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The wind outside was building to a howl. Claire could hear things hitting the walls--dull thudding sounds, like baseballs. It got louder. "Debris," Richard said. He focused the light on the carpet between their small group. "Maybe hail. Could be anything."
The siren cut off abruptly, but that didn't mean the noise subsided; if anything, it got louder, ratcheting up from a howl to a scream--and then it took on a deeper tone.
"Sounds like a train," Eve said shakily. "Damn, I was really hoping that wasn't true, the train thing--"
"Heads down!" Richard yelled, as the whole building started to shake. Claire could feel the boards vibrating underneath her. She could see the walls bending, and cracks forming in the bricks.
And then the noise rose to a constant, deafening scream, and the whole outside wall sagged, dissolved into bricks and broken wood, and disappeared. The ripped, torn fabric around the room took flight like startled birds, whipping wildly through the air and getting shredded into eversmaller sections by the wind and debris.
The storm was screaming as if it had gone insane. Broken furniture and shards of mirrors flew around, smashing into the walls, hitting the blankets.
Claire heard a heavy groan even over the shrieking wind, and looked up to see the roof sagging overhead. Dust and plaster cascaded down, and she grabbed Shane hard.
The roof came down on top of them.
Claire didn't know how long it lasted. It seemed like forever, really--the screaming, the shaking, the pressure of things on top of her.
And then, very gradually, it stopped, and the rain began to hammer down again, drenching the pile of dust and wood. Some of it trickled down to drip on her cheek, which was how she knew.
Shane's hand moved on her shoulder, more of a twitch than a conscious motion, and then he let go of Claire to heave up with both hands. Debris slid and rattled. They'd been lucky, Claire realized--a heavy wooden beam had collapsed in over their heads at a slant, and it had held the worst of the stuff off them.
"Eve?" Claire reached across Shane and grabbed her friend's hands. Eve's eyes were closed, and there was blood trickling down one side of her face. Her face was even whiter than usual--plaster dust, Claire realized.
Eve coughed, and her eyelids fluttered up. "Mom?" The uncertainty in her voice made Claire want to cry. "Oh God, what happened? Claire?"
"We're alive," Shane said. He sounded kind of surprised. He brushed fallen chunks of wood and plaster off Claire's head, and she coughed, too. The rain pounded in at an angle, soaking the blanket that covered them. "Richard?"
"Over here," Richard said. "Dad? Dad--"
The flashlight was gone, rolled off or buried or just plain taken away by the wind. Lightning flashed, bright as day, and Claire saw the tornado that had hit them still moving through Morganville, crashing through buildings, spraying debris a hundred feet into the air.
It didn't even look real.
Shane helped move a beam off Eve's legs--thankfully, they were just bruised, not broken--and crawled across the slipping wreckage toward Richard, who was lifting things off his mother. She looked okay, but she was crying and dazed.
His father, though . . .
"No," Richard said, and dragged his father flat. He started administering CPR. There were bloody cuts on his face, but he didn't seem to care about his own problems at all. "Shane! Breathe for him!"
After a hesitation, Shane tilted the mayor's head back. "Like this?"
"Let me," Eve said. "I've had CPR training." She crawled over and took in a deep breath, bent, and blew it into the mayor's mouth, watching for his chest to rise. It seemed to take a lot of effort. So did what Richard was doing, pumping on his dad's chest, over and over. Eve counted slowly, then breathed again--and again.
"I'll get help," Claire said. She wasn't sure there was any help, really, but she had to do something. When she stood up, though, she felt dizzy and weak, and remembered what Richard had said--she had holes in her neck, and she'd lost a lot of blood. "I'll go slow."
"I'll go with you," Shane said, but Richard grabbed him and pulled him down.
"No! I need you to take over here." He showed Shane how to place his hands, and got him started. He pulled the walkietalkie from his belt and tossed it to Claire. "Go. We need paramedics."
And then Richard collapsed, and Claire realized that he had a huge piece of metal in his side. She stood there, frozen in horror, and then punched in the code for the walkietalkie. "Hello? Hello, is anybody there?"
Static. If there was anybody, she couldn't hear it over the interference and the roaring rain.
"I have to go!" she shouted at Shane. He looked up.
"No!" But he couldn't stop her, not without letting the mayor die, and after one helpless, furious look at her, he went back to work.
Claire slid over the pile of debris and scrambled out the broken door, into the main apartment.
There was no sign of Fran?ois or Bishop. If the place had been wrecked before, it was unrecognizable now. Most of this part of the building was gone, just--gone. She felt the floor groan underneath her, and moved fast, heading for the apartment's front door. It was still on its hinges, but as she pulled on it, part of the frame came out of the wall.
Outside, the hallway seemed eerily unmarked, except that the roof overhead--and, Claire presumed, all of the next floor above--was missing. It was a hallway open to the storm. She hurried along it, glad now for the flashes of lightning that lit her way.
The fire stairs at the end seemed intact. She passed some people huddled there, clearly terrified. "We need help!" she said. "There are people hurt upstairs--somebody?"
And then the screaming started, somewhere about a floor down, lots of people screaming at the same time. Those who were sitting on the stairs jumped to their feet and ran up, toward Claire. "No!" she yelled. "No, you can't!"
But she was shoved out of the way, and about fifty people trampled past her, heading up. She had no idea where they'd go.
Worse, she was afraid their combined weight would collapse that part of the building, including the place where Eve, Shane, and the Morrells were.
"Claire?" Michael. He came out of the firstfloor door, and leaped two flights of stairs in about two jumps to reach her. Before she could protest, he'd grabbed her in his arms like an invalid. "Come on. I have to get you out of here."
"No! No, go up. Shane, they need help. Go up; leave me here!"
"I can't." He looked down, and so did she.
