Autumn in the Dark Meadows (The Autumn Series) (9 page)

“Sure you don’t want to stay outside and dig?” Franklin asked, lifting his hat to scratch his forehead.

“No.  I can do it,” I said before I could back out.

“I’ve got the rest of the folks who weren’t injured in the blast trying to clear the interior so we can move around a little easier.  It’s one helluva mess in there, I tell you.  But it’ll be a lot easier when we get the main entrance open again so we can start getting everyone out and into the Palmetto.  We’re officially moving out of the Egyptian.  She’s been good to us, but we can’t repair her after this,” he said, staring up the slope of black glass.

Franklin grabbed a handful of rope. “All right, I’m going first, then Doogie Howser,” he said, pointing at Grey. “Then you guys,” he said, pointing at JR and Kathy. “You two can bring up the rear,” he said to me and Shad. “We’re gonna take this one at a time, but as long as you’re sure-footed, y’all should be fine. Don’t rush yourself.”

Grey handed a duffel to Shad and the other to Franklin.  “Think you guys can manage these with your climb?” he asked, tightening the straps of his own backpack.

Shad slung the duffel on his back and secured his arms in the straps.  “Not a problem, boss.”

I watched as Franklin planted his feet against the glass and used the rope to pull his torso up until it looked like he was walking sideways.  Franklin pressed his cowboy hat more firmly onto his head and then began a slow climb.  He called instructions back down to us as he continued his vertical walk.  “Then just step and pull, step and pull, like so.”

He was surprisingly nimble for a man of his size, and it wasn’t long before he disappeared inside the hole.  Then it was Grey’s turn to follow him.  I unintentionally held my breath when he took hold of the rope.

“Be careful,” I whispered under my breath.  I secretly wished he could just astral project inside and skip the harrowing climb, but I knew that wasn’t an option with so many people around.

Grey also moved surprisingly fast up the slope, and once he disappeared through the hole and into the pyramid, I released the breath I’d been holding.  Kathy and JR went next.

“I’ll go now,” I said to Shad, as I secured the bag of medical supplies tightly onto my backpack of clothes from home. They were surprisingly light. The medical bag must have been stuffed with bandages. I rubbed my hands on my jeans, wiping the nervous sweat from them.

Shad judged me skeptically.  “You don’t have to do this, you know.  I could find Rissi and let her know you and Ben are out here.”

Daniel jogged over, an extra shovel in his hand.  “Hey, why don’t you stay out here with us, kid?”

I looked between Shad and Daniel, almost tempted to agree with them both, but shook my head.  “Grey said he’d need me to help.  Besides, he needs what’s in my bag.”  I glanced up at the expanse of black glass.  “I just wish someone had made a new hole a little closer to the ground,” I said.  “I’m a better crawler than a climber.”

“I suggested that already, but was overruled,” Daniel said.  “No one’s too keen on making another hole and further weakening the structure, especially with so many trapped inside.”  He gave me another skeptical look.  “Better stay outside with us, Autumn.”

“I’ll be fine.  Just get that entrance opened so we can get out.  I’m not doing this in reverse.”

Daniel ran his hands through his flaming red hair and rubbed his eyes.  “I’ll try coming back inside soon enough myself.  Can’t seem to stay away from her for too long.”

I detected a much stronger note of worry in his voice.  He often came to our house in Hoover to visit.  At first, I suspected it was because he was grieving over the loss of his friend, Todd, who had been the leader of our ragtag underground group in Los Angeles.  Todd had been killed by a grenade when Karl and The Front discovered our hideout.  We all felt the loss of his leadership, especially Daniel.  As time wore on and his visits continued, I wondered if there was something growing between him and Connie.  I was glad he’d been here for her in Vegas, just as she’d been there for him in Hoover.

“I’m sure it helps her to see you,” I said, getting a good hold on the rope.  I mentally repeated Franklin’s instructions.  Step and pull, step and pull.

I stared at the peak of the pyramid above me as I made my way up the glass.  From this angle, it was hard to make out the dark hole.  The sun was rising now, and glints of orange light reflected off the rotor blade.  I tried not to be blinded by it as I climbed closer, feeling every step was a step closer to my family.

Step and pull.  Inhale.  Step and pull.  Exhale.  My rhythm was steady, and more importantly, focusing on it kept fear from immobilizing me.

I neared the chasm in the glass, and the edge reminded me of an open shark’s mouth, jagged with teeth.

“Careful, Autumn,” Grey’s voice called.  He held his hand out to me from inside the hole.  I held the rope tightly with one hand and took Grey’s hand with the other, and he gently pulled me inside.  I was amazed Franklin had made it in and out more than once.

