8.4

by Peter Hernon

  Distant seismographs were recording the aftershocks, but there was no substitute for having an instrument right at the epicenter. They wouldn’t miss any of the smaller aftershocks that way, the swarms of magnitude 2 and 3 earthquakes that other seismographs might not pick up. Knowing about those small quakes was important in gauging how much seismic energy remained locked along the fault.

  They simply had to get it up and running. It was damned important. Atkins felt like grabbing the seismograph, running out into a field, and setting it up. Just pick a spot. Any spot.

  Stop it, he told himself. They needed to find a suitable place or they’d blow everything.

  He threw the Explorer into reverse, backed up a couple hundred yards, and turned down a dirt trail he’d noticed a few minutes earlier. He wanted to get off the main highway. He drove slowly, looking for a place. A quarter mile down a muddy path for tractors, he crossed a dry creek bed. A weather-beaten picnic table was off to the side under a stand of poplars. It would make a good platform for the seismograph.

  “How about right here?” he said.

  “Looks fine,” Elizabeth said. Within minutes, she had the instrument hooked up. She was much more skilled than Atkins with the seismograph. About the size of a briefcase, the rugged device was powered by two small solar panels and also had a backup battery pack. The data was digitally recorded on disk.

  Atkins ran a quick field test: the starter, pendulum, and timing circuits were all functional as was the backup analogue recording drum and film. Elizabeth plugged a laptop computer into a port on the side of the machine so they could monitor the data visually. The battery supply was good for forty-eight hours.

  Atkins wished they’d brought along a gravimeter, a portable machine that could measure changes in gravitational strength triggered by the rise or fall of the land during an earthquake. The instrument could also detect variations in rock densities and was another tool to try to zero in on how much strain energy remained locked in the ground.

  That remained one of their chief objectives. There’d been two big earthquakes on the New Madrid Seismic Zone in three days. The first a magnitude 7.1 event. Then the monster that had struck earlier that morning.

  Atkins and Elizabeth both knew the history of the fault. The triple of 1811-1812 haunted them. Three magnitude 8 or greater earthquakes in a little over a month. More than anything, they wanted to know if another major quake was possible. That’s why they were so intent on gathering as much data as they could on latent seismic energy.

  Their plan was simple: stay put long enough to get a complete run of seismographic data.

  Atkins thought their food supply would last three or four days. Then, somehow, they’d have to find a way back to Memphis. With the telephone lines knocked down and no way to transmit the data in real time by computer modem, they’d have to take it back physically.

  Atkins tried to reach Walt Jacobs by shortwave radio. He wanted to report their location, but couldn’t get through to Memphis. There was too much static and background noise, which meant heavy use of the two-band shortwave circuits. With virtually all other means of communication knocked out, the shortwave relay bands were overloaded.

  By then it was late in the morning and freezing cold. A ten-mile-an-hour wind was blowing straight out of the north. Atkins and Elizabeth huddled in the back of the Explorer. Worried about running out of gas, they didn’t dare operate the heater, but they were tempted. Atkins could barely feel his feet.

  To shield themselves as much as possible from the wind, he’d parked against the deepest bank of the creek. A thick stand of poplar trees provided some cover. The seismograph was on the table about twenty yards away. Impervious to the weather, it was in a bright-orange case fashioned from heavy-duty PVC plastic.

  Atkins was grateful that the ferry captain had given them some food. He opened a can of corned beef and made sandwiches.

  “How about lunch?” he asked, popping open two cans of lemon soda. “And maybe dinner later tonight.”

  Elizabeth smiled. “Why, Doctor Atkins, are you asking me for a date?”

  “You bet.”

  “I’ll be free anytime after seven. Just drop by.”

  They both laughed. It was the first chance they’d had just to talk. There hadn’t been much time for casual conversation. And Atkins wanted to get to know Elizabeth better. If he could get through these next few weeks, which were going to be rough, then he could try.

  Elizabeth’s hair was tied up, and her nose and cheeks were red from the cold. She looked wonderful.

