We will rise, p.7
We Will Rise, page 7
He became aware of sound then, a loud, constant ssssshhhhh like a vast amount of flowing water. He pressed his hands to the ground, felt grass beneath his fingers and palms. Except it couldn’t be grass. Grass was green. This stuff, whatever it was, was gray. He pushed himself into a sitting position and found himself looking at a river. And not just any river – the Iden. Except the water, normally a greenish blue, was now slate gray. The sky was a light gray, the clouds that drifted within it pure white. The buildings on the other side of the river were all various shades of black, gray, and white. Jerome started to panic, and he looked at his hands, turning them palms up as he examined them. They were gray, too. Light gray, like the sky.
Something had thrown him toward the books on the shelf…no, not books. The Book. That flash of red he’d seen, that had been the cover as he passed through it. Somehow he was inside The Book, more specifically, within one of the black-and-white photographs printed in the middle. He rose to his feet, lightheaded and trembly, and he gazed out upon the river. As he watched, its slate-gray darkened, became almost black, and he saw objects bobbing on the surface, only a few at first, but then more appeared, and more after that, until the Iden was choked with them. It took him a moment to realize what they were, and when he did, his gut squirmed.
They were bodies. Hundreds of them, naked, mutilated, faceless. All girls, all young girls…. And that wasn’t water they were floating in. The black stuff was blood, but in black and white.
Ever read the Bible?
Jerome jumped and quickly turned to see Randall – who was also in black and white – standing next to him, looking at the mass of dead bodies floating by. He went on without waiting for Jerome to answer, spreading his arms wide as if to take in the entire river and its contents.
All this I will give you if you will bow down and worship me.
As if in response to Randall’s words, bodies began washing up onto the riverbank. Four, ten, twenty, more….
Jerome’s mouth was dry, and he felt his penis grow swollen and hot.
Go on, Randall said, knock yourself out. We’ve got a little time before things back in the real world really get going. Why not start the Homecoming off with a bang? He gave Jerome a wicked smile. Literally.
“This isn’t real,” Jerome said. “It can’t be. It’s a delusion, a fantasy….”
But if that was true, then whatever he did here would be just a fantasy too. All in his mind.
Sure, Randall said. Let’s go with that for now.
Jerome, hands trembling so hard he could barely make them work, began to unbuckle his belt.
Chapter Seven
“It was a demon!” the woman shrieked. “A demon made me do it!”
Her face was a mask of blood, and there were two cavernous holes where her eyes had been. She sat on the floor of her dining room, body rocking back and forth, while her daughter – No, son, Julie Nguyen reminded herself; he’d introduced himself as Oliver – stood off to the side, staring at his mother with a blank expression. He’s in shock, Julie thought, but for some reason that didn’t seem right. It was more like he wasn’t sure what to feel, so his face remained blank. For some reason, he held a closed laptop tucked beneath one arm, its plastic casing slick with blood.
Julie and her partner, Nick Stoler, had been dispatched after Oliver called 911. The fire station where they worked was located close by, and it had taken them only a few minutes to arrive, which was good for the woman – Emily, Julie remembered – because if it had taken them much longer to get here, she might’ve bled out given the severity of her injuries. Julie and Nick knelt on either side of Emily, and Julie could feel blood soaking through the knees of her uniform pants. Julie wasn’t squeamish – you couldn’t be and survive as an EMT – and she was used to getting bodily fluids of one kind or another on her clothes while she was working. And it wasn’t like she was a rookie. She’d been an EMT for nearly seven years, and during that time she’d seen the aftermaths of shootings, stabbings, messy suicides, and horrific traffic accidents. But she’d never seen anything like this. There was blood everywhere – on the woman’s face, hands, and clothes, on the floor all around her, on Oliver’s hands and clothes, as well as on the laptop he held. It was like Emily’s goddamn eyes had exploded and shot blood all over the place.
