by Amy Miles
“That’s wonderful news.” Hannah grins as she rises to her feet. “Can I see her?”
Timothy glances down at Claire with uncertainty but she nods. “Go on. There’s nothing you two can do here.”
Hannah hesitates and realizes that leaving her aunt has slipped her mind. “Oh, I’m so sorry Aunt Claire. I wasn’t thinking…”
“Of course you were,” Claire says, cutting her off. “You were thinking of dear Iris, as you should have been. Go on. I’m perfectly capable of getting my own coffee.”
Hannah squeezes her aunt’s hand and then follows after Timothy, descending two floors to a hall filled with closed patient room doors. He weaves around the nurses station and leads Hannah to a room near the end of the hall. It is surprisingly quiet down here. Only the steady beeping of a heart monitor from within greets them as they enter.
A light green curtain has been pulled across half the room, separating the two beds. Timothy offers a small wave to the elderly man in the first bed and then ducks around the curtain. Hannah glances at him too, noting the large white plaster cast that encases the man’s right leg and arm.
Iris looks tiny in the oversized bed. The veins in her pale arms are prominent against the white sheets. Her eyes are closed and her breathing is steady. “They gave her a sedative to help her rest. I don’t think she’s in any pain now.”
“Thanks to you,” Hannah smiles.
Timothy begrudgingly nods. “And you. I wouldn’t have been able to do it without your help.”
Hannah starts to speak but the door of the room opens with a slam, startling both of them. Timothy pulls back the curtain. His expression shifts from one of frustration at the loud intrusion to utter shock.
“Mark? What are you doing here?”
The man rushes forward, his wet soles slipping on the tile floor. He is drenched from head to foot. Bits of wood stick out from his unruly hair. His face is smudged with mud. “Pastor Justin’s trapped. Whole church fell in on him. We can hear him hollering but can’t get to him.”
Timothy glances back at Hannah. She can see his indecision and his need to stay by Iris’ side. He gives her a curt nod and then grabs the man on the arm, steering him toward the door. “Round up all the guys you can to help. I’ll grab anyone I see and meet you at the church.”
“There ain’t many left to help,” Hannah hears Mark say before the door closes.
Timothy disappears from sight, leaving Hannah alone in the room. She glances down at Iris, grateful to see that the man’s sudden appearance has left her undisturbed. She knows that Timothy feels responsible for the older woman, but right now she’s in far better condition than this Pastor Justin.
What if they can’t find anyone else to help? What if there is no one left who is able to?
Making a rash decision, she rushes past the man with the cast and out into the hall. Hannah glances all around but sees no sign of Timothy. Her feet slap against the tile floor as she rushes to catch up, knowing that her aunt will understand.
There may not be any more men to call, but there’s one woman who can help.
SEVEN
The Eye
Timothy’s long legs out-stride Mark within the first block of their run. By the fourth, he has lengthened the distance between them to nearly a full block. His heart thumps in his chest as he races back toward town. Three miles. That’s all I have to run.
The Faith Community Church that he attends on a weekly basis sits on the outskirts of town, and on a good day would take him only about half an hour to reach. But with the maze of debris before him and the exhaustion weighing him down, Timothy struggles to make the run.
He is not a runner, at least not in the recreational sense of the word. In high school he was a soccer player for more reasons than his fancy footwork, but it’s been a few years since he sprinted the length of a soccer field. With vehicles left deserted all around him, the temptation to hot wire one is strong, but logic tells him that there’s no way to easily maneuver these streets.
He knows that Mark will catch up to him eventually. The man’s stubbier legs and slight paunch slow him down. That and the gallon of coffee and donuts he likes to consume each morning before heading out for work. Mark is a good old boy, lifetime resident, and local handyman. Timothy has used him a time or two for side jobs when he got loaded down with more projects than he could handle. That was back when business was good and people were building homes instead of losing them.
His boots pound the concrete pavement, sending ripples of pain up through his shins. If I’d known I was going to be hoofing it so much today, I’d have changed out of these darn work boots.
His thoughts turn to the church and his Pastor trapped within. It’s not an overly large church. Simple white wooden clapboard siding. Single room sanctuary. Wooden pews that run the length. The classrooms and Pastor’s office are in a back building. It’s a single story but in need of some good TLC. He’s been warning Pastor Justin for the past year that they should be weather proofing that building, just in case.
“I hate it when I’m right,” he pants and tries to speed up.
The blocks pass around him in a blur. His thoughts scatter, refusing to focus on any of the damage surrounding him. It will take months, perhaps years to recover from this storm. Business will be good, but he’d rather it never have happened to begin with.
The winds rip at his shirt, which billows out around him as he runs. His hair lashes against his forehead. One glance at the sky sends fear rippling through him, burrowing deep in his belly. Something is wrong. The clouds are darker and far more ominous than before. They should have begun to move on, not be gathering again.
Leaping over an overturned swing set, Timothy crosses through a yard and jumps over the remains of a white picket fence. The short cut brings him within a few blocks of the church. Already he can feel his strength waning and his breath hitching along with the pain slicing through his side. He clasps the stitch and forces himself to keep going.
