by Lou Cadle
“Maybe they’ll find diamonds or gold.”
“Maybe.” Greg didn’t know if they could stop that sort of thing from happening. He pointed. “This is my place, I think.”
They were standing in front of a decimated area. Nothing stood to help him identify his house.
“I’m sorry, man.”
“I’m not upset,” Greg said.
“Why not?” Higgins asked. “I would be.”
“If Holly is okay, I’d happily trade the house for that.”
“I wish it worked that way.”
Greg knew it didn’t. But he couldn’t mourn a TV or a spare uniform or a box of zip drive discs from his college computer. Beds and chairs and plates could be replaced. His house insurance was paid up. If they didn’t screw him too badly, he could rebuild.
But without Holly, would he want to? He swallowed past a tight throat.
“Do you want to look for anything? Pictures, or…?”
“No. Not while there are still people who might be saved.”
“We haven’t seen any today.”
“Last one I saw was in the middle of the night. How about you?”
“Around 11, I think, last night, we pulled someone out of a smashed car.”
They did not look at each other. Both were probably thinking the same thing. With every hour, the chances of finding anyone still alive were fading.
“Let’s radio in to see if they’ve organized something for lunch. Then work our way back from here to where we stopped.”
“Sounds good.”
They were sent to the Central school location to meet Guardsmen who had food for the rescue workers.
“Easier to walk, or drive?” asked Higgins.
“Either way, but….”
“What?”
“I’d just as soon not go there. Would you mind carrying back a meal to me again? I’ll keep looking around here while you’re gone.”
Greg did all the rescue work he could alone, avoiding lifting or moving anything too heavy. He helped a single woman, middle-aged, move some of the debris from her home site.
“It’s like moving day all over again,” she said, puffing with the effort of moving a king-sized mattress.
“Hadn’t thought of that, but you’re right,” he said. “Is this your bed?”
“Nope,” she said, and bent to comb through a pile of broken kitchen things that had been beneath it. “These are all mine. They were all in a cabinet.”
There was no cabinetry around. Seemed odd something light like these dishes would be here while a whole row of kitchen cabinets were gone.
It was odd, but hardly the oddest thing he had seen that morning. All over there were freakish sights. Cars crushed better than the junkyard could do it. A fork driven into the side of a refrigerator. Two-by-sixes shoved through car doors. He had found a small birdcage earlier, its door closed. The bird was missing, but the birdseed was miraculously still in the little plastic cup. He wondered if the bird had been out of the cage when it started, or if the wind had blown it right through the bars of the cage.
Higgins returned with sandwiches wrapped in paper and cans of Vernors. They found a couple of pressed concrete blocks, and used them as chairs. They stripped off their work gloves and ate the sandwiches in silence.
Greg’s was salami, ham, and provolone with pepperoncinis and oil and vinegar on a hard white roll. Salty and rich and filling. A couple of bags of crushed potato chips had come with them. He tried to tear his open, but it wouldn’t budge. Higgins offered up the bolt cutters, which seemed overkill, but there was no way to open a bag of chips without some tool. Upending the bag into his mouth, he ate the chip fragments and washed it down with the ginger ale.
“Back to it,” he said, standing up. Damn, but his weapon was feeling heavy on his hip. The radio counterbalanced it to an extent. He re-cinched the belt. He swore he had lost weight in just a day.
Higgins was a few bites behind. He crammed the last of his sandwich into his mouth, wiped his hands on his pants, dusted the concrete dust off the seat of his pants, adjusted his belt, and pulled on his gloves again.
They followed the street they were on northward. This time, some of the people they ran into were unauthorized, disaster tourists taking video. They sent them on their way. Higgins was about to chase a couple of other men off when Greg recognized the guy with the camera.
“Wait,” he said. “Aren’t you the storm chasers?”
“Yeah,” said the shorter of the two, the one without the camera. “Captain T at your service. That’s T for tornado.”
“You have a real name?”
“Joel,” he said, a little sheepishly.
“I’m the one you ran into outside of town yesterday.” Yesterday? It seemed like a year ago.
“Oh right. Sorry about your car, man. We’ll pay for the damage.”
Greg waved it off. “It was in the second tornado. That little dent isn’t one percent of the damage it has now.”
“Wow. But you made it?”
“Barely. Underground.” He didn’t want to think of it again. If he could get those moments when Holly was snatched from his arms erased from his mind, he’d have the surgery or take the pill or suffer whatever indignity to get it erased.
“You okay?” said the chaser.
“Fine. Why aren’t you guys chasing today?”
“It’s only spinning out a few, F1s at worst, in Pennsylvania. Yesterday was a bona fide outbreak, a swarm of F5s from Indiana right on through Ohio. You got the worst of it.”
“Lucky us,” said Higgins. “I get that you’re experienced at it. But you still shouldn’t be in here.”
“You shouldn’t bother the victims,” Greg said. “Their lives are hard enough right now.”
“Sometimes, it helps them to talk about it.”
It wouldn’t help him. “Just stay out at the edges, okay?”
“Can we interview you two?” said the videographer.
“We have to try and find survivors,” said Higgins.
