by Bobby Akart
“Ten minutes, but probably more,” Beth replied.
“Okay, I have an idea.” He started to turn, and Beth stopped him.
“Hey, Willie.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Thank you so much.”
Willie smiled and nodded. He glanced in to check on Anthony before gently shutting Beth’s door to give her some privacy and shield her from the random wind gusts. He jogged across the Shell parking lot and across the road under the watchful eye of a newly minted big brother, Anthony Chandler Junior.
Chapter Fifty-One
Sunday, December 23
Atwood Residence
Cordova, Tennessee
Tate rushed past his mom toward the side door leading from the driveway into the garage. He flung the door open, intending to run through the garage. However, the door only partially opened. He crashed into the steel exterior door head-on, causing his body to spin sideways through the opening, where he stumbled over several plastic shelves containing tools and partially filled cans of paint.
Jill rushed to his aid, using her shoulder to ram the door open a little more, allowing her sufficient light to see what had happened to Tate.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Go! Go!” He waved his arms toward the door leading into the kitchen.
While Tate untangled himself from the mess, Jill stepped through the shelves and up the steps leading to the door. She turned the knob and began shouting for her daughter as she entered the kitchen.
“Emily! Emily! Where are you, baby?” She ran from the kitchen, through the breakfast room and into the family room. The fire was burning out behind the glass enclosure, and everything appeared in the exact same condition as when Jill left earlier.
“Emilyyy!” Tate had emerged from the garage and yelled her name. He ran past his mom toward the foyer. He grabbed the newel post and used it to quickly swing himself around to run up the stairs, taking the steps two at a time.
“Emily!” Jill shouted at the end of the hallway where it adjoined the master bedroom suite. Tate’s heavy feet could be heard tromping across the wood floor upstairs that connected the bedrooms.
“Where are you?” he shouted his question. The response he got was unexpected.
The windows of the upstairs rooms began to crack and then break. The roar of the earthquake had stopped, and the last shaking of the ground subsided. Nonetheless, the strain on their home had taken its toll. A sound similar to nails on a chalkboard caused the glass to split. Then, seemingly all at once, the upper windows shattered and fell inside the house. Tate checked the last empty room and pulled the door shut behind him as if to keep the destructive demon locked inside.
He rapidly walked down the oak treads of the stairs until he met his mother in the foyer. She opened the front door and screamed Emily’s name again. This time, they got an answer.
“Mom!”
They both rushed onto the front stoop and into the yard. The two of them walked in opposite directions, screaming her name.
“Help! Back here!”
“By the lake!” hollered Tate as he spun around and ran across the driveway to the side yard where he’d arrived through the woods. He slowed as he approached the lake. The grass turned to moist dirt and then mud.
“Emily! Where are you?”
“Behind the tree! Tate! Please hurry. The water is coming back!”
Tate was confused. He’d seen the water levels dropping at Britney’s house. How could it be rising here? He glanced at the lake as he moved closer to where their deck once stood. There were some waves but not very high.
Jill came around the other side of the house.
“Mom, over here. She’s down by the water.”
“What?” Jill couldn’t understand why but hustled to join Tate as he climbed through the top of the massive fallen oak. He pushed some branches aside and ducked under others. He eventually caught a glimpse of Emily floating on top of the water. She had a death grip on a partially broken branch that used to be at the top of the forty-foot oak.
“I see you, honey. Hold on!” Jill’s adrenaline was flowing through her body as she fought through the tree to join Tate.
“I’ve tried to pull myself up, but it’s breaking.”
Tate carefully stepped down the slope, using the fallen tree for support. He saw the branch Emily was holding onto. It was barely an inch in diameter and had snapped midway down. The white inside and the green from just under bark were visible. The remains were starting to shred and separate from the tree.
Tate put a firm grip on the branch holding his sister so it wouldn’t go anywhere. “Em, can you hold onto it while I pull you up?”
“I think so,” the exhausted child replied sheepishly. “The water is coming back.”
Tate furrowed his brow and glanced toward his left. It was hard for him to gauge whether she was correct or not. First things first, he thought to himself.
“Okay, I might break this branch all the way, but I’ve got you. Hold tight, and let me pull you toward some sturdier limbs. Grab them as you can. Then we’ll pull you even closer.”
“Let me go in after her,” Jill begged in a panic.
“No, Mom. You could slip down the hill. I’ve got her.”
Tate began pulling the branch back toward the trunk of the tree by bending it farther. The shreds of bark holding it to the tree were tearing the closer Emily got to another branch.
“I’ve got one,” she proclaimed as she let go of the original branch.
It snapped back in place, causing Tate to fall on his back. He quickly twisted and grabbed a thick branch, which allowed him to pull his body up the slope.
“Okay, Em. I’ll come to you. Just stay there, and I’ll work my way ’til I can grab your hand.”
“Sure. All right. But the water is coming up. I swear.”
Jill had no idea what she was referring to. She looked around the bank, and it appeared to be at the same level as when she got up that morning.
“Just follow your brother’s instructions, and everything will be fine.”
