Broken Tide | Book 1 | Overfall

by Richardson, Marcus

  Reese snorted. “Ah, probably can’t go anywhere, anyway. With all the destruction, I'm sure the bridge to the mainland’s been washed out."

  "Well, you could at least head down the mountain and check it out, right?"

  Reese looked at Ben and grinned. "I knew there was a reason I was keeping you around." He slapped Ben on the shoulder and stood. "All right. I’ll go check it out."

  "I miss you already!" Ben called as Reese left the room.

  Reese walked purposely to the front door but hadn't even turned the knob before Jo caught him. "Where you think you're going?" she demanded in her gruff voice.

  "I can't just sit here,” Reese replied, not looking at her. “I’m going down the mountain to see how bad it is—see if there's a way to get to the mainland."

  "There is, it's called the Trenton Bridge. But, there ain't gonna be much of it left."

  Reese looked at her. “You telling me I can't go or that I shouldn't?"

  Jo narrowed her eyes like a cat watching a bird. "I'm a park ranger, not a Texas Ranger. You do what you want. I just don't want to see anybody get hurt on my watch, is all."

  Reese nodded and moved a hand toward the door.

  "Hold up—I just put your friend Humpty Dumpty back together,” Jo said with a jerk of her thumb toward the room down the hall, “and you’re just gonna up and leave him?”

  Reese sighed. "I appreciate what you did for Ben, but I'm not leaving him. I just…I just need to see…I can't stay here and wait. I’ve got to do something. My wife and daughter—”

  Jo put a rough hand on Reese's shoulder and squeezed with surprising strength. "They’re two thousand miles away from here. Are they safe? We don't know. No one knows. The situation is too fluid, Reese. But if you need to do something, then go. Walk on down this hill and see for yourself.” She looked out the window. “You see for yourself that nobody's getting off of this rock. I don't blame you for wanting to do something—just be careful, you hear?”

  “I will,” Reese replied as he opened the door and stepped outside.

  “I ain’t gonna take care of your boyfriend forever!” she called out as he left.

  Across the parking lot, two men argued next to a pair of the dusty SUVs. The argument drew the attention of the others milling around, and Reese was no exception. The path down the side of the mountain led through the parking lot, so he walked over.

  "You're crazy if you think you can get off of this island,” one man said to the other.

  "You can't stop me—what, you some kinda cop?" the second said, opening the driver’s door.

  “You’re just going to leave everybody up here?" asked a woman in the small crowd of spectators.

  "Hey, I don't know these people—they're not my problem. I'm getting out of here, and anybody that wants to come along is welcome to do so." He slammed the door and rested one meaty forearm out the open window.

  The woman who spoke lifted her chin in defiance. “We should stay here until we hear from the authorities."

  The driver scoffed. "Lady, the only authority left on this island is that crazy park ranger," he said, jerking a thumb toward the ranger station. "You want to stay with her? Fine. I'm heading down this mountain. Anybody wanna come with me? It’s gettin’ on sunset and I don’t wanna waste any more time.“

  "I'll go," Reese said, stepping across the gravel to the car.

  "Finally!" the driver said. “A man with some sense. Hop in stranger, let's get out of here."

  “Matt Cotton," the driver introduced himself as they pulled out of the parking lot.

  "Reese Lavelle.”

  “You’re no Mainer. You got family down south?” asked Matt. "I'm from Kennebunkport. You?"

  "Charleston." Reese glanced at the driver as they wound their way down the side of the mountain. "South Carolina."

  Matt whistled. “Ahyup, that’s a long drive."

  "All the more reason to get started right now," Reese said, adjusting his position in the passenger seat. The further they bounced down the mountain from the ranger station, the more anxiety filled his heart. The cabin grew louder on the way down the mountain—the constant rumble and hiss of the tsunami easily penetrated the car’s soundproofing.

  “What do you think we’re gonna find?" asked Matt.

  Reese stared out his window, unable to answer for a long moment. He knew what he hoped to find—a bridge to the mainland, undamaged and ready to cross. An open highway with no traffic all the way down the eastern seaboard to South Carolina. A rental car, gassed up and ready to roll just waiting to bring him home. "I don't know," he muttered.

