Autumn in the Dark Meadows (The Autumn Series) (12 page)

We filed down the stairwell, joining more people when we reached the fifth floor.  It seemed no one wanted to climb any higher than that just to sleep.  As we entered the upper casino floor, I looked over the railing down to the main floor, where people piled up near a side entrance.  It was an amazing sight, like being at the end of a concert when everyone rushed toward the exit.

When we eventually got outside, everyone was hugging and laughing.  The people who’d been digging were treated like heroes.  I saw Ben among them.  I realized Ben and Sam must have left early to rejoin the digging crew outside, and quickly felt relief.  Shad, Vonna and I ran to greet Ben, but there was a crowd around him preventing us from getting too close.  Rissi climbed me like a tree and called his name in a shrill voice.  He turned our way, and when he found Rissi perched above the crowd, he began barging toward us.

“We did it!” Ben exclaimed, hugging us.

“How long have you been out here?” I asked.

“Grey was gone when Sam and I got up.  So we thought we’d get back to work, too.”  He grinned at us proudly and then winced as Rissi climbed from my shoulders to his.

“I don’t know how you did it, man.  I’m exhausted,” Shad said, stretching his arms above his head and yawning.  He quickly tucked his arms back in when the crowd surged around us, as more and more people from the inside of the Egyptian piled out onto the small side street between the Egyptian and Hanauma Bay.  Everyone was so happy and tightly packed, it reminded me of Mardi Gras, or the pictures on the news I’d seen of West Hollywood during Halloween.

“Thank you for everything you’ve all done to help us,” Vonna shouted.  I was surprised to see tear tracks on her cheeks.  She laughed and wiped them from her violet eyes.  “I know you came for your friends, but you helped all of us, too, and you didn’t have to.”

I shrugged and looked at Ben and Shad, unsure of how to respond.  Shad, naturally, saved the day.

“Got any more Ho Hos in your stash?” he said with a glint in his eyes.

“I’ve got stuff stashed all over this hotel.  You ain’t seen nothing yet,” she said with smiling eyes.

I wrapped my arms around Vonna, unable to resist her genuine charm, and she embraced me firmly with her slender arms.

“I’m really glad you all came,” she said to me, then gestured to the mass of people around us on the side street.  “We all are.”

“I am, too,” I replied, meaning it.  “Maybe you could come visit us in Hoover some time?  You could stay with me and Connie.”

“I’d like that,” Vonna said.

“I can introduce you to the mayor,” Ben chimed in.  “I work in his office.”

“And I can take you on a patrol ride.  It’s usually really quiet, but it’s nice riding through the mountains,” Shad said, as he was accidentally shoved from behind by another person trying to get through the crowd.

Vonna stopped Shad’s forward motion by catching his chest with her hands, which only inspired a wry smile from Shad, making the rest of us laugh.  But over our laughter came the sound of distant thunder.  I looked up at the early morning sky, but didn't see any clouds.  The noise was getting louder.  I looked around, trying to find the source, when I saw Grey exit the Egyptian.  He was looking around like I was, his face pinched with concern and confusion.

“What’s that noise?” Rissi said.

“Do you guys feel that?”  Shad shouted, trying to stand still in the crush of people.  A slight vibration rumbled through the ground.

“It’s an earthquake!” Vonna said.

A dust cloud appeared just behind the large group of people outside the Egyptian.  The crowd began to push back toward the Egyptian with a frenetic energy, carrying us with them, and I had to grab Ben’s arm to stay with them.  I’d never heard a noise like what I was hearing now, and somewhere, someone screamed.

“It’s not an earthquake!” Shad yelled over the rumbling.  “It’s a stampede!”

Screaming erupted all around me, and I was shoved in every direction.  I looked for Grey’s blonde hair over the chaos, but there were too many people between us.  Ben and Rissi were swallowed by the crowd, and I couldn’t see Shad anymore either.  I linked elbows with Vonna, whose violet eyes were wide with fear.

“Don’t let go, whatever you do,” I said.  “We have to stay together!”

We were right in the middle of the crowd as the sound of galloping horses drew nearer.  Would they go around a big crowd?  Or through it?

