Ground Zero(59)

Reshmina let out a breath. It was over now, right?

Suddenly, there was a loud CRACK, and Reshmina watched in horror as the house beneath the shattered building crumbled and fell. The house underneath that collapsed under the weight of the first two, and the demolished buildings took out the next house, and the next, and the next, until the whole village became one great avalanche, falling down on itself.

Carter cursed and turned to everyone standing around watching. “Run! Get across the river!” he cried.

The villagers ran from the landslide, into the fields. Taz ran with Reshmina and her family. When they were safe, they all turned and watched as the village slid down into nothing, swallowed by a great brown cloud of dust that came roaring at them like a lion.

The helicopter hovered a moment more, then lifted away. Its blades churned the smoke and dust as it left, and through a brief gap in the cloud Reshmina saw the empty hillside where her village had once been.

Everything she had ever known was gone.

“Dadgum,” Carter said. “Bombed ’em back up to the Stone Age.” He clapped Taz on the shoulder. “That’s for 9/11,” Carter added.

Carter and the other American soldiers headed back across the river while Taz waited behind.

“Reshmina, I’m sorry,” Taz said. He looked horrified. “That was not supposed to happen.”

“And yet it did,” Reshmina said.

“I’m sorry,” Taz said again, and he left to join his people.

Reshmina’s legs gave out, and she sank to her knees. Around her, the other villagers cried out and sobbed.

If the Americans had named their helicopters “Apaches” for some tribe they had defeated in battle, Reshmina thought, they should call their next helicopters “Afghans.” Because the United States had surely destroyed Afghanistan.





Brandon and Richard walked hand in hand down empty Manhattan streets. They were both dazed, and neither of them had spoken for blocks. Soon they came to a small city park with lush green trees and red and yellow flowers. Richard found someone who let him borrow a cell phone, and he stepped aside to try to reach his family again.

Brandon stood like a statue, staring at the flowers. The park was beautiful, but it brought him no pleasure to see it or to be there.

“Talisha!” Richard cried into the phone. He had finally gotten through to his wife. “Oh my God, honey, I never thought I’d hear your voice again … Yes—yes. I’m all right. I’m safe.”

But are we all right? Brandon wondered. Are we really safe? He looked around at that park, just blocks away from the burning pit where thousands of people had just died—where his father had just died—and wondered how anybody could ever feel happy and safe again. This little oasis wasn’t the real world. Brandon knew that now. He had seen the real world. It was dark and evil and scary, not sunshine and flowers waving in the breeze.

“Yes,” Richard was saying into the phone. “I’m with a boy who escaped with me. Brandon. I’m bringing him home. It’ll be a while—the subways and buses aren’t running … No, don’t leave the house. We’ll walk it … All right … Yes—I love you too.”

Brandon and Richard got moving again. They decided to get out of Manhattan as quickly as possible, following the thousands of other people streaming out of the city over the Brooklyn Bridge. They didn’t use the pedestrian path. They walked right down the middle of the road instead, working their way around abandoned cars. Some of the people walking by them cried. Others talked in whispers. Most just held their shirts to their faces and walked away from Manhattan as fast as they could, bewildered and stunned.

It felt like the end of the world.

Brandon was still holding Richard’s hand as they walked into the little front yard of his house in Queens three hours later. The security door flew open and Richard’s wife, Talisha, came running down the steps. She was a pretty Black woman with curly hair, wearing jeans and a purple sweater. Brandon recognized her from the photo on Richard’s desk. A small white dog ran out onto the porch next, followed by Richard’s little daughter and son. The kids waited awkwardly, not really sure why their father coming home today was a bigger deal than usual.

“Thank God you’re alive!” Talisha said, and wrapped Richard in a hug. Brandon looked away as they kissed.

Richard’s wife pulled away at last, her eyes full of tears.

“Brandon, this is my wife, Talisha,” Richard said. “Brandon saved my life,” he told his wife.

“Then I thank God for you too,” Talisha said, giving Brandon a hug and kissing the top of his head. He closed his eyes and scrunched a little lower, embarrassed, but he didn’t fight it.

“He saved my life first,” Brandon said.

“You can tell me all about it after we get you both cleaned up,” Talisha said. She took Brandon’s and Richard’s hands and pulled them toward the porch. Richard embraced his children and introduced them to Brandon as Kiara and Anthony. Richard also petted the happy little dog, whose name was Neo.

Richard’s house was small but cozy. Brandon caught flashes of it as he was led inside—shelves full of books, dolls and toy cars on the floor, family pictures on the walls—but it was all a blur. He was exhausted, and he was losing his focus on the world.