Lightning strobed overhead. It was the first flash in minutes and it cast a quick, pallid light across the scene facing them. It wasn’t much, but it was enough of a flicker to reveal the gravity of what they faced. There was no walking out of here. Even if they could, they couldn’t risk it. Their parents could trip, lose their balance, and float away in what looked from the porch to be a strong current. Large dark objects, as black as the water that carried them, moved and bobbed from one side of the street to the other.
Kiki closed the door, pushing hard against the run of water wanting into the home. She latched it shut and bolted the locks. She pulled the chains. Not that the water cared about locks, latches, or chains, but she did it anyhow.
Katie pulled her cell phone from her back pocket. She stared at the display and grimaced. “No signal.”
Regardless, she punched a series of numbers on the screen and held the device to her ear. While she tried to connect, Kristin and Kiki tried their phones. None of them could connect.
Kiki started typing on her device, her thumbs moving up and down in a blur. Then she stared at the screen and cursed.
“Kiki,” said her mother, condemning her foul language.
“Seriously, Mom?” She rolled her eyes. “My texts won’t go through either. And I am a grown woman.”
“All right,” said Kristin, “all right. It’s neither here nor there. We have no way to get ahold of somebody who can rescue us. What do we do?”
“Ideas?” asked Bob. “Should we get into the attic?”
Katie looked up at the ceiling toward a framed access door that, when pulled down by a dangling string, revealed a foldable, recessed wooden ladder. She considered it for a moment then shook her head. “No, we could get trapped up there, and then we’d be in trouble. I don’t want to have to figure out how to chop our way through the roof.”
“Then the roof?” Bob pressed. “We get on the roof?”
“What about the furniture?” asked Kiki. “What do we do about that?”
“We can raise some of it,” he said. “We can take ten minutes and put stuff on top of stuff. Then we get on the roof.”
“That’s the best bet,” said Katie. “It’ll suck, but that’s what we need to do. I can’t think of another way to keep us out of the water, and if we see a boat, we can try to hail it.”
“How do we get up there?” asked Kiki.
Lightning flashed again, followed by a boom of thunder rippling in the distance. The water was seeping into the house, now covering their toes.
“Do you have the ladder I got you for Christmas?” asked Bob.
“The one you got us for the lights?” asked Katie.
“That one, yes.”
“It’s in the garage.”
“All right, let’s save what we can save.”
Together, the family lifted lighter, smaller objects and set them on top of heavier, larger ones. It was a somber task. They all knew, though it wasn’t spoken, that none of the belongings would survive the flood if the water got high enough.
The furniture, the books, and the decorative touches that made the sisters proud of their first place would all float or sink. Either way, they’d be trash. Still, they did what they could.
They took piles of clothes, shoes, and handbags and put them into the attic. That would give them a fighting chance at least. Twenty minutes later the water was at their ankles, and Bob suggested they stop, lest they run out of time to make it to the roof.
“I’ll go get the ladder,” he said, and then ticked off a list of things-to-do on his fingers. “Y’all get bottles of water, snacks, raincoats, portable phone charger, Ziploc bags for the phones, and anything else you can think we’d need. I’ll meet you at the front door in five.”
Bob made it through the house toward the attached garage. He unlocked the door, slid the chain, turned the deadbolt, and opened the door. Fumbling in the dark along the wall, he found the light switch and flipped it. An overhead fluorescent clinked to life and hummed as the twin bulbs glowed toward their maximum brightness. His eyes adjusted to the cramped garage that served as a storage locker more than anything else. His daughters didn’t use the space for their shared Chevy Malibu. Instead, it was a spot for boxes of books and clothes, old trophies, cleaning supplies, and a treadmill they likely hadn’t used since they’d moved into the place.
He waded through the ankle-deep water and the junk to the opposite wall of the one-car garage, where he found the ladder he’d bought five months earlier to help his daughters hang LED icicle lights along the roofline.
