by Bobby Akart
And that was what happened. The Old Bridge came crashing down sideways as if only one part of the riverbed sank where the remains of the Frisco Bridge, once equidistant between the two, were laid to rest. It all happened in a manner of fifteen seconds. The northernmost piers of the Old Bridge gave way first, causing the top-heavy steel arches to topple toward the Harahan. The weight of the massive structure struck the piles of the old railway bridge comprising its support.
The guys were only able to run a few hundred feet before the railroad tracks began to buckle. The Harahan lurched upward and then began to wobble on its piers.
They were both knocked to the tracks. The men struggled to find their footing during the final seconds in the life of the Harahan Bridge. They contemplated running back toward Arkansas, but it was too late. The entire piling system gave way, and the bridge fell straight down until it smacked the surface of the Mississippi River.
Jack and Tony were airborne throughout the almost one-hundred-foot fall to the water.
The bridge had the kinetic energy of a brick. As the pilings gave way, there was an enormous amount of potential energy associated with the pull of gravity on the bridge structure. The gravitational pull reached up from the center of the Earth and yanked the bridge into the water. As it did, air was displaced, creating a momentary weightless effect for Jack and Tony.
It took four seconds for the bridge to crash to the surface of the Mississippi River. It took five for the men to reach the water. Incredibly, that additional second diminished the force their bodies faced when they met a nearly immovable force—the Mighty Mississippi.
In those five seconds, Jack’s survival instincts kicked in. He didn’t know what gave him the presence of mind to shout what he did, but it certainly gave them the opportunity to survive.
“Cannonball! Cannonball!”
He tucked his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around his shins. His first inclination was to go in feet first, but something inside him screamed otherwise.
Jack plunged in first, and before he’d closed his eyes, he saw that Tony had managed to curl into a tight ball as well. Once he hit the water, the force of the impact threatened to knock him out.
Ten. Twenty. Thirty feet deep. He felt the atmospheric pressure build in his ears, so he swallowed hard. Initially, he couldn’t feel the pain from the blow his body had suffered on impact. That would come seconds later when his descent was arrested by crashing into several bodies that had fallen with the bridge.
He suddenly found himself entangled in flailing arms and legs. Panicked, broken human beings fought a brutal drowning death with arms and legs that no longer functioned.
Jack had reached the bottom of his descent. He quickly tested his arms and legs. All his appendages worked. His temple ached from getting kicked by a drowning victim. It didn’t matter. He was alive, and therefore he had a chance.
The earthquake continued to jostle the planet. He felt like he’d been crammed inside a washing machine as the torrent of swirling waters battered his body. He tried to swim upwards, desperately craning his neck toward the daylight above. Yet he felt like he wasn’t making any progress.
A lifeless body floated upward past him. Oddly, his mind complained that it wasn’t fair for a dead guy to get a head start to the top.
Jack persevered. He brought his hands in towards the front of his stomach and then extended them over his head. He’d complete the sweeping motion by pushing them wide and down to his hips again, using his open palms as flippers. It was poor technique for a swimmer’s breaststroke, but it was far more effective than simply kicking his legs.
He didn’t calculate how long he was underwater, but there weren’t a whole lot of seconds left in his built-in air tanks. His lungs began to burn, and his eyes began to bug out. His mind was telling his body it wasn’t safe to breathe under water, and therefore, it should stop breathing altogether. Or, on the other hand, his mind implored, go for it. You’ve got nothing to lose. You’re gonna suffocate without air.
That’s how a person drowns. They give up. Jack wasn’t gonna give up.
With one final downward thrust of his arms, he fought the turbulent waters, and his head popped up above the surface. He sucked in air and turned his face toward the sun. He spontaneously began laughing, an odd reaction. Then he returned to reality.
He was freezing. The air temperature had hovered in the mid-fifties, normal for that time of year. The full sun helped in that regard. However, the water temperature, after being shaded overnight, was in the upper forties at best. He suddenly found himself shivering uncontrollably. Mentally, he tried to talk himself out of the shivers, but the water temperature was somewhere between chilly and just plain oh-my-god cold. He had to warm up his muscles.
He began vigorously treading water and wiggling his appendages in an effort to get the blood flowing to them. His efforts to stay afloat in the river worked. He was no longer approaching a state of numbness, and his mind had reached a heightened sense of clarity. Then he thought it was playing tricks on him.
He spun around, searching for the approaching freight train. He’d never heard a roar so loud. Naturally, there was no train. Only the continuation of the second earthquake. He’d lost track of time in his struggle to survive, but he was certain this quake was longer than the first one two days prior.
“Tony!” he shouted although he couldn’t be heard.
Shit! Where’s Tony?
He began spinning around again in search of his brother-in-law. There were bodies floating facedown everywhere he could see. Every few seconds, another one popped up out of the water. Jack swam toward them, turning over any man with a white shirt on.
The river had begun to calm after the force of the bridges collapsing was finished displacing the waters. The earthquake caused swells similar to those in the middle of an ocean during a storm, but they were widely spaced and didn’t impede Jack’s search.
