Guinea Pig (2 page)

Then the room lurched suddenly, a single violent movement that caught everyone by surprise, and no one was bored at all.

It felt as if someone had just shoved the entire clinic a few feet to one side and sent the two who were standing reeling back a few steps. It also caused some of the equipment to rattle and a few things fell off the shelves on the far wall. Will and the technician, both lucky enough to be seated, looked around nervously as the others gathered themselves.

“Earthquake?”

Yet even as he asked Will knew he was asking the obvious. This was California. What else could it be? Clearly the others thought so too as they stared nervously at each other and the distant walls. Looking for any sign of the walls falling down and worrying that it might not be over.

They were right to worry. Two seconds later the entire room moved a couple more feet to the side and the floor lifted up a little bit, and this time the violence was worse. A lot worse. Ceiling panels suddenly came down as did some of the fluorescent lights, exploding as they hit the floor. One of the machines recording his vitals toppled sideways along with the drip. The shelves on the far wall collapsed and everything on them came crashing to the floor in a cacophony of noise. Then the alarms outside started to ring and they all knew they had to leave – fast.

“Outside! We need to get outside!”

The doctor was right of course, but far too slow. Will was already getting to his feet, and was tearing out the wires and needle, all thoughts of waiting for another hour or so gone. Meanwhile the technician had already started for the door his pony tail bobbing as he ran. Only the dark haired nurse was still standing there, apparently too scared to think.

“Move!”

Will yelled at her as he stood up and hurried for the door, and it seemed to do the trick. But maybe not quickly enough. The room shook again and he was thrown to one side like a rag doll in an angry child's hands and sent sliding across the tile floor. But he managed to pick himself up from the floor faster than he'd ever moved in his life, the adrenaline pumping through his system like water, and a second later he was at the door just behind the others as they ran out into the corridor.

They were not safe though. Not yet. Ceiling tiles were down everywhere, lights were swinging wildly on their wires, and here and there he could see huge cracks in the walls. The sort of cracks that were structural. The sort of cracks that said the building was coming down. And this was a big building. Only two stories high but two massive stories built of reinforced concrete and steel. If it collapsed it would crush them.

“Run!”

He yelled it at the others and they did as he said, running down the corridor like Olympic athletes, fear powering their every stride. They weren't alone. Others were in the corridor running for the reception rooms and the entrance beyond, while the concrete under their feet was starting to rumble. That at least he understood. That was what an earthquake was supposed to be like. But not in a hospital. Not where there were patients in gowns, porters pushing people on beds, and nurses all panicking. This wasn't supposed to happen.

But the world didn't seem to understand that. The building shifted violently to the side again and he was flung into the wall in a bruising impact. A white haired woman in a summer dress started to fall and he barely managed to stop her from crashing over him. Her elbow did catch him though as it was driven painfully into his side. That was going to leave a mark. But there was no time to give in to his pain. People were screaming in terror all around, some were falling and the woman looked to be about to become one of them. Instinctively he grabbed her up as best he could, yelled at the others to keep running, and chased them as they ran for the distant double doors. The woman was glued to his side every step of the way, her feet barely touching the floor as he half carried her, her long white hair streaming behind them. There was no time.

More ceiling tiles began falling down all around them, and the dust started forming into thick clouds in front of them. The lights swayed too much and went flying into the broken ceiling one by one before exploding in showers of sparks. Cracks appeared in the floor under their feet, and even though Will was screaming just like everyone else, he couldn't hear anything at all over the sound of the earth crying out its fury.

Suddenly the power cut out leaving the only light they had was coming from the distant windows in the double doors leading to the reception area. It wasn't enough. People fell down, and where he could he tried to help them up and get them running again. But he couldn't. Not all of them anyway. Not when there were people behind him, running, pushing him along. Not when he was still half carrying one woman. It was a stampede and he was caught in the middle of it, just as frightened as they were. In the end he was only human.

