ALLUSIVE AFTERSHOCK (11 page)

“Max!” I shouted, but
he kept running toward the ruins. I crouched down to help Court back onto the
board. I didn’t want to know, couldn’t bear to see if they were dead, if Max’s
parents lay at the top of the hill, dead. I couldn’t look.

I stared down at
Courtland. His face contorted in pain, but he wasn’t making any noise. He seemed
okay for the moment. I looked back at Max standing outside the smoldering
rubble, not moving. I ran up the driveway and stopped beside him. The smell of
ash assaulted my nose for the umpteenth time that day and I covered it and my
mouth with the palm of my hand. I reached out with the other to touch him on
the shoulder. He didn’t make a sound, didn’t move an inch. He stood as still as
a statue, staring at the pile of cinders and charred brick.

“Max?”

He didn’t seem to
notice me as he turned and walked the other way. He circled the house and I
followed. When he reached the back yard, he fell down on his knees and cried,
pounding his fists on the dirt. I stopped a few feet behind him not sure what
to do, afraid to touch him, afraid not to touch him. Would he send me away or
welcome my comforting arms? At that moment, I didn’t think he wanted me or
anyone watching him cry, so I walked back to the front of the house, sat on a
piece of broken cement and waited.

“Adela!”

“Max?” I jumped up at
the sound of banging and the sweet music of Max calling my name and rushed
toward the commotion he was making.

The air smelled of
burnt wood, furniture, fabrics and plastic. Max’s life. Warmth from the fire
that consumed everything Max owned rose from the ground. It appeared he and I were
in the same boat.

“Max?”

He stood in front of
the wine cellar, banging against the door.

“The door is jammed.
Help me,” he pleaded.

I had to admit, it took
me a minute to figure out what was actually going on and Max looked at me as if
I’d suddenly been struck deaf and dumb.

“Come on. They must be
down here, help me!”

I nodded, realizing he
was talking about his parents. “Yes, I bet that’s where they are.” I tugged at
the door alongside him, praying they’d be standing right on the other side of
the door when we got it opened. But a certain kind of logic, some hateful kind
of reasoning in my brain kept repeating …
if they are alive wouldn’t we hear
them? Wouldn’t they be yelling back?

“The handle’s jammed.
The earthquake must have jarred the entrance off balance and the door is stuck.”
Max pounded on the door some more. “Mom? Dad? Are you down there?”

No one answered and Max
bent to the ground, picked up a large rock, and hit it against the handle. It didn’t
budge, so he banged at the stubborn metal again and again until finally, it broke
and part of it fell to the ground. He pulled the heavy doors open and called
out again, but still, no answer. He jumped down the stairs, missing most of
them and I followed him, though a little bit slower, intimidated by the
darkness. Max tried the light switch but nothing happened.

“Wait here,” he said,
holding up his hand in front of me in the universal “stop” signal.

He got no argument from
me as I stood stiff, afraid to move. He shuffled around some then I heard a
match strike and a tiny glow came from the other side of the cellar. I stood in
the middle of the stairs and my heart sank in my chest as I listened to Max’s
muffled whimpering sounds.

“Max? Is everything
okay?”

He didn’t answer so I
crept down the stairs, unsure of what I’d find. The light from a candle cast a
flickering shadow on the wall. When I reached the bottom, I surveyed the area. The
room looked like someone threw a fit and tossed everything out into the middle
of it. Dozens of wine barrels came into view, taking up most of the cement
floor along the wall, along with several more in the middle of the room that
must have rolled there during the quake. A metal shelf lay toppled over on its
side with several cans of food and water jugs scattered about. Some other items
that didn’t belong there took up space on the floor. There was a bar to my left
covered with broken bottles. The smell of wine permeated the air as I noticed
all the liquid spilled over the top and down the front of the bar. Max sat on
one of the barrels at the other end of the room, his face in his hands. Max’s
parents were nowhere in sight.

“Oh, Max.”