The thought made me push forward.  We had to get back inside.  But the weight of the crowd pressed back against me, and I began to feel disoriented.  Were we even going in the right direction?  I was suddenly shoved into a woman with a long braid of hair, and we stumbled forward together, my arm tearing from Vonna’s grasp.  I shouted for her, but when I regained my balance, several people were now between us.  She reached her slender arm through the crowd to me, and our fingertips brushed, but then she was carried away by a tide of moving people.

A thunderous wave rushed through the crowd, and the sounds of horrified screams and breaking bones filled my ears.  I was thrown into the same woman again, much harder this time.  I tried to push her forward, but the swelling crowd trapped us where we were.  I yelled at the top of my lungs, “Move!  Hurry!”  But she couldn’t.

People squeezed in on me, and suddenly, I was suffocating with arms and legs and bodies packed too tightly around me.  I screamed in terror and in pain.  My legs were stuck, and the momentum of the surging crowd pinned me tighter against the woman with the braid.  Another surge hit the crowd, jolting me and the woman forward.  She hit the ground, and I fell onto her back while people continued to press us both to the ground and rush over us, some stumbling.  Pain surged through my side as someone stepped on me.  I heard the woman under me sobbing.  I screamed for help as the weight on top of us began to grow unbearable.  The thunder of hooves was nearly on top of us.

I grabbed the woman under me and tried to shield her from the blow, and without thinking, told her how sorry I was for crushing her and tucked her long braid in so it wouldn’t continue to be stepped on.

Then I felt a familiar sensation, one that reminded me of the day in front of The Water Tower, when Sam and the other Front Greeters tried to capture me.  A burst of clean energy, like an explosion of pure oxygen.  The terrified whinnies of the horses ceased, and the vibration of their pounding hooves faded.

Then the weight of people on top of me was gone, and I was lifted.  I found myself curled tightly into a warm chest that smelled of lemons and wool.  I cried in relief as I felt Grey’s strong legs running beneath us.  The motion slowed, and I opened my eyes.  Grey’s blue eyes were intensely focused on something ahead of him, and I strained to see what it was.  I quickly realized he was climbing a sand dune drifted against the side of the Egyptian.  I gasped as he swiftly threw me over his shoulder, balancing me on one arm, and used his other arm to pull us up onto the peak of the dune.  He gently placed me against the black glass, and I was facing the destructive stampede now, watching as people tried to move out of the path of the frightened horses.  Some, like us, had escaped to higher ground and were watching in horror, helpless.

I covered my eyes as I saw someone fall beneath one of the horses’ hooves, and Grey pulled me against him, turning me away from the scene below us.  When I built enough courage to look up, I saw the last of the horses threading through the crowd of people.

I looked frantically for Rissi, for Ben, for Shad and Vonna.  I had the terrifying thought that they all could be taken from me in an instant.  I had to find them.  Oh, God, I had to find them.  Every second felt like a hundred, until I saw Shad at the top of a sand dune with a wheelbarrow stuck into the side of it.  Ben was beside him, clutching Rissi, her face buried in his shoulder.

I let myself breathe a sigh of relief, and just then, Grey pressed me against the glass, using his body to shield me from everything else.  His chest pressed hard against mine, and he breathed heavily as he looked me dead in the eyes.  Uneasiness grew in my stomach at his closeness.  Even though he’d just saved my life, and even though he had never physically harmed me in real life, the Grey from my dream bubbled to the surface of my mind.  His eyes cold and blank, indifferent to the water filling my lungs and my frantic gestures for help.

“I didn’t think I was going to be able to get to you in time,” he whispered.  One of his hands cradled the back of my neck, tangling in my hair, and he lowered his face to mine.  A flutter of panic moved through me, and I stiffened.

He noticed and drew away quickly, his eyes clouded with frustration.  “I thought you...” he paused, searching my face, “I thought maybe we’d moved past this and I...” His voice trailed off, and he sighed.

I didn’t know what to say.  I had wondered the same thing, but I wasn’t sure I was ready to admit it to him.

