Chapter 92

Amanda would have been fine with the power outage if it had happened during one of Sophie's rare moments of sleep. She would have happily sat there in the dark as long as the baby wanted to sleep. But Sophie was practically purple with crying.

Amanda didn't dare set the baby down while she got a flashlight. She tucked her into the crook of her arm and made her way cautiously through the dark mudroom to the garage door. She opened the door and groped on the shelf where they kept all their flashlights, willing herself to not think about spiders. The shelf was empty. She reached further back. She touched dust balls, and something wet and slimey, but no flashlights. Had Brandon taken them? She'd seen him pack up a floodlight. If he'd taken the flashlights too, she was going to beat him when he got home.

She slowly stepped back into the kitchen, terrified of tripping on something and dropping the baby. With the baby still screaming in her other arm, she carefully felt around the top shelf of a kitchen cupboard for candles. She found two. She couldn't strike a match while holding a baby. She carried the candles and matches into the family room where she could prop the baby in the corner of the couch while she lit the candles on the coffee table. They were Christmas candles; one was pine-scented and the other was sugar cookie. That would make a nice combination of smells. Between the baby's cries and the heavy perfume of a Salt City candle, she was going to have a headache.

As Amanda blew out the match, Baby Sophie abruptly quit crying and stared with fascination at the flames. Stunned with hope, Amanda moved the candles to be more in the baby's line of sight. Sophie blinked at them. After several minutes of rapt concentration, her eyes drifted shut.

"I never read that idea in a parenting magazine," Amanda said.

She left the infant sleeping on the couch and made her way by candlelight into the front room. The rain had let up momentarily, so she had a clear view of the street, where every light was out. A group of people with flashlights were on the Benton's porch. As Amanda watched, the door opened and they all went inside.

"Party at the Benton's," Amanda said to herself. She would go over as soon as the baby woke up. Amanda wasn't afraid of the dark, but she was miserable staying in a dark house with a crying baby all by herself. Nicole had three kids. She would have some advice, or at least be able to assure her that Sophie would stop crying some day. Amanda went to make sure that there was enough stuff in the diaper bag.

---

Danna had a flashlight under her bed. She'd taken it from her mom's stash of emergency supplies a few months ago and never returned it. When the power went out, she rolled over and picked it up. She didn't turn it on. If someone saw the light in her room, they might come in.

She laid on her back, smacking the flashlight into her palm, staring at a ceiling she couldn't see in the dark. A lightning flash momentarily lit up her room. She liked it dark.

If she stayed here, her mom would eventually insist they all be in one room so they could use candles instead of wasting flashlight batteries. Mom wouldn't let them take candles into other rooms because they might set the house on fire.

Danna turned her flashlight on to find her jacket. She headed downstairs.

"Where are you going?" Austin asked her as she passed him on the stairs.

"To see what's going on at the Baker's," Danna said.

She ducked out into the night.

---

Baby Sophie only slept twenty minutes. Amanda suspected she wanted to eat again, but instead she bundled her up to dash across the street. If she stayed home to feed her, then she'd fall asleep and Amanda would be trapped at home without power or any light besides two Salt City Christmas candles.

"Sorry, baby," Amanda said as she slung the diaper bag over her shoulder and flipped the blanket down over Sophie's face. She blew out the candles and headed over to the Bentons. A pale, steady light through the curtains promised better light than she had at home.

She knocked at the door, waited, and was ready to push it open and call 'hello' when Ruth Anderson opened it.

"Oh my heck! Are you all right?! We totally should have checked on you! Are you, like, dying? Can you believe this storm? Me and Abby came over here with Sister Nesbitt to help Sister Benton because Jayden is lost and that baby of hers is just crying and crying and crying. Sister Nesbitt is holding the baby. Do you want to come see Sister Nesbitt? Look, Sister Nesbitt! It's Amanda! And her new baby! Her baby's crying too. Gosh, it's like that's all babies ever do. Does this count as visiting teaching? My mom says I can't be your real visiting teacher until I'm eighteen, but I don't see why. One of our home teachers is only, like, fourteen. Do you want me to hold your baby? That's like service, huh? Oh my heck! She's the cutest thing ever! Look how wide she can open her mouth! It's like half her head is going to fall off or something!"

"Ruth, why don't you go see if Davey and Carson are all right or if they've lost their flashlight," Tracy Nesbitt suggested.

