Ash Wednesday (55 page)

TWA Flight 405 was the first plane to experience contact with the phenomenon. In the corridor a charred and dismembered corpse seemed to swoop down its length, its left arm and what remained of its right thrown up in the air as if in surprise. Half the head was missing, and a witness recalled later that it looked like a lump of grayish ice cream from which a serving had been scooped.

A man in first class turned away from his window as the ruined body of an old woman shot past, only to catch a glimpse in the seat beside him of a young child whose head was nearly severed from his lacerated body.

A college student went into hysterics as the crushed upper torso of a young woman streamed through his seat back, then rushed through his own body.

In the cockpit, the pilot saw a coalescence of body scraps whirl by as if in the teeth of a storm.

From the time Flight 405 reached the accident site to the moment it left was less than two seconds.

~*~

The wire services had the story by the time the phenomenon reached New York City, so there were those who were at least partially prepared, although most New Yorkers awoke completely innocent of the knowledge that the nightmare had come from the two-storied buildings of Merridale to breach their steel and concrete towers. There was panic. There were deaths that led to greater panic. Morning rush hour subway tunnels exploded with screams, crosstown busses turned into cages of frightened children. Taxis, cars all stopped as people ran futilely, quickly discovering that there was nowhere left to hide in this ultimate gridlock.

In Washington, D.C. Clyde Thornton's immediate supervisor had just finished his third cup of coffee and a memorial address to be read before Congress, when a naked, old man in chin whiskers whom he had never seen before sat in thin air on the other side of his office. The living man sat frozen for a moment, then muttered, "Oh God . . . oh my God," and grabbed for his telephone. Every number he tried was busy.

At a breakfast in the White House Rose Room, the president and ten congressional leaders all rattled their cups or dropped their silverware when faced with the presence of three undressed men in various reclining postures. Only later, after the officials had run out only to be confronted by similar wraiths, were the three identified as Grover Cleveland, Franklin Pierce, and Warren Harding.

Once over their initial shock, the information transmitting facilities of New York and Washington began to move, so that news of the phenomenon's spread proved speedier than the phenomenon itself, an early warning system of expanding revenants. Though, as in a nuclear attack, there was no way to pull back the array of bombs and the growing stain of fallout, there was at least a herald of things to come. Though the rest of the world would wait with fear, they at least knew that they were waiting. The great majority would not be caught by surprise.

In new, shiny, underground rooms relatively free of the apparitions, It was determined that the phenomenon was spreading at the rate of 1670 kilometers per hour, and showed no signs of stopping or slowing. Calls were made to the Soviet bloc in an effort to prevent any retaliatory strikes against what might be interpreted as a hostile attack. The calls were successfully concluded, thanks in no small part to Soviet officials in Washington who were convinced that the phenomenon resulted from a technology far in advance of any known scientific community, a view which was seconded by their superiors.

Further calls were made to Europe, India, South America, Africa, the Middle East. Explanations were given, preparations were made.

In Merridale, Joan Craven was vacuuming the living room when the news hit the Today show. The Hoover was too loud for her to hear the voices, but she saw the words, "Merridale Disaster Spreading," in fat, block letters on the screen behind the announcer, a thickset, robust man who looked suddenly pale and sickly. She turned off the cleaner, dashed across the room to the TV, and turned up the volume. After listening for a few seconds, she called to her husband. "Bob? Bob!"

He came running shirtless into the room. "What's wrong?" he asked startled. "Are you okay?"

She gestured toward the screen. They both watched, listened.

"My God," Craven finally whispered. "Oh my dear God."

Joan looked at him. His skin was chalky and he was shaking, but his face was filled with excitement, his eyes with joy. He grasped her shoulders in his big hands. "It's Ash Wednesday. Today is Ash Wednesday." Turning back to the screen, he laughed. "I was right. Even though I didn't believe it myself, I was right. There was a reason. To get them ready. All the rest of them . . .”

"You were right," Joan agreed, hugging him.

"We'll have to pray now. Pray for all of them." He shook his head. “Imagine what it must be like. In the cities. Other places." The thought of Auschwitz came to his mind. Hiroshima. Even San Francisco. There would be places on earth, he thought with sadness, that would be unbearable, uninhabitable. But that was the price you paid for realization, for truth.

Craven took his wife's hands. "God help them," he prayed. "God help them to bear it. And God help them to see."

The world saw. It saw far more than it could have wished.

Cuba's ghosts, bloodied in revolution and war.

Settlers, massacred and scalped; Indians, tortured in revenge.

Fleshy, blue remnants deep in Chilean dungeons.

Sacrifices with rended chests on the altars of Tlaloc.

The scattered dead on America's highways.

And it was not yet noon.

~*~

The nurses and doctors at Lansford General were used to death, so it took them a far shorter time to adjust to what had occurred early that morning than it had the general public. The patients, unfortunately, were not quite as resilient. Cries of "Nurse! Nurse!" had cut through the halls and rooms for hours, while nurses and orderlies and even surgeons scurried down halls and into rooms, moving beds and shoving the curtained barriers framed by metal poles into place to hide as best they could the forms of the dead from the living.

