The Surge (2 page)

Chase led Rashawn into the dark shadows of the circus barn. He didn’t really need her help, but he wanted to give Nicole and Momma Rossi some time to themselves. Also, Rashawn knew things he didn’t. She might
see
things he didn’t as he checked the barn for hurricane damage. He’d only met Rashawn a few hours ago, but she had proven herself over and over again, just as Nicole had.

There were three brightly colored, curbed circus rings running down the middle of the barn. Each ring was at least three hundred feet across. Pet was chained in the center of the first ring, and stretched across the second, several feet off the ground, was a gigantic net. Thirty feet above the net, a tightrope connected two platforms. Next to the tightrope was an array of trapeze equipment.

Chase shined his light up at the ceiling. A series of catwalks crisscrossed the rafters above the equipment.

“What are those for?” Rashawn asked.

“They must use them to adjust the rigging and the lights,” Chase said.

Rashawn jumped up and brushed the bottom of the net with her hand. “Guess this is in case someone does a header from that wire or a swing. When we get to the bunkhouse, I’m going to find me a blanket, climb up on this net, and sleep for a week. It’s like a big ol’ hammock.”

Chase smiled. Another thing he liked about Rashawn was her ability to joke when there was nothing to joke about. He cut across the ring to the north wall of the building and put his hands on the metal sheeting. It was vibrating in the wind, but there was no evidence of water getting in. The wind was blowing from the west, where they had entered the building, which accounted for the water pooling inside the door near the elephant ring. The fact that there was no water along this wall gave him hope that the building might hold up to Hurricane Emily. He crossed to the opposite wall, but it was blocked off by a stack of hay bales that reached almost to the rafters.

Chase and Rashawn walked down to the third ring, which held a circular cage. “I think they use this one to train the big cats,” Chase said.

“How many cats do they have?” Rashawn asked.

“I’m not exactly sure,” Chase said. “When I got here, Nicole showed me five lions and a leopard.”

“The one named Hector?” Rashawn asked.

“Yeah. He was confiscated from a drug dealer and he’s very aggressive.”

“Don’t you think all leopards are aggressive?”

“Good point,” Chase said.

“You think the lions were born free like Hector?”

“I hope not.” Chase neglected to tell her that the biggest lion, Simba, had been retired from the show the previous year after mauling his trainer.

“How come you didn’t tell Momma Rossi about the dead monkey Hector was trotting around with in his mouth? Poco, right?”

“Right,” Chase answered. “It’s not my place to tell her. The last time I saw Poco, he was in Momma Rossi’s kitchen wearing tiny diapers and eating sweet potato peels — he’s her pet. I’m sure Nicole will tell her when the time is right.”

“They make monkey diapers?”

“I’m guessing that Momma Rossi makes monkey diapers.”

“Never heard of such a thing.” Rashawn glanced back at the lighted end of the long barn. “Is Momma Rossi psychic or something?”

“I guess we’ll find out,” Chase said.

“We can’t stay here,” Chase’s father, John Masters, announced. He was looking at the display of his handheld GPS. “The question is, where do we go and how do we get there from here?”

Here
was a two-lane country road about three miles from the same lake Chase’s school bus had sunk into several hours earlier.

Chase and his friends are lucky to have survived,
John thought.
If they made it to the Rossis’ farm. If they’re still alive.

John Masters had tried to call Chase a half a dozen times since their garbled sat phone conversation more than an hour ago. There had been no answer. The eye of the storm had passed over, and by the look of things inside the 4×4 truck he was sitting in, the back end of Hurricane Emily was going to be just as bad as — if not worse than — the front.

Something large, heavy, and black bounced off the hood of the truck.

Maybe a lot worse,
John thought.

“What was that?” Mark shouted from the crew cab behind John.

“Tree stump,” John said. “I think.”

“It felt like a meteorite!” Mark was a cameraman from a local TV station in Saint Petersburg, Florida.

Sitting between John and his partner, Tomás, on the front seat was Cindy Stewart, a TV reporter who worked with Mark. John still wasn’t sure why he had invited Cindy and Mark to drive along with him and Tomás into the center of the worst hurricane in U.S. history. They had already crashed and totaled one truck, and if they didn’t get moving, the second truck was going to be history as well, along with its four occupants.

