Anomaly (14 page)

A gang of youths spotted them. Rocks and stones began raining down upon them. One caught Cathy on the side of her head, opening up a gash. Teller tugged at the holstered sidearm on the corporal, pulling it out and pointing it at the oncoming horde. He snatched at the trigger several times, but nothing happened.

“The safety,” cried Cathy.

A Molotov cocktail sailed overhead, striking the building behind them and erupting into flames. The explosive heat wave caused them to cringe.

Teller fumbled with the 9mm Beretta, flicking the safety catch off as rocks struck him on the shoulder and forearms. A chunk of brick ricocheted up at him, bouncing off the concrete and colliding with his shin. It tore through his trousers, stripping the skin off his leg and causing him to fall to one knee.

He pointed the gun at the gang running in hard toward them and squeezed but again, nothing happened.

“You've got to cock it,” yelled Cathy, snatching the gun from him.

She pulled back on the slide on top of the Beretta, loading a round from the magazine in to the chamber, and fired, striking one of the rioting youths in the center of his chest. He dropped to the road, barely ten feet away, a bloodied machete still clenched in his right hand. With that, the others scattered, darting for cover.

Cathy fired again and again, firing at an overturned, burnt out bus, but making sure the rioters got the message loud and clear.

The young man rolled to one side, clutching at his chest. No one came to his aid.

Teller grabbed the corporal, lifting him up and hoisting him over his shoulder into a fireman's lift. He began running along the street before turning down a side alley. Cathy kept pace with him, constantly looking behind them to see if anyone was following.

“Why do they make Marines so heavy?” asked Teller, panting hard.

His lungs were burning. The muscles in his legs ached, but he pushed on. His feet felt like they were going to give way beneath him, but he got to the end of the alley and turned away from the intersection, trying to get as much distance between them and the riot as possible.

Cathy looked around at where they were. Teller couldn't look. It took everything he had just to keep his legs moving. His run had slowed to a clumsy jog under the weight of the Marine, but he pushed on. All he saw were flashes of green grass next to the cracked pavement.

They'd come out into a small park bordered by several apartment blocks.

Teller could go no further. He tried to put the Marine down gently but the corporal fell the last foot or so as Teller tried to stop his head from hitting the pavement. The corporal groaned. Teller slumped to the ground beside him, struggling to breathe, his lungs screaming for oxygen. He rolled over on the hard concrete path, looking up at the clouds in the blue sky above.

Cathy was shaking. The gun hung from her fingers before falling to the ground. She was crying, sobbing. She fell to her knees and sunk to the pavement beside him.

Teller leaned forward, putting out his hand to touch hers.

“It's OK,” was all he could manage.

He was disoriented. He was unsure where they were in relation to the police. They couldn't stay here, but he wasn't sure whether they were moving toward the police lines or away from them.

They could hear yelling from down the alleyway. They had to keep moving. Teller tried to get back to his feet but his body refused. The initial surge of adrenaline had faded and now all he was left with was the pain wracking his body. His muscles seized. He pushed himself up, kneeling beside the corporal.

“I killed him,” Cathy sobbed, sitting beside Teller on the concrete, the realization of what she'd done sinking in.

“No,” replied Teller softly. “You saved us. You did what you had to do.”

She turned to him. Her hair was matted down with blood, her face marred with soot. Tears streaked down her cheeks.

“It should have been you,” she cried, thumping her hands upon him, beating at his chest. “It should have been you that fired that shot. It shouldn't have been me.”

He pulled her close, putting his hand on her head and pulling her into his shoulder as she sobbed. The blood in her hair was warm and sticky, but nothing seemed to matter any more. Her chest heaved as she cried. There was nothing Teller could do, nothing he could say, so he held her close. Tears welled up in his eyes.

A basement door opened, down a handful of stairs, just below ground level. An old man stood there in the doorway of a fire escape, beckoning at Teller. Without saying a word, he motioned him to come inside.

Teller was dazed. He felt like he was in a dream, a nightmare. For a second, he just stared at the old man, wondering if he was real.

