Faulted Read online

  Guy was unable to stop or control where they went.

  All he knew was he still had his grandson in his grip as the waters carried them away.

  It wasn’t an easy route, nor a painless one.

  Floating with the water, Guy’s legs smashed against rocks and other items buried in the water. Each hit sending a barrage of pain into his legs, arms, chest, wherever it hit.

  More than once he went under.

  But never did he loose contact with Carter.

  To him, it was nothing short of a miracle that he was able to hold on. He didn’t know where the wave would take them, but the rush and intensity of it subsided enough for him to catch his footing and sloppily stand.

  The current was still strong, pushing against the backs of his legs.

  He had no idea where they were, but he had stopped, and when he did, he pulled Carter to him.

  As soon as he brought Carter into his chest, the boy’s head dropped back.

  “No. No.” Guy brought his hand to Carter’s face, shaking him. “Carter, baby. Carter.”

  The child’s arms dropped lifelessly, he wasn’t breathing.

  Guy looked around. He had to get out of the water, he had to get the boy to a dry area. He spotted an area off to his left. The rubble of a building created a mound of bricks and Guy made his way there.

  He trudged against the current, and with each step he examined Carter. Had he been injured? Hit by something?

  Every ounce of physical pain Guy had felt was now gone, It was camouflaged by this fear for his grandson’s life.

  They had made it through the earthquake, the impact of the wave. They both were carried away. How was it even fair that the child was still attacked to his backpack, yet lost his life?

  It wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be happening.

  Finally, Guy made it to the area free from water, climbed the rubble and lay Carter down.

  There was no heartbeat, no breaths.

  Instantly, Guy’s heart broke and he cried out loudly from his gut and grabbed onto the boy.

  He repeated the word, “no”, over and over as he clutched Carter to his chest.

  He was panicked, scared, but he decided he wasn’t giving up.

  Despite the odds, Guy was able to hold onto Carter through the raging water, yet somehow, along the way he lost him.

  But Guy wasn’t giving up, not that easily. There was a reason he was able to hold Carter through it all, and it wasn’t just for him to die.

  Holding onto that thought, Guy place Carter on the bricks. It wasn’t over. Not yet. Then Guy proceeded to do all that he could, give all that he had to try to bring Carter back.

  SEVEN

  It was controlled hysterics, Ruben could tell it was taking everything for CJ to keep it together. It was completely understandable. His father and son had been washed away.

  As a father, Ruben knew the anguish of how CJ felt. The only reason Ruben wasn’t concerned about his son was because he lived in Texas.

  CJ searched frantically in the fallen wreckage, and Ruben hoped he didn’t find them. Not there. Not in that mess.

  It was internal chaos for all of them. Except maybe Mindy. She actually showed a human side, but didn’t know what to do or how to help.

  “Carter! Dad!” CJ yelled.

  “They’re not here,” Roger told him.

  CJ ignored him.

  “Dude, they are not here.”

  “How do you know? I have to keep looking.”

  “The water man,” Roger said. “It was powerful. I’m sorry. I’m not saying they aren’t alright, I’m just saying it took them.”

  “One point eight miles,” Mindy said. “Approximately. Which is nine thousand, six hundred and sixty-two feet, or three thousand, six hundred and eighty-four steps. Approximately.”

  The three men turned and looked at her.

  Mindy closed her eyes, touched her fingers against her thumb as if counting. “Yes, that’s correct. So it shouldn’t take long at all to walk …”

  “Stop.” Roger held up his hand. “Where are you getting that from?”

  “Tsunami’s move on land about twenty miles an hour. I counted three hundred and thirty-three seconds that water rushed into the limo. So that’s how long the wave rushed through. With the current, they were brought that far until they slowed down. They aren’t here they are …”

  “One point eight three miles,” CJ said.

  “West.” Mindy nodded.

  “How did you figure that out so fast?” CJ asked.

  “I have this knack for math,” she replied. “I was told it was because I was probably artistic.”

  “Autistic,” Roger corrected.

  “That’s what I said.” She turned to CJ. “I’ll help you look. I’ll walk with you.” She then faced Ruben. “But you have to find help for that arm.”

  “Your head, too,” Ruben said.

  “I’ll be fine. He’s bleeding, too.” She pointed to CJ, “So together we’re okay.”

  “I … I …” Roger stammered. “Don’t even know how to react to that statement. I don’t think right now there’s help to be found. Not yet. We have people out here on this highway. A slew of them. I need to look for them.”

  “I’ll help,” Ruben said.

  “We’ll find something to brace your arm,” Roger told him. “Until we can figure out where help is.”

  “How will we know?” CJ asked.

  “Siren,” Mindy replied. “Once you hear the sirens, emergency workers are out. There’s an emergency plan for earthquakes.”

  “It wasn’t an earthquake,” CJ said. “I saw something streak across the sky.”

  Roger shook his head. “It couldn’t be a meteor, something that shook the ground that hard would have been close, and there’s no fireball. There’d be a fireball on impact.”

  “Well, I saw something.”

