The Yellowstone Conundrum (17 page)

Seattle Waterfront

  Ray stayed stationary on the remains of Pier 54 until his breathing became normal. To his right, Top Dog had curled up and lay beside him. How long had passed? How long had he been in the Wenatchee before
something
had told him to wake up. The Big Guy perked up a sharp ear at The Man’s effort to get up. To his feet, Ray looked around. It was hard to tell time. The skyline of Seattle looked like one of those kids Apocalypse games. It was truly a Terminator backdrop.

 
To his left the condominiums along Alaskan Way and the upper piers were destroyed. There was nothing left of any of the restaurants or businesses. To his right the major shipping companies which operated the lower number piers were completely devastated. Out of view to the north, Ray would have gasped as others had in the morning at the visage of the Space Needle bending over in abject agony.

 
Uphill and to the east the concrete canyons of Seattle were filled with the incredible debris of human-kind; cars, storefronts, dirt, dead fish, dead people, refrigerators, roofing material, all the junk we call our stuff. In the distance Ray could hear sirens and a helicopter, perhaps two. But, overall there wasn’t much noise, not for a workday—even in February. Downtown was destroyed. All of the streets running uphill to 2
nd
, 3
rd
, 4
th
, and 5
th
Avenues were littered and jammed with a mountain of crap.

 
“OK, Superdog, let’s give it a whack.” The prospect of climbing up and over the moraine of debris was daunting.  Staying put didn’t exactly fill his dance card, either.

 
On his feet, ahead and uphill was the skyline of downtown Seattle.  Between himself and downtown was a fifty-foot high moraine of broken Alaskan Viaduct, automobiles, crushed buildings, crap brought out of the sea, damaged buildings; now a huge mound of sharp edges. To his left, on what remained of Pier 55, multiple places were on fire as gas lines exploded. Two blocks further the remains of the 10 large condo buildings on the viaduct side of Alaskan Way—now reduced to rubble from floors 1-4, higher floors perched precariously, all ready to simply collapse. Two of the buildings were on fire.

 
Everything was wet. 
How long was I out?

 
The tsunami had struck, driven the
Wenatchee
into the viaduct, destroyed the piers and seawall, forced a wall of water up the concrete canyons to Third Avenue before retreating back toward Elliott Bay, reversing the process of distributing destroyed buildings, storefronts, chairs and tables from restaurants, paper, boxes, Starbuck’s cups, rats, drywall (now wetwall) and anything else not locked down; drawing everything back toward the fallen viaduct.

 
Takes a lickin’ but keeps on tickin’. Two hours. I was out two hours.

 
The gray misty morning partially obscured the Safeco Plaza, Union Bank, Bank of America, Columbia Tower, the Courthouse and King County government buildings.  At least one of the buildings was on fire. From Ray’s perspective it was difficult to see, either the Wells Fargo or the Fourth & Madison building.

 
Why isn’t anybody here?
  His brain shouted.

 
Dude, anyone who was here is dead. Anyone else can’t get here. You and Big Pup are the only ones
.

  The eeriness of the scene was enhanced by the lack of light. The only lights in sight were dim glows from interior emergency lights in some of the buildings.  Overhead in the distance he could hear one or two helicopters, occupants of which must be drop-jawed at the sight. 

 
There are people inside elevators in those buildings
Ray thought, and then added
how the fuck am I going to get out of here?
Ray turned his attention to his companion, whose head came up to his chest. The dog’s eyes were clear and sharply-focused, his tongue as big as a man’s size 13 shoe.

 
Just give me a man with a six-inch tongue, the ladies used to say.

 
Ray smiled for the first time.

 
As if smiling was the magic word, the sound of a helicopter grew louder. It was a WSDOT highway patrol traffic copter. Above him the helicopter turned, then circled lower. Ray waved, his right arm hurting like hell, his left knee the same. The helicopter lowered to just above the littered surface of the remains of Pier 54; an officer jumped out.

 
“Who are you?” he shouted.

  “Ray Spaulding.
I was on the Bainbridge Ferry”

 
“Where are the others?”

 
Ray gave him eyes with questions. “Dead,” then turned to Elliott Bay where the forward section of the Wenatchee was barely 15 feet under water.

 
“Jesus fucking Christ!” the officer swore.

 
“I don’t think Jesus had much to do with this, officer.  You’ll probably have to ask His Father. I’m not even sure that’s the right place,” Ray paused. “Shit happens.”

