by Bobby Akart
Jill watched in horror as the upper floors and roof began to drop down, one by one, until the entire structure was pancaked to the ground in a pile of rubble. Clouds of dust and debris began to float high into the air as the three hotels were destroyed in a matter of minutes. Hotels full of visiting guests who simply wanted to enjoy the special events Memphis had to offer or to visit family for the holidays, crushed by the weight of concrete and steel.
She clamped her hand over her mouth and stifled a scream. Her face was soaked with salty tears and dust-covered raindrops. Jill stood frozen in time, years of memories flashing through her mind. Then a massive lightning strike thundered through downtown. She let out a scream of absolute fright and shock.
Jill was mesmerized as she looked across the horizon to the north and east. Bands of brilliant lights were flickering in the distance. The blues, oranges, whites and reds were beautifully shimmering as they streaked across the sky. The earthquake was putting on a beautiful light show of its own as the hues and vividness of the colors changed as they rippled through the dark sky. Below it all, closer to the ground, a greenish light hugged the landscape, changing intensity as debris floated into the sky before coming back to Earth. It was a riveting spectacle she couldn’t pull her eyes away from as the earth continued to shake.
Then Jill got it together. She needed to save her children.
Chapter Seventeen
Friday, December 21
Top of the Met
One Metropolitan Square
St. Louis, Missouri
As a child, Jack had learned about the Yellowstone supervolcano, deadly tsunamis, and the New Madrid fault in his earth sciences classes. He’d dreamed about living through a catastrophic event that had the potential of wiping man off the face of the planet. He imagined what he would do. How he’d react. What life would be like if there wasn’t another human being around him for miles.
When the ground under One Metropolitan Square began to shake violently, it wasn’t as he’d imagined at all. Everything he knew about earthquakes came from the frequent tremors he’d experienced his entire life while living in West Tennessee. He’d never been through anything like the quakes on the West Coast or the ones portrayed in the big-screen movies.
There were no ominous signs like large flocks of birds flying past the tall glass windows at the Top of the Met. He hadn’t observed dogs suddenly chasing their tails or fish jumping out of the river. Other than the swaying of the Gateway Arch on Monday, he hadn’t felt any rumbles under his feet to be shrugged off as nothing more than a large truck driving nearby.
What he saw astonished him. The ground didn’t shake up and down as if some enormous fist were punching the underside of a tabletop to watch the plates and glasses hop. What approached them was more like a giant rollicking wave pounding the beach during a violent thunderstorm. Only, it wasn’t raining or even cloudy that day. At least, not until now.
The clouds approaching them weren’t big, white, and fluffy. These were gray and dirty, with a hint of orange in them. They were fast approaching from the south, hugging the ground, lending the appearance of ten thousand horses kicking up the dust in the desert. Just in front of the cloud, the ground lifted and dropped. Lifted and dropped. A wave of energy forcing everything in its path to rise and fall without regard to the destruction it caused.
And it was speeding toward them.
When the primary compressional waves hit, they threw everyone and everything not bolted to the floor several feet into the air. The bodies were weightless for a moment until gravity pulled them down hard onto the marble floor, which was now covered with broken glass.
Jack pulled himself up onto all fours, but he didn’t want to move. He wanted to take in the spectacle of it all. His fear was suppressed for the moment, although his eyes did dart about, searching for the elusive butterfly people, who’d not shown themselves in over twenty years.
His conscious mind took over as the earthquake continued to jostle the building. “Run! Move away from the windows and get into the lobby!”
He scrambled to his feet and observed the people in the room with him. They were frozen in time, aware of the deadly threat approaching them yet unable to react. Some began to crawl toward the elevators. Others lay flat or crawled to the safety of the few dark wood tables that remained upright.
Then, in unison, many of their cell phones began to emit a variety of notification signals. Some were dings, and others were metallic warning sounds. Many of the locals had catastrophic event warning apps tied into the City of St. Louis emergency management systems. The notifications brought them out of their stupor. Struggling to keep their balance, they turned to run toward the elevators. Tony was there to prevent them.
“No! Not the elevators. The stairwell. Through there!” He pointed toward the illuminated emergency exit sign.
Jack rushed to a table where, oddly, an elderly couple in their eighties continued to sit. The man required the use of a walker to get around, and his wife used a cane. They were feeble and needed help to exit the building.
“Tony! Help me with Mr. and Mrs.—!”
Nobody heard Jack say their name. The deafening roar of another primary compressional wave that hit the Met would’ve dwarfed a hundred freight trains passing simultaneously. For half a minute, the building shook, causing the crystal chandeliers to sway back and forth and the bottles of liquor to come flying off their glass shelves. When the full energy of the earthquake hit the skyscraper, the enormous power coupled with a deafening groan shocked everyone to their core.
Jack and Tony arrived at the elderly couple’s table simultaneously. They brusquely dragged them to the floor and under the round table that was large enough to seat eight. Using their bodies, the two men shielded the man and woman from what happened next.
