I Hope You Find Me (15 page)

We were two blocks from the hotel when Zoey
started barking. Connor was pushing the cart and he stopped to
glance behind us.

“Riley, look,” he said quietly.

I searched the street around us and down the
sidewalk, not seeing anything other than parked cars, buildings and
a handful of military vehicles. Zoey had stopped barking, and was
cowering behind my legs, between me and Connor. I started to turn
back towards Connor when I saw her. A girl. She was standing alone,
in the middle of the road, a few blocks away. I could see her red
overcoat and a red hat sitting atop her long black hair, but she
was too far away to make out much more. She was standing in the
street, facing our direction, not moving.

“Oh my god,” I breathed. I began jogging
toward her, straight down the street.

Several seconds later I heard Connor yell,
“Wait, Riley, wait!” But I didn’t stop. I couldn’t. I registered
the sound of Connor’s feet lightly slapping the ground almost a
full block behind me but I didn’t turn to look at him.

I pumped my legs harder and when I was close
enough to see her clearly I realized she was young…five, maybe six
years old. In addition to her coat and hat she was wearing a pair
of white tights, with the knees stained a dark color, like she had
kneeled in dirt. Blood pounded through my temples and again Connor
yelled at me to stop but I couldn’t, I was less than a block away
from the child.

I ran right up to her and skidded to a stop
within arm’s reach. My chest was heaving, and I sucked the air in
at the same time I reached out and touched her arm. The twill
fabric of her coat was rough beneath my fingers. The sunshine broke
through the patchy cloud cover and sprayed across her, causing
sparkles to bounce through her dark hair.

“Sweetie, are you okay?” The words came out
in pants and my breath trailed out before me in puffs. It was cold.
I left my hand near her shoulder and shook her gently when she
didn’t answer me. She was pale, and a familiar red blotchy pattern
bloomed out from her nose and mouth. The blood capillaries had
burst in different places all around her face and neck like little
fireworks had gone off below her skin. Her eyes were so dark I
couldn’t see the pupils, and her vision was frozen straight ahead,
as if she was looking right through me.

“Honey, can you hear me?” I pleaded, but
still she didn’t answer.

My hand dropped from her shoulder and Connor
shouted my name from the curb a hundred feet away. In my peripheral
vision I saw movement on my right and left. I looked over my
shoulder and dozens of people were walking towards me, their faces
all fixed on mine. It was the same from the other side of the
street. I jumped to my feet; my breath still ragged from the run,
and turned in circles. Men, women and children approached me from
all four sides of the street, moving quickly, and filing in next to
each other so close that their shoulders bumped together.

Terrified, I yelled for Connor and thought I
heard him respond but he sounded muffled and impossibly far away.
Every face I saw was either streaked with blood or covered with
blotchy skin abrasions like the young girl standing near me. The
mass of bodies surrounded us, and the noise from all the cries of
anguish and pain was deafening. I squeezed my hands against my ears
as I turned around and around, screaming in fear.

The first one to reach me was a man wearing
only a sagging pair of pants, with dark, sickly colored blood
flowing freely from his nose. His eyes were clouded over with a
white mucous substance that oozed down his cheeks and his flesh
hung from him like a poorly fitted suit. When he reached for me,
grabbing forcefully at my shirt, I shrieked at him in horror.
Behind me hands tugged at my hair, pushed against my back, shoved
at me, groped me. I tried to smack the hands away but there were
too many, hundreds of bodies slammed into me. The smell of death
filled my nostrils, and I choked on the rancid odor. An elderly
woman clothed in a nightgown snagged my right arm and when I
struggled to push her off, some of her long frizzy grey hair
tangled in my fingers and came out in fleshy clumps. These people
weren’t alive, they were rotting. Repulsed, I screeched so high
pitched my ears rang.

