I just dredged this short story from the dark bowels of my computer’s hard drive.  I wrote it 18 years ago after reading and seeing video accounts of the San Francisco earthquake that occurred October 17, 1989.  The earthquake registered 6.8 on the Richter Scale and happened during rush hour.  Bridges and freeways literally melted away in the wake of fast-moving traffic, many passengers rushing to see the third game of the World’s Series in Oakland between the Oakland A’s and the San Francisco Giants (how unlikely is that?)  63 people ultimately died, 3,500 injured and 12,000 made homeless by the natural disaster.

Looking back, this whole event seems scripted for primetime TV, or even a big screen disaster flick.  How improbable the entire story?  Short stories are a greatly neglected art form.  They must quickly and deftly develop memorable characters and tell an engaging tale that plays on the reader’s psyche for days after reading it.  Like the very best of all fiction, the short story rises or falls because of CONFLICT and how this conflict causes the characters to change, or grow.

Nope, DSOTF is no Pulitzer candidate, but please read it in the context of the traumatic and highly unlikely event that actually occurred.  Eric Wilder

http://www.ericwilder.com  http://www.gondwanapress.com

DOWNTHROWN SIDE OF THE FAULT

by Eric Wilder 

After hurriedly straightening her desk, Tinley Chase adjusted her short skirt, licked her lipstick, then checked her boss's schedule one last time to make sure he had no more appointments. Finally satisfied she tapped on his door, flashing her sexiest smile when he glanced up from his desk.

"Mike, I'm done. Mind if I leave early?"

The gray-haired man with the boyish face grinned. "Hot date?"

"You might say that. Ted's taking me to the A's game tonight."

"And where's Myra?"

"L.A. all week."

"Cozy, he said, raising an eyebrow. "Take off. I'm going home soon myself."

"Thanks," she said, blowing him a kiss as she grabbed her purse and rushed down the hall to the ladies's room.

Alone at the mirror she brushed her straight black hair, admiring her delicate features while touching up her lipstick. Red lips contrasted perfectly with big green eyes and her Eurasian good-looks captured the best of both continents. After winking at her image in the mirror she rushed to the elevator, fishing for her car keys as her high-heels echoed against the marble floor.

Tinley retrieved her car and raced out of the parking garage, kicking off her shoes and undoing the collar of her starched white blouse. Gunning the black BMW down the narrow side road, she relaxed and shoved a Fleetwood Mac cassette into the tape player. As she listened to the mellow strains of Stevie Nicks, she thought about her impending date with Ted Whitman. They were meeting first at Shaughnessy's in Oakland then going to the game from there. She saw the event as symbolic -- Ted's way of finally legitimizing their relationship.

At the Bay Bridge toll booth, Tinley slowed to a stop and tossed the proper change into the basket, gunning the black Bimmer across the stretch of open water when the light turned green, then taking the Emeryville exit in hopes of making better time along the access road. Lost in thought she continued along the side road at high speed, unmindful of the cloudless sky or the old Datsun parked on the shoulder.

The image of the car with its front wheel removed touched her consciousness suddenly and she spun the steering wheel violently to avoid a collision. Her quick reaction averted a major impact, but she clipped the car's fender, knocking it off the jack and into the bar ditch. Her own car slid backwards into the shallow gully. When it crunched to an abrupt halt, she sat there, arms folded in anger. Almost immediately, someone tapped on her window.

"You all right?" Tinley didn't bother looking up or lowering the window, waiting instead for the man to open the front door. "Are you all right?" he asked again.

"Why the hell were you parked in the middle of the road?"

"I was on the shoulder," he said calmly. "Flat tire."

"You were blocking the road."

"Maybe we should call the cops and see what they say."

Tinley glared at her tall antagonist, bending her neck to see his face through the window. Under different circumstances she might have flirted with the handsome brown-eyed man but now she considered him only as an obstacle in her path. He waited patiently as she removed two business cards and a pen from her purse.

"My name and work number is on the card," she said. "Write yours on the back of one and we'll let our insurance companies settle this."

Putting one of the cards into his shirt pocket, he scribbled something on the other and returned it to her.

