Authors: Missy Fleming
September 11, 2001
E
ver since the second plane hit the south tower and she lost communication with her parents, Olivia wandered in a daze, drifting in a sea of madness. At first, she clung to the belief they were alive and moments from being rescued, but as more time passed, the idea faded. Hundreds and hundreds of firefighters entered the towers in a constant stream and she prayed they would find a miracle path past the destroyed floors.
Another chunk of flaming debris crashed to the ground, sending a burst of sparks into the air, and she flinched, her pulse skipping. A deadly shower of building, plane, and luggage fell from above, along with other things. Horrible things. Body parts—a hand, a torso. And among them, thousands of papers. They danced in the breeze, graceful and misplaced with the rest of the horror. She heard sirens in the background, and screams punctuating the air, but the roar of the fires assaulted her ears. Chaos reigned and, in the midst of it, she stood, unmoving, unable to grasp her rampant thoughts. Only a single notion made any sense—that this was an illusion, a trick, a nightmare she must wake up from.
An explosion snapped her from her stupor and chased her behind a wooden bench, the same one she’d perched on earlier while waiting for her parents. She stuck her head out, peering around frantically. Distracted for half a second, she felt warm liquid running down her leg. Expecting blood, she saw a growing wet spot on the front of her capris instead. She’d peed herself, but the humiliation vanished, unnecessary.
The expressions on nearby faces echoed her shock and fright, the indecision over whether to run or stay put, the battle over which was safer. Olivia’s terror vibrated through every cell in her body. The loud bang happened again. Bombs. Oh God. Bombs! Another explosion to her left. Then on her right. The booms were sporadic, without any pattern or rhythm. She cringed each time, trying to get away, to keep herself alive as she clawed her way up the sidewalk, cutting the palms of her hands on broken glass.
Then she realized they weren’t bombs.
They were bodies.
People falling from the sky.
She glanced up and shook her head, trying to clear away the sight. They weren’t falling. No, they were jumping from the floors above the gaping holes in the building. Sailing gracefully from windows to escape the raging flames and breaking glass. To get out of the unimaginable. The unthinkable.
One struck directly in front of her, shaking the ground at her feet and showering her with a bloody spray. Her stomach lurched as she scrambled backwards, but her breakfast was already in her throat. She turned, determined to flee, but everywhere she looked there were the same indistinguishable puddles of what was once people. Puddles that might have been her parents. Bending over, she threw up, retching until there was nothing left.
“You need to clear this area, now!” A cop rushed by, yelling at others like her, bystanders lost in a daze. “We have reports of people being hit by debris on the other side. Stand back!”
“It’s not debris. Jumpers,” another officer shouted, eliciting a new round of screams from those around her.
No one attempted to do anything other than cover a couple of the destroyed bodies with blankets and coats. She wiped her mouth, desperate to remove the taste of death on her tongue. The air was heavy with it.
Twice, they had run her off, but she kept returning. The fate of her parents tied her to the towers, a tether amidst the chilling terror. Instead of obeying orders, she remained transfixed by the sight sixty stories above her, black and grey and orange against a breathtakingly blue sky. Movement on her left caught her attention as a group of firefighters exited the lobby with victims, many covered in blood and charred flesh.
A tremendous roar blasted through her, accompanied by the steady rhythm of bangs. She fought to stay on her feet as the falling debris became heavier. Looking up, she blinked furiously to dislodge the impossible sight. The south tower, where her parents had been, was coming down.
She couldn’t move. Fear rooted her to the spot as a heavy, writhing cloud rushed at her, peppering her face with grit. Fierce wind pummeled from above, causing her ears to pop, and the air grew hotter, stealing the breath from her lungs. She was trapped in a raging inferno of wind, dust, and terror.
“Hey! Run!”
