Red Right Hand

4.

JAKE RESTON FORCED himself onto his hands and knees. His vision was blurry, his thoughts a muddle. He couldn’t hear a thing over the ringing in his ears.

He struggled to recall where he was, and why. The back of his neck was hot and tight, like he’d been out in the sun too long. Ditto the portions of his arms and legs his T-shirt and shorts failed to cover. When he was nineteen, he’d spent his summer break from college laying pavement with a road crew. Shoveling hot-mix asphalt for ten-hour stretches in the August heat, fumes rising off the molten sludge, proved a recipe for heat exhaustion, and despite his best efforts to stay hydrated, it had leveled Jake more than once. This felt similar, which led Jake to wonder if heat exhaustion was what had caused him to collapse today-but oddly, given his apparent sunburn, it wasn’t all that warm outside.

As Jake’s vision cleared, he noticed a mangled bike frame beside him on the trail. Its paint was blistered. Its seat and back wheel were missing. Its front wheel spun lazily on its axle, the bare rim clotted here and there with chunks of smoldering rubber. He couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to the bike’s rider.

The dirt beneath Jake was spattered red. He raised a hand to his face. When he touched his nose, a jolt of pain made him recoil. He probed again more gingerly; it seemed to be crooked. A sticky gash caked with dirt and clotting blood ran across it. Blood seeped from both his nostrils.

Jake brushed the loose dirt from his face and hands. He ran his tongue over his upper teeth and spat out grit. The fog in his head lifted some, and flashes of memory returned. He tried to piece them together, but important bits were missing and they didn’t quite line up right, like the fragments of a broken glass. They were on their way home from Disneyland, he remembered, when they’d stopped off to re-create his parents’ honeymoon photo, and then…and then…

Wait. They. He and Emily and the kids.

Adrenaline surged through his system and brought his thoughts back to the here and now. They’d found the spot. Posed to record the video. Then something hit him from behind. And then blackness. And then this.

Fear twisted Jake’s guts. He looked around. The effort made his head pound, his vision swim. There wasn’t much to see, anyway-the air was choked with thick dark smoke that seared his lungs with every breath.

Jake tried to stand. The world seemed to wobble around him, and he was forced back to his knees. “Hannah! Aidan! Emily!” he shouted, his voice a dry croak, loud enough to strain his vocal cords, yet so faint that he could barely hear it.

There was no reply. He crawled upslope a ways and tried again. This time, he heard something. His name. High-pitched, frightened, questioning. Emily, he realized.

Jake scrabbled toward her on all fours. Put his hand in something sticky. Recoiled when he realized it was a rivulet of blood.

He followed it back to its source. It wasn’t Emily, but a woman clad in neon-green gym clothes. Jake vaguely recalled seeing her jog by before whatever happened had happened. Her exposed flesh was red and angry. A twisted hunk of metal jutted from the back of her head, charred black at the edges, bloody hair matted all around.

“Emily!” he screamed. “Where are you? Talk to me-are the kids with you? Are you okay?” It occurred to him he ought to hear Sophia crying. His heart tapped out a brittle rat-a-tat against his rib cage.

“I’m over here! I, uh, think I fell.” She sounded dazed, rattled, not herself. “Sophia’s here with me!”

“Where are Hannah and Aidan?”

“I-I don’t know!”

Jake crawled toward the sound of his wife’s voice, limbs protesting the whole way. He found her hovering over Sophia, who lay silent and unmoving atop Emily’s windbreaker. Emily’s forehead was sliced open and bled freely into her eyes.

“Oh God. Is she…” He couldn’t bring himself to finish the sentence lest uttering the words might make them so.

“She’s breathing,” Emily answered, her voice high and tremulous from worry, “but unconscious, and she’s got a goose egg on the back of her head. I…I must have landed on top of her when I fell.” Her chin quivered. Grief warped her features. “I know I shouldn’t have moved her, but I couldn’t leave her lying in the dirt.”

