Beyond the Storm: Quilts of Love Series (11 page)

Justin figured it had to be that wartime syndrome that caused men and women who barely knew each other to get married right before they shipped out to active duty happening to him right now. Because at this moment, nothing on this earth, not even his own life, was as important to him as keeping the woman he held in his arms alive and safe. He couldn’t explain it, but as they lay, praying together, he knew there was more to this woman than he’d first thought. Enough, in fact, that if they lived through this storm, he might finally be able to consider the Midwest as more than just a temporary stopgap on his way back to the East Coast and to home. Not that dinner and
Wheel of Fortune
with his grandparents wasn’t a hoot, and he was glad he could help them out when they needed their gutters cleaned or their furniture rearranged.

But he’d longed for the simple, familiar things he’d left behind. Fireflies at twilight. Sand between his toes when he played football with his buddies at the beach. A seagull’s cry and the smell of the ocean. Rolling, tree-covered hills, a white church steeple in sharp contrast to autumn’s brilliant leaves, friends and family. All this, he’d taken for granted. Here in Rawston, Danny was the only thing that had kept him from losing his marbles. But even Danny’s stellar friendship could never make up for the companionship of a good woman. As he cradled Abigail’s head beneath his shoulder, he prayed that God would spare them both so he could ask her out on a date and hopefully discover who she really was.

7:13 p.m.

A
fter what felt to Abigail like infinity and beyond, the storm finally retreated in search of a new battlefield to conquer. The quiet was almost as loud as the wind it seemed, for the ringing in her ears was deafening. Everyone must have been suffering because it was at least a minute before they all trusted that the twister was really gone and attempted to sit up. Carefully, they disengaged from each other’s grip, shook off the rubble, and began to assess the damage.

“Are you okay?” Justin asked as he slowly released her from the tight hold he’d had on her and the child.

Abigail pulled back a fraction, reluctant to move. “Yes. You?”

She could feel him nod. “So far so good. A few bumps and bruises but nothing that a little time won’t cure.”

The child between them squirmed. Her cries of protest were muffled by their bodies. Slowly and gently, Justin rolled off them and helped the sobbing child to sit up. “
Shh, sh, sh
. It’s okay now. Mama is right over there,” he comforted the child as she squalled in fear and indignation. “She’s fine,” Justin called out, thinking of the mother’s worry.

“I’m here, Elizabeth! I’m here, Eric!” The young mother was weeping with joy over the healthy cries of her children.

“Is everyone all right?” Haruo asked and dragged himself to a quasi-standing position in the battered and squashed refrigerator. It was still too dark to see much, but it was obvious the damage was severe. It suddenly dawned on Abigail that she was shivering. Could have been trauma. Could have been the fact that they were, after all, hiding in a refrigerator. The chilled air was mostly gone but the floor still felt icy and now, slick with something that smelled fishy.

“How are you, Jen?” Abigail was worried about her friend and the unborn baby.

“Thanks to Chaz and Desh, so far, so good,” Jen called. “Although I think I might be off sushi for a while.”

In spite of everything, Abigail managed a smile as she asked, “Zuzu?”

“I got wings,” Isuzu grunted.

Abigail sat close enough to feel Justin’s chuckle. “
It’s a Wonderful Life
?” he asked.

“Yes,” Abigail said, referring to Zuzu’s line from the movie.

“Who
are
you people?” Chaz asked. But there was a smile in his voice, too. Some laughter twittered in the darkness and suddenly, there was a lot of excited discussion as everybody took stock of the situation. Thanks to Haruo’s quick thinking, they were all alive. Miraculously, but for some minor injuries, the entire group had come through the nightmare relatively unscathed.

“Nobody move just yet, okay?” Desh instructed. “It will be better not to stand until there is sufficient light. Much of this debris is probably very dangerous.”

