The New Madrid Run

by Michael Reisig

  The boy trembled and drifted in and out of consciousness. It was dark again. He was terrified that he would drift off once more and the nightmares would return. How could it be real? Surely he was going to wake up and find himself in his warm, soft bunk on the family yacht, his father’s smiling face above him saying, “Get up, sleepyhead, we’re going after a sailfish today.” But, the saner part of him knew that would never happen again. When he closed his eyes, he could still see the giant wave surging towards them. He could feel the shock as it slammed against the big craft.

  The yacht was a fifty-two-foot Hatteras—a strong, expensive boat. “The wealthier the man, the bigger his toys,” his father used to say.

  His father was rich—had been rich. (It was impossible to think in the past tense yet.) He had owned a small software company. Every summer he took a month off and the three of them, the boy and his parents, would take “The Fifty-Two,” as Dad called it, to the Caribbean.

  They were loaded with provisions and headed for Eleuthera Island when it happened. The boat had barely left the dock in Marathon when his father, steering from the flying bridge, saw the wave coming. The ocean was sucked out around them, leaving the craft in less than ten feet of water as the wave approached. The boy knew that his father was a brave man—a man’s man, his friends called him—but when he saw the fear etched on his dad’s face as he and his mother were herded below, the child sensed terror for the first time in his young life. Frantically shouting orders, his father shoved his wife and child onto the couch in the salon, dragging the mattress from the closest bedroom to throw over them. He was on his way back through the galley, to close the cabin doors, when the wave struck. It was as if a giant hand hammered the boat, shoving it downward. From behind the mattress, the boy heard the flying bridge explode into splinters and felt the craft being ground and crushed on the bottom. The room darkened as they were engulfed by the wave. The couch snapped its moorings and slid across the cabin as the yacht cantered wildly and rolled. As he was slammed against the far wall, the lad felt a searing jolt to his shoulder. Through the kaleidoscope of terror and pain he could hear his mother screaming, but she was no longer next to him. A few moments later he heard his father’s anguished cry. Finally, toward the end of the battering, the Hatteras broke free and surged to the surface like a cork.

  The ship was still being tossed about, but nothing like before. He felt a hand grasp him as he struggled to his feet. It was his mother. She had a wild, frightened look in her eyes and blood streamed down the side of her face. He cried out when he saw her and she pulled him close.

  “It’s okay,” she yelled. “Come on, we have to get out of here.” He understood her panic. The boat was rapidly filling with water. They stumbled through the mangled, listing ship, wading through the rising water, grasping bulkheads for balance like drunken sailors.

  They reached the galley and stopped, frozen in the knee-deep water like clay statues. There before them lay the child’s father, pinned against the far wall.

  The refrigerator, at some point, had broken loose from the bulkhead and careened across the cabin. It had crashed full force into the man, crushing him against the wall. The heavy appliance lay sideways across his body; his head and shoulders above it. Blood was streaming from his mouth and nose.

  “Dad! Dad!” the boy cried, breaking loose from his mother and rushing to his father’s side.

  The water was rising rapidly, and the ship groaned and shifted in its death throes. The refrigerator moved against the pinned man and he moaned in agony. The boy tried to maintain his balance in the shifting hold of the ship as he struggled frantically to move the icebox, crying, begging his father to hold on. His mother, already weakened from loss of blood, did her best to help, but the heavy box wouldn’t budge. The water was hip deep by then, almost to his father’s chin. Blood continued to pour from the man’s mouth and his eyes were beginning to glaze from shock.

  The dying man turned his head toward the child, and with an effort born of desperation and love, reached out and clasped his son’s hand. “Go,” he whispered. “Go now, son.”

  Moments later, as the waters rose over the dead eyes of his father, the boy wailed, “Noooooo! Noooooo!”

  Then his mother had his arm again and he was being pulled through the cabin. With the desperate strength of maternal instinct, she dragged him through the debris-strewn water and out the hatch to the deck. By some small miracle, the Avon raft was still partially attached to the deck. Two of the four clasps that held it were gone. While the ship groaned and shuddered and began to sink, they undid the remaining clasps and freed the raft. As it slipped off the deck and into the sea, they jumped into the water next to it, and climbed in.