Speaking of her eyes, they lay on the floor – bloody gobbets with lengths of optic nerve still attached. Blood splatter marred a nearby wall, and Julie imagined Emily hurling the eyes away from her after she’d pulled them out, as if she wanted to get the things as far away from her as possible.
“Please try to remain still, ma’am,” Nick said.
The woman – Emily – paid him no mind and continued rocking back and forth, back and forth. He gave Julie a look that said, You ready? and she nodded. He moved behind Emily and took hold of her shoulders with his gloved hands in order to keep her steady so Julie could work. Emily shrieked again – a wordless cry of fury this time – and tried to twist out of Nick’s grip. Nick was a big guy and a weightlifter, and Emily was short and thin, but the woman was a fighter. She flung herself backward, and in the process smashed her head into Nick’s face. His nose broke with a sickening crunch, and blood gushed onto the back of Emily’s head and ran down Nick’s face.
“Fuck!” he shouted. “Fuck-fuck-fuck!”
Oliver took a step forward, as if she – he – was afraid Nick might harm his mother in retaliation for injuring him. Julie wasn’t worried about that. She’d worked with Nick for a long time, and she’d never once seen him lose his cool and handle a patient roughly. She was, however, worried that Emily would hurt herself further if she continued to resist them like this. When she and Nick had entered the house, she’d carried the duffle bag containing medical supplies, and he’d carried the backboard. It was the latter they needed now. Working together, she and Nick forced Emily onto the backboard and got her strapped down. In between bouts of screaming, the woman babbled about a demon coming out of a computer screen, but once they had her secured, they could finally get to work.
Emily’s wounds were still bleeding, so Julie pulled some gauze and bandages from the duffle bag. She handed some to Nick, they each took an eye, and began packing gauze into the ruined sockets. Nick’s bent and swollen nose was still bleeding, but he ignored it, his attention focused entirely on his patient. Emily whimpered as they worked, but she didn’t scream. That was a relief. Without looking away from her work, Julie asked Oliver to tell them what had happened.
“She gouged her eyes out. I don’t know why. I tried to stop her, but I couldn’t. She just kept digging….”
The boy’s voice sounded faint and dreamy, like he was having trouble believing this was real. Julie knew just how he felt. Most eye injuries were puncture wounds, and up to this point the worst she’d encountered was a toddler who’d somehow ended up with a ballpoint pen jammed into the corner of his eye. But this…. Unlike what you saw in movies and TV shows, pulling out eyes wasn’t easy. You had to really work at it, had to keep digging, like Oliver had said, but Emily had managed it. The optic nerves were connected directly to the brain’s frontal lobe, and detaching them forcibly had likely given Emily significant brain damage. While it was possible Emily had gouged out her eyes because she thought she’d seen some kind of demon, it was also possible that her mad ravings were the result of injury to her frontal lobe. She might be mentally ill and have physical damage to her brain. Christ, this poor woman….
When both sockets were packed, Julie and Nick wrapped white bandages around Emily’s head to keep the gauze firmly in place. Once that was accomplished, it was time to take her outside, put her in the back of Julie and Nick’s medic, and hurry to the hospital. Although Julie didn’t think there was much any doctor could do for the woman now. But before they could leave, they had one last detail to attend to.
Julie looked at Oliver. “How old are you?”
Oliver frowned as if suddenly suspicious, and he gripped the laptop harder. “Why?”
Nick answered, his broken nose making him sound as if he had a severe cold.
“Because if you’re a minor, we can’t leave you alone. We’ll need you to come with us. You can ride in the back with your mother.”
Oliver didn’t answer right away. His lips moved silently, as if he was speaking to himself. It was weird, but Julie told herself that the kid had probably been traumatized. Hell, anyone would be after watching their mother tear her eyes from her head. For a brief moment, Oliver glanced down at the laptop he was holding, almost as if he were consulting it, and Julie thought of how Emily had ranted about how the demon that had forced her to mutilate herself had emerged from a computer screen. This laptop was the only computer in the room.
