TV turned low, Alessa Rothchild sat on her living room couch and listened to the rain. It blasted the balcony and echoed through the glass sliding door. The apartment was surrounded on all sides by other apartments, above, below, and to either side. The walls were thick so that wasn’t usually a bother but normally Alessa wouldn’t have been able to hear anything so loudly, so she knew the storm was an intense one even without looking. Twelve floors up, the wind blew so much rain into the balcony area that Alessa couldn’t have stepped outside without getting soaked.
The apartment was a small place, the living room shaped like a blunt wedge. The couch, TV cabinet and coffee table crowded the narrow end of the wedge by the balcony door. To the wider end was the dining table and chairs, some shelves, and a bench separating the dining area from the small kitchenette. Alessa shared the apartment with her husband, Donnie. A third little life would be arriving soon.
Down the hall from the living area were the apartment’s two bedrooms and a cramped bathroom. The main bedroom wasn’t too bad but the second bedroom, the baby’s room, was small and crowded with the things they had already bought for the baby, wrapped in plastic, boxed and not yet assembled. Alessa had no idea how it would fit when everything was put together.
“Unprecedented storms lashing the area,” the TV mumbled, showing some kind of radar map. “Flooding is being reported in numerous areas up and down the coast.”
A cup of tea sat on the table in front of Alessa, cold and forgotten. So did a bent paperback, propped open to a page about halfway through the novel’s plot. If someone had asked what the book was about though, or to name a single character, Alessa would have been stumped. She couldn’t focus on reading or what was happening on the television. Part of the pregnancy hormones, her brain felt like it was full of faulty wiring. Thoughts started with a beginning and then got lost somewhere before reaching a middle or an end. She had begun a paragraph half a dozen times at the beginning of the book’s latest chapter before giving up and putting it down. The volume on the TV was so low it was almost totally drowned out by the rain, and it all mixed into white noise. She wondered what had even broken her out of her reverie. After a few moments, she realised her phone was vibrating on the coffee table.
“Honey, hi, how are you?” Alessa answered. “Are you almost home?”
Back in the city, Donnie had returned to the floor of his firm high above the street. He sat at his desk, facing away from the rain as if he couldn’t bear to watch it anymore. His feet were dry and he pulled his socks and shoes on again as he spoke.
“Beautiful, you’re not going to believe this,” Donnie said. “This rain, it’s screwing up everything. First thing, the car, I can’t get it out. The parking garage under the building is flooded, literally there is water halfway up the sides of the car and I can’t get it out.”
“Flooded? How?”
“The drains are backed up or something, and the rain is like-, something I’ve never seen. It’s coming down so heavy, it’s not natural.”
Alessa wriggled forward and stood with a groan. Her free hand fell to her swollen stomach. It formed a massive ball out in front of her, pushing out her old t-shirt and the waistband of her sweatpants. Anxious, she started to pace the small apartment.
“My God, Donnie, the car?”
“It’s okay, it’s okay, I don’t know if it’s damaged or anything. If it is, the insurance will cover it,” Donnie said with a confidence he didn’t feel. “Don’t worry about it, okay? The thing is, the rain is knocking out everything. I can’t get a Choofer or a cab, and the trains, a bunch of signals have been knocked out by lightning or something. There’s massive delays on all the lines, I’m not even sure if they’re running.”
“What-, what does this mean?”
“It means that I don’t know when or how I’ll get home. I’m stuck here. Stuck at the office, maybe until this rain totally passes.”
“I could come get you?”
“No, no way,” Donnie said. “It’s still coming down like a solid wall, I’m not having my pregnant wide drive all the way into the city, in the dark, in this, and then taking God knows how long to get home. The traffic must be awful as well.”
“You’re not cheating on me, are you? You’re not shacked up at some sleazy motel with one of the girls from the typing pool, are you?”
Donnie genuinely laughed. “The typing pool? Really? Is this Mad Men?”
“Ha ha,” Alessa replied flatly.
