The Mesmerized (7 page)

“You need to send someone to get my husband
and all the other hurt people,” Minji insisted. “Please.”

“We can’t send anyone into the event
perimeter without them being immediately affected.”

“So you can’t get my husband.” Minji’s chest
tightened and tears blinded her briefly.

“No, we can’t.”

Minji pressed her lips together and fought
to contain her anger and frustration. Already her brain was piecing
together an idea of how to rescue Jake. If others couldn’t enter
the casino, she’d find a way to do it herself.

“I understand you’re upset, but we’re
seeking answers so we can resolve this as soon as possible.”

“So who are you?”

“Doctor Tina McCoy of the Center for Disease
Control and Prevention. I’m here to help. This is what we do.”
Tilting her head, Dr. McCoy glanced toward her comrade as he tucked
a vial of blood into a case. “We need to find out why you and this
other gentleman—”

“Arthur Freestone,” the man spoke up. “I was
in the casino when it happened.”

Minji threw him an irritated look.

The man ignored her.

“What’s your name?” Dr. McCoy asked Minji,
pulling her attention back to her.

With a sigh, Minji gave hers and the girls’
names. Dr. McCoy scribbled the information down with her stylus.
The glow of the screen reflected on her mask, obscuring her face.
“Where were you when it happened?”

A hard knot in her throat was nearly choking
her, so Minji condensed her story into a simple narrative. It was
hard to breathe and think when her wounded husband lay inside the
casino.

“So some of the people died immediately?”
Dr. McCoy asked in a voice that was eerily calm despite the
information being given to her.

“They just dropped dead,” Arthur said,
speaking up. “They were bleeding out of their eyes! It was
awful!”

“Actually, they remained standing for a few
minutes,” Minji corrected.

Arthur gave her a doubting look. “No, they
just fell over.”

“No, they stood for a while, and then fell.
What were you doing when it happened?” Minji glowered at the man,
not willing to forgive him for abandoning her and the girls.

“I had just come out of the men’s room when
they collapsed,” Arthur answered.

“So you didn’t see it all,” Minji
declared.

“No, I didn’t.” Arthur pointedly looked
away.

The other doctor approached Minji. “I’m
Doctor Andrew Ramos. I need to take some blood from you and your
daughters.”

Pressing her lips together, Minji
reluctantly nodded her consent. “Please be careful with the baby.
She’s very afraid.”

“But not your other daughter?” Dr. McCoy’s
keen blue eyes focused on Ava, who stared blankly in the direction
of the horde. “Your daughter isn’t in shock, is she? She’s
affected.”

Minji inclined her head. “Yes.”

The doctors glanced at each other in a
silent exchange that made Minji uneasy. The woman made a notation
on her tablet screen while Dr. Ramos immediately strode out of the
tent toward another that was heavily congested with people in
hazmat suits and body armor.

“What is it?” Minji demanded, alarmed.
“What’s wrong?”

“She’s outside the event perimeter,” was the
clipped answer.

“So?”

“We haven’t seen any of the affected up
close because we couldn’t enter the event perimeter without falling
victim,” the scientist explained, setting down her tablet on a
table. She held out her hands. “May I see your daughter?”

Ava’s head swiveled toward Dr. McCoy,
startling Minji. Did her daughter understand what the doctor had
said? Was she coming out of her trance?

“What are you going to do with her?” Minji
glanced toward the police officer who had taken a subtle footstep
toward her.

“We need to understand what’s affecting her.
Please hand her over.”

“No,” Minji said automatically. “No, I don’t
feel comfortable with that.” Clasping both daughters tighter, Minji
ignored the pain in her back and throbbing in her arm muscles. She
wasn’t about to turn over her child.

“I have to insist,” Dr. McCoy said in a
voice that was purposefully neutral.

Backing away from both the doctor and the
police officer, Minji shook her head.

“Don’t you want your daughter to get
better?”

Of course Minji wanted Ava to return to
normal, but the thought of handing her daughter over to the doctor
sent off warning bells in her head. Glancing outside the tent, she
saw Dr. Ramos and several other people in hazmat suits wheeling
what looked like a plastic capsule on a stretcher. “You’re going to
take her away from me.”