"Do you just want me to go away because I talk too much? My teacher totally does that too," Ruth said, as she handed the baby back to Amanda and picked up a flashlight. "Abby's already down there." Ruth went downstairs.

"I'm already cheered up," Amanda said. "Between Ruth and your battery-operated LED lantern, I can handle anything."

Tracy laughed very softly, so as not to disturb the baby on her shoulder, whose wails were interspersed with a few seconds of sleep.

"Who came in? Is that Jason?" Nicole Benton asked, coming into the living room. "Oh, hi Amanda."

"Sorry it's just me. Brandon took all our flashlights when he went to go help sandbag that one house, and I didn't want to be in the dark all alone," Amanda said.

"I'm glad you came over. Make yourself to home," Nicole said.

"Did Ruth say Jayden is lost?" Amanda asked, shifting her baby to her shoulder. Baby Sophie's bleating cries grew louder.

"Yes. I know he's in the house somewhere, but I can't find him. I've looked under all the beds and couches, and I don't know where else he could be," Nicole said.

"You're sure he didn't try to follow Jason?" Tracy asked.

"I don't know! But if he's out there in that storm, how will I ever find him? He's got to still be in the house. Maybe he's down in the laundry room," Nicole turned to go downstairs.

"Nicole, is there somewhere I can sit and nurse my baby?" Amanda asked.

"Sure, there's a rocking chair in the baby's room. First door on the right."

"Take a flashlight," Tracy said, handing her one from the counter.

Amanda took the flashlight, found the baby's room, set the flashlight upright on the changing table, and pushed her shirt out of the way. Baby Sophie latched on immediately. With the power out, the only sounds were the rain on the roof and the soft click of the baby's swallows. The silence of all manmade things and the odd shadows brought another level of strangeness to this activity that was still so new. She'd given part of her body to grow and feed a child; part of her would always belong to this tiny creature. Sometimes she cherished that feeling. Other times it frightened her.

There was a knock on the wall, and Amanda jumped out of her reverie. Then a heavier thump came through the wall. Her heart sped up, and she wished she'd never watched a horror movie in her entire life. But then she realized what it must be and laughed out loud in relief. Sophie didn't even twitch.

Amanda draped the receiving blanket over her shoulder and the baby's head and heaved herself up from the rocking chair without disturbing Sophie's latch. She pushed open the door and called out for Nicole.

"What is it?" Nicole asked.

"Is there a closet that shares the wall with the baby's room?"

"Yes."

"Did you look there for Jayden? Because someone is knocking on the wall."

Nicole ran up the stairs with her flashlight. Amanda stepped back as she passed, and then followed her. Tracy Nesbitt came up the stairs too. They peeked into the master bedroom.

"Jayden! Jayden! I found you! Honey, you scared mommy! I couldn't find you. Are you all right? Do you want to come out? No? Okay. Can mommy come in and sit by you?" Nicole opened the folding doors for the closet as far as they would go and shoved shoes out of the way. "Do you want to hold mommy's flashlight? Do you want to sit on mommy's lap? Do you want me to tell you a story or sing a song?"

Amanda and Tracy smiled at each other as Nicole's crossed her ankles. Her ankles were all they could see. The rest of her was inside the closet with Jayden.

"That's a relief," Tracy said as they stepped away from the door.

"Is the baby asleep?" Amanda asked.

"Sound asleep," said Tracy.

"Do you need to put her in her crib? We'll be quiet. Sophie will be done in about ten minutes."

"Don't worry about it. She can sleep on me. I'm softer than any mattress," Tracy said.

Amanda returned to the rocking chair as Tracy went downstairs. She burped Sophie and then put her on the other side. The silence enveloped her again, only now it had the thin sounds of song threaded through it. Nicole was singing to Jayden. The wall muffled the words, but Amanda could identify the tune. Singing "I Am a Child of God" was like riding a bike; once you learned it as a child, you could never forget.

She picked up the words and sang them softly to Sophie. "Lead me, guide me, walk beside me, help me find the way."

Sophie fell off Amanda's breast, full and sleeping. "Teach me all that I must do," Amanda sang in a whisper. Was there anything in the world more contented than a sleeping newborn with a milk drop nestled in the corner of her mouth?

"To live with him someday."

