Flowertown (9 page)

She didn’t trust herself to exhale until she turned the second corner on her way to the med center. She’d made it from the building with the files. Trying to slow her pounding heart, she cut across the street to the newsstand. Ellie didn’t know what kind of files she had in her bag, but she didn’t want to go strolling into the med center and have someone there recognize them. A newspaper would be just the right size to wrap around the bulky manila folders.

Ellie scanned the nearly empty rack of newspapers. There was a small stack of week-old
New York Times
, one three-day-old
Sioux City Journal,
and a few two-day-old
USA Today
s. Flowertown never got the news the day it happened. Folks inside often referred to the “USA Yesterday,” but usually the national paper made it a day late. Not today, though, and judging from the scowl on Mr. MacDonald’s face, the proprietor was none too happy about it. Well, she wasn’t here to read. Ellie grabbed the Davenport paper.

“What the hell are you doing that for?” MacDonald’s voice roared from his small stand.

“Uh, what? Buying a newspaper?”

“That’s not a newspaper!” The old man slammed his veiny hand down. “Newspapers carry news! News as in new, not day-old, not two-day-old. That’s not news in there. That’s history. Why don’t you go to the library and check out a history book?”

Ellie waited out his tirade. She liked Mr. MacDonald. She liked the bourbon she smelled on his breath and the way he yelled at everybody, especially his customers. Bing had told her he had been a professor at Northwestern
before the spill, and she thought he would have been the kind of professor she would have enjoyed.

“I want to buy the paper.”

“You want to piss your money away?”

“Why not?” Ellie shrugged. “I’m just going to drink it away otherwise. Or maybe I’ll use this paper to hide a bomb.”

MacDonald leaned over the counter and lowered his voice. “Talk like that can get you arrested, young lady.”

“Oh, I sure would hate to be confined in a small area with no chance of escape.” She held MacDonald’s hard gaze until his eyes crinkled up in a smile. He loved a smart-ass. “And if I do go down, old man, I’m taking you with me.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, promises, promises.” He swiped her debit card. “Did you pick up ‘the local’ today? It’s got some interesting tidbits.” “The local” was a newsletter residents of Flowertown put out on random days, from random outlets, with a random selection of topics. It read like a badly printed church bulletin. MacDonald stuffed one in the fold of her paper.

“Thank you, sir. I’ll check it out.”

“Liar.”

The med center was crowded as always, the eleven o’clock line for meds filing all the way out the glass doors into the lobby. Ellie elbowed her way through the bored-looking mob and flashed the keychain tag that she had hooked to her work badge under the scanner. The door to the left buzzed, and she let herself into the blue tag lounge. That wasn’t really the name on the door, but Ellie never bothered to read the words on the sign. Leaning on the ledge under
an unmarked window, Ellie waiting for the heavily made-up clerk to acknowledge her.

“Hello.” Ellie rapped her knuckles on the glass after a solid minute.

The woman continued to type and kept her eyes glued to the screen before her.

“I have a med check at eleven.”

The woman typed some more and then made a great show of craning her neck to see the large clock behind her before turning back to Ellie with leaden eyes. “It’s ten fifty-two.”

Ellie waved her medical tag under the opening in the glass. “Yeah, well, considering the fact that I’m a blue tag, you might say time is of the essence. Plus I have a job to get back to.”

The woman curled her lip, cracking the shellac of foundation around her mouth, and Ellie could see she was older than she first appeared. Perhaps a steady diet of being a bitch had aged her prematurely. In any case, her sneer made her face that much more unpleasant as she leaned forward on her elbows.

“I have a job to do too, ma’am.” She looked Ellie over with much the same look Ellie had given Martha’s hairball. “And my job is to make sure appointments are kept on schedule. Your appointment is for eleven o’clock. Not ten fifty, not eleven oh one.”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

“Please take a seat,” she tapped on the glass with long, pink, flowered nails, “and I will call you at your proper appointment time.”

Ellie knew it was pointless to argue, so instead she pressed her forehead against the glass. “I bet you win employee of the month every month.” The woman pursed her lips in an ugly semblance of triumph. Then she saw the greasy spot Ellie’s skin had left on the glass. Ellie ran her finger through the stain, spreading it. “You might want to clean that up, honey. I bet that’s part of your job too.”

