Walter Williams - The Rift

Damn it, Chivington, he mentally addressed the coffin, why did you have to leave? Why now?

A shudder ran through the pew beneath him, and the President looked up, wondering if a big truck had just passed. He felt an unease in his inner ear.

The voice of the choir dimmed- the President saw chorister eyes glancing around-and then the choral director gestured emphatically, getting his crew back in hand, and the massed harmonies strengthened. The President felt a strange vibration in the palm of his hand where it was gripping the pew.

From overhead there was a chime. It hung in the air for a long moment, producing a discord in the choral sound below. Another chime rang out, a deep metallic bellow.

The President felt the First Lady’s gloved hand close on his arm, and he heard her whisper in his ear. “What’s going on?”

He shook his head. Another peal sounded. The choir’s voice faltered again.

The President looked up in surprise. The cathedral bells were ringing, softly at first, then with greater and greater insistence.

“Can they turn those off?” the First Lady hissed.

The President shook his head again. This wasn’t a regular bell peal, the sounds were too random. Something else was happening.

Another shudder ran through the building. Near the catafalque, a stand of media lights tottered and then fell with a crash. The choristers were singing as loud as they could to cover the growing chaos.

In wonder the President gazed upward as the bells sounded, ringing as if they were mourning the end of a world.

*

The fairest opportunity that was presented (to our knowledge) of judging of its force and direction, was from an ostrich egg which was suspended by a string of about a foot in length from a first floor ceiling, which was caused to oscillate at least four inches from point to point. We are informed that the steeple of the State House, which is supposed to be 250 feet in height, vibrated at least 6 or 8 feet at the top, and the motion was perceptible for 8 or 10 minutes. A number of clocks were stopped, and the ice in the river and bay cracked considerably. Some persons, who were skaiting, were very much terrified, and immediately made for the shore. In the lower part of the city it appears to have been most forcible, some people abandoning their homes, for the purpose of seeking safety in the open air.

Annapolis, Jan. 23,1812

Marcy, in response to the tourist’s question, was about to explain that the Westward Expansion Memorial was an international competition open to everybody, but at that moment she heard a strange roaring sound, like all the cattle in the stockyards had broken loose and were climbing the monument’s stairs. She gave a look to Evan, her colleague, to see if there was something wrong with the north tram. No, the sound wasn’t coming from there.

The entire Gateway Arch jumped about ten feet to one side.

Marcy went down, tangling her legs with those of the tourist. There was a sound like a freight train inexplicably roaring through the tram stop. A painful series of throbs went up Marcy’s spine, as if someone was kicking her repeatedly on the tailbone. Each kick lifted her a couple inches from the floor, then dropped her again.

“Everyone keep calm!” she shouted through sudden terror.

About a third of the tourists had fallen. The rest were shrieking, swaying, staring- all except the two Japanese, who had thrown themselves to the ground at the first impact, and were lying curled into little fetal balls, hands over their heads. Some of the people that had fallen were trying to rise. Marcy made flattening motions with her palm. “Everyone get on the floor!”

Her ears ached with the volume of the roaring. One of the windows shattered, fragments spilling outward into space, and a group of tourists screamed.

“Get down!” Marcy yelled.

Nobody could hear her, but the tourists were looking around for instruction, and enough of them saw her gestures so that they began to drop to the ground. Marcy put her hands atop her hat to show they should protect their heads, and they understood and began to cover up.

Marcy wanted to reassure them. “You’re safe! You’re safe!” she shouted, and then, because she could think of no other words, she added, “This place is built like a brick shit-house!”

She hoped.

The whole Gateway Arch kept kicking her in the butt, hard.

Marcy had all the statistics memorized, all the tons of concrete and steel that had gone into the Arch’s construction. Eero Saarinen’s modest intention had been to create a monument that would last 8000 years, and he had built it proof against the winds of a tornado, against the shattering force of an earthquake.

She hoped his calculations had been on the money.

“A brick shithouse!” she repeated.

Another window blew out, letting in the hot, moist Missouri air, and Marcy began to pray.

*

Jason lay stunned on the grass with the telescope partly under him. There was a horrific noise and vibration as if a thousand semi trucks were thundering past at once, all blowing their horns. He could feel the vibrations on his insides, as if his internal organs were shaking themselves apart.

Earthquake, he thought. He was a California boy and he knew.

And he knew it was a bad one.

Cracking noises split the air like gunshots as tree limbs snapped. There was a tremendous crashing overhead as a huge elm branch snapped off high up, bouncing off other branches as it fell, and Jason hunched into his shoulders as it smashed to the ground just a few feet away, its jagged butt-end driving into the turf like a spear, the leafy end still tangled in the tree above.

Jason tried to stand and was thrown down before he could even rise to one knee. He gulped in the air and found that it tasted of sulfur- he had been so astounded by the force of the quake that he had forgotten to breathe- and then he belly-crawled the few feet, through a rain of fallen branches, to the brink of the mound. Below, the earth was heaving up in long rollers like the Pacific rolling onto the shore at Malibu. Here and there deep cracks gouged their way across the fields as if a savage giant were slashing at the soil with a knife. The earth moaned aloud as the giant struck again and again.

But it was at the row of five houses that Jason stared. He couldn’t see his mother, but was relieved to see that the house was still intact. The windows were broken out and the old brick chimney had sprawled across the roof like a fallen prizefighter, but the building was still standing.

Which was more than could be said for the other neighbors. Their houses were brick, and any Californian knew that masonry was death in an earthquake. Two of the houses, including the Huntleys’, were already piles of broken brick lying beneath shattered roofs. And as he watched the Regans’ house swayed and fell, collapsing into its basement, tearing away the metal roof of the carport from its supports and dragging it into the pit with a screech of metal. Jason couldn’t see Mr. Regan, though the old man had been in the carport just moments ago.

There was an explosion a scant hundred feet from his mother’s house, the sound buried beneath the roaring and moaning of the earth, and then water and white sand were blasted into the air, followed by a plume of water higher than the roof of the house. Jason wondered dazedly if the geyser came from a broken water main- but no, this was the country, there were no water mains here. There was a horrific noise as a slippery elm, fifteen feet away on the right and sixty feet tall, pitched over the edge of the mound and flung itself downward like a javelin.

And then Jason cried out in fear as his own house gave a lurch and fell, dropping with an audible crack onto one corner. A rain of chimney bricks spilled from the roof. The old frame house had been built on little brick piers, and the heave of the earth had walked the house right off its foundation.