Desh and Haruo were the first to find their feet. She couldn’t be sure in the faint light, but it almost seemed as if the refrigerator was half as tall as it had been when they entered. It took a few minutes of shifting objects around in the dark, and the sounds of metal scraping against metal, but eventually, Haruo was able to force the walk-in refrigerator’s door open. A shaft of light had Abigail squinting and she ducked her head to give her eyes a moment to adjust. After Justin had the wailing toddler standing and balanced, he helped Abigail stand up next to him. When she could focus, her gaze traveled first to Justin and then to the child at his knee. Like Justin’s head, the toddler’s beautiful red curls were mud spattered and matted.

Abigail shifted her gaze out the door. Where there had once been ceiling, sky now filled the vista. The reality of what they’d just endured was slow to sink in.

Hard to believe. Almost . . . dreamlike.

Dully, Abigail’s gaze drifted back to Justin. “Do I look as alien as you?” she asked, touching first the layer of mud on her face and then, the toddler’s curls.

Squinting, he studied her. With the back of his finger, he reached up and stroked her jaw and up over her cheek. Then, he plucked some straw out of her hair. “Wow.” He glanced around. “Wow.”

She followed the path of his gaze with her own. “Yeah, wow,” she breathed. It was as if a colossal sledgehammer had attacked the restaurant and flattened everything but the reinforced refrigerator.

Haruo was the first one to venture out the door. It seemed as if he had to climb through a maze that was something akin to a child’s fast-food restaurant jungle-gym, before he finally called back that he was standing on solid ground. After a full minute, he returned and peered back into the refrigerator. “You will want to be extremely careful when you come out. It is not—” there was a catch in his voice, “—it is not . . . the same.”

Desh decided it would be prudent for him to go next. That way, Chaz and Justin could help the women and children from behind, and he and Haruo could assist from outside. Jen made it out first. Then, one at a time, everyone else traversed the twisted exit, only to emerge gasping at the sight that met their eyes. Abigail waited for Justin and they came out together. Their entire group stood in silhouette against the setting sun, a bedraggled collection of shock and awe, taking in their first glimpses of the holocaust.

Abigail fumbled for Justin’s arm, which he slipped around her waist, correctly sensing that she could use the support.

“Gone,” she gasped, and stared agog at the ruin that evoked images of Hiroshima.

“Yeah.” Slowly, they turned in a full circle and were stunned to discover that they’d stepped out of a time machine and onto another planet. For there, as far as the eye could see, was nothing but a flat, sprawling field strewn with rubble.

“Look,” she whimpered and pointed and then pressed her face into Justin’s chest.

The Quick In Go was gone.

Not flattened. Not in tatters.

Gone
.

Only the concrete pad remained. If Haruo hadn’t come for them, they’d all have certainly perished. Abigail could feel Justin’s Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed. “Thank God,” he breathed into her hair and held her ever tighter.

The rest of the Rawston Market strip mall’s shops were in various stages of carnage. The refrigerator was all that was left of the Sakura Gardens. Tantastic had a partial interior wall left standing. Across the parking lot, the front wall and roof of the Tripoli Cleaners was missing, but Chaz said his brother had decided not to come in to work, because of the storm, so for that, he was praising God. The Pump was a pile of rubble.

Not one car that had been in the parking lot was drivable. Most were upside down or on their sides. Some were just plain gone. Storm sirens were still sounding and security systems and car horns blared, waiting for their wires to be cut or their batteries to die, whichever came first. The smells of splintered lumber and broken gas lines were the most powerful. Twisted metal, shattered glass, mud and slime everywhere. Whole buildings looked as if they’d been put through a wood chipper.

It completely short-circuited Abigail’s brain. Her ability to think a rational thought was gone, rendering her capable of uttering only squeaks and gasps and guttural sobs as she clutched Justin’s shirt and attempted to remain vertical. Her knees felt like rotting tomatoes, and even blinking had become a chore. Eyes glassy with shock, she stared at pieces of what had once amounted to someone’s life. The hours and energy it took to build—shattered in a matter of moments.

