quick enough, though,” the man in the hardhat grunted. “You scraped your hands.”
I tried to sit up again, but Gabriel gently forced me back down.
“Just lie still.”
“I’m okay,” I insisted. “We need to find our friend. And our other co-worker, Hector, he’s . . .”
I trailed off, unwilling to finish the sentence. Could Hector really be dead? It just didn’t seem possible. Earlier in the day, Charlie and I had stood in his cubicle, laughing over a dirty cartoon Hector downloaded off the Internet. In it, the cast of Family Guy was having sex with The Simpsons . We hadn’t shown it to Craig, of course. He was our friend, but he was also a born-again Christian, and we didn’t want to offend him. Craig wasn’t preachy. In fact, he didn’t bring God up unless somebody asked him directly. He respected our views (I was Jewish and Charlie was agnostic; said he couldn’t worship a God who’d condemn him to Hell just for being gay).
We’d laughed over the cartoon. Next weekend, the four of us were going to Lake Redman for the day to do some fishing. Hector had just bought a new bass boat with his bonus. We were going to try it out. So how could Hector be dead now? It didn’t make sense. And where the hell was Craig? Maybe he’d hit his head and had amnesia or something. Wandered away from the wreck.
The man in the yellow hardhat stared off into the distance. “Wonder what’s taking them so long?”
“They’ll be busy today,” Gabriel said. “This is just the beginning.”
Charlie nodded. “You heard the blast, too? Think it was terrorists?”
Gabriel didn’t respond.
“Ask me, it didn’t sound like no explosion,” the guy in the hardhat said. “Sounded more like—well, a trumpet. Fucking weird shit.”
Gabriel’s smile was tight-lipped and sad. I wondered what he was thinking. Groaning, I grabbed his wrist and removed his hand from my chest. Then I sat up and spat more blood onto the pavement.
“You should rest,” Gabriel said again, rising to his feet. “You’re going to need it before this day is through, Steven, and I will be very busy with other things. I won’t be able to catch you again if you fall.”
“What?”
I wondered how he knew my name. Before I could ask, my attention was drawn to the crowd. They were all around us, people from all walks of life. Bankers, customer service representatives, cabbies, stockbrokers, IT techs, secretaries, construction workers, janitors, telemarketers, forklift drivers, systems analysts, machine operators, and soccer moms, all stranded together in the middle of the interstate during Wednesday afternoon’s rush hour. We saw each other every day, drove past one another, competed against each other for lane supremacy, shouted at each other and flashed obscene finger gestures when we lost. But none of us had ever truly met, until now. It was like some bizarre version of The Breakfast Club.
Charlie gave me his sweaty hand and pulled me to my feet. He squeezed, forgetting about my cut palms.
“Ouch.” Wincing, I pulled my hand away.
He wiped my blood on his slacks. “Sorry, dude.”
“That’s okay. Listen, did you tell that guy my name?”
“Who?” Charlie looked confused.
“The black guy. Gabriel.”
Charlie shook his head. Then he turned away and said, “God—look at this.”
I glanced around, stunned by the magnitude of it all. Ours wasn’t the only wreck on the highway. Remember when you were a kid, and you got out all of your Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars and made one giant traffic accident? That’s what the interstate looked like. Vehicles were piled up in both directions as far as the eye could see. Some were just minor fender-benders. Other cars had been totaled. The occupants, those who were mobile at least, milled around on the median strip and weaved between the wreckage, looking as stunned as I felt. Some exchanged insurance information. Others held cell phones to their ears. Many more simply stared in shared