He put his hands on her face, palms to cheeks. “Look at me. This isn’t your fault. Whatever happened leveled all of us. And I promise you, Sophia’s going to be just fine.” Emily nodded. Blinked back tears. Put on a brave face. He wondered if her bravery felt as hollow as his did.

Jake knelt over Sophia. Placed a hand against her tiny chest and took heart in its steady rise and fall. Patted her cheek gently and said, “C’mon, little one-wake up for us, okay?”

Sophia didn’t stir. He patted her cheek once more, harder, and when that didn’t work, he shook her gently. He was about to try again when Emily placed her hands on his to still them and shook her head. “Careful,” she said, and only then did he realize he’d been on the verge of going too far, of shaking her too hard-his panic taking over.

And then, by some miracle, Sophia opened her eyes and began to cry.

Jake had never heard a sound so beautiful in all his life.

But his relief was short-lived. With Sophia awake and responsive, his priorities shifted.

“Em, think back. When you fell, did you see Hannah and Aidan?”

She frowned as she struggled to remember. “No. I don’t think so. They weren’t with you?”

He shook his head. “No. We got separated somehow, and when I came to-I-I don’t know. Help me up. I’m going to go find them.” She grabbed his elbow, and with her support, Jake found his feet. “Hannah!” he bellowed, fighting the urge to cough. “Aidan! Tell me where you are!”

“Dad!” It was Hannah, strong and clear. “Dad, we’re over here!”

He stumbled toward them, a smile breaking across his filthy, bloodied face when he saw shapes in the smoke resolve themselves into his children’s forms. Hannah sat with Aidan’s head in her lap, stroking his hair as he wept. They’d bickered the whole drive here, he recalled, but now she was there for him when he needed her. For a moment, Jake was overcome with pride; he felt as if he’d just been offered a glimpse of the amazing woman Hannah would become.

“Are you two all right?” he asked. Aidan shook his head, his tears carving arroyos in the dirt and ash that caked his face.

“I’m okay,” Hannah said, though she was scraped up pretty good, “but Aidan’s leg is broken. I don’t think we can move him without help.”

She was right, Jake realized. Aidan’s leg extended away from his body in an unnatural zigzag. Bone, jagged and gore-streaked, protruded from his shin.

“Where are Mom and Sophia?” Hannah asked.

“Back that way.”

“Are they…”

“They’re fine. We’re all going to be just fine,” he said, putting a hand on his son’s shoulder. “You hear me, buddy?” Aidan nodded, and his sobbing abated some.

Jake knew Aidan needed medical attention, but he was worried that if he left to get help, he’d never find his way back here. Reflexively, he reached for the pocket where he normally kept his cell phone, but it wasn’t there. Right, he thought, I left the damn thing in the car, and Hannah had to lend me hers to take the video. It couldn’t have gone far.

He looked around-the ocean breeze taking mercy on him and dispersing the haze some-and spotted it lying a few feet from them at the path’s edge, its bedazzled edges sparkling, its screen a dark reflection of the sky.

He ran to it. Dialed 911. The phone rang twice, and then the call was dropped.

Jake tried again, muttering, “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” as it began to ring. This time, an operator answered. “Oh, thank God,” he said. “My family and I are on the trails just up the hill from Fort Point, overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge. There was some kind of explosion.”

“We’re aware of the situation, sir,” the operator said. From the tension in her voice and the clamor behind her, it sounded like half of San Francisco had called it in. “Are any of you hurt?”

“My son’s leg is badly broken. I think he’s going to need a stretcher.”

“Are you in immediate danger?”

Jake looked around. The nearby trees were scorched bare. Ash rained lazily from the sky. “I…I don’t think so.”

“Okay. Just stay put, then. Help is on the way.”

“Thank you,” he said. “Thank you so much.”

Jake trotted back to Emily, who held Sophia close and tried to calm her. Brought them over to where Aidan lay and told Emily the EMTs were coming. Jake was so overcome by everything that had transpired-and so relieved his kids were safe-he never stopped to wonder where the gaunt old man who’d been holding Hannah’s phone had gone.