“Yes, but she’ll be safe. We’ll fly her to
our facility in Atlanta. She’ll have the best care. We’ll need you
and your baby to come with us as well. We need to know why you’re
not affected.”

The doctor’s calm voice had the opposite
effect on Minji.

It terrified her.

“She’s not a specimen to be poked and
prodded.” Minji scooted around a table loaded with plastic bins
filled with medical supplies.

“Are you going to take me, too?” Arthur
asked, taking a sharp step in Minji’s direction.

Beyond the tent, the people in the hazmat
suits were now surrounded by a new set of armed guards. These wore
military insignia.

With an explosive sigh that frosted her
mask, Dr. McCoy nodded. “Don’t you want help?”

“I’ve read Stephen King. I know how this
sort of thing goes,” Arthur said, color draining out of his face.
“I don’t want to be locked up like some sort of experiment.”

“Take the little girl,” Dr. McCoy instructed
the silent police officer. “We can’t waste any more time.”

“No! You can’t do this!” Minji protested.
She backed into the side of the tent and it wobbled overhead.

“I want to know exactly what you plan to do
with us!” Arthur ducked to Minji’s side, using her and her
daughters as a shield.

The police officer took a firm hold on Ava.
“Ma’am, this is to help her,” he said in a pleading voice.

“Let her go!” Minji shouted.

The icy invisible tendrils sluiced through
the air, rubbing against her skin for the briefest of moments.

Everyone fell silent and still.

Arizona

Noon

Kristen balanced on a rock located on the
North Rim of the Grand Canyon, attempting to hold her phone in just
the right position to get a good selfie. She was having a little
difficulty getting a clear view of the majestic panorama behind her
and her own face as the wind buffeted her hand, making it shake.
Her parents’ admonishments from the nearby viewing area only
annoyed her more.

“I’m being careful!” she shouted into the
wind.

“Don’t get too close to the edge!” her
mother responded.

“Ugh!”

As a gymnast, she had perfect balance and
had high hopes to make the national team in the near future.
Besides, she wasn’t
that
close to the edge of the canyon.
There were a good three feet between her and the precipice. Though
the gusts were strong and blowing her blond ponytail into a wild
dance around her head, there wasn’t enough force to knock her
off.

“If you fall, can I have your room?”

The fifteen-year-old glowered at her younger
brother. “Shut up.”

He laughed, and then made faces in an
attempt to distract her.

Pointedly ignoring her family, Kristen
concentrated on her image on the screen. If she was going to endure
a summer vacation with her family, at least she was going to upload
some good photos of herself to the social sites to show her
ex-boyfriend and backstabbing former best friend that she was
having a great time. The service at the canyon was horrible and she
didn’t have any bars, but she’d upload all the photos she’d taken
once they reached the hotel.

Somewhere nearby, a car horn honked loudly
and voices rang out. Ignoring the ruckus, she tilted her head to
one side and was glad to see she’d found a really good shot.

“Kristen! Kristen! We need to go! They’re
closing the park!” her father shouted.

It was only mid-day, but Kristen was
relieved. She was done viewing the Grand Canyon and was dying to
get to Las Vegas. She was determined to flirt with cute boys while
sunbathing at the resort pool.

“Just a second, Dad! Just taking one
more!”

Forcing a bright smile onto her lips to wipe
away any signs of her annoyance, Kristen pressed the button on the
screen of her cellphone.

A second later, the phone fell from her grip
and smashed against the ground, cracking the screen. Swiveling
about, Kristen stared blankly toward the far horizon. Her mind
completely subsumed in a cold void, she stepped forward and toppled
off the boulder she’d been perched on. Her body struck several
trees, ricocheting off the trunks before flying out over the edge
of the canyon. She fell in silence, never crying out, never even
blinking.

Seconds later her brother, parents, and
other park visitors followed her deadly descent to the bottom of
the canyon.

Las Vegas

Noon

“No, no, no!” Arthur whimpered.

