I Need a Hero, Chapter 3
(The End Begins)
Leonard frantically dug in his pocket for his phone. Twice he failed to get it out and the third try resulted in it skittering across the floor as he dropped it. He took a deep breath and willed himself to be calm. Picking it up he hit the speed dial.
"Honey," he said when Penny answered, "It's starting."
The Cheesecake waitress snapped her phone closed. She dropped her menus and order pad in front of the surprised diners whom she had just been regaling with the day's specials. Without a word she turned and walked out.
She unlocked her car and got in; carefully placing her phone on the dash she started the engine, put on her seat belt and shifted the vehicle into drive. Retrieving her phone she pressed send.
"Amy? It's time. I'm on the way to get you. No don't worry, Donna will get Sheldon. And she won't take 'No' for an answer." With that she dropped the phone in the passenger seat and stepped hard on the gas.
Methodically Leonard was turning off the computers, printers and other equipment in his now-a-days overflowing lab/office. Thank goodness he had been moved to a bigger one, as befitting his Nobel Prize winner status. He sighed. Too bad that trophy, the end result of years of work, meant absolutely nothing now.
His phone beeped. He looked at the screen. It was Leslie. He picked it up as he left the room with his lap top under his arm, closing the door behind him and locking it from sheer force of habit.
"Amy called me. Are you sure?" the female physicist asked without bothering to waste time waiting for Leonard to speak.
"Without a doubt. The backdoor tap Howard ran into the US Geological Survey's computers shows quakes are beginning to swarm all over North America and they are getting reports from other nations saying the same thing. Those quakes are not stopping; they're only building in intensity. It's only a matter of time and not much of it before the San Andreas Fault starts to let go. In fact I'm surprised it hasn't already."
"We've been eavesdropping on the National Weather Service as well. They picked up a panicked SOS call from a cruise ship off the Japanese coast that only lasted seconds before being abruptly cut off. It reported a giant wave bearing down on them. A tsunami alert has been issued for the coast there but scattered comments were picked up that it was already too late for anyone not already moving to get to high ground."
"So we're going to be moving then when it starts here," Leslie stated rather than asked.
"Yes."
"Okay, I'm on my way to get Raj. He'll call Howard and Bernadette. Have you called Donna? Without her we're up the creek."
"Penny did. I got a text message from Donna. Good news and bad news. The good news is of course that she's not on duty today. The bad news is that she has to pick up her kids and then Sheldon. Fortunately it's a straight shot from the school to the apartment building and north out of town. Knowing the way she drives she'll probably still beat us there."
Leonard had not stopped walking briskly towards the parking lot while he talked. He fought an urge to start running. The initial problem with his phone had reminded him again of what Donna had stressed would be the biggest obstacle to their plan.
"Panic is the killer," the Coast Guard Petty Officer had told them all at a meeting after she had brought in on the secret and the developing plan for their escape. "People drown when safety is only a few strokes away because they panic. Rescuers have had to abandon people they could have saved because the victim's panic was such they could not be approached."
"When this starts everyone is going to be frantic, running wild and having no idea what to do. The secret to surviving is to stay focused on what you need to do. There may come a moment when we all have to start running. Don't do that until it's absolutely necessary. The time you might save won't help if you fall and break your leg."
"Finally," the young woman looked grimly at the group, "people will be desperate. Desperate people do terrible things when fear takes over. They may try to seize your car or take the stuff you have packed. Be alert. Don't let them. If you have to run over someone then do it. As horrible as it sounds you can't stop to help someone. It might be a trap and there won't be any time for that anyway. Or room for other people. You are all nice folks; kind thoughtful civilized people. Don't let it kill you. Civilization is going to go out the window."
Leonard's phone chimed. He glanced at the screen. Howard and Bernadette were on their way. By the time he drove out of the parking lot Amy had called to inform him that her "bestie" had picked her up. Everything was going according to plan.
He had just placed his phone back on the dashboard when it began to vibrate and skitter about on the dash. He gripped the wheel as the car began to shake. Then as quickly as it had started the quake slowed and stopped.
"That was a warning," he said aloud. "It IS time to go." By the time he was out of the parking lot the tires were squealing.
Per a last minute decision at their final meeting as soon as Penny had picked up Amy and the pair was headed towards their hoped-to-be safety the neurobiologist called Sheldon. She was sure he was home since he had announced he was going to work on his latest project from there for a few days. He had expressed surprise at all the support and encouragement he had received at the University when he had announced that. No one had the heart to tell him just why everyone thought his spending time away from the University was greeted with such enthusiasm. And obviously no one was available to take him to the comic book store, Pottery Barn, Soup Plantation, Radio Shack or any of the other places he was always telling friends they needed to drive him.