Julie wasn’t superstitious. She believed there was no world other than this one, which was why it was so important for her to save every life she could. This existence was all there was, and once someone was gone, they were never coming back. Still, seeing Oliver gripping the laptop tight while mumbling to himself struck her as more than a little creepy.
“I turned eighteen last month,” he said.
Julie exchanged a skeptical glance with Nick. If this kid’s eighteen, she thought, then I’m Awkwafina.
Before she could call Oliver’s bluff, he went on.
“I called my dad right after I called 911. He should be here soon.”
Good enough, Julie thought. She gave Nick a nod, put the canvas bag on top of Emily’s legs, and together they lifted her up, Julie at the front of the backboard, Nick at the rear. Once they got Emily into the back of the transport, one of them would return to collect her eyes, putting them into a plastic bag with a cold pack. Julie doubted there was anything a surgeon could do to reattach the eyes, but she was an EMT, not a doctor. If there was a chance, no matter how slim, that Emily could get her eyes back, Julie would retrieve them, even if they most likely would be disposed of at the hospital.
Julie and Nick carried Emily out of the dining room, Oliver following behind, still carrying the laptop. They went through the kitchen, then into a hallway, and then to the foyer. There was a large, framed painting of Jesus hanging on the wall here, hand raised in a benediction, a heart with a small flame rising from it floating in the air over his chest. He was a very white-looking Jesus, brown hair and beard so light they almost looked blond. Julie had barely noticed the painting on the way in, so focused had she been on reaching Emily, but now it caught her attention. He had a kind expression but sorrowful eyes, and although Julie didn’t believe in the man’s divinity – or for that matter, his existence at all – she assumed Emily did, considering the way she’d ranted about a demon forcing her to gouge out her eyes. It was a shame she couldn’t see the painting on their way out. Maybe it would’ve given her some measure of comfort.
As was standard procedure, she and Nick had left the door open when they’d entered the house so their exit would be unimpeded. As they carried Emily outside, the cold air hit Julie like a slap in the face, and she was grateful for the sensation. This had been a bad run so far, and the bracing winter air helped calm her a bit. She needed to stay focused until they got Emily to the hospital. After that, she could fall apart all she wanted. Nick had backed their transport medic into the driveway when they’d arrived, and they’d left the rear doors open and placed a wheeled stretcher on the ground so it would be ready when they brought Emily out. All they had to do was carry Emily to the stretcher, put the backboard on it, secure it, roll the stretcher into the transport, then get moving. Easy enough. She’d done it hundreds of times.
Except this time there was a problem.
The way to the transport was blocked by a small crowd of people – perhaps a dozen in all – men and women, young and old, a few children and toddlers, even a couple babies. They stood – or in the case of the babies sat or held themselves up on hands and knees – packed close together, forming a living wall. They glared at Julie, eyes burning with hate, and their loathing struck her with almost physical force. There was something wrong about them. For one thing, none of them were dressed for the weather. Both she and Nick wore heavy jackets, but none of the people blocking the transport had on coats. Some wore button-up shirts, blouses, and jeans, while others wore T-shirts and sweats. Some were dressed in nightgowns and pajamas, while others wore only underwear. A couple were completely naked. But regardless of how they were clothed – or not – none of them seemed to be bothered by the cold. No one was shivering, and no one hugged their arms close to their bodies for warmth. But as weird as that was, it wasn’t the worst thing about them. Most of these people were injured in one way or another, some severely. Arms and legs bent at unnatural angles, broken ends of bone jutting out. Limbs missing entirely, stumps ragged and bloody. Flesh marred by cuts and puncture wounds, contusions and burns. Skin dotted by petechial hemorrhaging, faces purple, tongues black and swollen, eyes bulging. Great gaping wounds on abdomens, organs protruding, loops of intestine hanging out, spilling onto the ground. And so much blood that it looked as if they’d all been drenched by a storm of thick crimson rain.
