Chapter Forty-Three

Tina didn’t know she was making a sound.

She had competition, to be sure.  The humans had come with their shrieking police cars, pounding on doors and pushing gawkers away, but mostly scratching their heads looking for the source of the explosion.  News vans had descended, one with a live remote from Dan Blather himself, but there wasn’t much to tell. 

A few windows were broken at the U.N. complex, and a water main sent a gusher down the street into the gutter, but even the police would have been surprised how deep underground the blast had been.

They would never get the chance to see the real damage.  Rescue Aid Headquarters was gone, and so was Timothy.  A sad little cluster of stragglers huddled behind garbage cans in an alleyway.  They were congregated near a pitiful bubbling hole that would have been Timothy’s last possible exit, assuming someone could have carried him.

“Someone’s got ta pull her out of there,” muttered Dennis, from the driver’s seat of the limousine.  “We’ve lost enough o’ the other delegates, won’t do to have the newest one catching her death o’—“

“—let her alone,” Bianca cut him off.  “Martin already tried.” Through the passenger door of the limo, she and Bernard wearily, warily watched Martin tear around the alley, kicking at soda cans and shredding newspaper to bits with his claws, roaring wordlessly.

Tina was howling herself hoarse and no one could move her from the spot.  She had dully accepted the emergency blanket Bernard had hobbled over and tucked around her, but it gave no comfort.  If you’ve ever heard a cold, bitter wind whistle down a knife-edged canyon in the high desert, this was a lonelier sound.  Hopeless as the sound of ash crunching under foot in a burned forest.

How did Timothy go?  It was a question hovering at the edge of her shock and grief.  Did it hurt? Was it quick?

She would never know.  When it rains, it pours, and sometimes it pours concrete.

She had her paws thrust deep into the stuff.  Her tears beat down on it and made tiny dents.  Her fur was spattered with it, and it was drying in clumps.

Martin had started back into the underground ruins of the Rescue Aid headquarters after the explosion, enlisting several helpers to keep Tina from following.  With a good deal more pleading, he’d convinced Teresa to take little Sophie and get as far away as possible.  Delayed only for a few moments, he was caught completely unawares by a slithery grey mess of quick-drying cement rising in the twice-assaulted rubble of the Assembly Hall.

Now, having taken out enough wrath on inanimate objects, he went to scream at Bernard and Bianca, the wounded pair cowering in the limo like a pair of shivering puppies being kicked.

“FAILSAFE? Well, it sure as hell looks like it FAILED because my brother doesn’t look too SAFE under there!”

“I’m so sorry, Martin,” started Bernard.

“Plans were made. Everyone was told,” quivered Bianca.  “Told five times at least, we’d never let the place be picked over by humans, we’d bury it first.”

“With my brother in it?  Did you think to STOP IT?” Martin’s jackhammer voice went on.  “Did you think of WAITING one goddamned SECOND?!”

“If it came to the worst,” gulped Bernard, “and it has—we couldn’t do it halfway.  The trucks were already on the move.  After that second blast, our communications—”

“SCREW YOUR COMMUNICATIONS!  And the half-wit who put them together!”

“Here, now—” started Dennis, taking personal offense.

Martin latched onto a door of the limo, nearly tearing it off its hinges.  “MY BROTHER IS DEAD!” he blasted, rattling the auto glass.  Some of the tint gave up and peeled off the windows. Tina felt it well enough to catch the words as they rolled through the earth.  She already knew they were true.

“Stop it,” Tina mouthed, pulling her arms out of the muck and turning to watch Martin and his throbbing angry veins. She’d never gotten volume control down right, not since her hearing had been taken from her.  It looked like Martin would scream himself deaf if he didn’t stop.  “STOP IT!!” she boomed, making Martin jump, the concrete hanging from his fur rattling together like a clumsy wind chime.  “He’s gone!  It’s not their fault, Martin, he was brave and he was stupid, and he’s gone!”

Martin blinked at her.  “It’s always somebody’s fault.” He sat down and leaned against the limousine.  “This time it’s mine.” He drew in a great gasping breath and let it hiss through his teeth.  His whiskers drooped and he let his paws trail down to rest by his side.  The animation seemed to have gone out of him, and he looked smaller and sadder than anything his size ever should.  “He was dead as soon as I left him down there.  I should have dragged him out kicking and screaming.  Screaming, at least.  He kicked his last kick a long time ago.”

The concrete seemed to have settled—no more air bubbles were rising to the top, and all that marred its new smooth surface were a couple of indentations where Tina had reached into it.  Tina shook her head and reached a paw back toward it. 

“Bernard?  Bianca?” she asked dully.

“Yes, dear?” Bianca called back from the limo.

“Will it hurt anything if I leave…leave a message?  Something short, nothing secret, just so I know it’s here?”

“It’s all right,” coughed Bernard.  “This was a secret exit.  From the looks of this alley, no one ever comes here.”

