before they can find someone in that crowd,” said Neil. “I’ve got a seven-year-old girl out—”
“She with someone?”
“Sure— my ex, but—”
“She’s going to be fine. It was a localized fight. We can hear it over the radio, rest of the parade route is clear.”
“You don’t even know where they are.”
The woman who had taken charge of him, pulled his wounded hand gently from his chest to look at it. She replaced it and bent to open a large bag. “To be entirely honest, neither do you. People move around in crowds like these. Especially when something happens. You aren’t going to be any faster than the people trained to contain these types of things. Security’s not going to let you go wandering into the crowd anyway. Not after that. I expect you’ll have to at least make a statement. You’ll have to come with us to the hospital until they say you can go.”
“We were attacked— had nothing to do with all this!” cried Dante.
“Still going to want a statement. And it’s going to be a while until more than a handful of police get back here to take it. You need stitches. If you wait until you find your kid, make a statement, get released and then come to the hospital, you might need a transfusion, too.” The man treating him helped him over the large lumps of vinyl back toward the ambulance.
“Can we call them, at least?” Neil asked the woman tightly wrapping his hand in gauze.
“Far as we know, you aren’t under arrest,” she said. “My only concern is making sure you’re stable until a doctor can look at you. And then stabilizing the next person and the next until there aren’t any more. Everything else is a very distant second.”
He took that as tacit permission and fished his phone out of his pocket.
“This a bite?” asked the EMT.
“Yeah. From the man your friend wheeled away. Poor guy,” he caught an unexpected sob before it could erupt from him. “There was something wrong with him. Cop shouldn’t have killed him— I didn’t— I never expected him to—”
The woman looked up from his arm. “I’m sure the police did what they thought was necessary—”
“Did they?” he asked. “I’m not— certain.”
“Either way,” she answered, pulling the bandage tighter, “the policeman’s actions were his decision, not yours. You focus on keeping this tight, alright? That’s your job right now. There’ll be people at the hospital who know a lot more about all this than me. They’ll help you sort it out. You just keep this bandage tight as you can. You have any other bites?”
“One, farther up my arm. Don’t think he broke the skin though.”
She nodded, pushed up the sleeve of his thick coat and frowned at the swollen crescent on his skin. “It’ll leave a nasty bruise and they’ll have to check you for infection but shouldn’t need any more treatment than the hand. Going to take you to the ambulance now. My partner will ask you some questions just so the hospital knows what to do. I’ve got to get to the next patient.”
“I can walk to the ambulance,” he said.
She glanced skeptically at him, but someone groaned near Brinybrickle’s shoulder and she just nodded before scooping up her bag and dashing away. He tried to dial Joan with one hand, frustrated that his fingers were still shaking.
It seemed a year before she answered. “Are you alright?” he asked before she’d even greeted him.
“What’s happened? We’re being told to clear the street. There are police everywhere.”
“It’s— I’m not sure. Should have been just a fistfight but it— I don’t know Joan, I don’t know what happened,” He broke down at the sound of her voice, covering the receiver so she wouldn’t hear the way his breath shook.
“What do you mean? Did you see it? Were you in it? Neil? Neil?”
“Are you somewhere safe?” he asked when he was certain his voice was steady.
“Yeah, sure, we’re almost back to the car. We can come to the park if they’re sending the balloons back there.”
“No, no, I need to— I’m headed to the hospital. I know you need to go— I’ll call you as soon as they release me and come to get Ra—”
“Oh God, are you hurt?”
“Just some stitches, no big deal.”
“What happened?”
“It’s— a long story. Not sure I really understand it myself. I’ll tell you the whole thing after you come back from Bermuda. Listen, I need you to see if you can find Tommy. Dante said he was down by the arcade, so he should be clear of the crowd. Graziella is farther down. She won’t even know what’s happening. I’m sure Dante’s called them but—”
“There’s no getting back to the route. We won’t be able to even get near the arcade. I’ll try Gracie, but there are hundreds of people down here. Finding one kid— was he alone?”
“With his friends. I hope they stuck together. When we get to the hospital, I’ll tell Dante to try calling him. If you get a hold of them first— tell them where Dante is, okay? He’s going to be alright, probably going to need some stitches too.”
“Okay,” Joan sighed. The silence hung between them for a few extra seconds.
“Look, I know I’m not supposed to say it anymore—” started Neil.
“Don’t,” she warned him.
“And I don’t mean it in a romantic way, alright? I know— I know that part of our life is over.”
“Neil—”
“I just— saw someone die. Maybe more than one. I wanted to tell you that I love you, you and Randi, that I’m— grateful you asked me if I was hurt. After everything. That you still care. Just in case.”
