Comes the Blind Fury

Michelle stared at Billy Evans’s tiny body, lying still on the ground, his face pale and lifeless. Tentatively, reluctantly, she took a step toward him.

“Billy?” Her voice was unsteady, questioning. “Billy? Are you all right?”

But even as she asked the question, she knew he was dead. She took one more step toward him, then changed her mind.

Help. She had to get help.

She braced herself against the backstop and leaned carefully over to pick up her cane. Then, after one more quick look at Billy, she started toward the school building. There was no one left in the yard — no one to come to her aid, no one to do something for Billy Evans.

No one to tell her what had happened.

For Michelle could not remember.

She could remember Billy climbing up the mesh, balancing himself on top.

She could remember him starting to walk, and she could remember telling him to be careful.

And he had laughed.

Then the fog had closed in on her, and Amanda had come.

But then what happened? Her mind was blank.

She started up the back steps of the school.

“Help!” she called. “Oh, please, can’t anyone hear me?”

She was very close to the top when she saw the door open, and her father appeared.

“Michelle? What’s happened? Are you all right?”

“It’s Billy!” Michelle cried. “Billy Evans! He fell, Daddy! He was trying to walk the backstop, and he fell!”

“Oh, my God.” The words were barely audible, strangling in his throat. The visions came back to him, children’s faces flashing in his mind, their eyes accusing him. He began to feel dizzy, but forced himself to look at the playground. Even from here he could see the little boy, motionless, lying in a crumpled heap next to the backstop.

By then, Michelle had reached the top of the steps, and was holding on to him, clinging to him, her eyes brimming with tears.

“He fell, Daddy. I think — I think he’s dead.”

He had to think. He had to act. But it was nearly impossible. “Come inside,” he mumbled. “Come inside, and your mother will take care of you.” He disentangled himself from Michelle and led her inside to the office, where June and Tim Hartwick were still talking. Both of them looked at him in surprise, then, by the expression on his face, knew that something was wrong.

“Call an ambulance,” he said. “There’s been an accident. A little boy fell off the backstop. I–I’ve got to take care of him.” His voice faded. “I’ve got to.…” He turned and shambled out of the office.

As Tim picked up the phone and began dialing, Michelle suddenly spoke.

“Mom?” Her voice sounded dazed, and June took her in her arms.

“It’s all right, honey,” June whispered to her. “Daddy’s taking care of it, and an ambulance will be here soon. What happened?”

Michelle buried her face against her mother and sobbed uncontrollably. As June listened to Tim talking on the phone, she tried to soothe her daughter. Slowly, Michelle regained herself.

Tim Hartwick hung up the phone as Michelle started to recite the tale. He listened intently, observing Michelle as she talked, trying to read the truth of her words in her face. When she was done, June took her once more in her arms.

“How terrible,” she said softly. “But don’t worry — he’ll probably be fine.”

“No, he won’t,” Michelle said hollowly. “He’s dead. I know he’s dead.”

It was like a recurring nightmare.

Cal crossed the schoolyard in a daze, as though his feet were dragging him back, even as he tried to run. The seconds it took him to reach Billy Evans seemed like hours, and his mind was flooded with the sure foreknowledge of what he would find.

He reached Billy at last and knelt by the boy’s limp body. He glanced at Billy’s face, noted the broken neck, then automatically took the child’s wrist between his fingers.

There was a pulse.

Cal thought he was imagining it at first, but a moment later he knew: Billy Evans was still alive.

Why can’t he be dead? Cal silently asked. Why does he have to depend on me?

He leaned over Billy reluctantly, forcing himself to examine him.

He was going to have to move the boy.

He hesitated. Only a few weeks earlier he had gathered up his own child. Now she was crippled. Panic rose in him, and for a split second he felt paralyzed. Then, slowly, his mind began to reason.

When the ambulance arrived, the attendants would move Billy. Perhaps he should wait.

But he was a doctor. He had to do something.

Besides, if he didn’t, he was sure that Billy would be dead by the time the ambulance arrived — he could see the constriction in the boy’s neck, see him slowly strangling. If Billy was to survive, Cal had to straighten out his neck.

He began to move Billy’s head.

As the flow of air passed more freely into his lungs, Billy’s complexion began to change. The blueness faded. Then, as Cal watched, the child began to breathe more easily.

Cal began to let himself relax.

Billy Evans was going to live.

In the distance, the wail of the ambulance started up. To Cal, the sound was a symphony of hope.

• • •

As the sound of the ambulance grew louder, June stood up and went to the window. From where she stood, she could see nothing — only one corner of the backstop, ominously visible, the rest of it blocked from her view by the building.

“I can’t stand it,” she said. Tim, go see what’s happening. Please?”

Tim Hartwick nodded. He started out of the office, then paused at the door.

“I told Mrs. Evans to come here. You’re sure you don’t want me to wait with you?” He glanced pointedly at Michelle, who was sitting on a straight-backed chair, her gaze fixed in midair, her face frozen in an expression of shock.

“If she gets here before you get back, I’ll handle it,” June insisted. “Just find out — find out if he’s alive.”

Half an hour later, only Michelle, June, and Tim were left at the school. The ambulance, with Billy and Cal in the rear, had departed for the clinic, and Billy’s mother had followed, insisting she could drive herself once she was assured that her son was still alive. The small crowd that had gathered in the schoolyard had quickly dispersed, the people leaving in small groups, whispering among themselves, and occasionally glancing back toward the school, where they knew Michelle Pendleton was still sitting in Tim Hartwick’s office.

Tim signaled June to join him in the hall for a moment. When they were alone, he told her that he would like to talk to Michelle.

“So soon?” June asked. “But — she’s too upset!”

“We have to find out what happened. I think if I talk to her now, before she’s had much of a chance to really think about it, I’ll get the closest thing to the truth.”

June’s maternal instincts leaped to her daughter’s defense. “You mean before she’s had a chance to make up a story?”

“That’s not what I said, and it’s not what I meant,” Tim said quickly. “I want to talk to her before her mind has had a chance to make whatever happened seem logical to her. And I want to find out why she was so sure Billy was dead.”

“All right,” June said at last, reluctantly. “But don’t push her. Please?”

“I never would,” Tim said gently. He left June alone in the hall while he returned to Michelle.