From the Indie Side (7 page)

“Mommy.” It was Justin’s whimper, from
somewhere in the back.
Thank God.
Biting down on her lip to
control the pain, Emily crawled over the seat. She found him on the
floor, bundled up like a tight knot. He’d never opened the car
door. Surely if he had, he’d be dead. The car accident had saved
his life.

His eyes were large with fright, taking in
the chaos around him. A tear saddled one eye, while wet remains of
another ran to his chin. He held his thumb in his mouth, but his
lips pouted and shook when he reached out to hold his big sister.
The sight made a lump form in her throat, and she choked back a sob
as she wrapped her arms around his small body. For a moment,
brother and sister just clung to each other, a tiny pocket of
warmth in this cold new world. When she pulled back, his face was
blurred, and she had to blink away the emotion.

“Need you to help me, okay?” she asked, and
saw him flinch as a spatter of blood hit his face. Blood filled her
mouth, which she quickly spat out. “Can you help me?”

A hot ache had begun to consume her side,
pulsating from a rib that she thought might be broken. She guided
Justin back to his car seat, taking care to check him for injuries.
Pushing hair back from his somber face, she’d found only a small
cut, a bump rising and already turning a painful black and blue.
Being small has its advantages
, she thought, and then
buckled him back into his car seat.

“Here,” she said, pulling his thumb up for
him to grab. “You hold on to this for me.” Her plan to make him
laugh didn’t work, and he dropped his hands back down.

“Where’s Mommy?” he asked. His eyes were
large, glancing around, searching. “Your phone?”

Emily had forgotten about her phone, and
reached around to find it. Her heart lifted when she saw two
messages waiting for her. But they were older, many minutes older,
and she wondered if she’d been knocked out. She grabbed the back of
her head, finding the spot where it had hit the rearview mirror.
Like her brother, she had her own lump, and cringed when she
pressed on the bruise.

“How long were you sitting on the floor?” she
asked, but Justin only shrugged at the question. She held up her
phone, letting the light from the display brighten his face.

“It’s Dad!”

“What’s he say?” Justin’s spirits were
instantly brightened.

“The first message says that he
couldn’t”—Emily stopped, her mouth went dry and her chest
tightened—“he couldn’t get to work. He had to turn around.” Looking
at the gray poison covering their car, she understood that what
she’d awoken to that day might be forever.

“What else?” Justin asked, not understanding
the magnitude of the first message. Emily swiped her thumb across
the second message.

“He says that he’s on his way to the
mall!”

“What else?”

“Just those two,” she told him. “No more
messages. None for a while, now.”

“Tell Daddy we see him at the mall,” Justin
clapped, showing her a toothy grin, and then stopped and leaned
forward, staring past her. “But Mommy. Gotta get Mommy, too.”
Justin pointed a nubby finger toward the front.

Emily turned—and her heart leapt into her
throat. Standing outside the car door was the ghost of a woman, her
body eaten away by the poisonous fog. Blood streaked down the
woman’s face, taking with it clumps of skin and hair. Her mouth lay
agape, her jaw horribly broken. The sight was too much, and Emily
had to turn away from it. She shuddered, trembling, tried to make
herself look, but kept her eyes down. A pang of shame bit her for
not being stronger. Lifting her chin, she caught her mother’s
stare. There was horror and despair in those sunken eyes, but there
was also something familiar. Something parental. Protecting. Emily
cried out to her, reaching for the front seat.

“Mommy!” Justin cried. “What happened to
Mommy?”

“Justin, keep your eyes closed! Don’t you
look up!”

“But, Mommy! Why does she look like
that?”

“Cover them up, Justin.”

“I’m covering them… I’m not gonna look.”

“Good boy.”

Before Emily could reach her mother, she
watched her fall, heard the sound of her body scraping against the
car.

“Justin, keep your eyes covered!” Emily
yelled, her heart breaking when her brother began to cry. She made
her way back to the front, spitting more blood from her mouth. The
woozy feeling that had threatened earlier had been replaced by the
horror of what had happened to her mother. She must’ve been hit by
the other car, and now the fog was eating her. Emily tried to open
the car door, but it wouldn’t move. She pushed, straining, until
stars filled her eyes. Her mother was lying against the door,
holding it back.

