Jackson Ford - Random Sh*t Flying Through the Air

The Big One . It’s been talked about for years – the quake to end all quakes, stored up in the San Andreas fault. I don’t know if this is it, but if it isn’t, then I’m going to move state. Maybe country. This is… insane .

Nic pulls me in tight to him, his big body folding around mine. I don’t mind very much. Because of course, I’m having romantic thoughts in the middle of a terrifying earthquake.

It’s amazing I can think at all. The noise just gets worse and worse, like a freight train roaring past outside my window. Something in my apartment falls over – the fridge, I think – and Nic grunts, as if it came down right on top of us. There’s a smaller crash on the other side of the coffee table, directly over our heads – the ceiling fan coming down.

Nic pulls me closer, holds on tight…

If I’m being real, the shaking only lasts about twenty seconds. But that twenty seconds is enough to completely destroy everything in my apartment.

Smashed glass and furniture. Toppled speakers. Scattered food. I blink, and it seems to take as long as the quake did. My ears are ringing.

I try to wiggle out, and Nic squeezes me tight. “Don’t. There might be aftershocks.”

The world is still. Slowly, the ringing in my ears fades, replaced by distant shouts, sirens, running feet.

Nic makes us wait five minutes before we crawl out. The damage is worse than I thought. My fridge is on its side, food and beer disgorged across my carpet. Every cabinet in the kitchen has spilled its guts. My speakers, my records, my books… it looks like a giant toddler had a temper tantrum. Worst of all is the crack. It zig-zags up my living room wall, winds its way across the ceiling.

The blood rushes to my head. Nic has to put out a hand to steady me. “Easy.” He’s got a haunted look in his eyes, and his hands are shaking ever so slightly. “Where’s your gas?”

“My… what?”

“Your gas. We have to turn it off. Fire.”

“I don’t have gas.” Is that true? I think so – my stove burners are electric. But what if… Fuck, I don’t know. This is going to make one hell of an insurance claim. Shit – insurance. Did I even get renter’s insurance? I can’t remember…

Nic accepts my gas explanation with a distracted nod. For a long moment, we both stand in my wrecked living room, looking around. Outside, the noise has gotten worse.

“Let’s go look,” I say, heading for the door. It’s still an effort to put one foot in front of the other.

My apartment is at the back of an existing property, the street reached through a short passageway. My landlord and his family are on vacation, but they’re going to have to cut it short. The outer walls of their house are cracked, like the inside of mine. A lawnmower lies overturned in the back yard, blade still turning, and pots lie smashed, bleeding soil. Fat, icy drops of rain speckle my shoulders – the drizzle has picked up, a cold wind whipping it back and forth.

When I reach the sidewalk, I come to a dead stop.

“Definitely not a six-pointer,” I murmur.

It’s like a street party for the end of the world. Everyone is out: standing in small groups, sitting cross-legged on the pavement. The road surface is a wreck – not just cracked, but shattered , like glass. Parts of it have been forced upward, as if tree roots were pushing from underneath.

Roxton Avenue used to be lined with jacaranda trees every few feet; several of them have toppled, their roots ripped up. Harry, a homeless guy I know from around the neighbourhood, is on the far curb. Wide, shocked eyes over an unkempt beard. His cart with its cans and black bags lies scattered across the tarmac.

Amazingly, the houses are still standing. Or not so amazingly – they’re made of wood, and I think I read somewhere once that wood does better in a quake. It bends, instead of breaking. But they’re in bad shape, several leaning to one side. One is actually on fire, spewing dark smoke into the sky. The groups of people trying to fight the flames don’t appear to know what do, yelling confused instructions at each other and frantically tapping at their phones. All across the street, power lines are down – there’s a ripped wire fifty yards away from us. It’s not jumping, like you see in the movies, but every few seconds it emits a flash of blue sparks.

“Are the cops coming?” someone shouts from behind us. They’re gone before we turn around, racing down the street.

I feel sick. Because it’s not just Leimert Park, my neighbourhood, that got hit. There’s distant smoke on the horizon, everywhere I look.

Nic points. “Oh, shit.”

A hundred yards away, a grey Prius has plowed right into a jacaranda tree. The hood has been bent in two by the trunk, smoke gushing from the engine. The wheels are cocked at odd angles, bowed outward; the high-beams are still on. Other cars have stopped at random on the street, as if they too swerved to a halt once the quake hit.

Nic starts running towards the wrecked car. “Wait!” I yell after him.

He ignores me. And he’s got long legs, so it takes me a minute to catch up with him. He’s at the edge of the wreckage, pulling at the door, his shirt starting to soak through from the drizzle. My stomach gives a sick wrench – there are two people inside the car. An unconscious man, slumped over the steering wheel, blood matting his long black hair. And a kid. A teenage boy, thirteen or fourteen, blinking out from the passenger seat.

Nic can’t get the door open. The impact has crunched it shut. It’s the same thing on the other side, where two people – a burly guy who looks like a construction worker, and a woman in a business suit – are trying to haul it open. The black smoke from the ruined engine is getting worse, and there’s the very first flicker of flame.

An ambulance shoots past the intersection, siren wailing, swerving to avoid a rucked-up section of the road. It doesn’t slow, not even when the construction worker sprints off to flag it down.

“Teagan.”

Nic has stepped away from the car. He puts his hands on his knees, hangs his head for a second. But when he looks back up, there’s steel in his eyes. He wipes his mouth, then spits, dirty saliva arcing through the air. “I need your help. We gotta take the door off.”

“I don’t—”

“It’s jammed shut. Can you lift it? I’m going to need you to… Teagan, look at me. We have to get them out, right now.”

I can’t move.

It’s not just the shock of the quake. It’s what he’s asking.

He’s asking me to use my ability in front of other people.

It’s the one thing I am absolutely not supposed to do. Not ever. It’s Tanner’s big golden rule, part of the deal I have with her. Break it, and she steps aside, letting the government have me. It’s a rule I’ve had to break before, and it’s only through sheer dumb luck and circumstance that I survived the first time. Doing it here, in front of all these people…

But hang on. Hang on one goddamn second. I don’t have to make it obvious. I don’t have to float shit through the air. All I have to do is snap the hinges. Tweak the frame a little, so the door can pop out. It’s nothing. I can do it in about three seconds.

Except…

What if I mess it up?

What if someone sees? Or figures it out? If that happens, China Shop goes away. I’ll lose everything. The life I’ve created here – gone.

“Teagan, are you hearing me?” Nic grabs my shoulder. “You gotta help us.”

My whole life stretches in front of me. Nic. Cooking school. Los Angeles. China Shop.

No. Fuck that. Fuck it right in the ass. I’m not just going to stand by when I could help.