Angela shrugged.
“I don’t really know, sir. I haven’t been told much, but –”
A scream tore the air near the pavilion stage. Feet pounded the bricks in a rush, refugees swarming volunteers.
“It’s food!” someone yelled.
“Hey, let’s keep order here!” the military man said, pushing his way through the crowd. Someone grabbed the gun and downed him, issuing the butt of the rifle into the man’s gut. More people surged forward. Other men with rifles tried to fight their way through the horde, but it was useless.
Daniel and Angela watched from the top level. They sat there horror stricken, as if the people below had lost their minds.
Daniel looked to the crowd, then down to Cassie, who had fallen asleep despite the tumult. He looked back to the mob below, which now saw more military men trying to control them.
It wasn’t working, Daniel could see. Loaves of bread took off like planes departing Logan, coming down as if clueless pilots were at the controls. Rounded cheese flew up and landed without bouncing.
Then the gunshots cracked. Screams blistered the air, caroming off the concrete and bricks. Cassie woke from the noise, afraid. Daniel picked her up, the blanket clinging to her. He moved toward Congress Street. Angela, however, stayed rooted to the spot, unmoving, watching the chaos unfold like a terrible dream.
Daniel ran for the stairway near the federal building. Several others ran alongside. He made the quick dash carrying his sweet burden as fast as he could. He hurried north along Congress Street and looked for his car.
He found his car covered in a light coating of ash. He wiped the handle and opened the door.
“Get in the back seat, sweetie,” he said.
“Daddy, where are we going? Another car ride? I thought we were staying here.”
“I know honey, but just do as I ask, okay?”
Cassie didn’t put up another argument. She got in and buckled her seat belt by herself before Daniel hurried around the front to his seat.
A mob spilled out of City Hall Plaza. Several carried bricks, as if they ripped them out of the ground. They walked north.
Daniel tried the ignition. The engine groaned, but it wouldn’t start.
“Come on, turn over you stupid, fucking –”
“Language, daddy!”
“Sorry, sweetie. Sometimes I need to –”
Glass shattered around them. Cassie screamed as the brick zipped through the windshield. Daniel gasped. The car began rocking as the throng reached them. More glass shattered, this time on other cars.
“Shit!” Daniel tried the engine again, and finally it sang a revving chorus. Daniel laughed.
“Gun it, daddy! I’m scared!”
Daniel didn’t care there were people surrounding his car, or that there was a large hole in the middle of his windshield. He put the car in drive and drove his right foot onto the accelerator, turning the wheel left. He didn’t hit the brake.
Several of the rioters fell to the ground, grasping their broken legs and hips. Some landed on the hood of Daniel’s Mazda, but couldn’t hang on for long as he sped away from the scene. They cracked their heads on the pavement. Most got out of the way. Some weren’t so lucky.
Daniel made a U-turn when he got to Faneuil Hall, heading north on Congress. He thanked God for the steel fencing on the traffic island. He sped away toward the North End, his dented Mazda keeping to the road. Ash slid off the car like snow on the highway in winter.
A tank cut him off as he meandered closer to the submerged Central Artery. Daniel swerved and nearly hit the stationary military men, all of whom lifted their weapons after the fact.
Cassie just cried.
Bullets tinkled against the chassis. None hit the tires.
Sweat slicked Daniel’s forehead as he drove away, beads sliding down his bloodless face.
“We need to find a safe place, sweetie.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know. Let’s just drive and hope we don’t find any road closures.”
They didn’t find any as they drove north out of Boston; but they didn’t stop anywhere in Massachusetts. They looked northward to less populated areas – places where they would be the only refugees, places where they could grieve privately.
Daniel also wanted to change their names. For what he just did on the streets of Boston, he didn’t want to be found by anyone.
Not even by Angela.
A HARMLESS AMERICAN
by David Dalglish
Javier watched her swim until she drowned.
The Rio Grande glowed majestic in the pale light of the moon. He was far from the floodlights, the big camps and the bridges. The water flowed quiet and wide, every inch of its surface covered with ash. The far side was a vast stretch of dry packed earth, whatever grass there long dead from the darkened sky. Because of how open and bare the approach, and how far they were from any nearby roads and bridges, Javier had only a spotlight the size of his fists to aim and search the waters. He hadn’t seen her, though, only heard her last desperate cry.
“Help!” she cried, and even though he spoke no English, Javier knew that universal beg. It’d only been shouted across the river a million times over the past few months. He grabbed the light, which sat on an emptied crate beside him. After a minute, he found her, a young teenage girl struggling against the current. She was halfway across, but no longer swimming. Just thrashing, flailing, fighting a losing battle. Her gasps were uneven, and every bit she drank was poison.
Javier shook his head and pulled his coat tighter about him. They always underestimated how cold the Rio Grande could be. Even in Mexico the sun was a rare thing, its warmth fleeting. Rolling down from the mountains, it was an iceflow coated with ash, and at its bottom were a thousand corpses.
When the light shone in the girl’s eyes, she stopped for a moment. It was always the same, and no matter how many nights he stayed stationed at the border, he never thought he’d get used to it. A look would flash briefly across the swimmer’s face, their tired, scared eyes filling with both fear and desperate hope. Then it’d slowly fade as they realized there would be no help, no swimmers, no ropes or liferafts. Just the dreadful noise of the waters as they swam on, fighting cold, ash, current, and darkness.
And then if they did survive, well…
Javier drew his pistol, checked the clip, and then rest it on his hip. In the end, there was no need. The girl’s thrashing slowed, and her screams for help slowly faded. The river took her, pulled her facedown southward. Javier shook his head, feeling a chill work its way up his spine.
Too cold, he thought. Too damn cold.
He smoked to pass the time, not caring that the soft orange glow of the tip might hurt his night vision. The way he saw it, the less he saw, the better. Nothing could compare to those first hellish nights after the Caldera had erupted. If the moon was covered and the stars dimmed, sometimes he’d imagine arms sticking up in the water, heads bobbing just above the surface, and the wail of the wind would seem to carry the voices of the drowning…
A thump, just to his left. He stood, knocking over the spotlight with his elbow. Swearing, he pulled a flashlight out from his pocket and flicked it on. With his other hand he grabbed his gun from the ground and then he began searching. It didn’t take long to find her. A thick log had washed up against the shore, and clinging to it was a young girl. She looked four, maybe five. It was hard to tell with such poor light, the ash clinging to her like dark snow. She was crying, sobbing a word in English over and over again. When the light of his flashlight shone in her eyes, she squinted and looked up at him.
The gun was heavy in his hand. The girl stared, just stared. Her eyes were green. Her nose was small, her ears almost like those of an elf. Crying. So small, and crying.