Chapter 4
Thursday 7:02pm
The seat belt prevented Steve from suffering a serious injury, but the impact of the crash left him momentarily stunned and helpless, while the car rocked violently beneath him, slamming him against the door. A brick smashed into the windscreen inches away from his face, causing him to jerk back in surprise, and a staccato percussion on the roof announced the arrival of several more projectiles. A sudden, shocking intuition had him fumbling for the release of the seat belt and, slamming his shoulder against the door, which had jammed uncooperatively, he dived into the street, hitting the ground hard as it surged up to meet him. Unable to regain his feet as the earth jumped savagely, he rolled away from the car, covering his head with his arms for protection. His precipitous exit from the car was only just in time, as the outer walls of a three-story building crumbled like stale crackers in an avalanche of bricks and mortar, collapsing the roof of Steve's car and burying it under several tons of debris.
Gritty dust billowed thickly from the pile of rubble in choking waves, part of a violent assault on all his senses. A roar like a freight train approaching through a tunnel built to a deafening crescendo, adding to the disorientation of a world gone insane. The ground rolled and swelled under him, a carnival ride from hell. The thunder seemed to emanate from the very depths of the earth, accompanied by the crash of falling debris, but Steve still heard a faint cry for help. Focusing through the visual haze, he saw a young boy, maybe six or seven years old, whom he vaguely remembered had been riding a bicycle on the opposite side of the street before the arrival of the temblor. He now lay on the road, his face contorted with terror and pain, an expression that channeled straight to Steve's protective instincts.
He attempted to stand, but the earth had become a living entity, a demon possessed, capriciously dancing and cavorting under his feet, and it punished him for his temerity in challenging it by flinging him to the ground. He clambered over to the boy in an undignified sprawl which ended in a desperate dive as, with a split-second warning, he saw impending disaster. He pulled the child into the shelter of his body, covering their heads with his leather jacket as the windows in the apartment building nearby shattered and fell in a deadly cascade of razor-edged fragments. If these had scored a direct hit, they would almost certainly have been lethal, but they fell just short, hitting the pavement and sending ricochets in all directions. The main energy of their descent was blunted, but they still contained enough force to slice deep into flesh protected only by a thin layer of clothing. Steve flinched, the pain almost irrelevant under the circumstances, and kept his head down, murmuring strained reassurances to the child until the barrage was ended. The ground continued to leap and roll underneath him, and when the storm of projectiles tapered off, he raised his head, relief tempered by the realisation that the ordeal was far from over.
Californian born and bred, Steve had been taught from an early age the proper procedures to stay safe in an earthquake. Outside, you were supposed to head for an open area, stay away from buildings, power lines, trees, anything that might choose to use your personal space into which to fall. However, as Steve attempted to assess the best route to safety, he realised with wry, and slightly morbid, incredulity that it would have been hard to have found a more dangerous place to weather the cataclysm. This narrow street was a death trap, loaded as it was with a generous abundance of the worst kind of hazards. To even try to find sanctuary would mean running the gauntlet of shattering glass and collapsing overhangs and awnings, while the ground imitated a bucking bronco beneath his feet. Arches and doorways were supposed to be the safest structures to shelter under, but none of the buildings still standing looking particularly promising as a haven, so Steve reluctantly decided that their safest choice was to stay where they were, and hope the area had already thrown the worst it could at them.
To those experiencing the quake, it seemed an eternity, but in reality it had only lasted 30 seconds, and was now building to the final onslaught. With a rending groan, the ground began to open up in giant fissures, buckling the road and tearing it into jigsaw-puzzle shapes which moved up and down and tilted at all angles. A crack opened in the street mere inches from Steve's head, and he scuttled away from it, his heart pounding savagely, but his movements were hampered by the child in his arms and the violent jogging of the ground. Then a chasm opened beneath him, and he plummeted helplessly into it, a split second of freefall allowing him to anticipate the worst and send a heartfelt mental apology to his father.
He braced himself for the inevitable impact, but his landing was surprisingly soft, the soil warm and fragrant around him. He struggled to find his footing in the yielding dirt as he realised that they were on the verge of being engulfed by the sundry rubble tumbling into the fissure. He fended off the wreckage as best he could, and successfully boosted the boy to the top of the crevasse. He struggled unavailingly to find a foothold in the continually churning and slippery earth, suppressing a shudder of horror at the thought of being buried alive. His scrabbling feet finally found a purchase on the embankment and, with the aid of a whimsically helpful nudge from the roiling earth, he threw himself over the lip, gasping, just as the gaping chasm suddenly slammed shut with the ferocity of an alligator's jaws grabbing at escaping prey. The force of the impact was enough to cause a ridge where the two sides met which looked uncannily like the elongated grave it had almost become.
This last violent oscillation completed the virtual annihilation of the area. Steve watched in amazement as a nearby grocery store slid off its foundations to rest mostly intact at a thirty-degree angle from the vertical, spilling food, shelving and other assorted debris out through the shattered window. A palm tree, its roots loosened by the shifting earth toppled over and, in its descent, knocked over a telephone pole, resulting in a cascade along the line accompanied by the groaning and snapping of splintering wood. Steve found himself like a hapless protagonist in a sadistic video game, dodging splintering wooden posts and their attached wires that had ripped apart and now writhed menacingly as he evaded their grasp. Exhausted, with numerous minor injuries, Steve was near the end of his physical endurance, but his spirit was as indomitable as ever, and he grimly summoned his waning resources to fight to the end.
He was granted a surprise reprieve when the roaring died sullenly away to a dull rumble and then was replaced by an ominous silence. Steve sat up carefully, taking his first real breath since the air had been knocked out of him on his first contact with the heaving pavement. He suddenly became aware of the multitude of aches assaulting his body. He absently plucked a few shards of glass from easily accessible areas as memories of previous earthquake experiences played in his mind. He remembered that the first shock was frequently followed by an immediate aftershock, so he wasn't surprised when the end of the brief respite was signaled by a return of a muted but intensifying rumble, and the ground started to convulse and shudder once again. He muttered a brief invective before crouching wearily once more over the boy, who uttered a pitiful whimper at the realisation that the terror was not yet over.