Chapter 16
AJ
AJ was sitting at her desk in journalism class. She was working on a story about the campaign. It was hard to go down to the high school level. She was out in the adult world on the campaign and loving every minute of it. She wondered why she ever wanted to be popular with the bunch of babies at school. She was just born to be grown up. Zisa had said so.
"You will always be happier as an adult than you were as a child. Children are just not your cup of tea."
"Once again," AJ thought, "Zisa was right. "I don't really like kids. I never did. I guess I was always grown up inside."
AJ was thinking about Mitch as she wrote her article. He was in favor of formally delegating additional power to the UN. But he was also aware that the general public, and especially the right wingers, were just not ready for anything to openly global. So part of her new job was to prepare the generation getting ready to vote to accept globalism as an appropriate road to world peace and prosperity. That meant she had to write indirectly about globalism, but also favorably.
"Help me Zisa," she whispered softly.
As AJ worked on her news article, she stopped abruptly. She was suddenly uneasy. But the moment passed and she went back to writing. She had to finish the article by noon.
The article finished, AJ quickly emailed it to the editor of her high school newspaper, and the editors of high school newspapers across the state. She loved seeing all of them. This was a good article and AJ was expecting to make the front page on a couple of school papers. "Why not submit articles to state newspapers?" she wondered.
AJ was just about to congratulate herself on her idea when her she felt the floor move under her feet. She was surprised, but she knew immediately it was an earthquake. She thought she heard Zisa tell her to get to the door way and hang on. So she did.
She didn't know how long the quake lasted. It felt like a long time. Later she learned it was a 6.9 on the seismic scale.
When the building stopped shaking, AJ quickly went to the nearest exit. Fortunately, there were no injured in the hallways, although a few lockers had fallen off the wall. The building was relatively new, and structurally designed to take a small earthquake.
AJ didn't take time to access the damage to the school, or to anyone at the school. She got in her car and drove to campaign headquarters. It was chaos there, but the senator was ok. So was his wife. Then AJ thought she better show up at home and check on her mother.
Driving home was easy. She was already getting something on the news about the quake. The epicenter seemed to have been about 150 miles away - north of where Mal lived. She wondered vaguely if he was ok. It didn't concern her too much. He either was or he wasn't. Her world was fine. That was what mattered.
Malachi
As Mal drove his pick-up out of the mall parking lot Amelia was groaning in pain. She was conscious now and her mumbling was making more sense. "This can't be happening. I can't be injured in another accident before I fully recover from the car accident," she said. Then she said urgently, "Mal, call Belle. You have to get Belle on the phone."
"I'm trying honey. Don't worry." The lines are jammed. Everything is busy. I'm taking you to the hospital."
"Take me home. It isn't far. Maybe she is there. I think her classes were over around noon today. If she was home she might wait for us there. She won't know what to do either. Besides, I'm gonna barf. You have to stop the car."
"You are going to what?"
"Barf - It is probably a concussion. You throw up with those."
"Well, hang on, I'm taking a shortcut to your house."
Mal swerved around a tree, through a yard, and onto a side street. He was happy to have a four wheel drive vehicle. "Finally turned out to be good for something besides looking good," he thought grimly to himself.
The arrived at the house quickly. Belle was standing in the yard with the phone in her hand. At a glance the house looked ok. Belle ran to the pickup and immediately saw that Mal appeared ok while Amelia was oozing blood from a cut on her head.
"Amelia, oh baby, are you ok? Let's get you to the hospital," Belle said with a voice so quivery it was barely understandable.
"She thinks she has a concussion. She is very nauseated. Get in and we will drive. I don't think an ambulance would be able to get here any time soon."
"You better try to call Huey," Amelia said wearily.
"Huey? Who is Huey?" Mal asked. He didn't think Amelia even had a boyfriend.
"Huey is her physical therapist. He is also a nutritionist. He has really pulled her through a very rough time but I don't know why we need to call him now," Belle replied.
"Because I want HUEY," Amelia moaned.
"Must be her father figure replacement for dad," Belle thought. Aloud she said, "Don’t worry Amelia, I will call Huey and anyone else you want me to call."
