ANOM: Awakening (The ANOM Series Book 1) (2 page)

As
he turned the corner of the building, he made himself stop and stand in place.
He forced himself to take a deep breath. And another. In front of him Jonathan
could see the emergency room’s parking lot. Just like the main lot, cars that
didn’t belong were parked chaotically around the edges of the lot, and in the
middle, backed up to the ER doors, a pair of white ambulances stood as
sentinels, their red lights sweeping in quick circles overhead.

As
he stood watching, a third ambulance pulled sharply into the lot and parked at
an angle to the other two. The driver’s-side door kicked open, and a medic
wearing a gray, bloodstained uniform leapt from the vehicle. At the same time
the back doors of the ambulance flung open, and a second medic climbed out from
inside.

Jonathan
shook himself back into action and started running again down the gentle slope
at his feet and toward the Emergency Room parking lot. He reached the third
ambulance just as the medics pulled the stretcher from inside and the wheels of
the gurney unfolded to the ground.

Jonathan
fell in alongside the stretcher as they started up the concrete ramp. The medic
pushing the gurney from behind immediately started his recitation of the
patient’s vitals. Jonathan Cross took in the information without ever really
listening. For all the chaos and uncertainty of the day, this part was normal;
he could do this in his sleep.

He
looked down at the woman on the stretcher. The first thing he noticed—that he
forced himself to notice—was her triage card. A rubber band looped around the
girl’s wrist held the card in place. It was red. She was critical.

One
look at her and that much was obvious. The right side of her face was smeared
red with thick blood, and Jonathan could see a large cut starting at her
hairline and stretching back toward the base of her skull. She had thick blonde
hair, but on the right side of her head, the hair was dark and matted against
her face, and the white gauze bandages that had been wrapped across her
forehead and over her eye were wet and dark. From her left side, Jonathan
thought she could be considered attractive. Maybe she even looked content, like
she was dreaming, but her right side…the right side of her face was malformed,
sagging, crushed. The girl’s shirt had been opened down the middle, and her
jeans were slit up the right leg—cuts made by the medics. Jonathan counted six,
eight, maybe a dozen different holes in the girl’s right side, starting from
her calf and going up to her shoulder. Just like before, the square bandages
used by the medics to control the bleeding were soaked through and useless.

As
they reached the top of the ramp, the emergency room doors slid open with a
sharp rush of air. Inside, people were everywhere. They sat in chairs, and when
there were no more chairs, they sat on the floor against the walls. These were
the lucky ones, the walking-wounded. Most had gotten to the hospital by
themselves, and now they sat alone. Others sat with friends or family, or the
strangers who had been there to help when they needed it. They would all have
to wait.

Behind
this first crowd, deeper inside the emergency room, Jonathan could see the
flurry of doctors and nurses moving between the curtained rooms. They all moved
quickly, but no one was running, and when they spoke, their voices were crisp,
clear, free from panic.

Jonathan
knew they had drilled on this for years, but no amount of practice could create
the tension of the real thing. He could feel it pulsing in the room as soon as
the doors opened. It was the same nauseating tightness he had been feeling in
his stomach since he heard the blast on TV and felt the earth roll under his
living room.

“What
do you got, John?”

The
question came from the man standing in front of the emergency room admission
counter. He was short, with gray hair, and holding a clipboard. He wore a thick
pair of glasses with heavy, dark frames. A hunter-green vest pulled over his
white lab coat designated him as the ambulance triage officer, but Jonathan
knew him as Robert Marks, one of the attending physicians in the ER.

“Fractured
skull. Multiple—,” Jonathan started to answer, but Marks cut him off.

“Take
her to curtain three.”

Two
nurses stepped up to the front and back of the stretcher; the nurse at the
woman’s head, a big man with a shaved head and tattoo sleeves covering both
arms, started to count, “One, two, three.”

The
two nurses pulled on the sheet covering the gurney, sliding it to the right so
the woman moved over to the empty hospital bed. Then the medics turned and
started pushing their stretcher back toward the ER doors, and the two nurses
pushed the woman deeper into the emergency room.

Jonathan
fell into step with the nurses, following them back towards curtain three, but
then he caught himself and turned back to Dr. Marks. “Hey Bob—”

Marks
didn’t answer; he was already focused back on the emergency room doors,
shouting across the room, “Hey! Where’s your patient?”