After dropping the rope, I put my hand on the massive rotor blade to balance myself.  It creaked and twisted slightly under my weight.  I froze, terrified.  Before I knew what happened, Grey plucked me off the edge and pulled me inside the room and into his arms.  The blade slowly stopped rocking, and Grey’s arms loosened around me.

I stepped back quickly, out of reach.  “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have touched it.”

“It’s all right, that’s just another reason for us all to get out of here that much sooner,” Franklin said.  His voice was assuring, but his face was white under his hat.

I realized we were all standing on a bed.  The space around me was gutted, the walls disintegrated, the furniture mangled.  What probably used to be three or more hotel rooms were now all part of the same space.  Rubble was shoveled into heaps, some of it against a still-standing doorframe.  Beyond it were the remains of the bathroom, the white marble now blackened and the mirror above it cracked and fogged with smoke.  I couldn’t imagine the size of the blast that would have made this mess.  And worse, I couldn’t imagine Connie and Rissi being so close to it.

“Where are JR and Kathy?” I asked Grey.

“I sent them ahead with my bag.  I wanted to make sure you got in safely.”

“That wasn’t necessary.  You should have gone on with them.”  I jumped down from the bed and stared in awe at what used to be a wooden wardrobe.  It was burned completely black and reduced to a shriveled skeleton.

Grey was behind me suddenly, lifting the top bag full of medical supplies off my back. Startled, I jumped, then slipped my arms out of the straps and turned away to cover my embarrassment.

“Thanks for carrying this for me,” he said.

I nodded, staring ahead at what used to be the entrance to the hallway.  Except there was no doorway.  The side of the room was open to where the hall should be, but there wasn’t a hallway either.  Instead, several stories below us, the casino floor was visible through another large hole.

I stared down into the casino.  The fuselage of the helicopter, or what was left of it, lay among wreckage.  Everything surrounding it had been blown backwards by the blast.  The entire area was heavily burned, and reeked of smoke and fuel.  The belly of the pyramid was completely open, dwarfing the smaller buildings on the ground floor that housed several exhibitions and restaurants.  I looked up at the rest of the hotel.  Rooms lined the four sloping walls, the hallways all open to the inside of the pyramid.  The tiered floors reminded me of wedding cake layers, every level smaller than the one below it.

Ahead was another rope secured to an exposed metal support above us.  I could clearly see the intent of the rope. We were going to have to swing from the wreckage of this hotel room to the less affected area fifteen feet away.  I rubbed my already rope-burned hands against my pants, preparing them for one more trial.

Shad appeared outside the hole and teetered for a moment when his foot caught a loose pile of wreckage, but Franklin grabbed his hand and pulled him inside.

“Careful, son.  First step’s a doozy.”

“I hope they get that door open soon,” he said.  “Because I never want to do that climb again.”

“One more obstacle and we can take the stairwell down to the main floor,” Franklin warned us, as he moved to the rope.

I looked down one more time, wondering where I’d land if I lost my hold on the rope.  Below, people carved paths through the heaps of sand with wheelbarrows.  A sign at the base of a small building touted it to be the largest display of freshwater fish in the state.  It was the exhibit the school children had been coming to visit.

Franklin swung himself across the gap in the hotel room floor to the hallway lining this side of the building.  When he made it across safely, he threw the rope back and Grey followed suit.

“I’ll go next,” I said, as bravely as I could muster.

“Want me to give you a push?”  Shad asked.

“No, I can do this.  Thanks, though,” I said, as I grabbed high on the rope and jumped.  The swing across reminded me of an old tree in Sarah’s backyard that her father had tied a rope to.   We’d spent hours every summer trying to swing higher and higher, making ever-larger splashes into her parents’ oval shaped pool.

I threw out a hand when I realized I didn’t have enough velocity to make it to the ledge.  Grey grabbed me and pulled me in tightly, and I let out a sigh of relief.  He held onto me for a moment longer than necessary.

I took a step away from him, but he stayed close as he swung the rope back over to Shad.  It took only a few seconds for Shad to swing across and make a perfect landing.

We followed Franklin down a stairwell and into the belly of the pyramid.

We passed several people, either shoveling sand or taking stock of supplies.  Some of them looked relieved to see us, others suspicious.  Thankfully, there were more of the former than the latter.  I hoped that while we were here helping, those who were still leery of Hoover folk would come around and see us as the allies we really were.

“How many people do you have here?” Grey asked.

“Three hundred twenty-two before the accident.  Two hundred ninety-four after,” Franklin replied quietly.  “We’ve lost twenty-eight so far.  And I don’t aim to lose anymore.  That’s where you come in.”

