And as Emily pushed through the double doors into what should be a room full of chaos and noise—especially given the incredible meteorological events she had just witnessed—what greeted her instead was the sonic equivalent of a library reading room.
Pausing for a moment, she scanned the room. While the day-shift of thirty-plus journalists and editorial staff all seemed present and correct, instead of being at their workstations eagerly putting together that evening's edition, they had gathered in groups around the five 50-inch TV screens mounted on the walls of the room. On a normal day, each TV would usually be tuned to a different major national or international news channel, ready to catch any breaking stories that may have escaped the paper's ever-watchful staff. Right now, every screen showed CNN. The reporting staff, all the way up to the senior editor himself, stood silently watching as others reported on a developing story that, on any other day, they would be tirelessly pursuing.
No one noticed Emily as she entered the newsroom. There was none of the usual banter or greetings from her friends and comrades, in fact, not one pair of eyes shifted from the TV screens to Emily as she moved to her cubicle, and dropped her backpack on the desk.
There were only a couple of possible reasons for the paper to come to a grinding halt, especially this close to a deadline. The first was that no one had witnessed the event that had happened less than an hour ago. Emily instantly dismissed this theory, as it was obvious everyone must be aware of what had just happened. She could see from the crimson stains on her workmates clothing that some, like her, had been away from the office when the red rain struck.
The second reason, and Emily found this
very
hard to believe, was a news event even more earthshaking had supplanted one Emily thought would be the biggest event to demand a paper's headlines since the 911 attacks... and that idea frightened Emily
very
much.
"Emily? Where have you been? You okay?" The barrage of questions from Sven Konkoly, one of the paper's sub-editors broke her from her introspection.
"Yes. Out. Fine," she fired back before taking a deep breath to calm nerves she hadn't even realized were frazzled. "What's going on? Did you see what just happened?" she said, her hand fluttering towards the window.
Sven ignored her question, "Come on over here," he demanded. "You need to take a look at this, right now." Not waiting for Emily to comply, Sven grabbed her by her elbow and guided her to the group crowded around the nearest TV. On-screen, a female CNN news-anchor was talking to a young man via a laptop videophone connection, his frightened face filled a box in the top right corner of the screen giving the appearance he was talking over the news anchor's shoulder. A caption under the image of the man read
FRANCOIS REVEILLION
. Emily estimated he was no more than twenty-six,
maybe
twenty-eight, tops. His eyes were bloodshot and betrayed a barely restrained panic that belied the calmly delivered answers he was giving to the news anchor’s questions.
"—
exactly is going on there? Can you describe what you're seeing?
"
When the young man spoke it was with heavily accented English, Emily guessed he was either French or maybe Belgian.
"
Everyone is very, very sick
," Francois said, his face so close to the lens of the camera Emily could see the pale, almost translucent quality of his skin. Red veins stood out on his forehead and a spider’s web of tiny broken blood vessels seemed to be spreading from his left temple to his cheek, terminating just above the man's blond mustache. Emily could see beads of sweat pooling on his forehead and begin to drip slowly down his face. When he turned his head and looked away from the camera for a second she saw more of the ruptured blood vessels on his neck. His eyes were striated with thick lines of red and deep pockets of blood had collected in the corner of each eye until little of the normal white remained. He looked like a boxer who'd just taken a twelve-round pummeling.
"
People are dying here
," he said. "
Many people. They are becoming sick and then they just die. I see them on the streets, in their cars. There are many, many dead here.
"
"When you say that there are many deaths, how many? Can you tell us?"
The man paused for a second before replying: "
Everyone
," he said. "
Everyone is dead
." His voice stuttered slightly as the terror everyone knew he felt, momentarily flashed across his face.
"
Look, I will show you
," he continued. The screen wobbled as he picked up the laptop and carried it a short distance before turning the lens to face out through a second-story set of bay-windows. It was dark wherever Francois was broadcasting from, but light from several street lamps cast enough illumination for those gathered around the TV to be able to make out a tree-lined street with rows of two-story houses on either side. The houses, nothing but dark square-shaped silhouettes, looked European in design, like some of the pictures Emily had once seen of villages in Provence. There seemed to be several cars randomly parked in the road; a white compact was resting half on the sidewalk, its rear end straddling the curb of the road, a telltale plume of exhaust fumes floated up from the vehicle’s still running engine.
"What are those?" a reporter next to Emily asked, pointing to several dark almost indistinguishable shapes scattered randomly on the sidewalk and in the road. One of the shapes seemed to be slumped against a streetlight.
"Are those bodies? Fuck! Those are bodies." The panic in the young reporter's voice made his words rise in pitch as he uttered each expletive.
Emily quickly counted at least fifteen unmoving shapes lying in the street. It was impossible to distinguish their sex from this distance, but she could see one that definitely looked small enough to be that of a child. Next to the child a larger form lay spread eagled on the pavement, one arm seemingly reaching out to the motionless body of the child.
This was bad, she realized. This was probably
very
bad.
The view on the screen switched from the street back to the face of the young man and a gasp of astonishment mixed with horror escaped from many of those watching. In the few seconds the camera was focused on the unfolding disaster outside, the striations in the man's eyes had spread until no white could be seen at all; his eyes looked like two pools of congealed blood. The network of veins Emily had noticed earlier had doubled in thickness and now extended across his entire face. A delicate web of veins appeared suddenly on his cheeks and a steady stream of thick bloody mucous began flowing from both of his nostrils.
Perhaps it was just her own fear reflected back at her but, despite the obliteration of his eyes, which were now nothing but black pits, Emily thought she could still see the terror he was experiencing captured in them. As the group continued to watch in morbid fascination, Francois’ mouth opened and closed once as though trying to speak, instead of words a thick gush of red liquid exploded from his mouth. Droplets splattered against the camera lens and he dropped from view, replaced by the image of a chair-leg as the laptop computer toppled from his hands and fell to the floor. A low, gurgling moan filtered through the TV speakers but it was quickly silenced as the newsfeed cut back to the CNN presenter.
