by Roland Smith
“All roads in and out of Palm Breeze have been closed due to flooding, wind damage, or car accidents. Because of the severe weather, all nonessential emergency personnel have been sent home until such time that the weather allows them to return.
“There have been seventeen reported fatalities, and I want to emphasize that these are reported, not verified. Five people have died in automobile accidents, two people had heart attacks, and three people have drowned. The rest were reported killed by flying debris and in building collapses.
“Law enforcement and emergency workers have set up dozens of temporary shelters in schools and other government buildings. Those stranded in their cars have been moved into the shelters to wait out the storm.
“There is no doubt that the area has received a great deal of damage and there will be more to come. I don’t want to speculate any further.”
“Do we have news crews headed up there?”
“No, Richard. As I said, no one is being allowed in or out, including local and national news media. We’ve tried, but we were turned back. Officials will reevaluate the situation in the morning and let us know when we’ll be allowed in.”
“As a resident with a family there, they would certainly allow me through.”
“They are turning all residents away, Richard. The problem is the roads. They aren’t passable. And with Emily in full swing, it’s simply too dangerous.”
“Thank you, Cindy. Right now we need to take a short commercial break. We’ll be back with more about the storm of the century.”
As soon as the camera stopped, Cindy shook her head in disgust and handed the mic to her young cameraman, Mark. “Richard’s a piece of work,” Mark said. “You got that right.”
Cindy walked over to a 4x4 truck. John Masters was sitting in the cab with the door open, looking at a map on his laptop.
“Any luck?”
“Reaching Chase on the sat phone? No.” “Maybe his battery’s dead.”
“Chase makes sure all of our phones are charged. The sat phone is either broken or he’s in trouble. He’d have the phone on by now if it worked. The school secretary called and said he’d been put on a bus. Hard to break a phone on a bus.”
“Maybe they stopped the bus and moved him into a shelter.”
“He’d still be able to call from the sat phone if it worked.” “From what you’ve told me, he knows how to take care of himself.”
“He does. But I’ve got to make sure he’s okay.” John pointed to the map on the computer screen. “You’re going up there.”
John nodded. He had been with Cindy on and off throughout the day. They’d had lunch and dinner together. They’d also been together when Chase called from school that afternoon.
“I have pretty good sources,” Cindy said. “There is no way in or out of Palm Breeze, and it’s going to stay that way until at least tomorrow, maybe longer.”
“There is always a way in,” John said.
“Devil’s advocate,” Cindy said. “Let’s say you manage to get past all the roadblocks. Chase may not be at the farm.”
“Wherever he is, we’ll be closer,” John said. “And I’ll be where the damage is. There’s not much to fix around here.”
“What do you mean by we’ll?”
“Tomás and I. We’ll take different routes and keep in touch on the sat phones and CB. We’ll get in. We’ve done it before.” He looked at Cindy for a moment, considering….
“What?” Cindy asked.
“Do you want to come with us?”
Cindy smiled and looked at her watch. “I’m off the clock until tomorrow morning. What are the chances of getting me back in time for work?”
“I would say the chances are absolutely zero.”
“Fine, then I’m taking my work with me.” She looked over at Mark, who was packing his camera up. Cindy called him over. “What’s happening?”
“Do you want to head up north to the hurricane of the century with two complete strangers, without pay, without telling the station … oh, and you’ll probably get fired if the hurricane doesn’t kill you first?”
“Sounds good,” Mark answered. “Let me get my camera.”
11:09PM
Chase, Nicole, and Rashawn were standing — crouching, actually, so they wouldn’t get blown off the road — about thirty feet from the largest gator any of them had ever seen.
It looked a lot bigger than thirteen feet to Chase, and it hadn’t moved an inch during their noisy approach. They had yelled, jumped up and down, and even thrown rocks at it. Chase was certain he’d hit the gator at least twice.
“You’re the lion tamer,” Chase said to Nicole. “What do we do?”
“I’m not a lion tamer,” Nicole said. “And even if I was, there’s a big difference between a lion and a gator.”
“Yeah,” Chase said. “About eight feet of difference.” He looked at Rashawn. “What do you think?”
“I’ve seen a lot of gators, but I’ve never seen one act like this. Maybe he’s dead. I’ll tell you one thing: It wasn’t easy for him to get up that slippery bank. Gators don’t move so good uphill. Especially ones this size.”
“Fate,” Chase said.
“What?” Nicole and Rashawn said at the same time. “Fate,” Chase repeated. “I mean what are the chances of a thirteen-foot gator hauling out onto this levee during a hurricane and dying lengthwise across the road at the very moment we need to walk past?”
“So, you’re saying you don’t think it’s dead,” Nicole said.
“I’m saying it doesn’t make any difference. Dead or alive, we have to get by this prehistoric speed bump or we’re going to die on this road. One way or the other we’re dead.”
He took the GPS from around his neck and slipped it over Nicole’s head. Before they could say anything he half walked, half crawled toward the behemoth, angling toward its tail, thinking it would be easier to step over the tail than the body or snout. And the tail couldn’t bite him.
