Upheaval: A Disaster Thriller, page 8
“What are you ranting about?” Jack screwed up his face and squinted. “Earthquake’s over.”
“The Strait is draining. Water is getting sucked out to sea. That’s the first sign of a tsunami.”
“What?” Mary’s mouth fell open. “You can’t be serious.”
“I am.” Clint managed to pull enough air into his lungs to stand. “Don’t you remember that earthquake preparedness class a few years ago? They mentioned the worst case. Said if it’s a monster quake, like this one I’m guessing, our biggest threat isn’t the quake itself it’s what comes after.”
“The water.”
“Exactly.” Clint turned to stare out at the Strait, beautiful and sparkling from this distance. “It’s already pulling away from the shore.”
“We never prepared for that.” Mary’s voice came out small and tinged with fear. “Everyone told us if it happened, it was hopeless.”
Jack wiped a hand across his mouth. “How long do we have?”
“I don’t know.”
“How big will the wave be?”
Clint threw up his hands. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
Mary looked around the group in alarm. “What about our families? Our children? Hamilton Elementary is what, six or seven blocks from the coast?”
“I think there’s a Montessori even closer.” Beth pressed a hand to her cheek. “My husband works at the Medical Center. It’s right on the water.”
Clint motioned for everyone to stop. “We don’t have time to be talking it over. If you’ve got a loved one in harm’s way, call them. Try to warn them.”
“What if we can’t reach them?”
“Do your best.” He glanced at Jason for approval. The man nodded, mouth hanging open in shock. “But focusing on them won’t do any good if we don’t get moving. Right here, on the Port, we’re sitting ducks. Everyone needs to leave. If you drove, get in your car. Get to higher ground. If your house is far enough inland, go there. If not, I’d say head as far away from water as you can get.”
“Which way?” Mary wondered.
“I’d say west on the 101. It curves inland. If the road isn’t damaged, and it’s still passable, that might be the best route.”
“There’s not much out that way,” Jack pointed out.
“Exactly. All we have to do is survive the flood. It’ll recede. We just have to wait it out.”
Clint pulled out his phone and called Daphne. It rang and rang. She didn’t pick up. He turned away from the group as her voicemail clicked on. “Hey Daph, it’s Clint. If you’re getting this, you need to get to higher ground. I don’t know where you are, but water’s coming. Fast. Seattle’s gonna flood. Bad. Find a high rise or head east. Anywhere you can, as fast as you can.” He hesitated. “Love you.”
He ended the call and turned around. Jack gave him a knowing glance. “You alright?”
“I will be once we get everyone out of here.” He clapped his hands for attention. “Everybody, let’s move!”
Clint ushered the employees who were slow to react toward their vehicles. His boss didn’t seem capable of springing into action—none of them did. Maybe it was the aftereffects of all the adrenaline leaving their bodies. Maybe it was because they hadn’t seen the water, the horror of it all being sucked away. But they needed to move faster.
He helped Mary into her older Rav-4 and leaned over the open driver’s side, perching his arm across the top. “Where’s your house?”
Her fingers shook and she struggled to shove the key in the ignition. “Near Peninsula College. It’s up a little rise.”
“Good. Head there. If you see the water coming, keep driving. Is Frank at home?”
Mary nodded. “Works out of the shed out back.”
“Find him and make sure you’re both out of the way.” He shut the door and rapped on the hood.
Mary eased out of the parking lot, fourth in line behind other employees.
Clint checked the time. Where did the last ten minutes go? He turned toward the water. No sign of a wave, but that was meaningless. It was coming, he knew it.
A whistle caught his attention, and he twisted around to find Jack flagging him down. “Can I hitch a ride? I let Jimmie and a couple guys who work the dock take my truck since they rode the bus over this morning.”
“No problem.” Clint scanned the lot. Beth sat behind the wheel of a newer Lexus, painted nails tapping the steering wheel as she queued up behind an F-150. Besides his truck, only three other vehicles still sat empty. “Where’s Jason?”
