Natural Disaster (Book 2): Quake

by Lou Cadle

  “They’ll get hungry enough. Then everything will look good.”

  “You’d think.”

  “They’re spoiled,” said George.

  “We all are. We’re not used to walking a mile to get water, or functioning on short rations, or running out, or making do. Myself, I’d kill for some real brewed coffee and a long hot shower.”

  “You should have ordered up some coffee from FEMA.”

  Gale laughed at the idea of taking space with such a luxury. “Hey, what’s the weather forecast?”

  “Rain tomorrow and the next day, turning colder with the front.”

  “Will it freeze?”

  “No. But down to 40 tomorrow night, they say.”

  “I hope I still I have a roof after this morning’s quake,” Gale said. “Those tent cities are going to be mighty unpleasant places once it freezes.”

  “I imagine more people will decide to leave now. Take their chances on the road.”

  Gale didn’t have the option to leave. He had work to do here. “If it rains, make sure you two collect rainwater.”

  “We will.”

  “Well, thank you, George, again.”

  “You getting any rest tonight?”

  “I have to. I’ll work until dark, but after that, I don’t think I’ll be doing much good, as wiped out as I am. Luckily, I have damned good people working with me, sharing the load. And people like you making it possible for all of to survive.”

  Gale drove to the new EOC. Someone had rescued the tent, repaired a gash in it with blue duct tape, and put it up once more. The tables were set up underneath. Someone had found tarps at some point and the sleeping bags and blankets were laid out on those several yards away. They’d have to move those all under the tent when it rained. People would be tucked under tables and fighting for dry space, he thought. Every shelter in town was in use, though, and unless they built some sort of shelter from scrap of ruined homes, they’d have to make do with the one tent.

  Angela didn’t show up when he expected her to at 8:00, and as the minutes passed, Gale began to really worry. He asked if anyone knew of her, or lived in her neighborhood. When no one had an answer, he handed the EOC over to Kay, who volunteered to work until he found Angela, and he drove off to the south side of town.

  He passed people filling sandbags, close to the river, and he pulled over. “You need to stay out of that water,” he said. “It’s dangerous.”

  “Piss off,” a man said. “We’re trying to save our houses.”

  “Just be careful. The river has awful chemicals in it, and you don’t want it on your bare skin.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” the man said. A woman stood up and brushed sweaty hair back and said, “You could help, you know.”

  “I’m sorry, I can’t.” Gale got back in his car and thought, this is the start of it. Or the end of it, whichever way you wanted to think. It was the end of communal spirit and friendliness, and the start of short tempers and anger. He didn’t own a gun, but he was going to ask Flint about some other kind of weapon for self-defense. Pepper spray, Taser, something. People would be looking for someone to blame, though there wasn’t anyone to blame, and he’d be a public target.

  He wondered if he shouldn’t hand the girls over to someone else, someone less in the public eye. But everyone he knew well enough to trust with their care was working for him, and none of them could take on an added burden. Chances were, he had as much extra food as anyone in town to feed them if FEMA didn’t come through soon. His mind flicked back to the thought of a weapon. He was going to have to do something to protect Bash and those girls.

  Angela’s neighborhood had taken a bad hit from the second quake. Liquefaction left cars buried up to their axles in the ground and many houses canted as one side or another of the foundation had sunk into what was effectively, during the earthquake, quicksand. Angela’s house appeared, the front wall half-collapsed back into the interior. The whole house wasn’t down — there was space in there still where people might be trapped — but it certainly wasn’t livable.

  He found a solid-looking bit of sidewalk and pulled his car up there. He jumped out and started calling for Angela and Michael, her husband.

  A kid on a bicycle stopped and watched him, suspicious. Gale turned to him. “Do you know the people who live here?”

  The kid shook his head.

  Gale walked the perimeter of the house, calling out every few seconds. He stopped to listen, hoping to hear a voice, or a banging, or some sign that they were in there and okay. As much as he wanted to, he couldn’t risk going inside to search. He hoped they were safe, or were getting treated at the hospital for minor injuries. It’d even be better if they had just left, jumped in their car and driven as far west as the roads would allow. Though he knew Angela wouldn’t do that, not without telling him.

