This Deep Panic Read online

  People talked in low voices and huddled together. It was strange, how quiet they were. There was no sign of the violence that had been in the Fred Meyers parking lot the night before. At least not yet. Ramon had expected to find crowds pushing and shoving to get loved ones inside, but instead they settled, waiting. He saw pain and fear, blood and broken bones, and one person with, oddly, a screwdriver sticking out of his arm.

  “You seen anything like this before?” Ben asked, gesturing at the crowd.

  Ramon hesitated, very aware of the girls listening. “I saw shootings all the time. Back home. Before I moved here. But nothing like this.”

  “Me neither,” Ben said. “And I’ve been around.”

  “People are so…well behaved,” Ramon said. “Handling this good. You know, waiting, no panic.”

  “Look at their faces, son,” Ben said, lowering his voice. “You aren’t looking at people calm and waiting. You’re looking at sheep.”

  “What?”

  “Everyone’s waitin’ for someone in charge to tell them it’s going to be okay. Mayhap tell them what to do next.”

  “A doctor can’t do that,” Ramon said.

  “No, but we’re all hoping the doctor will have more information than we do. Right now, these medical people are the closest thing to authority around.”

  Ramon watched the crowd. Deep shock also explained what looked like calmness.

  “Look closer, son,” Ben said, poking Ramon with his elbow. “People are scared, but they’re getting angry. Look at how they’re inching closer to the clinic, starting to push against each other. Crowd their way up front.”

  Ramon saw Ben was right. There was a subtle shifting going on. Someone paced, one man suddenly threw up his hands and then shoved past the person next to him, going to the clinic and peering in the window. In the background a hum was starting, as one or two voices were raised.

  “Can you feel it?” Ben asked.

  Ramon could only nod. There was tension in the air, a side effect of fear and confusion.

  Over the next hour, that tension grew and sharpened. Ramon was only distracted from watching the crowd when June and Artair came back holding white paper bags.

  “What have you got there, Mother?” Ben asked.

  “That nice pharmacist renewed my blood pressure meds,” June said. “And gave me extra because of the quake. He didn’t even check to see if I had a prescription. I told him I couldn’t find my pills at Fred Meyers and he just started filling bottles.”

  “Lot of people in the pharmacy,” Artair said. “And they’re kind of getting angry.”

  A woman in a blue flowered smock came to the opening that had once been the clinic’s doors. “Number sixty.”

  “That’s us,” Ramon said, relieved. The urge to get in the truck and lock the doors ate at him. He helped the girls stand but Marie suddenly latched on to his arm and plastered herself against him.

  “Come on Marie, you’re too old for this. They’re just going to look at your head. Let’s get it done and get out of here.” Ramon tried to keep the impatience out of his voice. But Marie didn’t respond, staring off to the side, eyes wide. He turned. “What?”

  “Is that real?” Marie pointed.

  “Is what real, honey?” June asked.

  They all looked in the direction Marie pointed, at the outskirts of the crowd, the edge of pavement where parking lot became highway.

  “I don’t see anything.” Artair squinted.

  “What do you see?” Ramon asked his niece.

  “There,” Marie whispered. “The raven. Watching us.”

  “I don’t see any raven,” Artair said.

  Marie clutched Ramon’s hand and tugged him down so she could whisper in his ear.

  “I think I’m dead.”

  Chilled fear avalanched through Ramon’s body. He scooped up Marie and gripped her tight, as if his hold could keep her in one piece.

  “You’re not dead, baby,” he said, and knew she heard the quiver in his voice. “Let’s get to the doctor before they give our number to someone else.”

  Inside, the lights were on. That simple thing made Ramon take a deep breath. It was as if, with light, all things were fixed. But the low rumble of a generator running somewhere explained the lights. Deep lines of fatigue carved crevices in the face of the doctor who came toward them. Etchings that looked like they were there to stay.

  “What do we have here?” the man asked, his voice scratchy and gruff.

  “One injured arm and a head wound,” Ramon said, not wanting to waste the poor man’s time with unnecessary words.

