Autumn in the City of Lights (2 page)

“Of course my head hurts. A friggin’ picnic table landed on it,” I quipped. “But I can still help. And what if Shad’s down there?”  I motioned to the broken band shell. I mentally ran through the list of my other post-Plague family members, thanking God Connie was at home with Rissi. But where was Daniel? I looked around anxiously for the tall man with bright red hair I’d known for a year but felt like I’d known forever. Connie still hadn’t gotten over Daniel’s close call with death. He’d only just recovered from a near-fatal gunshot wound he received at Area 51 the day of The Front’s attack on the Hoover Settlement, and I didn’t want to imagine how she’d react if he was injured again. Connie had barely let him out of the house during his recovery, even for their wedding, which had taken place a month after we’d formed the New Burbank settlement.

I heard my name and turned to see a figure rushing toward me. It was Shad. He whipped me up into a bear hug that almost hurt.

“Oh, thank God,” he said, moving from me to wrap an arm around Grey. “Where’s Ben? Have you seen him yet?”

I pointed down to the rubble-filled stage. “Ben’s down there looking for you,” I said. “We haven’t seen Daniel yet, though.”

“Daniel’s fine. I saw him when I was looking for you guys.”  I opened my mouth to ask where exactly Daniel was, but Shad barreled on. “I think I might have seen the guy who set off the bomb.”

That stopped us cold. “How do you know that?” Grey asked.

“I was standing off to the side of the stage when the explosion happened,” Shad said. “I was running a little late and thought I’d slip in unnoticed. Lucky for me, I guess.”  His lips tipped into a thin smile for a split second and disappeared. “Then I saw this guy in a hat holding a cell phone up to his ear. I figured that was odd, given there aren’t many cell towers up and running anymore. Particularly ones that would deliver a signal in here.”  He motioned around at the bowl-shaped amphitheater.

“You sure it was a cell phone?” Grey asked. “Could it have been some kind of walkie or radio?”

“Could have been. Either way, he didn’t say anything, just walked around the corner to the exit, and then boom, I’m blown off my feet.”

“Was he one of ours? Or part of The Front?” I asked.

“I don’t know. His back was to me,” Shad replied. “Could be The Front... could be one of ours, too. There’s so many people in both groups now; I just don’t know. He had a tattoo on the back of his neck though. Looked like a star, but he had his collar up, so I couldn’t tell.”

“Did you see him after the explosion?” Grey questioned.

Shad shook his head. “Probably long gone.”

“You need to organize a search party for him,” Grey said. "Now, before he can get too far.”

“Okay, but which direction do I even go looking for him?”

“West,” I replied. “I’d be willing to bet money The Front’s behind—”

I stopped mid-sentence when a metal-on-metal creaking noise drew my attention to the stage. A crack widened in the band shell, and a large section of what was left of the structure began to lurch. Pieces started to break free and crash to the stage... right where Ben stood.

¹
Pronounced ‘Foe er’

A new smoke cloud filled the air, and I inhaled a waft of dust and debris as I bolted down the stairs toward Ben.

Shad and Grey overtook me and leapt onto the stage. Shad turned and grabbed my hand to help me climb up, and together we ran to where Grey was already pulling rock away from the pile over Ben.

We worked fast, the dust stinging our eyes and scraps of debris cutting our hands. I realized after a moment, I was wailing Ben’s name as I dug.

No fewer than twenty people joined the digging, looking for Ben and the others who’d been in harm’s way. And directly across from us was Karl, working even faster than me. As we cleared the smaller chunks and got to a larger section of curved band shell, I began to cry. The piece was nearly the size of a standard car.

“He couldn’t have survived this,” I said, realizing our efforts were in vain.

“No! The curved shell might have protected him,” Karl yelled, undeterred. “We’re all going to have to lift this together.”  It was a sobering moment. Karl, of all people, had given me hope.

“Everyone, grab this side,” Grey said. “On three.”

We all found our places, and I forced my bleeding hands under a craggy edge of the large piece of band shell between us and Ben.

