Vanished by Mackel Kathryn

Author:Mackel, Kathryn [Mackel, Kathryn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-08-09T15:00:00+00:00

chapter twenty-nine

HAT DO YOU MEAN, YOU CAN'T GET TO IT?" Maya said. "Was there another bomb or something?"

She had sent Johnny Beck down to Rose of Sharon nursing home to ask if they could take some patients. He had come back a half-hour later, a stunned look on his face.

"I couldn't... " He dragged his hand over his face.

"Couldn't what?"

"I couldn't get past the ... what's in the sky. Except it comes down to the ground over on Fourth and Lunenburg. I tried going down the block and taking Fifth over, but ... it's too thick to see into. Like a solid wall, but not really because you can see stuff beyond, but it's stuff that's not supposed to be there."

"Johnny... "

"I know, it sounds nuts. It was like a million little strobe lights. But if you just focus, you see, like, trees and grass, but not our trees and grass. I decided just to suck it up and go into the stuff. I bent down, kept my hand on the curbing and tried to follow it in. But as soon as I got into that fog, the sidewalk just ... seemed to disappear."

"I don't understand," Kaya said.

"I don't either. I saw some weird things back in 'Nam, but nothing like this. What if it's a chemical attack or something messing with our heads?"

Kaya couldn't think of that possibility, not now. Too much to do. "Thanks for trying, Johnny. We'll keep Grace our base of operations, do our best until help arrives."

"I'll get back to my shop and round up food to feed your volunteers," he said.

"Awesome. That would be a big help."

Kaya got back to work, praying for the moment she heard the sirens. She had sent volunteers out to canvass the streets, see if they could find a physician. For now, the responsibility for delivering high-level care rested squarely on her shoulders.

Word had gotten out that injured were being treated in the basement of Grace Community Church. People came from up and down University demanding to have their lacerations stitched, their bruises iced, and their fears soothed. Kaya refused to treat anything as inconsequential as a turned ankle or scraped knee and was already taking heat for it. Too many seriously injured to stop and put a Band-Aid on a cut.

Most of the serious injuries were from flying glass or the various car crashes. Kaya had splinted two broken wrists, hopeful that Tylenol with codeine and a quiet place to sit would tide these patients over until real help came. Some residents of Lindenwood Road had taken it upon themselves to haul their mattresses to Grace so the badly injured didn't have to lie on the floor.

She had two open fractures-one ankle and one tibia-that could rapidly devolve into trouble without the ministrations of an orthopedic surgeon. The best Kaya could do was wash the skin where the bone protruded, isolate the patients so they wouldn't move, and dope them up so they wouldn't care.

Though she had antibiotics, she hesitated to administer them.

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