They floated through it all silently. One of the things Cooper feared but didn't talk about, because they really couldn't do anything about it, was the flood's magnitude. He feared that it would be as apocalyptic as the lahars themselves; suddenly appearing as a monstrous wall or jet of water that would wash them all away to oblivion. But it wasn't, so far. It was just steadily rising and spreading water.
If you left a hose going on a black-top, he thought, the water would jet out of the nozzle with force, but then it would spread calmly along the wider area of the pavement. That's what it was like.
"Tell me a story," Amy whispered. They were now floating in an inky darkness. Mikaela was nodding off in front; they both were. Cooper began to haltingly talk about a canoe trip he took once on the Charles River in Boston. He hoped that they were floating in the right direction, and that sometime around midnight, they'd run aground in the part of the city that was still functioning.
"We were floating in a canoe in the dark, like this. But we were surrounded by the lights of the city." He could see some lights twinkling now, in the distance toward the ocean. "There was music playing. There was a concert on the shore."
"What kind of music?" Amy said.
"It was classical music, the 1812 Overture. That was it. A huge crowd watching music at a venue they called the Hatch Shell. Tens of thousands of people, and we're floating past this massive crowd. All the lights shined on the stage, and reflected across the water."
"The 1812…?"
"Yeah, it goes…" And then he began a lame attempt at reproducing the Overture. "Bah-bah-bah-bah bah-bah bah-bah bah bah Boom! They fired cannons between the refrain. Then fireworks went up…" His voice seemed too loud over the trickling water.
"How many people were in the boat?"
"It was crowded, like this one." Mikaela passed some food forward, the ad hoc, old-flour based cookies she'd made. She dipped them in honey; Drake was nice enough to leave the bottle with them. They had to pay Drake back some day, Mikaela had thought. She wondered whether they'd ever see him or Beatrice again, and she had an image in her head of the horse galloping, with both of them in the saddle, trying to escape the rising waters.
Even Turk got some cookie. Once in a while, he'd fidget; Cooper would hear his claws scraping along the bottom of the canoe. It was like he wanted to jump out of the boat after smelling something in the dark. He'd issue the type of light, throaty bark that involved air puffing out his cheeks, and Amy would put her hand on him and he would calm down.
Cooper thought of the beers they passed around the boat that night in Boston. A brown-paper bag full of cold cans. There was a girl he was sweet on, but she was sitting next to another guy. What was her name? Robin, that was it. Pretty face; long brown hair. He'd jumped overboard and swam beside the canoe in the choppy, tepid Charles River, just to get her attention.
"Bah-bah-bah-bah bah-bah bah-bah bah bah Boom!" he sang again. He thought of the fireworks that night, like confetti someone had let go from a balloon. Like tears dripping from stars. He could see some stars above them; the moon began to rise. It cast a four-story building they paddled past into shadow.
"Do you see the moon Amy?" he said. She was asleep in front of him, with her head on Turk's ribcage. It went up and down with the dog's breathing, Amy's long hair bunched up against him, and still as fine seagrass in a windless evening.
He was glad she was asleep. He had a great vision of her waking up, and the boat is by a dock or a beach. He thought of Alexis back in Colorado, and he wondered whether she thought he was dead.
CHAPTER 45
The luminous moon was so bright he could see terrain in it; valleys and buttes. Like in Colorado, but the Colorado plains had more colors in them than the moon, that was for sure.
"Do you see the moon?" he whispered to Mikaela. He hadn't heard anything from her in several minutes. He talked to the back of her head, with the cap pulled down.
"Yeah," she said finally. Wearily. "How far do you think we have to go?"
"Not far. It must be close to midnight." He dipped his paddle in and moved them forward. The water was as black as night. It felt heavy, like molasses; like the molasses they poured in their milk, back then. He heard the trickling, then the faint noise of sirens carried over the water from far away.
He hoped to God he wasn't paddling in circles.
They decided that when Amy woke up, if she did, they'd pull over and tie up somewhere. At the very least, they could stand up and change positions in the boat. They were stiff and exhausted.