The windows imploded on all sides. Not a single pane of the hurricane-impact glass escaped the thrust of wind and debris that hit it at speeds in excess of two hundred miles per hour. Screams filled the air as shards of glass, coupled with bits and pieces, peppered their bodies.
Then something pumped up the volume on the outside world. The ringing clarion bells prior to the quake were replaced with a shrill chorus of car alarms, horns, and the loud pops of explosions as if mortar volleys were being hurled across a battlefield. The screaming inside the building only served to add a human element to the macabre orchestra playing throughout the catastrophe.
The shaking of the earthquake had continued for several minutes or more. Chalky dust, a mixture of pulverized plaster, mortar, and brick from the surrounding buildings, entered through the broken windows. It permeated the space, filling their eyes, nose, and then their lungs. For those screaming, they inhaled so much of the debris that they were overcome with violent coughing as they gasped for air.
Then, as quickly as the dust and debris surrounded them, it was sucked out as the quake’s energy wave rolled past. The guys, along with the couple they were protecting, were now exposed as the vacuum effect of the outside air pulled the table away from them and sucked it out the window. Glass-filled tablecloths that had fallen to the marble floor now became ghostly apparitions filled with sharp fragments of glass that tore through their clothing and skin as they sailed past.
The elderly man underneath Tony let out a guttural scream of pain. A wineglass had broken, and the stem had embedded in his eye. It was a gruesome scene, and Tony froze, uncertain as to whether he should pull it out or not.
The deluge continued as another minute passed. And another. And another. They were locked in the midst of a horror movie that played over and over. Their surroundings were disintegrating and wreaking havoc on their fragile bodies.
The interior of the magnificent skyscraper was not spared from the onslaught administered by the quake. The walls, rather than crumbling like drywall would, fell down in large slabs of granite and marble. Jack and Tony looked in all directions as the carnage unfolded. Anyone near them were crushed in whole or in part. Cries of agony
filled the dusty air, which now reduced their visibility to near zero with the loss of power and the sun obscured by the carnage billowing skyward.
Another minute.
“We have to move them!” Jack shouted.
“What do I do about—?” Tony yelled back, although they were mere feet apart.
“Move first. Stay low to the floor.”
Tony and Jack dragged the elderly couple through the glass and debris toward the double doors leading to the elevators. Most of the other attendees, at least the ones not crushed under the weight of the fallen marble walls, had made their way to the fire escape in search of safety.
Suddenly, large chunks of the ceiling began to fall around them, crashing into the backs of the guys, who shielded their charges. The crystal chandeliers, which had been swinging violently for minutes, finally worked their way free of the ceiling brackets holding them in place. The heavy bronze and crystal fixtures came crashing downward, landing on bodies and exposed marble.
The quake was relentless. It continued to send shock waves across the Mississippi River Valley. The rupture, spreading out from the New Madrid fault, generated a frequency of seismic waves that was unfathomable. Yet it had happened before.
Now the Met was convulsing, fighting with all of its steel and marble against the unearthly pressure placed upon it from below ground. The building swayed. It hopped. It began throwing off the granite panels admired by all who cast eyes upon them. It begged for mercy, but none was coming. Its suffering was only going to get worse.
Chapter Eighteen
Friday, December 21
Halloran Centre
Memphis, Tennessee
Tate never had a chance to pull his legs back across the seat in front of him before the balcony above him came crashing down. The only thing protecting his legs from breaking was the tops of the cushioned chairs they were draped between. Nonetheless, he was covered in sheetrock and steel, the rectangular supports used to create the cantilevered truss system allowing the balcony to be suspended in the air without posts.
The excruciating pain he suffered from being battered by the balcony structure kept him from passing out from the head trauma. He became incredibly coherent in the moment, his senses heightened to all that was happening around him.
The soundproof theater blocked out the intense roar generated by the earthquake outside the Halloran. Passersby were treated to a single blast of broken glass as the entire façade of the building disintegrated all at once. Inside the theater, other than the ringing in his ears from the blow to his head, all Tate could hear was screaming and pleas for help.
“Emily!” he shouted, joining the chorus of parents frantically screaming for their children.
Tate pushed upward on the balcony’s flooring system, but it barely budged. He tried again. The young man who could routinely bench press two hundred twenty-five pounds for a dozen or more continuous repetitions was unable to make any headway with the balcony rubble that had collapsed upon him.
He wiggled his legs and then turned sideways in his seat. He scooted forward so that his backside was on the very edge. He steadied his nerves. This was about to hurt.
Tate pulled himself forward to his legs into a crouching position until he fell off the end of the seat. The seat bottom sprang back in place, and Tate landed hard on the carpeted floor, smacking his tailbone, resulting in a brief numbness in his hips.
He kicked his legs and maneuvered his body so he could pull them back from between the seats. His pants leg had been ripped open, resulting in a gash in his right calf. Blood oozed out of his pants and also down his leg into his sneakers.
He shook off the pain, flattened himself on the floor, and began to crawl on his elbows and belly toward the exit. When he got to the down ramp leading to the stage, he saw that it was blocked. He’d have to find another way to the bottom.
