Page 59 of Desperate Creed

Maggie couldn’t help feeling that they were going down underground only to be buried.

41

Above them, the storm raged. To Maggie it sounded like the building was being ripped apart. Loud crashes were followed by the entire structure vibrating. Wood cracked. Glass shattered. Floorboards moaned too close overhead. A thunderous roar only seemed to grow louder. A single light bulb cast a dim glow over the area.

Around her several people had pulled out their cell phones. Their faces were an eerie blue-white. Hank commandeered the stairwell with the lone flashlight, shooting its beam up around the corner and towards the door at the top. It was almost as if he expected the storm to break through.

When her eyes adjusted, Maggie scanned the area. Cinder block walls and a concrete floor. Two steel support beams took up the center. Both were bolted into the ceiling joists and into the floor. Shelves with boxes lined one wall. An old chest freezer was squeezed into the far corner. The restaurant above was probably 2,000 square feet, but this room was, at best, a quarter of that.

Just then, a loud boom sent debris raining down. Maggie looked up and saw how low the ceiling was. Exposed wood beams were so close she could reach up and touch them with her fingertips.

So close. Too close.

Nausea immediately kicked in without warning. She needed to breathe or the claustrophobia would take over. Once upon a time a killer had locked her in an old chest freezer, not unlike the one in the corner. Ever since then, she found it difficult to tolerate small, enclosed spaces, let alone small spaces crowded with a dozen other people. Her pulsed raced. Her chest ached from the throbbing of her heart. But right now, she was grateful to be down here instead of upstairs.

Above them, the storm thrashed and pounded. Furniture screeched as it was shoved across the floor. Large objects were being hurled and dropped on top of them. More debris rained down. The roar made it difficult to hear anything else. It sounded like being underneath the tarmac as jet engines revved over their heads. She couldn’t hear anything else, but Maggie could see one of the older women’s lips moving, her hands together, fingers laced. She was praying.

For a brief moment, Maggie envied that kind of faith. Her father had had it when he ran into a burning building as a firefighter. When she was a child he’d given her a religious medallion, a duplicate of the one he wore. He promised that if she wore it she would be protected from evil. For a short time, she’d kept it on a chain around her neck, out of respect for and remembrance of him, not because she believed. After all, his medallion hadn’t protected him. She’d taken it off and never put it on again the day she’d seen real evil and knew the only metal that could stop it was a bullet.

But times like this she wished she believed, because what was happening above truly sounded like a demon from hell. A demon that pummeled them and at the same time clawed and ripped, trying to tear them out from their hiding place.

She tried to concentrate on the others in the cramped quarters. Frankie was crouched down beside her. On a bench next to them the woman praying huddled with her friend. The teenaged boy allowed the woman, who was most likely his mother, to wrap her arms around him.

The older gentleman who had been sitting at the counter held onto the wooden shelving unit, one of the few solid pieces of furniture. Up in the restaurant Maggie thought the man looked familiar. There was something about his composure that she recognized. Maybe he was retired law enforcement. Shadows prevented her from getting a look at his face, but he held a wad of bloody napkins to his jaw. One of the waitresses stood close to him, holding onto another part of the shelving unit.

The middle-aged couple braced against the wall in the far corner. Maggie had thought they looked like lovers earlier. Now, neither comforted the other. In fact, they stood at arm’s length.

The man dressed in a polo shirt and khakis had been at the counter, too. He stayed close to the stairwell.

The truck driver had lost his ball cap. Long, thin strands of hair whipped around his head and looked as wild as his eyes. He stood close to Hank, staring up the stairwell like he was ready to push the door open as soon as the storm stopped. But he was holding his arm. In the dim light Maggie could see the stain of blood growing on his shirt. When he turned, she could see something protruding from the back of his shoulder.

It reminded her of her forehead and her fingers found the open wound. Then Maggie realized something else. Her eyes darted around, checking faces, searching the far corners. The other waitress—the one who had served Frankie and her—wasn’t here. She had looked for her and had hoped the woman had already escaped down the stairs. But she wasn’t here.

Maggie listened to walls collapsing overhead as the storm punched and scratched and beat down on them. She felt the crushing weight of the woman’s absence. There was no way she could survive whatever was happening up there.

Just when Maggie didn’t think things could get any worse, something exploded above them. The beams creaked and groaned. The concrete wall vibrated. A second boom shattered the light bulb sending them into darkness. A slow moan grew into a high-pitched screech.

Then suddenly, the ceiling started collapsing down on top of them.

42

Creed carefully maneuvered the Jeep through the mess. Power lines dangled from broken poles. They tried to drive to the industrial area they had watched take a direct hit. A gigantic cell tower had toppled over on top of the interstate, so they had to backtrack to another exit.

Creed weaved along a side road, stunned by what he saw. Branches cluttered their path. Cinder blocks and bricks were scattered everywhere. Electrical transformers six-stories high were bent over and twisted into the ground. In an area where trees had blocked their view of the tornado, now Creed could see all the way to the horizon.

He slowed and they rolled down their windows to listen for calls of help, but an eerie silence had replaced the roar of the storm. And in the quiet they could hear the tinkling of shredded metal that hung from the few trees that remained standing.

“Oh man, over there,” Jason said as he pointed to the right. A few blocks away was the entrance to a residential area.

Creed saw flashing lights of rescue units arriving at the other end of what used to be a housing complex. Three blocks wide, for as far as he could see, foundations looked swept clean, but beside each one stood a pile of rubble. If not for the concrete slabs it would have been difficult to tell where one house ended and the other began.

People wandered around. Some looked totally lost. Some were bleeding. A few first responders were already in the streets. Sirens filled the air. Confetti littered the lawns with shattered glass, toys, shoes, books, dinner plates and twisted pieces of chain link fence. Yet, at the end of one driveway stood a stainless steel refrigerator, upright and unmarked as though someone had just delivered it.

Across the street, not a house looked touched, except for the corner lot. The wall facing the street was sheered off, making it look like a dollhouse. Furniture, rugs, wall hangings remained in place. Creed was stunned to see that even the pillows on the sofa hadn’t been disturbed.

The path of the storm was very distinct. To the right, every single tree had been uprooted, stripped of leaves and bark or dumped on top of what used to be a house. But on the other side of the street, huge oaks weren’t missing a single branch. Magnolia trees still kept their blooms. The only indications of a storm were the pieces of pink insulation clinging in between the leaves like cherry blossoms.

Creed felt a bit numb. He backed the Jeep and pulled up off the street into an empty lot, getting out of the way of a fire truck.