Doc had no interest in the television news business, but he didn’t want to talk about the flood. He needed a beat to think about something else before he dove in again. He sensed they were getting closer to the hotel. They’d already been on the water, maneuvering through canals, for what felt like miles.
Turner checked over his shoulder and shook his head. “Them? No. I’m not typically on the streets. I’m usually in the comfortable confines of a newsroom and studio. I have a desk job, essentially.”
“You don’t report on the stories you read?” asked Doc. “The stories from the studio?”
Turner pulled his shoulders back and appeared taller all of a sudden. “No,” he said. “Not typically. I don’t even write what I read. I rewrite it. I tweak what other people write for me, so it sounds like it’s something I would say. But most of the stories come from reporters in the field.”
Doc lifted his chin toward the field producer and photographer. “What about them?” he asked. “What do they normally do?”
“They’re always running around telling stories,” said Turner. “They work with all of our reporters. Those two are really good at what they do. They get better assignments than some of the less motivated crews.”
“This is a better assignment?”
“It was supposed to be,” said Turner. “This was a few easy sidebars to the Final Four. It was free food, nice hotel room, Economy Plus on the plane.”
“Didn’t end up that way,” said Doc. “People died. People don’t typically die at the Final Four.”
“No,” agreed Turner, his expression flattening. “They don’t.”
He shrank again, Doc noticed. The reporter’s shoulders narrowed, as did his glare. He wasn’t looking at Doc anymore. He was looking through him, past him. His brow furrowed. The hint of a confident smile was gone.
“We’re here,” said the man piloting the boat. “We’re on the street. Looks like there are emergency workers here already.”
Doc shifted his weight and looked beyond the boat’s bow. There were a half-dozen boats up ahead, and two or three high-water trucks. There was water halfway up their wheel wells. The water was the color of cafe au lait, and it was receding.
The pilot propelled the boat closer to the collection of boats and trucks. There were people there. Some waded in the chest-deep water, their elbows out like wings working to move them through the depths. Some were in the boats. Some stood, huddled close together, in the backs of the trucks. A shiver ran along Doc’s spine.
He wondered if he’d made a mistake by not staying at the hospital. The situation here appeared under control. Even those in the back of the trucks didn’t seem frightened or concerned. It was eerily calm here as rescue workers evacuated hotel guests in singles and pairs.
By the time his boat had joined the others, Doc was already hopping out into the water. The familiar creep of it on his legs and through his clothing was uncomfortable. A brief well of nausea crept up from his gut. His body shuddered, but he fought the urge to climb back into the boat pushing ahead.
At one of the smaller boats, a Zodiac with two inflatable pontoons that flanked an oversized outboard motor, he found someone who appeared to be in charge.
“I’m a doctor,” he said, the water lapping at his chest. “I’d like to help. Anybody in the hotel in need of medical attention?”
“A few hypothermia cases,” she replied. “Some people in shock. A couple of psych patients. Nothing major, though some we can’t move yet. Feel free to check. Things keep changing by the minute. There’s a lot of water in there.”
“Thank you.” Doc gingerly spun around in the water and trudged through it, his mouth pressed closed as he splashed along. He mimicked those using their wing-elbows for propulsion.
He felt like a salmon swimming upstream. Not because of the water, though it was pushing at him sideways and keeping him off balance with each step, but because everyone else seemed to be moving in the opposite direction, all coming out of the hotel. There were dozens emptying out of a neighboring hotel too.
“Where are they taking you?” Doc asked one of the people struggling to move past him. The man was wiry, bald, and wore a drenched hoodie that stretched beyond his fingertips.
He looked at Doc with wide eyes. “Out of here,” he said. “Somewhere dry.”
The man kept moving. Doc stopped the next person who exchanged glances with him, an athletic woman in a sports bra. The water was at her shoulders and she half bounced, half swam toward the boats and trucks.
“They said Baton Rouge,” she said. “There are shelters in Baton Rouge.”
“I heard Houston,” said a third person. “Or Beaumont. I just know it’s Texas.”
Doc pushed closer to the hotel, deciding it didn’t matter where people were going. They were leaving. They were getting out. They were finding somewhere safe to be, somewhere with power and food and clean, potable water.
He reached the double glass doors at the front entrance of the hotel. They were pushed farther open than they had been when he’d left the night before. He waited for a group to move past him, buoyed by one another as they chattered their way through the cold water. At the side of the hotel, a small whirlpool of water was draining into the sewers. That was good.
Doc moved into the lobby, which was much as he remembered it. The water was higher than it had been, but lower than it must have gotten. There was a thick line of silt about seven feet from the floor. The water in the lobby was at least four and a half feet. It could have been higher and was certainly at a level that covered the reception desk.
Despite what the woman in the Zodiac had told him, he didn’t see anyone. There wasn’t anyone to help, there were only clusters of drenched guests carrying bags over their heads or helping each other dog-paddle through the lobby from the stairwell to the exit.