She flopped into a chair out of sight from the bitch behind the glass. In truth, she was glad for the moment to sit down. It gave her a chance to slip the files from the bag and into the fold of the newspaper. Ellie desperately wanted to peek into the files, but she knew every inch of the med center was under camera surveillance at all times. Bending from the waist, she did her best to block the camera’s view of her bag until the folders were well out of sight. Just as she was straightening up, the door to the examining rooms opened and the She-Nightmare from the reception desk stood, holding a clipboard.

“Cauley?” She spoke loudly as she scanned the empty room. “Eleanor Cauley?” Ellie rose and headed her way, and still she paged the empty room. “Eleanor Cauley.”

“I’m right here.”

The woman checked the clipboard and then looked up at Ellie. “Eleanor Cauley?”

“Yes.”

“You had an eleven o’clock med check?”

If the bag had not contained stolen classified files, Ellie would have given in to the temptation to beat the woman to death with it. “Yes.”

The woman scribbled on the clipboard, then held open the door. “You’re late.”

Ellie bit her tongue as she passed her, then stopped and turned. “You know, I think it’s really heartwarming that Barlay hires the mentally handicapped.”

“Room three.” As Ellie turned away, the woman shot her a syrupy smile. “Hope you feel better.” Then, pretending to notice the blue files on her clipboard, made a show of covering her mouth in fake surprise as she walked off. “Oh, wait. That’s right. My bad.”

Ellie was certain, as she forced herself to sit on the stool next to the med tech, that if she looked she would see her heart beating out of her chest. The receptionist’s remarks played over and over in her mind. Her fists were clenched and the plastic handles of the bag cut into her white fingers. Her face felt hot with rage, and while she could hear the tech’s voice speaking to her, the part of her brain that understood words had been eclipsed by something far more primal. It wasn’t until a hand touched her arm that she could break the spell of the anger consuming her.

“I need your tag.” The woman touching her wore the pale blue coat of all Barlay med techs. Her brown hair was pulled up in a loose bun, revealing a large strawberry birthmark on her smooth neck. Ellie stared at the red mark, trying to gain control of herself.

“It’s on my badge.” The words scraped out of her tight throat. She handed her badge over to the tech, who scanned it and studied the computer screen. Ellie worked on taking the deep breaths she had learned would control her temper, and by the time the tech handed her badge back, Ellie felt in control once more.

“Have you taken your meds this morning?” the tech asked, studying the screen. When Ellie didn’t answer right away, she cocked an eyebrow at her. “Don’t lie. It’s going to show up on the blood test anyway.”

“No, I haven’t. I forgot them at home.” The truth was she had no idea where the bottle of red pills was. They could have fallen out of her pocket at any point last night. “If I were to lose them or something…”

“You can get a refill. Your QOLs are unlimited.”

“That’s reassuring.” Ellie watched the young woman type. Apparently terminal diagnoses were no big thing in the blue tag lounge, but Ellie wouldn’t have minded a little less offhandedness. “Can you sign for a refill for me?”

The tech rolled her chair closer to Ellie and tied a piece of rubber tubing above her elbow. As she wiped Ellie’s bulging vein with an iodine swab, she laughed under her breath. “You mean you don’t want to deal with Miss America out front?”

“What a bitch.”

“Tell me about it. Try being stuck in here all day with her.” The tech jabbed a needle into Ellie’s arm and started to withdraw blood. Rather than look, Ellie watched the woman, seeing the name tag stitched to her lapel.

“Olivia. That’s pretty.”

“Yeah, I was named after a pig.”

Ellie laughed, remembering the children’s books with the pig named Olivia. “You must be a local.”

Olivia nodded, gently pulling back with the needle. She didn’t meet Ellie’s eyes, so Ellie took the conversation no further. Nobody liked to talk about how they wound up here.

“I need to take a pretty big sample.”

“I’m not using it,” Ellie said. “Take all you want.” Olivia looked up quickly at her, and Ellie felt a sharp pinch at the site of the blood draw. “Ouch!”

