Forever Friday (29 page)

Not tonight. Where other couples their age had selfishly drifted apart, they’d grown closer over the years, working hard to avoid the effects of The Long Division. Thanks to forgiveness and their continued desire for romance, they still treasured the time they spent alone together. “Two hearts commanding devotion,” she whispered, then kissed him again.

“Wow,” Gabe said. “I never knew you could be this …”

“Brave?” Huck laughed. “Want to see how brave?”

The DJ’s melodic voice carried softly into the night. “And now for all you married couples out there, here’s a number that will strum the heartstrings. New on this week’s hit parade by Mr. Al Jolson: ‘The Anniversary Song.’ ”

“It’s ‘Waves of the Danube,’ ” Huck cried. “From our wedding night. Only now there’s words.”

“Darn that Jolson.” Gabe sat up. “This had better be good.”

“Shh! I can’t hear.” She ran to Blue Norther and upped the volume as Al Jolson crooned. When the song ended, Huck switched off the radio and returned to the swing. “I can’t believe our music has words.” She kissed him a third time, more deeply than ever.

“My own beautiful moonlight serenade,” Gabe whispered as she dove into his arms.

With a loud snap, the swing fell to the ground.

They burst out laughing.

A light upstairs switched on.

“Oh no!” Huck screamed. “We’re not alone.”

“Who’s down there?” A gruff voice sounded as if it was directly above them, followed by a clomp of loud footsteps.

“Quick, I’ll grab my coat and shoes. You run for the car!” The instant Gabe stood, the button on his trousers popped and they slid down around his ankles.

“My shoe! Gabe, I’ve lost my other shoe!”

“This is no time to play Cinderella. Leave it for Prince Charming up there!”

Huck reached the safety of the car first as a flashlight beam shot through the darkness. She glanced back at Gabe. With arms full and britches still hugging both ankles, he moved like a panicked penguin. She laughed hysterically.

“Scoot over behind the wheel and drive,” Gabe commanded, still ten feet from the car. “Start the engine!”

Without bothering to stop, he tumbled headfirst over the passenger’s door. Catching his middle on the rubber window molding, his drawers pointed skyward like a white beacon.

“Sex-crazed hooligans!” the gruff voice shouted. “How ’bout I fill your butts full of rock salt!”

The engine roared to life and Huck tromped the accelerator, leaving the so-called Prince Charming with nothing but her missing shoe.

The next morning, Huck and Gabe kissed good-bye at the lobby elevator. “I’ll see you tonight,” he said, then winked, before walking out the heavy front door for his nine a.m. meeting in Texas City.

“Going up?” the elevator operator said.

“Top floor, please.”

As the elevator crept upward, Huck mentally replayed the events of the previous night, now a little shocked at her own boldness. Revisiting some of the haunts from their first date had made her realize all over again how much she loved Gabe. Sometimes, she felt as though she couldn’t care for him any more deeply, but with each passing day, her love continued to grow.

As the elevator door opened, Huck had an idea. Instead of grading term papers, she’d do a little shopping. Close to the wharves in an area locals called “The Strand,” she’d noticed a women’s boutique that advertised silk negligees from Paris. Since last night had turned out differently than planned, she’d play it safe and surprise Gabe with a little something that evening in their own hotel room.

An hour later, Huck stepped out of a cab and joined the eager bustle
of Galveston’s historic commercial district. She checked her watch. Nine o’clock sharp. But instead of business as usual, people were stopped along the sidewalk, entranced by a giant orange smoke plume rising across the bay at Texas City.

Huck started to ask about the beautiful color when the plume suddenly exploded, mushrooming into a thick black cloud. The sidewalk swayed beneath her feet, throwing her down onto the hard concrete. People screamed as glass storefronts shattered. Huck tried to stand but was slammed down again as an aftershock rocked the ground.

Dazed, she sat up as even more glass and debris rained down. Billowing darkness covered the sky, suffocating the sunlight. Blood dripped from her forehead.