  Alegria though, caught at the doctor’s hand. “My sister thinks she’s dead.”

  “Really?” The doctor knelt next to Marie and managed an authentic smile. “That happens sometimes with head injuries.”

  “Why?” Alegria asked.

  “Good question.” The doctor talked to the girls as if this was a normal appointment in an exam room, instead of an overflowing destroyed waiting room with injured people lined up needing his time. “Sometimes, what happens is a temporary disconnect between your thoughts and your perceptions. Do you know what that means?”

  “No,” Marie said softly. “Not exactly.”

  “Your brain is doing two jobs at once, all the time,” the doctor continued, as he parted Marie’s dark hair with one hand and pulled out gauze from a tray on the floor next to him.

  “Like my Tío,” Alegria said. “His job that gives him money and his job watching my dad.”

  Ramon started in surprise. How had Alegria known he kept an eye on his brother?

  “Okay,” the doctor said, now snipping hair away from the wound site. “Your brain has an internal job. Where it keeps your body working, monitors everything. Then it has an outside job where it takes in everything you see, hear, taste, and so forth, and processes it into information you understand.”

  Marie watched the doctor intently, a frown pulling her eyebrows down into a sharp angle.

  “Sometimes, when you’ve been banged around, the brain can’t handle both jobs so it only does one. Usually it quits the outside job so it can work at home.”

  This brought small smiles to both girls.

  “When it quits the outside job, it can give you a feeling that things aren’t real. Because your brain just isn’t processing the outside information like normal.”

  “Does it make you see things that aren’t there?” Alegria asked, reaching out to hold her sister’s hand.

  “No,” the doctor said, drawing the word out as if he thought. “Is that what happened?”

  Marie shook her head and then winced. “It was there. Just no one else saw it.”

  The doctor looked up to meet Ramon’s eyes and then went back to his job. “Well, let’s talk a little more. I bet you have a headache.”

  The questions and answers moved into more expected channels as the doctor went through the exam. When he was done Marie had a bald spot on the back of her head with five neat stitches covered with a bandage. She’d been given two pills, and the doctor handed several sample packets to Ramon.

  “Pain pills if she needs them, and antibiotics. The wound wasn’t bad but since it’s been awhile we don’t know if any infection made its way in. Better safe than sorry.”

  Ramon nodded, pocketing the samples.

  The doctor gestured for an assistant. “Your daughter can wait in that chair over there while my nurse takes care of your other daughter’s arm.”

  Ramon didn’t correct the doctor’s assumption that he was their father. He realized, with stomach sinking, that right now he was the closest to a parent the girls had. And there was no way he was qualified.

  “How long will they be?” Ramon asked, nodding in the direction Alegria had gone. “We came out here for medical help because we couldn’t get to the hospital. But we need to get back to Monroe. Find my brother.”

  “I understand,” the doctor said. “Are you injured? You seem to be guarding your side.�
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  “It’s not bad. Hit a fire hydrant. Just bruised.” Growing impatience made his words curt. “Sorry. It’s just…we need to get out of here.”

  “Believe me, I get it.” The doctor leaned down to Marie still sitting in a chair. “Those symptoms of yours, that sense of unreality, should go away on its own shortly.”

  “What about her seeing things not there?” Ramon asked when Marie didn’t speak.

  The doctor shook his head. “Hallucinations. Maybe from the bump she got. Maybe from stress, fear, lack of sleep, shock. Who knows? Doubt it will happen again once she gets rest.”

  The doctor’s assistant returned with Alegria. She was pale but proudly showed him a sling made of hot pink material with virulent green dragonflies.

  “It’s not broken,” the nurse said. “Your daughter’s arm. She compressed all the bones in the forearm so the nerves were pinched, and banged her shoulder up. But it’s just deeply bruised, not dislocated. We’ve manipulated the bones but her arm is going to be sore as if she had a greenstick fracture. So keep the sling on to help her remember not to use the arm.” The nurse handed him a handful of sample packets. “Pain meds if she needs them.”

