June 16, 9:15 am
"We need to find a map," Billy said.
"A map? What good is that going to do us?" Richard asked, his frustration threatening to boil over.
"It's hard to explain. But I think if we have a state map to look at, it might help us tie all this together. Where can we find one?"
"I have maps at my place. That's not far..."
"No," Billy sighed, "that's not going to work. It's not like we can unfold a map, or even pull an atlas off of a shelf. We need a map already open. Like a poster."
"Oh, yeah..."
Richard felt embarrassed, because for a second he really imagined rushing back to his house and digging through the bookcases or the glove compartment of his car for a fold-out map. It was disconcerting how he could so easily forget that he was no longer part of this world.
"Wait, I know just the place," Richard said, standing up. "There's a Sinclair station just a couple blocks up. It's where Keith and I always stopped to fill up before heading out to Wendover. And I remember there's a big map of Utah on the wall of the 7-11, just inside the door. It's the kind that shows the entire state, with a red star to show tourists where they are."
He was already headed up the aisle of the Tabernacle, with Billy trailing behind. Even as he finished his sentence, he was bursting out of the Tabernacle doors, just as he had barely more than twelve hours before.
But this time, the contrast couldn't have been greater.
When they had arrived at Temple Square a couple hours earlier, he'd noticed that it had seemed deserted, but in the dim light of morning he hadn't really stopped to look. Now he could see that nobody was visible in the vast expanse of the square, except a half dozen security guards in full riot gear, clustered near the padlocked gates. Alone in the square, the guards walked aimlessly now, weapons drawn, with absolutely no one to confront.
A strange, calm, deadness pervaded the scene. For other than those guards, it appeared that Temple Square had been completely abandoned. The near riot that he had witnessed when he and Tuilla emerged the day before was long gone, but the signs of violence remained. The bodies had been removed, but the blood on the stone walkways was still there, now black and almost as smooth as glass. A dozen flies congregated in the largest pool. Even the spot where the desperate crowds had been attempting to climb over the fence was now empty.
Perhaps, Richard thought, people just finally realized that they weren't going to find refuge here, and dispersed. He hoped that was true, but he had an uneasy feeling that it wasn't. Not by a long shot.
Passing through the bars of the gate, he and Billy found evidence of what must have been a major riot. There were pieces of discarded and torn clothing everywhere, along with abandoned backpacks, hats, purses, eyeglasses, and even watches. All the windows across the street were shattered. And there were still a half dozen bodies crumpled on the sidewalk and in the street that nobody had bothered to move. Looking to his left, Richard gasped at seeing bullet holes scattered like black cockroaches up and down the wall in both directions. But surprisingly, there was very little blood. Looking closer at the bodies and the street, Richard realized everything was soaked. A powerful blast of water had been used here, most likely from a water cannon or fire hose. The bodies still leaked some blood, but mostly, they looked strangely clean. The pools that gathered around them were pink and not red.
The faithful hadn't simply given up trying to get into Temple Square, he realized. They were driven away with hoses and guns.
Hurrying away from the scene, they cut down State street. Richard planned for them to take a left at the end of the next block, and go straight up 1st South to the Sinclair station. But before they could reach that street, he and Billy were stopped cold by the most horrific scene Richard had ever encountered, either alive or dead.
Several hundred dead bodies lay in front of the City Creek Center. They were piled high, as if they had been fighting to get into the mall when they were gunned down. And there was no mistake that the wet bodies here died from gunfire. They had been mowed down with a methodical precision and inhuman fury. Hundreds or even thousands of brass shell casings littered the street. If the scene had been in black and white, rather than the vivid color of a summer day, Richard thought it could look like a photo of the Indian massacres of the old west. Or of the liberation of the concentration camps after World War II.
So, this is what happened to the crowds who had been trying to get into Temple Square...
It was all so clear. The mob had been driven away from the Temple Square gates with water cannons and gunfire. But as they fled down State Street, they came up against something far worse. This much damage could only have been inflicted by military grade automatic weapons. It had to be the work of the Army, or the National Guard units. Perhaps someone had panicked when they saw the crowd rushing toward them. Or perhaps it had been something more intentional, and more sinister. It was likely that no one would ever know. The tragedy would be lost in the history of what happened to this city on this day.
Richard felt sick knowing that this massacre had happened probably just minutes after he had abandoned Tuilla in Temple Square. Perhaps she had even been forced to stand as mute witness to these atrocities. And if that was the case, no wonder the old woman had fled, perhaps never to return.
Slowly and reverently Billy and Richard walked past the mound of corpses, instinctively stepping over the straggler bodies and the pools of blood that flowed from the heap like runoff from a slowly melting glacier. Richard found it impossible to turn his face from the dead, until Billy wordlessly touched his shoulder.
They turned their backs on the massacre and rushed forward up 1st South.
