A second later, Jo’s head broke the surface of the water just outside Intrepid’s ruined hull, sputtering and raging at the hurricane. She slapped and splashed at the water, illuminated by lightning, and Reese was able to at last grasp hold of her hand and haul her partially up the hull.
"What happened?" Jo coughed into the wind.
Reese shook his head and flattened himself as tight to the hull as possible. Every wave that slammed into them rocked it back and forth, threatening to throw them off. Reese managed to find a bent railing support and held on with one hand. The other he intertwined in the backpack Jo still wore.
"I think we’re stranded on some rocks or something—I don't understand," he yelled over the noise of the storm.
Thunder roared overhead, and Jo screamed in surprise. Lightning illuminated the world for a split second, and once again Reese spotted the towering black wave right on top of them.
Jo saw it too. She screamed and dropped her head to the hull. Her grip on his forearm tightened like the devil.
Reese laughed into the wind. It was the same exact image of a wave he’d seen right before impact. He realized it wasn't a wave that loomed above them, it was a wall.
More specifically, a granite wall. There was only one structure that he knew of in the area that possibly had a wall that large and still far enough offshore for them to reach before they actually ran aground. In another flash of lightning, Reese blinked and saw the aft end of a crumpled ocean tanker partially buried in the wall perhaps 100 yards downrange from them. Seeing a vessel that big embedded in the side of a massive wall told Reese everything he needed to know about their location.
"It's the fort!" he yelled into the wind.
Jo struggled to lift her head against the pressure of the wind that roared down over the tops of the waves. "What?" she screamed. "The rain hurts!"
Reese tried to explain one more time, but his voice was lost in the wind. Jo was right. They had to find shelter—they had no choice now. The boat was useless...
But Fort Sumter still stood strong against the storm.
As lightning flashed and illuminated the world in split-second intervals, Reese slowly crawled along Intrepid's badly damaged hull. As he dragged Jo with him, the tangled rope that tied them together hooked itself on broken pieces of the hull and railing stanchions, and they took precious time to unhook themselves at every snag. But in the end, it was worth it.
When Reese reached the tip of the bow, and gently dislodged the anchor so they could climb off the boat, lightning lit up the shoreline at the base of Fort Sumter's northeastern wall. The tanker was illuminated by the pink and blue lightning strikes that lit up the sky. It'd been buried—by the tsunami, Reese figured, because the storm wasn’t that bad—and partially collapsed half of the fort. It was amazing that a structure built in the 19th century had survived wars and tides and time, only to be breached by a massive supertanker driven forward like the point of the spear during the largest tsunami in recorded history.
Reese hung balanced off the edge of the bow and Jo eventually joined him, sliding along the hull. Because of the darkness, Reese couldn't fully see exactly what lay ahead of them—was it a beach, a rocky shoreline, or was it simply churning water that waited to swallow them if they slipped off the bow?
He hesitated long enough for Jo to scream something at him in the wind, and a wave hit the aft end of Intrepid and made the entire hull shudder. They had no choice but to jump off the bow into the black void that waited for them. He couldn't see what was there, but he knew there was a significant drop before they hit whatever it was that waited for them, whether it be shore, sand, rocks, or water.
In the end, the decision to move was made for them. Reese felt the rain slacken as a massive wave blocked the wind itself. Reese had time to turn and look, then shout an exclamation of fright before the wall of water hit them and swept them right over the side of the boat.
Sucked underwater by the massive force of the wave, Reese was at the mercy of the angry ocean. He flipped and spun and did several somersaults, then let himself go limp. Tensed muscles would do nothing but give him injuries. Reese grunted underwater in pain with every smack and jab of something sharp or hard he crashed into and eventually popped back up to the surface and took a lungful of air.
Reese tried to cry out, but the pain in his chest was too much and he settled for merely breathing. Every time he tried to raise his right arm to pull at the water, the pain intensified to the point that he worried his arm was broken. The line tied around his waist was alternating between taut and slack, so he knew Jo was still with him and they mercifully weren't tangled up on anything.
A second later, the wave that carried him forward toward the fort shifted, and Jo appeared at his side. In a flash of lightning, he saw her face smeared with blood, and her eyes reflected a dull, glazed light. He moved close to her and with his good arm reached out and wrapped it around her shoulders, then used his legs to kick. It took another three waves to crest and pull them closer and closer to shore before he felt something like sand under his feet.
One final wave shoved them forward and deposited them onto a section of sandy beach covered with debris. Frantic to get up and out of the way of the next big wave, Reese struggled to plant his feet on the shifting, silty soil. Weeds and grass that he figured once stood above the water line slapped at his legs as the water churned with micro currents all around the base of the fortress.
"Come on!" he shouted into the wind as he tried to help Jo find her footing. She flopped about in the water, dazed, and said something back that sounded like she was looking for a lost cat. Reese didn't have time to make sense of her drunken slurring, and half-crawled on his knees with his one good arm before finally being pushed by a wave up against the brick wall.