Jack lifted a brow. “Don’t know. Thought he’d be gone by now.”
Clint frowned. Ever since the quake, Jason had been out of sorts, failing to take charge while everyone around him panicked. Clint nodded toward the warehouse. “I’m gonna check it out. Make sure he didn’t go back for something.”
“But the water—”
Clint held up a hand. “It’ll only take a minute.” He tossed Jack his keys. “If you see the wave, blast the horn.”
Before Jack argued, Clint took off, loping toward the warehouse door. He ducked inside and called out for his boss. “Jason? Mr. Rechio, you in here?”
Something clattered to the floor and Clint followed the noise past reception and toward the collection of offices flanking the rear of the building. He ducked inside his boss’s office and found the man, arms buried in a banker’s box.
“What are you doing?”
Jason twisted toward the file cabinet and grabbed a chunk of files before turning back around and dumping them into the box. “Our older accounts are still paper only. If we lose them, I won’t know how to reconcile the budget. We’ll be sunk.”
“We’ll be dead if we don’t get out of here.” Clint stepped forward. “We’ve got to go, now.”
“Just a few more.”
Outside, a horn blasted. Once, twice, three times. Clint rushed toward Jason. “That’s Jack. It means the tsunami is here. Leave it.”
Jason’s eyes bulged. “But—”
Clint grabbed the man by the wrist and dragged him around the edge of the desk. “We don’t have any more time.”
The horn blared again outside and Clint pulled Jason along, out of his office and down the hall. He burst through the door to reception and yanked Jason in front of him. The man half stumbled, half fell, into the exterior door and Clint shoved it open around him.
They emerged into the sun to a giant wall of water no more than a hundred yards away.
Jason stared in horror. “We’re going to die.”
“Not if I can help it. Run!” Clint took off, B-lining straight for his truck. Jack threw the driver’s side door open and Clint launched himself into the seat. Jason followed seconds behind, climbing over the side of the pickup bed and falling in as Clint wrenched the gear shift into drive and slammed the gas.
The truck’s rear wheels shimmied, kicking dust into a cloud behind them. The water gained, rising out of the strait like a blanket of wrath. He pressed the gas pedal to the floor and gripped the steering wheel so tight his fingers spasmed.
“We aren’t going to make it.” Jack stared out the rear window.
“Yes, we are.” Clint kept his eyes on the road and off the impending doom behind him. The truck barreled out of the Port, bouncing over the curb as he passed the nicest restaurant in the area. Half of the facade lay in a heap on the sidewalk. A handful of people gathered at the open-air pavilion where the farmer’s market set up every Saturday. He blared the horn. Waved at them to run.
The light in front of him turned red and Clint slammed his fist on the horn, relentlessly broadcasting their approach.
“There are vehicles, Clint. We can’t—”
Clint floored it toward the intersection, narrowly missing an older woman in a Subaru. Up ahead, cars blocked the road. He glanced left and cranked the wheel, bouncing over the curb and into a gas station. Half of the awning above the pumps hung in an awkward arc, broken in the quake.
He swerved past a car parked at a pump, windshield broken from debris, and back onto the road, darting in between a propane truck stalled on the side and a woman standing on the sidewalk with her dog. He honked again and motioned toward the mountains.
All these people. They thought the earthquake was the worst of it. His heart tugged in a million directions. He had half a mind to stop, convince them to flee. But then he thought of Mika, only sixteen years old on the side of a mountain with a gaggle of girls. If Daphne was already dead… if she was about to be swallowed up by an onslaught of water…
Clint had to stay alive. He had to be there for his daughter. He risked a glance in the rear view. They’d gained on the wave, putting more distance between them and impending death than he’d expected. But it wasn’t enough. He cranked the wheel, turning so fast onto East Eighth Street, the rear right wheel lifted off the ground. Jason scrambled over to the right side of the pickup bed, lending his weight to the lighter back end.
The truck fell back to the ground with a thud and Clint punched the gas, blasting past a series of medical buildings, all damaged to varying degrees, a coffee shop and way too many people. He slammed on the brakes.