He got up, which startled Cathy. She turned, seeing the aging African American with his receding, gray hairline, standing there in the shadows. Teller grabbed at the Marine, pulling his arm up as he swung his shoulder down to gain some leverage. He staggered over toward the door.

Cathy followed Teller in a daze, leaving the handgun sitting there on the pavement amidst the patches of blood.

Chapter 13: Why?

Teller staggered down the narrow hallway, putting his bloodied hand out to steady himself under the weight of the Marine, leaving deep red streaks on the cream-colored walls. The old man was talking, but Teller couldn't hear anything, just muted, indistinct noises. He wasn't even sure if Cathy had followed. In his mind, he was steeling himself to leave the Marine somewhere safe and then trudge back out to get her. It was instinctive, just a matter of pushing through whatever pain there was in order to survive. If they could last a few more minutes, they might make an hour, if they made an hour, they might make it through the day.

The frail old man led him up a flight of stairs.

Each step felt like a mountain to climb. Teller's back ached, the muscles on his neck and shoulders shook in spasms of agony, his thighs burnt under the strain. He grabbed at the banister, pulling on it, his feet on the verge of giving way. The old man tugged at him, urging him on, trying to help him bear the load.

A young family stood at the top of the stairs. It hurt to look up, sweat dripped from his brow, stinging his eyes. He was only barely aware of the young lady that reached out to help prop him up. There were kids in the way, he stumbled into them as he cleared the last step. The old man beckoned him into an apartment on one side.

Teller staggered into the living room and collapsed, falling forward and dropping the Marine on the couch as he crashed to the floor beside him. He fought to get back to his feet, to go back and get Cathy when he felt a soft hand on his shoulder. He was staring right at Cathy, but it took him a moment to realize it was her smiling face staring back at him. And with that, he slumped back against the couch, exhausted.

“Thank you,” said Cathy, turning to the elderly man standing beside his aging wife.

“Sarah is a nurse,” said the old man, gesturing toward the young lady, his granddaughter. Sarah was in her early twenties. She had a first aid kit and was already looking at the corporal lying on the couch.

The kids, a girl and a boy, neither of them more than eight years old, stood to one side staring at the bloodied strangers, filled with a sense of curiosity and caution.

The old man handed Cathy and Teller a glass of water. Teller was surprised just how refreshing the first sip was. He hadn't realized he was so parched.

“No, granddad, you can't give them water. They may have internal wounds that require surgery.”

“You worry too much,” said the old man. “Water is good.”

Teller drank it anyway. He moved to one side, allowing Sarah more room to examine the Marine corporal.

“What kind of nurse are you?” asked Cathy, regaining her sense of awareness quicker than Teller.

“Maternity and delivery, I'm afraid,” replied Sarah. “I'll do what I can for your friend, but it's been a long time since I worked triage.”

Sarah pushed two fingers hard up against the soldier's jugular and took his pulse, watching her old-fashioned analogue watch as she quietly counted out the beats.

“His pulse is 58 beats per minute, which is low, but his heart beat is regular. I just hope there's no internal bleeding.”

She pulled open his eyelids, looking at his dilated pupils. Then she reached gently around the back of his head, comparing the two hemispheres as she worked her fingers delicately around to the front of his skull.

“There's no cranial damage, which is good. But he has suffered a nasty concussion. It's troubling that he hasn't regained consciousness. That tends to suggest there's some swelling on the brain, which is not good. We need to get him to a hospital. This isn't something we can treat here.”

“Phone's still out,” said the old man.

Sarah tried her mobile phone.

“No signal,” she added. “Grandma, can you get me a couple of buckets? One with a little warm water in it. Oh, and some towels, plenty of towels.”

Sarah unbuttoned the soldier's shirt, exposing the deep purple bruises forming on his chest. She pushed gently on his ribs, looking for any give while also looking for a response that showed some level of consciousness. The Marine groaned.

“He's got a few broken ribs, but they're not detached, which is good. It means they won't have gone on to cause any further internal damage, especially to the lungs.”

Teller was feeling better with each passing minute. Physically, he was in pain, but the love and kindness of strangers was, in itself, healing.

