The Journal: Fault Line (The Journal Book 5) Read Online Free Page A

on the front seat and set her purse on the floor. A dog
howling in the distance caught her attention. The dog sounded
pathetic, like maybe it was hurt. Christine stuck one bottle of
water in her jacket pocket and locked the car. She stood with her
eyes closed, trying to get a direction on the dog. A half block
later, she stopped again and finally got a bead on the barking.
    Rounding the corner, she had to step over
several piles of bricks that had fallen from the nearby buildings,
then spotted the dog. A beautiful golden retriever was sitting atop
a large pile of wreckage.
    “Well, hi there,” Christine said softly to
the dog, edging closer. She loved animals, sometimes more than
people, and they were usually better behaved too. The dog stood and
wagged its tail. Concrete dust billowed in the air from the sweep
of the friendly wag. She saw the leash attached to the collar, the
other end buried in the mass of bricks and broken glass.
    “Oh, you poor thing. Are you trapped?” The
dog whined and lay down, panting hard. Christine reached in her
pocket for the bottle of water, cupped one hand and poured,
offering it to the dog, which lapped eagerly. She poured more, and
kept pouring until the dog stopped drinking and stretched to lick
her face. It turned and pawed at the bricks.
    “Let’s get you out of here.” Christine
started pulling bricks away and tossing them aside. As more and
more of the leash was exposed, she wondered how the dog got loose.
After moving a few pieces of window frame, a hand was exposed,
causing Christine to jerk back. It was small and delicate, a rich
chocolate brown, and very feminine. She gently removed the leash
strap from around the hand, and the fingers moved, startling her
and she fell backward. The fingers moved again, searching.
Christine inched forward and took the hand in hers. The fingers
clenched tightly around Christine’s with a strength that surprised
her. She squeezed the hand back to reassure the person under the
fallen building then turned to the waiting canine.
    “Come here, girl.” The dog belly crawled
forward, and then licked the fingers. The hand stretched upward and
the dog nuzzled the palm. Christine pressed forward and patted the
hand again. She continued her chore of removing bricks with renewed
vigor, flinging the bricks at a frantic pace until she heard
voices.
    “Help! Help me!” she called out, without
looking around to see where the voices were coming from.
     
    ***
     
    Joey Martin and his buddy Jake Alsteen were
on their way home from basketball practice at the YMCA when the
quake hit. Jake had been hit with a falling flagpole and suffered a
deep cut across his scalp that wouldn’t stop bleeding.
    “We need to get home so Katie can look at
that cut,” Joey said after he helped his friend up.
    “It ain’t that bad,” Jake protested, wiping
the blood that ran down his cheek. “That was really something,
wasn’t it? I read in school about us being really close to the New
Madrid Fault, and how much damage it caused back in 1811. Do you
think that’s what happened, Joey? That after two hundred years the
fault line moved again?”
    “Maybe. What I do know is we need to get
home, get Katie and Holly, and get the hell out of here!” They
skirted wrecked cars with alarms blaring, avoided fires that seemed
to be burning thin air, and saw people staggering away.
    As they got closer to the apartment building
where they lived, they heard a voice frantically calling for help.
Joey stopped short when he saw Christine.
    Jake stopped too and looked at Joey. “What’s
the matter, Joey?”
    “She’s white.”
    “So what? She needs help.” Jake slapped
Joey’s shoulder with his big brown hand and kept moving. Joey
reluctantly followed.
     
    ***
     
    Christine saw the two black young men
approach her and swallowed her nervousness. “Someone is buried
here! Please help me,” she pleaded, still pulling at the bricks and
tossing them aside.
    Joey saw the dog.