Joke or not, Alessa felt a wave of genuine insecurity. She didn’t think Donnie would ever cheat on her, especially not when she was eight months pregnant. That didn’t mean she felt particularly wanted right now. Alessa felt like a burden. She knew she shouldn’t feel that way but hormones and stress ate at her constantly. At home, unable to really focus on anything all day, all that kept her company was a constant, formless worry. Her back ached and her knees ached. Her whole body felt distorted, as if she’d stepped through a funhouse mirror, and the new life inside her, precious as it was, wriggled and writhed and beat up her insides like a crazy person throwing themselves around the walls of a rubber room. She worried about the baby and the apartment, and the state of the baby’s room. And with no work and no ability to focus enough to distract herself, she had nothing else to talk about when Donnie came home. As much as he reassured her, Alessa was sure at least on some small level he felt burdened by all of her problems too. And she couldn’t help apologising over and over for it, apologising until her apologies felt like burdens as well. Holding the phone, Alessa was not at all surprised to feel tears brimming in her eyes for no real reason. Controlling her breathing so they wouldn’t come through her voice, she kept pacing the living room.
“Have you eaten?” Donnie asked. “Eat, don’t wait for me. And if I’m really late, don’t wait up. Tomorrow’s Saturday, I’ve got the whole weekend. I’ll get home somehow, and let you know when I’m on the way. I’ll text you if it’s late.”
Alessa turned, facing the television. The news had disappeared and been replaced by nothing but white writing on a blue background. Alessa realised the set was making a low, repetitive tone as well, rising and falling. With the volume so low she could barely hear it over the rain but it was obviously some kind of alarm.
“Honey, something-, something is going on,” Alessa said. “There’s something on the TV.”
Alessa tried to read it but just like with the paperback her eyes slid right off the words, her ability to think made even worse as she started to panic.‘**WARNING**WARNING**’ scrolled across the top of the screen. Alessa forced herself to focus but it was as if the words didn’t make any sense, what she was reading sounded too insane. She took in snippets like ‘TSUNAMI WARNING’ and ‘THE US COAST GUARD’. The end of the message advised anyone seeing it to seek higher ground immediately, or to remain indoors if already somewhere safe.
“What is it? Are you okay?” Donnie’s voice was tiny and faraway.
“It’s coming, there’s something coming,” Alessa said.
Back at the office, another bolt of lightning struck somewhere close by. It sounded like it was right overhead. The thunder was an explosion and the glow of electricity lit the windows. Donnie jumped and flinched so hard he dropped his phone.
“Jesus Christ!” Donnie yelled.
The lights went out, plunging the whole room, the whole floor and probably the whole building, into darkness. This time, the lights didn’t flicker back on after a couple of seconds. Donnie spun around in his chair, heart pounding. Looking across the city through the floor-to-ceiling windows he saw a dozen forks of lightning split the sky. Thunder overlapped, pounding like drums in a symphony. Black clouds spewing rain over everything in sight.
“What the fuck? What the fuck?” Donnie said.
The phone’s screen was still lit. Pawing, Donnie picked it up and put it back to his ear.
“Alessa, hello? I’m sorry there was-, hello? Are you still there?”
The line was dead. Donnie pulled it away and saw he had plenty of battery but no reception. He wondered if the lightning had knocked out all the nearby cell towers as well as the power. An amber glow, some kind of emergency, battery-powered light, sensed the outage and switched itself on over by the stairs. It strobed on and off, blinking over the cubicle walls that filled the office.
“Alessa, I’m sorry,” Donnie sighed into the useless phone. “I’ll be home when I can. This stupid storm.”
Donnie had been so shocked by the thunder, he forgot Alessa’s last words over the line for a minute. Something was coming, she had said. He got suddenly worried. But it was something on the TV, not something coming for her specifically. Without any reception or wifi for his phone, Donnie got up and started to stumble through the darkened office.
~~~
People down at the waterfront would have been the first to notice what was going on, if anyone had been outside looking at the water. Bars, restaurants and cafes ringed the harbour. On a normal Friday night in summer, the water’s edge would have been thronging with people. Far fewer people than what was usual had been willing to brave the downpour, however, and all of those that had were inside where it was dry. Light and noise, life, spilled out onto the pavement outside many of the establishments as people made the most of the wild weather.
The waterfront harbour was small and lined with pontoons, yachts and other pleasure craft moored alongside them, rising and falling with the ebb of the tide. A bridge stretched across the neck of the harbour with brightly coloured lights strung along it, blurred by the rain. Imperceptible at first but gathering speed until the effect was unmistakable, the harbour began to drain. Foot by foot, the surface retreated. A series of crashes and thuds came from the floating wharves and the docked boats docked as the disappearing water caused them to fall and smash together. Some were ripped free of their moorings. Masts and pontoons jutted in different directions. The ocean gurgled out under the bridge like water running out of a bathtub.
