LITMIR.BIZ

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Callie’s ears. The dogs started baying. Where was that horrendous sound coming from? She looked around. Eyes widening, Callie hunched slightly, feeling as if she were being attacked. By what, she had no idea. The dogs’ unified voices raised the hair on the back of her neck. Their baying was sharp and filled with terror. Feeling the earth shiver, Callie caught her breath in fear, and spread her arms outward. In a flash, she realized what was happening: an earthquake!

      Callie didn’t have time to react. One moment she was standing, the next she was knocked off her feet, slamming onto the hard concrete floor with an “oofff!” The ground bucked and heaved. As she rolled onto her back, she was thrown from one side of the kennel area to the other. The roof cracked, metal was shrieking and bending. She suddenly saw stars, like white pinpoints of lights on black velvet, where the tin had opened up.

      The dogs were crying and wailing.

      Callie gasped and tried to get to her feet. Run! She heard Sergeant Anson screaming for help. The earth still convulsed violently, its roar deafening, like a freight train bearing down on her. Callie scraped her hand badly as she tried to head for the nearest exit door. No good! A second undulating wave hit, and again Callie was knocked off her feet. She rolled heavily into the kennel’s fence. Fear vomited through her.

      This was no ordinary earthquake. No. It was a killer of incredible magnitude. Callie had been in too many earthquake-torn countries and experienced too many aftershocks not to know what was going on here. As she rolled helplessly from side to side, the earth moving like waves in an ocean, she realized that this one was off the Richter scale—completely.

      December 31: 2150

      Lieutenant Wes James was getting dressed for the New Year’s Eve party at the O Club at Camp Reed when the earthquake struck. Although he lived in Oceanside, the nearest civilian town to the front gates of Reed, he’d taken a room at the B.O.Q.—bachelor officer’s quarters—so that he wouldn’t have to drive after drinking. He had just finished putting on a buttoned down white shirt, a camel-colored wool blazer and black jeans and had been sitting on the couch, tying the laces on his dark-brown Italian leather shoes, when the quake began.

      Within seconds, Wes was clinging in surprise to the couch as it moved five feet in one direction, and then five feet the other way, across the cedar floor of the bedroom. As adrenaline shot through his bloodstream in response, he didn’t have time to realize what was happening. But it didn’t take him long to figure it out. And he only had to glance toward the darkened view out his window to realize that. The B.O.Q. was four stories tall. All the streetlights outside the military hotel had been suddenly snuffed out, along with lights inside. In the darkness, he heard his friend, Russell Burk, yelp in fright outside in the hall. Russ had the adjoining room, and they were planning on meeting to go to the O Club. The quake must have caught Russ out in the hallway.

      Everything vibrated. The roar was frightening, making Wes’s eardrums hurt. The furniture and floor were shivering and shaking as if someone had put the whole room—him included—into a blender at high speed. Wes pushed himself up into a sitting position and gripped the couch. As his eyes adjusted to the inky darkness around him, he watched in amazement. It blew his mind that the couch was sliding like a toy back and forth across the floor as each rhythmic wave of the earthquake rolled through the building. He heard a loud “Crack!” and jerked his gaze upward. For a moment, he feared the fourth story was coming down upon him. The B.O.Q. groaned, wobbled and swayed. The joists and timbers of this old, 1930s-built architectural wonder were not earthquake proof.

      Escape! He had to get outside! But how? Wes leaped to his feet and was instantly knocked off of them. Another wave of heaving tore through the building. In seconds, he was sliding into the careening redwood coffee table. Pain arced up his shoulder as he slammed into it. The glass on top slid off, cracked and shattered on the floor. Splinters of glass glittered for a moment and then scattered wildly as the floor danced and bucked all around him.

      Wes kept his gaze glued to the ceiling rocking and undulating above him. It didn’t take his civil engineering degree for him to realize that if that ceiling caved in, it could kill him. He scrambled to his hands and knees and decided to head out to the hall to Russ. No good. Lurching drunkenly to his feet, Wes went for the door. His hand closed around the brass knob. There! Tumbling out into the hall, Wes slammed into Russ, who was rolling wildly, his arms and legs outstretched to try and stop himself.

      The quake seemed to go on and on. Russ lay on the floor outside his room, his eyes wide with terror. Wes reached out, gripped his friend’s hand and dragged him toward the wall. Every piece of furniture was on the move, many sliding through the opened doors of their rooms. The sound of cracking glass filled the hall. Some of the windows were shattering inward.

      It was impossible to stand up. All Wes could do was crawl forward on his belly alongside Russ and try to make it down the carpeted hall.

      “The emergency exit!” Wes shouted. “Get to the door! We gotta get outta here or we’re dead!”

      Russ nodded, his brown eyes huge as they crawled toward the exit.

      A grating sound started. Wes jerked a look over his shoulder. Whatever was making that noise, it wasn’t the B.O.Q. There were a lot of single- and double-story stucco buildings around the huge grassy square. It could have been any—or all—of them.

      “Damn,” Russ shouted. He got up and scrambled wildly for the door. Launching himself at it, he clung to the doorknob as he twisted it open.

      Seconds later, the two men threw themselves out the exit door and tumbled down the metal stairs.

      Badly bruised, Wes managed to leap against the last door that led to the first-floor entry. It gave way and Wes tumbled through. He was out! Russ stumbled to the ground beside him.

      The grass was damp with dew. As another wave of the quake hit, Russ rolled on top of him, then was swung to the left. A loud crash sounded behind them scaring Wes. As he got to his hands and knees, his fingers digging frantically into the damp grass and dirt for purchase, he saw half of the red brick building across the plaza buckle and collapse inward. Breathing hard, he gasped.

      Finally, the quake stopped its deadly undulations. Silence pulsed around Wes for a moment as he sat up, his hands on his thighs. Russ slowly got off his belly, his mouth hanging open, white vapor coming out of it in sharp spurts. Then, as he looked around, Wes heard a series of explosions, too numerous to count, begin off in the distance. Fire vomited upward into the dark night somewhere off the base. The growl of the quake began again. Wes hunkered down, his arms outstretched, his fingers digging into the ground for stability.

      “Oh, hell!” Russ shouted. “I don’t friggin’ believe this!” And he flopped on his belly again, arms spread outward.

      The second wave hit, worse than the first. For the next thirty seconds, Wes was flung around on the damp lawn. More marine officers came out of the exit door of the B.O.Q., tumbling and tripping over one another to get clear of the building. In that second wave, Wes saw two of the stucco buildings in the square buckle and crash into heaps. Numerous smaller buildings caved in. Yet, half of them still remained standing including the B.O.Q. There were flashes of fire and explosions as gas lines were broken, showers of sparks from the electrical lines setting them off. Water lines broke, sending water gushing in the square like geysers. Luckily, most of the marines who had been in the B.O.Q. and surrounding buildings were now out. Anyone who lived in Southern California was used to low-grade quakes and knew the drill: get outside as soon as possible. Get into an open area where nothing could fall on you.

      Breathing hard, Wes was flung savagely onto his back once again. His mind began to churn with terrifying possibilities. He’d been in California quakes before; the worst was a 6.0 on the Richter scale a year ago, shortly after he’d been transferred to Camp Reed to build highways and bridges for the Corps. But this one…hell, it was a monster in comparison. The damage it had done already was mind-blowing.

      He had no idea how this quake registered on the Richter scale, but he knew as he lay there gasping with terror, while looking up at the eerie beauty of the stars in the black sky, that this one was a killer of unknown proportions. And somewhere in his colliding thoughts,

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