His radio crackled. “Gerry, I swear to god, if you don’t get your ass down here pronto I’m leaving you up there all night. Do you have any idea what time it is? Becki will have my skin!”
Gerry sighed. It had been a long shift, and it wasn’t his fault that the weather had slowed everything down. It was him up here, after all, while that idiot Jack was in the warmth of the portacabin, two hundred feet below.
He lowered the crane’s hook, setting it back into its resting position. With a weary sigh he flicked everything to neutral, switched off the controls and started to pack up his belongings. Heater off, thermos in his backpack, keys removed. Jack had kept him up far longer than had been scheduled, and the fatigue was real.
His radio crackled again. “Gerry, I’m not fucking around anymore. The winds are picking up. Get your ass down here right fucking now, and… mind your way.” Jack sounded concerned. Probably because he knew how close he’d cut it with the weather they were expecting, but nevertheless Gerry picked up his pace.
There was a blast of cold air as he opened the cab. He shivered as he eyed the long ladder beneath him. Heights had never bothered him, but… ladders in the rain and the wind? No sane person thought that was a good time. He clipped on his harness and began the uncomfortable descent.
Gerry was a third of the way down before he remembered. Fuck! I am way too damn tired. He wrapped an arm around a rung and reached for his radio. “Boss? Could you eyeball the boom? I forgot to double-check the locks.”
His radio crackled in reply. “Did you park it up, Gerry?” Not the affirmative he was looking for. He sighed.
“Yeah, I parked it. But I forgot to check the safety on the lock. Can you see it from where you are?”
“For fuck’s sake, Gerry, get your ass down here. The weather is getting worse and I want to go home!”
Another sigh. Jack couldn’t be bothered to get out of his warm portacabin and walk around to look at the boom: all of one minute. Fine. “Gonna go back up and check the safeties, boss.”
“That’ll take you…! Okay, okay. I’ll check.” The radio went quiet for a few seconds, before crackling again. “It’s parked, okay? Now if you’re not down here in ten minutes, you’ll be working a double shift this weekend.”
What an asshole. Gerry shook his head and continued his climb down.
*
Vicki kicked open the door of her apartment, a rain-soaked, brown paper bag heavy with groceries clutched delicately in both arms. She leant back long enough to pull her keys from the lock, carefully balancing the bag on her chest with one arm supporting it from below.
She nursed the wet bag into the kitchen, anxious to set it down before it split and spilled three days’ worth of food over her floor. The door swung shut behind her with the reassuring sound of the latch engaging as Vicki staggered to the counter, depositing the bag with a sigh of relief.
She slipped her work daypack from her back, lowering it carefully to the floor – it wouldn’t be good to bounce her laptop. The bag was drenched, but she knew it was waterproof; it could wait a little longer. She pulled off her coat, leaving it on the back of the kitchen chair to drip-dry. She’d mop it up later. Her long, wet hair immediately soaked the back of her sweater, but that didn’t matter as the rain had already leaked through. Some food, and a shower… maybe not in that order. She shivered; it was too cold to have wet hair and damp clothes. A hot shower was exactly what she needed.
Vicki picked up the TV remote and flicked on the news channel, letting the noise wash over her as she considered her day.
“…one of eight passengers aboard a plane that reportedly crashed on Wednesday…”
She’d finished her project three days ahead of schedule and her manager had gratefully given her the rest of the afternoon off. It was a pleasant surprise and a helpful sign of his approval, especially when her quarterly appraisal was the following Tuesday. She pulled her sweater off, draping it on the chair nearby.
“…the Russian Aviation Authority has confirmed…”
She could really do with a raise. She’d worked damn hard these last two years, and maybe showing what she’d done in her project would be the incentive her manager needed to agree.
“…Reuters reports. More on our main story later.”
Her blouse was next, button by button, and she made her way through to the bedroom. Perhaps, with a raise, she could start to save enough for a deposit and finally get out of this shitty apartment. Maybe move into a place where they’d actually repair things occasionally.
“…update on the weather conditions we can expect this evening and on into the night…”
She slipped the blouse off her shoulders, tossing it into her hamper before heading into her bathroom to turn the shower on full. It always took a moment to warm up. Returning to her bedroom Vicki unbuttoned her jeans, just as the weather reporter said something that caught her attention.
“…and it’s evident that we’re in for a bit of a wild ride…”
Chance would be a fine thing, she thought as she heard the TV. She pushed down her jeans. When was the last time she’d had a wild ride? It had been too long… longer than she cared to remember.
“…significant low-pressure systems moving in from the west, bringing more torrential rain and a surge of strong winds…”
Yeah, she’d noticed the torrential rain, but thanks for the heads-up. Shower, food, relax for a bit, bed. She stepped free of her jeans and pulled off her bra, panties and socks, throwing them all in the hamper, and padded naked into the bathroom and her hot shower.
