“What’s the rush? We made it,” Mitch countered.
“This is just the first wave, remember?” Cami asked, sweeping her arm to encompass the destruction on the far bank of the Ashley River. On cue, tornado sirens started up again. The people on the bridge froze as one, turned to look back into Charleston, then broke into a run, heading away from the city, a fresh round of screams escaping their throats.
“The second wave is coming! Move!” Cami said. “We’ve got to get out of here.”
“You don’t think the wave can reach us over here, do you?” asked Amber, struggling to keep up through the resurgent press of people.
Cami signaled with her arm to head left, and cut through the crowd, stepping out on a little turn off. “I don’t know if it can reach us or not, but our top priority is to get home.“
As Cami herded Amber and Mitch up the landscaped embankment to the Walmart parking lot above, she watched the crowds disperse once they made it across the bridge.
More evacuees spread out and milled around the river’s west bank, watching those still on the eastern side struggle to make it to the bridge in the sludge and debris. A fair-sized cluster of people streamed down the road, heading for parking lots and businesses as yet unaffected by the tsunami. As she’d expected, the traffic they’d encountered a few hours earlier was still present, made worse by the sudden influx of pedestrians from Charleston.
Cami scrambled up the embankment, helped the last few feet by Amber and Mitch, who’d knelt to lend her a hand. “Thanks,” Cami gasped as she crested the embankment. “Wasn’t planning on getting a workout in today, but I guess you’ll have that.”
Mitch laughed. “This is nothin’, Cami-san. You should come with me when I hit the Trail.”
“What trail?” asked Amber, hands on her knees as she regained her breath.
“The Trail. Appalachian, man. You get to carry your gear up mountains, it’s great.”
“Wait…what part of that is great, exactly?” asked Amber, peering up through strands of sweat-slick hair. She stood and rubbed her lower back. “Oof. I’m ready to be home, now.”
“Let’s just get in the car. Mitchell, is there some place we can drop you?”
He got a faraway look on his face. “Dad was at the marina today.” He pulled his phone from his pocket. “Lemme try calling him.” He waited for a long moment, then looked at the phone. “All circuits busy.”
Cami looked over the bridge at the marina nestled on the far side of the river. Or what was left of the marina. Most of the boats had been crumpled against each other, pushed by the unforgiving ocean tide and turned into matchsticks against the bridge’s piers. The river was totally impassable. A few people were already climbing out on the knotted wreckage, calling out to each other, but she was too far away to hear what they said. Smoke drifted in the air from a handful of fires that had sprung up around the marina and on several boats. With cell service down, people would—
“Oh!” she said, surprising herself. “Try a text message, Mitchell—sometimes when the cell networks are overloaded, text messages still get through.”
“Really?” asked Amber.
“Yeah, I think I remember reading something about that,” Mitch muttered, tapping out a message. “Well, here goes nothing.” He looked up from his phone. “Hey! It says it went through!”
“That’s great!” Amber beamed. “I’ll try dad.”
“While we’re waiting for a reply, let’s get on the road. I don’t like the way people are running out of Walmart. Look…” Cami said, indicating the flow of people running from the department store. Some carried plastic bags full of purchased merchandise, others just carried armfuls of items, heedlessly dropping things in the street as they moved.
A gunshot, loud and sharp, echoed across the street. All three of them turned north. Most people in the parking lot did the same, even the people running from Walmart. Screams erupted by the storefront and the crowds shifted into panic mode. People down in the street by the bridge bolted and knocked each other over in an effort to get as far away as possible from whoever had fired the gun.
“Let’s go!” Cami said. She made for the car, with Amber and Mitch on her heels. Fumbling with her keys, she got the car open.
“Where do I---” Mitch started.
“I don’t care—just get in, get in!”
“Mom, what’s happening?” Amber cried, her hands shaking as she climbed in the front seat and tried to strap in.
“I don’t know, but we need to get out of here,” Cami said as she slammed the driver’s door. She glanced out Amber’s window and gasped. “Look!”
Amber and Mitch looked where she pointed. A fresh wall of smoke and haze appeared in the ravaged city, sweeping forward like a slow-motion fog, enveloping buildings. A few structures wavered, then fell in slow motion as the water under the smoke rolled toward them.
“The second wave,” Cami said, her voice quiet. “It’s here already…”
“Oh, hey!” Mitch blurted, pulling his phone out of his pocket. “It’s dad! He got my message…”
“What’s he say?” asked Amber, craning around her seat to look at his phone.
“He’s…not at the marina!” Mitch said, looking up with relief on his face. “He got out—he’s across the river!”
“Where?” asked Cami, looking around. The flood of people leaving Walmart hadn’t slacked at all. A fire door about ten feet away burst open and two men and a woman raced out, all carrying armloads of merchandise. Only one bothered to look at Cami, and the expression on his face did not do anything to calm her racing heart. His eyes shifted from her to the kids, then to the car, where they lingered for a long moment, before he sprinted to catch up with the