One block away he starts to see a group of men standing before the church, clustered together in a small group. The wind howls down the street as he races across and slides to a halt on the muddy grass. His chest clenches at the damage before him.
The A-frame roof has begun to sag in places. The stained glass windows have shattered, littering the ground with a rainbow of color.
“What have we got, fellas?” he calls, doubling over with his hands on his knees.
A tall red headed man with a full bushy beard points to the back side of the building. “Whole thing has sunk in. Foundation just crumbled under when that river came through early this morning.”
Timothy follows Jonas’ gaze and frowns. His friend is right. The entire back right side of the building has sunk into the ground by a couple of feet, almost as if a trench has been dug out of the sandy soil. The whole place looks as if it’s about to fall in on itself. Over the winds, he can hear the shifting of timbers within.
The men beside him all look as worn out as he feels. They are coated in mud, layered with wood splinters, and their hair is plastered to their heads from the spray of a demolished fire hydrant down the street that’s sending a geyser of water into the air.
He has grown up with each of these men. He knows their hang-ups, their extended families, and their dreams. Most of them might not have amounted to much by worldly standards: a school bus driver, a commercial painter, a garbage man, and a football coach at the local elementary school, but Timothy admires them all.
They are all good men. Men he would trust with his life if roles were reversed and he was stuck in Pastor Justin’s shoes.
Timothy surveys the building before him, trying to surmise the best way to begin a rescue attempt without causing further damage. Likely…there is no way around that.
He approaches slowly, ducking and weaving to look between the fallen rafters. The closer he gets, the more nervous he becomes. This isn’t a job for them. They need help. Real, professional help.
“Course we did,” Adam speaks up, sounding slightly put out. Adam Winters has been a longtime friend, growing up on the same street until he was forced to move in with his dad across town as a teen. Ugly divorce. Shook Adam up pretty badly at the time. Timothy and Adam meet every Friday morning for a cup of coffee downtown just to catch up. “They’re run just as ragged as we are. There are people stranded all over the area.”
Timothy casts a grin over at him. “Don’t get all bent out of shape, Adam. I’m just checking, is all.” He ducks low to slip under a section of rafters that broke away from the front of the building and works his way toward the back. His boots sink deep into the moist ground.
As he nears the back side, he spies Daniel McClintock and Rubin Hanson crouched low near an opening. They look up when Timothy approaches. “Figure this is the best way in,” Daniel says. “We’ve had time to look around a bit and this is the best line to Pastor Justin we can find.”
“Yep,” Rubin nods in agreement. “You can hear him hollering from right down in there a ways.”
Timothy ducks down and looks inside. The hole is just a narrow space to inch your way through. There will be no turning back. No do overs if he gets stuck. One wrong move and the whole thing might come tumbling down.
Daniel gives him a hard once over. “Don’t you be thinking what I know you’re thinking, Tim. Your shoulders are too broad to fit through there.”
“I can make it.”
Rubin shakes his head. “No one’s doubting your bravery here, Tim, but I think Daniel’s right. You’ll twist once too fast and you’ll end up knocking the whole thing down.”
From deep within the darkened hole, Timothy can hear Pastor Justin calling for help. It’s a faint call, laced with pain and hoarseness. “How bad is he hurt?”
Daniel and Rubin exchange a loaded glance that sets Timothy’s stomach to churning. “Don’t really know, to be honest with you. Jonas chatted with him a bit a little while ago when Mark left to get some help, but Mark was gone a long time. How’d he find you anyways?”
Timothy wipes his face and forces himself not to let his concern for Iris shake his focus. “He said he got stopped by Charley about a mile from my house. Gave him a lift back to the hospital once they picked up another patient.”
Mark hadn’t said what happened to that patient, or even who it was, but Timothy had known by the slightly greyish tone to his skin when he arrived that it wasn’t good. Mark doesn’t exactly have a stomach for blood.
“Sure glad he found you,” Daniel smiles. He turns and looks back at the hole. “Pastor Justin hasn’t been answering recently. Just moans a lot. Sometimes he screams.”
The sickened feeling grows. They need to do something and they need to do it fast. Time is precious, and with the way the winds are beginning to pick up, it won’t be long till a large gust takes care of the problem for them.
Timothy looks at the men around him, knowing that none of them will have much luck fitting through the hole. He hangs his head, feeling helplessness begin to creep back in for the second time that day.
“I can fit.”
His head whips up and he nearly topples right over as he twists to find the men parting to reveal Hannah standing behind them. She looks tiny compared to the men, though he can tell her determination is rooted deeply. He can see it in the firm set of her shoulders and the way her hands are planted on her hips.
“How did you get here?” He looks around for any sign of a new vehicle parked on the side of the road, realizing that even if she’d found a car to drive and managed to weave her way through the debris there is no way she could have found this church, having never been here before.
“I ran. Same as you. Though I think your poor friend may be a bit late getting here. I passed him a few blocks back, and he looked pretty winded.”
A couple of his friends chuckle but break off at Timothy’s hard glare. He rises and approaches Hannah. “You’re telling me that you not only ran over three miles to get here, but you left Iris and your uncle behind?”
