Rogue Wave

by Boyd Morrison

  Then they saw another carcass, one so out of place amidst all of the other carnage that Kai blinked several times before realizing what it was.

  "Is that what I think it is?" said Brad.

  "Dead giraffe," Kai said.

  Below them, swirling next to a Volkswagen Beetle was an enormous orange and white giraffe, floating on its side, obviously drowned by the wave.

  "What on earth?" Teresa said.

  "The zoo is right over there in the park," Kai said, pointing in the direction of Diamond Head. "It must have gotten swept away by the wave and pulled over here."

  "Poor thing," she said. "They must not have had time to get the animals evacuated." Kai shook his head. Every animal in the zoo must be dead.

  On the building behind them, the water level was now half a floor below the high water mark. It was definitely receding.

  "Come on, everyone," Kai said quietly. "We need to make our move now."

  He led them to the stairwell and went down to the main stairwell, where he peered over the side to inspect the damage. The surface of the ninth floor landing dripped with water and silt, but the steps looked otherwise intact. Pieces of trash were caught in the railings and wrapped around the pillars that held up the outer part of the stairwell.

  A pungent smell surrounded them. The bodies hadn't begun to decay yet, but the tsunami had mixed sewage, gasoline, garbage, and assorted chemicals into an odor that Kai had never before experienced. He coughed at the stench.

  The water drained surprisingly quickly off the eighth floor platform. The flow past the building must have been greater than 10 knots, much faster than a person could swim, even faster than the flow of many rivers. Occasionally, a large object would bang off a pillar, startling them.

  Instead of following the receding water down the steps, Kai opened the door to the tenth story of condos, the only dry floor left.

  "What are you doing?" Brad said.

  "With all that debris outside, Mia and Lani are going to need shoes."

  "You mean, we get to bust down some doors?" he said, a little too delighted at the prospect of Kai's proposed thievery.

  "This building won't be here in an hour, so we might as well help ourselves. Teresa, you stay here with Tom and Jake. Lani, you and Mia come with us."

  "I want Mia to stay with me," Teresa said with a hint of fear.

  "She needs to try on the shoes," Kai said calmly, trying to ease her mind. "And I need Brad to help me break down the doors. If Reggie gets my message, someone will need to run up to the roof as fast as possible to flag the helicopter down. It's OK. We'll be right back."

  The hall was dark from the lack of power, so Teresa held the fire door open while Tom and Jake went to the mid-story landing to get a better view outside. Kai walked down the hall to the first condo door on the left, 1001, facing the ocean. He lashed out with a kick, but the solid door just rang from the impact.

  "Let me try," Brad said.

  Brad threw his weight into a kick, and the door frame cracked. Two more kicks, and the door swung open with a crash. Kai shot him a curious look.

  Brad shrugged. "Karate classes," he said.

  They passed a kitchen whose sink was piled high with dishes and into a living room that held little more than a massive leather couch, a coffee table littered with Maxim magazines and Xbox controllers, and a big screen television. Kai immediately thought bachelor, but they headed straight to the bedrooms and looked in the closets anyway. Just as he thought, all the shoes were men's size 12.

  Frustrated in their search, Kai and the others emerged into the hall for another try.

  "Any luck?" Teresa said.

  "Dude's apartment," Brad said.

  "The water's down to the sixth floor now!" Jake yelled from the stairwell. He and Tom followed the water farther down.

  "This is taking too long," Kai said. "We need to be ready to run once the water reaches the bottom. Let's try two apartments at a time."

  Brad nodded, and this time they both kicked at the condo 1002, opposite the bachelor pad. It opened right away, and Brad went to the next condo with Mia. Lani trailed Kai into 1002, the look on her face betraying her tension.

  "Remember," he said to Lani, trying to lighten the mood, "were not looking for cute strappy heels. Just sneakers."

  She gave a look that said his attempt at humor was not well-received.

  The patio door to the balcony was wide open as was the custom in Hawaii to let the breeze ventilate the condo instead of the air conditioning. Kai heard Brad yell through his condo's patio door.

