“How many?” asked Doc.
“How many what?” replied the commander, herding the woman toward the rear of the truck, holding her in a way that kept her exposed wound out of the water.
“Dead,” said Doc.
“A half dozen,” said the commander, heading to the truck’s open tailgate and ramp at its rear. “Five or six. Not sure. Too busy.”
Doc stopped at the back of the truck, the water lapping at his chest. “You’re headed to the hospital?”
“Yeah. We know of one that’s open, if we can get there. You coming?”
Doc searched the darkness around him. There was water everywhere. The rain was steady. He was exhausted. He was also certain that he couldn’t do anybody any good at a hospital. There were already doctors there.
“I’m coming with you for now,” he finally said. “But the second I see a rescue boat or another truck heading into the mess, I’m jumping out.”
The commander offered him a hand to climb onto the ramp. “Suit yourself. Everybody’s gotta do what he thinks is right.”
Doc limped up the ramp, the gravity-reducing buoyancy of water now gone and the full weight of his frame on his injured leg taking hold. He reached the top of the ramp and stepped into the crowded, high-walled truck bed. It looked like a MASH unit. Even in the darkness, the emergency crews were tending to the wounded. There were also the dead. They were kept to one side, not piled upon each other, but laid in such a way as to reduce the amount of space they absorbed in the crowded bed.
The ramp retracted behind him and stowed itself underneath the bed floor. The tailgate closed, clanging shut. The truck’s engine roared. Over a loudspeaker mounted to the top of the cab near the broken searchlight, the commander called out, “Hold on, people. We’re on the move.”
Doc grabbed hold of the side, and a moment later the truck lurched into gear and jerked forward in the water. He took turns eyeing the wounded, who were in good care, and the dead. There were equal parts of both.
He glanced around to locate the woman with the broken elbow. He found her sitting in the corner of the truck bed not far from him. She was still holding her arm despite the sling and the wrap that limited its mobility.
Using the bed wall to steady himself, he worked his way to her side. She smiled at him and thanked him for his help.
“You are very brave,” he said.
She shook her head and touched the side of his face with her hand.
CHAPTER 13
April 5, 2026
New Orleans, Louisiana
Dub couldn’t walk anymore. The water was too deep now. He was swimming, dog-paddling actually, to keep his head above the surface. He was close to Keri’s now, almost certain he’d made the correct series of turns to get back to her street. Now he had to try to identify the neighboring homes he’d seen only a couple of times to guide his path. The problem was twofold: it was dark, and the homes were flooded such that it was hard to know which was which.
He kept spitting as he swam, trying to keep from swallowing the nasty combination of floodwater and incessant rain. His neck and ear pulsed with the after sting of the ant bites. His mouth was bleeding after a floating stick caught him in the face. His body was battered. Still, Dub’s resolve was fueled by the urge to find his girlfriend. He couldn’t be sure she was still home. He hoped she wasn’t home. He wanted her safe and dry somewhere.
Yet as he kicked and pulled himself closer to her home, he sensed in his gut she was there and she was in trouble. He tried not to let his focus stray to the what-ifs and could-bes. He needed to deal in facts.
He pulled and kicked. Pulled and kicked. He was alone in an endless river bordered on either side by empty, flooded houses. Pull. Kick. Pull. Kick.
Not far from him he heard a splash. It wasn’t something falling into the water. It sounded like it was bubbling from underneath it.
Dub stopped swimming. He treaded water, his legs moving as if he were bicycling underwater. He moved his cupped hands under the surface repeatedly, scanning the water around him, searching. The only thing helping him see in the dark was the faint yellow light of a streetlamp that was somehow still lit.
He held his breath, hoping to hear the noise again. Just when he thought he’d imagined it, he heard it again.
Having nothing to lose, he swam toward the noise. As he approached, he realized the house in front of him, feet away, was Keri’s. The water was nearly up to the eaves, not much lower than its roof. He looked around him, and then, without thinking any more about it, he dove underwater.
He thought he remembered a window on that side of the house, Keri’s parents’ bedroom. He dove, kicking and pulling toward where he thought it might be. Maybe he could open it and get inside the house. He could search it in the dark. His impromptu plan instantly changed when in front of him, beneath him, he saw a person struggling, thrashing against something that was keeping the swimmer underwater.
He approached carefully at first, wary of being held underwater by someone panicked, desperate, and on the verge of drowning. He widened his eyes, trying to focus. He could now tell the person was a woman, and her pant leg was caught on the window ledge. She was reaching behind her, her face turned away from Dub.
The current took hold of the woman and slammed her sideways against the house. She kept working to free herself. She struggled, wrestling with her pants at her waist. She unbuttoned her pants, yanked them down, and started kicking them from her body. She couldn’t do it. They were too tangled. Dub saw her face.
It was Keri.
Dub fought the current and used every bit of remaining energy to reach her. He slowed next to her, unsure if she knew he was there, and yanked her free of the pants. He grabbed her under her arms. He gripped tightly, pulling her upward as he kicked for both of them. They broke the surface, drifting from the house in the current toward a fence. Keri was gulping air now as she floated in his hands. She spat and coughed.
