by Amy Berg
I shoved those thoughts away. I had a job to do. People on the street had seen the ambulance and were heading our way, seeking medical attention and information about the quake. How strong was it? Was there a lot of damage? Why wouldn’t their phones work? We had precious little information to give, only what Alex could gather on the radio. The quake was estimated at 6.5 on the Richter scale, and the epicenter was somewhere east of downtown. That was it. No word on emergency response. No message for me.
I was removing a shard of glass from a girl’s arm when a stocky, middle-aged woman pushed her way through the waiting patients. “You have to help me!” she insisted. “He’s trapped!”
“Who’s trapped?” I asked.
“My brother. He lives in that building,” she said urgently.
I finished extracting the glass and taped a square of gauze over the wound. Then I turned to the woman. Her name, I learned later, was Bianca. “Where is he?”
She took my arm and pulled me to a section of the collapsed building, where there was a gap between chunks of concrete. She leaned in and shouted, “Manuel!”
A faint voice issued from the opening. “Get me out!”
“I’m a paramedic,” I called to the man. “Can you move?”
“My legs are trapped!” he yelled back. “Help me!”
“We will,” I promised, not quite sure how. Manuel was buried under a two story mountain of debris that would take some serious equipment to remove.
I went to Alex. “How soon can we get a heavy rescue crew?”
He relayed this request to the dispatcher, who informed us that calls were coming in from all over the city and every crew was already occupied. She would put us on the waiting list, and, no, she couldn’t tell us how long the wait would be. Translation: very long.
“So what are we supposed to do in the meanwhile?” I demanded of Alex and Davis. “Just leave him there?”
“Nothing else we can do,” said Davis, in that calm, reasonable tone that patients always found so comforting. I didn’t.
I returned to the pile of debris. Bianca looked up at me hopefully. I knelt beside her and shouted into the opening, “Manuel. Can you tell me about your injuries?”
“I know my legs are hurt, but I can’t see them. They’re under a lot of bricks,” he told me.
I tried to imagine the scene. “Can you move the bricks? Enough to pull your legs out?”
He let out a short, pained laugh. “I can’t even reach them. I’m on my stomach and I can’t fucking move!”
I considered the gap between the concrete chunks. It was big enough for a person to fit through. I pulled out my mini-flashlight and shone it through the opening. A rough passageway extended at least ten feet into the rubble. A splintered piece of plywood obscured the rest.
“I see light!” shouted Manuel. The flashlight beam was shining through the cracks in the plywood, all the way to Manuel. There had to be at least a small, clear path. I should be able to reach him. Last year, I had taken a month of urban search and rescue training. I just needed to remember what the hell I’d learned.
The earth trembled again. The aftershock wasn’t as strong as the initial jolt, but just as frightening. A few people screamed. Some dropped into a protective huddle, arms shielding their heads. The big pile of rubble shifted and settled. From within it, Manuel cried out in pain.
I shouted into the opening. “Manuel? Are you all right?”
“No!” he yelled. “I’m under a fucking building.”
I went to my colleagues. “We have to get him out. I think I can reach him.”
Davis disagreed. “It’s too dangerous. We need to wait for heavy rescue.”
“Do you know how long that could take?” I demanded. “He probably has crush injuries to both legs. He needs treatment. Now.”
He was unmoved. “I’m sorry. We wait.”
I looked to Alex, who wanted no part of this debate. “We wait,” he echoed.
I paced. Technically, Davis is the senior guy on our crew. But that doesn’t make him my boss. Technically. So I simply said, “No.”
I climbed into the back of the ambulance and started looking for supplies. We had to have tools in here somewhere.
“Erin…” Davis began, coming up beside me.
“We can’t wait. That whole thing is going to collapse on him,” I argued.
“And you, if you go in there,” he pointed out.
I opened a wall cabinet and found only bandages and gauze. “It’s dangerous. I accept that. You want me to sign a waiver or something?”
“I want to save the guy, too. Sometimes, we just can’t.” He caught my arm and made me look at him. “You know that.”
