“I hope they have insurance,” Dion said, following Sara’s gaze.
“Me too,” Sara said with a shake of her head, then she narrowed her eyes at the house and leaned closer.
“Well, this is as far as we’re going to get,” Dion said, slapping the steering wheel with both hands. “I’ll turn around and drive us back to the top of the mountain.”
“Wait.” Sara jerked the door handle, shoved the door, and got out, walking quickly toward the flooded intersection with a worried look on her face. She stopped with the toes of her boots at the edge of the water and watched as a smallish dog with golden fur ran excitedly back and forth across the roof of the house.
A moment later, Dion stepped to her side with his arms crossed over his chest. By now, he was thoroughly wet, his dark curls hanging down over his face. “Poor guy. Looks like a puppy.”
“It must have been on the other side of the roof earlier, just over the ridge,” Sara said, biting her lip. “That’s why you didn’t see it. It must have heard the car and come looking for help.”
“I wonder why it doesn’t just swim.”
“Some dogs won’t,” Sara said. “I guess if it was hungry enough, it would, but I’m not going to let it come to that.”
Chapter 5
Sara, Gatlinburg, Tennessee | 8:45 a.m., Tuesday
“Mom to Todd, do you read me?” Sara spoke into the two-way radio and then let go of the talk button to wait for a response. She was pleased to hear a crackle of static and Todd’s voice almost immediately.
“We read you, loud and clear,” Todd said.
Sara pressed the talk button. “We made it to the bottom of the hill. Flood waters are high. We’re going to rescue a dog that’s trapped on a roof. Shouldn’t be too difficult.”
“Got it,” Todd replied. “We’ll hang tight here. Be careful, Mom.”
“I will. Out for now.”
“Let’s see.” Sara walked around the edge of the water line to find a way across, but the flood waters had risen all the way up into the woods. She scanned up into the trees, seeing that no branches were thick enough or hung low enough over the roof to get her there. They could hike around through dangerous brush to the back of the house. Even then they might not find a simple way to reach the dog. If the dog could have gotten down easily, it would have done so already.
Sara removed her backpack and set it on the ground, putting the radio inside before zipping it back up. She thought about removing her gun, deciding she didn’t know Dion well enough to leave the weapon with him. It might get wet, but she could clean and oil it later. She looked down at her rain poncho and then out at the water for a moment as she realized it would only be a hindrance. She untied the rope from around her waist and removed the poncho all together, laying it over her backpack and wrapping it under to keep it from blowing away.
Lightning cracked the sky, and the wind kicked up, sending ripples across the water. A few seconds later, a low rumble of thunder rolled from the sky in a gentle snore.
“This shouldn’t take long, Dion,” she said, squinting up at him as rain peppered her face. “Will you wait for me?”
“Wait for you?” Dion scoffed. “I’m coming with you.”
“Are you sure?”
“I couldn’t call myself a man if I didn’t help you rescue that poor guy,” he said with a sideways grin, though his eyes held a seriousness Sara could respect. Dion strode confidently onto the flooded road, and Sara followed right behind him. Soon the water was up to her knees and seeping into her boots.
“Wow, that’s chilly,” Sara gasped, eyes roaming over the barely moving lake of water as prickles of fear and caution ran up the back of her neck. “I don’t know much about floods, Dion, but I assume we don’t want to be in this for too long.”
“I agree,” Dion replied, pushing his way through the water with big steps while Sara moved to his right side.
The dog yelped, drawing Sara’s attention. The little dog—it looked like a young golden retriever—ran back and forth across the roof with its tail wagging like mad. “He’s definitely a pup. That’s probably why he won’t jump in the water.”
By the time they crossed the road, the water had risen to her thighs, and Sara had committed to the icy journey. They stopped as Sara felt around with her feet, finding the edge of the road where it dropped off. Looking down, Sara couldn’t tell how deep the water was in the yard. It could be three feet, or four. Not such a big thing for Dion, who looked to be around six feet two inches tall, whereas Sara was five foot three with her boots on. She could easily get in over her head.