“One, two, THREE!” Grey yelled. And together, nearly twenty people strained and heaved until the chunk of debris began to move. As we got it halfway up, I dropped a shoulder and looked underneath.

There he was. Ben lay on top of a woman I didn’t recognize, protecting her. Suddenly, I could hear her crying. She was alive. Maybe he was, too.

“Ben!” I shouted, hoping against hope he’d look up at me. But he didn’t.

“Hold it here!” Grey yelled.

We all braced ourselves, holding the band shell steady while Grey quickly worked to pull the woman out first and then went back in. He carefully put his arms under Ben’s and hauled him out.

We dropped the section of band shell, and I went to Grey. He was checking for a pulse.

“Grey? Is he?” I asked, breathlessly.

Grey let go of Ben’s wrist and put his head to Ben’s heart.

“Grey!” I asked, unable to regain any patience.

“There’s a heartbeat,” Grey finally replied. “But it’s thready. We need to get him to the hospital.”

Two minutes later, I was weaving through the horses sheltered under a tent in the parking lot. When I reached Snicket, I suddenly felt exhausted, like it was late at night and I'd been running all day. But I couldn’t stop yet. I began securing Snicket to the wagon we would be using as an ambulance.

Grey and Karl worked together to carry Ben to the wagon while Shad helped the woman Ben saved.

“Autumn, can you go with them in the wagon?” Grey asked. “You probably shouldn’t be riding Snicket anyway.”

“I wasn’t planning to,” I said, pulling myself inside the wagon and putting a hand on Ben’s. “I’m not leaving him.”

“Good. I’ll be right behind you. Shad?” Grey said, turning to him. “The plan hasn’t changed. Take your horse and ride west. See if you can find the bomber before they disappear.”

Shad hesitated, looking at Ben’s bleeding body in the wagon. A muscle in his jaw rippled as he clenched his teeth.

Grey laid a hand on his arm. “You can’t do anything more for Ben, but you can track down who’s responsible,” he said. “You’re the fastest rider we have, and the best chance we have at catching whoever did this.”

Shad drew a deep breath, then nodded. “I’ll be back soon.”

The wagon jerked into motion. I pulled up my hood and leaned over to shield Ben from the rain. I brushed the dusty hair from his forehead. His glasses were filthy, too. I gently lifted them away and rubbed them clean on a mostly dry spot on my shirt. I held them up to the gray light and noticed the left lens was cracked. My throat choked with tears again. These weren’t supposed to be broken. They were supposed to be slipping down Ben’s nose, so he could push them back up in annoyance while talking about some random fact.

This was all Karl’s fault. It had to be. How could we have even considered negotiating with him? But, I reminded myself, no one knew Karl was responsible for The Plague except me and Grey, because Karl's secret was also Grey’s.

Both Karl and Grey were members of The University, a space-dwelling community of researchers and historians who could live as long they pleased with the help of the Elemental Vitamin. They vowed to give up feeling emotions to devote themselves to knowledge, but three hundred years into Grey’s research stint on Earth, he realized he was beginning to experience emotions again. Then The Plague appeared and claimed most of the Earth’s population. Unlike Karl, who caused the destruction and reveled in it, Grey dove in and helped. That’s when he met me, and we fell in love.

Grey’s rule-breaking hadn’t been discovered by The University yet, unless his friend and fellow University member, Lydia, told them. Because she’d left almost year ago and no one had returned to take him away, he suspected she hadn’t. I hoped she’d keep his secret.

Soon the wagon crested the steep hill of Cahuenga Pass. From up here, I could see the Hollywood Hills looming above us, their slopes gray and bare from the fires that raged unchecked in the months after The Plague. The Hollywood freeway stretched below us, still jammed with the cars of people who’d tried to flee the Crimson Fever.