He glanced up at me,
wiped the tears from his cheeks, and sniffled. “I really thought they would be
down here.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“I guess I’m an orphan
now.”

“Maybe we both are,” I
managed, trying not to start sobbing with him. I shook my head at my lack of
tact. How stupid. “Maybe we both are,” was the most comforting thing I could
come up with?

“It was cold this
morning,” Max said in such a soft voice that I almost didn’t hear him.

“Huh?” At first, I thought
he’d lost his mind from the trauma. What did the cold have to do with anything?

“It was cold this
morning,” he repeated in that same soft voice. “I was sitting in the back yard trying
to think why the house burned down. It was cold this morning.”

None of this made sense
to me. I still didn’t know what he was getting at, so I just listened, thinking
he must be in shock, babbling incoherently.

“My mom had the
fireplace blazing when I left for school,” he continued in that soft voice. “I
remember her commenting about the first fire of the season, how much she loved
the smell. The scent of burning wood always made her happy. She said the first
autumn fire signaled the beginning of the holidays and always made her feel
warm and cozy, like a new beginning. I don’t know, it didn’t make sense to me,
but she had the fireplace lit when I left for school.

“The earthquake must
have broken the gas pipe and with the flames …” He placed his face back in his
hands and cried. “I guess my dad didn’t get the gas turned off soon enough.”

After a minute or so he
whispered, “Do you think she died happy?”

I nodded, then realized
his face was still hidden in his hands and he couldn’t see me.

“Yes,” I whispered in
an attempt to hide the lie. I didn’t think she died happy. I thought she probably
died scared. She would have been. I would have been. Burning to death had to be
the worst way to die, unless you were lucky enough to die from smoke inhalation
first, which I’d read was usually the case. But the fear would still be there,
along with desperation, terror over the fate of family members, and the
hysteria of trying to escape.

I wanted to find my
brother and sister even more now. My worry and fear for them increased with
each passing minute, but my fear was most likely minuscule compared to what
theirs must be. Two little four-year old kids not knowing what was going on,
being without their parents after a … what did they call it? A megathrust
earthquake. More like a monsterthrust if you asked me. The most horrible
monster this world had ever seen, much greater than Godzilla or aliens.

“I don’t think I’ve
ever cried in front of you before. I suppose between crying and my fear of
heights my Superman image is ruined.”

I almost laughed in
spite of everything. Leave it to Max to make a joke to try to hide his
weaknesses, even when he had the perfect reason to cry. “Yeah, well, even Superman
has bad days.” I swallowed, trying to get my saliva to coat that little spot at
the back of my throat, wishing I had a drink of water. “If you didn’t cry at a
time like this, I would think you were nothing more than stone cold S.O.B. and
that’s worse than losing your Superman image.”

“If my dad were here he’d
say, “Son, men don’t cry, so buck up.”

“He would also tell you
to be strong because he loves you and has faith in your ability to survive.”

Max looked at me; our
eyes held each other’s for a few seconds. “You’ve always been there for me
Adela. I’m glad you’re here now.” 

My heart skipped at
least twenty beats. It was at times like this, when Max said something so sweet
and wonderful to me, that had me believing there had to be something between us
… something more than just friendship.  

“We can stay down here.
There’s a little food and water, enough for a few days anyway. My mom started
to stock this place last week after the first quake. She had planned to put a
whole lot more stuff down here, but she never got the chance to finish,” Max said,
hanging his head and staring at the floor. “I really thought she’d be down here.”

I nodded even though I
knew he wasn’t looking at me, because I knew exactly how he felt.

“We’ll need to go out
and search for food soon, but we don’t have to worry about that yet.”

I wondered if Max had
considered that Courtland would be down here with us.

“We should go get
Court.”

“What?”

“Courtland. We left him
at the end of the driveway, remember?”

“Oh, yeah,” he sighed.
“Okay. Let’s go get the freak.”