Blood splattered against the face guard of
Dr. McCoy’s mask, then she collapsed, striking the table where her
tablet rested and taking the setup to the ground with her in a loud
clatter.

“It’s happening again,” Minji said in a
stricken voice.

“No! No! We were supposed to be rescued!”
Arthur clutched his head, disbelief stamped on his features.
“No!”

All around the area, people had come to a
standstill. Even the mesmerized already under the influence of the
event had stopped their trek northward. Ava’s small body remained
ramrod straight in her mother’s grip, her face impassive, and Minji
wondered if she had imagined Ava looking directly at the now
deceased doctor. Even though the muscles in her arms were screaming
in protest, Minji did not dare set her daughter on the ground.
Meanwhile, Bailey’s sniffles and fidgeting were a small comfort.
Apparently, since Bailey, Arthur, and Minji had been immune to the
first wave of attacks, they were immune to the new one.

Within seconds of the world falling silent
and still, the sound of vehicles smashing into one another echoed
along the strip while car horns screamed in one long shriek. Minji
instinctively jerked backward, upsetting Bailey who let out a
plaintive cry. Ava remained silent. Arthur scrambled forward,
gazing past all the emergency vehicles toward the strip.

“All the cars on all the roads,” Arthur
gasped. “They’re all going to crash!”

Feeling sick at the thought, Minji nodded.
“The horns are going off because they’re probably jammed from the
collisions.”

Arthur’s eyes enlarged in horror. “If the
cars are crashing, then what about the heli—”

Before he could even finish speaking, a
helicopter spiraled overhead, its dark shadow flitting over the
long drive. The metal beast spun over the fake lagoon and the
Bridge of Sighs replica before clipping the large, ornate, animated
sign announcing events at The Venetian resort and dipping out of
sight. There was a flash of fire, and the air reverberated with the
shockwave of the explosion. Black smoke spewed into the air from
the crash site. Seconds later, another helicopter smashed into the
side of the towering Treasure Island resort, the burning wreckage
sliding down its white and red surface to the ground.

Bailey let out a gut-wrenching scream when
Minji fell to her knees and scrambled under one of the sturdier
looking metal tables, dragging Ava with her. She wasn’t sure if it
would be any real protection from the fiery debris, but she
couldn’t think of where else to take cover.

Following her example, Arthur ducked under a
different table. “How can this be happening?”

Though Minji didn’t witness the crashes, she
could hear the impact of the other helicopters as they fell to
Earth. Black smoke billowed into the sky, car horns screeched, and
the people crowding the boulevard remained still despite the fiery
shrapnel raining upon them.

“This isn’t real! It can’t be real!” Arthur
wagged his head. “No, no, no...”

Minji attempted to soothe Bailey while Ava
remained a statue at her side. Her fingers trembled against her
baby’s delicate skin. How could she keep her family safe amidst all
the destruction?

Another blast shook the ground and pelted
the area with shards of metal. A large chunk of a helicopter’s
engine smashed into an ambulance then spiraled through the air to
land in the placid blue waters of the nearby lagoon. Steam rose
from the wreckage.

In the doorway of the tent, the police
officer in his black garb and face mask didn’t even flinch.

The reek of burning metal, rubber, and other
foul smells choked Minji and sent her into a fit of coughing.
Across from her, Arthur scuttled out from under his shelter and
rushed the policeman.

Shoving the man, Arthur shouted, “Wake up!
Wake up!”

“That won’t work!” Minji snapped. “Leave him
alone!”

“He has to save us!”

Somewhere along the strip there was another
explosion. The sound of glass shattering rang through the air. Car
alarms screeched, but the mass congregation remained unmoving and
seemingly unaware.

“He’s not going to wake up! Look around!
They’re not waking up even with helicopters crashing down on their
heads!” Pointing at the fallen doctor, Minji continued, “They’re
dying and they don’t even know it.”

Arthur stared at the doctor’s bloodied face.
“How can this be? She’s in a suit! How can she be dead?” Again he
turned his anger on the impassive police officer, attempting to
shake him out of his state. “You have to wake up and save us!”