  “Get in.
I’ll give you a ride to Harborview,” the officer offered, the helicopter’s blades providing relentless punctuation to their conversation. 

 
Ray looked at the ‘copter’s seating.

 
“I’m not going without the dog. He saved my life,” Ray turned down the offer. “And there’s no way you’re going to get him and me into that thing.”

  The officer quickly agreed.
“Sir, come with me! He’ll be all right!” the officer shouted.

  Ray shook his head.
“Sorry, can’t do it!  How do I get out of here?”

 
“Everything south of here is completely flooded. The docks are gone, the lowlands toward the ball parks; they’re fucked, buried in ten feet of water,” the policeman turned toward the moraine of crap. “You’re lookin’ at it,” he said, then at Ray’s eyes. “Are you sure you don’t want a ride?” The pilot gave the officer the finger-circling lets-get-the-fuck-out-of-here message.  Ray shook his head no.  “Power’s out everywhere west of Denver.  It’s going to be hell. Are you
sure
you don’t want a ride out of here?”

 
Ray looked at his Big Guy, pointy ears and all, then back at the WSDOT officer. “Are the hospitals open?”

 
“Yes, no; I’m not sure.”

 
“Then it doesn’t much matter if I’m with you or with him.  Thank you, officer,” Ray shook the man’s hand; his name plate said Lt. Dan Baker. “Thank you, Lt. Dan. How bad is it?” Ray swept his hand across the skyline.

 
“As bad as you can imagine, Mr. Spaulding. I-5 is closed from here to Sea-Tac. The tsunami overran Vashon Island and downtown Tacoma; to the north Edmonds, Lynwood, Whidbey Island, and Everett, terrible destruction. Lt. Dan didn’t ask again. He turned and ran back to the helicopter and in an instant it was up above what used to be Pier 54 and into the misty morning, which had just turned to rain.

 
“I suppose everybody calls you Marmaduke,” Ray laughed. 

 
Ruff.

University of Washington

Seattle

  “What happened?” Denny asked.

 
“The seismographs went off the chart; something in the range of an 11.2 in the Yellowstone area of Wyoming, which was immediately followed by a 9.45 in Puget Sound off of Bainbridge Island. I’m not sure I want to go outside,” Karen added. Bending over to retrieve her jacket Dr. Denny Kane couldn’t help but notice how the worn fleece of her gray jogging pants formed a clear outline of her buttocks. 
Muy bien
. No panty there, not even a string. She was someone who was sure of her sexuality. 

 
Interesting
.

 
“I need to get you to the hospital,” donning her waterproof jacket, a twinkle of a sparkle in her eyes for the first time in the day.

 
“Don’t you have a purse, or something?” Denny asked.

 
“Nope, I travel light,” she patted a zipped pocket of her jacket. “Plus, I don’t want to go back in there.”

 
The pair carefully exited Johnson Hall and crossed Thurston Lane toward Drumheller Fountain.  Karen felt like she was in the foreground of a 3-D apocalyptic video game.   Low clouds covered Seattle. 

 
“How’s your leg?” Karen asked.

 
“Not as bad as it looks, I hope,” Denny answered.

 
The campus was designed not in NS or EW fashion, but NW-SE slightly-off-kilter. Why? The wide expanse SE of Drumheller was referred to as Rainier Vista, an eighty-yard area of grass that stretched all the way to the Ship Canal between Lake Washington and Union Bay, and on clear days offered an unobstructed world-class view of Mount Rainier.  All the buildings on the campus were placed in a just-off-center position because of the straight-shot view from Drumheller to “The Mountain”. 

 
While there might have been a mountain in the distance, today there was nothing but low clouds. The first of several fronts was going to drop down from the Gulf of Alaska and start bringing the endless monsoon season to the Pacific NW. The damp cold of January led to the nine-week rains of February. Some calendars even had the whole month of March and part of April removed; what day is it?  February 54
th
. 

 
“Where is everybody?” Karen exclaimed, twinkle gone, panic returned. She did a quick 360 of the campus. Most of the buildings within eyesight had been damaged, including Johnson Hall and renovated Mary Gates Hall, named in honor of the billionaire businessman’s mother, Mary Maxwell Gates. Further north, the huge six-level Central Parking Garage situated between the Suzzallo/Paul Allen Library complex and the beautiful 1206-seat Meany Hall for the Performing Arts had taken a direct hit from an invisible wrecker’s ball; three of the massive concrete and rebar support towers had domino’d. Nobody was driving anywhere.  People coming to work were dead.

