One Amazing Thing Read Free

the ground. The giant took the building in both his hands and shook it. A chair flew across the room toward Uma. She raised her left arm to shield herself. The chair crashed into her wrist and a pain worse than anything she had known surged through her arm. People were screaming. Feet ran by her, then ran back again. She tried to wedge herself beneath one of the chairs, as she had been taught long ago in grade school, but only her head and shoulders would fit. The cell phone was still in her other hand, pressed against her ear. Was thatRamon’s voice asking her to leave a message, or was it just her need to hear him?
    Above her, the ceiling collapsed in an explosion of plaster. Beams broke apart with the sound of gigantic bones snapping. A light fixture shattered. For a moment, before the electricity failed, she saw the glowing filaments of the naked bulb. Rubble fell through the blackness, burying her legs. Her arm was on fire. She cradled it against her chest. (A useless gesture, when she would probably die in the next minutes.) Was that the sound of running water? Was the basement they were in flooding? She thought she heard a beep, the machine ready to record her voice. Ramon, she cried, her mouth full of dust. She thought of his long, meticulous fingers, how they could fix anything she broke. She thought of the small red moles on his chest, just above the left nipple. She wanted to say something important and consoling, something for him to remember her by. But she could think of nothing, and then her phone went dead.

2
    T he dark was full of women’s voices, keening in a language he did not know, so that at first he thought he was back in the war. The thought sucked the air from his lungs and left him choking. There was dirt on his tongue, shards under his fingertips. He smelled burning. He moved his hands over his face, over the uneven bones of his head, the stubble coming in already, the scar over his eyebrow that told him nothing. But when he touched the small, prickly stones in his ears, he remembered who he was.
    I am Cameron, he said to himself. With the words, the world as it was formed around him: piles of rubble, shapes that might be broken furniture. Some of the shapes moaned. The voices—no, it was only one voice—fell into an inexorable rhythm, repeating a name over and over. After a while he was able to think past the droning. He checked his pants pockets. The right one held his inhaler. He pulled it out and shook it carefully. There were maybe five doses left. He saw in his mind the tidy cabinet in his bathroom, the new bottle waiting on the second shelf. He pushed away regret and anger, which for him had always been mixed together, and focused on positiveness the way the holy man would have, if he’d been stuckhere. If Cameron was careful, five doses could last him for days. They would be out of here long before that.
    His keys were in his left pocket. A mini-flashlight was strung through the chain. He stood and passed the pencil-thin ray over the room. A different part of his brain clicked into being, the part that weighed situations and decided what needed to be done. He welcomed it.
    One part of the ceiling had collapsed. People would have to be kept as far as possible from that area in case more followed. Some folks were huddled under furniture along a wall. They could remain there for the moment. He searched for flames. Nothing. His mind must have conjured the burning smell from memory. He sniffed for the acrid odor that would signal a broken gas pipe and was satisfied that there were none nearby. Somewhere he could hear water falling in an uneven rhythm, starting and stopping and starting again, but the floor was dry. There were two figures at the door that led to the passage, trying to pull it open.
    He sprang forward with a yell, shocking the weeper into silence. “Hey!” he shouted, though he knew noise was unsafe. “Stop! Don’t open it! That’s dangerous!” He sprinted as fast as he