What kind of world made that feeling normal? Why did she live in a reality where she thought a power outage across the city was probably a terrorist attack rather than a devastating glitch in the system?
Michelle dug her face into Cora’s chest and rubbed her eyes with the backs of her hands. She opened her eyes and looked up at Cora. Then she shot up straight as though she were panicked.
“It’s okay,” Cora said. “We haven’t gone anywhere.”
“What’s happening?”
“We’re going to look at the hospital,” Cora said. “If we can get there.”
Michelle rubbed her eyes again. At first, Cora thought the girl was about to start crying, but instead she yawned, then winced and reached for her leg.
Cora leaned down to look at the injury. She hoped they hadn’t fallen asleep for too long. This girl needed antibiotics, and if she didn’t get them soon, the infection would get into her blood and kill her.
From the way the shadows fell, it seemed they had been asleep for a while, which would probably mean their pursuer had given up the chase.
Cora missed Hope. She missed her dad and her sister, even if they drove her crazy when she was around them for too long. She wondered what they were doing and if they knew what was happening in Chicago.
Cora and Michelle both stood and looked out the window from the El train. There wasn’t much happening in the street down below, but she could hear a lot happening to the north of them. That didn’t mean they were safe.
“Do you think that man is waiting for us?” Michelle asked.
“I think he’s gone,” Cora said.
“That’s good. How far is the hospital?”
“A couple of blocks. Are you ready to go?”
Michelle looked up at her and nodded. Cora pulled her backpack over her shoulders and slipped the kitchen knife into her hand. Michelle grabbed her other hand, and it surprised Cora.
“You think that knife will be enough if he comes back?” she asked.
Cora looked down at Michelle. “I don’t know. I suppose it’s better than nothing.”
Cora didn’t want to go down the steps and into the streets. That was where the danger was. That was where the soldiers were on their loudspeakers. She hated the thought of putting Michelle in another desperate situation, but they were in a desperate situation no matter what they did. The hospital was only a couple of blocks away, but between them was what felt like miles and miles of debris, crazy looters, and army tanks. On top of that, Michelle could barely walk, much less run if she had to.
This part of the street was relatively calm and quiet. That was probably why she had slept for so long. How long has it been? Two or three hours?
It probably hadn’t been the best idea to allow herself to drift off on an abandoned El train in the middle of the city, but her body had needed it. She didn’t feel rejuvenated, but she felt more prepared to make the trek to the hospital. Her head felt more alert, and she was wide awake. She gripped the knife with her left hand, ready to stab and slash at anyone who might come near them uninvited. She wasn’t sure if she could do it when the time came, though. The thought of sticking a sharp piece of metal into someone’s body made her sick to her stomach. And doing so to incapacitate them or kill them was even worse.
She figured Gwen would have done better in the city than she had. Gwen wasn’t afraid of anything. Gwen took after their father more than Cora did, and her father had no fear. At least, that was what it seemed like. He at least hid his fear well.
The quietness in the street felt eerie to Cora. There were loud sounds in the distance, but they seemed far away. She knew this didn’t mean they were safe.
They walked in silence for a full block before the cacophony of chaos returned. An explosion from one of the buildings to the right nearly knocked Cora off of her feet. Michelle clung to Cora with all her strength, and Cora immediately scooped her up in her arms, careful not to touch her with the blade hidden in her sleeve. She didn’t know what the explosion was from, but she didn’t even care. She ran with everything she had toward the hospital. When she made a turn, she saw a large group of soldiers and a tank blocking the street. She wanted to go a different route so she turned, but then she saw another group of soldiers and another tank. For some reason, they were just standing there. They weren’t letting anyone leave. She pulled back out of view of the soldiers and then set Michelle on the ground. She held her out at arm’s length and looked her in the eyes.
“Can you hear me?”
Michelle nodded.
“I’m gonna need you to do a little bit of acting. Can you do that?”
She nodded again.
“I want you to hold on to me when I carry you, and I want you to scream as loud as you possibly can until I tell you to stop. Do you understand?”
Michelle hesitated, but then nodded her head again. “I can do that.”
Cora took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a moment as she clung to Michelle’s shoulders. She can do this. She could do this. There was nothing to it. They weren’t going to hurt them. It was the US military. They didn’t want to hurt anybody. They were just here to protect people like her. They would show compassion.
Her eyes opened, and she was ready to do her job.
Cora picked Michelle up in her arms and said, “Okay, let’s do this.”
Michelle let out a scream with everything she had, piercing the air, hurting Cora’s ears in the process, which was perfect. Cora sprinted toward the soldiers as fast as she could. The hospital was within view. If she only could go one more block, then she would be there.
The soldiers stood firm and she approached them, Michelle screaming at the top of her lungs. The soldiers looked at each other, clearly uncomfortable. Cora held Michelle’s head to her chest, and like a desperate mother, begged for the soldiers to let her through. “Please! Please! Her leg is infected! She needs a doctor!”
One of the soldiers shook his head at her and started to say something, but another soldier stepped forward. “We’re not supposed to let anyone out of this zone.”