Behind her, the TV droned on.
“…picking up speed throughout the night, potentially reaching gusts of up to sixty miles per hour…”
*
“Fuck me, Gerry, you know we’re not allowed to run it in the dark!”
Gerry glanced casually out of the portacabin window. It was technically twilight, so they were okay on that point. And still it was barely 5:20pm. He’d been down by five, and it had been Jack that had kept him up there, the hypocrite. Now he was venting.
“I’m outta here, Gerry.” Jack was pulling on his coat, zipping it up. “If I have to tell those guys one more time…”
Gerry tuned out Jack’s complaining; he’d heard it all before. They hadn’t broken the rules about operating in the dark, and besides, the wind was a far worse problem. As if to emphasise the point the windows of the portacabin shook fiercely, and rain pummelled the roof. Gerry glanced out of the window again. If he’d still been up there in this…
Outside there were shouts. At first, Gerry wasn’t sure what he’d heard over Jack’s continued bitching and the howl of the wind outside, then his brow furrowed.
“Did you hear that?” he asked, interrupting Jack’s complaining, his usually calm tone carrying an edge of urgency.
“What?” asked Jack, stopping to listen. The portacabin windows shook again, the rain adding a rapid staccato. “You mean the wind? Fierce, eh?”
“I thought I heard someone yell,” Gerry said, putting down his coffee and making his way to the cabin door.
“Well I’m off, so you deal with their beef, okay?”
A sound unlike any Gerry had ever heard screeched through the night, yet he knew instinctively what it signified and for a moment his hand froze in shock on the handle. Then he’d ripped it open, racing outside. Above him the boom whistled through the air, the steel cable whipsawing and twisting.
“…No…!” Gerry could only watch in anguish as the hook whipped past, and he knew the doom this could spell. A moment later it smashed through the wall of the foundation core they’d finished just last week. The hook snagged, the boom lashing back and forth like an angry cat’s tail. “You lying cunt!” he turned to yell at Jack. “You said you’d checked it!” Gerry ran down the ramp, heading for the ladder to the crane. It would take him at least twenty minutes to climb back up, and there was no guarantee he could regain control even once he was there.
“I…” behind him Jack could only stare, his eyes wide with fear.
The hook was well-caught, Gerry realised. Perhaps that would buy him some time… but the boom was still thrashing in the wind, and suddenly the air was filled with the sound of screeching metal. Whatever had caused the chain of events Gerry wouldn’t know until the accident report weeks later, but that didn’t stop it all playing out before him.
The momentum of the boom combined with the abrupt pull of the snagged hook destabilised the crane. That had been enough for the wind to take advantage, and the crane had begun to rock in its foundation. In theory the anchors should have supported it still, but one had an undiscovered fault in its chain that first stretched then snapped with the torque of the shifting weight. The crane’s foundations should’ve prevented that from happening, but while the foundations were solid the ground beneath had become water-logged, providing just enough give to allow for movement – and in winds this strong, that was all it took. With the added mechanical forces from the flailing boom the stability was compromised in mere seconds, and the merciless wind took gleeful advantage.
Gerry could only watch as the crane began to topple, seeming to fall so very slowly, until gravity took a hold and it came crashing down.
270,000 pounds of steel fell against an adjacent apartment block and to Gerry’s surprise it all but bounced off. But the shock caused the mast of the crane to warp, applying torque to the momentum of the falling counterweight, and it swung round like a giant’s fist and smashed into the same building. By sheer dumb luck and the randomness of all the contributing factors, the counterweight seemed to scrape through the outermost wall, shredding it in the process, but blessedly failing to penetrate into the apartments within. Through the rain, wind and darkness, Gerry could see into the apartments as the wall was stripped away, fleeting images assailing his mind that would remain with him forever: a family cowering in each other’s arms, staring out at the devastation around them; a man seated at a table, stunned into immovability as he was revealed to the world; two women screaming as blocks of concrete fell about them.
For a long moment he could only stand and stare, paralysed by the responsibility and guilt that threatened to crush him.
It was several minutes before the sirens started, one after another after another, until even the rain and wind fell quiet before them.
*
Vicki huddled in the bottom of her shower cubicle, her arms wrapped around her head as about her the world slowly stopped shaking.
Her breath was coming in gasps, her eyes wide with fear in the darkness. The lights had gone out, but the shower was still on. Yeah, silver linings - an absurd thought in the face of calamity.
There was a cold gust of wind and she peeked from under one arm. Part of the bathroom wall had collapsed in rubble, and the door had been smashed open by falling debris. It blocked the lower half of the doorway, but over it she could see dense, dark clouds, illuminated from below by the lights of the city.
The wall! Where the fuck is the wall?!
