NOVEL NEXT Chapter 5: Immortality – Part One
"Welcome to this 14 news special report with Wendy Richards. We are on location at what we are now just learning is the former location of the Ocean Lilly Resort and Spa." The small lady reporter stood looking over the rubble of the building and turned the moment the camera light went red.
“Devastation rocked this quiet part of the beach tonight as the fifteen story building came down in what others describe as an earth shaking thunder of dust and fire.” She walked to the edge of the police tape sectioned off a safe zone and continued. “We are told by a police spokesman that the first emergency calls came in roughly twenty minutes ago, due to alleged screams within the building itself. The police confirmed with me that they had units in route and just blocks away when the building went up in flames.” Wendy motioned for the camera to follow her once more and walked over to a few people huddling under police blankets.
“Would you be kind enough to speak for a few minutes, sir?” She pointed to a gentleman in his late fifties, his hair white from age and gray from the ash that had fallen.
“Sure. What would you like to know?” The man pulled his blanket around tighter, before standing up.
“Can you describe what you saw for the viewers please?”
He shrugged, “I was asleep. Just like you reported a moment ago, I could have sworn I heard screams. It happened so fast afterward that I am still a little confused.” He closed his eyes and rubbed the corners of them before reopening them. “The screams could have been from a party or actual cries for help, I don’t know for certain.” He waved his hand over to the burning building, “I do know that the building seemed to catch fire all at once. Damnedest thing I have ever seen, I mean have you ever seen a building with every floor just igniting at once?”
“No, I can’t say that I have. Did you feel the ground shake and hear a thunderclap as well?”
“I did. I just assumed it came from the building. I was standing outside capturing it on my phone when everything happened. Fire, a shake and the building came down. In that order. Look.” He handed the reporter his phone with the video.
Wendy looked over the short video and then back to the camera. “Can I share this with everyone watching?” She waited for the man to nod his head and then handed the phone to another assistant in her news van. “What you are about to see is indeed exactly as this gentleman explains it.” She watched as the assistant gave the thumbs up, “This might be shocking for some of you to see, so please Look away if you do not want to witness the catastrophe.”
The video was sharp and crisp, the name “The Ocean Lilly” in huge blue neon, along with all of the room lights on for the top floor, and a checkerboard look of lights for the rest of the rooms. The lobby had its lights off and the doors closed. Fire suddenly erupted from the building with enough pressure so that all of the windows exploded within a second of each other. Curtains were the easiest thing to see burning, the long thick fabric adding to the intensity of the flame, right to the rings that shot out small sparks as they too burned. Panning over the length and height of the resort the little video captured the structure as it seemed to lean for a moment followed by a loud boom which sent cinder-block chunks across the parking lot, and ash into the air as the building fell into a mountain of fire and rock.
Wendy waited for a few moments and handed the phone back to the man standing with her. Opening her mouth to speak, she stopped the moment she heard firefighters screaming in the distance.
“We have a live one here! Get a stretcher!”
The reporter sprinted over to the police tape and struggled to get a look at the firefighters excavating the area. Holding out her microphone, Wendy let the events unfold live without any commentary.
“Take my hand, there we go.” The captain and two others pulled a ragged woman from the rubble. “Slowly, now.” Strapping the woman to the plastic stretcher, they walked from the pile. “Ma’am, Do you know where you are? Can you tell me your name?”
“K-K-Karen Collins.”
Wendy watched and waited until the woman was lifted into an ambulance before looking back at her camera. “There you have the latest, We have a single survivor, a phoenix if you will, one that rose from the ashes - all first seen here on channel fourteen news. We will report more as the information becomes available.” Wendy waited for the light to go black before smiling at her crew. “Excellent. Let’s follow that ambulance, fuck the building. We already know that was a cover-up and no one was supposed to get out. She is the one we need, keep close but not too close.” Wendy’s driver nodded in understanding. “We are onto them now.”