November 2nd, 6:03
Nov. 20th, 2006 10:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
secret_historySomeone, she wasn’t quite sure who, pulled her to her feet. She could hear the pounding footsteps of people running up behind her. Everyone was talking at once, the voices ringing in her ears, and she could only gaze at the press of faces in bewilderment, unable to so much as understand what they were saying.
She felt someone put an arm around her shoulders, and instinctively pressed closer to the comforting warmth of another human being. A small part of her told her she shouldn’t get close to anyone or anything until she was sure it was safe, but she found she didn’t care. She was trembling, she realized in surprise.
“Mick. Mickey! You have to snap out of it, now.” Marco was talking to her gently. “I need you to hold it together for me, okay? Are you hearing me?” he snapped his fingers in front of her face.
She flinched and backed away, disengaging herself from his arms. “I’m okay,” she said softly, using her sleeve to wipe her eyes. “I’m okay,” she repeated, with more conviction.
Randhir was standing a few paces away, his face screwed up with worry and what looked like sorrow. She looked around.
“I saw Gracie...” she didn’t finish her sentence. “What about John?” Randhir just shook his head. “Oh, God.”
She took a deep, shuddering breath, forcing herself to be calm, and looked at Kitty, who was curled up in Marlene’s arms, her face buried in the older woman’s shoulder. Marlene simply shook her head at Mickey, signalling that they’d have to deal with that particular problem later.
“We should go.” Donnie sounded subdued, as well he might.
“Right,” she tried to sound brisk. “We need to find out what’s going on out there, and get going. We can’t stay in here, no matter what. It’s not safe anymore. Who here isn’t wearing clothes that are waterproof?”
There was some shuffling of feet, but no one answered her.
“Look,” she said tiredly. “We’re going to have to do a lot of running in the next little while, and we’re going to be outside for indeterminate periods of time. We all need to have good boots without heels, and warm clothes that are going to be waterproof and aren’t going to make easy targets of us.”
She turned to Marco. “You and Randhir look like you’re okay on that front. So I’m putting you in charge of getting other equipment together. Anything we can use as weapons before we get to Le Baron. Flashlights, and if you can pack some kind of light camping gear —sleeping bags and ground sheets especially— that’s fine. Pack light. No more than five to ten pounds per person: we’ll need to move fast. The rest of you, come with me. We’re going to find better gear. We meet back here in fifteen minutes, not one minute more. Under no circumstances should anyone go off alone, is that understood?”
“Yes.” James answered for all of them.
“Good. Let’s go.”
The first thing she did was to discard the boots she was wearing. They were great city boots, and she did it with some regret: she’d just bought them in September, and they hadn’t been cheap. She briefly considered taking them with her, then realized that she couldn’t be thinking straight if she was considering burdening herself with useless weight. She picked up a pair of Magnum army boots, what her friend Rob had once described as a ‘militarized running shoe,’ and laced them snugly onto her feet, glad she’d worn jeans and a warm sweater to work the day before. Had it really only been twenty-four hours since she’d last been at work? It felt like weeks had gone by.
She looked up and saw that everyone was busily picking out sturdy footwear and rummaging in the small selection of outdoors clothing to find something durable and warm. She spotted a pink woolen sweater that looked to be about the right size for Kitty and pulled it off the rack. There weren’t any pink jeans, but she did find some blue jeans the right size with rhinestones on them, and pink socks. She went over to where Kitty was sitting on the floor, her arms wrapped around her shins, chin resting on her knees.
Mickey crouched next to her. “Kitty,” she said softly. “We have to get you out of those clothes. They’re not warm enough, and they’re really dirty now. Do you want to come with me and we’ll get you cleaned up?”
The little girl shook her head. “I don’t want to go without Mommy.”
Mickey bit her lip. “I know, sweetie. But your Mommy can’t come with you anymore. You’re going to have to stay with us for the moment.”
Kitty looked up, her eyes bright with unshed tears. “What if she’s not dead?”
“Oh, sweetie,” Mickey gathered her up in a hug. “I’m sorry, but she’s not coming back. You’re just going to have to be brave for a little while, okay? When we’re safe, you can stop being brave for as long as you want. But your parents would want you to be safe, and I’m going to make sure of that, okay? Do you understand that?”
Kitty nodded. “I don’t want them to be dead,” she said, her voice breaking on poorly-contained tears.
“I know.” Mickey rocked her for a few moments, a lump in her own throat. “My parents died when I was only a little older than you. I know how hard it is. But we’re going to take care of you. All of us. We have to go soon, though, and you need to change out of these clothes. Please?”
Kitty nodded, and let her take her by the hand and lead her back to the employee’s washroom. There, with the judicious application of wet paper towels and her own hair brush, Mickey managed to clean off the worst of the blood and get Kitty’s disgusting clothes off and in the nearest waste bin. She pulled the girls long brown hair into a French braid, then coiled it back on itself and pinned it securely into place.