He wasn’t much for the LED lights. He wasn’t a fan of the icicles either. He’d told them that. He liked the warmth of the old, hard-to-find, hot-burning Christmas lights. C9s on a straight line along the edges of the roof. That was Bob’s choice. It wasn’t his house though. He had to let go. His daughters were adults. They were old enough to cuss and pick their own lights.
He pulled the ladder from the wall and swung it carefully around to take it back into the house. The water splashed at his feet as he worked around the stacks of belongings that he imagined would be ruined by the time the sun rose.
Carefully he worked his way into the house and took the ladder to the front door. He placed it on its side, then thought how it would have been easier, though more dangerous perhaps, to have opened the garage door and carried it out that way.
“Girls?” he called. “Y’all ready?”
Kiki appeared first. She was wearing a yellow rain slicker buttoned up to her neck and a backpack that clung to her shoulders and back. Kristin was next. She wore a clear poncho and held a large garbage bag twisted and cinched at the top. Katie was last. She wore a thin windbreaker with the hood already on her head. In one hand she held the strap of a sizable backpack. In the other she had a clear poncho like the one her mother wore.
She held it out to Bob. “Dad, you need something.”
Bob smiled and took it from her, sliding it over his head. “Thank you,” he said once he had it draped over his body. He surveyed the trio, feigned confidence he thought a patriarch should convey to his family, and exhaled. The water was halfway up his calves now.
“Everyone ready?”
The women nodded, and Katie opened the door, swinging it as far as it would go. She stepped out onto the porch with Kiki, followed by Kristin. Bob was last, bringing the ladder with him at his side. He stepped past the women and out into the pounding rain while Kiki shut the door. The sound was almost deafening, the heavy drops beating on the plastic sheeting atop his head. The sound filled his mind, compressed his thoughts, and made him want to cover his ears.
With the ladder on one side and Katie on the other, Bob carefully descended the steps and left the porch. His first step was tentative. His bare foot hung in the air for what felt like an eternity before he dropped it beneath the surface and found the first step down. Each successive step took them deeper into the cold water. It climbed up his legs to his groin, then his waist. The water was cold. So cold. The beat of the rain on his head was loud. Too loud. His pulse thumped in his chest. It was faster than the rain. It was too fast, the beat too thick.
The only thing that kept him moving as the water reached his chest was his daughter’s guiding hand and her soft encouragement.
“You’re good, Dad,” she said. “You’re fine. Almost there. You’re doing great.”
Bob was dizzy in the water. Each step, the mulch beds oozing between his toes, was more dizzying than the last. But he made it to the spot and, while Katie balanced him, he swung the ladder around to plant it firmly in the bed. He drove it into the muck and stepped on the first rung to dig it more deeply into the inundated ground. He extended it skyward, locked the latch in place, and leaned it squarely against the edge, bending the overhanging composite tile underneath its weight.
Then he motioned for Katie to climb. “Come on,” he said above the din of the rain. “You first. Then you help your mother up.”
Once she’d climb
ed the first two steps, Bob stood behind her, holding the aluminum frame in place on the ground and in the muck. He worried that with the current and the rising water, the ladder could lose its perch and topple, dropping Katie into the water.
She climbed hand over hand until she reached the roof, then pivoted and heaved herself onto the tile, sitting on it with her legs hanging over the top couple of rungs.
Bob squinted through the rain at Katie until she gave him a thumbs-up. Then he stepped from the ladder and, holding it steady, waved Kiki over.
“I thought Mom was next,” said Kiki. “Take Mom.”
Both parents shook their heads, Bob at the ladder, Kristin on the porch. They wanted their children safe before themselves.
Another wicked strobe of lightning forked in the sky, striking somewhere not that far away. Kiki shuddered and gripped the iron railing, dropping step by step into the black water. Her body seized when it reached her waist. She sucked in a deep breath and exhaled but kept moving methodically. The water, at Bob’s chest, was at her neck. It was rising inconceivably fast.
