Ship Breaker (7 page)

Nailer crawled over his father and stumbled to the door. Outside, the beach swarmed with activity, people moving skiffs deeper into the trees, chasing after livestock. The storm looked worse than just a blow, maybe a city killer even, the way the clouds swirled and scattered lightning across the wrecks offshore. Even though the tide should have been out, the waves and breakers were big all across the beach, the storm surge pressing inland.

His father claimed that the storms were worse every year, but Nailer had never seen anything like the monster bearing down on them. He turned back into the shack.

“Dad!” he shouted. “Everyone’s moving higher! We need to get out of the surge!”

His father didn’t respond. The night crews were pouring off the wrecks. Men and women scrambling down hemp ladders, dangling and dropping like fleas jumping from a dog, plummeting into the increasing surf. Electricity outlined the black hulks against day-bright sky; then everything disappeared into blackness. Rain slashed the beach.

Nailer scrambled around the shack, looking for possessions to salvage. He tugged on his last set of clothes, grabbed the phosphor grease, found the silver earring and the luck bag of rice that he’d been given. The house creaked and heeled as wind gusted. The tin and bamboo wouldn’t last long.

The storm was a city killer for sure, what some people called a party wrecker or an Orleans Surge. When Nailer peered back out into the storm’s rage, he could see now that everyone was fleeing for heavy shelter. Shadow people clawing out of the darkness, hunched against curtains of wind and water as they dashed for safety. Running for things like the salvage train, with its iron freight cars that might not fly away.

Nailer dragged all their possessions over to his father’s inert form. He pulled the sheet off the bed and fumbled one-handed with their belongings. His wounded shoulder burned with pain at the frantic effort. He shoved everything into the sheet and tied it in a bundle. More rain poured through the disintegrating thatch. His father’s pale skin gleamed with rain water and yet still he didn’t move.

Nailer grabbed a tattooed arm. “Dad!”

No response.

“Dad!” Nailer shook him again. Tried to drive his nails into the man’s dragon-decorated flesh. “Wake up!”

The man barely stirred, sunk so deep in amphetamine blowout that nothing affected him.

Nailer rocked back on his heels, suddenly thoughtful.

If they took the full brunt of the city killer, there wouldn’t be anything left here. He’d heard that sometimes a surge could move the coastline inland as much as a mile, turning beaches and trees into a murky swamp sea, the new ragged tide line of rising sea levels. A big blow could easily move the hulks of the ships as well. Might shove them right over the house, even if it didn’t blow away.

Nailer straightened. He hefted the sheet, groaning at the cumbersome load. When he reached the doorway, the wind blasted him, lashing his face with rain and sand and leaves. More lightning slashed the beach. In the flickering light, a chicken coop tumbled past, all the birds already gone, every one of them lost to the gray roar. Nailer looked back at his father, conflicted emotions warring within him.

The man wasn’t moving. The chemicals in his brain were so depleted he wasn’t going to come awake even for the storm. Sometimes when the crash was bad, his father could sleep for two days. Nailer normally blessed the peace his father’s drug crashes brought. It would be so much simpler…

Nailer set down the sack of possessions. Cursing himself for his own stupidity, he plunged into the storm. The man was a drunk and a bastard, but still, they were blood. They shared the same eyes, the same memories of his mother, the same food, the same liquor… Family, as much as he had.

A maelstrom of sand and copper screws and plastic shards swirled around him, the debris of the ship-breaking business ripping at his skin as he ran barefoot down the beach to Pima’s shack. Rust flakes, bits of insulation, a roll of wire. Trash strippings flying like knives.

A gust of wind drove Nailer to his knees and sent him crawling, his shoulder a bright blossom of pain. Sheet metal whipped overhead, flying like a kite—a roof, a bit of ship, it was impossible to tell. It slashed into a coconut palm and the tree toppled, but the blast of the storm was so loud Nailer couldn’t hear the collapse.

Crouched on the sand, he squinted through gushing rain. Pima’s shack was gone, but the shadows of the girl and her mother were still there, fighting the storm, trailing ropes, struggling to hold onto a blurry shadow.