Even
in the chaos of the moment, that one question, so seemingly out of place,
arrested Jonathan’s attention. He looked up and followed the eyes of Dr. Marks,
and then he saw it too. A man standing in the middle of the crowd of wounded
patients, another medic. He had dark hair and blank, hollow eyes. He looked
once around the room, his eyes never focusing on anyone.

Dr.
Marks stepped forward and called again, “I said, where’s your patient?”

The
medic’s attention turned to Dr. Marks, but even this simple act seemed slow;
deliberate.

Then,
all at once, Jonathan realized what was missing—there was no blood. Where the
other medics wore blood stains and dirt smeared across their uniforms, this man
was clean.

Then
Jonathan saw the man raise his hand to his chest. He held something small in
his fist, with two thin wires snaking out from the bottom and disappearing
again inside the cuff of his sleeve.

The
medic lifted his chin and screamed, “For the Red Moon!”

Jonathan
closed his eyes and whispered, “Jeremy.”

Then
came the explosion.

“Jeremy,”
a voice whispered in the darkness. Low. Familiar. Pleading. A plea for what?
Not help, but…something. The voice wanted something. Jeremy felt like he knew
the answer; as if it were right there in front of him. Like he could reach out
and grab it and know it. Then, just as quickly, the idea was gone. Then there
was only darkness and the half-forgotten memory of a voice.

“Jeremy,”
the voice called again. Louder this time. Closer. He knew what they wanted, and
he wanted to answer, but he couldn’t make himself say the words. He tried to
speak, but nothing came out.

“Jeremy,
you’re going to be late. Again,” this voice was different; it belonged to his
mom. She was calling from the hallway outside his room, and all at once, Jeremy
snapped awake. Then he fell.

His
whole body slammed into the hardwood floor, all of him hitting at the same time
with a dull, heavy thud, as if someone had picked him up and dropped him on his
back. Jeremy twisted up onto his side, wincing against the pain and fighting to
catch his breath.

The
fall had knocked his wind out, and now it was all he could do to curse between
gulps of air, “Son of a—”

Jeremy
heard footsteps running down the hallway.

Suddenly
his door opened, and his mom stood just inside his room, still clutching the
doorknob and looking down on him with a frown that was half worried and half
reproachful. “Jesus Christ, Jeremy!”

Jeremy
pushed himself up on one arm. “I—I fell.”

“I
see that.” And then the concern in his mom’s voice slipped away, and all that
was left was her annoyance. “Are you on drugs?”

“Mom.”
Jeremy looked away and answered with a half-laugh, but Emily Cross only arched
her eyebrows, folded her arms across her chest, and waited.

It
had been six months since the attacks in Philly, and Jeremy was tired of it—all
of it. He was tired of the questions. He was over all the counseling. And he
was done with the constant concern, the never-ending
Are you okay? Then why
aren’t you eating? Are you depressed? Are you on drugs? Then why won’t you talk
to me? Are you sure you’re okay? What do you feel? What do you need?

What
he really needed was for all of it to stop. He needed to feel normal again.

“Jeremy?”
His mom still stood in the doorway, waiting.

 Jeremy
locked his jaw. “No, Mom, I’m not on drugs. You’ve asked me every day for the
last six months, and the answer is still no.”

Emily
sighed and uncrossed her arms. “Get up and get ready for school.”

Then
she turned and closed the bedroom door behind her. Jeremy sank back, lying flat
against the cold hardwood floor. His heavy green comforter was still tangled
around his legs, and he kicked, twice, to free himself. Then, suddenly, Jeremy
stopped. He sat up and looked around the room.

He
realized what was wrong. Jeremy sat in the middle of the bedroom floor, and his
bed was almost four feet away. He must have rolled out of the bed…but then
what? He kept rolling another four feet across the floor? That’s not what he
remembered. The only thing he felt was falling. Then the floor, and then he was
awake. No, that wasn’t it either. He was awake, and then he fell straight down.
There was no rolling.

