Saving Rose

by Kate Genet

  It sent him spinning away and he could feel his arms wind-milling through the air, the breeze cold on his fingers as he tried to keep his balance. He blinked through sudden clammy sweat and widened his eyes as he saw Zoe’s little red car bouncing up and down on its shocks like the road was a trampoline.

  Something in the world shifted and it was an alien place he stood in, and no matter how he blinked the sweat out of his eyes, he couldn’t understand any of it.

  Time stretched out to a thin thread, balancing on a knife’s edge until he could only see through a pinpoint hole and he opened his mouth in a scream he couldn’t hear.

  Something he didn’t understand was happening and he stumbled backwards, his heart hammering against his ribs hard enough to burst. He clutched a hand against it, heaving in a wrenching breath, stumbling again, legs boneless, made of rubber, letting him down, falling him to the ground where he curled up knees to chest and whimpered as concrete and bricks rained in slow motion from the sky. He watched them bounce on the bonnet of Zoe’s car. Watched the windscreen shatter, little diamonds of greenish glass hanging in the air for extended moments before exploding in every direction. The red roof flattened over the place where his wife had been only a seconds before and he scrabbled backwards on the ground, trying to get away, trying to find somewhere safe, trying to outlive his own death.

  Sound flooded suddenly back into the world and with a hitching judder, the day slipped back onto its tracks, time expanding again with a popping sound he heard between his ears along with another noise it took longer to recognise. It was his own voice, hoarse and afraid, screaming out into the dust and debris filling the air around him.

  He collapsed into a fit of coughing, throat coated in dust, and rolled onto his back to stare gritty-eyed at a sky that existed grey and red and hellish where a moment before had been the old-fashioned overhang of the bakery. The world had dislocated, and he clamped down on the sudden pressure in his bladder, gasping, trying to reassert some control over himself. It took what seemed like years.

  Heaving himself onto hands and knees, he spat out red and grey grit.

  All around him sirens howled out their electronic warnings, high-pitched and insistent. He got to his knees, testing them gingerly, swaying a moment where he stood as though the earth still moved underneath his feet, then he wiped his mouth with a shaking hand and stared unbelievingly around him.

  The world had fallen down.

  ‘Rose,’ he croaked, stumbling out onto the road behind the car. There was no getting to her on the footpath side. There was no footpath anymore, just a tumble of masonry as though some giant in a vindictive mood had swept his fist down on the face of the old shop, spilling its bricks like Lego blocks.

  ‘Rose!’

  He had to get the little girl out of the car. Swaying in the middle of the road, he looked at his wife’s vehicle. The driver’s window had broken, and he could make out Zoe folded up under the buckled roof. Her face was a grey mask, mouth a red slash, blood oozing from between her lips.

  He looked at her and she opened her eyes.

  22

  Claire pulled the car into the curb and stared for a moment at Zoe’s house. Zoe hadn’t said much when she’d called but there’d been something in her voice that had Claire dropping her phone onto the table and dashing upstairs to shower.

  ‘I told you I had a bad feeling,’ her mother said as her feet touched the carpeted steps. ‘Go and find Zoe, Claire. You have to find her and Rose, I'm telling you.’

  Goosebumps prickled at the back of her neck and she reached a hand around to rub at them. Zoe had only said that she needed Claire to come around, that she’d found out something, that she was going to go home and get Rose.

  Why would she need to pick up her own daughter? What danger was Rose in?

  Zoe’s red Ford Focus wasn’t in the driveway. Claire had been prepared for that, but she picked up her phone and glanced at the text message anyway. Rose was at the park.

  The house was on Claire’s way to the park, which was why she’d slowed down to see if Zoe had gone and come back, but it wasn’t why she’d stopped, why she was sitting parked out the front right now even though there was no sign of Zoe.

  The front door was wide open.

  Danny’s car wasn’t in the driveway either. The house didn’t have a garage, just a carport, and that was empty except for a bright pink lawnmower nose against the wall at the back by a neat stack of firewood.

  The front door was still wide open.

