“That’s just wrong, man,” Ben complained, returning to the aft deck.
“Sorry, dude…” Monty said, reaching for the rod.
“But…” Reese argued. “You gotta be kidding me!”
Monty pulled out a knife from his belt and slashed the line. The rod snapped back straight, and the fish vanished into the depths. A collective groan went up from the men on the boat. More than one beer was raised in salute to a fight well fought. As the others moved back to their own lines, Reese accepted the heartfelt sympathy pats and ‘too bad’ comments. He toweled off and stretched his back, glad to accept a fresh beer from Ben.
“Sorry, bro,” Jimmy, the hulking brown-noser from national sales said, smirking. He’d landed a big marlin earlier, the biggest catch of the cruise so far. “Guess my record still stands…”
After draining half the bottle, Reese sighed and looked at the sky, doing his best to ignore Jimmy. The guy was nothing more than a blowhard, but he had Eddie’s patronage and could do no wrong.
Reese watched clouds rolling in on the western horizon, but they didn’t look all that menacing. “I don’t understand,” he complained to Ben. “Why are we leaving?”
Ben shrugged, holding on to Reese’s chair as the deck tilted in a swell. “Eddie’s up there right now, arguing with the captain.”
Reese made his way to the bridge to find out himself. Inside the sheltered enclosure, the air was a little cooler. Eddie and the captain were locked in a heated argument, so Reese and Ben stayed on the periphery, waiting for an opening.
“…don’t understand, captain…” Eddie was saying.
“That’s right, you don’t. Been a charter captain for fourteen years,” the captain said in a thick Boston accent so ‘charter’ came across as ‘chahtah.’ “I’m in charge of this boat, and I say we heed the warning and head in. I won’t put anyone’s life at risk over a fish. End of discussion.” He throttled up the outboards and turned the wheel so they pointed west, toward the clouds on the horizon.
Eddie’s face darkened. “Captain, my company spent a lot of money on this trip—”
“For which you will be compensated when we reach land,” the captain said, not looking at Eddie but maintaining a lock on the water in front of the boat. After a long pause, the captain glanced at Eddie, then grunted. “If you wanna call the main office, be my guest. Sat phone’s over there,” he said, pointing.
Eddie snatched the bulky black phone out of its cradle and stormed off the bridge to stand on the foredeck.
Reese cleared his throat. “Uh, excuse me, captain.”
He looked at Reese. “Oh—you the one with the fish on? Sorry about that—truly. Only ever had to cut ‘er loose three times before. Downright embarrassing.”
“Why are we going back?” Reese asked. “I thought we had several hours left before it was time to return…?”
The captain turned the radio volume up and inclined his head for Reese to listen. “…advisory in effect for the listening area of this station. This is an emergency message for all vessels operating in the coastal waters of New England. Small craft emergency advisory: all small watercraft are advised to seek immediate safety in port. Only large, ocean-going vessels should remain offshore at this time…” Static interrupted the broadcast and the radio fell silent.
“It’s the tsunami, isn’t it?” asked Reese, as he narrowed his eyes at the horizon.
The signal strength returned before the captain could speak. “…this morning, a volcanic eruption was detected, along with significant undersea seismic activity. National Tsunami Warning Center beacons have been activated. This event has a high probability of producing a tsunami capable of reaching the Eastern Seaboard of the United States. All coastal waters are under a tsunami advisory. Anyone near the Atlantic coastline should pay close attention to future updates and comply with official requests.”
A warbling alert signal screeched over the speaker followed by the same monotone robotic voice. “NTWC small craft advisory in effect for the listening area of this station. This is an emergency message…”
The captain turned the volume down. “It’s been loopin’ now about ten minutes. Someone back on land is pretty scared. Either that, or it’s another false alarm like that Hawaiian missile thing.” He shook his head. “Never heard of this tsunami stuff before, though, so that right there’s good enough to make me head back.”
“Cami was right,” Reese muttered. He ignored Ben’s questioning look and pulled out his phone. The link he’d tried to load as they left port had finished at some point in the morning. He’d forgotten about it after Monty had yelled “Fish on!”
Reese shielded the phone’s screen and examined the image, stored in the phone’s memory once it lost all hope of an offshore internet connection.
An animated map of the Atlantic Ocean appeared with concentric red and blue squiggles—like ripples on a pond, spreading out from east to west. He looked closer and recognized Africa. The ripples, he realized, were massive waves, originating just off the northwestern coast of Morocco. He let the little playback loop make a complete cycle and watched the waves—tsunamis—spread all the way across the ocean, eventually crashing ashore on Canada, New England, and the southern states. It even hit the Caribbean and South America.
In the upper corner, a timestamp clicked by in thirty minute increments, documenting the progress of the waves. He whistled softly as the captain increased speed and the bow of the boat lifted, forcing Reese to lean forward in compensation. The waves on his screen moved across the entire ocean in 6-8 hours, with the leading edge of the first wave hitting New England’s shores some six and a half hours after they popped up in the eastern Atlantic.
“Is that what I think it is?” asked Ben, looking over Reese’s shoulder.
“Yeah,” he muttered, tilting the