The mob swayed and pushed and swelled around
me until I was sure I would suffocate. Even though my voice was
hoarse I screamed over and over for Connor. Someone pulled on my
legs and I tumbled to the hot asphalt in a trembling, blubbering
mess. I curled into the fetal position as darkness closed in around
me. The swarm of dead bodies began to still and move together in a
slow sway as a small pair of black dress shoes came to a stop by my
head. I looked up and saw the little girl with the red overcoat
standing above me, her hand reaching for me. She was looking at me
with a pleading expression and when she moved her lips to speak,
congealed blood bubbled out of her mouth.

I dropped my head to the street and let the
darkness take me.

CHAPTER NINE

When Riley saw the little girl, her first
instinct was to run to her but Connor froze. He let Riley get more
than half a block away before he snapped out of it and pursued her.
He noticed the materializing crowd of people before she did and he
yelled, screamed at her to stop and come back to him, but before he
could reach her, the mob closed tightly around her and he panicked
at the sound of Riley’s shouts. He ran straight into the legion of
crying bodies but only got five feet in before they surrounded him.
Arms yanked him back and forth, hands grabbed at his clothing. The
smell of rot was so strong he couldn’t breathe the air. Even though
his eyes saw it happen, his brain refused to believe it. One second
the street was empty, and the next the horizon shimmered, as if
cooking under a hot desert sun, and they were just…there.

He tried to choke out Riley’s name into the
pulsating crowd but only heard her screaming in response. A teenage
boy reached out at his face and he pushed the arm away, sliding a
huge chunk of skin off the young boys arm from the elbow to the
wrist. He gagged as the bloody flesh hit the pavement with a wet
sound. He kept screaming for Riley, lost in a panic that threatened
to drive him mad and until the shoving from the bodies around him
halted so suddenly he lost his balance and stumbled to his knees.
His hands were covered in dark, lumpy blood and he held them away
from him in disgust.

“
What the fuck’s going on?” He screamed
into the sky.

The pack of people began to move backwards,
away from him, and gradually dissipated the same way they had
appeared until he could only see a few dozen or so bodies moving
away from him. He blinked, baffled, as they shimmered, like a
mirage…and were gone. They disappeared, right before his eyes.

“
This isn’t happening.” He muttered to
himself, as movie scenes from every ghost flick he had ever seen
flashed through his mind.

The frenzied barking from Zoey in the
distance snapped his head back up the street. He struggled to his
feet and saw Riley lying motionless in the middle of the
intersection, curled into a fetal ball. He ran for her, screaming
her name.

“
Oh my god! Riley, please be okay!” He
slid to a stop beside her.

The clicking of Zoey’s nails grew louder as
she scurried down the sidewalk behind him. His whole body shook
with tremors as he lifted Riley’s head off the ground and placed it
in his lap. He paused to look at his hands, which were clean, each
nail neatly groomed, no traces left of the bloody mess he had just
scrambled through and a shiver of anxiety ran through his body. He
couldn’t have imagined it all, could he?

Riley was unresponsive but breathing. He
checked her head for bumps and scrapes and found none. He hoped she
simply passed out and that nothing else was wrong with her. Zoey
rushed him from behind, whining and nudging Riley’s arm as he stood
and lifted her carefully into his arms, and began walking the
several blocks back to the hotel. His eyes continually scanned the
streets, the doorways, the cars, for any sign of movement. He had
never been more terrified in his life. There was nothing logical in
his mind that could explain what happened, at that moment he didn’t
want explanations, he wanted Riley safe inside the hotel, away from
this street.

He was perspiring heavily by the time they
reached the hotel lobby. He grunted as he struggled with the door
and cursed when his grip slipped from around Riley’s legs, nearly
dropping her. When he reached the elevator he pounded the call
button but kept his eyes locked on the lobby doors. Zoey brushed
against his legs, shaking and whining. When the elevator opened,
they rushed inside and he leaned against the wall, holding Riley
close to his chest. Even though his arms felt like Jell-O, he
refused to set her down, not until he was behind a locked door. His
feet stumbled into the twentieth floor hall and he weaved down the
walkway to the end and cursed at his keycard after realizing it was
in his back pocket. Squatting, he rested Riley’s legs against his
own and yanked the keycard out, slipping it into the lock. The
second he entered the suite he slammed the door shut, engaging the
bolt. He laid Riley on the sofa and stumbled into the kitchen. When
he returned, he draped a wet towel across her sweaty forehead and
collapsed onto the carpet next to her. No matter how many times he
replayed what happened through his mind, it didn’t make sense. His
temples pounded with a stress headache unlike one he had ever had
before, and he thought for sure if his head went on hurting this
way it would split in half.

