This story was written for the 2014 Tracy Island Writers Forum's FicSwap Challenge. Here is the request I received, which was from Mazza: "A rescue operation set in your local area. (Sounds easy but you really have to think! Leaves a lot of things open.)"

Thank you to Samantha Winchester for the really fast beta she had to do on this one! :-)

Walking in Memphis

"Touched down in the land of the Delta Blues, in the middle of the pouring rain."
-Marc Cohn, "Walking in Memphis"

How she loved her city. She looked at the Hernando-Desoto Bridge spanning the beautiful fast-moving Mississippi from Memphis, Tennessee to West Memphis, Arkansas; it was still early enough in the morning that the 200 sodium vapor lights which lined its M-shaped arches were lit. Combined with the twitter of songbirds, it lent an air of mystery to the river that had her feeling like she was the only person for miles. The sight never failed to take her breath away.

Her eyes moved to the muddy waters of the river itself, seemingly alive as they swirled lazily along on a mission to reach the Gulf of Mexico. So much had been written about its majesty in fiction and poetry. So much history along its banks. And here on the concrete pathways that allowed bicyclists, roller-bladers and skaters, dogs and pedestrians to stroll along, she could take in all the sights relatively undisturbed at five-thirty in the morning.

At twenty-eight years of age, Ellie Johnson had lived here her entire life. From her humble beginnings as one of twelve kids, living with mother and grandmother in a small, rundown house near the railroad tracks in the Raleigh neighborhood, to winning a full four-year university scholarship from the African-American Scientific League, Ellie had come a long way. And she firmly believed that this city – its people, unique history, culture and the Beale Street Blues atmosphere that made it Memphis – deserved credit for what she had achieved so far.

Success had come to Ellie via the Infectious Diseases department at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. She'd held her current entry-level job as a Research Technologist since graduating from medical school, and loved what she did. Already Ellie had been told three times by the supervising doctor of Infectious Diseases that she was going to be on the fast-track since she was already an MD. It was only a matter of time until the right position opened up, sending her career skyrocketing.

Her mother was proud of her, to be sure. And her grandmother had been, too, until her death three years earlier. But over time, as Ellie had finished undergraduate school and then gone on to pursue her career in medicine, most of her siblings had fallen away one by one. Her brother Kevan, four years older than her, had died in gang-related shootings before she was even out of high school. The rest of her brothers and sisters were in jail, couldn't work for various medical reasons, or held jobs at the dollar store, a fast food restaurant, in construction or lawn care. Her eldest brother Gamahl wandered the streets of her beloved city, choosing to be homeless rather than work for 'the man.'

By this time, there were only five of her eleven siblings who were doing well for themselves; who'd managed to rise from the depths of poverty into some sort of halfway decent life. To date, Ellie had gone the farthest. But she had high hopes for her youngest sister Leitha, who was making straight A's in high school and wanted to follow the same path Ellie had. She encouraged her however she could, even taking her to tour St. Jude's every weekend so she could meet the child patients and their families; could really grasp how much good she could do trying to help eradicate infectious diseases, like Ellie did, or cancer, which killed far too many people each year. The courage each of those disease-ridden kids at St. Jude showed on a daily basis always gave Ellie that little extra bit of oomph whenever she was feeling down, and Leitha had begun to feel it, too.

Yes, she loved her life and she loved her job and she loved her city. Glancing toward the bluff upon which expensive homes were crowded close together, Ellie noted that it was overcast, and decided to head back to the farthest of the river walk's three parking lots from where she currently stood. Sighing contentedly as she smoothed the sides of her hair back to where a red scrunchie gathered it into a curly ponytail that hung to the nape of her neck, she slowly began to make her way back to her car.

Breathing heavily, sweat pouring down his neck, back and sides, Scott grinned as the ball sailed past John, causing his younger brother to throw his racket down to the polished wooden court floor in frustration.

"How the hell do you make that shot?" John asked, taking a towel from a pile in the corner and tossing it Scott's way. He then picked up another and began mopping his forehead and neck.

Grabbing the towel in mid-air, Scott took a swipe at his own damp face. "Nobody can beat me in racquetball, and the reason is this: I don't give my secrets away!"

John grumbled good-naturedly, throwing Scott a bottle of water from the bag he'd brought with him. The two men downed their bottles in one long guzzle, recapping them and tossing the empties back into John's bag.