Off the shore, a black mass was building. The ocean swelled, a wall of water growing out of the surface and rolling toward the lights of the city. A full roar echoed across the surface. The few ships in its path were thrown around like toys. A few were tipped and overturned, slammed down on their decks. Breaking and sinking in the trough of the wave. Many of the night fisherman and merchant sailors caught by the wave had no idea what was happening until it was on top of them.
Water returned to the small harbour with a vengeance. Boats and pontoons were shattered against the sides of the harbour as they were picked up and thrown. The ocean breached the sea walls. Patrons and customers in most of the bars and restaurants along the waterfront were caught unawares. Only a few places had television sets tuned to channels taken over by the tsunami warning, or had people that received emergency alerts on their phones, and word hadn’t spread fast enough. They were stunned as cold, foamy spray exploded through doorways and shattered windows, coating screaming people with broken glass and debris.
Behind the initial surge was a wall of water two stories high with the weight of the ocean behind it. Coming into the harbour, it dwarfed and swallowed the bridge and its strings of lights. The structure tore loose from its mountings. The sea fell hungrily on the waterfront buildings. Smashing the bars and restaurants to pieces, it forced its way inside, tossing people around like toys along with tables and chairs and everything else not nailed down. Whole buildings broke apart and fell on top of one another like dominoes. Hundreds of people were crushed, broken, or drowned in the first few seconds. And the initial wave was only the face of a new and deadly tide, pushing itself over the city.
Along the shoreline, a large marina was hit by the tidal wave and more boats and ships were picked up and scattered. Most were pulled under and pummelled into the shore. The wharfs snapped and splintered like toothpicks. The yacht club attached to the marina, a recently refurbished building valued in the tens of millions of dollars, disintegrated.
In the opposite direction, several beaches who had initially seen the tide shrink back hundreds of metres disappeared under frothing water. The wall of water hit, destroying lifeguard towers, fences, parking lots and buildings. Roads disappeared and cars that had been battling the storm were suddenly swamped. Drivers were caught unaware as they wound up beneath several metres of water and their cars were picked up, thrown sideways as if tossed into a washing machine. Windshields and windows imploded, letting in the cold, crushing weight of water. Parkland along the shore, home to hundreds of trees and thousands of plants, already whipped into mud by the rain, vanished without a fight under the sea.
More buildings lined along the coast, hotels, apartment blocks and office towers envied for their ocean views, bore the brunt of the tsunami’s concussive force. Smaller buildings as well as vehicles and people in the streets were simply swept away. The bottom floors of taller structures imploded. Most people, who hadn’t received any warning and hadn’t moved to higher levels, had no idea what hit them. A hip hop mogul’s million dollar yacht was picked up and hurled through the glass facade of one hotel. Fuel tanks erupted, flames roaring up the sides of the building before being smothered by the wave. As the water continued to surge forward it stripped away chunks of buildings, leaving only frames to support them, and plunged into their foundations. Several enormous towers quaked, threatening every living person inside or around them as they shivered on the verge of collapse. Most remained intact above their bottom three or four floors but the tide continued coming, building, pushing with incredible force.
Several blocks away from the waterfront, patrons of a rooftop bar watched in astonishment as the wave crashed over the city. It split around some of the taller buildings surrounding them like a river parting around tree trunks. With incredible power, however, it surged through the streets. Gathered under cover from the rain, which continued to pour all around them, they saw pieces of buildings, cars, and bodies, pulled through the water as it breached two stories high. Shock turned to panic as the building under them shook. Water frothed up the bar’s stairwells from the lower levels. The initial wave was only the forebear of a huge weight of water moving in and across the city, pulverising everything in its path.
~~~
Halfway across the business district, Donnie stumbled through rows of cubicles in his office. He had no idea what was happening at the shoreline and making its way toward him. Distant rumbles through the floor he mistook for thunder. Reaching across someone’s desk, he knocked several things over with a crash that made him jump and look around to double check he was alone. Mentally he made a note to fix them when the lights came back on. It would be easier if the battery operated light over the stairs would stay on. Its weak amber light managed to reach all the way across the office but it kept strobing on and off. The effect caused him to stagger like a drunk and strained his eyes as he searched his coworkers’ desks, knocking things over.