“Stretch,” said Tate as he reached out for Emily’s arm. She placed her cold, wrinkled hand in his. He repositioned his grip to include her wrist and forearm as he pulled her slowly through the branches. She was now on the ground and able to walk up the embankment with his help.
“Crap!” yelled Jill. “The tree is sliding down the hill!”
“Get on the other side of the trunk!” ordered Tate.
His mom pulled herself to the trunk and swung her right leg over it, followed by her left. The tree was sliding a few inches at a time, straight toward the water’s edge.
“Wrap your arms around my arm and hold on,” Tate said to Emily. She followed his instructions, and with a grunt, he lifted her up and over the tree trunk into her mother’s waiting arms.
“Oh, god, honey. Thank goodness you’re okay.”
“I’m sorry, Mom. I just wanted to feed the ducks. Then all hell broke loose.”
Instead of chastising her daughter for her potty mouth, Jill began laughing and crying. She held her youngest child tight and waited for Tate to join them.
“Okay, you guys. We still have some work to do. Mom, I want you to walk parallel to the water using the tree trunk as a guardrail. You know what I mean?”
Jill nodded. She walked sideways along the embankment, holding Emily’s wrist with one hand and the tree trunk with the other. Seconds later, they reached the massive root ball of the oak.
Tate was right behind them and took the lead. He used the roots to pull himself above the grade of where the tree tipped over. He pulled Emily and his mom up to him. Seconds later, the three of them had crawled into the crunchy brown grass of their backyard and rolled over onto their backs, allowing the sun to warm their bodies.
Chapter Fifty-Two
Sunday, December 23
Near Lake Cormorant, Mississippi
Willie hustled across the Shell parking lot toward the Sigma
Supply warehouse. As he jogged across the part of Star Landing Road that remained intact, he couldn’t help but stare to his right to take in the spectacle of the earth being ripped open. He’d never experienced an earthquake as strong as the one that had lasted nearly as long as it took for Beth to give birth. A tremor that might get folks talkin’ on the street corner was nothing compared to the real thing.
Once he stepped off the roadbed and onto the driveway leading to the warehouse, he found himself sloshing through nearly a foot of water. The ground was too saturated to absorb the heavy rainfall or flooded Mississippi River and just simply wasn’t allowing the water to recede. For now, that was the least of his concerns.
He needed to find first aid supplies to assist Beth in her recovery and to prevent her from having any type of infection. Sigma Supply was likely to have what he needed. The company was similar to the well-known Uline operation in America, specializing in selling packaging supplies and equipment to businesses of all types.
He arrived at the front entrance and discovered the stress of the earthquake had broken out the plate glass of the double doors. He was glad that he, as an officer of the law, wasn’t breaking in. Although, he had no feelings of guilt when it came to procuring the necessary first aid supplies to help Beth. It was an emergency situation, after all.
The front lobby had been jostled, and anything not permanently affixed to the structure had been unceremoniously tossed about. He stepped over fallen bookcases and chairs to make his way down a dark hallway toward the warehouse that made up the vast majority of the building. The deeper into the structure he went, the darker it became as he lost natural light from the front windows.
When he opened the steel door leading to the rear, he was unexpectedly blinded by sunlight. A large portion of the roof had caved in during the quake. He was certain it hadn’t happened during the Friday night earthquake, as the interior of the warehouse was still dry.
He stopped, put his hands on his hips, and surveyed the trashed interior. His initial observations would’ve caused him to turn around and leave. However, he had no choice today. Sigma Supply distributed everything from furniture and equipment to food service and packaging supplies.
He was certain that OSHA, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, required the company to keep medical supplies on hand for the protection of their employees. He was sure Sigma also sold first aid kits to their customers, but based on the piles of products littering the warehouse, he was not likely to find them.
He made his way along the common wall separating the warehouse and the front offices. There was an enclosed area near a line of large roll-up doors at the back side of the building. He surmised the trucks were loaded and unloaded through there, and a warehouse manager most likely monitored activities from the office.
It took him a while to crawl over the fallen products and toppled shelves. Parts of the corrugated steel roof had collapsed in this area as well, which hindered his progress. After several minutes, he arrived at a door to the warehouse office, but it was locked.
Willie found a large fire extinguisher on the concrete floor and used it as a hammer to beat his way through the glass. He located several five-gallon buckets of floor cleaner and used them to climb through the broken window onto the desks lining the interior of the office space.
He was breathing heavily as he kicked debris out of the way to clear a place on the floor to stand. In addition to the drop ceiling, anything on the desks and the OSHA safety manuals on the built-in bookshelves had been tossed around the room.
“This has been a lot of action for an old man with a weak ticker,” Willie said to himself as he searched through the debris for a first aid kit.
Willie was happy for Beth, but he was also proud of his role. There was a saying that he despised because it was overused. It went something like taking you out of your comfort zone. He wasn’t sure what that meant until now. He was certainly taken from one twilight zone to another, or some such.
