Reese gritted his teeth and grunted through the pain in his back. Being tossed around the boat like a rag doll wasn’t doing his endurance any good. But he wouldn’t let a little pain stop him—he had to survive, he had to get on the road, and he had to make it home. Thinking of Cami and Amber, scared and alone, provided Reese with a second wind and a surge of adrenaline pushed him higher and faster.
As he climbed, he felt a target on his back. The monster was behind him and it was coming fast. His hands shook and his knees quaked. He’d never been so scared in his entire life.
That was when he noticed the dull roar in the distance. Faint at first, as if he’d only imagined, it, the sound grew with each passing second. Before long, he could feel it in his bones, and the way his ribcage vibrated with the sound, he knew there wasn’t any point in turning around to look.
“Here it comes!” Ben yelled.
Reese knew he needed to run, to climb higher, to keep going…but he couldn’t. The same way everyone slows down to look at a car wreck, he paused to watch as the tsunami claimed its first victims in American waters.
The white, frothy foam that roiled and jumped along the wave’s root first hit the Charming Betty. He couldn’t tell if there was still anyone aboard the doomed boat or not, but if they were, they had a wild ride. The big fishing boat was lifted up out of the sucking mud like a child’s toy and rolled once, then again, before it vanished into the wave, swallowed by the giant.
Those passengers who were still out in the mud had nowhere to go. They turned and watched their deaths approach as a relentless blue-green wall tinged with spray slammed into them at thirty miles an hour, with all the force of a freight train. The bodies tumbled, some were carried up the wave toward the crest—Reese wondered if they might survive after all—and others just vanished in the briefest of splashes before the wave rolled forward.
In seconds the tsunami traversed the mud and crashed into the shoreline, crossing a distance that took Reese and Ben more than six minutes. Trees along the beach shivered and fell, others were snapped like toothpicks, the trunks exploding like gunshots. Boulders from the shore, broken and uprooted trees, and the bodies of TechSafe’s sales award winners crashed into the side of the hill with a roar Reese figured came straight out of the apocalypse.
The tsunami had arrived.
Chapter 6
Charleston, South Carolina
“Mom?”
Cami's chest tightened at the sound of Amber’s voice. She hadn't sounded like a scared little girl in a long, long time.
Just for a second, Amber’s voice sounded like that scared six-year-old. Cami turned, examining the surrounding buildings. They had to be on the very edge of the incoming tidal wash. If the water made it this far, surely it wouldn't go too much further? They were on the northwest side of Charleston, and had never gotten within ten miles or so from the coast when they stopped at Mitch’s store. The wave that rolled up the street behind them had to be at the end of its journey from the sea. And yet it was still tall enough to brush the second floor of most buildings. The wave crashed forward, pushing cars, parts of buildings—here and there a boat—and countless people forward without mercy. It moved deceptively slow, like a vision from a nightmare.
Standing there on the street jammed with thousands of other people who’d thought they were safe so far from the coast, but now desperately trying to escape the city was a recipe for disaster. She took Amber’s hand, and they pushed ahead. Cami had to get them to higher ground. She could try and wrap her brain around what she’d seen later, when they were safe.
“No time—go!” Cami shouted.
At the corner, one block from the bridge—which, just a few minutes earlier had been a two-lane road, and was now a pedestrian-only crossing—Cami saw her chance at safety. One block to the right, directly north, nestled against a gentle curve of the river Ashley, sat a squat rectangular church that looked more like a Norman keep than a place of worship.
Cami wiped sweat from her eyes and focused on the heavy stone construction as the panicked crowd surged around her. As she stared at the church, she blocked out the screams and the jostling elbows as people fought each other to get to the other side of the river. Solid slabs of granite formed the massive foundation on which the stone structure rose up toward the heavens. She didn’t know if the stones would hold up better than brick and wood, but it might be their only hope.
“That’s it! That’s our best chance.” She took one last glance around the packed intersection as people pushed and shoved at each other. All the surrounding buildings were new brick and wood constructs built in a modern colonial style to blend in with downtown Charleston some ten miles away. They looked attractive, but she knew they wouldn’t have the strength to withstand a tidal wave strong enough to make it so far inland.
The pitch of people's voices continued to rise as panic sunk its claws into every heart. Cami risked one more look down the street. The wave continued to force its way forward and carried the ruin of North Charleston with it. They had seconds to get out of the situation before all hell broke loose.
She tightened her grip on Amber's hand and forced her way sideways through the crowd. While everyone else tried to go west, she led Amber perpendicular and crossed the street headed north.
“Watch
