The Shaking

Chapter Eighteen

Prospect Park. 10.17.

Kevin Norris picked himself up and brushed down his suit with his hands. It would need a good clean of course, but that would be the least of his or anyone else's worries for a while; especially the poor bastards out of sight on the major road nearby, but there was absolutely nothing he could do for them. Now the shaking had ceased the cars had stopped piling into each other. Kevin heard the sounds of stuck horns and screams of pain, but as yet no whoooffs of ruptured petrol tanks catching fire. Meanwhile the Enterprise House fire alarm trilled in plaintive sympathy with the distressed wailing of car alarms accompanying the shocked babbling of the evacuating staff.

Norris took in the scene of destruction at the office complex. Someone wearing a hi-viz waistcoat was checking the names of a nervous group of people gathered around him; it must be the staff of one of the larger companies occupying one of the low-rise block's floors. Being on his own in there and having signed out of the register, Norris didn't need to account for himself. He'd survived for the moment; he was all right jack.

Kevin saw the Wizzit van he'd watched streaking up the off ramp earlier in a panicked state nose its way into the car park and reverse into a distant space. The driver had nearly shunted some middle aged frump in a silver micro car who'd stopped abruptly when the 'quake had struck but he'd managed to avoid hitting her: Now he could see the woman had pulled into a safe parking spot and had got out; at the moment she was just standing there stunned and blubbing her eyes out. The van driver looked as if he was suffering a case of shock as well, he was just sitting at the wheel; staring with incomprehension through his windscreen at the world which had so radically changed in the space of a few seconds.

He'll probably spend all day like that expected Norris. He'd seen similar cases before during his commission; men who froze into immobility when suddenly confronted with peril. Someone needs to shake him out of it. And I know how it can be done. Norris began walking over to the van..

Prospect Park. 10.18

Ryan Buckland wasn't aware of how long he'd spent shocked in the van's cab before he was startled out of his skin by an overweight man in a crumpled and dirtied mid-grey business suit knocking on his window. What did he want? Was he going to start complaining about Ryan taking 'his' space? If that was his intent then he would soon find out he'd picked the wrong bloke at the wrong time.

Startled, Ryan leaned over and wound down the window on the passenger side door.

"You've got a consignment for R.O.N Limited, haven't you?" asked the dishevelled man. "I may as well pick it up while you're here."

"Uh, yes: I'll just get it for you." Feeling as if he'd just awoken from a nightmare, Buckland got out of the cab and opened the rear doors. Fortunately the packages appeared not to have been tumbled about too much, and if the lads in the depot had done their loading properly the boxes he wanted would be the first ones to hand: They were. He unloaded them and shut the doors.

"Sign there please." said Ryan on autopilot, offering the man the electronic terminal and a stylus. Norris scrawled a signature and picked up his two cartons.

"Thanks." he replied. "Are you all right, Mr...?" asked the man.

"Buckland; Ryan Buckland. Yeah, I think I'm OK. And you?"

"I'm just a bit shaken up, but it'll pass... I'm Kevin Norris." The pair shook hands. "I mean, an earthquake!" Norris continued. "Here of all places! Of all the things I thought might go wrong, an earthquake was the very least. It just goes to prove it's the ones you don't see coming that get you! Well I don't know about you but that's thrown my plans out for the day..."