Cisco sighed. He knew Jenkins was right, but he couldn't admit it out loud. "We’re going to have to loop way around through the neighborhood to get out of here."
A wicked grin spread across Jenkins' face. “I got an idea about that[MP19].”
Chapter 34
Charleston Harbor
Charleston, South Carolina
Reese's arms ached, and his thighs trembled as he struggled to keep the sail from flying away. The wind increased, gradually at first, and then faster and faster as they made their way across the roiling waters of Charleston Harbor. The bright orange lifeboat zipped along, plowing over the tops of the breakers as the relentless wind at their backs drove them toward the shore.
Neither Reese nor Jo had a chance to dry out, as every wave they crested caused them to dip into the trough and take a splash to the face as the ungainly lifeboat bumbled its way across the harbor. But his plan worked—that was all that mattered to Reese.
"I never signed up to join the rodeo!" Jo complained over the wind and waves as the boat jostled over yet another breaker.
"Just…unnnh…” Reese grunted as a particularly stiff gust of wind hit the sail and nearly ripped it from his hands. "Just hang on!” he called through clenched teeth. The strain on his arms was incredible, and by the pain in his hands, he knew the wires were cutting into the flesh where they'd been wrapped. But he didn't have a choice. No matter how badly his ribs had been injured, or how hard it was to breathe, he had no other way of holding on to the wires, and it was all Jo could do to hang on to the boat itself.
"This thing’s worse than tryin’ to ride a gator with a toothache,” Jo groaned.
"I'll switch places with you…” Reese offered. The wind pushed the sail forward again, dragging him bodily up off the floor of the boat. He cried out in pain, as he struggled to lower his body back to the floor and bring the sail under control. It snapped and popped, breathed and shook like a wild animal on a leash as the gusts pummeled them. Every wave crest they breached, the pressure increased until they’d flown over the top of the wave and down into the trough. And every time the wave they’d just crossed rose up behind them to block the wind, the pressure lowered just enough for him to regain control and hang on for the ride up the back of the next wave.
"We got a lot of water back here," Jo observed.
Reese glanced at the water sloshing around his feet every time they bumped their way across the trough. "I got a lot of water up here, too—I’m just worried about the poles puncturing the raft. Gotta hold together just a little longer."
"I'll say," Jo groused as they bumped over another wave. She whooped in surprise at the particularly steep drop before they hit the bottom of the trough. "Looks like we’re almost there!"
At the crest of the next wave, in the split-second before they dropped into the next trough, Reese let the wind pull him slightly up so he could get a good look around the sail. Jo wasn't wrong. They were perhaps 300 yards offshore and closing. Fast.
His heart ached at the devastation in front of them, though. What would've been a shoreline clogged with half a mile’s worth of debris—like in Boston and Newport—had been swept clean. Whatever the tsunami had deposited back into the harbor, the hurricane's storm surge had shoved right back into the ruins of Charleston. Only a few half-standing buildings—really just the shells of those buildings—remained to provide any kind of landmarks whatsoever.
Reese had no idea if he was looking at South of Broad or Harleston Village. "We may have a problem…” he muttered as he struggled with the sail again.
"You mean besides the fact that we’re on some kind of makeshift sailboat in the middle of this harbor…” Jo replied. “Oh, I almost forgot—with a hurricane about ready to hit us again?"
"Well, yeah. On top of all that, though,” Reese said thoughtfully, ignoring her sarcasm. "I have no idea where we are! I don't really recognize anything," he said as another gust of wind made the sail shudder and snap in his grip. "Everything's been stripped clean!"
"Whoa!” Jo exclaimed as the lifeboat spun. "Pullin’ sideways now!"
Reese strained against the pressure pushing on the boat as the storm surge rolled up on top of itself, the closer they got to shore. Between the wind wanting to push him one way, and the waves being funneled another direction, the little lifeboat had no idea which way it wanted to go.
