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Back 3 a.m.
Chapters (67)
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  67. 3:46 a.m.

There is a tremor under my feet, and I turn and look over my shoulder. I expect to see a line of semi-trucks pulling onto the bridge, but there isn’t a single car in sight.

There is another tremor, one strong enough to send me flailing to the guardrail.

“What the fuck?” I say, holding onto Lassie with one hand, the guardrail with another.

Meow.

“I’m not sure.”

The bridge lurches and I drop to my knees. The flower pot in front of me falls into the water twenty feet below. I backpedal to the center of the road. The bridge shakes sending the many flags into a frenzy.

“Holy shit, it’s an earthquake!”

When researching the trip, I stumbled across a statistic that Alaska was home to over fifty percent of all the earthquakes in the United States. However, because Alaska was so remote, there was usually little damage or injury.

Off to my left, the Radisson Hotel sways back and forth. If it falls, there will be lots of damage. Lots of injury. Lots of death.

The bridge lurches, sending me back to my knees. I hold Lassie by the collar, bracing myself with one hand. Under the railing, I see a series of trees on the river’s edge uproot and fall into the water.

I attempt to stand but it is like trying to balance on a bucking bronco. There is an explosion as a huge section of the bridge fifty yards behind me collapses into the river. I stare at the thirty-foot gap in the street.

I push myself up.

I need to get us off the bridge.

A flag pole crashes down right in front of me. I roll to my side, sending Lassie flying. He scurries back and jumps onto my back, his claws digging into my sweatshirt. Another pole falls. The bridge is crumbling to pieces.

An atom bomb of dust explodes downtown. The first building has fallen. I can only imagine how many people were just crushed, who lay dead or dying in the giant cloud of rubble.

I stumble toward the dust. A section of the bridge in front of me falls away and I backpedal on hands and knees. I push myself up and grab the guardrail. I am on a one-hundred-foot concrete island.

Directly below, the small ripples on the river have doubled in size.

The shaking stops.

I take a deep breath.

“Lassie!”

Meow.

He is between my legs.

Shaking.

I pick him up.