“Okay,” she said. “Good luck. When you get out,” she made a point of saying “when” and not “if,” “I'm a reporter, tell my network I'm here. I have a feeling they're out there somewhere.”
“I'll come back for you,” he said clearly. And a few minutes later, his voice disappeared again, and no others came. She was left alone in the darkness with her solitude, Anne, and her crying baby. And she kept wishing for her cell phone, not that it would have made much difference. She couldn't even have told them where they were, only where they had started. But for all she knew, they had been thrown a long way. There was nothing to identify where they were trapped now.
And as Bill continued to watch the news, he felt a rising sense of panic. He had called her a dozen times, and only got her answering machine. And her cell phone was still off. Finally in desperation, he called the network.
“Who is this?” the producer asked irritably, surprised the caller had even gotten through.
“I'm a friend of hers, and I was just concerned. Is she covering the story?”
There was a pause and then the producer decided to answer him honestly. “We can't find her either. Her cell phone's off, and she's not home. She could have gone to the scene independently, but no one's seen her. But there are a hell of a lot of people there. She'll turn up eventually. She always does,” Rafe Thompson, the producer, reassured him.
“It's not like her to disappear,” Bill pointed out to the producer in a worried tone, and Rafe couldn't help wondering how the man on the phone knew that, but he was obviously worried. A lot more than Jack was. All Jack had done was yell at them to goddamn fucking find her. And the producer had a fairly good idea of what Jack had been doing when he found him. A giggling female voice had been laughing in the background when Jack answered the first time.
“I don't know what to tell you. She'll probably call in pretty soon. She might be at a movie or something.” But Bill knew she wasn't, and the fact that she hadn't called him to tell him she was okay was making him panic. He wandered around his living room for another ten minutes after that, keeping an eye on the TV, and finally he couldn't stand it. He picked up his coat and his car keys, and hurried outside. He didn't even know if he could get near the scene, but he had to try. He didn't know why, but he knew he had to be there. Maybe he could find her.
It was after ten o'clock as Bill sped the entire way, an hour and a half after the blast that had destroyed two city blocks, killed a hundred and three at last count, and injured dozens of others. And this was just the beginning.
When he got there, it took him twenty minutes to pick his way past the emergency vehicles and debris, and there were so many volunteers on hand to help that no one asked him for passes, badges, or ID, they just let him through, and he stood outside the toy store with tears in his eyes, praying he would find her in the crowd outside.
And within minutes, someone handed him a hard hat, and asked him to help carry debris from inside. He followed them in, and it was so terrifying just being there that all he could hope was that Maddy was anywhere but there, and had just forgotten to turn on her cell phone.
And inside her cave, Maddy was thinking of him, as she braced her full weight against a piece of concrete, and was stunned when she moved it. She tried again, and it moved another few inches, and every time it did, Anne's ever-weakening voice seemed to grow closer.
“I think I'm getting somewhere,” she said to Anne, “keep talking to me. I need to know where you are. I don't want to make things worse … can you feel anything? Is there dirt falling on you anywhere?” She wasn't sure if she was near her head or her feet, but the last thing she wanted to do was drop a piece of concrete on her or her baby. But it was almost as much work moving the concrete as it was to keep Anne talking.
Maddy was even talking to herself now as she pushed and shoved and clawed, and she gave a shove so mighty that she nearly hurt herself, and much to her amazement, as she did, a huge chunk of concrete gave way, and she was able to move it aside, and create a hole big enough to accommodate her upper body, and she started to crawl through it. And as soon as she did, she knew she had found Anne. Her voice was so close to her, and the first thing she touched was Andy. He was lying near his mother's hand, just out of reach, and squirming freely. Maddy couldn't see him, but she could feel him and she pulled him to her. And he howled in terror as she did. She had no idea if he was hurt or not, but she set him down again, and crawled through the hole toward Anne. But for a moment, the girl said nothing, and then Maddy touched her. She wasn't even sure if she was still breathing.
“Anne … Anne …” She gently touched her face, and as she let her hands rove over her cautiously, she thought she knew what had happened. There was a huge beam across the girl's upper body, crushing her, and Maddy could feel from the dampness of her clothes that she was bleeding. And another beam lay across her legs. She was completely pinned down, and although Maddy tried frantically, she could do nothing to free her. The beams were heavier than the concrete, and what she didn't know was that there was more concrete pinning the beams down. “Anne! … Anne! …” She kept saying her name, as the baby whimpered next to them, and then finally the girl stirred and spoke to Maddy.
“Where are you?” She didn't understand what had happened.
“I'm here. I'm with you. Andy's fine, I think.” Relative to his mother at least.
“Did they find us?” Anne was starting to drift off again, and Maddy was afraid to shake her, given the damage she realized Anne had sustained when the beams fell on her.
“Not yet. But they're going to. I promise. Hang on.” Maddy picked up the baby then, and held him close to her as she crouched next to Anne, and then trying to keep the girl from giving up, she put his face next to Anne's, as they must have done when he was born, and Anne began to cry softly.
“I'm going to die, aren't I?” There was no honest answer to that question, and they both knew it. She was no longer sixteen. She had grown to full maturity in a matter of instants, and she might as well have been a hundred just then.
“I don't think so,” Maddy lied. “You can't. You have to stick around for Andy.”
“He doesn't have a daddy,” she volunteered. “He gave him up when he was born. He didn't want him.”
“My baby didn't have a daddy either,” Maddy said, trying to reassure her. At least she was talking, which was something. Lizzie hadn't had a mommy either, Maddy thought with fresh guilt, but she didn't say anything to Anne.
“Do you live with your mom and dad?” Maddy asked, still trying to keep her talking, as she cradled the baby close to her, and noticed that he had stopped crying. She put a finger under his nose, and was relieved to find he was still breathing. He was asleep.
“I ran away when I was fourteen. I'm from Oklahoma. I called my mom and dad when he was born, and they don't want either of us. They got nine other kids, and my mom said all I am is trouble…. Andy and I are on welfare.” It was a tragedy, but nothing so dire as what was happening to them now. Maddy couldn't help wondering if either of them would survive it, or she would. She wondered now if they would be found long after they had died, part of a larger, still more hideous story. But she was determined not to let that happen, for their sakes. This baby had a right to live, and so did the child who was his mother. Saving them was her only goal.
“When he grows up, you can tell him about this. He'll think you were wonderful and brave, and you are … I'm very proud of you,” she said, choking back tears, thinking of Lizzie. They had found each other after nineteen years, and now Lizzie might lose her again. But she couldn't let herself think of it. She had to keep her head clear, and she noticed as she talked to Anne that she was feeling dizzy. She wondered when they would run out of air. If they would be gasping, or just drift off to sleep, snuffed out like candles. She started humming to herself, and crooning softly to Anne and the baby, but Anne had stopped talking again, and nothing Maddy did seemed to wake her. When Maddy touched her, she moaned, so she knew Anne was still alive, but she seemed to be fading fast.