Eventually, Donnie found the desk he was looking for. Knocking over another coffee cup full of pens, he picked up a small black box with a thin aerial poking out the top. The radio on his workmate Parker’s desk ran on batteries and would work even with the power out and cell reception knocked out. During baseball season, Parker liked to sit there with his headphones plugged in listening to the games. He could have just as easily kept up with the scores online but liked the old fashioned way. Donnie switched it on with no idea what channel it was tuned to.
“-is in effect now, and until further notice! If you’re just hearing this, get to higher ground! A tsunami warning is in effect and some reports are saying it is already hitting several parts of the coast,” the voice on the radio said before becoming strained with panic. “Oh, my God! It is, it really is happening, get to higher ground! The upper levels of your apartment building or whatever if you’re in one. Do not go outside unless you’ve got somewhere close by you can reach!”
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
The voice continued, repeating the same basic information several times in different ways. Frantic mouse clicks could be heard in the background as well as someone moving in and out of the studio. For a few moments, Donnie was paralysed with shock. When Alessa told him something was coming according to the TV, a tsunami or anything of that nature was far from his mind. Setting the radio back on the desk, Donnie hurried to the windows that looked out over the city and toward the ocean. The radio continued to natter in the background. The amber light strobed.
Donnie pressed his face against the glass and stared straight down. It gave him a sickening sense of vertigo, heightened by his sudden terror. There wasn’t much he could see yet. Storm clouds were still heavy overhead. The whole city didn’t seem to be without power but many of the surrounding buildings and streets were dark. Donnie couldn’t see past the buildings to the waterfront and the part of the city that faced the shore, where the destruction was currently taking place.
Then, he saw it. Down in the street and advancing fast. From where Donnie was standing and with no real light it was impossible to see the water as anything but an amorphous, black mass. It poured down the avenue that ran in front of his building, a couple of blocks away but swallowing everything in its path. The main body of the wave was joined by a raging current from one side street. Streetlights were out but Donnie could see the lights of several cars. A couple, headed in the wrong direction, saw the tide coming and their brake lights flared then they immediately started to reverse. Another swung around wildly, fleeing. Two cars crashed together and stalled. The water swelled and surrounded both cars. It was past their wheel wells in seconds and kept coming, covering the headlamps and brake lights, blurring them and causing them to disappear. The ocean roared through the street, consuming the first and then second stories of the surrounding buildings. Donnie’s eyes widened as the tsunami reached the foot of his own building. He imagined it running into the already flooded parking garage and breaking through the glass at the front of the building’s lobby.
Below, the flood in the parking garage was already up to the windows of the cars left behind. Smelling of brine, the ocean came heaving down the garage ramp and into the underground structure. The remaining cars were lost. Trash and other detritus piled up on the barred roller, bowing it until it collapsed and ripped free.
From inside the lobby, water slammed against the glass wall at the front of the building. It rose rapidly, filled with trash and now bodies that bounced off the windows. Water hissed through gaps between and around the doors until they collapsed. A flooded car was thrown against the front wall as well and the frame shattered. A wall of water consumed the ground floor. A tremor ran through the building, the roar echoing up the stairs, which Donnie heard and felt many floors above.
~~~
Across the city, although the lights and power were still on, subway trains ground to a stop. Jessica Tate, from Donnie’s office, had been trying to make her way home. Unfortunately, only one out of every three or four trains seemed to be running so she had been delayed at the platform. The boards blamed lightning strikes and signal failures. As a result, besides being so late, every carriage on every train was crammed full of people. Forced to stand, sandwiched between several other men and women in business attire, Jessica awkwardly held onto one of the handles overhead. As the train stopped people bumped into her and she was jostled back and forth.
“Will this day ever end?” Jessica muttered to herself.
“I suppose you’re all wondering why I called you here today,” a loud, male voice boomed across the stalled train.
The person who’d shouted was trying to make light of the situation but the joke was met with only a few weak laughs. Friday night, between the delays and the rain, people just wanted to get home. Jessica’s calves ached from wearing heels all day. Damp bodies pressed in on her and the humidity was almost unbearable. And worse was the smell. After any workday in a carriage crammed full with people the smell of body odour was always going to be unpleasant. The rain made it that much worse, now it wasn’t just body odour but a wet dog stench filling the carriage and cloying to everything with nowhere to go.