But gator tails do move, Chase discovered, like armored whips. Just as he was stepping over, the tail came to life, flicking his feet out from under him. The gator’s head whipped around and its jaws snapped closed loudly enough to be heard above the howling wind.
Chase dove headfirst over the bank and rolled, stopping just before he hit the water. He heard the gator following him over and began scrambling as fast as he could on his hands and knees along the water. He heard a splash behind him and immediately started crawling up the bank, hoping Rashawn was right about how difficult it was for a large gator to get up a slippery hill.
When he reached the road, he lay on his back, gasping. Nicole’s and Rashawn’s worried faces appeared above him. They pulled him to his feet and half dragged him fifty feet down the road before they had to stop to catch their breath.
“That might have been the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen a human do with a wild animal,” Nicole said.
“It worked,” Chase said, but he knew she was right. He’d have to rank it right up there with leaving the tools in the backyard so his father could get struck by lightning.
“We thought the gator ate you!” Nicole said.
“He wouldn’t have eaten him,” Rashawn said matter-of-factly. “At least not right away. He would have killed him and buried his body underwater in the mud, then waited for it to rot so he could tear off the soft flesh and gulp it down.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” Nicole said.
She and Chase started laughing.
Rashawn smiled. “I’m not so sure what you two find so funny about alligator eating habits. Lying across the road playing possum is how that gator hunts.” She pointed to the spot where the gator had been parked. “There’s only one way across this water without swimming. When a deer, or some other kind of animal, comes along down the road, he just waits and snaps it up when it gets close enough. I bet that’s how he got so big and old.”
“And fast,” Chase added. “I’ve never seen anything move like tha
t.”
“Speaking of which,” Nicole interrupted, “we need to get moving.”
Chase retrieved his GPS from Nicole’s neck and turned it back on.
“A little over a mile and we’re off the levee. Two miles after that, we’re at your front gate.”
01:15AM
Every few hundred feet the levee was breached.
They made it across the first four gaps by climbing down in the gap and forming a human chain, linking hands so they weren’t swept out into the lake by the water gushing through.
The fifth breach was three times wider than the others, and only twenty-five feet beyond the last one.
“We’re on an island,” Nicole said.
“A very tiny island,” Rashawn confirmed.
Chase glanced back at the previous breach just in time to see a large piece of asphalt slough off. “And it just got smaller. The chain idea is not going to work here. It’s too wide. We have to figure out an alternative.”
If he ever saw his father again, he was going to suggest several new items for the go bag. Right now a length of rope would be pretty handy.
“I think I can jump it,” Rashawn said.
Chase and Nicole stared at her. She was big and strong, but she didn’t look like she could jump a fifteen-foot gap and land on a jagged piece of asphalt.
“What are you looking at?” Rashawn said. “You’re not the only athlete here. I’m a good long jumper. The best at my old school. I got a case of medals and trophies to prove it.”
“If you made it across,” Nicole said. “How would that help us?”
“I’ll scramble down, anchor myself on the other side, and hold out my free arm. I got a very long reach. We’ll build a chain from the other side. Chase can grab my hand, you grab his, and I’ll pull you both across.”
“A running start is going to be nearly impossible with this crosswind,” Chase pointed out.
“We have to do something,” Rashawn said. “What have we got to lose?”
“You,” Nicole said.
Chase glanced back again at the breach behind them. “Rashawn’s right. If we don’t do something right now, we’ll end up in the lake.”
Rashawn pulled her poncho off and handed it to Chase. “Stuff that into one of your Boy Scout pockets. It’ll just get in my way. I’ll need to have you stand on both sides of the road, shining both headlamps on my landing spot on the other side. I’ll jump right between you.”
Chase switched his headlamp on and took the right side. Nicole took the left, about fifteen feet away.
Rashawn walked back to the previous breach, checking for anything on the road that might trip her. She took a couple of deep breaths, stared at her landing spot on the other side, then took off.
Chase was right about the crosswind. He noticed Rashawn angling to his side, and he hoped it would be enough to compensate for the drift when she was in the air. He and Nicole stared in horror as Rashawn sailed off the edge, then stalled midway across as if she’d smashed into an invisible wall. She seemed to hover for a moment, her arms and legs flailing away as if she were trying to fly. Then she dropped like a stone into the black rushing water.
01:19AM
“So, John Masters,” Cindy said. “What do you really do for a living?”
“I’m just a working guy, traveling around helping people.”
“I didn’t ask what you did. I asked how you make a living.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Money, for one thing. It must cost a lot to travel around helping people. How do you pay for it?”
“Are you a meteorologist or a reporter?”
“Right now I’m a weather woman. In my previous life, which was about a year ago, I was an investigative journalist. A good one … too good, as it turned out. I was investigating a case of political corruption in San Francisco. Turns out that the man who owned the television station I worked for was up to his eyeballs in the scandal. And so was our lead news anchor, who also happened to be my now ex-husband, who happened to know a lot more about me than I wanted the public to know. Long story short. They won. I lost. And I got a job as far away as I could, hoping to get promoted to investigative journalist again.”
