Ground Zero(49)

But nuked by what? Had another plane crashed into the plaza above them? Who was doing this? And why? Why hurt and kill all these people?

“Richard?” Brandon called again.

He heard someone moan in response.

Richard! He was alive!

The cut on Brandon’s hand still stung, but he had to move. He’d lost the handkerchief Richard had given him, but feeling around in the darkness, he found a shirt from one of the stores. He threw the hanger away and wrapped the wet shirt around his injured hand. He couldn’t see the cut, but he knew it must be deep from how much it hurt.

“Richard, I’m coming!” Brandon called.

Richard moaned again, and Brandon put his hands out carefully, trying to feel his way toward the sound without hurting himself again. His left hand found something plastic in a cardboard package, floating by in the ankle-deep water, and as he searched its contours with his fingers, Brandon recognized with a start what it was.

It was the toy Wolverine claws he’d left to buy at Sam Goody that morning.

Brandon blinked in the darkness. It was so strange to finally hold the toy in his hands. This is why I’m here, Brandon thought. This is why I’m not with my dad right now.

This is why I’m alive.

It was so random. So stupid. So meaningless now, and yet so important at the same time.

Richard moaned again, and Brandon dropped the Wolverine claws and focused. Brandon was here, now, for whatever reason, and so was Richard. And Richard needed his help.

Arms and legs trembling, Brandon put his hands out in front of him again and shuffled forward, sloshing through the water and the rubble. The air in front of him was empty, but he was sure he was going to run into something.

“Richard, say something so I can find you,” Brandon said.

“I am here,” said a man with a heavy Indian accent.

Brandon’s heart sank. It wasn’t Richard he’d heard moaning. It was someone else.

“Help me. Please,” the man said.

“Keep talking so I can find you,” Brandon told the man.

“I’m here. I’m alive,” the man said. There were tears in his voice. “I don’t know what else to tell you. I’m here, and I’m frightened. I don’t know what’s going on. The world’s gone crazy.”

Brandon found the man, and they clasped hands like they were a long-lost father and son, finding each other again after years and years.

“Oh my God, I thought I was dead,” the man said. “My name is Pratik.”

“I’m Brandon.”

“I—I can’t see,” Pratik said.

“I can’t see either,” Brandon told him.

“Oh, thank God,” Pratik said. “I thought I had been blinded. But if you can’t see either, then it’s just too dark to see.”

Brandon was relieved too. I’m not blind, he thought. Not forever. The electricity must have gone out, and now there wasn’t a hint of light anywhere in the windowless mall.

“What happened?” Pratik asked.

“I don’t know,” Brandon told him. “Maybe another plane. Are you hurt bad? Can you stand?”

“I think my arm is broken, but I can stand.”

“Help,” a woman rasped nearby. Somewhere else in the darkness, Brandon heard another person groan.

There had been dozens of people with them down here in the mall, all following the Port Authority’s directions to the Church Street exit. Some of them might be dead from the blast, but there had to be other survivors like Brandon and Pratik.

They found the woman, who told them her name was Gayle. She managed to stand and join their human chain, and they shuffled their way through the darkness toward the person who was groaning. Please let it be Richard, Brandon thought. Please let it be Richard.

The groaning man couldn’t speak. Gayle bent down to examine him with her hands, and she gasped and stood.

“We have to leave him,” she said.

“Why? What is it?” Brandon asked, afraid it was Richard.

“I’m not sure he’s even still alive” was all Gayle would say.

They heard something rattle and fall nearby, and Pratik turned.

“No, wait—” Brandon said. He bent down to check on the wounded man. “I have to know if it’s Richard.”

“Stay away from his stomach,” Gayle told him, her voice queasy.

Brandon’s hands found the man’s shoulders first, and then his suspenders. Richard had been wearing suspenders! Please no, please no, Brandon said to himself.

His hands fumbled for the man’s face, and he felt smooth, shaved skin. Brandon cried tears of relief. This couldn’t be him. Richard had a beard. Brandon felt a pang of guilt for feeling relieved when this man was dying—maybe even dead already—but he couldn’t help being grateful.

“I’m sorry,” Brandon whispered to the dying man.

Brandon stood, and he and Pratik and Gayle listened again for a groan or a voice in the darkness.

“If you are hurt or trapped and can hear my voice, make any noise you can so we can find you,” Pratik called out.

No one answered.

“I think we should go,” said Gayle. “It’s hard to breathe, and we don’t even know which way is out.”

“Wait, please,” Brandon said. “My friend is still down here somewhere.”