"My axle's broken," he said. "Mind giving me a lift to the nearest phone?"

"Call a cab," she said, still angry.

After restarting her engine, Tinley gunned the accelerator. The car refused to budge, its wheels spinning in soft earth. The man watched as she removed her foot from the throttle and slammed her hand against the dashboard in frustration.

Then he said, "I'll push you out of the ditch if you'll give me a ride."

Without answering, Tinley motioned to the rear of the car.

"When I signal, give it a little gas." He bent against the car and pushed. "Now."

Tinley eased down on the throttle. Slowly, the black car crept out of the ditch, not waiting for the stranger to get into the car. Instead, she gunned the engine and attempted to power away, but not before he grabbed the passenger door and jumped in, holding on as she sped away down the access road.

"What's the hurry?"

Tinley whirled in her seat, frowning. "I'm not talking to you."

Nodding, he glanced out the window, smiled and folded his arms as Tinley raced down the road until she reached an up-ramp to the Nimitz Freeway. She floored the throttle, blending, with a surge of power, smoothly into the steady flow of traffic.

"My name's Mark," he said, identifying himself.

Tinley reacted instantly, slamming the brake so violently it sent him crashing against the dash. Almost out of control, she quickly maneuvered the vehicle to a dead stop on the interstate's narrow shoulder as cars sped past, blaring their horns at her.

"I told you I didn't want to talk to you, now get out!" Mark stayed put as she screamed,"Didn't you hear what I said?"

"Forget it," he said. "Take me to the next off-ramp and I'll get out there."

"Get out right now! I mean it."

"At the next exit."

Tinley glared into his stubborn eyes and started the car, plowing back into traffic without looking or lifting her foot from the floorboard. As they continued southward on the lower section of the Nimitz Freeway, the weight of moving vehicles above them produced contrasting motion that surged like an electrical current through the speeding BMW. This, along with waves of reflected light and sound produced by the tunnel-like highway, further confused her anger-distorted perception, leaving her quite unprepared for the event that followed.

Abruptly, and without explanation, the sensation of floating on the lower level of a suspended concrete and steel highway dissolved away, leaving her feeling as if they were moving at high speed on top of a freight train traveling in the opposite direction. Tapping the brake, she allowed a car hanging in her blind spot to accelerate past. As it did, the road buckled in front of them, moving forward in a slow, deadly movement, like the segmented motion of a caterpillar's back.

Reacting to the stress, Tinley's brain produced a surge of adrenaline that caused her to suddenly feel like an unwilling participant in a Fellini nightmare. But it was worse then that. Just ahead, the car that had passed them disappeared through a gaping hole in the highway and giant portions of falling interstate began crashing around them.

Tinley's fingers froze on the wheel. Jamming the brakes against the floor, she closed her eyes and held on as the car spun wildly around, finally sliding backwards into the newly opened precipice. Before plunging to their death, a giant slab of highway crashing against the hood, crushing and pinning the BMW against mangled steel and broken cement, stopped them from doing so. So rapid and violent was the collision, it ripped the front seats loose from their bolts.

Tinley's consciousness disintegrated in the bone-jarring crush and cognizance faded into broken bits of garbled reality as the car hung suspended from the broken highway. She struggled, free-falling through space in a black void. Near panic and unable to scream, she clawed at slime-slick walls. A point of light near the bottom of the pit expanded as she plunged toward it but instead of falling into the pit of hell, she realized she was flying upwards, out of the void and into the blue of the sky.

Struggling to remember where she was, Tinley's right eye opened. Attempting to move, she realized she couldn't and found herself stretched fully along the floor of the car, its steel walls pressed tightly against her. Someone's hand touched her neck and she heard the last hazy word of a broken sentence.

"– are you alive?"

Tinley's body jerked reflexively, but she barely moved, wedged within the crushed vehicle as the hand continued to probe her neck and face.

"Stop it! Quit touching me."

"Sorry," the voice said. "I was trying to see if you were alive."

"Get away from me," she said, trying to wrench free.

"I can't. We're both stuck.