“Is that why you don’t like news anchors?”
“You mean Richard Krupp? I don’t like Richard because he’s an arrogant jerk. But he is the top-rated anchor in Saint Pete. The viewers adore him. And he hates me.”
John laughed. “I can see why. I saw you throw him under the bus several times, and that’s just when I was watching.”
“Bad move on my part. By contract, Richard has final say on all on-camera promotions. I’m pretty certain I’ll be looking for another job as soon as Emily blows herself out.”
“Even though you were right about where Emily would make landfall,” John said.
“I didn’t know where she would land. I just reported that we didn’t know. I’m kind of old-fashioned in that regard. Reporters should report what they know, not what they think or want to have happen. Just once in my life I’d like to see a reporter, or a talking head with a half-hour time slot to fill, say, ‘Sorry, folks, we don’t have any news worth reporting tonight. Instead we’re going to run an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants. Check back with us tomorrow and we’ll let you know if anything has changed.’ “
John laughed. “That’s never going to happen.”
“You’re right, and it’s a shame.”
“Why’d you hitch a ride with me?”
“If I recall — and I am a trained reporter — you asked if I wanted to go with you.”
“I stand corrected,” John said.
Cindy nodded. “I’ll tell you why I accepted your offer. If you can get us through, I’ll be able to get footage. That might save my job. It would also show up Richard Krupp. Like all good journalists, I’m very competitive. You can bet that Richard is in a news van right now with a producer, a cameraman, a sound person, and his makeup artist.”
“I’m not here to get footage,” John said. “I’m here to find Chase. Something’s happened. I think he’s in trouble.”
“I understand. We won’t get in your way, and I’ll help any way I can, but I want to be honest. A father trying to save his son in a hurricane is a good story.” John looked through the windshield at the rain. “Can we get back to the original subject?” Cindy asked.
“What’s that?”
“You.”
John pointed at the flashing red and blue lights beyond the windshield. “Let’s wait and see if we can talk our way through this roadblock first. If you get past the first roadblock, the others are usually a breeze. And don’t pull the TV card on them. They don’t want you here. That’s the best way to get turned around.”
“Where’s Tomás?”
“He’s taking a road less traveled.”
Cindy smiled, then recited:
“I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I —
I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.”
“ ‘The Road Not Taken’ by Robert Frost,” John said. “Tomás is a genius at finding back roads into towns. And perhaps more important, roads out of towns if we need to leave quickly because of a storm. But his routes are less direct and more dangerous.”
“So, are you a man who takes the road less traveled?” Cindy asked.
“I’m just a working guy who travels roads.” “I don’t believe you, John.”
John looked through the wet windshield at the flashing police lights, then glanced back into the crew cab, where Mark was sound asleep.
“Cover that camera with a coat or something,” he said. “If they see it, we’re not going anywhere.”
01:20AM
Nicole didn’t hesitate. She dove over the edge immediately. Chase dove in a split second later.
He was surprised by the power of the current. As he tumbled through the
breach a large chunk of asphalt from the other side broke off and hit him in the right shoulder, pushing him under for a second or two. He surfaced, sputtering, shoulder aching, his arm going numb. He realized that even if Rashawn had made it across, the asphalt would have broken loose and she would have still ended up in the water.
He let the current carry him into deeper water where it was calmer. He was a good swimmer, but he had no doubt that Nicole was better. He looked around for her light and finally saw it fifty yards farther out, bobbing in the windblown whitecaps. That’s when he remembered the gators. Thousands of them, Rashawn had said. But he was worried about one in particular. Where was that big boy now?
He swam forward, calling for Rashawn. It was difficult going, with his sore shoulder and the stuff in his pockets weighing him down. He thought about dumping some of it but resisted the urge. Before the night was over they might need everything he was carrying.
He drew close enough to Nicole to hear her shouting for Rashawn.
He had no idea how good a swimmer Rashawn was. After all they’d been through, he did not want to lose her.
“Rashawn!” he shouted. “Rashawn!”
He reached Nicole. They were both exhausted and out of breath.
“No sign of her?”
“None. Rashawn!”
“What do you want to do?” Chase asked.
Nicole didn’t answer him. “Rashawn! Swim toward the light. Shout! We’ll swim to you!”
They listened. All they heard was the wind. All they saw was a lake that looked like a stormy sea.
“How far are we from the levee?” Nicole asked.
“Farther than we should be.”
Nicole looked at her watch. “Ten minutes! You swim that way, I’ll swim this way.”
Chase shook his head. “I’ll swim for five minutes, then I’m going to swim toward shore. This will give me time to get in front of the breach. That way you’ll know where to swim to. We don’t want to go through this a second time. When you come in, swim toward my light. If you find her or you need help, hit the button on the headlamp twice. That will send it into emergency blinking mode with alternating white and red lights. I’ll do the same if I find her or need help. Good luck.”