I did. This was a stupid risk. But I couldn’t walk away. When I talked with the man under the building, I didn’t hear Manuel. I heard Jeff, trapped alone somewhere, waiting for a rescue that didn’t come. I knew perfectly well how unlikely that was. He was probably fine. Even if he wasn’t, I couldn’t help him by risking my life to rescue a stranger. But, as crazy as it was, giving up on one man felt like giving up on both. I wasn’t ready to do that.
“You know what I could really use? A crowbar.” I pulled away from Davis and opened a hatch in the floor. Bingo. A spare tire and everything you need to change it out. The car jack was too bulky to carry with me, but the jack handle would work as a substitute crowbar. I took it.
I checked in with Alex one more time, in the faint hope that he would tell me a heavy rescue crew was already on its way. Or, maybe, that my husband was alive. Nothing.
I went back to the pile of debris. Bianca was sitting by the opening, talking to Manuel, reassuring him that he’d be saved. I crouched beside her and called to him. “Manuel, I’m coming.”
“Wait.” It was Davis, striding toward me with a long coil of nylon rope. I didn’t think he would actually tie me up to stop me. Would he? He handed me one end of the rope. “At least put on a safety line.”
“Right.” I took the rope and threaded it through my belt loops. My search and rescue instructors had insisted on safety lines for every exercise. They had also insisted on safety helmets. We didn’t carry helmets in the ambulance. We weren’t supposed to do anything that required them.
I tied the rope at my waist and turned to Davis. “Thanks.”
There was nothing left to do but do it. I slid the metal jack handle down the back of my shirt, leaving my hands free as I climbed into the small opening. I crawled forward over uneven debris, choosing the most stable-looking spots to put my weight. There was a large slab of concrete overhead, forming the roof of this little tunnel. I tried not to think of the mountain of rubble on top of that. Which was like trying not to think of an elephant. You can’t help it.
Sunlight shone in from behind me, growing fainter as I went further in. I pulled the mini-flashlight from my pocket and held it in my mouth as I pushed forward. It was even hotter in here than it had been outside. I was sweating heavily. I had to stop every so often to wipe my forehead against the sleeve of my T-shirt.
Then I put my hand on an unstable pile of rocks, which collapsed under my weight. I slipped, smacking my chin against a piece of steel rebar. My teeth chomped down on the little flashlight and I let out a squawk of pain.
“Erin? You okay?” Davis asked immediately.
I spit out the flashlight, along with a bloody chunk of tooth, and answered, “I’m fine.” Davis was right. This was insane. The smart thing to do was turn around and get out. Sure, I could do that. Manuel couldn’t.
It occurred to me to check on him. “Manuel?” I shouted.
“Yeah?” he answered. His voice sounded tired. It also sounded close.
“Hang on, all right? I’m almost there.” He didn’t respond. I put the mini-flashlight between my left thumb and forefinger and continued to crawl. The final stretch was really tight. I had to turn on my side and use my legs to push myself a couple of inches at a time. If this guy was pudgy, we were in trouble.
I em
erged into a somewhat larger space, maybe the size of a small bathroom. It felt huge. The ceiling of this room had mostly collapsed, but Manuel had been lucky. The exterior walls of the building were made of solid brick. He was in an end unit where two of those walls met. That corner had been strong enough to stay standing during the earthquake, and hold up part of the ceiling as it fell in, creating this cozy, survivable void.
But another section of the brick wall had failed. It had toppled into Manuel’s apartment, crushing his legs. I found him lying on his stomach, the lower part of his body buried under a pile of bricks. His size wouldn’t be an issue. The man was positively scrawny.
He looked up at me, his face taut with pain. I took his hand. “I’m Erin. I’m going to get you out of here.”
Manuel squeezed my hand. “Thank you.”
I glanced over the visible part of his body but saw no major damage. Then I turned to the rubble covering his legs. I pulled away some loose bricks, but the real problem was a solid piece of wall, about two feet tall and three feet wide. It wasn’t huge, but very heavy. Which is why I had brought my improvised crowbar. I pulled it from the back of my shirt.
