Aftermath Read online

  And it was going to take a lot longer than half an hour to set this to rights.

  He tried David’s phone again. No answer. He could feel himself starting to panic.

  The National Weather Service in Blacksburg confirmed that Doppler radar indicated a tornado on the ground in Jericho near Highway 58. There were no eyewitness reports yet, and no indication of the breadth or scale of the damage. Rescue crews from several of the surrounding counties were on their way into the affected areas. Phone lines that were still operational were jammed with calls. It was impossible to get any emergency response agency to pick up.

  His cell phone rang. He’d been clutching it so tightly that the vibration against his palm startled him, and he nearly dropped it. The Rover swerved as he fumbled with the phone to find the talk button.

  “David?”

  “No. Michael, it’s Maddie.”

  Maddie. Good. Thank god.

  “What the hell happened? Have you talked with David? I can’t reach him. I keep calling, but it just rings and rings.”

  “Michael. Where are you?”

  “I’m on 21, about four miles from town. Where are you? Where is David?”

  “I haven’t talked with David. I’m walking up Elk Creek, about half a mile past the Cox barn. Is there any way you can get here and pick us up?”

  His mind was spinning. “Us? Why are you walking?”

  “I have Henry with me. There was a tornado. We had to get out of the Jeep. Now I’m trying to get to the clinic.”

  “The Jeep?”

  “Gone.”

  Jesus. “Have you been able to reach Syd?”

  “No.” For the first time, he could hear the strain in her voice. She sounded like she was making a real effort to remain calm.

  Just ahead was the turnoff for Greenhouse Road. He could take that and cut over to Elk Creek—if the roads were passable.

  “I can be there in about ten minutes . . . if the roads aren’t blocked.”

  Over the hiss on the line he could hear her sigh. It was like the sound of air being let out of a balloon.

  “Great,” she said. “We’ll keep walking toward town. Be careful. It’s like a war zone up here.”

  “Okay.”

  “Michael?” she added.

  “Yeah?”

  “Try not to worry. We’ll find them both.”

  He just nodded, finding it hard to speak, then realized she couldn’t see him. “I know.”

  “See you in a few minutes.”

  The line went dead.

  PANDEMONIUM.

  Mayhem, too.

  Yeah. Byron shook his head. Pandemonium and mayhem. That about summed it up.

  And those weren’t two words that normally went together when talking about anything related to life in Jericho.

  Not unless that time five years ago counted, when an eighteen-wheeler full of pigs collided with a tanker truck that had just pumped-out sixty Port-a-Johns at the fiddler’s convention in Galax.

  Now that was pandemonium. The truck full of pigs overturned, and one-hundred-and-forty-five fat sows that were en route to Smithfield to become biscuit-sized slices of country ham got loose and high-tailed it through the center of town, trailing an apocalyptic swath of human refuse in their wake. It took days to round them all up, and weeks to clean up the mess. And the stench lingered for months.

  But this? This was worse. Lots worse.

  At least there were no reports of fatalities. Yet. Byron kept his fingers crossed.

  But the worst damage was right through the center of town. Main Street was barely recognizable. Bricks and broken glass covered about every square inch. All the streetlights were down—most of them were bent into unrecognizable shapes. Fire hydrants had been broken apart like snap beans, and water was pouring out over everything. A river of mud and sludge was rising over the mounds of debris that clogged the storm drains.

  None of the buildings lining the tiny street looked unaffected. They were just damn lucky that the storm happened early, before most businesses were open.

  The school was hardest hit—the gymnasium was completely demolished. He heard from Phoebe Jenkins that there had been a band practice early that morning, but most everyone had gotten to safety before the building got hit.

  Only two people were still missing: Roma Jean Freemantle and Syd Murphy.

  Byron felt his gut clench. He didn’t want to be the one to face Dr. Stevenson if they didn’t find her partner—and soon. He had no idea where Stevenson was. Reports said that her clinic survived the storm. She was probably there. None of the phone lines were working in this area, and at least two of the nearby cell towers had been taken out.

  He raised his radio and flicked the talk button.

  “Tommy, where the fuck is that other backhoe? The goddamn rescue trucks can’t get through this mess until we get some of this debris pushed off the street.”

  His radio beeped.

  “Ten-four, Sheriff. I’ve got Mike Barnes en route.”

  “What’s his 20?”

  “About five miles south of town.”

  Byron shook his head. “Tell him to haul ass. We may have some people trapped in the school.”

  “Roger.”

  “Martin out.” Byron clipped his radio to his belt and turned back toward the sound of a commotion coming from inside the grocery store. Two of his deputies were hauling out something that looked like most of a car bumper. It was bright red and had bits of paper and soggy pieces of what appeared to be lettuce plastered all over it.

