by John Shors
“You wore me out.”
“What you talking about? I only visit your room, say hi. Maybe you drinking beer before I come. Maybe you drunk and remember something that never happen.”
He let her lead him to the massage table. “In that case, will you say hi again tonight? I’ll get some more watermelon.”
“Ah, watermelon is my favorite. Yes, please get more. So much more.” She poured oil on her hands and started to rub his back.
“Wait,” he said, stiffening. “You don’t need to do that. I don’t want you to work.”
“I happy to work.”
“I know. But I won’t be happy if you work. At least not now. And if you work, you won’t get that big tip.”
Dao stopped pressing against the edges of his shoulder blades but held her hands against him, just in case someone stepped into the room. As she studied the width of his shoulders, she remembered how the watermelon juice had run down his spine, gathering near his tailbone. She’d tasted so many parts of him, the juice a constant presence during their lovemaking. The thought of repeating that experience was almost as arousing as the experience itself. Parts of her tingled. The room seemed to sway from side to side.
“Tell me your life’s dream,” she said, needing to talk. “That way, I see if my dream the same. And I can decide if I keep you.”
He laughed, and then reached back and felt her leg. “I want to build something.”
“What?”
“Two things, really.”
“I waiting. Sure, sure I am.”
“I want to build a company first. Then a family.”
She started to rub his back, wanting to please him. “What kind of company? What kind of family?”
“I don’t know about the company. The family . . . maybe a big one.”
“If you want me, you better want big family,” she replied, allowing herself to dream, just for the moment. “I not need big house, but I need big family.”
“How big?”
“Three girls and three boys.”
He turned over, reaching for her. “Seriously? You’re so precise.”
“Stop that. Customer cannot touch me.” She slapped his hand away. “Never, never, never.”
“You’re sure sassy today.”
Her laughter seemed to echo in the small room. “I be more sassy, King Kong, if you not stay still. Now tell me, what you want in wife? Big boobs? Tall and blond?”
“Dark haired and small. Someone . . . kind of like you.”
“But you so big. I think you need big woman.”
“Why would I need a big woman?”
Dao rubbed him harder, trying to maintain the fantasy that he would fall for her, trying and failing. “I think you need strong, smart American woman. She can help you with your company, your family. Yes, you should find woman like that. Then both your dreams come true.”
Ryan saw that her smile had fled. He sat up, putting his hands on her hips and squeezing. “Let’s stop talking about tomorrow.”
“Why stop?”
“Because it’s today. And everything about today is good.”
“I not—”
“I’m lucky to have found you. Do you understand that? I was ready to leave, but now I’m so glad I didn’t. And that’s because of you.”
“But soon you must—”
“Dao, I’m here now. I want to be here. With you. Not with anyone else. You’re just as strong and smart as anyone I know, and you won’t ever hear me say differently. So let’s just enjoy today.”
She pushed him down, helped him turn over, and started to rub his back again. “I see you tonight, after work?”
“Yeah. Come back up. And tonight will be just like last night. Only this time . . . I’ll have a surprise waiting for you. Something fun.”
“What surprise?”
“It won’t be a surprise, silly, if I tell you.”
She slapped his hip, smiling once again, her fingers tracing the contours of his body. After glancing at the door, she bent lower, unable to resist giving his back a quick kiss. She then stood straight, her fingers still moving, her voice teasing and tantalizing him, hinting of what the early evening would surely bring.
THOUGH MIDMORNING HADN’T YET ARRIVED, the beach in front of Rainbow Resort was occupied by Thais and tourists. The sky was almost free of clouds, and since it was a Sunday, more locals were present than was usual. Sarai and Lek walked the beach, picking up plastic bags and other debris that the high tide had carried in. Yai sat in the shallows, Achara in her arms, both wearing sun hats. A soccer game unfolded near the water—Patch, Brooke, Suchin, and Niran matched against six other children. As Sarai and Lek worked, they often smiled at the laughter emanating from the game. Niran was doing better than usual. He’d scored a goal and twice stopped the other team from doing the same. Suchin soared around the opposing players, leaping nimbly over outstretched legs, her mouth moving as fast as her feet. She continuously told Patch, Brooke, and Niran where to go, giggling when they were tripped up or missed an easy shot.
