Chapter 21
Susan stirred. Her father was shaking her awake. So she must’ve fallen asleep at some point, after all. Part of her had felt as though she’d never be able to sleep again.
He shook her harder. Yet as her awareness fully returned, she realized she couldn’t even feel his hand on her shoulder.
She opened her eyes and turned. No one there.
She bolted upright, looking all around the room. The whole room was trembling. But, how?
She leapt out of bed, stumbled, and fell flat on her face. Her whole body shook as it lay against the floor. With a cry, she pushed herself up and propelled herself forward. A huge shudder shook the room, sending her flying toward the door. She grabbed the doorpost to steady herself, but it came loose from its frame in her hands.
“Oh!”
The ceiling cracked. She ducked quickly out of the room, through the collapsing door frame.
Without thinking or hesitating she ran down the hallway. “Da!”
“I’m here, Susan! Get outside, now!”
She ran as fast as she could, the crashing sounds behind her as the roof started to cave in adding fervor and speed to her steps.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the kitchen, the cabinets. The place where John Murphy had breathed his last.
“Get out, quick!”
She didn’t need her father to tell her that—she’d never run so fast in her life. And she didn’t stop until she got clear out of the house.
“Farther! The whole thing’s gonna go down!” Her father pushed her to keep going.
After running almost to the end of the lane, she turned and looked at her little house just in time to see it crumble into a heap of bricks and wood.
She was dizzy from running and breathing so fast and from the bashing John Murphy had given her head earlier.
“Da...”
“Look, Susan!”
She focused her gaze on the spot her father was pointing to in the distance. The mountains—the gigantic, steady sentinels overlooking all ofLone Pine—rolled like the waves of the sea.
Terror flooded her. She sank to her knees, the ground still trembling beneath her.
“Oh, please, God! Help me! Help!”
Ifor helped his injured father along the corridor and out of the house. The ceiling had wounded him when it had fallen, but he could still walk—just about.
Something inside Ifor told him to keep going, to get out far enough that the house couldn’t crush them if any more of it fell on them.
He thought of the few bits and pieces they’d brought with them from Wales—the woolen tapestry blanket that’d belonged to his mother, the carved wooden love-spoons that had hung in their little kitchen in their valley home, the leather-bound Bible written in his native tongue. All of them lost now, amidst the rubble and debris. He turned to look at their house, but it had already crumpled into a sorry pile of ruins.
“Are you all right, Tad?”
His father nodded, a dazed look still in his eyes. “And you, son?”
“I’m fine, Tad.”
A thought gripped him. Susan... Was she all right?
Susan huddled next to her father as the reality of what had just happened began to sink in.
“It must’ve been an earthquake, Da. I heard that California can have them sometimes, but I never thought it would be like this!” A sob broke loose. Her house was gone. As far as her eyes could see, the other houses near hers had toppled, too.
Had anyone in Lone Pine survived?
Ifor’s face flashed into her mind. Panic seized her chest. Was he all right?
Would she ever see him again?