  Matt continued to ramble on, talking through his own nerves, explaining where he'd been, how he'd grown up by the ocean and never seen anything like a tsunami in Maine before. Reese grunted every now and then and nodded to prove he was paying at least a modicum of attention, but in reality, he heard maybe every third word.

  Without traffic, and with no one to enforce speed limits, Matt had them down the side of Cadillac Mountain in only a few minutes. At the base, where the access road connected with the bridge to the mainland, Matt cursed and stood on the brakes. Before the SUV had even stopped, Reese had the passenger door open and was scrambling to gain his footing on the sloped roadway.

  Before him, hope died.

  Floodwaters, choked with debris and dead trees, surged and roiled at the base of the mountain to the background of splintering, groaning wood. The roof of a house floated by, crossing right where the bridge to Maine would've been, had it not been for the historic tsunami. As far as he could see, stretching straight back to the hazy coastline of Maine, the ocean had reclaimed what man had built.

  "Where's the bridge?" Matt muttered weakly.

  Reese shook his head, his vision blurring at the corners as his hands clenched into fists. He'd known, before he even left the ranger station, that he would face the tsunami’s wrath, but there was a difference in imagining something and seeing it in person.

  Any hope he had of getting on the road right away had been smashed to pieces by the tsunami, as easily as it had destroyed the bridge to the mainland. Reese looked down and kicked at a loose rock. The irony of it all twisted in his stomach like a knot of worms.

  Reese was a sailor, just as comfortable standing on the deck of a boat and facing storms at sea as he was sitting behind the wheel of a car driving 80 miles an hour on the interstate. And here he was, stranded on an island hundreds of miles from home, surrounded by raging waters.

  “And me without a boat…” he muttered.

  Staring across the churning channel that used to be a peninsula, Reese smirked ruefully. Finding a boat wasn’t the problem, he supposed. Everywhere he looked, there were dozens of them—and pieces of them, as well. Sailboats mostly, some drifted past, their masts and rigging sticking above the surface like the ribs of some long dead animal. Power yachts, capsized rowboats, all likely ripped free of their moorings near the marina in Bar Harbor and scattered across Maine's coastline like discarded children's toys.

  On the backside of the island, the tsunami didn't even look that menacing. Where it had first made landfall, destruction, smoke, fire, and death lay in its wake. On the leeward side of the island, as the waters flowed on their destructive path toward the mainland, the surface seemed rather calm. Boats and debris drifted by in lazy eddies, caught in new current patterns that would hopefully soon recede back into the ocean from whence they came.

  Reese clenched his teeth. He couldn't stand by for the untold hours it might take—how many waves had come through so far? Three, four…six? How many more were coming? Without access to meteorological services, he had no idea if this event was almost over or just beginning.

  "Well, I guess that settles it," Matt said, defeat in his voice. "No one’s getting off this island without a boat. Not anytime soon, that's for sure," he said, punching the dusty hood of his vehicle in frustration.

  "And we’re not getting any of those boats out there unless we…” Reese said
slowly, lost in thought while staring at the twisted hull of a power yacht as it drifted bow-deep in the water, the shining blades of its props just breaking the surface. The boat appeared abandoned. For a moment, Reese thought about stripping down and diving into the murky waters to swim out the 50 yards or so and claim it. But the idea died in his head almost as soon as he’d imagined it. The boat was listing and partially sunk. With the stern lifted out of the water that high, there would be no way he could get it operable again without a dry dock and a crew of maintenance professionals.

  Reese narrowed his eyes, watching the boat—named Excelsior—twist in an eddy and bump into something submerged beneath the water. It’s tender, a black zodiac, followed behind like a duckling. The boat shuddered to a stop, water piling up at the stern. Fiberglass crunched, like snapping celery, surprisingly loud given how far out it was. Reese shook his head. It was all wasted. There was nothing out there that he could use.