  Gasping in fear and exertion, the two held onto the raft as the rough waters bucked and tossed them. They sat helplessly and watched as the boat that held the man they both loved foundered and sank in a matter of seconds.

  A few minutes after the boat had gone down, the boy noticed the blood in the raft. He looked over. “Mom, Mom, are you all right?” It was a stupid question, and he knew it; he just didn’t know what else to say.

  She lay with her head and shoulders propped against the round, inflated hull of the rubber raft. She was deathly pale. One of her hands gripped her son, the other held the boat as it rocked in the waves. The cut on her head, just above the hairline, was still bleeding, though not badly. But all the blood in the boat; where had it come from? Then, as she shifted her weight, he saw the redness spurt from the back of her leg. In the melee, something had sliced through her thigh. The wound lay jagged and open. An artery was nicked and her life’s blood pumped out every time her heart beat. She had, in an incredibly heroic effort, managed to get him out of the sinking boat while bleeding to death.

  He grabbed her. “Mom . . . your leg!” He reached down with his small hands and tried to hold the wound closed to stop the flow. Tears ran down his face, falling into the crimson water of the raft.

  His mother barely moved through all his efforts. Her hands had fallen to her sides and her eyes were nearly closed. As the last of her strength pulsed through his trembling hands, she mumbled, “Just gonna rest. Close my eyes for a while.”

  “Please, Mom, don’t die,” he pleaded. “Don’t leave me. Please don’t close your eyes.” But she did anyway, and she left him.

  He continued to hold her long after he knew she was gone. He held her and he cried. The pain and the grief inside him welled up like a burning, angry sun and seared his very being. He cried out in helpless rage at the night and sobbed himself breathless until, exhausted, he slept.

  CHAPTER 5

  Battered, sunburned, and incoherent, Carlos lay on a bunk in the cabin of the sailboat. His small, dark frame shivered as he drifted into a restless sleep, his brown eyes fluttering open occasionally, shining with fever and delirium. Travis and the sensei had given him some water, and soup from one of their last cans, then put salve on his worst burns. They watched him as he struggled with slumber.

  Travis turned to the sensei. “Well, he looks a little rough, but I think he’ll make it. From all the bilingual rambling about America and hamburguesas, he sounds like a Cuban refugee. But Cuban, American, or Afro-Hungarian, he’s another mouth to feed. If we don’t find ourselves some signs of civilization in the near future, we’re going to be up that famous, foul-smelling creek without a paddle.”

  The sensei smiled. “Ah, the river of defecation, yes?”

  Travis grinned. “Yeah, one and the same.”

  “Then we should be underway at first light,” said the Japanese.

  He motioned to the prostrate Cuban. “I will watch him tonight. You go back to sleep.”

  “Okay,” Travis replied. “See you in the morning.”

  Night passed quietly. The gentle movement of the ship and the rhythmic, soft slap of the waves against the hull lulled them all to sleep.

  When Travis rose in the morning, he found the sensei already on deck and together they
watched as the first edges of the sun rose over the dark waters and threw tendrils of yellow and orange into the smoky-colored sky. The morning breeze skipped across the sea, rippling the waters and caressing the two men, ruffling their hair. They stood there savoring the sweet, salt air, silently acknowledging their mutual bond with the sea, when suddenly a voice croaked from behind them.

  “ Donde estan—where am I?”

  Travis and the sensei turned around as one. Somewhat disheveled, but apparently improving, the little Cuban stood by the hatchway looking at them. Small, tight ringlets of curly, black hair framed a narrow face with tired but sensitive eyes. A thin mustache dusted his upper lip. His mouth, which seemed too wide for his face, softened into an uncertain smile, conveying the image of a man accustomed to laughter. His features were drawn with fatigue but, looking at him, one expected a degree of wit, a benign roguishness.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  “We’re the last people left in the world,” Travis replied.

  Carlos gasped, ” Madre de Dios! It is all gone?”

