In Heart and Mind

Chapter 1: "Headache" John groaned pitifully while harshly rubbing his palms against his temples. Despite his best efforts, he hadn't been able to relieve the constant pulsing ache which had been bouncing around on the inside of his skull since this morning. Pain medication didn't even seem to help. If it wasn't already so close to quitting time, then he would contemplate leaving early. A few more hours of suffering through the pain would release him to the joys of freedom. Maybe a cold beer would help his terrible headache. "Hey, John!" a young lady stuck her head into the cubicle. Her shoulder length curly black hair bounced with every moment. Large green eyes shined in perpetual wonder. She had somewhat of a rounder face which reminded him of a pouty kitten demanding attention. Sucking in a deep breath to keep calm, John removed his hands from his head. His appearance had always been described as sharp by the people around him. His long face was emphasized by the sharp points of his chin, nose, and cheekbones. Early balding had prompted him to shave his head. The office job required him to be clean shaven as well. Wearing a dark suit over his incredibly tall, lanky body didn't exactly help his look. He often felt every bit like the pencil that people described him as. "Hey, Karen," John ignored the pulses of agony behind his eyes. "Sorry, but now's not the best time. My headache's been killing me all day." "I figured," Karen almost skipped into the tiny space. She carefully leaned against his desk to avoid knocking over the dozens of insurance forms stacked on the wood. He fought off the urge to look below her neck. While in no way risqué, the white blouse and long blue skirt combo did a fantastic job in emphasizing the woman's curves. There had been several occasions when John considered asking his twenty-year-old coworker out for dinner, but the ten year age difference and company policy stopped him. There was a lot more to lose than his ego if he ended up mistaking her natural friendliness for romantic interest. "So I brought you this!" John took the cup of coffee that she was offering him, "Thanks." "It's a family recipe," Karen smiled. "My parents used to swear on it. They said that it was the ultimate hangover killer." "I don't have a hangover. Getting completely hammered isn't exactly my thing anymore," John took a sip of the cup. The soothing effect on his mind was instantaneous. "But this some damn good stuff. Thanks." "No problem! I know how had it can be to work and then head straight home to take care of a little girl. A headache would make it unbearable," Karen looked past him to the wall of his cubicle. Because his desk was so full most of the time, he could only decorate the drab gray of his workspace by hanging pictures on the barrier of the enclosure. A sudden pulse of agony shot through his mind. Stifling a groan, John turned to look at the pictures. He took a quick sip of the hangover coffee cure to help soothe his raging headache. With his aching temples somewhat placated, he gazed at the photographs. The wall was covered by several different images of him with his daughter, starting with him holding her as a babe to them celebrating at a summer carnival. In the most recent picture, the girl who was tiny even for a six-year-old was smiling from her place in his arms. Her long blonde locks flew wildly with the wind. Giggling, Karen reached over to peel the picture from the wall, "She's so adorable." "Yeah. It's hard to imagine that she came from me," John enjoyed the warm embrace of his drink. "Must get it from her mother." "I wouldn't say that," Karen commented politely while obviously ignoring the fact that he looked nothing like his daughter. She opened her mouth to speak again but stopped herself. He could sense what she was wanting to ask. An overwhelming sadness rushed through him when he thought of the woman who had left this world. He dismissed the memories to keep the sadness from adding an ache to his chest along with the piercing pain within his skull. "My little sister has talked about her before. From what I heard, she's a lot like you." "God help her then," John grumbled playfully. "She's destined to be forever cranky and off-putting." Karen burst out laughing, "I wouldn't say that. Our brats seem to get along well enough. That's something that I wanted to talk about. My little sister wanted me to set up a play date." "Really?" John plucked the photo from her hand. He saw that the tape that he used to stick it to the wall had degraded. Not wanting to hurt the picture, he slowly began to peal the old adhesive from the back of the image. "Sure. Let's set something up. Maybe I could even hold a sleep over. I bet you'd like a night off." He remembered Karen mentioning that her parents had died a few years ago. The poor girl had been stuck looking after her much younger sister after