The Legend of Safehaven

by R. A. Comunale

  “It’s jammed,” Freddie said. “We need fire axes!” he yelled up to the surface.

  Soon Lem came running with the tools.

  The young men were sweating profusely as each, in turn, swung the pointed ax tips at the door. The wood finally splintered, and the two were able to pass through the opening. Inside, beams lay half-broken and dust swirled, as air currents penetrated the enclosed area.

  Then Mike spotted the blankets outlined by tiny forms beneath and held his breath. He rushed over and began to carefully pull the blankets back.

  Tiny voices piped up: “Is the game over yet? Can I see my mommy? Is Miss Kim here?”

  Freddie saw the blanket with the larger outline and pulled it back. The young woman moaned and reached for her forehead then opened her eyes.

  “Are you God?”

  Mike laughed. “He probably thinks he is, ma’am.”

  “Guys, help me over the debris.”

  Tonio, Jacob, and Akela guided Faisal over the nursing-home rubble, as Mercury continued his olfactory sweep of the pile.

  “Jesse was preparing emergency plans when I left. He probably moved everyone into the sub-basement shelter. Betty and I …”

  He quickly changed the subject.

  “We’re not gonna be able to move much of this. We’re gonna need a mini-dozer.”

  He was becoming discouraged.

  “There’s a John Deere farm equipment store down the road a piece.”

  Tonio turned to see Lem surveying the scene.

  “I’ll see what I c’n get.”

  The old farmer hustled over to Lachlan.

  “Lach, c’n you get me to the John Deere store? We’re gonna need some brute force.”

  Fifteen minutes later the sound of a diesel engine echoed down the debris-strewn street, as Lem drove a small excavator into view. Slowly he moved the treads to within ten feet of the young men, who had cleared away a small zone of rubble.

  “Show me what you want.”

  By now, Mike and Freddie had rejoined Tonio, Jacob and Faisal.

  Tonio called out, “Start here—go slowly!”

  Lem lowered the excavator blade in a surprisingly expert manner and began shoving a path through the heavy rubble. Then he backed the machine off and raised the scoop.

  “That enough?”

  Faisal stepped in, shouting, “Lem, turn off the excavator, please.”

  The blind young man turned his head, moving radar-like ears in a circle, as Tonio guided his steps.

  “Okay, clear away this section—and go deeper.”

  Once more the excavator moved, this time creating a dish-like depression. Lem carefully piled up more debris at the back of the machine.

  “Look, it’s the elevator shaft!” Tonio exclaimed.

  Jacob peered down. “If we can get down through the top of the elevator we’d have a direct access to the shelter, wouldn’t we?”

  Tonio nodded.

  “Mike, Freddie, you’re the tech guys. Any ideas?”

  Freddie turned to Lem.

  “If we tie some cables on the blade, can you haul out some of the stuff that’s still there on top?”

  “Yep.”

  Jacob walked around to the side of the machine.

  “Where did you learn to do this, Lem?”

  “Back in ‘Nam.”

  Freddie and Mike found cables in the excavator’s tool box, tied their ends to the scoop, and dropped their lengths down the shaft. Then they gripped the cables tightly with their heavy gloves and slid themselves down.

  “Lower us some crowbars, guys,” Mike yelled.

  After each remaining piece of concrete had been tied to the cable, Lem backed up the excavator and slowly pulled it off the top of the elevator cab, revealing the roof.

  Within minutes Freddie and Mike had pried open the access panel and climbed inside. They wedged the pry bars between the doors. Sounds of pounding and squealing metal rose up the shaft, but soon they stopped.

  “We can’t get them open,” Freddie yelled.

  “Hang on, guys, I’m coming down!” Tonio responded.

  He strapped on a backpack with high intensity lights and another pry bar and lowered himself down the shaft and into the elevator. Soon the three young men together strained their muscles against the steel levers, and the screeching of metal announced success.

  Faisal let out a high-pitched whistle. Akela and the she-wolf, followed by Zeus and Mercury, ran to the open pit. One by one they carefully descended the sloping mound created by Lem’s excavator scoop and leaped down from the open roof of the elevator into the cab. Once inside, they moved through the open doors into the eerie darkness, their sniffing easily audible to Mike, Freddie, and Tonio.

  Soon barking and yelps arose.

  “Little brother, you don’t need to go in there,” Freddie said.

  He had always been overprotective of Tonio, and despite their apparent sibling friction, he had shared his brother’s loss of Betty. He saw the conflicting emotions on Tonio’s face.

  “Look, Freddie, I’m the only one here who knows this building.”

  He handed out the lights and led the way into the sub-basement. Memories of his trysts with Betty in this space tore at his soul—every corner, every pillar silent witness to the love of his life. He heard her voice in every footstep, every wisp of air current.

  You’ll do it, Tony, I know you will.

  He stumbled over a fallen ceiling tile.

  Be careful, my love.

  The footsteps of his brother and Mike echoed behind him, as he followed the four canines deeper into the sub-basement cavern. They barked, and he saw the faint illumination of a penlight. He shone his lantern at the source and spotted them, some lying on the floor, some in wheelchairs, others leaning against the wall.

