“I don’t see anyone.”
Sarah shook her head. “I don’t either, but they have to be around here somewhere.”
“The wind’s getting worse, and I’m having enough trouble controlling this thing as it is. We won’t be able to stay out here much longer.”
“Okay, okay. Umm… do this — move the light back to the car, then away from it and toward the park very slowly.”
The pilot obeyed. “What’s the plan here?”
“I’m trying to think like Pete Soames. His wife said he got out of the car after the water got too high. So, presuming he wasn’t foolish enough to go back into the car, he would have walked toward the park because that’s where—oh, shit!”
Pete was there — a short distance from his engulfed vehicle, in a half-curled position, with one arm straight up as if reaching for something.
“Move down there!” Sarah shouted, “Quickly!”
“Four-four this is Baker Charlie,” the pilot said, and Sarah couldn’t help noticing that the people on the other end weren’t audible in her headset; she was being excluded from the conversation.
“We have located one of the three missing persons, copy?” There was a pause as he waited for a response. “Roger that, Peter Soames. I don’t know if the subject is alive or not. He is located—” The pilot pulled the headset away from one ear and asked Sarah the names of the streets, which he then conveyed to whoever was listening.
Returning his focus to Sarah, he said, “Where are the other two likely to be?” he asked. “Do you know?”
“It’s a big park, they could be anywhere. By the way, since we’ve been interacting all this time, I think I should ask — what’s your name?”
“Austin, ma’am. Austin McDonald, just like the old farmer.”
They shook hands. “Nice to meet you, Austin.”
“You, too, Sarah. Is that okay? Sarah?”
“Yes, fine.”
“Okay, Sarah — watch close.”
The machine dropped as low as common sense would allow; McDonald kept the searchlight in constant motion as they circled the utility building, covered the whole of the parking lot and the playground, then ran along the river banks.
“I don’t see them,” he said flatly.
“I don’t either. Dammit.”
The ’copter jerked from a sudden gust, and the engine roared as McDonald throttled to compensate.
“We can’t do this much longer,” he told her. “The winds are getting bad again.”
Sarah felt close to tears. “Okay,” she said, “go back to — no, wait…”
“What?”
“Go to the other side of the utility building.”
“There’s nothing but woods over there,” McDonald said.
She was leaning forward to gain a full view of the area. “Yes, but there’s a path, too. Kids go down there all the time, doing all sorts of things they shouldn’t.”
“Okay.”
No sooner had the searchlight landed on the path than two bodies were revealed, on their backs and no more than five feet apart. Sharon’s arms were at her side; Mark’s were spread as if he was nailed to a crucifix.
McDonald grabbed the mic for another brief conversation, which Sarah could not hear over her own chanting of, “Oh, my God… oh, my God…” As soon as he was done, she said, “Go down!”
“You’re not seriously thinking of going out there!”
“I’m sure as hell not going to leave them here!”
“Sarah, there’s no way—”
“When is the evac team coming?”
McDonald turned toward her but did not respond. She knew instantly what he wasn’t saying.
“When they’re done with everything else, right?” she said angrily. “Which could be another hour or more.”
He nodded. “Probably.”
She jabbed a finger downward. “Then I want you to put this damned thing on that damned ground right now!”
He rolled his eyes but again followed her command. She could just about read his mind—Clearly, the honeymoon of our friendship is already over.
“Okay, okay,” he said.
He landed roughly equidistant between Pete Soames and the other two; about thirty yards from each. The moment the skids touched the earth, Sarah was out the door and running, the oxygen mask pressed tight to her face.
She went to Mark and Sharon first, and it occurred to her that the rationale for this was again based on the kind of torturous decision-making that was so common to leadership. They’re younger than Pete and have more of their lives ahead of them.
She reached Mark first and dropped to her knees with a splash. In doing so, the plastic sheet that she’d been holding over her head ripped from her fingers in a gust of wind and went flying into the darkness. Terrific, she thought bitterly.
Mark lay still, eyes closed and mouth open. There was a hint of blood at the corners of his lips but nowhere else, which puzzled her until she realized the rain had been vigilantly washing the rest of it away. She set her hand on his chest; at first there was nothing, no movement. He’s dead; oh, God, he’s dead. Then the smallest lift of respiration, and his head rolled slightly.
Now she scrambled toward Sharon, who was twitching violently. When Sarah noticed the moderate swell in Sharon’s belly, she gasped.
Racing back to the helicopter, she yanked the door open, pulled her oxygen mask aside, and yelled, “I need your help!”
“They’re alive?” McDonald asked incredulously.
“I don’t know about Pete Soames because I haven’t checked, but the other two are! And the girl’s pregnant!”
McDonald tilted his head the way people do when forced into an impossible position.
“If we put them in here,” he said, “we’ll irradiate the whole cabin!”
“We can wash it off our clothes when we get to safety, you know that! As long as we keep our masks on, we’ll be fine!”
“You can’t guarantee that!”
“I can guarantee these people will die if we don’t get them out of here! And I guarantee something else, too — there’s a woman who’s been blogging pictures and updates from the Corwin plant. She’s a local reporter — and I’m a local politician, so we know each other. And I guarantee she’ll be more than happy to write a story about the guy who let three people die out here!”
The pilot clenched his teeth and shook his head just once, very slowly. Then he began to unstrap his harness with the speed of a game-show contestant.
“Sarah, you’re a real trip,” he said bitterly, elbowing his door open and climbing out.
Pete Soames was also alive and unconscious. When Sarah rolled him over, she found a puddle of fizzy, peanut butter-colored vomit under his cheek. He was the last and most difficult to get into the ’copter due to his height and weight. When they finally lifted off, the three new passengers were strapped into seats in five-point harnesses, their heads resting against each other like a group of college kids being taken home after a night of alcoholic indulgence.
As they soared over the town, Sarah looked upon the carnage below in silent horror. There were military trucks, police cruisers, and school buses gradually moving away from the “zone of exclusion”—a phrase she had come to loathe in a very short time. The sight of the school buses was particularly heartbreaking, as she previously only associated them with childhood, friendships, education, and other hallmarks of youthful innocence. She could see orange-and-white barricades blocking certain roadways, originally set up due merely to flooding — which had become extensive — but now there for more nightmarish reasons as well. There were phone poles down, their transformers spewing sparks, and abandoned private vehicles. And in the distance, glowing in the dark with the aid of emergency lighting, was the facility that had caused this dark fantasy, the smoke still rising from its wounded body.