high school. It was one of the many terrible situations that life threw at people. Unlike with most people that he met who received less than what they deserved, he thought that he could actually help her a bit, if only for a single night. "That would be nice," Karen smiled gratefully at him. Despite her bubbly demeanor, thick bags hung under her eyes. "But I was thinking about—" Before she could finish her sentence, the entire office building began to lightly shake after the loud boom of a distant explosion spread through the room. She gasped as she lost her footing. John grabbed her by the shoulders before she could fall onto the hard tile floor. Unlike the woman, he was unable to stop the stacks of papers from tumbling off of his desk. Just as quickly as the trembling started, it stopped. With the danger gone, he released the shocked woman. Karen's face was a ghastly pale, "What was that?" "It sounded like an explosion," John muttered. He stood up from his chair. Absentmindedly sticking the picture into his blazer pocket, he rushed out of his cubicle with Karen right behind him. Upon exiting his workspace, he saw dozens of other employees running towards the windows. Despite his heart feeling ready to burst in terror, he forced himself to calmly follow his coworkers through the maze of dull gray work boxes. Upon getting to the line of windows, he used his tall height to look over the other people's heads and see what had happened. A heavy rain shower had fallen over the city. The storm was so strong that John had a difficult time seeing what had caused the trembling. If he focused hard enough, he could see thick black smoke fighting its way up against the torrent of falling water drops. He also noted a multitude of flashing sirens coming from the direction of the explosion. Squinting, he thought that he could see the blurry forms of groups of people running through the crowded streets of the city. None of that meant much to John though. His heart froze to the point that he was almost certain that he would drop dead in fear. The once slowly fading pain in his skull flared back to an unbearable level. A sharp ringing burst through his eardrums. Sucking in a deep breath, he unapologetically shoved through his coworkers. Once at the front of the line, he rammed his fists so hard against the glass that he borderline punched the window. Some of the people around him grumbled at his rudeness, but a look at his twisted expression of panic stopped them from doing anything more than lightly complain. "What's wrong?" Karen whispered from behind him. She leaned onto the tip of her toes in a useless attempt to see over his long, lanky shoulders. "That's Sera's school," John whisper was a tense as his shoulders. Karen gasped in dread, "What? Are you sure?" While not able to see well through the rain, he remembered looking through the widows towards the school enough to know where his daughter spent the majority of her day, "I'm pretty goddamn sure." Without waiting for any kind of response, he whipped around to sprint back through the office. Anyone in his path was immediately shoved out of the way. As he moved, he pulled out his cellphone to call anyone he thought could help. He rapidly pressed buttons for the school, the police, and even Sera's emergency phone. Any ability to think logically collapsed the moment he realized that he had no signal. Once reaching the elevator, he rapidly pressed the button in order to call the transport. Only a few seconds of waiting proved too much for him. Using every curse word that he could think of, he turned from the elevator so that he could move to the stairs. John had to stop himself from jumping straight down from the multi-floored building. He skipped every other step during his rapid decent. During his last section of stairs, he tripped and tumbled to the ground floor. Gasps escaped the lips from the people on around him. They rushed to help, but he ignored them. Pushing past them, he plowed through the lobby which was packed with people trying to look outside to see what was happening. Not caring about the front exit, he made his way to the parking lot. Upon slamming shoulder first through the final barrier to his car, he fumbled for his keys. Right as he got to his small, blue two seated convertible, he tried to stab his key into the lock but found that he couldn't unlock the driver's door. His entire body was trembling uncontrollably. Each time he tried to stab to lock, he missed. The once unbearable agony of his headache had mutated into an angry crimson buzz of panic. He found himself borderline screaming out cuss words until a much smaller hand grabbed his wrist. "John!" Karen shouted at him. She was covered in sweat from her sprint to keep up with his mad charge through the building. "You need to calm down!" "I can't!" John screamed. "My daughter might be dead! How the f**k am I supposed