  “Jesse, it’s me, Tonio.”

  A shaky voice in the darkness replied, “She told me you would come.”

  One by one the rescue workers lifted the nursing home occupants by harnesses to the surface. Jesse remained behind, until all his staff and patients had made it out. Then he turned and hugged Tonio before being lifted from the underground tomb.

  “Let’s get our doggie friends out, then it’s our turn,” Freddie said to his brother, as he playfully wiped soot from Tonio’s face. “You’re a regular coal miner now, kid.”

  The wolves would not tolerate being handled, so the team assembled a ladder of debris for them to climb to the roof of the cab. Once there, they easily ascended the piled up rubble to the surface. That left the three rescuers.

  “You first, Mike. Carmelita would never forgive us if a hair of your head was harmed.”

  The brothers laughed, as they saw the big Greek guy blush even in the limited light.

  “Freddie, you’re next. I’m sure Lilly has some suitable reward awaiting you.”

  “Watch your tongue, little brother. I know your secret. You’ve got cojones, too.”

  He watched as Freddie was raised up. He turned toward the darkness.

  “I love you, Betty.”

  As he felt himself being lifted out, the chilled basement air whispered back, I love you, Tony.

  And then it was over. Men, women, and canines stood and sat in exhaustion.

  Ben had kept an eye on Miri while helping out at the nursing stations. He needn’t have worried. She spent the whole time sitting on the blanket Lea Ann had placed on the ground for her, making charcoal drawings and manipulating her modeling clay.

  Holding a bottle of water, Ben walked over to his daughter and scanned the paper and clay laying there, all vivid scenes of children and patients as they appeared in their underground shelters. Clay figures of rescuers and children and wolves locating other storm victims stood in mute testimony.

  Then he noticed one drawing in particular, and he started to tremble. He attempted to yell to Lem, when the chest pain hit him, and he had to stop for another nitroglycerin pill.

  Lem sat in the excavator cab. He was used to hard wor
k, but manipulating the machine’s controls for so long had made his entire body ache. He smiled, as he saw Zeus and Mercury walk slowly across the debris field and sit a few feet away. They were old, too, and their endurance had been stretched by the run to the town.

  “Hey, guys, I know how you feel.”

  The old farmer started to stretch his arms when he felt the vibration. The sole remaining, above-ground wall fragment that had once been St. Ignatius was beginning to shift forward.

  They sensed it before he did. Their canine ears had pricked, and Zeus and Mercury started to whine.

  Must be some settling down below.

  Lem started to reach for the starter key when the wall fell toward the cab.

  Was it reflex?

  The two male canines, once beaten and abused by the two-legged one before them, their energies all but spent, nevertheless leapt to the open side of the cab, their forepaws forcing the startled Lem out the other side and to the ground.

  As he rolled to a stop his eyes recorded in slow motion a sight that would burn forever in his heart and soul. The two old dogs sat in the cab and looked across at him, as the rubble pile on which the excavator had been sitting collapsed downward, the cavity beneath swallowing machine and beasts, while the massive wall fragment slammed down on top of where it had stood a moment ago.

  Lem knew that look, even in the grayed muzzles and filmy eyes of the two aged ones who had willingly sacrificed themselves.

  It was love.

  The others rushed to the site, as Lem knelt and wept openly over the debris-filled grave. He didn’t stop, as Ben gently lifted him to his feet and led him away.

  Back on the mountain, the wolf pack gathered around Athena, who stood alone, gazing at her children. The young alpha male and his two cohorts flanked her, as the remaining pack members sat back in deference.

  The mother of them all raised her graying muzzle. Her solitary, grief-filled howl carried across the town. Then the pack encircling the mound raised their heads to heaven and joined in.

  It was their duty.

  They were the Moonsingers of Safehaven.

  CHAPTER 14

  Reflections

  Nancy sat silently, staring at the cardiac-intensive-care-unit door, as the haunting notes of Grieg’s “The Last Spring” drifted through the hospital sound system.

  “Mrs. Edison, may I speak with you?”

  She had grown to know the tall, handsome, athletic, Mediterranean doctor well.

  “Dr. Crescenzi, are they all right?”

  Salvatore Crescenzi, director of cardiology and cardiovascular interventional procedures, looked at the woman he had treated so recently.

  How much do I tell her? Even that pacemaker/defibrillator I put in can’t protect her from a double whammy like this.

  “Your husband’s blood pressure started to spike in the emergency room. We got it stabilized, but because of his heart failure, we’re trying to diurese him to get the fluid out of his chest.”

  She didn’t quite take in the full import of his remarks.

  “Dr. Galen is not my husband, Dr. Crescenzi.”

  “Yes, I know. Mr. Edison…”

  “Has he broken something? I know he had those large bruises, doctor, so I…”

  “That may be what set this off, Mrs. Edison. When a lot of muscle gets bruised, certain chemicals get released into the blood stream, and they gum up the kidneys. When that happens in a … uh … older adult, it puts a strain on the heart. How long has he had high blood pressure?”

