Broken Tide | Book 5 | Storm Surge

by Richardson, Marcus

  Reese narrowed his eyes in the face of the monster that bore down upon them. They were only a few hours into the storm itself, and if Lieutenant Ortiz back in New York was to be believed, it was a real record breaker and would likely last more than a dozen hours—if not multiple days—before conditions returned to pre-storm levels. By then, he was determined to either be in Charleston, or be shipwrecked. There was no doubt about it, the hurricane wasn't playing around, and he expected at any moment for a wave to rear up out of the darkness and crush their boat like an abandoned toy.

  Jo reemerged from the companionway and braced herself with both hands. "Ain't it about time for you to throw that sea anchor thing overboard?"

  Reese shook his head back and forth, flinging the water from his eyes. "Can't! There's no way I can deploy it—the winds too high! If I try, it'll fill like the sail. Besides,” he yelled, “I can’t even see what I'm doing, and I can't leave the wheel for more than a few seconds or we’ll capsize!"

  “Then can't you lower the sail we got?" Jo demanded. "Feels like were doing 100 miles an hour down here!"

  Reese laughed into the wind. "The sail’s gone! I cut the line—I can’t lower it anymore than that! We’re at the mercy of the storm!"

  Jo was quiet for a moment and steadied herself as Intrepid rocked from another unexpected wave. "That's not making me feel any better!" she shouted at him, frowning.

  Reese laughed again. "You're still breathing, aren't you!"

  Jo started to reply, when the world around Reese turned a sickly shade of pink. He didn't have time to notice that all the hairs on his arm, despite being soaking wet, stood at attention. He didn't have time to tell Jo to duck her head back in the boat and take cover. He didn't even have time to close his eyes before a bolt of lightning struck the mast[MP2].

  Reese was aware of losing consciousness, as he still heard—or rather felt—the instantaneous clap of thunder that accompanied the lightning strike. He picked himself up off the deck and heard Jo moaning somewhere in the distance—he hoped she was down below, because he couldn't see anything other than the ghostly white and red after image emblazoned in his eyes from the lightning as it lit up the aluminum mast.

  As his senses returned, and his vision slowly darkened, Reese became increasingly aware of something burning. The acrid smell stung his nostrils and set his heart racing. In the best of times, an uncontrolled fire on a boat at sea was universally considered life-threatening by just about everyone who’d ever climbed aboard a boat, be they a day sailor on a weekend jaunt or an experienced captain in command of a modern warship.

  Stranded offshore in the teeth of a raging hurricane, on a sailboat with a compromised hull and an inexperienced crew, Reese considered their chances of surviving an uncontrolled fire close to zero.

  He rubbed frantically at his face in a vain attempt to clear his vision and groped about on the deck until his hands found the rain-slick steering column. He pulled himself up and blinked several times, then figured out how to use his peripheral vision to keep them from heading straight into an onrushing wave.

  As he struggled to get Intrepid back under control, he heard a distinct crackling sound from the companionway—it set the hairs on the back of his neck rising again. "Jo!" he hollered into the wind. "Are you okay?"

  "We got hit by lightning, we’re out in the middle of a hurricane, and you ask if I'm okay? Of course, I'm not okay!"

  Reese laughed in relief. At least she hadn’t been thrown overboard in the blast. Yet. "Quick—find a line and tie it around your waist. If you get tossed overboard, I'll never be able to reach you!"

  "Fine!" Her voice echoed up from the companionway hatch. "You do the same thing—if you get tossed overboard, I may as well jump in after you because I sure cain’t drive this thing."

  As much as Reese wanted to be the superhero and not worry about his own safety, Jo had a point—without him, she was as good as dead on the open sea. Dutifully, as he blinked his vision back to normal, he searched for a free line or severed cable that he could tie around his waist. The aft stay on the starboard bench, the severed end of it about three feet from the aft railing, curled, blackened, and still smoking.

  Reese glanced up, and noticed the mast was charred along its entire length and bent dangerously about 2 feet off the main deck. It listed slightly to starboard—he figured it was only a matter of time before it came down.

