He leaned over and put his face to the forehead of his fitfully sleeping daughter. He could feel the heat radiating off of the eight-year-old even before his face reached hers. The fever was back.
He brushed the hair from her forehead where sweat had caught a few wispy strands of her light brown bangs. He laid his head lightly on her chest. Her breathing was steady, but becoming shallower and he could hear the beginning of a frightening rattle in his little girls’ lungs.
He adjusted the blankets and smoothed the folds in the patterned comforter. It looked so dirty. They hadn’t had running water since the first quake hit. The ground had wrenched so violently that the gas and water pipes had probably been severed immediately. What little water they had left couldn’t be wasted cleaning bedding.
He stroked her head and kissed the girl’s soft cheek. He left the candle burning next to her on the night stand. Annie had always been afraid of the dark and without electricity, the comforting night lights were of no use. He didn’t want her waking up fearful in her sickened state.
He walked out into the living room and sat down on the couch. Two more candles flickered in the room, casting odd shadows across the exterior wall that now leaned unnaturally into the home. He had been partially successful in boarding up the split in the wall, but it was little more than a bandage on a gaping wound and he could feel the chilly night air as it filtered through holes in the homemade patch.
The interior damage was worse. The back hallway had collapsed almost completely, effectively cutting him off from his own bedroom. It had taken him three hours of frantic digging to break through the mass of drywall and wood just enough for him to squeeze his head in and see the body of his wife crushed to death on the other side. He’d laid there in tears next to the wall, cradling Annie as she sobbed while they rode out the aftershocks that rumbled throughout the next day.
He hadn’t attempted to break through in the five days since, the pile of rubble now serving as the seal to his dead wife’s tomb.
He took a drink from the open bottle of vodka on the dust covered coffee table. It burned his throat. He hadn’t been much of a drinker before the quake. He hadn’t made it through a day since without one.
In the morning, if Annie was up to it, they might attempt to get out to the highway and see if they could flag down a vehicle. What little food they’d had was gone and the water would only last them another two days tops. He had the big knife he’d taken from the wooden block in the kitchen. He would do whatever needed to be done.
He closed his eyes and allowed himself to drift in and out of sleep, listening for any sound from Annie’s room. He woke from a frantic dream to hear Annie coughing and the sound a helicopter somewhere off in the distance.