Nailer had always thought of Pima’s mother as big from her work on the heavy crew, but now in the storm, she seemed as small as Sloth. The rain cleared briefly. Sadna and Pima were lashing down a skiff, tying it to a tree trunk as it bent in the wind. Debris scoured them. When he got close he could see that Pima had taken a cut to her face and blood ran freely from her forehead even as she worked with her mother to secure the lines.

“Nailer!” Pima’s mother waved him over. “Help Pima hold that side!”

She threw him a line. He twisted it around his good arm and hauled, the two of them handling one end of the skiff, shoulder to shoulder as Pima made the knots fast. As soon as it was knotted, Pima’s mother motioned him and shouted, “Get up into the trees! There’s a rock hollow higher up! It should give shelter!”

Nailer shook his head. “My dad!” He waved back at his own shack, a shadow still miraculously upright. “He won’t wake up!”

Pima’s mother stared through the blackness and rain toward the shack. Her lips pursed.

“Hell. All right.” She waved at Pima. “You take him up.”

The last thing Nailer saw was Sadna’s shadow plunging into the wind, running down the beach, surrounded by lightning strikes. And then Pima was dragging him up into the trees, scrambling through the whipping branches and the roar of the storm.

They climbed wildly, desperate to get out of the surge. Nailer looked back again at the beach and saw nothing. Pima’s mother was gone. His father’s shack. Everything. The beach was scoured clean. Out on the water, fires burned, oils somehow ignited and blazing despite the torrents.

“Come on!” Pima tugged him onward. “It’s still a long way!”

They fled deeper into the jungle, scrambling through mud and stumbling over thick cypress roots. Torrents of water rushed down over them, filling the wood-cutting trails of the forest with their own muddy rivers. At last they reached Pima’s destination. A small limestone cave, barely big enough to hold them both. They crouched within. Rainwater poured over the brink in a miserable torrent. It pooled around them so that they huddled ankle deep in cold water. Still, it was sheltered from the wind.

Nailer stared out at the storm. A city killer for sure.

“Pima,” he started, “I—”

“Shh.” She pulled him back from the water, deeper into the hole. “She’ll be fine. She’s tough. Tougher than any storm.”

A tree flew past, flying as if it were a toothpick flung by a child. Nailer bit his lip. He hoped Pima was right. He’d been a fool to ask for help. Pima’s mother was worth a hundred of his dad.

They waited, shivering. Pima tugged him closer and they huddled together, sharing heat, waiting for nature’s violence to pass.

T
HE STORM RAGED
for two nights, trashing the coastline, tearing away anything that wasn’t tied down. Pima and Nailer huddled through it, watching the roar and rain and holding close as their lips turned purple and their skins pimpled with cold.

On the third day, in the morning, the skies suddenly cleared. Nailer and Pima forced their stiff limbs to move and stumbled down to the beach, joining a ragged assemblage of other survivors who were streaming toward the sands.

They broke through the last of the trees and Nailer stopped, dumbstruck.

The beach was empty. Not a sign of human habitation. Out in the blue water, the shadows of the tankers still loomed, randomly scattered like toys, but nothing else remained. The soot was gone, the oil in the waters, everything shone brightly under the blaze of morning tropic sun.

“It’s so blue,” Pima murmured. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen the water so blue.”

Nailer couldn’t speak. The beach was cleaner than he’d ever seen in his life.

“You’re alive, huh?”

Moon Girl, grinning at them. Covered with mud from whatever bolt-hole she’d found, but alive nonetheless. Behind her, Pearly and his parents were coming onto the beach, shocked expressions on their faces as they tried to register the changes.

“All in one piece.” Pima searched down the beach. “You see my mom?”

Moon Girl shook her head, her piercings glinting in the sun. “She might be over there.” She waved vaguely toward the train yard. “Lucky Strike’s giving out food to anyone who wants it. Credit for everyone until the ship breaking starts again.”

“He saved food?”

“Couple rail cars full.”

Pima tugged Nailer. “Come on.”

A crowd of people were gathered around the scavenge train, all of them waiting for Lucky Strike to dole out supplies. Pima and Nailer scanned the faces, but there was no sign of Sadna.