“Sorry.” Olivia pressed her gloved fingers over the injection site and put the full syringe back on the desk. She replaced her fingers with a thick wad of gauze and pulled Ellie’s arm up over her head. “Put pressure on this for a minute. I’ll get some tape.”

Olivia turned her back on Ellie, pulling off a length of medical tape and sticking it to the edge of the desk. Rather than put the tape over the gauze, however, she picked up the phone and tapped a flashing button. Ellie couldn’t hear what she said and wasn’t interested. Instead she held her arm up, pressing on the gauze. With her luck, she would bleed out. Her fingers began to tingle as she heard the tech playing with the tape and laughing into the phone. It would do no good to complain, she knew. In the med center, all you could do was wait.

Finally Olivia turned back to her, lengths of tape stuck to several fingers, and told her to lower her arm. Quickly she taped the gauze in place and began reciting the medical instructions required by law within Flowertown. Ellie had heard them hundreds of times: medications were to be taken upon instruction with no exception; any complications or difficulties were to be reported immediately; no medications were to be shared or disposed of in any way, blah blah blah. But just because Olivia and her coworkers were obligated to say it didn’t mean Ellie was obligated to listen. She smoothed out a loose piece of tape as she gathered her bag of contraband and waited for Olivia to finish her spiel.

Olivia finished chanting the words she had to say no less than twenty times a day and then picked up a pen. “You need a refill?” Ellie nodded and took the blue scrip from her. “Keep an eye on that arm. No heavy lifting. You can peel off some of the tape if you need to.”

There was no line at the dispensary on this side of the building. As she waited for her pills, she pulled out her phone and punched in Guy’s number. She wasn’t really worried about him. She just wanted to hear his voice. Twice she misdialed, her fingers trembling, maybe from the blood loss, maybe from the ebbing rage she had felt inside, or maybe just from not being high. The pharmacist slid her pills across the counter, and Ellie dropped them in the bag, still trying to dial as she headed back out onto the street.

This is ridiculous, she thought, and plopped down on the curb in front of the med center shrubbery. She took the bag off her arm and focused all her attention on her fumbling fingers. At last she got the number correct. It rang several times, and while she waited, she tried once more to smooth out the dangling tape on her arm. She swore when Guy’s message began to play. What a fucking day. The operator began the unnecessary instruction on how to leave a voice mail, and Ellie swore again as the tape on her arm refused to stick.

“Hey, Guy,” she said after the beep. “Just seeing how you did last night. I’m heading back to work and—” She let the phone slip from between her shoulder and her ear. In her frustration she had pulled the uncooperative tape from her bandage. The gauze hadn’t fallen off because there was another piece of tape underneath the first. On the lower piece, in small handwritten letters, were the words, “Don’t take the red pills.”

Ellie could only stare at the words. She heard the phone at her feet beep that her message was over and still she didn’t move. Bing. She knew she had to find Bing. Grabbing the bag, Ellie leapt to her feet and began to run. All the tension from the night before, all the rage from this morning, all the years she had refused to run melted out of her as her muscles pounded to life. She felt her lungs burning but didn’t stop, couldn’t stop until she found Bing. He would know what those words meant. He would tell her some conspiracy theory and they would get high and she would tell him he was crazy, that the words were just a practical joke.

But she didn’t believe it.

She was gasping for breath as she turned the final corner to the records office, the bag banging painfully against her aching legs. Bing would tell her what to think and help her make sense out of this. Bing always knew what to do. Bing always knew everything. Ellie stopped. Bending from the waist to catch her breath, she realized that Bing knew nothing about the red pills. He didn’t know because she hadn’t told him. After all they had been through together, she had kept the most important information of her life a secret from him and for the life of her couldn’t predict how he would take the news.

Ellie stood there on the street, staring at her office, trying to corral her thoughts that were flying in a million directions. Her hair clung to her face with sweat and her breath was loud and raspy, but all she could think about was how she was going to tell Bing that she had kept a secret from him. She had to face him. He had to forgive her. She needed him. Nodding to herself, she took a step toward the records office just as the upper floor exploded.