The train lights flickered and a groan ran the length of the parked carriage. Jessica shifted uncomfortably. Outside the train, firehose streams of water poured from the vents that lined the tunnel’s roof. A girl in front of Jessica’s was on the phone with what sounded like her boyfriend, explaining why she was running late. Her voice cracked and she struggled not to cry, not afraid, not aware of what was happening outside, just stressed out and hitting her limit at the end of the week. Jessica turned away so it wouldn’t seem like she was staring. Through the folding doors of the carriage she could see the water coming down through the vents even harder, spraying. Glimpsing more movement in the tunnel, through the blur of the tunnel lighting, Jessica looked closer and recoiled. Rats, their furry little bodies leapfrogging and writhing over one another, raced down the tunnel. There must have been dozens of them streaming past the subway train as if to get away from something.
A dull roar echoed down the underground passage. Water flowed into the tunnels from the nearest stations. As Jessica and the nearest passengers looked around, a rushing river began moving down both sides of the train. It rose rapidly, lapping the sides of the carriage.
“What the fuck?” someone said.
Swirling up the tunnel behind the train, another wall of water rolled in and slammed into the rear of the vehicle. The subway train shook and the passengers surrounding Jessica shouted in fear. As the flood rose it began to spray through the doors of the carriage.
“What is happening?” Jessica screamed.
The train buckled and people were thrown sideways as the floors tilted, falling onto one another. Water surrounded the train, one wave washing up one side of the tunnel and crashing into the carriages.
Jessica screamed as the whole world was thrown sideways. Dozens of people were hurled out of their seats or off their feet. She was crushed, air forced out of her body in one explosive rush, as several other passengers landed on top of her. Jessica herself landed on top of more people who piled up along the side of the train, now the floor. People shrieked and cried out. The carriage became a sea of jutting limbs, bags, briefcases, and thrashing bodies.
“Help! Help!” someone yelled.
Flood filled the tunnel, hitting the ceiling and hammering down on the toppled train. It had all happened so fast. Water hissed through the gaps and cracks, drenching the passengers inside. Concerns about politeness gone, operating on pure survival instinct, Jessica elbowed the people on top of her aside and climbed, crawling between groaning suits and gasping for air. Above her, the train doors strained with the weight of the water.
“Oh, no,” Jessica said.
The doors broke and a cascade of cold ocean water poured into the carriage. It hammered Jessica, drenching her and throwing her back against the others surrounding her. Before she could take a breath, water filled the carriage and flowed the length of the train. Dozens of people fought mindlessly, struggling against the water, unsure what they were fighting for. Those at the bottom were kicked and crushed, unable to rise no matter how hard they tried, but those at the top didn’t last much longer. Air pockets bubbled away and the flood was relentless. Like kittens tied in sacks and tossed in a river, the passengers in carriage after carriage succumbed and drowned.
~~~
Miles inland, Donnie’s workmate Jason also found himself stuck while trying to get home. Traffic stretched the length of the freeway, an endless river of red brake lights. He sighed and sank lower in his chair. Plugged into the car stereo, his iPhone played an uninterrupted stream of music while heavy rain drummed the car’s body and created a wall of white noise. The car felt like an isolated little world all of its own as it crawled through the sluggish and often motionless traffic. Jason supposed it might be for the best. Visibility was atrocious and accidents even in the slowly moving lanes were frequent. He wouldn’t want to be tempted to go faster than he could handle in the conditions and end up sliding off the road. While he wanted to be home, Jason handled it philosophically and drummed his hands on the steering wheel. No point in stressing about what he couldn’t change.
Rainwater ran between the vehicles. Suddenly, someone charged past Jason’s window on foot. Already drenched to the skin, the person appeared in Jason’s headlights, looked back, and kept running. Even in the stalled traffic, Jason was stunned to see someone running down the middle of the three lane freeway.
“What the hell?”
Fear had covered the face of the man who’d been running through traffic. Before Jason could wonder too much about what had scared him so badly, a chorus of horns started howling behind him. He hadn’t heard many horns driving home, most people accepted that there was nowhere for other drivers to go. Now, not just one but several people were laying on their horns. Jason looked back and saw headlights swing back and forth crazily. As he watched, one car rammed forward and smashed into the back of another like they were trying to force a gap. A couple of other cars followed suit, causing more crashes. It was like the traffic had suddenly and spontaneously driven a whole bunch of drivers insane.
