Till the Dust Settles Read online

  Till The Dust Settles

  Pat Young

  Copyright © 2017 Pat Young

  The right of Pat Young to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  First published in 2017 by Bloodhound Books

  Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publisher or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  www.bloodhoundbooks.com

  This book is dedicated to my mother, Betty Smith, who told me I could achieve anything and to my husband, Grant Young, who makes me believe it. It is also for my children, Stephanie and Gregor.

  May God thy gold refine, and all success be nobleness, and every gain divine.

  America the Beautiful

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Epilogue

  A Note from Bloodhound Books:

  Acknowledgments

  1

  The last sound Lucie heard was her own scream.

  She lost her footing and pitched forward onto the hard ground. As if somebody had flicked the switch on the city, the light went out. With the blackness came silence.

  When Lucie opened her eyes, the world was monochrome. White shadows drifted through a strange, cloying darkness she could smell and taste. A weak beam of light swung towards her, a halo through the dust. Didn’t dying people speak of a tunnel of light? Lucie wasn’t ready to be drawn in to whatever lay beyond. She closed her eyes to concentrate on staying alive, leaving her brain to scan for memories.

  Images flickered and faltered on her eyelids like some old movie. Gaping mouths screaming silently, pedestrians spilling off sidewalks into the path of cabs, disgorged drivers pointing at the sky.

  Where no sky should be.

  Just a thunderhead of smoke billowing upwards, filling the blue space. Blotting out the sun over Manhattan.

  Lucie lay on the street, trying to make sense of it all, head throbbing, breath rasping. There was something wrong with that picture. Only smoke where the South Tower should be. Then she remembered the collapse, right before her eyes. The tsunami of smoke had raced towards her, funnelling between blocks, stealing the air. The sound wave, loud enough to feel, crashed down a canyon of tall buildings.

  Men and women were running in a hurricane of paper, a storm of detritus. Lucie stood, frail as a sapling, till a man bundled into her, his mouth shaping an apology as he stumbled away. A teenage boy, bandana clutched to his mouth, grabbed her arm as he passed, trying to drag her with him. Her legs refused to move. He ran on, saving himself. An elderly couple jogged sedately into her line of vision, and disappeared into the windstorm.

  But her feet were set in concrete.

  A running snowman swooped like a hawk to snatch a young child up into his embrace and ran on, without breaking stride. A dark-haired woman, chic and slim, stopped by Lucie’s side. She removed her shoes and cast them away, their red soles gazing at the sky as they fell onto the dusty concrete to lie with the others. She caught Lucie’s eye, tearful, then ran on.

  Lucie looked down at her own shabby courts. She was loath to leave the only pair of heels she possessed, but knew the other woman was right; she’d run much faster without them. So Lucie broke into a run, clutching her shoes to her chest until someone crashed into her, knocking her to her knees. People piled up behind her, logs in a river.

  A strong hand took her elbow, pulling her to her feet. Galvanised, she ran on. At last she was keeping up with the crowd, racing the unraceable.

  She sensed the cloud catching up. Felt its force push her in the back, propel her forward. Getting closer. Then she smelt it, saw it, tasted it. Was engulfed by it. Swallowed up. Cut off from everything and everyone around her. And still running. Her legs, once so reluctant to move, now refused to stop. Running and running till blinded and lost, she tripped and hurtled into darkness.

  How long had that been?

  She opened her eyes. The beam of light had gone and the murk was clearing. Around her, shadowy outlines moved, grey ghosts in the silence. Blinking hard, she tried to clear her vision. Her throat hurt when she tried to swallow and she tasted bitter ash on her tongue. She tried to spit but her mouth was dry-coated and no saliva would come.

  Then the silence became sound with a brutality that hurt her ears, a cacophony of sirens, alarms, and screaming. And more screaming. A baby cried and random names were shouted over and over. One persistent voice was finally answered with a weak, ‘I’m here, Bob. Over here.’ And tears.

  The whole city was crying.

  Lucie wiped away a stray tear, temporarily blinding herself with the ash and grit she rubbed into her eyes. Her hands, arms and legs were all coated in a thick layer of fine, grey powder, as if her whole body had been dredged in talcum.

  Lucie looked around, desperate for an explanation. Vague, indistinct shapes stirred and moved, every one the same pale, greyish white. All colour had been erased in an instant.

  She tried to sit, disentangling her legs from the obstacle that had sent her sprawling. Through the ash rain Lucie made out a woman’s legs, slim, tight-skirted and splayed at odd angles. No shoes.

  With a muttered apology, Lucie pushed herself away. When the woman did not move, Lucie knelt by her side and tried to roll her over but although she was pencil thin, she felt heavy. Dead weight.