I was starting to see why people stayed here.  The rooms were perfect living quarters, and the restaurants in the bottom were ideal cafeterias.  It was an ingenious design, and more than adequate for long-term living, barring a helicopter falling through the side of the building and getting buried inside during a sandstorm.  Historically, pyramids were more than sufficient to sustain harsh desert climates.  After all, the Great Pyramid of Giza survived in the deserts of Egypt for centuries.  The fresh water aquarium exhibit was a bonus with its sustainable food source and thousands of gallons of fresh water in reserve.

We followed Franklin out of the casino, down a dark hallway and into a large foyer with a bank of double doors along one wall.  One of the doors was open, and inside, I saw part of a ballroom.  Magnificent though it was, I heard moans of pain and muffled sobbing from just within.  A strong smell of rubbing alcohol and something else I couldn’t place hung in the air.  It felt thick inside my lungs and made my stomach uneasy.

I knew Connie was inside, among the sick and the dying, somewhere.

The carpets were golden, and the massive chandelier took up nearly the entire ceiling, but even its tremendous beauty wasn’t enough to overshadow what this former reception room had become – a hospital.  The amount of suffering was paralyzing.  JR and Kathy moved among at least fifty people stretched out on cots on the floor.  There were bandages on their heads, arms and legs.  It looked like they’d been in a war.  I saw the man whose crying I’d heard from the foyer.  Both hands covered his face, and his sobs shook the cot he was cradled in.

Shad took off, walking swiftly up the first aisle, and I quickly began scanning the area for Connie’s blonde hair.  But my eyes fell on the crying man again.

“Autumn, are you going to be able to do this?”  I noticed Grey’s hand on my shoulder and looked up at him.  My eyes betrayed everything.  “I can take you back outside, if you can’t stay,” he said as he gripped my shoulder ever so slightly, his meaning clear.  He was offering to astral project me back outside.  I blinked once and then twice, before the fog in my head started to clear.

“I’m fine.  I just need to find Connie first.  Then I’ll do whatever you need.  I promise.”

“It looks like Shad found her,” he said, pointing.  She was three aisles over, about halfway down the golden room.  I broke contact with Grey, rushed past the people between us, and dropped to my knees beside her cot.

She smiled as I leaned over and hugged her gently.  Her light blonde hair smelled like smoke, and her eyes were red-rimmed.  She was stretched out on her side, a white sheet covering her from the waist to her knees, where it was folded up to leave her calves exposed.  The skin on the left side and backs of her swollen calves was heavily splotched with raised patches of angry red and pink scales.

“Are you okay?  Are you hurting?  What can I get you?  Have they been taking good care of you?”

She laughed lightly and put her index finger to my lips to shush me.  “I’m fine.  I’m fine.  My legs are burned.  They’re keeping an eye on them, so they don’t get infected.  One of the women here already put medicine on them.  I’m sore, but I’m fine.”

Grey knelt down beside me and lifted the covers a little higher, revealing further burning. I heard Shad’s intake of breath as the full scope of her injuries were revealed, and I understood why she was on her side.

“Try to keep the cover off these burns, Connie.  I don’t want anything sticking to them as they heal.  There doesn’t appear to be any sign of infection so far.  Shad?” Grey said, drawing his gaze from Connie’s burns.  “Find a couple cushions or a spare pillow to elevate her legs above her heart, okay?”

“On it,” Shad stood and darted away quickly.

Grey dug into his backpack, pulled out a bottle of gel and handed it to me. “I want you to apply this liberally to all of her burns.” Then he turned to Connie, “It will have a numbing effect and help ease your pain.” She nodded a thank you.

“I’m also going to give you a shot to help with that.”  He reached deeper into his bag and pulled out a needle and bottle, prepped the injection, and then slid the needle into the soft pink flesh of her hip.  “I’ll come back and check on you later.  Try to get some rest.”

Connie again nodded her thanks, and Grey turned his eyes back on me.  “I’m going to check out the rest of the room and get started on the more severe patients.”  He stood and looked down at me briefly, then hitched the bag onto his back and headed for JR and Kathy, who were talking with a young Asian woman.

Connie smiled at me when I turned back to her.

“You have no idea how relieved we are that you and Rissi are okay,” I said.  “We were all so worried.”

Connie tried to slightly shift.

“Are you comfortable on your side like that?” I asked.

A pained expression clouded her pretty face.  “It’s worse on my back because of the pressure on the burns.  I think a pillow between my knees will help.”

“Shad’s finding something.  He’ll be back soon.”  I smoothed some of her dirty hair back from her forehead and set to gently applying the gel Grey gave me.  She still grimaced every time I touched a new swollen red patch of skin with the ointment.