As awful as all this was – and it was fucking horrifying – it became worse when Julie realized that she recognized a number of these faces. The skinny old man with the massive head wound was Ed Clayton. He’d shot himself after learning that he had Alzheimer’s and had died on the way to the hospital. The little girl whose head lolled loosely on her neck was Bonnie Reese. She’d been struck by a driver while crossing an intersection on her bike. She’d been alive when Julie and Nick got to her, but they’d been unable to stabilize her for transport, and she’d died before they could get her onto the medic. The heavy middle-aged woman with the badly dyed hair was Geraldine Rowe. It had been snowing the night she’d had a massive heart attack, and the roads had been a bitch to drive on. Nick had been forced to go slowly, and by the time they reached Geraldine’s house, she was dead. The man whose chewed-up left arm hung limply at his side was Bill Dawson. He’d been clearing brush on his property with an old chainsaw after having one too many beers, and he’d ended up nearly cutting off his arm. He’d bled out in the ER. Perhaps worst of all was a two-year-old girl named Jasmine Hart. Her father was a drug addict who used to ‘rent’ his daughter to anyone to do with as they pleased for the princely sum of twenty dollars. The girl was naked, and her crotch looked like raw hamburger. She’d died on the way to the hospital, crying and whimpering in pain.
Julie didn’t remember all their names, of course, but she remembered most, and she recalled the various conditions that had led to their deaths. These were the people who haunted her nightmares, the ones that she’d been unable to save – all of them.
“Are you seeing this?” Nick asked in a quiet voice.
Julie looked back over her shoulder at her partner. “Are you?”
He nodded, unable to take his eyes off the apparitions that blocked the path to the medic. Julie looked to Oliver then. He stood in the doorway of his home, clutching his laptop in one arm while stroking its surface with his other hand, as if he was petting it. His gaze was also fixed on the assembled…. What the hell were they? Ghosts? They seemed too solid, too real to be spirits. Julie thought then that at least Emily would be spared the sight of these things. A small mercy, perhaps, but a mercy nonetheless.
YOU FAILED US….
None of their mouths moved, yet they spoke with a single thunderous voice. The sound stabbed into Julie’s ears like ice picks, and she winced. Emily might no longer have eyes, but she had no trouble hearing the phantoms’ combined voice, and she let out an ear-splitting scream. Julie was so startled by the sound that she almost dropped her end of the backboard.
She wanted to deny the ghosts’ accusation, to tell them that in each of their cases, she’d done the best she could at the time. But while that had been true, it hadn’t been enough. Every time she lost someone, she’d replay the run in her mind over and over, examining every step she’d taken, every decision she’d made, trying to determine what she could’ve done differently to ensure a better outcome. One way or another, she’d failed all of them, and she couldn’t deny it.
“Leave them alone!” Oliver shouted. He stepped out of the doorway and onto the lawn. “They need to take my mom to the hospital!”
Oliver sounded scared, but not as scared as Julie might’ve expected him to be. Brave kid.
The ghosts glanced at him, their heads moving in unison as if they were some kind of conglomerate life-form. They then turned as one to fix their gazes on his mother.
She should join us. You all should join us.
The ghosts started coming toward them, using whatever form of locomotion their broken bodies permitted – walking, shuffling, limping, crawling….
Julie’s first impulse was to start running and hope Nick followed her lead. She wasn’t thinking about herself – although she sure as shit didn’t want any of those ghoulish creatures touching her – but she didn’t want to add Emily to their roster. She and Nick had to protect their patient. That was the job, after all. But where could they go? The ghosts had left the driveway and entered the yard, and now they spread out with the clear intention of blocking access to the sidewalk. If Julie was on her own, she would’ve tried to run past them. She assumed that those with intact legs could pursue her, but she felt confident she could outrun them. She ran every day to keep in shape, and she thought she’d have a decent chance of escaping. But she wasn’t on her own. She had Nick and together the two of them had Emily. No way could they move fast enough carrying her. And what about Oliver? Julie couldn’t just abandon him to these things. They couldn’t go forward, which meant there was only one direction they could go.
