Whiteout (Book 4): The City of Light, page 11
part #4 of Whiteout Series
The Not-So Bloody Show
Ramsey raised a finger. “Wait a minute. Ain’t that called a ‘Bloody Show’ or somethin’?” He seemed unsure. “Yeah, that’s all it is. No need to get more worried.”
That ship had sailed as soon as the contractions started—no, as soon as the snowflake fell in July.
Before Ramsey, no one had spoken in a while. Mia’s hand was trembling as she reached beneath the blanket and felt around down there. Her fingertips came back coated red. I thought she was going to pass out. It’s actually kind of amazing that she hadn’t already. If that were me, I would’ve been down for the count a long time ago.
I looked at Eleanor, really just wanting to look anywhere besides the blood. Usually the sight of such things didn’t bother me. I had seen quite a few macabre scenes in my lifetime, both before the blizzards and after, but with it being so close to home, and happening to Mia, who I considered a family member, made it beyond devastating. Add to that how nervous she had been about the delivery, always afraid something would go wrong despite us assuring her it wouldn’t, and I nearly broke down right there.
I couldn’t do that, though. I had to stay strong. I had to stay positive. But it wasn’t easy, and internally I was far from positive.
Still, that didn’t stop me from springing into action, crossing the room, and placing my hand on the small of Ell’s back. I guided her toward Mia.
Eleanor said what we were all thinking. “That’s a lot of blood…I don’t think it’s the show.”
Stone, sitting in the computer chair, spun around and faced the window, where the wraiths continued speaking in their mumbling voices. He ran his fingers through his afro and bent his head, whispering so low I barely heard him. I only caught snippets here and there. “God,” “please,” and “help” were the words most frequently used.
Mia suddenly burst into tears. “Oh my God, I—I don’t think she’s moving anymore! What’s wrong with me? Is Monica okay? ”
Ell knelt down. “Shine the light over here, Grady.” Hesitantly, I did. She then peeled the covers back from Mia’s legs and examined her—yeah, there was a lot of blood, more than before. When Ell came back up, her skin was so pale it was almost translucent.
“What?” Mia demanded. “What is it?”
Ell weighed her words. Either that or she couldn’t yet speak. Judging by her quivering lips, I thought it might be the latter.
“Don’t fuckin’ sugarcoat it!” Mia shouted. “Tell me!”
As I waited for Eleanor’s response, I felt as if I was walking along a wire thousands of feet above the ground with no tethered harness and no safety net below.
Ell’s lips parted, but still no words came out.
Mia leaned forward and grabbed her jacket, smearing some of the blood from her fingers across the Marmot mountain logo. “Goddamn it, Ell, tell me!”
“I—I don’t know. Without the proper equipment, I’m helpless. I think you need an emergency C-section…to save the baby.”
Mia threw herself against the pillows, sobbing. Ramsey waited in the corner of the room, covering his face. He peeked through his laced fingers every few seconds.
I realized then that he held the solution to our current problem, so I stormed over to him. He met my eyes, but his mind was so far off in the distance, I don’t think I registered—not until I snapped my fingers inches away from his nose.
He startled. “Huh?”
“Draw me a map to the City.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“Yeah, I heard you, but I don’t understand.” He looked me up and down. “Did one of them things touch ya or somethin’ and I not know about it? Because you’re soundin’ like a nut job, my friend.”
“I’m taking Mia. Right now.” I clenched my fists—not to be threatening, but because I had no time for this. “You heard what Ell said. It’s an emergency, and there are doctors in the City, aren't there? You said so yourself.”
“Well…yeah, but Grady, take a gander outside a second. No, just use your ears. You hear those evil bastards? ‘Cause I do.”
I said nothing, but yes, I heard them. They weren’t important, though. I didn’t think of them as monsters who could kill me, but as roadblocks I meant to smash through. My life wasn’t important either. The only important thing was getting Mia and her baby somewhere safe, somewhere they could be helped.
“It’s only a few miles from here, right?”
Ramsey nodded. “Give or take. But in this weather, with them things out there, you’ll be lucky to get one mile, let alone a few.”