  ‘Hey, you okay?’ whispered Lucie hoarsely, as she manoeuvred the woman onto her side. Despite how badly it hurt to talk, Lucie persevered. ‘Hello. Can you hear me? Can you open your eyes?’ The woman’s eyes remained closed as if in sleep and, for the second time that day, Lucie thought she might be touching a corpse. Horrified, she let go and the woman flopped, face down, into the ash snow.

  Feel for a pulse. That’s what she should have done this morning, instead of running away. With tentative fingers, Lucie touched the woman�
��s neck. Nothing. She moved her fingers leaving petal patterns in the fine dust on the warm skin. There was no movement beneath her fingertips, no reassuring beat of life, nothing to feel.

  Lucie needed to find help.

  The grey ghosts had moved away and for a moment the world seemed strangely empty.

  Then, the sound of another voice, indistinct, but close by. A huge white outline of a person appeared, barely visible.

  ‘Help me,’ Lucie said, her voice rough. The shape did not react. She coughed and tried again, ‘Please?’

  ‘Somebody there?’ The diffused, muggy beam of a flashlight shone in her face, the same light she’d seen earlier. ‘Ma’am, you can’t stay here.’

  ‘This woman needs help.’ Lucie’s words came out in a pathetic whisper.

  ‘You have to leave. Go north and keep moving.’

  Lucie was hauled to her feet and given a push. She tried to resist, then saw the man’s face, shocked beyond belief. His eyes were empty. ‘We can’t just leave her.’

  ‘I have to clear the street.’ He pushed her again, none too gently, then pleaded, ‘Please. Please get going …’

  ‘Just let me get my purse.’

  He stood while she dropped to her knees and crawled around in the ash, scrabbling till her hand snagged a leather strap, then she got to her feet and started to run.

  Lucie ran till her rasping lungs told her she could run no more and she slowed reluctantly to a walk, joining the ranks of a grey army that marched forward while glancing back every few seconds as if afraid of being followed.

  She couldn’t remember dropping her shoes, but they’d gone. Her bare feet stung from slapping against asphalt and every bone in her legs ached.

  ‘What the hell just happened?’

  Lucie found herself face to face with a human snowman. Every part of the man’s body was dusted in fine, grey powder. Only the deep voice gave a clue to his gender.

  ‘What the hell was that?’ he asked her. Lucie stared at him. Inside grey lips his mouth was an obscenity of bright red. Lucie looked at his eyes, two hollows in day-old snow. A tear carved a clean channel down his cheek, only to disappear like a raindrop in the desert. ‘What’s going on?’

  Lucie shook her head but the man paid no attention; he was dazed, staring somewhere over her shoulder, deep into the dust cloud, his senses trying to make sense of something that made no sense.

  Lucie walked past him, she needed to keep moving. There was nothing she could say, and her mouth was so dry she doubted she could form a word. The dust ate at her throat, her nose, her lips. She badly needed to sneeze, she reached for her handbag to get a tissue. When the bag wouldn’t open, she dusted it off with her hand and realised why. It wasn’t hers. The shape was much the same, a brown leather bag on a single shoulder strap, but this bag felt softer and more expensive, even with its coating of dust and ash. Hers was a cheap, drugstore imitation, a very rare gift from Curtis.

  She’d picked up the other woman’s bag. ‘Oh no,’ groaned Lucie. She couldn’t afford to lose her bag. Not today. Her entire life was in that bag. She needed to get that bag.

  Fighting off her panic, Lucie turned and raced back the way she’d come. She felt like a minnow swimming against the tide. Struggling to make headway through the masses heading north, she charged and shoved.

  ‘Hey! Watch out,’ scolded a small man as she barrelled into him and bounced off like a pinball.

  ‘Sorry,’ she mouthed and ran on into the dust cloud. It was thicker here, catching in her raw throat. Every instinct told her to turn back to clearer air. Spectral figures appeared out of the ash fog for a few seconds then vanished again. She was the only one heading south.

  Lucie took a few more steps then stopped, covered her mouth with her hand and looked around. She could see nothing. The bright blue sky had disappeared and with it the tall buildings that defined the skyline. Lucie had no point of reference other than the flow of people heading north. She might never find the woman. Even if she were still lying in the street, Lucie had no idea where. She was lost and Lucie’s bag was lost with her.

  Wandering around like this, breathing ash into her lungs, was solving nothing. She started to cry, everything was gone.

  When the next surge of people passed, Lucie joined them.

  Running north.

  2

  Dylan had just scored the winning touchdown in the Superbowl when his phone woke him. He buried his head under the pillow but the tinny ringtone was too insistent. He cursed the phone’s inventor and checked caller ID.

