No Amount of Love

No Amount of Love


It was another sunny California day as Rene Gretz furiously scanned the Vista Mall parking lot for an empty slot to park her Chevy Trailblazer. Just when her frustration was about to boil over into anger, a Toyota Corolla backed out right in front of her in a jerky stop-and-go motion. She fought the impulse to push the little car out of the way with her SUV. “Come on, already…move it, lady!”

The little old Chinese woman behind the wheel looked up at her through the side window of the Toyota and muttered something Rene could not hear, and then, still talking, slowly drove off. Her rear license plate read, “You Got Rice?”

Rene pulled into the empty space and shut the car down. “You can unhook your seatbelt now, honey,” she said, speaking into the rearview mirror. “We’re here.”

“Are we at Starbucks?” asked the excited five-year-old from the backseat.

“No…a quick stop at the bank first, Sara, and then Starbucks, okay?”

She opened her door and stepped out onto the blacktop. Overhead, she heard the noise of an airplane. It sounded very low to the ground, and as she helped Sara out of the car, she looked up. It was one of those old bi-planes—a two-winger like she used to see back on the farm as a kid—the kind used for crop dusting. It wobbled through the air like a duck with a broken wing, passing directly over them, coughing and sputtering as if the engine would stop working at any moment; and then it banked around to make another approach.

“That’s odd,” she said aloud.

“What’s odd, Mommy?” Sara asked, pushing her long blond hair out of her eyes and following the sound of the plane.

“That plane…it’s an old crop duster. What’s it doing downtown—there are no fields to dust around here.”

“Maybe it’s lost, Mommy, there are no street signs in the sky, you know.”

Normally, Rene would have laughed at Sara’s remark, but she couldn’t take her eyes off of the plane. Something tugged at the back of her mind—something sinister—something about crop dusters, planes…and pilots.

The aircraft had turned around, straightened out, and was coming right for them; it was lower to the ground than before—and trailing a thick cloud of smoke.

“What’s that, Mommy? What’s that coming out of the plane?”

It roared over the top of them, the mist floating across the mall parking lot like a blanket of fog. Rene saw people dropping as though someone had flipped a switch in their head and simply turned them off. She heard screaming and a car crashed into a light pole.

“Mommy, what’s happening?”

“Don’t breathe! Hold your breath and don’t breathe!” Rene grabbed her daughter’s hand. “Run, Sara, run!” Her mind desperately whirled for a plan of action, a knot of fear punching at her stomach like a balled fist. A man was coming out of the bank and smiling, held the door open for them as they ran past him and entered the building. Looking back, Rene saw the man crumble in front of the door like a sack of potatoes.

“Something’s happening!” she screamed at a bank-teller. “A plane...terrorists! It’s a terrorist attack!”

The young bank clerk, no more than a teenager, stood there gaping at her. Then her face soured as if she had just smelled a fart. “What’s that?” she sniffed, then collapsed where she stood, her forehead slamming into the counter with a bang as she slid to the floor.

The bank vault stood open.

The vault!

Only a thin wooden partition separated Rene and her daughter from the safety of the vault. In a dead run, she smashed her shoulder into it like a football player—the door flew open under the impact with a loud crack. “Get inside!” she screamed.

“Hey, what are you doing? Stop!” yelled a man in a blue suit as he rushed toward them from a back office. “You can’t go in there!”

The vault door was at least five-feet thick; and a handle, like the kind you might see on a ship was centered in its middle. Rene pushed Sara inside, and then grabbed the handle with both hands and began to pull it shut.

“Hold it right there!” the bank manager yelled. He was within arms reach of the door when he suddenly stopped; his body trembled, and then he fell over onto his side convulsing. Rene looked into the man’s eyes for a terrifying moment; his face held an expression of shock and surprise, and then the huge door closed and she heard the locks slam home.

“Mommy, what’s happening?”

“It’s not fair,” she said. “They’re using planes again—they’re using the goddamn planes again!”

Rene quickly examined the brightly lit vault. There were row upon row of Safety Deposit boxes on one side that ran from the floor to the ceiling; their little brass handles gleamed in the artificial light. The room was small, maybe six by twelve, but another door made of bars stood open at the far end leading into the main vault. Rene could see tall metal shelves inside, stacked with bags of coins and piles of banded money.

“Mommy, what's happening? I’m scared.”

The sound of Sara’s voice brought Rene back—and then she realized that she must have been scaring her poor daughter to death. She scooped her up into her arms and held her tightly to her chest. “Don’t be scared, honey, I’m here. Duya feel all right? You don’t feel sick or anything do you?”

“No, Mom, I’m fine. Can I let go of my breath now?”

Rene smiled at her knowing she could never hold her breath that long. “Sure, honey…I think it’s safe to breathe now.”

Sara let her breath out in a exagerated puff of air. “Phew...finally...I think that was a World Record, Mommy.”

Rene pulled her daughter close to her again, and faked a smile to mask her worry. “You know, I think you just might be right about that.”

The hum of an electric fan drew her attention toward the ceiling.

“We’ll have to tell Daddy all about it when we get back home. Boy, won't he be surprised.”

“Yes...we’ll tell him everything, honey.” She looked around, desperation washing over her. The vent would suck the poison into the vault. She took a deep breath and held it for a moment—everything came into focus with a terrible clarity.

“Will Daddy come for us?”

She lied. “Sure, Daddy will be here soon, sweetheart.”

“Mommy, all of the sudden I don’t feel so good.”

“What? What do you mean?” Rene's fear grew into something she could no longer control. Then Sara buckled and collapsed in her arms.

“Sara? Sara?” She cradled her child in her arms. “No, no! God, please, no...not Sara.”

But Sara was already gone. Her little mouth hung open, slack. Her eyes stared at nothing.

Rene seemed to sag down into herself, breaking inward like a woman with crumbling bones. Then she cried.

It started as a low howl, and then turned into a terrifying wail as she rocked back and forth clutching her child to her breast. She closed her eyes and held them shut, tears spilling down her tortured expression. She tried to stop moaning, but her sorrow and loss would not let her go. Instead, they seemed to drive her into another mode of being, onto a new plane of existence. Sara, her little angel, her sweet innocent baby, was lost, and no amount of love could find her again.

She could not stop weeping...even the voice of her own sanity could not reach her. She raised her face to the heavens and cried out, “Sara! Sara!”

Then her chest heaved for air and she choked. She clutched her dead daughter's body to her as if trying to hold onto the edge of a bottomless pit—her grief and pain burning away all light as she fell into the endless dark.