Jack slid forward, head almost colliding with the windshield. “What the heck, man?”
Clint swallowed down a wad of bile. “I can’t do it.”
“Can’t do what?”
“Leave everyone.” He twisted around and peered out the back. “Where’s the water?”
Jack twisted around and squinted. “I can’t see it. Doesn’t mean it isn’t there.”
He sucked in a breath and reached for the door handle. “Then we have a bit of time. Come on.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
MIKA
The van groaned under Mika’s weight as she wrenched on the upside-down rear door. A dent spanned the entire midsection of the back end, warping the latch. She tugged, but it got her nowhere.
Muttering a curse beneath her breath, something she saved for extreme situations, she tried again. Fingers wrapped around the handle, Mika pulled with all her might. Still nothing.
“Hampton?” She called out without turning around. “You think you could lend me a hand?” When her best friend didn’t respond, she stepped back from the van and turned around.
Hampton stood off to the side, randomly plucking apart an uprooted fern. The longer she’d been awake, the more distant she’d become. Mika had tried to keep her in one place, away from the van and in relative safety, but she’d refused. Wandering off into the forest.
Mika called out, “Hamp? You okay?”
“My head hurts.” She motioned to the rear left side. “All along here. Like a giant’s squeezing it super hard.”
“You probably hit your head when you flew from the van. Maybe you should sit down. Take it easy.”
“I flew through the van?” Hampton brightened. “Like a superhero?”
Mika stilled. Did her best friend really not remember? Even if she blacked out during the crash, they’d just talked about it a few minutes ago. “The crash, remember?”
Hampton frowned at the plant in front of her and plucked off another section of leaves. “Hmm?”
A faint rumble reverberated beneath Mika’s feet and she gave a start. Time wasn’t on their side. She needed to find those phones and make contact with her dad. Now. She frowned at Hampton. “Just don’t go anywhere, okay?”
Hampton didn’t respond, still engrossed in dissecting the plant. Mika shoved her worry aside and clambered over exposed roots and chunks of destroyed tree to the nearest shattered van window. She managed to wiggle inside, this time without climbing over an impaled Girl Scout.
Everyone still hung upside down, suspended in some sick time loop of horror. Blood no longer dripped from open wounds, though, most of it now sticky and coagulating on the ceiling-turned-floor. She accidentally stepped in a puddle, tennis shoe squelching out a nauseating burp.
A rush of bile rocketed up her throat and she reached for the van’s wall to steady herself. No throwing up now. She had a job to do. With steadfast resolve, she avoided looking at the bodies all around, focusing instead on the hunt for the forest green nylon bag the troop leaders used to collect all the phones.
It has to be there. It just has to.
Carefully stepping here and there, dodging a dangling leg, a fallen shoe, a clump of… bloodied hair. Oh, God. Mika kept searching. Duffle bags, backpacks, a cooler full of food. But no nylon sack. No phones.
She cried out in frustration. If she couldn’t find it, then how would her dad find her? How would he know where to look? She crouched to peer out the window wedged into the dirt and foliage. Hampton was right, they couldn’t even see the road. Would someone even see it if they searched? Was the road further down the mountain even passable?
Her thoughts spiraled until a metal case slipped from a seat back and clattered at her feet, spilling a rainbow of colored pencils across the ceiling. The pencils bobbled about, turned into a pile of jumping sticks from another aftershock.
Metal groaned and the van pitched. Mika reached for the nearest thing to hold, and her fingers grazed a bare leg, skin cold and rubbery. She recoiled and regretted it in an instant, falling as the van shifted again, sliding a foot or two down the sloped grade.
Panic seized her. It had been easy inside the horror of the makeshift metal coffin to forget about the earthquake and focus on the after. But earthquakes never stopped with one. Aftershocks could be worse than the initial quake; she’d learned that in geology in middle school. Since the ground was already disturbed, a smaller aftershock could collapse buildings and ruin mountainsides that had survived the larger vibration.
