The Chaos Page 9

  Someone had stretched yellow police tape in an “X” across what used to be the glass front of the bar. We hadn’t been lying in a puddle. The whole street was wet. “You were a purple triangle.”

  “For real? I could have sworn I was a hat stand.”

  “Did you see me?”

  “Yeah. You were a big bowl of licorice Jell-O.”

  “Gross.”

  “And you had a baby.”

  “Well, at least you got that part right.”

  Punum was looking all around, her mouth open in amazement, her eyelashes golden.

  Wait. What?

  She said, “Scotch, I don’t think it was just the bar.”

  “Uh-huh, I figured that. Wow. Some crazy shit must have gone down last night.” There were cops everywhere. People sitting on curbs crying. Crashed cars. One of those half-pint smart cars was in the middle of the street with some kind of thick hose wrapped around it. Hard to make stuff out with all this smog everywhere, sucking in the daylight and making my eyes water. Above us was the sound of helicopters, though how they were flying in this smog, who knew? I coughed as acrid air hit the back of my throat. “What smells like that? Like burning brick? And why’s it so foggy?” I’d been close enough to hear my brother calling my name, asking for my help, and I’d left him behind. And it had felt like more than a dream. My ear was still burning, but I didn’t reach to touch it. I wasn’t ready yet. Too much else to deal with right here, right now.

  “Scotch,” said Punum, pointing to the lake.

  Her voice was quiet, the kind of quiet you get when you’re trying to tell someone that the guy with the knives for hands who comes for you in your dreams is standing right behind you, grinning.

  I turned to see what she was pointing at. I gasped. “No way!”

  There was a volcano in Lake Ontario. I could see it through the billows of gray cloud. In fact, it was the reason for the gray clouds. A full-on freaking volcano, complete with spouting flame, glowing orange lava flowing down its sides, and steam rising in dirty gouts when the hot lava hit the water. It was pumping out a thick, boiling mushroom cloud that was getting bigger every second. Punum stared up at it as though she were seeing God. “That’s why it’s so dark,” she said. “All that smoke.”

  “But how’d it get there?”

  “You saw it last night, same as me.”

  The scared little rabbit inside of me cowered at the memory of the massive cone, blacker than blackness, that I’d half-glimpsed thrusting forth from Lake Ontario last night, just before the world blew up. “No,” I said, “that’s not right. Volcanoes don’t just shoot up in seconds.”

  A woman’s voice said, “They’re calling it Animikika.” She said it like Ah-nee-mee-KAY-ka. “On the news, I mean. That woman on Citytv’s been calling it Animikika. She says it’s Algonquin for ‘It is thundering.’ I think that’s what she’s saying, anyway. Sometimes her lips are forming different sounds than the words that’re coming out of the TV.”

  Punum asked her, “Come again?”

  She looked surprised. “Haven’t you noticed? Though I guess TV’s the least of everyone’s worries right now. I’m looking for my son. He was hanging out with friends last night, and I haven’t heard from him.” She was already looking past us, wanting to continue her search.

  “Uh, okay,” I said. “Good luck or whatever.” Then I felt like a dork. Who says “whatever” after wishing somebody good luck finding their son?

  “Thanks,” she replied. “You girls take care.”

  “I gotta find my bro,” I told Punum. Though I had the awful feeling I knew where he was. Not where, exactly. He wasn’t here, you know? Not in this world, insane as that seemed.

  “Do you know where he was last night?” Punum asked.

  “You talked to him. He was the guy who had the mike after you. The other guy at our table was my . . . brother’s friend, Tafari. Shit. My folks will be calling any minute to check up on us. And Rich has to check in with his parole officer today.”

  Punum raised an eyebrow, but only said, “Maybe someone in the bar saw him. I’ll come with you.” Then she gasped and felt around the back of her chair. “My axe! Where’s my axe?”

  “Your what?”

  “My guitar! Oh my god, I can’t lose that! I’ll never be able to replace it.”