He arrived at the double doors leading to the mezzanine encircling the theater. He was able to get his hand on the door push bar to open the outswing door, but it would only open a few inches.
“Now what?” he grumbled to himself. He shoved his shoulder into the door in an attempt to open it farther. It gave way a few inches and then forced its way back closed.
Tate searched in the pile of debris. There was a short piece of twisted steel the size and shape of a two-by-four. He decided to try prying the door open.
Like before, he pressed the push bar and rammed into the door with his shoulder. At the same time, he shoved the piece of steel in the gap so it remained open. He was able to press his face to the three-inch gap to get a look inside the corridor.
He didn’t expect to see the mangled body of the woman who’d greeted them upon arrival, together with an older couple who’d been crushed by the upper floor of the Halloran. Their lifeless eyes stared at him, while the other woman’s face was missing.
Tate recoiled from the horrific sight and immediately vomited under the back row of seats. He hurled and retched until the contents of his stomach were emptied. He wiped his mouth on his right sleeve and rubbed the tears out of his eyes before falling back against the wall.
He was trapped. He assessed his predicament as he tried to gather his thoughts. The rumbling of the earthquake continued, and the screams of the survivors had reached a fevered pitch. His anxiety reached a high as he was overcome with a tremendous sense of urgency and responsibility for his sister. If he’d just sat closer to the stage, he might’ve been able to do more.
He looked up and around him. The back wall stood strong, but the exit door was blocked by bodies and building. His only way to the stage would be through the theater seating. The upper balcony had held at its main supports where it came out of the back wall, but the bulk of the cantilevered structure had bent down, creating a lean-to effect.
Tate started crawling downward, hoping the structure had crashed in such a way that an opening was left for him to shimmy through. He eventually had to drop to his belly again to where the front edge of the balcony had landed atop a row of seats. He worked his way down that row, looking for any kind of opening or a point of weakness he could push through.
He found it.
In the center of the balcony, where the production desk was located that controlled the lighting and audio effects, a gap had been created on impact. The half wall of the balcony had been broken apart by the desk and equipment used by the producers.
Tate positioned himself on the floor with his back to the seat bottom and his legs drawn tight against his chest. Then he kicked as hard as he could. There was some give in the half wall on his first effort, which emboldened him. He kicked hard again, and a portion of the half wall was pushed forward. He reared back and kicked a third time, landing a perfect strike against the aluminum supports holding the wall together. They tore away from the half wall and into the row in front of him, leaving a hole just big enough for him to pull his way through.
“I’m comin’, Emily!” he shouted, thinking she was standing on the stage, waiting for him.
Tate forced his way through the small hole, ripping open his shirt on a sharp piece of metal. Blood soaked his Harvard-crimson long-sleeve tee shirt, the blood blending in with the MUS school colors.
The protective older brother was undeterred. He thrashed through the debris until he was able to stand in a place six rows in front of his original seat. His eyes grew wide as what he saw shocked him.
Chapter Nineteen
Friday, December 21
Top of the Met
One Metropolitan Square
St. Louis, Missouri
Tony helped the elderly man to his feet, grasping him brusquely under the arms and disregarding the blood gushing down his face. “Come on, sir. We have to move.”
“I can’t,” he groaned, speaking in between gasps for air. “My legs. Won’t support me. And the pain. Too much.”
Jack crouched down and lifted the man’s wife in a cradling motion. He rushed past Tony toward the exit located at the center of the
forty-second floor.
“Pick him up,” he said calmly as he passed. Just as Tony scooped up the husband, the ceiling came crashing down on them.
Plumbing pipes had ruptured above them and soaked the drywall. Gallons upon gallons of water rushed through gaping holes in the ceiling, soaking the already slippery marble floor. Both Jack and Tony lost their footing. They landed hard on their backs, and the sound of their heads hitting the marble would make anyone cringe.
Unfortunately, the two people they were trying to carry to safety took the brunt of the ceiling’s collapse. With the guys flat on their back, the drywall broke loose, bringing the ceiling, the water, and the floor from the storage room above them downward. Their old, feeble bodies never stood a chance. Both suffered severe crushing injuries to their heads and chests, killing them instantly.
“Tony! Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Cut up.”
“Me too. Let’s try to help these people under the marble.”
Jack gently pushed the dead woman’s body off him. Her carotid artery had been severed, and she was bleeding out onto the floor. The continuous flow of water out of the building’s roof-mounted reservoir was washing it in a steady stream toward the east side of the building.
It had been over six minutes, but the ground continued to oscillate, rocking back and forth as secondary shear waves passed under it. The building strained under the immense pressure being placed upon its foundation. It was built to certain standards but certainly not the level of earthquake protection afforded West Coast structures. The massive weight of the three rooftop heat and air-conditioning units began to take a toll on the roofing system. The shaking and jostling, the rapid up and down motion, caused the roof to sag. It was just a matter of time before gravity hastened its collapse.
