Suffer the Children (8 page)

“They’re gone, babe.”

Rage burned in her chest. “What do you mean they’re ‘gone’? What does that mean?”

“Oh my
God
.” Coral began to cry. “Ask him about Peter and Joey, please! I need to know they’re all right!”

“Wait, Doug.” Joan covered her exposed ear with her finger. “I still don’t understand. Tell me what happened and that they’re okay.”

“They’re not okay! They’re gone!”

“What happened? What did you do?”

“They’re dead, babe. They’re gone. I tried. I really did.”

Her vision blurred with tears. “What are you saying? I went to a
movie
.”

“We all tried, but we couldn’t save them. We couldn’t—”

Joan screamed. Coral was shouting at her and trying to hold her shoulders. Joan lashed out, scratching her friend’s hands and drawing blood.

She made it halfway up the aisle before she blacked out.

41 hours after Herod Event

Ramona wandered her home like a ghost.

Josh was in his bedroom, tucked into bed. His presents still sat under the Christmas tree. His shirts, socks, and underpants went uncollected in the dryer. The remains of his breakfast rotted on a plate on the kitchen table.

At last, tired of wandering her house searching for something that wasn’t there, she returned to her bed and curled into a ball under the blankets.

From the day Josh was born, Ramona feared the worst would happen. She’d imagine him dying of accidental suffocation or violent collision, and blind terror would rip through her.

Now that the worst had come, she was surprised by how little she truly felt. She’d expected a giant outpouring of grief, not this mindless implosion.

Sometimes she sensed a dull ache in her heart and other times, nothing. Just a general numbness. She felt she could chop her finger off and not even notice.

Maybe this is what they meant when they said a part of you died with the person you loved.

She remembered driving for hours after leaving the mall. The hospitals were surrounded by cars and thousands of screaming people carrying dead and dying children in their arms. She called 911 repeatedly but got nothing but a busy signal. The air filled with the wail of sirens.

Whatever had happened, it’d happened everywhere, to everybody.

The frantic voices on the radio confirmed it. After a while, she turned it off. Then she pulled over and screamed until she had nothing left.

With nowhere else to go, Ramona took him home.

Dead weight, his arms and legs dangling like a puppet’s.

By the time she washed him, dressed him in his pajamas, and tucked him into bed, his face had gone rigid. The rest of his body soon followed. Stiffened like a block of wood.

His flesh had turned pale, but he was still a little warm. When she kissed him after tucking him in, she tried to pretend he was still alive.

“Good night, Josh,” she said. A part of her still hoped he might wake up. He didn’t.

The next day, he began to smell. She closed his door, but it didn’t help. Soon, the entire house smelled like him. She turned the heat down in the hope of slowing the decomposition process.

Time blurred after that. Now the clock read 7:03. Monday morning, or at least she thought it was. She tried once again to sleep. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Santa giving the dead girl to her crying mother.

“No,” she moaned.
Not again.

She didn’t want to relive it yet again.

Tool set
, Josh had said dreamily, just before his face twisted into a grimace.

The truth of this world is people love you, and then they leave. Ramona never knew her mother, who’d died giving birth to her. Her father had died of a heart attack when she was nine, and Pam, her stepmother, emotionally abandoned her after that. She thought she’d found
happiness with Josh’s father, a young attorney named Shawn, but he’d left her to raise Josh on her own.

Now even Josh was gone.

Hunger drove her out of bed. She entered the kitchen in a daze and found Josh’s cereal in the cupboard. She sat at the table staring at the bowl and wondering what came next. The phone rang, reminding her she’d been doing something important. Slowly, her hand reached out, picked up the box, and poured some cereal into the bowl. The phone stopped ringing. Minutes later, she opened the carton of milk. It smelled iffy, but she poured it onto the cereal.

The chair next to her, the one in front of the plate with its rotting breakfast, sat empty. She stared at it for what felt like hours, filled with longing.

We’re going to see Santa today, right?
he’d said.

“That’s right, little man,” she said aloud.

She couldn’t pretend, but she could remember. She remembered everything.

