The Passage

seasoned the water used to cook carrots and given it to them as soup, a

bedtime snack. Nothing goes to waste.

Brian's slender hands are trembling as he brings the bowl up to his face,

slurping the soup repeatedly, still famished. Mark is telling what he heard on

the radio before the plane hit rough up/down drafts due to incipient hurricane

winds at the shift.

The winds were like a hurricane, but different. Our

plane hit some bad drafts. I couldn't hold it. We

could hear the radio news guy talking about . .

Cars are abandoned on the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco, which is

blocked due to this, but people are flooding across from both directions, a

look of desperation in their eyes. An abandoned toddler is crying where he

stands, no one bothering to pick him up.

Rioting in cities, where panic stricken people were

crowding the bridges, trying to move in both

directions at once, just trying to get someplace else,

anyplace else.

Looting is rampant, like the LA riots but more widespread in all areas of the

city. Fires are everywhere.

And looting in the cities. The police just weren't

around, at least not paying attention. No law, and

anything goes.

Mark's face is like a mask as he relays all this, keeping his emotions

disconnected so he can get through it.

Services were failing. People failed to turn up for

their jobs. Power outages went unrepaired. Phone lines

went dead. Gas pumps were locked and the stations

closed.

Mark pauses a minute, keeping his emotions in control. Mark shakes his head.

A never-ending mid-morning on the East Coast, taking

its toll . .

Then Mark's story gets personal.

We saw some of that too, from the plane ..

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Cars are littering the road, pulled over to the side, and a bridge with

traffic lined up on both sides. Abandoned cars on the bridge had created a

traffic jam that was only getting worse as more cars were pulling up at both

ends. People were walking in small groups across the land, too, setting out

on foot.

Highways and especially highway bridges were blocked

with cars that had run out of gas, abandoned where

they stood. And all the while we could hear the Earth

moaning. I don't ever think I'll forget that sound.

Big Tom nods in agreement with Mark on the sound, and Mark continues.

We heard that religious groups thought the end of the

world had come, and lots of people, even atheists,

were committing suicide, taking their whole families

with them, taking the kids out first, just like that

Jim Jones crowd.

Mark leans back, resigned, his eyes dropped to the feet of those around the

campfire, as the story gets personal.

Brian and I were overland when it hit .. We lost

control, first the compass went crazy ..

In the cockpit of the small plane the compass starts behaving erratically.

Brian grabs for their maps as guidance. Mark has one hand on the controls and

with the other is shaking open a map, a frantic look on his face. Brian's

slender hands are fluttering in now and then, trying to help open the map.

Then the sky started to dance around .. And when the

winds kicked in, we had no choice but to land and land

quick!

Mark falls silent for a minute, searching his memory for what he might have

missed.

We've been to the beach plenty, and I can recall

looking out at that broad expanse of water and

wondering once what it would be like to have it rise

up and rush at me. You know, a really big wave.

Happens, after a quake or something.

A large coastal city is in profile and at a distance so that both the water

and city have half the view. The water begins to rise on the water edge side

of the scene, then raises rapidly, a huge wave as tall as some of the sky

scrapers moving toward the city. The wave moves steadily, steadily rising as

a tide rather than as a towering wave about to crash down. This is seen

inundating the city rather than crashing at it from the side.

The last thing we heard was the radio announcer, screaming.

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. . It’s coming . . “Oh my God, we're all going to

drown.” Then the radio suddenly went dead.

Netty has been brushing Tammy's hair as she sits numbly, her stony lack of

emotion being taken for a quiet nature. Netty puts the brush aside.

We were at the Clearwater Resort, waiting it out as

the phones had gone dead and no one knew what was

happening. I was up in my room, changing .. I heard a

woman's voice pleading .. Not my babies, please,

they're so little. Then I heard gun shots, then

silence, and slipped under the bed, quiet as a mouse.