by Tom Abrahams
Her frown relaxed. “I can’t leave. I’d lose my job. They’ve got reinforcements coming. Before the lines went dead, the general manager called. He’s on his way.”
Doc looked to the front entrance to his left. He couldn’t see beyond the floor-to-ceiling, two-story frameless glass panels and onto the street, or where the street should have been, but he knew nobody was coming.
“If he can get here,” said Doc. “And I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest your GM won’t be getting here anytime soon.”
“He’s Captain Obvious!” shouted the tall date-for-hire standing several feet behind him. “He’s good with nuance.”
“Really?” whined the shorter of the two. “French again?”
“Ignore them,” Doc said to Shonda.
Shonda arched an eyebrow at Doc and glanced at both of the women and then back at him. The faintest hint of a knowing, yet disapproving, smile curled onto one side of her face.
Recognizing this, Doc shook his head. “Found them in the stairwell,” he said under his breath. “Not with me.”
“He’s bourgeoisie,” said the taller woman. “Wouldn’t be caught with us. He’s too good for us.”
“Except that he’s not,” said the shorter one.
“Look,” said Doc. “You could come with us. I’m going to try to find some emergency crews…a shelter, and help some people. I could get you to a shelter.”
“And lose my job?” asked Shonda. “No thanks.”
Doc took another tentative step toward the desk. The cold water moved through his body, sending a chill up his spine. “You won’t lose your job,” he said. “It’s not a safe environment.”
“Thanks, but no thanks,” said Shonda. She was looking at the entrepreneurial women behind him as she spoke. “I’ll be fine.”
Doc shrugged with resignation. “Okay. Suit yourself.”
He waved a reluctant goodbye to her, trying to formulate some sort of convincing argument for her to come with him. He couldn’t, so he sloshed toward the main entrance, the two women crawlers in tow.
The entry doors were large electric sliding doors that were stuck open with about a two-foot gap to squeeze through. Doc sidestepped through the opening and waited for the women, their faces crunched into disapproving sneers and their heels in their hands, sloshing through the water, which was obviously deepening.
The second Doc cleared the opening, he felt the strong undercurrent of the water outside. It was as though he’d stepped from a wading pool into a rapid. He set his gait wider, trying to balance himself against the strong rush of water that threatened to knock him off-balance.
It pushed him sideways for a moment, causing him to have to use his hands as paddles to maintain his foothold on the concrete sidewalk. He told the women, “Hold onto one another. The current is intense.”
The first of them, the taller Francophile, waded out only a couple of steps before willing herself back into the lobby. She shook her head vigorously. “I’m not going out there. We’re better off in here. That water will kill me.”
Doc held out a hand. “You can make it,” he said. “I can help you.”
The woman’s eyes, heavy with shadow and mascara, were wide with fright. She backed away another step, deeper into the lobby. “Not happening.”
Her partner in crime, albeit a crime subject only to a five-hundred-dollar fine and up to six months in jail for a first offense, stood with her. She shook her head too. “If she’s not going, I’m not going.”
“The water is only going to get deeper here,” he said, pointing beyond the cover of the hotel’s decorative sidewalk overhang. “It’s raining. You’re no safer here than—”
The taller one saluted with a flick of her wrist. “Merci, Captain,” she said. “We can take care of ourselves.”
Doc shook his head with disappointment. “Suit yourself,” he said, and turned to head across the wide street in front of the hotel. He glanced back at the women, their high heels still in their hands. “Laissez les bon temps rouler.”
The women laughed. “He’s got jokes,” said the shorter one. “Captain got jokes.”
Doc laughed, the tension in his body easing for a moment. He took a deep breath, still bracing his legs at shoulder width to withstand the torrent flowing underneath the surface.
He took one step, then another, and a third toward the street. He shuffled his feet as he neared what he imagined was the edge of the sidewalk. He found it and bent his knee to wade deeper into the water. Trash floated by, spinning in the baby jetties that formed and dissipated in the dark froth.
He took his other foot and stepped from the curb, finding the gutter at the edge of the street, but the current slid him to one side. The undercurrent, stronger than anything he’d ever felt in the trickiest of ocean shorelines, yanked that leg out from under him and pulled him under the surface. He was sucked under, an aquatic tractor beam intent on dragging him to some invisible magnet.
He blew the air from his lungs, bubbles streaming to the surface of the water, and fought to escape the pull. Then his foot was stuck in something, and his body twisted and rolled with the whims of the angry torrent. It dragged him like a rag doll, twisting his body at his ankle, using it as a fulcrum for its whims.
He managed to control himself for an instant and reached down to his foot. His lungs were beginning to burn. He had no air and he was blind in the consuming darkness.
As panic crept into his rational mind, he maintained his wits long enough to understand his foot was caught in a sewer grate, and the force was yanking him downward, trapping him in the swirling vortex. He grabbed at his foot, trying to turn it, to work it free of the grate. It wasn’t happening. His throat tightened, the sting of water in his nose distracted him, and the water pushed his body awkwardly away from his foot.
