AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Zack explained all of this as he negotiated his Lincoln down Silver Street, which was the only road that led down the steep incline to Under-the-Hill. Camille was nervous at the thought of coming up this same way when they planned to leave. The road was already treacherously slick with heavy rainfall and mud that had washed from the bluffs.
“They even used Under-the-Hill for Civil War Atlanta one time when they filmed a movie here. They put stacks of old tires behind some of the vacant buildings and lit them to represent General Sherman’s burning of your city. They had covered the pavement with dirt so it would look authentic and brought in about forty horse-drawn vehicles. It was quite a show and very effective. The movie companies use our antebellum houses frequently for sets, but that was the first time I remember them using Under-the-Hill in a film.”
He maneuvered the car into one of the few parking spaces allotted along the sidewalk. It lined the front of the buildings facing the river. “If it weren’t raining, we’d have parked at the top of the bluff and walked down. The parking situation down here leaves a lot to be desired,” Zack complained before stepping out of the car and dashing around to her door, holding an umbrella over his head.
They managed to dodge puddles and negotiate the uneven sidewalk till they reached the entrance of the restaurant. The Cock of the Walk restaurant lived up to its reputation. The delicious fried catfish accompanied by a variety of side dishes and the warm friendly ambience of the dining room relaxed Camille, and she enjoyed the meal with Zack. He, too, seemed relaxed and eager to talk, to share. Their conversation centered mainly around the plantation and particularly the horse-breeding enterprise. Zack became excited over the prospects of his new undertaking, and Camille was able for a few minutes to forget that she wouldn’t be here to see the success she was sure he would achieve.
Her eyes were swimming with tears as she looked at her husband over the candlelit table. Her voice was constricted, and she averted her head so that he might not see how highly strung her emotions were as she mumbled, “I’m sure you’ll realize much success from it, Zack.”
“Success?” His voice was soft but harsh. “Yes, I guess monetary gain is one measure of success, but, in the important areas of my life, I have failed miserably.”
Camille risked a glance at him, but he wasn’t looking at her. He was studying the wall behind her. His words wounded her deeply. No, he didn’t have everything he wanted, did he? He wasn’t living with the woman he truly loved. He was stuck with a wife whom he barely tolerated. How Zack must resent her presence in his life! Camille longed to reach out and take the long, strong hand that lay on the table, press it to her cheek, and assure him that she would no longer be an unwelcome element in his life. She would leave the day after Thanksgiving. That would fulfill her promise to Rayburn and at the same time hasten their inevitable separation. She would slip quietly out of his life—as quietly as she had slipped into it two years ago at Snow Bird. This time when she left him, he would feel only relief and not the bitterness that he had before. This time his male ego would be intact, and he would have Erica’s willing arms to find solace in.
“Are you finished?” Zack’s question interrupted her reverie.
“Yes,” she answered shakily. He came around to her chair and held it for her. When he had settled the bill and they were standing at the front door, he held her coat for her. She felt the strong hands rest briefly on her shoulders before he withdrew them. How she longed to lean against his strength! If he would hold her once more, create a memory to carry her through a lifetime of loneliness, maybe leaving wouldn’t be so painful. But wouldn’t such an embrace only make it harder to leave him?
It was still raining hard when they emerged from the coziness of the restaurant. Zack opened the umbrella and held it over them as they started making their way back to the parked car. The river was almost invisible through the sheets of rain even this close. The rain obscured nearly everything, making the night black, ominous.
They walked past one of the taverns, and as Camille looked through the large plate-glass windows, she noticed that it was almost deserted. There were no more than a dozen people seeking recreation by playing electronic games or backgammon and sipping drinks at small tables lit by soft lamps. Faint strains of music from a jukebox could be heard through the old brick walls, and Camille recognized a popular ballad. Later, for years afterward, whenever she heard that song, she would tremble in recollection of what happened seconds later.
It was the strange noise that first caught her attention. It was a combination of crunching and sucking sounds that was discordant, out of sync, awesome. Of one accord, she and Zack paused on the sidewalk listening to that puzzling, horrendous racket.
Looking through the window of the tavern she stood mesmerized as she saw the back wall of the building seem to move forward several in
ches before it began to crumble. The electric clock with an animated advertisement for a brand of beer on its face flew off the wall and shattered on the floor. Old movie posters hung in decorative frames swung precariously on their hooks before falling to the floor and being covered by falling bricks and mortar.
What was it? What was happening? Tornado? No, there was no wind. Earthquake? No, the ground wasn’t vibrating through Camille was certain that the fearful rumble-crash sound she heard was much like the sounds of one.
The few people in the bar stopped their easy chatter, their game-playing, their drinking, and stared as she did at the collapsing wall. Then fright spurred them into action. En masse they ran for the door, terror written on their faces, screams coming from the throats of even the brawniest men.
“God! It’s a mud slide!” shouted Zack into her ear and began tugging on her elbow in an effort to snap her out of her hypnotized state. She had matched his running steps for only a few feet before the entire front of the building came crashing onto the sidewalk in front of them. Lumber, bricks, and glass were forced shatteringly together, propelled forward by the oozing, sucking mud. As one portion of the building fell, relinquishing its support, another section began to give way in a domino reaction under the weight of the mud that continued to slide down from the bluffs above. The ones who had been trapped in the building fought their way through broken windows, doors, and walls trying to gain freedom from the mud, which would spell instant suffocation for a victim if he weren’t killed by falling debris. They were in a panic bred of self-preservation.
Camille saw one last support beam of the building crumble under the incredible weight that ever increased. Zack! was her only thought. With strength garnered from an extra spurt of adrenaline, she extricated her elbow from his grasp and shoved him away from her and off the sidewalk. Her unexpected and amazingly strong shove unbalanced him. He slipped on the cracked, uneven concrete. Camille saw him fall off the sidewalk and roll out into the street to relative safety a few yards away. The umbrella was hopelessly broken as he fell on it. It lay discarded in the muddy street.
Zack raised his head and shook the rain out of his eyes. With a detached part of her mind, Camille noted that his hair was plastered to his head from the rain. His clothes were covered with mud.
“I love you!” she screamed above the cacophony.
His eyes widened in a dawning of understanding then went blank with horror. She heard him shout her name before a blinding pain struck the back of her head. She fought the darkness descending over her consciousness; she felt her knees buckling and saw the sidewalk rushing up to meet her. I’m going to die, she thought calmly. Her last conscious thought was a prayer of thanksgiving that Zack was safe.
* * *
She could hear the rain. She could hear muffled voices. She smelled an acrid antiseptic lotion. She could feel that her clothes were damp and clinging.
She wasn’t dead.
She tried to open her eyes, but the slit of light that she allowed through her lids burst upon her brain like a searchlight, and she squeezed her eyes shut against it.
Someone raised her arm, and she started in reaction.
“Hey, don’t you even know who your friends are? I’m only taking your blood pressure, Camille.”
“Dr.…” It was a croak. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Dr. Daniels, is that you?”
“None other. What other dumb bastard would come out on a night like this?”
“Where?… Zack?… What happened?”