“Tony! Tony!” He shouted his name again. The roar of the earthquake continuing to rumble along the Mississippi drowned out his voice.
“Jack! Over here!”
He was alive! Jack frantically spun around and called out his name again. “Tony! Where?”
“Over here! On the bridge!”
Jack was puzzled by the response and then began to wonder if the blow to his head underwater was causing him to hallucinate. Tony shouted to him again.
“Over here!”
A swell came along and lifted Jack high enough to get a better view. Barely two hundred feet away, Tony had wrapped his arms around the upper chord of the Harahan Bridge’s truss system. Like a sketch of the fictional Loch Ness monster, the top trusses remained above water, protruding above the surface every hundred feet or so.
“I see you!” Jack shouted back. He began to swim toward Tony, fighting the current that was pulling him to the side. Occasionally, another body would bob to the surface, startling him and impeding his progress.
“Almost here! Keep swimming!” Tony shouted words of encouragement.
Jack was slowing. His body was giving out as he willed it to swim to safety. Another swell came along, bigger than the others. He was swept upriver along with a few of the dead.
“You’re going too far! Turn right! Turn right!”
Tony implored him to change direction. If Jack didn’t grab the steel trusses, he’d have to fight the swells to get back, and his energy levels wouldn’t be there for him.
Jack took a deep breath, gritted his teeth, and kicked his legs while his arms fought through the water.
“You’ve got this! Come on, Jack. Almost!”
After Jack completed one more breaststroke, Tony reached down and grabbed him by the back of the shirt and pulled him close. Jack climbed into Tony’s arms, and the two men hugged one another in relief and joy.
Tony laughed. “This really sucks, you know?”
Jack laughed and coughed up some of the murky river water from his throat. He tried to talk, but the coughing fit
took over. Tony held him against the support until he could recover.
“Yeah, no shit. I’m over it.”
Tony took a deep breath and moved to the side so Jack could get a grip on the steel supports. The two men looked around at the floating carnage. The dead bodies rose and fell with each swell flowing across the river.
“Freakin’ cold, too,” said Tony. He and Jack were both looking from the remnants of the Memphis skyline over toward Arkansas. “Whadya think?”
Jack stretched his neck to orient himself. “Right in the damn middle.”
“Yep,” Tony added. “Pick your poison.”
Jack studied their options for a moment. The swells were getting taller and were now tugging at them as they moved over their bodies. Gripping the bridge structure was becoming more difficult.
He pointed to the west. “Damn! Look!”
A jacked-up pickup truck with large tires was bobbing along in the water toward the south. It was riding the swells and rocking back and forth. The doors were just above the waterline. Inside, a girl was screaming at the top of her lungs for help.
The truck turned in a complete circle when its tailgate struck the bridge a hundred yards away from them. Like a pinball, it hit another support before continuing on its northward course.
Jack, who’d regained his ability to breathe normally, turned to Tony. “Something’s wrong.”
Tony chuckled. “What was your first clue?”
“No, I mean with the river. It’s flowing backwards. Everything is headed upstream.”
The guys turned around and followed the pickup truck until it disappeared behind a wave, and observed the dead bodies floating upriver. For over a minute, they rested and watched the Mississippi change course to flow backwards.
It was the sudden eclipse of the sun that caused them both to scream in unison.
Chapter Forty-Five
Sunday, December 23
Atwood Residence
Cordova, Tennessee
Tate was excited to see Britney. The two had grown closer as he played a more prominent role on the MUS varsity football team. She was very attractive and came from a good family. Her popularity made her a catch for all the guys at school, and the girl most of the others admired.
Tate was not an aggressive teen. The best way to describe him was workmanlike. He was polite and well-mannered. A trait that was lacking in many young men those days. He placed an emphasis on studying while enjoying the athletic program he was recruited into rather than seeing it as a springboard to college. Jack had made it clear that his college would be covered financially, and the most important thing he could do was keep his grades up to ensure acceptance.
Britney was somewhat of the same mindset until she turned sixteen when her parents bought her a car. She now had a freedom Tate hadn’t experienced yet. He couldn’t drive to the mall whenever he wanted. On nights and weekends, he couldn’t head over to a buddy’s house or drive the half hour to Meeman-Shelby State Park to hang out by the river. He had to rely on others to offer him a ride.
He understood from his dad he’d have to get a part-time job to pay for his car. Jack and his mom agreed to cover his insurance costs, but the payments, gas, and maintenance would be all on him. He hadn’t thought that far ahead. He’d be turning sixteen just as summer started, and there were plenty of jobs available for him to save for a car.
Tate moved quickly through the woods, anxious to see the girl with whom he’d struck up a high school romance. They were both aware of the second-base, third-base, home-run type of boundaries their parents expected of them. Tate was cool with that, and as a result, Britney trusted him.
It took a little over twenty minutes to reach her house. Before he exited the woods, he caught his breath, fixed his hair, and adjusted his clothing so it looked like he was on a casual stroll and just happened to stop by ’cause he was in the neighborhood.