  Tapping her fingers against the steering wheel, Claire thought for a moment, then picked up her phone and slid out of the driver’s seat, closing the car door behind her and dialling Zoe’s number as she walked down the path to her friend’s house.

  The call went through to voice mail.

  Claire hesitated a moment at the front door, staring down the hallway, gloomy after the bright sun outside. It was an old villa, and she could see right down the central hallway to the kitchen at the back. It was on the left, the living room on the right, and just inside the door where she hesitated the master bedroom was on her right, Rose’s room opposite.

  There was something odd on the floor. Blinking, Claire leaned in, trying to make sense of what she saw.

  ‘Zoe?’ she called, stepping inside. ‘Rose?’ Swallowing, her mouth dry. ‘Danny?’ The third name was more of a whisper.

  It was a hatchet, a small axe.

  Lying on the floor in the doorway to the room down the hall from Rose’s – Danny’s study. Claire gripped her phone tighter.

  ‘Zoe!’ she called again.

  There was no blood on the hatchet, just scratches in the dull metal. Claire stepped over it and peered into the room.

  There was a mess of photo albums on the floor, but it wasn’t what caught Claire’s attention.

  That was reserved for the splintered cupboard door and now she could see why there was a hatchet in the room. The door hung in ribbons from the lock.

  The house sat silent and gazed at the broken cupboard with her. Claire wanted to move forward into the room, pick through the debris on the ground, see what Zoe had found – had broken into a locked cupboard in Danny’s study to find – but it was more important to back out of the room, pushing the hatchet out of the way with one sneakered toe and run back down the hallway, tugging the door closed behind her and making for the car.

  She slid to a stop in the parking area at the top of the sloping green grass that ran down to the children’s playground. Slammed the car into park and stared around. Zoe’s car wasn’t here. There were four others, and maybe Danny’s was one of them – she didn’t know what he drove – but Zoe’s wasn’t. Getting out of the car, she shaded her eyes and stared down the slope at the play area. Looking for bright red hair.

  Dark hair, light hair, but no bright Rose red. Zoe wasn’t there and nor was Rose.

  Stepping over the knee-high fence between the carpark and the grass, Claire worked her way down the small hill, hand still shading her eyes, still scanning the area.

  And there was Zoe’s car – parked across the road from the bottom of the park. Claire squinted at it in the sunlight, thinking she could make out Zoe in the driver’s seat, but then there was an odd rumble and Claire bounced where she stood.

  The ground underneath her billowed as though someone had picked up the grass and shaken it. Claire stared at it a moment, then fell to her knees, hands going out to soften the impact.

  Another earthquake.

  There was no choice but to flatten herself against the grass and hang on during the wild, rippling ride. She had an ear pressed against the ground and could hear it groaning deep in the earth. Closing her eyes, she waited for it to stop, imagining fault lines grinding together somewhere far underground, things slipping and shifting, heaving the earth up and down like it was an ocean made of soil.

  It stopped long moments later, and then there was the noise, the strident sirens going off across the whole city in a chaos of scre
eching that set her teeth on edge. Lifting herself to her knees, she steadied herself there, spitting red saliva from her mouth. She’d bitten her tongue and it throbbed angrily.

  Underneath the sirens, someone was screaming. More than one person. This had been a big one.

  Claire gazed around and almost sank back to the ground again.

  A jagged, zigzagging ditch had opened up, snaking across the grass heading from the slides at the park out and up the road, looking for all the world like the earth had simply split its skin.

  But that wasn’t the worst of it.

  The building – Claire strained to remember that it was a bakery – had collapsed, giant blocks of masonry and red bricks tumbling down in an avalanche onto the pavement.

  And onto Zoe’s red car.

  Her legs were unsteady as she clambered back to her feet, eyes fastened on the clouds of dust that drifted in the air above the small red car. She forced herself to look at the roof over the driver’s side of the car, seeing the way it was flattened almost to the same level as the rest of the car. If Zoe had been in there…

  She ran. Numbness enveloped her as she ran down the slope, then wore off as she pushed her muscles, already tired from the morning’s run, but pumped through with adrenaline and working hard.