Cindy looked at the photographs stuck to Tomás’s dashboard. “Are these your children, Tomás?”

“Sí.”
Tomás smiled and listed their names as he pointed at each photo. “And my wife, Guadalupe.”

“Are they here in the States?”

Tomás shook his gray head. “Mexico. I see them one time every year.”

“You must miss them.”

“
Sí.
Of course.”

“Why don’t you bring them up here?”

“Guadalupe, she loves our village in the mountains. Too expensive here with so many children.”

Tomás had been working for John Masters for more than twenty years. When John sold his part of the family construction business to his brother-in-law and hit the road to chase storms, there was no question about Tomás going with him. They were closer than brothers.

John stared straight ahead through the windshield. The path before them looked more like a stream than a road, and it was strewn with downed trees as far as he could see. With the gale-force winds pushing the water, it was impossible to tell which way it was flowing, but one thing was clear: The water was rising. They had to get to high ground. Soon.

“The surge,” John said.

“What?” Mark shouted above the roaring wind.

“Storm surge,” John clarified. “Flooding. It could cause more damage than the wind.”

“After what we’ve already been through, I’d prefer not to drown if it’s okay with you,” Mark called from his spot in the back.

“I’ll see what I can do.” John leaned over Cindy and showed the GPS to Tomás.

“We can try,” Tomás said, after studying the map.

“Try what?” Cindy asked.

“A detour.” John leaned back into his seat and put his seat belt on. The 4×4 rocked as Tomás pulled it off the road and headed into the woods.

“What’s he doing?” Mark shouted, struggling to get his seat belt on as he bounced in the jump seat like a tennis ball.

“Trying to save you from death by drowning,” John said. “There’s a rail line about a mile away. It should be dry and clear of downed trees. If we can reach it and get the rig up on the bed, it’ll take us to the main highway.”

“So now it’s death by oncoming train,” Mark said.

“Trains don’t run during hurricanes,” John said. “But there are any number of other things that could kill us on the way.”

“Like death by flying tree stump,” Cindy said.

“Yep, that’s one of them,” John said. Then he proceeded to give them a grim list of death by WPPs.

A blast of windblown rain knocked Chase and Rashawn backward as they opened the bunkhouse door.

“Window!” Chase shouted. “Over the sink!”

They hunkered down and fought their way across the room toward the opening. The window was broken. Chase grabbed a large wooden cutting board from the kitchen counter. With the wind and rain hammering their faces, it took all of their strength to wedge the board into the window frame.

“It will keep most of the rain out,” Chase said, out of breath.

Rashawn leaned against the counter and wrung the water out of her hair. “And I was just getting dry!”

Chase shined the flashlight at the four inches of water covering the floor. An armada of plastic cups and containers bobbed on the surface like little ships. He walked cautiously to the center of the room.

“What are you doing?” Rashawn asked.

Instead of answering, Chase bent down and pulled up a large frying pan by the handle. With the drain unplugged the water level started to drop.

“Cement floor,” Chase said. “Three-inch central drain. Shouldn’t be too much damage after it dries.”

“What is it with you?” Rashawn asked.

“What do you mean?”

“ ‘Cement floor. Three-inch central drain …’ You sound like an architect or something. And before our bus ran off the road and sank, you sounded like you worked for FEMA. I’m not complaining, but what kind of kid carries a satellite phone, several bottles of water, two headlamps, and a first aid kit to school in his backpack?”

“A very strange kid,” Chase admitted, and then gave her a brief outline of what had happened to him the past two years. He finished just as the last of the water circled the drain.

“I’m sorry about your momma and sister, Chase,” Rashawn said. “The last couple of years of your life sound like the water goin’ down this drain.”

Chase smiled. “You’re right. It has kind of sucked.”

“Your daddy really got hit by a lightning bolt?”

“It went right through his shoulder. Blew his boots off his feet. He was in a coma for days. When he came out of it he looked like my father, but it was like someone else had crawled into his skin.”