He walked along the front of the house, slyly glancing in the windows to see if he’d been noticed. Nothing so far. He walked up the wide brick steps and pushed the doorbell. He stood there for a minute and then silently cursed himself for forgetting the power was out. He physically shook himself, asking why he was so nervous. It’s just Britney, you idiot. And that was why he was nervous. She had that effect on him.
He knocked on the door and waited.
Nothing.
Tate knocked again, a little more forcefully this go-around. Still nothing.
Disappointed, he walked around to the side of the house where the garage was located. Britney’s car was in the driveway. He looked inside the small windows inset into the three garage doors. Both of her parents’ cars were there. Puzzled, Tate walked to the end of the driveway and around the back corner of the house. He thought they might’ve been sitting outside on the deck.
Other than the patio furniture, the deck was empty. He glanced down toward the water’s edge. They didn’t have a dock like the Atwoods, but Tate couldn’t help but notice how far the water level had dropped.
He stood on the deck for a moment and spun around, running his fingers through his neatly groomed hair.
“I don’t get it. Where are you guys?”
Tate knocked on the patio doors. All the curtains were drawn closed, so he couldn’t see inside. He stood on his toes to peer through the kitchen window. Everything was neat and tidy. Lastly, he took a chance and tried the patio doors to see if they were unlocked. They wouldn’t budge.
Befuddled and dejected, Tate exited the deck and walked up the driveway toward their street. He glanced down the road and saw a man gathering tree limbs that had fallen in his yard. Tate took a moment to inquire about Britney and her family. The man said he’d seen them Friday, but nothing since.
Tate finished the conversation when he felt the ground sway. Slightly at first. Then, as if he were standing on a sheet of ice and hit with a gust of hurricane-force wind, he was thrown sideways until he struck the man’s mailbox.
His body, still suffering the battering he took in the Halloran theater, screamed in pain. Tate responded with a long groan but quickly found his footing. He held on to the mailbox post embedded in a concrete footing for stability. He struggled to keep his balance.
The next earthquake was just getting started. Britney’s neighbors ran out of the house, looking at the sky as if the evildoer came from above rather than below the planet’s surface.
Tate was knocked off his feet again. He held his position on all fours, hoping it would end shortly after starting. Instead, it continued and grew in intensity.
Windows began to shatter in the surrounding homes. Tate stood and moved away from a mature oak tree that began to tilt. His eye caught a glimpse of the lake behind Britney’s house. He furrowed his brow and concentrated. Something was different. It was lower.
More windows exploded out of the homes. The shattering glass caused Tate to remember his sister.
“Emily!” Tate shouted as he ran clumsily across the yards toward the woods.
He stumbled twice but picked himself back up. He didn’t care if he fell down a thousand times. He had to get to his little sister, who was home alone. He took off across the yards, twice hurdling a short picket fence adjacent to Britney’s lawn.
As he crossed the sidewalk leading to her house, the angry earthquake punched the concrete upward as if it had a mind of its own, devilishly intending to prevent him from getting to Emily.
In that moment, Tate saw the quake as something demonic. It was a powerful, supernatural force, choosing its victims and tormenting its survivors. He entered the woods along the lake without regard for his safety. Saplings smacked his face as he ran over them. Low-lying tree branches grabbed at his arms and body like the gnarly fingers of a giant ogre.
And the ogre roared. A throaty, fear-inducing growl that came from the depths of the planet.
Tate dodged falling tree limbs as he ran down the path that was becoming increasingly difficult to identify. He hurdled a fallen southern pine, a tree that
was top heavy by nature and easily knocked over. He ducked under a partially fallen oak and entered the backyard of another lakefront home.
His eyes darted between the water level of the lake dropping and the crumbling of the back of the stately home that had been there for as long as their home had been. The retaining wall holding up the driveway had collapsed, and a shiny red Corvette had rolled nose first into the rubble.
As Tate glanced to his left, the ground to his right suddenly gave way. What was once solid turf, albeit on a slope, was now opening up into a hole all the soil and sod was collapsing into. Tate cut left as if he were trying to avoid a defensive back after a catch. He never saw the black water hose that had been left in the yard by the homeowner.
His feet got tangled, and he flew headfirst into the bank and rolled repeatedly until he crashed into a cord of firewood stacked at the edge of the woods.
He moaned in pain, yet again. His body longed for the whirlpool tubs of the MUS locker room, designed to relax battered and bruised football players. But the game wasn’t over.
Tate pulled himself up and continued. The trees were uprooting with more frequency as the ground near the lake started to disappear into the water. His race to the house was slowed, but he continued without stopping.
“Help!”
It was Emily. Tate was close enough to hear his sister’s voice, and she was in trouble.
“I’m coming! Hold on, Emily!”
Where is she? he thought to himself as he fought through the underbrush of the woods. He’d completely lost sight of the well-worn trails he’d used for years. Or they were buried under the forest now. Did she go outside like we were taught in school?
“Emily! Where are you?”
It was Tate’s mom. She was at the house. Tate got a burst of energy and ran like the wind as the woods opened up to their property. He appeared in the side yard near the driveway just as his Mom was turning in circles, searching for her youngest child.
“Emily!” screamed Tate.
His mother joined in. “Honey? Where are you?”
