Keri stood up, stretching again. She ran her fingers along the waistband of her sweatpants. Dub stood up and put his hands on her hips.
She kissed him on the cheek. “No. I’m going to my room. I don’t want to see Barker until tomorrow morning. No telling what I’d say to him and his hookup if I saw them tonight.”
Dub laughed. “Fair enough.” He slipped his feet into a pair of sliders. “He’ll probably appreciate that too.”
They hugged, Keri traipsed toward her room, and Dub grabbed the keys to the rental car. He stood at the front door with his hand on the knob for several seconds, gathering the courage to step out into the cold rain and wind. Then he exhaled loudly and made the dash toward his midsized domestic. He swung open the door, slid into the driver’s seat, and pulled the door shut in what felt like one fluid motion. He was soaked by the time he pushed the ignition and put the car in reverse.
He couldn’t see through the rear window, so he used the backup camera to navigate from the narrow driveway then onto the street. It was blurry from condensation but was clear enough for him to see the driveway.
He fumbled for the windshield wipers and put them on high. It wasn’t enough to clearly see his path as he put the car into drive and slowly accelerated. He sat as far forward as he could in the seat, his chest against the steering wheel. His fingers gripped the wheel as if he were a first-time driver’s ed student unsure of himself on the road.
The radio was on. He turned it off. The rain was so loud against the roof of the car he couldn’t hear the music anyhow, and he needed his full attention on the barely visible road ahead. Three miles seemed like nothing until he started driving in this mess. Now it felt like a blindfolded cross-country trek on bald tires.
The tension tightened in Dub’s neck and shoulders. There were memories there, of another night where the water rose too high, he was trying to keep at bay. He pushed them aside and glanced at his phone. He noticed a turn ahead, but he couldn’t tell from the obscured windshield where the intersecting street met his. He slowed, leaning toward the passenger’s window to get an alternative view.
He reached the turn and made it slowly, deliberately. In the dim wash of the headlights, which he’d flipped to high beam, he saw the water pooling on the street, rushing along the gutters, and spilling into curbside drains. The dull streetlights that dotted the street showcased the sheets of incessant rain as he passed. A well of anger made Dub clench his jaw. He was not happy with Barker.
He kept the car in the middle of the road, the standing water not having covered the pavement there, until he reached the next intersection and saw the bright lights of an oncoming SUV or truck. He eased through the intersection and crept toward the deeper water near the curb. He could feel it rushing under the floorboard as he held steady on the gas pedal. The approaching vehicle, however, wasn’t moving to its side of the road. It was maintaining its path along the center. And it was moving much faster than Dub had originally thought. The closer it got, the more Dub could make out its speed and shape. It was a truck with large tires that sprayed a thick wash of floodwater up and out from its treads.
Dub toggled the high beams, trying to get the driver’s attention. If it maintained its course, it might swamp him or, even worse, force him off the road and into the flooded gutter.
He flicked his lights again and took his foot off the accelerator. The truck kept coming. Dub held his foot above his brake, but did not press it. If he stopped the car, he’d flood, and might not get it going again. The water was likely just deep enough to creep into the tailpipe. He kept moving forward, at a crawl above idle, and steered toward the right.
The truck wasn’t slowing. In fact, it seemed to Dub it was speeding up. Dub braced for the wave sure to come, and the truck rumbled past him.
A large spray slapped the driver’s side of his car as Dub swerved to try to avoid it. Then a large wake splashed against the car, and Dub felt water on his bare heels as it leaked through the bottom of the driver’s side door, pooling in the well underneath the gas and brake pedals.
He managed to maintain control, weaving back toward the center of the road before slamming into the back of a car parked at the curb. The car was struggling. The engine protested as he carefully accelerated and straightened his course. It sounded like the motor was coughing as he advanced along the street. He was sweating now, perspiration blooming on the back of his neck and on his forehead. He cursed Barker again and leaned even closer to the wheel. His muscles ached as if he’d been holding them taut for hours.
