Asimov's Science Fiction: April/May 2014 by Penny Publications

he had not been alone.
    Jimmy rushed through his breakfast, regretting at the last bite that he hadn't asked for coffee after all. He felt himself moving toward a precipice from which he might never return to recover what was, in haste, set aside.
    Back by the bathrooms, duffel between his feet, he used the payphone. He hadn't brought the phone number of Bekka's friends, but perhaps she had headed home.
    An overly subdued version of her voice said, "I'm not here. Please leave a message."
    "I'm not coming back yet," he said. "I found out... there's another..." He could not formulate an explanation. "I'm sorry. Please don't give up on me. Not yet, anyway."
    He had re-parked his car last night in a proper parking spot, under an electrical wire that ran between buildings. Birds had, evidently, spent their morning above his car roof. Berries must have been for breakfast.
    He pulled the slender atlas from under the passenger seat. Ferrisburg was so close to the Pennsylvania border, he didn't have to flip pages. Two hours, and he'd be there.
    Jimmy slowed to exit as the highway curled between the rooftops of Ferrisburg, a city of red brick and narrow streets. Fresh black stripes on the Jersey barriers showed where cars had veered in the sudden obscurity, and taillight and plastic bumper bits littered the pavement. Jimmy took the exit marked and dipped toward town.
    The breadth of the disturbance came immediately into view, with detour signs routing traffic from the ramp around a four-story building whose façade had collapsed. Bricks lay across a street marked off with yellow police tape. He saw other damaged buildings and cars, though he judged that some of the debris had been removed. Where the traffic turned back toward the town's uninspiring, sooty midsection, a narrow boulevard with banks on two corners, Potomac Edison trucks lined the curbs. Jimmy pulled into a combination gas station and supermarket.
    He immediately felt unwell when he opened the car door. Dense with humidity, the sky rendered the sun futile, bearable to look at. He undid one more button on his shirt, the same shirt he'd worn to dinner two nights ago. It clung to his back.
    Rather than heading directly toward the scene where yesterday's chaos seemed to have been concentrated, he entered the gas station's shop. A cardboard sheet took the place of one large window.
    The damp young man behind the counter said hello and scratched at his spotty brown beard. The store was cool enough, but the clerk's forehead dripped, and dark stains swelled on his T-shirt.
    "That happen yesterday?" Jimmy asked.
    "I's standing right here." The man leaned across the counter and aimed one arm.
    "A hailstone the size of my
head
bounced off the hood of a car and came crashing
right
in." With his hand, he traced the projectile's trajectory.
    "Wow."
    "Someone coulda been killed. I heard someone was, downtown."
    A mother with two pre-schoolers approached the counter, pausing to see whether Jimmy was finished talking. The girl looked to be a year older than the boy; the two held hands, swung their arms in unison, and stared at the backs of their mother's legs.
    "You go ahead," said Jimmy.
    He thought to collect some provisions, and saw peanuts behind him on a rack. At the far end of the store, he took a tall can of iced tea from the cooler. When the mother and children left, the opening door chimed.
    Jimmy set his purchases on the counter. "I wonder if you can help me out. I'm following up on reports of... strangers who came to the rescue during all the action yesterday."
    "You a reporter?"
    He hesitated. "I'm not. I'm just interested in events like this." He put on a look of sincere disappointment. "I can't go into it," he said, hoping the elusive answer suggested significance.
    The young man said, " 'kay," and typed at the register.
    "Did you see any of these unfamiliar people? Especially an old man, a very old man. He might have been with a group, helping out?"
    "No one I didn't know