Jeremy
forced himself to stand up, wincing again from the morning’s peculiar wakeup
call. He stepped over to his desk and grabbed the jeans hanging from the back
of the chair. He pulled them on, and then he tugged at one of the black
t-shirts spilling out of his dresser, prying it free without ever opening the
drawer. He pulled the shirt on, then followed it with his gray Penn State hoodie.
Jeremy looked around the room again and shook his head. Four feet.

“Jeremy!”
His mom’s voice was louder, but also farther away. She was already downstairs.
Jeremy walked out of the room.

Downstairs
in the kitchen his mother stood next to the sink, leaning back against the
white counter like every other morning
.
She
held her coffee mug cradled between her hands, raising it absently to take
another sip. Her attention was focused on the television on the far counter
showing the morning news.

Jeremy
walked to the refrigerator, opened the steel door, and found the orange juice.

“Use
a glass, please,” Emily spoke as he reached for the carton.

Out
of sight, behind the refrigerator door, Jeremy dropped his head, and tried his
best not to snap. “Okay, Mom.”

 “Senator
Ross’ office called again last night. They need an answer.”

Jeremy
took a glass from one of the cabinets and started to pour the juice. “I already
gave you my answer. I’m not going. Go without me.”

“Susan
Marks is going,” Emily said, her eyes never leaving the television. “It’s an
honor to be invited.”

“No,
Mom.” Jeremy opened the refrigerator again, pulling harder than he intended and
rattling the bottles tucked inside the door. “It’s not an honor. It’s a
photo-op.”

Emily
sipped her coffee again. “I think your father would want us to go.”

Of
course he would, and she would know. According to his mom, the clairvoyant,
there were all kinds of things Jeremy’s dad would want them to do. Like go on
vacation to the Outer Banks like they had planned. Or eat a full Thanksgiving
dinner because of tradition. He’d want Jeremy to clean his room once a week.
She had reduced his dad to a cheap ploy to get her way, and Jeremy wouldn’t let
it work. Not this time.

He
stood in front of the stainless steel door, refusing to turn. “Mom, I gotta go.
I’m late.”

“Well,
we can talk about it later, I guess.” Emily turned to look at Jeremy for the
first time. “You want a ride? It’s freezing today.”

“No.
I’m meeting Kate. We’ll take the bus.” Jeremy walked out of the kitchen. In the
entryway, he pulled on his heavy red coat, flipped his bookbag over his
shoulder, and then he was out the door.

Standing
in the cold January air, Jeremy closed his eyes, reached behind him, and pulled
the door closed. He took a deep breath and imagined starting the day again,
this time without invitations from Senator Ross, or his mom’s nagging, or
falling out of bed.

“Morning.”

Jeremy
opened his eyes. On the sidewalk, just at the bottom of his front steps, Kate
stood waiting. Like Jeremy, Kate was a senior at Central High School, but
unlike Jeremy she paid much more attention to her appearance. This morning she
wore dark blue jeans tucked into a pair of high black boots that reached to her
knees. Her fitted white parka was buttoned to her chin, and her fur-lined hood
was pulled up, although wisps of blonde hair had escaped and danced in the wind
on either side of her face—a style undoubtedly perfected before she ever left
the house. Beneath her hood, Jeremy could see Kate’s cheeks and the tip of her
nose were already bright red, and her blue eyes, always pale, gave the distinct
impression of ice in the gray morning light.

She
smiled. “You’re late again.”

Jeremy
returned a half-smile of his own as he started down the steps. “I know, but I’m
not
that
late.”

The
two fell into step, side by side, as they walked up the sidewalk.

Jeremy
said, “You know you can come inside. You don’t have to stand out here in the
cold.”

“It’s
fine. I like the cold,” Kate said. “Besides, I think it’s warmer out here than
waiting inside with your mom.”

Jeremy
laughed. “She’s getting better. She called you Kate yesterday instead of ‘that
girl.’”

“It’s
a miracle.”

They
walked farther down the sidewalk. For a moment neither spoke. Up ahead a group
of boys, younger, maybe in middle school, played with the dirty piles of snow
slushed up at the edge of the sidewalk. One boy would make a snowball, chase
down one of his friends, throw it hard against his back or side, and then
retreat. Then the target would make another snowball, chase down his attacker,
and so on and so on the pattern would repeat.

Jeremy
glanced sideways at Kate again. “So?”

“So
what?” She grinned but refused to look over at Jeremy.