Bob reached out his hand to his daughter, her chin held up as high as she could hold it, and she gripped his wrist with her fingers. He pulled her onto the ladder and stood at its base while she climbed to the roof.
Once she was safely next to Katie, Bob called for his wife. Instead of suggesting she take the same path, he called her toward him on the porch.
A perplexed look on her face, her brow furrowed with confusion and worry, Kristin waded toward the railing to the left of the front door. Beyond the railing, Bob was holding the ladder with one hand and waving her closer with the other. The water was close to the top of his shoulders now.
“You can’t make it from the steps,” he said, speaking loudly. “It’s too deep now. Climb over the rail.”
The color drained from Kristin’s face. “What?”
“Climb over the railing,” said Bob, louder this time. “I can help you get onto the ladder from here. You’ll be okay. Just climb and drop. I’m here.”
Even through the rain, Bob saw the glistening sheen of tears welling in his wife’s eyes. Her chin trembled as she wrung the top of the twisted trash bag she carried in her hands.
“Hand me the bag and climb over,” he said. “Now. We don’t have much time.”
Kristin squared her jaw and nodded; then she bent over the top of the railing and, with one leg at a time, climbed over. She maneuvered onto her feet, maintaining her balance on one foot for a moment until she could grab the railing behind her. She held onto it with one hand and offered her husband the bag.
He took it from her and held it in the same hand that gripped the ladder. Then he looked skyward, his eyes blinking against the bullets of rain. “Girls, hold the ladder from the top. Put pressure on it,” he called to them. “Don’t let it move.”
He took one step and then another toward his wife. His pulse pounding, his sweat mixed with the rain, the whiskey long gone from his body now, he reached her.
She took his hand and slinked down, squatting against the railing. Then, without him expecting it, she jumped.
Bob lost his footing as she flung herself at him. He went beneath the water, sucking some of it into his nostrils. It burned and stung. He shook his head, still under the water in the blackness. Thankfully he found his footing and rocketed himself above the surface, emerging like an orca with a great, raspy breath.
He swiped the water from his face, hearing the cries of his daughters above the slap of the rain, and groped aimlessly for his wife. He found her a foot from him. She was bobbing up and down, struggling to stay above the surface.
She was thrashing and crying, gurgling and kicking, swinging her arms wildly.
Bob tried calming her, reasoning with her, working to get ahold of her. But she was panicking. She was flailing, on the verge of drowning.
Bob backed away, the water to his chin now, and stood on his tiptoes in the muck. He yelled to his daughters to keep hold of the ladder while keeping his eyes on his wife. She was a mess. She would pull him under if he tried to grab her again. He knew it.
So he waited, ignoring his daughters’ imploring, desperate cries to help their mother. He waited. The water rose above his chin to his lower lip. Still he waited.
For a brief moment, with her back to him, Kristin calmed herself. Perhaps she was exhausted. Or she came to her senses. Or she gave up. Whatever it was, it provided Bob the opportunity to sneak up behind her, fling his arm around her neck, and drag her to the ladder.
At first she resisted, albeit weakly. She submitted to him and let him work her body onto the bottom of the ladder, placing her hands along the rails and guiding her feet onto the rungs. She was crying, coughing, and shivering.
“It’s okay,” said Bob, his turn now to do the encouraging, the coaxing. “You’re okay. Climb. I’m right behind you.”
Both of them now soaked, the plastic ponchos sticking to their bodies, his wife tentatively ascended a single step. Her hands gripped the rails so tightly Bob thought her knuckles might tear through her skin. She started to climb another step but stopped.
“Keep going,” said Bob. “You can make it, Kris. C’mon, sweetie. One step at a time. The girls are up there.”
He was tilting his head back now to prevent the water from seeping into his mouth. The only thing keeping him grounded was his hold on the ladder.