Reese had never felt such relief as that unyielding, comforting, massive stone at his back. Lightning flickered, and the storm-tossed ocean continued to advance toward them, wave...after wave...after wave...after wave. Whitecaps stacked up into the distance toward the rain-shrouded horizon. Most of the waves heading toward them in the immediate vicinity were of the small, chest high variety that had helped deposit them on the island proper. But another flash of lightning illuminated several much bigger waves beyond that steadily grew closer to the fort.
They had little choice but to scramble for the hole in the wall caused by the tanker.
Reese turned and pulled and tugged at Jo as she slowly regained her faculties. Inch by inch they worked their way toward the northeast corner of the fort. Each time one of the smaller waves hit them, Reese pushed off from the ground with his legs and let the water carry them closer to the edge before landing. He laughed, despite the pain in his chest and arm as the second wave carried them another 10 feet closer to their goal.
"What's so funny?" Jo demanded with a weak voice, her hand latched firmly to his arm.
"This!" Reese said as he bobbed in the water again. "It feels like we’re astronauts, bouncing on the moon!" He looped his good arm under hers. "Hang on! One more time, and we’ll get around the corner."
The next wave caromed against the outer wall of the fort, and Reese turned to look over Jo's head as he watched it slide along the length of the fort until the crest found them and lifted them free of the island.
Reese spread his legs as he felt himself buoyed up and allowed the water to carry him along with the other flotsam to the corner of the fort. A strong eddie sucked them around the edge and propelled them toward the giant aft end of the tanker. Reese got one final glimpse behind Jo of Intrepid's mast, snared with the tangled rigging as lightning reflected off the twisted metal. Then they were around the corner, and a bigger wave approached the abandoned boat.
The wave deposited them halfway down the length of the northern wall of the fort. On unsteady legs as the water tried to suck them back out into the raging ocean, Reese found the fort blocked at least some of the wind. "Now’s our chance! Come on, we've got to make it to that tanker!"
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"What tanker?" Jo yelled into the wind. Lightning struck somewhere on the other side of the fort and the massive aft end of the tanker, the size of an apartment building, jutted from the fort directly ahead of them. "Oh. That tanker. Why didn’t you say so?"
The two of them struggled over the wet, rocky shoreline and the debris from the tanker’s impalement. The whole time, smaller waves lapped at their legs and threatened to knock them over.
Before they reached the tanker, a larger wave hit them and sent them both flying into the fort’s massive brick wall. Reese cried out in agony as he dropped three feet when the wave retreated back into the maelstrom that surrounded them. Jo was sucked even further out into the water. The line tied to their waists went taut, and just as Reese found his footing in the knee-deep water, he was yanked back and fell into the retreating waves with a splash.
His left hand lashed out and found a slippery rock, and he refused to let go. A sharp pain glanced up his back as the cord went tight around his hips. He heard a gurgled cry from Jo somewhere in the distance, and then the next wave approached, and carried her with it. Reese relaxed and let the wave carry them both just a few feet off the ground directly toward the tanker.
As they approached the tanker, Reese realized that the water was picking up speed, and though they were still only waist deep, if they didn't manage to grab onto the hull as they went past, they might lose their chance and be swept past the fort back into Charleston Bay.
"We've got to grab on! This is our only chance!" he screamed as he tried to gain his footing, tripped, and stumbled over unseen obstacles just below the surface.
“Of course, it is!” Jo yelled back.
"My right arm’s busted!" Reese screamed over his shoulder.
Jo was silent for a moment, then exclaimed when lightning struck extremely close and their world turned bright blue. "Hang on!" she screamed.
"I can't see!" Reese yelled in warning. He’d been looking in the direction the lightning had struck, and the afterimage had completely blinded him. He could feel them getting closer to the tanker—something about the surrounding air changed as they grew closer to the massive metal body sticking out of the stone fort.
The sound of water slapping against the exposed keel drew his attention to the left. As his vision began to return, Reese realized that he was going to be too far out to effectively grab any of the debris hanging from the back end of the boat. Jo, some 15 feet to his left, tethered at the extreme end of the rope that held them together, was their only chance.
Reese passed under the massive rudder and the absolute blackness overhead signaled he was underneath the tanker and unable to do anything but pray Jo managed to find a hand hold. The rope tied to his waist went taut again, and Reese felt himself jerk painfully backward as the water continued to pull him down the length of the fort. Jo had managed to find something to hold on to.
"Pull yourself along the rope!" her voice came, muffled by distance and the wind as she tried to yell from the other side of the keel. "I can hold on all day, but I can't pull us any higher with you dangling like that!"
Reese nodded and didn't waste any effort trying to shout back. Instead, he grabbed the rope on his waist with his left hand and pulled, attempting to find purchase with his feet at the same time. The water was a little deeper, just above his waist, but his feet eventually found rocks to perch on. He pushed off with his legs, let the rope slip past him and reached forward to pull it even closer, to pull himself closer toward Jo.
As he did so, the rocks he stood on gave way, and slipped from his feet. Thunder echoed off the metal hull above his head, and Reese found himself imagining he was trapped inside a giant bell. Between the roaring sound all around him and the wind hitting him in the face along with the stinging rain, the tanker’s metal hull positively rang with noise as water cascaded in sheets off the exposed ship.