"Mal was listening to the conversation, but most of his attention was on driving. The damage that he could see was not bad; it certainly was not total devastation like from the hurricane's that had hit the coast in the last few years. He wondered about fires from gas lines. Should they have checked the house before the headed for the hospital?" he silently questioned. ‘ Well, no time for that. Amelia was just too fragile. Why did she have to get hit on the head instead of me?’ he wondered.
As Mal drove toward the hospital he was trying to stay focused on the task of driving. He was going slowly. The roads were mostly clear, but he did have to drive around some fallen limbs and even a few trees. At one place the road actually seemed to drop down about three feet. That left an abrupt embankment. If a vehicle went over that there was a good possibility of actually standing the vehicle on its end. Mal looked around and drove through an adjoining parking lot that allowed passage past the break in the pavement. He had crossed several small bridges that were intact. The roads didn't appear to have any major damage other than the one drop. There were some cracks in the ground and pavement that might be worse than they looked at an initial glance.. There were several wrecks he had to avoid, but it didn't appear too bad. Many of the area power lines were underground so he wasn't seeing downed power lines. His thoughts kept returning to Amelia's words when the quake first started, "Oh - my first earthquake - a sign of the times." "What did she mean by that?" He wondered.
Of course the hospital was crowded. The ER was full of people with injuries and stories like Amelia's. Mal wondered what the damage was going to be. This was definitely not a designated earth quake zone. Probably no buildings had been built to any earthquake code. That could be bad. From high school geology he remembered that there would have been a center point for an earthquake. He thought it was called the epicenter. He wondered where it was. He tried to call his mom, but the phone lines were still jammed.
"Mal," Belle interrupted his thoughts, "Amelia is still insisting we call Huey. His name is Huey McKenzie. He has an office around the corner. I doubt he is there, but would you go see?
"Sure thing. I'll walk over," Mal agreed.
Mal felt comfortable leaving the women at the ER for a few moments. He quickly jogged around the block and looked for an office with the name Huey McKenzie on the door. He located the office quickly. It was empty. He turned to jog slowly back to the hospital when the thought struck him that major earthquakes sometimes had aftershocks. He stepped up the pace and arrived quickly but out of breath back at the ER.
Mal said, "The office was empty. He is probably fine. I didn't see any damage at a quick glance."
They sat quietly waiting their turn. "Why was an earthquake here?" Mal kept wondering. "I always thought we lived in one of the safest places on earth. We are really at the very edge of the tornado zone. We weren't supposed to be in an earthquake zone. We have enough elevation to not be in a flood zone. Enough rain to not have a lot of wildfires. What happened? Is anyone safe anywhere?" he questio
ned. ‘I guess there is not total safety this side of heaven,’ he answered himself.
"Mal, have you called your parents?" Belle interrupted his thoughts.
"I haven't been able to get through. I will try again.'
Mal punched in his mother’s number and this time the phone rang. Shelly answered on the first ring. "Mal is that you. Oh thank God. We are all fine. AJ just walked through the door."
Angels of Darkness
"Zisa, you are going to have to be careful with AJ. She is completely detached from her family at this point. She didn't even go home to check on them until she first checked on campaign headquarters," Cabiri said angrily.
"So what? I got a break. She was born with a narcissist personality," Zisa replied sarcastically.
"Well, watch it!" Cabiri screamed. "She has to at least appear to be normal and caring. She is useless to us otherwise."
"Don't worry. We can fool most of the people. She will learn how to appear sincere. It isn't that hard."
Angels of Light
Raphael was a bit surprised. "Huey and Amelia? he wondered. She is not quite 18 and Huey is past 30. But, stranger things have happened. Amelia is pretty mature for her age.
Raphael was also frustrated. He was almost continually asking the Good Shepherd to send more guardians for those he was assigned to watch over, and to build a protective hedge around them. Ashamed, Raphael realized he was looking at Amelia's injury wrong. He should be thankful she had avoided serious injury instead of being upset that she had a mild concussion. And none of his other charges were injured. It was a good day after all.
He wondered, "What would happen if people just prayed every day for God to send more angels to watch over them and their family and loved ones?" He thought he knew the answer. He thought it would change the world for the better.
Choosing Soul Wars Trilogy Book One Page 22
