Red Heart Tattoo (9 page)

“And if you go upstairs and get the flu your mother will kill me,” Jane said. “Call Kelli.”

“She won’t take my calls.”

Jane pinched the bridge of her nose, closed her eyes. “Morgan, please don’t push us. Just for now, go home. I’ll talk to her on your behalf.”

A partial admission that something was wrong, terribly wrong, with Kelli.

Morgan said, “You’re scaring me. What’s wrong with her?”

“Let’s get through Thanksgiving, all right? Then I’ll make sure she talks to you.”

Morgan had left reluctantly, but she couldn’t stop thinking about Kelli. Nor could she stop thinking about Roth. Ever since the homecoming dance, she’d stayed clear of him. If she caught him looking at her, she’d break eye contact instantly. She didn’t want to be reminded of the things he’d made her feel in the moonlight. Roth had no place in her life. He was growing bolder, though, watching her as if he could see straight into her head. If Trent noticed, she knew he’d make Roth pay. Still, she found herself glancing around the atrium from time to time, searching for him and the tingle of excitement he stirred within her. This morning, he wasn’t around.

“Babe, you want to do that with us?”

Trent’s voice jerked Morgan into the present. “Do what?”

He looked exasperated. “Flag football in the park, noon on Friday, day after Thanksgiving.”

She looked around. Kids were looking back at her expectantly. “Um … sure. That’ll be fun.”

“Welcome back to earth!” Trent laughed and gave her a bear hug. She snuggled against his warm body. The atrium was so blasted cold that not even his letter jacket and the sweater she wore beneath could keep the chill out. She was looking over his shoulder, at the stairwell under the cantilevered cement stairs, when she saw the blue-and-black
backpack half hidden by the plastic plants. Who’d lost a backpack? And how did they lose it in such an out-of-the-way place?

She stared. “Why’s that backpack in the plants?” she asked.

Trent glanced over his shoulder.

Suddenly, with no warning, a white light erupted from the dusty foliage, a light so bright, so intense that Morgan had no time to blink. A roaring sound followed, a sound like thunder, that rumbled and shook the concrete wall. She had the sensation of falling and heard noises.

And the world went dark.

R
oth was running to school from where he’d had to park, swearing under his breath with every step. He wasn’t going to beat the bell. And he’d been doing so well with following school rules lately. He was trying,
really
trying, to keep his record clean in order to graduate. To do so meant making a supreme effort to keep up his grades and stay out of trouble for the next seven months.

The reason he was late didn’t matter to the front office. And it was their fault anyway. The admin people had locked the student parking-lot gate before first bell rang. The second bell meant
you’re tardy
. Today he’d had to hunt for a place for his truck and had ended up blocks away in a residential area already packed with homeowners’ cars.

He had almost reached the brick steps of the main entrance when a blast knocked him backward. He staggered,
crouched and covered his head as glass showered down from the atrium skylight high above. Chunks of concrete shot through the doorway. Screams erupted. The front door flew open and kids began to pour outside in a stampede, almost running him over. Some were cut and bleeding. Most were crying, shrieking. From inside the building, a low rumble shook the air. An ominous roar all but blotted out the cries and screams. Roth grabbed one kid, yelled, “What happened?”

The boy’s eyes were wide and he looked shocked. “I don’t know! Let me go!” He wrestled out of Roth’s grip and continued running.

Roth swayed, looked up at the building, seeing not only the school but also his parents’ house from when he’d been seven. Except this time he wasn’t locked in a car. A cloud of concrete dust blew out of the open doors and the hole in the skylight. Roth heard kids sobbing and begging for help from inside. He elbowed his way forward, avoiding collisions with runners, hurtled up the steps and into the maelstrom.

“Holy crap!” Executioner said.

“Awesome, huh?” Apocalypse said, looking smug and satisfied. They stood, in a crowd of students across the street, watching the front of the school and the continuing stream of fleeing students. “Like rats leaving a sinking ship.”

They’d stood together across the street since early morning in the cold, eyeing the school, pacing nervously,
anticipating the event. “I want a bird’s-eye view,” Apocalypse had said. “I want to watch the lid blow off.”

Executioner had agreed. No need to be any closer. What if the bomb was more powerful than they’d planned? No sense being in harm’s way.

The explosion had been a spectacular sight and sound—a flash of white light followed by a boom, like a jet breaking the sound barrier. Glass had spewed from the skylight, volcanolike, and rained in glittering chunks onto the steps and sidewalk below. There had been smoke and dust and debris, but no spreading fire. The percussion explosives were more for the sake of blast damage. Apocalypse had chosen them well.

All around them groups had gathered. Many kids were cut and bleeding. Some cried hysterically. Girls clung to each other, tears streaking cement-dusted faces. Across the street, concrete dust continued to rain from the doorways and through the hole in the roof. Apocalypse turned a deaf ear to the wailing and sobbing. Executioner felt the students’ pain more keenly but refused to give in to regret.

“We did
that
?” Executioner said, staring at the ruined front of the school.

Apocalypse grabbed the other’s arm, dragged Executioner to the fringe of the milling crowd. “Keep your mouth shut! What if someone overhears you?”

“Ow! You’re hurting me.”