“Texas City’s gone!” someone yelled. “Been blown off the map!”

Sirens blared as a battalion of emergency vehicles sped past from out of nowhere.

“Oh Gabe! No!” Huck cried. She finally managed to stand, but her head reeled, the dizziness causing her to lose balance. Breaking the fall with her hands, both palms landed against razor shards, but she felt no pain.

A series of smaller explosions popped across the bay like a string of firecrackers, the rolling blackness now fueled by an inferno of towering flames. “Gabe!” Huck pleaded. “Oh please God, no. Help me. I’ve got to find him.”

Struggling to her feet, she stumbled past several people with blank expressions. “Please help me,” Huck begged anyone who would listen, but it was as if she had entered a world of zombies.

Another siren wailed as an ambulance appeared half a block away.
Huck ran out into the street and waved her arms as blood dripped from her injured palms. The ambulance tried to go around her, but she blocked its path with her body. It swerved and screeched to a stop.

“Lady? Are you insane?” the driver called, leaning his head out of the window. “Move out of the way.”

“My husband. Please help.”

“I said move out of the way!” The engine revved and the ambulance inched forward.

“No. You can’t leave me here.” Huck pressed her bleeding hands against the hood. “My husband needs me.” Reaching down, she then picked up a long shard and clenched it like a knife. After climbing onto the hood, she crawled to the windshield and glared at the driver.

“Get down from there,” he demanded.

“Not until you take me to my husband.” She raised the shard. “Take me or I’ll use this on myself.”

“Danged crazy lady.”

Huck pressed the point against her wrist.

“Lady, don’t. Please.”

Focusing on her target, she reared back the shard and closed her eyes.

“Okay!” the driver yelled. “Where is he?”

“Texas City.” Huck flung the shard onto the street. “Monsanto Chemical Company.”

“That’s where we’re headed.” The driver shook his head. “I shouldn’t do this, but lady … you got guts. Get in.”

An orderly jumped out the rear door and helped Huck inside.

“Patch her up,” the driver said. “I guess she’s coming with us.”

Fortunately, Huck’s wounds were not serious and didn’t require stitches. But with so many emergency vehicles clogging the road, the trip took longer than expected. In the distance, she could see a huge steel barge that had washed up on dry land.

“Please tell me what happened,” Huck asked the driver, after crawling into the front seat. “It will help me find my husband.”

“All we know, ma’am, is that a ship docked in the industrial slip exploded, along with some nearby oil storage tanks. The shock waves knocked two light planes right out of the sky. Before we left Galveston, there was a report that a fifteen-foot wall of water had rolled over the town.”

“What about Monsanto? My husband is with another company but had a nine o’clock appointment.”

“Haven’t heard a word about it, ma’am.” His voice trembled. “Truth is, got an older sister who works there that looks kinda like you and … Just haven’t heard.”

When they reached the outskirts of Texas City, Huck could see fires burning everywhere. Groups of people covered with a thick coating of oily soot walked aimlessly about. After they were waved through a police barricade, the destruction worsened. Some homes had been literally blown apart by the force of the explosions. Others looked as if they’d been shredded by tons of flying debris.

A little farther on, a county deputy stood at the entrance to the business district. He held up his hand, instructing them to stop.

“All ambulances to the city auditorium,” he called. “That’s where they’re holding the seriously wounded.”

“What about Monsanto?” the driver asked.

“Might as well have been ground zero. State troopers and military personnel are still pulling out bodies. But it’s off-limits to you sad wagons. Still too dangerous.”

The driver nodded, then cocked his head toward Huck and the orderly. “Hold on!” With a squeal of tires, he sped past the deputy and headed toward Monsanto. “We’ll find your husband, ma’am. And my sister.”

Too upset to answer, Huck could only nod.

Much of the business district had been reduced to rubble. As best she could tell, ground zero was about a mile away, still engulfed in flames. When they reached the massive parking lots of the industrial area, they saw hundreds of cars slung into twisted piles of rubber and steel. A flatbed military truck passed, piled high with bodies, the stench of burned flesh almost more than Huck could bear. She gagged.