"So, what do you say?" Scott needled mischievously. "Best ten out of fifteen?"

Snorting at him, John replied, "Yeah, because I'm a glutton for punishment."

"That's the spirit!" Scott said, twirling his racquet in hands and grinning wickedly.

"Just you wait. One of these days I'll figure it out," John advised, picking up his racquet and grabbing his soaked tee shirt to pull it away from his chest. Back and forth and back and forth, letting his skin breathe.

"Fat chance," Scott countered as he retrieved the ball. "You ready?"

"As I'll ever be," John lamented.

Just as Scott was gearing up to start their eleventh game, Thunderbird Five's automated alarm cut through the air, echoing madly around the forty-by-twenty-foot court.

"Raincheck," Scott said, his clipped voice all business now. He dropped his racquet and the ball, just as John's racquet clattered to the floor. Lickety-split they were out the door and running for the elevator that would deliver them to the nerve center of International Rescue: the main office in the villa.

Ellie stumbled as she passed the first parking lot just before the central Landing building at the T intersection of Beale Street and Riverside Drive. Frowning, she stopped and looked down at her comfortable black Skechers sneakers to see if one had come untied; if it'd been a shoelace that'd tripped her up. But no, the laces of both shoes were still in their snug rabbit-ear knots. She looked around to see if her clumsiness had been noticed. Luckily the only souls out this early with her were an older man walking his bulldog and a young woman on a bicycle who'd passed her just moments earlier. Both were facing away from her. She thanked her stars that she hadn't embarrassed herself, and started walking again.

The ground beneath her feet seemed to bounce. Before she could process what had actually happened, the whole section of path she was on lurched upward, throwing her to the grass between it and the river. Landing on her right arm with a grunt, Ellie rolled to her back and sat up, only to have a stronger jolt hit that sent her sprawling backwards. Her purse flew off her shoulder, its top flying open. She could hear her cell phone, makeup case, wallet, pens and various other contents scatter on the nearer edge of sidewalk surrounding Beale Street Landing. And then the camel-hump-shaped building itself made a noise that produced an involuntary shiver in her.

The earth continued to shake. Heart in her throat, Ellie tried desperately to get to her feet but couldn't gain her balance no matter how many clumps of grass she grabbed trying to do so. Sure, she was aware of the New Madrid Seismic Zone; if you grew up in Memphis, you knew about it. But there hadn't been any earthquakes here worth mentioning since the early 1800s! "This can't be happening," she whispered, shaking with fright.

Then to her absolute horror, Ellie realized that the ground was moving again…actually tilting her toward the Mississippi. "No!" she hollered, eyes darting everywhere. There had to be something she could grab hold of!

The bench.

The bench!

Lining the entirety of the river walk were green benches bolted to the concrete pathways. And there was one barely a foot away from Ellie. She rolled onto her stomach, the continued shaking of the ground making her feel like throwing up. She scooted to the sidewalk, now completely cracked width-wise, and then an even larger bump-up launched her a few inches in the air. She smacked down chest-first on the grass just the other side of the pathway, the wind knocked out of her. Her mind spun in circles as she gasped, trying to gulp oxygen into her lungs. She was thrown to her left and then back to the right as the Beale Street Landing building groaned.

Ellie's right hand swung out above her and connected with something hard. She cried out in pain, looked to where it was…and saw the bench she'd been after. Quickly she dug her heels into the ground and shoved herself toward it just enough that she could grasp its black iron leg.

The shriek of metal being ripped apart and imploding glass deafened her. Her jaw dropped in disbelief as the Beale Street Landing building collapsed in on itself. Car alarms and house alarms were blaring up and down the tall hill just the other side of tree-lined Riverside Drive from her. Twisting her head to look every which way, she froze as all the expensive houses on the bluff started breaking apart and falling down to the street below. Dust and debris filled the air; screams of panic and pain competed with a roar that could only be all the old brick buildings downtown as they split, toppled and crumbled to their deaths amidst brown and red dust and smoke.

And then something that, above and beyond the great crashes and screeches and honking horns and sounds of Armageddon, shot desperate fear to the very core of her being. Just as Ellie managed to get her left hand to join her right on the bench leg, an ear-splitting CRACK rose above all other sounds of mayhem, even as the earthquake continued trying to toss her around like so much detritus.

When she looked down toward the river, she knew exactly what that sound had been. All she could do as she watched the newly-created fissure in the ground travel her way, was scream.