The Alt Apocalypse: Books 1-3

by Tom Abrahams

  “I can’t describe it other than to say it feels like I’m living my life in the third person, like I’m watching myself from afar. I’m not, I know that. But I get these flashes of it here and there.”

  “For how long?”

  “A month? Two?”

  Derek clicked the pen, retracting the ink. He stuffed it and the pad of paper into his briefcase and zipped it shut. He grabbed the handles, sliding out of the booth. He stood at the end of the table for a moment, straightening his clothes.

  “I appreciate this, Danny,” he said. “You’ve been helpful. Really helpful.”

  Danny looked at him incredulously. “That’s it? You ask me all of these weird questions, talk in riddles like some techno-sphinx, and then leave? That’s incredibly uncool of you.”

  “I need to read my notes,” he said. “I need to put two and two together and figure out if they make four. I’ll get back to you when I can tell you more. I promise.”

  “Do I need to be worried about anything?” asked Danny. “Am I going to die or something?”

  It appeared to Danny as if the question of death transformed Derek’s face. It melted from weariness to profound sadness. Somehow the lines in his face were deeper, the circles under his eyes darker, his hair grayer.

  Derek swallowed. “We’re all going to die. That starts the moment we’re born.”

  “Sheesh,” said Danny. “You are a jerk.”

  “Maybe so,” said Derek. “But don’t fret about it. Let me do the worrying. You’ve got enough on your plate as it is.”

  With his free hand Derek reached into his pocket and pulled from it a fold of cash. There was at least a couple of hundred dollars there, if not more. He slapped it onto the table.

  “Thanks for your time,” he said. Before Danny could protest, Derek was walking toward the locked door. He spun the deadbolt with one hand and shouldered out into the night.

  The door clanged shut behind him and he was gone. Danny exhaled, sinking deeper into the vinyl. He spun his cup on the table, mindlessly playing with it for a moment while replaying his bizarre encounter with Derek, when he noticed the black digital recorder sitting on the table.

  He glanced at the door and back at the recorder. He cupped his hands around his face and peered through the cold glass window next to him. It was as dark as it had been. He didn’t see Derek.

  So, already pocketing the cash, he took the recorder with one hand, the two coffee mugs with the other, and went to close up shop. He looked at the clock on the wall. It was late. Too late. Maggie, his faithful mutt, would be wondering if he was ever coming home again to let her out of her crate or fill the bowl with cheap dog food.

  CHAPTER 11

  April 5, 2026

  New Orleans, Louisiana

  Bob Monk peeled back the sheer white drapes at the front window of his daughters’ rental house. He cupped his hands around his eyes and pressed the edges of his pinkie fingers against the cold glass. He could smell the ginger-ale-tinged whiskey in the vapor from his breath that bloomed and evaporated on the window.

  The rain was so intense, so constant in its rhythm on the roof as well as against the glass in front of him that he couldn’t hear the drone of the weather report on the television at the other end of the room. His wife and daughters had fallen asleep leaning upon each other on the sofa.

  He scanned the front of the property, unable to see much beyond the narrow yard. The street was barely visible through sheets of rain, but he thought he could see water pooling at the curb in the warbling reflection of the streetlight above it. He thought the water was creeping higher up the driveway, although he couldn’t be sure. Everything was dark, aside from those reflective, pale yellow, dancing ribbons of light.

  “I don’t like this,” he said to himself. With the barefoot, heavy feet of a man who’d had his share of spirits, he trudged to the front door, unlocked the collection of latches and chains, and swung it inward.

  A cool spray of water misted his face as he stepped onto the threshold. It was too dark to see from there, so, without looking down, he stepped down onto the front porch. It wasn’t the smooth-hewn pine of the porch that met his foot first. It was ankle-deep water. It was at the door. And it was lapping toward the house.

  Instead of stepping back inside, Bob plopped his other foot into the water and shuffled a couple of feet out onto the flooded porch. His eyes adjusted to the lack of light, and then he saw the truth. The water wasn’t at the curb. There was no curb. It wasn’t creeping up the driveway. There was no driveway. He sloshed toward what he believed to be the edge of the porch, grabbing hold of its wrought-iron step railing, and surveyed the neighborhood as best he could.