  “High blood pressure?”

  Her facial expression changed.

  “He won’t go to doctors, Dr. Crescenzi. He won’t even let Galen look at him...”

  Then, finally realizing, she looked directly into the cardiologist’s eyes.

  “What are you telling me?”

  Crescenzi’s brow creased.

  She’s too smart. Best to go with the truth.

  “Your husband has had a serious heart attack. I was able to cath him and lyse the clot but…”

  “Code Blue, Code Blue! CCU Three.”

  Crescenzi whirled around and rushed back into the intensive-care unit.

  The music had stopped.

  “Can’t you go any faster, Freddie?”

  Tonio sat on the edge of the back seat with Jacob and Faisal, the seeing-eye wolf Akela at Faisal’s feet. Carmelita, wedged between Freddie and Mike, pleaded for common sense.

  “Come on. Tio Eddie and Tio Galen are in the best possible place, and Lachlan got Tia Nancy to the hospital in the cruiser. Everything will be all right. You don’t have to break any records!”

  Nancy stood at the door to the ICU, stepping back as staff members rushed in and out, catching glimpses of multiple medical personnel engaged in the shamanistic ritual of cardiac resuscitation on a patient. She heard the priestly utterances of Crescenzi, as he held the all-too-familiar paddles and called out “up it to 400 joules.” Nurses and house staff continued pumping assorted drugs into plastic IV tubes swaying above the patient like spider webs.

  Then she heard Crescenzi yell, “Yes! We got him back!”

  She remembered what had happened to her not long ago.

  Did this unknown patient also watch over what was happening to him?

  Six young adults and one canine ran through the hospital waiting room and up the stairs to the intensive-care-unit floor.

  “Tia Nancy, what’s happening?”

  Carmelita embraced her, feeling the tension in her body.

  “I don’t know for sure. Dr. Crescenzi had to handle a code blue before he could finish and…”

  The cardiologist was sweat-soaked as he entered the hallway once more. He looked at the group protectively surrounding Nancy.

  Good, this helps.

  He took her hands in his.

  “We were lucky. Dr. Galen went into cardiac arrest, but we got him back. He’s a tough old bird.”

  “Tonio, wait!”

  Freddie tried to stop his younger brother, but Tonio yanked his arm away from his restraining hand and rushed through the ICU door. He didn’t ask, as he ran past startled nursing staff.

  “Tio, Tio, can you hear me?”

  He had never seen his guardian this way: pale, gaunt, eyes closed, shallow breathing.

  The old man opened his eyes, and a faint smile crossed his face. His tongue tried to moisten his dried lips. The endotracheal tube had been removed, but his vocal cords were swollen, and he could barely croak out, “I knew you’d come, boy.”

  He hesitated then, in a barely audible voice asked, “How’s Edison?”

  Tonio bent forward and kissed the old man’s forehead.

  The group surrounded Edison in the ICU. His breathing was still labored, but the fluid was draining out of him and filling the catheter-fed collection bag strapped to the side of the hospital bed.

  Nancy embraced her partner of nearly six decades. She couldn’t say anything. He slowly raised his right arm and placed it on her shoulder. She could barely hear him from behind his oxygen mask.

  “How’s Galen?”

  Mama, Papa, is that you?

  Si, Berto we are here.

  Never thought I’d see myself like that. Strange, isn’t it?

  Posso venire con voi?

  Can I come with you?

  Non ancora, figlio mio.

  Not yet, my son.

  Perché non posso venire con voi?

  Why can ’ t I come with you?

  Ci sono ancora più affinchè facciano.

  There is still more for you to do.

  Two wheelchairs sat side-by-side in the intermediate coronary care unit viewing room, and two old men stared out the large picture window overlooking the mountain vista surrounding the hospital. Both men’s voices were still a bit hoarse from the various tubes that had been stuck in them.

  The bear-sized man smiled, as he croaked out, “Well, Stanley, this is another fine mess you’ve gotten us into.”

  His less-stocky compa
nion returned the smile and squeaked back, “I’m sorry, Ollie.”

  Both started to laugh, but quickly suppressed the urge, as the pain in their chests ruined the moment.

  “Bob, Galen, all set?”

  Nancy stood next to Crescenzi, as he made final entry and discharge notes on two charts. He looked down at the two geriatric patients watching him expectantly and smiled.

  “So, would you two like to stay a bit longer, or should I call your entourage?”

  They moved down the hall, one wheelchair pushed by Freddie, the other by Tonio. As the procession of old timers, young adults and wolf-dog approached the Loading Doc, Tonio bent forward and whispered in Galen’s ear.

  “We’re going home, Tio, we’re going home.”

  Galen closed his eyes and sighed.

  Home!

  R.A. Comunale is a semi-retired physician in family practice and specialist in aviation medicine who lives and works out of his home office in McLean, Virginia. He enjoys writing, gardening, electronics, pounding on a piano, and yelling at his dimwitted cat. He describes himself as an eccentric and iconoclast.

  The cat has taken out a restraining order.