The first thing Ellie thought was that her face had somehow fallen asleep. It tingled and burned. When she tried to open her eyes, she realized it was tiny shards of glass and wood raining down on her where she lay face-up on the sidewalk. The blast had blown her off her feet, or maybe she had just stumbled, but she lay on her back watching her office burn.

She couldn’t have been out more than a few seconds because the chaos was only beginning. Sirens could be heard in the distance, and she was on her feet before people started running out of the front door. Soon the street was packed with people pushing and running in every direction as thick, black smoke poured from the hole that had been a vent on the upper floor of the records office. She knew that vent. It was the vent beside the bathroom, the vent she and Bing used to drag their smoke from the room. The vent in the red zone.

Ellie let the crowd push her as she scanned faces, looking for Bing and Big Martha. Within the smoke-filled building people shouted for help, barking orders and dragging people out behind them. The sirens ripped into the madness
as firefighters parted the crowd, rushing in with their gear, ordering people to step back. A young man Ellie recognized from personnel bumped into her, bleeding heavily from his forehead. He slammed his shoulder into hers, spinning her around and nearly costing her the plastic bag with the stolen files. She clutched the bag to her chest, the mob’s confusion infusing her, making it difficult to think.

“Bing!” She screamed his name at the tallest head she could see over the crowd and cried out when he spun around. Jumping up and down, she fought to keep sight of him through the smoke and the madness. She saw his arm pointing away from the flames, and she rushed to follow his direction. The sound of something within the building collapsing roared behind her, but all Ellie could think was to keep sight of Bing’s skinny neck and messy hair as they both pushed their way through the panicked crowd.

“Ellie, my God!” Bing finally got to her, pulling her to him through a cluster of women. She stumbled over someone’s foot and heard people everywhere screaming but buried her own cries in her best friend’s sweaty T-shirt. Bing held her close, dragging her along through the crowd until they found an open space past the corner. Neither spoke. They held each other and watched their building burn.

“Did you see Big Martha?” Ellie asked. “Did she get out okay?”

“Didn’t you see her?” Bing rubbed her shoulder. “I thought you would have gotten out with her. Oh shit, Ellie, I thought you were dead. There was that huge blast upstairs, and when the ceiling came down, all I could think was ‘Where’s Ellie?’ I tried to get up there, but then all that smoke came pouring down. How did you get out?”

“I wasn’t in there.”

“What do you mean?” Bing looked down at her. “Where were you?”

The tone of his voice made the ebbing panic rise again. “I had a med check. I just ran out for little bit. What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

Bing chewed on his lip for a moment, scanning the crowd as the Feno security forces arrived and began cordoning off the area. Even as ambulances cut through the crowds, voices on bullhorns were ordering people to remain where they were, to remain calm and to make no attempt to leave the area. Bing pulled her along by her arm to the edge of the crowd, but a pair of men in red shirts ran yellow crime tape across their path, keeping the frightened crowd contained. Bing squeezed Ellie’s hand.

“Listen to me.” He turned her to face him. “You can’t tell anybody you were out of the building when the bomb went off.”

“But I was.” Ellie felt herself shaking so hard she was having trouble thinking. “I was at med check. They’re going to know. There’s going to be a record. Besides, why would I lie?”

“Why would you lie? Ellie, you’ve got to start thinking.” Bing glared at two young men standing too close to them and lowered his voice. “How do you think it’s going to look when they find out that you just happened to be out of the building the exact moment the bomb goes off in the exact area you have been reprimanded for tampering with? The bomb that kills the guard assigned to keep an eye on you?”

“Cooper?” Ellie staggered back a step.

“Who?”

“Cooper. That’s his name.”

Bing started talking again, but Ellie could only think about the young guard struggling so hard to maintain his composure as she threw every cruel nausea-inducing trick at him. He’d had grit; she had admired his grit.

“How do you know he’s dead?”

“What?” Bing grabbed her by the shoulders. “Ellie, are you even listening to me?”

“How do you know Cooper’s dead?”

