Walter Williams - The Rift

Everything in order, Larry thought. He had traced the compressed air system, and now he traced the roof beam. His eyes were streaming. Okay, he thought, the beam connects there, and..

A sudden shock threw them both against the air cylinder. Pain jolted along Larry’s injured shoulder. He ducked and covered his head as, with a long metallic groan, more of the roof came down, metal panels falling like the blades of guillotines.

There was sudden silence as they waited for another shock. Larry’s heart throbbed in his chest. The silence was broken by Wilbur’s cough.

“Jesus,” he said, “my lungs are burning.”

“I got what we came for,” Larry said. “Let’s get out of here.”

They sloshed out of the diesel building. Larry’s stinging eyes blinked in the bright sunlight. “We need to move a roof beam,” he said. “Can we get something from the machine shop?”

“I’d hate to dig through there,” Meg said. “Can you show me what needs doing?”

Larry took a few breaths of clear air, then led Meg back into the crumpled building. He pointed out the beam, and Meg gave a laugh.

“My pickup’s in the lot just outside,” she said, “and I’ve got tow chains.”

Meg splashed off to her truck. Larry stood for a while outside, breathed clean air into his aching lungs while he wondered whether it would be safe to wash his eyes in this water. There was more splashing as someone ran up, and Larry saw one of his control room crew.

“I’ve been to the secondary shutdown room,” he said, “and it’s flooded.”

“Flooded?” Larry echoed, then looked at the water that was rising above his boots. Where was it coming from?

There was a roar and a splash as Meg drove up in her white Dodge Ram. Her crew helped as she shackled the beam to her truck, and then she shifted the Dodge into low gear and gave it the gas. Everyone stood back as the chains straightened and took the weight. The Dodge growled, its exhaust pipe almost under water. There was a long cry of metal as the beam began to move, as pieces of the roof spilled free with a cacophonous jangled sound. Larry held his breath. There was a clang as the roof beam pulled free of the structure, and Meg’s Dodge leaped free, water surging around its thick tires, the roof beam dragging behind.

Then there was a compressed air hiss, so painfully loud that Larry held his palms over his ears, and a throaty, hesitant rumble from the diesel. Larry held his breath. The diesel coughed, spat, coughed again.

Then caught. The fallen roof rattled and shivered as the diesel began a businesslike throb. Fumes gushed up from a broken exhaust pipe.

Larry found himself in a cheering knot of workers. Meg spun the truck around, returned to the others with the beam dragging behind. A big grin was spread across her face. “Yes!” Wilbur yelled, splashing as he jumped up and down in the water. “Yes!”

Well, Larry thought. He had done it, by God.

But that only meant, when you got down to it, that he needed to get busy and do something else.

He looked down at the water, nearing the tops of his boots.

He wished he knew where it was coming from.

WHAM WHAM WHAM.

Omar lay in his front yard and watched his house shake to pieces. The old double shotgun home was lightly built- no need for heavy construction in a place where there was no winter, no weather worse than a thunderstorm- and it was not built to stand up to tremors on this scale.

All the work, he thought. All the work in this heat. And now it’s falling apart.

The brick chimney had rumbled down before he, Wilona, and Micah Knox had realized what was happening, and had run- staggered, really- out onto the lawn. Once there, it proved difficult to keep on their feet, and so they lay down in an open area, away both from the house and the magnolia tree in front, where nothing would fall on them, nothing but a blizzard of tumbling blossoms from the tree.

WHAM WHAM WHAM.

The earth quaked and shuddered and moaned.

Wilona gave a cry as the old shiplap house was shaken off its brick piers and came lurching to the ground. There were crashes from the interior as furniture tumbled or slid. The carport caved onto the car with a metal whine. Omar reached out and put an arm around Wilona’s shoulders.

“Don’t worry,” he called. “We’re insured.” And wondered, Are we? He didn’t have the slightest idea what the policy had to say about earthquakes.

Wilona just stared at the house, one hand to her throat as if to secure Great-Aunt Clover’s pearls, her one treasure. Her other hand clutched her white gloves, the only thing she’d snatched from the room on her way out.

Knox crouched on the quaking ground in a kind of three-point balance, like a football player waiting for a signal from the quarterback. His expression was a mixture of fear and excitement, like a kid on a roller coaster.

WHAM WHAM WHAM.

Shingles and chimney bricks tumbled off the roof. Paint flakes flew in little blizzards. Many of the clapboards shook right off the side of the building. Wilona’s lace curtains fluttered through empty windows. Omar could feel his teeth rattling together with every tremor.

And then the shaking faded away. In the silence they were aware of a baby’s shrieks, the frenzied barking of cur dogs, the blaring of a car horn. The quake was over.

But there was a rushing, and a coughing, and rubble burst from the yard of the neighbor across the street. It was like a mine going off, throwing debris arching into the air. Omar’s heart gave a leap. He threw himself over Wilona as stones and chunks of wood rained down. A gush of water came up, blasting from the fissure as if from a fireman’s hose. The neighbor’s trailer, which had tipped to one side with its metal wall tortured and bent, gave a tormented booming rattle as the geyser tried to tear the sides from the building.