Tom Simpson - Sink

“Let’s go Frankie, I’m scared. I don’t want the whole roof to fall on my head. You said you wanted to get out of here. Let’s hurry up and go.”

“Well, I just changed my mind.”

“You said the desk clerk was gone. How are you going to get the combination to the safe? If we can’t open it, there is no reason to stick around. Come on. Let’s go.”

“Will you wait a damn minute and quit all that yapping. You sound like a six-year old kid on speed. Look in that office for a minute. Do you see what I see?”

Carrie strained his eyes in the very weak light and he could barely make out the safe against the back wall of the office.

“The door is open Frankie. I can barely see it but, the door is for sure open.”

“Yeah, I know. The sudden drop must have popped it open. We don’t need the desk clerk now.”

Frankie started walking around the collapsed desk and into the open door of the office. He unbuttoned several of the lower buttons on his dress shirt and reached in and pulled out a canvas bag. This will work quite nicely, he thought to himself.

“Hurry up Carrie.” He had turned around when he got to the safe and had seen Carrie still standing on the other side of the desk. “We’ve got work to do.”

The two men finished cleaning the currency and jewels out of the safe and were heading out the office door when the building sank a second time. They were again thrown to the floor but, they recovered a lot faster than before. They picked themselves up and headed in the same direction as the desk clerk.

The initial sinking of the lobby hadn’t killed anybody that was in the main part of the building. The second jolt, stronger than the first, crumbled the heavy peaked roof over the lobby

and the death toll began to mount.

Mike Summers sat on a thirty-pound cardboard barrel of chlorine inside the maintenance shed and passed the rest of the roach back to his twin brother Mark

“You know Mark, that Santos babe was really built. Did you see the way she strolled past me when she walked back to her room? I could really go for a lady like that.”

“Put your ego back on the ground Mike. That lady walked past you like that because she has class and all ladies with class walk that way. She wasn’t showing off for you and besides she probably thought you were me. I’m the handsome one of this pair.”

“Hey dope head. We are identical twins or have you forgotten that. Cripes! What was that loud noise? It sounded like it came from the hotel.”

Mike jumped off the barrel and ran for the door and almost collided with his brother who had been leaning on the back wall of the shed. Mike stopped in his tracks as soon as he cleared the doorway and was almost back ended by Mark who had hurried up behind him.

“Look at that Mark. The whole hotel just sank. I can’t believe this. The whole thing is gone. Mark, what the hell can we do and what happened to all the people. Oh my God, this is terrible.”

“Come on Mike. We’ve got to do something. Let’s see if we can find somebody to help. There has to be some people trapped somewhere in that hole. Wait, go back in the shed, and grab those ropes we have for closing off areas. I know they’ll come in handy. I’ll meet you in the driveway in front. It looks okay from here. Now hurry up and haul ass.”

Sally Backlin and Beverly Forham were staring past the swimming pool at the maintenance shed wondering when the twins would come back when, they were knocked to the pavement by a tremendous jolt. The ground had buckled under their feet and an earthquake immediately came to both teenage girls’ minds. Suffering little more than a scraped elbow, Beverly quickly set up and asked Sally if she was alright.

“Yeah I’m fine Bev but, what the hell happened? My God, look behind you. The whole building is gone. Where is everybody? Where are our parents? They were right inside the doors, but I don’t even see the doors anymore. What could have possibly happened?”

“I don’t know Sally but, we have to get some help. We have to find somebody. We just have to do something.”

“Oh look Beverly! Here comes one of those boys now. He’ll know what to do. He has to”

Mark Summers, ran up to the two girls and put both hands on his knees and bent over gulping in large breaths of air.

“Are you girls alright?” He managed to squeeze out between breaths. “Have you seen anybody else?”

“No!” Beverly sobbed. “We don’t even know where our parents are. You have to help us find them.”

“Listen girls, as soon as my brother gets here we’ll find your parents. He’s bringing some rope and we’ll see what’s going on. Look at the size of the hole where the lobby was. I can barely see the roof, but it doesn’t look like the top fell in. Don’t worry your parents and everybody else will be safe. All we have to do is climb down the hole and help them back out. Everything will be fine.”

Mark’s eyes slowly misted over as he walked toward the gaping hole where the resort had stood. Peering down into the hole he thought nobody could have lived through that tremendous jolt the buildings must have taken when they had rapidly sunk into the freshly opened earth. The second floor wing of the resort was about fifty yards away and was now at ground level.

Just when Mike came running up with three bright yellow coils of nylon rope the screams began.

“Help me. Please dear God, somebody help me.”

The female voice, shaking with fear, was soon joined by a chorus of others. Distinguished from the rest was the plaintiff wailing of a baby not unlike the cry of a newborn calf.

The helpless cries ceased for a moment as the ground abruptly shook again and this time the roof line disappeared from sight. The pitiful pleas for help began drifting again towards the surface along with a tremendous cloud of earthy smelling dust. The screams for help, about a third of the number before the latest jolt, were filled with pure terror that made the twins and both young girls shiver with fright.

Mark, shaking his fear off like a freshly washed dog, grabbed one of the ropes out of his brother’s hand and ran towards the closest newly planted royal palm that was lining the driveway.

“Come on Mike and you girls too. Let’s tie the ropes to these trees and throw the other

ends into the hole. We’ve got to try to get those people out before it caves in any more.”

Steve Sidel, up since 5:15, fifteen minutes late of his normal waking time due to the overindulgence of too many drinks the night before, had just zipped the trousers of his charcoal colored suit when the floor fell away from his feet. Banging his head on the side of the nightstand when he fell, he managed to regain his feet rather groggily by pulling himself up on the now very slanted double bed. The room was in complete shambles, his still unpacked suitcases, now very unpacked, were stacked haphazardly along the doorway wall next to the self contained air-conditioning unit, its power source pulled away from the wall like a freshly severed umbilical cord. The bathroom door, hanging on one hinge, was still swaying with a slight creaking noise. The large double window, now shed of its thick earth tones drapery was at a sixty-degree angle from the frame but miraculously hung unbroken.

Steve, reaching up with his left hand, felt his now throbbing forehead and could feel a gash about three inches long right across his left side hairline. Looking at his open palm and fingers when he brought it away from his face, he saw his hand was completed covered in scarlet. Staggering past the overturned day chair, he pulled himself into the bathroom and grabbed the extra roll of toilet tissue that had been on the back of the toilet but was now leaning against the white porcelain side of the motel tub. Ripping away the paper wrapper he tossed it uncaringly down on the tile floor and held the entire unwrapped roll against his forehead. The pain seemed to push inward and at least he could now try to think. The blood not yet in his eyes soaked quickly into the homemade bandage and he began to wonder what kind of bomb had gone off. He had not heard any loud bang but more of a muffled type explosion. He decided the next course of action was to find out what was going on so he headed toward the door of the room and whatever he would find outside.