Page 6 of Haunted

“No kidding,” the EMT says. “I’m riding with to keep him stable.”

Lance puts a hand between my shoulder blades and steers me into the middle of them, close enough that somebody has to step around us. “Help,” he says. “He can’t breathe.” I’ve just about caught my breath, but I don’t correct him. Nobody looks up. He pushes me forward another step. “Somebody? Please. He was in it, he came out of Denning Court, he can’t breathe—somebody has to look at him.” I can feel the panic radiating out of him, and my voice is too torn up to calm him down.

The woman with the clipboard turns and looks at us as they walk Daniel back toward the parking lot. “Come on, sugar. Take a seat.”

I sit. I start coughing again and there are stars forming in front of my eyes. Someone clamps a plastic thing over my mouth and I feel the cold press of air filling my lungs. My head clears. I close my eyes and concentrate on getting that oxygen into my body. It hurts, and this time when I start to cough, I pull the mask away and something black comes out of my mouth. I look to see if Lance saw it, but he’s not next to me anymore.

The woman who helped me is asking my name and address, and then she asks about my family.

I have to whisper, because it’s the only way I can make the words come out. “Angela Bishop. My mom. And my grandmother, Laurel Bishop, and my brother—Elliott Bishop, he’s fourteen.” I don’t know the right word to hand a stranger. “He’s got special needs. You can’t miss him, he’ll have a stuffed snail with him. Are they here? They left before I did. They should be here already.”

She takes it down quietly. “I don’t recognize the names, but there’s a notice board in the gym where people are leaving messages. That would be your best bet.”

“My friend. Where is my friend?” I ask the woman. I can’t see Lance, and now I’m panicked that he’s not going to be able to find me.

“He said he had to make a phone call. I can tell him where you’ve gone, though.”

I leave the tent and go to the gym. When I come in, every face turns anxiously to look at me like they are waiting for someone to come through those doors. But I am not their someone, and they turn away.

I notice the decorations are still up from the dance last Friday. But now they are setting up cots in rows, sharing space with the art deco Gatsby banners and the proclamations that the Farley Foxes were state champions in 1996. It’s full of people I don’t know. Some of their faces and clothes are dirty. The room smells of smoke.

I start down the rows. Every face is the wrong face. I’m listening for Elliott—he’d be screaming in a place like this, all these people, all this noise, he’d be on the floor with his hands over his ears and everybody in the building would know exactly where he was. I get all the way to the back wall. Mom isn’t there.

They left before me. Mom drives like a maniac when she wants to. They should have been here already.

At the back, people are milling around two cork boards. The first one says “SEARCHING FOR” and the other says “SURVIVORS.” A woman is typing on her laptop in front of the boards.

She looks up at me as I approach. “What’s your name?” she asks. “We’re putting up survivor lists online.”

“Parker Bishop.” I’m already reading the cards on the SURVIVORS board, going too fast to take any of them in. “Bishop. Are there any Bishops? They’re not in the gym, I already looked, so they have to be somewhere, they have to be—”

“Slow down, now.”

“They left first.” My voice is going. “They left before me. I don’t understand why they aren’t here.”

She comes around the table. “People are coming in pretty steadily,” she says. “The medics keep hold of some of them a good while, and they’re still bringing folks down off the mountain roads. It doesn’t mean anything yet.” She waits until I look at her.

“It’s best if you add yourself to the wall,” she says quietly, handing me a notecard. “Leave your number there, so people can contact you, if you have another place to go. A lot of people didn’t take their chargers, so we’re passing around phones right now. It might not be the number you expect calling, but a lot of people have been getting good news.”

I hear raised voices near the boards. It’s Henry Drumm, my neighbor. He’s arguing with a man I don’t recognize. Mr. Drumm looks disheveled, his face flushed. The man is leaning into him, jaw set, hands balled at his sides.

“Where is she, Henry?” the man says. “Where the hell is Suzannah?”

“She was right behind me!” Henry Drumm protests. His voice is too loud for the space. People on nearby cots glance over. “I think I’d know where my own wife is.”

“Then where is she?”

“She went back in for her mother’s photo. That’s it. Two minutes. She was right behind me in her own car.” His voice cracks. “Why isn’t she here? She should be here by now. Why isn’t she here?”

Suzannah Drumm. Next door. She has light curly brown hair and she’s always coming or going in scrubs. I remember that my mother didn’t like her. What I don’t remember is the last time I saw her. I find myself looking around the gym for her, the way I’ve been looking for my own family, as if wanting it hard enough puts a person in a room.

Mr. Drumm spots me. Something shifts in his face. He crosses to me and grasps me by both arms.

“Parker, thank God you’re alright.” His voice drops, but it’s urgent. “You saw us leaving, right? Tell him. Suzannah was right behind me.”

I don’t know. Did I see her? It’s all a blur. I know that every time I looked out the window there were more neighbors loading their cars. Was Suzannah one of them?

I think hard, because Henry Drumm is gripping my arms too tightly and I understand how desperate he is for reassurance that she’s on her way.