“Are we going to get past this, Autumn?”  Grey said, eyes squinting against the bright sunlight reflecting off the glass.  “Can we get past it?”

Words caught in my throat as I looked back at him.  I honestly didn’t know if I could move on.  I wanted to, but it was as if my heart was full of rubber bands that kept getting caught on the secret he’d kept from me.

I could tell Grey sensed my hesitation.  He opened his mouth to say something and grasped my shoulders suddenly, but froze when I flinched away from him.  His hands dropped from my arms, and he stepped back, stung.

“Are you... afraid... of me?” he asked, confused.

Speech failed me again, and he stared at me, unblinking.  Then he turned and left, sliding down the side of the dune.

He made it to the bottom and started jogging toward a cluster of people.  When they saw him coming, they began to wave, urging him to hurry.

“We need help over here!  Doctor!” Franklin yelled.  Grey broke into a run.  I slid down the dune, following him.  I stopped short when I reached the group.

Franklin was on his knees cradling Vonna in his arms.  Her violet eyes were hidden behind closed lids.  A bright streak of blood dripped from her mouth, pooling in the small indentation between her collarbones.

Franklin watched quietly as Grey checked for vitals.  After a moment, he looked up, and I knew she was gone.

“I’m sorry, Franklin,” Grey said.  “Her neck is broken.  I’m afraid she probably died instantly.”  Franklin began to weep silently over his surrogate daughter, and Grey put a hand on his shoulder.

I’d known Vonna for just twenty-four hours, but I’d felt the promise of friendship between us.  As I watched Franklin shake with sobs, I thought about how it would feel to lose Ben or Rissi, Shad or Connie.  These people who had become my family after The Plague took away the one I’d been born into.  I couldn’t imagine life without any one of them.  I looked at Grey, hoping he would look back, needing him to look back.

But he didn’t.  Grey quietly excused himself and left to find others who needed his help.  I stayed with Franklin and Vonna.

Shad arrived a few moments later.  He had Rissi, Ben and Sam with him.

“Is she?” he whispered.  I nodded my head ever so slightly.  Shad stared blankly at Vonna’s broken body, and I reached over to hug him tightly.  If he felt my embrace, he didn’t indicate it.

“I liked her,” Shad said flatly.

“I did, too,” I whispered.

After another few minutes, Franklin ever so carefully lifted Vonna and walked away without speaking.  I watched as he left, wondering where he’d take her.

I turned back to the group and noticed Sam next to Ben, tending a gash on his arm.  When she looked up, she looked pained and furious.

“We just got all these people out.  They were going to be safe.”  Tears welled up in her eyes, and she set her jaw.  “Look at this.”  She held Ben’s arm up, showing the deep cut.  “He could have been killed!”  She looked around, surveying the damage that surrounded us once again.  “All these people.”  A small stream of tears trickled down her cheeks.  She wiped them and lowered her head.  “And Vonna... it isn’t right,” she protested, then her tone softened.  “How could this happen?  Where did all those horses come from?”

I looked around and heard similar sentiments from others standing around me.

“The stables,” Ben said.  “They’re kept at Camelot just down this side road.  Couple hundred of them, at least.  They must’ve broken out.  But I don’t know why they were running so scared.  Something must’ve frightened them.”

“It doesn’t matter how it happened,” Shad said, in a rare moment of sincerity.  “We just have to keep going, and try and help these people.  Then we’re getting the hell out of Vegas.  I don’t want to be here a second longer than we have to be.  I hate this place.”

“I do, too,” said Rissi.  “It’s just like Los Angeles.”

I took her hand, then stared at Grey while he leaned over another still body in the distance.  I recognized it at once.  A female form and a long braid.  I’d been on top of her right before she was trampled.  I lowered my head and closed my eyes.

How long could we keep doing this?  I wondered.  How long could we keep it up?  The utter exhaustion from striving for survival every minute of every day was bound to catch up with us soon.

“We should go help out,” Ben said.  “I heard Vegas has a medical clinic near here.  We were gonna move all the wounded to it after we opened up the entrance to the Egyptian.  Bet they’ll be moving the new injured there.”