  “Maybe it’s in the bar?”

  “You think so?”

  “Yeah.”

  There was such panic on her face. “It’s probably fine,” I reassured her. “Let’s go over there. We can check for my bro and get your guitar.”

  “Okay.”

  “Want me to push?”

  But she was way ahead of me, practically halfway across the street already. I made to follow her. I felt it as soon as I took a step forward; that tightness pulling at my skin. That’s how new blemishes felt when they came in! It was my right calf. And did the boot on that foot feel just a little bit tighter? Oh my God, not my whole lower leg all at once. I’d never had one that big before. And I could have sworn that while I’d been dreaming last night, or whatever it was I’d been doing, the one I’d felt show up was on my ear.

  Fear welled up in the back of my throat. The burning on my ear had faded to a tingling. I touched that ear. Oh, crap. Right there on the top edge of the ear was another blemish. I could feel its slightly raised edges, the tiny hint of stickiness. My ear and my leg? I couldn’t have gotten two at the same time, I just couldn’t. That had never happened before.

  Punum was across the street. She whipped her chair around. “Hey! You coming, or what?”

  I waited for an ambulance to rush, keening, past me. Then I ran across the road. I had to sidestep smashed concrete and broken glass. And at least five dead salmon. WTF? As I ran, I untied my hair, which I’d bound up on top of my head. I didn’t know for sure that I had new blemishes. I hadn’t seen them, right? I’d felt the one on my ear, but that was probably the only one. My hair would cover it.

  I caught up with Punum. Inside the bar, the older man I figured was the owner was sitting at one of his tables. He was the one who’d tried to get everyone down into the basement when the front window of the bar blew out. His plaid shirt had a long rip in one sleeve and the front of his white apron was smeared with what looked like soot. He had his chin in one hand, propping sorrow. He was rubbing his other hand in fretful circles over his balding head. A Horseless Head Man floated just above him, watching his circling hand in fascination. A couple of cops, a woman and a man, sat with him, asking him questions and taking notes. Okay, so I’d ask them about Rich. If I had to, I would make up some story to cover up that I’d been in there last night even though I was underage; tell the police I’d been at the movies with Gloria, tell them I’d heard what happened from Tafari . . .

  Punum and I made our way past overturned tables and chairs, and for some reason, one of those almost life-sized singing Santas. I went over to the hole that’d been blown into the floor, hoping in a crazy way that I’d find Rich in there, whole and healthy.

  The hole was like it had been last night; a jagged gash in the ground. Dirt and broken bricks lined its edges. Bits of rusty rebar poked through here and there. If one of those had stabbed Rich—

  “Something I can do for you two young ladies?” said the woman cop, in a tone that let you know she wasn’t asking, that she wanted an answer from you and she wanted it now.

  I rushed over there, ignoring the pulling in my leg. “Did you find him? My brother? He fell into that hole there last night.”

  Wheeling up behind me, Punum said, “I’m just here looking for my guitar. I left it behind the bar.”

  Great. My world was falling apart, and all she could think about was her stupid guitar.

  “It’s over here,” said the bartender with the bear claw tattoos. “I grabbed it and put it under the bar for you.”

  The worry lifted from Punum’s brow. “Hey, great!” The bartender brought the guitar over. It was in a black and gold soft case with a stu
rdy carry strap. The bartender went back to sweeping up broken bottles and mopping booze up off the floor. The place smelled like Mr. Lane’s breath in ten a.m. geography class. Euw.

  The woman cop said to me, “What’s your name, Miss?”

  “Sojourner Carol Smith.” I was so dang obedient, I answered without thinking. But then, was I going to refuse to answer a cop’s question? I didn’t want trouble.

  “Address?” As she wrote, she fanned a Horseless Head Man away from her face. I guess everyone could see them now.

  I said, “I just want to know if anyone’s seen Rich. My brother. He fell in that hole over there last night. Did he get taken to a hospital, maybe?”