Her determination visibly falters. Her hands leave her hips and slide down to her sides. “Well, it felt like the right thing to do at the time.”
“The right thing?” He can hear the incredulity in his voice. “You don’t owe these people anything. Why do you keep risking your neck for them?”
She sets her shoulders and squares off with him. “Why do you?”
Daniel slaps Timothy on the arm, drawing his attention away from the girl. “She’s got a point,” he says, jutting his chin toward the building. “She can fit.”
“Of course she can,” he growls back. “That doesn’t mean I’m going to let her crawl in there and risk her life.”
“Let me?” He turns slowly at the low growl in her voice. It seems so surprisingly out of character for her. “I appreciate your concern, I really do, but this is my choice to make.”
Timothy steps forward but Daniel grabs hold of him. “She’s not Abby,” he whispers, low enough that he hopes no one else hears. Judging by the way Hannah’s eyes narrow, she heard the comment.
“You shouldn’t take the risk,” he says and pulls away from Daniel. He feels sick at the thought of her going in there alone. Who knows what she will find? What if Pastor Justin is more gravely injured than they fear? What if she reaches him and he’s already dead? Or the winds pick up and bring the whole church down on top of them?
He turns away, unable to look at her. Lord, don’t make me watch another good woman die!
When he turns back, he can see that his concern touches her, but that only makes it harder. “Alright. If you want to do this, you need to do it right. Someone get me a flashlight, a hard hat and a jacket.”
He takes Hannah by the hand and leads her slightly away from the group as the men scatter in search of the items. He ducks his head low, drawing close enough to smell a hint of lavender and vanilla beneath sweat. “Are you sure you want to do this? Do you really think Claire could live with herself if something happened to you in there?”
Hannah surprises him by smiling. “You don’t have to push off your fears onto my aunt, you know?” She places a hand gently on his arm. The muscles flex beneath her hand but he says nothing. “It’s ok to admit that you’re worried about me.”
He clears his throat and pulls back from her grasp. “Just be careful, ok? I don’t want to be the one to have to explain how you got squashed to Claire!”
Hannah laughs. “She can be fiercely protective.”
“This I know.” He steps away and waits for the men to return. He can see Jonas and Rubin digging through a flatbed trailer down the street. That house belongs to the Johnsons. Pete won’t mind at all that they are borrowing from him. He’s been a long time member of the Faith Community Church. What’s his is the community’s in his mind.
“Looks like they’ve about got everything,” he says and turns back. He stops short when he sees Hannah’s look of concern. Glancing behind him, Timothy sees the wall of ominous clouds has grown dangerously close. Down the street, the trees that are starting to whip about in the rising winds. The building behind him begins to creak as it shifts.
“What’s happening?” Hannah yells.
Timothy’s eyes widen as he cranes his head back to stare at the approaching storm. “I think we’re in for another round.”
“What?” He can hear the alarm in her voice as she moves toward him. “I thought it had moved on.
“No.” He shakes his head. “I think we were in the eye.”
His first instinct is to wrap his arms about the younger woman to protect her from whatever harm is coming their way. Timothy has always been a natural protector, but what good did that do him when Abby got hurt? When she was taken from him?
“Can you see now why this is a bad id—” he turns to look at Hannah beside him and realizes she is gone. Whirling around, his stomach rises into his throat as he sees her diving for
the hole.
“No!” he screams and races forward, but it’s too late. There’s no going back. She’s inside and he can’t do anything to help her. Hannah is on her own now.
EIGHT
Going Under
Hannah’s elbows are raw and bleeding. The path before her is littered with fragments of cracked tile, broken glass, and numerous other sharp objects. She grits her teeth as she drags herself forward, keeping her legs stretched out straight behind her.
Her earlier confidence wanes the further she burrows into the collapsed building. Each time a rafter shifts, raining a cloud of thick dust upon her, Hannah fights back her growing claustrophobia. What was I thinking? plays on repeat in her mind.
She has never liked small, confined spaces. Although she has no memory of ever being trapped in a dark closet or accidentally locked in a basement as a child, she has always been uneasy with situations like this. Yeah, situations that could leave me as flat as a pancake.
“Pastor Justin? Can you hear me?” she calls out, trying to keep focused. She has been calling every few feet but still has not found him. The space begins to narrow up ahead. The wooden beams creak overhead. Any minute this whole place could collapse in on her, but she pushes that thought away as she forces herself on. If she gives up, Pastor Justin is as good as gone.
A moan from up ahead captures her attention. “Pastor Justin? Is that you?”
She strains to hear over the howling of the winds above, but she thinks she can hear him—there, not too far up ahead. Fueled by hope, Hannah digs deep and drags herself forward. She cries out as a shard of glass buries into her forearm, leaving a trail of blood behind.
“Help,” a weakened voice calls.
“I’m coming!” She grunts as she hurries, her frustration mounting at how little maneuvering space she has. She blinks, realizing that the sunlight that originally lit her path in broken shafts has nearly disappeared completely, leaving deep shadows in its place.