Emily clicked on the weather article and began reading.
The
Associated Press
was reporting strange phenomena throughout most parts of Europe, the article said. Local government agencies were reporting an "unknown red precipitation" with no apparent meteorological cause. The first case had been reported in Smolensk, Russia over
twelve-hours ago with similar reports of what the news agencies had conveniently, if somewhat unoriginally, labeled 'red rain', coming in from Finland, Sweden, Poland, Germany, the UK, and Spain as the day had progressed.
"Anything interesting going on in the world?" the café owner asked, as he placed the plate with her sandwich next to her steaming cup of coffee.
Emily looked up and smiled, "Not unless you want to talk about the weather," she said. Apparently, that didn't appeal to the café owner as he fired another smile her way before walking back to his counter. Emily took a large bite from her sandwich, careful not to let any crumbs fall on her keyboard—it was absolutely delicious—and continued reading the news report.
CNN had decided to eschew the European press' red-rain nomenclature and labeled the phenomenon Blood Rain, instead.
Right
, her reporter's brain thought. Good move; give an arbitrary weather phenomenon a scary sounding name and it makes the whole non-event sound that much more frightening and threatening. It virtually guaranteed a front-page article and would probably give the writer a chance at a couple of follow-up stories, too. Lucky bastard!
The news piece also had a selection of quotes from eyewitnesses to the 'Blood Rain' epidemic sweeping across Europe. The witnesses reported the rain had begun falling at around 12:30 pm, seemingly from nowhere. "It smelled funny and when I licked it, it tasted like sour milk," one witness in Smolensk had said.
Why the hell would you stick that stuff in your mouth?
Emily wondered. The level of some people’s intelligence never failed to amaze her.
Who knew where it came from?
There was no denying it was an interesting story, she had to admit, but the probability was that some unknown chemical plant in an equally unknown part of Russia had gone all Chernobyl and was spilling this toxic red shit into the atmosphere. And, knowing the former Soviet Union's track-record for reporting these kinds of accidents, well, it would probably be months or even years before the offending chemical plant was located. Even then the Russians would maintain their
lie, lie until you die
policy of non-admission. Some things just never changed.
Emily took another large bite from her sandwich and glanced at the clock on the wall behind the counter:
12:28
the digital display showed.
Time to get my ass into gear
. She began the process of shutting her computer down and packing it away for the bike ride back to the paper.
Outside the café, she could see the daily bustle of life in New York City continuing as it had for countless years. The people changed, the buildings got dirtier and taller, but it all really just boiled down to folk getting on with their lives, doing the best they could to stay in the rat race.
Emily loved it.
"That'll be eight-seventy-five," the Italian man behind the counter said. Emily swiped her debit card and typed in her PIN, pocketing the receipt in a small pouch she carried with her. Come tax season every little bit would help.
"Have a great..." He stopped mid-sentence, his eyes looking over her left shoulder, out into the street behind her. "What'daya thinks’ going on out there?" he asked almost to himself, and Emily noticed a slightly confused look cross the man's face as she twisted around to see what he was talking about.
Through the store window, she could see heat-shimmer playing off the sidewalk and the asphalt covered road. Instead of the usual hustle and bustle she had noticed just a few minutes earlier, she saw many of the pedestrians were now simply standing still. Most were shading their eyes against the bright sun as they looked skyward.
"What the...?" exclaimed Emily, taking a step closer to the window.
From the cloudless New York sky, a crimson rain had begun to fall with the force of a light summer shower. The drops pattered onto the scorching sidewalk, and began collecting into small bloody red puddles.
A thick glob of the red liquid splashed against the store window. Emily watched it slide slowly down the glass; it seemed far more viscous than normal rain and she suddenly had an inkling of how appropriate the label 'blood rain' was. In the space of a few seconds, the light drizzle increased to a heavy shower. Rain pummeled the sidewalks, roads and buildings beyond the sanctuary of the café. It clung to the glass of the window like mud, or, more appropriately, like blood splatter at a murder scene. Gravity slowly pushed it down the windowpane, leaving a bloody trail of the viscous liquid behind. More drops hit the window, these ones were larger and hit with enough force she could hear the
thump
of the impact against the glass. It was almost as loud as hail.