“So now he and this Tomás guy drive around the country looking for storm damage, then charge people an arm and a leg to fix things. And drag you along with them.”

“Yup, that’s M.D. Emergency Services,” Chase said.

“M.D., like in doctor?”

Chase shook his head. “M.D., like in
Masters of Disaster
.”

“At least your daddy has a sense of humor.”

“Not really,” Chase said. “Not anymore. But he’s a good contractor and he’s taught me a lot.”

“What happens to you after Emily blows through?”

“Hopefully we’ll stick around awhile. I like it here. But my father doesn’t spend too much time in one spot.”

“Your daddy sounds a lot like
my
daddy. I bet my daddy’s worked at a dozen wildlife refuges from here to Oregon. Our last name is Stone. Momma calls him Mr. Rollin’ Stone, but I think she likes movin’ around just as much he does.” Rashawn glanced at the rain blowing through a gap in the window. “I just hope they had the sense to stay out of this mess and not go out looking for me.”

“Do you have brothers or sisters?”

“A little brother, Randall … two years old.”

“You live on the wildlife refuge?”

“Smack-dab in the middle of it. The job always comes with a house.”

“A sturdy house?”

Rashawn laughed. “Brick. I made fun of it when we moved in. Called it the Three Little Pigs’ House. If it’s standing when this is over and my family’s okay, I won’t be making fun of that house anymore.”

“I think they’ll be fine. I’m sure your parents have seen plenty of bad weather living out in the woods.”

Rashawn stole another glance at the window. “I don’t think anybody’s seen weather like this before.”

“You’re probably right,” Chase agreed. He switched on the headlamp and handed it to her. “Not much light. Think you can manage to find some batteries while I look for the generator?”

“No problem,” Rashawn said, slipping the headlamp over her forehead. “I’ll raid the cupboards for food too, and find some rice for that satellite phone of yours.”

Chase shined his light around the room, which was a lot bigger and nicer than he’d expected. It was a combination kitchen/recreation room. The kitchen was equipped with shiny stainless steel appliances, granite countertops, and a commercial refrigerator big enough to hang a cow in. The recreation room had a pool table, leather sofas and chairs, and two gigantic flat-screen TVs.

“Whoa!” Rashawn said. “When Momma Rossi said ‘bunk-house’ I was thinking bunk beds, cowboys, and a potbellied ol’ stove … but this is nice! Makes me want to switch my dream of becoming a biologist like my daddy and join the circus instead.”

Chase smiled. He’d said almost the same thing to Nicole the day before. He opened the door to the right of the recreation room. It led to a hallway with several doors running along the left side and another door at the end. As he walked down the hall, he tried the doors on the left and found them all locked except for one. It opened into a furnished apartment with a
sitting room, a bedroom, and a bathroom. There were no personal effects, which led Chase to believe the locked doors were for occupied apartments.

The Rossis take good care of their roughnecks,
he thought.

He continued down to the door at the end, which opened onto the workshop. Like the kitchen/recreation room and the apartments, it wasn’t what he’d expected. It was almost as big as the circus barn, well equipped, and immaculately clean. With the assortment of tools hanging above the long workbench, the roughnecks could repair anything. Along another wall were three garage doors rattling loudly in the wind, each big enough to back a semitrailer through.

The generator was in the corner along the common wall between the barn and the workshop. Chase knew the generator was on by the green light, but he couldn’t hear it above the wind. He walked over and checked the gas. It was close to empty. He picked up the gas can next to it and his heart sank. It was completely dry, as were the two other cans he found along the wall. It took him nearly twenty minutes to discover that there wasn’t a drop of gasoline in the workshop.

Rashawn came in with her headlamp shining brightly again.

“I see you found batteries,” Chase shouted above the rumbling garage doors.

“And food, and blankets, and pillows, and towels, and a bag of rice for that phone of yours.”

“Good job,” he said, then frowned.

“Everything okay?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Chase said, although he knew it wouldn’t be okay if he didn’t find some gasoline. In a little while it was going to be as dark inside the barn as a mine shaft. Chase looked at his watch. It was 5:01 am.