Natural Disaster (Book 1): Erupt

by Lou Cadle

  They stood on either side of the woman’s legs. Francie bent low and Chad mirrored her. He gripped the rough board edges and nodded to her that he was ready.

  “Okay,” Francie said to the woman. “If you feel any relief of the weight at all, try and scramble back. Push with your arms, not your legs.” She glanced at Chad to make sure he was ready. “On three. One. Two. Three.”

  Chad dug in and pushed with every muscle he could call on. His arms, his shoulders, his back, his thighs. Pushed and pushed, feeling the pain in his Achilles sharpen. His feet slid out from under him and he fell forward, cracking his jaw on the edge of the garage wall. Quickly, he rolled away from it, not wanting to put any more weight on the woman.

  “It didn’t move,” she said. “I’m sorry, but it didn’t move at all.” Her voice rose towards hysteria again.

  “It’s okay. It was a long shot, but we had to try,” said Francie, bent over, her hands braced on her thighs. Chad could see her breathing hard.

  He scrambled to his feet, resisting the urge to grab onto the garage wall to get upright. He was starting to really hate this slippery mud. “Maybe I can try lifting again and you can pull her.”

  Francie was shaking her head before he was done. “No, we shouldn’t have even tried that. This is not light search and rescue, and that’s our assignment.” She glanced at her watch. “We can try and crib the wall, break up that fence for the posts. But I don’t see anything sturdy enough for fulcrum or lever. And I hate taking time to search for it.”

  Chad agreed. Time was wasting.

  Francie said, “Ma’am, do you have a car here? With a jack in the trunk?”

  “Yes. In front of the house.”

  “Keys?”

  “They’re—wait.” Her hand disappeared under the mud, and she came out with a round glob of mud that must have been the keys. “Here.”

  Chad took them from her, shook off mud and wiped them on his shirt.

  “You go find her car, get the jack. While you’re gone, I’ll call to see if there’s a better-equipped rescue team available,” said Francie, pulling out her radio.

  He went around to the front of her house and saw no car. Further up the street, away from the river, three cars sat, twisted every which way by the initial push of the lahar. He tried the panic button on the electronic key, but nothing lit up. He went up and tried the key in one trunk with no success. Should have asked her what she drove. Her car might have been driven farther than this by the push of the lahar. But the second trunk yielded to the muddy key. He pushed aside a bunch of junk she had piled in there and tore out the liner to get to the spare tire. Twisting off the wing nuts that held it down, he got to the scissor jack. There was a tire iron too. Hell, the tire itself might be good for cribbing. Slamming the trunk, he put the keys into his pocket and hauled everything back, struggling with the weight in the mud.

  When he got there, Francie was sitting in the mud, pushing at something under the fallen wall with her legs. Her hands were braced on something else that he couldn’t see. Working with anything under the mud was working blind. He dropped the tire, set the tire iron to the side, and checked his watch again. Time was burning. “Okay, where do you want the jack?”

  “Can you shove that tire underneath the wall on your side?”

  Chad reached into the mud to measure the space with his hands. “No way.”

  “Okay, try the jack, then. Put it as close to her as you can for leverage, but not so close that if it slips it’ll hurt her.” Francie stood up and wiped her hands on the rear of her uniform pants, which were as muddy as her hands.

  He put the jack about four feet from the woman and tried to pump it up. It did not want to stay in place. The slippery mud was making everything far more complicated than it should be, and the minutes ticking away made it crucial that he not waste any one of them.

  He stood on the lip of the jack to keep it in place and tried again. A little better, but he felt like he was about two seconds from slipping off it and sprawling onto the woman. He gave a worried look to Francie.

  “Keep going,” she said. Her tone echoed his own concern—they shouldn’t be doing this with poor equipment, and they should be moving faster, but what else could they do?

  Pumping the handle, he started feeling some resistance. If he could keep it there long enough to get some of the weight of the wall on it, maybe the base of the jack would get driven past the mud and contact the ground. Just as he thought this, the jack slipped, sliding out from the fallen wall. The suddenness sent him off balance, too, and onto his rear end. Sitting in the mud, he set his teeth in frustration. He got back up.

