Apocalypse Dawn (12 page)

I don’t know, Gerry,” Megan said. A lot, for starters. But she honestly didn’t know how much more. She glanced at her watch. Six minutes. Help me, God, because that’s not nearly enough time. She looked at the intercom on the wall, torn between begging more time from Helen and Dr. Carson now and panicking Gerry.

The boy sat on the hospital bed and looked apprehensive.

Keep it nice and easy, Megan decided. Give it a couple minutes. See how things go. There’ll be time to call Helen. She smiled a little to ease Gerry’s mind. “Why don’t you tell me what really happened, and we’ll take it from there?”

Turkey

On the other side of the collapsed wall in Glitter City, the trapped man’s horrified screams continued to assault Goose’s ears, spurring in him an instinctive need to react-now. Only his training as a professional soldier-think first, have a plan, and stick with it-kept that impulse in check as the wall section collapsed further.

“It’s okay, buddy,” Bill said calmly to the man as he maintained his hold on the crowbar shoring up his end of the heavy wall section. “Just the sand shifting. We’ve got the wall. We’re not going to let it fall ” on you.

Goose didn’t know where Bill found the strength or the wind to speak. He felt all but done in from his exertions to uncover the trapped man. The crowbar felt as though it were about to pull his arms from their sockets. He wasn’t the only one feeling the strain. The heavyset man and one of the other volunteers had bailed on the line, dropping out of the rescue effort, collapsing, exhausted and wheezing, to the sand.

Danielle and one of the other men rushed forward with rocks to put under the edge of the wall to brace it up. Then Goose and Bill added a second flat rock to the first and fought for another fistful of inches.

The wall section shifted more, letting sand cascade in again. Under the ton of dead weight, the man screamed, then his cries were cut off abruptly. Several cubic yards of sand and rock around the Vshaped section of the building’s corner left standing broke free and sped under the elevated wall section like mercury rolling across a flat surface at room temperature.

Anxiety flooded Goose as he realized the man they had been trying to rescue had probably been buried in that avalanche. He squatted and drew his Mini Maglite from his LCE. Clicking the flashlight on, he dropped prone to the ground and peered under the monstrous slab, praying to God that their efforts had not inadvertently crushed the life from the man they were trying to save.

The high-intensity yellow beam barely cut through the haze of dust that squirted out from under the slab in a boiling rush. The hollow under the wall section left an area almost seven feet long and four feet wide. Just about the dimensions of a grave, Goose couldn’t help thinking. Hackles stood up on the back of his neck. The man they’d been working to rescue was nowhere in sight.

In the center of that space, something writhed under the sand that had rushed in. For a moment, Goose was reminded of a cow he’d seen sink in a pit of quicksand in the Okefenokee Swamp while on a hunting trip. He’d been sixteen at the time and out hunting with his buddies. They’d tried to save the cow, but in the end they’d had to watch the terrified creature sink into the bog until it disappeared.

Bill threw himself forward but was too broad to get through the gap. On his knees, he began scooping at the loose sand with both hands.

The wall shuddered and sank an inch, and the sand continued to flow.

Watching the struggling figure in the middle of the space, Goose stripped off his helmet and his LCE. “Let me.”

Bill kept digging. “You’re the last man that should go under there, Sarge. That wall could come down any second. We redistributed the weight, but we can’t get it shored up on the hillside.”

“I’m the only man that will fit. Now move, Corporal.” Goose pulled his kerchief down and shoved the Mini Maglite between his teeth.

Reluctantly, Bill gave ground.

Goose slid by his friend. The flashlight beam jostled and jarred across the sea of sand that filled the hollow space. Dust flooded Goose’s lungs at once, choking him down so that he couldn’t draw a breath. He scooted forward on hands and knees, clawing through the sand. Something more solid than the sand and considerably less dense than one of the stones he’d been handling took shape under his right hand. Turning, he found he’d uncovered the face of a dead man.

Sand had filled the man’s eyes, nose, and mouth. He lay partially on his side, his hair black and stringy against the fine yellow sand.

God help me, Goose prayed as he forced himself to push the corpse from his mind and concentrate on the struggle ahead of him. There was no way of knowing-yet-how many people had been in the structure when it had come down. Later, if there was a chance to excavate the bodies, authorities would learn the number of casualtiesand who they were.

Later, he’d have the luxury to wonder how many families were going to be devastated by the news today.

Reaching the writhing pile of sand, Goose tried to push to a kneeling position but couldn’t. The wall was less than two feet above him. He worked from his stomach, arching his back and using both arms like a swimmer, shoving sand from the person who had been buried.

Even as he pushed the sand away, he became aware that still more sand was sliding in from the wall’s edge where it butted into the Vshape of the building’s comer. Their efforts had lifted that portion of the wall enough to allow the sea of sand to slither in. A moment later, the wall itself shifted, grinding across the rocks they’d placed to create the gap Goose had crawled in through. Even as he watched, the wall dropped at least two inches.

“Sarge,” Bill called.

Goose didn’t answer, concentrating on his efforts to save the man. Sand flew into his mouth around the Mini Maglite he held between his teeth. He resisted the urge to spit it out because he would lose the flashlight, and the ambient light from outside the wall wouldn’t be enough to work by. But the dust felt thick in his throat, gathering weight and threatening to trigger a purge reflex.

The wall section shifted again and dropped enough to slam into the back of Goose’s head.