The Cahuenga Pass was fairly clear, thanks to the New Burbank road crews who’d spent all the daylight hours for the past seven months moving cars and debris off the surface streets. Our wagons made slow but steady progress, and once we were down the other side, it wasn’t long before I could make out the familiar shape of the Baker Brothers water tower, letting me know we were finally back in New Burbank and nearing the hospital.

Unlike the medical facility back in Hoover, New Burbank’s hospital had actually been a hospital before The Plague. It took us nearly a month to clear it of bodies when we returned to Los Angeles and settled in New Burbank, and the cremation fires had burned for two days. We’d held a service for the unnamed thousands and then begun slowly sanitizing and stocking what we hoped would become the new medical hub of the West.

After the war between Hoover and The Front, half our town was burned to the ground. With smaller communities flooding into Hoover and less resources to go around, we decided — nearly unanimously — to come back and reclaim Los Angeles.

We chose to start with Burbank, a small city within Los Angeles. It had its own, smaller water and power departments, so we could get it up and running quicker than if we’d tried to work on the facilities serving greater Los Angeles. It was also the equestrian hub of the area, pre-Plague. On the north side of Mount Lee, the hill with the Hollywood sign, was a massive reserve called Griffith Park, where hundreds of horses and stables were kept. Some of the homes in the area even had stables built in, including the house where I lived with Connie, Daniel, Ben, Rissi, Shad, and Grey.

We’d initially planned to absorb any willing Frontmen into New Burbank, albeit kept on a short leash for the first few years of resettlement. But when we got here, there’d been more Frontmen left than we expected, and Karl was still their leader, despite the heavy casualties suffered by both sides during the Battle for Hoover. After a few skirmishes that threatened to escalate into another all-out war between our groups, Karl had simply walked into New Burbank and offered a truce. A few of us — like Ben — were ardently opposed to accepting the olive branch, but most in New Burbank were ready to end the fighting. Grey had expected today’s peace talks to end in a signed treaty, but the explosion had intervened.

When our wagon arrived at the hospital, nurses rushed out and moved Ben and the other severely wounded into the E.R. with Grey hot on their heels. I wanted to follow, but Jen, a nurse I’d met on several occasions when visiting Grey, ushered me into a large room full of curtained-off beds.

“Looks like Dr. Grey ordered a CT scan for you, Autumn!” she said perkily.

Dr. Grey? Seriously?
  I frowned at the top of her blonde head as she inspected my clipboard. Grey had said she was a good nurse, but I hated how she flirted with him, and every other guy in New Burbank.

“Ready?” she said, smiling up at me.

I took a deep breath and tried to smile and nod. She led me down the hall, responding with smiles and laughter to every greeting thrown her way. Her hair hung loose and shiny and swished as she walked, and even her light blue scrubs somehow looked runway ready.

The CT scan only took a few minutes, and at least I got to lie down and be still in the dark room, while the machine whirred around me. When we were done, Jen walked me back to my bed, stopping only twice to flirt.

“Any word on Ben yet?” I asked.

“Not yet. I can go and check on him once I get through all of my patients, if you like?” Her eyes seemed suddenly soft, and for a moment, I forgot how badly she annoyed me.

“If you can, that’d be great,” I said. Jen smiled and turned to leave, but I stopped her. “Is there anything I can do to help? I’m not hurt that bad.”

“We’ve got it, Autumn. Just stay here and try not to fall asleep.”  She held up her index finger as if to say
hold on
and disappeared for a moment before returning seconds later with a magazine. It was a three-year-old copy of
Women’s Day
with a beautifully iced chocolate cake filling the front cover, and a mascara ad gracing the back.

“It’s not the best reading, I’ll admit,” she said, grinning. “I’ll be back in a little while.” She slipped around the curtain, and I heard her footsteps grow quieter until they went away entirely.

I read the magazine front to back in an effort to stay awake and keep my concern about Ben at bay. It was all I could do to make myself stay put, but I wasn’t a surgeon. I could do nothing to help him right now. With no more chocolate cake recipes left to read and nowhere to go, my mind wandered... and soon I fell asleep.