  Someone outside shouted. There was a crash of breaking glass.

  Ramon grabbed the packets without looking at them. He pulled Marie to her feet and caught Alegria’s hand, prodding them both toward the door. The urge to scoop them up and run was overwhelming.

  The crowd in the parking lot had grown, and grown more restless. Ramon pulled the girls close until they reached the truck where Ben stood waiting.

  “Mayhap we need to get out of here, son,” Ben said, his grizzled eyebrows drawn down.

  “I know.”

  Ramon boosted the girls up into the truck where June and Artair already waited. Before he got in though, a siren, loud and long, made him twist around to Ben.

  “What the hell is that?”

  Someone in the crowd screamed and voices rose. A man near them grabbed a woman and child and shoved them toward a car so fast the child fell. He scooped up the boy but as he went by Ramon grabbed his arm.

  “What’s going on?”

  The man yanked his arm free. “Warning siren for the Culmbak Dam.”

  “A dam?” Ramon’s stomach filled with tangible terror.

  “On the Spada Lake Reservoir.” The man’s face was bone white. “Thirty minutes, maybe, to get the hell out of here.”

  Ben ran for the driver’s door and Ramon climbed in next to his nieces.

  “What do we do?” Artair asked, staring out the window.

  Ramon froze. The highway in front of the clinic was blocked. Cars sped out of the parking lot only to slam into other cars. Trucks pushed their way through by force, only to jam up, bottle-necked, against the small, narrow bridge that crossed the Wallace River just east of the clinic.

  “Half an hour to evacuate out of the city,” Ramon said, hopeless. “Through that.”

  “How?” Artair asked, his eyes wide with fear as he stared at the highway.

  “Not by road,” Ben said, his voice tight and grim.

  “Buckle up and hang on,” June said calmly. “You’re about to see why I’ve been married to Father so long.”

  “Are we going to die?” Alegria asked, grabbing on to Ramon.

  “No, honey,” June answered. “We’re going to bounce around a bit and then be fine.”

  Ramon checked each girl’s seatbelt with shaking hands and then yanked his across to buckle. Artair, up front between Ben and June, looked over his shoulder at Ramon, eyebrows almost to his hairline. Ramon could only shake his head. There was nothing to do but trust the old man.

  Ben hit the gas and the truck shuddered. Ramon saw no way to get through the parking lot, let alone down the highway, but Ben didn’t even try. Instead he headed toward the back of the clinic. Mowing down a chain link fence around a Laundromat like it wasn’t even there. Cutting right across a lawn.

  Ramon threw his arm out across his nieces to hold them in place as the truck bounced and jumped a curb. Without letting up on the gas, Ben headed straight down hill and into a small gravel parking area where boats and boat trailers sat, some crushed under fallen trees. He swerved around vehicles, heading straight for water.

  “That’s a river!” Artair shouted.

  “That’s just a baby river,” June said. “With nice sloping banks. That’s nothing. You should have seen this river in Idaho-“

  “Not now, Mother,” Ben said, leaning forward and gripping the steering wheel.

  Ramon glanced at the girls. He’d put his nieces right into the hands of a crazy old fart. They were all going to drown. He grabbed the door handle. Maybe he could get the three of them out before they hit water.

  But then what would they do?

  The truck engine slowed with a deep whine as Ben shifted down. He caught hold of another gearshift and went into four-wheel drive. Ramon lurched against the seatbelt as the truck nosed down into the swiftly moving water. Both girls clutched each other’s hands with tears washing down their cheeks.

  “The old Crusher is made for this,” Ben said. “Relax.”

  They were thrown side to side as the truck bounced over rocks. Ben shifted into four low.

  “There’s an exhaust pipe for the engine,” June said, one hand on the dashboard for balance. “See?”

  A pipe came out of the engine compartment alongside the front windshield. Ramon sagged back. As long as they didn’t get bogged down in silt, maybe they would make it. And now that they were in the water, he realized it really was a baby river. Only a few truck lengths wide. They’d be across in moments.