Cora found it difficult to communicate with Michelle’s screaming, but that was a good thing. The less she had to talk, the better. “Do you not hear her? Something is wrong with her. I have to get to the hospital for a doctor. She’s my baby. I can’t let anything bad happen to her.”
The soldiers looked at each other again, unsure of what to do with themselves. She heard one of them say, “She’s not the one we’re looking for. Just let her through.”
The soldiers hesitated, but then two or three of them stepped aside and motioned for Cora and Michelle to go through.
Cora couldn’t believe it worked. The idea had been a whim, and not something she expected Michelle to be able to pull off. Yet, there they were, right in front of the hospital where they wanted to be. Cora had no idea if she would find the medicine Michelle needed, but at least they were making progress.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Sam felt like there shouldn’t have been a tunnel like this in Chicago. Chicago had the El trains and not the complicated subway system like New York. So, underground tunnels or passageways just didn’t seem natural for the Windy City. Yet here Sam was, following Elias, a man probably homeless and a little bit off, but also confident and moving with a purpose.
They had entered the tunnel through one of the buildings. Elias had taken him to an unlocked door and down into a parking garage that went underground. From the parking garage, there was another door, and when they opened it, there was a long concrete tunnel lit only by small LED lights every hundred feet or so. That left them with long patches of darkness that made Sam uncomfortable.
Sam did not like walking behind Elias. What if the man was taking him to a group of homeless people to rob him? Even that seemed better than being caught by the Horsemen mercenaries above.
Whatever the case, if Elias aimed to rob Sam, he would be disappointed.
“You’re not from around here, are you
?” Elias asked.
“I don’t know what makes you think that,” Sam said. “I’ve lived here for several years. Actually, most of my life.”
“You seemed lost up there,” Elias said.
“I’m just trying to get to the hospital,” Sam said.
Elias shook his head and looked at him with a confused stare. “Why would you want to go there? Can you imagine how terrible the hospital will be after two days with almost no power whatsoever?”
Sam hadn’t thought about that. He had only considered it a place to lie low while the mercenaries patrolled his neighborhood, but with Elias’s questioning, he wondered if it was a terrible idea.
“Do you know how many people they had on life-support there?” Elias had a disgusted look on his face. “Can you imagine the smell in the hospital? There wouldn’t be enough spots in the morgue for all the bodies they’re going to have to place.”
Sam wanted to retch at the thought. It was a large hospital, and there were a lot of patients there. But even just the emergency room would probably be overrun with corpses. What about all the people in the ICU? Were they all dead now because the machines had stopped working?
Then his thoughts traveled to every part of the hospital. The maternity ward. People who were giving birth when the power went out. How traumatic would that have been? What about people on ventilators? He wouldn’t be surprised if half the people in the hospital had died.
That was an estimate, of course, and he really had no idea, but it still had to be a lot.
“Are you sick or something?”
“No,” Sam said. He didn’t know what to say to Elias, and he wished the man would stop asking him questions. It wasn’t any of the man’s business. For all Sam knew, Elias was just fishing for information so he could take him back to the soldiers and use that information as leverage to get passage through. He couldn’t trust the man’s motivations.
“Where are you trying to go?” Sam asked, trying to get the conversation’s focus off of him.
“I told you. I’m just trying to get out of that neighborhood. I don’t like what’s going on there. Maybe I’ll try to leave Chicago.”
“You will need a car to do that,” Sam said. “Are you worried about food and water?”
“Everybody’s worried about food and water,” Elias said. “So, I figure I’ve just got to take care of one thing at a time. Right now I can’t get water, but I can get out of that dangerous neighborhood, so that’s what I’m doing. And I’m glad I have you to help me.”
“I don’t know what you need me for,” Sam said. “This tunnel is empty, and there’s no one for you to be afraid of.”
Elias looked back at him and grinned. “As I said, I wanted backup. Let’s take it as a good thing that I didn’t need backup.”
Sam didn’t believe him, but he had no evidence to contradict Elias. It just didn’t seem to make any sense. If he were some homeless guy who lived on the streets, then what was the difference if he was walking through the streets or if he was walking through a tunnel alone?
“So,” Elias said, “you got any theories about what’s going on?”
Sam didn’t say anything.
“You know, like what all this is about?”
“No,” Sam said. He did not feel like having this conversation with Elias. Not only did he know exactly what was going on, but he felt like he would just be playing a part if he went along with this conversation. He certainly didn’t want to say the truth, which would probably make Elias too curious.
“A few people I’ve talked to have said it’s a terrorist attack,” Elias said. “But I don’t think it’s a terrorist attack. I think it’s something less sinister. Whatever it is, it’s a cleansing.”
“Cleansing? What do you mean?”
“Well, you know how we’ve become so reliant on our technology that we need to be cleansed of it and go back to nature. I think all this is probably good for us. It’ll make people look up from their devices and actually look each other in the eye for once.”
“Well, that may be true, but this thing is going to kill a lot of people. You can’t tell me a cleansing is worth it.”