Reacting with a fit of temper, Tinley screamed and twisted violently, trying to loosen herself from the man's grasp and the car's steel embrace. Quickly overcome by her futile efforts, she tearfully realized he had spoken the truth. They were trapped inside the crushed vehicle.

Again the man put his hand on her shoulder. "It's all right. Someone will come for us."

"You bastard," she said, spitting the words. "If it weren't for you, I'd be in Oakland now."

"I'm sorry but the accident wasn't my fault."

Tinley jerked her shoulder, trying to free it from his grasp, cracking her forehead against the crushed roof in the process. Finally, she lay shaking on the floor of the car.

"What happened?" she asked. "Why did the road collapse?"

"An earthquake. A big one," he said. "You're probably better off here than in Oakland."

"You bastard!"

He put his hand back on her shoulder. "We're stuck in here so you may as well relax until someone rescues us."

"Get your hands off me," she said, voice low and filled with ire. "You caused this and I hate you."

"I didn't and there's nothing either of us can do about it now anyway."

"I don't care. Quit touching me."

Tinley felt him try to move. In a moment he said, "I'm doing my best but we're crammed in here like sardines."

His comment made Tinley laugh. Waiting until her last chuckle faded into a whimper, he said, "Not very funny, is it?"

"It's ridiculous. Really ridiculous."

"Do you think you broke anything?"

"Just my rear-end," she said.

They laughed again but his next question sobered them both. "Can you move at all?"

"My foot's caught beneath the brake pedal."

"The seat's broken. It moves when I wiggle my legs."

"So?"

"The impact crushed the rear window around the two front bucket seats. If I can work one of them loose, I can crawl out behind it and get help," he said.

"What time is it?"

"Why?"

"I'm supposed to meet someone at five," she said.

Once again, tears came to her eyes. Ripping fabric shredded the silence and rough cloth swabbed her forehead.

"What are you doing?" she asked, trying to pull away.

"You're bleeding."

Tinley suddenly felt faint. Glancing down at her blouse, she saw the growing red stain, conveying the sickening message that perhaps she'd gone through the windshield.

"I'm bleeding, and not just my head," she said.

"Where?"

"My chest and arms."

"I'm going to put my hand under your blouse," he said.

"The cuts are probably superficial, but we need to find out."

"No --"

Paying no attention to her weak protest, he gently loosened her blouse and ran his hand from her stomach to her neck.

"You're pretty cut-up," he said. "But I don't think it's serious. What about your legs?"

"They're okay. My foot hurts," Tinley answered.

"The nastiest cut is just below your breast. Can you hold the bandage against it until the bleeding stops?"

She nodded and grasped the wadded cloth, touching his hand. "My foot's numb," she said.

"I'll kick off my shoe and try to feel it with my toes."

Mark traced his socked foot down her leg, probing for her trapped appendage. As he strained to the task, he said, "We got off to a bad start back there. Think we can try again?"

"I'm Tinley," she said weakly.

"Mark," he said. "Your foot's bleeding, Tinley. You may have cut a vein. We need to do something. Maybe I can stop the bleeding if I use your blouse to press against your foot."

Mark pulled at her collar until it began to rip. Quickly, he tore away the back of her blouse and she felt the heat of his body against her own bare neck and shoulders. He worked the cloth down between them until he was able to grasp it with his toes. With a nurse's expert touch he pressed his own foot against her wound.

Finally he was still. "Who were you meeting in Oakland?"

"Ted, my boyfriend," she said.

"You're not married?"

"No," she said. "Why did you think that?"

"I don't know. I just thought --"

"Thought what?"

"That you're very young to own such an expensive car."

"You're a chauvinist," she snapped.

"Saying you look young isn't chauvinistic," he said.

"Ted gives me things. He's married. You disapprove?"

"What difference does it make?"

Before she could answer, the car lurched and slipped further off the ledge and the plane of the floor shifted from horizontal to near-vertical. Tinley's weight eased back against the shirtless Mark and for a nervous moment she thought they would drop from the hole in the highway to the ground below.

"I'm scared."

"So am I," he said.

