Walter Williams - The Rift

The air smelled of smoke from the houses that were burning.

The girl was maybe fifteen and lived next door. Charlie saw her and her friends from his deck all the time. Charlie tried to remember her name.

“Are you all right, Mr. Johns?” the girl said.

“Yeah,” Charlie said. “Everything’s fine.” He thought about Megan in the master bedroom, and his mind shied away from the thought.

“Fine,” he repeated.

“My dad says we shouldn’t go into our houses,” the girl said. “In case there’s another earthquake.”

“Earthquake,” Charlie repeated. It was an earthquake, he thought in surprise.

For some reason he hadn’t even considered earthquake. He’d seen public service announcements on television every so often, usually late at night, but none of the locals seemed to take earthquakes seriously, and he didn’t either.

Besides, everyone knew that earthquakes only happened in California and Japan.

“We’re going to pitch a tent in the backyard and camp,” the girl said. “We have a spare sleeping bag if you want one.”

“No,” Charlie said. “I’m fine. Thank you.”

“We were wondering if we could get some water from your swimming pool.”

Charlie blinked as he processed this strange request. He couldn’t make any sense out of it. “Fine,” he said finally.

“Thanks, Mr. Johns. See you later, okay?”

“Fine,” Charlie said again.

He closed the door. Now the BMW smelled of burning.

He looked at the cellphone receiver he’d thrown down on the next seat, at the red lights winking. He picked it up again. He tried to call emergency numbers and nothing worked. He tried to call Dearborne, because Dearborne had been at the country club and perhaps hadn’t realized they were all rich.

The phone didn’t work. He threw it on the passenger seat in disgust.

Earthquake, he thought. His mum and dad would think it very strange when he told them.

McPhee’s house was burning by now in a very lively manner. The neighbors had saved some of the furniture, which was all over the lawn and street, but could not save the house. There was a huge pall of rising smoke over downtown Memphis, as if a lot of things down there were burning.

Charlie realized he was hungry.

Too bad, he thought, that the caterers were going to be late.

Jason huddled between the lightning and the flood. He had lost track of the number of thunderclaps, the number of times lightning had blasted the top of the mound. Storm gusts blew dust, spray, mud, and rain, the alternations from one to the other coming with bewildering speed.

Jason clung to the steep side of the mound, away from the lightning. All he could hope was that one of the tall trees that loomed above him would not attract a bolt of lightning, topple, and kill him.

The water continued to rise. And on the northern horizon, Cabells Mound continued to burn.

There was wreckage, some of it still on fire, tangled with the row of trees to the north that marked the boundary of the cotton field. It was all that was left of the row of homes that Jason had lived in. The hope that Jason’s mother might still be alive, somewhere in that wreckage, haunted his mind. If only, he thought, I could get over there …

But then what? If he were out there on those pieces of wreckage, what could he do for his mother, or even himself?

At least, he thought as windblown mud spattered his face, he wouldn’t be alone.

When the lightning finally dwindled, the sky was so dark that it was not clear whether dusk had come or not. The mound was surrounded by a sluggish black river so wide Jason could not see its banks. He realized he was thirsty.

He wondered if he dared to drink the water.

He thought about the water jug in his mother’s refrigerator, with the quartz crystal that was supposed to give the water magical powers. For some absurd reason tears came to his eyes at the thought of that jug, of the forlorn plastic container of magic water rolling along the bottom of the river. He pressed his head into the mud-spattered moss and let the tears flow down his face, let his breath fight past the hard lump in his throat.

From above the clouds, from above the darkness itself, he could hear the sound of a jet aircraft rumbling far overhead, like the echo of a vanished world.

Eventually he rose, wiped the tears from his face with a muddy hand, and carefully descended the mound’s steep side. The water had stilled and seemed to be receding a little. He thought about bending over the surface of the water, anchored firmly to the mound with one hand on a tree limb, and easing his thirst.

No, he thought. There are dead people in that water.

He shuddered and drew back.

And then he saw, half-concealed by a fallen elm, the scrolled words. The letters were upside-down. Jason tilted his head, read Retired and Gone Fishin’.

Mr. Regan’s bass boat.

Jason remembered the carport tearing away on the Regan’s house, falling into the cellar along with the rest of the building. Apparently the boat had been liberated at the same time, though he didn’t remember seeing it bob to the surface.

Weird hope fluttered through him, tentative as the wings of a new-born butterfly. With the boat, he could rescue his mother from the ruins of their home and take them both to someplace safe. Jason approached the boat, one foot sloshing ankle-deep on the steep slope. He climbed over the fallen elm, then was jerked back by a weight on his shoulder.

The telescope. He’d forgotten he was carrying it by its strap.

He disentangled the telescope from an oak limb, then hiked both feet over the bole of the tree. The boat floated upside-down before him, its aluminum hull scarred by collision with debris. It was caught in a tangle of leaves and branches, and its bows were half-sunk beneath the waters.