  Why was Mom phoning on his day off? She knew he never surfaced before lunchtime.

  ‘Dylan. You awake?’

  ‘I am now. What’s up?’

  ‘Switch on the TV, right this minute.’

  ‘I’m trying to get some sleep here, Mom. Can I call you back?’

  No answer.

  ‘You okay?’

  ‘Dylan, you’ll never believe this. One of the Twin Towers just collapsed.’

  ‘No way!’

  ‘It’s gone. A plane flew right into it. People were trapped. Inside of it. Some were jumping. It was awful. Lanie next door called to tell me to switch on the TV and I saw a man jump. With my very own eyes.’ Her voice spiralled into a wail.

  ‘Hey, Mom, it’s okay,’ Dylan had no idea what she was talking about. Maybe she’d made an early start on the cocktails.

  ‘Switch on your TV, son. I need you to see this.’

  ‘I don’t have a TV. Maddy took it. Remember?’

  ‘Go find a television. Oh my God. Sweet Jesus, no!’

  The line went dead.

  Dylan was torn between comforting his mother and making sure Lucie was okay. In the end he decided his mom would have Lanie next door to keep her company and besides, Curtis and Lucie’s place was quicker to get to. He tried their phone but couldn’t get through. Curtis never paid the damn bill on time.

  The screen door was hanging from one hinge. Same as the last time he’d been here. Dylan pushed it aside and banged on the front door. Flakes of paint peeled off like dead skin and dropped at his feet.

  He tried the handle. It was never locked. Nothing worth stealing, Curtis said.

  ‘Anyone home?’

  The living room seemed dark after the bright sunshine. The smell reminded him of the locker room at the end of a hard circuit session. Dylan tried to breathe through his mouth.

  Somewhere a bluebottle buzzed. When it stopped, the house fell silent.

  A rip in the blind admitted a shaft of light that slanted across the kitchen floor. Curtis lay face down, the fly droning round his head. Passed out and sleeping it off. Pretty normal behaviour for Good Ole Curtis these days, unfortunately.

  Dylan bent and patted his shoulder. ‘Hey, buddy! Wake up. It’s morning.’

  Curtis didn’t react.

  Dylan batted the bluebottle away. It rose, circled and came back in to land.

  ‘Come on, pal. Wake up. We need to switch on the TV. Where’s the remote?’ He peered through the gloom towards the La-Z-Boy where Curtis spent his days. And sometimes his nights.

  The TV burst into life, showing some crappy disaster movie. Dylan skipped to the next channel, then the next. Every screen showed a tower belching black smoke into a perfect sky. A plane appeared from nowhere and flew straight into the second tower. It burst into flames as Dylan watched in fascination.

  ‘Jee-suss, I don’t believe this.’

  Dylan knew better than to wake Curtis, but Mom was right. He had to see this.

  ‘Curtis!’ he shouted, ‘You have to see this. There’s guys jumping from, like, a hundred storeys.’

  Dylan knelt on the floor, unable to drag his eyes off the TV, where a shell-shocked anchorman was doing his best to describe the chaos.

  ‘Man, people are dying. In Manhattan. It’s like a horror movie.’ He shook his friend by the arm. The bluebottle flew off. And Dylan saw blood, dark as treacle, clotted in Curtis’s hair and congealed on the floor.
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  ‘Shit.’

  ‘Lucie!’ Dylan got to his feet and stumbled to the bedroom door. The bed was empty. Its poor, threadbare covers lay jumbled on the floor.

  He heard a groan and dashed back to the living room. Curtis hadn’t moved an inch.

  ‘Curtis, you okay? I got you, buddy,’ he said, dropping to his knees. He took Curtis’s hand and squeezed. ‘Curtis, it’s Dylan. Can you hear me?’

  Curtis opened his eyes and blinked a few times. ‘Hell you doing here?’

  ‘You passed out. Banged your head. Looks pretty bad.’ He laughed nervously and sat back on his heels. ‘Shit, I thought you were, like, dead. You really scared me, man. I need to call nine one one.’

  ‘No, leave it. I’ll be okay. Give me a hand here.’

  ‘You sure? Your head’s bleeding. I think we should call an ambulance.’

  ‘I said I’ll be okay. Lucie’ll clean me up. Lucie? Lucie, you get in here.’

  ‘She’s not here, Curtis. I already looked.’

  ‘Well, where is she?’

  ‘How should I know? She’s your wife.’ A familiar anxiety gnawed at Dylan’s guts. ‘Tell me you didn’t hurt her.’

  ‘Aw, maybe I roughed her up a little last night. But man, she was asking for it.’