by Lou Cadle
“I appreciate the advice,” he said, though he hardly needed it. This was a bizarre conversation to be having right now. Back to work. “You two did great. But I want you to avoid going back wherever that guy was. If he wakes up, he’s going to be mad at you. Did you keep your…er, weapon?”
“I left it there.”
“Hmm.” He hadn’t thought that sending them out for supplies would be dangerous, but he realized now how naive that was. Carrying a weapon for self-defense might not be a bad idea, but a better idea would be to try and keep these two out of harm’s way, and nearby. “You did great, but I have another job for you. There’s a dumpster behind that sandwich shop over there. See if you two can manage to move it over here. If not, let me know. Don’t strain anything. I don’t need more patients.”
The girls nodded. McKenna hesitated.
“Questions?” When they shook their heads he said, “You did fine. Put it out of your mind for now, if you can.”
McKenna nodded and the two of them turned to go across the street.
Bash was looking at the cart of supplies, thinking about taking the drugs over to his car to lock them up, when he looked up and saw the man from the wreck leading a line of almost a dozen people, three in lab coats, two in scrubs. Had he asked the man’s name? He needed to jot down names, and he realized he had Meggy’s pad computer still, where he’d stuck it in his pocket to get back to her family eventually. Well, screw it. He turned it on, relieved it needed no password, opened a notes document, and typed in McKenna and Haruka’s names.
Then he turned to greet his new staff.
In twenty minutes he had six tables — taken from inside the sandwich shop — set up to hold supplies and act as reception. He also has his first dozen patients, who were sitting on chairs also taken from the sandwich shop and in one case, lying across three waiting room chairs, a rotten substitute for a bed but better than nothing, and a situation that had to change soon. His staff had no doctors, but one very experienced ward clerk, who was organizing the heck out of everything, supplies and staff names and drugs, using the girls’ school notebooks to write in and make signs. He had everyone on the lookout for indelible markers in black, red, yellow, and green, in addition to everything and everyone else they were trying to find, beds or blankets or cots most of all. He was going to mark people for triage right on their foreheads as it got busier. He had one nursing assistant doing all the nursing and he himself was triaging, diagnosing and, right now, suturing cut feet, using a woman’s purse sewing kit and cotton thread doused in alcohol. It was field promotions for everybody and everything. Finally, at least, he had gloves to wear. And the clerk wasn’t letting them throw gloves away. “We might have to reuse.” So she had a bag of used gloves being collected.
A fire truck inched by and Bash yelled up from his suturing, “Somebody stop that truck!” But it was coming to a stop anyway. He put the last two stitches in, tied off the thread and told the patient. “Don’t move. Don’t walk on those. The nurse will come over to wrap them.” Though she was busy with someone else, she made eye contact with him and nodded to show she had heard. She was a sharp one, and Bash was relieved to have her. He needed Suze, but she was using the last of the daylight to hunt for their friends and would not be dissuaded. Bash had given up hope on that front. And even if he had hope, triage was the place for him to be.
He hurried over to where a fireman was getting down from the truck. Someone was pointing at Bash and the fireman strode to meet him.
“You’re in charge here?”
“By default, it seems.”
“The hospital is gone, you know.”
“I know. We need…” He gestured helplessly. “Everything. Anybody you can save from there. Any equipment. Any equipment you can spare from your own stores. Beds. Portable lights and a generator. Patients.”
“Oh they’re coming. More than you’ll want.”
Bash thought that one more would be more than what he had the staff to treat. “How about lights?” he said to the fire fighter.
“I’ll radio in to the command center. The police will set you up.”
“Is there anyone else doing this?” Bash pointed behind him. “Emergency care?”
“A few individuals here and there. You’re by far the most organized. And this space is good, and safe from building collapse. And it’s close to the hospital, so anyone driving someone in there from this direction will see you. Let’s call this the new hospital. We’re going to spray directions on the street and walls in either direction to point here, so people can find you.”
“Gods, I didn’t even think of that.”
“You can’t think of everything,” the fireman said. “I’d like to get my chief on the radio and have you two talk. Oh, and I have a patient for you, in the truck. I’ll get her out of there and into your hands.”
Bash nodded and started trying to organize his thoughts. What did he need, what should he ask for from the fire chief? What could they do for each other? Might the fire chief spare him a paramedic or two? Thinking furiously, he followed the fireman over to the truck. Two men were helping a woman down. He was shocked to see he knew her.
“Ms. Witherspoon!” he said.
“Small world,” the woman said, holding tight to the arms of the men on either side of her. They lowered her weight to the ground.
“Are you hurt?” he asked.
“No, having a baby,” she said.
A fireman said, “Irregular contractions.”
“I want my husband.”
“We’ll get him here, ma’am,” said the other one. By his tone, Bash thought he’d be happy to be rid of Ms. W.
“Put her on a chair over there,” said Bash. “I’ll get right with you, Ms. W.”