  "Looks like a family lives here! We might get lucky."

  "Mine, too!" Kai yelled back.

  Lani had already passed Kai into the bedroom, and he found her rooting through the closet.

  "Find anything?" he asked.

  She held up a pair of white sneakers. The rest of the shoes were either high-heels or sandals.

  "Are they your size?"

  "Close enough," she said.

  "OK, get them on."

  Kai went back out to the living room to let Brad know they'd found some. When he got out there, he heard a strange hissing sound coming from the direction of the patio balcony. The high-pitched whine of escaping gas was unmistakable and was soon supplemented by the roar of fire. Kai dashed out to the balcony to find out where it was coming from. He skidded to a halt at the railing when he saw what was causing the noise.

  Directly in front of him, the 20-story high-rise obstructed the Seaside's view of the mountains. On the eighth floor of the structure, a giant propane tank jutted out of a window. It looked like the tank had plunged through one side of the glassed building and then got stuck in the side closest to the Seaside. A jet of gas six inches across shot out of a hole at one end where it instantly transformed into a torch of fire.

  "BLEVE!" Kai yelled.

  "Who's Blevy?" Brad said, racing out to the balcony to see what he was talking about. "Oh my God!"

  Without thinking, Kai had used the term he had learned during the emergency drill earlier in the year. BLEVE stood for boiling liquid/expanding vapor explosion. When a flammable tank was punctured, the pressurized liquid usually shot out of the hole as a gas. Sparks or fire ignited the gas, heating the metal around the hole. If the fire got hot enough, the liquid in the tank would literally boil. The tank wouldn't be able to contain the increased pressure, and when the pressure became too great, the metal would fail. The tank would rupture, releasing all of the liquid at once. When that happened, a tremendous explosion would rip through everything around it. Because it was so dangerous, firefighters battling a potential BLEVE would simply evacuate to at least half a mile away and let it either burn itself out or explode.

  This propane tank was no more than 75 feet from Kai.

  It had probably been ripped from its spot at a gas station and pierced as it was swept along by the water. Then any spark could have set it off. The receding water brought it here and lodged it in a corner of the window, leaving it hanging high and dry, with no chance that the outflow of water would dowse it before the next wave came in. It could blow any second.

  "Propane tank!" Kai shouted out the door of the apartment. "It's going to explode! Run!"

  "Mia!" Teresa said from the stairwell.

  Without answering, Kai ran back to the bedroom and grabbed Lani's hand, yanking her to her feet without letting her finish tying the other shoe.

  As they ran out, Kai saw Teresa flash past the front door of the condo heading toward Brad and Mia.

  "Teresa! Come back!"

  She ignored Kai and flew through the door of the next condo down to find Mia. Lani and Kai ran to condo 1001 across the hall, and he slammed the door behind them. He pushed Lani over the couch and dove after her. As they hit the floor with a thud, the tank blew up.

  Despite the several walls separating them from the tank, the noise from the blast assaulted Kai's ears. The building shook from the impact. The door to the condo ripped from its hinges, flying over them a
nd out the window. He instinctively covered Lani with his body. Pieces of debris and shrapnel from the tank peppered the wall. A tremendous heat wave singed the hairs on Kai's arms. He felt a sizzling burn crease his thigh and screamed in pain and shock. A chunk of white hot metal had ricocheted off the wall.

  "Are you OK?" he said to Lani as the noise subsided.

  "Oh my God, Daddy!" Lani said, pointing at his leg. "You're bleeding."

  Kai looked at his pants. A five-inch gash was drawn laterally across his thigh. Blood dripped from the wound, but it wasn't deep. The shrapnel had just grazed the skin. A few inches to the left, and it would have gone right through his leg, tearing through the femoral artery.

  "I'm fine. It's nothing to worry about." Once the adrenaline was gone, Kai knew the pain would come, but it didn't look like he'd bleed to death, so he ignored it. "Are you OK?" he repeated.

  "Yes," Lani said. "But where are the others?"

  "I think they were in the other apartment."