"I know, I know!" Reese said. He clenched his teeth and pulled back, hauling the sail fully upright into the wind. "If I can just…keep us…”
A second wave hit them as they crested the next wave, and the wind turned them sideways. "Aren’t we supposed to be going the other direction?" Jo asked right before they tipped over the side and slid down into the trough.
"I gotta call it!" Reese announced. "I can't keep her straight. I think it's better we let the tide push us the rest of the way…” With a groan of relief, he relaxed his grip on the wires, and though the nerves in his hands screaming in pain, he let the lines out and the sail flopped down in the water off the bow. He sat up, despite the shooting pain that went down his spine, and struggled to pull the sail back into the boat with bleeding hands.
If they needed to, he hoped to be able to employ the sail as a primitive sea anchor and use the drag created by the Tyvek in the water to adjust their course. But first, the tide would have to take them the last hundred yards to shore.
"Good news," he said, panting. "At this point, we can practically swim to shore…”
Jo laughed. “This trip just keeps getting better and better!”
Reese laughed as he clung to the side of the lifeboat. "Here, lean over on your side—we’ll see if we can paddle with our hands to turn us the right way."
They splashed at the water for a few moments and rode over another couple waves. It was slow going, but they eventually managed to position the bow of the boat in the direction they wanted to go. That didn't exactly mesh with the way the tide turned them, but it felt better than taking the waves broadside.
"Almost there…” Reese said. A particularly strong gust of wind pulled at the sail, even as it lay flopping over the bow. "Good timing, too…”
The breeze stiffened into a wind, and for the next few minutes as they drew achingly closer to the shore, it began to rain. It came down in sheets, propelled by wind to near horizontal.
"Maybe it would help if I got out and pushed?" Jo asked over the rising wind.
Before Reese could come up with a suitably sarcastic answer, their forward momentum abruptly stopped. Jo tumbled forward into Reese, and they both cursed as they righted themselves. They were still a good 10 yards offshore, but the protruding stump of a telephone pole from the starboard tubing announced the end of their lifeboat ride.
"I think we’re going to have to swim for it!" Reese said.
"I don't know…” Jo began.
"There's no time!” Reese interrupted. He pointed over her shoulder. "Look!" The dark wall of wind and water they'd spotted after the ship had collapsed by the fort appeared to be gaining momentum. "That's the hurricane! We got no time! We need to get ashore and find shelter!"
"Well, why not,” Jo laughed. “This is been the worst cruise of my life, may as well end it on a high note," Jo grumbled as she strapped the sodden first aid kit to her shoulders and waist, and prepared to climb overboard.
"That's the spirit!" Reese said as he tightened the flashing around the sails, unsure why he wanted to take them, but knowing that it was a piece of equipment he didn't want to leave behind, then gingerly rolled overboard. The saltwater instantly brought a hiss of pain from him as his raw hands hit the water again. Jo splashed in next to him with all the grace of a rhino.
"Let's go!” she said as she swam perhaps the ugliest freestyle stroke he'd ever seen. Reese laughed, wrapped his arms over the floating sail bundle and kicked.
Riding the next several waves that rose up behind them—and the storm surge that pushed them ever closer to the shore—it was only a few more moments before Reese foun
d traction with his shoes on the bottom. It took Jo, who was slightly shorter than him, a couple more strokes to get close enough for her to stand, and then they used the momentum of the waves hitting them in the back to lift them up and carry them forward foot by foot.
At last, despite the wind trying to push them down into the water, and retreating waves threatening to drag them back out into the harbor, they managed to stagger ashore. Reese grunted and lifted the sail bundle over one shoulder, then stepped forward on the slippery, uneven shoreline that had been downtown Charleston a few weeks earlier. Rocks, bricks, and chunks of charred wood gave way under his hiking boots as he pushed closer and closer to one of the half-ruined structures left by the tsunami.
"Now what do we do?" Jo said as she stood free of the water and shielded her face from the wind and rain.
