Ground Zero(50)

“I’m sorry, boy,” said Pratik. “But if we haven’t heard him by now—”

“Just let me look a little more,” Brandon told him. He couldn’t leave Richard behind. Not after all they’d been through together.

“Richard?” Brandon called. “Richard!”

Long moments went by, and Brandon could sense the other two survivors growing restless. They wanted to get out of here. He did too.

Brandon pulled the human chain farther into the darkness, desperate to find his friend.

“Richard!” he cried.

Then, softly, Brandon thought he heard something. Was that … singing? Brandon’s ears were still buzzing. Maybe they were playing tricks on him. But no, the others stopped to listen too.

“Richard?” Brandon called.

There was no answer. Just the indistinct hum of a tune.

“I think it’s coming from this way,” Gayle said, pulling them gently in the dark.

Faintly, almost no more than a whisper, came the words to a familiar song:

This land is your land, this land is my land,

From California, to the New York island—



Brandon gasped. It was Richard!





Reshmina woke to the sound of singing.

We are Afghan people

We are Afghans of the mountains



It was pitch-black and Reshmina couldn’t see, but she would know the sound of her grandmother’s voice anywhere. The song she was singing, “Momardene Afghane,” was one of Anaa’s favorites.

Ears ringing, dust clogging her mouth and throat, Reshmina crawled toward the sound. She found her grandmother lying on the ground, half-covered by the door of an old Soviet truck.

“I figured if I kept singing, someone would find me,” her grandmother rasped.

Reshmina pulled the door off her. “Are you all right, Anaa?”

“I may have a broken bone or two,” she admitted. “Just let me lie here, Mina-jan.”

Reshmina’s heart skipped a beat. Her grandmother was as stubborn as a donkey when it came to doctors. She claimed she’d never been sick in her life, but Reshmina knew she just didn’t like to make trouble. She might be lying there without a leg right now and not even admit it.

Reshmina patted her grandmother’s body just to be sure.

“Stop fussing,” Anaa groused.

Reshmina heard whining and crying in the darkness—her brother! Zahir was alive!

“Hush,” Reshmina’s mother said, her voice heavy. “Anaa, keep singing.”

“Mor!” Reshmina cried. She wanted to go to her mother, but where was she?

Reshmina’s grandmother sang “Momardene Afghane” again, and Reshmina heard the sound of people crawling to them through the scraps of old Soviet metal that had been scattered by the blast. First came her mother and Zahir. Then Marzia. As Reshmina hugged her family, more people found them: an old couple from next door, a young girl from farther up the steps. Taz too.

For a little while, everyone was too dazed to move or speak. Anaa finished her song, and things grew deathly, oppressively quiet. They couldn’t even feel vibrations anymore from the fighting up above.

“Is everyone all right?” Taz asked at last. “What’s happened? I still can’t see.”

“I don’t know,” Reshmina told him. “We can’t see either. It’s completely dark. Wait,” she remembered. “The flashlight!”

Thank God she had put it in her pocket before the explosion. She put her hand in her pocket, but when she touched the flashlight, a sharp pain shot through her palm and she gasped.

“What is it, Mina-jan?” Mor asked in Pashto.

“What’s wrong?” Taz asked in English.

Reshmina pulled the flashlight out with her other hand and clicked it on. Everyone squinted again in the bright light. Even Taz, a little.

“Hey—I can see that!” Taz said. “Not great, but I can see a dull glow! I think my eyes are getting better.”

Reshmina shined the light on her hand. There was a deep gash across her right palm. It must have happened when part of the ceiling caved in.

“I have a bad cut. On my hand,” Reshmina told her mother, then translated for Taz.

Reshmina’s mother started to tear a piece of cloth from her tunic for a bandage.

“Wait. I have some Kerlix,” Taz told them.

Reshmina didn’t know that word, but it was some kind of bandage Taz carried in his pockets. He told her how to use it, and she pushed the gauze into her cut with a hiss of pain.

“Sorry,” he told her. “This stuff is good, but if the cut’s deep, you may still end up with a scar. See? I’ve got one too.” He held out his hand to show her. He had a long, dirty scar in almost the same place on his palm. “It still aches every now and then, when it’s cold and gloomy outside,” he told her. “But most of the time …”

Taz paused, as though what he was saying brought back a painful memory for him.

“But most of the time you just forget it’s there,” he finished.

Some of the others in the cave had injuries too.Reshmina did what she could to help them with the bandages Taz had given her.

“Where are all the other people?” Reshmina’s mother asked. “There were a lot more of us before.”