  Letting the jack down a few inches, he pushed it back and began pumping again, one foot on the jack base, one back from it to brace himself the best he could in this awful footing. Again, he felt the weight of the wall start to resist him. He got one good stroke on the jack, two. Maybe it was starting to move. Again, the jack slipped out, this time clipping him in the shin. Ouch. “Time?” he said.

  “Keep going,” was all Francie said.

  The thought of the coming lahar made Chad feel desperate. “You want to try?”

  “I couldn’t do any better.”

  He focused his energy—all his will—on getting this jack to do the job. Teeth clamped stubbornly, he positioned the jack again and started pumping. When he felt resistance, he slowed down. He braced himself. One hard pump. Another.

  “It’s moving,” said the woman. “I can feel it!”

  “Get ready to help me get you out,” Francie said to her.

  Holding his breath, Chad gave the jack handle another slow pump.

  “One more,” said Francie.

  Chad lifted and pressed down on the metal handle, gripping it firm and steady. The wall made a sucking sound as it cleared the mud another fraction of an inch.

  Francie grunted with effort behind him. He focused solely on the jack, on his job of not letting it slide out, and he trusted Francie to do hers.

  He heard the woman make a sound, a laugh almost.

  Francie said, “We have her, Chad. Hang tight one second more, let me make sure she’s clear.”

  He stood his ground, not pumping, not turning his head to see their success, but just bracing the jack. The wall was still lifting on its own as it fought free of the glue of the mud. In another two seconds, Francie said, “Okay,” and Chad jumped back. The wall sank down as the jack slid out. He turned and saw the woman sitting up, free of the fallen wall, Francie checking her over as best she could. With the mud, it was impossible to assess physical damage very accurately. Typically, Francie would be patting her for broken bones and looking at her own hands to see if there were any blood transferred to them. All she’d see today was mud.

  He glanced at his watch. Not that they had much time for first aid if she found a problem. “We’re down to under thirty minutes,” he said.

  “I hate to do this, but we’re going to have to move you now,” Francie told the woman. “There’s another lahar—another wave of mud—coming.”

  “Oh my God, you mean if you hadn’t gotten me out…?” She trailed off.

  “Everything is okay now,” Chad said.

  “Can you walk?” said Francie.

  “You can’t carry me,” said the woman, struggling to stand. She gave a cry of pain and slid back down into the mud, Francie helping ease her down.

  “We can carry you,” said Chad. “And we will.”

  “Just get me into my house, onto the sofa.”

  “No,” said Francie. “We’ll get you out of here. You need to have those legs seen to, get some X-rays. Don’t worry.” She looked up at Chad and, even through the mud covering her face, he could see she was anxious.

  He wondered what she was seeing that he wasn’t, but he couldn’t ask her what it was in front of the victim. “Guess everyone else will have to evacuate themselves.”

  Francie said, “Run inside her house and find a lightweight chair. We’ll try to carry her
in that. Or get a blanket. No, both.”

  “There’s an afghan on the back of the sofa,” the woman said. “And the back door is unlocked.”

  “Great,” said Chad, taking off through the mud. Inside the house he found the afghan and slid it around his shoulders. The kitchen chairs weren’t right—they were some sleek design without any good place to hang onto. He sped through the rooms of the first floor and found an office, with a small wooden chair in the corner, maybe an antique. It was lightweight and had a ladder back, arms, and plenty of places to grip—perfect. He took it and ran out the back door. Skating his way through the mud to the women, he said, “Got it.”

  They decided Chad would start at the rear position, holding the back of the chair, the heavier part, and Francie would walk with a bottom dowel of the chair legs gripped in her hands behind her back. Chad gave the woman the afghan and told her to hang on tight to it—always give the victim something to do, that was the rule for a carry of a conscious person. On three, they lifted the woman into the chair. They lifted that, found their balance then carried her around to the front of her house and started up the muddy street.