“Well call me Melba if you’re going to be putting your hands on my privates.”
Bash smiled, despite his worries.
The first firefighter leaned out the truck’s door and said, “I have my captain on the radio now.”
Bash climbed into the cab, realizing how achy he was as he hauled himself in, sat down and took the radio. He and the chief worked talked things through, and he was reassured that a generator and lights were on their way. The truck and these three men were headed up to the hospital for rescue work, and with any luck, they’d find more medical workers trapped but still able to function. Every police and fire unit would be on the lookout for doctors, nurses, dentists, anyone who might be able to join the makeshift hospital. For now, Bash was its director, and everything that could be done to help him would be done.
When they had all that settled, Bash couldn’t stop himself from saying, “I have family at City Hall.”
“It took a pretty bad hit. All that brick. But most made it out.”
“His name is Gale Swanton.”
“Yeah, I know him. I talked with him earlier.”
“He’s alive?” Bash’s throat closed and he had the force the next words out. “Thank you. Tell him I am, too, next time you see him, would you?”
“Sure.” The fire chief signed off.
Bash thanked his fireman. He wanted, more than anything, to go to Gale, but he had work to do. He was alive, though, alive! The knowledge eased a weight Bash hadn’t acknowledged he’d been carrying, and he felt a burst of renewed energy.
As he stepped down from the truck and saw two ambulances pull up, he knew he was going to need every bit of energy he could summon.
Chapter 6: Gale
It was full dark when the first sizeable aftershock hit. A woman moaned in fear nearby, Gale wasn’t sure who. A cascade of bricks fell down from City Hall first with a rattle, then a loud thud. Exhausted, Gale let himself sink to the ground and sat, cross-legged, waiting out the quake. It was a strong one, the strongest yet. For fifteen seconds, the ground beneath him moved. A 6.5, he guessed, or thereabouts. He wondered why the numbers still mattered to him. Habit. As it faded, he heard a distant crash as some other building a block or two away came down.
Earthquakes don’t kill. Buildings do.
They were working in the light of three large flashlights set on their ends, functioning as torches, and someone had brought them a box of strap-on LED reading lamps for doing paperwork, but it wasn’t much light. They had dragged every park bench over to serve as a work area. They hadn’t gotten a tent from Parks yet, or organized any furniture. In the morning, he was going to dig through the edges of the debris of City Hall and try to build a more organized office space out here, with a desk or two, a filing cabinet or maybe plastic boxes he could label.
He had been checking in staff as they returned with supplies, trying to learn their names, and sending two out for every one who returned, even people who’d already been out once already, until his staff was down to six, where he’d keep it until morning. Not everyone had returned. He wondered if the ones who hadn’t were okay, if they’d fled town, if they were searching for lost family, or if they’d gone home to face a death and were emotionally incapable of returning.
He also had three family members of Vinya, the expensive shoe lady, bedded down in the park. Their house had been leveled. The family was lying on blankets on the lawn, close together, covered with a quilt they had rescued from the ruination of their home. It was early, but she had said she wanted to get the little ones to sleep, so she had laid down at dusk, the two children bracketed by their parents. He hoped they had slept through this aftershock. And he was reminded, thinking of them, that they also needed small tents for camping here, along with ground sheets and sleeping bags. Several people had said their houses weren’t safe to stay in. If they wanted to, when the rains came, they could sleep here, but they’d need cover.
People had been understandably anxious to start the clean up at their homes, so he let them, as long as they all came back at dawn. It wasn’t as if they could accomplish all that much in the dark anyway. Angela had said she’d wait until last to check on her house and husband, along with Megan, the lady with the cats, and Sophie, the girl with the trucker husband. The next staff member who returned, he’d send all three of them home. The unlucky ones like Vinya had no homes.
Gale wondered if he did.
The whole town was hunkered down for the night, it seemed, while fire fighters continued to rescue people and police prowled the city with searchlights. The rescuers had finished with the schools and were working on the hospital now, as well as the buildings all around it. The injured were taken to the temporary hospital. The dead were put into body bags and taken to the old cemetery two blocks from the hospital where they lay along the roadways, shoulder to shoulder, Dan, the fire chief had told him. “And we’ll be out of body bags and stacking them naked in the roads before too long.” Just as Gale had feared, there were that many dead.
Water mains were broken. Almost no one had water and the few who did had to boil it, though there was no easy way to get that warning out to people. No electricity. No landlines or cell service yet. Nerdy ham radio operators were suddenly the most popular guys in town, and Gale kept in touch with police and fire via a handheld radio from the police department. Sewage was going to be a problem soon. People in the county with septic systems were in the best shape. Every port-a-potty they could find had been commandeered. A half dozen were taken to the temporary hospital, which was seeing heavy business now. One was here. The others had been distributed in badly-hit residential blocks downtown. But port-a-potties didn’t last long without cleaning. Tomorrow morning, they’d have to pick sites to dig latrines. In consultation with the police chief, Flint, they’d found a Guardsman who had some relevant experience overseas to lead the project, recruit volunteer diggers, and explain their use to what was going to be a very reluctant populace, used to gleaming clean porcelain and running water. Soap-free hand cleaner and antibacterial wipes were more valuable than gold right now. They had to think avoid spreading disease, which would tax an already overwhelmed health care system.