"The winds coming from the south," Reese said as he turned his back to the gale. "We gotta find a building that still has a south wall standing…”
He scanned the gray, wet wreckage of Charleston. Nothing looked familiar at all. Most of the structures around The Battery were made of wood and centuries old to boot. The tsunami had turned everything into a jumbled pile of matchsticks.
"What about that?" Jo said as she pointed to a brick and timber structure off to their left, just west of the new shoreline. "That might work."
"Works for me—let's go, it's all we’re going to get for right now. Everything else looks way off in the distance," Reese yelled over the wind as he pointed west. "Some of those buildings over that way look good, but we’ve got a lot of open ground to cross first. We need to get to shelter before anything else."
"No argument there!” Jo yelled as she clutched her hat to her head.
Though it still felt like a stiff thunderstorm, Reese knew that in less than an hour, the winds would be back up to full hurricane strength as the back half of the storm pummeled what was left of Charleston. He wanted to be well inland and behind stout walls before that happened.
The problem was, he considered as they struggled their way through slippery wreckage toward the building with its west and south wall still standing, they didn't know exactly when the storm would hit, nor if it had weakened at any point, nor where exactly they were. The last thing he wanted to do was to strike out west only to find themselves far south of home. Then they’d have to travel north through the backwoods to get back on track. It would be far easier to locate one of the main roads and simply follow that like they did in Maine.
Jo had to help Reese carry the sail bundle the last 20 feet as the wind had increased to the point Reese could no longer carry the heavy load on one shoulder. They struggled and grunted with the awkward cargo until they passed over a small pile of rubble and slipped into the leeward shelter of the brick wall.
They both dropped the sail bundle and collapsed in the relative pocket of calm air as the storm whipped wind and rain all around them. Reese looked up. The high puffy clouds that had dominated the eye of the storm had been replaced with fast-moving, low, heavy clouds that slipped across the sky like a fleet of ships.
Rain pummeled the other side of the wall, creating a steady, drumming sound as the wind screamed around the jagged edges and whistled in sharp bursts. The structure shuddered but didn't fall. Reese looked up at the partial flooring that emerged from the corner of the junction between the western and the southern walls.
"Whatever the heck this thing used to be, I don't think it's going to last the second round. We probably need to get to one of those buildings over that way," Reese said as he leaned around the western wall and looked wistfully across several trash-filled parking lots toward a line of what he hoped were shops and businesses. “They still look relatively intact.”
“How far?” asked Jo without moving to look.
Reese estimated the distance and frowned. “About a quarter-mile away.”
"What are we draggin’ this thing around for, anyway?" Jo asked as she bent over her knees and gestured at the sail bundle.
Reese pulled his kitchen knife from the sheath at his belt. He examined the blade. It had seen him safe from Maine all the way to South Carolina. "I don't need the sails so much, but the only weapon we have is this knife. He reached down and sliced the improvised Tyvek sail off of the two gaffs. He slipped the knife back in the sheath and hefted one of the slippery gaffes. "Now we have a spear at least.”
Jo snatched up the other one. "You mean two spears."
"Well, I didn't want to speak for you, and these things are gonna get heavy after a while…”
"Hey, if it keeps the crazies off us, I'm all for it,” Jo said. "Now let's get to a proper shelter."
A lopsided grin spread across Reese’s face. He carefully packed up the Tyvek and folded it into a tight, flat package before tucking it in Jo’s backpack. “This can be a makeshift shelter, too.”
“Great. Can we get going?” Jo asked as she turned to face him. “I don’t want to sit down until we can relax for the duration.”
Reese grinned and wiped water from his face. He hefted the gaff and rested it on his good shoulder. “All right, then. Once more into the breach…”
Chapter 35
Lavelle Homestead
Bee’s Landing Subdivision
Northwest of Charleston, South Carolina
Cami and Gary slogged their way through the side yard until they came upon the big pine tree at the northwest corner of Cami's own yard. They crouched behind the trunk, and Cami leaned around the side as she tried to catch her breath. A dark shape slinked along the side of her house, sheltered from the wind by her home. She ground her teeth in frustration. There was no way she could raise her rifle and take a shot at the invader without the risk of penetrating the wall and hurting one of the people she cared about inside.
