Old Annie McKinley, grandmother, great-grandmother, retired prima ballerina and bakery owner of the last forty-nine years reacted first. She was cleaning the windows in front of her cake display when it happened; the much used yellow cloth fluttered to the floor in a movement of grace and feather elegance. The bottle of cleaning fluid plummeted like a stone; the slight crack and loose pebble in the tile inlayed floor caught the base of the bottle, splitting it savagely in two. Blue liquid sprayed out in a circle around the wreckage, pooling and seeping into the porous white grouting; changing it irrevocably. Mrs. McKinley lunged for her telephone, all thoughts of bread and pastries vanished as her heart twisted.
Jack Norris, retired Marine Sergeant and father of three was walking home from the elementary school with Nora, his youngest, when he saw a blur of red out of the corner of his eye. A veteran of both Iraq and Afghanistan, he threw himself to the side when his hard learned automatic reactions fired. Cradling his two year old daughter to his chest he rolled, curled and took refuge behind a stand of fruit outside the general store. Nora wailed softly into his shirt as the red blur hit a bucket of mixed apples; a wet, fluffy mass of red and green coated the man and child as the force of the impact filleted the fruit into miniscule airborne particles.
Inside the general store Edgar Wallis, lifetime resident and sixty-five year owner, felt more than heard the impact outside his shop. He turned in time to see bunches of bananas and grapes tumble into the street. He scowled, thinking that the wretched Lawson kid was playing the hooligan yet again. Gripping his cane with tight ire, he made his way to the glass paned doorway, peering out into the street. The Norris boy was lying behind his strawberries, clutching his baby. Edgar liked Jack, who often helped the old man with jobs that were getting to be too much for his old bones these days. Edgar watched Jack sit up, soothing little Nora. Edgar had a soft spot for her; he often played with the child when Jack came to help. Satisfied they were fine, if not a little messy, Edgar looked up into the street. His eyes, a little cloudy with age but helped by thick glasses, were slower to focus than he would have liked. Seeing the mangled remains strewn across the street the old man clutched the doorframe, flashing back to his newly eighteen year old self on the beaches of Normandy, with the ever recurrent surge of terror gripping him in its iron cold vice.
Phoebe Miller, the sixteen year old daughter of the Mayor, was sitting at the bus station waiting for her ride to physiotherapy. Thinking about the argument with her father over breakfast that morning, she eyed Mr. Wallis' display of strawberries. They were her favorite food bar none, and his were always particularly succulent and tempting. She glanced at her watch; she was early, and the bus was never punctual. There was plenty of time to go and see the friendly old man. She gripped the wheels of her chair and began to roll toward the general store, thinking resentfully about her father. She hated being homeschooled; being unable to walk didn't mean she was unable to learn in a classroom. About to roll off the curb, she threw her wheels into reverse with a gasp. Her chair slammed into the wall behind her as the air screamed with the grating sound of metallic protestations. The thunderous crash pressed on the girl's eardrums; the wave of pressure in the air pushed against her lungs and sternum, making her gasp for breath.
…
A plume of dust rose into the air as the red van ploughed through the dry summer flowerbed diagonally across from the bakery before slamming into the brick wall on the other side. The van bounced back slightly, stopping with its rear tires atop a row of rose bushes. The wall cracked and wavered momentarily, before crumbling away from the point of impact and leaving a gaping hole into the church yard behind. The driver slithered from his seat to the ground and sat among the roses, dazed.
…
The immediate silence after the deafening noise of the crash was almost unbearable. Annie McKinley felt an acute pain in her soul, like the shattered knee that had so abruptly ended her ballet career. Jack gasped for air, his battle scars burning as he clutched his girl to him. Edgar felt the bullet rip through his chest again as he stared into the enemy's eyes once more. In her chair, closest to the red van, Phoebe's eyes and nose ached with the acidic tang of burned rubber, and the dirt and brick dust that had been thrust at her. She coughed and blinked rapidly, tears scouring the dirt away in hot, fiery tracks. Her vision slowly clearing, she took in the calamity before her.
The air was thick with a hazy combination of dust and loose, dry soil that slowly began to settle again, coating all it touched in its decent back to earth. It was such a gentle movement, in contrast to the ferocious intrusion that had thrust it out of place only an instant before; like snowflakes drifting dreamily in a raging thunder storm. Though silence reigned with absolute bearing as both engines cut out, all of the observers felt the continued scream of abused metal ringing deep in their ears and skulls, even their very bones. It was Nora's wailing cry that cut through the fog of destruction first.
As Annie hung up the phone and ran to the door of her shop, Jack was staggering to his feet with Nora. Turning, he saw Edgar in the throes of a flashback. Grabbing the old man, he forced him back to reality and pressed the baby into his arms.
"Call for help," he ordered softly. Edgar nodded, clutching the child securely. Phoebe rolled over to the red van driver; he was leaning into a rose, seemingly unaware of the thorns. Getting closer the girl wrinkled her nose at the sour scent seeping from pores of his skin and the fabric of his clothing. Wedged precariously against the open door of the van was a can; as the ground shifted slightly, unaccustomed to the new weight bearing down on it, the can tipped onto its side. A stream of dark brown liquid flowed out like water down a rocky fall. The beer pooled and swirled on the ground, smothering a handful of ants carrying food back to their nest. The man gave a hiccupping snort and leaned further back into the bush, eyes closed in slumber. With a disgusted hiss, Phoebe turned her chair and rolled quickly over to the other car.