“If you don’t keep a lid on it, I’ll do worse than hurt you—I’ll kill you!”

•  •  •

Inside the atrium Roth saw hunks of concrete strewn around the floor. He also saw bodies, heard moans. His stomach went queasy. He cupped his hand over his mouth because the gray dust and smoke were making it difficult to breathe and to see clearly. Remembering that Carla had forced a muffler into his jacket pocket that morning, Roth pulled it out and quickly wrapped it around his head, covering his nose and mouth. He stooped and kept close to the ground. His foot hit a body. He bent, grabbed the boy under his arms and dragged him into the safety of the nearest hallway, away from the worst of the carnage. He had no idea if the kid was dead or alive.

He went back into the rubble and dragged out a girl, positioning her beside the boy. The atrium grew cold from the wide-open doorways, but sweat swam on Roth’s forehead, down his back and underarms. He pulled several more kids into the hall, felt his muscles twitch and strain with overexertion.
Can’t stop now
, he told himself.

Still crouching, he made his way around a large hunk of concrete, stepped on something soft, recoiled. Under his feet lay Mr. Adams, a history teacher. The man’s body was doughy, and blood oozed from his half-crushed head. Roth thought he might throw up, and swallowed down bile. In the distance, sirens wailed. Roth pleaded for them to hurry. He felt as if he’d been here an hour, alone with dead and dying people.

The most damage seemed to be near the staircase, so that was where Roth went. He waved his hand through the chalky air, trying to clear his line of vision, climbed over
the remnants of the half wall and lowered himself onto another mound of rubble. This area was eerier, silent. He heard an ominous creak above him, looked up to see what remained of the staircase hanging by twisted cables and threads of destroyed concrete. It was going to fall.

Roth eased backward in retreat, looked down. That was when he saw a spill of reddish hair under nearby rubble. The hair was thick with dust, almost unrecognizable, but he knew whose it was.
Morgan!
Throwing away all caution, Roth leaped forward. Frantically he began to dig through the mass of bricks, tossing them behind him in heaps. Of course she would have been sitting on the wall. She always sat on the atrium wall with her group of friends before school. Today would have been no different.

His hands were cut and bleeding, but he hardly noticed. What remained of the staircase groaned under its weight. He gritted his teeth through the pain, freed Morgan’s arms and pulled with all his strength. He felt her body give toward him. Something was pinning her, so he tried again. “Come on, baby,” he said. “Just a little farther.”

She was unresponsive. Maybe dead. He couldn’t tell. He only knew he had to get her out. If she was alive and her spine was damaged, he could be sentencing her to life as a paraplegic by moving her, yet somehow that seemed better than her being crushed beneath the remains of the staircase.

Behind him, he heard voices, men and women arriving on the scene: rescuers, EMTs, police. “Over here!” he yelled. “She’s trapped!”

Feet clambered over piles of brick and concrete. Roth put his arms around Morgan’s chest. He gave one final tug, made one more superhuman effort, grunting with the strain, and felt her slide free. As he hauled her out of the way, what was left of the stairs gave a great shudder and fell with a roar, spraying clouds of dust and destruction in every direction. Roth threw himself over Morgan, shielding her from pelting hunks of stone and debris that hit his back and shoulders in a hailstorm of choking ruin.

“Kid! Buddy … you can let go now. You okay?”

Roth heard voices above him, felt hands gently pulling him away from Morgan. His muffler was gone, lost as he’d worked Morgan’s body free, and concrete dust filled his mouth and nose. He coughed violently. An EMT eased him backward. Roth managed to gasp out, “Okay. I’m okay.”

“Let’s get you outside.”

“Help her.”

“We’ve got it from here.”

Roth allowed himself to be put on a stretcher. “Is she … is she …?” He couldn’t get the question out, terrified of the answer.

He watched a paramedic place his fingers against the side of Morgan’s neck, feeling for signs of life. The medic
looked toward his crew and Roth. “I’ve got a pulse! Hey, Elroy, over here!”

Roth closed his eyes, allowed himself to be carried out into the sunlight, into the fresh air and away from the arena of death that only hours before had been his high school.

C
haos ruled Grandville Hospital’s emergency-room waiting area. The space was packed with people, all somehow connected to Edison—parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, brothers and sisters, teachers’ husbands and wives sat in chairs or on the floor, or paced inside and outside. They talked on cell phones, cried, and shouted at staff for updates and information about their loved ones. Overwhelmed hospital personnel were patiently going from person to person, taking down data to try to connect the victims behind the closed double doors of triage, too badly hurt to speak for themselves, with frantic family members.

Among the families stuck in the ER were the walking wounded, those who had been hurt, but not so seriously they couldn’t wait to be attended to. They’d been transported by overtaxed ambulances, cars and, finally, a
school bus that had been pressed into service. Roth had come with the bus group because he was mobile and had been able to recite his name and address when asked. Now, sitting amid the confusion and noise, he was numb with physical pain and mental trauma. All he thought about was Morgan’s limp body and the sound of the staircase’s remains giving way, landing on the place where she’d lain under the rubble. The scene played on a loop in his head, each time with a violent ending of her being crushed, of her life being smashed out of her by the falling concrete.