Day After Disaster, The Changing Earth Series, Uncut Edition

by Sara F. Hathaway

  Erika jumped up, excited to have something else to do besides worry. She picked up her candle, which was nothing more than a cylinder candle in a coffee cup so it could be moved easily. She went over to a corner toward the back of the main room by the dreaded wine rack. Here she found a stack of five-gallon plastic water jugs. She grabbed a full one and pulled the jug over to a corner by the stairs that was more or less unused and contained a drain for moisture runoff. Then she went up the stairs to look in the cabinets. They were a gold mine for someone in Erika’s current position. They contained pants that the cooks wore in the kitchen, button-up shirts, and T-shirts for cooks. Besides the clothes, there were candles, napkins, cleaning products, baskets filled with assorted varieties of nuts, fruits, potatoes, noodles, and rice. There were herbs that had been used for cooking, a first aid kit, and much more. Erika gathered up one of the large cooking bowls and a small one too. She took some soap that had been used to fill the containers in the bathroom and figured she might as well take some of the lotion that had been used for the same purpose. Then she grabbed a pair of pants that the cooks had worn in the smallest size she could find. They were not very attractive-looking, with their green jungle scene covering every inch of them, but she figured they would have to do. She also snatched up one of the matching green T-shirts. Erika decided that it would be wise to bring along the first aid kit as well. She could put antiseptic on the gash on her leg and the cuts she had received as a result of being crushed under the wine rack and then lying there in the glass for days. She did not have new socks but figured she would just rinse and wash the ones she had on and hang them on the shelf to dry.

  She went back down the stairs with her hands full of the materials needed to give herself a makeshift cleaning. She moved back over to the corner, where she had placed the large jug of water. She poured some of the water out of the huge jug into the big bowl she had brought from the cabinet. Then she set up the soap nearby. As she began to undress herself and expose her bare skin to the cold, she realized she forgot something to dry off the water with. Naked from the waist up, she ran back to the cabinet. The biggest towel she could find was one that had been used for drying off dishes, but she figured it would have to work. She went back to the process of undressing once she reached the corner again.

  She couldn’t help but think that this is when her rescue would come. The rescuers would come busting in, and there she would be, naked in the bomb shelter giving herself a cat bath. She blushed at the thought, knowing she would be so embarrassed, but at this point, she just had to get the wine smell off of her. She sat down and removed her shoes, which had once been white but were now rosy just like everything else. Then she peeled off her newly dyed rosy socks. She delicately removed her pants. The cut on her leg still pained her greatly and, coupled with the bruises she had sustained, this was an uncomfortable process. It had to be repeated again to remove her underwear. Standing fully naked in her cement enclosure, goose bumps covering her, she began to shake.

  She worked quickly to get the job done. She would dip the little bowl into the big bowl and pour it over her. The first time she did this, she screamed when the freezing water ran over her, but she kept going until she was drenched. Erika always hated taking cold showers. Even when it was one hundred degrees outside, she would make the shower just as hot. But she didn’t have any hot water, and this washing had to be done. She was filthy and had cuts that had to be attended to. Once she was rinsed off, she grabbed the soap. Shivering in the cold, she washed from head to toe. She washed her hair with the soap too. Her hair would probably end up a mess of tangles, but it stunk so bad she went ahead and did it anyway. Although her skin was stained pretty bad, most of the red wine coloring was lathered up into piles across her body. She picked up the small bowl again, dipped it back into the water and re-soaked herself. Once she was free of the wine and blood coating, she picked up the small towel she had found and patted herself dry.

  Erika was violently shaking in the cold, concrete room. She dressed quickly, not bothering to put on any underwear under her pants or a bra under her shirt because they were both badly stained. She thought about attending to the gash in her leg before putting on the pants she had found. Luckily, the uniform pants were baggy and the pant leg rolled far enough up her leg to expose the cut on the left one. So she put them on, rolled up the pant leg, and opened up the first aid kit. There was a bottle of hydrogen peroxide in it and a big roll of gauze with medical tape. She poured the peroxide over her wound and watched it bubble, angrily expelling any infection that might have escaped an unintentional alcohol cleaning from all the wine she had been lying in. When it stopped bubbling, she poured peroxide over it again just in case. When there was no sign of infection left, she covered a rectangular piece of gauze with Neosporin and put it on the gash. She taped the gauze to her leg so it would not fall off and rolled her pant leg back down.

  After she was clean and her cuts were attended to, she turned to the task of cleaning her undergarments and socks. She poured more water into the large bowl and put her clothes in, too. Then she took out each one and soaped them up. She poured clean water into the large bowl and rinsed the garments. Then she walked across the floor. Her bare feet were sore with cold from the freezing cement, which made Erika realize she could not wait for her socks to dry; she would have to cover her feet sooner than that.

  “Why did I even bother washing those stupid socks? I should have just put them back on, but they’re so gross. I can just put on my shoes without socks for now. Well, now I’m clean and I know my legs are all right; let’s see what I can find to eat. I wish I had some meat, but I couldn’t cook it anyway. Oh well, I can have some of those nuts, and fruit too.”