“I don’t know.” Elias seemed deep in thought. “I think people have lost touch with each other. It might take a mass-death event so people can actually start living again. The way we’ve been spending the last decade or so completely glued to a virtual world doesn’t seem healthy. Doesn’t seem like we’re living anyway.”
Sam didn’t know if these were the ravings of a mad homeless man or someone who had thought on these issues for a long time. Either way, calling a large number of deaths a good thing in the name of a cleansing wasn’t right.
“I think it’s a terrible thing, and I think that history will view this situation as a turning point for humanity,” Sam said. “And it will be a dark turning point. This is the kind of thing that starts wars. This is the kind of thing that kills millions upon millions of people. If somebody is responsible for this, they deserve something much worse than death.”
“So, you think someone is behind it then?”
Sam shrugged. “I’m just saying if they are, then they deserve to be punished for it. I’m not saying any one person or any group is behind it.”
They continued to walk down the long tunnel, and Sam could see the end of it about two hundred feet away. He would be glad to get out of this tunnel and not have to talk to Elias anymore. There was something about him that didn’t seem right. He seemed too intelligent, too inquisitive. Perhaps he wasn’t homeless, or perhaps he wasn’t crazy.
Maybe the last two days had not been kind to him and he had just been in a rough spot. He could’ve been a banker for all Sam knew. Still, he couldn’t imagine anyone thinking this was good for humanity. Everything in everyone’s life had been ripped from them. Yes, families who survived would have to cling to each other, but what about all the people who would suffer? What about all the people in the cities who were going to die from starvation and lack of water?
Places like Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Portland, Houston, Atlanta, were going to burn to the ground. Mass deaths were going to happen. If people didn’t get out of the city quickly enough, they would die. And the ones who didn’t die would have to rely on those who had all the food and water. Factions would form, and they would rival each other until there was nothing left.
No, this was not a cleansing for humanity. If anything, it was going to make humanity much darker and much more evil. Over the next few weeks, months, even years, they were going to see just how evil humanity could be.
“So, how do you think they did it?” Elias asked him. He looked back at Sam with an eyebrow raised.
Sam had to be careful here. No, he didn’t know the details of how the EMP managed to wipe out the power grid on such a large scale. He could bet that the information was embedded in the documentation he had on his computer and hard drive.
Sam shrugged, not wanting to play his hand, but not wanting to be completely aloof either. “My guess is that whatever happened, it is probably complicated.”
Elias changed the subject. “So, where are you trying to get to?”
“Just out of the neighborhood,” Sam answered. “Out of Chicago.”
“Do you have family somewhere else?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“I bet this is happening in a lot of cities,” Elias said. “Can you imagine New York right now? It’s more dense than here.”
“Well, that’s assuming New York was hit,” Sam said. “We don’t know what places were hit.”
“I don’t know, “Elias said. “I have a feeling if someone made an attack on us on this scale, they would be going for a lot of places. And I don’t think Chicago would be the number one target. Chicago is the kind of place that you think of as third or fourth or even fifth. Obviously, New York and DC would be a couple of the firsts. Then maybe Los Angeles, or Houston. Then, Chicago. It just doesn’t make much sense for Chicago to be the place they try to
hit by itself. Unless they just really have something against this city.”
Elias made a good point. Sam suspected that the attack was made on the entire United States, and what he had found in the documentation so far aligned with that theory. He knew they were going to try to hit the West Coast to East Coast and the Midwest. He just didn’t know if they had been successful with the other attacks. He had no reason to think they weren’t. If Chicago’s lights were out, it was just as plausible that the same was true for New York and Los Angeles.
From here, Sam could see the end of the tunnel and his heart beat a little faster as they approached. This was the moment where he would find out if Elias truly was harmless or if he was more interested in stealing from Sam. Sam held back a few feet and watched as Elias approached. Elias reached out for the door, then paused and looked back at Sam.
“From this point on we should be out of reach of the soldiers,” Elias said. “You can probably go wherever you want from here, though I would steer clear of the hospital.”
Sam still wasn’t sure why Elias had insisted on him coming along, but it didn’t seem to matter anymore. They were at the end of the tunnel, and Elias seemed anxious to get out of there. Maybe the soldiers just made him nervous. Maybe he was a schizophrenic and thought that the soldiers were after him. Or was Sam the delusional one?
Sam waited for Elias to open the door, but the man hesitated. “What are you doing?” Sam asked.
Elias looked back at him, then sighed. “I just have another question.”
Sam swallowed.
“What’s in the bag?”
Sam thought about running. Because of the man’s baggy clothes, he couldn’t tell if he was in good physical shape, but he thought perhaps he could run back through the tunnel without being caught. But then what? Hide away from the mercenaries?
Sam shook his head and decided on the truth. What would this man want with anything he had?
Sam swung his backpack around and unzipped the top. “Look,” Sam said through his teeth. “Just look. You want to know? Bottles of water. Some food. And a laptop. A freaking laptop. Do you want it? Is that it? There’s a hard drive down there, too. You want that?”
Fallen Earth | Book 2 | Aftermath Page 14