“You okay?” Dion asked, looking down at her.
“I’m fine,” Sara replied, but inside she thought, Can I do this? Then she looked up at the puppy who was staring back at her with a pair of big brown eyes and its head cocked to the side. Without another thought, Sara took a deep breath and stepped off the edge of the road, plunging downward with a gasp. At first, she thought she might go completely under, then her feet touched bottom with the water reaching her chest.
There was a splash next to her, and she turned her head to see Dion standing in the yard with his arms raised above his head. Sara walked toward the house, feet bumping against things below the murky surface before she came to stand at the corner of the house.
“Maybe it’ll come to us,” Sara said hopefully, lifting her hands to the excited dog standing right above them. “Come on, pup. Come on,” Sara said in an excited voice, reaching up and trying to match the dog’s enthusiasm with her tone. “Jump down!”
“Hey, buddy,” Dion chimed in, making come-on gestures. “Jump on down. Come on, you can do it.”
The dog ran along the edge of the roof, tongue hanging out and panting with excitement. It disappeared for a second, but then returned to stand above them where it let out a loud yap before falling forward on its front paws and whining like it wanted to play.
“Oh, what a cute pup,” Sara said, lowering her hands as she realized it wasn’t going to jump.
“I think it’s a he,” Dion said, somewhat sheepishly. “I noticed when he was running around. He’s pretty excited.”
“Then he’s a good boy,” Sara said, emphasizing the word “boy” as she smiled up and shook her head playfully. “He’s a real good boy!”
The dog responded by letting out a yelp and running in a circle again before coming back to the edge.
“He’s too afraid to jump.” Sara stopped her playful attitude and got serious, eyes looking around for a place to scale up to the roof. “Let’s try around the back.”
Sara moved around Dion to the left corner of the house and along the side, feeling around with her boots to see if there was something beneath the surface that might aid them. She kicked something light that came up to the surface, and she grabbed it and held it above the water.
“Plastic lawn chair,” she said. “Probably not helpful.”
“I could barely touch the edge of the roof with that,” Todd said, “but not grab the dog.”
Sara let go of the chair and continued around the side. They passed a window that had been shattered, and Sara approached it and looked inside, careful not to cut herself on the jagged glass. The room was flooded halfway up the wall, and debris floated on the surface on gentle waves.
“This was someone’s life,” Sara murmured sadly, reaching in to grab a picture floating toward her. Holding it in front of her face, she saw it was a family picture, a Christmas photo of four people sitting in front of a fireplace. The image was so faded with age and water that she could hardly discern their faces. The older man—Sara presumed it was the father—wore a Santa hat and a big fluffy beard on his face. A boy and a girl sat between them, looking happy and cheerful, and the mother sat on the opposite side from the father, her face impossible to see due to the ruined paper.
A chill ran through Sara’s bones, reminding her that they had limited time to rescue the dog. She let go of the picture and watched it float back into the room
. As her hand lingered in the water, something heavy brushed against it, feeling smooth but waterlogged at the same time. At first, she thought it might be a stuffed animal or a big couch cushion. Despite a deep sense of apprehension, Sara opened her hand and felt material slip through her fingers, and then her instincts and curiosity fought a brief battle as Sara gripped the material and tried to pull it up. It was stuck on something, so Sara jerked the material back and forth, trying to dislodge it, realizing too late that it wasn’t stuck on something but just incredibly bulky. Way too bulky to be a stuffed animal or piece of furniture.
An undercurrent of water passed through the room, pushing the object toward her suddenly, and Sara’s eyes flew wide as the face of a dead woman broke the surface and rose toward her followed by a waft of sweet rot. Sara leapt back away from the window with a cry, splashing through the water to get away with her heart pumping like mad in her chest. Dion, too, surged backward away from the dead woman and then turned his head and retched. Sara watched the corpse float out of the room and past them, stringy hair clinging to her bloated face and her eyes staring straight up into the sky.