When the ball was sent careening toward the sea, a strange thing started to happen. The water began to pull away from the beach, as if frightened of the approaching children. The shoreline was suddenly exposed, and yet the water continued to retreat, revealing a massive expanse of wet sand. Niran had never seen such a sight, and rushed forward, eager to find creatures that must have been exposed. Suchin and Patch followed him. Yai held Achara and was struggling to stand up. Sensing the older woman’s distress, Brooke hurried to help her. Somewhere a dog barked.
The wave that followed wasn’t a wave really, but more of a massive surge. The ocean seemed to rise up and rush at them, engulfing the sand it had just revealed, roaring so loud that it sounded as if a plane were taking off. Patch saw the water coming and grabbed Niran and Suchin, shouting at Brooke as his feet were swept out from under him. He tried to keep the children above the surface, but everything went dark as he tumbled inland, somehow still holding the two wrists, resisting the urge to let go of them so that he might try to breathe. His feet struck something solid, he saw light, and he desperately pushed up, dragging the children with him. They broke the surface as one, drew a breath, heard screams and crashing, and were yanked under again. The water took them where it wanted—inland at first, toward Rainbow Resort. The bungalows that Patch and Lek had worked so hard to repair were swept away like leaves blown by a storm. People shrieked, struggled, and disappeared. Longboats were thrust forward like spears, smashing through walls and trees.
Something hammered into Patch’s side, the pain instant and overwhelming. As his mind threatened to go black, he concentrated on one thing—holding on to Niran and Suchin, keeping them alive when so many things around them were dying.
BROOKE HAD SEEN PATCH AND the children get swept away. She’d had time to grab Achara and run toward shore but hadn’t gotten far enough, making it only to the bungalows when the water caught her. She screamed as what seemed to be an angry river, full of currents and white water, swept her up. Somehow Yai tumbled past them, disappearing and reappearing like a bobber pulled down by a fish. The strength of the wave was something that Brooke couldn’t fathom. Compared to its fury, she was a grain of sand. A tremendous force hurled her forward, along with longboats, beach chairs, umbrellas, and people. She gasped, trying to hold Achara out of the water. Brooke’s right leg became tangled in some debris, and she was dragged under. Shrieks went silent. Light was suffocated. A primeval instinct gave her an almost inhuman strength, and she kicked ferociously at whatever held her. A few seconds later her leg was freed and she shot to the surface. Achara was gagging but was alive and seemed uninjured. A coconut tree appeared, and as they continued to be swept ahead Brooke reached for it. The current threw her straight into the tree, however, and her outstretched hand was bent backward. She grunted in agony, slamming into the trunk, unable to hold on to it with her injured hand and spinning away. A mattress became trapped against the tree, creating a dam of
sorts. Brooke heard someone scream Achara’s name. Then the water rose over the mattress, tilting the tree, bringing it down. Brooke dived underwater as fronds flailed about her. Something struck her shoulder, separating her fingers from the baby. She shrieked, diving for Achara as the water tossed her about. The two went under together, and came up together.
Brooke tried to swim, but one arm was aching, and with the other she held Achara. In the distance she saw a building topple as if it were made of straw. A yacht floated past her, plowing into a half-submerged restaurant. A Thai man looked at her, their eyes met, a connection was made, and he disappeared beneath the dark water. Achara was screaming, muddy bits of debris speckling her face. Instinctively, Brooke kissed Achara’s forehead, weeping now, her strength fading. She tried to kick, but her legs were bruised and bloody. She went under again, fought against the blackness, fought as she had never fought, and rose into the light.
Then a miracle happened. A hand reached for her.
Yai had managed to make it to the ladder leading to Patch’s tree house and held on to the top rung, water swirling about her knees. Brooke tried to seize Yai’s outstretched hand but missed, then screamed as Yai grabbed her hair and pulled her toward the ladder. The Thai’s strength, for that instant, rivaled the fury of the tsunami, for despite the immense pressure of the swirling water, Yai dragged Brooke to the ladder. Yai snatched Achara, set her on the plywood platform, and then pulled Brooke to safety.
