The Tsunami Countdown

by Boyd Morrison

  Kai took a chance and inched himself up the edge of the door, hoping that he would be exposed to the air that much quicker. In short order, he reached the ceiling just as a new sound filled his ears: the unmistakable roar of water falling. At the same time a blessed air pocket opened above his head. Kai thrust his face upward, careful to maintain his grip, and gulped in a huge breath.

  The water level dropped faster than an unplugged bathtub as it shot past him into Waikiki Bay. Kai maneuvered back down the doorjamb, and as the waterline reached about four feet above the floor, the flow abruptly shifted.

  The walls on the south side of the condo were still intact, so when the water level reached the bottom of the windows, it had no way to continue draining on that side. But the wall on the north side of the building had been obliterated by the explosion, making an easy escape route for the remaining water.

  The water stopped for just a few moments, and Kai knelt, his head just above the surface. Then the current changed direction to the north and charged back through the doorway. Because he wasn’t expecting the change, Kai wasn’t prepared. Although the rushing water was only a yard high, the force was enough to knock him down. It wrenched him off his knees, again sending him flailing. Kai was now in danger of being washed out the north side of the building like a log going down a flume.

  Kai slammed into the north-side condo doorway, swung around, and saw the others in his group for a split second. Teresa tried to reach him, but she wasn’t quick enough. His head went under again, and he thought for sure he was going right through the kitchen, after which there was nothing solid to grab on to. But then a hand latched onto his arm and stopped him with a jolt.

  Kai put his foot against the kitchen wall to brace himself and splashed up to get another breath. When he did, he saw Brad’s face, weary and terrified, but determined.

  “You’re not going anywhere,” Brad rasped through clenched teeth.

  In another few seconds the water drained enough so that Kai wasn’t in danger of going with it. The air was rank with the smell of dirty seawater, but it couldn’t have felt more refreshing. Kai stood to check whether he was in one piece. He had cuts and bruises all over, but all of the important parts worked.

  “Thanks, Brad. For once I’m glad you spend all that time at the gym.”

  Brad looked like he was still in shock. Being pinned down and dependent on the scuba gear must have rattled him.

  “You okay?” Kai said.

  Brad just nodded and started untying himself. Mia was still on the floor beside him. She was also now free of the girder. The improvised plan had worked. The raft bulged out at the other end of the girder, no longer able to hold the weight. The girder had settled back down into its original position.

  “Good idea with the raft,” Tom said.

  “It wasn’t my idea,” Kai said. “Lani deserves the credit.”

  Lani lay on the floor, and only now did he realize she hadn’t moved since the water had gone.

  “Lani, honey? Are you okay?”

  He bent down and turned her over. The regulator was no longer in her mouth, and he saw why. The hose had been neatly severed by some floating object.

  The suddenness of the cut gave Lani no warning that she would be inhaling water. In her struggle for air, she must have spit out the regulator. Her face was blue, and she wasn’t breathing. Kai’s daughter, his only child, was about to die.

  FORTY-FOUR

  11:57 a.m.

  15 Minutes to Third Wave

  The water roiled and churned as it was sucked down the Grand Hawaiian elevator shaft. After a moment of confusion and paralysis, Rachel found her bearings and swam for the surface, crying out as she broke into the air. She looked up to see Paige and Sheila peering over the side of the elevator roof. They were already twenty feet above her and receding away from her at an alarming rate. As she got farther removed from the light coming in through the open door on the fifteenth floor, the gloom got heavier. “Rachel! Are you all right?” Paige yelled down.

  “I’m okay,” Rachel replied. “Where’s Jerry? Jerry!” She spun around but couldn’t find him.

  “We can only see you. Maybe he’s under us.”

  “I can’t see him!”

  Rachel paddled around the shaft, feeling for him under the water. Her leg brushed something in the middle of the shaft, and then it was gone.

  “I think I touched him!” Rachel shouted.

  More voices joined Paige’s above, all of them calling, “Jerry! Jerry!”

