Broken Tide | Book 5 | Storm Surge

by Richardson, Marcus

  The intensity of the storm had greatly increased overnight. Several large branches lay on the ground nearby, and leaves and dirt stung her face as she peeked up over the crude lean-to she’d sheltered behind during the night.

  She squinted and hunkered back down as the wind and rain lashed at her little enclosure. Soaking wet, she shivered. She had to either keep moving, dig deeper, or somehow find better shelter. Without any kind of rope, she didn't know how or if she’d be able to secure pine boughs as a makeshift roof over her head.

  Somewhere in the distance, a tree cracked and something heavy crashed to the ground—she felt the tremor through the dirt she cowered against. The wind had increased to a steady roar in her ears and she could hardly look in the direction the rain came from. Even holding a hand in front of her face to try to block some rain only worked temporarily.

  Her stomach tightened, and Cami realized then that she hadn't had anything to eat in well over 12 hours. She'd taken a bite just before they left on the rescue mission…but had that been the day before or…? Time had no meaning for her any longer. Everything coalesced around her as a reaction to external stimuli. If she was hungry, she ate. If it was dark, she slept. If it was wet, she sought shelter.

  Cami rubbed her face and wiped grime and water from her eyes. The events of the past few days came crashing back into her consciousness and kept her curled up in a fetal position on the ground behind her makeshift wall. Her body began to shake as she mulled over how close she’d come to being…

  "No…" Cami growled, forcing herself to speak the words over the sound of the wind. "Focus on now. Worry about what happened, later." She forced iron into her voice and deliberately concentrated on what she could change, and what she could do right then, in that moment. Everything else fell away—concern for her friends back in Bee’s Landing, for Amber—did she make it home? Was she okay? How was she handling the storm?

  Most of all, she worried for Reese. It'd been almost two weeks since she'd seen a text message, and that message had taken more than a day to get through to her. She couldn't imagine any scenario in which a cell tower still remained operable. Reese was either on his way home at that moment...or dead somewhere in a ditch by the side of the road between South Carolina and Maine.

  Cami scrunched her eyes shut, put her hands over her ears to drown out the cacophony of noise that enveloped her like a cocoon. "No!" she yelled, driving all of her emotions into her voice. She couldn't give in, she couldn't break, not now, not after everything she'd been through. After surviving the tsunami and rescuing Mitch, the early fight with Flynt, then Cisco and his invasion, the fires in the neighborhood…Merle getting sick…

  She'd come so far—even escaped Cisco's clutches—too far to fall apart over fear that her husband might never come home.

  Cami embraced the realization from the night before that she would never see Amber or Reese again. She latched onto that single thread of calm serenity that had woven through her spirit when she'd given up hope and come to the conclusion that she would die alone and forgotten in Cisco's captivity. That surrender of hope had given her strength to resist him and provided a clarity to recognize the weakness in her captor and exploit it.

  Her head snapped around to the left when she thought she heard a voice call out on the wind. Was that one of Cisco’s men or just the storm growling to itself? Her heart rate accelerated as it tried to claw its way through her ribs. She wasn’t going back, she wouldn’t go back…she couldn’t.

  Cami closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She was still trapped in the clutches of the storm, but Cami had to remind herself that she was free in the woods, master of her own destiny. Would she lay there, sniveling like a little girl, and be recaptured—she was sure Cisco would send out search parties to find her. The man was just insane enough to try the impossible.

  Cami frowned into the wind and rain. Cisco had no hope of finding her tracks. She looked down at the muddy ground and the puddles of rain growing by the second. If they had access to night vision or thermal optics, taken from the National Guard, Cisco and his band of barbarians could easily follow her in the storm.

  Cami wiped water from her face. She could just stand up and run for home as fast as she could hobble. Or she could pull herself up by her bootstraps, lead Cisco on a merry chase through the woods and make it home to see her daughter[MP4]?

