“What?” Zerah snaps, his voice tightening.
“I was working in an office down the hall when I heard the scream. Several of us rushed toward the sound. When we opened the door, the patient was standing in the middle of the room screaming. His wife was slumped in a chair next to him, looking as if she’d seen a dead man that had come back to life.”
“And Dr. Sokolof?”
Amsel looks away as if trying to piece together a long-forgotten memory. “He vanished. He was there in the room with them, and then…he was gone.”
CHAPTER 6
Queens, NY
Emma has run or walked the nearly thirteen miles to get back to her apartment and is exhausted when she spots a delivery truck with a Queens address on the side, making its way at a snail’s pace through the street. It’s the kind of truck where both the driver and passenger doors are gone. She can’t see the driver’s side, but the passenger side is filled with a large, beefy man who is quick to kick off anyone who tries to climb inside. She is desperate to get off the streets and before the truck makes its way past her, she breaks out into a run, pleading with the bulky man filling up the door. “Please, I live in Queens,” Emma says, lifting her hand toward him.
“Get away!” he shouts, his hand gripping a box cutter.
She jogs alongside the truck, grateful for the slow pace of traffic. “Please! All I want to do is get home. I have money. I’ll pay you whatever I have in my purse.”
He reaches down and pulls her inside, shoving her past him to the back of the truck, packed with thirty or so people who look back at her. She reaches inside her purse and pulls out forty-two dollars, but he swats away the money, keeping his body positioned at the door. Another man is on the other side of the driver, watching that door, ready to fight off anyone who would try to hijack them. Emma tucks herself just inside the doorway, trying to make herself small in case anyone else comes aboard. The air is stifling with so many people on top of one another, but no one says a word. With the exception of crying, fear has turned each one of them mute. It’s clear that they’re all in this together, even the guards at the door: They just want to get home. It feels like another world inside the truck, as if for a moment these steel walls shelter them from the mayhem and horror on the streets. Emma tries to call Matt again but puts the phone away when she hears the same automated message.
Her eyes catch those of a thirteen- or fourteen-year-old boy who is looking at her. She tries to see who is with him, but there doesn’t appear to be any closeness between him and any of the people crowding against him. She wonders if he’s alone and trying to find his way home. The thought of being alone without her mother is terrifying and fills her with incomprehensible sadness. She convinces herself that the boy ran from school when people disappeared, and his mom or dad or both are waiting for him at home. He keeps watching her with brown eyes drenched in sorrow, and her thoughts overwhelm her; she can’t imagine being a child right now.
The mile or so inside the truck gets her closer to home, but when gridlock prevents them from moving any further, Emma and many others decide to jump out through the back doors. When she’s on the ground, Emma looks for the teenage boy who jumped out ahead of her, but he’s gone. “Headed home,” she says, trying to convince herself.
Elliott runs into his apartment and slams the door, locking it. He ran the twelve miles from Midtown back to Queens, terrified for his life. He reaches for a bottle of gin from his kitchen cabinet and opens it, drinking it straight as he turns on the TV. He has been trying to call and text his parents in Ohio for hours with no luck; cell towers are unable to keep up with the demand. Every email and text has bounced back.
As he stands in front of the TV he realizes that his body is throbbing. He listens as a local news anchor delivers the unfathomable news of the disappearance of what seems to be millions, if not billions, of people around the world. Widespread panic has created the biggest stock market crash in history. Planes have been circling airports for hours due to the absence of air traffic controllers. All planes have been ordered grounded for fear of terrorism, leaving millions stranded at airports around the world. Buses, commuter and freight trains, taxis, semitrailer trucks, barges, ships, and cars around the globe sit abandoned or with a skeletal crew. Many prisons are on lockdown, while several are dealing with prison breaks.
“Reports are coming in from as far away as Iceland,” the anchor says. “It has been reported that in some parts of Africa, entire villages are gone. At this time there are thousands, perhaps millions, missing from New York City alone. It is impossible to track.” The anchor looks weary as he reads his notes. “We have several colleagues who are no longer here,” he says, clearing his throat. “And we’re working with a smaller crew today. Please forgive the quality of this broadcast as we try to make sense of what…” His voice trails off and his co-anchor takes over. Her voice isn’t bold and smooth as it normally is, but hesitant and small with an uncertain tone.
Elliott flips to a national news channel that features reports of world governments in turmoil, the US National Guard and military branches being mobilized but missing many among their troops, chaos in the streets, and the global stock markets crashing. The world is on the brink of disaster and his own city is in mayhem. He’s never felt such terror and loneliness in his life. He takes another drink and sinks into a chair, trying again to call his parents. He receives the same message as before: “Unable to connect your call at this time”; he throws his phone, crying for the first time today.
He switches to another national news channel and is stunned by the report. “The first lady has vanished along with the president’s two young children. His two college-aged children with his former wife were discovered safe at college. Vice President Sanchez and his wife, Marguerite, have vanished, and at this time it appears that nearly sixty members of Congress and at least ten governors are also missing. Numbers are also coming in from the Justice Department, the State Department, the Pentagon, the president’s cabinet, the Armed Forces, the NSA, CIA, FBI, and the Supreme Court.” The anchor pauses and clears his throat. “I keep hoping this is a nightmare or a hallucination and that we’ll all wake up, but the news keeps pouring in from all over the globe.”
Elliott clicks the channel button on the remote because he can’t listen anymore. Another network features a panel of experts who are tossing out a barrage of theories: One panelist suggests it was biological warfare that spread a virus, bacteria, or some form of germ into the water or air; the next claims entomological warfare disintegrated humans after the bite or several bites from an insect carrying an infected pathogen; another asserts that aliens abducted people from around the world and raided graves in order to populate other planets; and still another panelist believes there has been a great cleansing of the earth as Mother Gaia rids herself of the poisonous religious fanatics that have inhabited her planet for far too long.
Jumping on that thought, the final panelist hints that it was Jesus Christ himself who called his people to heaven. The panel of moderators, thankfully, jumps on his ignorance. “Maybe it was Satan,” one of them says, mocking him.
“They’ve said it for centuries,” the man says, shouting them down.