I’m going to tell him I want a Bob the Builder tool set. Do you think he’ll bring me one?

“If you’re good, I’m sure he will.”

I’ll be good.

The doorbell chimed.

The memory dissipated. She recalled what she’d been doing. She spooned cereal into her mouth and spit it out. The milk was fine. She just hated soggy cereal.

The doorbell chimed again. Insistent knocking followed, making her flinch. Ramona shuffled to the garbage can on bare feet and dumped the entire bowl, spoon and all. She went to the cupboard, pulled out a fresh bowl, and sat and tried again.

The knocking wouldn’t stop.

She found herself standing in front of the door.

“Who is it?” she called.

“It’s Ross. Ross Kelley.”

She opened it. Ross filled the doorway, holding bags of groceries.
His handsome face lit up at seeing her. She dully stared back at him, seeing him through a fog.

“Hi, Ramona. I’m so sorry for your loss. I am really, really sorry.”

She continued to stare at him.

“I thought you might need some groceries. Can I come in?”

He gave her a long hug at the door. He was warm, but otherwise, she didn’t feel a thing. Her arms stayed at her sides. When he let go, Ramona turned and shuffled back to the kitchen to sit at the table. She dipped her spoon and let the soggy cereal drop back into the bowl with a plop.

“Shit,” she said.

“I brought milk, coffee, bread, eggs, some lunch meat,” he said as he emptied the bags’ contents onto the counter. “A bunch of different things. And this.” He held up a white rose. “I’ll put it in water. You have no idea how hard it is to get flowers right now, but I got the best of the bunch.”

He winced at the smell. Ramona watched, helpless, as he cleared Josh’s plate into the trash. He sniffed again, puzzled that the smell was still present.

“Wow, it’s cold in here. Aren’t you cold? You could make Popsicles.” He turned up the heat.

Ross was destroying her museum.
Stop it. Leave.

“Why are you here?” she asked him.

“I was with you when it happened. I still can’t believe it did happen. It’s like being in a nightmare. The world will never be the same.”

She said nothing.

“Anyway,” he said, “I wish I could have done something. I was thinking maybe I could help you now.”

“You’re sweet, Ross,” she said. “Really. But your help is the last thing I need right now.”

“I’ve been worrying about you. It’s not healthy being alone at a time like this. Don’t you have anyone?”

Ramona glanced at the phone, which had rung unanswered on and off for the past few days.

“Just go,” she said.

“Ramona. Let me help you. Please.”

He really wants to help
, she thought from far away. It was an attractive idea.

She thought of her best friend ripping her hair out at the toy store. Bethany had Brian to console her, but Brian couldn’t bring Trent back any more than Ross could resurrect Josh.

Attractive, but pointless.

“This is not about what you want,” she said. “It’s about what I want. And I don’t want you here.”

Ross hesitated, his expression filled with self-doubt.

“You need help, Ramona.”

“Get. Out. Of. My. House.”

“Oh. Wait. I’m just trying to—”

She clenched her fists.
“GET OUT!”

He held up his hands in surrender. “All right, okay. I’ll leave. I’m sorry.”

She followed him to the door. “What did you think you were going to do? Boss me around and ask me if I was all cried out yet, and then I’ll snap out of it and won’t be sad anymore?!”

Ross paused at the door to put on his coat, his face reddening with confusion and anger. “All right, Ramona. I was trying to help and screwed up somehow. I’m an idiot, okay? I’ll leave you alone now.”

“Really? Are you sure I can handle that?”

He opened the door with a loud sigh and stepped onto the porch. Ramona noticed the walk had filled with snow since Saturday morning. She wanted to yell at him some more; it felt so good to be angry. It was good to feel
something
.

It didn’t last. The anger dissipated as rapidly as it had come, leaving her hollow again.

Ramona thought of the endless, empty day ahead of her.

“Wait,” she called after him.

Ross stopped at the sidewalk. “What?”

“Don’t go,” she told him. “Please don’t go.”