The column supporting the traffic lights and street signs was in the middle of the back seat of the silver Prius. The car, miniscule in comparison to the red van, was bent into a v shape just behind the passenger chair. The woman was slightly twisted, blood running down the side of her face and through her hair. Her skin held a gray pallor that stood in deep contrast the dark brown of her hair and bright red of her blood. On the driver's side, the entire front end was smashed away where the van had first impacted. The door was buckled and the glass had shattered away; the wheel had been ripped from the axel by the angle and force of the impact, and the mirror hung crazily down the side, held on by only a single wire.
Jack reached for the man, finding a pulse with near incredulous relief. He tried to lean in and listen for breathing, but the mangled door was in his way. He studied it carefully and then began to work it loose. With careful pressure the lock popped free and the battered hinges swung open, the bottom edge dragged on the ground where the frame was distorted. Jack leant forward and felt a shallow flutter of warm air against his cheek. He let out a heavy breath he hadn't realized he was holding. In his peripheral vision he saw Annie McKenzie hurrying over and heard the wail of sirens start up three blocks away at the fire station.
Phoebe moved as close to the passenger as her chair would allow. While her legs barely allowed her to stand with braces and a crutch, her arms were hard with muscle conditioned by hundreds of hours of wheelchair basketball, archery and swimming. Using her strength now, she gripped the frame of the car above the shattered remains of the window and pulled her body over far enough that she could check for vital signs. Feeling a pulse, she glanced across the center console at Jack Norris, whom she sometimes saw in the general store when she went to visit old Edgar to talk about history. Jack nodded to her, his normally sunny face clouded with tight lines of tension.
The woman was breathing, but she was bleeding steadily from her left shoulder. Phoebe looked around for a cloth or scarf, anything she could get her hands on, to apply pressure to the wound and felt her heart clench. The woman, who Phoebe thought she had seen walking her dogs in the park a few times as she came home from afternoon swim lessons, was pregnant. Using the sleeve of her jacket she swept chunks of broken window aside. Grasping the door in an iron grip, she supported her weight with one arm and reached carefully around shards of the shattered window to press her palm against the lady's stomach. For a moment there was nothing, and then she felt the faint pressure of a tiny foot.
"It moved," she said softly. Blood dripped onto her hand and she thrust her gaze back to the shoulder wound, feeling her stomach roll when she saw the huge chunk of glass embedded in the joint. Clenching her teeth and forcing herself to breathe steadily, she maneuvered herself until most of her weight rested on the door frame at her hips and then used both hands to put pressure on the blood vessels above the wound.
Annie reached them, her eyes flickering over the victims with distraught recognition.
"Help is on the way," she said, moving to check on the other man, a flinty expression on her face as she took in his state. Jack ran gentle hands over the unconscious man, searching for injuries. His left arm was a mess and his collar bone was visibly broken. Jack tried to check his pupils, thinking back to what he'd learned as a marine, and heard an ambulance pull up. Glancing over he also saw a fire engine and police squad car. Two paramedics came sprinting over, their faces grim. Jack knew what they were thinking; the car was a mess of mangled metal, the chances of the occupants being anything less than seriously injured were slim. Seeing the number of casualties, they were already calling for more backup.
Jack stepped back gratefully as the professionals went to work in a flurry of calm, controlled activity. Police officers sealed off the area and redirected the traffic that had started to build up. Firemen rushed to assist in getting into the car. The man was the easiest to extract, and the first to be moved. Two firemen and one of the paramedics braced and then lifted him clear of the wreckage. He was assessed briefly, strapped to a backboard and treated with speed and urgency as his breathing worsened, air bubbling and rasping in his throat. His face and neck were covered in blood from a jagged gash across the top of his head. A second and third ambulance arrived; the man was whisked away in a wail of the siren that made the hairs on Jack's arms stand up. Feeling as though he had swallowed ice, he moved to stand by Phoebe; the teenager was staring at the action in front of her, her eyes brimming with unshed tears. He put a hand on her shoulder, where a perfect red print seeped deep into the weave of her shirt. Trembling, the girl reached up and covered his fingers with her own, her eyes never leaving the woman's immobile form.
Two paramedics worked quickly to stem the bleeding in the punctured shoulder, one leaning through the window, and the other on her knees balancing on the driver's seat and the center console.
"Shit," she cussed suddenly. Hers eyes flew to the firefighters. "We need to get her out right now," she cried. Her partner stared and looked where she pointed. "She's hemorrhaging. Badly!" Both paramedics immobilized the woman as best as possible, and then Simon, who leaned in through the open window, stepped back. Jillian held onto her patient as the firefighters rushed in with Jaws of Life, cutting away the roof and side panels of the car.
As the huge chunks of metal were tossed aside Simon moved back in, spat a curse and beckoned the fireman back again. Ensnared in the twisted remains of the front corner was an unnaturally bent leg. There was a rush of commands, the passing of an air splint, and the hiss and groan of machinery crunching through the vehicle. Within moments they were lifting the woman clear and rushing her away.
With the side of the vehicle removed, Phoebe and Jack could clearly see the passenger seat. The soft, pale fabric was peppered with glass fragments and torn across the top left corner. The entire seat and part of the lower back support was covered in the dark red stains of blood. Phoebe's gaze flicked over to the ambulance just as the rear doors were slammed shut.
Three weeks ago a greyhound puppy had scrambled up the front of her chair into her lap by the fish pond in the park. The puppy panted happily and licked her face as she petted it. The woman and her other dog, a polite boxer who had offered his paw in a handshake, had emerged from the nearby trail. The puppy it had seemed, wasn't really impressed with her training lessons and preferred to chase rabbits. Phoebe had laughed and listened to tales of mischief as the woman walked along the path with her. She was nice, the teenager recalled, staring sadly at the wreckage again. As the ambulance roared away Phoebe remembered something else; her name was Sara.