Grand Central Station was warm, crowded, and noisy, a wonderful place to feel anonymous, to escape, to be alone. At least that’s what Cal Jordan was thinking as he slung his backpack onto a bench and flopped down beside it. He couldn’t wait to get out of the city and back to school, couldn’t wait to get away from his family, particularly his father, but he especially couldn’t wait to get back to Karen. The two of them had just spent a day and a half together in New York, but he missed her already. She’d left ahead of him, taking a flight out that afternoon, heading home for a cousin’s wedding before returning to Liberty University. The thought of her made him smile. He’d met Karen Hester at Liberty last year when they were both freshmen, but it was a miracle they’d met at all.
Cal was painfully shy when he’d arrived at school. He didn’t go to many campus events, except for hockey games. Cal loved hockey, ever since his father took him to an Avalanche game as a young boy in Colorado. He loved the speed and precision and grace, and envied the players their confidence and unchecked aggression, qualities he knew he lacked. At Liberty home games he would wear his Avalanche jersey and sit by himself high up in the stands to watch.
One night a cute girl wearing a Minnesota Wild shirt came up to Cal as he sat alone. She nudged his foot.
“You’re in my seat.”
Cal looked around. There wasn’t anyone seated within a dozen rows of them.
She nudged him again, insisting, “You’re in my seat.”
He got up to move.
As he was walking away, she laughed, “Just like an Avalanche fan to roll over without a fight.”
She smiled a big, beautiful warm smile. That was how he met Karen.
He probably fell in love with her that first instant, but it took him three months to admit it to himself and another three months to finally tell her how he felt. All she could do was smile and say, “What took you so long?”
He loved her unpretentious way and how she made him feel safe and confident. And of course, they both shared a faith in Christ. Beyond all that she supported his desire to be an artist. She wanted to be a performer herself, either an actress or a singer. But she said she wanted to do more with her talent than just get famous and rich.
Cal had only told his parents a little about Karen, but it had taken him all summer just to get up the courage to tell them he was changing majors. He didn’t want them to think she had had anything to do with his decision. And the truth was, she hadn’t. She’d just given him the confidence he needed to realize what he really wanted to do. If only his father could see him the way she did, then he’d understand, then he wouldn’t be so angry and disappointed.
Cal pulled his ticket from his shirt pocket to check the train time. Fifteen minutes. Fifteen more minutes, and then he could leave all this behind. All the harsh words, the long looks, the cold silences.
Then he heard the first scream.
He looked up to see a woman across the train station. She was white as a ghost, staring at a TV monitor on the opposite platform. Everyone around her was doing the same. Cal turned to the nearest monitor. He couldn’t hear the sound, but he could see on the screen a reporter in Times Square pointing up at the sky. The text below him read, “NY City in Panic, Nuclear Attack Imminent.”
Cal stared at the words as if in a nightmare. They made no sense. He could feel his hands going cold and clammy. He turned to survey the crowd and realized people had started to pour into the station from every entrance—pushing, shoving, full of panic.
From what he could see on the TV monitors, New York was in pandemonium. Drivers were trying to get out of the city any way possible, careening down sidewalks, scattering screaming pedestrians, knocking over display signs, newspaper racks, and hot dog carts.
New Yorkers on foot were running for their lives past stalled cars and traffic jams. Bridges were filled with panicking people, fleeing. Riots developed at subway stops as escapees fought for seats on the next subway out.
As Cal’s senses slowly came back to him, the noise in the cavernous main concourse grew unbearable. He covered his ears, but the horrible din of a thousand people trying to flee certain death still filtered through.
He looked up and saw a woman shoved to the ground by the crush of people running to reach the train tunnels. Cal was standing only a few feet away, pressed up flat against the marble walls to avoid being swept away in the human flood. She reached out to him for help, out from the tangled mob of feet that were trampling her, but Cal was frozen, unable to move. Fear gripped him like a vise, squeezing his chest and turning his stomach to knots, his breath coming in short, panicked gulps. He stared at the woman, her hand outstretched, eyes pleading. What if this was Karen? But Cal couldn’t move, couldn’t reach out to help her. His legs were like rubber as he found himself slipping to the floor, shaking uncontrollably.
His cell phone rang. He didn’t hear it so much as he felt it vibrating in his pocket. Maybe it was Karen. He fumbled it from his jacket. The screen read “Mom calling.” He tried to push the button to answer but couldn’t make his finger work. The cell slipped out of his hand to the marble floor and slid away into the mass of rushing humanity. Cal looked across at the lifeless body of the woman. The mob had crushed her underfoot.
Flooded with feelings of guilt and helplessness, Cal could feel the sobs starting to well up inside his throat.