“I guess this should be a lesson to me,” she said between clenched teeth.  “When jumping under a craps table to escape a ball of fire, always make sure to tuck your legs in, too.”  She chuckled through her grimace.

“You saved Rissi and those other kids,” I said quietly.  I wanted to tell her how brave she was, and how relieved I was she was safe.  I wanted to tell her how much she was like an older sister to me, how much Rissi and her classmates loved her, how much Shad depended on her, and my suspicions of Daniel’s feelings for her.  I wanted to tell her about Sarah’s texts and my troubles with Grey.  All of these things crowded in my head, but none made it past my lips.  They didn’t seem to want to move.

“Hey,” Connie whispered.  “It’s okay.  We’re okay.  We’re all together now, and as soon as I’m up and about, we’ll all go back to Hoover.”  She reached for my hand and held it firmly with her own steady, strong one.

Not wanting to upset her, I set to straightening the sheet across her torso, folding the top down evenly.

“Where’s Rissi?” I asked busily.

“In the guest quarters.  She’s been down here keeping me company.  Daniel’s started calling her...” she interrupted herself with a giggle, “the nurse from hell.”

I laughed aloud and quickly covered my mouth.

“Every time I start to fall asleep, she asks what she can get for me, and what she can do.  I’m thankful he finally made her go lie down late last night.  She’d been up since the accident yesterday.  I know she means well, but it’s been so nice having a few hours of peace.”

“That sounds like our Rissi,” I said.  “I’d like to see her, just to let her know Ben and I are here.  Do you know which room she’s in?” I asked.

“Room 212 with all the other kids.  Why don’t you go on and find her.  I’m going to try and rest a while longer.”

“I need to help Grey here for a little while first.  Then I’ll go wake her up.”  I hugged her again and then found Grey, who was inspecting a gash on an unconscious man’s forehead.

“Connie looked bad.  Is she going to be okay?”  I whispered.

“It’s worse than I’d like it to be,” he admitted.  “But as long as we can keep any infection at bay, I think she’ll be fine.”  He lowered his voice and drew closer, “If all else fails, I could even slip her some of the E-Vitamin I have left.  Don’t worry about her.”

“Thank you,” I said.  I took a deep breath and touched his arm, letting it linger.  I saw the surprise register on his face.  “Thank you for taking care of her.  You have no idea how much it means to me.”

“I think I might,” he said, his blue eyes focused on my own.

“Where should I start?” I asked, and then averted my eyes quickly as I saw him pick up a wickedly curved needle threaded with black string.  “What’s that?” I gasped.

He paused.  “It’s a surgical suture.  He needs about fifteen stitches.”  He scanned the room, then pointed to Shad.  “Why don’t you go see who Shad has helped so far?  Start assessing what kind of condition everyone is in.  Come get me, JR or Kathy immediately if you can’t find a pulse, or can’t feel someone breathing or if you find uncontrolled bleeding.”  He nodded at me, smiling encouragingly.  “You can do this, Autumn.  You’ve done it before, remember?”

I nodded and, with a lingering backward glance at him, made for Shad.  Grey was right.  I had done this before.  When Karl shot Grey at the radio station, I didn’t pass out or throw up when I saw the wound.  While I would never be as cool and clinical as Lydia, I hoped to show Franklin that Grey made a good decision in letting me come in.

I joined Shad on the far side of the room with the young Asian woman I’d seen before.  He was helping lift a patient while she changed the sheets under him.  When he finished lowering the semi-conscious man back on the fresh sheet, he noticed my approach.

“Almost looks like you know what you’re doing,” I said.

“Beats digging sand, plus I made a new friend.”  He motioned to the woman and wiggled his eyebrows.  She was strikingly beautiful, with flawless bronze skin and the most peculiar eyes I’d ever seen.  In this light, they appeared violet.  I wondered if it was her real eye color, or if she was wearing contacts.  She smiled brightly at me and extended an elegantly thin hand out to me.

“Hi, I’m Vonna,” she said.  I shook her hand and introduced myself.

“Vonna is Franklin’s daughter,” Shad said.  That caused me to stare at her for a moment longer.  They didn’t resemble each other at all.  For one thing, he wasn’t Asian.  Vonna giggled at me when she noticed the new scrutiny.

“Well, I call him Dad, but he’s not my real father.  He was the first person to find me after The Plague hit.  I’d met him before that though, in between shows.”

“Shows?” I asked.

“I was a performer in Les Papillons before everyone got sick,” she said as she tucked the folded sheet under her arm and brushed the smooth, raven hair from her face.  “Franklin was the IT guy here, so we’d call him if we had problems with the computers that controlled the lights and rigs and stuff.”

