The Journal: Fault Line (The Journal Book 5) (6 page)

“Oh, I didn’t know,” Christine apologized.
She plugged the sink with her used towels and ran enough water to
splash her face, attempting to get it clean.

“Come with me. That cut doesn’t look so bad
now, I can probably bandage it myself and get you out of here,” the
nurse said softly, taking Christine by the elbow and leading her
into the triage area.

Christine sat on a stool next to the wall
while the nurse finished cleaning the small, deep wound. A doctor
came by, checked it quickly, and put two stitches in before
Christine could protest, and he was gone.

“We’ve all been going nonstop for almost
twenty-four hours, so don’t pay any attention to his lack of
bedside manner.” She applied some ointment and a bandage, judging
Christine fit to leave.

***

She wove her way through the crowded room
looking for the ambulance driver, hoping he could direct her to the
expressway. There were so many people and most of them looked
dazed, just the way Christine felt.

“Christine!” Sadie called out from a
curtained exam room.

“Hey, how is Katie doing?”

“The ER doc confirmed two broken ribs, a
concussion, and a hairline crack in her skull. She was admitted and
should be fine,” the older woman said, eying Christine. “I see you
got that cut taken care of, good.”

“I didn’t even know I had it,” Christine
said. “I really want to go home, Sadie. Do you know where the
ambulance guys are? I was hoping they could tell me how to get to
the I-70 expressway.”

“I could tell you, although I don’t know what
might be blocked. I think it would stand to reason, though, that
the further away you get from the center of the earthquake, the
less damage there will be.”

“Does anyone know where the epicenter
was?”

“Oh yes. It was the New Madrid. The entire
fault line appears to have ruptured!” Sadie answered, glancing up
at the big screen TV monitor on the other side of the room.
Christine followed her eyes, totally mesmerized by the devastation
she was seeing. “Oh, here’s one of those nice young men.” Sadie
turned away, “Sam! Can you help this young lady get back to the
I-70?”

***

Once on the expressway, Christine breathed a
sigh of relief. The traffic was heavy, but it was moving, and Sadie
was right, the further away she got from the city, the less damage
there was and the traffic eventually thinned.

After twelve hours of driving, the gas gage
started blinking and Christine pulled off I-70 at the 31 exit when
she saw the familiar sign for the “T’N’M” 24-hour convenience store
and gas station.

Trevor Monroe closed the
cash register as his latest customer left with an armload of
groceries. It had been a very good day for sales and his shelves
were sparse. He turned back to the overhead TV and turned up the
sound. He couldn’t keep his eyes off the scenes of destruction
being repeated over and over. The epicenters of the massive
earthquakes were hundreds of miles away, but he had felt the
vibration of each big one. Glad he was nowhere near there, he
sighed when a battered PT Cruiser pulled up to the gas pumps. He
was ready to call it a night and had almost shut the pumps off.

Orphaned at the age of fifteen, he’d spent
the next several years living with an alcoholic aunt. The day after
high school graduation, Trevor struck out on his own. He’d turned
thirty-five two months earlier and had celebrated by buying his
third convenience store. T’N’M stood for Trevor Nicolas Monroe,
though most thought it was T
and
M. He didn’t care; the
misconstrued name allowed him the anonymity to work at each of the
stores on a rotating basis, not only to keep an eye on the
employees but to also feel out the customers. He really wanted to
succeed and knew customer satisfaction was the way to do that.

The young lady that entered the store looked
disheveled and confused and Trevor recognized her as being a
semi-regular customer. She looked around and grabbed one of the
carts that were lined up by the doors, wheeling it up and down the
short aisles, dropping things into the basket.

***

Christine carefully selected some groceries.
She had been driving all day, stopping once for gas at a station
that would take only cash and had limited her purchase to only five
gallons. She was hungry and exhausted. A loaf of bread, some
lunchmeat, a few cans of soup, a case of water, two bottles of red
wine, and a frozen pizza nearly filled the cart. She headed to the
register.

