But unlike thunder, this didn’t stop. It went on and on, machine-gun style, as if Zeus had loaded his bolts into an M60 with an inexhaustible ammo crate. But there was no lightning, only thunder. I glanced around. The firefighters were running for their truck and the knot of rubberneckers had scattered. The sky was clear. I could barely make out a couple of columns of smoke in the distance, but those had been there for more than an hour. Nothing obvious was wrong except for the godawful noise.
My hands were clamped over my ears. I had no memory of putting them there. The ground thumped against the soles of my sneakers. Darren grabbed my elbow, and we ran for his front door.
Inside, the noise was only slightly less horrendous. The oak floor in Darren’s entryway trembled under my feet. A fine waterfall of white plaster dust rained from a crack in the ceiling. Joe ran up carrying two stereo headsets and a roll of toilet paper. A third headset was clamped over his ears. He pantomimed tearing off bits of toilet paper and stuffing them in his ears. Quick thinking, that. Joe was definitely the brains of the couple.
I jammed a wad of toilet paper into each ear and slapped a headset on. The thunderous noise faded to an almost tolerable roar. But I heard a new sound: my ears ringing, like that annoying high-pitched whine a defibrillator makes when a patient is flatlining on TV.
We probably looked silly, standing there with the black cords dangling from the headsets, but nobody was laughing. I shouted at Joe, “Should we go to the basement?” But I couldn’t even hear myself talking over the noise.
Joe’s lips moved, but I had no idea what he was saying. Darren was shouting something, too, but the noise of the explosions drowned out all of us. Joe grabbed me and Darren and towed us toward the back of the house. We ran through their master bedroom-it was the fanciest bedroom I’d ever seen, but with the auditory assault we were enduring, I wasn’t about to stop and gawk.
The master bathroom was equally impressive, at least what I could see of it by the dim light filtering in from the bedroom. Pink marble floor, huge Jacuzzi tub, walk-in shower, bidet-the works. But best of all, it was an interior room, placed right in the center of the first floor. So it was quiet, sort of. When Joe closed the door, the noise diminished appreciably. Of course, that plunged us into total darkness. Joe reopened the door long enough to dig a D-cell Maglite from under one of the sinks.
I held my hands out at my sides and screamed, “Now what?” but I don’t think they could hear me. I couldn’t hear myself.
Joe yelled something and pointed the flashlight at the tub. Darren and I didn’t respond, so after a moment Joe stepped into the tub, knelt, and covered the back of his neck with his hands.
That made sense. The tub itself was plastic, but it was set into a heavy marble platform. If the house fell, it might protect us. Maybe we’d be better off outside, in the open, but the explosive noise was barely tolerable even now, in an interior room. Joe stood up, and I stepped into the tub beside him.
Joe shined the flashlight on Darren’s face. It was red and he was shouting-I saw his mouth working, but his eyes were wide and unfocused. His arms windmilled in wild gestures. Joe stepped out of the tub and hugged him, almost getting clocked by one of his fists in the process. Darren tried to pull away, but Joe held tighter, stroking Darren’s back with one hand, trying to calm him.
The beam from the flashlight lurched around the room as Joe moved, giving the whole scene a surreal, herky-jerky quality. He coaxed Darren into the tub, and all three of us knelt. It was a big Jacuzzi, maybe twice the size of the shower/tub combo I was used to, but we were still packed tightly in there. I put my head down on my knees and laced my fingers over the back of my neck. Someone’s elbow was digging into my side.
Then, we waited. Waited for the noise to end. Waited for the house to fall on our heads. Waited for something, anything, to change.
My thoughts roiled. What was causing the horrendous noise? Would Joe’s house collapse like mine had? For that matter, what had hit my house? I couldn’t answer any of the questions, but that didn’t keep me from returning to them over and over again, like poking a sore tooth with my tongue.
I wasn’t a religious guy. Mom was into that stuff, but I had won that fight two years ago. Except for Christmas and Easter, I hadn’t been inside St. John’s Lutheran since my confirmation. Before then, I had gone pretty much every Sunday, sometimes voluntarily.
When I was eleven or twelve, we had this real old guy as a Sunday school teacher. Mom said he’d been in some war: Iraq, Vietnam… I forget. Anyway, almost every class he’d say, “There are no atheists in foxholes, kids.” At the time, it was just weird. What did we know about either atheists or foxholes? Nothing. But I sort of understood it now.
So I prayed. Nobody could hear me over the noise-I couldn’t even hear myself-but I guess it didn’t matter. It was probably better that Joe and Darren couldn’t hear me, because it didn’t come out too well. “Dear God, please keep my little sister safe. I don’t know what these explosions are, but don’t let them hurt my family. They’re probably in Warren, but I guess you know for sure. I swear I’ll do whatever the hell you want. Go to St. John’s every Sunday, try to be nice to my mother, whatever. Do what you want to me. Just please keep Rebecca, Mom, and Dad-” Thinking about my family got me crying. I hoped prayer counted without the amen and all at the end. I was pretty sure it did.
I don’t know how long I knelt at the bottom of that tub. Long enough for my tears to dry and my neck to cramp.
I stretched out, kicking someone. Joe lifted the flashlight, and by its light we rearranged ourselves so we were lying in the tub instead of kneeling. We were still packed in there way too tightly. Someone’s knee dug into my thigh. I tried to rearrange myself but just got an elbow in my shoulder instead.
Then we waited some more. Two hours? Three? I had no way of knowing. The noise didn’t abate at all. What could make a noise that loud for that long? Thinking about it made me feel small and very, very scared. The smell of fear filled my nostrils-a rancid combination of smoke and stale sweat. The flashlight started to dim, and Joe shut it off-to save the batteries, I figured.
Sometime later, someone kicked me in the chest. Then I felt a shoe on top of my hand and jerked it away quickly to avoid getting stepped on. Joe snapped on the flashlight. Darren was standing up, feeling for the edge of the tub. He stepped out gingerly. Joe shrugged and followed him.
I got out of the tub, too. The sweaty plaster dust from my house had dried on my arms and face, making me itch. I twisted the handle on one of the sinks. The water came on, which surprised me. Nothing else was working; why should that have been any different? I washed my arms and face as best I could in the darkness. I realized I was thirsty again and gulped water from my cupped hands.
While I was cleaning up, Joe had left the room. Darren was sitting on the edge of the tub, staring at his hands folded in his lap. Now Joe returned, carrying an armload of pillows, blankets, and comforters. He spread a comforter in the bottom of the Jacuzzi, added a pillow and a folded blanket, and gestured with the Maglite for me to get back in. I pulled off my filthy sneakers.
I climbed into the Jacuzzi and lay down, fully dressed. I felt bad about dirtying their comforter with my nasty clothes, but who knew what might happen later. If something else bizarre went down and I had to run, I sure didn’t want to do it butt naked. I lay on my left side in the Jacuzzi, one pillow under my head, the other clamped on top over the headphones and the toilet paper. The headphones dug into my temples, but that was a minor annoyance. I could still hear both the explosions outside and the ringing in my ears.
It’s hard to fall asleep when Zeus is machine-gunning thunder at you. It’s hard to stay awake after an evening spent surviving a house fire. It took a couple more hours, but eventually sleep won, and I drifted off despite the ungodly noise and vibration. Everything would be better tomorrow. I thought: a new day, a new dawn would have to be better than this.