Dub was behind her now, holding her on his hip as he struggled to keep them both above water. His lungs burned and his arms and legs felt heavy.
Keri blew out water from her flapping lips. “Dub?” she said breathlessly. “Dub? Is that you?”
“Yeah,” said Dub, rank water spilling into his mouth when he opened it. “It’s me.”
He sputtered and gripped her more tightly. Keri was kicking now, helping him propel them. They were underneath the dim yellow streetlight. She laid her head back as if to stare into the light.
In the near distance he spotted their destination: a two-story house that might provide a break from the rising water until they could get help. If help was coming.
He swung her around onto his side when they reached the fence. It was flapping, straining under the force of water against it. Dub brought Keri’s hand around to grab the top of the lone fence post sitting firmly above the water.
She grabbed it and Dub worked himself to the other side of the post’s decorative top. He treaded water behind her and the section of fence, which served as a sort of dam against the current.
Finally, he was able to look at her. He wanted to smile as much as he wanted to cry. He didn’t let either happen. Now wasn’t a time for emotion.
“You’re hurt,” Keri said, her eyes drifting across his face. “Are you okay?”
Dub didn’t know where to begin. He had questions for her too. How had she managed to escape the flooded house, only to get stuck at the windowsill? He noticed that the rain had stopped. It was eerily silent without the white noise of heavy drops on rushing water.
“Let’s talk about this when we get out of the water,” he said. “The house behind me is two stories. As fast as this water is rising, I think we can navigate our way there and we won’t have to climb much.”
She looked past him toward the house. “You think we can make it?”
They didn’t have a choice. He couldn’t keep swimming much longer. Of course, he didn’t tell her that. He nodded.
“Okay,” sh
e said at the moment the wavering fence gave in to the current.
Dub reached for her, grabbing her again with a grip tighter than he intended. She winced.
“I’m sorry,” he said. Keri didn’t react. He couldn’t tell if she’d heard him.
They floated closer to the house and away from the broken fence. Then she kicked. Her feet brushed against his legs under the water before she grabbed at his shirt. He welcomed her into his body as a collection of sharp tree branches scraped their bodies and trapped them in a swirl of water that threatened to pull them under.
“We’re okay,” Dub said, spitting. “You okay? I’m okay.”
“I’m okay,” she said, and they somehow floated free of the swirling current and closer to the house.
The rain began again. It was somehow colder now, the drops heavier. They made more noise than before. Or maybe, Dub considered, they were the same but sounded louder because of their momentary absence. His love for Keri was certainly amplified by the moments they spent apart and then reconnected, this one more than any other. Her body, cold as it was against his, fit. It was comforting amidst the chaos, the rush of water, and the darkness that it brought with it.
Something hard banged against Dub’s back. He arched it against the jolt of pain.
“Hang on,” he said to her, his voice raspy. They spun around in the current, which was pushing them sideways now.
“Hang on,” he repeated and tightened his grip. Something else brushed their legs. The sunken threat, whatever it was, passed, and they floated freely. Their bodies spun back and the black water carried them closer to the house.
The rain dimmed everything, giving whatever he could see a smudged appearance. The new moon above provided virtually no light, and the farther they drifted from the streetlamp, the darker their surroundings became.
Keri shuddered against him and coughed again. Then she wriggled from his grasp and her body convulsed. Dub tried adjusting his grasp to keep her against his body, but she slipped free. In a moment she was underwater. Dub reached forward in the water, trying to catch her. Before the panic welled, she resurfaced at his side. She was shaking her head and coughing. Dub reached for her, and Keri took hold of his shirt.
She shrieked, gargling the remnant water in her mouth. Dub wrapped his arm around her again. She shivered, her body trembling now, her breathing heavy. He swore he could feel her pulse against him.
“You okay?” he asked. “Can you make it?”
They were drifting faster now, bobbing up and down in the current that brought them closer to the house. The speed would make reaching the house more difficult. He’d have less time to maneuver.
They were approaching it, but their targeting was off. Dub kicked his legs and used his free arm to spin them, to shift them closer to the house along the edge of the current that seemed as if it had somewhere to be.
They were closer. Closer. And then, at the last moment before they drifted beyond the house, they twirled away from the speed of it and Dub managed to slow them. He backed them to the edge of the composite roof. Both of them slammed against it, and Dub held onto it with his free hand. He pulled Keri onto the roof, inadvertently dragging her bare legs across its rough surface. Then he hoisted himself next to her. They were atop the porch, which was easily six inches or more underwater.
“Wrap your arms around a gutter downspout,” he instructed her. “That will keep the current from catching you if you lose your perch.”
She blankly hugged the downspout.
Dub moved from that roof to a window ledge and then climbed another three feet above the rising water that already covered the porch’s roofing tiles. Once on the second story of the house, he reached down to Keri, spreading his fingers.
“Keri, take my hand.”
She didn’t respond. She appeared dazed. It was obvious to Dub even in the dark and the downpour that she was almost catatonic.
“C’mon,” he implored. “Take my hand. You can’t stay there. Keri!”