  He radioed the address into the EOC and asked them to get Fire on working rescue here whenever they could. He knew it wouldn’t be soon. Single-family homes were the lowest priority, no matter who lived in them.

  Back at his car, he looked around. The kid on the bike was gone, and no adults were visible. The whole block looked deserted. Damn. Weighed down by worry and frustration, he got back in his car and drove back to work. There were still a hundred crucial tasks to accomplish today, starting with getting out the news to everyone to collect rainwater.

  By the time he got home that night, it was after 10:00. He entered through the garage. Bash was waiting up for him in the kitchen, in the flicker of candlelight.

  They hugged, and then he collapsed into a chair.

  “I can’t find Angela,” Gale said. “She’s just vanished.”

  “I’m really sorry. One of my patients from the clinic, a little boy, died,” said Bash. “It’s just grief piled on grief these days.”

  “I’m sorry about your patient. How are the girls?”

  “They’re asleep.”

  “Is the house safe? From the earthquakes, I mean?” He made a face. “Or from thieves?”

  “We didn’t get home until after sundown. So I haven’t really checked that carefully yet.”

  “We will tomorrow morning. I guess we’ll have to take the chance of sleeping here tonight. I also want to drive nails into all the windows, too, try to keep anyone else from breaking in.” He looked around. “You cleaned up in here.”

  “I have some bad news.”

  “Oh, God,” Gale said. He didn’t know if he could stand more.

  “The thieves. They drained most of the hot water tank.”

  “Shit. I didn’t even know they were here long enough to do that.”

  “How could you know? I guess they went robbing places with empty bottles in their hands. Can you imagine?”

  “We have bottled water in our emergency supplies. But we’re going to have to give up on showers and hand-washing.”

  “We can’t give up on hand-washing after using the toilet. Or for whoever prepares meals. At least we did laundry not long before the first quake. When we stink too much, we can just change into fresh clothes.”

  “How is supply of wipes holding up?”

  “Not great. I think there’s a dozen or so left.”

  “We should cut them in half, stretch them out for hand-washing. It should rain tomorrow and the next day. We have to set up caches to get more of that. We can wash our hands with that water,” he said, “But no more toilet flushing.”

  “What?” Bash sounded horrified.

  “No more toilet, period. We need to dig a latrine in the back yard.”

  “Oh my god.”

  “Without the city system working, we couldn’t flush forever anyway. It’s probably just accumulating in pipes under the house as it is.”

  “Stop, please.”

  “Sorry.” Gale reached over and gave his arm a squeeze. “So tomorrow morning, first thing, at dawn, we nail shut the windows for security and start digging our outhouse. And set up for caching more rainwater.” They’d have to work fast
. They both had critical jobs to get to.

  An aftershock rattled the house, fading after a few seconds. Gale shook his head. “I hope the house is structurally safe.”

  “It’s a little cold to sleep outside.”

  “I know. And it’s getting colder. But we might have to move outside at some point. Thousands already have.” He thought of the long expanse of quake zone, stretching from northern Mississippi state all the way up to St. Louis. “Maybe a million are out there tonight, sleeping on the lawn or sidewalks. Some probably don’t even have a blanket.”

  Bash sighed. “Did you eat?”

  “No time.”

  “I’ll make you something.”

  “No. I’m too tired.”

  “Gale,” Bash said, exasperated.

  “Okay, okay. Just hand me a can of fruit or something easy. That’ll do.”

  “I haven’t unpacked the emergency stuff yet. We three ate supper at the hospital.”

  “Never mind. I’ll get the stuff I have in my trunk. I’ll go get it.” He started to rise.

  “No, you sit. I’ll do it. Give me your keys.”

  Gale sat, too tired to even think coherently, while Bash carried in bottled water and sacks of groceries. He put them away, just like it was a normal shopping day. The routine of the act seemed surreal. Gale’s vision blurred, and he felt he was on the verge of hallucinating from emotional and physical exhaustion. Damn, he needed to sleep.

