6:00 Hours: A Dystopian Novel (4 page)

“So do you think this is it? Flooding and rising water?”

“Like that’s not bad?”

“That’s not what I mean. Like, I don’t really know what tsunamis do this far in. You really only see footage of the big wave, but that’s right at the shore, and then it breaks and just floods everything.”

“That’s basically it.”

“How high do you think the water will get?”

“I don’t know.”

Tim was quiet again. Rachel hugged her backpack and wished there was another paddle so they could move faster. She looked at the dark clouds billowing on the horizon, signaling the arrival of more storms.

“I guess the coast will be the first place to see workers and choppers,” Tim mused. “Since it’s the worst there.”

“Yeah.”

“So we’re kind of on our own for a bit, huh?”

It wasn’t a real question, so Rachel didn’t reply. The black clouds grew fatter and Rachel saw veins of lightning cut through them.

“It’s heading right towards us,” she said.

“We should find a place to hole up,” Tim suggested. “Can’t be exposed like this.”

After knocking on the door of a house and finding no one home, Tim pulled the kayak up on the porch and into the house. As Rachel helped him maneuver it to the second floor, they heard the crack of lightning and windy rush of rain as it began to pour again.

“Damn,” Tim sighed. “Water’s just coming out both ends, huh?”

5.

              The house looked like several people had already come through it. In addition to the toppled furniture from the earthquake, the bathroom cupboard had been rummaged through and all the dresser drawers were open.

              “Here’s some blankets, at least,” Tim said, emerging from one of the bedrooms. “Looked like a kid’s room. A girl. I hope they got out ok.”

              Rachel wrapped a blanket around herself, her clothes clinging to her chilled skin, and thought about the Buckley’s. They hadn’t gotten much of a head start; how far did they drive before the water rose too high? Maybe they had a safe place they were heading to, a different route. She would probably never know. Tim sat down beside Rachel at the top of the stairs and adjusted his hat. His clothes were mostly dry, the lucky bastard. He cleared his throat.

              “So, I hate to ask, but do you have any food?”

              Rachel unzipped her backpack and drew out the large bag of trail mix she had been saving. She handed it to Tim.

              “Help yourself.”

              “Sweet! Thanks. I have some water, if you want some.”

              He opened his backpack and they traded necessities. Tim crunched on a handful and stared down the stairs at the water flooding the first floor. He sighed.

              “I should have listened to my mom. She told me to not take a job on the coast.”

              “Yeah. I should have just gone camping for my vacation.”

              “I guess I just started tuning everything out. Like about climate change and how any storm could become this big thing. Where I lived, there were just droughts. I thought a little rain would be nice, actually. Stupid.”

              Rachel nodded. She took a drink from the water bottle and carefully screwed the cap back on tightly. In her head, she counted out the three juice cans still in her bag.

              “Remember those prepping lessons in middle school? Did you have those? Where you had to do a posterboard of the most important canned foods or whatever?”

              Tim laughed. He brushed trail mix crumbs from his hands.

              “Totally! I don’t remember much though. If it was homework, I didn’t really bother to pay much attention. I wish I did. My mom always did the shopping for stuff like that.”

“Same here,” Rachel said. 

Tim absentmindedly adjusted Rachel’s blanket as it slipped from her shoulder. His eyes looked distant, like he was thinking of something far away. Rachel suddenly missed her brother.

I hope he’s ok. All the crazy stuff going on.

“Even when storms and disasters happen all the time, it still doesn’t seem real until it happens to you,”  Tim said, his eyes clearing. “I guess that’s ‘cause people are really selfish. Assholes. All of us. We don’t take stuff seriously until it affects us.”

Tim and Rachel didn’t say anything else for a few minutes, both just looking at the water below them and listening to the rain. It had been four hours since the earthquake when Tim asked Rachel if it looked like the water was rising. It was.

“We should go on the roof,” Tim suggested. “If there are rescue choppers around, they’ll see us.”

The two of them shoved the kayak out the biggest window they could find and followed it to the roof. Luckily it wasn’t too slanted, so they could sit comfortably with the kayak between them. It was still raining hard - of course - and Rachel wondered how long it would be until they both got sick. Which was worse: sitting out in the rain or waiting till the water rose to their knees to go and sit out in the rain?

“I bet the levees broke,” Tim said darkly. “The water just keeps rising. I know it’s raining, but seriously. It’s rising so fast.”

