Gina Ranalli - Unearthed

Lou barked again, evidently disagreeing with her.

“Dumb dog.”

Her eyes fell to the unopened bottle of champagne still on the mantle, the first real reminder she’d had all morning that today was New Year’s Day. Suddenly she forgot all about the rain, the dog, the sinkhole and the falling trees.

She went to the old, over-stuffed sofa and sank down into it, part of her wishing she’d drank the bottle the night before, as she’d planned.

If I had, I wouldn’t be feeling this hollow ache right now, remembering that Glen had proposed to me on that snowy New Year’s Eve so many years before.

She had wanted to toast her dead husband, had bought the bottle for that very occasion, a desire to remember.

But in the end, she hadn’t been able to go through with it. She’d been a coward, afraid the memories would be painful instead of joyful.

Just a stupid, frightened woman, still scared of phantoms in places where there should have been only love.

Lou whined, nudging Rebecca’s hand with his muzzle.

She blinked. “Another year without Daddy,” she told the dog absently. “Can you believe it?”

Lou’s brown eyes watched her quizzically, his ears still twitching slightly at the word daddy and Rebecca felt her heart break all over again.

I should have just gotten shitfaced and slept through the day.

Another thud shook the house and both she and the dog cried out in alarm. Whatever it was, it sounded closer this time and Rebecca leapt to her feet.

“Jesus! What is that?”

Her closest neighbors, the Days, sometimes had better TV reception and she decided to give them a call. Crossing the house into the kitchen, Lou padded beside her, his tail tucked down between his legs. As she dialed, the dog growled softly, his eyes fixed on the back door.

“Shh,” she told him. “It’s okay.”

On the other end of the line, the Days phone rang six times and then an answering service clicked on. She waited through the out-going message and then said, “Hey, guys, it’s Rebecca. I guess you may have gone away for the holiday, but if you get this, can you give me a call? I keep hearing these loud thuds and I’m just wondering what’s going on. Now that I’m saying this out loud, it sounds pretty ridiculous.” She felt herself blushing, but soldiered on. “Anyway, I doubt it’s any kind of construction happening since it’s New Year’s morning, but, I don’t know. Give me a buzz, okay? Bye.”

She hung up, feeling like a complete fool. Looking down at Lou, she said, “Well, they’ll probably think I’m nuts now, huh?”

Then again, most people thought she was a tad peculiar these days, living out here by herself, with little to no contact with the rest of the world. No real friends to speak of, unless you counted the four-legged variety. But she’d learned the hard way — being close to people got you one thing, every time, without fail: hurt.

She was having none of that anymore.

Opening her mouth to say as much to the dog, she froze, wondering what that new sound was.

The clock above the stove ticked in time with her heart. She could hear nothing else.

The new sound was no sound at all.

The rain had stopped.

A beam of sunlight abruptly shot through the windows, blinding in its brightness. The clouds were parting and she smiled despite her bewilderment

“Happy New Year,” she said and the entire house lurched to one side, throwing her to the floor as cupboards opened and dishes, mugs and glasses flew out, shattering all around her. Rebecca lifted one arm to shield her face while instinctively attempting to cover the dog’s body with her own.

Things crashed in other parts of the house; furniture slid across floors and slammed into walls.

She bit back a scream, squeezed her eyes closed and waited for the world to stop careening.

And then it did.

They were left with the sound of tinkling glass and an occasional bang — maybe from a book falling from a shelf — but the house had gone still once more.

Opening her eyes, she saw that her house had pitched sideways and now rested at a 40 degree angle. Getting back to the living room would mean walking up a steep incline.

Lou whimpered beside her and she knew she had to get the dog out of there. Broken glass covered virtually every inch of the floor — there was no way she could let him walk around in it.

She knew what had happened now. It was another sinkhole. Had to be. There was no other explanation.

Struggling to her feet, she lifted the terrified dog in her arms and, glass crunching underfoot, made her way to the back door and into the sudden strange light of the New Year.

Three miles north, inside the Pinecone Cafe, Joe Morris had just finished prepping the grill when the world shook and almost caused him to lose his footing.

“Holy shit!”

He turned and looked over the counter at Stacy who sat bleary-eyed, smoking a Pall Mall despite being three months pregnant. “What the hell was that?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Earthquake, I guess. Big one too.”

The frying pans hanging over the grill swung, clanking together loudly.

“Since when do we have big earthquakes?” Stacy asked.

“It’s been known to happen. Remember the one that hit Olympia a few years back?”

“That was nothing,” she said, mashing out her cigarette. “Not compared to the ones they get in other countries. Or even in California.”

Joe didn’t reply, his ear cocked. From the used car lot next door, an alarm was sounding. “Fuck,” he muttered. “If that’s one of the cars, who knows how long we’ll have to listen to it.”

“It’s one of the cars,” Stacy said. “Probably that yellow Ram. I think it’s the only one over there worth more than a couple grand.”

The used car lot was a bit of a joke to the locals. It went in and out of business every few months, always being bought by new owners and most people suspected it was a cover for drug dealers who were too stupid to realize there wasn’t much money to be made that way around here. Eventually, they learned and packed up and moved on, probably to the city.

Joe didn’t know if the drug dealer story was true or not. He just wished whoever bought the place last would stay in business for a while. Potential customers for them meant potential customers for him.

He reached up to steady the swinging pans, glancing around the kitchen area to be sure nothing had fallen to the floor.

“I can’t believe we’re even open today,” Stacy said, already uninterested in the earthquake. “Who the hell comes to a greasy spoon on New Year’s Day?”

“People still gotta eat, Stace,” Joe said.

“No doubt, but most of them will be either hung over and the thought of eating your eggs and bacon will make them puke or they’re having breakfast with their families, which is what we should be doing.”

Looking over his shoulder at her, Joe smiled. “You know you’re my only family.”

Stacy snorted. “Likewise. And how sad is that?”

“Pretty sad,” he agreed.

And it was too. At forty-five, Joe had been divorced for over seven years, never saw his three sons who’d moved out of state with their mom, and had lived alone ever since.

Stacy was in her mid-twenties and pregnant by some guy she’d met in a bar one night and never saw again. Her story was even more sad than Joe’s: family, including one sister, had been killed in a car wreck when she was fourteen and she’d pretty much been on her own ever since.

They were both loners, thrown together by circumstance — Joe owned the Pinecone Cafe and Stacy waitressed there full-time. He also employed a couple part-timers but they both had real lives and were spending the holiday elsewhere.