Their daughters coaxed her upward, and Kristin took another step. Then a third and a fourth. Two more. Three more. Bob was on the ladder now. He was climbing up behind her. He couldn’t wait any longer. The water was too high. He climbed. One step, another, another. He closed his eyes, listening to the pounding rain on the plastic stuck snugly to his head. It was loud. So loud. But he kept moving. He urged his wife ahead of him, not looking but still climbing.
Before he knew it, but long after he’d have like to have known it, he was on the roof, flat on his back. His chest heaved. The rain pelted his face, but it no longer bothered him. It was cleansing. It was almost refreshing as he lay there, his family around him.
He opened his eyes and looked in the opaque blackness of the sky, the invisible missiles of rain streaming down from above. He opened his mouth and drank some of it, cleansing his palate and easing his mind.
They were safe. At least for the moment they were out of the water. Then it hit him like a tidal wave.
Where was Keri?
CHAPTER 12
April 5, 2026
New Orleans, Louisiana
The phone rang in Doc Konkoly’s room, its red message light flickering in the relative darkness. It startled Konkoly awake and, for several seconds, he lay there staring at the popcorn ceiling trying to remember where he was.
The stiff aroma of commercial detergent on the sheet pulled up to his neck reminded him he was in a hotel room in New Orleans. He had no concept of time, other than that the large rain-speckled window revealed it was still dark outside.
The phone stopped ringing before he rolled onto his side to grab the receiver, and Doc lay there on his back thinking about his night. He remembered drinking at the bar, remembered the loquacious, tip-seeking bartender. And he remembered the news anchor from home.
Then the phone rang again and he remembered the storm. He rolled onto his side, reached across his body, heavy with sleep, and drew the receiver to his ear.
“Hello?” he answered with a groggy voice that he didn’t recognize as his own.
“Dr. Konkoly,” replied the woman’s voice on the other end. She was pleasant sounding despite the urgency with which she said his name. “This is Shonda at the front desk. I apologize for calling your room at such an inconvenient hour.”
He cleared his throat. “That’s fine.”
“We have a somewhat urgent situation developing here on the property,” said Shonda. “Floodwater is threatening our lower levels. I know you are on a higher floor. You aren’t in any immediate danger, but—”
He leaned up on an e
lbow. “Immediate…danger?”
“You’re not in any danger right now, Dr. Konkoly,” she said. “You may notice, however, a loss of power, low water pressure in the bathroom, and—”
Shonda stopped talking.
“And what?” asked Doc. He was now sitting up in bed, his back resting on the wall-mounted faux-leather headboard.
Shonda didn’t respond.
“Hello?” He pulled the phone from his ear and looked at it briefly before holding it again in the crook of his neck. “Hello?”
The line was dead. He reached over to flip on the bedside table lamp, testing it as much as seeking light. It turned on, casting a dim yellow glow in the room. He found his eyeglasses and focused them on the remote, which was beside the phone. He punched the large power button at the top of it and moved his glasses up on his nose.
The flat-panel television opposite the foot of his king-sized bed chimed and powered up. The screen illuminated the hotel’s default channel, offering world-class spa treatments and the best jambalaya in the French Quarter. He doubted either claim was true and surfed the channels until he found the same weather report he’d been watching in the bar earlier in the evening.
The screen was split. Half of it displayed the rainbow-infused map of the central Gulf Coast and the relentless bands of severe storms that marched onward; the other half showed live video of flooding streets, of desperate people wading through the water with their children on their shoulders or in their arms, of emergency responders plowing through high water in trucks and boats. It resembled a third-world country, not the kind of thing that would happen in the United States, let alone the city in which he was currently visiting.
Doc turned up the volume and listened to the reporters describe what he could see with his own eyes. The city was sinking under water. And from the looks of it, even the spots that survived Katrina and the rainstorms of March 2018, August 2017, and May 2015 were sinking below the floodwater.
The Alt Apocalypse {Book 3): Torrent Page 12