  Reese looked down at the GPS monitor attached to the steering column. The screen was cracked and blank. The lightning strike had not only sealed Intrepid's fate by rendering the mast useless, but it also fried the boat’s electronics—and started the fire burning below decks.

  "Can you see yet?" he yelled.

  "Mostly…everything’s still pink…" Jo replied.

  “We gotta get that fire out! It's probably something connected to the electrical system…the GPS is shot—I'm sailing blind up here!"

  “Are we even sailing?" Jo replied. “You know, ‘cause we ain’t got a sail anymore?”

  "We’ll argue semantics later!" Reese snapped. "Put out that fire!"

  "All right, all right—shouldn't be a problem," Jo retorted, her voice faint in the wind. "There's plenty of water down here!"

  Reese lost track of time after the lightning strike. Without the clock in the corner of the GPS screen easily visible with a quick glance down, he had no way of knowing how long they'd been at the storm's mercy. His teeth set on edge with the thought that at any second they could crash headlong into the shore.

  Was the storm pushing them due west...or southwest toward Charleston? How far offshore were they? How fast were they going? The wind speed seemed to increase by the minute, and his ears could hardly register any other sound except for a constant roar.

  The rain, driven by the hellish gale, stung every exposed inch of skin on his body. It felt more like sandpaper than water. Without foul weather gear, Reese knew it was only a matter of time before the pain intensified so much that he had to retreat below decks or pass out. At that point, all they could do was lash the wheel amidships, and retreat down the companionway.

  And pray.

  Jo staggered up the ladder and approached him. She leaned against the steering column, and in a flash of lightning, Reese saw blood coated the side of her face from a gash at her hairline. He tried to ask after her condition, but his words were lost in the wind. Silently, she shook her head, then busied herself attaching a rope from her waist to his.

  Reese nodded as she looked at him in question. If one of them was going to wash overboard, they may as well both go. Soon enough, they wouldn't be able to stay topside at all.

  He grabbed the thick rope on either side of the cockpit that they'd used to hold the wheel steady when it wasn't possible for someone to man the helm and looped a heavy braid at the 10 o’clock and 2 o’clock positions on the wheel.

  With the wheel secured, Reese put a hand on Jo’s shoulder and tried to yell it was time to go below decks, but she couldn't hear him even though they were only a few feet apart. He turned her toward the companionway and pointed, then felt her head nod in acknowledgment. The aft end of the boat dropped low as Intrepid raced up the side of yet another wave, and they scrambled forward to retreat into the companionway.

  Jo reached the opening first and clambered down, pulling the rope tight between them. Reese paused at the companionway hatch and looked up once more at the damaged mast. It dawned on him in that moment that the boom was completely missing. The lightning strike had blown the lower support for the mainsail clear off the boat, taking with it the guidelines, stays, and halyards. Even if he managed to repair the mast without a mainsail, they'd have to rely on the jib and spinnaker to get them to Charleston.

  As Reese briefly pondered their predicament, lightning flashed off the port bow and illuminated a massive, dark shape that reared up in front of them. Reese opened his mouth to scream a warning to Jo, but it was too late. He assumed it was a rogue wave—what else could they encounter on the open wate
r that would be so massive. It had to be at least a hundred feet tall.

  Reese dove into the companionway as Intrepid's bow began to rise. If it was going to be his last few seconds on earth, he wanted to be next to someone, to know he was still alive.

  "Hey, watch it—" Jo complained as he crashed into her and hugged her tight.

  "This is it, Jo—the biggest wave I’ve ever seen is coming right at us. I'm sorry."

  The last thing Reese thought before he blacked out under the impact of the wave was the peculiar sound of splintering wood. He never expected a wave would literally rip the boat apart on impact.

  I’m sorry, Cami…Amber[MP3]…

  Chapter 10

  Braaten Forest Preserve

  Northwest of Charleston, South Carolina

  Cisco hadn't meant to get embroiled in a council of war when he’d stormed out of his tent. All he wanted was to find out where Jenkins had taken the troublesome new recruits. That and find some hot chow. Instead, he found himself forced to deal with a dissenting faction among the survivors of his group. He placed his hands on his hips and ignored their arguments while he let the stiff breeze cool his skin. He’d taken off his shirt in an attempt to scare the woman from Bee’s Landing, but it failed—the woman was made of sterner stuff than most of his previous victims.