 
Crossing Stevens Way the building complex of the University Medical Center and the attached Magnuson Health Sciences Center came into view. One of the hospital wings had partially collapsed. A throng of people were streaming away from the hospital across Pacific Street, slowly heading back toward the campus. It was clear the hospital was in evacuation mode.

 
Denny put his good hand on Karen’s shoulder. 

 
“Karen,” he urged her to stop. She followed his finger which pointed to the southwest across Lake Union.    Karen’s eyes blinked rapidly; her head cocked and consciously focused. 

 
“Oh, my God!”

 
The Space Needle was gone; remaining was a broken stem.  The building had been so damn tough to destroy that the center core had withheld the earthquake, but the rotating circular restaurants had not. The building had been shaken like a child’s toy and the top piece of it had broken off—but not completely. During the earthquakes the restaurant top of the building had whipped back and forth, up to thirty feet in each direction before snapping, then falling like a 200-ton yo-yo. Incredibly, the severed head didn’t hit the ground, instead plunging to a point where the cables and stiffness of the core kept it aloft, albeit only yards above the treetops of the park below; amazing in concept, amazing in execution, amazing in death.

 
Karen began to cry; now multiple emotions running through her.

 
“Hey,“ said Dr. Cain, soothingly. “Don’t. I need you.  More than you know,” breath exhaled in cold vapors. His fingers pressed into her shoulder in a
please-pay-attention
. “Do you live close by?”  He saw her eyes shift gears in reaction. “Jesus, I’m not hitting on you. Is that all you women can think about?” Karen snapped out of her brief box canyon tour. 

 
“This isn’t good,” Denny looked her in the eye. His hand swept to the south. “There are no lights on anywhere. You live where?”

 
“Shoreline, off of 155
th
which was 108 blocks due north and twenty blocks west of the UW campus.

 
“Do you take the bus or drive?”

 
“Drive.”

 
“Where do you park?”

 
Karen turned north and looked at the collapsed Main Parking Decks. Denny grunted; time for Plan B.

 
“Karen, I’m hurt and I’m going to need rest and some antibiotics and someone to set my shoulder. U-Dub Hospital is ranked in the top 10 hospitals in the United States. It’s evacuating its patients. There is no chance I’m going to receive any care. So I’m, we are on our own. “  

 
Denny’s brain was going in fast forward. They had no place to stay other than the abandoned Johnson Hall, or wherever else they might lay their heads.

 
“Where do
you
live, Dr. Cain?” Karen asked her eyes curious on multiple levels; first day on the job.

 
“I was going to meet my landlord this afternoon; a place in West Seattle. I’m in the same lot as you,” he turned and looked at the collapsed parking deck. At that moment the wind picked up a notch, prickling the ears uncomfortably.

 
“Karen, is there any way you could get us to downtown?”

 
“Where to?” She asked her brain on overload. 

 
When he told her, her eyes sharpened to question marks, then softened. 

  “I’m not sure.
Let’s go,” she steered him toward Stevens Way. The crowd exiting the hospital was getting bigger.   While Karen’s brain had registered the missing Space Needle, it hadn’t yet noticed there were no lights in Seattle as far as the eye could see; nothing close up, nothing in the distance across Lake Union toward downtown.

“Did you ever watch the movie
Night of the Living Dead
?” Denny asked as he limped, his shoulder hurting like hell.  Karen was close by worried that he would fall over at any time.

  “Yeah,” she replied.
“We’re in it.”

 
Ahead of them and to the right was the massive UW hospital complex, in bad shape from the earthquakes.  People were walking slowly away from the buildings; led by doctors, nurses and orderlies all pushing patients’ beds.  A misty fog covered the area, lowering the clouds to a thousand feet or less. In the distance past Husky Stadium the greyness of Union Bay, then Lake Washington melded into the grey-green of Bellevue. Someplace in between was the 520 Floating Bridge, no longer floating; a typical dismal morning in February; with the exception of a 9.45 earthquake with aftershocks.

 
Karen stopped someone, a young woman, obviously hurt, cuts on her arms and face and bleeding from several places.  The girl had a blank look on her face.

 
“Where are you going?” Karen asked.

 
“I don’t know,” the girl replied. “Back to the dorm, I guess.” She was nineteen and clueless. “Someone said they were going to set up tents in the stadium. Move the hospital there.” The girl turned back toward the hospital.  “There are dead people there. They’re everywhere; one of the hospital buildings collapsed.”