“Maybe later,” said Greg. “If you guys happen to get any video of crimes—looting, in particular—would you let us have that?”
“Sure.”
“If you do that, then I’ll give you an interview later. About sunset, if you’re still around.”
“We will be.”
Higgins and Greg went on to the next street, booted out more disaster tourists, and started hunting through the rubble for survivors again. This was one of those areas like on the overhead view, where a few houses still stood.
Higgins pointed out the curved path of destruction. “I think that’s one of those little twisters that you see on the side of the big ones.”
“Yeah?” Greg squinted and tried to imagine that.
“I was out of both of them, but working on the south side when the second one hit. We could see it really clearly across the damage zone, but we couldn’t do a damned thing about it.” He kicked at a fourteen-foot chunk of lumber, a four-by-four. “Help me lift this. Watch the nails there.”
“Always,” Greg said, thinking about the puncture in his palm, which was still sore, hot and achy. “Damn,” he said. “I forgot to get a tetanus shot at the hospital.” Then he shook his head. “Nah, it would have taken forever. The place was a zoo.” He thought of Holly lying there in the hospital. Thank God for Sherryl. He wondered if Holly was awake yet, asking for him. He wondered if she had taken a turn for the worse. What if she was in surgery?
“Hey. You with me?”
“Sorry. I got distracted,” Greg said, and turned his attention back to the board. They lifted together and moved the board to the edge of the street.
They both got down on their hands and knees and peered into an opening that the board’s removal had left. Higgins got out his Maglite and flipped it on.
Greg saw a curved shape. It took a moment to recognize it as a human arm. “I think we have another body.”
Then, to his amazement, the arm moved. “Holy
shit,” he said. “Survivor.”
Higgins began tossing lightweight debris over his shoulder. Boards, pipes, and bits of furniture blocked their way.
Greg glanced over his shoulder and saw more disaster tourists wandering up the block, a couple in their 20’s, shooting video on a phone. “Hey, you two!” he said, waving them over.
“What?”
“Put that phone down and get over here,” he said.
The man with the camera hesitated, but the woman came.
“You live here?”
“South of town about a mile.” She named the nicer trailer park in town.
“You’re being recruited as volunteers, both of you, for a minute. As we clear this junk out, carry it ten feet away. Get it out of our way.”
The man lifted the camera phone again.
“Put that damn thing down, or I’m going to—to confiscate it,” he said, deciding that sounded more professional than “cram it up your ass,” which is what he wanted to say.
“Gee, I was just—”
“Just help. A life depends on it.”
The woman was already picking up a pair of bricks and walking them several feet away. She dropped them with a clank.
“Watch out for nails. Any board, assume nails, screws, splinters. And watch for broken glass,” Greg said. He waited until the man pocketed his phone, then he worked with Higgins to clear enough debris to allow them access to the injured person.
They had to move a pile of stuff about eight feet by four feet before light shone in and struck the injured person, allowing Greg to see it was a woman. She was so covered with dirt and mud and smaller debris that he couldn’t guess at her age. She was on her side, her face half-hidden. “Ma’am?” he called down. “Can you hear us?”
No answer.
“Can you reach her?” he asked Higgins.
“Hang on to my belt. I’ll see.” He pulled a piece of particle board over and lay on it, then wriggled forward until his top half was hanging over the open space. He reached down, and Greg had to pull back to keep him from sliding in on top of the woman.
“Not quite,” he said, scrambling to his feet. “We have to clear out a little more, and then there’s a space I think one of us can stand. I think this is a crawlspace she’s in, not a basement. There’s concrete under her, but it’s only a few feet down.”
Higgins pushed the particle board back and began pulling more bits of junk out of the hole. A lamp base, a Big Wheel truck, a satchel. Greg worked by his side, pulling out a computer printer, a saucepan, and bits of aluminum too mangled to identify.
Behind him, the tourist couple talked quietly together as they cleared the debris further back.
“I think I can get down,” said Higgins. “Can you lower me?”
“I think I’m lighter than you,” said Greg. “Mind doing it the other way?”
“Fine.” He turned to the woman. “Hey, see that duffle bag over there by the street? That’s mine. There’s a first aid kit in it. Bring that over in case we need it, would you?”
“Sure,” said the woman, hurrying off. The man came around to watch as Higgins lowered Greg into the hole, feet first.
As he was lowered slowly, he felt with the toes of his shoes for the concrete, making sure he wasn’t landing on some part of the injured woman. “Okay, let go.” He fell the last few inches and felt his soles slap the hard concrete of the crawlspace. He turned and bent over the woman. He was blocking his own light. Fumbling his flashlight out of his belt, he turned it on and shone it on her face.
“How is she?”
“Not moving any more. I’m checking,” Greg said. He felt the neck for a pulse. Her skin was caked with dried mud. He had to flake a bunch of it off. He tried again for a pulse, moved his fingers, tried again, flaked more mud off, and finally felt the beat of a heart. “She’s alive,” he called up.
“Responsive?”
“Not yet,” he said. “We need EMT, rescue. I don’t want to move her.”
“Visible injuries?”
“I’m seeing scratches, a bit of dried blood.” He picked up his flashlight and ran the beam along the body. “Nothing obvious.”