As Yai picked up Achara again, cradling her and weeping, Brooke fell to her hands and knees, retching. The swirling, raging water was only a few feet below them, and clearly rising. A man floated past, his eyes lifeless, his body stripped of its clothes. Brooke moaned, then began to shout, calling out to Patch as Yai screamed for her loved ones.
Though it seemed impossible, the water came harder, thrusting against the tree, threatening to topple it, to burst their eardrums. Brooke turned to Yai, and the two women embraced, Achara pressed tight between them. They continued to hold each other as the island seemed to sink beneath the dirty, furious water. A bicycle struck the tree, became trapped, and was bent as if it were made of rubber. A face appeared, and Brooke dropped to her knees, her fingers finding those of a stranger. A tug-of-war ensued between Brooke’s clasp and the water’s push, and though a muscle pulled in her back, and the stranger’s fingernails peeled away her flesh, Brooke lost the battle. The stranger disappeared. Screaming, Brooke looked for other faces but saw none.
In the distance, an overturned fishing boat tumbled in their direction, gaining speed, crushing everything in its path.
RYAN HEARD THE WATER BEFORE he saw it—a rumbling, grinding rage that sounded like an old building being brought down by explosives. He heard the screams next—shrieks of terror, pain, and confusion. Turning on his side, he had time only to realize that Dao was no longer rubbing his back. Instead, she had paused to look at him, her mouth open, but still. He leaped to his feet. “What the hell?”
A heartbeat later, the sea assaulted the massage parlor, spewing up through the wooden floor as if the room were being forced down into the froth by a giant’s hand. Water shot up like miniature geysers between the gaps in the floorboards. It then raged inward through the windows, rising with each second from Ryan’s ankles to his knees to his thighs.
Instinctively, he threw himself against the bungalow’s door. The sea mirrored his action from the opposite side, though, crushing the door as if it were a battering ram—ripping off its hinges, hurling it inward against him. He tasted salt and blood. Dao screamed as she was lifted and then compressed against the roof. Suddenly they were underwater. As the sea stung his eyes Ryan tore at the thatched roof. He slammed his head against it. He bit it, ripped it, and kicked it. Though the hole he opened was no bigger than a toilet seat, it was big enough. The sea shoved them through it, and suddenly they were on the surface, being driven inland by a mass of water that seemed infinitely powerful and irresistible.
“Dao!” he screamed, kicking toward her, pulling her close. She clung to him, wiping blood from a gash above her eye, struggling to stay afloat. She tried to speak but no words came out.
The sea spewed forth, collapsing bungalows, toppling buildings, pulverizing everything in its path. A man clinging to a palm tree wailed as an overturned boat plowed into the tree, severing his hands from his arms. He shrieked again and disappeared. In his wake swirled bodies—those of cats and children. The bodies were torn and incomplete.
Something snagged on Ryan’s shorts, and he was yanked underwater. In the blackness objects battered him, striking his head, ankles, and groin. He managed to get out of his shorts and, following bubbles upward, swam. Dao shouted when she saw him, and they were together again. Their fingers met and clutched.
Ryan was astounded by the speed with which they were pulled—at least as fast as a passenger train. Another boat tumbled past, punching a hole in an Internet café. Next a hotel disintegrated, its balcony falling atop a man clinging to a floating door. A woman wailed as she saw him die. She dived after him and was swallowed by the hotel. People on the upper level screamed as the building collapsed. They jumped from windows. They ran inside. Clinging together, they disappeared as the hotel and the sea consumed them.
A mound of steel and concrete remained slightly higher than the water. A Thai man swam frantically toward this island, only to be impaled upon the rubble. Ryan shouted at Dao to swim away from it, and she did, wincing as her feet struck debris. The brown water, laden with filth, choked her, and she spit and struggled.