It seemed to take forever but finally an irritated Sheldon answered the phone.
"What is it Amy?" he snapped. "I can't be bothered every time you think that..."
"Shut up Sheldon," Amy snapped back. Taken completely aback by anyone treating him the way he often treated others he did just as she told him. Satisfied she went on.
"There's a file on your computer I just sent you. Open it, read the first part and then grab your earthquake emergency kit and anything else you can carry. Donna is on her way to pick you up. While you wait you can check some of the confirming data attached. But hurry. She won't wait for you and you need to listen to her." Amy hung up her phone cutting off Sheldon's sputtering protests before they had time to gain any momentum. Or coherence.
Within just a few minutes Donna screeched to a stop outside the building. Instructing her six year old twins to stay in the truck she bounded up the four flights of steps. She hammered on Sheldon's door.
"Sheldon! Get moving. Come ON!"
"I'm not ready," came from the other side of the door. "I haven't finished reviewing the data."
Donna took one step back and delivered a flat footed kick at the door. The high security lock that Howard had installed held. The door hinges didn't. An astonished Sheldon looked up from his laptop.
"You have three minutes and then I'm leaving without you. You only have those three minutes because I want to get my daughter's extra medications beyond those I already have stored in the truck downstairs. You can bring your computer, in fact if it's satellite capable than we need it. But MOVE!" She disappeared only to stick her head back in as Sheldon sat frozen at his computer. "NOW!" she roared in the same voice she had learned to give commands in while boarding possible drug boats and vessels in trouble.
Sheldon moved.
When the next tremor rocked the building he moved even faster. In fact now he was running, frantically bringing stacks of items to the front door. By the time Donna returned, a small bag hanging from her shoulder by a strap, the pile of stuff was assuming monumental proportions.
"What goes Sheldon?"
"What goes?" He stared at the red-head as though she was crazy. "All of it goes."
"Not hardly. You can take what you and I can carry in one trip" She looked at the stack. "Your game systems are staying as are your comic books although I suppose you can bring a couple if you can stuff them somewhere. You need clothes, hygiene items and any medications you need including over-the-counter ones. Do you even have a toothbrush and soap in this?"
In short order the pair was making its way down the stairs. Increasingly powerful tremors had wiped Sheldon's complaints away. They emerged into the street and a scene of chaos. Donna threw her load in the back of her four wheel drive crew cab truck, yanked open the passenger's side door and told Sheldon to get in. He protested.
"I have to put my stuff in the truck and it needs to be laid out carefully, not simply chucked in there". He peered into the truck's back seat. "Couldn't your children, one at least anyway, ride in the back?"
In answer she yanked his stuff from him, nearly strangling him with the strap of the overnight bag he had looped around his shoulder. She tossed it with the other stuff and shoved him head first into the open door.
He hurried when another and even larger tremor shook the street. Bricks from nearby buildings began to fall and to his horror he saw the buildings themselves were beginning to sway. He slammed the door and put on his seat belt as Donna came around to the driver's side.
Just as she did a large man, shouting words Sheldon couldn't understand, ran towards them. As the recipient of innumerable bullyings Sheldon instantly realized the man was going to try to take something from them. But Donna recognized the danger too apparently. Timing it just right she yanked open her door, slamming it with all her strength into the charging man and knocking him flat. Then she was behind the wheel, the engine was running and tires smoked as she roared down the road. Sheldon couldn't tell for sure but thought she might have run over the man she had flattened. Then she turned on to Euclid Avenue and he ended up fainting.
When he woke up he immediately wished he hadn't. Donna had just cleared a line of stalled and crashed cars on some secondary road and the acceleration was pushing him back in the seat. He snuck a peek over then wrenched his eyes away. He really didn't need to know, he reasoned, that the speedometer was now registering over one hundred miles an hour.
The view elsewhere wasn't any better. To their left the land was falling off into the ocean. On the right he watched in horror as a freeway overpass collapsed on a line of cars. He looked in the oversized side view mirrors and really wished he hadn't as they came up a rise affording him a miles long view behind them. From what he could see from Pasadena all the way back to Los Angeles the entire California coast was sliding into the ocean.
"Sheldon."
"What?" He managed to wrench his attention back to the driver.
"See if you can call Leonard."
Amazingly he got through. But before he could even start say anything beyond hello Donna told him to hold the phone towards her.
"Leonard has everyone made it?"
"Yes but the gate is locked and chained and we can't get in."
"We're five minutes out. Clear me a path and be ready to follow me in."
"Okay."
Leonard apparently hung up as though he didn't even care to talk to Sheldon who reminded the crazy woman "Wherever we're going there's a locked and chained gate or didn't you hear Leonard say that?"
"Yep. You better hold on. Tighter."
(To be continued)