  Bash set a box of cheese crackers in front of him, opened them, and Gale ate a few.

  “Dessert,” Bash said, and put the hazelnut chocolate bar in front of him.

  “No, sweetie, that was a gift for you. For being an ass that morning.”

  “What morning?”

  “Before the quake.” A million years ago.

  “Were you an ass then?” Bash said.

  “I was, and I’m sorry. You deserved better. I think the last year, I could have been a better husband in a lot of ways.”

  “Shh,” said Bash, stepping behind him and wrapping his arms around his shoulders. “Never mind. That’s all done now. We’re fine. We’re alive and we’re fine.”

  “But the chocolate bar is yours. It’s a present.”

  “Okay, okay.”

  “I need to sleep.”

  “We’ll sleep, then. But promise to eat more for breakfast.”

  Gale nodded, stood, and stumbled back into the bedroom. He let his clothes fall to the floor, made it over to the bed, and crawled under the comforter.

  If not for the pressure in his bladder, Gale would have slept twelve hours. He got up and threw on yesterday’s clothes, then went through the garage to get a shovel and work gloves. The phrase “call before digging” popped through his mind, and he had to shake his head at himself. Like there were any live power lines anywhere in town to cut into.

  In the dim gray light of dawn, he peed in the far corner of the yard, and then he began to dig the latrine, as far from the house as possible. The site would be half-hidden by the stranger’s garage that had slid through the fence. He pushed the point of the shovel into the grass. The ground was hard and didn’t want to yield. The whole point of buying this house was that it wasn’t built on sand like so much of the town. Now he wished he had sand to dig in. But with sand in the yard, he probably wouldn’t have a house any more. He jammed his foot down. The shovel clanged off a rock and the vibration shook his joints. More than anything, he wanted to lean on the shovel and rest, but he’d only been at it two minutes. Forcing himself past his weariness, he kept digging, making slow progress.

  The sun rose, revealing scattered clouds overhead. You could tell they were gathering into rain clouds. Gale found his rhythm and dug faster. He wasn’t digging into power lines or natural gas lines or phone lines, just into pebbly clay.

  Forty-five minutes later, with a short trench hardly more than two feet deep, he heard his name and turned to see McKenna coming toward him.

  “Bash said we’re going to have to pee outside now?”

  “Yes. We can’t afford to use the rainwater to flush any more. The hot water tank is empty. All we have on hand is water to drink for maybe five days, and whatever rain water comes.”

  “I don’t really like the idea of peeing out here.”

  “No one does. But lots of people in town are.” He wiped his forehead with his arm. “At least we have a fence for privacy.”

  McKenna was looking at the hole. “I’m not a guy, you know. I’d kinda like to sit.”

  “I tell you what. We’ll take off one of the toilet seats from inside, and I’ll figure out how to support it.” He drew a line with the toe of his shoe. “So if I dig narrow and long, find some boards to put on either side, that should do it, don’t you think?”

  “Won’t this stink?”

  “Yes. But we’ll shovel some dirt back in every day. That’ll help keep the smell down.”

  “Gross.” McKenna gave a theatrical shudder. “Bash says come in for breakfast, anyway.”

  He wanted to finish out here. But he could feel the need for food in his brain and muscles. He needed to get in to work on time, too. And he wanted to secure the house better against breakins. Too much to do and less light to do it in every single day as winter approached. He dropped the shovel, shoving the work gloves into his back pocket as he trailed McKenna back to the house.

  At the table, Bash had set the table with cans, spoons, cloth napkins, and the last of the package of antibacterial wipes. Gale took one and cleaned his hands, then his face. Getting the grease off his nose made him feel a little better.

  Bash smiled at him. “Everybody has a can of fruit. If you don’t like yours, or if you get bored halfway through, we can trade. And there’s crackers. And a treat.” He held up a jar of instant lemon-flavored tea. “For a change from plain water.”