  A sailboat drifted around the bend of the island next, flowing with the current and trapped between the root balls of several trees that had been ripped out of the ground when the tsunami hit. At first, Reese thought the boat might've had a chance of being seaworthy, but as the current turned the little barge of trees and trash, he spotted the gaping hole in the hull. The ship was only remaining afloat because it had been tumbled together with trees.

  "What are you smiling at?" Matt asked. "Nothing out there looks good to me."

  Reese pointed. “See that sailboat?”

  "You mean the one that's got the tree sticking out its side?”

  "Yeah," Reese said, an idea forming in his head. "But that's not what I'm looking at. Look behind it."

  “What, that dinky little rowboat? Yeah, I see it—what good’s that gonna do us? It's at least a hundred yards offshore…"

  Reese shook his head. "Not that particular one. But there could be another one somewhere around here that's got a dinghy attached. If the boat itself is damaged, maybe we can use the tender.”

  Matt gestured with an open palm at the mile-wide debris field. "You’re suggesting finding a rowboat to go across that? You're insane."

  Reese carefully picked his way closer to the water's edge. Holding onto a tree that leaned precariously over the new shoreline, he peered through the pine boughs, looking for more boats making their way around the island toward the mainland. "Maybe I am, but I'm not staying on this island for the next three days while we wait for the water to recede.”

  "So what, we’re just gonna stand here and look for boats?"

  "No," Reese called over his shoulder. "I am. You should head back up to the ranger station and tell everybody the idea. See if you can find some volunteers—or maybe some rope or something—and meet me back here."

  "You're serious, aren't you?" Matt said, standing by the idling car. “Look at that! It’s…it’s impossible…This is way worse than anything I could have imagined.”

  Reese pulled back from the tree and stared up the embankment at Matt. “I've never been more serious in my life. I will get back to my wife and daughter, and I don't care who or what stands in my way. Nothing is going to stop me—certainly not a bunch of trash floating on water," Reese said, pointing at the floating debris. "Now, you want to get across that to reach your loved ones, I'll be more than happy to help—but if you don't wanna help me, then just do me a favor and leave me alone. I can figure it out myself."

  "Okay, okay--relax, chief.” Matt shook his head. “I’ll help, but I don’t think I can go across…” He rubbed his chin, watching the destruction float by. “I’ll go back up topside and see if I can find us some supplies and volunteers…but that…” he said, looking out across the floating debris field. “That’s…man…” He turned to get back in the SUV. “In the meantime,” he said, leaning out the driver’s door, “don’t go anywhere.”

  Reese laughed bitterly. “I’m not going anywhere without my friend--he’s stuck up at the ranger station with a banged-up leg.”

  Chapter 12

  Lavelle Homestead

  Northwest of Charleston, South Carolina

  Cami walked into the kitchen at dawn, expecting to be the first one up, only to be surprised to see Amber and Mitch at the table sipping coffee while they watched TV. She paused in the doorway. “Hey, you two.”

  Amber looked at her and the frown on her face vanished, replaced by the smile that Cami had loved so much for the past 19 years. “Hi, mom.”

  “Cami-san,” Mitch said, raising his mug in salute. “Want a cup?”

  “Yes, please,” Cami said, sighing. “I have a sinking suspicion before this day is out I’ll need something a lot stronger, but for now—”

  The lights went out with an audible pop, plunging the kitchen into darkness. The bright shaft of light streaming in from the living room illuminated one of the cabinets by the hallway, but the rest of the kitchen lay mired in shadow.

  “Wait for it…” Mitch muttered.

  “It’s gone out like this twice this morning,” Amber informed her mother in an I’m-not-worried voice. She rustled over by the sink and poured a fresh cup of coffee. “The pot’s still hot, but when the power comes back, we can make a new one.”

  “Wait for it…” Mitch repeated, drawing out the words.

  “Guys…” Cami said, taking the coffee from Amber. “How long did it usually stay off the other times? I didn’t really notice, I guess,” she said, rubbing her face. “Yesterday was a long day.”

  “Not more than a minute or so,” Amber replied, sitting down at the table.

  “Hmmm…” Mitch murmured, taking a swallow of coffee. He stood and moved to the window. “Didn’t take this long before.”