Coming here was a mistake. He decided he needed to find a way back to the hospital. He’d left a post he should have kept. An image of the college students from California flashed in his mind. He should have stayed and helped that coed’s father, the one recovering from a heart attack.
Why had he come back here?
Behind the reception desk there were open doors leading to what he figured were the administrative offices. He waded toward where he remembered the desk being and found the base of it with his feet before hitting it with his knees.
He stood there, his hands underwater, and pressed against the top of the counter, his attention on the open door behind it. He swore he heard a noise coming from the office. It was soft, but it was something. A voice. Definitely a voice.
“Is anybody there?” he called out. “Anybody behind the counter?”
Although there was no response, he swore he could hear something. He checked over both shoulders. Nobody, at least none of the preoccupied few making their way out of the hotel, was paying attention to him.
He groped his way around the desk, finding the space between the side of it and the wall, and paddled toward the open door. The dim light shining through the glass entrance faded, and he saw the cast of a faint bluish-white glow. He also heard a sweet voice melodically skipping across the lyrics of a song he didn’t recognize.
“Hello?” he called again, moving into the darker space of the office. “Anybody here? Anyone need help?”
He inched forward and jumped when something brushed against his leg. His pulse quickened and he considered turning around. Yet something drove him forward, deeper into the office. He was drawn to that faint, ambient glow of what he imagined was an electronic device: a phone, a tablet, or a computer screen. And it had to be portable, since all of the other electronics were off.
The singing was louder now, the voice clear. It was hopeful sounding, something sweet that faintly carried across the waterlogged office space, winding its way around the low-slung cubicle walls that kept him from seeing anything other than a vague shadow swaying. Why couldn’t the singer hear him?
Half swimming, half walking
, he maneuvered until he arrived within a few feet of the singer and the accompanying light. It was a phone. And it was Shonda, sitting on a chair on top of a desk. She was wearing headphones.
He moved into her field of view and noticed her eyes, visible in the light from her device, were closed. She was singing, her shoulders and head moving rhythmically to whatever beat was drumming in her ears.
She was humming now, and she opened her eyes. Doc smiled at her and she screamed. Startled, she toppled back, and Doc caught her before she spilled into the water or hit her head on the office furniture hidden beneath the surface.
“You scared me!” she shrieked, pulling out one of the earbuds. Her narrowed eyes darted around the room, then fixed on him warily. “What are you doing?” she demanded.
Doc stepped back, raising his hands. “I heard your singing,” he said. “I tried calling out to you. You didn’t answer.”
She waggled the earbud in between her fingers. “I couldn’t hear you.”
“I’m a doctor,” he said. “I’m here to make sure people are okay. I was a guest here. Are you okay? Do you need help?”
“I’m fine,” Shonda said. “I’m good.”
“What are you doing?” he asked. “It’s really not safe here, not with all of this water.”
“It’s my job. I gotta stay here until my relief shows up. Nobody showed up, so I came back here. I’ve been listening to music, trying to stay dry.”
“Nobody is going to show up,” said Doc, suppressing a chortle. “You know what happened, right?”
She shrugged. “It flooded.”
“You should come with me,” he said. “They’re evacuating people.”
“I can’t leave; I’ve got a paper due. I’ve got a midterm this week. Plus, I’m at work. I’m not leaving the hotel and the guests.”
Doc felt the tension building in his shoulders. “There is no hotel,” he snapped. “No guests. No school this week. You won’t have a paper due. No midterms. People are dead. The city is underwater.”
The reality of it, the scope beyond the flooded lobby and back offices, washed over her face in the bluish-white light. It appeared to hit her, as her tightly drawn expression sagged into disbelief, or finally belief, that staying perched in her elevated throne above the water might not be the best place to stay.
“Come with me,” Doc implored.
Shonda glanced behind her into the dark then back at Doc. She rolled the earbud around her fingers.
“How much battery life do you have left on your phone?” asked Doc.
She glanced down at the glow and pursed her lips. “Twenty-one percent.”
“Come with me,” he repeated.
She nodded, put the earbud back in place, and reached out for help. Doc took her wrists and guided her into the water one leg at a time. She seized at the chill and started breathing quickly. She cursed the water temperature, apologized, and then settled into the discomfort of it. She held her phone above her head.
“Your arm’s going to get tired,” he said.
“I’m not losing this phone,” she replied. “The case floats, but I’m not taking any chances. Everything is on this phone. Everything.”
“Fair enough,” he said. “Let’s go.”
Doc wasn’t putting salve on a wound or stabilizing a cardiac patient. He wasn’t rescuing a drowning man or making a sling for a woman with a compound fracture. He was doing something good though. As he led Shonda through the water, he believed that he was saving her life. If he’d left her there, if he’d never sought out the singing siren, she might have become injured, or severely dehydrated, or died.
He led her through the lobby, and now that they were in the light, he could see the awe drawn onto her young face. She’d retreated before the worst of it. She hadn’t seen any of this. It was obvious to Doc as they carefully trod through the water.
“It stinks,” she said with a sour look on her face, her mouth turned downward. “This is next-level disgusting.”