  Twice in two blocks they had to set her down to rest. Twice Chad looked at his watch in increasing worry while Francie screamed out the evacuation warning to anyone who could hear and shook out her arms. At this rate, they would be racing the lahar to the edge of the flood zone. Maybe this second one wouldn’t come up as far. He would hope.

  Every muscle on Chad hurt when they picked up the injured woman again. His hands hurt. His thighs burned with the effort. His shin throbbed where the jack had hit it. He tried not to think about his painful Achilles.

  The third time they stopped to rest, Francie said, “We could use some help. Let me see if there’s anyone close now.” She walked away several steps to talk into the radio. She probably didn’t want to worry the woman with what she was saying.

  Chad was worried too. Some part of him wanted to give up, to get himself out of the way of the next lahar, to go curl up somewhere and baby his own injuries. But it was a small part of him, easily dismissed. They could and they would get the woman to safety.

  When Francie came back, she shook her head—no help coming—and motioned for him to take the chair again. He bent his knees and lifted. Each time he lifted her, the weight seemed greater. She wasn’t a big woman, and the chair wasn’t heavy, but the sticky mud was reluctant to let go and his fatigue and pain was making it harder each time to lift her clear.

  More precious minutes ticked off as they carried the woman another block. His wrecked Achilles kept sending him pain signals to stop, already. He couldn’t stop. He wouldn’t stop. He had to do one useful thing today.

  “I have to rest again,” said Francie.

  “Let’s keep going,” Chad said. “Force it.”

  “I’m sorry,” Francie said. “I can’t. I need to at least change my grip.”

  “Let’s figure out a way to have me take more of the weight then,” Chad said, reluctantly putting down the chair again.

  Francie said, “You’re already taking more than your share. Maybe we should try switching sides.” She swiped the back of her hand across her face, leaving another fresh streak of mud.

  The woman said, “I wish I could help somehow.”

  Chad managed a smile for her. “No ma’am, you don’t need to do a thing. You aren’t wriggling around or making it harder, so don’t fret. You’re doing your job perfect already.” He glanced at his watch. “Seven minutes. That what you have?”

  “Seven minutes?” the woman asked.

  Chad exchanged a glance with Francie, who took a breath and said, “The next lahar. Coming down the Sandy again right now, probably passing Gresham as we speak.”

  “Oh my god.”

  “We’re several blocks from the riverfront now, so we won’t get the worst of it.”

  “Should we just get up onto something?” Chad asked, checking his watch again. They couldn’t make it much further in that little time.

  Francie blew out a frustrated breath. “Yes.” Again, she called out an evacuation warning to anyone in the houses around them. Last chance, people. If you don’t leave now, it’ll be a while before you can.

  They struggled to pick up the chair one last time and headed toward a house that had three concrete steps leading up to a sizeable landing. Chad was trying to lift the chair high enough to clear a buried first step when the woman said, “Oh, no. Look.”

  Chad turned his head to look and saw the thing coming. Lighter gray than the mud that covered the street, it rolled in like an ocean wave far out from land, not breaking like surf, but a distinct high swell of mud. He could hear the thudding sound of mud-covered debris hitting trees and houses a half-block away. Crap. “Set her down,” he said to Francie. He bent, grabbed the woman under the knees and under an arm and said, “Hold on to me.” When she hesitated, he said, “Grab me around the neck.” Finally, she did, and he managed to lift her out of the chair. Forcing his knees to bend under the doubled weight, he got her up the stairs and said, “Hold on to something. It might not get to us up here on the stoop, but hang on just in case.” He lowered her to the stoop, his back straining as he bent the last couple feet to set her down.

  Francie was backing up the steps, pulling the chair up behind her when the lahar caught up to them. The front edge of the lahar passed by her, climbed up one, two, three steps in a heartbeat. Francie, still on the first step, staggered and grabbed for the delicate wrought iron railing. Chad reached around her to snatch up the chair before it could be spun away by the flood.