  “Any signs of people inside?” he called out to them.

  “No sir,” Travis Burns replied. “We found this stuck inside a freezer case.”

  Byron rolled his eyes. “Guys. Drop the fucking car bumper and keep looking for survivors. There might be people trapped underneath all these piles of shit, capiche? Use your goddamn heads.”

  The two deputies looked at each other sheepishly before carefully setting the car bumper down.

  “Yes, sir,” they said in unison.

  “Jesus Christ,” Byron muttered. He gestured toward the bank. “Halsey, this building looks stable. How about you two check it out?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And don’t forget to mark the front with spray paint to show you’ve been in there,” he called after them as they started to climb over an upended Merita Bread van that was wedged up against the bank doors.

  Someone tapped him on the shoulder. Great, he thought. Another goddamn bystander wanting to ask if he’d seen their fucking dog.

  He turned around and found himself staring right into a pair of steely blue eyes.

  Stevenson. And she didn’t look happy. She looked . . . he wasn’t really sure how she looked. Disheveled, for one thing. She had mud all over her clothes. And one side of her face was streaked with tiny scratches. She didn’t look composed, that much was for sure. He guessed she’d heard about the gymnasium.

  “Byron,” she said. Her voice sounded flat. Unemotional. “What can you tell me about the school?”

  He shrugged. It would be useless to lie to her. The fact that she was standing there in front of him and not out digging through the rubble with the rest of the county EMS teams, was proof enough of her level of distraction.

  “Not much. The gym got hit. It’s pretty much in ruins.” He paused. “The band was in there practicing when the storm hit. Most of them got out.”

  She took a minute to absorb that. “Most?”

  He nodded. “Two people are unaccounted for. Roma Jean Freemantle, and—”

  “Syd?”

  He nodded again. “I’m sorry, Maddie. I’ve got a crew over there searching.”

  She continued to stand there without speaking. He wasn’t certain that she understood what he said.

  He took hold of her arm. “Maddie—”

  She pulled free. “I’ve got to get over there.” She looked around at the carnage that surrounded them.

  “You can’t. It’s not safe. I’
ve got that area sealed off.”

  She turned away from him and started to walk in the direction of the school. He noticed how unsteady on her feet she seemed. She was walking with a pronounced limp, and her right pant leg was torn and streaked with bloodstains.

  He followed her and grabbed hold of her arm again. “Hold on, Maddie. I told you. No one can get in there. The rescue crews are searching the area, and they’ll let us know as soon as they find them.”

  Maddie shook off his arm. “Fucking try and stop me, Byron.”

  “Maddie. Jesus Christ. Look at yourself. You can hardly walk. Let us do our jobs.”

  Her eyes were smoldering. But she seemed to calm down a little. “Fine. Then let me do mine. When they find them, they might be hurt, and I need to be there.”

  He sighed. There was no point in continuing to argue with her. “All right. But let me take you. I’ve got an ATV over there, and it’ll be faster.”

  She nodded.

  He looked around. “Davis,” he called out to a young female deputy who was working with a volunteer fireman to shut off one of the waterspouts. “I’m taking Dr. Stevenson to the school. You’re with me.”

  “Okay, Sheriff,” Davis replied.

  He turned back to Maddie. She had already limped halfway to the ATV.

  As he followed her, he said a silent prayer that when they got to the school, Syd Murphy would be there—alive.

  “WHAT THE HELL happened?”

  Michael was seated on the floor next to the low gurney where David lay holding an ice pack against the side of his head. Astrid was curled up beside him—snoring.

  They were at Maddie’s clinic, which had been converted into a makeshift emergency room. Lizzy Mayes, the county’s itinerant nurse practitioner, and Peggy Hawkes, the long-winded nurse-cum-clinic-manager, were both there, tending to an unending stream of walk-ins and carry-ins. Several of the more serious cases had already been transferred by ambulance to the hospital in Wytheville.

  David sighed. “I told you what happened. You’re just not hearing me.”

  Michael shook his head. Clearly, David’s head wound was worse than Lizzy had told him when he’d arrived forty-five minutes ago.

  He had just picked up Maddie and Henry, and they were on their way to the clinic when his cell phone rang, and he heard David’s voice. He had been beside himself with relief. David told him that he was fine, but shaken, and that the inn had sustained heavy damages. He also told him what he knew about the school, and that no one had heard anything from Syd yet.

  When Michael related the news to Maddie, she insisted that he turn around and take her directly into town. David also said that Isobel Sanchez was at the clinic, and she was helping out by watching the children of the people who had shown up needing treatment. So Michael offered to bring Henry along with him after he dropped Maddie off near the entrance to town. Henry was now out back, playing kickball in the parking lot with Héctor, Gabriel, and half a dozen other children whose shell-shocked parents were inside trying to wrap themselves around the enormity of all that had just occurred—and all the ways their lives had suddenly changed.