“I’ll get there.”
“Not before she…” He looked at Mia across the room and trailed off. I imagine what he would’ve said was Not before she loses the baby. In spite of it being negative, it was a fair thought. The blanket under her was soaked with blood, a lot of it. Still, at the time, I felt like breaking Ramsey’s nose for even thinking such a thing.
Refraining from violence—there’d be enough of that in the future—I said in a venomous tone, “Just draw me a map.”
That did the trick. Ramsey hustled into the kitchen, mumbling, “All right, all right, just gotta find somethin’ to write with.”
When I turned around, Ell, Stone, Mia, and even Chewy were studying me. The wind moaned, drowning out the voices of the monsters. I heard them laughing, banging on the walls, and screaming. Some even went on in singsong tones, “The ba-by is ouuuurrrrrs! The ba-by is ouuuuurrrrrrs!”
Mia heard this too. How could she not?
“You’re crazy,” Stone said. “Always gotta be the hero.” He shook his head. “Man, you’re such a dumbass.” But he was smiling, almost like he was proud of me. Well, it was more like he was relieved it wasn’t him taking on this burden.
I stepped toward Eleanor. There were tears in her eyes. One corner of her mouth slackened. I grabbed her hands and turned to Mia. “Are you willing to go, Mia?”
“Are you really asking me that?” She made like she was going to stand. Halfway through the motion, another contraction cramped her up, and she froze with the pain. Stone fell out of his chair and limped to catch her before she tumbled. He was quicker than Ell and I, and he steadied her before we got there.
“Seven minutes apart,” Ell said. “If you’re going to go, you’re going to have to go fast. Three to four minutes is usually when you’re supposed to go to the hospital. When that happens, she’s in active labor.”
“Oh Christ!” Mia moaned. Her earlier breathing exercises went out the window. Instead, she just took in as much air as possible, held it until she was red in the face, and exhaled loudly. “I wish my mom was here.”
“But I am, Mia. I’m right outside. Come to me and I can help you…” called one of the wraiths. It sounded close to the window on our left, near the theater’s front doors and ticket booth. Before I could open my mouth and tell Mia to ignore it, she screamed, “FUCK OFF!”
The monster stopped talking, but it cackled, and this screeching laughter was enough to raise the hair on my arms.
I looked over my shoulder. Ramsey was hunched over a table, scribbling on the back of a magazine. He’d lift the magic marker every few seconds, shake it, and then go back to scribbling.
“ETA on that map, Ramsey?” I said.
“Almost done!”
While we waited, Ell gathered up a bag of supplies for us. Mia wasn’t able to walk well on her own, so I carried her to the snowmobile parked in the lobby. Stone trailed behind us with a flashlight. Despite the fire, the air had grown as cold as the outside since Ramsey’s Battery Box malfunctioned. And beyond the front doors, the monsters awaited.
Eleanor loaded the bag into the cab before I helped Mia in. She was wrapped in so many blankets, all you could see was her small face, but she hadn’t stopped shivering.
“Ramsey!” I shouted. “C’mon!”
Thirty seconds later, his boots were thudding against the lobby floor. The magazine, a Cosmopolitan with a scantily clad sitcom actress on the cover, flapped in his hand. Gasping for breath, he shoved it in my face.
“Best I could do, man. I think it’s right—God, I hope it’s right. I ain’t much of an artist, but the trip is mostly a straight shot until you get to here.” He tapped the shakily drawn road nearest the City. “Then it curves. There’s a covered tunnel bridge just before the gates. Last I remember, the entrance and exit was pretty well choked up with snow. Once you get through it, you’re just about home free, Grady. That is, if they even let your asses in…”
“Can we go around the bridge?”
Ramsey eyed Mia and tapped his watch. “Don’t think so. It’ll be slow going enough as it is. Hopefully someone’ll see ya before, and come and get ya.”
“Hopefully,” I repeated, thinking It is what it is. I then stuck my hand out for Ramsey.
He shook it. “Godspeed, Grady.”
“Thanks.” I nodded toward the others. “Keep these guys safe for me, yeah?”