She felt . . . violated. As if she’d been robbed of the padding between life and death. Now, there was simply a razor’s edge, it seemed, between her . . . and this.

What was the point? Build and work and study and for what? For this?

The tornado may have gone, and the sky may have cleared, but it left its darkness behind and took her confidence with it.

Dazed, Abigail bent down and pulled a scrap of tattered white lace from where it was caught on a shard of metal and absently wondered if it had come from the cleaners. Could it be a piece of Kaylee’s dress? The beadwork was beautiful. An hour ago, it had been something that someone cherished. And now? Now it was a picture of their lives.

Shredded hopes. Shattered dreams. Something once bright and shiny and full of promise. She swallowed at the lump in her throat that was leavened and rising with depression. Over here was the scrap of a red and gold silk curtain from the Sakura Garden. She plucked it up and ran her fingers over the dragon pattern. Over there was a baby’s blanket. Where could that have come from?

Everywhere, tatters of the fabric of life fluttered. Drawn to them, Abigail gathered and grieved. To whom had they belonged? What had become of their lives? How would they begin to recover? To replace? To rebuild? It all seemed so utterly hopeless.

She tucked the scraps into her pockets and tried to calm the panic that swirled in her stomach with deep, measured breaths. Justin moved to her side and instinctively rubbed the knotted muscles in her neck. She leaned into his hands, thankful for the strength and warmth. Thankfully, the rain had stopped, and the wind had died. And to add to the surreality, a bright, double rainbow arced against the huge black cloud that had packed up and headed east.

Kaylee was relieved to discover the Rawston Common’s apartment complex basement stood the test of time, and everyone who had taken shelter there would live to deal with the massive clean-up. Mama and Aunt Lydia had been amazing, singing gospel tunes in their beautiful two-part harmonies to boost the morale of Kaylee’s neighbors just before the storm hit. And, when the storm arrived, they’d clung to Kaylee and prayed over her and all the good folks who were weathering this tempest down there with them.

Kaylee had never been so glad to be in her mama’s arms as she had when she’d heard the twister slam into the building. As it was, she was in great shape, unless she counted getting smacked in the side by a slab of slate on her way across the parking lot. Her arm hurt like the dickens, and Mama was certain it was broken, possibly in several places.

Everyone had insisted that the laundry room was the best place to weather the storm. But, miraculously, the fact that her landlord hadn’t gotten around to fixing a leaky washing machine had probably saved their lives. The floor in the laundry room had been wet for several weeks and begun to smell seriously rank, like a pile of damp towels that had been left in a wad for a week. It was because of the smell and inconvenient dampness more than anything that all fifty-three units’ worth of tenants who’d been home at the time had chosen the opposite end of the basement to gather and huddle. Chaz had been right. The windowless furnace room had been the only safe spot. And, though they’d been clobbered with the ceiling tiles and insulation, the floor above had not caved in.

Not the way it had in the laundry room.

When the wind had finally let go of Bob Ray, it dropped him like a bowling ball, and he’d scrambled back under the bar to avoid being pummeled by debris. There, he’d crouched while the storm completed its demolition and moved on down the road. After a brief inventory he decided that—aside from a pretty intense headache and some serious scrapes and cuts—he was good. Physically, anyway. Over the ringing in his ears, he could hear water rushing. And then, someone crying out for help. Somehow, a pool table had ended up on its side and boxed him in. It had probably protected him from the mirrored walls that had been the Low Places’s trademark.

Sitting up against the bar and using his legs, he leveraged the pool table away. Bits of dirt and broken glass, like glitter, rained down on his head. “Can anybody hear me?” he shouted. His heart was still hammering and his breathing was as labored as if he’d run a marathon. On his hands and knees now, he crawled out of the tiny space that had saved his life and, using what was left of the pool table for balance, managed to stand. At the shocking sight that met his eyes, his jaw fell slack, and he swore under his breath.