“Don't move for a few minutes,” Seth told her from where they lay. She could feel him, but no longer see him in the total darkness. “You'll get trampled by the crowd.”
“What if the building falls in on us?” She was shaking and still crying.
“If it does, we're fucked,” he said bluntly.
They, and everyone else in the room, were well aware that they were three floors underground. They had no idea how to get out, or by what route. The noise in the room was deafening as people shouted to each other, and then hotel employees with powerful flashlights appeared beneath the exit signs. Someone with a bullhorn was telling them to stay calm and proceed with caution toward the exits and not to panic. There were dim lights in the hall beyond, while the ballroom remained totally dark. It had been the most terrifying experience of Sarah's life. Seth grabbed her arm, and pulled her to her feet, as five hundred and sixty people pushed their way toward the exits. There were sounds of people crying, others groaning in pain, some shouting for help, saying that someone next to them was hurt.
Sister Maggie was already on her feet, moving into the crowd rather than out of the room. “What are you doing?” Father Joe shouted after her—they could see dimly now in the light from the hall beyond. The enormous urns of roses had fallen over, and the scene in the ballroom was one of total chaos and disorder. Father Joe thought Maggie was confused as she made her way deeper into the room.
“I'll meet you outside!” she shouted, as she disappeared into the crowd, and within minutes was on her knees next to a man who said he thought he'd had a heart attack, but had nitroglycerin in his pocket. She reached in unceremoniously and helped him find it, took out a pill, and put it in his mouth, and then told him not to move. She was sure help would come soon to assist the injured.
She left him with his frightened wife, and moved along a littered path wishing she was wearing her workboots and not the flat pumps she had worn. The ballroom floor was an obstacle course of tables lying on their sides or even upside down, with food, dishes, and broken glass everywhere, and some people lying amid the debris. Sister Maggie made her way systematically toward them, as did several other people who said they were doctors. There had been many of them in the room, but only a few had stayed to help the wounded. A crying woman with an injured arm said she thought she was going into labor. Sister Maggie told her not to even think about it until she got out of the hotel, and the pregnant woman smiled as Maggie helped her stand up and start moving out of the ballroom holding tightly to her husband's arm. Everyone was terrified of an aftershock, which might be even worse than the first quake. There was no doubt in anyone's mind that it had been greater than seven on the Richter scale, maybe even eight, and there were groaning sounds in the room all around them as the earth settled again, which was anything but reassuring.
At the front of the room, Everett Carson had been next to Melanie when the quake hit. As the room tilted crazily, she had slid right off the stage into his arms, and they both fell to the floor. He helped her up when the shaking stopped.
“Are you okay? That was a great performance, by the way,” he said lightly. Once they opened the ballroom doors and light filtered in from the hall he noticed that her costume had torn, and one of her breasts was exposed. He slipped his tuxedo jacket on her to cover her up.
“Thank you,” she said, sounding dazed. “What happened?”
“About a sevenor eight-point quake, I believe,” Everett said.
“Shit, now what do we do?” Melanie looked scared, but not panicked.
“We do what they're telling us, and we get our asses out of here and try not to get trampled.” He had been through earthquakes, tsunamis, and similar disasters in Southeast Asia over the years. But there was no question, this had been a big one. It had been exactly a hundred years since the last big San Francisco earthquake in 1906.
“I should find my mom,” Melanie said, looking around. There was no sign of her or Jake, and no way to recognize people easily in the room. It was too dark. And so many people were shouting, and there was such pandemonium going on around them that you couldn't hear anyone except the person standing next to you.
“You'd better look for her outside,” Everett warned her, as she started to make her way to where the stage had been. It had collapsed, and all the band's equipment had slid off. The grand piano was teetering at a crazy angle, and fortunately hadn't fallen on anyone. “Are you okay?” Melanie looked a little stunned.
“Yeah…I am…” He headed her toward the exits then, and told her he was staying for a few more minutes. He wanted to see if there was anything he could do to help the people in the ballroom.
A few minutes later, he stumbled over a woman helping a man who said he'd had a heart attack. The woman moved away to help someone else, and Everett helped get the man outside. He and a man who said he was a doctor put him on a chair and lifted him up. They had to carry him up three flights of stairs. There were paramedics, ambulances, and fire trucks outside, helping people pouring out of the hotel with minor injuries and reporting on others who were hurt inside. A battalion of firemen rushed in. There was no evidence of fires around them, but electric lines were down, and there were sparks shooting into the air as firemen with bullhorns shouted at them to stay clear, and set up barricades. Everett noticed quickly that the city all around them was dark. And then by instinct more than design, he reached for the camera still slung around his neck, and started taking pictures of the scene, without intruding on the gravely injured. Everyone around him looked dazed. The man who had the heart attack was already on the way to the hospital in an ambulance, along with another man who had a broken leg. There were injured people lying on the street, most of whom had come out of the hotel, and others who hadn't. The stoplights were no longer functioning, and traffic had stopped. A cable car at the corner had jumped the tracks, and at least forty people were injured, as paramedics and firemen ministered to them. One woman was dead and had been covered by a tarp. It was a grisly scene, and Everett didn't even notice till he got outside and saw blood on his shirt that he had a cut on his cheek. He had no idea how it had happened. It appeared to be superficial and he wasn't worried about it. He took a towel when a hotel employee handed it to him and wiped his face. There were dozens of them handing out towels, blankets, and bottles of water for the shocked people all around them. No one could figure out what to do next. They just stood there, staring at each other, and talking about what had happened. There were several thousand people crowded into the street as the hotel was emptied. Half an hour later the firemen said that the ballroom was clear now. It was then that Everett noticed Sarah Sloane standing near him with her husband. Her dress was torn and covered with wine and the remains of dessert that had been on their table when it tipped over.
“Are you all right?” he asked her. It was the same question everyone was asking each other again and again. She was crying, and her husband looked distressed. So was everyone else. People were crying all around them, in shock, fear, and relief, and worried about their families at home. Sarah had been frantically calling on her cell phone, which didn't work. Seth had tried his too, and looked grim.
“I'm worried about my babies,” she explained. “They're at home with a babysitter. I don't even know how we'll get there. I guess we'll have to walk.” Someone had said that the garage where all their cars were parked had collapsed, and there were people trapped inside. There was no way to access their cars, and everyone whose car had been in it was now stranded. There were no cabs. San Francisco had become a ghost town in a matter of minutes. It was after midnight, and the quake had hit an hour before. The Ritz-Carlton employees were being wonderful, wandering through the crowd, asking people what they could do to help. There wasn't much anyone could do right now, except the paramedics and firemen trying to triage those who had been hurt.