  Travis grinned. “No, it probably isn’t, but as far as we know, we’re all that’s left around here. The name’s Travis and this gentleman is Higado Sensei. I would offer you a cup of coffee, but there’s no gas for the stove. Line’s ruptured.”

  “ Mi llamo Carlos,” the Cuban replied. “Hey man, chu got any more of that soup?”

  Carlos was barely conscious when brought aboard the boat, and Ra hadn’t recognized him as a threat. Carlos hadn’t seen the dog at all. When Ra suddenly appeared from the far side of the cabin, cautiously padded over and rumbled threateningly, Carlos went stiff as a wooden Indian.

  “ Madre de Dios, where chu get de frigeen’ dinosaur?” he mumbled tensely as the Rottweiler sniffed him.

  Travis chuckled, “It’s okay, Carlos. He seems to think you’re all right, but I wouldn’t make too many sudden movements ’til he gets to know you a bit.”

  “Jesus,” Carlos exclaimed, “I don’ move at all if he no want me to. That son-a-bitchee snap Carlos’ whole leg off just for snack.”

  Travis laughed and called Ra over to him, allowing the little man to relax. “C’mon, let’s go get a bite to eat.”

  As they shared a couple of cans of chicken soup, Carlos explained a little of his recent history and recounted his meeting with the wave. Although it was basically a tragic story, Carlos’ way of telling it, with his accent and his gallows humor, had Travis laughing out loud. A half-hour later, when the sun had risen high enough to warm the air, Travis rose from his seat in the galley.

  “Time for us to get underway, Carlos. You make yourself comfortable, get your strength back. We’re going to set sail, see if we can find civilization—and maybe another couple cans of that chicken.”

  Carlos offered a wide smile of approval. ” Buena idea, amigo, buena idea.”

  Night passed in dark oblivion, but when the boy woke in the morning, the crushing terror and desperation of the previous day’s events wrapped around his sanity like the hands of a strangler. His mother was gone, washed over the side by the rough seas in the night. He hated himself for the relief he felt, knowing that the terrible decision had been taken away by the sea. He tried to fight it—the panic and nausea, but as the sun rose over a gray sea, it all cascaded down on him again. He slid down onto the floor of the raft, pulled himself into a fetal position, and closed his eyes. The young man stayed that way all day and into the night. He didn’t really sleep. His mind, in mechanized defense, simply short-circuited and turned off.

  In the early hours of the next morning, the needs of the boy’s body brought him back to life. He awoke with a parched mouth that gave thirst a new dimension. His face and arms were badly sunburned. His skin was hot, but he found himself shivering. His mind was so numbed that he felt like a stranger in his own body. The child steeled himself to concentrate only on the present— remembrance was not allowed.

  At first, even he was unaware of the deep wounds to his psyche the trauma of the past few days had caused. It was when he saw one of his mother’s sandals in the raft and attempted to cry out, that he realized he couldn’t speak. Although his mouth moved, no words came forth. Startled, he tried to speak again and still there was no sound from his throat, no words from his lips. It wasn’t at all like the time when he had laryngitis and could just barely whisper. It was more as if the part of him that gave voice was gone—just gone, lost to the sound of the waves slapping against the raft and the cries of the gulls above. The boy collapsed back against the side of the hard rubber and cried, tears of pain and frustration rolling down his cheeks.

  It was thirst that brought the young castaway around once more. He lay there, dry mouth cradling his swollen tongue, when a thought burst into his consciousness—there was water in the raft!

  His father always kept a half-gallon of drinking water in a pouch in the back of the raft near the transom! In the kaleidoscopic events of the last twenty-four hours, he had forgotten all about it. The youth crawled over to the pouch and clawed at the zipper. There was not only water, but, sealed in a plastic bag were a dozen granola bars.

  His hands shaking, he tore the cap off the water bottle and drank greedily. He paused for a moment, savoring the wondrous feeling of moisture, then took another long swallow. Without missing a beat, he snapped the lid on the water and attacked the granola bars. He devoured one without even tasting it, then he slowed down and ate another, but resisted the temptation for a third. After the second granola bar, the boy had another slug of water, then reluctantly put away his meager supplies.