“Jesus, Neil, what happened? I’ll come to the hospital—”
“No, don’t, it’ll be a madhouse. There are a lot of injuries and police, I don’t know if they’ll let you in anyhow. I— gotta go now. Just wanted to make sure you’re safe. I’ll call you when I’m released.” He ended the call and shoved the phone into his pocket so he could swipe at his eyes. Why am I crying like this? Everything’s okay. Joan and Randi are okay. Dante will be okay. I’m okay. Pull it together.
They put him on a bus along with half a dozen others with various injuries and three policemen. The ambulances were for the more seriously wounded. Neil was relieved to see Dante already in the back, his arm tightly slung to his chest. He still looked wiped out, sweaty. Neil wondered how much blood he’d lost. He slid into the seat beside Dante and pulled his phone out again.
“Got Joan,” he said, handing Dante the phone. “Asked her to try Tommy. Thought you might want to.”
>
“Thanks,” said Dante, giving him a weak half-grin. “Gave mine to Tommy. You know, in case. Not exactly the ‘in case’ I had in mind. Gotta get the kid his own.”
It was a relief to see Dante’s face relax when his son answered the phone. Neil let his attention drift into a shocked sort of comfort while Dante spoke quietly to Tommy. The ride should have been short, but the parade traffic was heavy even with police trying to clear the way. Neil watched the balloons being deflated in the park as they waited for a massive group of pedestrians to cross. Squashed features in over-saturated color made the balloons seem more sinister than they had when he and Randi watched them being inflated the night before. Just balloons, he told himself. She didn’t see it. You don’t have to worry that it’s spoiled for her. She’ll be able to watch parades again. He shut his eyes, trying not to remember the man’s hand wearing his glove stretching out from beneath the thick vinyl.
Dante nudged his leg lightly. He handed Neil a wrinkled bunch of napkins from his pocket. “You’re covered. Your face. You get hit in the head?”
“Wasn’t me,” he mumbled, taking the napkins. He scrubbed at his face but the napkin couldn’t do much, the blood was long dried. It made his skin itch remembering it was there. “What the hell was that, Dante?”
“I have no idea. The guy— in the beginning, the guy from the park, he just seemed out of it. Wouldn’t even look at me while I stood right in front of him. Like he was— completely zoned out. I just— I just wanted him to go back to the bar or the park or— just not around all those kids. I didn’t know that fucking psycho Evan was going to… how was I supposed to know? Seemed uptight but not in a crazy way. Just an annoying office manager type of way. But when he snapped— you remember that kid from two summers ago? The dishwasher— what was his name? Josh, Jim— whatever. The one who came in high as hell and started whaling on that waitress because she dropped a gravy bowl? When we pulled him off her, the rage in his face— if he’d been bigger, he would have throttled one of us instead. It didn’t matter who he killed, but he was going to kill somebody that day if we hadn’t stopped him. I had the same thought with Evan today.” Dante shook his head, looked out the bus window. “Guess I was right, this time. I think he killed more than one person today. Think he might have succeeded. Just don’t get why.”
4
The emergency room was loud and uncomfortable. The patients from the parade were just a small segment of everyone in the waiting room. Odd for a Sunday morning. He and Dante huddled in a far corner on a chilly bench. The dingy television broadcast the helicopter footage of Brinybrickle’s collapse on an almost constant loop. Neil thought about asking them to change it. His hand ached and he was frightened. He gently nudged Dante’s knee. “Hey— you think it was drugs, really?”
Dante shrugged and then groaned at the pain in his shoulder. “What else would it be?”
“I don’t know. Just— weird. Evan seemed normal this morning. Well— a little manic maybe, but he was excited about the parade. And the slurring— I don’t think he was that smashed, Dante. Not enough for that. And— and the other man, why did he freak out?”
“You said he seemed out of it when you saw him with Randi.”
“Drunk though. He seemed drunk. Swaying and slurring and slow.”
“We’ve seen our share of bar fights.”
“Never seen a bar fight like that,” said Neil. “And usually even big bar fights, even if someone was completely plastered, they don’t just attack random people. He would have stuck to fighting Evan, wouldn’t he?”
“That’s why I think it was drugs.”
“But two? At the same time, in just the same place?”
“More than two,” piped up a tired parade security guard who sat across from them. He had a thick gauze pad taped to his cheek and his uniform was torn. “There were two more in the crowd, jumped the barriers just behind the balloon. We had reports of fights all through the morning. Didn’t think much of it, kind of a normal thing for mid-December. But— there were so many. And at the parade— been doing security for this parade for fifteen years. Sure, you get the odd fistfight outside the bars that are open or road rage over at the parking garages. But most of the spectators are with kids. Parents don’t want to show their kids that side of themselves. And then there’s us. So much security, people don’t want to risk arrest. We get dozens of calls about suspicious stuff, happens in every big crowd. But real incidents— maybe half a dozen during the entire parade? I counted twenty calls for backup before the incident we were in.”