  An iron determination descended upon her shoulders like a warm cloak. When she used the tree branch staff to stand, she embraced the pain in her legs and the ache in her back and arms. Dark bruises had formed around her wrists, but she purposely ignored them. Cami wasn't going to give in, she wasn't going to roll over, she wouldn't turn into a blubbering mess—she was going to survive, and woe to any of Cisco's men that tracked her down.

  Cami leaned into the wind, squinting as the rain pelted the left side of her body and the wind threatened to knock her over. A gust buffeted her and made her stagger, but she stood up straighter and resisted all the more.

  "Do your worst!" she raged at the storm. "I'm not giving in! I'm not backing down!" she roared. Cami took several cautious steps forward and stepped gratefully behind a wide oak tree that she'd missed the night before. The solid, reassuring bulwark against the storm blocked the wind and rain and created a pocket of somewhat stable air for her to catch her breath and get her bearings.

  As she looked around, Cami recognized that the branch that she'd been using as a walking staff could serve another function. She pulled out the little knife her rescuer had provided and quickly hacked away at the narrow end of staff. Every time a branch broke, or a tree groaned in the distance, she paused and looked up, her eyes darting left and right, seeking out any movement in the forest. Only after she was satisfied the storm caused the noise—not pursuers—did she focus her attention back on the end of the staff and continued slicing away.

  In short order, despite the storm raging against the other side of the tree behind her, she managed to whittle away the end of the branch into a semi-functional spear point. She put the knife away and held the branch out in front of her with both hands. It extended her reach, perhaps by a good three or four feet. While she certainly wasn't strong enough to go seeking out a fight, if push came to shove, she wouldn't go quietly.

  The corner of her mouth curled up. It felt immeasurably better to have an actual weapon in her hands—as much as she'd rather have a fully loaded AR—her spear would have to suffice. Cami peered into the gloom again and tried to get her bearings. She had no idea which way she’d come the night before, only remembering that she'd approached from Cisco's camp straight into the woods and found the little copse of pine trees. She turned back and marked the direction the wind howled from—that had to be east.

  Cami turned and faced what she thought was north. "Here goes nothing," she muttered to herself as she hunched her shoulders and stepped out from behind the shelter of the tree. The wind slammed into her like a jackhammer and almost drove her to her knees until she found the right balance of resistance in her legs to keep herself upright. Using her spear as a staff, she inched her way forward and moved from tree to tree, gasping with relief as she stepped behind the solid trunks and plotted her next movement.

  She hadn't gone far from her temporary shelter when she heard another snap-crack of branches behind her. The fine hairs on the back of her neck rose, and Cami dove for the base of a pine tree a few feet away. Something about the sound behind her had activated warning bells in her mind. Where all the noise of snapping branches and groaning trees she'd heard thus far had been concentrated in the canopy above, the sound that had spurred her to dive forward had been low to the ground. Either something came loose and dropped out of the sky to smash itself to pieces on the ground, or someone was behind her.

  Cami tucked her head under her shoulders so she could see without being blinded by the wind and rain and squinted into the twilight gloom. There—not 30 feet away, a shadowy form emerged from behind a tree and held up an arm to block the wind and
rain from hitting him—for Cami was sure it was a man—in the face.

  He doggedly came closer and used the same tactic she had: rushed forward and find a tree, catch his breath, look around, then rushed forward to the next tree, spending as little time as possible out in the open, exposed to the storm. Whoever they were, they were smart and followed Cami's trail almost as well as she would have.

  She inched her way around the north side of the tree, ignoring a broadside of horizontal rain, then brought the spear up in a ready position and waited. A vibration that rippled through the tree trunk announced the arrival of the stranger as he slammed into the tree to get out of the wind.

  Cami smelled him before she heard him, a strong odor of stale sweat and onions, of all things. She wrinkled her nose in disgust and inched further around the tree, facing the full wrath of the hurricane. The rain stung her face, neck, and hands, but she closed her eyes and ignored it. She focused on the sounds the man behind the tree made as he prepared himself for the next leg of his journey and cursed loudly the fact that he'd been forced to come out into the hurricane to track her down in the first place.