She fell to her knees, scouring the van for anything to use. She wrapped her hand around the cooler and hoisted it toward her as the van shifted again. She fell, banging into the side of the van. Pain radiated across her knee and she pulled it up to find a gash an inch long blooming with blood.
No time to dwell.
After shoving the cooler out the nearest window, Mika crawled toward the troop leaders, grabbing the first backpack she found and hurtling it out the window. She found Hampton’s pack as well and managed to shrug that on before canvasing the front one last time.
Ms. Chalmers stared at her, eyes open in fading horror, pupils clouded over and whites of her eyes turned blue. She shoved past the dead woman and popped open the glove box. A pile of maps tumbled to the ceiling and Mika scooped them up as the van groaned again.
Branches snapped as the vehicle shifted. Glass fell out of the windshield as the van slid away from its initial resting place. Mika’s heart pounded like a war drum, demanding she run. She hated to leave without the phones. Where could they possibly be?
Another groan, another tremor, and Mika gave up, hustling toward a shattered window as the van slipped down another foot. A scream lodged in her throat. She scrambled toward freedom, fingers sifting through pebbled glass before digging deep in the earth outside.
She shimmied through, ignoring the two girls suspended above her and slipped out of the van as it slid again. The ruined frame grazed her calf as she inched free. “Hampton!” Mika shouted. “Are you clear?”
Mika crawled on hands and knees away from the wreckage. “Hampton!” Standing on shaky legs, she spied her friend, twenty feet away, waist-deep in ferns, hands running over a fallen tree covered in moss. “Hampton! You need to move!”
Her friend didn’t respond. Didn’t even turn.
Branches cracked beside Mika and ferns disappeared, swallowed up by the van as it slid again. If it picked up momentum, it would roll. And Hampton was right in its path.
Without a second’s thought, Mika tore through the understory, trampling the pale pink and white blooms of oxalis spreading in front of her, breaking the tendrils of bright green ferns. Her foot slipped on a rock covered in moss and lichen and she banged her shin. The pain didn’t register above the fear.
“Hampton! Hampton, damn it! Move!”
At last, her friend glanced up, confusion knitting the space between her brows. She held up a branch covered in clumps of white flowers. “I think I found a huckleberry bush. My mom’s been trying to grow some in the backyard.” She didn’t notice the giant crushed vehicle slip-sliding in slow motion, flattening everything in its path.
Mika reached her as the van slammed into a fallen tree. It hovered, rocking back and forth in the air, until another rumble from deep in the earth tipped it forward. Mika watched in horror as the van began to roll.
Oh, no. Nonononono. She grabbed Hampton by the arm. “Come on, we have to move.”
Hampton shrugged against her. “Get off me. You’re getting dirt on my hoodie.”
“We’re going to die, Hampton! I don’t care about your hoodie.”
“That’s not very nice.”
Mika yanked on Hampton’s arm. “Come on!”
Hampton cried out as Mika dragged her, one step at a time through the brush and out of the path of the oncoming disaster. “Stop it! You’re hurting me!”
“Beats dying!” Mika kept going, tugging and pulling and fighting her best friend with all her might.
The van rolled once, twice, three times, before it gained enough momentum to increase speed. Mika grabbed Hampton’s other arm with her free hand and threw her to the ground before collapsing on top of her. The van rolled past them, metal bending and warping, glass bits landing on their outstretched legs.
Mika sucked in a breath as the vehicle kept going down the mountain, back toward town. Twenty feet, then thirty, forty. She sat up, watching with wide eyes as it barreled straight for a massive, still-standing pine tree. On impact, the tree shook, giant branches raining needles. Something in the van broke and hissed.
A moment later, a boom echoed across the mountainside and flames erupted from the rear of the vehicle. Mika struggled to her feet. All the girls inside. Her troop leaders.
But they were dead. She’d checked, then checked again.
She watched in a combination of awe and revulsion as the flames engulfed the vehicle and thick, black smoke billowed into the sky. She thought of Sasha and the book she’d never read again, of Madison and her infectious laugh. Of her troop leaders and their families back at home waiting for word.
