Nick looked into the rearview mirror to see if there was a dead animal in their wake, but there was nothing.
The Olds made a sudden lurch to the left, then to the right. Blown tire, then. Nick’s foot left the accelerator.
“What happened?” Viondi said, sitting bolt upright.
Nick looked up in surprise as he saw that the pines on either side of the road were leaping, branches waving madly as if in a high wind. Then one of the trees ahead on the right exploded—there was a puff of bark and splinters partway up, as if it had been hit with an artillery shell, and the top half of the tree tipped, began to fall toward the road.
“Look out!” Viondi shouted, one big hand reaching for the wheel. Nick flung the Olds to the left and stomped the accelerator. He felt himself punched back in his seat as the car took off. Splinters spattered off the windshield. Viondi gave a yell and leaned toward Nick as he tried to get away from the tree that was about to crash through his window. Nick’s heart pounded in his ears.
Boughs banged on the trunk as the tree crashed to the ground just behind the car. “She’s a natural disaster!” sang Lonnie Mack.
“What’s going on?” Viondi shouted.
Nick tried to get the car into the middle of the road. Trees shot by on either side, and suddenly they were in a clear space, green soybeans in rows on either side of the road. Nick took his foot off the accelerator. Nothing could fall on them here.
And then the earth cracked across, right in front of them, a crevasse ten feet across. Nick yelled and slammed on the brake.
The last words he heard were natural disaster, and then the Olds pitched into the crack. The choir mourned softly in the great space of the National Cathedral. Judge Chivington lay in state in his great mahogany coffin, and around him was a golden pool of light cast by floodlights overhead. Television cameras hunched inconspicuously in the cathedral’s darker recesses. The President sat in the front pew, with the First Lady on one side and the judge’s daughter, her husband and children, on the other. The stock market, he was given to understand, was going to hell in a handcart. The Fed chairman’s bizarre smile of the previous week had been analyzed and, probably, laid down to indigestion. The G8 summit was going to fall flat, all the President’s initiatives going the way of all the President’s initiatives, and his mark on history would be that of a caretaker, a Grover Cleveland or a Gerald Ford, someone fated to occupy the President’s Office in between the crises that made or tested greatness. Damn it, Chivington, he mentally addressed the coffin, why did you have to leave? Why now?
A shudder ran through the pew beneath him, and the President looked up, wondering if a big truck had just passed. He felt an unease in his inner ear.
The voice of the choir dimmed—the President saw chorister eyes glancing around—and then the choral director gestured emphatically, getting his crew back in hand, and the massed harmonies strengthened. The President felt a strange vibration in the palm of his hand where it was gripping the pew. From overhead there was a chime. It hung in the air for a long moment, producing a discord in the choral sound below. Another chime rang out, a deep metallic bellow.
The President felt the First Lady’s gloved hand close on his arm, and he heard her whisper in his ear.
“What’s going on?”
He shook his head. Another peal sounded. The choir’s voice faltered again.
The President looked up in surprise. The cathedral bells were ringing, softly at first, then with greater and greater insistence.
“Can they turn those off?” the First Lady hissed.
The President shook his head again. This wasn’t a regular bell peal, the sounds were too random. Something else was happening.
Another shudder ran through the building. Near the catafalque, a stand of media lights tottered and then fell with a crash. The choristers were singing as loud as they could to cover the growing chaos. In wonder the President gazed upward as the bells sounded, ringing as if they were mourning the end of a world.
The fairest opportunity that was presented (to our knowledge) of judging of its force and direction, was from an ostrich egg which was suspended by a string of about afoot in length from a first floor ceiling, which was caused to oscillate at least four inches from point to point. We are informed that the steeple of the State House, which is supposed to be 250feet in height, vibrated at least 6 or 8 feet at the top, and the motion was perceptible for 8 or 10 minutes. A number of clocks were stopped, and the ice in the river and bay cracked considerably. Some persons, who were skaiting, were very much terrified, and immediately made for the shore. In the lower part of the city it appears to have been most forcible, some people abandoning their homes, for the purpose of seeking safety in the open air.