  Rain was hitting his face, dampening his shirt and pants. His arms were soaked, and the cool droplets were finding paths down the back of his neck. He looked up and noticed he was at the edge of the porch roof.

  It was all he recognized. His car was half underwater, as were those of his daughters. The sound of the rain, which normally might offer a soothing salve at the end of a long day, sounding like the barrage of small-arms fire. Attacking. Attacking. Attacking relentlessly as it advanced. Its forces, gathered all around him, were closing in on him.

  Suddenly chilled, an involuntary shiver rippled through his body and he took a step back. Like an encroaching tide, the water was riding up his legs. Unless his mind was fooling him, it was an inch or two higher on his ankles than it had been a minute earlier.

  Was that possible? Could it be rising so quickly? He glanced over at his car, squinting to better focus through the obfuscating shower. He was certain he could see the surface undulating upward, filling like a basin. He stepped back again, wondering if it was the whiskey. He’d had two drinks more than he should have, that was certain. It was easier to drink when someone else was bartending and handing them to you.

  He turned around, careful not to slip, and braced himself against the door frame with one hand. He stepped up onto the threshold, crossed it, and shut the door behind him.

  He stood there for a moment in the dark, considering what to do. They had no cars, no boat, and neither he nor his wife could swim. He’d been meaning to learn. He’d always been meaning to learn. Yet he hadn’t. His chest felt heavy. His lungs squeezed.

  He needed to awaken his women. He couldn’t deal with this on his own. One of them might have a suggestion, and both the girls could swim. They were smarter than him. They’d know what to do.

  He reached to flip on the light to guide himself back into the living room when he saw it. He stepped back. His jaw slackened and his stomach rolled over on itself.

  Water was leaching onto the floor now through the invisible gap between the front door and the threshold. It was moving amorphously, as if searching for him, seeking him. The Mississippi was in the house.

  It was like the water knew his secret. It knew he couldn’t escape it.

  He backed away, his eyes transfixed by the spreading pool. “Kristin, Katie, Kiki!” he shouted, the desperation wet in his voice.

  His voice cracked. He cleared his throat and called again.

  “Kris-tin! Kay-tee! Kee-Kee!”

  He stood frozen, hypnotized by the water.

  “Dad?” asked Katie, shielding her eyes from the light. “What is it?”

  Kiki followed. Then Kristin. The three of them stood together at the edge of the foyer next to him. They followed his stare. He didn’t have to tell them what it was, why he had called them, why he was petrified and anchored to the floor.

  The drinks, the two too many, had been meant to ease his mind. They’d been meant to help him cope reasonably with his worst fear: drowning. That was why his daughter had been generous with the whiskey and less generous with the ginger ale. She knew his fear. She knew he didn’t fish, he didn’t boat, nor did he do many of the things that native Louisianans did. He didn’t see the state as a sportsman’s paradise. To Bob Monk, the state of Louisiana was a sea-level minefield.

  But it
was home. It always had been. And he couldn’t leave it despite the danger. Now the danger was swelling around him. No bridges, no levees, nothing to keep him from the water.

  Kristin moved to her husband and nuzzled against him. She put one arm around his waist and the other in front of him, her hand touching his belly. Bob put his arm around her and pulled her closer. The four of them stared at the water leaking into the house. None of them said anything until a tendril of it reached Kiki’s feet.

  “What do we do?” she asked, taking a step back as if the water might burn her. “Can we take the cars?”

  “Flooded,” said Bob. “Water’s too high. It’s in the house. There’s no street; there’s no yard, nothing. We’re on a sinking island.”

  “It’s okay,” said Kristin softly, in the reassuring voice only a mother of three could offer without sounding condescending or dismissive. “We’ll figure this out.”

  Katie and Kiki tiptoed around the water, and Katie swung open the door. Water poured in over the threshold. It spilled onto the floor, racing for some unseen finish line. The sisters looked at one another and then out the door and into the storm.

  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 sur
face 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 climbed 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.