MirrorWorld

4.

The crowd outside shouts at us. There are so many commingling voices that understanding the individual messages would require a supercomputer. And yet I clearly understand the communal meaning of their words: hate. But why? Who hates an ice cream truck, other than protective, corn-syrup-fearing parents?

“What are they so afraid of?” I ask, not because I’m concerned for their well-being, but because I know there could be a subtle danger that I’m not seeing simply because I wouldn’t fear it.

“How do you know they’re afraid?” Allenby asks.

“People only act like this when they’re afraid.” It’s not a memory. It’s simple knowledge. “I don’t feel what they’re feeling, but I’ve learned to recognize it in other people and understand the kinds of things it can lead to. There is no short supply of fear in a mental institution.”

“Things… are not good,” Allenby says. “Anywhere. People are afraid. And angry. Because they’re afraid. It’s boiling over into the streets. Major cities—New York, Los Angeles, Boston—are a mess. Rural areas, like most of New Hampshire, have been calm, but that appears to be changing. At first, they take to the streets, like this, latching on to whatever hot-button issue affects a certain area. Here it’s all about money. Wages. Taxes. The working-class money struggle. But things eventually take a turn for the worse. Violence. Looting. Vast destruction. People are dying.”

The driver turns off the ice cream truck music and rolls down the window a crack. “Sorry! Sorry! It was an accident.”

“Asshole!” someone shouts back. “You think what we’re doing is funny? That this is some kind of joke?”

Others join in, shaking their fists at one of America’s most beloved summertime-fun icons. The images of Bomb Pops, orange Dream Bars, and ice cream sandwiches no doubt plastered to the side of this ambulance in disguise somehow appear as a threat to these people. Something to be dealt with harshly.

The driver rolls up the window and turns to me and Allenby. “I think we should force our way through. This isn’t going to end well.”

“We can’t just run them over,” Allenby says.

“I could,” I say.

The driver shakes his head. “Of all the people to be stuck in this mess with…”

Allenby silences him with a gentle touch to his arm.

He looks back at me. “Sorry.”

Hands slap against the truck’s hood. And the sides. There’s a click all around us as the driver locks the doors. The vehicle’s interior rumbles as the people outside start pounding, venting their fear.

“Shit,” the driver says. “Shit!” The fear outside the vehicle seeps inside, taking hold of him.

I take hold of his prickly chin and turn his face toward mine. “What’s your name?” My voice is as calm as always. My pulse is rock-solid, like a metronome. Luckily, calm can be as infectious as fear.

“Blair,” he says. “Ed Blair.”

“Does whoever you work for have a helicopter?” I ask.

He nods.

“Are they far?”

“A few minutes to prep and a five-minute flight.”

I look up through the windshield. The buildings lining the downtown street are six stories tall, tops. “Call them,” I say. “Tell them where we are and to pick us up on a rooftop.”

“I’m not getting out of this truck,” he says.

I pat his arm. “Just call them.” Then, to Allenby, who is watching the crowd swarm toward the truck, “Finish your job.”

“W—What?” She seems dazed. There were times at SafeHaven when my lack of fear put me in physical danger, causing me to later wonder about a cure for my condition. But in situations like this, where fear cripples people, I’m happy to be who I am.

“My stitches,” I say. “You said you weren’t done.”

“But the crowd. We have—”

“Time.”

With Blair now dialing his cell phone, I move back into the ice creambulance’s rear and take a seat on the gurney I’d been lying on. The vehicle shakes back and forth. Feels like we’re on a boat. Have I been on a boat? Muffled voices and slamming fists reverberate, thunderlike, through the small space.

Allenby, focused on her task, opens a medical kit. She removes a tube of antibiotic, some gauze and a roll of medical tape.

The vehicle rocks harder, knocking her off-balance. I catch her by the arms. “Just focus. Ignore them.”

“Easy for you to say,” she grumbles. “Lean back.”

I lie down on the gurney while she quickly smears the ointment over the wound and tapes down the gauze. Just as she finishes, the door to the front opens. Rather than just looking back, Blair slides out of his seat and joins us in the rear. “Helicopter is on its way. ETA seven minutes. But we’re not going to make it out of here.”

I look around Blair’s head as something red and rectangular spirals through the air. A brick slams into the windshield, creating a spiderweb break in the laminated—and oddly tinted—safety glass.

Allenby moves toward the back door. “We should go. Now.”

“Not yet,” I say. “Can I have a shirt?”

She points to a hook behind Blair, where my torn and blood-soaked olive-drab T-shirt hangs. The shirt, along with my blue jeans, have pretty much been my uniform for the past year. While many of the patients at SafeHaven wear hospital gowns, the higher-functioning patients were allowed the dignity of real clothing. The brown shoes on my feet are new, though. We wore slippers back at SafeHaven. I slip into the shirt, knowing the gory appearance will help back people away, and look back out through the windshield.

“What are we waiting for?” Blair asks. He follows my eyes, looking ahead. “The longer we wait, the—oh, no!”

I watch the green bottle’s arc through the air. It was a good throw from about forty feet away. The bright orange flame trailing the improvised weapon helps it stand out from the throng. The Molotov cocktail strikes the windshield. Flames burst in all directions, obscuring our view, but I don’t need to see.

The pounding stops.

The vehicle settles.

The crowd has been repulsed by a splash of mankind’s original tool of mass destruction. In minutes, the truck will be an inferno, the crowd pushed back fifty feet by the heat. But we don’t need to wait that long.

“Do either of you have a weapon?”

“We’re a medical team,” Allenby says while Blair shakes his head, nervously eyeing the rear door.

I take the bloody ceramic blade from the metal tray. “Okay, just—”

A thump and the sound of shattering glass against the rear of our vehicle interrupts me. Flames cover the two small windows.

“Oh, God,” Allenby says.

“We’re going to jump through,” I tell them. “It’s just like running your finger through a candle. Move fast enough, and the heat won’t touch you.”

“I—I can’t,” Blair says.

I shrug, indifferent. “You can risk a minor burn, and the crowd, or you can cook alive in your very own ice creambulance turned urn.”

He looks at me like I’m insane while he debates possible death against certain death. Without another word, I unlock the door and leap through the flames.