Another person ran past, scrambling to get up the low, muddy slope that ran alongside the road. More horns bellowed from in front of Jason. Wipers hurtling from side to side on his windshield, Jason saw more people throwing open their doors, their cars’ interior lights popping on in the gloom, and seemingly abandoning their vehicles to run into the rain. Perhaps even more crazily, he saw a few cars break away and try to drive across the grassy divider in the middle of the road to cross into the lanes heading in the opposite direction. One car got stuck, wallowing in the mud that rain had turned the divider into. Another couple of cars made it, swinging into the opposite lanes.
Although the other side of the freeway, heading back into the city, was nowhere near as packed as Jason’s side there were still cars travelling in that direction, and shooting along much faster than the traffic in spite of the rain. As Jason watched in horror, one of the cars that had just crossed the divider was hit head-on by another car. Metal crunched as both cars came together. A piece of one car’s engine was ejected through its hood. Windshields became opaque with spiderweb cracks and airbags in both vehicles hid the drivers. Bits torn from both vehicles were hurled into the rain. Cars on that side also started to slow down and block the road.
“Get out!” someone running past Jason’s car screamed.
Finally, Jason saw it in his rear view mirror. Much like it had for Donnie, the water looked like nothing but an amorphous black mass. It moved through the cars behind him and swallowed them whole, row by row. Jason felt instinctively the weight of it coming down the freeway from behind them. Rolling forward, crushing the lanes full of cars. People were fleeing from their vehicles now, streaming through the rain. Others, those that could, were taking off over the divider and onto the opposite side of the freeway.
Jason remembered a nature documentary he’d seen which at one point had shown the effects of a flash flood. That was happening down the freeway. It was a perfect avenue for one. Low but steep hills sat to either side of the road. Jason had no idea where the water was coming from but he assumed a dam somewhere had broken or something. That didn’t matter right now, all that mattered was that he had to get away from it. He would drive to the other side of the road where the crash had happened but he was trapped by the traffic. He would just have to run for it like most people were doing.
Taking a second to pull his phone out of the stereo, Jason threw his door open. Rain howled into the car. He stepped into the storm, shielding his face, and was immediately thrown flat onto his back. The flood had snuck up on him. The water surrounding his car was already knee deep and the current was incredibly powerful, pulling his legs out from under him. Jason was soaked instantly from head to toe and the unexpected cold shocked him. Water covered his face. As he struggled to sit up, someone kicked his arm as they ran past and knocked him back down.
The tsunami had lost the explosive power of its initial wall of water as it moved through the city and across land. Now, instead of a wave it was a tide being driven inland as if by the gravitational pull of the moon or some other force. Its rise was steady but still incredibly fast, climbing several inches every couple of seconds. Down the freeway, cars were covered, people trapped inside, and they were being pulled forward and smashed together along with everything else in the tsunami’s path.
Pushed and pulled by the water, Jason managed to grab the side of another car and heave himself upright. The water was up to his thighs and rising. He couldn’t fight it. Frightened and confused, Jason started moving down the row of cars, with the current, struggling to keep his footing and grabbing at the vehicles around him for support. He swiped at the water covering his face and getting in his eyes.
Other people moved around Jason. A few tripped and disappeared, pulled along by the water and unable to get back up. Jason knew he couldn’t outrun the flood, not knowing how much power and weight there was behind it. People were clamouring up the muddy hills to the side of the freeway, looking for higher ground. Circling in front of an abandoned car, Jason started toward the side of the road too. The car had its handbrake off, however, and unluckily for him the weight of the water chose that exact moment to shove the car forward. It heaved into Jason’s legs and he stumbled into the rear of the next car. The car kept coming and pinned his right knee with a crunch. He cried out in pain and surprise, clutching at the limb. Yanking and thrashing despite the pain, he tried to free it but couldn’t.
“Help! Someone, shit, help me! My leg is trapped!” Jason shouted.
Most people scrambled up the muddy hill, unable to hear him over the rain and all the other chaos. Jason kept trying to wriggle free, sending shooting pains through his knee. A few people, however, stopped to help. They struggled to keep their footing in the rising tide.
“What happened?” one of them yelled.
“My leg! My leg is stuck!”
The man who’d spoken grabbed Jason under the armpits and tried to lift him free. The others pushed the vehicle, trying to shove it back. Against the weight of the water though, the three of them didn’t succeed even a tiny bit. Jason fell against the hood, bracing himself, and pushed with them, the man who’d been trying to lift him joining in. It was hopeless, however, and water was quickly rising over the car’s windows.