“There,” she said. “Now it won’t get in your way when you try to see where you’re going.”
Kitty didn’t reply. She let Mickey dress her like a rag doll, her only contribution the raising of an arm or leg to help the process along. Well, she was only six, Mickey reminded herself. She wasn’t sure if she’d been able to dress herself completely at that age either.
“Okay. Let’s go find you some good boots, and then we can get going again.”
She found some child-sized hiking boots, and when prompted, Kitty said that they didn’t pinch or feel too loose. She glanced at her watch: they were due to meet back with the others in less than two minutes. She grabbed a largeish backpack from a shelf and unceremoniously shoved her own purse into it. There would be time to pack it properly later. What was important now was to maximise her own mobility, and that meant not having her purse slipping off her shoulder every few minutes while she tried to run.
Everyone was waiting in front of the break room for her. The door was still closed —no one wanted to go back in there and face the two corpses laid out on the floor, even if someone had thoughtfully covered them with a tarp. It was just too morbid to contemplate.
“Is everyone ready?” Mickey asked, and was answered with a round of nods.
Marco had a pile of bats and metal crowbards and large hunting knives at his feet. “Buck 119’s,” he announced proudly. “Same kind of knife that guy used a few months back to kill the bear that went after his dog. Not the best hunting knife out there, but anything that can kill a fully-grown bear is good in my books.”
Mickey screwed up her face at him. “You don’t know anything about hunting.”
He shrugged. “Best I could do.”
“I didn’t mean it as a criticism.”
“I didn’t take it as one, Mick. Chill.”
“Sorry. Okay, what have we got, apart from enough material to start our own baseball league?” It was a half-hearted attempt at a joke, but she got a few laughs. They appreciated the effort at lightening the mood, if nothing else.
Marco gestured at a small pile of camping gear. “I’ve got a bunch of packs here with sleeping bags, tarps, and a whole lot of waterproof matches and water purification tablets. I figured that anything else would just be extra weight we didn’t need. We’re probably not going to need all these weapons I brought, either. Everybody pick one large bludgeon-y type thing, and hook a knife in your belts, and leave the rest. The faster we move, the safer we’ll be.”
Randhir nodded. He was already equipped with a sturdy-looking bat. “We didn’t bother with hockey sticks,” he said as an apparent non-sequitur. “Or golf clubs, either. I thought about it, but I think they’d be too flimsy. They’d just break after one or two uses. The bats should last longer, especially the wooden ones.”
Marco got down on one knee next to Kitty. “Okay, kiddo. You’re going to get to ride piggy-back with me. We’re going to be running really fast, and sometimes I’m going to have to hit dead people with my bat. What I need you to do is hang on really really tight to my shoulders, no matter what happens. Can you do that?”
Kitty looked up at him, her eyes huge brown pools in her face, and nodded.
“Good girl.” he looked up at the others. “I’m going to need someone to carry the rest of my stuff while I carry her.”
“I can do that,” James volunteered immediately.
“Thanks, man. I appreciate it.”
“Don’t mention it. Least I can do.”
Mickey cleared her throat to draw their attention again. “Okay, now that that’s settled, we need to get moving. Donnie, have you got the keys to the door that leads to the street? I know there’s a direct entrance back that way, but I’m guessing it’s locked right now.”
“Uh, yeah. Yeah, I’ve got it. We’re not really supposed to... never mind.” He stuttered to a stop before he could say that his manager had told him not to open that door.
“Why don’t we go out through the mall?” Kenny wanted to know. “It’s got to be safer than outside...”
Randhir shook his head. “I don’t think it’s a good idea. Do you know what’s out there?” he jerked his head at Kitty and gave Kenny a meaningful look. “I really don’t want to have to see that, do you?”
Kenny shuddered. “Good point. Outside it is.”
“Besides,” Mickey broke in, “we’re aiming for the most direct route possible to get to Baron Sports. If I remember correctly, it’s on Notre-Dame street under the Ville-Marie Expressway. Our best bet is to take either St. Catherine street or René-Lévesque going East and then go South down Peel until we hit Notre-Dame.”
“Jesus, Mickey,” Marco breathed. “That’s a hell of a sprint.”
“Are you sure that’s the fastest way to get there?” James interrupted.
“It’s the most direct route,” Michaela assured him, but he still looked skeptical until Marlene intervened on her behalf.
“Michaela here is an emergency dispatcher. I’m sure she knows the city’s layout like the back of her hand.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence, Marlene.” She shot the older woman a grateful smile. “We can’t sprint all the way there,” she agreed with Marco. “Just walk fast, and only run when we absolutely have to. Peel is a fifteen-minute walk, and I figure another ten minutes to get to Notre-Dame and University, which is what we’re aiming for.
