Fault

Part 7

Fallon Connelly 11:37 a.m.

Smoke-filled clouds swallow the sky above us. They glow with shades of orange and red and yellow. Ash twirls in the wind, bringing with it the smell of char and the burn of a dry heat that crawls into your throat and presses its weight against your lungs.

People are running, even though it doesn't seem necessary. They aren't on fire. The danger isn't so immediate that they need to jump in the Mississippi and swim east. A woman pushes past me, squashing me against Cal. She stumbles a bit and turns back to meet my eyes.

Her hair is tangled and swept carelessly across her face, like a gust of wind has caught her from her left side. She wears heels and her tan business suit has smudges of black soot along the hems, as if she has been sketched with a pencil.

"I'm sorry," she says, reaching out and almost touching my forearm. Dazed, she withdraws her hand only centimeters from me. The proximity of her fingers and her startled expression raises the hair on my arms.

"I'm sorry," she says again, and then she just stands there as people part around us.

Maybe she wants me to say something.

"It's okay," I say.

Her gaze becomes watery and she nods. Cal starts to walk forward again, as our group has gotten several yards ahead of us. I'm torn. I want to ask the woman if she'll be okay. I want to ask her if she has a place to go. If maybe she needs medical attention and wants to come with us.

Instead, my eyes look at the ground in front of her feet when I pass her by and catch up with the group.

Despite Price's condition he's keeping pace with us. Brett says the urgent care facility is east of us, in the heart of downtown but still closer than anywhere else. As we get to the end of the block the absence of the heat from the fire sends a chill through me.

The intersection has a four-car accident right in its middle. Two of the traffic lights, darkened by the lack of power, arch down across the cars as if they are chopsticks trying to pick up automotive sushi. Several of the cars are abandoned. Others have drivers leaning against hoods or sitting inside with their heads in their hands.

I examine left and right down the cross street and it looks like a bomb went off. Several brick and stone buildings are poised like dominos, leaning on each other and barely staving off collapse. There are fewer cars on this street and some have been flattened by falling wreckage.

Smoke pours out of several buildings and I wonder how long it will take before the sky is black.

 "What is that?" Brett asks, pointing ahead of us.

I pull my eyes back to the main road and try to follow his finger. Just across the street, and maybe ten feet in, the ground seems to fall away. I can see the back end of an SUV but the rest of it disappears down into the pavement.

The boys are all running before anyone can say, "be careful." Kim and I walk with Price, who still seems to be sweating too much. As we approach, the smell of rotten eggs tests my gag reflex. Sand surrounds the ground around the massive gap in the pavement. What is sand doing in the middle of the city?

"It's a sinkhole!" Marc shouts. "Look at this thing! It's gotta be what—twenty feet wide?"

I'd seen pictures of sinkholes before and even had a nightmare once that one swallowed my dad's apartment. I approach the edge carefully and feel the skin on the back of my neck prickle.

"That's no sinkhole," Price says. "It's a fissure. That's sulfur you're smelling."

Kim's face screws up and she pinches her nose. Marc looks through the back window of the SUV, cupping both hands and putting his face to it.

"No one's inside," he says.

I wonder where the car's owner has gone. Were they hurt when the ground opened up and swallowed them? I search the faces of people standing idly on the edges of the intersection and the faces of the groups too freaked out to stop. Every expression is panic. Is mine the same?

"We should keep going," Cal says and no one argues.

Going around the fissure brings us close to the huddled groups crowding the sidewalks.

No one wants to go back into the buildings, even if they look untouched. People watch us as we walk by, just as I watch them. No one seems as injured as Price and the majority of the strangers' stares focus on his bloody face. There is this dense feeling in the air, giving the atmosphere a dream-like quality. If it is a dream I'd like to wake up now, but the sharp ache in my hands is painful reminder of what's real.

"We're gonna want to cross 10th up ahead and then cut right on 9th," Brett instructs. "This is where coach took me when I broke my ankle last year."

Marc nods. The image of Brett on crutches, tripping others and laughing when they fell, comes back to me. You'd never guess it looking at him now, with his hand tightly grasping Kim's while worry pales his face.