He couldn’t wait to tell Carla what he’d accomplished. She probably wouldn’t believe him, so he’d have to give her just enough detail so she knew he wasn’t making it up. He’d proved all those old biddies from the church wrong. He not only could’ve been in the room when his daughters were born, he might’ve been able to do it all by himself, with a little help from Mrs. Angel, of course.
There! He slung a chair away from a desk and found an industrial-sized first aid kit pushed up under the knee space. He opened it up and quickly glanced at its contents. Antibiotic ointment. Gauze pads and rolls of all sizes. First aid tape. Advil. Even an instant ice pack.
He wasn’t sure what all he needed, but this was a pretty good start until he could get Beth and the baby to a hospital. He closed the lid and unlocked the office door. He exited the easy way and immediately decided to go out the back rather than climb over the piles of debris between him and the office hallway.
He pushed through piles of fallen boxes filled with toilet paper and paper towels until he reached the first roll-up door. He reached for the chain and pulled downward, expecting it to shoot right up.
Nothing happened. He studied the mechanism and realized it was locked with a padlock. Willie moved over to the next door. It was also locked. He started to walk back toward the office, thinking he might be able to quickly locate the keys to the padlocks, when the building shuddered.
Then, ever so slightly, the ground began to shake. He felt a sense of urgency to get out of there, as he suspected an aftershock was about to hit them. He rushed to the office and then tried to follow the same path he’d taken over the debris pile when he entered.
He fell once, losing his footing on a broken shelf. His right leg fell through the middle of the rubble, causing him to lose his balance and topple backwards. He inadvertently allowed the first aid kit to slip out of his hand, cursing to himself as it dropped through the shelf. As the ground shook again, he was digging through the pile of products to retrieve it.
“Gotcha!” he exclaimed as his meaty hand gripped the handle. He pulled it up through the pile and began his climb toward the office doorway.
The ground shook again, and the building seemed to jump a little. It was a large, hundred-thousand-square-foot corrugated-steel structure. Yet the energy underneath the surface of the planet was able to push it around with ease.
Part of the ceiling collapsed toward the back near the loading docks. Willie just gave it a passing glance as he remained focused on getting out. A crashing sound was heard as if more of the roof was caving in. Daylight suddenly appeared to his rear, but he kept his eyes forward, pushing through the merchandise until he reached the door.
He paused momentarily to catch his breath after entering the hallway. As if it might protect him, Willie shut the steel door behind him and locked its deadbolt. It was an odd, symbolic gesture to block out the threat that lurked in the warehouse, threatening to devour the ground beneath him.
With another deep breath, he proudly strutted out of the building and back into the bright sunshine. He paused for just a moment to allow the warmth to soak into his face. Then the ground lurched upward knocking him off his feet.
Willie scrambled forward, digging and clawing at the gravel parking lot. He tried to scream but his voice was lost. His attempts to find his footing were in vain. He crawled to escape. The trembling earth kept knocking him down.
The planet emitted a wolfish growl as it ate. Hungrily. Ravenous. Voraciously devouring anything on its surface, greedily satisfying its gluttonous appetite. Inch after inch. Foot after foot. Its jaws opening wider and wider until it swallowed Willie Angel.
Chapter Fifty-Three
Sunday, December 23
Near Lake Cormorant, Mississippi
While Willie was away in search of medical supplies, Beth’s uterus continued to contract. She was growing impatient. She gazed at her beautiful daughter one more time and then held her tight against her chest. She decided to speed up the delivery of her pl
acenta. She reached down and gently pulled the cord while exerting downward pressure. With one final push, which caused her to wince in pain, it came out.
Every moment of her first delivery started to come back to her. She recalled the doctor examining her afterbirth to ensure it was intact. If it was torn or missing pieces, it was a sign of trouble. For Beth, there was nothing gross about examining the part of her body that had provided bed and board for her baby the last twenty-eight weeks. Symbolically, it represented the end of one stage of her baby’s life and the beginning of a brand-new one.
Satisfied there were no problems, she gently wrapped it in one of the shop towels and rested it on the seat next to her. In a way, Beth was glad Willie wasn’t around for this part of the birthing process. It was an intimate and private moment between a woman and her body.
Relief swept over her as she sat upright in the center of the back seat. And so did the chills. It was normal, as Beth recalled. She reached for the last of the high school mascot beach towels and draped it over their bodies. It wasn’t much, yet it was comforting.
Beth stared at her child in wonderment as the color of the baby’s extremities gradually turned from newborn blue to pretty-in-pink. She spoke in hushed tones, thanking God for keeping them safe, and telling her daughter how much she loved her.
She looked up from her baby in the direction of the Sigma Supply building. “What is taking you so long?” she muttered to herself. Beth turned her attention back to the bundle of joy swaddled beneath the layers of towels. She continued to rock her baby as she blissfully slept against her chest.
Beth glanced up again. What she saw, or didn’t see, didn’t register with her at first. The parts of her brain that interacted together to analyze what the eyes conveyed refused to believe the signals.
She rocked her baby twice and then froze. She looked back through the windshield. Her eyes grew wide and her mouth fell open.