Within half an hour, he steered them into a kind of alleyway, because he saw an open ledge that they could get up on. The main current took them down a wide street–he could picture a city avenue; now it was completely flooded with at least six feet of water. He paddled hard on his left, and he got them up against the stone foundation of a building, where the street intersected with the alley.
He used the paddle to hook the corner of the building and force the canoe into the alley, then they bumped up against a ledge that they could boost themselves up on. It was a building under construction. It was windowless and had dark, empty, unfinished rooms. He stopped the canoe. The building had metal scaffolding built against the facade. He tied the boat with a short tie line to a metal pole on the scaffold.
Amy woke up.
"Where are we?"
"We're going to get out here. Stretch, get a rest. We all need to move, including Turk. Don't go into the water."
"Why?"
"The water is probably dirty. Among other things."
Mikaela got out first, then she pulled Amy up. Cooper held the boat steady by holding onto the scaffolding. Turk sat in the bottom of the boat watching Amy scramble up to the cement floor.
"Now you Turk," Cooper said. "Go on, boy." Cooper helped him get his paws up on the ledge, then Mikaela hauled him up the rest of the way. The dog stood rigidly, sniffing into the dark space. It was like an underground room, off of a subway. Pitch black.
It smelled like concrete dust, and piss, as if refugees or homeless people like them had been marooned there for a period.
"Anyone here?" Cooper cried into the darkness, his voice echoing hollowly. Nothing in response. They pulled a couple of blankets out of the boat, and food. Cooper made sure the knot was tight around the scaffold. The canoe lay quietly, occasionally nudging up against the ledge.
They all stretched out their legs then sat down and ate the remaining cookies and leftover, dried out venison.
Cooper watched the water flow past beneath them. It can't be more than an hour to the coastline, somewhere around the Port of Tacoma, he figured. Just one more stretch.
About 18 inches more in height and the floodwaters would flood the room, but they didn't seem to be rising yet.
"I'm going to check out this building," Cooper said. "I might be able to see something. I'll be right back. Turk can come with me."
"Be careful," Mikaela said.
He had no remaining light sources so he walked slowly across the room, clutching his bow. His boots crunched on graveled bits of concrete, broken plaster, and probably glass. "Anyone here?" he called out again, louder. Nothing.
Turk wandered along beside him. The first thing he saw seemed like a slumped body in the shadows, or person sleeping against the wall, but it was only a ratty old coat and pair of boots, assorted garbage, and a soggy cardboard box. Turk stopped; his ears tensed.
They heard a sudden and massive scurrying and scratching in the walls; one side of the room to the other. Fucking rats…here too…Cooper muttered to himself. "Well Turk, we can't stay here long," he said.
"What?" he heard Amy call across the room.
"Nothing. We won't be long."
They reached a stairwell. It gave off a weak light. The room stank more the deeper they walked into it, and the stairs were dank and dusty. Still, he wanted to explore where they went. From the other side of the wall, they heard the rapid fluttering sound he remembered from the rat swarm;
the odd reminder of wings beating, when he knew they were only hundreds of little feet.
They went up the stairs, his shoes crunching on the steps. He decided to arm the crossbow with one of the few arrows he had left. He hoped there wasn't much glass; he didn't want Turk to cut his paws.
They got to the second floor; he opened the door and called in. Nothing but a hollow echo in the darkness. There was at least one more floor. "Mikaela!" he called back down.
"What Coop!"
"What?" he heard Amy's plaintive reply.
"Just checking! We'll be right back." He reached down and gave Turk a reassuring pet. They reached the end of the stairwell. There was a door to the outside, the rooftop; he figured it was locked, but the knob turned freely and the door opened to the night air.
They went outside. "Be careful Turk. Just stay right beside me." It was an open rooftop with nothing but a few HVAC units and a tarred surface. It was bathed in starlight, and he could see many lights in the distance, to the west.
A city was awake, electricity was on, and there was a vibrancy and life on the horizon.