Once Sara had gotten her urge to vomit under control, she waded over to Dion and put a hand on his shoulder. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Dion said, wiping his mouth with the back of his sleeve. “Thankfully, I only had coffee for breakfast.”
“Good call,” Sara said, still feeling nauseous. “Let’s go around to the back, get this pup, and get out of here.”
“Sounds great to me,” Dion said, pushing around to the back of the house quickly with Sara right behind him.
The backyard was small where branches and debris floated in a stagnant pool. It was a harbor of sorts, cut off from the slow current that ran in front of the house. The smell of wet trees filled the air, made sharper by the wild flowers, waterlogged seeds, and sticky weeds floating around them.
Sara made butterfly motions with her arms across the surface to clear a path and then reached down to feel around for anything useful. There might be more corpses under the surface, yet the urgency to get the puppy and get out of the water filled her mind.
It wasn’t long before Sara kicked the edge of a raised concrete deck and stepped onto it. Two steps further, and she bumped against the edge of a table with her thigh.
“Here, Dion,” Sara said, grabbing the edge of the table and pulling it toward the sliding glass doors of the house. “You should be able to stand on this and grab the pup.
Dion waded over and helped Sara move the table the last few feet before he crawled up and stood, being careful to balance so the table didn’t tip. The puppy danced and whined as Dion reached for him, but then he leapt back when Dion got too close.
“Come on, pup,” Sara called up with a sad smile. “We’re here to help you, buddy.”
The puppy barked and danced in and out of Dion’s grasp while they called and coaxed him. Finally, Dion got a hold of the puppy’s scruff and jerked him off the roof, drawing a surprised yelp from the animal. The puppy froze and shivered in fear as Dion hugged him to his chest and turned to get down.
“Need some help?” Sara asked.
“No, I’ve got him.” Dion said, stepping down off the table and into the water. “Let’s get out of here.”
Sara and Dion waded carefully through the yard, past the window, and back to the road. Sara climbed out first and then turned to offer Dion her hand. Dion held the pup in one arm as he took Sara’s hand and allowed himself to be pulled up onto the road. Sara had to squat low to get the leverage she needed, but soon he was standing next to her with the wet puppy in his arms.
“Thanks,” Dion said, turning to Sara.
The puppy wiggled and whined, stretching his body up to peer at something in the flooded yard. Sara turned to see the dead woman floating lazily amongst the sticks, branches, and leaves. The puppy gave a longing whimper that brought tears to Sara’s eyes, and something in her heart snapped as the shaky fear of the grisly discovery drained away. The woman wasn’t just a dead body. She was someone the puppy remembered and loved.
Sara regretted that she couldn’t give the woman a proper burial.
“I’ll send an email to the authorities as soon as we get home,” Sara said, but inside she wasn’t sure there were any authorities left. “They’ll want to send someone to check for more bodies.”
“I didn’t think of that,” Dion said with a shake of his head. “There could be a whole family in there.”
Sara stared at the house for another moment, then she turned and waded back toward the Subaru. “Come on, let’s get this pup some food. He’s got to be starving.”
“You want some food, little guy?” Dion asked in an overly cute tone, rubbing the puppy’s head as he turned back to the car. “I know you want some food. Yes, you do.”
With his previous owner out of sight, the puppy wiggled and kicked its legs happily, giving Dion a big lick on the face. And the more Dion laughed, the more the puppy licked him.
Chapter 6
Jake, Boston, Massachusetts | 6:15 p.m., Tuesday
Jake woke from a dark sleep and turned over on the couch so that he was laying on his back and looking up at the ceiling. At first, it didn’t seem like he’d slept at all because the dismal light coming in through the windows was gloomy like morning, then the wind shook the house and a spatter of rain struck the windows and he remembered they were in the middle of a storm.