Annapolis, Jan. 23, 1812
Marcy, in response to the tourist’s question, was about to explain that the Westward Expansion Memorial was an international competition open to everybody, but at that moment she heard a strange roaring sound, like all the cattle in the stockyards had broken loose and were climbing the monument’s stairs. She gave a look to Evan, her colleague, to see if there was something wrong with the north tram. No, the sound wasn’t coming from there.
The entire Gateway Arch jumped about ten feet to one side.
Marcy went down, tangling her legs with those of the tourist. There was a sound like a freight train inexplicably roaring through the tram stop. A painful series of throbs went up Marcy’s spine, as if someone was kicking her repeatedly on the tailbone. Each kick lifted her a couple inches from the floor, then dropped her again.
“Everyone keep calm!” she shouted through sudden terror.
About a third of the tourists had fallen. The rest were shrieking, swaying, staring—all except the two Japanese, who had thrown themselves to the ground at the first impact, and were lying curled into little fetal balls, hands over their heads. Some of the people that had fallen were trying to rise. Marcy made flattening motions with her palm. “Everyone get on the floor!”
Her ears ached with the volume of the roaring. One of the windows shattered, fragments spilling outward into space, and a group of tourists screamed.
“Get down!” Marcy yelled.
Nobody could hear her, but the tourists were looking around for instruction, and enough of them saw her gestures so that they began to drop to the ground. Marcy put her hands atop her hat to show they should protect their heads, and they understood and began to cover up.
Marcy wanted to reassure them. “You’re safe! You’re safe!” she shouted, and then, because she could think of no other words, she added, “This place is built like a brick shit-house!” She hoped.
The whole Gateway Arch kept kicking her in the butt, hard.
Marcy had all the statistics memorized, all the tons of concrete and steel that had gone into the Arch’s construction. Eero Saarinen’s modest intention had been to create a monument that would last 8000 years, and he had built it proof against the winds of a tornado, against the shattering force of an earthquake.
She hoped his calculations had been on the money.
“A brick shithouse!” she repeated.
Another window blew out, letting in the hot, moist Missouri air, and Marcy began to pray. Jason lay stunned on the grass with the telescope partly under him. There was a horrific noise and vibration as if a thousand semi trucks were thundering past at once, all blowing their horns. He could feel the vibrations on his insides, as if his internal organs were shaking themselves apart. Earthquake, he thought. He was a California boy and he knew.
And he knew it was a bad one.
Cracking noises split the air like gunshots as tree limbs snapped. There was a tremendous crashing overhead as a huge elm branch snapped off high up, bouncing off other branches as it fell, and Jason hunched into his shoulders as it smashed to the ground just a few feet away, its jagged butt-end driving into the turf like a spear, the leafy end still tangled in the tree above.
Jason tried to stand and was thrown down
before he could even rise to one knee. He gulped in the air and found that it tasted of sulfur—he had been so astounded by the force of the quake that he had forgotten to breathe—and then he belly-crawled the few feet, through a rain of fallen branches, to the brink of the mound. Below, the earth was heaving up in long rollers like the Pacific rolling onto the shore at Malibu. Here and there deep cracks gouged their way across the fields as if a savage giant were slashing at the soil with a knife. The earth moaned aloud as the giant struck again and again. But it was at the row of five houses that Jason stared. He couldn’t see his mother, but was relieved to see that the house was still intact. The windows were broken out and the old brick chimney had sprawled across the roof like a fallen prizefighter, but the building was still standing. Which was more than could be said for the other neighbors. Their houses were brick, and any Californian knew that masonry was death in an earthquake. Two of the houses, including the Huntleys’, were already piles of broken brick lying beneath shattered roofs. And as he watched the Regans’ house swayed and fell, collapsing into its basement, tearing away the metal roof of the carport from its supports and dragging it into the pit with a screech of metal. Jason couldn’t see Mr. Regan, though the old man had been in the carport just moments ago.