Rachel got out her phone to check for the time and reception. Her battery was already running low, and she didn’t have any bars. The towers might have been taken down. Tim looked over at her, his hood pulled low over his eyes.

“Nothing?”

Rachel shook her head.

“We’re cut off,” Tim stated. “All alone.”

His tone was almost mocking, as if he was laughing bitterly at their situation. He still held Rachel’s trail mix and he looked very bedraggled and sad sitting there on the roof, dripping wet, with a plastic bag of crackers and M&M’s clutched in his hands. Below them, cars and pieces of houses and other debris floated by, like a parade of chaos. Tim began to count how many cars he saw and if he could tell what the make was. Rachel listened, Tim’s voice cutting through the rushing current and rolls of thunder. She half-heartedly wondered if they were at risk for getting struck by lightning, sitting there exposed. And the water rose.

“Hey, the rain is stopping!”

Rachel was startled by Tim shouting. She hadn’t exactly been sleeping - that would have been impossible - but she had unconsciously entered a sort of trance-like state in an effort to forget where she was and that she couldn’t do anything to change it. She was also getting so cold. All the rain and ocean water transformed the usually steamy heat into a wet, freezing cold that soaked its way through Rachel’s summer clothes deep into her bones. Was it possible to get hypothermia in paradise?

“The rain is stopping!” Tim repeated.

Rachel tilted her face upwards. It was true. The rain had lessened to an occasional drip and the clouds changed from a black hue to a softer gray. The sun was still nowhere to be seen.

“I can’t stand sitting here anymore,” Tim complained, gingerly standing. “Let’s go look for help in the kayak.”

“What if it starts up again?” Rachel asked. “I think we should stay here and keep waiting.”

“You said we should keep heading inland,” Tim reminded her. “There will be other places if we need to stop.”

“True.”

By now, the water was high enough for Tim to push the kayak right off the roof and carefully sit himself down. He held unto the gutter to stabilize the kayak while Rachel got in. She still had her backpack in front. It had blocked some of the rain. Tim let the current take the kayak, using his paddle to avoid running into uprooted trees or cars. He kept looking up as if expecting an angelic army of choppers to swoop down and rescue them. Rachel was not so optimistic. She knew enough about disasters to know help was never there when you wanted them and rarely there when you needed them. So often the waiting lasted much longer than the actual disaster itself. Rachel and Tim followed the trail of debris for at least a half hour. As they passed a series of houses, Rachel thought she heard a sound.

“Wait!” she cried, grabbing Tim’s arm from behind. “Did you hear that?”

“What?”

“Shh!”

They sat as still as possible. Through the sound of water and occasional bump of debris against debris, it started up again. A weak cry for help.

“There!”

Tim paddled in the direction of the cry.

“Over here!” Rachel said.

Tim grabbed hold of the porch railing and pulled the kayak closer to the house. The water had buried the stairs, hiding the door knob. The door was slightly ajar.

“Hello?” he called. “Is someone there?”

“Help!” the voice cried.

Tim pushed the door further open, moving a piece of furniture that had fallen against the door. The water was up so high that Tim and Rachel had to lower their heads to avoid striking the top of the door. Inside, there were only a few feet of space above the water before the ceiling. Empty jars and cans floated around. The water was murky, but Rachel could make out some dark outlines of furniture below the surface. There was no one in sight.

“Where are you?” Tim called.

“Kitchen!”

Tim paddled forward, hunched over the kayak. They drifted into the room that had once been the kitchen to see a middle-aged woman in the water, clinging to the top of the refrigerator. She had bruises on her face and mascara streaming down. She began to cry when she saw the kayak.

“Thank God,” she sobbed. “I’ve been calling and no one would come.”

“How long have you been here? Are you hurt?”

“My leg,” the woman said. “I think it’s broken.”

Tim and Rachel looked at each other. There wasn’t space in the kayak for more than two people.

“Here, put her up between us, on this divider,” Rachel said.

Tim and Rachel each took an arm, pulling her up so her legs dangled in the water. Rachel held on to her while Tim examined her legs. The woman wore a loose T-shirt and khakis, now dark from the water. She winced as she shifted her weight on the kayak.

“How long have you been here like this?” Rachel asked.

“I don’t know,” the woman replied. “I came down after it flooded to try and get something, and slipped. I thought I might drown, I couldn’t get up the stairs, so I just held on here.”

“Why didn’t you leave after the earthquake? Didn’t you hear the warnings?”