  Erika went to the cabinet and grabbed another plastic bowl. She filled it with assorted nuts, a peach, and a pear. There were new knives still sheathed in their cardboard casings that would have eventually been used in the kitchen. She took one of those too. She spied a loaf of bread and snatched it up. She grabbed a cup out of the cabinet and went back downstairs. After putting her meal on the table, she went over to the corner where she had been washing and dragged the huge jug of water over to the table. She filled up her cup, and once she began drinking the water, she gulped down one glass after another, realizing she must have been very dehydrated. After she had her fill of water, she sat at the table and began to munch. She chomped down the pear; then handfuls of nuts; the peach was next; and lastly, she had a slice of bread accompanied by more nuts. She finally sat back in her chair. She was full, and now her problems flooded back into her mind. Before they encompassed her every thought, she jumped up and grabbed a smoke out of her pack.

  “I’ve only got a half a pack left; I’ll have to conserve them. Wait, weren’t there more smokes in those purses? I can’t take them, though. Once someone finds me, they’ll know I was going through their things. Screw them, I’m stuck here; they won’t care.” But in Erika’s mind the guilt over taking someone else’s things was driving her nuts, so she decided she would just worry about that later. “I wonder if all the bottles of wine broke when the rack fell. I sure could use a drink.”

  Erika took her smoke with her as she walked over to the rack that was still supported by the crate and began to examine the remains. Although there were many broken bottles, she found half a dozen or so unbroken ones. She gathered them up, put them in another milk crate, and hauled them over to the table. The next problem—of how to open the wine bottle—was solved when Erika went rummaging through the cabinet. She found corkscrews reserved for future use in the restaurant. She opened a bottle of Merlot. Ironically, it was the same bottle that she had come to get in the first place! The bottle that had started this whole fiasco. She found that fitting. She filled her glass and sat back to think.

  “No one has come yet. I must have been pinned under that wine rack for a while; who knows how much time has passed. What happened out there? I wonder what kind of damage that quake did. It was the biggest one
I’ve ever felt. If no one has come for me yet, I wonder how long it will take. If I would have waited for them to free me from that wine rack, I would still be there waiting. I got myself out of that mess. I bet I could figure out how to get that door open.”

  Erika took another drink of her wine. She had decided that if no one was coming to save her, she would have to save herself. She had finished her second glass of wine and was filling her third when the effects started to take hold. She had never been much of a drinker, so a little was all it took. Erika’s husband had always poked fun at her for this; he called her a “cheap date.” Thinking of her husband brought tears to her eyes; every part of her being ached to be with him. She thought of her husband’s warm, safe arms and wanted to be there so bad. She thought of her son and how he would be calling for her. It annoyed her in the past to be constantly pestered by him, but now she just wanted to hear him and be with him.

  “Are they okay? Did they survive? Was Vince at home with Dexter, or was he on his way home? I know they are alive. I just know it. I can feel them with me. I’m going to get home to them. I’ll get out that door; you just watch.”

  There was no one there that Erika was addressing, but she could not stand the silence. Seldom was she alone, and she hated every minute of it. In the past, she had tried desperately to find a couple of minutes of quiet. Now, overwhelmed with it, she was going crazy. Tired and half drunk, she looked for a place to rest, but the bunker was concrete and the sleeping platform was removed a long time ago. She stumbled over to the cabinets again, but she didn’t find any blankets or anything like that. There were boxes of cloth napkins and a few tablecloths. At least it was something to separate her from the cold floor. She made a pile of napkins on the floor. Then she covered them with two of the tablecloths. Finally, she carried over a bundle of cook’s shirts from the cabinet. She polished off the last of the wine in the bottle as she snuggled under one of the tablecloths and covered the table-cloth with the bundle of shirts to keep warm.

  In the drunken stupor that Erika was in, her dreams did not come easily. But, she slept soundly nonetheless: exhausted from the experience she was trying to struggle through. Late in her sleep, dreams began to come.

  *****

  She was in her little house in the foothills of California, cooking dinner. Her son was running all over the house, and she began to scold him for getting into the cupboard which contained shiny pots and pans used to cook the daily meals. She told him to go and play with his toys. As he rounded the corner and left her sight, her husband rounded the corner and came into it. Her eyes soaked in every detail of his persona. She ran over to him, holding him in an embrace that left her glowing with his love. He stepped back from her and stared directly into her soul with his hazel eyes that had yellow stars outlining his black pupils. He said in a low rumble, “Come home to me. I will always be here waiting for you. I will never leave without you. I love you, and I know you will come home to me.”

  *****

  Erika awoke overwhelmed by the reality of her dream. “I know he is okay; I have to get home to him. But first, I have to get the hell out of this hole!”

  She slowly arose from her bed with a throbbing head that reeled from the after-effects of her wine indulgence. She went over to the cupboard and rummaged through the first aid kit to find some Tylenol. Then she hesitated, knowing her supply of pain-relieving medicine was limited and probably not replenishable any time soon. She opted not to take the medicine for such an insignificant ailment as a hangover. Instead, she went to where the fruit baskets were and chose a peach that was beginning to turn brown and soften. Usually, the fruit baskets were replenished every week, but it did not appear that the new supplies would be coming any time soon.