“As they say in the army, let’s move out.”
She felt someone put an arm around her shoulders, and instinctively pressed closer to the comforting warmth of another human being. A small part of her told her she shouldn’t get close to anyone or anything until she was sure it was safe, but she found she didn’t care. She was trembling, she realized in surprise.
“Mick. Mickey! You have to snap out of it, now.” Marco was talking to her gently. “I need you to hold it together for me, okay? Are you hearing me?” he snapped his fingers in front of her face.
She flinched and backed away, disengaging herself from his arms. “I’m okay,” she said softly, using her sleeve to wipe her eyes. “I’m okay,” she repeated, with more conviction.
Randhir was standing a few paces away, his face screwed up with worry and what looked like sorrow. She looked around.
“I saw Gracie...” she didn’t finish her sentence. “What about John?” Randhir just shook his head. “Oh, God.”
She took a deep, shuddering breath, forcing herself to be calm, and looked at Kitty, who was curled up in Marlene’s arms, her face buried in the older woman’s shoulder. Marlene simply shook her head at Mickey, signalling that they’d have to deal with that particular problem later.
“We should go.” Donnie sounded subdued, as well he might.
“Right,” she tried to sound brisk. “We need to find out what’s going on out there, and get going. We can’t stay in here, no matter what. It’s not safe anymore. Who here isn’t wearing clothes that are waterproof?”
There was some shuffling of feet, but no one answered her.
“Look,” she said tiredly. “We’re going to have to do a lot of running in the next little while, and we’re going to be outside for indeterminate periods of time. We all need to have good boots without heels, and warm clothes that are going to be waterproof and aren’t going to make easy targets of us.”
She turned to Marco. “You and Randhir look like you’re okay on that front. So I’m putting you in charge of getting other equipment together. Anything we can use as weapons before we get to Le Baron. Flashlights, and if you can pack some kind of light camping gear —sleeping bags and ground sheets especially— that’s fine. Pack light. No more than five to ten pounds per person: we’ll need to move fast. The rest of you, come with me. We’re going to find better gear. We meet back here in fifteen minutes, not one minute more. Under no circumstances should anyone go off alone, is that understood?”
“Yes.” James answered for all of them.
“Good. Let’s go.”
The first thing she did was to discard the boots she was wearing. They were great city boots, and she did it with some regret: she’d just bought them in September, and they hadn’t been cheap. She briefly considered taking them with her, then realized that she couldn’t be thinking straight if she was considering burdening herself with useless weight. She picked up a pair of Magnum army boots, what her friend Rob had once described as a ‘militarized running shoe,’ and laced them snugly onto her feet, glad she’d worn jeans and a warm sweater to work the day before. Had it really only been twenty-four hours since she’d last been at work? It felt like weeks had gone by.
She looked up and saw that everyone was busily picking out sturdy footwear and rummaging in the small selection of outdoors clothing to find something durable and warm. She spotted a pink woolen sweater that looked to be about the right size for Kitty and pulled it off the rack. There weren’t any pink jeans, but she did find some blue jeans the right size with rhinestones on them, and pink socks. She went over to where Kitty was sitting on the floor, her arms wrapped around her shins, chin resting on her knees.
Mickey crouched next to her. “Kitty,” she said softly. “We have to get you out of those clothes. They’re not warm enough, and they’re really dirty now. Do you want to come with me and we’ll get you cleaned up?”
The little girl shook her head. “I don’t want to go without Mommy.”
Mickey bit her lip. “I know, sweetie. But your Mommy can’t come with you anymore. You’re going to have to stay with us for the moment.”
Kitty looked up, her eyes bright with unshed tears. “What if she’s not dead?”
“Oh, sweetie,” Mickey gathered her up in a hug. “I’m sorry, but she’s not coming back. You’re just going to have to be brave for a little while, okay? When we’re safe, you can stop being brave for as long as you want. But your parents would want you to be safe, and I’m going to make sure of that, okay? Do you understand that?”
Kitty nodded. “I don’t want them to be dead,” she said, her voice breaking on poorly-contained tears.
“I know.” Mickey rocked her for a few moments, a lump in her own throat. “My parents died when I was only a little older than you. I know how hard it is. But we’re going to take care of you. All of us. We have to go soon, though, and you need to change out of these clothes. Please?”
Kitty nodded, and let her take her by the hand and lead her back to the employee’s washroom. There, with the judicious application of wet paper towels and her own hair brush, Mickey managed to clean off the worst of the blood and get Kitty’s disgusting clothes off and in the nearest waste bin. She pulled the girls long brown hair into a French braid, then coiled it back on itself and pinned it securely into place.