Riley woke fifteen minutes later, thrashing
and screaming. When he tried to hug her she threw his arms off and
punched at the air around her. He had to grip her wrists and yell
into her face, “Riley! Riley, it’s Connor! It’s me!” before her
eyes focused on him and she sunk into the sofa in sobs. She was
trying to talk but the words were swallowed up by convulsive cries.
He pulled her heaving body into his and held her while he cried
into her neck. He kept telling her it was okay, they were okay,
they were safe.

Several minutes passed and gradually her
weeping turned to sniveling. Her ragged gulps for air became a
steady inhale and exhale and he pushed her away from him just far
enough to see her face. Puffy bags protruded from beneath her
bloodshot eyes, and she licked at her swollen and chapped lips.

“
Can you drink some water?” He asked her,
picking up a glass from the coffee table.

She nodded yes, and took a sip before
abruptly turning away from him and throwing up onto the carpet.

Once inside his bathroom, he stripped all
her clothing off except for her bra and underwear. She let him help
her into the massive tub and began filling it with hot water. As
the steam curled up around them, fogging up the mirrors and
flattening his hair to his head, he used his hand to scoop up the
water and pour it over her back. He dribbled the warm water across
her neck and shoulders, and watched it trail down her arms in
little rivers. She sat in the tub silently with her knees drawn to
her chest, and her eyes closed tightly as he washed her, as best he
could.

After he drained the tub, she was more alert
and aware of his movements. He left her huddled in one of his large
bathrobes to retrieve dry clothes from her room, but she called for
him to stay with her, so he held a towel out in front of him as she
slithered from his robe and out of her wet undergarments, stepping
into a pair of his boxers. He stood behind her and pulled one of
his shirts over her head and down her bare back while she wiggled
her arms into the long sleeves. Wind shook against the side of the
building, whistling along the bedroom windows as he guided her to
the bed and pulled the covers back for her to climb in. She grabbed
onto his arm, and pleaded with him not to leave her.

Zoey had followed them both from the sofa to
the bathroom, to the bedroom, and once Riley was in bed, the dog
jumped onto the mattress and cuddled up to Riley’s back. They were
all traumatized, the three of them, clinging to each other.

When he knew that Riley was asleep he
whispered over her head at the dog, “Go pee in the bathroom,
because I’m not taking you outside.” Zoey’s dark round eyes darted
from him to the door, as if she agreed it was safer where they
were.

He told himself they were leaving the next
day. He had to get them out of the city. Whatever it was that
happened, he sure as hell wasn’t going to stick around to see if it
would happen again. And that’s when he realized the cart they had
filled with supplies was still on the sidewalk, at least two blocks
from the hotel. The truck, we’ll pick it up with the truck…that’s
if it’s still there in the morning, he thought to himself.

He passed out with his arms safely wrapped
around Riley and sank into a deep, frightful sleep. He was on an
Irish hill, overlooking a valley, holding Roan’s hand. When he
turned to smile at his son, the boy pulled away from him and the
flesh from his hand slid off into his in a bloody and pulpy mess.
Terror spread through him as he stared at the chunk of skin smeared
between his fingers. When he looked up, Roan was gone, so he ran
down the hillside screaming for his son. All he found at the bottom
was a puddle of blood surrounded by the grass of the meadow that
stretched before him like waves on the sea.

Connor trembled and moaned in his sleep
through most of the night, while Riley dreamed of a little girl in
a red overcoat. Though they were lost in their own nightmares,
neither let go of the other while they slept and both were grateful
for dawn, when the sun washed over them, and forced the dreams
away.