lights, had he noticed this? Or smelled the Clorox? Seen the blood smears on the rug? Maybe even seen the cut basement ground door?
I know about him, Ray realized, but now he knows about me.
He was exhausted from his drive back to the city and he was anxious, too-unusual for him. Seeing Richie dead like that had shaken him up, loosened up some old stuff he'd thought he'd carefully tied back together a while ago. The old loose fucked-up stuff in his head. The bad stuff. He needed to soften it fast, blur it out. And to do that he wanted something more than getting quietly buzzed on a few beers, something deeper. He'd smoked opium a few times in Pakistan, never got hooked. At midnight, he remembered, Gloria cleaned the Dilaudid machine.
So he waited, sitting next to his father, who was asleep. She went into the kitchen to prepare and, in that moment, Ray quickly pulled out the shunt that was inserted into the intravenous line that went to his father's arm and slipped it into a needle line he'd stolen from the nurse's box of supplies and put into his own wrist. Then he punched the drug delivery button. The machine gave him the last discretionary dose of the twenty-four-hour period. The machine kept track of how many times the patient pushed the button, and if the nurse had been checking, she might notice.
He felt a warm pressure go into his arm, the dose delivered. Then he pulled out the shunt and slipped it back into his father's line. There was no danger of contamination for him or his father because the shunt itself never touched anything other than sterile plastic. He gently pulled the line from his own arm and slipped it into his back pocket. Gloria returned, gave him a second look, unplugged the machine, disconnected it from the line going into Ray's father, and took the machine to the kitchen.
Ray dropped heavily into the deep chair next to the bed. A faraway thought came to him that his father had built up a tolerance over the weeks he'd been taking Dilaudid, whereas Ray had no such preparation.. but so what? The thing was hitting him now… a warm wash that dropped him into collapsing pools of stupefying pleasure…
What phantasms dance in a man's head while clutched in a morphine dream? Does he witness what never happened? Or does he redream what he otherwise wishes he'd forget? Does the mind billow florid sweetness or release its darkest horror? Do the most recent images (Richie, dead before him) and thoughts (I could have saved him) and smells (blood) find their antecedents within his memory? Does one nightmare recall another? It must be possible… Do the sounds come back… the roaring above them as they searched the subbasement for anyone trapped behind fire doors? Wickham in front, Ray shining his flashlight along the dark corridors, all electricity turned off, walking in their heavy boots and unbuckled bunker coats and helmets in the sub-basement looking for people trapped behind jammed fire doors… those sounds of footsteps always in his mind, the last footsteps before everything, before Wickham had stopped, cocked his head…
Hear that?
No. Wait. I do.
A roaring had begun.
Let's get out of the footprint.
Wickham nodded. He shined his light down a long hall filled with pipes. That way.
The roaring increased. The concrete ceiling was cracking.
It's collapsing!
They ran as fast as they could in their heavy, clinking equipment, their flashlight beams bouncing crazily up and down. The horizontal pipes on the ceiling started snapping like sticks, water bursting from them. A wave of dust hit their backs, then smoke. They pulled on their air masks.
Ray followed Wickham. They turned a corner. It was blocked with concrete.
The header had collapsed. Wickham swore behind his mask.
They stopped. Ray switched on his radio.
Company Ten, Team Alpha, we're trapped down in the service hall running west on the sublevel.
No answer.
Now a wave of dust and debris was blowing steadily at them. Somewhere above them was enormous downward compression.
Wickham said something in the noise… pulled him close and yelled in his ear.
Under a T joint. Reinforced.
Ray nodded. They trained their lights along the ceiling. The dust was so thick that both flashlights were necessary. Ray grabbed Wickham and they held each other close until they found a T joint in the corridor. They squatted under it. Ray turned on his radio. All he could hear from it was roaring. No voices. Just an open mike somewhere.
The ceiling collapsed ten yards away, right where they had been standing, pancaking flat against the floor. Then five yards away the ceiling collapsed and hit the floor with such force that debris spat at them like shrapnel. They lay flat on the floor under the beam.
It's coming!
They could hear the roaring above them, the tremors shaking the floor. Then the floor collapsed beneath them and Ray grabbed for Wickham and they fell together, holding each other, spinning as they dropped through the darkness. Ray landed on something hot that burned away his overalls and T-shirt. The hot thing slid along the muscles of his stomach, instantly charring his flesh. He moaned in shocked agony, as did Wickham, and they fell off the hot thing and tumbled another six feet, Ray landing flat on his back, Wickham facedown on top of him, heavily, crushing him nearly, pinning him, Ray's nostrils filling now with the smell of burning rubber and burning flesh, his belly a flank of torment, the pain of a thousand knives hammered into him.
Atop him Wickham writhed. Oh! No! No!
A hissing sound.
A groan. Panting. Groaning. No. No, please, no.
Wicks…
Ray was pinned with his left arm under his back, Wickham on top of him.
Something burning in the darkness, hissing.
Meat burning.
Oh, God, please, please… No more, please, God. Mother of God
… I'm begging!.. No, no… Molly, I'm-I'm sorry… oh.. oh.
Wickham's head lay on Ray's chest, his body jerking. Ray moved his right hand down to Wickham's head, felt for the helmet, the visor, then slipped his hand down the neck, found the shoulder, ran his hand along Wickham's upper arm, and pulled on his arm. Ray squeezed Wickham's hand.
Molly!
I'll tell her, I promise. Don't worry.
He let go of Wickham's hand and tried to feel what was pinning them. His ribs hurt. He worked his gloved hand down over Wickham's back until he came to the metal pipe that had crushed Wickham's backbone. It was so hot it seared through Ray's insulated glove just at the touch, and he yanked away his hand even as his fingertips began to burn. He worked his hand back to his torso and found the flashlight jammed beneath him. Then he switched it on, only to see a cement girder four inches from his face. By crooking his neck he could see the top of Wickham's helmet, his shoulder, and beyond that, the pipe, which wasn't a pipe at all but a heavy-duty electrical cable that had fried off its insulation and was still burning downward into Wickham's back, cooking the bone and flesh as it sank through him.
Every movement an agony, back, ribs, stomach, Ray brought his hand to Wickham's. He squeezed it again.
No response.
Oh, Wicks. What will I tell Molly?
He realized his goggles were dusted over. He brushed them off. He found the flashlight again and lifted his head just enough to see that he and Wickham were trapped between two giant cracked slabs of concrete sandwiched atop one another. Sweeping the beam back and forth, he saw an immense horizontal landscape of debris: what looked like part of a car, electrical wiring and panels, popped and flattened drums of unknown content, dripping water pipes, all compressed within the irregular two-foot gap between the slabs. Anything higher than two feet had been crushed to that depth, a depth that, when you thought about it, would just about accommodate the thickness of one man lying atop another.
He found his radio using the flashlight and turned it on.
