Author's Note:I really want all of you reviewers that I appreciate your feedback more than you could ever know. Thanks a bunch.
Oh, and Jackie, I'm going to call that girl who wrote Bleed Like Me and totally intimidate her into working. Oh, she'll do it once I'm finished with her.
Disclaimer: Let me make it very clear that I have a mortal fear of lawyers, and, for all intents and purposes, do not own the Ferriers (except for Robbie, you all know that very, very well ), because Spielberg does. And... I don't. M'kay?
Don't Panic
Chapter Three
"Looking so long at these pictures of you
But I never hold onto your heart
Looking so long for the words to be true
But always just breaking apart
My pictures of you…"
—The Cure, 'Pictures of You'
As it turned out, sleep wasn't very easy to come by. Ray's eyes kept wandering, always finding their way to the window, the view of chaos and destruction and a smoldering city of despair. He found himself pondering how long… how long did they have until running was inevitable? How long was it 'til the light of dawn would illuminate the day and shake the menacing shadows of night? How long did they have until one of them was gone forever… dead?
Ray rolled over, searching for a comfortable position that didn't seem to exist. His body now faced Rachel, squirming in an uneasy sleep and twisting the sheets into whirlwinds of cloth. Even in the absence of most light, he could see her eyes searching wildly behind the lids, scouring the dark. Nightmares. They were bound to happen. Hauntings worth screaming because of all of the things you'd seen and done were the price to pay for going on. Carrying those memories was a burden no child should've ever had to bear.
He chased these excruciating thoughts away; it was too hard to think them anymore. He needed something to occupy his time other than thinking. His arms pressed against the floor, lifting his torso so that he could sit up and examine the room more carefully. Sitting before him, now that he turned his body a little, was a shelf filled with books from years past, though none seemed quite stimulating enough for the occasion. Ray's fingers brushed against their spines, until he stopped at a particularly thick one with no title evident. Curious, he slipped it out, letting the other novels collapse in the space left behind. He stared at the cover for a moment, and let a laugh slip away. Memories, it said in peeling gold letters. It was Mary Ann's scrapbook. He pushed aside the jacket and gazed at the contents. As he leafed through the pages, he saw most of them contained snapshots of a young Mary Ann and her friends and family, with construction paper and little random objects providing a background. As he hit the middle, though, he saw himself in some of the pictures. There was even a strip of photos from one of those silly photo booths on Coney Island. In Mary Ann's handwriting, it read on the paper next to it "Ray and Mary, '85". Wow. He'd never seen himself look so happy. Or Mary Ann.
God, was he ever proven wrong.
He turned a couple of pages before the maelstrom of Robbie pictures hit. There was the card that identified his name when he was in the nursery, a few more pictures of just Robbie… and then… there was the three of them, Ray, with his Yankee baseball cap hanging a bit askew on his head, Mary Ann sitting in her hospital bed, glowing with Robbie in her arms. They were happy. Though, Robbie was a pretty weird looking kid, Ray had to admit. Those eyes, like, took up half of the baby's face. Okay, it was an exaggeration, but the eyes were even bigger than his mouth was. So there.
The pictures including Ray diminished a little, with less of him, and more of a young Robbie and Mary Ann. A few years had been almost completely disregarded until the other flood of pictures came, with Rachel. She'd been a load of trouble when it came to all those pictures. Even when she was a baby, she'd flail her arms to conceal her face from the camera, and had a healthy fear of the flash button. These pictures were only a small percentage of the pictures actually taken, these were just the ones in which they'd managed to get a good look at Rachel's face. And, then, came the last picture. The one with eight-year-old Rachel and a scowling thirteen-year-old Robbie and Mary Ann and he back in Jersey. The picture Ray had himself. The cutoff after that was kind of frightening. It was as if life had stopped after that moment. He shut the album with a loud clap and a rising cloud of dust from the pages.
He'd kind of wished he hadn't done it once Rachel had been aroused. There was a mixture of contempt and anguish on her face as she sat up in Mary Ann's bed. She stared at her hand, twisting her face to rid herself of tears. Rachel whimpered, continuing to fight away her cries that she'd so easily given into before.
