The Road Home: Chapter 1–Part 2

The Road Home - Chapter One Part 2

By Franke Schein

Copyright 2012 Franke Schein

All Rights Reserved

 

Chapter One Part 1 Can be Found Here: http://frankeschein.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-road-home-chapter-1.html#!/2012/09/the-road-home-chapter-1.html

Manhattan, New York

The earth shook with an unimaginable intensity; collapsing even the most strongest and well-built structures. Immense skyscrapers, a monument to mankind’s engineering, toppled in just seconds. Never before in recorded history had the world witnessed firsthand the devastating effects of a 17 point earthquake. But not just one single quake, hundreds of quakes per hour. Their rumblings and shaking merging together to create a never ending roar which drowned out all other sounds.

Sounds such as the screaming of those injured, the death cries as victims met their fate, and the groan of buildings collapsing under the extreme shaking, ripping everything apart.

All across the great city, earthquake swarms destroyed in mere seconds, that which man had built throughout the generations. Bridges, roads, tunnels; none were spared from the massive mega-earthquakes. Fires quickly spread as gas mains erupted under the streets; adding to the cacophony of destruction came the giant toxic gas clouds as chemical plants exploded, to spew their deadly compounds into the already noxious air.

The quakes lasted but a mere forty two minutes; but in its wake of destruction, little remained that resembled The Big Apple. Debris litter every road. Not one single bridge or over-head walkway remained upright. Street lights slewed across cars, crushed people lay all about the streets. Roaring fires dominated the landscape, and the wind carried the stench of death out across the swelling seas.

Those survivors who managed to keep alive, were stunned to hear the fury of the wind increasing to a howling roar. Wind rushing out from across the ocean blasted headlong into the once sprawling city. Increasing in intensity, the wind storm reached its peak at 350 miles per hour. Hurdling shards of glass, steel, concrete, and even mangled cars against the already battered survivors.

Bethany Wills screamed in utter fear. She’d barely managed to escape the tenement house as the earthquakes tore the neighborhood apart piece by piece. Behind her, the mangled remains of her parents and brothers remained under the massive rubble pile that had been her childhood home. She didn’t even have time to cry, before the mega-hurricane force winds assailed everything in its path.

Barley managing to crawl into a drainage tunnel, she heard the screams as the furious wind plucked injured victims right off the street, smashing them against rubble piles. Their screams quickly drown out by the vulgar roar of the horrendous wind.

Covering her ears with both hands, she screamed in sheer fear. Her right shoe sucked right off her foot, threatening to jerk her out of the small cramped drainage tunnel. She willed herself to crawl on her belly, deeper into the surrounding darkness. Her hands and knees bleeding from the many cuts; but her fear urging her deeper into the labyrinth of claustrophobic darkness.

The mega-hurricane winds blasted itself for several hours against the remains of the largest and most populated city in the world. Millions had perished in less than one hour; and as the fierce winds subsided; the smell of salt air arose. The tiniest trickle of water against the heaps of rubble, soon turned into a torrent as water quickly inundated across the now dead city of New York.