  They ran back into the hall, and the sight that greeted them was appalling. Part of the hallway wall had disintegrated, spilling bits of plaster and drywall all over the floor. Through the doorway of the condo on the other side of the building, they could see that the entire exterior wall had been shattered. Visible out of that gaping hole, the remains of the high-rise to the north burned, covered with what was left of the liquefied propane. The right side of the high-rise simply wasn't there any more. A jagged wound was carved out of the left side, but it wouldn't last long. As Lani and Kai watched, in seeming slow motion the remaining steel and concrete buckled, and in a hail of dust and a low rumble, the building collapsed into the water below.

  It was like seeing their fate played out in front of them. The building they were standing in was stronger than the one that collapsed, but Kai was worried now that it also had sustained significant structural damage.

  He and Lani began yelling for the others.

  "Brad! Teresa! Mia! Jake! Tom!"

  Kai heard coughing from the stairwell and ran over to it. The fire door was off its hinges, but the building had shielded the main stairwell from significant damage. The stairs to the roof were a mangled mess of twisted railings and pulverized concrete.

  He looked down to see Tom peering from the doorway on the eighth floor. Tom's face was contorted in a rictus of confusion and agony. With his right hand he held his left arm, which hung at a grotesque angle at his side. His complexion was ashen.

  "Tom!" Kai said. "Where's Jake?"

  Tom nodded towards the hallway. "In there. I think he's dead!"

  Kai wanted to comfort him, but they didn't have time. There were only 15 minutes left before the next tsunami.

  "Are you sure?" Kai said.

  Tom shook his head. "No, but he's not moving."

  A yell came from the other end of the hallway.

  "Help! Help!"

  It was Teresa.

  "Teresa! We're out here."

  Teresa poked her head out of the condo Brad had been in. The look of alarm on her face was enough to tell Kai something terrible had happened.

  "Are you OK?" he said.

  "It's Brad and Mia. The wall fell down. They're trapped."

  Chapter 36

  11:34 AM

  13 minutes to Second Wave

  The stairs leading to the roof of the flat-topped Moana tower in the Grand Hawaiian were steep but wide. Normally, the access was strictly limited to hotel employees who needed to maintain the rooftop air conditioning units. But Max Walsh was forced to herd the guests up the steps. There was no elevator to the roof, so the lack of power was irrelevant. Because many of the guests were disabled, with some of them in wheelchairs, the going was slow. The only good news was that they had just one floor to climb.

  Max conferred with Bob Lateen before deciding that, one at a time, Max and Adrian would carry each of them. Some of the wives-none of them under 70-volunteered to help, but Max was afraid one of them would fall, and he didn't need any more problems than he had already. Max counted the disabled guests and saw that they would have to make eight trips to get them all up.

  In the meantime, Max asked all of those with cell phones to try calling someone who could send a helicopter to rescue them. Of course, he could go up to the roof and try to flag one down, but that would delay the movement of the disabled guests. He asked three of the ladies to leave their husbands to signal for help by waving a tablecloth.

  It took two minutes to get the first wheelchair-bound guest up and situated comfortably on the roof, much more time than Max expected. At that rate, it would take over 15 minutes to get them all up, so he decided to send the able-bodied people up the stairs first.

  While Adrian finished helping guests walk up the stairs, Max went to the window to look at the devastation below.

  The streets were unrecognizable. A steady stream of water flowed back toward the ocean, dragging all kinds of flotsam with it. It would be only a matter of minutes before the land was completely drained.

  He could clearly see the skybridge now. A huge gash in the roof exposed part of the walkway to the bright sunlight. Max couldn't see the piece of debris responsible, but it must have been something big. Anything large enough to leave that mark could have easily torn the skybridge from its moorings. As it was, the bridge appeared to be hanging by the thinnest of threads. Anyone willing to cross that would have to be pretty desperate, he thought as he made his way back to the stairwell.