“Sorry! I’m sorry!” They backed away.
“Don’t leave me!” Jason said.
Another fell over backwards and barely recovered, struggling back to their feet and running for the side of the road. They had no choice but to save themselves, and abandoned Jason to his fate. Straining with everything he had, Jason tried to pull his leg free. Water lapped at the bonnet and started to cover his chest.
“No! No, someone help!” Jason said.
No matter how he moved, Jason couldn’t wriggle his injured leg free. Given a hacksaw, he might have removed it himself in his desperation but he had neither the time nor the tool. Water kept grinding the car bumper into his knee. Struggling to keep his face above the surface as it covered the car roofs around him, Jason thrashed but the current was too strong. He slipped under, hands grasping, and didn’t come back up.
~~~
Back at their apartment, Alessa watched what was happening on the TV in horror. In spite of the storm, one of the news channels had a helicopter in the air and was filming the destruction. The visibility was awful but it was lit by the occasional jag of lightning. What she was seeing was nearly impossible to believe. The coastline was gone. It had been swamped by the tidal wave still pouring through the city. It looked like something out of a movie. Spotting the occasional building she recognised jutting out of the water, Alessa placed it in her mind and the horror hit again. It was hard to say how deep the flood was but it appeared to be at least several stories deep in places. The helicopter came low, capturing a few people on rooftops trying to convince them to land, to carry them to safety.
Without warning, the power died. Alessa’s TV shut off and the lights disappeared, plunging her into blackness. Alessa started, already anxious, and let out a small cry.
After a few moments, when it was obvious the power wasn’t going to come back on right away, Alessa looked down at her phone. It had battery power and reception. She had tried calling Donnie’s mobile and his office line, as well as other numbers at his office, literally dozens of times. There had been no answer, the lines had not gone through. The last time she’d spoken to him, when the line cut out, the tsunami hadn’t hit yet and she’d been sure he was in his office. She’d been hoping to somehow catch sight of him in the news but hadn’t. Still, she had to believe he was alright. Donnie’s office was high off the ground a good distance from the harbour. He’d almost certainly be trapped, but alive. Alessa just wished she could hear his voice saying that for himself.
In the dark, Alessa stood up again, groaning as she held her stomach. Rain hammered down outside, unending, filling the silence of the darkened room again. She stumbled to the hall closet. Inside, an emergency lantern was blinking next to the apartment’s power board. It was battery operated, Alessa switched it on and brought it back to the living room. The glow was surprisingly powerful.
Alessa wished she knew what to do in an emergency. Staying where she was seemed like the only option. High off the ground, she felt she was at least safe from the tsunami. They were so far from the shoreline, it was hard to believe it could reach her here. The warnings had projected far inland, however, the city and all surrounding areas.
Carrying the lantern, Alessa went to the balcony door and slid it open. The balcony, narrow and with only enough room for a small table and a couple of chairs, was soaked. The wind had died down so at least she didn’t get sprayed as soon as she stepped outside but rain covered everything. Uneasily, Alessa made her way over to the balcony’s slick railing. She cupped one hand protectively over her stomach.
The streets and surrounding buildings were dark as well. A few cars were still on the road, most of them moving as quickly as they could. The roads were already flooded from the rain, gutters and asphalt brimming with rushing water. But then the tidal wave came.
There was no more violence in the wave, just a slow, steady, and inevitable tide. More water began to fill the crossroads Alessa’s balcony overlooked. It seemed sluggish but then, between lightning flashes and the headlamps of passing cars, Alessa realised it was rising incredibly fast. Water consumed the roads and sidewalks, surrounding parked cars to either side of the streets. Alessa saw several people fleeing cars that could go no further and had gotten swamped in the flood, running for surrounding buildings including her own. The flood turned their apartment building into an island and started to fill the ground level. Alessa remembered how Donnie had said the parking garage at his work was flooded and she supposed the one under their apartment building must be underwater as well now. Diagonally across from Alessa and Donnie’s building was a service station. Caught in the headlamps of an abandoned vehicle, she saw the water rising on the service station’s fuel pumps until they were underwater. It just kept rising and rising. Pulled along with the tide were piles of trash and detritus, and even worse, bodies. A churning stew of rubble and destruction and death that just kept coming and coming. Horrified, Alessa staggered back inside to check her phone again.
“Come on, Donnie, answer the phone,” Alessa dialled him again. “Tell me you’re okay.”