All too soon, I was jolted awake by Shad.

“Hey, what are you doing? They told you to not to sleep, didn’t they?”

I was groggy and struggled to put my thoughts together for a moment. “They did,” I said. “I didn’t mean to. How’s Ben?”

Shad motioned for me to move over and joined me in the bed. He was covered in soot and dust, but I didn’t mind. He sighed and leaned his head against the wall. “Ben’s still in surgery. They wouldn’t tell me anything else.”

“Did you find the bomber?” I asked, sitting up and leaning against the wall next to him.

“No. I rode around for a while, and gave up and headed back here. There’s just too many places he could have gone.”  I didn’t often see Shad in a sullen state. It made my heart ache even more.

“Want a magazine?” I asked, handing him the copy of
Women’s Day
. He grinned, and we sat there, flipping through the pages and waiting.

Half an hour later, Jen came back to check on me as promised. She was surprised to find Shad sitting with me on top of the papery white sheets of my bed and completely absorbed in the magazine.

“If you want insight on women, Shad, you know you can always ask me,” Jen said, smiling. It was annoying, but it was exactly the lift Shad needed.

“How else am I supposed to learn how to impress you with 270 easy, no-cook dinners?” he asked, lowering the magazine to his chest.

“Oh, I think one easy, no-cook dinner would be enough to impress me.” She grinned widely, then cocked her head in mock-seriousness. “You’d better be letting my patient actually recover.”  She walked forward and whacked Shad’s foot with the clipboard, then turned toward me. “Your CT scans are back. Dr. Grey’s still in surgery with your friend, so I won’t be able to get an opinion for a while. Will you be okay waiting a bit longer?”

“Of course,” I said. “I want to wait until Grey’s done with Ben anyways.”

“Okay. Sit tight, and I’ll make sure Dr. Grey knows where to find you when he finishes.”  She gave a gentle smile to me, then smirked at Shad before leaving.

Then I heard Connie’s voice echoing down the hall. “Where’s my husband? Daniel, the really tall man with red hair! Yes, the pilot! Where is he? Someone at the desk told me he was down this way! Keep up, Little Miss Riss!”

Shad leaped off the bed and yanked open the curtains. Connie stalked down the hallway toward us, her blonde ponytail bobbing to match her brisk pace, an enormous designer purse hooked over one shoulder. She clutched the hand of a little girl who I always did a double take at these days. Rissi was Ben’s soon-to-be-nine-year-old sister, and she was changing before our eyes. Just since we’d arrived back in Southern California, she’d sprouted several more inches and had lost almost all of the baby roundness that had graced her cheeks when I first met her.

Rissi saw us before Connie did and tried to slip out of her grasp, but Connie held on, her exasperated voice making heads turn. “Rissi!”

“Autumn!” Rissi called out to me, waving.

 “Connie?”  Daniel appeared behind them.

“Daniel!” Connie cried, whipping around and launching herself toward him, dragging Rissi behind her.

“Shad!” Shad cried, throwing his arms around himself.

I jumped down from the bed and rushed toward the trio. Rissi gave an almighty yank, extracting herself from Connie’s grasp, knocking the enormous bag off her shoulder. She tackled me, her forehead banging against my collarbone.

Connie sighed and hitched her bag onto her shoulder again. “Honestly, Rissi, you’re going to give me a heart attack one of these days.”

“MA-rissa,” Rissi corrected, giving Connie a dark look over her shoulder, then looked up at me. “She doesn’t even try to remember I want to be called Marissa.”

“It’s hard to remember sometimes,” I said, trying to discreetly rub my potentially cracked collarbone. “We’ve only known you as Rissi.”

“It’s
such
a little girl’s name.” She buried her face dramatically in my neck. I patted her curly, brown hair.

“It’s just a sprain. I’m fine,” I heard Daniel say. I looked up as he gently pulled his bandage-wrapped wrist out of Connie’s hands and tenderly kissed her forehead. She smiled, then looked around at the rest of us, counting with her eyes.