“Is that why you all stayed at the Egyptian?  Because of Franklin?”

“Yeah, partly.  He knows every nook and cranny of this place.  He’s worked here since it opened, and after the gas riots, he kinda became the leader.”

“Vonna’s a showgirl,” Shad said meaningfully to me.  I recalled our conversation earlier this morning and rolled my eyes.

“I told you, I wasn’t
that
kind of showgirl!  There were no tassels on my costume,” she said, swatting at his arm.  “Come on, Autumn, let’s start on the other side of the room.”  She led me away from Shad, who was still grinning, as he turned toward the next cot.

“My costume did have tassels, but I’m not telling him that,” Vonna whispered, grinning.

“That’s probably a good move,” I assured her.

“I don’t mean to sound weird, but it’s really cool to finally meet you,” Vonna said with the faintest hint of a blush.

“Oh,” I said, taken aback.

“We’ve all heard about you here in Vegas, what with so many Hoover people coming and going these days.”  Then she lowered her voice, as if embarrassed to tell me the rest.  “You’ve kind of become a post-plague legend.  The famous Autumn Winters, savoir of Los Angeles.”

I couldn’t stifle a laugh.  “That’s hardly true.”

“No!” she said a little louder than she meant to, then lowered her voice.  “But it is.  I mean, you did go to the radio station and broadcast your message before leaving, right?”

“Well, yeah.  But I hardly ‘saved’ anyone.”

“You’re too modest... like your mother,” she added with a sincere smile.  “I always liked that about her in her interviews.  She was so genuinely modest when people praised her performances, and she’d credit it to the writers and directors.  It must’ve been so amazing being her daughter.”

I was caught breathless for a moment, then nodded my head.  Yes, it had been amazing.  “Thanks,” I said, quietly.  Then she took my hand, and we set to work.

We worked for several hours, moving down the seemingly endless rows of people waiting for attention.  I changed bandages and bedding, fluffed pillows and braided a few women’s hair.  I talked pleasantly to the people who were awake while I worked on them, and it wasn’t long before everyone realized who I was.  I answered the same questions over and over, but it didn’t bother me as much as it usually did.  They were glad for the company, and I was glad to give it.

A few hours later, I looked up to find Grey standing motionless across the room, watching me.  I automatically looked away so he wouldn’t know I caught him staring, but couldn’t stop myself from glancing back.  He didn’t seem at all embarrassed and gave me a small smile, his tired face lighting up for me.

I couldn’t imagine what it would be like if he’d left town after our conversation on the dam weeks ago.  We’d be here in Vegas with only Kathy and JR, who were wonderful at what they did, but had nowhere near Grey’s expertise.  I thought, selfishly, that I was also beginning to like having Grey around again.  For so much of the last year when I was alone at The Water Tower, and even after Ben and Rissi joined me in hiding, I’d daydreamed about Grey.  He became my safe place.  And little by little, he was regaining that place in my heart, despite my effort to keep him at a distance.

I sighed and cleaned carefully around a cut on a sleeping man’s shin.  Elevated voices made me look up.  Daniel had joined Grey and now gestured aggressively to him.  Grey’s arms were crossed, and he had a stormy look on his face.  What could have caused Daniel to be angry with Grey?  Had he found out about the missing medical supplies?  What else would have made him go through the climb to get back inside the Egyptian so soon?

I strained my ears to listen, and when I couldn’t quite make out the exact words, I quickly bandaged the man’s cut, grabbed my small bag of supplies and moved a little closer, pretending to examine a sleeping patient I’d already tended to.

“How could it be broken?” Daniel said harshly.  “Didn’t you check it before you left Hoover?”

“Of course I did.  It worked fine,” Grey answered, rubbing his tired eyes.

“You must not have packed it carefully enough –”

“I packed it carefully, Daniel,” Grey argued.  “A ride in the wagon and some sand shouldn’t have rendered the radio useless.”

“Well, it’s dead now. 
Something had to happen to it
,” Daniel protested.  “Things don’t just fall apart.”

Grey held his hands up in exasperation and an air of finality.  “I don’t know what to tell you, Daniel.  I took the utmost care of it.  The importance of a communication device is not lost on me.  It worked when I packed it.  It doesn’t now.  We’ll have to see if Vegas can lend us something until we get it working again.”

Daniel sighed heavily and seemed to calm when his red-rimmed eyes found and then lingered on Connie’s sleeping form across the room.  “This all would be a moot point if that idiot, Randy, would’ve fixed the radio in the plane like I asked him to last week.  I don’t know why Westland puts up with that guy.”