More people fell as the building shook, tossed brutally against the walls, and he knew they wouldn't be getting up again. He only hoped they weren't trampled in the panic. But he knew they would be. And he could do nothing for them.

Then, just as he finally reached the doors, the woman still with him, there was an explosion somewhere behind them. A huge blast that made everything that had gone before seem like a mere rehearsal.

Something picked him up – it picked all of them up – and then blew them screaming through the double doors, across the fifty foot wide reception room, and into the far wall.

Will hit it hard. Very hard. His shoulder and his ribs seemed to take the worst of it, but they weren't alone. Things hurt all over as he tried to make sense of what had happened. There was blood in his mouth, and more blood all around. And the ground was still shaking with thunder. But there was also light. Lots of glorious light coming from the huge panoramic windows that were the front of the building. Just then Will decided he liked light. He liked it a lot.

Somehow he crawled his way back to his feet, not even remembering when he'd fallen to the floor, and then tried to help a few of those lying around him up as well. He had to. Some of them weren't getting up and there was blood everywhere. More were lying around, covered in rubble and dust, moaning. Some weren't making any noise at all. Others were doing the same as he was as they realised that safety lay outside in the light. A few were already ahead of them in the parking lot and running for all they were worth. He desperately wanted to join them. But he had to help the others. Will looked around for the white haired woman but couldn't find her anywhere. Between the dust and the rubble covering everyone and everything he could barely make out anyone at all. He'd lost her somewhere in the explosion. All he could do was hope that she was somewhere ahead of him.

One by one they started running for the door ways or the windows, dragging anyone they could with them if they couldn't stand and soon salvation was just within in reach. Which was good because what was behind them was death.

It wasn't just the ceiling tiles that were coming down he realised; the roof was coming down with them. The whole building was collapsing behind them. And there were people inside it.

Will hoisted a barely conscious man he'd grabbed up to the sill of the window and then pushed him through to where others were already waiting to grab him. As for the old woman who he'd been trying to help in the corridor, he looked for her once more. But she was nowhere. He couldn't see her summer dress or her long white hair anywhere. He'd lost her. He didn't know where the others were from his test either. They could be anywhere. All he could do as he helped hoist another man through the window, was hope that they were somewhere ahead of him.

He turned to grab at the next body when somebody smashed into him at a sprint, tackled him like a rugby player and knocked him right out of the window himself to come crashing down to the grass. And then, before he even knew what was happening he was lying on the grass trying to breathe while more people were trying to pull him to his feet. Whoever had hit him had knocked the wind right out of him. The funny thing was that he could have sworn it was the old woman. He was sure he had seen a flash of long white hair and a flowing floral dress.

A second later he knew that whoever it was that person had just saved his life. There was another massive explosion, the sound of concrete and steel torturing itself as it was being torn apart, and then behind him the building collapsed. The entire building.

Even as he knelt there on the grass, doubled over, choking and trying to breathe, he watched the clinic vanish in front of him. The huge two story structure of concrete and glass simply buckled in the middle as though someone had tightened a belt too tightly, and then turned into a pile of rubble which was swallowed whole by the ground. The building was disappearing, falling into the Earth, and in its place a gigantic crater was starting to form.

How could that be?

For the longest time Will knelt there, gasping for breath and trying to understand what had happened, what was still happening in front of him, and failing. It simply didn't make sense. None of it. Huge two story concrete and steel buildings didn't just fall into the ground. And the ground didn't just swallow them up. Not like this. It was like a disaster movie, complete with special effects. But this was real.

He watched it, the crater growing larger and larger just in front of him, the sides steeper and steeper, and the piles of rubble that had once been the clinic sliding down its sides, heading for the bottom.

There didn’t seem to be a bottom though. Just an endless chasm leading down into the depths of the Earth. And in amongst the remnants of the building he could see people still trying to escape. Some were desperately hanging on to the sides of the crater, their fingers clawing the dirt as they held on for their lives, their faces filled with terror. But as the crater deepened and the sides grew steeper everyone knew they were doomed. They did too. He could see it in their eyes, hear it in their cries. And slowly, one by one, he watched them as they slid down that dirt slope into the disappearing mound of rubble at the bottom, screaming all the way. And the edge of the crater was only a few feet in front of him.