  Atkins had taken the last bite of his sandwich when he heard a noise. It sounded like the whine of a dog.

  He stepped outside. The sound was louder. Something moved in the thick bushes near the creek bank.

  “What is it?” Elizabeth asked. She’d also gotten out of the Explorer.

  “A dog, I think. A small one.”

  He walked closer to the creek. The seismograph’s carrying case was a splash of bright orange on the table. He heard more whining and a few soft barks. The sound was farther up the creek and seemed to be coming from both sides.

  Atkins heard the bushes move again as if blown by the wind.

  They got back in the Explorer.

  “There must be a couple of dogs down there,” he said. “They probably smelled the food.”

  BY midafternoon, the weather—cold, clear, and windy—hadn’t improved. Snapping her coat collar around her neck, Elizabeth went to check the seismograph.

  Atkins stayed in the van. They were taking turns, visiting the instrument every hour. In less than six hours, they’d captured more than 120 small microshocks, almost all of them in the magnitude 2 range or less. Three had registered a magnitude 4. The ground at the epicenter remained incredibly active.

  The time seemed like an eternity to Atkins. He was as anxious as he’d ever been in his life to get a good run of seismic data shipped back to Memphis so it could be analyzed. He also hoped Jacobs had made arrangements with someone, somewhere, to get more instruments shipped out here. They needed an entire array of seismographs, twenty or thirty of them, to get the best possible picture of what was happening below ground.

  The seismograph they’d set up on the picnic table was about the size of a small briefcase. Packed in a padded carrying case, it was designed to record only the strongest ground motions. Like most instruments, it relied on a pendulum system. The inertia of the suspended pendulum lagged behind the frame, which moved with the earth. In older seismographs, a pen or stylus attached to the pendulum captured this movement on paper. Atkins and Elizabeth were using a modern machine that converted ground motion into electrical signals that could be amplified and recorded on paper, magnetic tape, or directly into a laptop’s memory system. The device was programmed not to go off scale during a severe quake.

  Atkins watched Elizabeth walk across the gravel creek bed and bend over to check the laptop. She punched a few keys and jotted some numbers in a notebook.

  Waving to him, she motioned for him to roll down the window.

  “I’m going to walk up the creek,” she shouted, cupping her hands. “Maybe the bank will show the offset.”

  Atkins nodded. Almost dozing, he realized how incredibly tired he was. Elizabeth’s resiliency astounded him. He craved sleep with every muscle of his body. Not Elizabeth. She didn’t show any signs of slowing down at all.

  Closing his eyes, he must have fallen asleep for a few minutes. Something had awakened him. He wasn’t quite sure what. He nudged his elbow into the door frame to get more comfortable in the freezing Explorer.

  Then he heard the same low whine he’d heard earlier. A dog barked. In his foggy brain, he thought the sound seemed far away. Then it happened again—loud and close. A bark, followed by a deep growl.

  Wide awake, Atkins jumped out of the Explorer and started running up the creek bed. He wanted to find Elizabeth. Then he remembered the shotgun. He went back and got the weapon from the backseat. He checked the maga
zine. The Remington was fully loaded. Seven double-ought shells. It was a 16-gauge pump. Marsden, the ferry captain, certainly liked his shotguns to have a kick.

  Atkins had done a lot of hunting with his father and was a fairly good shot. He released the safety, racked a shell into the breech by pumping the slide, and slipped his finger in the trigger guard.

  He wanted to call her name, but something told him to keep quiet. He was aware of movement in the brush in front of him. Crows had been cawing in the upper branches of the poplar trees that lined both sides of the creek. They’d become silent.

  Atkins trotted up the creek bed. He heard another growl. The animal was concealed in the trees to his right. He swung the shotgun in that direction but couldn’t see anything. He rubbed his eyes, which were watering in the sharp wind.

  He walked a few more yards up the twisting creek bed. Barely five yards wide, it was filled with gravel, sand, and dead leaves. The high banks were overgrown with vines and dense brush.

