Somewhere within the shell of the building she heard bricks break loose and cascade for several long seconds until they hit bottom—wherever bottom now was.
Without a plan or promise of reaching safety in a building in its death throes, she began crawling across the littered floor toward the elevator. The brass arrow above the door indicated that the car had halted one-and-a-half floors above the basement.
Zack! Oh God… the poor night watchman…
Zachary Webb had made a final trip down to the basement and had been on his way back to get her when the quake struck. What if she hadn’t remained in the office to put the finishing touches on her drawing?
Don’t think about that… not that.
Finally, she found the strength to limp toward the center stairwell and creep down an endless series of steps—many missing or warped by the tumultuous upheaval. Her ankle-length skirt and petticoat were now as potentially lethal as the jagged spikes of wood and chunks of brick that impeded her way.
At length, she arrived at the mezzanine where a broad staircase had once descended into the building’s resplendent marble lobby—now an enormous open pit. Gone were the tall brass torchieres. Gone were the bronze and amber glass chandeliers hanging from the ceiling—for now, there was no ceiling. The elevator shaft on the lobby and mezzanine levels was a tortured mass of steel and plaster. The car itself had been flattened to half its size, probably with Zack’s body inside. The enormity of the damage was so devastating that Amelia stared in disbelief at the destruction of one of the city’s grandest office buildings.
Like a diver poised on the edge of a cliff, she took a deep breath, counted to three, and then stepped backwards onto a jagged peak of the lobby’s remains. She clung to the sharp edges of the wreckage above her head and, step by step, slowly eased herself down the pile of rubble until she reached the buckled sidewalk.
By this time, she was trembling uncontrollably, her frightened state made worse when she caught sight of a woman’s hand clasping a crumpled tin wash bucket nestled among the debris.
The poor soul… it could have been me… the poor soul… rang in her head like a hideous nursery rhyme.
Amelia quickly turned away from the mangled corpse and limped to the Montgomery Street side of the shattered structure. She knew from her engineering studies that the force of the shaking had turned solid mortar into grains of sand and transformed the building’s foundation into liquefied earth. That, and the simple Law of Gravity, caused huge chunks of the building’s facade to crash into the street, leaving a twisted superstructure that now resembled a rusted, empty birdcage. In the distance, Amelia heard the clanging bells of fire brigades and the occasional muffled explosion. She knew there would be gas pipes erupting, coal stoves overturned.
She sank onto a pile of debris as a tremendous well of fear and grief filled her chest. Like a water main rupturing, the pressure reached the bursting point and she covered her face with her hands. She cried for Zachary Webb and his daughter Josie, whom she’d never even met. She cried for the woman who’d died with a wash bucket in her hand, for a father who never came home at night—and for a mother who’d never come home at all. And for her elderly aunt, haunted by her own, long-ago traumas, across the water in Oakland.
Finally, she cried for San Francisco.
***
At length, Amelia rose to her feet to stagger uncertainly toward the bay. Lurching onwards, she was continually overtaken by scores of battered San Franciscans fleeing their homes. Women and small children, many swathed in bandages, struggled with all manner of household items: quilts and cook pots, family portraits and sewing machines. Men wielded wheelbarrows piled high with clothing and books, even a wicker cat-carrier or two, and carts overflowed with everything from bedsteads to teakettles.
“I
Without a plan or promise of reaching safety in a building in its death throes, she began crawling across the littered floor toward the elevator. The brass arrow above the door indicated that the car had halted one-and-a-half floors above the basement.
Zack! Oh God… the poor night watchman…
Zachary Webb had made a final trip down to the basement and had been on his way back to get her when the quake struck. What if she hadn’t remained in the office to put the finishing touches on her drawing?
Don’t think about that… not that.
Finally, she found the strength to limp toward the center stairwell and creep down an endless series of steps—many missing or warped by the tumultuous upheaval. Her ankle-length skirt and petticoat were now as potentially lethal as the jagged spikes of wood and chunks of brick that impeded her way.
At length, she arrived at the mezzanine where a broad staircase had once descended into the building’s resplendent marble lobby—now an enormous open pit. Gone were the tall brass torchieres. Gone were the bronze and amber glass chandeliers hanging from the ceiling—for now, there was no ceiling. The elevator shaft on the lobby and mezzanine levels was a tortured mass of steel and plaster. The car itself had been flattened to half its size, probably with Zack’s body inside. The enormity of the damage was so devastating that Amelia stared in disbelief at the destruction of one of the city’s grandest office buildings.
Like a diver poised on the edge of a cliff, she took a deep breath, counted to three, and then stepped backwards onto a jagged peak of the lobby’s remains. She clung to the sharp edges of the wreckage above her head and, step by step, slowly eased herself down the pile of rubble until she reached the buckled sidewalk.
By this time, she was trembling uncontrollably, her frightened state made worse when she caught sight of a woman’s hand clasping a crumpled tin wash bucket nestled among the debris.
The poor soul… it could have been me… the poor soul… rang in her head like a hideous nursery rhyme.
Amelia quickly turned away from the mangled corpse and limped to the Montgomery Street side of the shattered structure. She knew from her engineering studies that the force of the shaking had turned solid mortar into grains of sand and transformed the building’s foundation into liquefied earth. That, and the simple Law of Gravity, caused huge chunks of the building’s facade to crash into the street, leaving a twisted superstructure that now resembled a rusted, empty birdcage. In the distance, Amelia heard the clanging bells of fire brigades and the occasional muffled explosion. She knew there would be gas pipes erupting, coal stoves overturned.
She sank onto a pile of debris as a tremendous well of fear and grief filled her chest. Like a water main rupturing, the pressure reached the bursting point and she covered her face with her hands. She cried for Zachary Webb and his daughter Josie, whom she’d never even met. She cried for the woman who’d died with a wash bucket in her hand, for a father who never came home at night—and for a mother who’d never come home at all. And for her elderly aunt, haunted by her own, long-ago traumas, across the water in Oakland.
Finally, she cried for San Francisco.
***
At length, Amelia rose to her feet to stagger uncertainly toward the bay. Lurching onwards, she was continually overtaken by scores of battered San Franciscans fleeing their homes. Women and small children, many swathed in bandages, struggled with all manner of household items: quilts and cook pots, family portraits and sewing machines. Men wielded wheelbarrows piled high with clothing and books, even a wicker cat-carrier or two, and carts overflowed with everything from bedsteads to teakettles.
“I
Similar Books