Pedestrians, who had until moments before stood staring in confused fascination at the bizarre spectacle, scattered and ran for shelter, some holding briefcases or clutch bags over their heads as they sprinted under awnings or into doorways and stores. Within seconds, anyone caught outside looked like a victim from a slasher movie, their thin summer shirts stained carmine and any exposed area dripping with the blood rain, which seemed capable of adhering to anything it came into contact with.
This was unbelievable
!
Emily strained her neck to try to get a better view. It was hard to see clearly because the buildings were so tall, but she could just make out a patch of clear blue high above the rooftops. There were no clouds that she could see and no sign of any aircraft that could have been dumping this stuff. Just a pincushion of red dots dropping from an empty sky. So much was falling now that large pools of the gunk had formed on the pavements, fed by the overflowing gutters of the buildings that spewed bloody waterfalls onto the streets below like severed arteries. Streams of the rain ran into the gutters and along the sidewalks.
A sudden
THUD
! caused Emily to give a yell of surprise and leap back from the window. Something large had hit it and fallen flapping to the pavement just outside. It was a pigeon, covered in the red rain; the half-blinded bird had flown straight into the store-front of the café. The bird, its one wing obviously broken, flapped and convulsed in a circle for a few seconds, twitched twice and then lay motionless on the sidewalk.
As Emily stood mesmerized by the final moments of the pigeon, she heard the storeowner exhale a single heavily accented expletive. "
Merrrrrda
," he hissed under his breath, reverting to his native Italian in disbelief.
Emily looked up from the dead pigeon in time to see more birds dropping from the sky. They spiraled down like autumn leaves, bouncing off car roofs or hitting the sides of buildings, then falling into the road where some were promptly crushed beyond recognition under the wheels of the few cars still moving. Emily wasn't sure, but she thought she saw crows mixed in with the dying pigeons. Something even larger—was that a seagull?—crashed into the windshield of a parked car across the street, setting off the anti-theft alarm, which whooped and wailed in protest.
And then, just as suddenly as it had all begun, the deluge began to slow. The harsh patter faded away to nothing, leaving behind congealing pools of the strange red liquid clinging and dripping from every exposed surface, and eight-million utterly perplexed New Yorkers.
*
*
*
Within minutes of the red rain stopping, people began to abandon their shelter, tentatively edging out from wherever they had managed to take cover. Some, in typical New Yorker fashion, seemed totally unfazed by the event, interested only in continuing on with whatever they had been doing before the interruption to their day, apparently unconcerned with the unprecedented phenomenon they had just witnessed. Others, in complete contrast, decided to bide their time, choosing to stay exactly where they were rather than risk being caught in another downpour of blood. Emily could see their wide eyes peeking out from under awnings, others had their faces pressed to windows staring up at the sky, their mouths agape or relaying back what they could see to those who had sought shelter with them.
Emily’s heart rate slowly began to return to its normal level, as she continued to watch, choosing to stay behind the safety of the café's front door, unwilling to leave the shelter it offered. Those of a more inquisitive nature had begun examining the remnants of the bloody storm, which, from what Emily could see of the puddles outside the café, appeared to be slowly evaporating into the early afternoon heat.
"Jesus!" Emily exclaimed, her natural reporter's inquisitiveness finally getting the better of her as she cautiously opened the door of the café and stepped out onto the sidewalk.