  The owner said, “Miss, we didn’t find anyone in the hole. Thank God, or my insurance would go through the roof.” My gunmetal gray bomber jacket was hanging on the back of his chair. I took it and put it on.

  Suddenly, to the tune of “Jingle Bells,” someone started bellowing, “Stock markets fell/The volcano smells/Everything’s gone to hell.” It was the singing Santa. It lit up from the inside as it sang, its suit glowing a cheery red. It rocked back and forth and shook its tambourine. Then it went silent and dark again.

  “What in the world?” I said.

  The owner shrugged. “It used to be one of the bar televisions. I think it’s still trying to report the news, only it comes out in song. I can’t make it stop.” He sighed. “All the others turned into giant clown faces and just rolled out the door. I ask you, how do you write that up on an insurance claim? Fifteen years I’ve been running this place, nothing like this has ever happened. It’s those bloody terrorists.”

  The two cops glanced out the broken picture window, to where an active volcano was spewing lava. The male cop shook his head. “Yeah, I don’t know about terrorists, but I don’t think anything like this has ever happened anywhere in Toronto.” His voice shook a little. The quaver made him sound a little bit young, and a little bit scared.

  The woman cop said, “Miss, I think you’d better start checking the local hospitals. It’s going to take you a while, I’m afraid. Does your brother have a cell phone?”

  I nodded. What I wanted was to cry.

  “Try giving him a call. Maybe he’s just fine.”

  The cops gave the bar owner their cards, shook hands with him, and went out the door. In the gloom, it looked as though there was a small, sexless face in the back of the woman cop’s neck. A pretty face, and young, like a baby’s. It smiled at me. I took a couple of steps backward, and then her head was in the shadows again, and I wasn’t sure what I’d seen.

  I called Rich’s number. The phone rang and rang. Just as I was about to hang up, there was a click and it went silent. But not the disconnected silent. This was that kind of hollow silence that you sometimes get before the person on the other end speaks.

  “Rich? Hello?”

  The sound that came out of the receiver made the little hairs on my arms stand up. It sounded big, as though it were way huger than the phone could contain, so only a little portion of it squeezed through. If there were words in it, I couldn’t tell. It sounded like a million people screaming in pain.

  I dropped the phone. With shaking fingers, I picked it up again. I put it to my ear. The sound hadn’t changed. “Rich?” I said, my voice cracking.

  The phone went dead. I called the number again, but only got a recorded voice saying that the caller was out of range.

  Punum came over. “Hey. You okay?”

  “No, I’m not okay.” I sounded whiny and scared, like a little kid who’d gotten lost in the mall. “He’s supposed to check in with his parole officer this morning, and something really weird is going on with his phone, and—”

  “Come,” she said. “Let’s go get some breakfast. I’m starving.”

  “Are you insane? I have to find my brother. Plus I don’t have a lot of money.”

  “I’ll treat you,” she said gently. “You’ll do a better job of searching for him if you’re not hungry.”

  I thought about it. She was right. “Okay, then. Hey; did you have golden lashes last night?”

  “What? No, I don’t do that kind of foofy stuff.”

  “Huh. ’Cause you have them this morning.”

  “You’re messing with me.”

  “Nope. You have them, for real. And they don’t look fake. They look really good on you.”

  She swore under her breath. She went over to the mirror above the bar. Or to what was left of it, anyway. Looked as though something heavy had crashed into it last night; it was mostly spiderwebs of broken glass, some of them falling out of the frame. Punum peered at her own reflection. She tugged gently at the lashes on one eyelid. “Wow.”

  The bartender stopped sweeping up broken glass long enough to say, “They look really cool.”

  I shoved gently at Punum’s shoulder. “Told you so. It goes with your guitar case.”

  “Not,” the bartender continued, “the kind of look I’d usually expect to see on a butch. But on you, it so works.”

  OMG, was she flirting with Punum? I’d never seen anyone come on to someone in a wheelchair before.

