Читать книгу Permafrost - M. Schwartz - Страница 7

Prologue

Water

Jeremy Baron had just won his first swim meet while attending the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan, as a freshman on a full-ride swim scholarship. His father, Kalvin Baron, had flown in from Alabama to watch him compete for the first time in his collegiate career and could not be happier as he grabbed his son outside of the Canham Natatorium after the match and gave him a huge hug in celebration.

“Hey, Pop, c’mon now,” Jeremy said, embarrassed.

“You swam like a fish out there! I am so proud of you. You’re gonna kick some serious butt in college!” his father said, shaking his shoulders. “Where do you want to go for dinner? Anywhere, sky’s the limit, my treat. Oh, also I called Mah. She says she is proud of you too and really sorry she couldn’t make it, work just wouldn’t cooperate.”

“It’s cool, I’ll call her when we get back from dinner. Hope she was able to get done grading all those papers at least. Can we go somewhere with good Southern barbecue? These Yankees up here have a strange idea of what good ribs are.” Jeremy and his father both chuckled at that and headed toward the parked blue rental sedan.

Although it was still early in the swim season, autumn in Michigan was drastically different from Alabama. It was October and already dipping down into the fifties. In Alabama, it was still hitting ninety degrees most days. Jeremy and his father were shaking from the cold when they got into the car. As soon as the engine came to life, they turned the heat on full blast, holding their frigid Southern fingers in front of the vents trying to get any reprieve from the cold and rubbing them together frantically for any heat.

“This cold is some shit up here,” Jeremy mumbled.

“Watch your language, son. Just because your mother isn’t here doesn’t mean you can start cussing now,” his father corrected.

“Yes, sir.” With the car finally warm enough for the two of them to think, his father put on the local radio and pulled out of the parking lot. Too much of his surprise, there were no commercials playing, and instead, they were greeted by sounds of AC/DC’s wildly popular song “Hell’s Bells.” With a warm car and empty stomachs, the two men left campus in the desperate search of proper Southern cooking or something close anyways.

“They say they get multiple feet of snow here. I can’t even imagine that. How do they deal with that much?” Jeremy asked while staring out his passenger-side window at all the beautiful colors of changing leaves on the side of the road. There were whole maple trees in brilliant reds and oaks in oranges, yellows, and browns. Jeremy noticed a few of the nonconifers speckled into the roadside forest had a few desperate green leaves left, holding out to the bitter end, putting up a fight they are never going to win.

“Northerners are used to it. Jer, when you live north of the Mason-Dixon, you have snowplow trucks, salt-and-sand trucks, heated bridges. Yankees go through this every year, so it’s not really a big deal to them,” his father replied chuckling softly at the innocence of his son’s question.

“I remember a few years back, James Spann, the weatherman, rolled up his sleeves and warned about snow falling. All the Winn-Dixies and other grocery stores had been cleared out, and the schools canceled classes until it passed. Hell, even the highways closed. I think we got a light dusting as you called it.”

“Yeah, the South isn’t too good about dealing with snow. We may have overreacted that year,” his dad said with a smile. Jeremy sat back and listened to the rock music station that was playing some song he didn’t know from the band Poison, trying to comprehend multiple feet of snow and how high the piles would get from all the plowing. I could make a snowball for the first time! Could I make a snowman? I’ll probably need some help, maybe I could…

“Hmmm,” his father said, looking in the rearview mirror.

“What?”

“Look in your side mirror, see that white package van two cars back?” Jeremy did as he was told and saw the vehicle in question.

“Yeah, what about it?” He didn’t understand what the big deal was.

“It has been following us since we left campus. I already made three random turns, and it has followed us each time. Could be a coincidence…” Jeremy’s father paused, taking another look in the rearview mirror and shook his head back and forth. “But I don’t think so.” Jeremy knew that his father had worked for the government in the past and sometimes did some consulting work at the Redstone Arsenal in northern Alabama, but he never knew exactly what his father did. It concerned Jeremy that his father knew how to spot when he was being followed in a car.

“Pop? What’s going on?”