  * * *

  Twenty floors below Max, Rachel reached the sixth-floor conference center. The skybridge in front of her looked like it had been blasted by a truck bomb. Every shard of glass had been torn out of the windows, exposing the walkway to the ocean breeze from floor to ceiling. The skybridge itself was tilted at an extreme angle, with the beach side higher, as if the wave had pushed up one edge but couldn't wrest it from its steel cables.

  The skybridge was unusually bright. The mid-day sun poured through the hole in the roof, illuminating the sorry state of the floor itself. Like every other surface the tsunami had touched, a fine layer of soupy silt coated the decking. In many places, holes had been punched through the floor as well as the ceiling. Fifty feet below, the outflow of water was now only ten feet deep. They were lucky the skybridge was still there at all. It certainly wouldn't stand up to another onslaught of water.

  As Rachel approached the bridge, the family appeared on the other end of the 60-foot walkway. They heaved visibly from the exertion of racing down twenty flights of stairs. The father carried a small girl, while a 10-year-old boy and another girl several years younger than the boy leaned on their mother. All three kids had their mother's black hair and lean figure, but their light mocha skin was obviously a combination of their parents' complexions. The man, slightly jowly, towered over them. His shirt draped over a beer gut past its infancy.

  Another couple was with them, people Rachel hadn't seen before. Both of them were in their fifties and appeared relatively fit. The man's curls were just succumbing to a salt-and-pepper transformation, providing a striking complement to the rugged tan lines marking the face of someone who worked outside. The woman, short-haired and elegant in her poise, held his hand tightly.

  The group hadn't started across the skybridge yet, uneasy at the sad state of the structure. The railing along the beach side of the slanted walkway had been ripped off and rested atop the railing on the other side.

  Rachel yelled down the hall. "I'm the hotel manager. My name is Rachel Tanaka. Are you all right?"

  "Yes," the father said. "We met these people on our way down."

  "What are your names?" In her line of work, Rachel found that it always made things go more smoothly if she knew the names of the people she was dealing with.

  "I'm Nate Tinsley," said the older man. "And this is my wife Cora."

  "I'm Bill Rogers," the father of the three children said. "My wife is Paige, and my kids are Tyler, Hannah, and the little one is Ashley."

  "Is it safe to cr
oss?" Cora asked.

  "I don't know," Rachel said. "The incline is going to make it difficult to get across. Bill, can you get down the stairs in your tower?"

  "No," Bill said. "I checked. It's totally blocked by that ship."

  "Then you don't have a choice. You'll have to come over here."

  "Maybe we should just stay here," Nate said. "That bridge looks pretty rickety."

  "We're trying to get a helicopter to come to our roof top…"

  Bill interrupted. "Then we can do the same thing in this tower."

  "That won't work," Rachel said. "There's nowhere for a helicopter to land on your roof."

  "Yeah, dad," Tyler said. "Remember that big spike on the top of the building?"

  "Then we'll just go back up to the top floor and wait until this is over."

  "Look," Rachel said, "I don't want to frighten you more than you already are. But there are more waves coming and they're going to be much bigger than the last one. Maybe even taller than this building. We need to get out of here."

  They still hesitated.

  "Come on! We don't have much time left."

  Bill and Paige looked at each other and nodded. She spoke to their kids with a slight accent suggesting a Caribbean Island origin and told them to stay back until she was done crossing. She wanted to go first to make sure the skybridge was sturdy enough.

  As she was about to step onto the skybridge, Nate stopped her.

  "I'll go first. Just in case."

  He kissed his wife and tentatively stepped onto the tilted deck of the walkway. Even though he was wearing sneakers, Nate's foot skidded on the slippery floor, and he almost fell. Cora screamed, and the rest of them gasped. Nate grabbed one of the floor-to-ceiling pillars that were spaced every five feet and steadied himself.

  "The floor is pretty slick," Nate said without sarcasm. "Be careful."

  His arm span was wide enough that he could keep hold of one pillar while he inched along to grab the next one. He made his way slowly. Brad had told her the time spacing between the waves when he had talked to her on the walkie-talkie. At this pace, they'd never make it across and to the roof in time.