Wind was whistling through the space that had once been her bedroom.
The lights flickered on again, enough to show the ruins of her apartment and the steel girder blocking the door to her bathroom, before the bulbs inset in her ceiling all blew as one, and darkness descended once more.
Vicki bit back a scream, pressing herself into the corner of the shower.
The lights… she thought. To blow so violently there had to be an electrical exposure somewhere, and she was sitting in water. Everyone knew water and electricity didn’t mix. Should she move, and risk encountering a live cable dangling somewhere in the dark? Or stay where she was, waiting for the water to seep across the floor, eventually encountering the electricity that would shoot back through the liquid and straight into her? Both options were terrifying.
She drew her knees up under her chin, trembling, and sat in the darkness.
Above her, the shower sprayed on.
*
“Got it.” Dave had been on the radio with the Incident Commander. “Amar, how far out are we?”
“Two minutes, Cap.”
“Alright. Listen up, lads, we’re on Rescue. There’s four companies already on site. IC says fires were minimal and largely under control, and evacuation is the major task. Casualties seem blessedly light so far – it’s our job to keep them that way.” A murmur of assent met this comment. “They’re already working through the inside of the building so we’ve been tasked with going in the external opening.”
“What does that mean, Cap?” Amar asked.
“I guess we’ll find out in a few seconds, won’t we?”
They pulled around the last corner and there were strobes and people everywhere. In addition to the four appliances on scene there were countless cop cars and ambulances. Joe, their chauffeur, slowed right down and edged through, leaning on his horn for emphasis where needed. It never ceased to amaze how many people didn’t move when a fire truck was bearing down on them.
They were waved to a space before the building, on the end of the line of appliances already in position.
“Holy fuck…!” Michael stepped out of the cab, gazing up at the remnants of the eight-storey apartment block. The first five floors remained intact, virtually unscathed. However, where the sixth and seventh floors once stood, a gaping wound marred the building's side. Above, the top floor projected out precariously, resembling a grim balcony, its edge slightly sagging to partially bridge the void below.
“Snap to, lads!” said Dave, “Mike, on the ladder. Amar, you’re supporting. Joe and Miguel, join the crews working inside. Steve…”
Michael turned to jog to the rear of the fire truck, Amar heading back into the cab to deploy the outriggers. They had been twenty minutes away when the alarm went out, and the road in each direction was a swarm of activity indicative of how much had already been done.
Around him other emergency vehicles were still pulling up, uniformed men and women everywhere, a web of hoses across the asphalt, a constant stream of red, white, blue and yellow strobes illuminating the scene, the lights reflecting off the wet road.
On the ground, not far from where they had pulled up, Michael saw the smashed remains of the crane. The counterweight had fallen partly across a pickup truck and a cab – both vehicles now crumpled wrecks – while the frame itself lay across the road and pointed back toward the building site like an accusing finger. Police vehicles marked the end of the cordoned area, with several officers holding back the crowds that had gathered despite the weather. As he watched, an ambulance left, edging forward, the crowd reluctantly parting to make way.
From the radio chatter they’d understood the casualties so far had been light – which was nothing short of a miracle. But the incident had happened at the end of the working day and many folk hadn’t yet arrived back home. The apartment block had been largely empty.
It was Michael’s job to get up the building and help ensure that ‘largely empty’ became ‘completely empty’, and any survivors still trapped there didn’t become a statistic.
The rain had lessened, thank god, but what there was still came in horizontally, blown by winds harder than he could remember. Ladders in the rain and the wind? No sane person thought that was a good time.
His radio crackled. “Ready here, Mike,” Amar’s voice came through.
“Mike,” Dave was behind him, looking grim, his voice raised to fight the noise of the wind and rain and the commotion around them. “Update from the Incident Commander. Most of the building has been evacuated right now. Almost everyone who can walk is out. But we’ve got a problem - we can’t shut the gas off into the building. Access to the main valve in the basement is buried under rubble. They’re trying to reach the utility company.”
“How long?” Michael asked.
“At least fifteen minutes.” He scowled, clearly thinking the same thing Michael was: incompetence. “The risk of explosions is high. We need to get anyone who is left in there out right fucking now. The other guys are on evacuation internally, but there’s no guarantee they’ll have access to the damaged apartments. Get up there in the cherry picker and check no one has been left behind.”
“On it, Captain.”
He clambered up into the aerial tower ladder basket, his breathing gear and fire-resistant Kevlar suit a hindrance, but a familiar weight. It took but a moment to position himself, clip on his harness and affix the mask of his Self-Contained Breathing Apparatus (SCBA). Michael thumbed the radio on his shoulder. “Go, Amar.”
