Splinter shrugged.
The flatfoot unzipped the big pouch of Splinter’s dirty and road-beaten pink Dora the Explorer backpack and pulled out clothes. A sweatshirt with an eagle carrying an anchor on the breast, four black plastic garbage bags, a pair of gym shorts, two plain dark blue t-shirts, and some underwear. The cop held up the book on how to make weapons in survivalist situations. “You into this stuff?”
Splinter said nothing.
“Not a good sign.” The officer pulled all the pack’s smaller pockets inside-out, spilling Splinter’s life on the walkway.
Finding nothing of interest, the cop said, “That your cane?”
Splinter’s walking stick was propped against the palm tree.
“You hurt? A Navy boy?” the cop asked. “What’s your name and where do you live? Why no ID in here?”
“Name’s Matthew Woods, friends call me Splinter. You can call me sir, or Captain Woods. I live in southern Florida.” His expired military ID and current bank card were hidden in the backpack’s lining.
“What is your address?”
“Don’t have one,” Splinter said.
“You’re a vagrant?”
“I’m on permanent leave.”
“No job?”
“Not interested.”
“So you’re, what, a bum of leisure?”
“OK, look, I don’t work because I don’t want to. When the measly pension the Navy gave me runs out maybe I’ll work, but now I don’t want to. That alright with you?” Splinter’s cheeks burned, and his neck throbbed with pain, but he wasn’t done. “I don’t have an address because I don’t live anywhere. I move around, and last time I checked that wasn’t a crime in the country I fought for.” That was the most Splinter had said in months, but he felt the anger coming on.
“Where’d you fight?”
Splinter flipped the lapel on the army jacket he wore, revealing a short stack of ribbons: Silver Star, Meritorious Service honors, two Purple Hearts, and Afghanistan and Iraq Campaign medals. Splinter’s heart raced. Breathe. These flatfoots who’d never fired their weapons really pissed him off sometimes. “I’ll make you a deal, Officer—” Splinter leaned in to read the cop’s nameplate. “Officer Peterson. When I do have an address, I’ll invite you to the house warming party.”
“Funny.” The cop walked away, leaving Splinter’s belongings in the sand. No money for that cup of joe.
Splinter’s nerves tensed and pain shot down his spine. He rolled his shoulders and tried to crack his neck and back. No luck. He stuffed his belongings back in his backpack.
Something was wrong. Very wrong.
The wind picked up, and sand bit his face like tiny daggers. A gale tore across the beach, ripping at palm fronds and scattering beach toys.
The wind stopped, like the end of a great exhalation.
Splinter’s anger blossomed, his vision blurring, panic filling him with fear.
An intense sucking sound rose above the yelling of panicked people. The massive pucker got deeper and louder as the ocean receded as if the laws of physics were reversed. People ran past him, dragging children and gear. The sea floor was exposed, revealing rocks, seaweed, and flopping fish.
A white line crossed the eastern horizon and grew like a nightmare.
The battle-fog took him, and Splinter vaulted to his feet and drew his speargun from inside his jacket. He grabbed his cane and screwed its end into the pistol’s modified handle, turning the 1960 vintage CO2 Sea Hunter spear pistol into a rifle. Splinter put the stock to his shoulder and trained the gun on the receding sea, fanning it back and forth as if he expected an enemy to emerge from where the ocean had been.
The white line on the horizon came on, growing as the seafloor rose.
Splinter picked up his pack and ran. The wind kicked up and the ground trembled. He bolted across the walkway, people moving out of his way, fear in their eyes. He slipped the speargun beneath his coat, holding it tight against his side as he ran. He crossed a thin patch of weeds into the parking lot. Screaming filled his mind. Children crying. People ran in every direction.
Splinter raced across the public parking lot toward A1A. Cars stood still on the road, drivers and passengers staring east. He looked over his shoulder, arms and legs pumping.
A massive wave towered on the eastern horizon, and was almost to the shore.
Splinter made for the Comfort by the Sea hotel, which sat along the calm waters of the inner bay, Indian River. It was four stories tall and made of cinderblocks. Getting to its roof was the only thing he could think to do. He dodged through the throng of people packing into cars and trucks that would become their watery coffins. The tsunami would hit at any moment, and there was no car fast enough to escape it. The exits and entrance were already blocked with traffic. He threaded his way over A1A, running full speed, cutting and juking.
The emergency siren at the fire station pierced the day, its shrill cry late in coming.
People packed the entrance to the hotel, so Splinter ran through the fountain and headed for the rear of the building. Panicked people stacked ten rows deep blocked the back entrance. Splinter changed course, picked-up a stone from the edge of a decorative pond, and hurled the rock through the plate-glass window next to the rear entrance.
Louder screeching and cries as a deafening rumble blocked-out the sound of the siren. Wind tore through the broken window as Splinter jumped through. Glass shattered and wood cracked, the world spinning like a tornado. He crossed the lobby, threw open the door to the emergency stairwell, and took the steps up two at a time, chest heaving, pain stabbing his back.
The building shook, and Splinter fell. He landed hard on the metal stair treads, and blood dripped down his leg. Water shot up the stairwell like a giant firehose, and Splinter was driven upward like a cork on a rising sea. He sucked in air as the water consumed him, and he stroked up as the pressure eased, and the sea receded, pulling him back.
Splinter grabbed the handrail and held on, lungs burning, his legs braced against the wall as the undertow pulled at him. The force of the water ripped at his clothes, and he strained to keep from being sucked out of the stairwell like sewage.
He’d wished for death so many times. Now that he’d come calling, Splinter had changed his mind.
The water drained away and he lay panting on the stairs, still clinging to the handrail. Splinter unscrewed the stock from his speargun, slipped the pistol into his jacket, and strapped his cane-stock to the backpack. He put the pack on, pulled it tight, and got to his feet. He ran up the steps two at a time because he knew that rarely was there one tsunami wave. There was usually a series of them.
He exited onto the roof and ran to the eastern edge.
The sea covered everything. The light poles. Cars. Lifeguard stands. Street signs. All of it was hidden by the turbulent sea. Splinter went to the western side and what he saw there was more disturbing. Sections of Sailfish Haven were gone, the small structures sucked into the sea as the ocean retreated. The streets were canals, and the taller buildings stood in the flood, their glass windows reflecting the chaos. The wave surge pushed inland across the mangroves and consumed the inner bay, finally coming to a stop as it flooded Fort Pierce and the Old Dixy Highway.
He leaned against the parapet wall. His camp in the groves was gone. His skiff. He had nothing except what he carried in his backpack.
The sea churned as it receded, dragging bodies and the flotsam of humanity. The wind died to a faint breeze. Splinter saw the mother’s blue sombrero sunhat floating in the jetsam, and he thought of the boy. All the people who’d been on the beach. Everyone that came near him died. How much longer could he do this?
Emergency sirens wailed and helicopter rotors pounded the air. Splinter ran back down the emergency staircase. He needed to disappear and find a place to sleep for the night.
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Ocean Grave Page 29