  Something grabbed her as she sprinted by the playground slides, and she spun to a sudden halt, feeling her eyes wide and wild.

  ‘What is it!’ she gasped, every cell in her body wanting to throw herself over the fence and across the road to the car.

  ‘My granddaughter!’

  The old woman’s face was ashen, covered in streaks of dirt and tears. Claire took a breath and focused on her.

  ‘Where is she?’ she asked.

  The woman, choking on great, heaving sobs, lifted a hand and pointed waveringly at the great ditch the earthquake had opened up.

  ‘She fell in there. I can’t reach her!’ The hand stopped pointing and clutched back at Claire. ‘Please help her.’

  Claire wanted to look across the road at the car again, but she forced herself to nod, and keeping her eyes to the front, jogged over to the ditch.

  It was more of a crevice.

  For a moment, she couldn’t see anything, on her knees, peering over the edge into a thick gloom of soil and roots.

  ‘Help!’ A small voice called up from the darkness.

  ‘Hi sweetheart,’ Claire called back. ‘I'm Claire, and I'm going to help you, okay?’

  The sound of crying drifted up. Claire glanced at the grandmother. ‘What’s her name?’ she asked.

  The old woman gazed at her, confused.

  ‘Your granddaughter. What’s her name?’ She nodded at the distressed woman. ‘It’s okay, I'm going to get her out.’

  That got through. ‘It’s Charlotte,’ the woman said. ‘Lottie for short.’

  ‘Lottie.’ Claire forced a smile onto her face. ‘That’s a nice name.’ She looked back down into the crevice, hoping the ground didn’t move again, then banished the thought from her mind.

  ‘Hi Lottie,’ she called. ‘Can you tell if you’re hurt?’

  The crying tailed off into sniffing, hiccoughing sobs, then the little voice drifted upwards again. Now her eyes were adjusted to the gloom, a face materialised down the bottom of the ditch to match.

  ‘My ankle hurts,’ Lottie said. ‘I fell on it.’

  Claire scanned the area. Estimated the crevice was one and a half times her height in depth. Easier with a rope, but not impossible.

  ‘Okay Lottie,’ she said. ‘You’re being very brave. I'm going to come down to get you now, okay? And then we’re going to get you out and Grandma can get you some help for that ankle of yours.’ She turned around and nodded at the grandmother. ‘You’re going to have to catch her hands and pull her up, okay?’

  The woman nodded, and Claire lowered herself down into the crevice, slithering down the dirt sides, feeling stones pulling her shirt up and scratching the tender skin on her belly. She let go of the edge and dropped, bending her knees as she landed and bracing herself against the steep side of the ditch.

  ‘There,’ she said to the startled little girl in the gloom beside her. ‘Nothing to it, right?’

  Wide eyes stared at her. The little girl said nothing, but the crying had stopped.

  ‘Now,’ Claire said. ‘Time to see how heavy you are, Lottie. I hope you eat all your vegies and not just ice cream.’

  ‘I like ice cream,’ a small voice answered her.

  ‘Me too,’ Claire confessed. ‘And you’re getting out of here if ice cream is all you eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day.’

  The voice was offended. ‘Grandma makes me eat my vegetables before I'm allowed ice cream.’

  ‘Okay dokey then,’ Claire said. ‘So here’s what we’re going to do. I'm going to lift you up onto my shoulders. You can sit there for a moment, but then we’re going to stand you up and you can lean against the dirt wall…’

  ‘But my ankle hurts.’

  ‘I know, sweetie. You’re going to have to be very brave. Your grandma is waiting up there to take your hands, and she will pull you out. That’s how we’re going to do it, okay?’

  A little hand found Claire’s and nestled in it. ‘Okay,’ Lottie said. ‘But how will you get out?’ The eyes were worried. ‘You won’t have to stay down here, will you?’ The child shuddered. ‘I don’t like it down here.’

  ‘Nope,’ Claire answered, giving the small hand a squeeze and letting it go to hold the girl under her arms, lifting her in one awkward movement up over her head, settling her on her shoulders and wincing as it set off a trickle of dirt around them. ‘I don’t like it here much either,’ she said in a conversational tone. ‘So I’ll be climbing out right behind you, don’t you worry about that.’