By 10:00 A.M., when Alice Meadows entered the hospital, the worst of the initial panic was over. US 15 had been heavy with traffic, as people sought to flee, then changed their minds as the radio informed them that there was nowhere to flee to. It had taken her ninety minutes to make what was usually a twenty minute drive. Once in Lansford, the streets were nearly blocked with cars, husbands returning home from work to their families, people trying to reach their friends across town, and everywhere the dogs barked and howled, lending higher, more strident tones to the hundreds of car horns. Finally, Alice had pulled into a small lot a half mile from the hospital and walked the rest of the way.

The hospital seemed far quieter than she had imagined, although the mingled mass of blue, floating corpses that was revealed when the elevator doors opened persuaded her to take the stairs to the fifth floor. Dead from trauma, she thought. Accident, murder. Unnatural death.

The stairway and the fifth floor hall were relatively free of ghosts. When she thought about it, it seemed logical: where do people die in hospitals? In their rooms, or on the operating tables, and even then the heart attack victims, the cancer, patients, the more or less natural deaths would be at home, in their offices, the places they haunted in life; and she marveled once again at the selectivity of whatever was behind all this. You could no longer sweep the bodies away, bury them in trenches, or burn them on piles to hide them from the sight of the living. No. We're stuck with our dead now.

Jim was smiling when she entered his room. His bed was pushed against the wall in a space that had yesterday held a chair and a small metal dresser. A barrier hid the greater part of the room from her view. She kissed him, then cocked her head toward the curtains. "Bad?”

He nodded. "Not so good to wake up to. There are only three or four, though. This is a newer wing."

"Ring for the nurse.”

"Not right away. I figured they'd have enough troubles. Besides, I was used to them, being from Merridale." He smiled. "I just closed my eyes, told myself the boogeymen all over me and in me couldn't do a blessed thing, and decided to go back to sleep."

"Did you?"

"I'm not that jaded. Of course not." They laughed together. Then he sobered and pointed to the TV mounted high on the wall. The picture was on, but the sound was off. "It's spreading fast, they say. Soon it'll be everywhere."

She nodded. "I wonder if that's good or bad."

"Bad at first, I guess. The panic, people bashing their cars into telephone poles, maybe killing themselves. But all in all I'm grateful for it. In the long run it could be for the best."

"How is it today?" she asked, taking his hand.

He looked down at his sheeted stomach. "Not bad. Hurts, but they keep me doped. Last night the doctor said maybe another week."

"And then?"

"Then Pittsburgh. If they get all the wrecks off the road by then."

"They will. We're a very adaptable race."

"I hope we're impressionable too. Are you still leaving today?"

She shook her head. "I'd never get back to New York. The trains, the highways,

the tunnels, it'd be hell. I'll wait a bit.”

“How long?"

"A few days. A week." Alice shrugged. "There'll still be shows, movies. People will still want to laugh, and listen to music. Love songs."

"Stay in the house . . ."

"We'll see."

". . . as long as you like."

"Thank you." She nodded acceptance, although she already had her things packed and in the trunk of the car. She would find a motel when she left the hospital, and wait for things to cool down. The house on Sundale Road was no longer hers. The decision to end their relationship had truly been a joint one. He no longer needed what she had given him, and her need for what he had provided was gone as well. The phone call she'd received Monday evening had helped her make her decision.

"I won't . . . can't visit you anymore," she said.

"I'll miss you."

"And I'll miss you," she half-lied, "but only for a while."

"Thank you for what you did."

Alice kissed him on the lips, wanting to end it, wanting to leave before Beth arrived. She had not told him she was coming. She still cared enough about him to not want to see the expectation in his eyes. "Goodbye."

When she was at the door he said, "I'll write," and she responded, "Me too," and left knowing that neither of them ever would.

On her way out of the building, she passed Beth, recognizing her from a picture Jim had on the piano. Alice did not introduce herself, but only watched as Beth moved through the lobby with a firm yet graceful stride, eyes set only on the path ahead, the dead past forgotten.

When she finally vanished around a corner, Alice stepped outside into the blaring and barking, and began to resume her life.

~*~

Old Europe, filled with ghosts, was touched during Merridale's early afternoon, at the same time the phenomenon claimed northern Africa, the Hawaiian Islands, and northern Russia via the North Pole. As the circle widened, the rest of the world waited in horror. Beirut, rebuilt, trembled. Japan's shrines were filled. India recalled its long history, its innumerable plagues and famines, and looked to its ancient gods. China, under its layer of official stoicism toward spiritual affairs, was chilly with fear.

At the moment the sun set in Merridale, the circle closed, populating the world twice over. No country, no continent, no race was spared the sight of its dead. Animals howled and whined and whimpered, adults and older children wept while the young looked on without understanding, often crying only in sympathy for their unhappy parents. For a time the entire planet was mad with grief and fright.