  "This is some crap right here…" the man grumbled loud enough for her to hear over the keening wind. "I tell you what, when I find her, I’m gonna teach her a lesson…don't care what Cisco wants…"

  Cami gripped the slick shaft of her spear with white knuckles. She heard the man fidget with his gear and verbally psych himself up to make a sprint to the next tree. Before he could move, she stepped away from the tree and let the wind push her around the north side faster than her aching legs could have done so on their own. She leveled the spear at his chest.

  The man, overweight and red-faced in drenched camo clothing, opened his mouth in surprise like a fish out of water. She'd caught him completely by surprise and he staggered back against the tree and dropped the AR 15 he carried to the forest floor. His hands instinctively shot up in front of his face to ward off the nasty spear of sharpened wood leveled at his throat.

  "Whoa!" The man in front of Cami trembled, his double chin quivering as it dripped water onto his chest under his wide, potbelly. Thick sausage-like fingers waved in the air. "I'm sorry! Don't hurt me!"

  Cami narrowed her eyes at him as she braced herself against the constant pressure of the wind. "You're with them!" she accused. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't run you through right now!"

  The man stammered and stuttered something incomprehensible, then pulled the hat off his head. His hair was instantly soaked. "I didn't want to do anything bad! Honest! I was a lawyer before all this happened—Cisco said that I had to do this, or I wouldn't eat!"

  Cami looked him up and down. "It doesn't look like you were hurting too much in that department."

  The man took half a step forward and continued his pleading. "Honestly! I wasn’t going to hurt you—I didn't even know you were out here. I was just gonna wander around for a while and pretend that I couldn't find you, then head back to camp. I don’t want to be out here in the storm! It’s a freaking hurricane!"

  "Drop the knife," Cami said as she lowered the point of the spear to aim at his midsection where a knife was strapped to his side.

  The fat man lowered his hands, but Cami watched his eyes. As his hand came down toward his waist to comply with her order, his eyes narrowed a fraction of an inch.

  That was all the warning she got, but it was enough. By the time his hand touched a revolver hidden around the bulk of his belly, Cami was already leaning forward and thrusting the spear with all her strength.

  She felt an odd sensation of resistance as the tip of the spear hit his clothes, but the force of her thrust, combined with all of her weight, made the sharp point pierce clothing and flesh just the same. The man's eyes widened, and a piteous howl escaped his lips as his back went stiff and he threw himself against the tree trunk.

  In doing so, his hand—finally having achieved its goal of grabbing the pistol free from the belt—convulsed spasmodically and he fired two shots which cracked like thunder and cut right through the constant roar of the wind and rain.

  The sound startled Cami, and she lost her footing, falling fully forward on top of the man and driving the spear so far into him, her arms shuddered when the point hit his spine.

  Gasping in surprise, Cami let go and staggered back. The wind caught her off balance and knocked her to the forest floor as the fat man quivered against the back of the tree, squealing and yelling in pain.

  "You stabbed me!" he roared. Her hand brushed the metal barrel of the man's discarded AR 15. Cami flailed about on the ground, found purchase for her feet, and stood. She brought the rifle up and trained it on him as he pulled the pistol up in a trembling hand and aimed in her general direction.

  They both fired at the same time. Cami didn't hear the bullet zip past her head with the storm roaring in her ears, but she felt the AR kick as she squeezed the trigger.

  She didn't know if she shot the man or not, but he closed his eyes and threw his head back—that was all the window she needed. Cami turned and sprinted for the next tree and dove. Another gunshot rang out in the distance, but she didn't know if the fat man had fired randomly or had aimed at her.

  Cami scrabbled around the backside of the wide oak and lay with her back against the wind and rain as she tried to catch her breath. "Get up, get up, get up!" she told herself, eyes scrunched as she hunched into the wind.

