She didn’t want to be a worker or a Florence Nightingale; Abby would have preferred to go to a corner and sit there like everyone else, waiting. But she couldn’t.
She just couldn’t sit still.
Maybe later she would.
Time just seemed to drag.
When she thought about that, she thought about time and Abby walked over to the huge pile of cell phones that she and Foster collected. She sat on the floor by them.
What time was it? Surely a cell phone would tell her. There were so many.
Anyone who came across a cell phone tossed it in the pile.
A lot were broken but most were not.
Abby picked up a phone and looked at it. She pressed buttons to get it to light up and when it did, the words on the screen simply said, ‘searching for a signal.’
She grabbed another phone.
It was the same.
Every phone she lifted had nothing but a lit screen with those same words.
No signal at all. No indication of the time of day.
“Does anyone have the time?” Abby asked. “Is anyone wearing a watch?”
Somebody, she didn’t know who, called out, ‘Seven fifteen.’
Her mouth dropped open. “Seven fifteen?” She questioned softly then stood. Eyes focused ahead, Abby walked away from everyone. She moved past the coffee car, the smashed remains of cars five and six and stood by the last train car that blocked the other side of the tunnel.
That train car formed a wall.
“Is everything okay?” Foster asked.
Abby gasped and grabbed her chest. “Yes, why?”
“Well, you walked all the way over here like you saw something.”
Abby shook her head ‘no.’
“Then you’re fine.”
“It’s seven-fifteen.”
“I heard that.”
“No. Listen.” She leaned against the train wreckage. “Just listen.”
Foster did. “I don’t hear anything.”
“Exactly. Nothing. Just quiet. No noise. No saws or jack hammers. No welding. Nothing. It’s seven fifteen. We crashed ten hours ago.” She turned and faced Foster with a look of deep concern. “Where are the rescue crews?”
The morning came but it was hard to tell. The tunnel was dark, and the emergency lighting had started to dim.
Most slept and waited for help to arrive.
It took Tyler most of the night to leave his father’s side. That was fine with Harry; he wasn’t rushing the boy, not at all.
He and Tyler moved away from the body. Harry covered TJ as best as he could and then sat with the boy off to the side. Then Harry watched.
Harry was a watcher.
He watched people.
The one woman, Abby, paced a lot, sat down and then paced again. But to Harry she looked indifferent. Almost as if she carried a huge burden and the train wreck was easy compared to what she had to face.
The man, Ben, who had helped Harry with TJ stayed close to his wife.
But to Harry, that teenage boy, Foster, had it the most together.
He was thinking at an incredible rate. The fact that he mentioned ‘third foster’ father told Harry that he had to be fast on his feet. He had obviously moved around a lot.
About four in the morning, Foster came from the south, the route that they had entered the tunnel. He informed Harry that it was completely blocked. He managed to slip through a six inch opening between a train and the wall, only to find more wreckage. He didn’t know how far it went back, but it was impossible to get through.
So Foster went north.
Harry looked at his watch. The teenager had been gone for nearly three hours, and Harry was getting worried.
The coffee café worker, a boy not even out of college, had some good theories to ease people’s minds on why the rescue workers hadn’t arrived.
There was a train behind theirs and, confirmed by Foster, that wrecked as well.
Café guy also said there was one in front of the 141. They were in the middle of all that wreckage. No matter which side, north or south, rescue workers were going to take time.
Each person had to ration water, and food would have to be rationed as well.
Wait it out. That it could be days was the general consensus.
But Harry kept going back to the fact that every phone had rung.
They all rang at the same time.
He recalled in his lifetime one other time that something like that happened.
Harry had to head to the main headquarters in the city that day. He was actually on his way there, when he stopped to get a coffee and was running late. In the coffee shop, everyone’s phones started to ring at the same time. The phones rang, texted messages bleeped. That was September 11. What happened on that train with the phones reminded Harry of that day.
There was also the triple boom that Abby swore she heard.
Then again, that could have been more wreckage.
Harry could sit there and think all he wanted, but there was nothing he could do about it until he knew if there was a way out.
For that, he counted on Foster.
Foster was gone a long while.
He glanced down at Tyler who had finally fallen asleep on his lap and then Harry searched for Ben. In a whisper, so as not to disturb too many people, Harry called, “Ben. Ben.”
It took Ben a few seconds and then he acknowledged Harry with a nod. He made his way over. “Everything ok?” Ben asked.