“I’ll do my best, man. And as soon as we get some daylight, I’ll have the other snowmobile up and runnin’, and they’ll be comin’ your way. Hell, I might even join ‘em. Can’t miss out on meetin’ a newborn baby.” He leaned into the cab and smiled at Mia.
Mia, teary-eyed and disheveled, managed a smile of her own. This show of confidence that everything was going to be okay went a long way, I think, and for that I’m grateful.
“Now go on and get to it, chief.”
Ramsey left me just as Chewy jumped up and rested his forepaws on my leg. His eyes were watery, and he was trembling. I lifted him and kissed him on the head, and then I set him down, hoping it wasn’t the last I’d see of the dog.
Stone rounded the snowmobile. He and I performed our handshake. “Be safe, brother.”
“You too.”
Then came Eleanor as Stone headed to the passenger’s side to say bye to Mia, Chewy in tow.
I expected Ell to be in tears, begging me not to go, but that wasn’t the case. All she did was stand on her tiptoes, kiss my lips, and say, “I love you, and I’ll see you soon.”
“I love you, and you will.”
No crying, no praying, no long, drawn-out hugs. We skipped sappy goodbyes, I think, because we didn’t want to believe this was goodbye.
“C’mon!” Ramsey shouted as he ran toward the lobby door. “I need a shit ton of light over here. As much as y’all can muster!”
Like soldiers aiming their weapons, Stone and Ell pointed their flashlights his way.
“Soon as I unlock it, just plow right through, Grady. You go too slow and they’ll get you. And keep them high beams on!”
I gave him a thumbs-up, and then I crawled into the snowmobile. I started the engine. The sound of it purring to life echoed off the walls, so loud I couldn’t hear myself think. That was okay. Thinking was bad at a time like this. If you thought too much, you started second-guessing yourself and harping on the consequences, the chances of failure, and inevitably, you’d freeze up.
Mia grunted in pain, doubled over, slapped her hands on the thin strip of dashboard and dug her nails into the vinyl, leaving divots and tears in their wake. It was a perfect reminder of how little time we had to get to the City.
Ramsey jabbed the key into the padlock and turned it. He ripped the chain through the handles, but kept his body pressed against the door as the monsters slammed into it from the outside. He scooted half a foot back before he regained his balance. “Ready?” he shouted.
I revved the engine, flipped on the headlights, and reached over and squeezed Mia’s arm.
Was I ready?
No. Not even close, but Ramsey threw the doors open anyway.
There were more wraiths than I had ever seen at once. More than what had gathered around Helga’s house the night she died. More than the few that waited in the distance while an infected Ed Hark killed Jonas after attacking us on Prism Lake.
In Woodhaven, Bob Ballard talked of the bigger cities overrun with the monsters. He said he had seen the clips on the news and the internet. I had not, but what I imagined when he told his story was similar to what I saw from behind the windshield of the snowmobile. It was like I was standing on a stage with a podium in front of me, peering out over a large crowd before I gave a speech. Except for in the front row, you couldn’t single out a lone face; they all blended together into one collective being.
Like the wraiths did now.
The front of this crowd was a line of Thumbprint People. Them with their twisted, mashed features, torn-open mouths, long limbs, claw-like fingers, and nude gray flesh.
I said you can’t afford to hesitate, yet I am only human.
I hesitated.
It was Mia, despite all her pain, who reached over and slapped me in the face. I barely felt it at the time, but over the course of our journey to the City of Light, my cheek would sting like it had suffered a bad sunburn.
“GO!” she yelled.
Lights cut through the air, beams in the darkness, and black circles of ash exploded on the closest Thumbprint monsters’ chests. They screeched and clapped their hands over the wounds. One shrieked so loudly, the slab of flesh that was its mouth tore open in a spray of blood and teeth. The mirage only lasted a few seconds before it, too, burned and reverted back to its original state—a dark shadow in a vaguely human shape.
Like the rats in the store near the lake, the flashlights weren’t strong enough to completely dissolve the monsters. Fortunately, the snowmobile’s headlights were. They stretched far, creating a wide tunnel through the black mass. I was some kind of fucked-up Moses parting not the Red Sea, but a sea of evil.