“Hold on, I’m gonna run this red light and see if they follow.” Kalvin Baron slammed on the gas pedal and launched through the intersection where the light had just turned red. He just missed being struck on the passenger side by a Mustang, and he cleared through to the other side of the intersection. Jeremy quickly shifted in his seat and craned his neck around to look at the vehicle chasing them and saw the van, too, had sped through the intersection fast in pursuit.

“Oh well, this is not ideal. Looks like we have a problem. Call the cops, Jeremy. Tell them what’s happening. Describe our car, their van, and location, every store you see and every street sign, just keep saying what you see as we pass.”

How could he be so calm? Jeremy thought.

They were being chased, and his father just sat there calmly, smiling and giving him orders. Jeremy grabbed his phone and dialed 911. After a few rings, an operator answered the phone.

“Nine-one-one, what is your emergency? Do you need police or fire?” She had probably said that line thousands and thousands of times.

“We need some help. My father and I are being followed, chased, whatever, by someone in a white van!” Jeremy shouted into the phone. Long gone was his ability to stay calm at this point.

“Sir, I need to know where you are.”

“Um, passing the track-and-field area of school on Packard Street. We are headed south, I think it is. We are in a blue Chevy Cobalt. There is a white package van behind us. Two white men in the van, no windows on it. Please send someone to stop this guy!”

“Sir, you are doing great. Just stay with me. Police are on the way. Keep giving me updates.”

“We are flying down the road. We are coming up to E Stadium Boulevard. We just turned left onto it!” Baron peered out the side mirror at the van, almost twenty yards to their car now, and closing the distance. His father had determined eyes on the road and was swerving in and out of traffic trying his best not to hit anyone or anything. “We are passing um…” Baron looked at the sign on his left as they shot past the building at nearly eighty miles an hour. “Tappan Middle School, I think it said.”

“Great, the police are coming up from behind you. They are a few minutes back, sir.”

“We don’t have a few minutes. They are on our ass!”

“Sir, I need you to stay calm and keep telling me where you are.”

“We are passing a grocery store…um, Whole Foods I think it was…turning left on Huron Parkway now, shit!” The car fishtailed through the intersection sliding on black ice, almost like it was drifting, though throughout the whole slide, Jeremy’s father had perfect control of the car.

Where the hell, had he learned to drive like this? The tires squealed and released smoke. Jeremy could smell the foul odor of burning rubber, and a kaleidoscope of color blurred past his passenger window like he was drunk, and then everything was merging. Jeremy could see the lights and hear the sirens from the police behind them. They were trying to catch up, but his father was driving faster than they could safely match.

Jeremy and his father’s heads lurched forward as the van rammed the rear of the small car. The vehicle slid sideways but was quickly brought under control. The small car weaved in and out of traffic. Kalvin controlled the car as if he was threading a needle for the millionth time and it required no mental effort.

“Sir, are you still there? Sir?” Jeremy heard the 911 operator say into the phone.

“Yes, I am here. We’re passing in-between a golf course. Okay, we are on the other side of it. They are getting closer! Please help! Pop! Watch out, they are going to—” The world spun as the small car was smashed again; this time, just behind the rear tires on the driver’s side. Experts later would call it a textbook PIT maneuver. Their car swung to the left, and the tires screamed in protest at the unnatural grind against the asphalt but stopped their shouting when the car flipped and went airborne.

Jeremy had heard about time slowing down in moments of great stress or joy. He had seen it depicted in movies and TV shows like everyone had, but this was the first time he experienced it. As the car was rotating in the air, he could see his father’s hair moving slower, his gym bag floating in the back, and his cell phone bouncing off the windshield. His brain could not quite grasp what was happening, though it did know he was going through a form of trauma. He could feel his body tingle as his brain began flooding it with endorphins attempting to block out the pain receptors and throw him into early onset shock. As the car crashed to the ground, there was a deafening explosion of glass shattering and metal crunching and scratching against the ground. Jeremy’s face was covered in lacerations as everything in his view was upside down and glass from the windows collided with his unprotected face. Jeremy looked over at his father just as he felt weightlessness again for the second time since the car went airborne. He could tell the car was still in motion but could not understand where or why. He looked out the front windshield and watched confused as a steel-gray wall rushed at them.

