He turned around. Tracy Ammes was running toward him, her shoes gone, her stockings shredded. A couple buttons were missing from her dirty blouse, and her sheer pink bra peeked through the opening. There was blood on her knees. 'Jesus. Jesus.' She bent over and gasped for air next to him. She started to say something else, shrugged, and just said, 'Horrible.'
'Yeah.'
She raised her voice to be heard over the constant din of sirens and alarms. 'I'd decided to get an iced tea over at your snack stand for the long drive home. Then everything went crazy. Like The Poseidon Adventure or something.' She took a deep breath. 'What now?'
'Now I look for my mother. Then I get home and take care of my family.'
Tracy's voice was quiet. 'Of course.'
Eric looked down at her. 'If you're free this evening, perhaps you'd care to join my family for dinner?'
She nodded, too relieved to speak.
Although it was early afternoon, the sky was almost black; the smoke from fires all over the city and the nearby hills.
Eric checked his watch but the crystal was shattered. 'What time do you have?'
'Twelve-forty.'
'Okay. Mom has Archaeology 101 from noon to one over in Sprockett Hall. Let's swing by there first.'
'Check.'
He took off at a quick jog, always half a dozen steps ahead of her. They passed various hysterical or wounded people, but Eric didn't stop, so neither did she. As she struggled not to drop any further behind him, Tracy was astounded at how quickly she was able to adapt to an emergency situation. There would be no getting back to Santa Monica today, maybe even for a couple days while highways were cleared for traffic. Surely by then the authorities would have restored order.
'Over there,' Eric shouted over his shoulder and dashed off toward an old brick building. It was four stories high, with clouds of smoke haloing the building like the rings of Saturn. The air was much more acrid here and Tracy tried to take shallow breaths to avoid the stinging in her throat.
Eric saw her immediately. The short, compact woman with steel-gray hair. She was dragging an unconscious boy out the smoky doorway and across the sidewalk to safety. The boy must have weighed close to two hundred pounds, but Maggie Ravensmith handled him as easily as she had the wheelbarrow loads of rock she had helped her husband haul away every night.
Eric's feet slapped concrete as he sprinted down the walkway toward Sprockett Hall.
Maggie glanced up, saw her son approaching, and pointed him toward the unconscious boy at her feet. She was panting for air. 'Smoke inhalation. Not breathing.'
Eric dropped to his knees, tilted the boy's head back slightly, and put his ear near his mouth, listening for the sound of breathing. At the same time he watched the chest for any movement. There was neither. Quickly he reached over and ripped open the top of the boy's black polo shirt. Then, hunching over the boy's face, he placed his hand on the forehead, holding it back while he used his fingers to pinch the nose shut. He slid his other hand under the kid's neck, lifting slightly to create an open airway.
'How is he?' Tracy asked as she came running up.
'Don't know yet,' Maggie answered.
'Will he make it?'
Maggie shrugged.
Eric sucked in a deep breath, ignoring the burning smoke-tinged air. Bending further over, he placed his mouth over the boy's and exhaled until he saw the chest swell. He pulled back a moment, watched the chest for falling movement, listening for escaping air. He heard it.
'One thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three, one thousand four, one thousand five.' He bent over and repeated the process, breathing air into the boy, counting, breathing, counting. Finally he sat back. The boy's breathing resumed. 'Okay, Mom, looks like you saved another student to bore with your lectures. Mom?' He turned around and looked for her.
'She went back in,' Tracy said, pointing at the smoking building, the flames flickering in windows like Halloween jack-o'-lanterns.
'Jesus.' He sprang to his feet, grabbed Tracy by the shoulders. 'Keep an eye on this kid. Try to flag one of the ambulances down when they get here. If his breathing stops or lessens significantly, just do what I did. Can you do it?'
'I think so.'
He didn't say anything else, just took off for the doorway of Sprockett Hall. He felt the great waves of heat wash over him at least ten feet before he reached the door, but he just squinted his eyes and plunged through.
He walked around the wide-eyed body of one co-ed, stepped over the mangled body of Dr. Bernie Concord from the Comparative Literature department. The smoke was so thick it was impossible to see more than five feet in front of you.
'Mom?' he shouted. 'Where the hell are you?'
His mother's voice shot back, slicing through the dense air. 'In my classroom. Where else?'
'Come on. The sprinklers aren't working, the water lines must be ruptured. This place is going down without a fight.' He picked his way past the rubble, thankful that it was a Friday, when most of the students and faculty weren't around campus anyway. 'Let's go, Mom!'
He saw her emerging from her classroom at the end of the hall. The white haze outlined her small body as she dragged one semi-conscious girl under one arm and her stack of lecture notes under the other.
'Forget the fucking notes, Mom,' Eric yelled as he charged toward her, hopping piles of furniture and collapsed walls. 'Nobody can understand them anyway.'
'Like hell,' Maggie snapped, struggling with her double load for a moment, then sighing. 'You're probably right.' She let the stack of notes fall to the floor, wrapped both arms around the staggering girl, and hauled her down the hall toward Eric. 'I'm putting this one on a diet tomorrow.'
Eric was less than eight feet away when the ceiling over his mother collapsed, dropping pink insulation and a couple of metal bookcases filled with Spanish textbooks and back issues of the Publication of the Modern Language Association. Eric even saw Tony Garrison's coffee mug with the kissing hippos sitting on one of the shelves as they plowed into his mother and her helpless student. There was a sudden cry of surprise, then a sharp cracking sound as all the bones in her chest were crushed under the weight. The student never made a sound; her head was split open from the forehead to the chin.
'Mom!' Eric hollered, pulling the heavy bookcases off, tossing them aside like foam toys. When he finally uncovered her, he stooped down, grabbed her shattered wrist for a pulse, already knowing what he'd find. He put his head near her mouth, but all he could hear was the gurgling of blood bubbling out of her cracked chest.
Farther down the hall, another section of ceiling collapsed, dropping flaming pieces of furniture onto the floor. The ratty old couch from Bob Lender's office, on which Bob had first seduced teaching assistant Linda Dekke, who was now Mrs. Lender. An old Royal typewriter missing the letter H. Bob Lender, neck broken, tweed jacket flaming like a cape as he thudded onto the floor, bouncing once. The fire continued down his jacket onto his pants, casually burning like a campfire.
Eric stood up, tried to swallow, couldn't, turned and retraced his steps out of the building.
Tracy was kneeling by the husky boy, whose eyes were now half open, grateful. 'Look, Eric,' she said excitedly, 'I did it. Just as you showed me. And he's awake, conscious!'
He nodded at her. 'Good job.'
She saw the look on his face, felt a cold stab in her stomach. 'Where's your mother?'
He didn't answer her, just started walking away. 'Let's go.'
'What about him?' Tracy asked.
Eric didn't look back. 'He'll be okay.'
Tracy was confused. She didn't think it was right to just leave the kid lying there, even if he was conscious. On the other hand, she didn't want to be separated from the only person she knew. She trotted angrily after Eric.
'I'm sorry about your mother. I truly am. But we can't just leave people lying helpless.'
He didn't answer, just picked up his pace.