The interstate’s overpasses at the west side of town were collapsed or unsafe. Any random one that was still up would only allow you to drive to the next collapsed one anyway. You could get around, but many roads were in bad shape, especially on the river bottomland. A third of the city streets downtown were blocked off to all but foot traffic. Spray-painted detour signs had started to go up. The fire department had found a stash of particleboard to use for signs. When they’d swung by to help Kay down from City Hall around sunset, they’d left him two cans of spray paint for any sign-making he and his people needed to do.
The town was cut off from supplies from the world outside. The train tracks, running right along the river, were underwater. The fire department had found breaks in them in both directions. One chunk had sunk into the soil with liquefaction, disappearing entirely. Where the interstate had collapsed onto roadways blocked east-west travel, too, for now. Anyone driving under a remaining overpass during a serious aftershock was risking his life. The fire department couldn’t even get out to the airport to check, but radio contact from there told them there was buckling and cracking of the runways. So if a brave cargo pilot could land safely there, which was unlikely, there was no way to get food or other supplies in from the airport. They’d have to get supplies via helicopter or by airdrop.
The river was of little use for travel, as the ground beneath it had shifted, and formerly clear channels were now shallow and filled with sandbars. The last dam along the river had been damaged beyond use, they had heard on commercial radio, and levees had been damaged, including one eight miles north of town. The filthy Mississippi was seeping over the lowest parts of town, and every day that towns upstream had sewage disposal problems of their own, it’d get filthier and carry more disease. Gale worried that if they ran out of bottled water, people would start trying to drink boiled river water, and they’d have epidemic disease on their hands, not to mention the certain cancers down the road from drinking who knew what awful chemicals. The bridge was still standing, but both approaches to it had collapsed.
They were on their own.
He looked back over toward the silhouette of City Hall, still far down the list for rescue and recovery until the buildings of hospital row had been cleared. His mind kept drifting back to Evelyn, and her twins. He hoped a neighbor had taken the twins in — if they were even alive. The elementary schools had already emptied out when the quake hit, but some kids at the middle school and high school had been there after the final bell, for band or play practice or detention. Some hadn’t made it out. A number of teachers had been crushed in school buildings, most of which were brick.
A quarter of their fire force was dead or missing and a full third of the police force. At least Guardsmen and Reservists had brought those numbers back up. So far, public order wasn’t a problem. But it would be. Of that he had no doubt.
“Gale,” he heard. It was Angela. “The aftershock is over. You can get up now.”
“Right,” he said, but made no move to stand.
Angela dropped down and sat next to him. “You need food. I need food.”
She was right. The fire department had brought them a stack of cases of drinking water, but no one had eaten, at least not the four of them who hadn’t gone home yet. “My car,” he said.
“Mmm, sounds good, lovely crunchy car.”
“No, no. I have food in the trunk of my car. And boots. I should get those on. And lots of chocolate.”
“Now that’s the best news I’ve heard all day.”
“I’m getting up now,” he said.
When he didn’t move, she snorted a laugh. “How ‘bout we do it together?”
“Sure,” he said, and slowly levered himself off the ground. Angela popped up with more alacrity. “Why am I so tired? It’s not even eight o’clock yet.”
“Stress, probably.”
“Maybe so. I’ll be back in a flash,” he said, and he walked towards City Hall, using the faint light from the sky to navigate. He glanced up at it and realized he could see hundreds upon hundreds of stars. No light pollution, so the sky was filled with light from distant suns. He could see the Milky Way. It actually lit the night so well it cast faint shadows. He thought about how far that light had come, and about beings that might be living out there around those suns, not knowing or caring about his problems. It comforted him a little, helped him realize that these days would pass, that his troubles didn’t add up to all that much if you backed up and got a wider perspective.
At his car, Gale changed into his new boots. Then he grabbed some of his personal supplies and the office chocolate and took them back to share with his staff. It wasn’t the healthiest of meals, crackers and chocolate, but it was fuel. He put multivitamin pills on his mental list of things to find. He should have bought some at Walmart, but he’d never thought to add them to his earthquake kit, not back in California, and not here. Of course, he’d been thinking about supplies for three days or a week. He was afraid this would last longer.
A half hour later, a pair of staff came back together. “With the dark, there wasn’t much we could do at home,” said one.
“My husband and kid are camping out at the house,” said the other. “He’s afraid of looting.”
“Yeah, that’ll happen, I’m afraid,” said Gale.
Megan said, “Not in a small town like this. We all know each other.”