As the car collided with the Huron River, water rushed in, and it began to flood hopelessly quick, filling the overturned vehicle. Jeremy snapped out of his shock and undid his seatbelt, falling awkwardly upside down onto his neck and shoulders to the soaked roof of the car. His father was unconscious, hanging like an upside ventriloquist’s doll on a rack. Jeremy could not get the belt undone, so he decided to get out of the car and swim to the other side to get a better angle. The current of the river was strong and at first overtook him, but Jeremy’s powerful and practiced swimming strokes were stronger. He was able to get the driver’s-side door open and saw the flip knife on his father’s belt that he had always carried. Jeremy ripped the compact knife off his belt and cut the seatbelt over the chest and around the waist in two quick movements. His father fell just as he did. Still unconscious, Jeremy pulled on his father’s arms with all the strength he could muster. Having just completed multiple relays and a 400m race not too long ago, Jeremy’s muscles fatigued quickly. Jeremy cursed himself for not training harder. After one final pull, Jeremy finally dislodged his father from the rapidly sinking car.

He had not noticed until now but saw his unconscious father’s head was soaked in fresh red blood, and more of the thick red liquid was pooling out of his hair every second. Jeremy, with his left arm around his dad, swam away from the sinking car. He was just ten feet away from a small grouping of floral growth in the river that looked more like an island of trees as he got closer to it. Before he could reach land, Jeremy’s father was unexpectedly pulled under the water as his useless legs got tangled on a knot of underwater plants, and he lost his grip. Jeremy’s lungs were screaming for oxygen; his muscles were on fire; and he felt so tired and cold. He felt like he was about to fall asleep right there in the rushing river. Jeremy mustered the last of his strength and dove under the water trying to free his father from the grasp of the submerged growth.

Jeremy couldn’t see an inch past his face. The river was muddied, and the only thing he could identify was small sporadic particulates flying past his eyes. Other than that, he might as well been blind. He outstretched his arms desperately, hoping to find his father where he estimated he should have been. Flailing his arms and legs against the current, holding his breath against the pressure on his chest, and ignoring all the warning signs a body could give to signal you were, in fact, drowning and get to safety, Jeremy pressed on blindly, searching for his father. As his lungs were warning to burst if he did not breathe soon, he found a pant leg and gripped it with vicelike veracity. Jeremy followed the pant leg down to his feet where he could feel the tangled web of plant growth and roots. With the last few remaining joules of force, Jeremy freed the leg and pulled his father back to the surface.

He was finally able to get his father halfway up on the small island before getting on it himself and crawling behind his father, holding on to his head. Jeremy looked around for help, tried screaming, but his lungs refused. He tried to find understanding in what had just happened. Instead, he found two men standing on the bridge looking down at him. They both had sunglasses on; they both were wearing blue jeans and a black leather jacket. However, one had a distinct bird tattoo on his neck. They stared for a moment, down at him and his motionless father, but when the police sirens got louder, they jumped back in the van and took off away from the scene. Jeremy did not know any first aid, but he did have an idea what a person who had drowned look like from TV and movies. His father’s lips were blue; his glazed-over eyes were bloodshot and dilated. His chest was not moving, and with his ears up against his father’s mouth, he could not hear even the subtlest of breaths.

He sat there holding what he already knew was his dead father’s body and screamed. What came out was more of a guttural subhuman scream. It was all his oxygen-deprived and exhausted body allowed. Jeremy’s lips were dry and cracked. His face was flushed red, and his fingers were discolored with a blue-and-purple hue. He began to shake violently. What started as a small shiver from his neck shot down his back and made his whole body shake. He may not have been a medical professional, but he knew the signs of shock and hypothermia and knew his body was taking over going into survival mode.

He had not even noticed the policemen shouting at him or the ambulance crews who had jumped into the water to rescue him. His vision was an unfocused blur of colors that seemed to constantly shift, forbidding him to focus on any one object. His hearing was that of a high-pitched tone that reminded him of a tornado siren. When one of the paramedics grabbed his father’s body, his vision and hearing cleared in a sudden jolt, and Jeremy fought the man and screamed at him to let him go. Another paramedic came up behind Jeremy, put a heavy wool blanket over his body, and tried to calm him down and convince Jeremy that it was okay, and they were there to help.