  “And for some caffeine,” Gale said. He could use a good dose of that. Maybe today he’d ask for caffeine pills from FEMA. Or maybe they’d air drop him some amphetamines to keep him and police and rescuers going. No, probably a bad idea, just wearing them down more in the long run, making them more aggressive in the short term. But some mild caffeine would be appreciated this morning. “Where’d you get the napkins?”

  “I cut up an old sheet. And I wrote everyone’s names on theirs.”

  Gale looked and indeed his name was neatly written at the edge of the napkin in black ink.

  McKenna wanted the can of pineapple, and Haruka the pears. He left the peaches for Bash, as he knew he liked them, and took the mixed fruit for himself. “Don’t forget to drink the juice,” he said.

  “Mine is syrup,” said McKenna.

  “Drink it anyway. This is no time to diet.” Indeed, survival was a calorie game, and the more you could manage to find, the better. When it got down to 40 degrees and they had no heat source, their bodies would want even more calories. But what was this meal — maybe 400 calories? Times three — or one yesterday — and that wasn’t nearly enough food to fuel him. FEMA had better come through with that promised food soon. Or — and he realized he had no “or else” to threaten. The whole town was entirely at their mercy.

  “Is there still school today?” Haruka asked.

  “Yes,” Gale said. They’d lost people in the second quake, but not as high a percentage, as more people were staying outdoors, and the percentage was of a lower population. The first quake had killed nearly 10,000; the second quake, less than an eighth of that number. There were still enough teachers to keep the town’s kids busy for five hours today. “Ten o’clock to three. Bring paper and pencils, and whatever books you had with you in your packs.”

  “Where?” asked McKenna.

  “West of town, between the two tent cities, in the Catholic church parking lot.” When the river breached the levee, they’d had to integrate the downtown tent city into the other two. The one nearest a small lake was the best one to be at. The lake water wasn’t safe to drink without filtration, but it provided wash water. “It’s th
ere so that kids from both tent cities can walk to school.”

  “We can walk, too,” said McKenna.

  “I’d rather not leave you alone on the street,” Gale said. “There are the looters and thieves and people are getting…well, testy.”

  “Violent? Like the survivors in a zombie movie?”

  “Maybe not that bad quite yet. But headed in that direction, yes. So you two can come to work with me, and you can walk to school with the other kids there, in a group.” There were thirteen children now, and six spouses, and seven of his staff living there fulltime. Some of the other staff members were sleeping outdoors, but in front of their own homes to protect them from looters. He knew most of them were taking the chance, even with severely damaged homes, of dashing inside twice a day to get clothes, food, and books or toys for their kids. He and Bash were damned lucky to have a relatively safe home.

  Which reminded him. He hurried and drank the rest of his lukewarm tea, willing the caffeine to take hold, and he got up. “That was good, thanks, hon,” he said to Bash. “I need to go check the house out, and put another half-hour into digging.”

  “We can help,” said McKenna.

  “I’ll take you up on that offer,” Gale said, then to Bash, “Is there any way you can take off work at like 3 today, pick up the girls, and come back here and get some more stuff done?”

  “I’ll try to get off. I could pick up everything that fell again.”

  “And nail all the back windows shut if I don’t finish that this morning.”

  “What about if we have a house fire?”

  “We’ll keep the dowel jammed in the back sliding door, so that they can’t get in but we can get out. But otherwise, we should keep the front door barred and only use the sliding back door and the entrance from the garage.”

  “I wish we had an extra key for that to give the girls,” Bash said.

  “So do I. But locksmiths aren’t a working business right now.” He said, “I have to go drive a few nails and get to work.”

  He took ten minutes to secure all the front windows and make sure the front door was impossible to budge. A five-minute inspection of the house convinced him that they were safe to sleep inside. A third quake might bring it down, but for now, they were okay. The second quake had only been a 7.8, he had heard last night just before coming home, but it was centered closer to them. A third quake might be closer still, if the quakes were traveling north up the fault line. He hoped there wouldn’t be a third big one. The aftershocks were bad enough.