A voice broke her trance. She spotted a firefighter advancing on her, full speed. He roughly dragged her towards a storefront, across what might have been Liberty Street. It was hard to tell anymore. All she knew was heat and ear-splitting madness. As the deluge threatened to overwhelm them, they reached the inside of a small deli. The fireman pushed her into a back room as the cyclone of wind and debris hit, tossing them into a corner with bone jarring force. He fell on top of her and everything went dark. The world broke apart and shattered. Between the storm and the noise, terror ignited every single one of her nerves, setting them on fire. Then, miraculously, it began to fade.
She struggled to breathe, the air thick enough she swore she was trying to drag cotton balls into her lungs, and her hacking coughs did nothing to dispel it. The man pinned her down, his body unmoving, probably dead. She panicked and pushed at him frantically, kicking and shoving, which made it even more difficult to catch her breath.
“Dammit, stop,” the voice above her gasped. “I can’t move. There’s a piece of the ceiling on me.” She sensed him assessing their surroundings. After more maneuvering and grunting, he managed to shift off her and the weight of his body vanished, allowing the slightest bit of air into her lungs.
“Stay still. I’m going to give you oxygen. Then, I’ll try and find some water to rinse your eyes. Christ, I can’t see a damn thing.”
Everything was so dark she couldn’t tell if her eyes were open or not, so she squeezed them tighter to be sure. He pressed the oxygen mask to her face and she sucked in a few deep, cleansing breaths. When he removed it, she heard him drawing air from it as well. The scrapes and clunks of his searching drifted in her direction and other than his soft rustling, the world around her remained a tomb of unearthly quiet.
“Thank you.” Speaking brought on a coughing fit and she choked on the thick rag of dust stuck in her throat.
He scuttled back to her. “Okay. Found a water bottle. Let me rinse some of the dust and ash from your eyes so you can open them.” A few seconds later, cool water ran down her face. She managed to blink, but now her lashes were coated in dough. There wasn’t anything to wipe them with, either. The chunky film clung to everything, falling like snow in the beam of his flashlight.
After about a minute of silence, his radio erupted into the void. Bursts of frantic shouting mixed with the static, calling for replies that never came.
“The south tower came down,” Olivia said in a panicked voice as his shadow shifted, highlighted by the flashlight he’d propped on a twisted shelf. Saying it aloud, she realized how crazy it sounded. She must have misinterpreted what she saw. Neither of those towers could fall. They were too big, too strong.
“Impossible,” he echoed. “Maybe a partial collapse. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be here.” Doubt strained his answer and he redoubled his efforts of finding an exit from the claustrophobic room.
Olivia sat up with every intention of helping, but a sharp, crippling pain shot through her arm. She leaned back with a whimper and the man reappeared by her side.
“What is it?” He ran his hands over her, checking for injury.
“My arm.” His touch passed over her forearm and she cried out again.
“Shit. It’s broken. And you’re bleeding. Did you knick an artery? Your clothes are covered with it. Where is it coming from?”
“Not mine. Jumpers,” she hissed. The firefighter’s face went slack and she added, “One landed right next to me.”
“Jesus. Okay. You’re fine. I have to find something to use as a splint. Try not to move.” He scrambled away, rummaging through the debris and muttering words she didn’t catch.
Her head spun from the pain. It dug deep, latching onto her insides and twisting. The edges of her vision blurred so she concentrated on listening to the movements of the man who saved her. He returned after a couple of seconds.
“I’ve got to get out of here. They need my help.” Catching her watching, he switched gears. “I found a short board. Your forearm is broken and the bone has almost punctured the skin. I won’t sugar coat this, it’ll hurt like a bitch, but I’ve got to set it. The wood should keep it immobile until we can get you to a paramedic. You understand?”
She nodded, bracing herself. He took off his helmet and leaned close. His sweaty hair was the same inky color as her mother’s. She gritted her teeth against the grief. The firefighter wasn’t the only one who needed to get out of here.
Pain hit her, worse than she imagined, and she screamed, fire licking at her entire body as he tugged at her arm, setting the bone. When she thought it would never end, the agony lessened to a dull pounding. He tied the board to her arm with small garbage bags then rocked back on his heels.
