by Amy Briant
The plan was for me to gracefully lower the barrel via the longer cord into the water. But the hell with that—it was heavy, I was cold and time was of the essence. Either it would float or it wouldn’t. I pushed with all my might. It teetered on the edge for a moment, then hit the water with a tremendous splash. My heart was in my mouth for those few moments before it resurfaced, bobbing like a cork on the waves.
I’d kept back two of my precious items, hanging them on a final bit of cord around my neck: my knife, which I usually carried in a sheath on my belt, and the flint. I was glad I’d thought to do that. Which made me worry about what I’d forgotten. I climbed down to join East.
“You ready?”
She didn’t say anything, but nodded. Her eyes were big in her pale face. We were both shivering already, wearing just the essentials. I’d been trying to visualize a quick and successful swim from point A to point B, but my mind kept helpfully inserting brief images of all the cars, boats and planes that must have been down there in the murky depths. And God knew what else. Shut up, I told myself firmly. Just concentrate—it’s only fifty feet.
East had agreed she wouldn’t panic, wouldn’t strangle me, wouldn’t do anything except follow my directions and basically just float. All she needed to do was keep calm. Simple, except I could tell she was petrified.
Now that we were right on top of the water, the waves looked bigger than they had from above. Or maybe they had grown in the time it took us to get ready. The sky had further darkened, without a doubt, and the wind was picking up. Perfect day for a swim. Not.
I took a breath and jumped. The water was cold enough to take that breath away, but I knew I would warm up once I started swimming. The bright orange barrel bobbed nearby. A coil of roughly seventy-five feet of my utility cord was attached to it. I tied the free end to my wrist. The idea was to tow East and the long cord over to the other side on the first trip. That way, she could pull and I could push the barrel on the second trip. Maybe I’d inherited Gran’s mechanical engineering genes. Maybe.
“Jump, East,” I called to her as I treaded water. “The sooner we start, the sooner we’re done. Let’s get this over with.”
She clung to the bridge. She looked scared. Her hair was blowing every which way.
“You can do it,” I yelled, trying to be encouraging. A wave rose up and slapped me in the face, giving me a nice drink of salt water. I choked and spit, which is challenging when you’re trying to look cool and in charge.
“East!”
I swear I saw her dig down deep and find the resolve within herself to do it. Her jaw tightened, her shoulders straightened, she shut her eyes and leaped off the girder into the water, landing almost on top of me. That splash of water went up my nose.
I grabbed her immediately, securing her within my arms. She had landed facing me so we were nose to nose. I was treading water for both of us, but instinctively, she was kicking her legs a little too. I tried not to dwell on the fact that her body was pressed up against mine in several noteworthy places. I got her turned so we were both facing west, got a good grip and started one-arm backstroking us across the gap. Fifty feet and closing.
“Okay,” I said tranquilly into East’s ear. “Nice and easy. You’re doing great. Just stay relaxed.”
She hadn’t struck me before as someone who’d be good at following instructions, but so far our team effort was going well. Once we got a rhythm established, it wasn’t as bad as I had feared. There was a current which was making us drift to the south, but I kicked and I stroked and I fought to keep us on track. Forty feet to go. Thirty.
“Halfway there,” I said between gasps for air. She didn’t answer. She had her eyes closed, her face clenched like a fist. I could feel the power of her will. It was remarkable. To hold her in my arms, feel her against me and feel her energy, her spirit—and all without saying a word. It was uncanny, like nothing I’d ever experienced.
Was she thinking about me? Probably wishing I’d shut up and swim faster.
Just ten more feet and I was still going strong. See, I told myself jubilantly—I knew I could do it.
“We’re here,” I breathed into East’s ear as we glided to a stop at the foot of the next bit of framework holding up the bridge. God, even her ear was adorable. I wondered—not for the first time—what it would be like to live your life in such a beautiful body. She opened her eyes and smiled at me. I smiled back and let her go, helping her as best I could to clamber up onto the framework after transferring the cord tied to my wrist to hers. From my vantage point below her in the water, she looked nothing short of magnificent as she stood tall above me, one arm wrapped around a metal post, the other raised to pull her long, wet hair from her face. Water streamed from her pale limbs and torso. Dressed in nothing but soaked-through bra and panties, she was quite the vision. If she were a siren and I a passing sailor, I’d have been a goner for sure.
“Get going!” she hollered at me impatiently, with a peremptory gesture to the far side where our gear awaited. Even visions want a sweater now and then. Her teeth were chattering, her body wracked with shivers now that she was out of the water and in the cruel teeth of the wind.
The trip back was quick as I sliced through the waves solo, only raising my head for a brief gulp of air a couple of times. Climbing up to free the line securing the barrel was but the work of a moment. One slash of my knife and I was back in the water after giving East the signal to start pulling. Even with her help, pushing it in front of me was slow going, but it worked. After a decade or two, I made it back to the other side where the first flaw in my plan was exposed. The barrel was too heavy and awkward for us to lift up to the bridge no matter how we tried. With me in the water helping to raise it, East didn’t have the strength to haul it up. With both of us on the girder, we were fighting each other for space and non-slippery spots. Meanwhile, the wind was picking up and the sky darkening with each passing minute.