 
Denny exchanged eyes with Karen. To their left a massive stream of the injured slowly headed toward the large football stadium, which in the near distance appeared to be unscathed from the earthquake.
Sure, construct a football stadium to withstand an earthquake but not a hospital.
She thought; b
ecause that’s where we’ll have the circuses and entertainment
.

 
The girl numbly drifted away.

 
“We need to get out of here, Karen,” Denny urged, his breath now coming in gasps. “And, I’m going to ask you a big favor.”

 
“What’s that?” she replied, tears of indecision and fear in her eyes.

  “I have a dislocated shoulder. There’s no doctor available.
You’re going to have to set it for me. Hurts like hell.” As he gave her the bad news he began to slump.

  “Me!
I can’t!” she protested, looking this way, then that for help.

 
“You got me out of an elevator. You’re Super Girl. I’m not sure how much further I can go,” Denny fell to his knees then flopped onto his back with an exclamation of pain.  “Shit, shit, shit, this hurts.” Denny focused on Karen standing over him. “Come on, Karen. This really hurts. I’d do it myself but I’m too chicken. I’ll walk you through it.” Denny closed his eyes and groaned in pain. 

 
“I can’t!” Karen stuttered, as she looked around her for help. It was 8-something in the morning and her familiar friendly University of Washington campus was in shreds; buildings that were sturdy and comfortable were now in ruins, one of the best hospitals in the United States was nearly collapsed, patients hobbling away; doctors and nurses bringing patients out into the cold, foggy morning.

 
“Karen,” he spoke in a Dad voice. “You’re going pop my shoulder back in. Now!” Tears from pain dribbled down his cheeks; his breath came in gasps. “Sit down!” he ordered.  Karen sat, but started to blubber. “Put my hands down along my body. Oh God damn!” he shouted as he flattened his hands along the side of his body. “Karen. I’m going to yell. I’m going to curse. I’m going to be in pain,” Denny pleaded.  “But, you can’t let go!” Denny’s voice came in and out, sweat drenched his face. “Feel my shoulder!
Feel it!
” Denny shouted. Karen put her right hand on his shoulder, which felt like a carved-up turkey carcass, gross, oddly-shaped, not like hers. “You have to snap it back.  It’s called the rotor cuff. Jesus fucking Christ! Please help me, Karen!
”
Denny shouted.

 
“What do I do?” She blubbered, tears streaming down both cheeks.

 
“Take my arm.” Denny stuttered, in pain. “And bring it back toward my ear. Oh, God!” He exclaimed. “Don’t pay any attention to me. I’m hurting. This hurts. This is going to hurt,” he paused. “This is going--” he stopped and began to cry again. “
Do it, please!”
he shouted              

 
Kneeling beside him, Karen took his right arm and gently began to rotate it in an L-fashion upward. Denny screamed in agony.

 
“God damn it! Don’t be such a fucking pussy!” he shouted, as his left arm came over his body in a natural reaction to protect what was happening on the right side of his body.  Karen reacted by leaning into his body, while at the same time pressing down with her right arm onto Denny’s left arm, and raising her left arm and his right arm forward as a wrestler would do. Denny screamed and screamed.

 
Pop.

 
Karen felt the rotator cuff fall back into place and instantly let go of her arm bar.  The pair lay together, arms splayed; the both of them crying.

 
“Sweet Jesus,” Denny exclaimed, out of breath. Karen lay across him, crying, firm breasts resting on his chest, chest heaving.

 
“Nicely done, young Karen,” Denny complimented her. She looked up, sat up a bit and began to wipe the tears from her face.

 
“We need to get out of here,” his voice was serious.  “Look at what we have,” he pointed, and turned in a 360-degree view. 

 
“It was an earthquake in Wyoming,” Karen started to snap back to reality.

 
“That destroyed Seattle,” added Denny. “Were you old enough to remember hurricane Katrina?” She shook her head.  “Well,” he added. “The government, that would be our government, couldn’t do anything for the average person,” he stated.

 
“What do you mean?” she asked

 
“We have to take care of ourselves,” Denny said, scrambling to his feet. His right shoulder hurt like hell.  He needed an arm cast and a hospital bed, but he was a hell of a lot better than he was five minutes ago. “The walking dead,” his arm swept across the lower campus toward the stadium and the wrecked hospital complex, where people continued to walk dead-head fashion.