42 hours after Herod Event

Otis called Doug on Monday morning to offer his condolences.

“This is the worst tragedy, Doug. We’re all in shock.”

“Sorry about your grandkids,” Doug said. “How are you holding up?”

“One day at a time. My daughter’s a mess. The whole thing is too horrible for words.”

“Yeah, it is.” Doug didn’t want to talk about it anymore. “Well, I appreciate you calling.” After a long silence, he added, “Something else on your mind, Otis?”

“Actually, there is. It’s kind of hard to say.”

“Why don’t you just say it.”

“Well, I hate to make things worse for you, but I need to ask you to come to work today.”

“Go to hell,” Doug said, and hung up.

Moments later, the phone rang again. He answered it and said, “Otis, don’t make me come down there and beat the living shit out of you.”

“Just hear me out for a second.”

“I’m not picking up any trash today, you son of a bitch.”

“It’s not—”

“I’m grieving for my kids!”

“It’s the bodies, Doug.”

“What?”

“The bodies. Somebody has to pick up all the bodies.”

Doug blinked. Then he set his jaw. “No way. It’s a job for the mortuaries.”

Otis snorted over the line. “Brother, there ain’t enough mortuaries in the world to handle this.”

“The hospitals then.”

“There’s
ninety thousand
kids in our county alone who have to be picked up.”

Doug said nothing. The number rang in his brain like a bell.

He glanced at the door to the garage, where Joan had laid out their kids and wrapped them in plastic. A dead body could be stored for up to five days, he knew. After just a few days, it started to rot, even at very cold temperatures.

Joan had lain in bed trembling in a state of deep shock before emerging to care for their children yesterday afternoon. She’d washed them and dressed them in their church clothes, muttering to herself the whole time. She practically hissed at Doug whenever he came near.

Ninety thousand.
This was everybody’s tragedy, not just his.

And putting them in the ground with some dignity was the top priority.

He said quietly, “Where are they all going to go?”

“Public land outside of town. They’ve got digging equipment out there already. More on the way. Temporary internment. Until things get back to normal.”

Mass graves. Otis was talking about mass graves. Doug’s kids were going to be put into a big hole, and a bulldozer would fill it up. That’s how it was done.

Not the millionaires, though. They’d get cemeteries and flowers and all the trimmings.

His kids wouldn’t even get a coffin.

“It’s a mess,” Otis added. “Nobody knows who’s in charge. The State, the Feds, the County. Different departments fighting over every little thing. I can’t keep track of all the acronyms. Last night, the governor issued an emergency order. We got to bury them.”

“And now that’s my job. While I’m grieving.”

“The governor called out the National Guard to handle most of the lifting. But he issued a call for volunteers and a draft of all essential workers. He wants everybody, Doug. And I mean everybody.”

“A draft, huh?” The governor could stick that up his ass.

“We need to do our part to help lay them to rest,” Otis pleaded. “This is a national emergency. You see what’s going on around you.”

“What does the union say about this?”

“We negotiated a special-project labor agreement. You’ll get a premium wage.”

“Fine, I’ll be there in a half hour,” Doug told him.

It wasn’t about the threat of coercion or the promise of extra money.

He wanted to get out of the house before he slammed his fist through a wall.

The presence of his children haunted this place. Every time he entered a room, he half expected Megan to come flying at him. He kept checking the clock, irritated Nate hadn’t returned home yet. Then he’d remember them falling in the snow. Maybe if he returned to work, he could empty his mind, if only for a short while.

He also wanted to see what would likely be the final resting place of his kids. He wanted to put them in the ground himself.

Joan nodded when he told her, watching him pull on a hooded sweatshirt and his old work boots and L
OVIN’
L
ANSDOWNE
cap. Not in agreement but resignation, as if she’d expected this final indignity. She looked more haggard with each passing minute.

“I called the mortuary and got a recorded message,” she said. “They’re not taking any more kids. They’re all full up.”

“There’s too many. They can’t handle it. We’d have to be rich to afford a mortuary now.”

“So you’re going to bury our children with all the rest in some mass grave.”