  She went to the table in the corner of the room, filled her water glass, and sat down to think of a way to escape her concrete cell. She felt like she had been asleep in her little nest for a week, and her mind was groggy and slow. She thought through the haze; the space in front of the heavy metal door didn’t appear that big. She began to remember when she was young, and her brother, Bob, used to lock her out of the bathroom. She would wedge herself between the door and the hallway wall and push. Her back would create pressure against the door, and her feet— pressing against the drywall lining the hallway—would give her push much more force. The lock barely held in its metal casing, so the door would fly open, giving her access to the sink she needed to prepare herself for the day.

  Erika was looking back fondly on the incident, and she reached into her purse to get a smoke from her depleting supply. She refilled her water glass and lit the smoke. The water was rehydrating her body, and she began thinking clearly again.

  “What happened out there? How long have I been down here? If no one has come for me, will they ever? Why is there no rescue effort? If I do get out of here, what is going on out there? Maybe no one can come for me because the house collapsed and is blocking the door. Regardless, I have to find out.”

  All the while Erika had no sense of time. She had no idea how long she had been trapped under the wine rack and had no idea that her night on her bed of napkins had been more like days. After she awoke, the days passed on in this same fashion; Erika had no idea of day or night. She would rummage through the cabinets for food when she was hungry and sleep whenever her lack of energy overtook her. She had found some books that the owner had stored in the cabinets and read them to pass the time, while she was waiting to be rescued. Her thoughts always seemed to go back to how she was going to escape. She had tried and tried but could not get that door open. Her supplies were rapidly depleting, and Erika was growing very tired of this predicament. She was claustrophobic and felt very irritated when she was confined. She began to dwell intensely on the fact that she had no idea how much time had passed. She had no window access and could not judge the movement of the sun to clock her days. Erika was an avid outdoorswoman, and she longed to see the sun and frolic through the forests as she had done so many times before. Tears began to roll down her face, and she began to cry out in terror. Her cries were stopped short when she remembered her dreams that she had often dreamt in her nest of napkins and tablecloths on the floor. Vince… Dexter. I have to get home. This thought of her beloveds would become her savior and push her through times when all she wanted to do was give up the struggle.

  One day, Erika woke up with a new determination. She was now pretty certain that no one was ever going to come to rescue her. She felt like she had been locked down there for years. She declared to the silence, “That’s it. Somehow I’ll have to get myself out of here. First, I’ll need more light. Then I’ll figure out how to get the hell out of here so I can get in my car and go home. I’ll put an end to this nightmare and see my family again, with or without a rescue party.”

  Erika went to the cabinet to get another candle from the box. She decided it would be worth it to grab two of them, so she could light the area in front of the door with a small candle and the downstairs area with a large candle at the same time. After she had lit the candles and had them in place, she looked intently at the door as if it would melt under the pressure of her intense stare. She pushed a shoulder into it and tried, again, to push as hard as she could. Nothing happened. Erika kept thinking of the story of her brother and getting into the bathroom. Erika sat down in the position similar to the one she had used when she was young and was struggling to gain access to the bathroom her brother had locked her out of. She just barely filled the space in front of the door, but she realized she could not reach the door handle and push at the same time. The door handle was not a round one but one that jutted out from the door in an L-shape. She figured that if she could hook a string to it, she could pull on the string, which would then turn the door handle, all while she was pushing from a sitting position.

  She got up and ran down to the last cupboard, where she found a ball of cooking string. It was shrink-wrapped in plastic and would have been bound around a stuffed tri-tip and roasted
. She grabbed the string and ripped off the plastic. She used her knife to cut a length of string, and proceeded to tie one end to the tip of the door handle and the other end in a loop that she could pull down on. Then she assumed her pushing position. As she pulled on the string and pushed with her legs, the door moved a couple of centimeters, but her legs didn’t reach across the space in front of the door well, and, even with her legs fully extended, she could not open the door far enough to even let a little light in. She quit pushing and her centimeters of progress toward escape quickly vanished with the slamming of the metal door.

  “At least I moved it! Whatever is holding it shut is really heavy. If I weren’t so short, I could push it all the way open.”

  As she said that, she thought of her son. Whenever he was in the kitchen with her, he always wanted to know what was going on. On occasion, she would get him a chair to stand on, so he would be taller and could see how the dinner preparations took place.

  “That’s it. I’ll get one of the chairs and lay it so I can push it against the wall. Forget that, I might as well get the table. It will give me an even longer reach, and it will be sturdier.”

  This time, she launched down the stairs, skipping every other one all the way down. She put her drinking glass and the candle that were on the table on the shelves by the purses and lifted up the heavy square of oak. Even though the task of dragging it up the stairs was arduous, Erika was no lightweight. Years of weight lifting and martial arts training had transformed her body into a finely tuned machine. When she reached the top of the stairs, the table was laid on its side with its legs facing the concrete wall. The table was bigger than she thought and covered almost three-quarters of the landing in front of the door. There was just enough room for her to fit in the space with her legs totally bent into her chest.