Earthquake – Chapter Four

Louis pushed himself off the ground and took off full-speed toward Tawny's house.  He knew that there would be no fire department that could get to the scene fast enough.  He didn't even know if there were any operational fire trucks.  He heard the pounding of Tawny's feet behind him.  "Wait, Louis!" she shouted, then tripped and fell.  Louis didn't even glance back but kept running.

Once he arrived at Tawny's house he glanced back to see the fire spreading down the street, engulfing any debris left on the pavement.  He kicked off his shoe and smashed it forcefully into the window.  Nothing happened.  It didn't even crack.  Panicking, Louis looked around for a heavy object and found a small, upturned tree.  With all his might, he dragged the tree off the ground.  The splintered wood sunk into the flesh on his arms.  Wincing in pain and trying not to inhale the smoke that surrounded the house, he rammed the end of the broken tree into the window, shattering the glass, then pushed it aside and hoisted himself through the window and into the Deans' living room.  Ren had been slightly awakened by the glass shattering, and she looked around, dismayed.

"Louis?"

"Ren, we gotta get out of here," said Louis, grabbing his sister's arm and dragging her to a sitting position.  "Come on."

Ren could barely walk, but Louis shoved her through the open window and she lay on the ground, unmoving.  Louis jumped into the yard and helped Ren stand up, putting his arm around her waist, and moved away from the house as fast as he could.  Seconds later, the fire blackened the side of the house and began to creep up to the roof.  Louis didn't want to see what happened.  He staggered over to Tawny, who was sitting on the ground, clutching her ankle.

"Are you okay?" Louis asked Tawny.

"Are you okay?" she said, grabbing his arm, which contained several bleeding cuts from the rough tree bark.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine."

"Ren?" said Tawny.

Ren rubbed her eyes.  "What?  What happened?"

"Is my house gone?" Tawny asked softly.

Louis just looked at her and slightly nodded his head.

He and Tawny positioned Ren against a tree and she nodded off again.  "When does the Valium wear off?" Louis asked Tawny.

"In two or three hours."  Tawny frowned.  "I'm sorry I did that, Louis.  You wouldn't have gotten hurt if she hadn't been in my house."

"It's okay."  Louis knelt down and touched Tawny's ankle.  She gave a small gasp and pulled away.  "What happened?"

"I think I twisted it or something," Tawny replied.  "I'll be okay."

"Where do we go now?" Louis asked.

Tawny shrugged.  "Where is there to go?"

Just beyond the city of Sacramento everything was okay, Louis thought.  If they could just find his parents and get out and never return to the disaster-torn city...

He shook his head.  His parents weren't coming back.  They would have found him by now.  But he couldn't think about it.  He had to think of Ren, and Tawny, and Donnie, and how they would take care of themselves. 

"So where do you think Twitty is?" Tawny suddenly asked.  "He lives on the other side of the block."

A sinking feeling appeared in Louis' stomach.  "Geez, I don't even want to think about it."

"I wonder if we'll be able to graduate," said Tawny.  "I wonder if they'll even open the school again."

"Of course they will!" Louis shouted.  "This is the United States of America.  The government isn't just going to leave our city a disaster area!  In a few weeks we'll all have forgotten about this whole thing."

"Yeah.  I'm sorry," said Tawny.  "I just don't know what else to do."

Ren woke up awhile later, and she and Louis helped Tawny limp to the police station, where her ankle was bandaged and Louis' arm was tended to.

"We have rescue helicopters coming in," one of the officers informed Louis, Tawny, and Ren.  "They're going to evacuate the city, eventually.  Right now it's too large a rescue mission for any of us to undertake.  This is the worst disaster that's ever happened in this city."

For two nights they slept in the police station with hundreds of other people whose houses had been destroyed.  Then Donnie joined them, drugged up on sedatives so he wouldn't be able to attack Louis again, and they sat in silence, each of them trying to block out their thoughts.

Tawny's parents came on the third day.  Her mother was crying and in shock, and her father couldn't stop hugging her and looking at her, just to make sure she was alive.

"We have nowhere to live," Mrs. Dean gasped.  "Oh, you poor kids," she added, looking at the Stevenses.  "Oh, Louis."  There was nothing more to say.

"This is all a bad dream," Ren kept muttering.  "It's all a bad dream."

"We have to get you kids out of here," said Mr. Dean.  "We're all going to San Francisco and staying in a hotel until the city is rebuilt.  Ren, Louis, Donnie, you can stay with us."

"Donnie and I should go back to school," Ren murmured.

"No, sweetie, don't worry about it," said Mrs. Dean.  "You two come with us and we'll wait for your parents."

Everyone seemed hopeful that Steve and Eileen would come back, so Louis and Ren played along with it.  The six of them escaped to San Francisco and checked into two hotel rooms.

At first everything seemed fine.  Donnie had calmed down a bit and went running every morning.  When he came back from his run he usually offered to run errands for the Deans to replace some of the possessions they had lost in their house.  Then he went out for coffee or worked out at the gym.  At night he went to a bar.  He had to keep busy, and the rest of the group hardly ever saw him.

Ren began corresponding with Michigan State through e-mail and worked out a plan to take college courses online.  She kept herself busy with studying.

Louis sought Tawny for comfort, but he always had a burning jealousy within because Tawny had her parents still.  He and Ren had grown much closer, and they often talked at night, but they never had any conversations of substance.

The Deans both found jobs and began looking for an apartment to move into temporarily.  They tried to act as if Ren, Louis, and Donnie weren't a burden, and desperately tried to find their parents, putting out notices to the community every day.  They were concerned about Louis and Tawny, who hadn't attended school at all while they were supposed to be filling out college applications.  Eventually they accepted the Stevenses as some extension of their family, but the sadness in Louis' and Ren's eyes and the emptiness and despair in Donnie's broke their hearts.

Just before Thanksgiving, a police officer showed up at the door of the Deans' apartment and announced that Steve and Eileen Stevens were presumed dead, since they were unable to be found anywhere and traces of their DNA suggested that they were no longer living.

Mr. Dean walked into the living room, where Ren and Louis were watching TV, and tried to fathom some speech to make.  He couldn't support raising four kids, and there was nothing he could do to help or motivate them.  He would have to tell them not only that they would never see their parents again, but that they would have to find jobs and move out as soon as possible.  As much as it hurt him to do it, he knew that he had to.  Crossing over to the couch, Mr. Dean knelt by Louis, took and deep breath, and prepared to make the announcement.

It's not over 'til it's over, which it's not...