  He heard a low, deep growl.

  That’s one hell of a big animal, he thought.

  Another dog barked, then another.

  Damn! How many dogs are out here? Atkins wondered. He walked faster, trying to be as quiet as possible. Sweat trickled down the small of his back.

  The ground twitched and rolled slightly. It was the strongest aftershock since they’d arrived at the epicenter. Atkins’ brain automatically pegged the magnitude at 4.

  The tremor unleashed a chorus of frenzied barking. The sounds were just around the next bend in the creek bed.

  Hugging the overhanging bank, moving slowly so his boots wouldn’t crunch on the gravel, Atkins peered around a clump of vines.

  Looking upstream, he sucked in his breath.

  Elizabeth was standing in the middle of the creek bed. She slowly bent down and picked up a couple of rocks. There were at least eight dogs in the creek, or up on the bank, animals of all sizes, shapes, and breeds. Elizabeth faced four of them as two others slowly circled around behind her.

  The wind changed and Atkins was hit with the overpowering stench of rotting flesh. Farther upstream, he saw the mangled carcasses of at least twenty cows piled into the creek bed. They’d probably panicked during the earthquake, stampeded, and fallen in. The steep drop-off at that point was nearly ten feet. They’d piled on top of each other.

  The dogs were feasting on the bloated carcasses.

  Atkins still didn’t know how many others were hidden in the woods.

  He heard that soft distinctive whine again and this time he saw the animal that was making it. The dog, some kind of mixed breed, had the size and bulk of a German shepherd. It was in a crouch, its brown, unblinking eyes locked on Elizabeth, who was coolly facing the other animals, talking to them in a soft, steady voice. The big dog must have scouted them out earlier in the day.

  Atkins remembered the rats that had swarmed over the Jimmy and the crazed bull he’d encountered on a farm near Mayfield, Kentucky. The seismic activity certainly had an explosive effect on some animals. No other explanation made sense. Atkins figured most of the dogs were pets. The quake had probably destroyed their homes and maybe killed their owners. Dogs were more likely to survive the initial shaking. And it wouldn’t take long before they started hunting for food in packs.

  He guessed the dogs had been drawn to the creek by the smell of dead cattle.

  Picking up a few slivers of dried grass, Atkins released them in the wind. The grass blew back toward his face. Good. He was downwind.

  He wanted to take out the mixed-breed, the apparent pack leader, but Elizabeth stood directly in his line of fire. She took a slow step backward. The dog moved in closer. It was growling, head low to the ground, hackles up.

  Three more dogs leaped over the edge of the bank and joined the two circling behind Elizabeth.

  Do it now, Atkins told himself.

  He’d been too slow with Sara. The memory flashed before him. If he’d reacted more quickly, maybe he could have reached her before the fire swept through that building in Mexico City. The self-doubts had haunted him for years.

  He stepped into the open. Aiming quickly, his first blast took out two dogs, who disappeared in red puffs as the buckshot blew them to pieces.

  “Lie down!” he shouted to Elizabeth, who threw herself onto the gravel.

  Running, stumbling on the uneven ground, Atkins got closer and fired from the waist. Two booming shots. The pack leader rolled over, part of its head missing. Another animal took a load of steel shot in the side and was thrown up the creek bed.

  The other animals scattered. Atkins tried to count them as they disappeared into the brush. At least a dozen. And he doubted he’d seen all of them.

  Elizabeth got up and ran to him. “I don’t know where they came from,” she said. “I looked up and they were all around me.”

  They jogged back down the creek toward the Explorer. Atkins looked behind just as five dogs came out of the brush.

  Incredible, he thought. They’re following us.

  The pack was led by a mastiff with a broad, white head. Flecks of foam flew from its mouth. Barking once, it charged them.

  Atkins swung the shotgun around and fired twice. The impact stopped the animal in mid-stride and killed another as it tried to scramble up the bank.