Dante leaned forward in his chair, lowering his voice. “What are you saying? You think this was what, coordinated?”
The guard shook his head. “I don’t know man. If I wasn’t sitting here talking with you, I might just chalk it up to the shitty economy and the holidays. Just a bad day. But—” he glanced around at the waiting room. “Look around. Really look. Sure, there are a few kids and moms here with the flu but look at the rest of them. Look at their injuries. Looks like a—” he lowered his voice to a whisper. “Looks like a fucking bombing and these are the survivors. And if these are the injuries that are a lower priority, how bad are the injuries of the people being treated back there?”
“Do you think it— it was?” asked Neil. “I mean— not a bomb, obviously, but what if— there’s that bath salts thing, right? Makes people go insane. Maybe a big batch hit this week or something. Maybe tainted or— I dunno, extra-strong or something. And all these people just happened to be in the path of a user.”
“Maybe,” said the guard, but he sounded doubtful. “This many in one county? I just don’t know. All I know is it’s been a damn bad day.” A nurse shouted his name from across the room and he stood up, swaying a little. Neil reached out to steady him, but the man just waved him off. “Must be tired,” he muttered and walked toward the nurse.
“What should we do?” asked Neil.
Dante clutched at his shoulder. He was sweating although the waiting room was almost frigid. Neil thought the pain must be getting to him. His own hand throbbed and stung at the edges of the bite, but he could mostly ignore it if he concentrated on other things. “Do?” asked Dante.
“Well— what if there are more of them?”
“The only thing we do is get stitched up and go home. Get some painkillers because work’s going to be a bitch and you know Charlie’s not going to give us time off during the busy season. Bath salts and shit— not our thing to take care of.”
“But if it comes to the restaurant—”
“Nobody’s doing bath salts. The last real incident was a while ago. A little weed maybe.”
“You know it’s more than that. We’re just too old to get offered it anymore. Dads.”
Dante snorted a laugh. “Corporate and soft, that’s us.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yeah. I know. Shit, Neil, I don’t know what we do if it happens. Call the cops, I guess. Same as if someone grabbed a knife and started stabbing or tried to burn the place down. Can’t worry about it until it happens. Besides, if it really is some kind of bad chemical or something— people are going to know after today. They’ll do blood tests and stuff.” He pointed at the television screen with his uninjured arm. “Something crazy enough to do that in front of millions of people, they’re going to get to the bottom of it. Probably interview us to death too. This is the last we’ll see of the bath salts people, trust me.” He was called next and left Neil alone to stare at the other patients around him and watch the repeating loop of the balloon collapsing into a writhing mound of green and black vinyl.
By the time it was his turn, it was almost dusk. Joan had called twice, finally making arrangements for Neil’s mother to watch Randi so she wouldn’t miss her flight. Not without a few parting shots at Neil. As if he were in control of what was happening. As if it were me who was ditching Randi to fly to Bermuda with my new squeeze, he thought bitterly, but only sighed and tried to soothe her. He hadn’t explaine
d anything, he reminded himself. Most of what she knew was from the same news loop he’d been numbly watching for hours. And the commentator’s wild speculations. For all she knew, he could have started the damn thing. As much as he hated the idea of her flying off on some glamorous, expensive vacation with someone else— well. He wasn’t about to ruin it either. Let her think he was an asshole rather than scare her. No good talking about bath salts and massively overcrowded ERs and the idea that had been welling up in his head all day that it was some kind of crazy terrorist plot. He didn’t know much more than she did. Best to say nothing. She was safe. His daughter was safe. Everything was okay. He’d pick Randi up from his mom’s and everyone would have a peaceful week. And when she came back, if she still gave a shit— maybe he’d explain it all then.
When the nurse finally called his name, Neil was surprised to be led to an elevator, passing the small patient rooms one after another. “Where are we going?” he asked, mostly so he’d stop listening to the groans behind each thin curtain.
“You came in with the parade group right?” the nurse frowned, checking his folder.
“Yeah.”
“We’re admitting you.”
“Admitting? But I just have a bite on my hand. I would have just bandaged it myself, but I was told I had to come here and make a report to the police or something.”
“Probably best if you let us look at it. You said a bite? The human mouth is a nasty place, sir. You don’t want to be messing around with bite wounds or you’d be back here in two weeks with a massive infection.” He pressed the call button and the elevator dinged. “After you.”
“But I’ve got work and my kid— I was supposed to meet her hours ago—”
“We’ll let you call anyone you need once you’re checked in.”
Neil shook his head. “No, look, I need to get home. I’ll go to the police department and make my report. Go see my local doc in the morning. It’ll be okay until then.”
Before The Cure (Book 1): Before The Cure Page 3
