Fractured (12 page)

What the fuck?
she wondered, unable to process it.
What happened?

A few moments passed, then her ears cleared enough to allow her to hear again.

People in the restaurant were screaming. And she joined them.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Steve had been acting strange all day.

Tom had noticed that when he came in for his shift at the Duck Creek Bar just before four o’clock. His fellow bartender had been mostly silent all day, going about all his work with dogged determination. All of the glasses had been cleaned spotlessly, and he had cleared the bar numerous times, continuing to wipe down areas that were long since sterile. It was as if something else had been on his mind.

In fact, Tom didn’t think that Steve had spoken once. When Tom came in, Steve wouldn’t even look at him, he just continued cleaning glasses. Good thing there weren’t too many people coming in. Steve wouldn’t even acknowledge people when they ordered, he’d quickly fill up a glass and plonk it in front of the customer with startling efficiency.

He was being a dick about the whole thing.

“What’s your problem, Steve?” Tom griped to him. His workmate kept working stoically, ignoring the question. Tom wondered if it was because Steve had picked up two shifts on a day that would have been perfect for a few runs on the mountain, and that had put him in a bad mood. Or something. His silence was weirding out their customers.

“Steve, talk to me man,” Tom plead with him. “Tell me what’s bothering you.”

The man continued what he was doing, which was drying more glasses. They hadn’t even been washed recently.

Tom went about his business. He made sure to be nice and cordial with their customers to make up for Steve’s behavior. It didn’t seem to help though. There was something wrong with Steve.

Their colleague Jana came in later to help with their nighttime crowd. It was going to be a long night, and the bar was filling up with the crowd from the ski slopes. There were a lot of people there tonight.

“Hey, what’s wrong with the stiff there?” she asked, nodding over to Steve. She lined up a row of shots for a group of guys in a bachelor party.

“He’s been weird all day,” Tom told her with a shrug. “Probably had something happen at home.”

Jana sighed and shook her head. Tom chuckled, knowing exactly what she was thinking. He looked up at the clock. Just after nine o’clock. Another five hours of this and he would be home, hopefully with a lot of tips. If Steve didn’t scare them off first.

Suddenly, a scream rang throughout the whole bar. Tom whirled to see Steve standing in a rigid pose, his mouth open in an unearthly scream. The entire bar stopped to look at him. The scream went on and on, in a pitch that no man should ever be able to scream.

Then Steve abruptly stopped screaming and stood there, his eyes cast down.

“Steve?” Tom tentatively asked. He reached out to touch the man’s shoulder.

The bartender started laughing, the hysterical cackle of a man who lost his mind. His entire body was shaking with it.

“Steve, man, what’s
wrong
with you?” Tom grabbed his shoulder and shook him.

“We’re all gonna die.”

It took a moment for Tom to recognize that the voice was coming from Steve, but it didn’t sound like him. Steve looked at him in the eye with a crazy grin, and Tom realized that it wasn’t Steve who was looking back at him. The face looked like it was the papery, dead skin of an old man that was pasted onto a body, his eyes glassy and bloodshot. It seemed like there were too many teeth in his mouth, all crooked and cramped in their available space.

“We’re all gonna DIE!”

The world around them exploded into a sea of fire.

*****

Cheryl suddenly woke up. She sat straight up, clutching her chest with a loud, shuddering gasp. Tears immediately sprung from her eyes and she struggled to breathe.

“My baby,” she whispered. She only meant
her
daughter, not the one that was wrong. Not the one that
acted
like she was her daughter. She once again cursed Eric for his stupidity, but without his stupidity, they would never have had Bash.

They had to do something so terrible to have something so completely right.

She looked at the clock. 10:02pm, which meant that it was 9:02 where her daughter was. She shouldn’t be awake due to the sedatives they usually gave her at night because of her night terrors, yet here she was, completely lucid.

“Bash!” she cried. “My Bathsheba!”

Something had happened. Something bad.

She reached over, picked up her emergency remote, and summoned the night nurses. The minute or two it took for her call to be answered were some of the most excruciating of her life. Waiting was killing her. She had to be doing something,
anything
to save her baby girl
.
She had already lost Eric to the dark shadow that lived in their family. She wasn’t about to lose her precious daughter.

There was something inexplicably wrong. Like her beloved daughter had left this world, entering another plane of existence where Cheryl couldn’t help her. She couldn’t think what to do if she lost Bash.

“Mrs. Martin,” a nurse chided as she entered the room. “Mrs. Martin, what are you doing up?”

“My daughter. I have to speak to my daughter.” Even Cheryl knew how that sounded. She was a stroke victim—things didn’t usually line up the way they were supposed to for her. She knew she was right in this empty feeling.

They had to humor her. Just this one time.

“Mrs. Martin...” the nurse began, trying to calm her down.

“Goddammit, something is wrong!” Cheryl cried. She got up from her bed and rushed into the hall, her usual handicapped gait blending into a run. The nurse hurried after her, calling out her name, saying that she was disturbing all of the other residents.

Cheryl moved fast, surprising both her and the nurse. She crossed the hallway to the office, picked up the phone, and dialed her daughter’s cell phone number from memory.

“Mrs. Martin!” The nurse finally caught up to her. Her commotion had apparently alerted a doctor and several other nurses as they ran into the office.

Cheryl ignored her. Her heart was pounding in her ears.
Please let my baby be safe
, she prayed.