  Rachel dove under the water, but the light was nonexistent. She felt around in the darkness, and her hand snagged on a piece of cloth. It was Jerry. Rachel kicked and pulled him to the surface.

  Jerry was groggy, but conscious. He moaned and floundered, but he was able to keep his head above water.

  “I found him!” Rachel yelled.

  “Thank God!” someone cried back in relief.

  “It’s hard to see, but I think he’s got a gash on his head. He must have hit it on something when he went over.” She shook him. “Jerry! Can you hear me?”

  His eyes rolled back, like he was about to lose it. Rachel slapped him.

  “Jerry! Stay with me!”

  That got his attention, but he couldn’t manage more than a halfhearted dog paddle. They were still in the middle of the shaft, at least ten feet from any side.

  “Where’s that light coming from?” yelled Paige, who was now more than thirty feet above Rachel.

  Rachel looked down to see what Paige was talking about. A ghostly light began to filter up from beneath them. It seemed to be concentrated on one side of the shaft. Then Rachel realized with a start what it was.

  “Oh my God! One of the elevator doors must have come open. Come on, Jerry! We need to grab on to something or we’ll be sucked right out of the hotel.”

  Even though the elevator Jerry had been in was an express, the two next to it were not, so that part of the shaft had doors at every floor below.

  Rachel pulled Jerry’s shirt. He gracelessly thrashed after her. The tug toward the open door strengthened. Their only chance was to get to the shaft’s emergency ladder before they were whipped through the door and out the lobby window. Rachel had picked up enough knowledge from being married to a tsunami scientist to know that being caught in open water during a tsunami was deadly.

  If she let go of Jerry, she could make it to the ladder easily. But she wouldn’t release her grip. There was no way he could make it on his own.

  The light wasn’t bright, but it was enough to see that there were only a few feet separating them from the open elevator door. Rachel reached for the ladder with one hand and grasped it. Jerry’s shirt became taut with the strain, but he made one last kick as well and grabbed on to a rung just as the water surface broke through the elevator door.

  They steadied themselves on the ladder as the water rushed out with the sound of Niagara Falls.

  “Are you okay?” Sheila yelled.

  “We’re alive!” That was as good as it could get at that point.

  After another few seconds the water reached an equilibrium with the open door, and the extra water on that floor rushed back through. Rachel could now read the floor number on the outside of the door.

  “We’re at the eleventh floor.”

  “Can you climb back up?”

  “Jerry’s going to be lucky to be able to climb out right here. You’ll have to come down and help me. Hold on, Jerry.”

  Jerry nodded hazily. He was in no condition to do much more than wait there.

  It took a few minutes for the others to climb off the cab at the sixteenth floor and make it down to them by the stairs.

  Guided by Rachel, Jerry stumbled down the ladder toward the eleventh floor. Hands snaked from just outside the door to grab on to him and pull him inside, where he collapsed on the floor of the elevator lobby.

  Rachel crawled out, exhausted, and sat on the floor to catch her breath.

  She looked at Paige,
who was comforting her children.

  “Paige,” Rachel said between gasps, “I’m so sorry about Bill.”

  “You should be.”

  “What?”

  “It’s your fault!” Paige said, spitting her words at Rachel. “If it wasn’t for you, I never would have let us try to cross that rickety bridge. If we had stayed on the other side, he’d be alive right now.”

  “Paige, I—”

  A massive cracking sound came from the direction of the floor-to-ceiling elevator lobby window that faced the Akamai tower. It started as a few sporadic snaps and pops, but quickly merged into a grinding cacophony of agitated metal and concrete that overwhelmed the sound of the rushing water.

  Except for Jerry, they all raced to the window to see what was happening. Dust began to puff out all over the building, as if its seams were popping. The scene was instantly recognizable to anyone who had seen the events of 9/11 unfold on TV.

  Rachel turned to the others and yelled, “Get back!”

  They dragged Jerry to the end of the lobby as the Akamai tower, weakened by the impact of the barge that had struck it, collapsed into a pile of rubble. They watched in horror as a building that just an hour before had seemed so solid—virtually indestructible, built to withstand hurricane-force winds, a state-of-the-art twenty-first-century exemplar of modern engineering—crumble in front of their eyes. And the worst part was that the Moana tower was identical.