“Sorry about that. You okay?” She managed another curt nod. “I’m not sure if you hit your head so I need you to stay awake. Talk to me. What were you doing here today?”
He pushed to his feet and resumed moving clutter from the doorway.
She shifted, trying to find a comfortable position, to ease away from the sharp rocks digging into her backside. “My parents.”
“Your parents, what?”
Olivia gathered her errant thoughts. “They were in the south tower. Undoing their divorce. With the lawyer.”
His rustling paused. “Undoing?”
“Yeah, I was on the phone with my mom.” She glanced down, her lips twisting into a frown as she stared at the forgotten cell still clutched in her hand, the screen shattered. “How did that get there?”
Her thoughts were cloudy and she wasn’t sure if she said the last part aloud or not. He dragged a piece of concrete past her, favoring his left leg. The light behind him cast shadows across his dirty face.
“People were jumping,” she whispered, eyeing a splotch of gore on her pants and remembering how he’d thought it was hers.
“I’ve witnessed a lot of shit over the years. Nothing close to that.”
“I hear your radio.”
His mouth drooped, creating cracks in the muck covering his face. He listened to the broken snippets, then switched it off only to increase his efforts to clear the doorway.
The earth shattering rumble returned, shaking the ground and threatening the already precarious walls. She covered her head with her good arm and waited, positive she wouldn’t escape death again, wishing she’d had a chance to say goodbye to her family. Her frightened cries punctuated the din. A pair of strong arms wrapped her up and held tight, shielding her from the small pieces of debris tumbling down. The chaotic shaking built into a crescendo, stealing every emotion other than terror. His voice soothed, even as she screamed and sobbed incoherent prayers. She didn’t want to die here, in this place, with a stranger. There was too much life ahead of her.
“It’ll be okay,” the firefighter soothed, his voice impossibly calm. “I’ve got you. You’ll be okay. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
Once it was over, ten seconds or ten hours, she couldn’t tell, an eerie silence descended and settled, deeper than before and almost as heavy as the near complete darkness. It was an empty stillness, as if they were the last two people on earth. The only sound was his rapid breathing and her weeping. She recovered, but her body shook uncontrollably. Nothing hurt. Yet, everything hurt.
“Look,” he shouted, releasing her. Her fingers felt empty without the reassuring handfuls of his jacket. “Light! The shaking caused some of the rubble to fall.” Forcing her to meet his gaze, he said, “I’ll be right over there.”
He left her side and went back to work.
The last couple hours played on a loop before her, an awful, never ending parade of death. She was certain she’d wake up in her apartment, sweating and screaming. What she witnessed was too horrible to be real, it didn’t happen in the world she lived in. She watched those planes. They had aligned themselves with the towers.
It wasn’t an accident.
“What wasn’t an accident?” the firefighter asked.
She must have spoken aloud. “The planes flew into the towers on purpose.”
“I agree.” He continued to dig. “One might have been a fluke. Not two. I’m almost through. Can you stand?”
She rose to her feet with gritted teeth, picking up the helmet he left behind, and limped over to him. Olivia peered past his shoulder and glimpsed a partially unobstructed exit into a silent, monochrome world beyond.
“Hold on, we’ll take it slow.” He offered his hand.
They climbed a jumble of twisted materials and Olivia scratched her thigh on a piece of ragged rebar, the flare of pain barely registering. She had no idea where they were going because there was no daylight. Just this morning, she had marveled at the beautiful blue sky. Now it was gone. Was everything gone?
Picking their way to what must have been the front door of the deli, they scaled another pile of rubble. Her mind noted random things—the utter vacuum of sound, the way her ears still carried the residual roar of the collapse, a perfectly shiny stapler next to her foot, even the pieces of wreckage she climbed. The only reason she could tell they were outside was a slight lightening of the gray. Everything was covered in thick grit and stillness hung heavy in the air.