by Joe Nobody
She didn’t seem to comprehend at first, her gaze unfocused, her eyes darting back and forth between the tanker’s blaring horn and Dusty’s blaring voice. Her legs began to cooperate, finally moving through the pallets away from the impact of the missile.
Something about the repeated sounding of the tanker’s horn drew Dusty’s attention. Burning fuel and bits of the destroyed helicopters remained stuck to the hull, the flames and smoke making the huge ship appear like a giant dragon rolling smoothly across the water. Again and again the horn sounded.
“Why is he riding that horn?” Dusty questioned. “The helo’s are already toast.”
As Dusty and Grace cleared the pallets, they continued walking, quickly crossing an open area along the shoreline. He glanced up again at the tanker, still wondering why the captain kept blasting away with his obnoxious signal. Then he saw why.
The ship, as long as two football fields, had executed an emergency turn in a vain attempt to avoid the hovering war birds. Now, it was pointed directly at the main support of the bridge, closing the distance at such a rate that a collision was unavoidable.
Dusty looked up at the bridge’s road deck, finding it still full of cars, trucks and… his blood went cold… a school bus. His mind raced, plotting the tanker’s course, speed and momentum. Even if the big ship wasn’t moving fast enough to collapse the support, there was a good chance the roadway would be damaged, perhaps opened to the water below.
Looking down at the rail, he made a decision. He and Grace were most likely free and clear. The FBI would find the toy rail gun, and it would take them weeks to figure out it wasn’t the real deal – if ever. The small, charred bits of Russian flesh would make identification of the recovered bodies difficult.
Yet, he couldn’t let the cargo ship kill everyone on the bridge. There were hundreds of lives at stake. He shouldered the weapon and scanned the roadway above. The school bus was filled with small faces, plastered against the windows, drawn to the action below. He adjusted his aim to the water, settling on a spot a few feet ahead of where the bow plied through the channel.
He pulled the trigger.
Like the biblical Moses parting the Red Sea, a narrow, empty corridor of black void split the channel. The effect was temporary as the dimensional opening pushed the dense liquid aside with incomprehensible force, and then collapsed into a vacuum. A wall of water rose from the 65-foot depths of the passage – a Tsunami moving faster than the speed of sound. Striking the bow of the container ship, the kinetic energy of the liquid battering ram crushed the hull, abruptly halting the mega-tons of steel and cargo. The entire ship shuddered from the impact, containers flying from the deck and splashing into the waterway.
Dusty was pulling on Grace again, convinced he had saved the bridge and wanting to expedite their escape. “GO! GO! GO!” he screamed, not sure if the dazed woman could comprehend his urgent commands. Regardless of her state, somehow his message got through and she began to run.
The tidal wave of water moved quickly across the channel, flooding the opposite shore in a few seconds, the surge expanding in multiple directions. With the closing of the dimensional portal, normal, known physics again came into play. The laws of fluid dynamics required the displaced water to return, and return with a vengeance it did, rushing back across the waterway after ricocheting off the banks and bends of the curvy waterway. The now-crippled cargo vessel was directly in its path.
Dusty and Grace were running, legs pounding and blood racing, trying to put distance between themselves and the carnage they’d left behind. A quick glance at the waterway froze Dusty’s soul.
He watched wide-eyed as the returning tidal wave lifted the disabled ship, raising it like a cork in the surf. The oncoming wall of water continued rushing toward the shore, the huge freighter looking like a surfer riding the crest of a wave, barreling down on top of them.
He couldn’t pull his gaze away, watching over his shoulder as the image of the tanker grew larger and larger. It was going to crush them, pulverize their bodies into smears of blood and flesh on its great hull.
At the last moment, Dusty reached for Grace’s belt, holding on for dear life. The chasing water hit their bodies first, a swirling roar of black liquid lifting them like driftwood debris, suspending their bodies in a pool of raging darkness. Dusty held onto Grace, the torque feeling like his arm was being ripped from his body as they were tumbled head over heels by the force.
And then he was slammed into the ground, the momentum of the current suddenly reversed. As the wave drained away, he came up coughing, choking and spitting muddy liquid. Dusty made it to his feet first, spotting Grace as she tried to make it to her knees. Cursing and shaking her head, she managed to stand. Both of them turned to look at the massive ship, lying on its side not 20 feet away.