  Atkins widened the weapon’s choke to give him a broader shot pattern. He had two more shells left and wanted to make them count.

  They climbed into the Explorer and locked the doors.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  Elizabeth sat there, trying to catch her breath. Her face was flushed. “I’m fine,” she said. “Now I know why I’ve always been a cat person.”

  As they watched from the front seat, several dogs emerged from the woods and began fighting over the carcasses of the dead animals. Small dogs that looked like terriers, the viciousness of their attack was all the more striking.

  “From here on, I’ll take the seismic readings myself,” Atkins said. “I don’t want you going down there again. I don’t think those dogs have gone.”

  He wondered if the animals could sense something.

  So did Elizabeth. “Do you think maybe they know something we don’t?” she asked.

  MEMPHIS

  JANUARY 13

  3:00 P.M.

  WALT JACOBS HAD INSTINCTIVELY DROPPED UNDER his desk when he felt the first tremor. A strong aftershock sent part of the cornice and front wall crashing into his office. The shattered bricks narrowly missed him, pulverizing a wooden table where he’d stacked books and papers.

  The converted house, one of two occupied by the university’s Center for Earthquake Studies and the USGS, showed signs of imminent collapse. Cracks, some wide, had appeared in most of the load-bearing walls.

  Jacobs had seen enough.

  “Everybody out of here!” he shouted. “We’re moving into the annex. Now!”

  Located behind the other offices, the single-story, wood-frame building was shaped like a military barracks and contained the earthquake center’s library, a few classrooms, storage areas, and a workshop. Jacobs and the other seismologists had slept there the night before. The center had a supply of camping gear for field trips—sleeping bags, inflatable mattresses, butane stoves, water purification kits, and other equipment that would prove extremely handy in the days and weeks to come.

  The annex, which also housed a set of four seismographs, had been nudged three inches off its foundation, but had held up fairly well. It took several hours to move the computers and the most critical files and databases from the other two buildings.

  Jacobs and six other staff members had made it to the center. So had four of the USGS geologists who’d flown into Memphis after the first quake. Several graduate students had also shown up.

  Earlier that morning, Jacobs had privately asked two of the students to try to reach his house in East Memphis to check on his wife and daughter. He hadn’t been able to get in touch with them and was starting to worry. He
wanted to go himself, but knew his overriding responsibility during the crisis was to keep the earthquake center up and running.

  The students, both Ph.D. candidates, a young man and woman, readily agreed. It wasn’t going to be easy. Jacobs lived more than ten miles away, in the Germantown area. They’d have to walk.

  Jacobs thought of his wife, Susan, and daughter, Lisa. His memory focused on a day before the earthquakes, their last real morning together as a family. They’d had breakfast at the kitchen table, in front of the bay window that Susan loved, the detail that had brought them to buy the house five years earlier. Susan had reminded him to stop at the supermarket on his way home and pick up some milk. He remembered how good she looked, with her long black hair tied back. He should have complimented her, told her how much he loved her. He regretted bitterly that he hadn’t done that. He whispered another silent prayer that they were safe.

  Later that morning, he made his first extended tour of the campus. The scope of the disaster staggered him.

  Most of the university’s brick buildings had been severely damaged. Some had been knocked to pieces. Walls and roofs had collapsed. The Feldman Memorial Library, a new five-story building, was a pile of bricks, glass, and books.

  The worst damage was along Dormitory Row, where the student high-rises were located. Two of the four dorms had collapsed. One of them, a ten-story building, had snapped in half. The other lay on its side, virtually intact. Some of the survivors had been able to climb out of the windows and jump to the ground.

  But many of the two thousand students who lived in those buildings were dead or seriously injured. Some had horrible wounds, and no one to treat them.

  Students and a few campus police officers were climbing through the rubble looking for survivors. Screams seemed to come from a dozen different directions at once.

  Jacobs saw a pair of bare legs sticking out from under a section of drywall. He thought he saw one of the legs move and started to pull away a covering of debris.