“It’s okay, son, we got you. Come on, let us help you of out here and warm you up. Come on, son.” One of the paramedics kept repeating like a broken record. After a bit of coaxing, Jeremy finally allowed the paramedics to take his father across the river where some firefighters hauled the corpse up the berm onto the closed-off street. Once they brought Jeremy over and sat him in the back of an ambulance, he was in almost full-blown catatonic shock.

A cop came up to Jeremy very slowly and cautiously.

“Hey son, you okay? Are…are you able to tell me what happened?” the older man asked, almost condescending. Jeremy heard the words but was having trouble processing them.

Son? Is that my dad calling me? Why did he call me son? Why are there cops here? Am I in trouble? Why am I so cold? Where is my dad?

“S…sir?” Jeremy finally managed.

“Can you tell me, what happened here?” the officer repeated.

“There…there was a van, it chased us. I think it hit us and…the river… Where is my dad? I need to talk to him. Where is he?” Jeremy asked looking around, confused. The cop adjusted the thick wool blanket and tried to get Jeremy’s attention again.

“What’s your name?”

“Jeremy…Jeremy Baron.”

“Where are you from, Jeremy?”

“Al…Alabama.”

“Oh wow, you must be cold up here then, huh?” The cop was trying anything to keep the boy lucid and talking.

“Yeah…cold.”

“Who do you root for, son, Auburn or the Crimson Tide?” Jeremy smiled a bit at the absurdity of the question, then he frowned and started to cry.

“What’s wrong? Talk to me, Jeremy.”

“I tried to save him. I couldn’t swim hard enough. I wasn’t strong enough. He died because of me!” Jeremy screamed so loud a large group of first responders stopped what they were doing to look in his direction.

“No no no. It is not your fault at all! It is those guys who chased you and knocked you into the river.” The cop expertly consoled him.

“Two guys…,” Jeremy whispered. “Two white males, sunglasses. Blue jeans and leather jackets, short cropped hair.” The details were flowing back into his mind with clear recollection. He did not even realize he noticed their hair until the words left his mouth, and he knew they were fact. “Maybe six feet, athletic build, one had a tattoo of a bird on his neck covering his throat.” The cop scribbled the details down as quickly as Jeremy was saying them.

“Great work, son, thank you. Stay here. Someone is going to take you to the hospital to get checked out, then you can call who you need to. Okay?” Jeremy looked around at the cacophony of sirens, diesel engines, and a large crane lifting the submerged vehicle out of the river. He took it all in and searched for some understanding and meaning in all of it. Ten minutes ago, he was just another happy kid in school. Now his life had been ripped apart like some cosmic joke, as if some deity sat there upon high, shrugged, and said, “Wonder what will happen if we do…this?”

It was not fair. He had good parents; he was a good son, studied hard, worked on his swimming year-round, never used drugs, and volunteered most weekends he was free. Why did this happen to me? This can’t be real, can it? Why me? What the hell did I do to deserve this? You happy up there? Please don’t let this be real. I’ll do anything to have him back… Please don’t take him from me. Baron pleaded and prayed to anyone who would listen. Tears filled his eyes again, and he realized he never said goodbye or I love you to his dad before he died. The last thing his father heard on this planet was his son crying and blubbering on the phone to a 911 operator, and the thought enraged Jeremy.

Two paramedics hopped in the back of the ambulance with him; they closed the doors as they began to take his vitals and look after the many cuts on his face.

I’ll make it up to you, Pop, I promise, I’ll make it up to you. Jeremy thought. The police would say it was not his fault, and the fact he was able to get him out of the car in the first place was a miracle, but Jeremy had failed. After all of his swimming prowess in a warm clean-and-calm pool with clear lanes, he could not save his father when he needed to. He had failed in saving his father’s life, but in the back of that ambulance, he made a promise to himself and his late father that he would change.