Slowly the ladder extended, rising up like a sea snake from the ocean bed, and Michael gripped the rail of the basket as the wind whipped around him. It took but a minute to raise the platform up to a gap on the seventh floor. He swivelled the spotlight mounted on the basket, its strong beam quickly cutting through the gloom. Against the far wall was a kitchen, or what was left of it, while immediately before him were the smashed remnants of the floor that had been ripped away.
Again he pressed the button on his radio. “Going in.”
He unclipped his harness, pushing open the gate to the basket and dropped down into the apartment. Profound darkness pervaded, and the strobe lights below hindered more than helped, making the shadows appear to flicker and bounce. Michael pulled out his torch, directing the powerful beam to the gloomy areas not illuminated by the basket’s spotlight.
The beam of his flashlight found the door to the apartment. Immediately inside the kitchen sat a backpack, balanced precariously on the edge of the hole in the floor. His torch picked up a bag of groceries sat on one surface, oblivious to the carnage around it, untouched, undamaged. An incongruous image.
Someone had been here, but they weren’t here now. Nearly everyone evacuating out through the apartment door would’ve taken the backpack with them… and they hadn’t. The implication was grim.
“Hello? Anyone in here?” His voice was muffled by the mask and he had to shout over the wind.
No response, but that meant nothing – they could simply not be able to respond. He moved carefully through the apartment, each step deliberate and slow, checking first for hazards or instability.
“Search and Rescue. Make a noise if you can hear me.” Michael swivelled his torch around, trying to make sense of the apartment layout. It was a lot harder when every surface was covered in rubble and brick-dust. His flashlight explored every corner and crevice where someone might cower, and there were no significant piles of debris beneath which a victim could be lying unconscious. He thumbed his radio, “Nothing here. Getting back in the bucket.”
He had one hand on the basket when the explosion went off, a mere two rooms along from where he was standing. The building shook and he was thrown against the ladder, one leg swinging out over the seventy-foot drop, his body twisting around with the momentum of it and crashing back in again. He grunted at the impact, grasping at the basket rail and hooking his arm around it. “Ow.”
“Mike! Mike! Come in!”
His knee smacked painfully against the platform but he was able to scrabble for purchase, even as the material of his jacket slipped against the rail. He dropped the torch, freeing his hand, the wrist-strap causing it to dangle loose and clang against the basket, but it allowed him to grab a hold and pull himself in on his knees. It took a moment to steady his breathing, another to fumble for the ring of his harness and hook himself on.
His radio crackled again, “Mike, come in!”
He thumbed the button, gasping a response, “I’m okay, I’m okay.”
“Gas explosion. Be careful up there, bro.”
Yeah, no shit. “Roger. This room is clear, Amar. I’m going to move to the next… away from that explosion.”
“Roger.”
The ladder pulled slowly and smoothly back, the wind whipping around him. He swivelled it slightly and directed the basket forward again, the entry here wider, the access easier. Once more Michael’s torch cut through the shadows, illuminating the devastation. Most of the floor was warped, bent steel cables and smashed rubble tilting precariously toward the ground far below. A few feet of the twisted remnants of the floor jutted from the wall ahead, offering a natural target.
To his right, the destruction seemed to abruptly end, and beyond the apartment block continued on unblemished. The angle of the scrape through the room suggested where the counterweight had pulled free and dropped to the ground. He thumbed his radio. “Amar, this is the last room on this floor, right?”
“Affirmative.”
There was just one problem. He thumbed the mic button again. “Amar, access is within the building. I say again, basket will need to go in under that overhang.”
His radio crackled a response. “Er… negative Mike, need to confirm with Dave before you take the basket within the building.”
“We don’t have time here, Amar. We could get an explosion at any moment. We need to get people out. Beg forgiveness don’t ask for permission – I’m going in.”
There was a delay, then: “Acknowledged, you stubborn bastard.”
He aimed the basket towards the protruding floor. If this was the same apartment as the room he’d just checked, then he knew it had been recently occupied. It was difficult to be sure where one apartment ended and the next began when all the walls had been stripped away, but this made sense. The previous rooms had been kitchen and (probably) living area, which would make this one the bedroom. The bed was clearly gone, the floor on which it sat a twisted, sloping mess beneath his platform. A large steel girder had smashed through the door and into the room beyond. Second bedroom, perhaps? Walk-in closet? It was the only option left; there wasn’t enough floor out here to support a place for anyone to hide in.
If whomever had come home wasn’t in there, then… well, he’d know soon enough.
At least the gaping hole made it easy to get the platform into position. He found he could manoeuvre it almost all the way in, the floor below now a simple step down. The wind cut considerably as soon as the basket was inside the building, which was an added benefit.
He reached up to his radio. “Going in.”
“Hello?” The voice was small, he almost didn’t hear it, but it came again, louder. “Hello! Hello?!”
Thank fuck for that, they were alive – or she was alive; the voice was definitely feminine.