Bing worked to find the right words. “He…when the ceiling came down…he was burning. We couldn’t…he was screaming and then…he was quiet. You’re bleeding.”

Ellie swayed on her feet, not wanting to hear her friend’s words. Bing grabbed her arm, where a thin stream of blood trickled. She had lost her bandage.

“Oh no. Oh no.” Ellie spun in a circle, looking down at the ground, hoping without reason to find the gauze pad and, more importantly, the tape with the cryptic message. “I’ve lost my bandage. I’ve got to find it. I’ve got to show it to you.”

“Ellie, listen to me.” He grabbed her once more. “Don’t worry about the bandage.”

“I had a med check. They took blood. Bing, I’ve got to tell you something.”

“There isn’t time. You’ve got to lie about that med check. Maybe they won’t…aw shit.”

Ellie couldn’t hear those last words as all sound was drowned out by the roar of Feno security vehicles rolling in one after another, surrounding the blast site. The trucks and jeeps formed a tight barricade outside the crime tape,
and dozens of armed guards piled from the vehicles, their weapons trained on the frantic crowd penned within.

“Please remain calm,” a bullhorn voice blared over the noise. “Everyone stay where you are.” Unlike the early commands, this voice had the security force to back it up and the crowd quieted down, the sense of relief palpable in the air. In the chaos and terror of the blast, even Feno security was a welcome sight, anything that could make sense of the madness. Several guards climbed on top of their vehicles, resuming their weapon-ready stances; some stood shoulder to shoulder, filling in the gaps the vehicles couldn’t cover, while the rest returned their weapons to the vehicles and began to move through the crowd, breaking them into manageable, smaller groups. Bing held tight to Ellie’s hand as they got herded into a group with a dozen others.

Fire trucks continued to spray the building with water while ambulance lights flashed and radios cackled. As the first two ambulances pulled away from the scene, the crowd parting silently to watch them go, Flowertown’s final ambulance pulled in. It seemed rescue was going to work on relay today. Peering between huddled masses, Ellie could make out rescue workers treating people on blankets on the ground throughout the barricaded area. Mumbling something to Bing about looking for Big Martha, she cut through the crowd and spied a runoff grate. Hoping nobody was watching her in the chaos, she pulled back the drain and shoved the bag of files into the dark, narrow crevice. Finally able to catch her breath, Ellie stood on tiptoe and surveyed the area, then hurried back to her friend.

“Do you notice anything weird about this, Bing?”

“You’re kidding, right? Besides our building being blown sky-high?”

“That’s what I mean. Our building just got blown sky-high.” Ellie kept her voice low. “Look around you. Where’s the army?”

“They’re…” Bing craned his neck, looking over the crowd in every direction. “I don’t know. They’re not here.”

“No, they’re not. I saw a truck loading up this morning, packing up supplies from a depot. It didn’t look like they were leaving much behind.”

A woman bumped into Ellie from behind, her face covered in soot, her eyes wild. “What did you say? The army’s not coming? What do you mean?” The crowd picked up her panicked questions and a brushfire of rumor and speculation whipped through the crowd, spreading from their little cluster to the entire area in seconds. The calm that had settled burned off quickly as people began shouting and demanding to know where the army was. If they knew, the Feno forces weren’t telling. Instead, the guards within the barricade used their strength, their authority, and their nightsticks when necessary to pack the clusters in more tightly. The voice on the bullhorn rang out once more.

“Stay where you are! Remain calm. Do not force us to take preventative measures against you!” People booed and shook their fists while more guards climbed atop the surrounding vehicles and pointed their weapons directly at the crowd. “Please do not make this more difficult than necessary. You are going to be evacuated to a secure location until the nature of the attack has been ascertained. Remain calm. You will be instructed on how to proceed.”

All around them the crowd jeered and complained, but Bing grew silent. He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and then shook his head. He held his phone up for her to see the “network busy” message. “This building is nowhere near the tower or the power relay for cell service.”

“What does that mean?” Ellie asked.

“They’re jamming us.”

For once Ellie didn’t think her friend was being paranoid. “What do you think they mean by evacuating us to a secure location? Do they think there’s another bomb?”