Lucky Strike was laughing and saying, “No worries! We got enough for everyone! No one’s starving while we wait for old Lawson & Carlson to come back from MissMet. The rust buyers might be hiding from hurricanes, but Lucky Strike’s taking care of everyone.”

Lucky Strike was grinning, his long black dreadlocks tied back, but Nailer knew he was also telling people there wouldn’t be any rioting for food. And if there was anyone people would obey, it was Lucky Strike.

Lucky Strike had been collecting real power ever since his first bit of luck freed him from heavy crew. Now he smuggled everything from antibiotics to crystal slide into Bright Sands Beach. He had deals worked with the boss men to do whatever he liked. His hand was in the gambling dens and the nailsheds and a dozen other businesses, and the money just rolled in, turning into gold nuggets that he hung glittering from the tips of his dreadlocks or else drove through his ears in thick gleaming rings. The man dripped wealth.

“Keep back!” Lucky Strike shouted. “Keep on back!” He was smiling and looked confident, but he had a line of hired goons standing behind him to back up his authority.

Nailer scanned the arrayed thugs, recognizing some of the killers that his father ran with. It seemed like Lucky Strike had collected the best of the worst for his protection. Even the half-man was there. The monster’s huge muscled form loomed over the rest of the thugs, its doglike muzzle snarling and showing its teeth to scare back the hungry people.

Pima caught the direction of Nailer’s gaze. “That’s the one my mom’s heavy crew used to pull sheet iron. Said he could lift four times what a man could.”

“What’s it doing up there?”

“Must have figured out that working muscle for Lucky Strike pays better than heavy crew.”

The half-man bared its fangs again and rumbled a warning. The crowds that had been closing in on the train cars backed off.

Lucky Strike laughed. “Well, at least you all listen to my killer dog, huh? That’s right. Everybody step back. Or my friend Tool here will teach you a lesson in manners. I mean it, everyone, give us some space. If Tool doesn’t like you, he’ll eat you raw.”

The crowd mumbled discontent, but they gave way under Tool’s gaze.

“Pima!”

Nailer and Pima turned at the shout. It was Sadna, hurrying toward them, Nailer’s father in tow. Sadna swept up to hug Pima.

Nailer’s father halted a step behind. He inclined his head. “Guess you saved my ass, Lucky Boy.”

Nailer nodded carefully. “Guess so.”

Suddenly his father laughed and grabbed him. “Damn, boy! You’re not going to hug your old man?” It hurt Nailer’s stitches and Nailer winced in the man’s grip, but he didn’t fight the embrace. His dad said, “I woke up in the middle of that damn storm and had no idea what the hell was going on. Almost killed Sadna before she explained things.”

Nailer glanced worriedly at Pima’s mother, but Sadna just shrugged. “We worked it out.”

“Damn right.” His dad grinned and touched his jaw. “She hits like sledgehammer.”

For a moment Nailer worried that his father was carrying a grudge, but for once the man wasn’t sliding high. He seemed almost rational. As clean as the beach. Already, he was craning his neck to see how food was being distributed.

“Tool’s up there?” He laughed and clapped Nailer on the shoulder. “If Lucky Strike’ll hire that dog, damn sure he’ll take me. We’ll eat good tonight.” He began shoving through the crowd toward Lucky Strike’s guard detail. He didn’t look back at Sadna or Nailer or Pima at all.

Nailer breathed a sigh of relief. No hard feelings, then.

The inventory of the beach and the ship breakers continued. Rumor had it that they’d missed the heart of the storm. It had passed to their east, up Orleans Alley, roaring through the old city ruins and then tearing farther north into the sea wreckage of Orleans II. Damage all the way up through the guts of the place, people said.

Which meant that they’d been lucky at Bright Sands, and missed being flattened.

Even with a glancing blow from the storm, the damage to Bright Sands Beach was immense. They found bodies everywhere, tangled in kudzu vines of the jungle, stuck in the trees high up, floating out in the surf. Lucky Strike organized scavenge parties to take care of the dead, burning them or burying them according to their rituals, and making the place safe from disease. Names rolled in.