There was an explosion a scant hundred feet from his mother’s house, the sound buried beneath the roaring and moaning of the earth, and then water and white sand were blasted into the air, followed by a plume of water higher than the roof of the house. Jason wondered dazedly if the geyser came from a broken water main—but no, this was the country, there were no water mains here. There was a horrific noise as a slippery elm, fifteen feet away on the right and sixty feet tall, pitched over the edge of the mound and flung itself downward like a javelin.
And then Jason cried out in fear as his own house gave a lurch and fell, dropping with an audible crack onto one corner. A rain of chimney bricks spilled from the roof. The old frame house had been built on little brick piers, and the heave of the earth had walked the house right off its foundation. Another geyser burst out of the cotton field, and then another. And then another geyser burst up from the Huntley house—but this wasn’t water, it was a bubble of fire, blasting up from beneath the broken roof. The Huntley’s propane tank, couplings shattered, had ignited. Jason’s heart leaped into his throat. He tried to shout a warning, but it was lost in the groaning of the earth.
The last of the five houses shattered as the earth gave another wrench. Cracks tore across the surface of the ground. Sulfur tainted the air. Jason’s stomach turned over as he felt a new element enter the earth’s motion—he felt as if two strong men were kicking him at once, and in different directions. It was this that brought the Adams house down. The old farmhouse swayed back and forth, as if to blows, and then there was a rending and cracking of timber, and the roof spilled into the backyard, taking most of the house with it. Terror roared through Jason like a flame. He screamed and again tried to stand. The earth flung him down, pitched him down the slope. For a whirlwind moment he felt himself falling free. He screamed again and came to an abrupt stop, brought up short as he fell into the limbs of a scrub oak. Branches slashed at his face. He clawed his way through the branches, slid another ten feet down the slope, was caught by more brush.
And suddenly the earth fell silent. Jason’s inner ear spun in a giddy circle and he bit back nausea. He shouted, was surprised to find he could hear himself. “Mom!” he yelled. “Are you okay?” There was no answer. He looked wildly for the path he’d ascended by, but it was buried in broken timber, so instead he ran straight off the edge of the mound. He clung madly to branches to steady himself as he tried to scramble directly down the sides, but the mound was too steep, and there were too many uprooted trees, fallen limbs, and tangled brush for him to make any kind of swift progress. He heard someone shout below—a male voice calling for help. He shouted in answer as he dove through the trees. And then he came to a clear area, where he could get a good view of what was going below, and stopped to orient himself.
His heart almost failed him, and his knees threatened to give way. He had to clutch at a tree limb to keep from falling.
The broken houses were plain to see. The Huntley place had turned into a torch as a jet of propane consumed the entire property. The dog Batman wailed from amid a cloud of black smoke that roiled into the sky. Another fire was rapidly building in the ruins of another house, the one at the west end of the row. The tumbled, broken mass of his own home had partly fallen toward the Huntley ruin, and was dangerously close to the flames. It was clear that Jason had to get his mother clear of the wreckage before fire consumed the whole street.
In the field beyond the house, a dozen geysers spat water and white sand into the sky. Some had built up cones of sand around their bases. But it wasn’t the geysers, or even his wrecked home, that held Jason’s gaze.
It was the levee to the east.
The long green wall had been breached in at least two places. The water that poured through was not coming gently—it didn’t run through, it wasn’t as if a jug of water had been spilled in the kitchen and was gently emptying itself on the floor. The water jetted through, with the entire great weight of the river behind it. It was as if a thousand high-pressure hoses had been turned on behind each breach. Mist boiled upward from the two breaches as the brown water poured onto the laser-level fields below. In the midst of all this, between the two breaches, was Eubanks’s cop car, which sat motionless atop the levee as if trying to make up its mind what to do. And below, a tiny figure amid the giant water plumes, Muppet was struggling to right his overturned ATV.
“Run!” Jason screamed. “Run for it!” He didn’t know who he was shouting at—Muppet, his mother, Mr. Regan, maybe even Batman the dog.