“Mom!” Emily screamed, banging on the window.
“Momma, you have to move away from the door!” Two bangs rang out,
confusing her.

“What?” she asked. “What? Mom, let me open
the door.” Her voice was broken by a heavy sob.

Another bang on the door, followed by a
scraping sound against the metal. Emily pressed her head against
the window. The glass was cold, and a foreboding sense filled her.
It was the same feeling she’d had when Ms. Quigly had called to
them from outside their home.

“But Mom!” she cried. “Please…
please
let me open the door.” Her mother hammered again, objecting. Justin
whimpered, then called out to her. Tears dropped from Emily’s chin,
and her warm breath fogged the glass.

“Please, Momma,” she sobbed.

When the car’s engine began to sputter,
instinct took over. Emily turned and pressed her foot on the gas
pedal, revving the engine. She watched one of the orange needles
shoot around the dial. More knocks came. The first was solitary,
leaving Emily to think for a moment that her mother had died. Then
two more joined the first, and Emily saw the bloody glove of her
mother’s hand appear in the window. The hand moved across the
glass, up and over, again and again, before falling out of sight.
Emily leaned away from the door, trying to make out what her mother
had written on the glass. Alone, at the top, was a heart, outlined
in crimson red that glowed bright against the gray fog. And beneath
the heart, she read aloud one word. “GO!”

“Momma, no!” she cried, but the sputter of
the car’s engine threatened again. “I love you, Momma.” Emily
pressed the gas pedal, forcing the engine to keep idling. She
waited for a response, but there was nothing.

“You gonna get Mom?” Justin pleaded. Emily
could only shake her head as she tried pushing the car’s shifter
into drive. Her hand shook, and she fumbled with the button. She
heaved in a wet breath, choking on sobs that wouldn’t be denied.
She pushed again and shifted the car into drive. Although she’d
only had a few driving lessons, she managed to move the car around
until the GPS’s triangle showed they were pointed toward the mall.
Whatever it was that had hung up the front wheel before, it was now
gone. As the triangle followed the blue path, the constant blaring
of the other car’s horn grew more distant.

When the GPS told her it was time to turn,
she rolled the wheel. The car felt wobbly, pitching up and jerking
around, but the tires were full, the windows unbroken. Their car
had fared better than the other, somehow surviving the crash. She
listened to the horn’s death wail, thinking they’d probably hear it
all the way to the mall.

“What about Mom?” Justin repeated, but she
ignored him, spitting out another mouthful of blood. The mall was
all that she could think about now.

* *
*

“Two more turns,” Emily said, tracing her
finger along the GPS’s blue path. The point on the map where they’d
crashed was already well behind them, far enough to silence the
other car’s horn. They’d driven on, slow and steady. And by now,
Emily thought, her mother was probably dead. Justin had stayed
quiet, and she wondered if he could be too young to mourn. She
wasn’t, though. More than once she thought she’d have to pull over
and cry away the pain, put it to rest for another mile. But she
stayed on course. They were almost there.

She’d only looked through the windshield once
or twice, quickly learning to rely on the GPS’s smaller screen.
Emily reached up and touched one of the cracks. The glass was wet.
The fog was coming in, condensing on the inside. She quickly
snuffed out the burn forming on her fingertips, then pressed on the
gas pedal. She picked up the roll of plastic bags and hung it over
her shoulder for her brother.

“Justin?” she called out, but heard
nothing.

Movement.

“Come on, Justin!”

A groan.

“Costumes, we’re going to make costumes.”

Another groan. And then silence.
What’s he
doing?

“Justin? Come on now, wake up. We’re almost
there. Time to see Dad.”

Too quiet. A lump formed in her throat.

Emily moved the rearview mirror back into
place. Justin’s reflection came into view, his image fractured by
cracks and missing pieces of glass. But she could see him, and
gasped. Her brother’s face had gone deathly pale and his lips had
turned almost white. A maternal feeling sprang to life, and Emily
slammed on the brakes, jerking their bodies forward.