Dead birds lay everywhere, hundreds of them, their bodies littering the road, sidewalks and parked vehicles. Each tiny body was silhouetted by a halo of the slowly dissipating red goop. It took another couple of minutes for Emily to realize she was missing a perfect opportunity for a story. She unslung her backpack, pulled her Nikon from its case and began shooting a panoramic HD video of the scene. After she’d recorded enough footage she switched the camera to regular photo mode and began firing off close-ups of the dead birds, the pale shocked faces of bewildered locals and, most importantly of all, extreme close-ups of the now fast disappearing remnants of red rain. A few globules of the red stuff still hung from the handlebars of her bike and she took a few photos of it as it dripped obscenely into a small puddle around her front tire.
Through the macroscopic zoom of the camera Emily could see the rain, or whatever the hell it actually was, was not simply evaporating or being absorbed into the pavement like normal liquid. Instead, the red goop looked as though it was breaking apart into smaller pieces. As Emily continued to shoot footage of the puddle she saw one piece simply disintegrate into hundreds of tiny red particles that flipped and somersaulted on the street's warm currents of air like an aerosol spray, before spiraling away like the Dandelion seeds she used to love to watch float on an evening breeze as a kid.
"What do you think that was?" said a young man, startling her from her observation. The kid had been sheltering under the awning of a bookstore next to the café, streaks of red stained his white business shirt and Emily could see droplets of the rain still clinging to his hair. "I mean, where did it come from? There were no clouds at all."
Emily considered his question for a moment before replying; "I have no fucking clue," she finally said. "No clue at all."
CHAPTER
TWO
Emily stepped back into the café.
“So, whad’ya think it is?” the owner asked. He had chosen to stay safely behind his counter and Emily couldn’t say she blamed him.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” she answered. The old Italian seemed to take her reply in stride, nodding as if she had confirmed something he’d already known.
“Is not natural,” he said to no one in particular.
Emily had been meticulous about avoiding the remainder of the red rain, carefully stepping around the puddles on the sidewalk and avoiding any kind of skin contact with the crap. But there was still a splatter of the stuff on her bike’s handlebars and she wasn’t going to risk touching it if she could help it.
“Can I grab a couple of these?” she asked the Italian, pointing at a container of disinfecting wipes on the side counter.
“Sure, sure,” said the old man. “Help yourself.” Emily pulled five of the wipes from the plastic dispenser and walked back out to her bike. She carefully wiped down the handlebars, leather seat, and then the cross bar and frame, making sure to toss the used sheets into the trashcan outside the café.
Satisfied with the job she had done of the cleanup, Emily climbed into the saddle of her bike, gave the café owner an a-okay thumbs-up accompanied by her brightest smile, then began peddling back in the direction of the
Tribune's
offices.
Already the daily routine of New York City had begun to swing back towards normal, as though the downpour of red rain from the afternoon’s empty blue sky was an everyday occurrence and not something that should stop the city dead in its tracks. On the streets, the usual sluggish flow of vehicles continued much as it did every day. Horns sounded in outrage as pedestrians chanced their luck at jaywalking and drivers’ tempers began to fray. Tourists wandered aimlessly, staring in store windows and snapping pictures with expensive looking cameras, apparently oblivious to the dead birds littering the sidewalks, while the occasional kamikaze cyclist tempted fate hurtling between vehicles.
But, here and there, Emily spotted remnants of the red rain: in puddles on the sidewalk, on stained clothing and the occasional worried face of a passerby. And, she noted, the air now seemed full of barely visible particles of red dust, floating on the warm eddies wafting past her like pollen.
While the majority of the city seemed to have already shrugged off the event, Emily sensed this was no normal day. She knew, with a concrete certainty that sank deep to the bottom of her stomach, the world would remember this day, and those that followed it, for as long as there was still a human race left.
*
*
*
There are few things more disconcerting to a career reporter than to walk into a paper's newsroom and find it silent. It's where the stories are made, put together and researched. On any normal day, no matter what time you walked in, the room should be a controlled commotion of reporters running back and forth, consulting in corners or answering ringing phones; the newsroom is the beating heart of any newspaper.