After several failed attempts, East lost it. “What the fuck!” she bellowed at me, shivering and shaking. I was shivering too, but at least my hair wasn’t whipping in my face.
“Okay, okay—we’ll have to open it in the water.”
“Do it!”
I jumped back in. The barrel had progressed from gently bobbing on the waves to bouncing up and down in the rougher water, but I tied it to the bridge as tightly as I could with both lines. The hardest part was removing the lid with benumbed fingers, but finally I unscrewed it—only to have it promptly sail off toward San Jose as a powerful gust of wind caught it. Oh, shit. Well, I could get another lid on the other side.
We pulled everything out as quickly as possible. East got dressed in a hurry while I joined her on the girder to secure my gear. I was feeling pretty proud of how well my little plan was working.
Pride goeth before a fall, Gran said in my head. The waves were now cresting at two and three feet, with whitecaps everywhere. The sky above was close to black. I would have thought it was eight o’clock at night if I hadn’t known for a fact it wasn’t yet suppertime. But we were used to dramatic changes in the weather. The “normal” weather they’d had Before wasn’t even a memory for me and East. Too long ago.
Big churning clouds loomed above us in the darkened heavens. The rain was back, stinging and pelting us with cold, angry drops. I was glad East had the slicker. I needed to get back in the water for the final two laps to recover some of its faux warmth. My muscles were tensed, my lungs filled with air and I was half a second away from jumping when East grabbed my arm.
“Kell—DON’T!” she shrieked in my face.
“What the hell?” I yelled right back at her.
It was her backpack and sleeping bag which still needed to be transported, so I didn’t understand her change of heart. Until I looked north where she was pointing.
A fierce black waterspout had formed about a mile up the bay. Even from that distance, we could see the turmoil it was causing in the water as it carved a path straight toward us.
As we watched its deadly, chaotic dance with awe, a second skinny funnel dropped out of the sky and took furious root in the bay. Waterspouts—like tornadoes on the water.
And headed right for us.
Chapter Sixteen
Two Little Pigs
I quickly gauged the distance between us and the oncoming twisters.
“I can make it!” I shouted to East, struggling to free myself from her grip. “Let me go—we need your pack!”
“Are you insane? Screw the pack, Kell—I need you more than it!”
We both glanced as one at her pack and sleeping bag, hanging on the bridge framework, a scant fifty feet away, then back at the waterspouts. They were definitely closer, even in that small amount of time. I generously decided to change my mind. I really didn’t want to be caught in the water when those things bore down upon us.
“Yeah, okay,” I said hurriedly. Now it was my turn to get dressed in record time. I used my knife to cut the cord to the barrel, stuffing several feet of it in my pocket. East donned my pack while I grabbed my sleeping bag and the tent. I slung their cords over my head and one shoulder to keep my arms free. We would have to run for it. Again.
Even in that minute or two, conditions had noticeably deteriorated.
“Listen,” I yelled above the now roaring wind and waves. “We’re going to climb back up to the bridge, then we’re going to head for those little huts or kiosks or whatever you call ’em. We can take cover in there. Just be careful, okay? Now is not the time to fall.”
She nodded and gestured with her jaw that I should go first. With equal parts speed and caution, I climbed up the slick framework. East was right behind me.
I had never heard the sound of a freight train or any other kind of train, but that was the simile the grownups always used to describe the incredible din of a dangerous windstorm. The waterspouts were closing in, almost like they could see us. Like we were their chosen targets. I don’t know if East took my hand or I took hers, but we ran like hell, hand in hand, for the nearest kiosk, a small cube of concrete. It wasn’t far, only about a hundred yards, but we were dodging the usual potholes, debris (much of it now flying past our heads) and trashed cars. The wind was almost overpowering, threatening to blow us right over the side of the bridge. The howling of it was terrifying—I never dreamed it could be that loud. It drowned out everything, drowned out my own thoughts, replacing them with an elemental, primitive fear that all but overwhelmed me and tasted like metal at the back of my throat. Massive waves had kicked up and were slamming into the bridge from both sides. The whole structure was shaking from the violence of the tempest. So was I.
The first kiosk had its entrance on the far side, which at least gave us a little bit of respite from the wind. The door was sealed tightly shut, however, and we couldn’t kick it in. There were no windows. We ran to the second kiosk, thirty feet away, stumbling and weaving in the ferocious gusts of wind. We were almost out of time. My ears felt like they were going to explode from the terrible pressure. The door on this hut was on the eastern side—the bay side. It had long ago been wrenched nearly off its hinges, but all I cared about was the fact that it was open. There were all kinds of crap blocking the entrance, however—so much so that we couldn’t get in without getting some of it out.