---

"Bishop! Where do they need me?" Jason Benton said, shovel in hand, as he made his way into the Baker's crowded backyard.

"I don't know, I just got here too," the bishop replied. He was holding up a Coleman lantern. A few flashlight beams bobbed around the yard. The only other light was the occasional lightning flash; the rain was coming down hard again. "There's Gary," the bishop nodded towards the hillside.

Jason stayed with the bishop as they made their way close enough to overhear the loud conversation the homeowner, Gary Baker, was having with Kevin Daley, the landscaper who was directing the sandbagging.

"If we could use my equipment, I'd say yes," Kevin was shouting over the noise of the storm. "But if we try to shovel out a channel for the water on the hillside, the entire ward is going to rupture a disc."

"Not all the water is going into the sandbag river," Gary objected. "It's coming over the rest of the retaining wall. It doesn't have to be a deep channel, just something to direct the water towards the sandbags. We can use the priests and teachers. They've got young backs."

Kevin shook his head. "Let's get a line of sandbags around your patio. The sandbag river is keeping most of the water out of your yard; let's focus on keeping the rest of it out of your house."

"I've got a shovel," Jason offered. "I can go see if we can shovel some mud around up there." He nodded towards the hill.

"Take a couple priests. Parker, Brock and Ross are right there," Gary Baker said, turning his back on Kevin.

"We'll just take a look, Kevin," Jason said.

"I wouldn't send employees to do it; my workers' comp premiums would skyrocket after all the claims," Kevin said.

"We'll stop if we're going to get hurt," Jason promised. He wasn't going to stand around the yard and wait for a chance to get close enough to the truck to get his hands on a sandbag. It looked like half the Elder's Quorum was here, and more coming. If he didn't grab an assignment, he'd end up standing in the rain until he went home without doing anything.

"Come on, guys, let's go dig some mud," Jason said to the priests.

"Woo!" yelled Brock, and the three of them blew past Jason and leaped up on the retaining wall.

Jason passed Spencer Simmons, who didn't look like he had anything to do either. But he was hanging back, so Jason didn't invite him to come.

Brock reached a hand down to Jason and hauled him up to the top of the retaining wall. At his first step onto the hillside, his food sank deep in the mud and ash. He hoped the laces on his boots held, because this mud could suck his boots right off.

"So what are we doing?" Brock hollered.

"Trying to get the water to flow over there," Jason said, pointing towards the pile of sandbags in the east corner of the yard.

Brock looked at the sandbags, at the hill, and back at Jason. "What? We're digging a canal?"

Now that he was away from the bishop's Coleman lantern, Jason could barely see. The hillside was a solid mass of mud, blackened by a top layer of ash. The idea of digging a channel to divert the water anywhere seemed futile. "Why don't you guys get back down in the yard and see if there's one spot where most of the water is coming over the wall. That will give us one location to work on instead of the entire hill."

Parker, Brock and Ross jumped down and disappeared into the darkness and rain. Jason took another step in the clutching mud, and pushed his shovel into the muck.

---

Danna Simmons hunched deeper into the hood of her jacket, hands shoved into her pockets. She looked around at all the people in the yard. The collective boots of the ward were churning the Baker's lawn into mush. A line of sandbags ran right through a rock-edged flowerbed and sent water cascading down a terraced rock garden and into another flowerbed. Idiots. They didn't have to ruin the flowerbeds. If they'd moved the sandbags two feet to the left, the perennials would have survived.

She stepped onto the sandbags and directed her flashlight beam towards the aster being crushed under the two sandbags stacked opposite hers. It was still flowering; a few blooms stubbornly clinging to the stems in the few inches of muddy water rushing down to the rocks below. The sandbag was on the branches and foliage, not the bush's trunk. If she could push the sandbag off the foliage, the plant would be able to heal.

Danna shoved her flashlight into her pocket and bent to the top sandbag. Its weight pulled her off-balance and she ended up with both feet in the water to avoid a fall. The water instantly seeped through her sneakers. She reached again for the top sandbag and pulled it away from the plant and into the river. It rolled and wedged against her foot. She tugged her foot free and wiggled her fingers under the far side of the bottom sandbag. It was too heavy. She could push it, but not lift it. Pushing the sandbag off the branch would strip off the foliage.

A sudden glare from a flashlight illuminated her section of the river.

"What are you doing?" someone shouted at her.