Richard knew right away that they had a problem. Even though they were still two blocks away, they could see a plume of black smoke billowing into the blue sky. The thick column was rising quickly, but he knew instantly that a fire of that intensity would likely only come from a petrochemical burn. And that likely meant the Sinclair station was gone. So he wasn't surprised at all when they reached the corner where the 7-11 had stood, and found that both the gas island and the convenience store itself were engulfed in flames. So far, the fire was confined to the one building, but it would soon spread to the structures in the surrounding area. And indeed, there were small groups of people fleeing the apartments in the same block as the blaze. Those across the streets that had not yet fled stared from their windows in horror, wondering if they too would have to grab their possessions and get out.
Three cars had been consumed by the flames, and it appeared that they had been the ones nearest to the pumps when the fire broke out. In fact one car, which must have been especially close to the source of the blast, had been blown partially into 1st South, and was lying on its side. It was little more than a blackened hulk now, since most of the flames had burned themselves out.
"Damn," he heard Billy say, as the boy stared into the burning convenience store. "Where else can we find a map on a wall? Is there another gas station nearby?"
Richard barely heard him. Rather than the flames, Richard was mesmerized by the faces in the apartment building across the way. A pair of girls that looked to be about ten stood in one window, looking down. There was no adult behind them, and Richard felt they must be alone in the apartment. If the fire spread to their building, would they know enough to get out? Their faces were hazy behind the glass, and as he watched, one girl pulled the blinds closed, and they disappeared from view.
"Richard?" Billy asked, breaking his reverie. "Is there another gas station nearby that might have a map? I can't think of one that's close..."
Billy kept talking, but Richard didn't hear a word that he was saying. He had focused over the boy's shoulder, at the car lying on its side, with the flames still cracking inside.
But it wasn't just the car. He was looking at the rear bumper.
He could still see, through the cracked paint, the logo of a RAV4. An icy hand gripped his guts as he pushed past Billy.
The license plate was blackened, but as he drew closer, he could read the numbers. And that icy hand in his guts gave a vicious twist.
"This is our car," he said numbly, as he covered the last dozen yards at a full sprint.
"Richard!" Billy shouted, running after him and holding up his hands to shield his face from the intense heat that was still pouring out of the vehicle.
Richard didn't seem to feel the heat, and he momentarily grabbed the bumper of the car as he raced around to look in the back window. The hot metal seared his hand, and he pulled it away instantly, but barely felt the pain that rushed through him like an electric shock. He fell to his knees and pressed his face up against the back window of the vehicle, which was, surprisingly, still intact. Even with the flames and the smoke curling around his head, he could see inside.
Oh God, no, please... Oh God, not Keith, please, God... No...
He saw instantly that there was only one body in the vehicle. It was empty, other than the charred form in the front seat. The car rested on the driver's side, and the body had been thrown halfway out of the windshield when the car was blown into the street. The charred shape lay partially inside the car, and partially on the pavement next to the front windshield. One blackened arm reached out at an impossible angle, the hand now nothing more than a hideous claw.
Richard scuttled around to the front and looked at the smoking shape.
He knew instantly it wasn't Keith, and his muscles failed him with relief. He sank down and knelt on the pavement next to the corpse, looking at it, trying to understand.
Someone small and thin. Not Keith. Not Pil...
All the hair was burned away, and the face was gone, with gleaming white teeth showing through a mouth still agape in a scream. But there was a ring on the burned hand that he recognized. A wedding ring.
"It's Michelle," he said to Billy, finally rolling away from the horror, and raising himself to a crouch. He wanted to vomit, but knew there was nothing in him he could possibly bring up, and that he didn't even have a body that could wretch. He felt Billy's hands on his shoulders, but the boy said nothing.
"Where's Keith?" he asked the empty air. "Where are Pil and Howard?"
Richard tried to tune into the tug in his forehead—the one that had always led him to Keith, ever since his return to the Hereafter. But the tug was gone. He couldn't tell if it was because there was too much noise in the psychic plane of the Salt Lake Valley now... Or because Keith was... no longer reachable.
"Billy... I can't sense him. I can't feel him in my head..."
With Billy's help, he got to his feet and looked around frantically for any sign of his lover and his two companions, anywhere in the street. He quickly found that there was another body, this one wedged under the right front fender of the car. He bent over the smoldering thing that used to be a person and let out a sigh of relief.
"No, too tall. Too thin. That's not Keith, and it's certainly not Pil."
"Could it be Howard?" Billy asked.
Richard just stood, bent at the waist, with his head in his hands. "I don't know. Maybe. The build is about right."
Slowly, he stood back upright, and after a couple of deep breaths, the world stopped spinning.
"Billy, why can't I sense him? Is he dead?"
"I don't know," Billy said, looking pale and drawn. "But I can't sense Mattie either. I think something has changed. It's like there's too much static now. Everything feels... blurry."
"I feel it too," Richard said, his eyes glassy and cold. "Oh, God, maybe Keith's still alive. Tell me he's still alive..."
"Richard, if they are, maybe they will have gone back to the house," Billy said.
Richard's brain felt like it had been scrambled. He tried to think through what his lover and Pil might have done, if they had gotten away from this scene alive.
"Big Bird," he finally said.
Billy just looked at him, confused.
"Big Bird. It's Michelle and Pil's car. It's a big SUV. They came here because they were getting gas, and they were trying to leave. If they are still intent on getting out, maybe they went back to get Pil's car."
He ran, and Billy followed.