It took a bit to regroup. As they gathered themselves, Dusty rearranged the duffle bag still strapped to his back and stared back at a scene of utter chaos. The ship was listing badly, most of its hull now residing where the pallet forest had been just a few moments before.
The parking area was empty, all of the vehicles pushed to higher ground by the wall of water that had inundated the lot. Resting on top of one another in a disheveled wall of mangled steel and broken glass, Dusty couldn’t spot the old Chevy, the small loss of little consequence compared to the devastation that filled his eyes.
For a moment, Dusty wondered how many of the policemen had made it to high ground. He questioned if Monroe had made it out alive. He was saddened when it dawned on him that other lives may have been lost.
Movement from the corner of his vision drew his attention, a man lifting himself from a pool of sloppy mud, looking around in shock. Gradually, other survivors began to show themselves – most moving as if in a daze.
He checked the rail gun, unsure of what the dousing had done to his invention. The green LED still glowed bright, his waterproofing efforts having paid off.
Dusty gently took Grace’s arm and said quietly, “We have to go.”
Dripping wet, disheveled and muddy, the pair began hustling away from the crippled vessel.
“You sure know how to show a girl a good time in the big city, cowboy,” Grace teased between breaths.
“My pleasure, ma’am. But we’re not done yet.”
The End
Epilogue
Grace sat in the bow of the inflatable raft, wringing out her shirt, unashamed of Durham seeing her clad only in her underwear. Her pants were already drying in the sun, draped over the edge after she had rinsed out the mud over the side.
Trying to be a gentleman while at the same time steering the outboard motor, Dusty pretended to keep his eyes on the waterway ahead. Grace had already caught him casting an admiring glance once before.
“Where are we going?” she finally asked.
“I don’t know. Where do you want to go? I’ve got lots of money, a new ID, and the world’s most powerful weapon. This little boat ain’t so bad either.”
She smiled, and then replied, “You’re also the world’s most wanted man.”
Adjusting their course, he peered along both shorelines looking for any sign of trouble. They had meandered down the now closed ship channel, darting behind docked container ships and sneaking around piers. The Coast Guard had rushed past over an hour ago, obviously responding to the events at pier #19. They hadn’t seen another boat or ship since.
The last civilization had passed 30 minutes ago, the appearance of wetlands, marshes and rock lined shores replacing the refineries, piers and wharfs. The lack of industrialization allowed the couple to relax. They would be in the open waters of Galveston Bay soon, the Gulf of Mexico not far beyond.
“I think we’ve got a bit of a head start before they realize who was actually killed back there,” Dusty said. “The exchange of the hat for the jacket was a stroke of luck. I hadn’t planned for that. I hope the fake gun will allow Monroe to relax a bit. He’ll think the primary threat is past.”
&n
bsp; “I think all the bodies and the fake gun are under the hull of that ship. That will take some time to move. But still, you shot the water after everyone was already dead. They’ll know that – they’ll figure out the sequence.”
Nodding, Dusty’s voice was optimistic. “I’m hoping they’ll think it was the exploding helicopters or some cargo onboard the ship that caused the wave. You’re right, they’ll figure it out. I think we have a head start, not a clean get away.”
Grace drifted off, pondering her future while gazing silently at her surroundings. As the tiny boat moved closer to the open waters of the bay, a flock of cranes glided low across the surface nearby. For the first time in her life, she understood the true meaning of freedom.
She turned to him and said, “I’m with you, Durham, if you want me along. I’ll go wherever you want to go. It just seems right being at your side.”
Her words brought a smile to his face. Nodding, he said, “I want you here. I realized how much I missed you during all this mayhem. I can’t promise much of a future right now, but however it ends, I want you there with me.”
Grace scooted back to sit beside him, and the two hugged. She maintained her embrace as Dusty returned to steering the boat, accelerating toward the open water.
“The coast up ahead is lined with marinas, yacht brokers, and boatyards. How about we find a nice little cabin cruiser that’s for sale? One with a good shower and BBQ grill docked in a dark corner of a seldom used marina. We can hole up, clean up, rest up, and make up time. We’ll decide where to go after things have settled down.”
“Okay, Dusty,” she replied, smiling as he realized she had finally called him by his preferred name.