"The sandbag is right on the aster," Danna shouted back, "I'm moving it."

The man grabbed her arm and hauled her out of the river. "Don't mess with it. No one cares about the flowers right now."

Danna shook him off. "Well, they should! Leave me alone. It's none of your business." She stepped back into the filthy river.

The man muttered at her and moved off.

Danna tried several different ways to move the sandbag off the plant, but she didn't have enough strength in her arms to pick up the sodden sandbag without damaging the plant further. Frustrated, she kicked it. The water suddenly crested and soaked the bottom three inches of her jeans. She slipped and regained her balance. Stupid plant. She'd ruined her shoes and hadn't done any good at all. She just wanted to go home.

When Danna tried to step out of the river, the mud sucked at her foot and she stumbled and flailed wildly. The water was now running much higher, or she was sunk deeper, because her pants were wet halfway to her knees. Water flowed over the single sandbag she couldn't move, pouring directly onto the aster. The plant probably would have survived the sandbag on its branches, but having gallons of water channeled onto it would bare the rootball and kill it for sure.

Now she was stuck, and the plant was worse off than when she'd started. She wanted help to get out of the river. But no one was there anymore.

Alone, dirty, and angry at the futility of her efforts, she yanked herself out of the river and squelched home.

---

"Where do you want this one?"

Brian turned and saw Tom Nesbitt holding one side of a sandbag. His son, John, was holding the other end. Brian pointed. "Start putting a second layer on the bags around the patio."

Tom and John heaved together and the bag landed with a heavy, wet smack.

"Come on, let's get Derek's truck out of here."

"Dad, I'm going over there," John pointed towards the hillside. "Maybe they need help."

Tom looked around but John had already disappeared into the dark. "Let's go, Brian."

Brian joined the men who were pushing and heaving at Derek Snyder's pickup, which was stuck in the lawn. Emptied of its load of sandbags, it lifted easily out of the muck. Derek waved from the front seat, next to a couple of priests. "We'll go see if there are any sandbags left in the city park and be right back," he shouted. The truck left deep, muddy wheel tracks in the Baker's lawn as it bounced down the incline and out into the street.

With the sandbags gone, the men congregated around the sandbag river line. Brian and Tom yanked a couple of bags back into place. Brian could see a few of the men walking down the street, heading home, but most of them stayed. Brian looked around for something else to do.

A rumble of sustained thunder came from under his feet. Brian had just enough time to wonder why thunder was coming from the ground instead of the sky when he heard someone yell, "Run! The entire hillside's coming down! Run!"

The air was so thick with water that the earth flow seemed to compress the available air space and Brian could sense the mud moving in the air, against his skin and eardrums. The weird pressure of sodden earth, unstoppable and implacable, searching for a level place to rest, pushed him along.

They reached the street, and Brian sensed that the movement behind him had stopped. He turned and shone his flashlight towards the backyard. The beam illuminated the rain for a couple yards, and then was swallowed up by the blackness.

"Did it reach the house?" he wondered aloud.

"Where's John? Did you see John?" Tom Nesbitt shook Brian's arm, then moved past him without waiting for an answer. "Has anyone seen my son?" he bellowed.

It took a few seconds for the men to shake off the shock of the mudslide and start looking at each other, mentally tallying who was in the street and trying to remember who they couldn't find.

Brian caught up with Tom's flashlight and started yelling for John along with him. The smell of mud clogged his nostrils as they got closer to the muck. Brian couldn't see much with just the flashlight, but everything he could see was mud at least three feet thick.

"John!" Tom yelled.

"Dad?" came a faint reply.

"He's over here, Tom," someone called out.

Tom ran and Brian followed him. He shone his flashlight ahead of him and could see the silhouette of a younger boy, with a spiky shape sprouting out of his shoulder.

"John! What have you got?" Tom asked, swinging his son into a huge hug that produced a sound like clanking metal.

"Shovels, dad. I grabbed the shovels," John answered.

"Shovels?"

"Well, yeah. How else are we going to shovel the mud out of the Baker's basement?"

Brian couldn't help it. He laughed. The laughter spread to the other men gathering around them and several of them reached out to ruffle John's soaking hair, or clap him on the shoulder. "That's quite the boy you've got there, Tom," someone said.

"Who else is missing?" someone else asked, and the laughter abruptly ended.