"Keep going! That's it, you're almost here!" Jo called after another nearby lightning strike lit up the world.
When Reese finally pulled himself free of the keel and moved closer to the fort, he found Jo wedged between a large rock and a pile of broken bricks that had been crushed by the ship when it slammed into the fort. The waves ran out once more, and Jo was left completely above the water, pulling hard on the rope as she braced one leg against the rock pile and one leg against the ship.
Reese fought against the increasing pressure of the water and struggled forward, then suddenly reached a tipping point where the water was no longer strong enough to pull him down as it dropped past his waist down to his knees. He staggered forward and gained a lot of ground, almost reaching Jo before the next wave pushed them both further along the length of the hull toward the fort.
"Keep your head above water! Don't let the water push you underneath the hull or we’ll drown!"
Jo grunted in reply. The two of them bounced and fought and scrabbled over the exposed bricks and rocks at the base of the hull. Two more smaller waves hit and shoved at them. But finally they were able to walk and climb.
At last they pulled free of the water altogether and slipped into the lee of the partially crumbled fortress wall. There was a big enough gap for them to climb through between the exposed inner part of the wall, the hull, and the badly damaged outer wall. As soon as they passed the outer edge, the sound of the wind changed from a roaring locomotive to a high-pitched whistle. Reese could actually hear himself think once more. The rain stopped, and the only water that reached them was a waterfall that sluiced off the side of the ship and dropped straight down on them in the crack between the fort and the ship.
Reese hugged Jo with his good arm and they laughed in relief as they climbed up about 5 feet above the surface of the raging water just in time to miss a massive wave that slammed into the exposed aft end of the ship. The hull behind them groaned, and several bricks fell from somewhere above, landing noisily in the water next to them or clanging against the hull behind them.
"Come on, we gotta get inside the fort. If something happens and that thing shifts, we’ll be squashed...”
"Ain’t gotta tell me twice!” Jo said as she scrambled forward into the darkness of the interior of the fort.
Crawling on hands and knees at one point, Reese gasped again as his injured arm brushed the ship, but he managed to hold back the cry of pain and stagger once more to his feet. Every second they were trapped between the wall and the ship, Reese imagined the next wave would be the one that broke the back of the fort and collapsed the wall on them or pushed the ship loose so that it might fall on them.
He didn't breathe easy until they finally emerged from the near pitch blackness into the slightly lighter darkness of the interior of Fort Sumter. Jo collapsed on her back on a pile of rubble and debris at the base of the wall, but Reese urged her to get up. "We can't rest here—come on, we gotta get further into the fort."
“Why?" Jo demanded. “Most of the wind is going over us now. We can actually talk without yelling!"
A muffled explosion erupted behind them, and the ground shook. Reese turned and looked at the towering outer wall of the fort. At the top, a huge plume of sea spray exploded up over the wall and rained down on them in buckets. Water rushed through the gap between the ship and the partially broken wall and shot forth with the power of a firehose.
Reese jumped back and pulled Jo out of the way of the jet of ocean water before it slowed to a trickle and disappeared. "That's why! The waves are still hitting this wall, and it's already weakened. We get a couple big waves in a row and this thing might come down—and take that ship with it. I want to be on the other side of this fort when that happens!"
"You have any idea what the layout of this place is?" Jo asked as she peered into the darkness, frowning.
Reese grunted. "We've been here before on tours with my daughter and on school trips. But it's been a few years. I don't think there's anything directly in front of us..." Reese stopped talking when a clap of thunder erupted overhead, and the entire interior of the f
ort lit up for a split second in blue-pink light.
He didn't get much of a glimpse, but what he saw disheartened him. Most of the forward end of the supertanker had come apart and left debris, shipping containers, boxes and pools of oil and diesel coating everything from where they stood to the other side of the fort. There was no way they’d be able to cross the open space of the parade ground.
Another deep thrumm echoed through the fort as a massive wave slammed into the northeast wall. A jet of water shot out between the open wall and the ship’s hull, missing them by mere feet.
"That one shot further than the first one!” Reese said. He pulled Jo back into the shadows at the base of the wall. "Come on, we can’t go through the middle, but if we follow the wall all the way around there, we should find some stairs or something where we can get up inside the inner wall.”
"Won't that put us closer to the water trying to tear this whole place down?" Jo asked over a sudden gust of wind that howled through the open parade ground like a demon.
"Maybe on the north and west side, but it seems pretty calm on the south side!”
“Relatively speaking, of course,” Jo added.
“Come on,” Reese urged, “we don't have much choice in the matter."
Jo settled the first aid backpack squarely on her shoulders and slapped Reese on the back to urge him forward. “As long as we find a place to sleep, I don’t care where we go."
Chapter 13
Braaten Forest Preserve
Northwest of Charleston, South Carolina
Cami opened her eyes and faced a bleak reality. She knew she had slept at some point but couldn't tell how long—the world around her was only slightly less dark than it had been the night before. Instead of the wind howling and rain sheeting through the forest in darkness, now there was a gloomy, gray light that barely illuminated things a dozen feet in front of her.
Broken Tide | Book 5 | Storm Surge Page 10