The GPS on the phone showed him it was less than a mile from the convenience store where he was told by Barker to pick him up, along with the girl Barker had met. He had two more turns to make before reaching the convenience store. His concern, as he reflexively checked the rearview mirror and then each side mirror, wasn’t getting to the store. Sure, he was worried. But the real stress came from thinking ahead to the drive back.
He picked up his phone and voice dialed Keri. She answered groggily.
“Hey,” he said. “I’m having trouble. There’s water everywhere. I may have to come back home. Not sure. I might or might not be able to get Barker. Just letting you know.”
“Okay,” she said, the sleep thickening her response. “Be careful.”
“You too,” he said. “I’ll keep you posted. Love you.”
Dub hung up, not waiting for her response. He tossed the phone onto the seat beside him. He had to concentrate. There were a thousand moves running through his mind, a million options, countless bad outcomes.
If the rain persisted, there was no way he’d be able to take the same route home that he’d taken on the way to the store. It was already treacherously close to impassable. Another ten minutes and it would be inundated, no doubt. A swell of anxiety quickened his pulse. He tightened his grip on the wheel, forcing himself to stay in the moment and not let himself drift into his suppressed past.
He made the first of the turns, the car spitting water from its exhaust. The accelerator was struggling when he pressed it coming out of the turn and straightened onto the next street. There were cars lining both sides of the road, making a center path the only possibility. As the wipers made quick passes on the windshield, he saw the water was halfway up the rims of most of the sedans parked on the street. The SUVs had a little more clearance, though not much. The center of the road, not visible underneath the rising water, didn’t have quite the depth, as far as he could tell.
A flash of lightning strobed and illuminated Dub’s surroundings for a brief instant. His pulse was already thumping thickly against his chest. The perspiration was building. The sight of the flooding street, the sheets of rain, and the homes with water already creeping up their driveways made him want to vomit.
Thunder crashed overhead. He felt it in the steering wheel. He loosened his sweaty grip and readjusted it, making sure he had control of the vehicle as he neared his final turn. The GPS told him it was only a few feet ahead and to the left. When he reached it and started to make the turn, his headlights revealed not a street, but a torrent of water rushing toward him. It pushed against the front tires and rocked the carriage, threatening to lift both from the asphalt.
Dub bore down on the wheel, narrowed his focus, and swung the front of the car around, sloshing through deeper water as he bounced up onto a curb and off again. He pushed the gas and somehow managed to keep the car moving back toward the street from which he’d just turned. He turned left and found the center of the road. He exhaled. His muscles relaxed infinitesimally. But it was too soon for relief. The engine coughed and the wheel stuttered under his grip. The car stalled. In that instant, without the motor to propel it forward, the water lifted the vehicle from the ground and carried it back into the flooded intersection from which the rapids were angrily crashing and roiling. The car’s headlights dimmed and it tipped toward the driver’s side. Water rushed in through the door, quickly pooling at Dub’s ankles.
The wheel locked. Dub
struggled fruitlessly to regain control. He unbuckled himself and climbed to the passenger seat. The car was spinning now, bobbing like an unevenly weighted canoe. Dub reached for the button to lower the passenger window and pushed it. It didn’t work. He cursed himself and then grabbed the door handle, pulling it, and with every bit of strength he had left, shouldered the door open against the water.
He scooted to the edge of the passenger seat, water splashing against him while threatening to slam shut the door on his torso. He swung his feet around and then, gauging the depth of the water from the undulating reflection of streetlights on its surface, launched himself from the car.
The instant he hit the water, gliding through it before the rush of it tumbled him feet over head, his body seized from the shock of it. He resisted the urge to suck in a deep breath and cry out from the cold, as he somehow found his bare feet surfing along soft, muddy ground.