  She braced herself on the uneven ground. ‘Ready?’ she asked. ‘Up we go!’

  And suddenly the child was hoisted into a standing position on her shoulders, little shoes digging into Claire’s neck. The girl wobbled there, Claire grasping her legs and leaning forward so Lottie could brace herself against the dirt wall. A moment later she felt the pressure lift from her shoulders, and the little girl slithered up and out of the ditch.

  Claire ducked her head, closing her eyes against the tumble of dirt in the kid’s wake. She could hear the sounds of a reunion from above.

  A man’s head popped over the side. ‘Kid’s fine,’ he said. ‘You boost yourself up?’

  ‘You bet,’ Claire said, bracing her hands against the dirt wall of the crevice.

  ‘Fuck,’ the guy above her swore, and a moment later, Claire realised why he suddenly dropped out of sight. The earth was shaking again.

  Ducking, she cowered at the bottom of the crevice, bracing her arms over her head, feeling the smattering of dirt and stones bouncing off her. Closing her eyes, she thought of the ocean, feeling the rock and sway of waves rather than earth, but it was little use.

  The ground was going to close its mouth right around her and she would be swallowed into a dark oblivion of soil and stone.

  It eased, slowed to a shuddering stillness, just the trickle of dirt above her. Claire raised her head, blinked at the sky miraculously still above her.

  ‘Coming right out,’ she muttered, pressing unsteady hands against the dirt wall and dragging in a shaky breath. The man popped his head back over the side and looked down at her.

  ‘Let’s do this quick, what do you reckon?’ he asked her.

  She didn’t take the time to reply, scrabbling at the sides of the hole instead, digging the toes of her shoes into the dirt and grunting with the effort of boosting herself upwards.

  Hands grabbed her own and held on, pulled. A moment later, Claire was lying on the grass looking at the sky.

  ‘That,’ she said, ‘was not especially fun.’ She didn’t like underground stuff. It was unnatural. Tight dark spaces, tunnels. Not her thing. Give her the open ocean any day.

  A little arm wrapped around her
neck in a hug.

  ‘Thank you,’ the little girl said, then backed off to look shyly at Claire. Her grandmother clutched at her, crying, nodding.

  ‘No problem,’ Claire said. ‘Happy to help.’ She smiled at the kid. ‘You were really brave,’ she said. Then she turned onto her back to look at the sky again for the simple reason that it was still there, and she could.

  23

  It was Zoe’s car.

  Claire cursed herself, standing in the middle of the road, hands grabbing her knees for support, her strawberry hair hanging loose in her eyes. She squeezed them shut on the hot tears, swallowing down the lump in her throat.

  A deep breath, and she stepped forward again.

  Zoe was in the driver’s seat, eyes fixed on the five-centimetre slit of window beneath the damaged roof. Her head was forced to the side and the eyes were beseeching. One set of fingers twitched on the top of the door where the window had been. Claire touched her own fingertips to them.

  ‘Oh Zoe,’ she whispered. ‘I'm so sorry.’ If only she’d got there sooner – just a few minutes sooner. If she hadn’t bothered to stop at the house, she could have been here in time to do…something.

  Zoe’s eyes opened and closed, and her lips moved, letting loose a string of red bubbles. Claire leaned forward, but she knew what that last exhaled word had been.

  ‘Don’t worry, Zoe. I’ll take care of her, okay? I’ll always make sure Rose is okay.’

  There was a brief and frantic look in Zoe’s bloodshot eyes, but then they dimmed, glazing over, slipping from Claire’s gaze.

  ‘Zoe!’ Claire said, the name catching in her throat. ‘No, Zoe, don’t go. Hang on in there. Help’s on its way, baby.’

  But Zoe slipped from her, and Claire found herself holding lifeless fingers. She hitched in a deep breath, ignoring the smell of blood and the dust that clogged her lungs.

  Rose. Now she had to find Rose.

  Oh god. Rose would be in the car too. Zoe would have picked her up and put her in the car before getting into the driver’s seat.