not at all practical. She’d be filthy dirty climbing up and over buildings that had been destroyed by a killer earthquake. Or it would rain or snow and she’d be sopping wet and muddy. No, long hair was out. Well, how about some makeup? She had a square face, with wide-set eyes, a nose that was too big and a mouth that was even bigger. She looked…well, plain. Maybe even ugly…No man even gazed at her with the look. Callie had wished all her life for a man to show her some interest. She saw other women marines getting that special attention, but she never did. Sighing, Callie knew she never would.
Her hair was straight and hung limp as a dishrag around her face, even when she wasn’t climbing around on rubble all day in all sorts of weather. Setting it to make it look halfway decent or using hair spray was out of the question. Hers was a brutal outdoor job. With people trapped and dying, as often was the case in a disaster situation, it didn’t matter whether she wore makeup or if her hair looked feminine or not. No, the victims only wanted to know that Dusty had found them and that Callie was there to help them in any way she could, to escape and live to tell about it. To them, she was an angel of mercy.
Callie smiled a little, remembering how one man had whispered that to her as the medics had extricated him from some rubble. He’d been trapped in there for five days, and Dusty had found him. More dead than alive, the old, silver-haired man had reached out with a shaking hand and fiercely gripped hers as they carried him by on a stretcher.
“You’re an angel,” he’d rasped, tears streaming down his face. “An angel sent by God himself. Thank you…. You’ve got the face of an angel, and I’ll never forget you…not ever….” And he’d choked and sobbed as they’d carried him away to the ambulance.
She wouldn’t ever forget his words, either. Callie liked the idea of looking like an angel. God didn’t make any ugly angels. Nope, not a chance. Smiling a little, she cast a glance at Dusty, who watched her every expression.
“Do I look like an angel to you?”
Dusty whined and thumped his tail heartily.
“You’d say yes to anything, guy.” And Callie laughed. “No ugly angels in heaven, Dust.” She rolled her eyes and looked up at the low ceiling of the kennel complex, made from corrugated aluminum. “Maybe that’s when I’ll feel beautiful. When I die.”
A deep, growling roar caught 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,”