“You
think I forgot, don’t you?”

Kate’s
smile widened. “Forgot what?”

Jeremy
reached inside his coat pocket and pulled out a pink envelope. “Happy Birthday,
Katie.”

Kate
looked over and took the card. “I knew you didn’t forget.”

They
kept walking. A car drove down the street, kicking wet slush out toward the
sidewalk as it went by.

 “So
you think you can make it tonight?” Kate asked. “It’s just going to be pizza
with some of the girls from the team. Maybe some of their boyfriends. It’s not
even a party, really.”

“I
don’t know,” Jeremy looked down at the sidewalk. “I’ll ask, but…you know.”

They
took another couple steps in silence, but when Kate spoke again her voice was
softer. “Did you have the dream again?”

“No.”

Kate
stopped and turned to look at him. Jeremy took another two steps, hoping she
would let it go, but there was no chance. He stopped and turned back to meet
her icy stare. He hated it when she acted like this.

After
his dad’s death, Jeremy got to the point where he expected the looks from
people—the asinine way they would tilt their chins slightly at an angle
whenever they talked to him, as if they were trying to see inside his head. He
expected the quiet, soothing voices too, as if people thought shouting or even
talking at a normal human volume would somehow be too much for him to handle in
his fragile state. He even stopped being surprised when people gave him the
“sympathy touch,” that awkward hand over his shoulder whenever they talked to
him about his dad, as if to say in that one touch that everything would be
okay; as if his life was reduced to some goddamn Hallmark-channel movie.

Jeremy
ignored most of it. Usually he chalked it up to people being self-obsessed
idiots. He knew they couldn’t care less about him and his dad; they were only
trying to get through that awkward minute when they had to stand and talk to
the dead doctor’s son. So they would tilt their heads and lower their voices
and touch his arm, because “everything’s going to be okay.”

But
Kate was different. She knew better. And when she looked at him the way she
looked now, Jeremy always felt like he was broken—and he hated it.

 “I
didn’t dream about my dad last night. Okay?”

Kate
shook her head, “So you’ve been having the same dream about your dad every
night for the last six months, and you’re telling me it just stopped last
night?”

“I
didn’t see him,” Jeremy sounded even less convincing than before, and Kate
stood unmoving.

Finally,
he gave up, “Listen, I didn’t see my dad last night, that’s the truth. But I
heard him. I think I heard his voice.”

Kate
started walking again, and like before, Jeremy fell into step beside her; she
looked over. “What did he say?”

“Just
my name. Like in the other dreams. He just says my name like he wants
something, but it was all black this time.”

Kate
nodded. “Did you say anything back to him? In your dream?”

Jeremy
shook his head.

“Did
you tell your mom about it yet?”

Jeremy
gave a mock laugh. “Why would I do something like that?”

Kate
stopped again. “Jeremy—”

“No.”
Jeremy turned around and looked at her. “I’m not going to tell my mom about
some stupid recurring dream about my dad. She doesn’t need that.”

Kate
rolled her eyes. “Well you need to tell someone.”

“I
do tell someone. I tell you.”

They
started walking again down the sidewalk. The group of boys playing at their
snowball fight were just in front of them, but as Jeremy and Kate approached,
the boys stopped and stood in place, one of them hefting a snowball in his
gloved hand. It was a momentary truce to allow the two senior intruders time to
pass.

Jeremy
and Kate kept walking, but as they went by, a heavy, wet snowball exploded
across the back of Kate’s parka.

She
wheeled around on the boys. “Hey!”

Jeremy
laughed. Then he dropped his backpack to the sidewalk and ran to the slush pile
to make a snowball of his own. One of the boys, probably the one who threw the
snowball at Kate—a short, squat little boy with carrot-red hair, and a million
freckles dotting his face—ran up the sidewalk. Jeremy scooped up two handfuls
of snow and started after him.

Then
everything seemed to happen at once. The boy broke to his right to run across
the street. He jumped over the slush pile at the edge of the sidewalk, darted
between two parked cars, took one step into the road, but then he slipped; he
fell flat on his face in the middle of the street.

He
probably never saw the school bus coming down the road, but as soon as he hit
the ground, the bus driver saw him. She slammed on her brakes. The wheels
locked, and the whole bus started to slide.