Everyone. Everyone run.
Terror launched him down the mound. Branches lashed his face as he fell as much as ran down the mound’s steep face. As he ran he caught brief glimpses of the catastrophe from between the trees… Muppet getting on his ATV and beginning his race with the advancing water… a huge chunk of the levee, tons of stone and concrete, breaking away in the torrent, carried into the field by the powerful flood… Eubanks hesitantly backing his car away from the widening breach…
And then Jason ran head-on into a tree limb and knocked himself sprawling, the air knocked out of his lungs. “Run,” he urged weakly, though he knew no one could hear him. Over the Niagara roar of the breached levee he could still hear the faint hornet buzz of Muppet’s ATV. He sat up, breath rasping in his throat, and felt his heart sink as the sound of the ATV faltered. His head spun. He batted aside leaves, peered between the wrecked trees, and saw that the little vehicle had run as far as it could, that it was stopped at the edge of a crevasse that lay across its path and was too wide to drive across. Muppet’s green helmet turned to gauge the approaching water, and then he dismounted the vehicle and took a few steps back so as to run at the breach and leap across. His sneakers splashed in water that was already ankle-deep.
“Run,” Jason urged. There was a huge pain in his chest, as if something inside had ripped away. There was a grating roar as another piece of the levee tore away, and then Muppet ran and launched himself across the fissure. He reached the other side, falling to hands and knees, then picked himself up and began to run. “Run,” Jason advised. He clutched at branches and tried to stand. His head spun. He was whooping for breath. The breach in the levee widened again, the river shifting ten tons of stone as if it were foam packing. The flood burst through, a wall of water twenty feet high, six-foot wavecrests foaming at its top.
Muppet looked over his shoulder at the oncoming wall, and his stride increased. And then the foaming wall overtook him—Jason caught a brief glimpse of tumbling puppet limbs, a green helmet flashing in the brown water—and then his friend was gone.
Jason reeled down the face of the mound, but he knew it was too late to save Muppet—to save anyone. The flood waters raced on, a mass almost solid in t
he weight of its onslaught… the wave front gave a glancing blow to the shattered house on the end of the row, and the roof came apart under the impact, the pieces floating onward, piling into the flaming wreck of the Huntley house. Batman the dog gave a last wail, and was silent. The Huntley house came apart as well, turning into a wall of burning wreckage that surged up against Jason’s house.
“No,” Jason said. His Nikes splashed into water and he kept going, wading out into the rising flood. He watched his house dissolve, mingle with the flaming wreckage carried in by the flood. There was a bang as something exploded, and the fires spread. Jason paused as a surge of water lapped to his waist and almost took him off his feet. Tears spilled down his face, blurred his vision. Water tugged at his knees, and more waters were clearly coming.
Jason turned and began to claw his way back up the mound, grabbing handfuls of turf and hauling himself by the branches. The flood surged up to his waist, lifted him upward, toward a fallen elm that lay athwart his path. Jason reached for it, pulled, got a foot over the bole of the tree, and rolled over the tree onto dry ground.
He wiped tears from his eyes, sat up, and turned to see a clump of burning wreckage, all that remained of the five houses on his road, being carried on the flood toward the highway. Very little of the wreckage was even recognizable as belonging to the house that Jason had lived in.
His mind whirled. It had only been a few brief minutes since he had been standing atop the mound, watching his mother in the kitchen through the telescope. Now the kitchen was gone, and the house, even the field in which the house had stood.
There was a weird singing in his heart, a wail of loss and grief and shock. He couldn’t think what to do. He didn’t know whether to allow himself the hope that his mother might be alive. Alive and where? In the burning ruins?
The elm tree below his feet shifted in the current. Jason looked at the breaches in the levee, saw them wider than ever before. The Mississippi didn’t seem to be an inch lower than it had been: there were six-foot waves in both the breaches, and flying white scud. Eubanks’s cop car was perched on an island that was getting smaller by the second.
The Rift Page 19
