"Reese!” Jo bellowed. “Get that scrawny keister in here, we got us a live one!"
"What’s she yelling about?” Ben groused.
"Only one way to find out," Reese replied. He stood and walked into the lobby, promising Ben he'd come back with an update.
"There you are,” Jo said, doffing her hat and wiping sweat from her brow. “Thought you'd run off and got yourself drowned.”
Reese nodded in greeting at a family of four that walked in behind Aiden. “Not yet. What’s up?”
"That's Mr. Nakahishi—Nakayoshi…Naka—not-gonna-get-any-better-than-that.”
The man behind Aiden bowed formally. “Nikoyashi,” he corrected politely. Reese nodded again, and looked at the young woman next to him, who offered a slight smile and looked at the floor, shuffling closer to her husband. The two dark-haired children, miniature carbon copies of their parents, huddled close to her, eyes wide and staring at everything. Nikoyashi rattled off a string of words, gesturing at the radio. He pointed outside, said something else that Reese couldn't understand, then gestured at the device Jo held in her hand.
Reese shrugged as well. "I'm sorry, sir—I don't understand a word you're saying."
"Ain't nobody understands a word he’s saying," Jo muttered. "But we should understand this.” She plugged in a small device behind the radio. Examining the front of the little black box.
“What’s that?” asked Reese.
“One of them hand crank survival radios. But it’s got AM—something that shortwave jobbie over there doesn’t have.” She muttered to herself as she threw a switch, and a new voice filled the air.
“…for live coverage of the event. You're listening to AM 1270, the voice of Derry. We continue now with live coverage of the tsunami disaster, providing you the audio feed from our sister station, Channel 6 News."
“Derry?” asked Reese.
"New Hampshire," Jo muttered, waving him to be silent.
“What’s the situation, there, Carl?” asked the anchorman.
"Everything as far as I can see…I can't believe this—all the way up and down the coast in every direction, there's nothing but destruction! I see smoke rising up in the distance—I think that's Bar Harbor…“
“Hey!” Aiden blurted. “That’s us!”
"Sssh!” Jo hissed.
"To the south,” the traffic reporter continued, “everything is just…gone. Are you seeing this? The waves are still pounding the shore, and there's nothing but smoke and wreckage. I can’t even…words can't describe this, Alex?"
"Where is he?" Reese muttered.
“Helicopter," Jo said out of the side of her mouth as the anchorman continued to talk with his eye in the sky. Over the faint sound of helicopter rotors in the background, Carl continued his eyewitness report.
“I can see the waves retreating and advancing at different speeds further to the north. It looks like another one is about to come ashore, but south of us, you can see the waves pulling back. I think the coastline is really messing up the timing on these waves.“
“Do you see any survivors, Carl? We’re not seeing too well on the live feed…”
A long moment of silence followed. "No…no—there's nobody out there. The only thing I can see from this height are buildings—and pieces of buildings—and boats and debris. And trees. Lots and lots of trees. They're everywhere. It's like someone came to the coast and sprinkled matchsticks along the shoreline, then dumped a bunch of trash right there in the water. It just keeps flowing inland and then washing back out again. I've never seen anything like this before."
"I don't think any of us have, Carl,” Alex replied from the studio. “Can you see any other air traffic? We've had reports that the FAA is grounding all domestic air travel.”
"I've seen a few other news choppers, and a couple small, single engine planes like Cesnas, but we haven't seen any passenger jets."
"What about…what about emergency services? Have you seen any first responders?"
Reese looked at Jo. She shrugged.
“We passed over several barricades a few miles inland, as we got into position, but I have to believe with the size of these waves that those roadblocks must've already been swamped. We’ve seen a couple police cars floating in water with their dome lights swirling, but we haven't actually seen any people on the ground. Wait—wait, Chuck, take us down over there, yeah, 11 o'clock low," Carl said excitedly.
"What is it Carl? What are you seeing?" asked Alex.
"Right there, no there--to the left!” Carl barked into the microphone. "People! Alex, do you see this?”
“Yes! There’s people on that roof, we can see them!”
“There’s at least a dozen people stranded on top of the building—it looks like an apartment complex. We've moved back inland now, and we’re crossing over the outskirts of Rockland. "Yes, I can see people, now—lots of them there, sitting on rooftops. We can see them waving at us. I don't know how they're going to make…wait a minute…oh, my—”
“Oh no, no—look!” chimed Alex from the studio.
“I’m sorry, Alex…I just…we just witnessed that building…” Carl’s voice, tight with emotion came over the speakers. “It just collapsed. The whole thing just went up in a cloud of smoke…it fell apart in slow motion. I saw the people, saw them fall into the water—this is just beyond anything…”
“Dadgum it,” Jo muttered, slapping her thigh with her campaign hat. She turned from the group and stared at the display of local plants and animals.
"Carl, can you see anyone in the water? We’ve lost the feed…” asked Alex in the studio.
As the others listened breathlessly to the descriptions of destruction and chaos along Maine's southern coast, Reese stepped away and moved closer to the map on the wall. Names called out over the radio were unfamiliar to him: Rockland, Rockport, and Thomaston, but he found them quickly enough on the map.
To the best of his knowledge, the news helicopter was situated some ten miles south of them. The problem was Maine had a huge coastline—all the little inlets and dips and