  As the dawn gave life to sullen, cloud-filled skies, the young man tried to sleep—to escape. But when he closed his eyes, he was assailed by nightmares recounting the death of his mother and father. He sobbed in silence, his voice trapped like an insect in a mason jar, and he lay awake sweating and shaking. The sun rose and tortured him, and when it finally set, the velvet coolness of night seduced him into sleep and the nightmares came again. He awoke drenched in sweat, drank a little water, and mechanically ate part of a granola bar, but he could feel the life force ebbing from him—the desire to exist, to survive, was fading. Night bled into morning again. He had long since lost track of time, and everything around him had become surreal. When he heard the voice calling, the boy thought it was his father’s. There was a part of him that knew it couldn’t be, yet the voice persisted.

  Once again it was the sensei, riding on the bow, who spotted the raft. He pointed to starboard as Travis changed course slightly and brought the boat abeam. There in the raft lay a boy, blond hair plastered to his head from salt spray, soft blue eyes staring up, vacant and uncomprehending, arms and face burned reddish brown. The sensei, holding a line, jumped into the raft and tied it off. He lifted the lad up to Travis. The boy didn’t respond as he was picked up and handed to the man on the sailboat, but as Travis laid the child on a bunk in the cabin, the boy suddenly looked at him with frightened, pleading eyes. His mouth moved but made no sound.

  “Easy son, easy,” Travis whispered. “You’re safe now. Just relax.”

  They offered him water and he drank a small swallow but refused any food, then he curled up in a tight ball in the corner of the bed and dozed fitfully. The lad was nearly as tall as Carlos, still lithe, but at that age where he would soon begin to fill out. The features of his face were child-soft yet, but handsome. Travis thought he would grow up to be a fine-looking man, if he got the chance.

  However, he was another mouth to feed, and unless Travis was successful in finding supplies, survival for the boy, and everyone else, was going to become questionable very soon. So after assigning a weak but attentive Carlos to watch over the youngster, he went topside and ran out every inch of sail, his eyes constantly searching the horizon.

  An hour later, almost as if he had willed it, Travis spotted what was left of a huge, partially collapsed building protruding from the water. Dropping the jib, they sailed slowly and carefully over the area as Travis
tried to verify their location. It appeared, by luck more than skill, they were over the Publix Supermarket/K-Mart shopping center he had hoped to find.

  The depth of the water was approximately thirty feet. Though the recent turbulence had clouded the sea, the water was still clear enough to discern crushed and mangled cars in the parking lot below them. Many of the vehicles had been thrown against the side of the building by the force of the wave. The walls that had received the greatest impact of the wave had been completely destroyed; part of the back wall had held, but the roof was gone, carried away or broken into pieces and mingled in the carnage. The contents of the building were scattered over several blocks. Travis tried to keep himself from wondering how many hundreds of people had died in the wreckage below.

  There were two sets of snorkeling equipment with masks, fins, and snorkels stored in the forward compartments of the boat. Accompanying them was a single dive tank and regulator, miraculously undamaged, registering twenty-two-hundred PSI, and two nylon catch bags. At a depth of thirty feet, an experienced diver like Travis could squeeze out about an hour and a half of bottom time with the tank—if he took it slow and easy. He decided to tackle the grocery store first. Afterwards, if he still had air, he’d try the K-Mart for whatever hardware and supplies he could find there.

  Travis checked the boy before preparing to dive. The child still slept, but occasionally he would thrash back and forth silently. Looking down at him, Travis knew that the kid had been through a rough time, but at the moment, there was nothing more he could do for him.

  They anchored the sailboat over what used to be the center of the Publix store. A cold, northern wind whipped at Travis as he stripped to his T-shirt and underwear, and it occurred to him that the weather had suddenly become unseasonably cold for this time of the year. He wondered if the damages the earth sustained had actually altered climatic conditions, as Cody said they would. If he could find supplies they needed, he was for heading north. If there actually had been some sort of polar shift, and the weather was getting colder in the tropics, it made sense that it might well be warmer farther north.