  He took hold of the ice pack so David could rest his arm.

  “Honey,” he said in the calmest tone he could muster. “You can’t expect me to believe that a flying car destroyed the inn.”

  David slapped his hand away.

  “Don’t patronize me. I’m not an imbecile, and I know what I saw. It was a fucking car—a bright red one—one of those jacked-up, steroid-infused street rods. You think I’d invent a ludicrous detail like that?”

  “No. But I think you might have taken a bigger whack on the noggin than you realize.”

  David sighed. “Just who do you think you’re talking to here? Who watched every damn episode of Muscle Car on Spike TV?”

  Michael rolled his eyes. “That’s not because of the cars. You just had the hots for that grease monkey, Rick Bacon.”

  “So? That doesn’t mean that I didn’t pick up a thing or two about those hopped-up breeder-mobiles. I sure as shit can recognize one when I see one—especially when the damn thing is flying through my fucking sun porch!”

  Next to him on the gurney, Astrid stirred and lifted her head.

  “Oh, great,” David whined. “Now you woke Astrid up.”

  “I woke Astrid up?”

  David gathered the fat dog into his arms. “Come here, baby. Daddy is sorry that Papa Mikey woke you up.”

  Michael sighed. Whatever.

  For right now, all that mattered was that David was safe, and that Maddie was on her way to find Syd.

  Everything else could wait.

  Chapter 3

  THE BLEACHERS IN Jefferson County High School were a long-standing bone of contention.

  They had been installed way back in the summer of 1967, when the newly constructed school gymnasium was the county’s pride and joy. The four telescoping wall units had been manufactured by the J.H. Pence Co. in Roanoke, and had been transported to the rural community of Jericho by rail car. Back in those days, gym bleachers were constructed out of boards harvested from old-growth Douglas fir trees—some of the hardest and hardiest wood available.

  More than half a century of history was etched into the worn surfaces of those plank seats. Epic wins and losses, failed and fabled feats of sportsmanship, first loves, final betrayals, pomp, circumstance, rituals, and rites of passage—all played out on the polished gym floor below. It was even rumored that if a person was brave enough to crawl all the way under one of the fully extended units with a flashlight, they could find the governor’s initials carved into the back of the riser nearest the scoreboard.

  But times changed, and the exercise of team spirit was increasingly coupled with a greater demand for creature comforts. And the old bleachers were a source of continued aggravation to anyone who had to risk life and limb navigating them on crowded game nights. Disgruntled parents were always quick to point out that having to sit on them for more than ten minutes at a stretch was a bona fide pain in the ass. Forty-plus years of hard use had taken their toll on the big units. Half of the top boards were warped, the center sections were beginning to sag, and one of the end components would only retract about two-thirds of the way.

  People thought they needed to go. And they said so. Publicly. More than once, the need to replace the worn out seating system topped the agenda at school board meetings.

  But times were tight, and budgets were tighter. So when push came to shove, the precious few discretionary dollars that were available got channeled into things like funding the school’s free lunch program or buying new microscopes for the science lab.

  So the debate, and the complaints, continued with gusto until one fateful Thursday morning, when the monolithic monuments played their last—and most heroic—part in the history of a small town.

  LIGHT. THERE WAS a small sliver of light coming from someplace.

  That had to be a good sign.

  “Miss Murphy, I can’t move my legs.” Roma Jean was still beneath Syd. Or, at least, most of Roma Jean was still beneath Syd. She couldn’t really see anything.

  “I know, honey.” Syd tried to sound as matter-of-fact as possible. In truth, she was terrified. “I’m on top of you, and I can’t move, either.”

  In fact, it was far worse than that. Syd was wedged up against one of the iron support arms, beneath the front section of bleachers where she had pulled Roma Jean before the building collapsed. She could feel one of the big, floor-level rollers digging into her back. Her left leg was pinned below the knee by something heavy. Her foot was at an improbable angle. Every time Roma Jean tried to move, the pain was excruciating.

  “Are you hurt anyplace?” she asked.

  “I don’t think so.”

  Beneath her, Roma Jean shifted. Syd thought she might pass out from the jolt of pain that surged up her leg.

  “Try not to move, Roma Jean,” she said, when she could speak again. “We don’t want to risk bri
nging anything else down on top of us.”

  “I’m scared.”

  “I know you are, sweetheart. I am, too. But they’ll find us. We just need to stay calm and wait until we hear them.”

  “How long will that take?”

  Syd listened to the quiet all around them. It didn’t sound like it was still raining, and she couldn’t hear any wind.