The next aftershock was a strong one. As the mountain of debris rumbled ominously around us, I threw my body over Manuel’s. A chunk of plaster hit my back, doing no real damage. A larger piece of concrete landed inches from my head.
“It’s all right, we’re all right,” I said, reassuring both my patient and myself. Manuel’s lips moved in rapid, silent prayer.
Then everything went still. I straightened up, feeling the bruise on my back, but nothing worse. “Are you okay?” I asked Manuel. “Relatively speaking.”
He nodded, but his movements were slow and his eyes looked bleary. He was fading.
Davis shouted from outside. “Erin?”
I called back, “We’re okay.” For now, I couldn’t help thinking. We had to get moving.
I looked around for something I could use as a fulcrum. There was a wealth of choices in the debris. I picked up a piece of concrete and placed it near the brick wall.
“I’m going to lift that chunk of wall, and you’re going to pull your legs out,” I told Manuel.
He looked dubious. “Lift it?”
I held up the jack handle. “With this.” I wedged one end under the brick wall and leaned it against the fulcrum. “Give me a lever and I can move the world, right?”
That won me a faint smile. “On the count of three, I lift and you pull,” I said. He nodded. “Are you ready?” Another nod. “One…two…three!”
On the last word, I pushed down on the handle with all the force I could muster, throwing my whole weight on it. The wall lifted a couple of inches, then a little more. It was all I could do.
It was enough. Manuel reached down and hauled his damaged legs out of harm’s way, crying out in pain as he did. When he was clear, I let go of the handle and the heavy wall crashed again.
“Still okay,” I called to Davis, anticipating his reaction to the sound.
I turned back to Manuel, and for a horrible moment, I thought he was dead. I quickly touched his neck and felt a pulse. I could see him breathing. He had passed out from the effort and pain. I couldn’t blame him.
Manuel’s jeans were torn and soaked with blood. His left leg seemed to have gotten the worst of it. A broken bone jutted from an open wound below the knee, and his foot dangled loosely from the ankle. To have any chance of saving the leg, he needed a hospital. Now.
First, I had to get him out of this concrete tomb. Could I back my way through the narrow tunnel and drag him along with me? Even if I could manage it, which I doubted, it would be excruciatingly slow. Then I remembered I had a lifeline. A literal line of rope connecting me to safety. I untied the nylon rope from my waist. Then I looped it around Manuel’s chest, under the armpits, and secured it with an extra knot, just to be safe.
I shouted to Davis. “He’s unconscious. I need you to pull him out.”
A moment as he considered this. “Okay. We can use the…”
“Safety line,” I concluded. “Already tied and good to go. Good thing I brought it.”
I heard his laugh through the rocky passageway, then some faint shouts as he recruited help. I maneuvered my patient into position and told Davis to pull. They did, and Manuel slid backward, into the tunnel.
I climbed in after him. As Davis and his crew slowly dragged him across the rocks, I tried to protect his shattered legs from even more damage. When his shoulders got stuck in a narrow passage, I turned his body to get him through. I checked his pulse every so often, just to be sure he still had one. I couldn’t bear the thought of getting him this far only to lose him now.
Now I could see sunlight, growing steadily brighter as we approached the outside world. We were tantalizingly close when another aftershock hit. I immediately put my arms over the back of my head and neck. After today, I would probably do it in my sleep.
The shaking wasn’t that strong, but it triggered a disturbingly loud “crack” as something in the rubble above me broke. A flood of detritus poured in—shards of crockery, broken bits of furniture, all manner of smashed junk from the apartments above. It quickly filled the passageway, blocking the light. I couldn’t see Manuel. I pushed through the avalanche, head down, reaching out blindly to find him.
Then another hand closed over mine. Someone else grabbed my wrist. And they were pulling me forward, into the bright, wide open day. “Are you okay?” asked a young woman in UCLA sweats.