  “Ho-ho-ho,” chortled the Santa Claus. He was lit up and rocking again. “The hospitals/Are overflowing/Only emergencies, please.” It didn’t really fit into the rhythm of “Jingle Bells,” but he did his best. Then he started bellowing “Oh Carolina.” The rude version; “Oh, Carolina/Kiss mih rass/Bumboclaat.”

  Punum stared at it. “It’s like I did too many tabs of acid.”

  The bartender said, “More like the world did.”

  Punum shook her head. “Well, I’m outta here. Catch you later, Kathy.” She turned a full-strength devilish grin on the bartender, who twinkled back.

  “See ya,” she said. “Call me, okay? When things get back to normal?”

  Punum said, “Coming, Scotch? Eggs are on me.”

  I went with her. When we got outside, she said, “Her name’s Kathy. Isn’t she cute? I think she likes me.”

  “I guess she’s cute. Kinda chunky, though.” I stepped over another dead salmon.

  Punum smiled a little. “You jealous?”

  “Me? No!”

  Her smirk got even broader. “Sorry to disappoint you. It’s just that I don’t do jailbait.”

  “I’m not a little girl!” The street wasn’t just wet; it was flooding in places.

  She laughed, shook her head. “Caked-on foundation, remember?”

  Absentmindedly, I said, “She seems to be really digging on you.” Was that algae festooning that stop sign?

  “Uh-huh. And just exactly why do you sound so surprised about that?”

  Busted again. I blew out a breath. “I guess I just have a lot to learn,” I replied. My ankle was kinda itchy now. I needed to get to somewhere private so I could look at it.

  “You bet you do.”

  The number of people hanging around the streetcar stop had grown bigger than the shelter could hold. They spilled out of it, filling the sidewalk. They were watching five guys wrestling some kind of animal into an animal rescue truck. It really didn’t want to go, whatever it was. I glimpsed it between the bodies of the men. A beautiful iridescent pattern in green and yellow slithered along the length of it. A snake? It’d have to be massive.

  The smart car I’d passed on the way here was squeezed in the middle. Maybe that hadn’t been a fire hose I’d seen wrapped around it. I shuddered. Whatever was going into that truck, I didn’t want to know.

  Punum tried to check out her eyelashes again in the clear Lucite of the stop’s shelter. Great. She comes back with gold eyelashes, but I come back with a skin condition.

  I asked her, “What’s with all the dead fish?”

  “Beats me.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Everywhere we walked, things were a mess. People were sweeping debris out of their businesses and homes. Ambulances, cop cars, and fire trucks were dashing about. There were telephone poles cracked in half; we had to pick our w
ay around the fallen electricity lines. Cars piled up in the street. Some of them had crashed and were busted up so badly that I didn’t see how anyone in them could have survived. And there were Horseless Head Men; hundreds more than I’d seen before. I pointed at one. “Can you see that?” I asked Punum.

  “Yeah, why? What is it?”

  “I don’t know, but I was seeing them for a few weeks before all this started.”

  “Really?”

  “The difference is, now other people can see them, too.”

  “So,” said Punum, “what’d you come back with from our little jaunt?”

  “Nothing,” I lied.

  “Are you limping?”

  “Little bit. Stone in my shoe.”

  She stopped. “Stop and take it out, then.”

  “Uh, no. It’s a boot, see? All those laces, it’d be a pain. I’ll do it when we get to the restaurant.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  A thought pulled me up short. “Hey; in your dream, did you see what happened to the baby? The one I gave birth to?”

  “I hadn’t thought of it that way! Tiny kind of octopus kid?”

  “Yeah, out of my leg. It had a beak.”

  Softly, she said, “You pregnant?”

  I felt a lurch of fright for a second. But . . . “No, I just had my period. I can’t be pregnant if I had a period, can I?”

  “Don’t ask me. I only date chicks. It’s not the kind of thing I ever have to worry about.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  I called Rich’s cell a few times. Kept getting the message that his phone was out of range.