They lay clutched together for what seemed an eternity without talking. Tinley, weakened from loss of blood, found it increasingly harder to move, even a little. Their shifting weight would cause the car to slip and each time it did she closed her eyes and whispered a prayer.

"When will they come for us?"

"I don't know," he said. "Must have been a giant quake. They'll get here when they can."

Tinley began to cry. "I don't want to die."

"We're not going to die," he said.

Another downward movement of the crushed car punctuated his words. "The car's hanging by a thread. You can feel it and so can I," she said.

Mark changed the subject. "Why do you date a married man?" Tinley hesitated before answering. "He's strong."

Mark massaged her neck. "Is that so important?"

"I don't know," she said, still crying.

"I'm sorry."

"Not your fault. When I was a little girl I promised myself I'd never love a man that couldn't take care of me. Dad stayed with the same company as a clerk for thirty years. He was Japanese. I went to an upper crust school with none of the amenities of my rich classmates, always sensing their racial slurs and innuendos. I swore I'd never love a weak man and I guess the lesson took."

Another rattling pitch rocked the vehicle, edging it closer to a vertical position, their every movement causing the crushed prison to inch closer to the precipice.

"I've almost worked the edge of the seat through the window," Mark said. "If I can push it loose, I can wriggle out and go for help." His words brought a stream of silent tears from Tinley and he said, "What's the matter?"

"You're leaving me to die."

"No," he said. "Just for help."

Tears rolled down her face and Mark put his arms around her, holding her until she dozed into fitful, swaying sleep. When she awoke, Mark was still holding her, massaging her neck. A cool breeze blew through the back window.

"You worked the seat loose," she said.

"Yes."

"Can you get out?"

"I haven't tried. I'm staying with you."

"No. Forget what I said. Go for help."

"I thought about it and I'm staying. Your foot's still bleeding. You could bleed to death if I leave."

"If you don't we'll both die anyway."

"I'm staying," he said.

Tinley shut her eyes, eased her hand down her side and unzipped her skirt. Slowly, she slipped the dress and hose down her legs, grabbed Mark's hand and guided it.

"Make love to me," she said.

Mark drew back his hand. "We are hanging here by a thread."

"Maybe it's better to die making love than live in constant fear of death," she said.

"I won’t do it."

"Why not?"

Because it's okay to die for love, but not from making love."

"Then you have to go now," Tinley said.

"Too late. The car's too close to the edge. If either of us move, I think it will fall. Please take this. I want you to have it."

Mark showed her a single rose, slightly crushed. "I brought it from my Mother’s funeral."

"They buried your mother today?"

"Yes."

"Oh God, Mark, I don't want either of us to die."

"We aren’t. My mother is with us, and your father. I can feel them. There's four of us here and despite your dad's other failings, he gave you a fighting spirit. They won't let us die."

She began crying softly, torn between contradictory emotions. Then, like a tinny voice coming from a cheap radio, a voice spoke from outside the car.

"Hello. Anyone in there?"

They both shouted, "Yes! Please help us."

Someone touched the car and shook it precariously.

"Dammit," he said. His voice melded into the darkness,

leaving them alone again.

Another hour passed before a mechanical metal-ripper tore at the car, causing it to sway like a pendulum. The Bimmer began to slip, minutely at first. Then, with a sudden metallic lurch, it plunged downward, into the abyss and Tinley's muted scream faded as she sank into black incognizance, weak from loss of blood.

. . .

When Tinley regained consciousness, she found herself in the back of an ambulance, a paramedic holding a damp wash cloth against her forehead.

"Where's Mark?"

"If you mean the young man that was with you, he's already at the hospital," the man said. "He asked me to give you this." He slipped a crushed rose into her hand. "He said not to worry. He'd find you soon as they release him.

"Is he hurt badly?"

"We had to cut him loose with a torch."

Tinley closed her eyes and her voice trailed away.  "I prayed we wouldn't fall." Her words brought an instant reaction to the man and she asked, "Why are you smiling?"

"I guess it's no joke to you but the car was only hanging about a foot off the ground," he explained.

Tinley's face flushed. Relaxing against the pillow, she smiled, feeling foolish, but suddenly very wise.