The force of the water diminished the farther he slid from his car, and as he gathered himself, coughing out water, he realized he was in somebody’s front yard a few feet from the porch.
He looked back, trying to find the car. It was gone. Either it had washed away or was wholly submerged now. He couldn’t be sure which. It didn’t matter though. He did try to remember if he’d purchased the accident insurance when he’d rented it the day before.
Kneeling in muddy grass, the water up to his chest, Dub pushed himself to his feet. The taste of grease and rubber coated his tongue. He spat into the water, trying to rid himself of it. It didn’t help.
Standing there drenched and shivering, water bubbling and rising toward his waist now, he reached in his pocket for his phone. It was gone, lost in the missing car. The tension in his neck returned. In his panic, he’d forgotten to unplug it from its charger. Now it was a sunken, useless treasure somewhere out of reach.
With each heave of his chest and heavy breath outward, the foul-tasting water that coated his body and mixed with the icy rain sprayed from his lips. He spread his feet shoulder-width apart to steady himself against the water, which was now bringing the current he’d experienced a block or two upstream.
The heavy rain made it hard to see much more than ten or twenty yards in any direction. Some of the streetlights had flickered off. It was darker, colder. He was lost.
Wait. He wasn’t lost. He’d been so focused on the GPS and the difficulty of the drive, he forgot he could find his way to the convenience store. He took a tenuous step forward, and then another, and another until he’d reached a street sign at the nearest intersection, which was only two houses from the one where he’d skidded to a stop.
Dub recognized the name of the streets, but he wasn’t sure which way was north. He was disoriented. He tried looking up to the skies. The rain and clouds made it impossible to see any stars. He couldn’t see the sliver of a new moon either. Then he remembered his wristwatch.
It was an analog watch, perpetual motion with a sweeping second hand, with its numbers that were luminescent. He unstrapped it from his wrist, holding it horizontally in his palm. He wiped the face of it with his thumb and checked the time. Before he recognized it was after midnight now, he cursed himself again. It was nighttime. He couldn’t check the sun in reference to the time.
He spit rainwater from his lips and clenched his jaw. He wasn’t altogether there. The combination of exhaustion and stress was making him loopy. He took two steps then leaned on a tree. His hand slipped from its slimy surface, but he caught himself before he stumbled forward into the water face-first.
He touched the tree again, lightly running his fingers across the slimy surface of the bark. He looked up at the towering and wide-reaching branches of a grand magnolia tree. The slime wasn’t slime. It was moss. Dub slapped the tree and laughed.
“Moss,” he said. “Freaking moss.”
He shuffled beside the tree and faced in the same direction as the mossy, northern side of the tree. Now he knew where he needed to go.
Wary of open manholes or water-sucking gutters he couldn’t see beneath the rising water, Dub carefully waded north as close to the flooded houses as he could get. He occasionally stepped on popped sprinkler heads or decorative lawn ornaments, but managed to stay above water. It was painstaking, and with each successive inch forward, he couldn’t be sure what he’d find when he reached the convenience store. Worse, he couldn’t know what was happening a couple of miles away at Keri’s house.
Trudging the final stretch, he came across three separate families, all of them wading with varying degrees of difficulty toward higher ground. Dub helped one family, whose belongings had spilled into the water when a large plastic tub had tipped.
He imagined that what these people wore and what they carried encompassed the whole of their salvaged belongings. He tried not staring at what looked like refugees as they passed him or moved more quickly in the same direction.
But one family, a mother and father and teenage son a couple of years younger than Dub but taller, didn’t leave his side. They trekked with him toward the store.
“We don’t know where else to go,” said the mother through chattering teeth. “We don’t know where is safe.”
“I don’t either,” admitted Dub. “I’m not from here. I’m visiting.”
He thought of two men who long ago had saved him from a similar fate. He had to help. He had to pay it forward.
“Our house is gone,” said the son. His eyes were swollen, and even in the dim light, Dub could tell he’d been crying.