  “I’m not saying you didn’t. And we’re wasting time,” Roger said. “Me and Ruben will look for our people and do what we can here. We should plan to meet back up. I mean, what happens if your father and son come here looking for you while you’re out there?”

  “You have a point,” CJ said.

  “We’ll leave a note,” Ruben said. “If we leave. In the limo.”

  “We’ll find a way,” Roger added. “If we aren’t here, we’ll find a way to let you know. Just look in the limo. I’m sure one of these cars has something to write on. A mile doesn’t take that long to walk. We’ll be back in three hours so check in. Okay?”

  CJ agreed, then faced Mindy. “You don’t have to come with me. It’s alright.”

  “You shouldn’t walk alone. Ruben is injured. I don’t mind. I want to help find your son.”

  “Thank you.” CJ began to walk.

  “Three hours,” Roger reiterated.

  Ruben stood, water to his calves, watching CJ walk slightly ahead of Mindy. She carried her purse crisscross over her chest, it never left her body the entire ordeal. Nor did that phone leave her hand. And as she walked, she held that phone up looking at it, still trying to get a signal.

  <><><><>

  “Breathe!”

  Guy wasn’t particularly a religious man, but he was in that moment. Rubble surrounding him, everything blocked out in his focus, his only grandson laying lifeless on a mound of concrete, Guy prayed more in those moments than he had in his entire life.

  “God please, don’t take him from me. Please bring him back … breathe.” He did everything he had learned about trying to save a drowning victim. It seemed as if he was doing compressions and giving breaths forever. The amount of time was lost in his heartache.

  “Breathe.”

  Guy continued.

  He went from praying to begging. Bartering his very own soul in exchange for the six year old boy.

  “Take me. Just take me. Bring him back. Please … breathe.”

  Somewhere in it all, at some point, Carter coughed. When he did, water ejected from his mouth and as Guy
lifted him upward he began to vomit.

  Guy emotionally cried out and then gleefully embraced the boy, so happy, so grateful.

  He whispered a ‘Thank you’ as he lifted his eyes to the sky and held Carter.

  Carter began to cry.

  “I know. I know.” Guy held him. “I’m here. I have you.”

  Then it hit Guy. What now? Movies showed the revival of a victim, but what happened afterward? Did they just stay alive? Did they need further help before they reverted back? Guy didn’t know if Carter would relapse.

  He had been dead.

  That was for sure. Now he was back.

  The only thing Guy knew for certain was he needed to get help. He had to get medical attention for Carter.

  The child was pale and clammy. He kept coughing and coughing. Guy supposed he would for a while until he ejected all water from his lungs.

  The water was dirty as well. Surely if he didn’t get Carter to a hospital he would get pneumonia.

  Guy looked around. He was in a foreign city, unknown territory. He didn’t have a clue where he was and even if he did, there were no distinguishable landmarks. Everything was flattened or nearly flattened.

  The water was calmer, but it was still there, it hadn’t receded yet.

  Along with Carter, Guy worried about his own son. Was CJ okay? Was he alive? Did he survive that blast of water? The last time he saw his son he was below the highway.

  More than anything Guy wanted to lift Carter and head back. Follow the water in reverse to the freeway and the section he last saw his son.

  The father in him wanted and needed to do that. The father in him also knew, CJ would want his son taken care of.

  Following the water back from where it came meant heading into a flooded area. If there was help out there, it wasn’t there.

  Dry land, out of the destruction was Guy’s best bet.

  He would walk along the water, following the flow until he stopped. Eventually he’d find out.

  There was no one around, at least no one he could see, but that didn’t mean there weren’t survivors. Guy knew there had to be.

  He would search out help after he gained some of his strength back. He was weak from the emotional trauma, and physically in pain from the bangs and bumps he took on the wave. He felt short of breath and his hands shook.

  A few minutes, that was all he needed, then he would lift Carter and carry him.

  Until then, he would just hold the child, take a moment and bask in the fact that he was alive.

  EIGHT

  When he was sixteen years old, Ruben broke his big toe. It was the worst pain he had felt in his life until that moment. His broken arm throbbed. Using a piece of wet wood from debris and his button down limo shirt, Roger helped him make a splint. It didn’t help much, so Ruben self medicated with an unbroken bottle of scotch that was in the Humvee.

  It wasn’t like when he broke his toe, or even sliced his hand. There was no hospital to run to. No doctor in sight. As the minutes ticked by Ruben was just one of many who were injured. In fact, his injury was minor compared to a lot of others.

  The more he and Roger searched for members of the Mindy Snow team, the more people they ended up helping.

  Aiding them out of a trapped car, from under rubble and bringing them to a dry area off the road. Those who were strong enough to help did. And those uninjured who couldn’t move wreckage searched the wreckage for anything they could use for first aid.

  Eventually, help would come. Emergency workers, FEMA or even the military. When news broke of the disaster, aid would come.

  It wasn’t that long since CJ and Mindy walked off in their search, yet, Ruben was surprised with technology and the way news travelled, there wasn’t a single news chopper flying overhead.

  There was simply a feeling of abandonment.

  Were they on their own?

  What if help didn’t come?