  He shoved thoughts of his prisoner and what she represented to the back corner of his mind. He had more pressing matters—like a mutiny—to attend to at the moment.

  "Where is Jenkins?” he demanded, his sharp words cutting off the impassioned plea from one of his men to call off any thoughts of a renewed attack on Bee’s Landing.

  "Last I saw him, he went that way," a volunteer said as he pointed east toward the far end of the encampment, on the other side of the smoldering trucks.

  The wind, a steady breeze flowing in from the east, blew the acrid smoke from the fires into his face, which didn't do anything to improve Cisco's mood. Half the men in his camp wanted to ride out the storm, the other half favored seeking revenge on Bee’s Landing. His prisoner, who should by all rights have completely cracked and been a blubbering mess, refused to cooperate, and his lieutenant had disappeared with two outspoken newcomers. Things continued to go from bad to worse, and Cisco saw no way to slow the tide of catastrophe.

  First things first. He frowned. “Here's the deal—you all know the shape we’re in right now, I don't have to explain that to you." He looked at the hard, angry faces, some expressing worry, but most grim determination as they gathered around him by the light of their burning vehicles. The thunder that rumbled in the distance put emphasis on his words, and lightning crackled behind him, which reflected off a few faces. He’d purposely put himself between the fires and his men, one, so that they had to squint into the stinging smoke that swirled around them and two, so that he was backlit by the fire.

  "This is my show, ain't nobody better be forgetting it."

  "Don't worry, we ain't forgetting you the boss," one of his earliest recruits grumbled. "But you gotta admit, things are…rough, man.”

  "It's a freaking apocalypse, ese,” Cisco said in exasperation. "You want me to have a couple of naked girls in here serving you bonbons while you lounge around on a sofa with a cold beer in your hand?"

  The man blinked, firelight reflecting off of his shaved head. A slow smile spread across his lips. "Yeah, that’d be nice. And a big pepperoni pizza…”

  Cisco let the men laugh for a moment. He crossed his impressive arms and waited. "You and me both, brother. You and me both. But like I said, this is the apocalypse—none of that will ever happen again. Not unless we take what's ours and remake the world the way we want it to look.”

  Several of the men agreed and nodded along with his words. A troubling number did nothing but stare at their leader.

  “Yeah, well…we tried that, didn't we? Didn't work out so well did it?" one of the latest crop of recruits grumbled.

  Cisco stared at the man until he blinked and looked away. “My way worked just fine for the three neighborhoods we hit before we came to this place, didn't it?"

  "Oh, yeah," said the big bald man who'd first asked about pizza. "Got me some sweet cheddar at that last place.”

  Cisco pointed at him. "And the people in that joint didn't even fight back, did they?"

  The big man smiled again, and this time he was joined by several others.

  "Yeah," Cisco said slowly. "Remember all that stuff we took at Rolling Hills? They didn't put up any kind of fight at all." He turned and glared at the man who dared voice dissent. "These people at Bee’s Landing, they put up a real fight, didn't they?"

  The dissenter nodded reluctantly. "Yeah, they got religion, boss. They handed our butts to us the first time.”

  Murmured agreement rippled through the crowd. The new ringleader stepped forward. “I say we don't do that again. It ain't smart, there ain't no hospitals or doctors we can go to, ain’t no more stores we can go knock off instead. We gotta be careful, we gotta pick and choose our targets," he said the last not to Cisco, but to the crowd.

  To Cisco's rising alarm, several heads nodded in immediate agreement. Of the 19 men spread out before him, perhaps half seemed convinced by the proposed strategy. Cisco scanned the crowd and sorted them into two factions. One group was solidly behind him, and the other…well, they didn't know what they wanted, but they knew they didn't want to go back to Bee’s Landing. That realization changed Cisco's tactic. He smiled.