“Wake up, Justin! I need you to wake up,
now!”

Justin stirred, lifting his tiny hand to
where she’d seen the cut atop his head.

“You bumped your head,” she told him, and
then opened a bottle of water. “You have to stay awake. You hear
me? We’re almost there.” Emily poured the cold water onto his head,
waking him. To her relief, he cried out, shouting at her and
waving, shooing her away. His eyes opened wide and they looked
clear. She poured another splash onto his head. Justin’s hands flew
in a fury of swipes, his little mouth gasping as though he’d been
thrown into a pool.

“What you doing?”

“Time to play costumes,” she told him, and
handed him some plastic bags. “We’re going to see Dad in a minute.”
Justin took hold of a plastic bag, then pointed at her.

“Blood, Emily,” he said, wiping at his own
mouth. “Bleeding.” Emily spat out the blood in her mouth and moved
her hand to her side. She’d hit the windshield hard, breaking
something, and it was deep, causing her to bleed internally.

“I know, buddy. I’ll be okay.” Her voice
wavered, filled with uncertainty. “Another turn and we’ll be at the
mall. Understand?” Justin nodded, and she watched some of the color
return to his face.

The last mile was a near blur. Emotion, and
whatever had broken inside her, had started to take hold. Emily
followed the blue line until she hit a parked car, bouncing off of
it. But unlike the car that had crashed into them, she’d gone slow
enough that she could back away and continue on.

Emily bumped into another parked car and then
a third. From the backseat, Justin had become livelier, laughing at
the comical way his body bumped around.

“Daddy never does that,” he said. “Again,
again, again!”

“Not now. Not on purpose, anyway.” Her words
sounded slurred and her mind felt foggy. “Got all your plastic
on?”

“Uh-huh,” he answered. “But I don’t know how
to make eyeballs.”

“Push a finger through the plastic.” She
heard the thin sound of plastic stretching and popping. The car hit
something again. But it wasn’t another parked car. They’d hit the
concrete curb separating the asphalt from the mall’s entrance.
They’d made it. All at once, Emily thought she was going to begin
crying.

“A hundred steps,” she said aloud. “A hundred
steps to the doors.” A small fact she’d learned only because she
and her girlfriends had counted them out one afternoon after they’d
grown bored. She stopped then and thought maybe she could drive
over the curb—drive up to the doors.
The bollards
, she
remembered. Stumpy concrete legs sprouting up through the pavement
like guardian statues. They’d been installed after the last
hurricane, keeping the cars off the sidewalk. She couldn’t see
them, but they were there.

“Are you ready, Justin?”

“I’m ready,” he answered. “But where is your
costume?” Emily grabbed the plastic bags and stretched one over her
left arm, grimacing when pain knifed from deep inside her. She
grabbed another bag, pulling it up her other arm, punching a hole
for her hand. More pain that threatened to make her black out. The
inside of the car was turning over, and for a moment she couldn’t
remember why they were at the mall. Dizzy, she cradled her head.
Their time was short.

“Emily?” she heard. “Let’s go, Emily. I wanna
see Dad.”

“The water,” she slurred. “Cover your head
with the plastic, we’re going.” Opening a bottle, she dumped it
over her head, pushing down her hair. The cold water woke her up.
Her long red tresses fell flat, covering her face.

Soon her feet were outside and the salty fog
captured her lungs. The condensation on the car’s handle burned
instantly. She ignored it, opened Justin’s door, and sucked in the
car’s air.

“Take a deep breath, and hold it as long as
you can.”

“Hold it?”

“Try holding your breath, okay? On
three.”

“On three? But I’m scared.”

“I am too. Dad will be in there.”

Justin reached up, clutching his sister’s
neck.

“One… two… three!”

Emily began counting as she walked toward the
mall’s tall glass doors. This was one walk she could do with her
eyes shut. A straight shot. One hundred steps from the curb to the
doors—eyes open or closed.

By the twentieth step, the air had leached
through her wet hair, but she pushed forward, stretching her gait.
Tears were streaming down her face as her eyes tried desperately to
wash the poison burning them. Justin’s hands were loosening,
falling away from her.