Chapter 8
Shane helped Terrance back to a sitting position, his back propped against the wall. Terrance sat there, arms resting on his propped up knees, head hanging forward. He blinked his eyes as if he were just waking up, or coming out of a daze.
“Terrance, I’m gonna call for help,” Shane said. “Stay here a minute. Relax. I’ll be right back.”
Terrance nodded his head, coughed again.
Shane got up and opened the bathroom door. He propped the door open with a trash can, walked over to the secretary’s desk. He picked up her phone and dialed 911.
And got a busy signal.
“What the fuck?” Shane muttered. “How can 911 be busy?”
He hung up the phone and tried again. Still busy.
The phone was a multi-line system, and Shane pressed a button to use a different line. He called 911 from that line, and heard the same repeated blaring of the busy signal.
“What the fuck is going on?” Shane said.
He went to the meeting area, picked the conference phone off the table, and tried again. Still busy.
Shane put the phone back in its cradle, walked back toward the bathroom. Terrance had lifted his head, was looking around the white-tiled room with bleary eyes.
“Terrance,” Shane said, “can I use your cell phone?”
Terrance reached into his pocket, pulled out his smartphone, held it out to Shane. Shane took the phone and glanced at the screen.
There was an exclamation point in a yellow square on the screen, with a message printed in a box beneath it: “Emergency Warning. Widespread incidents of mayhem in San Francisco area. Authorities urge citizens to remain indoors with all entrances secured until further notice.”
“What the fuck?” Shane said. “What’s ‘mayhem’ supposed to mean?”
Terrance looked up at him, questioning.
“Look at this,” Shane said, handing him the phone. “Have you ever seen anything like that before?”
Terrance took the phone, looked at the screen. He coughed gently, cleared his throat. “I seen messages like this for street shootings in Oakland,” he said, “but I never seen nothing about ‘incidents of mayhem’.”
“Well, can you still use the phone? I’m trying to call 911, but I can’t get through on any of these landlines.”
“You wanna call the cops?” Terrance said. “Why?”
“I want to call you an ambulance—”
“Naw, man. Don’t call no ambulance.”
Shane shook his head, incredulous. “You just had a fucking seizure! You’re covered in your own puke and blood. Plus some fucker bit you this morning, and you still haven’t done nothing about it.” The thought of the guy in the flannel came back to Shane abruptly. “And there’s a guy who fell off the second floor. He’s on the ground floor now, crawling around like he can’t use his legs.”
Terrance looked up at him, eyebrows furrowed. “What you say?”
“A guy fell over the second floor railing.”
“How he do that?”
“Well…” Shane looked at Terrance, considering. “I don’t know, man. I went to clean the second floor. Couple guys there. Looked like they’d pulled an all-nighter. Two of them started acting kinda weird.”
“Weird how?”
“I don’t know. Weird. Lurching around. Moaning.”
Terrance’s gaze stayed locked on Shane’s eyes. The dazed look he’d had a second ago was gone.
“Lemme see this guy,” Terrance said, bracing a hand on the floor as if he were about to stand.
“Hold on,” Shane said, stepping toward him. “Maybe you should relax for a minute. You just had a seizure.”
“Fuck your fucking seizure,” Terrance said, glaring.
He pushed himself up off the floor heavily, swayed as if he might fall, braced himself with a hand against the wall.
“You don’t look so good, man,” Shane said. “Maybe you should sit down for a while.”
Terrance gave him another hard look. He took a lurching step away from the wall, almost lost his balance again, but glared when Shane stepped forward to help him. He walked out of the bathroom unsteadily, made his way to the railing. He gripped the railing with both hands and looked over.
“I don’t see nothin’,” he said, after a minute.
Shane came up beside him, looked over. It was still dark, especially after the brightness of the bathroom, but it wasn’t as dark as it had been earlier. Shane looked up at the skylights in the ceiling, saw that they were a very dim grey. Dawn had broken.
“What time is it?” he asked.
Terrance looked at him. “Know sumthin’?” he said, “you’re the only fucker I know without a cell phone.”
“I ain’t got the money for a phone,” Shane said. “Ain’t got nobody to call, anyway,” he muttered.
Terrance shook his head, looked down at his own phone. “It’s seven forty.”
“Seven forty, and still the lights aren’t on.”
“Where’s your man?” Terrance asked, looking back over the railing. “I don’t see nobody.”
“I don’t know,” Shane said. “Maybe he’s under the second-floor overhang. Maybe he left.”
“I thought you said he couldn’t use his legs.”
“Maybe I was wrong. Or maybe it was just temporary.”
“Temporary,” Terrance said, giving him a look.
“I don’t know,” Shane said, irritated. He noticed how Terrance seemed to cling to the railing, as though he still didn’t feel steady on his feet. “Yeah, temporary. Just a few minutes ago you were flopping on the bathroom floor, but now you’re up giving me shit. Guess your seizure was temporary, too.”
Terrance’s look turned darker.
“Come on,” Terrance said. “We going down there.”