“There,” she said. “Now it won’t get in your way when you try to see where you’re going.”
Kitty didn’t reply. She let Mickey dress her like a rag doll, her only contribution the raising of an arm or leg to help the process along. Well, she was only six, Mickey reminded herself. She wasn’t sure if she’d been able to dress herself completely at that age either.
“Okay. Let’s go find you some good boots, and then we can get going again.”
She found some child-sized hiking boots, and when prompted, Kitty said that they didn’t pinch or feel too loose. She glanced at her watch: they were due to meet back with the others in less than two minutes. She grabbed a largeish backpack from a shelf and unceremoniously shoved her own purse into it. There would be time to pack it properly later. What was important now was to maximise her own mobility, and that meant not having her purse slipping off her shoulder every few minutes while she tried to run.
Everyone was waiting in front of the break room for her. The door was still closed —no one wanted to go back in there and face the two corpses laid out on the floor, even if someone had thoughtfully covered them with a tarp. It was just too morbid to contemplate.
“Is everyone ready?” Mickey asked, and was answered with a round of nods.
Marco had a pile of bats and metal crowbards and large hunting knives at his feet. “Buck 119’s,” he announced proudly. “Same kind of knife that guy used a few months back to kill the bear that went after his dog. Not the best hunting knife out there, but anything that can kill a fully-grown bear is good in my books.”
Mickey screwed up her face at him. “You don’t know anything about hunting.”
He shrugged. “Best I could do.”
“I didn’t mean it as a criticism.”
“I didn’t take it as one, Mick. Chill.”
“Sorry. Okay, what have we got, apart from enough material to start our own baseball league?” It was a half-hearted attempt at a joke, but she got a few laughs. They appreciated the effort at lightening the mood, if nothing else.
Marco gestured at a small pile of camping gear. “I’ve got a bunch of packs here with sleeping bags, tarps, and a whole lot of waterproof matches and water purification tablets. I figured that anything else would just be extra weight we didn’t need. We’re probably not going to need all these weapons I brought, either. Everybody pick one large bludgeon-y type thing, and hook a knife in your belts, and leave the rest. The faster we move, the safer we’ll be.”
Randhir nodded. He was already equipped with a sturdy-looking bat. “We didn’t bother with hockey sticks,” he said as an apparent non-sequitur. “Or golf clubs, either. I thought about it, but I think they’d be too flimsy. They’d just break after one or two uses. The bats should last longer, especially the wooden ones.”
Marco got down on one knee next to Kitty. “Okay, kiddo. You’re going to get to ride piggy-back with me. We’re going to be running really fast, and sometimes I’m going to have to hit dead people with my bat. What I need you to do is hang on really really tight to my shoulders, no matter what happens. Can you do that?”
Kitty looked up at him, her eyes huge brown pools in her face, and nodded.
“Good girl.” he looked up at the others. “I’m going to need someone to carry the rest of my stuff while I carry her.”
“I can do that,” James volunteered immediately.
“Thanks, man. I appreciate it.”
“Don’t mention it. Least I can do.”
Mickey cleared her throat to draw their attention again. “Okay, now that that’s settled, we need to get moving. Donnie, have you got the keys to the door that leads to the street? I know there’s a direct entrance back that way, but I’m guessing it’s locked right now.”
“Uh, yeah. Yeah, I’ve got it. We’re not really supposed to... never mind.” He stuttered to a stop before he could say that his manager had told him not to open that door.
“Why don’t we go out through the mall?” Kenny wanted to know. “It’s got to be safer than outside...”
Randhir shook his head. “I don’t think it’s a good idea. Do you know what’s out there?” he jerked his head at Kitty and gave Kenny a meaningful look. “I really don’t want to have to see that, do you?”
Kenny shuddered. “Good point. Outside it is.”
“Besides,” Mickey broke in, “we’re aiming for the most direct route possible to get to Baron Sports. If I remember correctly, it’s on Notre-Dame street under the Ville-Marie Expressway. Our best bet is to take either St. Catherine street or René-Lévesque going East and then go South down Peel until we hit Notre-Dame.”
“Jesus, Mickey,” Marco breathed. “That’s a hell of a sprint.”
“Are you sure that’s the fastest way to get there?” James interrupted.
“It’s the most direct route,” Michaela assured him, but he still looked skeptical until Marlene intervened on her behalf.
“Michaela here is an emergency dispatcher. I’m sure she knows the city’s layout like the back of her hand.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence, Marlene.” She shot the older woman a grateful smile. “We can’t sprint all the way there,” she agreed with Marco. “Just walk fast, and only run when we absolutely have to. Peel is a fifteen-minute walk, and I figure another ten minutes to get to Notre-Dame and University, which is what we’re aiming for.
“As they say in the army, let’s move out.”