  “Oh shit.” Artair pointed out the driver’s side window. “Floor it!”

  The riverbanks overflowed and disappeared under rolling water.

  Ben glanced quickly upriver and then shook his head. “Calm down, son. That’s just the leadin’ wave, not the flood. The bad part won’t be a wave, just a giant swell.”

  “It’s a hell of a lot of water!” Ramon pressed one palm to the window as if to hold back the wave.

  The water hit the side of the truck, rocking and surrounding it. The steering wheel jerked out of Ben’s hands, but he grabbed it as the truck lurched to one side. For a moment Ramon was sure the weight of the camper and all their supplies would send them crashing over. But the tires gripped, the hood of the truck came up slightly, and Ben hit the gas. They lurched up the opposite bank, bounced over some rocks and kept going across the grass of a small park.

  Ben didn’t slow down and his knuckles against the steering wheel whitened with tension. “Not out of the woods yet.”

  Ignoring the highway, Ben headed down side streets, using yards and parking lots where he could. Ramon glanced down at his nieces, grinning broadly.

  “We made it,” he said.

  Alegria met his grin. “That should be a Disney ride!”

  “Look,” June said. “There on the sidewalk.”

  There were people all over, but the crowds were moving. Throwing things in cars, running, grabbing kids and pet carriers. But where June pointed, an old lady in a long black dress stood perfectly still, holding a walking stick. The contrast with panic and chaos surrounding her stillness was eerie.

  “We need to help the poor thing,” June said. “There’s no one with her.”

  “We don’t have room,” Ben said, but his foot came off the gas anyway.

  “No!” Marie shouted, reaching forward to grab June’s shoulder. “Don’t stop!”

  “We can’t leave the old dear like that, all alone,” June said, raising a hand to pat Marie’s fingers.

  But Marie jerked her hand back, threw off her seatbelt, and climbed over Alegria. She leaned between Artair and Ben, grabbing for the steering wheel.

  “Don’t you see it?” she screamed. “Don’t stop!”

  Ramon caught Marie around the waist, pulling her back toward him. She fought, sobbing.

  “She’s not for us! You can’t sto
p!”

  The old woman turned toward the truck, calmly watching as they neared. She made no effort to stop them, no hand came up as if asking for help. She simply stood there.

  Ben hesitated, the truck slowing even more. “What do we do here?” he asked.

  “Marie’s just imagining things,” Alegria said, although her voice rose in fear.

  The old woman looked directly at them, her eyes black and bottomless, and Ramon shivered. He grew still, almost holding his breath as he gripped Marie.

  The woman smiled, fissured wrinkles deepening across her face. And one hand came up, gesturing them onward, giving them permission to go by.

  “What the hell?” Ramon said, tightening his grip on Marie, who pushed her hands against the back of Ben’s seat as if trying to shove the truck forward.

  Ben shook his head and rolled down the window. “You need help?” he called out, not quite stopping the truck.

  “Not today,” the woman said. “Listen to your little girl.”

  “You sure?” Ben asked, doubt deepening his voice.

  “Go on,” the woman said, impatiently flapping her hand at them. “You’re not the one I’m waiting for.”

  Ben rolled up the window slowly, as if he was still undecided. But June reached across Artair and put her hand on Ben’s arm.

  “I think we’d best do what she says.” June’s voice was almost a whisper.

  The warning siren went off again and the loud, jarring noise settled their indecision. Ben nodded to the old woman and pulled away.

  Artair turned to look over the back of the seat. He was pale, his hazel eyes wide as he stared at Marie.

  “How’d the old lady know what Marie said?”

  Ramon rubbed the goose bumps on his arms. Trying to sound calm and in control, he turned to Marie.

  “What did you see?” The silence that followed his question was heavy, as if time paused.

  After a moment Marie wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her school blouse. Tears left tracks down her cheeks and she still trembled against Ramon, but her eyes reflected only a deep weariness.