Everyone had gathered in an old bank vault, not the vault, but an old bank with a vaulted ceiling. The safest place was in the board room but that was full and no one would open the door. I stayed along the wall and looked up at the plaster ceiling, the finery of 19th century workmanship dangling in delicate, broken segment high above. I moved corner to corner, past the huddles of people I did not know and who did not want to know me, and finally down a hallway that led to a narrow staircase and a wooden basement. I knew that it was a bad dream and I had to go down.The first door came eerily open and I was afraid. I shut it and jumped away, continuing to the next where I found more cold and dark and decided I must go back to the first and face my fears. There was nothing there. It was empty with a dirt floor room wand a draft. I didn’t question why it was under the bank. It was just there, like the witches and killers and crypts beneath my childhood home. The first rumbling was clear, like an airliner coming in too low. The next was less so. And that was it. The vaulted bank room was empty by the time I returned.