I frowned at Max, but kept
quiet. The last thing we needed to do right now was fight. Courtland never did
anything to harm anybody and needed our help. Sure, Court was different, but
the idea he could somehow communicate with animals had intrigued me ever since
he managed to calm Big Blue down to keep my horse from bucking me to Timbuktu.
Besides, the guy was obviously in a great deal of pain. Now that I thought about
it, I supposed I should have stayed out there with Courtland. He was probably
baking in the heat.

~~ Courtland ~~

The sun beat down on my
leg and hand, intensifying the pain. I wondered if Adela and Max were going to
come back and get me or just leave me to bake in the sun. If Maxen had his way,
he would have left me on the side of the road when they first found me, but Adela
actually seemed to care … I hoped.

In my wildest dreams, I
never thought I would ever be in the position of needing help from Max Wendell.
I never really believed we’d speak to each other again after the fourth grade. Max
wanted nothing to do with me and I wanted nothing to do with him. However, Adela
wanted Max. That was something I needed to change.

The pain shooting
through my leg and hand heightened, almost as if they were still on fire. I opened
my eyes and peeked down at them just to be certain. I wasn’t sure if the fact
that they weren’t in flames was good or not, considering how much it hurt. At
least if there were flames, I could maybe put them out and feel better.

I glanced around at my
surroundings. About fifteen feet away from me stood a tree over ten feet tall
with large branches full of leaves and shade double its size covering the
ground below. I wished they’d left me under the tree instead of out in the sun,
but I guessed when they discovered the condition of the house, their priorities
changed. I couldn’t really blame them.

I inched my way off the
board, doing a one-leg, one-arm crab-crawl across the grass. The pain intensified
with each inch I moved and I thought I’d lose consciousness before I reached
the shade. I stopped halfway, winded, my breath speeding like a sprinter’s in a
hundred-yard dash. Sweat dripped into my eyes so I swiped my hand across my
forehead. My vision blurred a little and I blinked, trying to focus on the
tree.
God, don’t let me die here in the sun.
I felt so helpless. Out of
breath. Out of strength. Out of will. I pictured Adela’s beautiful golden brown
eyes as my own closed, seeing her as the angel she truly was.

When Max and I came up
from the cellar, we headed back down the driveway where we’d left Courtland.

A small gasp escaped
from my throat when I noticed the empty board. “Oh my God, where is he?”

Max frowned. “Your
guess is as good as mine. Why do you care so much?”

“Because he’s a person!
Why don’t you care?”

He shrugged.

I shook my head at Max
unable to figure out why he was so unconcerned about Court, and scanned the
hillside until I finally spotted him lying under a tree. I ran to him—the way
he lay in the grass with his eyes closed, he appeared to be dead. I put my hand
over my mouth to keep from screaming when I saw his right arm move. Max came huffing
down the hill and stood beside me.

“‘Bout time you guys
came back. I thought I was going to broil out here in the sun.”

“How did you get over
here?” I asked.

Court turned his head
toward me. “How the hell do you think? I crawled. You have no idea, even on the
coldest days, how hot the sun feels on burnt flesh.”

“I’m sorry,” I said in
my softest voice. “We should have left you in the shade. I didn’t realize …”

“Let’s get him back on
the board so we can pull him to the cellar,” Max said.

Max positioned the
board next to Court. “Since you were able to get over here, do you think you
might be able to get your sorry, heavy ass back on the board now that I put the
thing right next to you?”

Courtland glared at
Max. “It’s comforting to know that disaster could not further tarnish my
perception of you.”

Max frowned. What was
up with these two? Why did they hate each other so much?

Court pulled himself
onto the board, sank down on his back, and closed his eyes, but quickly opened
them as he took hold of my arm and whispered, “Thanks for coming back.”

I smiled and nodded,
wishing the two of them could get along.

We dragged Court to the
steps of the cellar and stopped. I looked down at the cement steps. “Now what?
We can’t push him down the stairs.”

“That would be one
solution,” Max said curtly.