CHAPTER 46
"Do you see that Turk? That's Tacoma. That's the coast. The lights are on. This is where we're going. We'll be in the clear soon."
He saw red lights traversing the sky, miles away. "Helicopters…if we can get their attention…maybe light a fire." Someone else had. About 20 blocks west he saw a rooftop fire. The flames licked at a bonfire height. People mingled around it, dancing shadows. Oddly, given the circumstances, it looked like a party. It appeared like they were performing some kind of ritual dance. Maybe it was the Rescue Dance, the Save Me Dance, he thought. The helicopters would see them; surely those red lights were helicopters.
But he didn't have any matches or way to make a fire. He figured they could float 20 blocks from here, or less. It could be less. That's not difficult, from where they were now. It seemed like that's all it would take. He looked down and Turk was sampling the air with his nose, in the rigid, dignified way he did that; the wind ruffling his fur.
The breeze was refreshing; it felt great to be high up and in a breeze. The wind didn't carry any of the grit in it, as far as Cooper could tell, from Rainier. The mountain must be quiet now. He looked back to the east, and saw the Rainier silhouette, a giant gouged-out, luminous shadow.
Everything else in an easterly direction was dark and lifeless. He decided to only look west, from now on.
They went back down the steps and returned to Mikaela and Amy.
"We saw lights!" he said excitedly. "From the roof! All the city lights. And helicopters, the red lights of helicopters!"
"Oh good," Mikaela said, her voice carrying a burden of what they still had to do, to get to the helicopter, if one would come for them. "Should we stay here and wait?"
"I want to ride in a helicopter!" Amy said.
"We could stay on the roof, right. Wait for the sun to come up. But if I'm wrong, about the choppers, then we're stuck here, with the flood coming up. We could paddle the blocks in maybe, half an hour…"
"It's up to you," Mikaela said. She seemed used up.
"I'll paddle us, down that avenue," he said after thinking about it. "It may only take minutes. They probably have a crowd down there, and they're pulling people out of the flooded areas."
"If we're going to go, we should go," Mikaela said. "This place is a little gross. I thought I heard…"
"I know."
Amy held up her dolls, so they could converse. "Are we gonna go now, Millie? Are we going home now? I don't like this place! It's dark, and it stinks!"
"Don't worry, Tom!" the other doll said. "Cooper will protect us. He always does. We're leaving right now! We'll be home soon! Now don't you worry, silly bean!"
"Oh okay, I believe you. Bye, dark place! We're going into the boat now."
"Me first," Cooper said.
He found the commonplace, sing-song tone reassuring, as if Amy knew something he didn't. She stood up; Turk came over and sat down next to her and she scratched behind his ear.
Amy looked up. "Do you think Bea and Napoleon made it out? Oh, I hope Bea and Napoleon are okay!"
"Yup, Beatrice is in good hands," Mikaela said.
CHAPTER 47
They shoved off, and Cooper pushed them off the wall into the wider floodwater stream. The waters moved fast along what he'd thought was an avenue. Too fast; he had a sudden sinking feeling, as if he'd made the wrong decision to leave. All he had to do was steer with the paddle. The floodwaters had picked up. The people moved swiftly through the night.
He saw nothing else around them in the water, but starlit glints. The water fanned and rippled on the surface, betraying the flood current below. The buildings were like stolid, unlit monuments. He wondered where the other boats were. It made him think of the Charles River that time, with the 1812 Overture playing by the riverbank. The river, then, was a giant flotilla of everything from pitiable little row boats and canoes, to swanky schooners and yachts. Now, there was nothing but their canoe.
They heard a splashing; Cooper saw a form moving in the darkness, not far and coming alongside them. From the form came a desperate panting. The momentum of the heavy, powerful physique beneath the water moved the horse's head back and forth. It drove through the water, overtaking the canoe.
"Jesus," Mikaela said. "Poor horse!"
"Napoleon! Is it Napoleon?" Amy cried.
Cooper could just see the gleam of the eye on the side of the horse's head, which was nearly jet black.