  FORTY-FIVE

  Noon

  12 Minutes to Third Wave

  Kai dropped to his knees and cradled Lani’s head in his hands, his terror rising when he saw water spill from her mouth. Panic seized him. “Teresa, what do I do?” he cried out, the desperation in his voice verging on hysteria.

  Without thinking, Kai repositioned Lani’s top, which had fallen embarrassingly low. That meager gesture to protect her dignity only magnified his helplessness. Despite his scientific training and his extensive education, he had never bothered to learn CPR.

  “Cut me loose!” Teresa yelled, struggling to untie the rope that encumbered her.

  Kai sliced through the main rope linking her to the girder, not bothering with the loops still dangling around her midsection.

  Teresa bent over Lani, feeling for a pulse.

  “How long has she been out?”

  “I don’t know. She was fine before I went over to inflate the raft. Two, maybe three minutes. Maybe less.”

  “I knew something like this would happen!” Brad said, his voice cracking under the strain.

  “Will you shut up!” Kai barked at him. He pointed the knife at Brad. Kai didn’t have time for Brad’s panic as well as his own. “Do something useful.”

  Brad took the knife and began to cut himself and the others loose.

  “She’s got a pulse,” Teresa said, “but it’s almost gone.”

  Without another word, Teresa tilted Lani’s head back and cleared her tongue, making sure nothing was obstructing her throat, then turned her head to the side to drain any water left in her mouth. Once the last of the water gurgled out, Teresa leaned over and began to force air into Lani’s lungs using mouth-to-mouth.

  After two deep breaths, she pulled back and turned Lani’s head again. She pushed on Lani’s chest, forcing more water to gush out.

  “She took in a lot of water. We’ve got to clear it.”

  Kai was a wreck. There wasn’t anything he could do. He never felt more useless. He simply held his daughter’s hand and called her name.

  “Lani! Come on! Lani! Can you hear me? Wake up!”

  Suddenly, Teresa drew back. “We lost her pulse!”

  Instead of slamming her fist onto Lani’s chest as Kai had seen done on TV, Teresa carefully placed the heel of her hand on Lani’s sternum and rhythmically pressed firmly but gently. After thirty beats, she breathed twice into Lani’s mouth.

  “Come on, Lani!” Teresa huffed as she continued the compressions. “We’ve come this far.”

  Kai felt the tears streaming from his eyes and mingling with the salt water still dripping from his hair.

  “Please, Lani,” Kai said. “Don’t do this to me. Don’t leave me.”

  As if answering him, Lani emitted a slight wheeze. Her eyes fluttered open. Then a small cough escaped her, and the cough became a fit. She turned over, gasping for breath. But Kai couldn’t have been happier to see her wracked with coughs. All that mattered was that she was alive.

  Lani vomited about a quart of water amid the coughs. After the fit was over, Kai sat her up and gripped her shoulders.

  “Feel better?” he said.

  She nodded. “What happened?” Her voice was still a hoarse croak and talking started another round of coughs. Kai wiped her mouth on his shirttail.

  “Your hose was cut. You inhaled some seawater.”

  “Did the raft work?” she said.

  “Just like you thought it would. I’m so proud of you.” Kai took her in his arms, relishing the warmth that was missing from her skin just a few moments ago.

  “She’ll be okay,” Teresa said. “We’ll just have to make sure she doesn’t get pneumonia from all the seawater in her lungs.”

  She turned her attention to her own daughter. Mia cradled her right leg but otherwise seemed intact.

  “Thank God we got you out,” she said, holding Mia. “How’s your leg?”

  “It hurts. Is it broken?”

  “Let me look.” Teresa touched her leg tenderly. “I don’t see any broken bones. Can you wiggle your toes?”

  Mia tried it and nodded. She repeated the same for her ankle. When she got to the knee, she winced and cried out.

