Boyd Morrison - The Tsunami Countdown

“Except for the fact that I can’t move, I’m fine. I think Mia might have a broken leg.”

“Let’s try pulling you.” Kai gripped Brad by both hands and pulled until his full weight was into it.

“Stop!” Brad cried. “It’s not working. You’re going to pull my arms off.”

Teresa bent over and caressed Mia’s hair.

“You’re going to be all right, honey.”

Kai quickly inspected the foot-wide girder. The situation looked grim. The wall between the kitchen and the condo hallway had kept it from hitting the floor and crushing them, but that was about the only good news. Moving it was going to be a big job, and they only had a few minutes.

“This thing must weigh a thousand pounds,” Brad said.

“And,” Kai said, “it looks like the girder is wedged into that wall pretty solidly.” To Mia he said, “You can’t move at all, sweetie?”

Mia shook her head. “My leg hurts. Please don’t leave us here.”

“No one’s going to leave you,” Kai said. “We’re going to get you out.”

He led Teresa back to the hallway.

“I’ll be right back, Mia,” she said as they left.

“I need you to go down and check out Jake. Let us know what you find.”

“What about Mia?” Kai could see the desperation in her face.

“I’ll stay and try to figure out something.”

“How long do we have?”

“Not long. No more than ten minutes to the next wave. But that means we need to be out of here in five minutes so that we can get down and find another building to climb.” Kai pulled the fire ax off the wall. It had survived the explosion, although the protective glass was gone.

“What are you going to do with that?” Teresa said.

“I don’t know.”

Teresa whispered to Kai. “You’re not thinking of amputation, are you?”

“That’s not an option.”

“Good.”

“But we’ve got to figure out a way to get that girder off of them.”

“I didn’t come all this way to lose her now, Kai.”

Kai held her head in his hands. As gently as possible, he said, “I know. You are not going to lose her. But we need you to keep it together, okay?”

She nodded. “You figure something out.”

“I will.” He hugged her, and she hurried down the stairs. Kai headed back to Brad and Mia, ax in hand.

Teresa met Tom on the eighth-floor landing and quickly assessed his awkwardly dangling arm.

“Jake was already into the hallway when I slipped on the stairs and fell,” he said. “Is it broken?”

“No, it’s dislocated. Where’s Jake?”

With his other arm, Tom pointed down the hall. It looked like a bomb had hit it, which was essentially what had happened.

Other than the dislocation, Tom seemed uninjured, but Jake had not been so lucky.

A jagged piece of metal about two feet in length had sliced through the wall like it was tissue. Jake sat against the opposite wall, the metal protruding from his chest, his hair filthy from rubbing against the muck coating everything. Blood covered the wall behind him and oozed from the wound. Teresa bent down to examine Jake. His breath was shallow, but it was there.

“Can you help him?” Tom asked plaintively. “Is he dead?”

Teresa was devastated at the sight of the injured boy. She had to make a decision, and her options were not good. It was a no-win situation. If she did nothing, he would die in minutes. If she moved him, the shock might kill him. He’d already lost a lot of blood, and any movement might cause further disruption of the wound. Ideally, paramedics would be brought in to stabilize him before he was taken away in an ambulance. But the likelihood of getting any kind of professional medics here in the next ten minutes was nil.

That left her no choice. She had to try to get him out. But before she did that, she had to take care of Tom.

“Tom, I’m going to have to put that arm back in place because I need your help.”

“Will it hurt?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. But do it quick.”

“Lie down.”

Tom lay down on the floor on his back. Teresa positioned herself behind him. She put her left hand on his shoulder and her right hand on his elbow.

“I’ll count to three, and then I’m going to push your arm back into the socket. Okay?”

“Yeah.”

“One … two … three.” With a fast rotation, she snapped the arm back into place. Tom screamed and then relaxed, the pain greatly reduced now that the arm was in its socket.

Teresa heard Kai yell from upstairs. “Are you all right?”

“Don’t worry about us!” she shouted, then turned her attention back to Tom. “Better?”

He nodded in relief.

“You did well, Tom.”

“What about Jake? Should we take that thing out?”

Teresa knelt down, shaking her head at the hopelessness of the situation. “If we do, he’ll bleed to death.”

As she said that, Jake’s eyes fluttered open. A hoarse whisper came out of his mouth.

“Where am I?” He was in shock. He felt no pain, probably wasn’t even aware that he had been through an explosion.

“You’re injured, Jake. We’re going to get you out of here.”

“I’m so tired.”

“I know, sweetie. But you need to stay awake.”

“So tired …”

Jake closed his eyes, leaned his head back, and slipped into unconsciousness.

“Jake!” Tom yelled. “Jake!” He grabbed Teresa’s shoulders. “Do something!”

She wanted to, but she could see that Jake was too far gone. She put her ear quickly to each side of his chest and heard shallow gasps on only one side. The metal shard had collapsed his lung and nicked a major artery. Resuscitation wouldn’t work. If she had the proper instruments and a hospital staff, they might be able to remove the metal, control the bleeding, and re-expand the lung so that he could be revived. Without them, any attempt at saving him was futile.

Jake let out a gurgling wheeze, and a trickle of blood ran from the corner of his mouth. His body shuddered for a moment and then was still. Teresa checked for a pulse, but found none.

“There’s nothing I can do, Tom. He’s gone.”

“No! You can do CPR or something.”

“Tom, I’m a doctor—”

“Then help him!”

“I can’t. The injury was too severe. I’m sorry.”

As a teenage boy, Tom was probably unaccustomed to crying, but he sobbed uncontrollably at the sight of his dead friend. All Teresa could do was comfort him.

“I know, honey,” she said, hugging Tom, who buried his head in her shoulder.

“It’s my fault,” Tom said between sobs. “I convinced my mom and dad to let Jake visit us. He moved away two years ago …” He broke down again.

“It’s not your fault. And I’m sure your mom and dad will be proud of what you did today. You saved the lives of my daughter and Lani. And so did Jake. You’re heroes. I owe you everything for that.”

“Do you think my mom and dad are okay?”

Teresa didn’t want to make any promises she couldn’t keep, but he needed some reassurance. Besides, his parents would have evacuated at the first sirens. She thought back to her own search for Mia and hoped they hadn’t tried to get to Waikiki to find him.

“I’m sure they’re all right and worrying about you,” she said. “Now I need you to focus on seeing your parents again. Can you do that?”

“I’ll try. What about Jake? Are we just going to leave him there?”

“We have to,” Teresa said. There was no way that they could carry Jake’s body with them. She thought about covering him, but even that minor attempt at decency would be rendered moot when the next tsunami came through, washing him to a watery grave.

Kai was in the hallway looking for something, anything, to help him pry Brad and Mia loose when Teresa and Tom emerged from the stairwell.