The female presenter was visibly shaking, her skin so pale even the layer of makeup she wore could not hide it. She pulled herself together and continued her narration. "
If... if you're just joining us
..." Her words were lost to Emily as a petite blond standing next to her suddenly began to sob and grabbed for Emily’s hand.
"Oh, no! Oh, no!" the woman, whom Emily did not recognize, gasped repeatedly. The pretty young girl's voice was tinged with a growing tone of panic, and Emily felt the woman’s grasp on her hand tighten as tears began to stream down her face. "Is that going to happen to me?" she bleated, her voice barely audible as she clutched at her own crimson stained blouse with her free hand. "Am I going to
die
?"
Emily squeezed the woman's hand back as firmly as she could. "No, of course not," she said, although she could hear the lack of conviction in her own voice. "We're going to be just fine," Emily reassured her, mustering as much faith to her voice as she was able and reinforcing her weak words with a forced smile.
Sven pulled Emily aside. "Do you believe this shit? Jesus Christ!"
"What about the other news outlets? What are they saying?" Emily asked.
"The same: first the red rain comes and then people die. There's been no news from anywhere East of Germany for hours. It looks like the whole of Europe's fucking
dead
."
*
*
*
“So, just what are we supposed to do exactly?” asked Frank Embry, one of the crime-beat reporters. Embry was in his late sixties, and looked as though he had been plucked right out of the pages of a Raymond Chandler novel. His hair was always slicked back and he would never be found without his gray raincoat (Frank insisted on calling it a mack) which he wore in the winter and slung over his arm in the summer. He’d always carry a rolled-up copy of the previous days
Tribune
in his free hand. “It adds to the mystique,” he would tell anyone who asked why he chose to dress like that. Most every other reporter thought he was a little nuts but Emily thought it was quite charming.
The full staff of the
Tribune
crammed into the lower floor meeting room. Senior editorial management had decided to call a conference and pulled everyone in twenty-minutes after Emily arrived back at the office. A feeling of dread permeated the little meeting room, not helped by the overbearing smell of sweat as too many people crowded into too small a space. Senior staff members were already seated around the eight-person conference table when Emily joined the meeting. The rest of the paper’s employees were either standing or leaning against the walls.
“It’s really up to you guys,” said Konkoly. “On any other day, I’d say we stay at our posts, I mean, shit, everyone remembers 911, we didn’t leave for three days. But this? This is a whole other bucket of fish.”
Under other circumstances, Emily—along with the majority of the staff—would have laughed aloud at Konkoly’s unintentional slip of the tongue. He had a habit of mangling idioms when he was nervous which was endearing and often hilarious, but his mistake went unnoticed today.
“I’ve spoken with both the senior editor and the publisher,” Konkoly continued, “and, while they would obviously like to see today’s paper go out, they’re watching the TV too. They told me to tell you it was your choice whether we stay or we go.”
“You got that right,” a voice piped up from the far side of the room.
Konkoly looked around the room at the grim faces staring back at him. “I’m pretty sure I know what the result will be already, but let’s see a show of hands for those who want to call it a day and get out of here.” Everyone except Frank raised their hands. He continued to lean against the wall, his hands folded in front of him. He’d left his mack at his desk.
“Frank?” The sub-editor’s voice was tinged with concern for the eccentric crime reporter.
“I’m staying,” Frank replied stubbornly. “I’ve been with this paper for almost thirty years and I’ll-be-damned if I’m leaving now.”
“Jesus, Frank, were you watching the TV? You saw what’s happening in Europe. What do you think this town’s going to be like if that happens here?” Emily couldn’t see who had spoken but judging by the thick Brooklyn accent it was probably Janice one of the paper’s legion of proofreaders. “You have to go home. Who knows how long this is going to last. It could be days before everything gets back to normal.”
“This
is
my home,” replied Frank. “Besides, there’s no one for me to go home to. At least if I’m here I can do some good. Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine. And when this all blows over, I’ll be the first to tell you ‘I told ya so.” He added a half-hearted smile to his last statement that seemed to convince everyone he was resolute about staying put.
“Alright people. It’s decided, this paper is officially closed until this all blows over. I’ll see you all then. Keep your cellphones close; we’ll call you when we need you. In the meantime … don’t you all have homes to go to?”
The paper’s staff began filing out of the meeting; what little conversation there was, continued in hushed, subdued voices. Emily stopped at her cubicle and waited, pretending to check through her mail while the rest of the staff grabbed their belongings and headed towards the exit. Finally, when only Frank and Sven were left, she walked over to them. Frank’s back was to Emily as he talked with Sven. She pulled the elbow of his tweed jacket to get his attention.
“Emily, my dear,” he said, turning to look at her. “I thought I saw your beautiful face in the meeting room. What a day, eh? What a day.”
“It truly sucks, Frank. Listen, why don’t you come home and stay with me? I’ve got the room. There’s no need to stay here alone.”
Frank smiled at her, his gray eyes twinkling, “While I appreciate the offer, I’m going to man my post. Besides, I won’t be alone; Mr. Konkoly here has decided to keep me company, haven’t you?”
Konkoly just nodded, and while his mouth smiled his eyes were unconvinced. “Yeah, someone’s got to make sure this old coot doesn’t run off with the computers.”
“You’re sure? The both of you are more than welcome to stay with me.”
“While the offer is tempting,” said Frank, “we’re staying. You’ll find us right here when you come back. Don’t worry.”
Konkoly simply smiled and shrugged. Both men looked at her reassuringly and she knew they wouldn’t budge.