to be calm right now?!" "John," Karen reached to run her fingers across his forehead, "you're bleeding." The sight of his own blood made him flinch back in disgust. His stomach rolled upon seeing the red liquid of life. Falling down those stairs must have done more to hurt him than he had first thought. While his shaking only intensified, he no longer had the energy to yell. He watched as Karen reached into her purse to pull out a white handkerchief. She pressed it against his bleeding forehead. John forced out a deep breath, "Sorry." "No. I get it," Karen's lips trembled. Tears threatened to leak from the corner of her eyes. Her voice seemed close to cracking as she spoke. "I really get it. You need to get to the school right now. So do I. Neither of us will get there if you kill yourself." "You need a ride," John replaced her hand with his to hold the handkerchief to his injury. The sweat from his dash through the building soaked into the rag with his blood. "I do. Plus, I really don't want to be alone right now," Karen appeared close to breaking down into a sobbing fit. "Please take me to the school so I don't have to walk or take the bus." "That probably wouldn't work anyway," John managed to his control his trembling enough to properly hold his keys. "Alright. I think I need someone with me anyway. Hop in." Nodding, Karen moved to the passenger side. Once John finally managed to unlock the car, they piled inside of the convertible. With the roof set above them, they began to pull out of the parking lot. Dozens of other people seemed to be having the same idea. John was forced to dodge running civilians and desperate drivers in his attempt to get out onto the road. He scraped the side of his car on one of the curves of the exit but didn't care about his vehicle's maintenance at the moment. When he finally managed to pull out onto the street, John tried to drive down the road at top speed. His plans were crushed when he was blinded by the heavy rain. Each of the hundreds of drops ramming into his windshield sounded like tiny steel pellets scraping against the glass. Unable to see, he was forced to drive slowly. "You have to be kidding me," Karen hissed. John shook his head, "Nothing I can do." "I know, but—Oof!" Karen stopped her sentence when the entire vehicle rocked from the force of a truck lightly bumping against their back bumper. The force of the crash force them to hit the car in front of them. Stunned, the duo in the convertible reached up to block the headlights reflecting off the mirrors. "s**t!" John turned to his companion. "You okay?" "Yeah. I think so," Karen rubbed her collar bone to test if it was broken. When she felt no significant pain, she spoke again. "How about you?" "I'm good," John frowned in displeasure. The weird fog that had burned through his mind all day from the headache and then the stress of the explosion faded for a brief moment. "And I just finished paying this off too." "I'm surprised you drive this as a single dad," Karen mentioned absentmindedly. "Yeah," John shook his head. "Never mind that. You think I could get away with peeling out of here?" "You wouldn't get far in a hit and run with this weather," Karen mumbled in displeasure. "Then I'll abandon the car," John muttered. He had to get the school now. Before he could think further, the owner of the truck behind him stepped out of the vehicle. The deep, gravelly voice of the large man behind them did not sit will in John's mind. His shoulders tensed as he watched the blurry figure step through the rain shower. As soon the truck driver got to John's car, the massive man began to beat his fists against the trunk of the convertible. The situation only got worse as the driver in front of them stepped of her car. "You have got to be f*****g kidding me," John moved to unbuckle his seatbelt but paused when he heard a loud growl that reminded him of a documentary of lions that he watched a few weeks ago. Karen looked around wildly, "What was that?!" The truck driver behind them suddenly screamed. He was yanked further into the rain like he had been rammed by his own truck. His shouts of terror quickly faded into nothingness. Before they could process what had happened, a massive black blur rushed by their convertible to tackle the driver in front of them further into the rain so that they couldn't see what happened. Just as quickly as the truck driver, the second victim's screams were seemingly absorbed into the storm. "Ahh!" John's headache flared back to life. He desperately clutched as his once again bleeding forehead. Karen's screams of terror didn't help his unbearable pain. Forcing himself through the suffering, he stared out into the unfocussed world around them to see bright red eyes staring at them as the black blot of whatever had attacked the other drivers slowly began to approach with the full intent of making them its next victims.