OVERFALL
Broken Tide Series
Book 1
By
Marcus Richardson
Mike Kraus
© 2020 Muonic Press Inc
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Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
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Special Thanks
Special thanks to my awesome beta team, without whom this book wouldn’t be nearly as great.
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Broken Tide Book 2
Available Here
Preface
Mirador de la Cumbrecita
La Palma, Canary Islands
Gunter Magnussen planted his hands on his hips and took in the panoramic vista before him. His daughters scampered around him and up the wooden steps to the observation platform built in the shade of a few scraggly pines. It had been a week of beaches, hikes, and sailing—the best holiday of their young lives.
The rippled canyon vista that opened before him, dotted with stunted trees and shrubs, stretched north of the scenic overlook. The rim of Taburiente, the island’s massive, dormant volcano, rose up all around them.
“This is the mouth of a sleeping volcano, girls.” he said.
“Will it wake up?” asked Isla, his ten-year-old.
“No, dear,” his wife Heidi replied quickly. “We’ve nothing to worry about,” she said, giving Gunter a pointed look.
He stepped up to the little wooden platform on the edge of the rim and joined his family. A cooling breeze swept in over the dormant volcano’s massive teardrop-shaped caldera. The mid-morning tropical sun was warm, and the promise of afternoon heat hung in the clear, blue sky overhead.
Gunter sighed and closed his eyes. In a few short weeks, Sweden would plunge into the icy heart of winter once more. He wanted this last hurrah of summer to be special.
“Do you feel that?” asked Isla.
Gunter smiled, his eyes still closed. “I feel the sun on my face and the wind in my hair.”
“I feel the ground…” Heidi said. She put a hand on Gunter’s arm. “It’s moving.”
“Papa…I feel it, too,” little Una whimpered. The six-year-old, a miniature version of his wife, moved closer to him, still watching the caldera.
“Girls, girls—it’s okay,” Gunter soothed, moving to embrace his children. “Remember when we got here, the nice park ranger said the ground has been shaking recently?” He turned them around to look at a weathered sign nailed to a stunted pine. “See? It says right there…’the island trembles from time to time, as a result of geologic forces at work under the Cumbre Vieja volcanic ridge…’”
“Is that smoke?” asked Isla, stepping away from Gunter to lean on the wooden railing around the observation deck. She stood on tip-toes and looked south at the ridge he’d mentioned, sloping toward the Atlantic, some ten miles distant. “It is smoke, Papa!”
“Is the volcano waking up?” asked Una, tugging on Gunter’s shirt.
“Smoke?” asked Heidi, stepping closer to her children.
“Look!” insisted Isla, begging them to come to the railing.
As Gunter approached, he froze. Jets of white smoke shot into the sky downslope, coming up in three sprays, each about a quarter mile apart. Bits of rock and small trees fell from the sky where they’d been blasted into the air by the escaping plumes. He flinched at the appearance of two more jets of smoke, much nearer their position than the first three. New showers of debris and trees sailed through the air far too close for comfort.
The sight sent a tremor of fear down the back of Gunter’s legs. “We…we need to leave...”
The ground trembled more, causing the scraggly pines standing guard over the observation platform to sway, as if in a strong wind. The moving shadows cast by the trees played across his vision in a nauseating pattern. He instinctively put his arms around his children and pulled them back from the railing.
Down the path, a lone hiker called to them in Spanish, then turned and ran. Shouts from other hikers fleeing the caldera reached them. The observation point was the start of several caldera trails, and it had been fairly crowded on the way up.
“Come on,” Gunter said, pulling Isla from the edge.
Heidi leaned close enough for him to catch the scent of her shampoo. “I’m scared...”
“So am I,” he replied. He swung Isla up into a hug. She squirmed, trying to get back down. “Easy now,” he said in a soothing voice. “Come, let’s get back to the hotel. We can play in the pool.”
“Doesn’t that sound nice?” asked Heidi with feigned calm, looking down at Una, clinging to her like a baby koala.
As suddenly as the rumbling started, it stopped. The noise faded, and the smoke dissipated. An unnatural silence made Gunter’s ears tingle.
“Is it over?” whispered Heidi, already off the platform and tip-toeing toward the path. She started when two people ran by, backpacks bouncing as they raced down the trail.
Without warning, the ground came alive again. Gunter found himself on the ground with the rest of his family.