  “Looks like you might have a torn ligament in your knee. In any case, you’re going to need help moving.”

  “Look, I don’t want to be a jerk,” said Brad, focusing the point on Kai, “but we’re currently sitting in the world’s largest game of Jenga. Can we go now?”

  He was right. The condo building was precarious at best. It could collapse at any time.

  “You,” Kai said, pointing at Brad, “are going to carry Mia.” He cut the dry bag loose and slung it over his shoulder. “Lani, can you walk?”

  “I can make it.”

  Kai applauded her guts, but he didn’t think she would get far without help. Her lungs would be raw from the near drowning, and the debris outside would make the walk anything but easy.

  “All right, let’s move.”

  They made it out to the hallway when Kai heard a squeal behind him. The life raft that had been pinned under the girder had been slowly sliding out, lubricated by the water. It finally shot out like a balloon from the pressure, bouncing around the room before going through the open wall and over the side of the balcony.

  They all chuckled at the silly spectacle and then stopped when they heard a more ominous noise coming from all around them.

  “Down! Down!” Kai yelled.

  Leading Lani by the hand, he tore down the stairs, constantly sliding on the muck left behind by the water. Several times he slipped and caught himself with what was left of the railing.

  When Kai got to the third-story landing, he heard Tom crash to the floor. Kai turned and yanked him up.

  “No time for that.”

  As they ran, the groaning of the building grew, and Kai knew they didn’t have more than a few seconds left. When they got to the first floor, Kai and Lani jumped through the open space where the windows used to be and ran in the direction that was most clear of debris: toward the beach.

  Kai looked over his shoulder to make sure everyone was behind him; he wasn’t going to let anyone fall back. Brad carried Mia piggyback, with Tom in front of him and Teresa close on his heels. Out of the corner of Kai’s eye, he saw the condo building tilt at a strange angle. Lani ran too slowly, so he gathered her up like a baby and pumped his legs as fast as they would carry him across Kalakaua Avenue.

  An immense bang of snapping steel erupted behind him, and Kai felt a whoosh of air pound his back. He do
ve into the sand of Waikiki, now covered with a slimy ooze, and shielded Lani with his body. Pulverized pieces of the disintegrating building pummeled his back, but nothing bigger than a small pebble landed on him.

  When the sound died, Kai pushed himself up. His back and head were coated in fine powder that clung to his wet skin. Instead of seeing the building they were just in, all he could make out was a fog of dust and a pile of debris. The entire ten-story Seaside condominium tower was now a pancake of rubble twenty feet high.

  Kai sat on the sand, surveying the now-unfamiliar surroundings. The landscape of Waikiki had been utterly changed in the thirty minutes since they had entered The Seaside. Shattered structures littered the streets like crumpled beer cans. Other buildings were nothing more than skeletons stripped bare of their innards. Massive piles of junk had been caught against the various mountains of wreckage that used to be hotels and condominiums.

  But even without the landmarks, the outline of the mountains behind was familiar. Kai recognized the pattern where they had come ashore with the Jet Skis. Of course, the watercraft were nowhere to be seen.

  “Nice job, Kai,” Brad said, squeezing the water from his filthy T-shirt. “We’re back where we started.”

  FORTY-SIX

  12:04 p.m.

  8 Minutes to Third Wave

  Jerry had fallen unconscious, his head wound more severe than Rachel had first thought. After spending a few minutes trying to wake him, they decided to carry him up the stairs. Even though he was skinny, it took all three of them—Rachel, Paige, and Sheila—to pull him down the hall and up the stairs. At each landing, they stopped for thirty seconds to catch their breath. They had only made it up one flight to the twelfth floor. As they carried him, Doris kept the children occupied and told them about herself and her kids. Their last name was Wendel, and Doris had been widowed two years earlier when her husband, Herbert, had been stricken with cancer. Neither of her children, Sheila and Jerry, were married, so they had all come out to Hawaii for a family vacation. When the tsunami warning was issued, they had returned to their room as they were initially instructed. When the warning changed, Jerry had thought it was best to stay put.