The call went straight to voice mail, which meant that Bash’s cell phone was off. It was
never
off. Bash had always kept the phone on in case of emergencies. Cheryl knew that because her baby girl had promised to keep her phone on.

Cheryl’s limbs went numb. Her focus narrowed. The doctors were telling her to calm down, to listen to them, although they sounded too far away. She was about to faint. Her daughter wasn’t picking up.

She steeled herself and hit the redial button. It went straight to voice mail again.

She shrieked and dropped the phone. Bash wasn’t going to pick up. She wasn’t going to pick up her cell phone ever again. Cheryl was crying so hard, she didn’t even realize that the doctors and orderlies were carrying her back to her room.

They assured her that everything was going to be fine. That her daughter would see the missed call and get back to her in the morning.

Cheryl knew that nothing was ever going to be right again.

*****

The people around Bash screamed in terror. The heat in the restaurant escalated rapidly. Dishes crashed. Some lady was yelling for someone to help her, but no one was helping. It was chaos.

Fire,
Bash thought.
We’re being burned alive.

She imagined the scene with such clarity she almost thought she was seeing. People were running around, some people had caught fire. Some were already dead, lying in smoldering heaps.

Tears streamed down Bash’s face, making clean streaks on her ash covered face. Someone sobbed nearby, and through the heartbeat in her ears, she realized it was her.

They were all going to die.

Seth was yelling above the din. “Bash!” he was screaming. “Bathsheba!” He sounded far away.

Someone put their arms around her, and she struggled initially against them. She even screamed, thinking that it was someone who was trying to get past her, to save their own hide.

“Bash! Bash, it’s me!”

“Darius!” she cried, recognizing her friend. She realized she was holding him tightly, but she literally could not tell her right arm
not
to squeeze so hard. Her left arm ached when she grabbed onto him, injured from hitting the wall.

He picked her up in a fireman’s carry, easy for a big man like him. Someone else grasped at her hurt arm.

“Seth!” she sobbed in relief. “Where are the others?”

“I don’t know!” he shouted. “I don’t know what happened to them!”

“
What the fuck just happened
?” Darius yelled at him.

“I don’t know!” Seth cried. He sounded panicked.

Hearing the two Army men at a loss was enough to make Bash that much more terrified. Seth took Bash from Darius. “Scott!” he screamed, then called for their friends. “Rick! Maria!” He paused for a moment longer. “Lily!”

They were starting to cough now.
Smoke,
Bash thought. The hotel was burning down around them. They were struggling to breathe. They had to get out. Regardless of whether or not they found their friends, they had to get out or they were all going to die.

The realization that they might indeed die there made Bash shake uncontrollably. Sensing her shock, Seth held her tighter to him. “I’ve got you,” he whispered. “I’ve got you, Sheba.”

“Seth!” a voice called from across the room. “Darius! Help me.” It was Maria. Her voice was almost unrecognizable, already roughened by the intensity of the smoke.

Seth and Darius ran her direction. Bash could tell when they got there, because Maria was sobbing even louder than she herself was, and Seth knelt down. “Oh, God, man, what happened?” Darius asked. He sounded like he was shattered. Something they were seeing was terrible.

“Th...the explosion,” Maria was muttering numbly. “It just...he won’t...he won’t get up...”

In her confusion, Bash wondered who they were talking about. Then she heard Seth’s tortured cry, and she knew who they were talking about. Even though he had hit her only moments ago, she still didn’t want him to end up like this.

“No,” she whispered. “Nononononono.”

“Rick, get up...” Maria sobbed.

The tears welled up in Bash’s eyes.

“Look, Maria,” Seth told her. “We have to get out of here.”

“But Rick
—
”

“I’ll get her,” Darius said solemnly.

“Have you seen Scott?” Seth yelled.

“No...”

Bash listened to a bit of jostling, and Seth stood up with her again in his arms. “Scott!” he shouted. He was coughing again, harder this time, carrying her away from the flames. Bash had enough sense to realize they still hadn’t found her sister.

“Lily!” she screamed, panicking at the thought of losing her sister forever. “Where’s Lily?”

Seth didn’t answer.

“Come
on
, Maria!” Darius yelled. “We have to go!”

Maria was sobbing, still yelling for Rick to wake up. Bash screamed for Lily again.

“Scott?” Seth cried, his voice a mixture of both relief and despair. “Holy shit, Scott!”

“Come on,” Scott’s voice came through the pandemonium. “Follow me, Lily’s already waiting for us in the hallway. There’s a door to the outside.”

“Lily?” Bash asked. She swore to herself that she’d do anything to mend their broken bridges. Anything to see her sister again.

“She’s over here,” Scott said roughly. His voice sounded like he had aged twenty years because of the smoke.

He led them a few meters in one direction—which one, Bash didn’t know. All she could think about was Lily. A cold rush of air hit Bash full on, and she gasped at the sudden change.

“The hallway’s clear?” Darius asked incredulously. He sounded confused. “But the restaurant. The kitchen...”

Bash wasn’t listening. She didn’t care. She just wanted to get everyone she loved out of that hotel and away from harm. “Lily?” she cried, reaching with her good arm. “Lily?”

“She’s over here,” Seth said. There was uncertainty in his voice, with something riding underneath.
Fear.

“I got out when I could,” Lily replied in a low, even voice. In stark contrast to Seth, she seemed utterly calm. She was the exact opposite of Maria, who couldn’t stop crying over Rick’s death. Lily sounded like she wasn’t fazed at all by what was going on around them. In fact, she almost sounded indifferent. Sinister, even.