“I think so,” I said, looking at the strangers around me. “Thanks.”
Then I saw Bianca, standing by the ambulance, looking anxiously into the back. I hurried over. Manuel was in there, lying on a stretcher, while Davis tended to his legs. “Will he be all right?” I asked.
“He’s going to live,” Davis answered. “And he’s going to owe you big-time.”
Bianca threw her arms around me. “Thank you. Thank you.” She repeated it a few more times before releasing me.
I smiled at her. “You’re welcome.”
There was one more person I had to see. I found Alex in the front cab, radio in hand, listening to the latest reports. “Have you heard anything—?” I began.
“Jeff checked in with the station,” Alex told me. “He’s fine. He’ll meet you there.”
The rush of relief was like a physical force, driving the breath out of me. I heard the back doors of the ambulance close, and Alex was saying, “Hop in. We need to get your guy to the hospital.”
I got in the front seat beside him. Then we were moving, lights and siren on full blast. We passed more earthquake damage. There would be a lot of work ahead. But my guy was going to make it. We both were.
About The Author
Lisa Klink started her career in the world of Star Trek, writing for Deep Space Nine and Voyager before coming back to Earth for shows like Martial Law and Missing. She has also written two issues of Batman comics and the Borg Invasion: 4D attraction in Las Vegas. Lisa has recently ventured into the novel universe, with three books in the Dead Man series published by Amazon. She is also a five time champion on Jeopardy, ending her run with an ironic flourish by missing a Final Jeopardy question about Women Authors.
Check out Lisa's Dead Man novels on Amazon.
“Suzie Homemaker/Apocalypse Ass Kicker”
by Pang-Ni Landrum
"Faster! Faster!” screams the frantic Beverly Hills-bred woman sitting in the threadbare passenger seat of Suzie’s late 90’s minivan.
If Suzie weren’t so fond of Jenn, she would clock her. Even after everything they’ve been through in the last hour, the woman still looks as though she walked fresh off a photo shoot. Then again, if it weren’t for Jenn, Suzie wouldn’t be zipping through the Hollywood Hills escaping from a horde of rabid zombie-fied animals.
Suzie knew she should’ve said no last Friday when, at their morning workout (aka, the-kids-wreak-havoc-in-the-gym’s-daycare-while-the-moms-hang-at-the-juice-bar-
getting-their-caffeine-on) Jenn uttered those two dreaded words: Book. Club.
“It’ll be fun!” she had said. And meant it.
Much to Suzie’s hermit-favoring chagrin, her friend had yet to be wrong when it came to planned excursions—from traipsing the city on walking food tours (eight doughnut shops in three hours!) to sunset margarita horseback rides (drunk on a mountain trail!).
On the outside, their pairing makes no sense. Jenn works full time, gets weekly facials, and eats vegan, while Suzie’s a stay-at-home mom, hails from (gasp) The Valley, and slow-cooks ribs that would make the most jaded cowboy cry. They both lack a tolerance for assholes, however, and that’s a bond for life in Suzie’s book.
“Plus,” Jenn had said that morning, “the hostess is besties with the head of the preschool we want Holden to get into.”
Oh, no. She did NOT just play the kid card. “Not to mention,” admitted Jenn, giving her best puppy-dog eyes, “I really don’t want to do this alone.” Dammit.
“Look out!”
Perfectly toned and spray-tanned arms thrust out from behind Suzie and grab hold of the wheel. The minivan swerves violently. She regains control. Suzie whips around to the bottled blonde with strategically placed highlights and exposed roots sitting in the backseat, “Amber, what the fuck?!”
“You almost hit that coyote!” screamed Amber.
Better it than us. An inhuman screech grows closer. Amber whimpers and asks, “What do you think happened to the others?”
Suzie, face unreadable, “I don’t know.”
Suzie never imagined the end would come in the form of a needy squirrel. The night had begun with six women. Now just Jenn, Amber and Suzie remain. Not through any fault of Suzie’s. She’d told the others to run.