Danielle Steel - Journey

And in the parking lot, far from where she lay, cars had been blown up. The front of several buildings had been blown away. There were fire trucks everywhere, and people were running and shouting. People bleeding from everywhere were running into the parking lot, and injured children were being put on gurneys and rushed into ambulances. It looked almost like a movie set, and the people who were talking to the police and firemen in a daze said that the whole building had collapsed in a single instant. In fact, four of the stores in the mall had been destroyed, and there was a huge crater outside the drugstore where Maddy was. The crater stood now like a yawning hole where only instants before a truck had been. There had been an explosion of such magnitude that windows in buildings as much as five blocks away had shattered. And as the news crews arrived, the Santa Claus from the toy store was carried out with a tarp over him. He had been killed instantly, along with more than half of the children who had been waiting to see him. It was a tragedy of such huge proportions that no one could quite absorb it.

And deep inside the store where Maddy sat curled in a little ball, she was trying to figure out how to get out from under the rubble that held her prisoner. She tried clawing at it, pushing it away, bracing herself against it, but at first nothing moved, and with a sense of total panic she was having trouble breathing. And then, in the darkness, she heard a voice very near her.

“Help … help … can anyone hear me?” The voice sounded weak, but it was comforting to know that someone was close by, as Maddy listened.

“I can. Where are you?” There was so much dust that Maddy could hardly take a breath. But she turned in the direction of the voice, as she listened carefully in the darkness.

“I don't know. I can't see,” the voice answered. They were all enveloped in total blackness.

“Do you know what happened?”

“I think the building fell on us … I hit my head … I think it's bleeding….” It was a woman's voice, and Maddy thought she could hear the baby again. But she couldn't hear much else. An occasional voice … a scream … she was listening for sirens, hoping for help, but she couldn't hear them. There was too much concrete blocking them to allow any of them to hear the chaos outside or the rescue vehicles that were shrieking toward them from all over the city. Calls had even gone out to Virginia and Maryland. No one knew anything yet except that there had been a huge explosion and a lot of people injured and killed.

“Is that your baby?” Maddy asked, as she heard it crying again.

“Yes …” the voice said weakly. “He's two months old. His name is Andy.” The girl sounded as though she were crying. And Maddy would have been too, except she was still too much in shock to feel her own emotions.

“Is he hurt?”

“I don't know … I can't see him.” She sobbed then, and Maddy closed her eyes for a minute, trying to think straight. Something terrible must have happened to bring the whole building down on them, but she couldn't figure out what yet.

“Can you move?” Maddy inquired. Talking to the girl was helping her keep her own sanity as she tried to push various places again, and what felt like a boulder behind her moved a little, though barely more than a few inches. It was in the opposite direction from where the voice was coming.

“I can't move at all,” the voice answered, “there's something on my legs and my arms … and I can't reach my baby.”

“They're going to send us help, you know.” And as Maddy said it, they were both aware of the sound of muffled voices in the distance, but there was no way to know if they were rescuers or victims. And then, as Maddy tried to think of what to do, she remembered that her cell phone was in her handbag. If she could find it, she could call for help, or maybe they would find her more easily. It was a crazy idea, but it gave her something to do, as she groped the area immediately around her and found nothing except dirt and rocks and jagged pieces of broken concrete. But she had a better sense of the small area surrounding her, as she did it. And she tried again to move the walls of her makeshift cell, and at one end, she was able to move some boards about a foot from her and enlarge her airspace. “I'm trying to get to you,” she told the girl encouragingly, and for a long moment, there was silence, and it scared her. “Are you okay? … Can you hear me?” There was a long pause, and then the voice again.

“I think I was sleeping.”

“Don't sleep. Try to stay awake,” Maddy said firmly, still trying to think, but nothing would come. She was still in shock herself, and she was aware, as she moved, of a blinding headache. “Talk to me … what's your name?”

“Anne.”

“Hi, Anne. My name is Maddy. How old are you?”

“Sixteen.”

“I'm thirty-four. I'm a reporter … on TV….” But there was no answer again. “Wake up, Anne … how's Andy doing?”

“I don't know.” He was whimpering so Maddy knew he was alive, but the girl sounded weaker. God only knew how badly injured she was, or when anyone would find them.

And as Maddy continued to struggle within her cave, outside fire trucks continued to arrive from every district. Two of the stores were in flames, four had collapsed, and dismembered bodies were being removed from the areas closest to the center of the explosion, some of them far beyond recognition. There were hands and feet and arms and heads everywhere. Everyone ambulatory was being removed, and ambulances were taking away those who couldn't move under their own steam. They were trying to clear the area for rescue workers and volunteers. The Center for Disaster Control and National Emergencies had been called and they were organizing teams as bulldozers began to arrive. But the balance of the remaining structures was too delicate to use them, and there were too many victims to jeopardize by using machinery that might ultimately create a bigger problem.

There were scores of news crews on the scene, and broadcasts all over the country had been interrupted to bring viewers the news that the biggest disaster in the nation's history, since the bombing in Oklahoma City in '95, had occurred in Washington. There were already over a hundred known casualties and no way to assess how many more there would be, and a screaming child with her arm blown off had already been filmed by every camera crew on the scene as she was rushed away by rescue workers. Her identity was unknown and no one had claimed her yet. But there were dozens of others like her. Hurt, dazed, injured, maimed, dead, and dying, being brought out of the wreckage.

Bill had been watching television peacefully in his den, when the first bulletin flashed across the screen, and he sat up with a look of horror. Maddy had told him she was going there after work, and he instantly ran to the phone and called her. There was no answer. He called her cell phone next and a recording told him the subscriber he had called was out of range, and as he continued to watch the news, he felt a wave of rising panic. He almost called the network to find out if they knew where she was, but he didn't dare. There was always the possibility that she was on the scene, covering it herself, but he decided to wait to see if she called him. He knew she would if she had time, and if she wasn't trapped somewhere beneath the rubble. All he could do now was pray she wasn't. And all he could think of was the moment when he had first realized that Margaret had been kidnapped by masked men carrying machine guns.

Jack was aware of the situation too. His cell phone rang within instants of the blast, and he looked at the woman he was with, with dismay. This was not the evening he had planned. He had set it up so carefully, as he always did, and he was irritated by the interruption.