She had to wait for him to make it all the way to the corner before she could take a shot down the length of the west side of the house. It was the only way to make sure no one inside got hurt.
“I see him, but I can’t take a shot," muttered Gary.
Cami didn't take her eyes off the man huddled against the north side of the house. Crouched over against the wind and rain as he was, he was a pathetic sight. That observation did nothing to persuade her not to take his life as soon as possible. Cami grunted.
"I'll take care of him as soon as he reaches the corner."
A light flickered in the upper floor, moved between windows, barely visible through the cracks between the plywood sheeting. "Well, at least somebody’s still alive in there…” Gary said glumly.
"Did you guys bring one of the radios?" Cami asked as she continued to sight along the barrel of her rifle.
Gary scoffed. "John had it…and now he’s…” his words trailed off as his throat tightened.
Cami closed her eyes for a moment. "There's nothing more we can do for John, Gary…when the storm lets up, we’ll go back out and give him a proper burial. It's the least we can do."
"Going to miss that guy…” Gary muttered.
"You're telling me," Cami commiserated. "Every man or woman who knows how to shoot is a priceless asset to us now…”
The attacker crept forward and peered around the corner of her house, looking down the length of the western wall.
"That's it…” Cami muttered. She pulled her hand from the foregrip and wiped her face to clear her vision. "Just a little further…”
Movement at the patio door drew the man's attention, and he backed around the corner. Cami cursed, then slipped back around the tree. With his back against the wall, the attacker was staring straight at her position.
"Did he see us?" Gary whispered.
The sharp crack of a rifle, and the thud of a bullet striking the other side of the tree was his answer. "Oh…” Gary muttered. “Guess he saw us.”
"Dang it!" Cami hissed. "There goes the element of surprise."
A glob of mud jumped up from the ground at her feet. She scooted back as close as she could to Gary as they huddled behind the tree
.
"I don't know if you noticed or not…” Gary announced, not bothering to whisper, “but this tree isn't really big enough for the both of us…” He flinched as a branch just to the left of his head snapped in a shower of splinters.
Behind them, a thunderous boom cut right through the howling wind. When the incoming rifle fire stopped, Cami counted to 30, then quickly peeked around the trunk. Another figure, shorter, but wider in the shoulders, stood looking down at the body of the man who'd been lurking around the side of her house. As he turned to peer in their direction, Cami caught the glint of Reese's stainless-steel marine grade shotgun.
"It's Flynt!" she cried out. Cami stepped out from behind the tree and pulled Gary with her. "Come on!"
"Cami?” Flynt cried out as he jogged forward. He immediately noticed her injured leg and offered his arm for support. "We're under attack! Quick, we need to get back inside!“
All three fought the hurricane to reach the porch door. Cami limped through the open doorway and noticed the shattered doorjamb on the porch door, then moved aside so Flynt and Gary could enter as well. While Flynt busied himself with securing the door, Cami stood for a moment and let the water drip from her clothes as her eyes adjusted to the warm light inside the kitchen.
From the other side of the table, as she stood over the first aid kit, Mia's eyes went wide. She gasped, then ran around the table to Cami’s side and enveloped her in a hug. “Amber! Get in here!” Mia half-screamed, half-cried.
“Good to see you, too—” Cami laughed as she hugged Mia, tears welling in her own eyes.
Amber pounded down the hallway and into the kitchen, pistol up and ready. “What’s—” she skidded to a stop in front of Cami and opened her mouth in a wordless scream. Mia disentangled herself from Cami's embrace, and Cami lurched forward into the arms of her daughter. They both cried, and over the sobs of joy and relief, Cami buried her face in her daughter’s hair and squeezed her tight.
Broken Tide | Book 5 | Storm Surge Page 21