He could have slept ten minutes, or ten hours for all he knew. Jake reached for his phone, which lay on the floor, but when he pressed the power button, it remained dead. He didn’t know if it was dead because the battery had run down or the flooding had killed it. Either way, he’d never gotten to send that last text to Sara.
Rubbing his face, Jake sat up and looked out the window. Visibility was sparse, however, he caught occasional glimpses of ravaged rooftops and an angry sky. And while he had no way of telling what time it was, his instincts told him it was evening. He felt rested and his brain was waking up quickly, which was a sign that he’d actually gotten some pretty good sleep.
Yawning, Jake swung his legs off the couch, stood slowly, and stretched his arms over his head with a wince. His body was sore, and his breathing was raspy from the saltwater he’d ingested. The sharp ache of bruises ran up his sides where the big wave had rolled him into the porch.
Jake went into the kitchen and plucked another bottled water off the top of the fridge. He looked out the glass in the back door as rain pelted it. There was still no end in sight for the storm, but he’d have given anything for a good look at some Weather Channel radar right then.
The garbage can had held the door securely shut while they’d slept, and most of the water on the floor had dried up. Jake opened his bottle of water and drank most of it before screwing the cap back on. He started to walk out to the living room when he thought of something. Jake spun, crossed to the sink, and turned on the water, hoping beyond hope that the city water might still work. The spigot sputtered and spat brown water, so Jake turned it off with a disgusted face. The water pipes must have busted somewhere, which would create some seriously bad conditions for the remaining survivors trapped in the city.
A feeling of apprehension and regret turned Jake’s guts, and he put his hand over his face in frustration thinking about the people they’d left back at the Westin. They’d had little to start with, and Jake and Marcy had taken some of their supplies only to have them stolen by X-Gang. Still, there was nothing he could have done about any of that, and he had to focus on the things he had control over.
He turned away from the sink and walked down the hallway and into the master bedroom to check on Marcy. She was still fast asleep, so he pulled the door shut and went back to the kitchen where he moved the trashcan aside and opened the door, stepping out onto the porch.
There was still water as far as the eye could see, but it appeared to be a couple feet deep at most. Still, Jake didn’t want to be out in it if they d
idn’t have to, especially after discovering the apartment paradise. Jake shut the door and put the trashcan back in place. On a whim, Jake went back into the master bedroom, quietly got a pair of socks out of one of the drawers, and grabbed his boots.
After putting those on, he picked up the flashlight and went back onto the porch, leaning against the side of the house as he went down to the second floor. He peered inside the window and put the flashlight up to the glass. It was the same layout as the apartment above, but with no kitchen table, and just a couch and a small television in the living room. Seeing no one inside, Jake put his shoulder to the door and busted it open in two tries, stepping quietly inside and shutting the door behind him. A faintly unpleasant odor hit him as he shined the light all around. It wasn’t the cleanest of apartments. There were holes in the walls, and the carpet was ripped in spots.
When Jake moved the light to the kitchen cabinets, he saw that three of the doors were left open, and some of the contents had been removed and left on the counter. Several empty cans of soup and vegetables had been left out, as well as an opened box of Pop-Tarts with empty wrappers laying on the counter. The sink was full of dirty dishes, and four half-empty plastic bottles of water were missing their caps.
With narrowed eyes, Jake turned, certain that he was not alone in the apartment. The bottles of water had likely been opened after the storm had hit, and some of the bowls in the sink still looked wet and glistening, as if they’d been used recently.
Jake walked carefully to the head of the hallway and shined the flashlight down it. All the doors were shut, and no sounds came from any of them. All he could hear was the wind and rain flailing against the house, trying to break it open like a nut.
That was when Jake realized what the foul odor was. It smelled like feces and urine, as if someone had been using the bathroom for a few days without flushing. That made sense, given that the plumbing wouldn’t be working. It only confirmed his suspicions that he was not alone. The question was, were they dangerous or just trying to survive like him and Marcy?
Weathering The Storm (Book 2): Surge Page 4