But as that happened, miraculously, his foot was torqued free of the grate. The freedom was invigorating, and Doc pushed himself back the short distance to the surface. He emerged and gasped for air, choking on it, and steadied himself in the street.
Even as he stood as tall as he could, the water was above his chest now. And it was getting worse. He wiped his hands across his face then pushed his hair back. His glasses were gone.
His heart pounding against his chest, his pulse thickly throbbing at his neck, he struggled to regain his composure. He spun in a circle, trying to reestablish his bearings. The hotel was behind him now and to his left. He was closer to the opposite side of the street than he’d first thought and was farther down. It confused him. How had he moved so far from the curb so quickly?
The press of water at his side made it difficult to stand in one place. He danced on his tiptoes, acquiescing to the pull of the current. He was already exhausted and unsure he could make it the rest of the distance across the street.
Doc glanced back at the hotel through the dense curtain of rain and stared at the faint emergency red glow leaking through the large glass frontage. He wondered if he should go back. Maybe Shonda the night manager and the two independent women contractors had the right idea.
It was too far now. He was better off forging ahead into the uncertain waters beyond him. His breathing having returned to normal, at least for the circumstances, he walked diagonally away from the hotel toward the opposite end of the street. The farther he moved, using his hands as oars to fend off the push and pull of the water, the darker his surroundings became.
When Doc found himself clinging to a street sign pole on a corner, he realized he had no direction. He didn’t know where he was going or how he could find help. He swung himself halfway around the pole, peering into the darkness of one street and then in the opposite direction.
He’d assumed that emergency personnel would be everywhere, that he’d be able to toss a pebble into the water and a ripple would slap against the side of a high-water truck or rescue boat. He thought for sure he’d find aquatic caravans of desperate families in need of support or guidance. He found none of it.
It was there. It belonged to a fire truck or an ambulance. No doubt. He couldn’t tell, however, how far down the narrow alley of a street he’d have to travel to reach it. The lights were reflecting off the water and the sides of the buildings. It was faint enough, in the driving rain and light-absorbing dark, that it could easily be a mile from him or a quarter as far.
It didn’t matter. It was the only option now. He let go of the pole and waded, half-swimming, toward the lights.
As soon as he’d cleared the corner of the buildings at the intersection, the current eased enough that he didn’t have to fight against it. The water was rising still, and he bounced along in it, using the force of his push from the street to propel himself forward. Push with his left foot. Rise. Glide. Sink. Push with his right. Rise. Glide. Sink. He found the movement required less effort now. It conserved his energy. It helped him see above the choppy wake of the surface when he elevated, and it let him more easily evade the floating trash and debris that littered the alleyway.
He couldn’t avoid all of it, and at times he caught the strong odor of rotting food and excrement. He bore it as best he could, resisting his burgeoning gag reflex, and bounded forward.
Thankfully he had both shoes. Incredibly he hadn’t lost either yet, even when stuck in the sewer grate.
He shivered again. The relentlessly cold shower was biblical. It complicated everything. The flooding was one thing; the absolute darkness was another. The rain was the coup de grace.
Coup de grace, he thought. The taller of the pavement princesses would like the phrasing.
Nonetheless, he persevered. The flickering lights, alternately red and white, were growing brighter. As he drew closer, and the water deeper, he discovered it was coming from a street two blocks up and to the right. He hurried that distance and rounded the corner, emerging into a stronger current.
It wasn’t as forceful as the one along the hotel’s wide street, but it was strong nonetheless. His calves and thighs thickened with exhaustion as he moved toward the lights. Although he couldn’t see their source yet, they were there. Red. White. Red. White. Swirling and flashing against the water and the buildings, bouncing off everything they touched and brighter now because of the absence of all other light.
Then he saw it. At the intersection of the next street, pulled off the main corridor and buffeted next to a corner building, was a large high-water truck. It was black, cloaked in the night and nearly invisible except for the sharp, distinctive angles of its design and its large twin headlights that cast an arcing beam onto the water surrounding it. The water was high enough that it lapped at the truck’s grille. Its fog lights were underwater, giving a sense of the depth in a way that Doc hadn’t yet seen. Its tires, which had to measure four feet in diameter, were underwater, though the top curves of the wheel wells were visible above the surface.
Around the vehicle, working and struggling, was what Doc had risked his life to find. There were active rescues, families in need, and there were first responders.
Renewed with purpose, he slogged through the water faster, bending into the current and pushing forward against its resistance. He ignored the heaviness in his legs, the ache in his back, and the weight of his waterlogged clothes on his shoulders.
He reached the front of the vehicle, moving past the bright beam of its headlights, and felt the truck’s rumbling idle vibrate the water around him. He approached a man who looked like he might be in charge. The man, wearing a bright orange jacket with reflective tape banded across his chest and along his arms. He looked at Doc warily at first. His glare softened when Doc told him why he was there, that he wasn’t another person in need of help.
“I’m a physician,” he said. “I’m here to do…whatever you need.”
The man nodded briskly. He pointed toward the building closest to the truck. On the fourth floor, there were a dozen people crowded onto a narrow balcony meant for three or four at most.