“I will,” said Tina. “Any time I get the chance.”  She dipped her paw back into the concrete, not as deep this time, but drew a line and saw that it stayed.  She nodded her head and set to work.  When she was finished, she wiped her paws—and her eyes--on a scrap of newspaper.  “T.M. heart T.B.”, she read her message out.  “That should be safe—T.M loved T.B., and they could be anyone at all.  Happy somewhere far away--minding their own business, not being heroes.”

Spitefully, it seemed, a huge air bubble welled under her message and broke, flinging spatters of concrete at her eyes and obliterating her work.

“Oh, no,” she mourned. “No, Timmy, no—can’t I even leave a mark here for you?”  The concrete was uneven now, with leaves and half of a weather-beaten Styrofoam cup slowly oozing up through.  The pocket of air and debris had hopelessly muddled the surface.

“I’ll help you clear off a spot,” Martin grumbled, glad for anything constructive to do.

“I’m not entirely useless, y’ know,” harrumphed Dennis, and squeezed out the driver side door to join them.

They crouched down beside Tina and brushed aside as much litter as they could.  Tina ran into a stubborn bit and could not pull it up—if she could get it free, she’d have enough room to write.

“This might take all of us,” grunted Martin, pulling at it.

Dennis took his hat off and flung it in the direction of the limo, then lay down to reach the lump.  “Wha—it’s like a strip of wet rug or summat—”

Tina managed to wedge her arms around the thing.  “It’s not a rug, it’s solid in places.  Maybe if I—”

With a wet sucking ‘plop’, the obstacle came mostly free.  Tina shrieked in horror.

It was an arm.

Martin gulped and jumped into the mess, and to his wonder the arm was not detached.  More came with it.  Martin heaved, Dennis hauled, and Tina dragged, until a large blob of fur and concrete flopped out of the hole.

“What have you got there?” called Bernard, flopping painfully to one side in the limo.  “I can’t see!”

“See?  Darling, you can barely move—” Bianca pulled him back upright.

The others scooped frantically at their found object, in the presumed direction of the head, and found all openings clogged with the foul grey stuff.  Tina placed both paws on its chest—yes, there was still a twitch, a tickle of life left somewhere in it.  She pressed down and concrete oozed from its mouth like elephant-colored toothpaste.  When she let up, some air seeped back into the forlorn shape, and it rolled itself onto its side.

“YARAUGHHH,” it vomited, almost all concrete.  It folded up in two and spat, its tongue coming free.  “GET IT OFF ME!!!”

“Timothy? Timothy!” Tina flung her arms around the pitiful creature, which flailed its paws.  Realizing he wasn’t under attack, Timothy gingerly folded his mucky arms around Tina, who fell to pieces and pelted him with tears.

When she let him go, still unrecognizable under the concrete and not even able to open his eyes, Martin and Dennis rolled Timothy against the curb.  A steady stream flowed down the curb toward a grate, from the broken water main up the street. Timothy gasped and sputtered as his three rescuers rubbed his fur, and he began at last to look half-drowned instead of caked over.

“It’s in everything,” groaned Timothy.  “Ahh!  My head!  It’s in my head!”

“Hush, sweetheart, it’s okay.  What happened, how did you get out?”  Tina reached for his head, but he winced and jerked away.

“Timothy, you scared us to pieces!”  cried Martin.  “Come on, tell us!”

Timothy opened his eyes and cocked his head to the side.  “Shell us?” he asked.  “Sorry, I’m—I’m reading your lips.  Can’t hear a thing.”

“Ears plugged tight with concrete, I’ll warrant,” Dennis surmised, and whipped out a handkerchief.  Tina took it and wiped at one of Timothy’s ears.  She fished out a good quantity of concrete, but it was like pulling a plug.  Blood drained down from his ear into his whiskers, a lot at first but slowing to a trickle.

”Timothy!  Oh, God, Timothy, what’s happened to you?”

Timothy frowned, dabbing at the blood and watching Tina’s face intently.  “It probably looks worse than it feels,” he lied.  “Do the other side, please.”  Tina nodded and got the same results with his other ear.  “Damn, that smarts!”

“Beats the alternative,” grinned Martin.

Timothy bit his lip.  “This is getting tedious.  It’s like a silent movie, I can’t even be sure I’m talking out loud.”

Tina clicked her tongue.  “You must have been so close to the blast that it blew your eardrums out!  We’ll have Dr. Ages take a look at you.”

Timothy suddenly seemed to remember something, and grinned broadly.  “I get to show him my trick.  I think he’ll like it.”

“What—” started Tina, but she never got to finish asking.  Timothy reached out and put both arms against the curb, pushed up with arm muscles grown strong from years of pushing his wheelchair, and rocked up onto his legs.

He stood in the rushing water, his head pounding and uncertain knees wobbling, but he stood.  Tina leapt up and threw her arms around him, squeaking with delight.

“Not too tight,” muffled Timothy.  “You might throw something back out!”

“It’s a bleedin’ miracle,” breathed Dennis.

Timothy shook his head, groaned, and chuckled.  “No, I think it’s a trade.  And I think I accept.”

Button images by Keith Elder