In the cone of light, heavy snowflakes fell from the sky. So many and so fast that they, like the wraiths, formed their own wall. This wall was white, however. Another blizzard.
It seemed Grady’s Law was in effect yet again. Still, there was no quitting now.
So, with the first tingles of pain rippling up my cheek, I threw the sled into gear and sped off.
As you know by now, our snowmobiles weren’t fast by normal standards. While most zipped along, ours trudged. Maybe back in the day, in the prime of their mechanical lives, they were fast, but these were old machines. How old, I’m not sure. Perhaps they had gotten good use in the past at Avery’s Mills or wherever they were before that ski resort near Prism Lake, but those years had worn them down.
As we rolled out of the theater, large hands slapped at the enclosure’s glass. Mia was screaming, and I might have been too. I was too focused on not flipping us over.
The wipers swiped the windshield at their maximum speed, and it still wasn’t enough to keep up with the torrent of snow. I could hardly see in front of me. There wasn’t much to see besides the ocean of white and the monsters circling around like hungry sharks who had scented blood.
“Don’t look!” I told Mia.
“Trust me, I’m not!”
Barreling through the tunnel the headlights made, I cut left. In the sideview mirrors, which were iced over, I caught hints of the black creatures behind us, but they were shrinking. As was the theater and the few buildings comprising the small city’s downtown area.
A few minutes passed before I eased up on the steering wheel. By then, my fingers ached like they’d been slammed in a car door over and over.
Letting out a long overdue breath, I turned to Mia and said, “I think we’re safe for now.”
“Okay?” she gasped, bowing her head. The skin around her eyes bunched and wrinkled as she squeezed them shut. She was having another contraction.
I had no watch, no sense of time, but I thought the duration between this and the last one was dangerously short.
I gave the snowmobile more gas.
“Breathe,” I said. “Breathe.”
It passed about forty-five seconds later, the longest forty-five seconds I have ever experienced. Man, I couldn’t imagine how it felt for Mia.
“I’m still bleeding,” she said.
“It’s gonna be okay.”
I kept my eyes on the road—or the snow covering the road, rather—but I felt Mia’s stare boring into me.
“It better be, Grady. If it’s not…if my daughter is dead…I don’t think I can keep on goin’.”
Her words hurt worse than any slap could, but I gave no reply. I couldn’t.
I just clenched the wheel.
And I focused.
Ramsey’s map was crude at best, unreadable at worst, but I followed the road south for as long as possible. We were about an hour’s ride away from the theater, and my eyes kept drifting down to the gas gauge. Our journey had started with half a tank, but now it was below a quarter. Really, the needle hovered around an eighth, and if we didn’t get to the City on that, I feared we never would.
Mia had a handful of contractions, each one more intense and painful than the last. I gave her my hand to squeeze, and by the time she was done, the scabbed-over burn wound on the outside of my palm had split open and oozed a mixture of pus and blood. The lined material of my glove drank up as much as it could, becoming a swollen sponge, but in the end I felt those fluids zigzagging down my arm.
“Just hold on,” I said. “We’re almost there.”
Mia had shifted in her seat, ditching the safety of the belt for the ability to stretch her legs. The blankets covered most of her bare lower half, but every so often my eye caught spots of fresh blood.
She opened her mouth to reply, only no words came out. A scream erupted instead. I pegged this contraction at about three minutes from the last, which, according to Eleanor, meant Mia was in active labor. I had no qualms about trying to deliver the baby myself. I mean, I didn’t want to, but if I had to I would without hesitation and without question. The problem lay in the loss of blood and the cold and the monsters undoubtedly following us and/or nearby.
“Breathe, Mia! Keep breathing!”
She did. I lent my left hand, crossing it over my right clamped on the wheel, and she gripped it. A fresh trickle of fluids leaked from these scabs too, and I bit my tongue to offset the pain. With her right, Mia reached out and grabbed the first thing her fingers fell upon. The rearview mirror. Screaming, she ripped it from its spot on the windshield, and the glass tinked as the pressure of her thumb created a fresh webbing of cracks.