Ben guessed right.  Grey gave the order to move the wounded to the clinic around the corner, and over the next few hours, we all pitched in to help.   Any lingering feelings of resentment between the few people living here from Boulder City were gone now.  We were all suffering from the tragedies in Vegas, and we needed one another if we were ever going to get this settlement back on track.  I joined the main group helping move patients, while another smaller group began wrangling the loose horses and shutting them back into the corral.  Snicket was nowhere to be seen, and I occasionally called out for her when I thought I saw her familiar butterscotch coat.  But it was never her.  Not knowing where she was made me feel even lower.

The clinic was a few blocks from the Egyptian and was mostly spared the effects of the sandstorms.  Franklin approved the use of a few gallons of gasoline to be siphoned and put into a pickup truck we used as a makeshift ambulance.  Once a route through the dunes to the clinic was established, I rode in the back of the truck with two patients at a time, holding up IV bags for the short ride to the clinic.

While unloading one patient, I saw Grey through an open doorway, grimacing while setting a broken bone.  I wished I could stay to help him, but we had too many people to transport.

When I returned to the Egyptian for another trip, Ben and Shad met me.  They were helping a man outside, who leaned heavily on both of them.  I recognized him immediately.  It was Josh Hamilton, from the Welcoming Committee in Hoover.  My usual distaste for him waned when I saw his head loll to the side as the guys helped him into the bed of the truck.  I jumped forward to assist.  It was the first time I’d ever seen the statuesque man so helpless.

“He doesn’t look too good,” I said, checking his pulse.  It was slow, but there.

“He took a blow to the head,” said Ben, handing me the cloth he'd been holding to Josh’s head.  I gently separated his inky black hair to take a look at the cut.  It was nearly three inches long and heavily crusted over with blood.

“Well, it’s not bleeding anymore.  That’s a good sign.”

Josh mumbled something up at me.  I eyed him curiously, noticing for the first time that his eyes were slightly parting.

“He’s conscious,” I said.  “We better get going.”

They loaded Josh into the back of the pickup truck, and we slowly made our way to the clinic, the driver gently maneuvering around bumps.  I leaned down to Josh, whose eyes were a little more focused now.

“Josh?  Do you know who I am?”  I asked.

“Joan,” he mumbled.

“My name is Autumn.”  I used a clean corner of the cloth to wipe grime from his forehead.  “From Hoover.  Remember?”

His voice was low, and I strained to hear him over the truck’s motor.  “I know who you are.  The martyr of Hoover.  Our own little Joan of Arc.”

“We’re going to the medical clinic.  You hit your head during a stampede.”

His eyes bobbed closed, and he continued mumbling.  “Leading her armies to war, dressing like a man, shunning the men around her.”

My brow crinkled.  I felt his forehead, but he wasn’t feverish.  He was talking like he was out of his mind, but his voice became steadier as he went on.

“Our little martyr.  Autumn of Arc.”

 “We’re almost there,” I said, my bedside manner cooling toward him.

“You know she was burned at the stake when she was nineteen?  How old are
you
?”  I stared at him, shaken.  Was he out of his mind?  Or was he warning me?  Or threatening me?

The truck pulled up to the medical center, and Grey ran to meet us.  “He has a gash on his head, right above his ear.  He’s awake, not sure if he’s lucid though.  He’s been calling me Joan of Arc.”

Grey looked up at me, surprised.  “Really?” he said.

“Is he gonna be all right?”  I asked, as Grey situated Josh on a rolling gurney.

“I’ll keep an eye on him.  How many more patients are there left to move?”

“This is the last stampede victim,” I said.  “Got a few more rounds to go, so we can bring you all of the patients left inside the Egyptian.  But all those people are stable, as far as I know.”  Grey nodded and was gone before I could say another word.

The day slogged along, and I was glad when Sam and Rissi joined me for the last few trips to the medical facility.  The shoulder Karl had dislocated a couple months ago during our fight at the radio station was throbbing.  I must have strained it during the stampede and not noticed.  I shrugged my sore shoulder, trying not to wince as a mild pain waved down my back.