  He thought about what CJ had said, that he saw a meteor. Roger said it was after the first quake and dismissed it as impossible because there hadn’t been a fireball. What if CJ was correct and the meteor he saw wasn’t the only one. A first strike elsewhere causing the quake and the second caused the wave.

  As he one handedly dug through the debris, Ruben’s mind raced with all sorts of scenarios. With everything around him destroyed, it felt like the end of the world. He reasoned that many who had been through similar disasters probably felt the same way. That life as they knew was over and some sort of apocalypse was upon them.

  Ruben continued his searching and tried to dismiss those thoughts, but with each passing minute, and every dead body he uncovered, those thoughts were more predominant.

  <><><><>

  Walking the two miles, following the water, sounded easier than it was. It wasn’t straight, flat land. What was buried under the water was unstable, and CJ lost his balance several times. He supposed the head injury didn’t help. His head pounded ten times worse than any hangover he had ever experienced, he was dizzy and his stomach was queasy, flopping every few steps. After fifteen minutes, continuing on in the water wasn’t an option. He had been in it long enough he could feel his skin shrivel and his feet began to burn in his shoes from being wet.

  They moved to the side of the water, walking along the area that had been completely flattened.

  Mindy walked ahead of him, she kept staring at her phone and every few feet would announce, “Nothing yet.”

  Not long into the walk, the ground shook.

  It sent CJ into an instant panic. So much so, he felt the urge to run. When he did, his leg twisted, he sailed to the ground, and before he could get back up, he vomited uncontrollably.

  “Aftershock,” Mindy said, then noticed him on the ground and rushed over.

  “I’m fine.”

  “No, you’re not. Let’s sit down.”

  “We haven’t walked that long.”

  “Take a minute.” She extended her hand to him.

  He took it and used her as leverage to stand and she walked with him to find a place to sit. He hadn’t a clue what he was sitting on, it was hard and it felt good to stop.

  “Stay put,” she told him.

  “Where are you going?”

  “We need to find water. I know that sounds weird. But you can’t drink that.” She pointed to the water.

  “I … I kinda figured that.”

  “I’ll be right back.”

  “Do you know where we are?” CJ asked.

  “LA.”

  “No, I mean where?”

  “I have an idea. But … it’s really hard to say right now … where.”

  Mindy walked off and another tremor hit, she swayed in her walk. CJ gripped the debris that he sat on. The shaking ground was unnerving and something he didn’t think he’d get used to.

  He watched her for a while, she peeked in car wreckage, around and under, then he couldn’t focus on her anymore, the farther she went, the blurrier she became.

  She wasn’t gone long, and when she returned she carried a dirty black, back pack looped over her shoulder and two bottles of water clasped in the fold of her arm.

  “Take one,” she told CJ when she returned.

  He grabbed a bottle. “Where did you get these?”

  “A car. This is LA, someone had bottled water.”

  He looked at it. “Expensive stuff, too.”

  “I checked out the expensive cars. One of them …. was a rental.”

  “How do you know?” he asked.

  “I found this?” She reached behind her.

  “What’s in the bag?”

  “Not much. More water, but I figured we could use it, pick up things along the way.”

  “That’s good thinking.”

  “I’m quick like that. So …” she sat down. “This is what I found and how I knew it was a rental.” She unfolded a map.

  “This is of Los Angeles.”

  “Yes, it is. Anyone who lives here uses GPS. Which by the way is down.”r />
  “That’s good to know,” CJ said.

  “Yeah. So … this is good to have.”

  “Any idea where we are on this?”

  “Somewhere in this vicinity.” She ran her finger in a circle on the map. “Not far from the airport. I remember seeing the burger place sign, but I don’t recall them. I just ... it’s residential over there …” She pointed. “But this whole area is. I just wish I could pin point where …”

  Suddenly another tremor hit, this one stronger and longer. Enough to sway and knock both of them off the concrete.

  Before they could get up, a huge ‘boom’ rocked the ground.

  CJ saw it, not far ahead and a little to the right, a huge fireball shot to the sky. It appeared to reach for the clouds then quickly retracted, leaving behind a shadow of thick smoke. “Holy shit.”

  “Oh!” Mindy said brightly. “I figured it out.” She pointed to the map.

  “How do you know this all of the sudden?”

  “That.” She indicted to the smoke in the sky. “That was this gas station. It exploded. Now we know where we are.”

  NINE

  He was a person who believed the worst of situations could bring out the best in people. Guy was not let down.

  He was gathering up his strength, holding onto Carter, preparing to walk … somewhere, when a family walking through the rubble approached.

  It looked like a family. A mother, father and teenage son.

  “You need some help?” the father asked.

  “Oh my goodness.” The woman rushed over to Carter. “What happened?”

  Guy peered at her, she had open gashes on her face, and looked in need of medical attention herself.

  “We got caught in the wave. He had drown. Just ... I don’t know where we are and I need to get him some help.”

  “We’re trying to find it ourselves,” she said. “Kep,” she looked at her husband. “Do we have anything dry we can put on this boy?”

  “I’ll look.” He slid a bag from his shoulder.

  “I have a t-shirt,” the teenage boy said, “He can have that.”