“Hi,” Trevor said, scanning Christine’s face.
Yes, this was the pretty girl he’d seen before. “Are you okay?”

Christine’s attention was on the TV.

“Miss?”

She looked at Trevor and smiled, then a
single tear escaped down her cheek. She looked back up at the
screen.

“I was there.”

“Where?” he followed her eyes to the TV.
“
At the earthquake
?” That’s when he noticed the bruise and
bandage on her forehead. “You were hurt. What happened?”

“Doesn’t matter now.” She handed him her
dad’s credit card.

Trevor looked at the card, knowing it
wouldn’t go through. All the debit/credit lines were down, though
he made a show of running it anyway. “The circuits must be
overloaded, but I can run your card manually,” he lied, and pulled
out an old imprint machine. He slipped the plastic card and a
self-carbon receipt into the machine. “Umm, I know you’re not
“John” so I will need to see some I.D.,” he said smoothly, wanting
to know her name.

Christine fumbled through her wallet and
produced her driver’s license. While Trevor copied down her
information, she saw Sadie and Dr. Palazzola on the TV. “Can you
turn up the volume please?” she asked.

The newscaster’s voice over came up.
“
…elderly couple and their grandson escaped from their home
moments before it collapsed during the second big quake.
Fortunately none of them were injured. Here at the St. Mary’s
hospital others were not so lucky. A young deaf girl suffered a
severe head injury when a building came down on top of her while
she was out walking with her dog. Acts of kindness and bravery were
the rule of the day. Another young woman is credited for saving the
girl’s life when she risked her own removing the bricks that buried
the girl. That Good Samaritan left the hospital after having her
own head injury treated, not waiting for any recognition. That also
seems to be the rule of the day. Back to you in the
studio
.”

“I’m glad that Katie will be alright now,”
Christine muttered, still in a daze.

“That was you, wasn’t it?” Trevor asked in
admiration and awe. Christine looked at him, not answering the
question. “Umm, here’s your card back. I’m sure your husband will
be glad to have you home, Christine,” he said, glancing at her I.D.
again.

“Husband? I’m not married, John is my
father,” she said absentmindedly, slipping the card back in her
wallet.

“Forgive me for asking this, but I see you
live not far from here. With your own head injury I’m concerned
about you driving. May I ask you to call here when you arrive, so I
know you made it safely?” Trevor asked, sincerely worried about
her. He handed her the store business card.

She smiled at him again. “Sure. That’s nice
of you to be concerned. It’s been a rough day."

***

Christine turned onto her street and felt a
surge of relief when she saw the light over the garage door. She
hit the remote on her visor, pulled in, and shut the car off as the
door lowered again. After she unloaded her few groceries, she
emptied her pockets onto the kitchen table just as she had for
years. The blue and white business card stared at her. She picked
up her cellphone and dialed the T’N’M store.

“T’N’M, this is Trevor,” he responded. His
heart hit an extra beat when he saw the local number on the caller
ID.

“Trevor, this is Christine Tiggs. You asked
me to call when I got home. I feel like I’m in school and checking
in with my father.” She laughed.

“Ouch! I hope I don’t remind you of your
dad!”

“Oh, no, I didn’t mean it that way. Not at
all, it’s just that he was the only one who ever cared about my
safety. I really do appreciate your concern. That’s really nice for
someone you don’t know.”

“Just the same way you helped that deaf
girl,” Trevor said softly.

Christine went silent.

“Umm… Christine, can I call you sometime? I’d
like to know you better,” Trevor said awkwardly.

“I’d like that.”

“Great! Now get some rest, Christine. I’ll
talk to you soon. Good night.” Trevor hung up the phone grinning.
He picked up her driver’s license from the counter and thought to
himself,
like maybe tomorrow to return this
.

After hanging up her
phone, Christine retrieved her suitcase, briefcase, the shopping
bag, and her purse from the car and dropped them on the kitchen
floor. Even though she was exhausted, she still put away the lunch
meat and frozen pizza. She opened the refrigerator again and took
out an opened bottle of wine. After pouring herself a second glass
full, she realized how hungry she was and got out the sandwich
makings.