  Cami sighed again, then inhaled the aroma of Reese’s special coffee. “Hittin’ dad’s stash again, huh?”

  Amber snorted. “Well, if it’s the end of the world, he should’ve been here to drink it himself.”

  Her words hung in the air for a long moment. Cami looked down. “Sweetie, you know he’d be here if there was any way at all—”

  “It’s okay, mom. I know. He’ll be here. Nothing’s going to stop him.” Cami could hear the smile in Amber’s voice and the butterflies in her stomach began to settle.

  “Is this it?” asked Mitch. “The cascading failure you talked about?”

  “Who knows?” replied Cami. “But I think the first thing we do today ought to be dusting off the solar system.”

  “Wait, you guys have a solar set up?”

  “Well,” Cami said quickly, “it’s not a whole-house deal. We’ve got a few batteries out in the shed,” she said as Mitch peered out the window, “and they can run the fridge and freezer…or a few lights. But it’s enough to squeak by in hurricane season.”

  “We also have the generator,” Amber offered.

  “True,” Cami agreed, “but I’d like to conserve fuel as much as possible. We don’t need to run the fridge or freezer twenty-four-seven to keep food cool. A few hours at a time should do the trick, and we can run lights or electronics—or whatever—in between.” Cami took a sip of coffee. “The point is, if the power doesn’t come back on anytime soon, we need to be real careful about our power consumption.”

  They cooked breakfast on a portable camp stove Mitch found in the garage, with eggs, cheese, and milk from the fridge. The power remained off while they cleaned up, and by the time the sunlight outside was bright enough to light the kitchen, Cami decided the power wasn’t coming back on.

  “It’s time, guys—Amber, you remember where the gear is?”

  “Yeah…those two green plastic totes in the garage?”

  Cami nodded. “That’s it. Mitch, can you help her? I’m going out to the shed to get the batteries and wires ready.”

  “Sure thing,” Mitch replied, already on his way to the garage. “Where we settin’ up?”

  Cami pursed her lips in thought. They’d only used the system a few times in the past, but that was when there were more trees on the property. Past storms had thinned
out the herd a bit. “Oh, just bring it over to the shed, please. We’ll see where the sun comes through the most.”

  “Roger, Roger.” Mitch followed Amber out to the garage.

  Cami put her mug in the sink and walked out onto the patio before stepping into the backyard. The still, cool air of morning kissed her skin and made her smile. Dappled shadows created a lacework of light and dark grass in the yard, set to the tune of songbirds greeting the rising sun. Cami stood there for a moment, eyes closed and smiling. How could anything be wrong in such a peaceful setting?

  The only thing that would make it better, she decided, would be if Reese were home. That thought brought her back to earth, and Cami sighed, feeling the heartsick weight on her shoulders again. She had to be the strong one and care for Amber—and Mitch, until his father arrived—while Reese was…somewhere. None of her texts had been answered and with the cell service down, she’d been totally cut off from her husband for almost 24 hours…even when she was on guides in the wilds of Alaska, she’d always had a satellite phone for emergencies.

  Cami looked at the useless phone in her hand. “You’re just a glorified paperweight now, huh?” She sighed again and pocketed the phone, then opened up the shed and moved yard tools aside to clear access to the bank of deep cycle marine batteries against the far wall. After sweeping away cobwebs and a thick layer of dust, she pulled the wires free and examined everything. The last thing they needed was to find mice had chewed through a critical cable.

  In short order, she had the wires passed through the waterproof gasket at the front of the shed, ready to connect to the solar panel station. Mitch and Amber chose that moment to appear around the corner of the house, each carrying a bulging green tote.

  “Set ‘em down over here, please,” Cami instructed, dusting her hands off and pointing to a patch of grass about twenty feet from the shed. She turned and squinted up at the cloudless sky. “I think this spot looks pretty good. The sun will clear those trees in a few minutes.” Cami pointed across the street to the trees behind Harriet Spalding’s house. “It’s going to be in full light until sunset…when the sun goes down over there,” she continued, shifting her aim to the tree line that demarcated the forest preserve.