“Try to get her to respond.”
Greg shone the flashlight in her face. With his other hand, he tapped her on the shoulder. “Ma’am? Ma’am, can you hear me?” Nothing. He leaned down and barked, “Hey!”
She moved her arm. Not much, maybe an inch, but it was something.
“What’s your name?” he said.
No answer.
Greg looked up and called to Higgins. “She moved again, but she’s not talking.” Just then a mini landslide of dirt fell into his face. He turned and spat.
“Damn you!” Higgins was saying. “Back off. And get that damned phone—no, wait.”
Greg heard Higgins stomping around, then a scuffle. The sightseer’s voice saying “Hey, you can’t do that.”
“I’m confiscating this. Now go home.”
“It’s my phone.”
“It’ll be at the police station, waiting for you. When there is a police station again.”
“You can’t—”
“I can and I have. Now both of you, get. And let the grownups do their grownup jobs.”
“I’ll report you!”
“Knock yourself out,” Higgins said.
Greg saw his shadow, and then he was leaning over. “You hear that?”
“Yeah. I’d have done the same.”
“I’ll probably get a reprimand.”
“Join the club. Rosemary’s pissed at me, too. EMTs here yet?”
His shadow moved. “No sign of them. You want me to help you out of there?”
“I’m not able to do anything for her, so I may as well clear out so the EMTs can get in quicker.”
“Here, give me your hands.”
Greg stretched up as far as he could and Higgins got hold of his wrists. He was strong, bigger and broader than Greg, and all Greg had to do was suffer the pain in his shoulders while he was dragged up. His foot hit something solid and he was able to put it down to take the strain off both of them as he was hauled up the last few inches.
“Whew!”
“Good job,” Greg said. “You must lift weights.”
“Not a bit. My girlfriend has horses, so I throw some bales of hay around every weekend.”
“I didn’t know that. Did her horses make it okay through the storm?”
“Hers did, but she’s out today helping rescue other lost animals. Or recovering their bodies and trying to get the information to the owner.”
“That’s nice.” He tried to imagine his ex doing something like that and failed. He had to admit, he had chosen a wife badly. And now Holly had to pay.
He looked around and saw a new couple wandering down the street. “I’ll check them,” he said, walking over to intercept them.
The man glanced at him, said something to the woman, and they pivoted and took off running, the woman clasping a big shoulder bag to her hip.
“Stop! Police!” he said. As if they didn’t know by his vest. Over his shoulder, he called, “Wait for the EMT. I’m in pursuit.”
“I’ll radio it in,” Higgins said.
Greg took off after the couple. They were having trouble negotiating the debris-filled street. Trouble was, so was he. Seemed like everything underfoot was trying to trip him up.
The couple was more than a half a block ahead of him. They turned left, up Seventh Street. When he made the turn, he saw they had gotten even further ahead through a clear patch. He put on speed and raced after them.
The gap between them decreased. He was thinking he’d catch up in another half-block when a resident stood up on the right side from looking through the ruins of his house, glanced at the scene, and pulled a gun out, a replica—or authentic—19th century Colt, from the looks of it, and aimed it at the fleeing suspects.
“Don’t!” Greg cried, just as the man shot.
Either he was a crappy shot or a v
ery good one trying to miss, for the round seemed to pass in front of the couple and they skidded to a halt—or the man did. The woman skidded and went down as if she were sliding into second base.
Greg stopped, drew out his service Glock, and yelled, “Drop your weapon, sir.”
The man didn’t drop it, but he lowered it. “Are they looters?”
“I don’t know what they are yet. Please, drop your weapon, or I can’t move toward them.”
The man looked at the couple, back at Greg, shrugged, and set the big pistol on the ground.
“Step away from it,” Greg said.
Just then, the male suspect regained his feet and began to run again.
Greg knew the regulations, but he thought, screw it, and he fired his weapon into a mattress not far from the woman. “Both of you, stop. Hands on your head.”
The man did, but the woman’s bag was caught on something and she was trying to wrestle it free.
“Ma’am, I’m losing patience. Hands on your head, now.” He glanced to the Colt owner, to make sure he hadn’t decided to involve himself again. He stood with folded arms and an angry expression.
Greg had three points of concern, too far away from each other. He circled around to the left of the woman, at the same time telling the man. “Slowly, you walk back over here to your associate.”
By the time he had, Greg had the two of them and the gun-toting citizen in the same general direction, but not in a straight line. He needed to be able to shoot any one of them if, God forbid, things went south.
“Okay, you two, get down on your bellies. Hands on the back of your head.”
“Us?” the man said in a fake innocent voice.
“You,” said Greg, through gritted teeth. He had never shot anyone in the line of duty, but he was sorely tempted to right now. “Faster. I’m tired and I’m in a bad mood.”
They got down and Greg cautiously made his way forward, keeping the gun trained on them. Out of the corner of his eye, the man took a step toward his Colt.
“Don’t. Sir, stay where you are.”
“I could help.”
“You’re not helping. Just back away from that weapon. Let me do my job.”
“I know what I’m doing. I have training.”
“Then you should know not to interfere with me right now.”