When he shouted her name and water splashed across her face, she came to life. She let go of the downspout with one hand and reached with the other. Dub couldn’t grasp her from that distance. They were inches apart and it might as well have been miles.
She tried again and failed. Finally, at his coaxing, Keri inched herself to her feet, using the downspout to balance herself against the flow of water. She shifted her weight, sliding and almost losing her balance twice as she made her way around to the other side of the downspout where Dub awaited her. When she slipped a third time, Dub extended his reach as far as he could till they connected. Their hands grabbed each other and he lifted her upward. She used something to launch herself the final distance upwards, and they collapsed together on the second-floor roof, her body falling onto his.
They lay there for what felt like so long, the rain hitting their faces, their heaving chests, their tired limbs. Dub closed his eyes, resting his mind for a split second before resuming the arduous task of devising a plan to rescue them both.
Keri shifted her weight and rolled atop him, placing her lips on his. He could taste the salt. He inhaled her familiar, intoxicating scent despite the layers of floodwater and sweat and mud. Her cold hands gently touched the sides of his face, her wrinkled fingertips caressing his cheeks.
“I love you,” she said before rolling back onto her side. His heart pounded in his chest, a mixture of adrenaline, fear, and his overwhelming love for Keri.
“We can’t stay here long,” he said. “The water is still rising. The rain isn’t letting up. If somebody doesn’t rescue us, we’re screwed.”
He immediately thought better of what he’d said. Keri’s face squeezed with concern.
“I shouldn’t have said that,” he told her. “We’ll be okay. Somebody will get to us before the water does.”
Keri exhaled loudly. “It’s okay. You meant it. It’s okay to say it. I’m not some delicate flower from whom you have to keep the grim reality of things.”
“I know,” said Dub, “but I shouldn’t have said it like that. Especially after what we just went through.”
They were facing each other now, the rain dripping down their noses and across their cheeks and foreheads. Dub sensed they were both oblivious to the rain. She locked eyes with him in a way that sent a buzzing sensation through his head and chest.
“What did we just go through?” she asked. “What happened back there? How did you find me?”
“Tell me first what happened in the house,” he said. A lump welled in his throat. He tried to swallow against it. “I shouldn’t have left you. I don’t know what I would have—”
“Don’t,” she said. “It’s not your fault. You were trying to help your…wait…where is Barker? Where is that girl he hooked up with?”
Dub shook his head. “I don’t know. I found them. They were at the store. But we got separated.”
Keri leaned up on one elbow, her eyes focused on Dub’s. He had trouble distinguishing amongst the rain, the remnant floodwater, and what he thought might be tears welling in her eyes. “Are they okay? What do you mean you got separated?”
“I lost the rental car,” Dub said. “It got flooded. I started swimming. I found them at the store. There were guys with a boat, and they agreed to take the boat to get you. We tipped over, I fell out, and I lost track of them.”
Dub’s throat tightened. His mind raced. He went to those dark places, the worst possible outcomes that plague pessimists or realists.
He wasn’t either of those. He was too young for those labels, too idealistic. But as a psychology major, as someone who chose to analyze pain and ecstasy and who wanted to swim with demons, he was predisposed to finding the lowest possible depths before working back to the surface.
Keri rolled onto her back and stared at the milky black sky, then closed her eyes, bathing in the rain. A stiff breeze blew across the roof. Dub felt it slice through his wet clothes and saw it pimple Keri’s body.
“I wish I
had something to warm you,” he said softly. “You’re shivering.”
Without opening her eyes or changing the expression on her face, she moved her hand onto Dub’s and squeezed.
Dub closed his eyes too. His pulse hadn’t slowed, but his body was heavy. It was like he was wearing lead clothing. He listened to the beat of the rain, the whoosh of the wind, and the rush of a violent current mere feet beneath them.
He thought about the times he’d seen flooding on television as a child. He remembered seeing the torrents of water that ripped through Ellicott City, Maryland; St. Louis, Missouri; and Asheville, North Carolina.
Then his mind went somewhere it hadn’t gone in a long time. It drifted to the night Hurricane Harvey flooded his neighborhood and sent his family scrambling into the flooded streets. It was the end of summer. School had started. It stopped when the rains came, when they wouldn’t go away, when they dumped more than fifty inches of rain on a city that was equipped for half that much in a three-day stretch.
Dub had long ago suppressed the memories of the night that changed the course of his life. He’d capped the memories in a bottle and shoved it in the back of the bottom shelf out of sight. But it was there again, open and in front of him. A shiver rippled through his body as the images flashed in his mind.
That night was the reason he’d always slept restlessly since. That night was the one that had him escaping the murky, cold bayou water on his father’s shoulders. That night was the one that precipitated months of uncertainty, of his parents’ constant arguing over money and debt and red tape. That night was, until now, the worst of his life.
After wading through that dank water for more than an hour, futilely trying to find dry land, a pair of men from Louisiana had rescued his family in their small boat. They’d been with what was called the Cajun Navy, a group of volunteers who’d descended upon Houston to help rescue flooded survivors. Those two men were ahead of the curve. They’d positioned themselves near a bayou ahead of that Saturday night and they’d saved his life.
The Alt Apocalypse {Book 3): Torrent Page 15