  Her eyes snapped open when she heard a shout, followed by three more gunshots that exploded in the distance where she'd left the fat man. Cami got to her feet—if she didn't leave soon, she was sure Cisco's men would be attracted to the noise, and then she’d have more trouble than she could handle.

  Cami set her face into the wind, sprinted on to the next tree, then decided it was time to turn east. She struggled forward straight into the wind until she could get behind a nearby pine tree. It was going to be a long, slow struggle to get home, but she felt confident that between the noise the skewered fat man was making and the gunshots, Cisco's men would be effectively drawn north instead of heading straight for Bee’s Landing.

  She just had to fight her way through the opening act of a hurricane to get there first[MP5].

  Chapter 14

  Braaten Forest Preserve

  Northwest of Charleston, South Carolina

  Cisco sat comfortably dry inside the ruined MRAP and fumed. It smelled awful and looked worse, but though the vehicle was ruined for use as it was intended, it still remained watertight and it was the only completely dry place left in his camp. The wind had steadily increased as the morning wore on into the afternoon, and more and more reports from his men came back the same.

  The storm was intensifying. It was too hard to search, and they’d found no trace of the Lavelle woman after she turned north.

  Only one man failed to return and report his findings. Edwin Perkins, a relative newcomer to the cause, picked up in Rolling Hills. His car had broken down, and he'd been looking for someone to help when he ran into Cisco's crew. Since then, the portly lawyer had taken to Cisco's method of survival with alacrity. He'd been one of the most outspokenly loyal of the entire group, despite his relative uselessness as a fighter. The man had never fired a gun in his life, was hopelessly out of shape, and couldn't carry more than a day's worth of rations and water, but for all that he was a great man to have on Cisco’s side. Anytime dissent bubbled up in the ranks, Perkins was there to talk the group back to their senses.

  Cisco had sent Perkins north with two other men. He traced a line on the local map of the route he'd ordered Perkins to take. Every single one of his men had followed their instructions exactly and returned at the right time. The fat lawyer had a working timepiece—Cisco made sure of it—there was no excuse other than incompetence…or betrayal…for him not to return.

  Cisco looked up from the map and stared at the small, bulletproof window opposite him, completely clouded over by the torrential rain that constantly pummeled the side of the big vehic
le. Every now and then a wind gust hit the big truck broadside and actually shook it—which both impressed Cisco and scared the daylights out of him. When they'd first captured it, the National Guard soldier who'd taught him how to drive explained that the thing weighed close to 18 tons. For the wind to make that kind of weight shift back and forth…Cisco pitied anyone still stuck out in the storm.

  They'd redistributed the tents from their relatively open position out in the middle of the parking lot and nestled them up against the leeward side of the MRAP as the storm had worsened. All of his men now took shelter in that relatively calm space, surrounded by the chaotic, constant heavy wind and rain. He’d never seen anything like it before, having been locked up during the last hurricane to roll through the area.

  The rear hatch squealed open, and a gust of wind tore through the MRAP’s cabin. Cisco slapped the map back down on the makeshift desk he’d built of empty boxes as he glowered at the person struggling to open the heavy metal door against the pressure of the wind.

  Jenkins struggled mightily with the door, but finally managed to pull himself inside the vehicle and let the heavy metal hatch slam back into place with an earsplitting twang. He exhaled sharply, shook himself like a dog to get rid of the water that clung to every square inch of his body, then removed his coat and began to ring it out by the door. Water pooled at his feet as he turned and looked at Cisco. "Found her," he said simply.

  Cisco stood. "Where? Who? The only one still out there is…”

  "Porkins," Jenkins said with a wry smile.

  Cisco frowned. Porkins. The derogatory nickname immediately bestowed upon the heavyset lawyer Edwin Perkins after they took him in. Jenkins said at the time that the heavyset man had reminded him of the fat fighter pilot from Star Wars. The name stuck, and though the lawyer resented it, over the last week he'd at least come to accept his fate and stopped complaining whenever he heard someone say it. They all knew his name, but the more upset he got about the nickname, the more the rest of the crew used it.