“They’re panicking. None of them can swim, I don’t think,” he said. “We’re trying to get them into the truck one at a time. They keep threatening to jump en masse. We can’t have that. One group already jumped. We lost a couple in the current. I’ve got one guy in the truck with evacuees. I’ve got two guys climbing the stairs inside to get to them and bring them down. We’ve got a raft that can ferry them the short distance from the steps to the truck, but it’s taking a while. They had to clear a lot of debris first. They’re working on it.”
“Okay,” said Doc. “What do you need?”
“I need someone to stand there and calm them. Talk to them. I don’t know how many of them speak English. They’re migrants. That’s an illegal flophouse up there. The roof’s leaking on them. But anything you can do to stop them from jumping until my men get up there…”
“No problem,” said Doc. “Any injuries yet?”
“Our guy in the truck is sewing up an abrasion on one of the five we’ve got in the truck now. Not much else, I don’t think.”
Doc glanced at the back of the truck, to the large open bed in the back of it. He saw the tops of a couple of heads, not much more.
“Do you have a light on the truck?” asked Doc. “That might help.”
“We did.” The commander frowned. “One of the jumpers hit it, broke it, and went under. That’s one of the ones we lost. We’re kinda blind here. I gotta get on the radio and call for help if we can get any. Anything you can do to keep those folks up there would be much obliged.”
Doc nodded and moved carefully along the side of the truck toward the balcony. He reached a good spot and held his ground there, the water rushing around him. He looked up and, in the flickering red and white light, saw one of the men had climbed onto the outside of the railing. He was preparing to jump.
“Stop!” he shouted. “Too dangerous. Peligroso.”
He had no idea if the man spoke Spanish, but he tried it. Then he tried Vietnamese, aware that many of the fishermen who worked the shallow gulf waters were from southeast Asia. Both languages, neither of which he spoke well, had come in handy when he’d volunteered his time at free clinics in various substandard Los Angeles neighborhoods. He’d picked up important words here and there.
“Nguy hiểm,” he said, waving his hands. “Dangerous. Stop.”
The man held his ground for a moment. Then another man climbed out onto the ledge with him. Now there were two perched and ready to leap.
“No,” said Doc, using the most universally understood word he could think to use. “No. Wait. Esperate por favor. Làm ơn chờ. Wait. Someone is coming.”
The men listened. Both of them, one at a time, climbed back onto the crowded balcony. As the second of the two lifted his second leg over the railing, the balcony shifted. Its mooring loosened at the building’s facade.
In an instant, as Doc was exhaling a sigh of relief from having coaxed the would-be jumpers from the ledge, the balcony and the dozen people upon it came crashing down through the red and white strobing darkness. The crack of the landing separating from the building and the constant din of the rain on the rushing water were muted by the shrill screams of the people crashing toward the murk forty feet below where they’d stood a moment earlier.
Doc was nearly frozen, but somehow his aching legs instinctively pushed him to one side and he dove into the icy, putrid water away from the downpour of migrants. Underwater and scrambling to distance himself farther from the instantaneous threat, he felt the percussion of their bodies hitting the water. One after the other it was like an underwater sonic wave.
It enveloped him, disorienting him. Water ran up his nose, sending an electric sting into his sinuses like a bolt of lightning.
Something, or someone, slammed into the back of o
ne leg, the blunt force only minutely dampened by the thing’s slap against the surface barely above him. He bellowed out in pain, a cascade of bubbles dancing across his face.
He grabbed at his wounded leg and used the other one to find the asphalt below and propel him up and away, a missile launching skyward.
He resurfaced, grimacing at the solid, throbbing ache in the back of his leg. He shifted his weight, putting his mass on the injured leg. It resisted but held.
Bruised, he thought. It was a deep contusion.
Convinced he wasn’t suffering from a fracture or bleeding laceration, he spun back toward the roiling chaos behind him. There was a mind-piercing wail from one thrashing victim, a gurgling call for help from another.
In the waterlogged confusion, Doc couldn’t tell which of the dark figures were those who’d fallen and survived and which were rescuers coming to their aid. He waded back toward the rumble nonetheless. More people had fallen than there were those to help them. Chances were whoever he reached first would be wounded, if they were alive.
The first wasn’t. The gruesome wounds on the woman’s warped body and disfigured face told Doc she’d hit something more than the water. Death was frozen on what was left of her face. Her eyes were fixed open, her mouth agape.
Doc couldn’t do anything for her. He pushed past her, wiped the rain from his face, and found the next body. Ahead of him, first responders were trying to calm the wounded and separate them from the mass of bodies clogging the space between the side of the high-water truck and the entrance to the building.
He found his charge floating on his back, crying out through clenched teeth. Bleeding from his mouth and at his neck, the man was holding onto a piece of wrought iron that protruded through the surface of the water perpendicular to his body.
But when Doc evaluated his many injuries, at least the ones he could see in the strobing red and white light, he realized the man wasn’t holding the piece of iron. It was stuck there, having impaled the man’s thigh.