"No, I don't think so. That's not Napoleon. It looks like a black horse."
The horse kept swimming hard. Cooper steered the boat away so it wouldn't upend them. The canoe ran along swiftly in the black water, with a speed that unnerved him. Amy was whimpering, and Turk was riveted and paid attention to the heavy-breathing noise. The strenuous bobbing head of the horse.
Then the horse made its way in the water behind them and was gone, more like a large piece of debris carried away in the flood. They could still hear the forceful panting carried over the water, then no longer, as if the horse had turned onto a side street.
"I hope its okay," Mikaela said. "I hope he makes it."
"Me too!" Amy cried softly.
"I think he'll be alright," Cooper said. "They're good swimmers. A horse can swim pretty well, then it'll be rescued. Pulled out." He was thinking of themselves, too.
It had to be 2 a.m., perhaps later. They floated quickly past buildings. Once again, Mikaela used the paddle from the front to fend off obstacles, as the water swirled around hard objects in their path; trash receptacles and delivery boxes and ad-related newsstands, all of the smaller structures that were embedded in cement in a flooded city and could impede them.
Then Cooper heard a motor behind them. It was unmistakable.
"Do you hear that?" He looked behind them. He saw nothing but black water and starlit ripples. The sound got louder. Then he saw a tiny red light moving about. It was behind them, he guessed 10 or 15 blocks away.
"What is it?" Amy said. She'd been sleeping and he hadn't heard much from her.
"It's a boat. I know it. It's coming up behind us."
Mikaela swiveled around with the paddle in her hand and looked intently. She handed him the paddle.
"The light is getting bigger," she said. "Maybe you should paddle us more over to the side. It's on the water. The light. They have to see us!" She had a hopeful tone, explicitly, Cooper thought for the first time in the last few crazy days.
In a low register, the motor got louder and louder, piercing the silence that had enveloped them, resounding off the concrete walls. He paddled, more frantically. He stroked hard to his left, but they were carried up strongly on top of the current. They were caught up in some kind of swift channel that took them down the center of the avenue.
Cooper could see the strobe light of the watercraft illuminate the building facades as it got closer. A deep wake jetted from both the starboard and the port.
The motor was loud now, louder than their voices. It happened very fast. He couldn't steer the canoe laterally as fast as he wanted to.
Mikaela frantically waved her arms in front of him, trying to get the boat's attention. He still held the paddle, then he saw both her, Amy, and the dog bathed in red light. The motor was deafening; the boat wasn't slowing down.
Cooper leapt off the canoe with the tie-line in his hand and kicked and sprinted with his free arm to pull the boat out of the path of the motor boat. The wake hit him hard in the face and he swallowed and choked on the water and he saw over the water's surface the waves hit the side of the canoe as the bright, piercing light swept the street. He heard Amy's scream amid the deafening outboard motors, then the tie-line slipped from his grasp and he went under.
CHAPTER 48
When he came up the canoe was gone. He moved swiftly through the water. He could see the lights of the boat receding in the distance, and could hear the high-pitched, revved up whine of its motor. He coughed and kept himself on the surface of the water, which was like a hard-running rapids. He desperately scanned the water surface for signs of the upended canoe, but saw nothing but flood, which was like a large black moving floor.
The leftover turbulence from the boat, which caused him to swallow more water, subsided. He coughed, spit out the brackish water, fought to breath and stay on the water's surface. He cried out, "Mikaela! Amy!"
It was everything he could do just to tread water. He kept swiveling around on the agitated surface. He felt overwhelming grief, layered with guilt; it was like his own floodwaters welling up within him.
"Amy! Mikaela!" he yelled out. His voice sounded strange to his ears, like gargling. The buildings were going by quickly; he thought of sitting in the back of a cab in New York or Boston years ago and watching the buildings go by.
He began to swim and stroke a crawl to his left. He made a little bit of progress. He scanned the still-dark area for a place he could pull himself out, but it was no good.
Devastated Lands: A Post-Apocalyptic Adventure Page 15