If that old woman, if it was truly her, hadn't tackled him and sent him flying out the window he realised, he would be somewhere down there as well. Sliding down to his doom if he wasn't already dead. He would be down there being crushed in the rubble.

It took a long time before he could stand again. Before his brain had once more come on line and he could control his feet. And he knew he wasn't alone. All around him others were trying to process what had happened. They were standing around the edge of the newly formed crater and staring in horror. A few were talking while others cried out in shock and horror, trying to deny what they could see happening right in front of them. Some were crying. But most were silent. They didn't know what to say.

He was still staring when he finally heard the sounds of sirens behind him. When the paramedics started moving among them, looking for people who needed their help. And when someone finally put a hand on his shoulder and told him to come with them to remove a piece of pipe that he suddenly discovered was sticking out of his shoulder, he didn't want to go. He couldn't leave. He couldn't stop staring at that hole in the ground. He couldn’t stop thinking about the people who had suddenly lost their lives. Who had fallen into that darkness beneath the Earth.

But they insisted.

Chapter Two.

He was flying and he was falling at the same time. Will didn't understand that. But it was what was happening and he couldn't deny it. In fact that knowledge, the fear and the exhilaration were overpowering him. Making it almost impossible to think of anything else. But not impossible to be aware of anything else.

And he was aware of so much more.

There were others there with him. He couldn't see them – exactly. He didn't understand them any more than he understood anything else in the world. But he knew they were there and he knew they were calling to him. Some were in darkness. A terrible darkness that frightened him though he couldn't have said why. He could hear them somewhere beneath him. Some were frightened, some were tormented and most were confused – blinded by the darkness. And all of them were calling up to him as he flew above. Begging him for help.

At the same time others were above him, calling. Asking him to join them in the glorious sunlight. And somehow he knew that he loved those who were calling him up to them as if they were family. To go to the aid of the ones below was to turn his back on those he loved. He couldn't do that. But at the same time while he felt terrible sorrow for the ones calling him down, if he went to their aid he knew he would be abandoning those he loved. He couldn't do that either. They all needed him and yet he could not go to them all.

Nor could he stay where he was.

He had to choose. Who to go to. To go up or down. To fly towards one or the other without knowing how to fly, or if he was even flying. And he couldn't choose. There was no choice possible. But he knew that if he didn't choose he would fall. And above all else he didn't want to fall. Not into that gaping maw. That darkness in the Earth. Something about it frightened him in a way that nothing else could.

It was then that Will woke up, a scream on his lips that he barely managed to hold back, and found himself covered in sweat. And instantly he knew that he'd been asleep and that what he had just seen was the remnants of a dream. A nightmare. It was the same dream he'd had three times already that night – make that – Will checked the clock – in the last hour.

Strangely the clock was saying that it was barely six in the morning and he'd only managed to crawl into bed an hour before. His bed at least, in his own flat. He was grateful for that. It was more comfortable than a hospital bed he guessed, and familiar. After the previous day he valued things that were safe and familiar. Though that wasn't why he was there. The doctor's had kicked him out of the ER as they dealt with the rush of other more serious patients.

One hour and four repeats already of the same nightmare. There was no doubt that his subconscious was having a hard time dealing with the events of the previous day. Especially when he knew that the gaping maw in his dream was the same crater that he had seen swallowing up the clinic. And he guessed that the people screaming out from below were the ones he had seen clinging to the crater's wall – before they had slid down to their deaths. That sight had really done a number on him.

Should he get up? He wanted to, even though it was still dark. Actually, he didn't want to get up. It was just that he didn't want to go back to sleep and have that dream again. But he was also dog tired! Exhausted in a way that he had never been before. Even as the fear and panic was leaving him his body was already trying to call him back to the land of sleep.

In the end his body won.