The Aftermath by Matayo Amy

Author:Matayo, Amy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Romance
Publisher: SYG Productions
Published: 2019-09-11T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 10

Chad

I’ve been helping with this search for nearly an hour now. To say it’s depressing is an understatement, even coming from a guy who sometimes wears depression like a high school letterman’s sweater earned from a sport he hated to play. In my case, that was wrestling. I wasn’t tall enough for basketball. My coach and my dad made that clear.

A long-dormant seed of bitterness sprouts a tiny green stem, but I squash it with my thumb. There. Dead. This isn’t the time for thinking about anything except what’s happening in front of me right now. Certainly not bad memories that reflect entirely on me.

I take a deep breath and concentrate on listening, observing, looking for anything that might be a sign of…something. The man in charge said to pay attention, so I’m paying attention. To what, I’m still unsure. But I tell myself I’ll know it when I see it.

Speaking of seeing, in all my life, I’ve never seen cars piled one on top of another like discarded accordions whose music long quit playing. For an insurance adjuster who has witnessed nearly every unusual thing the world has to offer where natural disasters are concerned, this is new. The sight makes me question all I’ve ever known about tragedy and survival. In any other circumstance, I would call this place hopeless and beyond repair.

I’m walking along a concrete barrier with mangled cars piled on one side and bricks and debris on the other, and that’s when I hear it. A moan is coming from somewhere below me. Right here, this moment. This is when survival becomes something we do at all costs, despite the overwhelming odds against it. The human spirit does not just give up, not without a fight. That reality is coming right at me with both fists, squeezing so hard I can barely breathe.

“There’s something over here!” I shout at anyone and everyone, my adrenaline surging to heights it’s never reached before. Not even when I ran my first Nashville marathon three years ago, not even when I received the news they found my brother and his now-fiancée still alive after five days of being lost at sea. “Someone come help! I hear somebody! Get a paramedic!”

Without thinking about anything but reaching the sound, I begin clawing my way downward, ripping debris away by the fistful and shoving it to the side. A rearview mirror. Part of a bumper. A broken window. Another moan comes from deep within the rubble, faint but it’s there. A fellow volunteer—a man dressed in overalls, wearing a surgical mask—rushes to my side. I should have worn a mask too; there’s no doubt my lungs are currently filled with dust and only God knows what else.

“Did you hear that?”

“I did. Be careful not to step in the wrong spot. Here, let me help you lift this.” He bends to grasp the side of a car door and waits for me to grip the other side. There’s a mangled tire on top, along with a piece of windshield, and the whole thing is heavy.

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