Shaky Ground

By Sarah-Jane Riordan

In the wake of a natural disaster, a spark kindles between two damaged people, each trying to re-build their lives...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sarah-Jane Riordan
• Release date: Aug 20, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223045366

Sarah-Jane Riordan

Sarah-Jane has been entertaining a jostling cast of characters in her head ever since the days of tea-parties with imaginary guests, and has many times been moved to give them space on a page just so she can get a bit of quiet! Fortunate Sons is her first full-length novel, but check out her website: sarahjaneriordan.com for other free content and news of upcoming projects.

Book preview

Prologue

Christchurch, New Zealand, 2013.

There’s a bird hunkered down on a fat wire slung across the street close to where I’m parked - just a small black shape silhouetted against the sullen sky. It’s struggling for balance in the wind, repeated gusts buffeting it, forcing its tail upward as it bobs and weaves in a sort of strange compensatory dance.

Why don’t you fly away? I think. Seeing as you can. What are you trying to prove? You can fly away. You can escape.

I can’t. Not any more.

The engine’s dead, but my hands are glued to the steering wheel. It’s getting worse, this thing. I sit out here for longer every day, trying to put it off. Trying to delay going inside my own home.

A home isn’t supposed to be like that. It’s not meant to be something you have to steel yourself to approach. Ideally, it’s a refuge from the outside world, a place of hot chocolate and snuggly blankets, sunny corners to read in, herbs in pots on the windowsill, late-night snacks and crumbs between the couch cushions. A place where you weave your dreams, not sit about in their debris unable to go forward or back.

It’s meant to be a place where you come up the path, up the three steps toward your lucky red door that you painted yourself, and you get the feels. It used to be like that. Used to be.

The bird’s gone now, and the clouds have grown several shades darker. It’s going to rain soon...biblically.

Get out of the car, Deb. Get out of the car, walk up the path, and go in the door. Now, while you still can.

Chapter 1

Ididn’t hear the windows go in my own home because I was at work when it happened, but I know what they would’ve sounded like, because at lot of the ones at the office went too.

Glass breaking under shear doesn’t tinkle. It’s more of a ripping crack, like a rifle shot. Like a whole load of rifle shots, all around. It’s a regular Tuesday and you’re just finishing something off before going to lunch, and suddenly, you’re under fire - it’s war. Only it’s not, it’s another earthquake. And this one? It’s the big one.

Thank god our building’s only two storeys and the stairs are intact. Everyone’s out and accounted for quickly, and then we stand around in useless huddles on the big sward of dry grass at the front.

Things don’t look too bad aside from the broken windows and some cracks in the asphalt on the road. Everybody’s trying to call someone, but no-one’s succeeding. All the cell networks are down. The office is near the intersection of two really busy transport corridors, but there’s almost no traffic coming by - it’s strangely quiet. Then the sirens start up, and they don’t stop.

Go home, my boss tells us. If you can. If you can’t get there, go somewhere that’s an obvious assembly point - a high school, sports ground, stadium.

Usually I bus to work. Today there’s no buses, but the people in cars aren’t getting far either. I walk. All the way to St Martins - nearly fifteen kilometres. In heels at first, and then bare feet. The pavements are scorching hot in the afternoon sun. Heels, again. A while later, bare feet again.

It takes me nearly four hours. I stay clear of the city centre, which makes the journey longer, but I don’t want to be anywhere near a tall building, not today. I can see the dust ascending to my left, to the north, rising up on the hot afternoon air, the fine thin dust of pulverised mortar and concrete.

Oh, god! Josh is in there somewhere, and I don’t know if he’s okay, and he doesn’t know that I’m okay! I check my phone constantly, obsessively. There’s nothing. Still no signal.

I lose count of the number of aftershocks I feel. The closer I get to home, the worse things look. On some streets, it seems like every brick chimney’s fallen down. Maybe half of them have fallen inward, through their roofs. We don’t have one, thank god. But what am I going to find?

The displacement in the road surface is really bad in places, almost concertinaed in others. Traffic signals and lamp-posts are lurching at drunken angles. And there’s silt of course, bubbling up through all the cracks. More liquefaction. Liquefaction again.

I finally turn onto our street. I’m tired, my feet hurt, my mouth’s gummy with thirst, and I’m very, very sunburnt. More cracks in the road, in the pavement, joints not meeting where they should. But things are still standing. There’s no sirens, no keening, no masonry dust hanging in the air. Not around here.

I know that if I can just get home, everything’ll be okay. Not today obviously, not tomorrow either, but if I can just get home, if Josh can get home too, then I can be sure that somehow, everything will be okay.

I’m here. My house looks...calm. It looks normal. I know it won’t be normal inside, but I can sweep up broken crockery and jars - again. I put the key in the door, my lovely door, dark plummy red, complementing the gentle pale grey of the weatherboards. I loved that colour so much I painted it the same on the inside, even though it made the entryway kinda dark. It opens without me having to shoulder-shove, which is a good sign. Inside...oh god...but it’s just stuff. Just stuff.

I need a drink so bad, but there’s broken glass all over the kitchen floor. I put on my sneakers, which were by the front door, and pick my way through. There’s a mug - one mug - on the dining room table, left from this morning. Josh’s one. Mine’s on the floor, broken.

Nothing comes from the tap. No water. There’s water in the fridge, but I can’t risk opening it. The power could be out for a long time, it needs to stay closed.

No power. No water. No phone, no internet, no Josh. It’s the end of the fucking world. My hands start to shake.

Before I fall apart totally, I remember we have emergency water bladders in the laundry, in case this happened. And slabs of cans, and survival rations. I never got as far as lunch, so I pop a can of Sprite instead. It’s warm, but I sure don’t give a shit. I want Josh, though.

Another tremor rolls through. I freeze, eyes tight shut, can in one hand, phone in the other. Nothing falls this time, probably because everything already did. Even though I’m burnt, I go outside again, into the back yard, to be away from things-that-can-crush-you.

Where is Josh, I’m thinking, where is he? I work twice as far away as him, and I’m here already, and he’s not. What’s happened to him?

I’m pacing to and fro on our little square of desiccated lawn when I notice it. The windows in the back corner of the house, nearest the shed, have exploded - the spare bedroom windows, both of them.