Doc didn’t say anything, focusing on navigating the debris and ensuring Shonda didn’t fall or lose her balance in the water. He held one of her wrists gently, tugging her with him as they moved now from the lobby and out into the daylight.
Both squinted as they took their first several steps beyond the open entryway. Shonda drew the back of her hand up to shield her eyes. When she did, her phone slipped from her hand and into the water.
She gasped and started to dive for it, knocking herself into Doc. He held her up, turned, and saw the phone floating in the water toward the whirlpool.
“I can’t lose it,” she said, her expression having transformed again. Now she was pained. “My life is on that phone.”
“I’ll get it,” Doc said hurriedly. He quickly splashed toward the phone. It was moving too fast now, gaining speed toward the whirling circle of draining water. He hopped off one foot, using the advantage of the water to propel his mass farther than he would have moved on land. He splashed down, holding his chin up to keep his mouth from going underwater, and reached for the phone.
Doc touched it with his outstretched hand, but it dipped into the water and tipped away. He bounced again, leaping as far as he could, and reached again. He gripped it as he dropped into the water on his chest. When he landed, he held up his hand, waving the phone.
Searching for a place to put his foot, he slipped. It caught him by surprise, not finding the surface of the street, and he slid under the surface, swallowing a mouthful of floodwater. He resurfaced for an instant, coughing, but unable to suck in a clean breath of air. Shonda cried out. He heard that, muddied as it was.
He panicked, dropping beneath the surface again. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t find the street. The water swirled around him now. He was disoriented in the brown-hued dark of the water. His vision blurred; his chest burned.
He let go of the phone and tried pulling himself to the surface, but the drain had him now. The water was sucking at his legs, at his body. He fought against it. He kicked, he pulled, reaching for the surface. It was close. It was too far.
He was caught, spinning and sinking. It was a washing machine. It held him in place.
Doc tried to resist the urge to cough again. He couldn’t. When he did, when he opened his mouth, more water came in than went out. He was choking now.
He couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, couldn’t breathe. It was happening fast. Too fast. One instant he was chasing a phone with twenty-one percent battery life and the next he was drowning.
His legs gave out first, then his arms. And then his body twitched before it slackened. The drain drew him down, catching him in its jaws. It kept him there until everything went dark. Until Doc’s heart beat for the final time and his brain turned off.
His final thought was of the college coed he’d seen in the hospital and the knowing, familiar look she’d given him. They had met before, somewhere. As his life ended, he wondered if they would again. He believed they would. That was his last thought.
The last image in his mind, however, was the faintest hint of sunlight taunting him from beyond the surface of the water. Light before the dark. The morning had come.
CHAPTER 18
April 6, 2026
Los Angeles, California
The first rays of sunlight shone through the lone window in Danny Correa’s efficiency apartment. Maggie was on the bed, her body up against Danny’s legs. She was licking his bare foot, which was exposed amidst the toga of a sheet that twisted around his body.
“Thanks, girl,” he said. “I appreciate that. But no kisses today. I have no idea where my feet have been.”
She stopped licking and put one paw on his leg to hold it in place. She looked at him as if she understood him and wagged her tail. Then she went back to the job of cleaning Danny’s foot. Danny chuckled to himself. He turned onto his side and checked the clock. It was early. Too early. He’d worked late at the diner Sunday night. It was a holiday, so the double time was a much-needed boon, and
Arthur hadn’t minded the day off.
He could feel the long hours in his back, even lying there in bed. But he couldn’t go back to sleep. He was awake now.
He grabbed the remote for the television, which was on from the night before, and turned up the volume. The morning news was on, and Lane Turner was reporting from outside the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans. The banner at the bottom of the screen read that the men’s championship college basketball game had been postponed indefinitely.
“…game seems to be of secondary concern for everyone here,” said Turner. “Basketball is a sport. It’s entertainment. What happened here Saturday night into Sunday morning was much more than that. It was life and death. It still is. Even though the water has receded, for the most part, recovery has yet to begin. People here are trying to process the extraordinary extent of the damage…”
Danny sat up, propping a pillow behind his head. Maggie looked up at him, no longer in possession of his foot. She hopped down from the bed and crossed the floor to her bowl. She was thirsty, from the sound of her lapping at the room-temperature water.
“This is among the more deadly floods in American history. From authorities, we know that in addition to the seven hundred and twenty-nine people who’ve died, sixty-four people are missing. Among them is at least one southern Californian.”
The screen switched from an image of the reporter in front of the dome, to video of a man wading through water, walking against the tide of people exiting a tall building that looked like a hotel.
“This is video of that man, Dr. Steven Konkoly,” said Turner. “He was here for a medical conference but sprang into action when the flooding started. He saved lives until he lost his own.”
The video switched from a shot of the doctor walking into the building, to one of him walking out. He was with a woman, who was holding one hand over her head. She tripped, pitched forward, and lost whatever it was she was holding in the raised hand. A phone maybe?
The Alt Apocalypse {Book 3): Torrent Page 21