Still running on adrenaline, she took her
makeshift meal to the den and turned on the news, hoping to find
something, anything about what happened. It was enough to make her
lose her appetite.

“…
first quake was downgraded to a 7.6 with
the epicenter just north of Memphis
,” a reporter was saying.
“
It lasted four minutes with multiple aftershocks. Bridges have
collapsed or are severely damaged all along the Mississippi River.
There was also a great deal of damage in the St. Louis and
surrounding area. We are getting reports of incredible acts of
bravery and people helping others that were trapped
.” The
reporter went quiet as he listened to his earpiece. “
We have
some aerial footage that shows an actual crack in the Earth. It’s
just mind boggling, Jennifer
.” A choppy piece of helicopter
footage appeared on the screen for a moment.

The view switched back to the TV station and
the anchor person. “
The second quake remains at an 8.2 and
centered in what was Hannibal, Missouri. Hannibal is just gone,
leveled,
” she said in a whisper. “
The tectonic plate was
shoved out of place during the seven minutes of shaking, and now
the Mississippi at this juncture is spilling back into itself,
forming a new lake. The death toll is staggering. Thousands, maybe
hundreds of thousands, with thousands more missing and even
thousands more injured. There is no way to get an actual count
right now because the devastation is too great. There are fires and
gas explosions everywhere, hampering any rescue efforts, which
unfortunately are minimal. Roads are filled with debris from
buildings and crushed cars. Asphalt and concrete have buckled.
Emergency vehicles can’t get anywhere. Gas stations are burning out
of control from ruptured fuel tanks and natural gas lines have
ignited everywhere
.” The anchor paused to collect herself.
“
Please, stay out of this area and let the emergency crews do
their job.”

The news reported a total of eleven states
had been affected by the quake: Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa,
Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas,
Louisiana, and Mississippi. Damage was concentrated along the
Mississippi River and the New Madrid fault line and branched out
from there.

It was 5:15 P.M. Central time, right in the
heart of rush hour, when the second quake hit. It measured 8.2 on
the Richter scale. Christine knew that the one before, a strong
aftershock, must have been the one that knocked her out when she
fell. St. Louis was in between Hannibal and Memphis. She had been
right smack in the middle of the disaster area.

She turned off the TV and fell into bed,
sobbing, and cried herself to sleep.

***

The alarm went off at 8:00 AM. Christine
pulled the pillow over her head to keep out the noise and bumped
her forehead, sending a shockwave of pain to the back of her skull.
She sat up and blinked several times to clear her vision. The last
two days came rushing back, and shock and sadness welled up in her
chest. She needed to go to work soon and tell them about Lois.

For now, though, a hot shower, a
long
hot shower called to her.

***

“You’re late!” the office manager, Mary Jane,
said just a bit too loudly when Christine arrived at the dental
clinic. “And where is that lazy partner of yours? You were both
scheduled for 10:00am today, not 10:30!”

Christine turned slowly to face Mary Jane,
whom she had disliked from the first day, five months ago. The
forty-something woman had terrible people skills for being a
manager.
She doesn’t even dress professionally,
Christine
thought as she took in Mary Jane’s worn blue jeans and flannel
shirt. She knew the woman lived on a farm that her husband ran, but
she sure didn’t have to dress the part of a farm wife.

Christine scowled. “Do you know where I’ve
been for the past three days, Mary Jane?”

“Of course I do! I sent you there. I’m hoping
you and Lois learned something at that training session. It cost
this office a bundle.”

“No, I mean
really
were.” When the
older woman didn’t respond, Christine’s temper flared. “We were in
the middle of that
earthquake
! You know, the one that has
killed
thousands
of people? I was injured, and Lois…” her
voice hitched, “Lois is dead. Crushed when the hotel stairwell
collapsed! I’m glad to hear that you accept that you sent us there
because Lois’ family is likely going to sue your ass
and
this clinic for her wrongful death.” Her voice had risen several
octaves and her breathing was labored.