In that instant he saw the old Sharon again, and nothing short of a written decree from God Himself could keep him from letting her down.
“Let’s do it!” he said.
13
The ambulance pulled up to the community center and continued onto the sidewalk, coming to a stop only after it was beneath the overhang and out of the rain. Six police cruisers were parked willy-nilly nearby, lights swirling. Signs reading REFUGEE CENTER B hung in the center’s panoramic front windows, made of single sheets of paper, each bearing one letter rendered in black Magic Marker. Centers A and C were located in the VFW hall on the south side and in the warehouse adjacent to the ShopRite at the end of Coleman Avenue.
The ambulance doors flew open and three figures in yellow hazmat suits jumped out. The hoods were fastened close about their heads and oxygen masks with wide facial shields were held in place with broad rubber straps. Each of the three was carrying a field kit that looked like a plastic tackle box. With Emilio in the lead, they walked quickly through the second set of doors and into the main auditorium, where they took one look at the developing scene and came to a halt.
Emilio had been here just a few days earlier, when preparations were underway for the dedication ceremony. Then, the white tile floor had shined like a mirror, with nothing on it but bright shapes of sunlight slanting through the east windows. Everything looked out-of-the-box new — floor, ceiling, walls, molding, fixtures. There was something nice about how pristine it was, Emilio had thought.
Now that vibe was long gone. Instead, the space was filled with four loose lines of terrified people of assorted ages, genders, and ethnic derivation, waiting to be escorted by volunteers to the decontamination area. Everyone wore respiratory protection of some kind, mostly disposable dust masks that had been obtained in quantity at the local Home Depot. A few held moistened wads of paper toweling over their nose and mouth. Some of the adults were sobbing, some of the kids were screaming.
Emilio had already been informed that people were being led to the lower level, where the locker rooms were. There, each individual had to strip down, scrub themselves thoroughly in one of the shower stalls, submit to handheld scanning for residual radiation, then re-dress and wait until authorities could figure out what came next. Contaminated clothing was stuffed into bags and set outside, where it would all be collected later and burned. New clothes came mostly through a request the town made for people to bring along a change for themselves, plus anything they were willing to donate. All such clothing had to be kept in sealed bags, e.g., large plastic trash bags, before arrival.
The police were attempting to maintain order in the reception area but they appeared to be having a tough time of it as more people arrived in their vehicles, and more parking spaces disappeared. Like the EMTs, the cops were bedecked in the bright yellow suits, with the word POLICE written in black marker across the chest.
One of the cops approached.
“They’re over there!” he said, pointing to a corner of the space and shouting to be heard through his mask. “You’d better take a look.”
The EMTs walked over and found two women lying on the floor on blankets. They were separated by about ten feet, and an officer stood rigidly between them with his feet apart and his hands together. Emilio recognized both patients — Valeria Torres, mother of two and manager of the convenience store at the north end of Main; and Juanita Navarro, dark-haired and pretty, and the owner of a dog-walking business that, according to the Silver Lake rumor network, was wildly profitable.
Torres had scratches all over her arms and face; a trail of dried blood started at her purple, swollen nose and ran about halfway down her T-shirt. Navarro’s arm was clearly broken — it looked like she’d developed a new elbow in the middle of her forearm. She was holding the damaged limb against her chest and trying not to cry. Both women were wearing baby blue dust masks.
“I’ll take care of Juanita,” Emilio said. He knelt beside her and set down his kit, then tried to undo the latch, but the hazmat gloves were far too bulky to allow for fine movement. He pulled them off, revealing a pair of surgical gloves underneath. He knew this increased his risk of radiation exposure, but only slightly, and nothing that couldn’t be remedied with a good hand washing.
“Not playing nice with the other children, I see,” he said with a smile.
She moaned. “It hurts so much.”
“It’s broken, I can tell you that just by looking at it. But I’m sure you already know.”
“She did it!” Navarro said, jabbing a finger in Torres’s direction. “I was just standing there, waiting to be—”
“You cut in front of me!” Torres growled, wriggling free of the EMTs and lifting herself onto one elbow.
“I was already there!” Navarro squawked back, spittle shooting from her mouth. “I just stepped away for a second to ask one of the police a question!”
“And when you step away, you lose your place in line!”
“No haces las reglas, perra!”
“Vete a la mierda!”
“SHUT UP, BOTH OF YOU!” the cop roared.
As Navarro sank back down, Emilio removed two long rectangles of hard plastic from the kit. He gently sandwiched her fractured arm between them, fastening the splint with a few careful winds of satin tape.
“We have to bring you to County General for a proper cast,” he told her, “but you need to be decontaminated first.”
He waved one of the other police officers over, recognizing her as Janice Pruitt, one of the force’s latest recruits. Emilio vaguely remembered her from high school — she’d been a freshman when Emilio was a senior, so they hadn’t interacted much. Through her face mask, she looked younger than her years… and quite scared.
“Janice, please take Ms. Navarro to decontamination right away. She needs to get to the hospital.”
“Okay,” she said, helping Emilio get the woman to her feet. Navarro shot a last dirty look at Torres, who lifted one hand and flicked her the bird even while the other two EMTs tended to her broken nose. Navarro turned away without further comment, her chin tilted upward.
“I’ll drive around back and pull the ambulance up to the door,” Emilio said. “We’ll need to get Juanita inside fast.”
Pruitt nodded. “Right.”
“As for her friend over there—”
A catalogue of strangled screams came suddenly from the crowd and Emilio turned to see a well-dressed white woman with a cloud of silver hair drop onto all fours. For a moment she was still, staring into space with half-lidded eyes, her face cursed with misery. Then her back arched and she vomited explosively, the pinkish stream spattering in all directions when it hit the floor.
The lines dissolved into one horrified throng as everyone backed away. The woman swayed, trying to catch her breath, then hitched out another burst of vomit before collapsing with a wet slap onto the puddle she’d created. Emilio knew her — Bernice Dempsey, his family’s former next-door neighbor until her husband passed away and she moved into an apartment. He saw her around town once in a while, usually at the library or the supermarket.
Moving quickly, he got to her before anyone else and helped her back onto all fours. Then, as with Mrs. Hart, he went through her vitals. She looked dazed and didn’t react to the obvious indignity of her situation; Emilio thought there was something in that to be thankful for. Another cop appeared with a blossom of paper towels. Emilio took them gratefully and finished cleaning her up.