  A two-inch-thick chunk of attached boards lifted out of the mud like a breaching whale and slammed into Francie. Her fingers were torn from the railing. She flipped over backwards into the mud, the boards crashing onto her with a sickening thud.

  All this happened in less time than it took to blink. Chad again said to the woman, “Hang on.”

  In a single leap, he cleared the steps and plunged into the cold, churning mud, screaming for Francie. He couldn’t see her anywhere. His eyes couldn’t pick her out of the other debris swirling in the mudflow. “Francie!” he screamed again. Then a mud-coated hand lifted, only six or eight feet from him and his eyes resolved her form, her face, which still bobbed above the surface.

  The flow of the mud tugged at him like a rip current, but he fought it. Step by step, he battled across the flow. The lahar pulled Francie away from him. He pushed harder, closing the distance. He touched her hand. They grabbed each other’s wrists and he hung on, bracing himself against the current.

  Pulling for all he was worth, he was able to lift her further up, and her feet found purchase. As she got her feet under her, the strain on his arm eased.

  “Don’t let go of me,” she said.

  “I won’t.” The flood kept coming, wild and strong. He felt something thud off the back of his legs. He took the blow and stood firm. “We need to get out of the way of this debris,” he said.

  She nodded and he backed up toward the house, tugging her along. She was able to stand, but the force of the lahar kept lifting her lighter mass and he had to grab on hard to keep it from wrenching her away. Through sheer will, he got them back to the porch, behind the first step, the second. As he got behind the third step, he felt the power of the current lessen. A slow whirlpool spun in the corner he was aiming for. He pulled Francie until they both were behind the porch, tucked into the corner and as protected as they could be. He could feel Francie shivering. Only then did he realize how icy cold the fresh mud was.

  He caught the woman’s eyes up on the stoop. “Are you okay?” he asked her.

  “I’m fine. Are you both okay?”

  “I’m hurt,” said Francie. “That thing really got me in the gut, and I felt nails in it. I think I’m bleeding.” The mud in their corner reached her hips, and neither of them could tell if there was blood on her. Every bit of her but her head was covered with gray goo, like wet mortar.

 
“I’ll lift you onto the porch in a minute. Then you can rest.”

  “I don’t think I can help you much,” she said. “I’m weak as hell.”

  “Maybe you can slip between the rails there.” She was a slim woman.

  She felt the space then shook her head. “Not hardly. Just don’t let me float away, okay?”

  “Wrap your arm around one of those rails.” He did the same, hoping they were set firmly in the concrete of the stoop. The swirling mud still pulled at his legs. It reached nearly his hips now. It was to Francie’s waist. As he braced against the current, he thought of her open wounds, dirty nail wounds, and bacteria seeping in. She must be really hurt; she was a tough woman, but she was struggling now just to hold on. He reached around her with his free arm, grabbing a second railing, and caging her in against the porch.

  The woman on the porch with the injured legs was in more dire need. He knew—and he knew Francie knew—that crush injuries could very quickly become life-threatening, even if the patient seemed fine for now. Her blood chemistry was out of whack, and getting worse. Either her heart or kidneys could shut down at any time. He had to manage somehow, on his own, to get them both out of here and to medical treatment, and now.

  But until the current slowed, he couldn’t do a danged thing.

  “The radio!” he said. “Where’s the radio?”

  “On my waist. Under the mud now, I’m afraid.”

  So he couldn’t call for help. It was really all on him. And his wrists hurt, his thighs ached, and his Achilles was screaming in pain. He’d probably limp for life. But it didn’t matter, not if he could still manage to get the two injured women to help in time.

  “Ma’am,” he said to the woman. “I never did ask your name. I’m sorry. That was rude.”

  Both she and Francie laughed, but he couldn’t see why. The woman said, “I’m Alice Gilcrease.”

  Chad introduced himself and Francie. “We’ll get you out, Ms. Gilcrease, don’t worry. We’re all safe for now.”