Kindred Read Free

goes quiet. There is no sound. I can’t hear the wind, the cars on the highway near the campus, Tabitha’s shrieks or even my own heartbeat. And then, in a whoosh, all the sounds come back and I realize Tabitha isn’t shrieking anymore.
    The building we’ve just run out of has exploded. Bricks, shingles and other debris rain down around us. Curling into a tight ball, I cover my head with my arms and have a split second to think that this is the second time this week I’ve had to do that.
    Several more explosions rock the building, and I cower, shaking, crying and praying to live through this. The solid thunking sounds of chunks of the building landing next to us echo like artillery. I glance at Tabitha curled next to me and realize there is blood pouring down her face. I scramble over to her and find her unconscious.
    “No, no, no,” I pant with each breath. “Don’t die. Please, please. Don’t.” Another incredible boom and I sprawl over her as a second barrage of rubble lands all around us. The rain pours down so thickly it is nearly white. Despite that, I feel the heat coming off the building. Risking a quick glimpse up, I see it is engulfed in flames.
    Within minutes, I hear a wail of sirens over the fire’s roar. I ease off Tabitha and touch her face. The rain mixes with her blood to form a red froth, and I cry because there is so much of it.
    The flashing red and white lights of the emergency vehicles join the blue lights of police cars, the yellow of the fire and the dull gray of the rain.
    “Ma’am, ma’am …” A voice bursts through my grief. “Are you all right?”
    It is the dumbest question I have ever heard.
    “She’s hurt,” I say. “Help her.”
    Another person, barely recognizable as human under all the reflective fire-retardant gear, kneels by us, and the two of them begin stanching Tabitha’s wounds and assessing her for injuries. A third man wraps a thin silver blanket around my shoulders and forces me away from her.
    “There’s still a danger of more explosions!” he shouts in my ear over the sirens of still-arriving emergency vehicles and the surprisingly loud sounds of the building burning behind us. “You must step away. They’ll take care of your friend.”
    I let him lead me because I know there isn’t anything else I can do to help Tabitha. I had my chance.
    They take me to the ER, but other than treating me for shock with orange juice and oxygen, and for a strained shoulder with an ice pack, I’m fine. I am barely scratched. I slip away when the nurse isn’t looking.
    Tabitha isn’t as lucky. Aside from a concussion, she has a bone-deep gash that needs twenty stitches, and an orbital fracture that causes her right eye to droop lower than her left. This will affect her vision and is probably permanent, I hear the doctor say. She can’t remember much. She doesn’t know how she ended up outside her building. She doesn’t recall ever meeting me.
    The two other students in the dorm building that night died. The local paper publishes long, extravagant obituaries, but the next day, I make inquiries of my own. They’d been involved in a fraternity hazing that killed a freshman the semester before. One of them had killed a mother of three in a drunk-driving accident during high school. His parents paid handsomely, and a lawyer got him off. The other had had two different rape charges brought against him and later dismissed. My mind shies away from thinking that they deserved to die. That the left hand of God killed them.
    I go to the library and read about Sodom and Gomorrah. The angels say to Lot: “Take them out of this place, for we are about to destroy it, because the outcry is so great before the Lord that He has sent us to destroy it.” My face grows hot and cold, spots dance before my eyes. I keep reading. “In the morning, Abraham went to the place where he had stood before the Lord. And he looked out toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the region of the