“I doubt it.” Bing scanned the serious faces of the guards surrounding them and saw one of the large security trucks open its rear panel doors. “I think they’re going to interrogate us.”

Before she could ask him anything else, the radios on the guards’ belts squawked to life. Codes and commands were relayed down the line, and like a practiced dance troupe, the guards moved into action. A group of fifteen people that was clustered closest to the end of the barricade was herded into the back of the waiting truck. The guns trained on the people from every direction left little room for arguing, and after locking the panel doors behind them, a guard pounded on the truck, signaling to the driver to pull away. As the truck left the barricade line, the rest of the convoy inched forward to keep the line intact.

“Where are they taking them?” It was the soot-covered woman who had eavesdropped earlier. “Are they being arrested? They haven’t done anything!” She grabbed at one of the guards surrounding their group and received a sharp elbow to the face for her troubles. The crowd surged
around her, cries of outrage shouted down by the harsh bark of another guard.

“Stand down!” He and his comrades held their batons up in practiced formation. “Do not approach the guards. Do not attempt to leave your group!”

“She was just asking a question.” A man held the injured woman, whose mouth was now filled with blood. “You piece of shit—” Several people around him pulled him back before the nearest guard used his weapon in earnest.

The guard who had spoken, the leader of the team, warned them again. “You will be evacuated in due course. You are to follow our orders exactly. Failure to do so will result in detention and containment by force, if necessary. Do I make myself clear?”

Muttered obscenities drifted from the small pack as they turned their backs on the guards, drawing in closer together. Around them, the other isolated packs watched the exchange and followed suit. Throughout the area, the guards passed glances and messages on the radios as group by group, truck by truck, the barricaded area was evacuated.

The evacuation worked from the outer ring in, groups exiting in three directions, the now smoldering building blocking the fourth. It was impossible to tell who would be next, so Bing and Ellie huddled together, within but apart from their little pack.

“What do you think they’re going to ask us?” she asked.

“The usual, I’d guess.” Bing studied the faces around him. “Where we were, what we do there, did we see anything unusual? You know, for all their commandeering of the scene, I don’t get the feeling that these guys really know what they’re doing.”

Ellie saw one of the guards burning a hole in her with his angry gaze. “I don’t know about that, Bing. They seem pretty sure to me.”

“No. Evacuating everybody? Containing the area like this? They’re panicking. They didn’t see this coming and they don’t have a suspect, or they would have handled this much differently. This is a PR nightmare. They’ve scared these people more than the bomb did. It’s going to take a lot to whitewash this in the news.”

“Who says it’s going to make the news?” Ellie stared up at Bing. “Maybe they don’t care about PR anymore.”

Bing put his hands on his head, a sure sign of worry. The tension in his face made him look more bird-like than ever, but this time it didn’t make Ellie laugh. It was a hell of a way to bring it about, but she had finally become as paranoid as her friend.

“Fuck it,” Bing said, dropping his arms and digging into his pocket. “Let’s burn one.”

“What? Now?”

He held up a thick joint. “You got something better to do? I don’t know about you, but I don’t think the jitters are going to help anybody during our interrogations.” He lit the tip and breathed in deeply. The smell made Ellie’s body come alive with longing, and she took the joint from Bing and inhaled until her lungs ached. They faced each other, holding in lungfuls of smoke until they both smiled and exhaled together.

“Good call, Bing.” She could feel the rage and fear trickling down her spine, evaporating in the smoke of Bing’s excellent weed. She hit it again as a man behind Bing leaned in.

“Mind if I hit that too?” He was nearly as tall as Bing and had a tattoo curling up around his neck. “Can’t see any reason to talk to these dirtbags straight.”

Bing nodded, and Ellie passed the joint over. He took a hit and gestured over his shoulder to the rest of the pack. Bing nodded again. “The more the merrier, man. Let’s smoke up.”

Nobody in their group refused the joint, so it burned out quickly. Without hesitation, Bing pulled another fat one from the bag in his pocket and passed it back. The tattooed man shook his hand, introducing himself as Torrez.

“I really appreciate the smoke, man. That’s mighty decent of you.”