“Devon, where are you?” JJ yelled. “Devon!”
“It’s Becca and JJ! Devon, you’re safe! We’re here to help!” she called, listening into the wind and rain for something, anything. “Devon, are you out here?”
“Becks!” she heard, peered down to see Josh waving something at them. She couldn’t see very well, and he shouted something else that got drowned out.
“What’s that?” JJ asked her.
“I don’t know.” She fiddled with the walkie-talkie again. “Josh, what do you have?”
Crackles, then silence.
“Josh, you okay? Over!”
“…. backpack … Dev … pack.”
Her heart thudded as she peered down, realized what he held in his hands. Devon’s blue backpack. Oh, God. She squeezed her eyes shut a moment. Please, please, please let him be okay. Please, God, I’m begging you.
She turned then, blocking everything else out, and began to search with fresh eyes.
Show me the opening. Show me how to find Devon. Please, God.
Water poured off the hood down her back, and then she saw it—a dull gray metal beneath what looked like a mound of forest brush, trees and leaves and moss and who knew what else.
An entrance.
“JJ, here! Help me!”
They tugged at the leaves and brush, then yanked at the metal grate. Once, twice. It wouldn’t budge.
“Devon!” she yelled into the grate. “Devon, are you down there?”
The walkie-talkie crackled again, and she grabbed at it, pressed the button. “Josh, I found an entrance. Come help us!”
A sound came from inside the grate, and she listened, then hollered again. “Devon!”
“Devon, are you there?” JJ yelled with her. “Devon!”
And then they heard it. Faint, but there nonetheless.
“Here!” His voice sounded very far off. “Help me!”
Josh was there then, and two other men were suddenly at his side, volunteers from fire-rescue, and they were tugging and pulling at the grate, which barely moved even with their weight.
“Here, grab this,” someone shouted, and they were all grabbing at a tree limb, ripping open the grate. Water poured out, and above them, she could hear sirens, heard Josh shouting for her and JJ to stay back.
“Hold on tight, Devon!” she called. “We’re coming!”
A rope. Pulling. Slipping. A burly man in a muddy uniform was in the tunnel now.
“He’s got him!” Josh murmured at her side.
And then there was Devon. Soaking wet and in her arms, sobbing and shaking and safe.
A cheer went up from the crowd of rescuers now gathered below and above.
Holding him, as someone wrapped them both in a huge gray blanket, she sank to her knees in the wet mud above the river and cried with relief.
Thank you, God. Oh, thank you, thank you, God.