"Rach?" Ray called softly, scooting himself over to the bed, bumping Robbie and waking him up, too. "What's up, a bad dream?" he guessed, trying to play the concern without getting frustrated. She shook her head. "Is it—I told you, Rachel!" he added, noticing her prolonged glances at her pointer finger. "It's going to get infected."
"No," she replied firmly. "It's going to come out—"
"Just let me—"
"No!"
"Hun, if it hurts that much, just let me take it out."
"No, you're gonna—"
"Just—" Ray said between gritted teeth. "Stay—still…" he examined it for a moment. Okay, Ray wasn't the smartest guy in the world, and he obviously didn't know everything, but he did know that Rachel's finger wasn't supposed to have bright red streaks extending from it, and it wasn't supposed to ooze sickening, vomit-yellow pus like a grotesque human volcano. Well, they weren't exactly in sanitary land for the past few days…
"It hurts," she informed him, her whole fragile body growing shaky with tears.
"Robbie, go get some… hydrogen peroxide… or—and tweezers… and… band-aids… or whatever else might help." Ray ordered. Robbie, still half-asleep, marched away.
"Dad, no, don't take it out, please…" Rachel's eyes expanded.
"Rachel," he retorted, wishing he could remember her middle name at a time like this. "It's gonna get even worse if I keep it in there."
This time, before she could open her mouth to counter, Robbie reappeared. "I couldn't find much," the teen explained. "They took a lot of stuff from the medicine cabinet, too, but, lucky us, they didn't leave the Spongebob Band-Aids or the disinfectant behind. Woopidity doo."
"What about tweezers?" Ray snapped.
"Couldn't find any." Robbie shrugged, his face turning sympathetic towards Rachel.
"So you're not getting it out?" Rachel asked, sounding a little too relieved.
"No, I'll just pull it out," Ray clarified. "Look, Rach, I'm not going to lie to you. It's gonna hurt. But, if you let me do this… I'll—"
"—let you stick all the Spongebob Band-Aids on Dad's face." Robbie finished with a triumphant smile. Ray shot a glare, but gave in.
"Okay, let me see your hand," Ray commanded, and she tentatively held it out. "I'll pull it out on the count of three… one… two—"
"OUCH!" Rachel withdrew her hand, the splinter out, but a mixture of blood and an excretion of pus flowing freely from where it had once been. "You said on three! I wasn't ready!"
"You wouldn't have let me if I didn't do it sooner." Ray admitted.
Once Rachel had gained enough trust back from her brother and father, she let them douse her finger in disinfectant, though this hurt even more, and Ray wiped away a collection of a blackish substance and some of the pus with a Kleenex, but it still looked intimidating and harmful.
"They're gonna have to chop off your finger, Rae," Robbie teased, wrapping a Band-Aid with little Patrick's all over it around the affected area.
"No, they aren't," she said instantly, grabbing the box from her brother and remove the sticky paper from the Band-Aid. "Are they?" she pressed it against a scratch on Ray's forehead.
"Yes, yes they will," Ray said sarcastically. "And they'll send your finger in wrapping paper back to your house."
Rachel, clever enough to understand the distinct art that was cynicism, replied dryly, "Ha, ha."
"Hey, Dad, what's this?" Robbie picked up the discarded photo album from the floor.
"Nothing," said his father, ignoring the fact that he'd even glanced at it. Another item left on the carpeting made itself noticed as well. The rock he'd thrown was now glowing again, much brighter than before, filling the room with an eerie white light.
"What's going on?" Rachel's voice cracked, dropping a Band-Aid. The stone had darkened again, as quickly as it had lit up, but, now, another light replaced it.
The lightning was back.
From all of the illumination it had provided, the trio could see the beams striking against of the tripods, some of these machines barely able to hold themselves up. Suddenly, Ogilvy's words shot through Ray's mind: "These are only the first. They'll keep coming."
"We're leaving."