  "Yeah, they put up more of a fight than all the other neighborhoods combined, didn't they?" he asked. Heads nodded in agreement and eyes darted back and forth, as if sensing a trap. “Tell me this," Cisco said as he put his hands on his hips. "Why would they put up such a fight if they didn't have piles of supplies? I bet you every one of them houses—them big fancy rich houses—got tons and tons of food, guns, booze…” He watched the men mull that over. “I bet you a couple have even got some choice dope, am I right?"

  Several men, most of the ones who'd already shown visible support for him, nodded and vocalized their agreement. A few of the ones who'd backed the dissenter nodded along as well. Cisco felt the tide shift. He pressed forward with his argument.

  "If they were willing to fight and die to keep us out when they thought we were the freaking Army, that must mean they got some real nice stuff in that neighborhood. And I don't know about you guys, but I'm getting tired of eatin’ the garbage we pulled out of the last couple places. I want something better."

  "Wouldn't be surprised if a couple of them places got generators—I saw lights on in that one house Rudy hit—you know, the house we got the girl from?" said the bald man to his compatriots.

  A rippled murmur of agreement worked its way through the crowd and several others offered suggestions of what the residents of Bee’s Landing might be hiding in their homes, from cocaine, to high-powered rifles, to college girls. It was exactly the kind of argument he wanted the men to make for him. He let them toss ideas and fantasies back and forth to each other, and more and more of the men came over into his camp.

  "Now you're talking," he said with a broad smile. "Now you see why we gotta go back."

  "Yeah," said the dissenter as he stepped forward. "But I still don't see why we gotta do it right now. Look out there," he said with a wave of his hand toward the smoldering vehicles. "Last time we took one of the people from that neighborhood…look what they did! Shot up all our trucks, man!”

  "Not all of them," a voice said from behind him. Cisco turned to see his lieutenant emerge with one of the newcomers. He had blood on his hands and sheathed the big knife he always carried at his waist. An odd look crossed his eyes as he nodded toward Cisco, then grabbed the newcomer by the scruff of his neck and shoved him forward. The man looked terrified and flinched at the touch but shuffled forward and disappeared into the ranks of the men.

  "We cool?" Cisco asked in a guarded tone.

  "Always," Jenkins said, matter-of-factly. He nodded again at Cisco then pointed
at the newcomer who wormed his way into the crowd and tried to hide. "New guy told me his buddy didn't like the way you been runnin’ things here."

  "And?" Cisco demanded. "You take care of it?"

  Jenkins grinned. "Yeah," he said simply. "We had a…discussion…and came to an accord."

  Cisco grunted. He turned back to the man and decided he'd have to have a talk with his second in command. Later—in private. If anyone is going to mete out justice among the men, it was going to be him. Last thing he needed was for his right-hand man to get more respect than he did.

  He turned back to the crowd. "Now. Anybody got any problem with going back to attack Bee’s Landing again?" He didn't give them a chance to answer but plowed forward. "Good, because I'd hate to have to lose any more fighters. We've already lost enough, but that place is worth it."

  "Look, boss, I know you're still mad about what Flynt did…shoot, we all are—" began the dissenter.

  Cisco stepped forward, drew a knife from the sheath at his waist and pressed the tip of the blade underneath the man's jaw. "You open your mouth one more time, I’ll cut your tongue out, you get me?" He grabbed hold of the back of the man's neck with his free hand and turned him to face the crowd. "You don't know what Flynt cost us, what he cost me. You’re never going to know. What you know is what I tell you, and I tell you we’re going back in there, we’re gonna get some payback, and we’re gonna take over that place and get all the loot they’re trying to keep from us." He felt the dissenter stiffen in his grip, and he jiggled the knife slightly, just enough to nick the delicate skin under the man's jaw. He whimpered and closed his eyes.

  Cisco smiled. "You guys need a lesson on how I run things?"

  "No lesson is necessary," the dissenter said in a quick, quiet voice.

  Cisco held him there, pinned under his knife for another long moment to let everyone get a good look at the trickle of blood that dripped down his throat. "Good." He flicked the knife away and shoved the dissenter back into the crowd. “Now, we ain’t going out there right now," Cisco said as he jerked a hand over his shoulder to indicate the storm.