“Everything,” echoed the mother. “The water is halfway up the walls. It’s over the tops of our beds.”
The father was almost catatonic. He was slogging silently forward at a pace equal to his wife—a water-logged zombie of a man, balding on the top of his head and empty in his countenance. Twice, when Dub glanced at him, he thought the father was mumbling to himself.
“He’s a veteran,” the wife said when she noticed Dub looking. “He suffers from PTSD. This isn’t good for him. I’m just glad he came with us. At first I thought it might be a struggle, but he came.”
She smiled weakly and moved closer to her husband, looping her arm in his and holding it with both hands. He glanced at her for a moment, then turned back to the watery path ahead.
“I can take that,” Dub said, taking the floating plastic bin from the son. “You worry about your dad.”
The boy nodded and thanked Dub. The four of them fought against the rising water another several blocks before they reached the convenience store, where they found a half-dozen people and an aluminum jon boat with a running twenty-horsepower engine rumbling and spurting water and smoke from its stern. The water thinned here. It was at most ankle deep, and the convenience store still had power. From the looks of it, the interior hadn’t yet flooded. There were more people standing inside, gathered around the service counter, appearing as though they were in no hurry to go anywhere.
A half-dozen cars were as close to the storefront as they could get, parked at odd angles to one another to avoid the water. None of them had flooded yet, though Dub imagined it was only a matter of time. They were on an island that was surely sinking. One of the people loitering by the boat emerged from the others and sloshed a couple of steps toward Dub and the family he’d accompanied during the last part of his journey.
“Dub?” asked Barker, narrowing his eyes and peering into the rain. “Dub? Is that you? Holy crap. Seriously? Dub?”
He splashed through the water like a kid in a baby pool and extended his arms toward Dub. When he reached him, he wrapped them around his friend and grunted.
“Man, it’s good to see you. I got so worried. These guys here in this boat, they’re so cool. They’re giving us a ride. They were going to go look for you.”
Dub pulled away. “Well, I’m here.”
Barker eyed him up and down. “You look like hell, dude.”
Dub wiped the newly replenished sheen of water from his face, shook the excess from his hands, and nodded. “I fe
el like it. The car’s gone.”
“I figured.” Barker glanced over Dub’s shoulder. “Who are these people?”
“A family whose home is underwater,” he explained. “They needed some help.”
“That’s my Dub,” said Barker. “You’re a hero, dude.”
“Hardly,” Dub scoffed.
“Seriously,” said Barker, with a level of excitement Dub imagined had to have been born from nerve-fueled adrenaline. Or alcohol. “You’re the kind of dude who’d run into a burning building when everyone else is running out.”
“I doubt that,” said Dub. But as he pushed the floating tub toward the teenage boy, he knew in his gut that Barker was right. He couldn’t help but be nice to others, even when it was at his own expense.
Barker motioned toward the boat with his head and lowered his voice. “Look, I think I can get these guys to take us back to Keri’s house.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. They’re looking for people to help. Half of those people inside the convenience store came here in their boat.”
“But we’re three miles from her house,” protested Dub. “What makes you think they’ll go that far out of their way when there are other people much closer they can ferry over?”
“I gave them the twelve-pack I bought,” said Barker. “Cheap stuff, but they were thrilled. It was payment to go find you. Now they don’t have to find you, so they can take us to Keri’s. If there are others on the way, there’s room for four other people.”
Dub started counting. “So two guys with the boat, you, me, and your new friend.”
Barker nodded.
“Which one is she?”
“The cute one in the overalls,” said Barker, shooting a glance toward the woman without obviously trying to be obvious.
Noticing Barker’s attempt to be sly, the woman high-stepped through the water toward him. She wore her hair in a scrunchie-affixed ponytail, and her face had the wide-eyed look of a person who knew they were the subject of conversation.
The Alt Apocalypse {Book 3): Torrent Page 7