“I’ve lived through other storms,” the woman said, her tone slightly annoyed.

Tim glanced up at Rachel with a meaningful look, but said nothing. He rolled up the woman’s pant leg to look at the break. It was bad. The bone was almost poking through the skin right under her knee, and her skin was a troublingly pale-green color. Staying in the filthy water could not be good. It could be infected.

“I’ve got some basic first aid,” Rachel said, unzipping her backpack.

She gave the woman an antibiotic pill and Tim’s water.

“Thank you,” the woman said.

“Keep the water.”

She drank the rest of it eagerly. It must have been a while since she had a drink.

“What’s your name?” Tim asked.

“Mary. Mary Pile.”

“I’m Tim. That’s Rachel.”

“Thank you so much,” Mary repeated, blinking rapidly. “I don’t know how long I would have lasted.”

“You need a hospital,” Rachel said. “Professional help.”

Tim and Rachel tried to maneuver the kayak so they could all fit in it, but it became too tippy to paddle. The kayak dipped too far and water spilled into the seats.

“Whoa!” Tim whaled, touching his hands to the ceiling to steady himself. “This isn’t going to work.”

“We can’t all go,” Rachel said, stating the obvious. “Tim, do you know this area at all?”

“Yeah…”

“Do you know where a hospital is?”

Tim nodded.

“That’s as good a place as any to go look for help. If the water is high there, it can’t be higher than the first floor.”

Rachel unconsciously hugged her backpack. The woman, now straddling the kayak divider, turned her head to look back at Rachel.

“I’ll stay here,” Rachel said. “You take her to the hospital.”

“...Are you sure?” Tim asked.

“What are our other options? We can’t wait. Her leg…” Rachel’s voice drifted off.

Everyone knew Rachel was right. She would have to get out on the roof. They carefully made their way out the front door, holding on to the ceiling and the wall to balance. Outside, Rachel pulled herself up to the roof, grateful for the painful hours she had put in at the gym.

“Take your trail mix,” Tim said.

He took it out of his bag and handed it back to her. Their fingers brushed during the exchange and Tim smiled. He hadn’t smiled since they met; Rachel probably hadn’t either. She smiled back.

“I’ll come back for you,” Tim assured her. “I’ll bring help.”

“Ok,” Rachel said. “Thanks.”

She sat with her knees to her chin as Tim paddled away with Mary. The neighborhood looked like Venice and Tim was a gondolier. He had just turned a corner and out of Rachel’s site when it began to rain harder yet again.

Of course,
Rachel thought bitterly.
Because why the hell not
.

She rocked back and forth, alone again.

Later, Rachel would guess that it was about a half hour between Tim leaving and when she started feeling the second earthquake. It came in short, smaller bursts, like the footsteps of a giant. At first, Rachel wasn’t sure what she was experiencing and just stared at the quavering surface of the water.

What the…

Then the roof began to shake. Rachel pressed her hands against the shingles to steady herself, but it hardly helped. She had never heard or seen footage of a earthquake in a flooded area. It was strange. The shaking stopped and Rachel relaxed. She shouldn’t have. It started again and Rachel lost her balance. She rattled off the roof like a book from a bookcase and rolled, crashing into the water. Her backpack was still on her chest and as she twisted in the water, the strap caught on something submerged. She couldn’t get to the surface. Where was it caught? Frantically, Rachel pawed through the water. It was so dark and gritty with filth. As she felt the strap and unhooked it, her palm racked across something metal and sharp. Panicked, Rachel fought to the surface, screaming into the air.

“Damn it!” she shouted, choking and coughing up flood water.

She raised her hand above the surface and saw blood running down her wrist and arm. The sharp thing had cut a long, jagged line in her skin. Rachel imagined she could feel all kinds of bacteria swimming through her veins, infecting all her cells. Nearly crying from fear, Rachel tried to get back onto the roof. To her dismay, she found she couldn’t pull herself up from her low position in the water, and her cut hand was beginning to throb. She had to stop the bleeding. She had to get out of the water. Nothing was dry. Rachel swung her head around, searching for a car roof, a floating piece of a boat, anything. There was a tree still hanging on by its roots, its thick trunk bending over the water. Rachel kicked her way over to it and hugged it like a monkey. Her backpack was in the way. Angry, Rachel pulled the straps off and turned it around so it was on her back. She shimmied as far up the trunk as she could. Her heart pounded through her shirt. She rested her cheek against the trunk’s rough surface.