“Sarge!” Bill sounded a little more panicked now.

A hand grabbed Goose’s ankle and yanked. He slid backward a short distance. “No!” he said around the flashlight as best he could. He prayed fervently, wishing he believed with the same intensity that Bill did, but the face of the dead boy he’d seen only moments ago kept haunting him. How strong did faith have to be? Beneath the goggles, perspiration trickled across his face, washing small bits of grit into his eyes, making them stream and bum.

Then a hand reached up from the sandy grave and wrapped around the back of Goose’s neck like something out of a horror movie he’d seen as a kid. Fingernails tore into his flesh. Concentrating, thinking quickly, Goose followed the path of the arm that held him in a death grip. Ramming his hand through the shifting sand wasn’t easy, but it was doable.

Reaching down the length of the arm, Goose hooked his hand under the armpit and managed to secure a strong grip on the man’s shirt. For the first time, Goose realized that the man had been standing up in the building. The sand had come in so swiftly that the deluge had filled the structure with him standing.

Goose tried desperately not to think about the number of people that had been caught in the building. Overhead, the wall fell again, sinking into the deep sand, coming far enough down now that it pressed against his back. He spat out the flashlight, caught it in his free hand, and yelled, “I’ve got him! Pull!”

“Get him out of there!” Bill yelled. “C’mon! Pull! Put your backs into it!”

Even as Bill shouted, the massive stone slab over Goose’s head dropped another few inches, pinning him against the sand.

United States of America

Columbus, Georgia

Local Time 12:28 A.M.

Basso booms of speed metal music, delivered with hammering intensity, rocked the interior of the nightclub. Out on the large dance floor, young men and women writhed and practically fought one another. To someone not familiar with the club scene, it probably looked like they were vying to claim more territory.

Most of the dub’s dancers favored leather and lace, barely-there shorts, crop tops, slinky dresses that were painted on, and leather pants so tight-on both sexes-they just had to cut down blood circulation. The laser light show burned red, blue, green, and livid purple beams through the air and swirled multicolored patterns over the dance floor. The dancers’ dangling earrings and ornamented piercings in their eyebrows, lips, and noses glinted in the garish colors of the laser lights.

Many of the dancers sported intricate tattoos. Some of them were temporary, courtesy of a street artist working with fluorescent paint who’d set up shop in his van outside the club. Others wore glowing necklaces and armbands that the band had thrown out a few songs back.

“Are you having a good time?”

Mesmerized by all the action in front of him, Joey Holder looked down at the young woman at his side. “Yeah,” he said.

She gave him a puzzled look and leaned closer.

Realizing that he hadn’t spoken loudly enough to be heard over the music, Joey raised his voice. “Yes. Great time.”

Jenny McGrath smiled up at him. She rocked to the beat, popping her shoulders and clenched fists to the rhythm. “Cool. I thought you would.”

“Yeah. Me, too.” As soon as the words left his mouth, Joey realized how dumb they sounded.

“You’re a funny guy, Joey.”

“It’s not all natural talent,” Joey replied loudly. “Sometimes I have to work at it.”

She grinned at him, and in that flash of white teeth, Joey fell in love with her all over again. At an inch or two over five feet, carrying a woman’s full body with slender lines, her short-cropped spiky hair dyed purple, Jenny McGrath was beautiful.

Stonewashed low-riding jeans sheathed her hips, and her midnight blue camisole top revealed enough milk white skin that it threatened to fry his brain cells. Her nose ring and eyebrow ring glinted in the laser lights.

She so totally fit into the club, reminding Joey again that he didn’t. His nervousness over the fake ID in his pocket increased. Someone was going to find him out, then there’d be all kinds of trouble. Jenny didn’t know how old he really was, and she was twenty-three. His mother, if she had known where he was, would have gone crazy.

“Want to dance some more?” she yelled.

“Sure,” Joey shouted back.

She took his hand and charged out onto the dance floor. At the outer fringes, she stopped, cupped her hands around her mouth, and shouted, “Leonard!”

A shaggy-haired behemoth turned to face her. He was dressed in jeans and a loose plaid shirt over a concert T-shirt. He looked like he was in his thirties. Tattoos featuring flaming skulls marked his bared arms.

“I want to surf,” Jenny shouted.

Leonard grinned, revealing that he was missing his two front teeth, then bent over slightly and folded his hands together to make a stirrup. “Come ahead, darlin’.” He raised his voice in a thundering shout. “Surfs up!”

Immediately the nearby dancers turned and raised their hands.

Without hesitation, jenny threw herself forward. She stepped into Leonard’s clasped hands, then let him hurl her into the audience. Waiting hands caught her above the heads of the crowd, balanced her, then propelled her toward the stage.

Jenny surfed on her back, flailing wildly to make sure the other dancers knew she was coming. “Joey! C’mon! See if you can make your way to the stage!”

Still grinning, Leonard held out his clasped hands. “You up for it, little man?”

The challenge in the words was evident, and Joey felt himself bristling in response. Steeling himself, he nodded and ran at Leonard. He put a foot into Leonard’s hands and leaped. In the next instant he was airborne, shooting up onto the crowd of moshers.

Dancers below Joey shouted at him as he passed. Some of them congratulated him while others cursed at him. Both responses, and even mostly neutral expressions, usually came couched in acidic obscenities that Joey had seldom encountered. He felt thrilled and embarrassed at the same time.