His throat seemed to close and his heart dropped to his stomach. Suddenly, he was slammed with emotions that he couldn’t decipher. The sight left him unable to breathe. “Oh, God,” he cried. “Oh, my God.”
His hand shot to his mouth. He knew he was going to vomit and he tried with everything he had to keep it in. “Don’t… don’t…” he was trying to say not to let Tyler up on the platform, but instead of words, vomit shot from his mouth.
His regurgitation was over fast because he hadn’t eaten much and, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, Foster turned, looking left and to right. The platform seemed to spin around him.
It was a nightmare. It had to be. It felt surreal.
Everywhere he looked there were people.
Whatever had happened, it had to have happened during rush hour because there were so many people on that platform. Men, women and children were lying everywhere.
Foster’s mouth stayed open as every face seemed to zoom into him.
There was a woman whose eyes had bled and her eyeballs were nearly out of their sockets. Blood encircled her head and, just like the rats, her face was sunken in, mouth wide open and she had a horrendous look of agony on her face.
Her body was curled as if she had died in the middle of convulsions.
In fact, everyone looked the same.
How long had Foster stood there, staring at it all in total shock? A minute, maybe less was all before a deep blood curdling scream snapped him out of it and he spun around to see Monica holding her mouth.
Abby emerged next, gasped in horror and then repeated Foster’s reactions and immediately threw up. Then the two other men came up.
Their reactions were the same.
Foster flew to the platform.
He was out of breath and peered down as Harry was helping Tyler climb. “Don’t let him up here. Someone cover his eyes. Please, cover his eyes.”
Harry asked, “What… what happened?”
Foster began to cry. His shoulders bounced with his sobs and he could barely talk. “They’re all dead.”
Lana backed up.
Ben’s eyes focused on Harry and Tyler.
Tyler looked so confused.
Ben turned Tyler from the ladder and braced his shoulders. “Look, I know you’re a big guy, if Foster says it’s bad, it might be too bad for you to see. How about I hold ya, you bury your head on my shoulder and I run us out of here?”
Tyler nodded.
“But first I need you to get up that ladder. You climb and when you get to the top, close your eyes tight, then turn around and face me. Okay?”
“Okay.” Tyler nodded, his lips quivering.
“Now you go.”
Harry stood by the ladder. “How bad is it?”
“My stomach wasn’t strong enough,” Foster replied. He stared down waiting on Tyler.
Ben was behind him.
Lana inched into Harry. “I don’t want to do this.”
“Just… just look ahead and don’t look around.” Harry instructed. “That’s all I can tell you. That’s what I’m going to do.”
Tyler’s eyes were closed tight. He could smell something really bad, but he was afraid to even look. If the grownups were scared, then he was too.
With Foster’s help he reached the level and turned around as Ben had instructed.
No sooner had he opened his eyes than Ben was rising from the ladder.
No amount of tears or warning prepared Ben for what he saw the moment he emerged eye level on that platform.
The magnitude of death before him was more than he even imagined.
He scooped Tyler up into his arms, held tight to the back of Tyler’s head and darted across the platform to the escalators. It was like a maze. He couldn’t run; he had to nearly tiptoe. It was worse than the rats. People took up every square inch, bodies over lapping.
But unlike the rats, Ben couldn’t bring himself to step on a body. He nearly tripped several times.
He arrived at the escalators which were not moving.
There was a pile of people at the bottom; they had apparently just fallen backwards. People hung over the railing and lay on the escalator steps.
He took the stairs instead; there was a lot less carnage there.
Surfacing topside to the main terminal, it wasn’t any better. There were just as many, if not more, bodies there.
Ben tried not to look, but he couldn’t help it.
None of them looked as if they had just dropped dead in the middle of what they were doing. Every person appeared to have been running or trying to get somewhere. Their faces all held looks of horror, as if they all had struggled for their lives.
Ben sought the salvation of the front doors. He could see the sunlight.
Out there it had to be better. Outside there had to be help, he thought. With Tyler in his arms he ran to the doors. But he didn’t have to open them; there wasn’t any glass, none at all.
Ben stepped through and the sunlight blinded him as if he had been in a dark movie theater.
He kept blinking to adjust. But one thing he knew for certain, there were no more sounds outside than there were in the tunnel. No cars, no birds, no horns or people. He didn’t have to see anymore to know something was very wrong.
When Ben’s eyesight finally adjusted to the light, Ben wished he couldn’t see.