The driver coughed. “That’s the Monsanto complex up ahead on the right, still burning. What does your husband drive?”

“A blue Oldsmobile convertible. New.”

“I know you said he was in a meeting, but maybe he was late.”

“He’s never late.”

“Just the same, I’ll keep my eye out.” He stuck his hand out of the window. “Pretty hot out there. Don’t know how much closer we can get without protective gear.”

They detoured around the roofless hulk of a large blue vehicle.

At the sight of it, Huck’s head spun. Was that Blue Norther? Could Gabe be somewhere close? “I think that’s our car!” Huck screamed. She tried to open the door, but the driver grabbed her arm. “What are you doing? Let go of me!”

The ambulance skidded to a stop. “You’re gonna get yourself killed and us too!” he yelled, then backed off. “Unless your husband drives a delivery truck, it’s not him.”

The next quarter of a mile was slow going. Huge hunks of steel stuck out of the ground like jagged meteors. Some cars were still burning. Others sat smoldering in giant puddles of oily seawater like wads of crumpled tinfoil. An icy sweat beaded across Huck’s shoulder blades and slid down her back, chilling her entire body. The doom was closing in on her. She began to shake uncontrollably.

Up ahead, an army Jeep had stopped amid the destruction. A soldier dressed in green fatigues stood at the rear holding a two-way radio. The ambulance driver pulled up alongside. “Can you tell us anything about Monsanto?”

“See that empty flatbed?” he said dryly, then gestured to the right. Thirty yards away sat a truck like the one they’d passed hauling bodies. “The corpses about to be loaded are all folks who were inside Monsanto. It’s too late for an ambulance.” Without another word, the soldier climbed in the Jeep and drove away.

The terrible news was more than Huck could endure. If Gabe was dead, she had to know now! After shoving open the door, she hit the ground running in the direction of the flatbed. Intense heat slapped and dizzied her mind, causing her to lose direction. After stumbling over what looked like a man’s boot, she realized a leg was still attached … only a leg. She immediately fell to her knees and vomited. “Oh God, help me!” she sobbed. “Mister Jack, where are you?”

Regaining her composure, she continued in what she thought was the right direction. Rounding a pile of crumpled metal, she met the
ambulance driver. Directly behind him was the flatbed. Several bodies covered with a large tarpaulin lay side by side. “Gabe!” she cried. Unable to face the possible truth, she buried her face in her hands.

“He’s not under there,” the driver said. “All of these men have been identified as company dockworkers.”

After helping Huck back to the ambulance, he handed her a canteen. “Have some water.”

Huck leaned against the hood and tried to sip the warm, tasteless liquid. In the distance, she could see the part of Monsanto that was still burning. Several firemen wearing asbestos suits arced massive amounts of water onto the hellish flames. Nearby, a battered sign read, “Monsanto Parking Only.” The far side of the lot was submerged under several inches of oily, debris-strewn muck. In the center of a dry area, a large sailing yacht named
Blackjack Betty
had washed ashore. A state trooper appeared from behind the splintered hull. He ran over to the ambulance. “Quick!” he shouted. “Found a man inside his car over behind that boat. Nearly missed him ’cause he was slammed up under the dashboard.”

“Where is he now?” the driver yelled back.

“Pulled him out and laid him on the ground. Thought he was dead, then he opened his eyes.”

“Can we get the ambulance any closer?”

“Way too much wreckage. Grab your stretcher and come this way.”

In an instant, Huck was trudging through the maze of destruction once again, this time following three men. Her knees felt as if they were going to buckle, but she had no more tears. Hoping against hope there
was a slim chance that the survivor might be Gabe, even though his meeting had been the same time as the explosion. If by some miracle he was alive, he was still trapped inside the plant.

Then as they rounded the yacht’s bow, she saw Blue Norther!