A fishing net filled with thrashing creatures entangled the pair, and they went under for a few heartbeats. A dead shark hammered into Ryan’s side as he desperately held his breath. Kicking upward, they emerged from the net, their bodies now bloodied in a dozen places.
Dao was weakening, angry welts all over her body. Her left arm hung useless, and Ryan feared it was broken. He shouted at her to fight, to clear her mind of anything except the need to survive. But to his dismay, she didn’t seem to hear him, not even when he pressed his lips against her ear.
A life-size wooden Buddha floated by, and Ryan grabbed its torso with one arm and Dao with the other. They were moving slower now. For an instant the water ceased to flow. Then they were dragged backward, out toward the sea. Something ripped into Ryan’s thigh, and he shrieked in pain.
As Ryan and Dao were pulled toward the deep, he struggled to keep her alive. He tried to do so many things—to hold her afloat, to kick toward a distant palm tree, to maintain his grip on the Buddha. The thought of losing Dao provoked a fear within him that made it difficult for him to breathe. His world seemed to spin, and he panicked, clutching her against him so hard that his fingernails made her bleed.
Again something struck his legs, raking them like an ancient weapon of steel. The pain was overwhelming. He screamed. He screamed again and again, and this newfound despair gave him the strength to lift Dao higher out of the water. She was barely conscious, and a large contusion dominated one side of her head. He begged her to stay awake, salt from the sea clouding his vision. Dao suddenly seemed to recognize his voice, and her lips formed into a fleeting smile.
Ryan prayed as he kicked toward a palm tree, kicked with his pulverized and aching feet. He prayed to God, to the Buddha he grasped, to anyone or anything listening. He cried as he prayed, four or five lifeless bodies swirling about him like flotsam in a river.
“Please . . . no leave me,” Dao whispered through bleeding lips.
He pulled her closer and kicked harder, groaning when they became snagged on the outrigging of a half-sunken fishing boat. His body was caught within ropes and cables, as was Dao’s. The sea continued to withdraw, and the pressure against them was enormous, unbearable, in fact. Debris jammed against them, striking their legs, slashing their faces. With a supreme effort, Ryan moved to his right, lifted Dao out of the water, and set her on top of the wheelhouse. The steel roof was secure, and the fishing boat was large, heavy, and seemingly immobil
e—wedged within a cluster of stout trees.
“You’re safe,” he said, feeling cold.
“Climb up here!”
He shook his head as the current pulled on him. “My brother. I have to find my brother.”
“No!”
“I have to.”
“Please stay,” she said, and reached for him.
He kissed her hand. “Be happy. Always be happy.”
“Please!”
His lips pressed against her skin again. “Thank you.”
“Why? Why you thank me?” she asked, weeping.
“Because I know . . . I know you would have loved me.” He turned then, leaving her, letting the current pull him toward the other side of the island, where he knew Patch would be. Though the water was red near him, red from his blood, he swam as hard and fast as possible, the bond he shared with his brother giving him a strength he had never known, a ferocity he hadn’t dreamed possible.
The water tried to suck him down, to sever that bond, but he screamed and swam on, heedless of the dangers around him, of how the cold was spreading deeper into his limbs.
SARAI HAD ALWAYS TRIED TO control her world, working hard to ensure that everything was as it should be. But now, as she struggled for her life, she felt so very small. She and Lek had been swept inland, like everything else, but had managed to grab onto a wooden sign that had once pointed tourists toward a pastry shop. The thick sign was five feet long and a foot wide, and was buoyant enough to keep them afloat. Resting their upper bodies on it, they kicked hard, trying to head back toward Rainbow Resort. Though they could have reached safe havens on several occasions, once they determined that none of their loved ones was amid groups of survivors, they continued to search.
Even as she bled and suffered, Sarai focused only on her children, constantly looking for them. No thought or action was for herself. She had seen Patch grab Suchin and Niran, and then the water had consumed them—just as it had swallowed up Yai, Achara, and the American woman. Her tears incessant, Sarai begged Buddha to give strength to her family and to those who were helping them. She had been tempted to leave the board, to try to swim toward their resort, but no one could fight against such currents. To swim meant death, and dying would not help her loved ones.