As his regret changed into determination, Samuel decided that was the man he was going to become.
Chapter 21
“Just grab what you can carry! Come on, hurry up! We don’t have time for this!”
“Art, slow down. We need to think about this. What about the photo albums? Is there any room in your bag? Zayn, where is your brother? I thought I told you both to stay together!”
“Axel? Jessie please, you take Zayn. We’re going to miss the boat.”
“No! We all go together or not at all. Axel – where have you been?” Jessie flung her arms around her youngest son as he emerged into the kitchen carrying his dinosaur-print rucksack, his eyes wide and startled by the panic not only in his house, but across the entire island. He didn’t understand what was going on and it made him frightened; his parents shouting and screaming so unlike the relaxed household atmosphere they were accustomed to.
Jessie held her little boy and breathed in the smell from the top of his head for a second, only granting herself a few precious moments with her baby boy before she stood upright again, glancing around her house for any last items to grab. There was one final boat leaving Hawaii for the mainland in a matter of minutes and if the four of them weren’t on it they were going to be stranded there until this madness with Trident was under control.
“Come on,” Arthur rushed his wife along, aware that they had already spent far too long in their home choosing what items to take with them. He’d seen hundreds of people heading to the port without a single possession in their hands, the fact the four of them had packed suitcases seemed a bit ridiculous now. But initially he had believed they had time to do just that – it wasn’t until Samuel’s statement on television that things started to get intensely hyped up on the island.
Seeing Samuel on the news had been the catalyst for it all. It wasn’t just Jessie and her family that had reacted, but the whole island, erupting like the volcano they lived upon and realizing just how bad things could quickly become for them. Hawaii was one of the least self-sufficient places outside of the third world. Almost all of their food was flown in from the mainland, their electricity and power originated there and the companies who funded their water purification and healthcare were based offshore. Hawaii itself only provided waves and popular tourist spots in the summer months. They weren’t prepared to deal with something like this and everyone who lived there knew it.
Jessie and her family lived on the northern-most island of Kauai; featuring just one port that thankfully they lived in walking distance of. Kauai was mainly a mountainous region with hundreds of square miles of forest reserve and state park. The population of the island lived mainly along the southern and eastern coasts, as close to the harbor and airport as possible without it being uncomfortable. Jessie could still remember the first time she arrived on the island; she had barely travelled five-hundred feet beyond the airport before she knew she wanted to spend the rest of her life there. She’d visited the other islands which made up Hawaii, but nothing seemed to compare to Kauai – she had never figured out exactly what it was, but it was her home now and she knew it was where she and her family belonged.
“This won’t be forever,” Art spoke desperately, using any tactic he could think of to move his family out of the house quicker than they were currently managing. “We can come back for stuff in a few weeks. Nothing is going to happen to the house.”
“Oooh I don’t know,” Jessie replied nervously. She felt like she was leaving her entire life behind: a life she had fought so hard to have for herself. “Let me just check –”
“There isn’t time!” Grabbing Zayn with his spare hand, Arthur pushed his son toward the front door. “Come on. The boat is going to leave!”
Punctuating his sentence, the loud horn of the final ferry blurted out from across the island, alerting the few remaining residents of Kauai that it was about to leave. Jessie froze, her hand hovering over yet another photo album as she lifted her eyes and locked onto her husband’s. This was real – the moment suddenly hit her – the islands were being evacuated and they were going to be left behind.
“Go, go, go!” She ignored the album on the table in front of her and flung her bag onto her back, the sound from the boat acting like a ticking clock in her ears. Axel still stood at her side, confused and frightened by what was happening. “Come on baby,” Jessie coaxed her son, grabbing his little hand and pulling him toward the door where Art and Zayn waited. “We’ve gotta run!”
The four of them burst from the house, Jessie only glancing back once at the house she and Art had bought together when they first moved out to Hawaii. There wasn’t any time for sadness or to be concerned by what they were leaving behind. They needed to escape the island or face a life that Jessie didn’t even know how to process.
Scenes among the streets were chaotic; hundreds of people were all rushing in the same direction, some of them carrying suitcases like Jessie and her family did, others abandoning everything in a desperate last-ditch chance for survival.