“Kell!” I thought I heard East scream, but the storm snatched the sound away immediately. The pack on her back made her even more vulnerable to the wind. Frantically, we reached into the kiosk and started heaving things out. An old chair, a milk crate, boxes of who knew what, decayed and ancient computer equipment—as I cast them aside, the wind caught them and sent them soaring aloft. And some of that shit was heavy. I pushed East inside, then dove in behind her. An old desk was on the back wall. We moved it sideways across the open doorway to form at least a partial barrier. Not to keep the storm out—to keep us in that tiny room, maybe eight square feet. Loose papers and trash were swirling madly about, being sucked out the doorway. I hoped we were too heavy for that to happen to us. The storm screamed outside. It was almost completely dark, but I could still just make out the dim forms of the cluster of abandoned cars on the other side of the bridge. Where we had been less than an hour ago. East and I huddled together on the filthy floor, as far from the doorway as we could get (which wasn’t far), holding on to each other for dear life. There was an old heating unit bolted to the wall beside me, so I linked one of my arms through it, hoping we could stay connected to the building as the waterspouts passed by. And that the building would stay connected to the bridge. And the bridge…
“HOLD ON!” I screamed to East. I doubt she heard me. She had her eyes closed and her face buried in my shoulder, her arms around my waist like steel bands. I held her as tight as I could with my free hand, winding my arm through the backpack strap and clutching her to me. Our legs were intertwined. I could feel a heart pumping madly, but wasn’t sure if it was hers or mine.
The next three minutes were the most intense I have ever experienced. The noise level was simply staggering. I wished I had fingers free to plug my ears, but the best I could do was hunch my shoulders and press one side of my head into East’s hair. The air above our heads was a hellish whirl of flying objects. The old wooden desk we’d pushed up against the doorway was jumping and shaking like it was alive. I watched in horror as it bowed, then suddenly snapped into tinder, bits and pieces flying out the door like bats pouring out of a cave at dusk.
And then the darkness became total. In the pitch black and violence of the storm, it was impossible to say how close the waterspouts were. If it had been a direct hit, though, I doubt we would have survived. The floor of the kiosk, the very bridge itself, was shuddering beneath us. I could feel, more than hear, the impact of stuff hitting the outside walls of our kiosk. I was glad there were no windows. Glad our shelter was made of concrete. An image of the Big Bad Wolf blowing down the Three Little Pigs’ houses popped into my head and I laughed out loud, one short, sharp bark of laughter edged with hysteria. I had never been more frightened.
East was closer to the door than I was. When the desk blew out, I could feel her start to be pulled away. She clung to me with a desperation I matched. Slowly, inexorably, we were both being drawn toward the open doorway. This was a tug-of-war we were going to lose unless the waterspout kept moving. If it sat on the bridge, we were dead meat.
My muscles were being stretched to their limits. The pressure was unbearable. Millimeter by millimeter, East was being torn from my grasp. The awful slowness of it was agonizing. Everything I had—fingernails, biceps, willpower—was concentrated on hanging on to her. Hanging…on…
And just like that, the pressure was gone. The screaming winds, the objects smashing against the kiosk, the blackout conditions—in a heartbeat, they disappeared. It was still gloomy outside, still raining, still a storm, but the waterspouts were gone. We had lived to tell the tale.
“East! We made it! Are you okay?”
She was still in my arms, but I relaxed my hold on her from “death grip” to “very close friends.” Then relaxed it quite a bit further when I realized just how tightly we were wound around each other. It seemed dumb to still be so nervous around her considering all we’d been through, but I couldn’t help it. I jumped to my feet, then helped her stand on wobbly legs. She was pretty shook up.
“It was pulling me out the door,” she kept mumbling. She was shaking, white-faced. I helped her out of the backpack, then had her sit down on it. I took advantage of the downpour outside to refill our water containers, giving East the first sip. I helped guide her shaking hand to her lips. I felt almost giddy. I was so surprised and happy that we were both still alive, I wanted to laugh and dance and yell at the top of my lungs. Since East was having the exact opposite reaction, I kept all that inside. She’d gone quiet on me again.
“Hey, we’re okay,” I told her, giving her a quick hug. “We made it. Everything’s fine, all right?”
I could feel something in her jacket when I hugged he
r. I stuck my hand in her pocket and retrieved, incredibly, an orange. Rather squished and sad looking, but an orange. I was amazed it had survived all our adventures. I quickly peeled it and shared it with her, knowing it would give us both a little boost. Just a simple moment, but by the time we’d finished, the worst of her shakes was gone and the sun had even started to peek out from behind the clouds. As long of a day as it had already been, it was not over yet. We still needed to get off the bridge and find some shelter for the night.
“Come on, Easty,” I told her with a grin as I hauled her to her feet yet again. I reclaimed my backpack and tossed her the sleeping bag and tent. “Let’s go find a place to camp.”
“How much farther?”
“A few more miles. Just one more hike, then we’ll find somewhere good—maybe even on the beach.”
She liked that, I could tell. We emerged from the kiosk into full daylight. The sun had returned, the fog and clouds blown away with the storm. To the west, the formerly fifty-foot gap between us and the rest of the bridge had more than doubled. The waterspouts had taken out another chunk of the span, including the cluster of cars that had lined the edge. That reminder of the storm’s fearsome power was all the more striking with the sun now gently shining down upon us, the bay returned to a friendly blue with only the occasional whitecap. You would never have known what destruction had just swept through there with killing force. One more not-so-gentle reminder from Mother Nature about who was in charge around here.