“Please,” said the old man. “Have a seat.”

The old man helped Teller to his feet and over to a large armchair. Cathy sat down on the broad arm of the chair, leaning up against its back, wanting to stay close to Teller. He put his hand on her thigh. She was shaking. He wasn't sure if it was from the injuries she'd taken in the accident or the shock of firing on the rioter.

“How you doing?” he asked.

She ran her hand up through her hair, saying, “I'm fine,” only to realize her hair was matted with blood.

Grandma returned with several buckets, one with some warm water sloshing around in it. Sarah poured a little disinfectant in and swirled it around before soaking some hand towels and dabbing at Cathy's forehead.

“Can you put the other one over by the soldier, Grandma?” asked Sarah. “It's not uncommon for head injuries to cause vomiting, so we need to keep a close eye on him.”

The disinfectant stung, but Sarah was gentle. Cathy sat up a little, and Teller could see she appreciated being cared for. The trembling in her hands subsided. Sarah alternated between the wet hand towel and a dry towel, slowly cleaning the wound and clearing the area around it.

“Feel better?” she asked, as she wrapped a compression bandage around her forehead.

“Yes, thank you.”

“Grandma. Can you get them some painkillers, some Tylenol or something? But write down exactly what you give them and the time you give it to them. They'll need to know that at the hospital.”

Sarah started tending to Teller when the young girl called out, “Sarah, the soldier. He's moving.”

The corporal rolled to one side. His eyes opened briefly. Sarah was already moving over next to him. She held the bucket low beside him, resting her hand on his shoulder. He convulsed, bringing up a small amount of bile that she caught in the bucket. Raising his hand to his head, he groaned before rolling back and turning his head away. Sarah wiped his lips with a towel.

“This is good,” she said, looking over at Cathy. “Well, it's not great, but it's better than I thought. When it comes to head injuries, everything's relative and better is good, not as good as being normal and healthy, but it's a really positive sign. He's slipping in and out of consciousness, but that's OK. It means the swelling isn't getting worse. And he moved his whole body when he spewed so there's little or no serious spinal damage. That's really good to see. I think he's going to be all right”

“Thank you so much,” said Teller, relaxing and letting his head sink back into the armchair. Sarah came over and began washing his forehead with a damp cloth.

They introduced each other, with Sarah naming everyone in the family. Teller wasn't that good at remembering names at the best of times, let alone now. He just smiled politely. Cathy introduced the three of them.

“What happened out there?” asked the old man.

“We were returning from lower New York,” said Cathy “I don't know quite what happened. One minute we were driving along talking and the next all hell broke loose. I think we were hit by a homemade bomb.”

“You're soldiers?” asked Sarah as she finished up.

“Oh, no. Scientists,” said Teller, pausing for a second as he corrected himself. “Well, actually, I'm a school teacher and Cathy's a reporter, but, these days, well... we seemed to be somewhat out of our depth.”

Cathy smiled at the understatement in his words.

“I knew I'd seen you before,” said the old man. “You're that fella on the TV. The one with the balloon.”

Teller raised his hand in acknowledgment, embarrassed.

“He's a little unconventional,” said Cathy.

“We need to get back to the NASA research team,” said Teller. “Is there any way we can get hold of the police or the army?”

“My dad's a police officer,” said Sarah. “But he didn't come home last night. We got a message from the wife of one of his buddies saying they all had to stay on duty at the station until the state of emergency is over.”

“Do you have an Internet connection?” asked Cathy, turning toward Teller as she added, “Maybe we can get a message out to them that way.”

“Sure,” replied Sarah, pulling a laptop from the bookshelf, turning it on and handing it to Teller. “But I don't know if it is working.”

The television was on, with the sound turned down.

“Do you mind if we listen to that?” asked Cathy.

NBC News was replaying an address by the President from earlier in the day. The old man turned up the volume.

“... the deployment of the National Guard to restore order in New York City in support of emergency services is to take effect immediately. Members of my cabinet are in discussions with Governor Rosenthal of New York state to make the necessary logistical arrangements. The first units are expected to be deployed shortly after 1pm Eastern Standard Time.”